Arion, Lord of Atlantis

Throughout the 1970s and into the '80s, DC Comics made multiple attempts to take advantage of the growing popularity of the genre. Of all the comic titles the company published during this time, The Warlord, about which I talked last week, was by far and away the most successful. The Warlord ran for 133 issues plus six annuals over the course of twelve years – a considerable feat in a genre littered with innumerable failures. So successful was The Warlord that DC used it as a platform from which to launch additional fantasy titles, an example of which is Arion, Lord of Atlantis, which began its existence as a back-up feature in issue #55 (March 1982) of that comic.

Arion takes place during an age of magic that preceded the Ice Age.

As the Ice Age overtakes the world, destroying ancient civilization after ancient civilization, Atlantis finds its own stability sorely threatened. Refugees from these other civilizations have fled before the encroaching ice, as have the barbaric cavemen who now seek to take Atlantis by force. Arion is the Lord High Mage and it falls to him to use his sorcery to protect his city. The story begins with Arion exhausted and feeling alone and isolated. His master, Caculha, is dead and his king and the other nobles of Atlantis are, in his opinion, fools. Retiring to his chambers, he is called upon by Lady Chian, Captain of the Royal Guard.

Despite his rude treatment of her, it's clear that Chian loves Arion and wishes only to aid him in his labors. Like a petulant teenager, however, Arion feels ill-used and under-appreciated. There is some truth to his feelings. Atlantis does depend upon him for its very survival and there is no one else in the city who can truly help him. At the same time, the Atlanteans are grateful for his work on their behalf and would gladly do whatever they can to to ease his burdens.

Later, the king asks Arion to read the Oracle of Choloh to seek guidance. Arion complies and, while doing so, is shocked to make contact with the spirit of his master, who speaks to him cryptically of his destiny.

Arion retires to his chambers once more – he does that a lot – to contemplate the meaning of what his master's spirit had told him. But he cannot do that long before the dinosaurs Atlantis keeps in its zoos – yes, you read that correctly – escape and run rampant throughout the city. Arion is called upon to deal with the problem, but finds that his magic has left him. He is unable to command any spells and is forced, alongside the Royal Guard to fight the dinosaurs using only his sword.

This first installment ends with Arion deciding that he needs to seek out the destiny of which Master Caculha's spirit spoke. Perhaps the departure of his magic is tied to this destiny and, if so, he has no choice but leave Atlantis and find it. Arion, Lord of Atlantis would appear in the next eight issues of The Warlord, after which it received its own series, which itself ran for 35 issues. 

I don't think Arion is quite as successful in its aims as was The Warlord. Partly, it's because Arion is himself a somewhat unsympathetic character – a stand-offish, arrogant, and self-absorbed jerk – like Elric but far less compelling. On the other hand, his quest to restore his magic has definite potential as a framing device for his subsequent adventures and the antediluvian world of Atlantis is mythically potent one. All in all, it's not a terrible comic, though it's not as enjoyable as other fantasy comics of the same era.  

Perils of the Maze

The abomination above is the titular nightmare maze of Jigrésh and it certainly lives up to its name. I was thinking about it recently, because I've always liked mazes and labyrinths. When I was a child, I remember being thrilled by corn mazes, which popped up all over the place during the Fall. Later, on vacation, I visited an old home that had a hedge maze, which I thought was the greatest thing ever. No doubt the minotaur's labyrinth and the one from the 1951 Alice in Wonderland movie had some influence over my imagination as well. 

When it comes to Dungeons & Dragons, I think the credit goes entirely to Mike Carr's In Search of the Unknown, which is full of twisting, maze-like corridors.

Because this was the first module I ever owned, Quasqueton's maps served as my mental picture of what a dungeon should be – and that includes lots of labyrinthine passages designed to confuse and frustrate the characters (and perhaps the players too). 

In truth, I'm not sure that's what happens at the table. Mazes are one of those environmental elements that sound better than they play. What thrilled me about real mazes is that I had a hard time determining where I was and I had to puzzle my way out of them. There was an intellectual pleasure in using a combination of my memory, spatial sense, and ingenuity to work out the proper path. In a roleplaying game, the experience is quite different. At best, it's a largely mechanical problem that's solved by making a map. The process of doing so can certainly be confounding – "No, not that left, the other one. Forget it: just give me the paper and I'll draw it for you." – but that's probably not quite the feeling a referee hopes to convey by including a maze in his dungeon.

Perhaps I'm simply insufficiently imaginative. I continue to like the idea of mazes and labyrinths (and keep trying to find ways to include them), but I've never been truly satisfied with any of my attempts to use them in play. Lately, I find myself wondering if mazes are one of those things that simply can't be translated into a tabletop roleplaying game. Perhaps this is an example of something that works better in a more explicitly visual medium, like video games. Many early dungeon crawl video games made use of labyrinthine maps, though, in thinking back on them, they weren't all that much fun either. 

If you've ever succeeded in using a maze successfully in a game you ran, I'd love to hear about it.

Kaiyo Subsector

Kaiyo is subsector H of Riphaeus Sector, where I set my most recent Traveller campaign. Several worlds of the Empire of Nagoya are located here, but the Second Federation of Suns has a strong presence here too, along with many independent worlds. Most of Riphaeus Sector was claimed by the Federation's predecessor, which fell into civil war about 350 years ago. Under the leadership of the Nova Tagiĝo (New Dawn) Party, the Federation has become aggressively expansionist in recent years, intending to reclaim the worlds its forerunner once possessed. Consequently, agents of the Second Federation were frequent antagonists in the campaign.

The Kaiyo subsector contains 38 worlds with a population of 1.7 billion. The highest population is 1 billion, at Gorod. The highest tech level is E at Ixchel.

Jahannum (Riphaeus 3112)

Jahannum has a thick Nitrogen-Oxygen atmosphere, but its mean surface pressure is too high to support unprotected human life. However, at high altitudes, such as the plateau on which the settlement of Adin is constructed, the pressure is more tolerable.

Manai (Riphaeus 2512)

Physically, Manai is an unpleasant world, with large concentrations of sulfur compounds in its atmosphere, which can cause damage to unprotected visitors. The planet’s small population (approximately 500) is transient, consisting primarily of the families of naval personnel stationed at the nearby base.

Sirin (Riphaeus 2812)

Sirin was founded as a world of voluntary exile by political dissidents from the First Federation of Suns. Distrustful of powerful governments, they organized themselves along family lines. Over time, these families grew and specialized in various skills, which they used in bartering with other clans for their skills. When re-contacted a generation ago, Sirin was stable and its 80,000 inhabitants bore no animosity toward the Federation, which assisted in integrating them back into interstellar society.

Väki (Riphaeus 2711)

Väki’s atmosphere is tainted with reputedly inert pathogens from a genetically engineered virus created millennia ago by the planet’s original nonhuman inhabitants (now extinct). While Federation scientists believe these pathogens are harmless, it is nevertheless required by law that anyone leaving one of its sealed settlements wear not only a filter mask but also protective clothing to prevent possible contamination. To date, these and related precautions have prevented any infections for more than a century.

Retrospective: Disappearance on Aramat

Though I have played a wide variety of science fiction roleplaying games over the years, Traveller was my go-to SF RPG until I wrote my own. Even then, I frequently return to Traveller and continue to enjoy it. A remarkable thing about this classic game is that, throughout its heyday, GDW licensed a number of other companies to produce supplementary materials for it. Some of these companies were already well established ones, like Judges Guild, while others, such as FASA, were relative newcomers who would use their success in producing licensed Traveller as springboards to bigger things. 

In 1984, Grenadier Models decided to throw its hat into the publishing ring by producing a number of licensed adventures for several RPGs, including Call of Cthulhu and Traveller. The rationale for this was likely twofold: to expand into another aspect of the still-growing gaming market and to promote the miniature figures for these games that they also produced under license. As business strategies go, it's not a terrible idea and, had the adventures been notable in any way, it might even have worked. Unfortunately, such was not to be the case.

Disappearance on Aramat is a 48-page scenario written by Gary Pilkington and illustrated by Flint Henry and John Dennett, with a cover by Martin Kealey. Taking place at the edge of the official Third Imperium setting, the adventure concerns an overdue archeological mission visiting the planet Aramat. Aramat is a desert world with no known intelligent lifeforms but is believed to have served as an outpost of the Vilani empire some 5000 years before the present day. Dr Alandra Chadra and her team of graduate students visited Aramat with the goal of locating the ancient outpost to study. However, they failed to check in at the designated time and now her father and her fiancé have grown concerned that something untoward has happened to her and her students. They turn to the player characters, whom they outfit for an expedition to Aramat to determine what has become of them.

As set-ups go for a Traveller adventure, it's far from the worst, though that's small praise. I trust no one reading this will mind if I reveal that the ancient Vilani base is populated entirely by robots that have been functioning all these millennia, waiting for their masters to return. When Dr Chadra and her students discovered the base, the robots assumed they were intruders and attacked them, killing several and taking the remainder prisoner. In addition, a second group is also on Aramat – agents of a disreputable corporation with sinister motives. Thus, the characters find themselves thrown into a somewhat chaotic situation that requires them to find the ruins Dr Chadra was seeking, rescue her and her surviving students, and avoid the dangers posed by the robots, the opposing corporate agents, and the wildlife/environment of Aramat itself.

I suppose if this basic situation had not been used many times before in the annals of Traveller, I might have been more impressed. As it is, Disappearance on Aramat is, at best, yet another variation on a well-worn plot and a rather banal one at that. I generally avoid doing reviews or retrospectives on gaming products I don't like, but there are times when I chose to make an exception. In this case, I did so because I think Grenadier was definitely on to something with their attempt to publish RPG adventures. All of their miniature sets included mini scenarios intended to make use of the included figures. The larger adventures, like Disappearance on Aramat, were a logical progression and I so wanted to like them. On the other hand, re-reading this made me think about what would and would not make good science fiction adventure scenarios and that might come in handy.

Grumble, Grumble

The very first post of this blog attempts to provide a definition of "grognard," both in its historical context and in its latter-day usage among wargamers and, by extension, roleplayers. I wrote that post more than a decade ago and, while I stand by what I wrote all those years ago, my thinking on the matter has evolved a little bit. This evolution was occasioned by several things, including the general mellowing that comes with age. However, some of that evolution comes from reflecting on a phenomenon I've observed over the past year or two, namely fans of Dungeons & Dragons 3e (or even Pathfinder) referring to themselves, unironically, as grognards.

Now, on the face of it, this seems absurd. After all, "grognard" was often used as a term of derision in RPG circles, one directed at stick-in-the-mud holdouts who weren't enthusiastic about the latest edition of a game. My recollection is that the term was thrown about a lot during the heyday of 3e. Anyone who objected to ascending armor class or the loosening of class restrictions was a doubleplusungood wrongthinker and roundly mocked. That some of the very same people who once used the word to ridicule others would now be applying it to themselves is bizarre, right?

Even a few years ago, I would have thought so. Now, I'm not so censorious. As I said, my thoughts on the matter have evolved. What I would say is that grognardism, for lack of a better word, is not about believing that older games are better than newer ones. Rather, it's about believing that just because something is old, it's not therefore bad. Put more positively, grognardism promotes the idea that fun games remain fun regardless of when they were published. There's nothing necessarily wrong with new games, especially if you genuinely enjoy them, but the same is equally true of older game, with "older" in this case simply meaning any version that is not the current one. 

I still have harsh words for neophilia, a vice closely tied to consumerism in our society and strongly encouraged by game publishers. But I can't muster any opprobrium for players of an edition later than my own preferred one who have chosen to embrace the term "grognard" in reference to themselves. 3e is now two decades old; there have in the years since been two more editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Choosing to stick with 3e because you have had fun with it and continue to do so is, I think, praiseworthy, even if it doesn't align with my own predilections. 

I hold out hope that, as time marches on, more gamers might begin to recognize that those of us who haven't adopted the new shiny aren't doing so out of retrograde contrariness but because we sincerely prefer an earlier version – and that those preferences can be and probably are rational ones. This entire blog is dedicated to articulating the reasons for my own preferences, as well as celebrating the games with which I have had – and continue to have – fun. I have never expected anyone to share my preferences or be convinced by my reasons for holding them. That was never my purpose, though I do hope I've in a small way contributed to a better understanding of the unique pleasures of what we now call "old school" roleplaying games and the culture that gave birth to them. I'll still grumble, of course, but I never wanted that to be all I do. 

Kobolds!

Yesterday, I posted about alternate takes on traditional Dungeons & Dragons monstrous humanoids and noted that I'd be presenting some of my own in the future. As it turns out, I'd already taken steps in this direction, but the name I chose for the creature didn't connect it to an existing D&D one. At some point, I was reminded of the description of kobolds in Holmes's Basic Set, where he describes them as "evil dwarf-like creatures." That flipped a switch in my head and, from that point on, I ceased to call these aberrant, insane dwarves knockers and instead opted for kobold.

A kobold by Jason Sholtis

The description in the linked post is still accurate. For game statistics, I would, however, suggest using those of "standard" kobolds in whatever version of the game you're playing. My preference these days is Old School Essentials, but, since it's nearly identical with every other edition derived from OD&D, there's no need that you should do the same. In the coming weeks, I'll make additional posts on this topic, with the eye of using them as a way to demonstrate the ease with which a distinct fantasy setting can be fleshed out via small tweaks to the game.

House of Worms, Session 203

After having spoken with the ambassador from Pichánmush, Znayáshu concluded that the best course of action was to return to the ruins of Pashkírigo to investigate it. The characters' previous investigations there had been stymied by the presence of numerous powerful undead beings – Hrá in a large, still-intact structure; and a swarm of Vorodlá flying about a strange maelstrom at the center of the ruins. To defend themselves against these beings, Znayáshu approached Lady Srüna. As an initiate of the temple of Ksárul, he thought she might be able to obtain for him an amlulet of peace amonsgt the servers of Ksárul, which would protect the characters from the Hrá. Srüna replied, "Why are you approaching me? Why not check with your own temple?" It was at that point that Znayáshu realized that he had been foolish: surely the temple of the god of death would have an amulet of power over the undead!

With that, Znayáshu and Keléno set off for the local temple of Sárku. While a new, larger temple is being constructed – under the patronage of the House of Worms clan and the colonial administration – the priests of Sárku maintain a small shrine near the City of the Dead. The temple commandant is Argomé hiSsánchunu, a has-been with a reputation for greed – and a member of the Black Stone clan, the clan of Chánkoru hiKhánuma, high priest of the temple of Ksárul, with whom Keléno has tangled in the past. When the pair arrived, they did so under cover of conducting an "audit" of the shrine's holdings. Argomé misunderstood this as an attempt to elicit a bribe. He summoned a slave who then brought back a large bag full of coins, presented it to Znayáshu and Keléno and said, "I hope this … gift will be more than adequate to allevaite the need for an audit."

Znayáshu rejected the bribe, explaining that they had come looking for a specific item in the shrine's holdings, a blue faience statuette. Argomé immediately knew what they were looking for. He explained that, yes, the shrine possessed such a statue but that it wouldn't be available for them to examine at this particular point in time. When asked where the statuette was, Argomé hesitated before explaining that he had "lent" it to a member of his own clan, who, he emphasized, had given an "exceptionally large donation" to the shrine in exchange for its use. When asked which member of his clan it was, Argomé reluctantly admitted that it was none other than Chánkoru hiKhánuma. Upon hearing this, Znayáshu concluded that it was proof that the temple of Ksárul was indeed present within the ruins of Pashkírigo.

Keléno ordered Argomé not to leave the shrine and said that soldiers would soon be arriving to ensure that he made no attempt to hide anything within it. Argomé was baffled by this turn of events and reiterated his willingness to offer the character a sizable "gift" in order to assuage the characters' concerns. Keléno ignored him and warned him again against attempting to leave the shrine. Together with Znayáshu, they made their way to the Black Stone clanhouse to seek out Chánkoru hiKhánuma. The clanhouse was a large and well appointed one and the characters were soon met by Trujékku hiVársha, the clanmaster. Friendly and pleasant, he received them with a smile and asked if the characters had come to discuss "the matter of Ta'ána."

The pair were confused by this question, as they had no idea who Ta'ána was. Trujékku explained that she was the granddaughter of Chánkoru and that a message had been sent to the elders of the House of Worms clan indicating the Black Stone clan's willingness to marry her to Aíthfo, "as a gesture of goodwill between our two pre-eminent clans." The characters knew little of this, as the matter had been quashed by Grujúng, who, as clanmaster of House of Worms, had the final say in these matters. Grujúng believed that, since Aíthfo's term as governor would end in less than a year, there was no point in tying him to a wife from this backwater colony. Trujékku was disappointed to hear this and hoped House of Worms would change its mind.

When told why they had actually come, Trujékku said that he would find Chánkoru and bring him to meet the characters. He left them and Znayáshu decided to head outside, keeping an eye on all obvious exits from the clanhouse, in the event that Chánkoru attempted to flee unseen. As it turned out, he did not; Chánkoru appeared and greeted Keléno with obvious contempt, "Oh, it's you." Keléno brushed off the slight and explained that they had come, humbly, to request the amulet of power over the undead. It was at this point that Znayáshu returned, enabling Chánkoru to get in another barb, "What do you want it for? To protect him (i.e. Znayáshu) from his wife?" Sighing resignedly, he said that the amulet would be delivered to the Palace before day's end. He then left.

The pair returned to the Palace to wait. Meanwhile, discussions continued with the ambassador of Pichánmush about what was happening in the ruins of Pashkírigo. The ambassador continued his line that there was no problem there that his city's legions could not handle. Side talks with the priests accompanying the ambassador reveal that this is not quite the case, which emboldens the characters' desire to sneak into the ruins to deal with it themselves. Once the statuette arrives from Chánkoru, this plan takes a greater urgency and the details begin to be worked out. The goal is to leave Linyaró within a few days, under cover of a "hunting trip" into the wilds. Because it is hurricane season, travel by sea is dangerous, so the trek to Pashkírigo will be over land.

In the midst of all this. Nebússa decided that now was the time to broach the subject of marriage to Lady Srüna. He sent a letter to her chambers, asking to speak with her about this matter. No response was immediately forthcoming.

Jeff Grubb Video Interview

Imagine Magazine: Issue #15

Issue #15 of Imagine (June 1984) is a special issue devoted to coverage of that year's UK Gamesfair. The cover features an illustration by Glyn Wyles and a photo of a game of Illuminati be played, presumably at the Gamesfair. Paul Cockburn's report on the convention leads off the issue and is accompanied by numerous photographs. From the vantage point of 2020, looking back on Gamefair is incredibly fascinating. The article boasts that 350 people attended, which is about one-tenth the number that attended GenCon that same year. Being on the wrong side of the Atlantic, I know next to nothing about the history of UK conventions, including Gamesfair, which is why reading articles of this delight me. Graeme Morris follows this with an account of a game of En Garde! he played (a game I tried to run a few years ago and at which I utterly failed). 

The report of Gamesfair also includes a poll of attendees about their favorite games, miniatures, magazines, etc. Looking over the ranked listings is intriguing. They seem to comport with my sense of what was popular in the UK RPG scene at the time – for example, the popularity of Traveller and RuneQuest is clear – but I nevertheless wonder whether the poll is indeed reflective of anything other than the particular tastes of those present at Gamesfair that year.

The previous year, there was a fiction contest held at another convention, Mythcon. The two winning entries, "Trial" by Linda Morgan and "After the Storm" by Pauline E. Dungate, are printed in this issue. "The Marsh Idol" is an AD&D adventure by Mark Davies. The scenario includes a new monster, the marsh dragon, which is detailed later. Curiously, the creature is explicitly noted as being "unofficial." Also included in a competition adventure, "Round the Bend" by Jim Bambra, which was used at Gamesfair that year. It's a fun little scenario, in which the players all take the roles of half-orc thieves who have been caught by a wizard from whom they were attempting to steal and, as a punishment, are reduced to two inches in height and then tasked with recovering a magic item the wizard accidentally dropped down his drain. How's that for an adventure set-up?

"The Imagination Machine" reviews the game Pi-Eyed and discusses the state of the software industry at the time. The game reviews are equally split between reissued SPI wargames and RPG materials. The comics "Rubic of Moggedon" and "The Sword of Alabron" have new installments and I still cannot bring myself to care. Roger Musson's "Stirge Corner" talks about the importance of mapping, which I find fascinating, because I know there are many players for whom mapping is a chore and one of the least interesting aspects of D&D. Yet, here we are, in mid-1984 and it's still a topic that Imagine considered worthy of an article. 

Ian Knight and Graham Fuller present "In Search of Dragons," which is an exploration of the myths and legends of dragons across the world. "Illuminations" announces the latest gaming releases. One of them caught my eye: The Character Generator, a computer program designed to generate AD&D characters. I know nothing of this program, which was produced by Triffid Software Research. I doubt it was a licensed program but perhaps who knows? The column also discusses the adventure modules published by Grenadier Models, such as The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island. One day, I should really revisit the other entries in that series.

Colin Greenland reviews media, starting with the movie, The Right Stuff, followed by the novels Fire in the Abyss (by Stuart Gordon), The Follower (by Stephen Gallagher), and Frost (by Robin W. Bailey). Rounding out the issue is Derrick Norton's "It's like this … only different," in which he talks about the risks and rewards of expanding one's RPG repertoire beyond the games with which one is already familiar. It's an unusual topic, particularly for those of who've always played lots of different roleplaying games, but I suppose, when the hobby was still new, it might have been an issue with some players. 

Imagine continues to be equal parts captivating and confusing to me. Some of that no doubt comes from not having read the magazine at the time and not having lived in the United Kingdom. But a lot of it, I suspect, comes from the editorial team's attempts to find a distinctive voice for the magazine, something that set it apart from the more well-known Dragon and White Dwarf. Each issue is thus an attempt to discover just what Imagine is and what it should include. I'm now halfway through its run and I must admit I'm still not entirely sure if there are any answers to those questions, but I'm happy to keep reading to see how things unfold.

Alternate Humanoids

Today's Pulp Fantasy Library featured monsters called "gnoles" which were first referenced in a short story by Lord Dunsany. Though Gary Gygax gave different answers at different times, OD&D's entry on gnolls nevertheless makes reference to Dunsany, implying that the Anglo-Irish author was the ultimate inspiration for these antagonistic humanoids. 

Dunsany doesn't describe his gnoles in any detail, leaving it to the imagination of his readers. Consequently, the entry for gnolls in Volume I of OD&D theorizes that they are a "cross between Gnomes and Trolls," despite the fact it later states that the gnoll king's bodyguards "fight as Trolls but lack regenerative power." There's no suggestion whatsoever of their being hyena-headed, something I don't believe appears prior to the publication of the Monster Manual (though, as always, feel free to correct me in the comments if I am mistaken).

This relative lack of detail extends to all the monstrous humanoids in the game. Other than being small and poorly adapted to daylight, for example, neither goblins nor kobolds receive any detail. Orcs and hogoblins are not much different. Greyhawk gives us bugbears and says they are "great hairy goblin-giants" with a "shambling gait," but is otherwise silent on the matter of their appearance (though there is a genuinely compelling depiction of them on the inside back cover that features a jack-o-lantern as a head).

Why mention all of this? I've talked before about my unhappiness with the enervating self-referentiality of Dungeons & Dragons. This is a feature of all editions of the game after OD&D and necessarily so, since they all build on one another (with the possible exception of the much-hated 4e which, for all its manifest faults, did genuinely try to break free of the shackles of the past). When I first read the Holmes Basic Set or even the Monster Manual, this was all fresh and imaginative and it powerfully seized my imagination – as you would expect, given its novelty to me. 

With time, though, it's inevitable that I wouldn't feel quite as enthusiastic about the standard presentation of monstrous humanoids in the game. So I find myself returning to OD&D and using what little it presents as the basis for my own interpretations of these enemies. As I further develop Urheim, I'll share what I've come up with here. My goal is twofold: to imagine unique versions of classic monsters that convey the distinct flavor of my campaign setting and to show that this cane be done without the need for mechanical changes. That is, even if, for example, my take on orcs or kobolds is different from the received D&D version, it will still be mechanically compatible with the one everyone already knows. I don't want to create a new game, just show how the existing game can be used in (I hope) imaginative new ways.