Monsters on The Prowl

In the 1950s, superheroes dwindled away for a time. The Justice Society disbanded in 1951 after refusing to reveal their identities to HUAC. Sub-Mariner, Human Torch, and Captain America had disappeared by the middle of the decade.

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and a handful of others continued to operate, but increasingly they were faced with alien and monstrous menaces. They weren’t the only ones. Whether they came from outer space, under the earth or oceans, or were born of some misguided experiment, monsters were emerging everywhere, and regular humanity was having to face them. The authoritarian alien telepath, the Green Martian Gardner, may have been exerting a conformist influence over the minds of America, but creatures kept crawling forth from the collective unconscious.

The so-called Monster Hunters were an informal group of adventures dedicated to combating these monsters. They were led by Ulysses Bloodstone, who had the bloodgem embedded in his chest, an artifact of the ancient Empire of Tears. He was joined by Dr. Druid, psychiatrist turned mystic, the hero Hurricane, who was actually the Eternal Makkari; and Zawadi, a mysterious Wakandan exile. Later, they were joined by Namor’s cousin, Namora, and the aging adventure with a magic ring known as Congo Bill.

The Monster Hunters seem to have disbanded sometime around 1960 as a new age of superheroes dawned. Their legacy was a number of other teams dedicated to fighting weird menaces where they encountered them like the Challengers of the Unknown, who formed in 1957, the subterranean explorer Cave Carson and his associates, and the undersea adventurers known as the Sea Devils.

Teen Titans, Go!

It’s likely the British Invasion had almost as much to do with the formation of the Teen Titans as the existence of the Justice League. Robin (Bruce Wayne, Jr.), Aqualad (Garth) and Kid Flash (Wally West), wanted to be superheroes, certainly, but in 1964 the trio of teenage boys were transfixed by images of ecstatic girls in the grip of Beatlemania. They didn't know how to play instruments, but they knew how to superhero.

The kids’ ages varied more widely than the published version suggests. Garth was 17, Wally was 15, and Bruce was the tag-along at 13. At first they were just “The Junior Justice League,” but by the time 13 year-old Wonder Woman protégé Donna Troy joined them they had taken on the Teen Titans name. Their parents/mentors forbade heroics unsupervised—though things did happen. Mostly, though, the Teen Titans did public appearances and youth outreach.

The group disbanded by the late 60s, with several of the members going off to college, but the name Teen Titans would be periodically resurrected by other teenage superheroes over the next two decades. In the 80s, John Hughes made a highly fictionalized film about the original group, which today is considered a cult classic.

Leap Day

Both the original Captain Marvel and Superman celebrate birthdays on Leap Day, February 29th. Captain Marvel was, of course, not born in the conventional sense, but chose that day for celebration to mock Dr. Sivana who had wanted to make that day his rival’s “deathday."

Kal-El was born on 38 Eorx 9998, by Kryptonian reckoning, a date not easily translatable any Earth calendar. His friends in the Justice Society, and later the Justice League, chose those Leap day to celebrate it.

Superman would have one of his most memorable birthdays on that day in 1984, when Mongul exposed him to the alien plant called the Black Mercy. He had to be rescued by his friends from the Justice League, particularly the quick thinking of Robin, Jason Todd.

Weird Revisited: The Phantasmagoric Lantern of Kulu Tu

This post originally appeared in March of 2010. Kulu was the name of an NPC created by my cousin, who dungeonmastered my earliest games of D&D.

The exact number of these items in existence is unknown, but it's theorized to be less than seven. Tavern-tales attribute their creation to the infamous Kulu the Illusionist, but these devices are actually the products of an unknown--though no less malign--genius.

These devices appear like any other mundane example of the primitive slide-projectors known as magic lanterns, the only difference being there is no way to change the slide being projected. When activated by placing a candle inside, the device projects strange and unsettling images of distorted, ghost-like figures and beasts. The projected image is larger and more distinct when a magical light-source is used, like a hand of glory, for example.

The image projected is no static scene, but a glimpse of the Negative Material Plane. The longer the device is left on, the thinner the "skin" between worlds becomes until the beings, the phantoms, from that plane are able to enter the Prime Material. When seen in the wan light of the projector the phantoms are ghostly pale, but when they pass out of the projector's cone of light, they become deep, featureless shadow. Their touch drains living things, indeed their very presence can can cause the wilting of nearby plants.

When the phantoms first emerge into the Prime Material, they may be given the name of a single individual. This individual the phantoms will seek out and drain with their life-stealing touch until he is dead. The phantoms are able to travel at great speed, perhaps by traversing between points of mundane shadow, so distance is no obstacle, but it does take time for them to locate the individual (by what ever eldritch means they utilize) and this process seems to take longer for more distant targets.

If they are prevented from getting to the individual, they will continue to try to do so until they are destroyed, or they dissipate. Phantoms drawn forth by light from a normal candle or other mundane light-source can only hold coherent form for twenty-four hours in the Prime Material, and every moment spent in bright sunlight doubles the rate of dissipation. Phantoms drawn forth by a magical light-source in the lantern will last for a week, or perhaps more, depending on the potency of the magic used, but are still just as susceptible to bright sunlight.

The wise user never allows more than three phantoms to emerge before extinguishing the lantern. More than that number, and the phantoms become likely to act more willfully, killing the summoner and anyone else they find rather than heeding a command. If the lantern is left lit and unattended, phantoms will continue to emerge until the light-source burns itself out, and wander out into the world with undirected malevolence.

The lantern can be used to study the beings of the Negative Material Plane, but only if care is taken to limit the length of its usage so that no phantoms emerge.

Completely Unfathomable Covered

Jason Sholtis and the rest of Hydra are still at work on the various Operation Unfathomable stretch goals. Jason and I have been bandied about cover ideas. Here's the latest (and possibly final, but you never know) for the omnibus Completely Unfathomable based on classic bubblegum card packaging:

Exploration, Hold the Violence

It's a common reframe that old school games are less about killing that later D&D. This idea is supported by an experience system that favors treasure acquisition over killing. Still, the idea of killing something and taking its stuff, or the description of characters as "murderhobos" seems pretty ingrained.

A fair amount of fantasy fiction suggests a different approach. The characters in the short stories that make up Vance's Dying Earth are not adverse to employing violence, but it isn't their first resort, nor are an of them warriors by trade.The number of kills attributable to the protagonists in these stories is pretty low. A number of Clark Ashton Smith stories are similar, as is Lovecraft's Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, just to name a few.

I wonder if the sort of adventure found in these stories would be adventurous enough for players accustom to heavy monster slaying? I think it would be interesting to really focus on the exploration and social encounters (and a bit of treasure). It would challenge both players and DMs in a sort of different way. The XP system as currently constituted doesn't necessarily support this (5e has a variant that might, but it's fairly loose), but I think it's worth thinking about.

The Whisperer

While Police Commissioner James Gordon did not immediately embrace the vigilante known as the Bat-Man, he was quicker to do so than might be expected. It may well have something to do with a secret in Gordon's past.

At the age of thirty-five, before his move to Gotham, James "Wildcat" Gordon became the youngest police commissioner in New York City history. In early 1936, a mysterious and violent crimefighter was prowling the streets--The Whisperer. Gordon's department tried to catch the vigilante, but perhaps not too hard because Gordon was the Whisperer. The pulps continued with fictionalized exploits of the Whisperer long after Gordon had given up that identity and moved to Gotham to avoid scrutiny.

One wonders, on chilly Gotham nights standing next to the Bat-Signal, if James Gordon sometimes missed those days?