"The God in the Bowl" (a scenario of the Hyborian Age or the Selentine Empire)

“The God in the Bowl” is one of Robert E Howard’s classic early Conan adventures – a locked room murder mystery, no less, and with a baroquely fantastical flavour that makes it perfect for Weird Tales. Or so you’d think, but the notoriously erratic Farnworth Wright rejected it, along with the equally wonderful “The Frost Giant’s Daughter”, when REH sent him the first three Conan stories.

As Howard wrote to H P Lovecraft in April 1932: “I’ve been working on a new character, providing him with a new epoch — the Hyborian Age, which men have forgotten, but which remains in classical names, and distorted myths. Wright rejected most of the series, but I did sell him one, ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’, which deals with the adventures of King Conan the Cimmerian, in the kingdom of Aquilonia.”

HPL got to see the rejected stories and wrote back: “[Donald] Wandrei and I have read these tales with keen interest and appreciation. Best wishes for their ultimate publication! […] The climax of ‘The God in the Bowl’ is splendidly vivid.”

Sadly the world at large was to be denied any sight of “The God in the Bowl” for another twenty years, when it finally appeared in the September 1952 issue of Space Science Fiction (what?!). You can read it here – and so you should, if you haven’t done so before and you want to avoid the spoilers that lie ahead.

OK, so here’s the summary. Kallian Publico has a building, a sort of museum called “the Temple”, in which he shows off his private collection of artworks and antiquities to selected guests. Lately he took in a large metal bowl or jar from the realm of Stygia, in the far south, which he agreed to hold until its intended recipient, a priest called Kalanthes, could send for it. Kallian then reflected on the treasure the jar might contain, and decided to stage a break-in at the Temple and blame the theft on intruders.

Kallian goes to the Temple after dark and breaks the seals on the jar. Around midnight his watchman, patrolling the building, tries the door and finds the main lock has been opened. The door has two locks: the main one, openable only from outside, and a deadbolt that can be unlocked from either side. The watchman enters and find Kallian dead, apparently strangled with a thick cable. He also encounters an intruder (Conan) who may be the murderer. The jar is open and empty. The watchman summons the police, who also bring in Promero, Kallian’s clerk who lives in a house next-door to the Temple.

Conan says he entered the Temple from the roof only minutes before he ran into the watchman, who he expected would continue patrolling outside. Promero says that Kallian came to see him in the early evening but left soon afterwards. Enaro, Kallian’s charioteer, arrives and says that he was told to pick up Kallian at the Temple just after midnight. Under duress, Promero admits that Kallian stayed at his house till half an hour before midnight, when he left to go and open the jar.

The police realize that, as the deadbolt was on and only Kallian and the watchman had keys, if the murderer isn’t Conan then he must still be in the building. Kallian’s keys are still on his corpse, along with all his jewelled rings, so theft wasn’t the motive – or else the murderer was interrupted. There’s no way up to the trapdoor where Conan got in without piling things underneath to climb up, so the murderer cannot have escaped that way.

A policeman says he saw the thick rope used to strangle Kallian wound high up on a pillar in a hall of statues, but when they go to look there’s nothing there. Conan sees something move in an adjacent chamber. Promero, having looked at the symbols on the lid of the jar, becomes hysterical, claiming that it is one of “the children of Set” who was sent in the jar by the priest Thoth-Amon to kill Kalanthes. One of the policemen, scoffing at this, pushes Promero into the room to look.

At this point another policeman brings in a young nobleman he found loitering outside. This is Aztrias, whom Conan reveals hired him to steal a Zamorian goblet. As Aztrias tries to deny it, Promero staggers out of the other room, screams that “the god has a cursed long neck”, and collapses. Cue general panic apart from Conan, who gets in there and slays the so-called Child of Set, which turns out to be a huge serpent with a beautiful human head.

But we want to turn this into a scenario, so it can’t all be about Conan. Instead, if you’re running a one shot, I suggest six pre-generated player-characters:

• Two PCs are thieves hired by Aztrias
• Two are watchmen hired to guard the Temple – they are the ones who discover Kallian’s body
• One is Kallian’s charioteer
• The sixth PC is the chief of the Inquisitorial Council of the city of Numalia (Demetrio in the story) who arrives with a patrol of six NPC policemen. 

The stats for these six are given under Pre-gen player characters below. The thieves and the charioteer are 6th rank; the watchmen and the inquisitor are 5th rank; and the NPC police are 1st rank. If you need to fit in more player-characters they can be police of 5th rank, but in that case there are no NPC police.

Timeline

This is the order of events if they proceed exactly as in the REH story – though naturally the player-characters’ actions will change details, especially after midnight.

Early Evening (approximately 6:00-8:00 PM) 

• Watchmen (PCs): Begin their shift at the museum entrance 
• Promero (chief clerk): Goes home (next door to the museum) after cataloguing work in the main hall 
• Aztrias Petanius (nobleman): Secretly meets with the thieves, whom he is sending to steal a Zamorian goblet from the museum. 
• Kallian Publico (museum owner): Locks up the museum, travels partway home, then decides to steal the contents of the bowl so returns to Promero’s house, telling his charioteer to fetch him at midnight. 
• Charioteer (PC): Delivers Kallian to Promero's house, then at leisure till midnight
• Thieves (PCs): Casing the museum from afar, planning the break-in 
• The Child of Set (in the bowl): Dormant within the sealed Stygian artifact in the storage room

Mid-Evening (8:00-10:00 PM) 

• Watchmen (PCs): Patrolling the perimeter 
• Promero: Entertains Kallian at his home next to the museum 
• Kallian: Talks to Promero, revealing his plan to plunder the contents of the bowl and swearing Promero to secrecy 
• Aztrias: Returns home to prepare for retrieving his purchase later 
• Thieves (PCs): Wait in shadows nearby, watching for the right moment to enter

Late Evening (10:00 PM-Midnight) 

• Watchmen (PCs): Conduct periodic patrols 
• Inquisitor (PC): Decides to spend the evening accompanying a police patrol
• Kallian: Returns to the museum intending to break open the bowl and steal its contents; his plan is to blame it on thieves; he breaks the seals on the bowl, releases the Child of Set, and is killed by it around 11:30 PM 
• The Child of Set: Released from the bowl by Kallian, whom it kills 
• Thieves (PCs): Enter the museum through a trapdoor from the roof around 11:45 PM 
• Aztrias: Approaches the museum near midnight to collect his spoils from the thieves

After Midnight 

• Watchmen (PCs): Discover the body; sound the alarm bell 
• Thieves (PCs): Spotted by the watchmen after sounding the alarm bell 
• Inquisitor (PC): Arrives with six guardsmen having heard the bell 
• Aztrias: Lurks outside, sees the commotion, and decides to wait 
• The Child of Set: Moving unseen through the museum's shadowy halls 
• Promero: Summoned back to the museum to identify items and assist investigation 
• Charioteer (PC): Returns to the museum to pick up Kallian as instructed.

Witness statements

For each character, I've included their initial statements, any revisions to their stories, and what they actually know or observed. 

1. Changing Stories:

• Promero gives three different versions, each revealing more truth as pressure is applied 
• Aztrias will change his story if his reputation is threatened 
• Several NPCs maintain "official" positions while harbouring private doubts 

2. Motivations for Lying: 

• Promero fears implication in Kallian’s attempted fraud 
• Aztrias protects his reputation and avoids scandal 

3. Truth Extraction Methods: 

• Promero requires intimidation 
• Aztrias is nearly impossible to get the full truth from, and his status makes harsh interrogation impossible

Promero (Chief Clerk)

Initial Account 

• Claims he left the Temple at normal time (this is true) 
• Says Kallian was in his office working on accounts 
• Insists nothing unusual happened during the day 
• Suggests Kallian had no enemies 
• States that nothing seems to be missing from the Temple

Second Account (under duress) 

• Admits he saw Kallian after the Temple was locked for the day 
• Reveals Kallian was planning to sell something valuable “off the books” 
• Still omits knowledge of Kallian's plans to steal from the jar

Final Account (After Posthumo's "third degree") 

• Confesses to knowing about Kallian’s plan to open the jar:

“It arrived in a caravan from the south, at dawn. The men of the caravan knew nothing of it, except that it had been placed with them by the men of a caravan from Stygia, and was meant for Kalanthes of Hanumar, priest of Ibis. The master of the caravan had been paid by these other men to deliver it directly to Kalanthes, but he's a rascal by nature, and wished to proceed directly to Aquilonia, on the road to which Hanumar does not lie. So he asked if he might leave it in the Temple until Kalanthes could send for it.

“Kallian agreed, and told him he himself would send a runner to inform Kalanthes. But after the men had gone, and I spoke of the runner, Kallian forbade me to send him. He sat brooding over what the men had left – a sort of sarcophagus, such as is found in ancient Stygian tombs, but this one was round, like a covered metal bowl or jar. Its composition was something like copper, but much harder, and it was carved with hieroglyphics, like those found on the more ancient menhirs in southern Stygia. The lid was made fast to the body by carven copper-like bands.

“The men of the caravan did not know what it contained. They only said that the men who gave it to them told them that it was a priceless relic, found among the tombs far beneath the pyramids and sent to Kalanthes ‘because of the love the sender bore the priest of Ibis’. Kallian Publico believed that it contained the diadem of the giant-kings, of the people who dwelt in that dark land before the ancestors of the Stygians came there. He showed me a design carved on the lid, which he swore was the shape of the diadem which legend tells us the monster-kings wore.”

Aztrias Petanius (nobleman)

Initial Account

• Denies any involvement with Kallian 
• Claims he was passing by when he saw commotion 
• Offers to help authorities as a civic duty 
• If questioned about the thieves he suggests they must have killed Kallian as he assumes there’s no chance of getting the goblet now and doesn’t want them alive to testify against him

If threatened with exposure 

• Admits to agreeing to buy the Zamorian goblet 
• Claims he didn't know it was being sold illegally 
• Offers bribes to keep his name out of the investigation

Truth (nearly impossible to extract) 

• Hired the thieves to steal the Zamorian goblet for him 
• Planned to frame the thieves for any complications 
• Was waiting outside to collect the goblet when the police arrived 
• Has extensive gambling debts

Clues

Some highlights that could make for interesting gameplay moments are: 

• Environmental Changes: Temperature drops (noticed only by sensitive characters) and strange echoes could create atmosphere while also serving as hints at the presence of something uncanny. 
• Forensic Details: The unusual bruising pattern and (on closer inspection) the grooved impressions on Kallian's body show that he was strangled with a very thick cable. 
• Scholarly Connections: The Stygian hieroglyphs can be read by Promero (see below). 
• Trail of Evidence: The disturbances – a torn drape, an overturned vase – create a physical trail that show that Kallian was attacked in the chamber where the bowl is and staggered to the hallway where he died.

Physical Evidence and Clues

REH provided no map of Kallian's Temple. This is as good as any:

The body

The corpse is lying in a wide corridor, lighted by huge candles in niches along the walls. These walls are hung with black velvet tapestries, and between the tapestries hang shields and crossed weapons of fantastic make. Here and there stand figures of curious gods—images carved of stone or rare wood, or cast of bronze, iron or silver—mirrored in the gleaming black mahogany floor.

Kallian’s face is blackened, his eyes almost starting from his head, and his tongue lolls from his gaping mouth. His throat has been crushed to a pulp of purplish flesh. The head sags awry on splintered vertebrae. It appears he was strangled with a cable thicker than a man's arm, and with enough force to break his spine. On his thick fingers gems glitter – whoever killed him did not want his rings, nor his keys. The keys for the deadbolt (openable from either side of the main door) and the master lock (openable only from the outside) are on him, along with keys to other doors from the Temple and his home.

Near the body, an archway leads through into a chamber. Beside it a bust has been knocked off its stand. The polished floor is scratched and the hangings in the archway are pulled awry as if a clutching hand had grasped them for support. Characters may deduce that Kallian Publico was attacked in that room, broke away from his assailant, and ran out into the corridor where the murderer must have followed and finished him.

The storage room

The room where it seems Kallian met his murderer is more dimly lit than the corridor. Doors on each side give into other chambers, and the walls are lined with fantastic images, gods of strange lands and far peoples. 

In the centre of the room is the jar, a container of black stone nearly four feet in height and bulging to three feet in diameter at its broadest. The heavy carven lid lies on the floor, and beside it a hammer and a chisel.

“The copper bands that sealed the lid were cut with this chisel, and clumsily. There are marks where mis-strokes of the hammer dented the metal. We may assume that Kallian opened the bowl. Someone was hiding nearby—possibly in the hangings in the doorway. When Kallian had the bowl open, the murderer sprang on him—or he might have killed Kallian and opened the bowl himself.”

The bowl

It is sort of amphora-shaped sarcophagus, such as is found in ancient Stygian tombs. Its composition is something like copper, but much harder, and it is carved with hieroglyphs, like those found on the ancient menhirs in southern Stygia. The lid has been removed and it is empty.

Promero says: “It is a grisly thing. Too ancient to be holy. Whoever saw metal like it in a sane world? It seems less destructible than Aquilonian steel, yet see how it is corroded and eaten away in spots. Look at the bits of black mold clinging in the grooves of the hieroglyphs; they smell as earth smells from far below the surface. And look—here on the lid. I warned Kallian, but he would not believe me. It is a scaled serpent coiled with its tail in its mouth. It is the sign of Set, the Old Serpent, the god of the Stygians. This bowl is too old for a human world—it is a relic of the time when Set walked the earth in the form of a man. The race which sprang from his loins laid the bones of their kings away in such cases as these, perhaps.”

On the bottom of the bowl, if the characters think to look, a symbol is carved – not an ancient hieroglyph, but the recently incised mark of Thoth-Amon, the Stygian sorcerer, which Promero recognizes. He can also tell them that Thoth-Amon is known to be a worshipper of Set, and thus deadly foe of Kalanthes, the priest of Ibis.

The hall of statues

This chamber is close to the storage room on the other side of the main corridor. It is a tall room with a balustraded gallery, supported by marble pillars, running around the upper storey (like all the ground floor rooms, this is double-height). Steps at the end of the hall lead up to the gallery, where busts are displayed in niches along the walls.

“I've found the cable the murderer used,” one of the guardsmen announced. “A black cable, thicker than a man's arm, and curiously splotched.”

“Then where is it, fool?” exclaimed the Inquisitor.

“In the chamber adjoining this one. It’s wrapped about a pillar, where no doubt the murderer thought it would be safe from detection. I couldn't reach it.”

He led the way into a room filled with marble statuary, and pointed to a tall column, one of several which served a purpose more of ornament to set off the statues, than of utility. And then he halted and stared.

“It's gone!”

“It never was there!” snorted the Prefect.

“By Mitra, it was!” swore the guardsman. “Coiled about the pillar just above those carven leaves. It's so shadowy up there near the ceiling I couldn't tell much about it—but it was there.”

The hall of screens

This hall leads off the hall of statues, connecting both at ground level and off the upper tiers of the two rooms. Displayed here are ornate screens, both furnishings and iconostases. The centrepiece is a tall gilded screen in an ivory frame with a subtly worked tremblage effect to create matte panels in the shape of stylized palm fronds contrasting with the polished gold surface of the rest of the screen.

Careful examination reveals that several of the screens between the hall of statues and the large centrepiece screen have been jostled out of position, leaving scrapes on the polished floor. This seems to have happened quite recently.

The hall of vases

This is where the Zamorian diamond goblet is hidden that the thieves were sent to steal. It is in a concealed compartment in the floor under a copper idol of a Shemitish god. Retrieving it would take 2-3 minutes, so if the thieves can contrive to be alone in here for that long they could still complete their mission.

The hall of arms

On the upper floor, this houses a collection of shields, weapons and armour of antiquity. Most are ceremonial and would not last long in a fight. There are two extremely primeval-looking falchions labelled as used by warrior-priests of Ibis that count as magical shortswords (well, it was good enough for Beowulf) if the characters notice them and think to use them against the Child of Set.

Sending for backup

The Inquisitor could send for more policemen, but no patrols are within hearing of the alarm bell so he or she would need to send one or more of his/her own men to fetch them. The Inquisitor can summon dozens of 1st rank NPC police if necessary, but they will take thirty minutes to arrive – or twenty minutes if the charioteer drives one of the patrol back to fetch them.

Running the adventure

If the whole thing isn’t to be over in an hour, you need to play up first the investigative phase and then the search through the museum for the killer. The characters know that whoever or whatever killed Killian is still locked in there with them, so there’s opportunity for a tensely managed hunt as they have to use their limited manpower while deciding who to trust.

Of course, they could just go outside, lock the place up, and wait for reinforcements, but in that case the Child of Set will have found a way out (breaking a window if necessary) and be long gone by the time they venture back inside.

The Child of Set

This ancient Stygian horror appears as a massive serpent with a human head of unearthly beauty. Its scales shimmer with an oily iridescence in the torchlight. The creature moves with uncanny silence despite its size, able to flow through shadows and scale vertical surfaces with disturbing ease.

The Child of Set prefers to attack from ambush, using its stealth abilities to position itself above victims before dropping down to attack. It typically targets isolated individuals first, using its constriction to silence them quickly before others can respond.

If confronted by multiple opponents, it will attempt to use its hypnotic gaze on the most dangerous-looking foe before retreating into shadows to separate the group. It shows cunning intelligence in its tactics, extinguishing light sources when possible and creating confusion.

ATTACK 26                           Tail lash (d10, 6) and constriction and gaze (see below)
DEFENSE 17                         Armour Factor 4 (and see below)
MAGICAL DEFENSE 18
EVASION 8
STEALTH 27
PERCEPTION 17
Health Points 45                      Movement 12m (ground), 9m (climbing)
Rank Equivalent: 8th

Vision 

• Panoptical: Perfect vision in bright light, gloom or complete darkness. 
• Heat Sensitivity: Can detect living creatures by their body heat within 10m even through thin barriers 
• Mystical Awareness: Can sense magical auras and enchanted items within 5m

Special Abilities

Constriction: If the Child of Set hits with its primary attack, it automatically constricts its victim on subsequent rounds, inflicting 1d6+4 damage each round (no armour) without requiring an attack roll. If the victim can roll Reflexes or less on d20 when first hit, they keep their sword arm free and can fight back. It can constrict one victim at a time while continuing to lash with its tail at other opponents. The trapped victim must make a successful Strength check (Difficulty 14, +1/round trapped) to break free.

Silent Hunter: The Child of Set gains automatic surprise if a character failed to spot it before it attacks.

Wall Climber: Can scale any surface, including smooth stone and ceilings, without requiring a climbing check.

Unnatural Dread: The Child of Set gets a 2d10 fright attack on characters when first encountering them, which if successful causes the characters to be frozen in terror (unable to act) for 1-3 rounds.

Divine Resilience: The Child of Set takes only half damage from non-magical weapons. Magical weapons or those blessed by Ibis deal normal damage.

Beguiling Gaze: As an additional action, it can attempt to hypnotize one target within 5m using its supernal beauty. Roll 4d6 for the strength of hypnosis, deduct the target’s rank, and the Child of Set must roll that or less on d20. A hypnotised target is unable to attack the Child of Set for 1d4 rounds, though they can still defend.

Vulnerabilities 

• Very bright light (such as powerful magical illumination) reduces its Stealth score by 5 
• Ancient Stygian prayers to Ibis (rival of Set) can temporarily drive it off if properly recited

'The face had a cold classic beauty. Neither weakness nor mercy nor cruelty nor kindness, nor any other human emotion was in those features. They might have been the marble mask of a god, carved by a master hand, except for the unmistakable life in them—life cold and strange. The face was inhumanly beautiful. The full lips opened and spoke a single word in a rich vibrant tone that was like the golden chimes that ring in the jungle-lost temples of Khitai.'

Pre-gen player-characters

Players can pick their own names. Note that not all of the characters are able to read.

First Thief (6th rank assassin)

Strength 8  Reflexes 13  Intelligence 13  Psychic Talent 15  Looks 11

ATTACK 17                      Shortsword (d8+1,3) and six throwing spikes (d2+1,2)
DEFENSE 11                    Armour Factor 1
MAGICAL DEFENSE 9
EVASION 7
STEALTH 23
PERCEPTION 13
Health Points 14

You’ve worked for Lord Aztrias before. He’s no worse than most nobles – arrogant, preening, capricious, but he pays well for the items you steal for him. You have never worked with tonight’s partner before, but Aztrias thinks that the copper idol of Bel that sits over the compartment holding the Zamorian diamond goblet may be difficult for you to move on your own. (You are able to read and write.)

Second Thief (6th rank assassin)

Strength 13  Reflexes 13  Intelligence 13  Psychic Talent 8  Looks 17

ATTACK 19                        Shortsword (d8+1,3) and sling (d6,3)
DEFENSE 11                      Armour Factor 1
MAGICAL DEFENSE 7
EVASION 7
STEALTH 23
PERCEPTION 13
Health Points 12

You only recently arrived in Numalia and you don’t know your employer, Lord Aztrias, very well. Come to that, you never met your colleague on tonight’s exploit until today, though they seem quite thick with Aztrias. Your job is to get a Zamorian diamond goblet, concealed in a niche under a copper idol of Bel, the Shemitish god of thieves. Well, that’s appropriate enough. (You are able to read and write.)

First Watchman (5th rank “knight”)

Strength 14  Reflexes 6  Intelligence 9  Psychic Talent 15  Looks 14

ATTACK 18                        Shortsword (d8,3) and crossbow (d10,4)
DEFENSE 10                      Armour Factor 2
MAGICAL DEFENSE 8
EVASION 4
STEALTH 14
PERCEPTION 8
Health Points 17

Lotrs of people hate Kallian Publico, and he can be a right bastard. You’ve seen that with your own eyes. He’ll ruin a man’s business, turn his family into the street, have a careless slave whipped, and then sit down to a lavish banquet. On the other hand, he must have a soft spot for you as he’s always treated you more than fairly. And where would you get a better job than patrolling the outside of his “Temple of curiosities” from dusk till dawn? No one’s going to steal from there, anyway -- even if they could get in there are police patrols every hour or so. (You are illiterate.)

Second Watchman (5th rank “knight”)

Strength 9  Reflexes 14  Intelligence 15  Psychic Talent 12  Looks 7

ATTACK 17                        Shortsword (d8,3) and crossbow (d10,4)
DEFENSE 12                      Armour Factor 2
MAGICAL DEFENSE 7
EVASION 6
STEALTH 14
PERCEPTION 8
Health Points 16

You haven’t had this job long. Guarding a building full of useless art and relics, what a drag. Oh well, you’ve had worse. A pity your colleague hasn’t got more interesting conversation. A lifer for sure, unlike you – you’ll just earn a bit in this job and move on. You didn’t even think it was going to be eventful till you tried the main door tonight and found the main lock open. So you used your key to the deadbolt and went inside to investigate. Maybe tonight will be less boring than most. (You can read and write.)

Charioteer (6th rank barbarian)

Strength 16  Reflexes 14  Intelligence 10  Psychic Talent 9  Looks 9

ATTACK 21                        Mace (d6+1,5)
DEFENSE 13                      Armour Factor 0
MAGICAL DEFENSE 8
EVASION 7
STEALTH 14
PERCEPTION 8
Health Points 20

Kallian Publico is your master. Many’s the time you’ve wished him dead, the fat pig – but as a slave you’re lucky to have the prestigious post of a charioteer. If anything happens to Kallian you might be sold to the mines. Even if you’re just placed in another household, you’d need to work your way up from scratch. Unless… if you could impress a high official or noble, it’s possible you could find a plum role in their retinue of servants. Probably a better bet than running away – the Nemedian authorities treat runaways to a brutal death. (You cannot read or write.)

Inquisitor (5th rank mystic)

Strength 11  Reflexes 9  Intelligence 17  Psychic Talent 10  Looks 10

ATTACK 15                          Sword (d8,4)
DEFENSE 9                          Armour Factor 4 (+1 ringmail)
MAGICAL ATTACK 19
MAGICAL DEFENSE 9
EVASION 4
STEALTH 12 (adjusted for ringmail)
PERCEPTION 9
Health Points 11

You didn’t get to be Chief of the Inquisitorial Council of Numalia, and consequently wield unlimited authority over the city police force, by jumping to conclusions. Every story looks different from another angle, so you like to take your time and sift the clues. Similarly you do not reveal your psychic powers unless absolutely necessary. Let people believe that devils whisper secrets to you, or that you have some piercing insight into others’ souls. Your intelligence is a power in its on right, so that you only use your psychic gifts as a last resort. (You are literate, of course, and so can read all the labels on exhibits in the Temple.)

6 NPC guardsmen (1st rank "knights")

ATTACK 13                          Sword (d8,4) 
DEFENSE 7                          Armour Factor 2
MAGICAL DEFENSE 3
EVASION 4
STEALTH 13
PERCEPTION 5
Health Points 11                    Each has: lantern, manacles, dagger (d4,3);
                                               one guardsman also has a bow (d6,4)

Final notes

Just so you know, I was tempted to title this post "Irritable Bowl Syndrome", but the search engines wouldn't have been able to do anything with that. Having extracted Conan from the adventure, a few words about him might be appropriate. I favour Barry Windsor-Smith's depiction of him from 1970s Marvel comics -- muscled, but not ridiculously so; the guy's a fighter, not a bodybuilder. I did take a look at some more recent Dark Horse comics, but although Conan had regained normal proportions he'd come over all emo. "Two-Gun" would have had some things to say about that.

I've used Dragon Warriors for this conversion because it's the game's 40th anniversary, but there are plenty of other options. GURPS Conan would be my go-to choice, not least for the fine Ditko-inspired artwork by Butch Burcham and because it contains ready-made stats for the Child of Set (called a Naga in the book). There's also Conan: The Roleplaying Game, which has contributions by many of the team responsible for 2nd edition DW, Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, and the forthcoming Conan: The Hyborian Age.

If you stick with DW, you might want to move the adventure from the Hyborian Age to Legend. A logical location would be one of the cities of the New Selentine Empire. It fits, and you won't have to change the names too much. Set and Ibis won't feature, but the bowl has been sent from Cardinal Scriberi Nascosto in Selentium to Great Schema Kalanthes in Tamor, rivalries across the schism of the Church being much more heartfelt than between wholly different religions. Scriberi, a noted collector, obtained the bowl via trading agents in Amsa'im. The creature in the bowl is consecrated to the Kaikuhuran serpent god Aphoph, though that's irrelevant to Scriberi; he's simply been assured that opening the bowl will release a curse of some kind.

Giving the multiverse another chance

Maybe you have no interest in the MCU. I wouldn't blame you. As a fan of Marvel in the Silver Age I counted myself lucky to have had a second bite of the cherry with movies from Iron Man through to Avengers: Endgame. That's an eleven-year run with very few flops (I wouldn't bother with Iron Man 3 again and I deliberately avoided Taika Waititi's sniggering take on Ragnarok) or even thirteen years if we include Spider-Man: No Way Home.

After that, for me, Marvel fatigue set in. Too many TV shows, too much multiverse, and the great characters were all gone. It felt a lot like the way the Silver Age deflated into the Bronze Age. I lived through that once and didn't want to witness it all over again. Also, the MCU seemed to be depending too much on sending itself up, and once you start on that route you're going all the way to the bottom.

But then, just the other week, the news that Robert Downey Jr will be returning as... wait, what? Doctor Doom? Surely a ghastly and cynical ploy to try and lure back the diehard fans like me who'd fallen out of love with all the multiverse shenanigans.

Well, maybe. Except that the creative team for Marvel Studios' Phase Six are Anthony and Joseph Russo, who helmed some of the best movies in the MCU's own little Silver Age. Their track record forces me to think again. Set aside the cynicism. Consider: if Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom is going to work, and work well, what might that involve?

And so I wrote this little speculative snippet. And if superheroes aren't your thing, forget it and come back tomorrow. But if you have any love for the MCU, take a look and let me know if you agree, or disagree -- or (best of all) if you have an idea of your own.

Did Stan Lee steal ideas?

It’s the time of year for me to weigh in on a claim that’s causing controversy – not to deny that the claim if true would be outrageous, but to say that I remain unconvinced that it is true. And, in line with recent tradition, the outrage again involves a professor.

This time round it’s the turn of The X-Men, first published by Marvel in July 1963, though with a cover date of September because comics. The Doom Patrol debuted in the June issue (that is, April) of My Greatest Adventure, published by Marvel’s rival DC. The bone of contention is whether Stan Lee was influenced by (ie swiped from) Arnold Drake, the writer of Doom Patrol, in putting Professor Charles Xavier in a wheelchair like the Doom Patrol’s leader.

Drake shrugged it off for years as a coincidence, but after brooding on it for forty years he became convinced it was dirty pool on Stan’s part:

"I didn’t believe so in the beginning because the lead time was so short. Over the years I learned that an awful lot of writers and artists were working surreptitiously between [Marvel and DC]. Therefore from when I first brought the idea into [the DC editor’s] office, it would’ve been easy for someone to walk over and hear that this guy Drake is working on a story about a bunch of reluctant superheroes who are led by a man in a wheelchair. So over the years I began to feel that Stan had more lead time than I realized. He may well have had four, five or even six months."

Now, I’ll put my hand up to being a fan of Marvel from way back. I grew up on those stories. So you might want to take what I have to say with that in mind, but – was Drake completely nuts? First of all, Stan Lee was having to get out more than ten books a month, and he was doing almost all the writing single-handed. Sure, he had “the Marvel method” to help (plot first, then art, then write the script) but even so it’s unlikely he had much time to look through DC’s output, at that time upwards of thirty books a month. And even if Stan had been told about Doom Patrol in January 1963, he wouldn’t have had long to single out that one idea and work it into the new book he was planning with Jack Kirby.

OK, it is just possible an artist came across from DC (it was a 13 minute walk) and mentioned that DC was doing a try-out book with a super-team whose mentor was in a wheelchair. But was that really the standout detail worth swiping? Far more likely that Stan got the inspiration for Professor X from any number of brainy invalid scientists in 1950s sci-fi movies. And in any case there’s a strong story reason for Professor X being in a wheelchair. Stan loved irony, and this character is all about the power of the mind. He’s Nero Wolfe turned up to 11.

In the same year as the quote above, Drake also said:

"Stan Lee and I were working in the same vineyards, and if you do enough of that stuff, sooner or later, you will kind of look like you are imitating each other."

Well, that change of heart is interesting. Maybe Drake had taken a step back to think about where his own ideas came from. If there was any creative borrowing going on, more likely it was in the other direction. Why was Drake creating the Doom Patrol in the first place? Because he understood the appeal of the Fantastic Four. The FF’s first issue was November 1961 – only, you know the score, that means September, so it had been running for thirteen issues by the time Drake sat down and scratched his head about what could be done to counter this new and coming force in comics.

Drake saw that the FF frequently squabbled. And they got their powers from an accident – not mutants like the X-Men, notice. And the coolest members of the team were sort of freaks, the Thing especially. So it’s not much of a stretch (I’m not planning these puns, honest) to think of Robotman as the Thing, Negative Man as the Torch, Elasti-Girl (wait, what?) as Susan Storm and the Chief as Reed.

By 2000, Drake had convinced himself he originated all this:

“That was the thing that made Doom Patrol different, these people hated being superheroes. And they were a little bit self-pitying, just a little bit, and the chief was constantly telling them, ‘Stop crying in your beer.’ That made them something that wasn't around at the time.”

It wasn't around at the time? Really? What about Peter Parker? Ben Grimm? Bruce Banner? Tony Stark? So it’s a little bit rich that a few years later Drake was saying of Stan Lee, ‘He’d take credit for the King James Bible.’

All that said, it’s interesting that these days it’s hard to make a convincing movie about the Fantastic Four, and yet there were four seasons of a Doom Patrol TV show. I didn’t stick with it even for four episodes myself, but it actually feels more modern than the FF -- who were, after all, Stan Lee’s first attempt at making superheroes real and relatable and flawed. As the prototype, perhaps it’s not surprising that the FF have dated – and they were my own least favourite Marvel comic back in the Silver Age, their adventures being too cosmic and out there to appeal alongside the convincing contemporary lives of Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Matt Murdock, et al.

If you're interested in the full fascinating story of how Marvel overtook DC and revolutionized comic book storytelling, try Reed Tucker's book Slugfest and/or Adrian Mackinder's Stan Lee: How Marvel Changed The World.

Theme tune

John Whitbourn remarked to me not so long ago that it was a pity we had to drop the comments on this blog for a while, because without them a spark had gone. I know exactly what he means. One of the main reasons I was a Marvel rather than DC fan was the sense of community that Stan Lee brought to the former, and a big part of that came from the lively exchanges on the letters pages.

But even while comments here were shut down I was still getting some feedback -- some of it bubbling up out of the moronic inferno of social media, and other communications (much more civilized) in real life, in emails, and on my Patreon page. John Jones, gamebook expert, valued consigliere and frequent correspondent, made an interesting point about themes in books and roleplaying games. He was talking about how White Wolf's World of Darkness used settings to convey themes and moods, for example Detroit in the '90s, with its theme of decayed grandeur and loneliness. "Detroit," John went on to explain, "was a city built for two million that at that time had 400,000 people or so living in it."

We discussed the themes of the Vulcanverse books, and John made some interesting observations:

"The Houses of the Dead is a little rough because it was the first book, but even there I can see a theme/mood of indifference. Charon knows the living aren't supposed to be in Hades, but the gods are asleep, so what does it matter? The philosophers debate endlessly at their foodless dinner until your character provides the picnic hamper. One of the Fates will give your character a favour for... a honey cake, because why not? 

 
"The Hammer of the Sun's general theme/mood seems to be withering. Without the waters of the rivers, Iskandria is little more than a largish village. The Amazons are basically a largish bandit gang. Even the Sphinxes of the pyramids mostly just slumber in the heat, too weakened or indifferent to guard their homes, for the most part. Heck, Loutro, who knows the rituals of Tethys, will only accompany the character, not actually do the rituals himself.

 
"The Wild Woods' theme seems to be ruin, whether through specific actions (suppressing the rivers) or just general neglect. The bridge-nets for the catapult travel system are in disrepair. Fort Blackgate is a ruin, home to a vile giant. The Summer Palace, home of a powerless king, is in bad shape. Even the Great Green Ones are slowly dying, just like the child of the truffle hunter who is unwittingly killing them.

"The Pillars of the Sky's theme seems to be isolation. One of the few surviving minotaurs roams his labyrinth alone. The bosgyns live away from their men. Stuck in their Great Sinkhole city the Gargareans dwell on their own perceived superiority, which allows them to brutally mistreat their captives and attack others as lesser beings. Even Boreas, the north wind himself, is isolated and trapped in a frozen moment of time by the Uroboros Ring."

I like thinking about things like this, and John and I got to talking about the fifth book in the series, Workshop of the Gods. The theme there would be secrets – the hidden social traps, the societies and gangs, scheming individuals weaving plans, and the ultimate secret being: what’s behind the curtain?

Well, that's my notion of it, anyway. The actual answer might turn out to be be completely different from that. The mood/tone is yet another question. I’m not sure how well my and Jamie's styles mesh these days, and would readers find that jarring if we each wrote half a book? The join might show in both style and theme. Every memorable IP in books, comics, TV, games, you name it, has a unifying theme that is the soul of the story, whether planned or otherwise. Take a look at your own favourites. Even if you haven't consciously dug down into the themes before, you'll probably find they've influenced you profoundly all the same.

And the rest you discover...

"We love writing ourselves into a corner. We love it. Because then it activates all of those how-do-we-get-out-of-purgatory juices. And then you get the next bright idea."

That's Mr Robert Downey Jr summing up the creative approach of the Russo brothers. He says a bit about improvisation so there might be some springboard tips there for roleplayers.

Big news tomorrow for Dragon Warriors players. See you then.

Connecting with stories

Dramatic irony occurs when the viewer or reader of a story knows more than the characters. It can be an effective way of making you connect with the story (“Look behind you!”) though if sustained for too long it tends to distance you from the characters (“Doesn’t that numbskull realise the danger?”) and then you've got the opposite effect.

A less immediate form of dramatic irony might plant a seed that will build over time. For example, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe we learn about Thanos’s behind-the-scenes involvement long before the Avengers even know his name. That doesn’t create emotional distance because for most of the saga he’s not the problem they have to face right away. He’s an oncoming storm, but it’s his proxies and allies who present the immediate threat.

Most film and television dramas aren't like first-person novels. There are scenes that don't feature any of the protagonists -- like those early tease moments with Thanos, for example. But when you're telling an interactive story, jumping away from our heroes to another viewpoint gets tricky. The characters expect us to advise and guide them, and the story really only works if we pick a side. (Even if that side might change.) We form a bond with our viewpoint character and that tends to frame how we expect to see events in the story -- not first-person, exactly, but close third. Under those conditions can dramatic irony serve any useful purpose?

An example: in the opening episode of Mirabilis, I cut within the first three pages between Jack Ember and Estelle Meadowvane, both lead characters, and inserted a scene (above) in which we see series baddie the Kind Gentleman in his true devilish form. The Kind Gentleman closes a web of dangers and intrigues around Jack’s life, but it’s nearly two episodes – that’s 50 pages – before they meet face to face. If we’d been interacting with Jack all that time, and knew what we know in the comic, and hadn’t warned him then he’d legitimately want to know why.

Well, let’s think about how we would interact with Jack and Estelle in an interactive version of Mirabilis. We wouldn’t want to do a lot of head-hopping, because interactivity favours a close relationship with one character, so probably you’d let the reader/viewer choose which of our heroes to follow each episode. The more the reader sticks to the same viewpoint character, the more they'll bond with them – but at the expense of not knowing everything the other one has been up to.

What kind of interaction would this be? The “Bandersnatch” episode of Black Mirror reportedly entailed shooting more than five hours of story content. If you’re working in a medium where extra scenes cost money (anything but radio or prose, basically) then you’ll want to steer clear of that Choose Your Own Adventure model – oh, and don’t call it CYOA unless you want to get sued.

Luckily there are more rewarding ways to interact with characters than telling them what to do next. You can chat to them, get them to reveal their backstory (cf Lost), find out how they feel about each other, make subtle hints about what they should say or how they should behave that will influence other characters’ attitude towards them over time. These are the kind of subtle nudges and inputs that we get from interacting with people in real life.

To make that model of interactivity work, you’d have most backstory strands only accessible when cued by something that happens in the story. Jack, thrown in prison, talks about how he used books to escape loneliness and poverty as a child – and that leads him to a realisation that feeds into the plot. In the interactive version, there might be several breakthrough moments when you could get him to talk about that, and several different eureka plot developments as possible outcomes.

So the plot as it is in the comic remains largely unaffected by the player's choices. That's not only to avoid drawing the thousands of extra panels needed for a diverging story, but also because interacting with plot is not what's really interesting. The linear surface story is fine as it is. The interactivity can instead be about exploring interiority, discovering more about the character, and building a closer relationship with them so that they start to share their hopes and fears.

In other words, we can't (and don't want to) change the plot, but we can enrich it with foreshadowing. For instance, maybe Jack confides in the player that, "If anything were to happen to Estelle I'd die." When Estelle is captured by the Big Bad, that moment will now land with even more impact. And, yes, you could do that in a linear story too: Jack just tells somebody else how much Estelle means to him. But in the interactive version it’s a shared secret. It’s something you earned from your relationship with the character. Maybe you even encouraged him in those feelings, and because of that he’s now more vulnerable. Now you’re not just watching the story; you’re part of it. And that's what interactive storytelling is all about.

Blood Sword redux: Doomwalk (part 3)

The final part of the Doomwalk designer's notes today, and as far as literary influences are concerned, the most obvious nods throughout the Blood Sword series are, of course, to Jack Vance. Those faltyns, for example: close cousins to the sandestins that were forever vexing Rhialto and the other sorcerers of Old Earth. I’m sure Shimrod in the Lyonesse books would know to be wary of a deal like this:

The faltyn flits through the streets, eventually leading you out of the north gate of the city along a rough track into the hills. There you see a jewelled door set in the side of a massive boulder. ‘What you seek lies beyond that door,’ says the faltyn. ‘As agreed, you will experience neither difficulty nor danger in obtaining it.’ With these words, it vanishes.

Why ‘faltyn’, incidentally? Doctor Strange fans, don't all shout at once. And how about this moment from Doomwalk for a typically Vancean way to get from A to B:

As soon as you have closed the cage door, the creature reaches down to seize an iron ring attached to the top and then launches itself into the sky. Despite its bulk and the burden of carrying you, it rises swiftly on its huge black wings. You are flung to and fro in the cage, but you manage to fight back your nausea until it has gained enough altitude to glide on the air currents.

(The picture here is from Pelgrane Press's superb Dying Earth RPG. Don't even read on until you've bought a copy.)

Now, I ought to warn you there are a few songs in this book. Not too many; don’t get alarmed, I didn’t go full Tolkien or anything. But you get a burst of the 14th century poem “Dou way, Robyn”, the Trickster gets to con some wights into thinking summer’s come to the underworld by singing a few lines paraphrased from Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and a character greets his lover’s cruel rejection with a lament penned by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Blimey, you not only get heads rolling and demons ripping out guts, you get bloomin’ culture as well, eh?

The bridge that Modgud guards (or Móðguðr, if you must), which you need to cross to get from the nasty region of Sheol to the really nasty, is from Norse myth. You knew that. But the reason I included a covered bridge in the first place is because Roy Thomas and Gene Colan sent Karen Page across just such a bridge when I was at an impressionable age, and Gene the Dean was my first love in comics, so I had to build in a reference to his work somewhere.

But, raking over all these old influences and homages, I’m completely stumped by where these two oddities sprang from:

Forewarned that something inhabits the hill, you make use of the cover afforded by some thorn bushes to approach the summit unnoticed. Two odd creatures wait there beside an enormous treasure chest. One is a giant bat with crimson antlers sprouting from its head. The other is a dog the size of a warhorse, with white fur and a long beard flowing from its chin.

The Horned Bat and the Bearded Dog seem to be genuine originals and, my earlier reference to Afghan Black aside, I have no idea what chimerical vacuum spawned them. I know that I specifically didn’t want an illustration of them because I was trying for something like the encounters you get in dreams: elusive, ill-defined. Funny and creepy and odd at the same time. Are they characters animated by Disney or by Švankmajer? Would the movie be directed by Burton or by Spielberg? I know which version I see in my mind's eye, but reading is democratic. Having bought the book, how you choose to visualize it is up to you.

Just in case you're thinking this all sounds like serious stuff, let me assure you that there's a good lacing of humour through all the Blood Sword books, even when you're slogging through hell or counting down the minutes till Doomsday. Case in point: the talking boat figurehead whose conversation is limited to weather forecasts and continual re-estimates of arrival time. That example is unusual, in fact, because mostly I don't go for humour that pokes fun at fantasy tropes - too easy a target. Instead I take my cue from Vance, who always remembers that however desperate the situation - and often precisely because it's desperate - human beings will find something to laugh about. So next time you get on the wrong side of a bargain with a faltyn, try to see the funny side.

In the next "Making of Blood Sword" I'll be looking at the writing of the fifth and final book in the series, The Walls of Spyte - otherwise known as "The One Where They Blow Up the Universe". But that's still a month or so away. Next week we'll have Jamie's latest series and after that some really big Way of the Tiger news. Don't miss.

Multi-storey artwork

I wouldn't even try to pick a favourite Russ Nicholson picture. He is so versatile that there are a least a dozen "best" images executed in completely different styles. That's one of the reasons he is the definitive Fabled Lands artist as far as Jamie and I are concerned - not only for the fresh inventiveness of his ideas and the humanity and humour in his character studies, but because he chose a different style to reflect the flavour of each region of the world of Harkuna. Man, that's an artist.

As a body of work, Russ's illustrations for Lords of the Rising Sun comprise the high point in the FL series for me, in large part because of the bold brush-stroke inking that reminds me of the work of Chic Stone. My favourite of all of the Book 6 pictures is this one showing four floors of a palace (or is it?) that has been invaded by a dragon (or is it?). You'll have to play the adventure to find out:

‘The dragon has entered the palace!’ screams a footman. The courtiers fly to and fro in panic while you marshal the best of the paladins and lead them down the long staircase. The dragon squats in the vast hall below chewing the palace’s valiant defenders in its maws. Its head alone is longer than your ship! You give the order to attack, leading the paladins down the staircase in a reckless charge. The dragon bares its fangs and spits venom. Make COMBAT and CHARISMA rolls, both at a Difficulty of 15...