Four-Color Fantasy

I've been thinking a lot lately about a kind of art that usually doesn't work. Specifically, full-color comic-book fantasy, especially from the 20th Century.

What folks generally think of as "classic" old school RPG art--like Russ Nicholson and David Sutherland--is related but it isn't this kind of art. Usually classic Old School is black and white and the pen technique is tuned to be in black-and-white--it is full of textures that would interfere with the sense of movement in a comic book. When old school art's in color it's usually painted. 

Either way it avoids the central problem of rendering fantasy or historical scenes in ink and reproducing that inky color on a midcentury comic book printing press--they have a real tough time with realistic colors. There's a reason superhero comics beat out fantasy, westerns, romance, war, horror and noir comics and quickly dominated the comics medium--the heroes' bright costumes looked a lot better in cheap reproduction than the subtler palette needed for more realistic work

A key figure in the development of this kind of art was Hal Foster, who did Prince Valiant.

Despite Foster's legendary ability to render in ink, the colors still give this a chintzy, cheap feel. Something in the human brain just knows this isn't right--and its not just the pink rocks. Compare that to a random (and equally luridly-colored) Spider-Man panel:

Spidey's bright costume heightens the entire scene, and somehow the blobs and tangles of quickly-rendered trees make more sense. Like watching an American movie set in France where everyone speaks English--once you've mentally accepted the major deviation from reality, the rest follows. Superheroes look right in this printing process in a way that other genres took a lot more effort to pull off. 

There were exceptions, of course, but they required either very judicious use of color or an audience willing to suspend disbelief.

If you saw Schwarzenegger's Conan wearing that bright blue shirt you'd laugh so hard they'd ask you to leave the theatre, but nearly every fantasy character in comics wore some version of that.

Some of you may remember the official TSR D&D comics--the insensitive way they handled the color of armor, leather, flesh, steel and all the other things you've got to include in a fantasy comic wasn't the only reason they sucked, but they sure didn't help:

But anyway, I'm not interested in the bad stuff, I'm interested in the good stuff--the art by people who managed to overcome the limitations of the medium to produce a new, weird kind of fantasy art not seen before--and not seen much since either.

First up: Esteban Maroto's rarely-seen Wolff with two F's, who managed to maintain this psychedelic palette through several installments published in a variety of magazines.

Charles Vess has done some work for official D&D and he did a Sabbath album cover, and some of this more recent work has a soft post-computer-coloring palette. However he did some cool Thor-adjacent stuff in Marvel Fanfare which fits the 4-Color Fantasy vibe to a T:

A hallmark of this kind of art is monsters done in all one bright psychedelic color. Here's a page Vess did back in the day for DC Challenge:

Alex Niño did a strip called Captain Fear in the '70s, later taken over by Walt Simonson:

Tom Sutton:

Michael Kaluta on Madame Xanadu:

Gil Kane on the sci-fantasy Star Hawks--which was only in color on Sundays:

Rafael Kayanan has graduated to doing martial arts and broody pictures of Conan, but he and the colorists on Fury of Firestorm back in the '80s took any opportunity to go in a fantasy direction, even though the comic was superhero book:

Walt Simonson's Thor was as much superhero and sci-fi as fantasy and the coloring was never unique, but it did manage to consistently avoid embarrassing itself, the figures always looked like they were the color they were on purpose:

Last and definitely not least, probably the most well-known example in the genre, Barry Windsor-Smith's full-color self-colored version of the Conan story Red Nails from Marvel Treasury:

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Random Place for a Random Thing

 

One thing I find myself needing a lot as players sandbox their way around the map is "ordinary" places.

You might roll a random encounter as they crawl across a hex and need to know what the landscape around that hex is.

A player might, after the encounter or any time along a multihex journey, ask if there's a town or an inn nearby.

Or a body of fresh water.

Or a hill.

Or etc. etc.

Now you can just make it up on the spot or roll a simple chance, but sometimes its nice to have a regular place with just a little extra playable depth built in. 

So: I have these two random generators for "boring" places, specifically with an eye towards this use case in sandboxes.

One Important Note

I don't, by-and-large, use these generators to make places and then, before play, stick them on the world map. The world map is full of interesting destinations and odd places one might encounter along the way, but these are fairly normal and the map is large so there's a good chance an area generated this way is never getting used if it is simply placed in any old hex.

These places are insignificant--at least until activated by players doing something or having something done to them--so they only go on the map after you use them in a session. They are "floating" locations, not interesting enough to start out as plot points but hopefully just interesting enough to maybe one day be promoted into one.

Making them is an oddly hypnotic way to spend a lazy evening though I tell you what. Make four or six of them and just have them ready and pick when it's time to insert some drama before the party gets where it's supposed to be going.

Another thing I would not necessarily do is automate them--I would not plug the tables into a computer and have it spit out a jillion of these and pick one at random when you need one. Two reasons:

1. Experiencing and re-experiencing all the options you read about as you generate is a helpful way to think about these kinds of areas when it comes to actually running the game.

2. Having a short stack of areas you recognize and remember making will allow you to pick the one that'll be most interesting for that specific party on that specific day when its actually game time.

Wilderness Encounter Area Generator

So this one is specifically for adding just a little meat and depth to a random wilderness encounter. You don't just go "you come upon a..." but there's some context, foreshadowing, and perhaps nearby resources for dealing with the situation or fallout therefrom.

First, there's a sort of flowchart for when you "zoom in" at the beginning of moving from "you travel for several days" to "ok, you come upon...". Since this is placed in a sandbox the PCs might enter the area from any direction, so there are some choices built in.

Distances are abstract, you begin "near" the encounter, but you can decide exactly how near when generating.

Start the PCs in the cardinal direction box most appropriate to the direction they entered from and roll the appropriate die:

Click to enlarge

Pink boxes are, like it says, optional.

Second, populate the boxes as it says below:

Click to enlarge

This is built for the wilderness in Broceliande, which is primarily a kind of fairy-tale forest, but you cold obviously tweak it for wherever your players are currently hanging out.

Alright, there is that thing.

Second we have a...

Random Fully-Mapped Hex Generator

This makes 6-mile hexes with stuff in them. You gotta draw them so, crucially, the generator is in a very specific order so that each layer you draw will influence the next layer laid down in a way that makes sense. You don't, for instance, want a dam in a hex with no river, or a road in an unmapped wilderness.

This generator's especially good if you want the town or inns that PCs stop at on the way to a more important destination to have some context.

Again, this generator's for Broceliande, you'd want to tweak the numbers for other environments.

First you roll all the kinds of dice (D4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20) to see if a these categories of feature in boldface are there at all:

Topography (Does the land go up and down?) (3 in 4 chance)

Body of Water  (11 in 12)

Vegetation (19 in 20)

Civilization (1- None 2-Ruins only 3-Nothing human or demihuman 4-Nothing organized 5-8 Yes)

Resident Creatures? (Besides anything randomly encountered) 

1-Includes monster (for example: an ogre)

2-Includes interesting creature(s) (for example: pink rabbits)

3-4 Incudes predatory animal(s) (for example: wolves)

5-Boring animal(s) only (for example: deer and other local prey animals)

6-No animals

Magic (Is there some landscape feature or other thing with weird magic properties somewhere in the hex)  (1 in 10)

Then, if there is, roll specifically what features are present and draw them--if a feature is present then its up to you whether that's one or many. Like if it says there's a river that can be one river or seven--whatever you like. Examples of fully-drawn hexes are below.

Topography? (Does the land go up and down?) (3 in 4 chance)

Roll separately for each feature that might be in the hex:

Hill (3 in 4)

Valley (3 in 6)

Cave (1 in 8)

Mountain (1 in 10)

Cliff (1 in 12)

Volcano (1 in 20)

Weird/impressive Rock Formation (1 in 20)

WATERFALL (1 in 20 only if there's also a body of water in the hex)

Body of water? (11 in 12)

River (3 in 4)

Pond (5 in 6)

Lake (5 in 8)

Stream (7 in 10) (You don't have to draw in all the streams)

Swamp (2 in 12)

DAM (See Civilization)

WATERFALL (see topography)

BRIDGE (See civilization)

Vegetation? (19 in 20)

Dense Forest (3 in 4)

Overgrown Orchard (1 in 6 if the Civilization level below is at least 2)

Medicinal Plants (1 in 8)

Edible Plants (9 in 10) (only note a lack of edible plants)

Tall tree with view of surrounding hexes (1 in 12)

Hollow tree (1 in 20)

Civilization? (1- None 2-Ruins only 3-Nothing human or demihuman 4-Nothing organized 5-8 Yes)

Path/Trail (2 in 4)

Home (2 in 4)

Well (2 in 4)

Hamlet (1 in 4)

Ancient Ruin (1 in 4)

Wall (1 in 4)

Inn (1 in 4)

Church (1 in 4) (Roll D20: 1-8 Vorn 9-15 Tittivila 16-PC-related faith of your choice 17-18 Obscure/neutral faith 18-New faith 20-Evil faith)

Village (1 in 6)

Tower (1 in 6)

Statue (1 in 6)

Hunter’s Lodge (1 in 6)

Fort (1 in 6)

Castle (1 in 6)

DAM (1 in 8 if water)

BRIDGE (5 in 6 if water)

Road (3 in 8) (none if only ruins)

Store (1 in 8)

Old hunter’s traps (1 in 8)

Old aqueduct (1in 10)

Cemetery (1 in 12)

Monastery (1 in 12)

Old Siege Engine (1 in 20)

Old Asylum (1 in 20)

Old Prison (1 in 20)

Old Library ( 1 in 20)

MINE (1 in 20 if there's Topography)

Resident Creatures? (1-Monster 2-Interesting creature 3-4 Predatory animal(s) 5-Boring animals 6-No animals)

Unless the result is 5 or 6, pick an appropriate kind of creature .

Magic? (1 in 10)

There's no good way to automate this--if you've got magic, look at the hex you've got so far and decide what the enchanted part is and how it is enchanted.

Also, no matter what, there's a 1 in 20 chance of a freshwater spring somewhere in the hex.

Here are the examples, click to enlarge.

Once it told me there was a monster in the hex I generated
a random wilderness encounter using the Book of Jerks,
it told me there was a grey elf warband. I rolled their
stats individually and the low Str and Con on the
fighters and generally bad stats suggested there must be some
reason for that.

Perfidious owls are just owls that steal things, especially magic items

Once I rolled "new faith" for the church I

made the Carrion Child using the

God Generator

Once I got a hollow tree and "interesting animals" I figured
the animals probably lived in the tree

Figured the library was the most fun place to make a wolves' den

When I got roads and a cliff I figured the locals probably
carved some steps into it

The Black Grip is the church of my party's necromancer
PC, I figure running randomly into a monastery
dedicated to his minor cult would be fun, since
he hasn't met any of the church hierarchy yet

Psychoclastic MicroHell

A Psychoclastic MicroHell is a small pocket aspect of Hell that an adventuring party can be temporarily teleported to for a variety of reasons. Going there is a bit like the classic Maze spell except you actually go there and when you do it's all fucked up.

It also addresses an issue that I think about once in a while: although names like Demogorgon, Tiamat, Cthulhu, Orcus, Khorne, etc are a vital part of the background lore in RPGs--players seldom get to actually interact with them at least unless they're very lucky/unlucky at high levels which they may never reach. The "looming villain" effect is somewhat lost. This helps with that, adding what they call foreshadowing.

So anyway Psychoclastic MicroHells--parties typically end up there because:

-There's a portal or trap that sends them to one in the middle of a dungeon.

-Some wizard casts "Banish to Psychoclastic MicroHell" on them.

-They cast it on themselves.

Why would anyone cast it on themselves? Well, there is always treasure there. Technically.

Probably the best way to introduce the usable spell into the campaign is to have it used on the party unwillingly first, then allow it to be a thing they can use on themselves if they're out of their minds. Such players exist.

It takes about a bathroom-break's worth of time to create a Psychoclastic Microhell (largely because they rely on an existing library of content you likely already have access to, like the Monster Manual) so they can be drawn up mid-session.

You can also make custom ones for specific games or dungeons--like if its an underwater dungeon you can make one with your creepy custom underwater satan.

For the record the spell is:

Banish To Psychoclastic MicroHell

Magic-User Level 1

Duration: See below

Range: 50'

Area of Effect: Maximum 1 creature per caster level

This spell sends a creature or creatures to a Psychoclastic MicroHell as described below for the length of time described below.

Ok, so to create a Psychoclastic Microhell the GM needs to:

1. Take a piece of paper.

2. Make a little flowchartish box marked "Throne" at the top ("North" edge--but it doesn't matter, you're in Hell.)

3. Make a little flowchartish box marked "Entrance" at the bottom ("South" edge.)

4. Drop all the dice in the middle. A standard array-- d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20.

5. Make a little flowchartish box around where each die landed on the paper, noting kind and position. Like for example write "D6" and the number on that D6 wherever the D6 landed.

6. Starting at the bottom with the "Entrance" box, draw 2 lines to two other nearby boxes.

7. Then go to the one of those two boxes and draw two more lines coming out of it connecting to two more nearby boxes.

8. Then go to the next box and draw to lines coming out of it.

9. And so on until you've drawn two lines from each numbered box reach the top and at least one is connecting to the Throne box.

10. Each die indicates the location of a distinct area/room in the Hell but also gives you information. The rooms/areas can be shaped like the dice themselves if you like (I like). The lines represent paths.

11. The paths between the areas are all about 60' (or at least one round's full movement) no matter how far the actual lines on the paper are. Movement here takes place in bad-trip nightmare movement so distances are abstract--the point is to show their position relative to the start and each other and to show how long movement will take, not make a precise physical map.

12. Interpret the numbers on the dice as follows:

The number on the D8 Tells You Whose Hell This Is. My chart includes the classic Monster Manual guys, plus the Warhammer guys and some of my own, so that's:

1. Geryon or Slaanesh (DM's choice on these)

2. Dispater or Akayle Ozph

3. Baalzebul or Tzeentch

4. Asmodeus or Tiamat

5. Yeenoghu or Khorne

6. Orcus or Lolth / Rangda

7. Juiblex or Nurgle

8. Demogorgon or The Great Maggot

Feel free to substitute in Cthulhu or whoever you're using in your game. The Lord of this Hell will determine the aesthetics of the experience. Juiblex is going to have a lot of ooze and goo, Slaanesh might have more of a sexy Hellraiser thing going on, whatever.

No matter what, this actual figure will be on the throne when things begin.

The D4 Is the Location of the Treasure and The Kind of Treasure:

1. Cursed Item

2. Important Knowledge

3. Major Miscellaneous Magic Item

4. Major Magic Weapon

The item can be raised on a plinth or in a little carved box or floating in a glass sphere or whatever.

The D6 Is The Danger Level:

1 is the worst, 6 is the safest.

Every area with a number equal or lower than the D6 has no encounter. (They all might--lucky you. Except Tiamat is in that one room, but whatever.)

Every area with a number higher than the d6 has an encounter.

By definition, the room/area where the d6 landed has no encounter.

Each D10 Tells You What One of Your Encounters Will Be:

1. Type I Demon (Vrock) or Malebranche

2. Type II Demon (Hezrou) or Barbed Devil

3. Type III Demon (Glabrezu) or Bone Devil

4. Type IV Demon (Nalfneshee) or Ice Devil

5. Type V Demon (Marilith) or Stag Demon (that's one of mine from the Bestiary)

6. Type VI Demon (Balor) or Pit Fiend

7. Manes or Lemure

8. Succubus or Erinyes

9. Bloodletter of Khorne or Daemonette of Slaanesh

10. Demon Fly (Chasme from Monster Manual II or ...of Nurgle) or Flamer of Tzeentch

Note that:

-These two encounters don't necessarily have to be where the D10s landed, just in any area with a number higher than the one on the d6.

-There may be none. These may be rolls indicating creatures that don't show up.

-If more than 2 encounters are called for, the extra encounters will be:

Tainted clones of any PC present (and any other creatures brought here by the spell) but each will be able to use one of the listed powers/abilities of whoever owns this Hell. They have the same hit points, appearance and AC as a PC but only this special ability to attack.

They also speak with the sovereign's voice, which you should play up as hard as you can for disturbing effect.

These clones can also be clones of the PCs' friends or relatives. 

The D12 and the D20 tell you what the environment is like.

The die that lands closest to the Entrance box shows what the environment is like at the beginning (whether that be D12 or D20). It shifts to the second environment once the party enters the area indicated by the other die.

D12 Environment:

1. A pair of fat demons appears on a featureless plane, each a different color. They attempt to swallow you whole (attack at +10)—each is merely a harmless, invulnerable portal to the next “room” (with two more demons). There is no other way out.

2. You’re clinging to a giant statue of the dimension’s sovereign in some exotic material—progress by climbing into its eyes, mouth etc. The next "room" is another statue.

3. Narrow bridge-like causeways over infinite abyss or black ocean full of demonic seathings, obscured by dark mist.

4. Platforms floating in a dark void.

5. Depressing empty shadow city.

6. Tightly-compressed vertical tiled climbing maze.

7. Rooms made of writhing and tortured flesh.

8. A complex of high-vaulted cathedral-rooms with stained glass holding back molten plasma.

9. Apparently exitless rooms, each wall of which is either an illusory wall concealing an exit or a bottomless pit.

10. A series of platforms hanging from chains over nothingness.

11.  Each room contains a large box or other geometric solid floating in the center, the only exits are by climbing into faces of this solid. 

12. A giant machine of glass and amber gears amid weird fire.

d20 Another Environment: 

1-12 (as d12 results, reroll if it’s the same)

13. Tunnels full of pools—defying gravity, on walls, floor, ceiling, etc. These are the only "doors".

14. Massive kaleidoscopic patterned carpet, progress by heading through different colored panels

15. Desert with lurid-colored sand and neon sky. Doors stand surreally upright in the sand. 

16. It is just like where you were before you were sent here but time’s stopped and creatures are intangible and there’s a weird keening in the air. If there weren't doors there are now.

17. Blacksilver Giger-like biomechanical tunnels with tarlike vertical pools and flesh orifices for 

exits.

18. Dimension of small clear glass compartments with hatches, the path ahead fairly visible to you and your foes, although reflections distort the more distant rooms somewhat.

19. M.C. Escher-esque echoing stone environment

20. Halls of distorting mirrors and thick colored glass panels.

All of the die results added together is the number of rounds you're there. After that you're teleported home.

Click to enlarge the example

Obviously the first time this happens, players will simply be freaked out and confused and not know how they're ever getting home, which is great.

If they eventually figure out how the magic works, any visit then becomes a speed-run to get to the treasure before they get killed. 

Although their creatures will, the regent of the Hell often will not attack immediately, as these incidents often amuse them, and sometimes the items taken are intentionally left in order to enact some subtle scheme against a rival power. 

Re-roll every time. The same MicroHell can never be visited twice.

Playing D&D With Porn Stars and Also The Founder of the OSR and The Head of Lamentations of the Flame Princess

 

Two very short stories from playing D&D last week:

So if you know anything about Caroline Pierce you know...

Wait, let me rephrase, if you know anything about Caroline Pierce playing D&D, you know she has terrible luck. Like: the worst. Dice you should throw away. Whole characters you should throw away.

However, last time she tried out a new set of dice someone gave her. It has always been my feeling that gift dice roll better. These seem to. They have cats on them. She is currently playing an elven ranger named Elaria who is beginning to not be a total fuckup.

Also important to know Kimberly Kane is playing a cleric of the Great Grub--usually worshipped by goblins but there's no accounting for taste.

So the job is this:

It's an investigation. A number of travellers have been found dead along the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of the Infinite Maggot--the party is asked to investigate and solve the problem.

After a day's travel, they come upon the first corpse, dead on a high branch:

Elaria, being a ranger goes up to investigate.

"The pilgrim appears to be human, it looks like its impaled on a thick branch and then had the skin peeled off in strips on a branch.

"So it's like a giant shrike or something got them?"

"Ummm, yes, pretty much exactly like that."

There's no point in making someone roll when the player skill is just right there.

"What's a shrike?" Michelle asks.

"They do that," says Caroline, "they're birds that kill other birds by impaling them on branches and stuff. The call them butcher birds. I found one in my back yard when I was 5!"

Well that's the end of the investigation part.

"I'm just gonna show you guys the name of the adventure"

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As you may know, I also play a weekly game with Jeff Gameblog as Referee, two trans gals, a war refugee and Lamentations of the Flame Princess head honcho James Edward Raggi IV, the man who wants to bring you gritty horror solidly grounded in the real world 17th Century.

As usual, if you miss a session it just goes on without you. And I missed last session.

I log in and James looks soooooo excited.

Jeff starts talking--and James goes "Can I tell Zak what we're doing!??"

And I roll my eyes because whenever I'm not around things go real sideways real fast.

"Ok, what are we doing tonight James?"

"We have to go to the moon to mow the lawn!"

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