Arzra

Back in the early 2000s I was doing more comics. I had this comic going for a few months (doing 1 page a week) that was about a gender-shifting catperson named Arzra (spelled backwards: Arzra). I really fell in love with this character. The whole gender-shifter concept, for me, was a direct inspiration from Tanith Lee's Death's Master. Lee's Flat Earth books are foundational to my inner fantasy worldview. I place them squarely in the sword-and-sorcery category alongside Robert E. Howard's Conan.

Anyway, Arzra was a gender-shifting catperson version of Conan. I wrote the character as a wanderer, getting into adventures, with a strong sense of savage honor. At this time in my life I was a pretty rabid individualist in my philosophy. I would have called myself "libertarian" at the time, though the term for me had a different meaning than what we think of today (I always picture cowboy hat-wearing rednecks with guns screaming about free speech today). For me, this was about opposing authoritarian moral police.

Arzra was meant to be a vehicle for me to tell exciting fantasy stories that could be sexy and philosophical at the same time. I have several scripts lying around and they generally involve the character wandering into a weird place and encountering a weird entity, usually with some kind of dialog exchanged that cuts to the bone of how I felt about religion and morality. Arzra wasn't inclined to take a knee before authority and he had no interest in being responsible for anyone other than himself. She was a barbarian, after all, albeit with a sharp mind. She could slice you open as easily with her words as with her sword.

The art to the left was part of the comic, which was done with brush markers, colored pencils, and Prismacolor markers on bristol. I believe the pages were something like 14x14 inches. It was a lot of fun to do, but the amount of labor that went into each page was a bit much for me to sustain over time. And these were totally rated R pages with lots of nudity, making it a bit awkward to share later on Facebook and the like.

I did a bunch of drawings of this character for the period of a year or so and I really hoped I could turn it into a "regular" comic book series. Alas, doing anything "regular" just doesn't seem to be in my DNA. The only reason Black Pudding has persisted (yes I'm still working on #6!) is because it has very few constraints. I allow myself to wander and do whatever I like, within the domain of old school D&D style gaming. If I tried to make each issue themed or have an ongoing comic in it I'd probably flounder and sputter out. Much love to creators who can crank out issue after issue of comic book series over time. Salute!

Drawing Gaj'Uth the Three Headed Elephant

I have circled back around to Dead Wizards, having taken the very long way to get here. For those who might not remember or care, Dead Wizards is a sword and sorcery tabletop RPG I have been "working on" for a long time now... how long? Let me just go and check...

The earliest post I can find on my blog is 01/22/2017. But I believe I was posting about this on G+ (long may it dance in the Happy Fields of Memory) before that time. I know I ran a playtest of a Swords & Wizardry version of the game at least 3 years ago.

So I have been in a bit of a creative slump lately. I haven't been getting streams of new ideas like I used to. I was beginning to worry that my idea well was dry or I was just so old and jaded I didn't give enough shits anymore to make the pump work. But I was driving home from Indiana on a work trip and I had this amazing 4 hour long brainstorm. Normally I listen to podcasts and audiobooks on journeys but on this one I just let some music play the whole time and I let my mind go nuts. Essentially, I wrote the core of the game on the road.

Because I didn't have a "game" yet. I had versions of a game and I had playtested a few of them, but wasn't really satisfied. That's why I kept thinking I might just make it an OSR game and stick with old D&D mechanics. But now I feel kind of liberated from that idea. The setting could work with those mechanics, but there's really no reason it should have to. I haven't written a standalone RPG of significance in years. Many years. The Questing Beast was probably the last one. It's high time I got back to the work.

Gaj'Uth is not amused by life

Which brings me to drawing Gaj'Uth the Three-Headed Elephant. I mention the elephant in the opening tone-setting for the game thus:

"On the rare occasion the Exalted Prince enters the city streets he is carried in a glowing howdah on the back of an immense three-headed elephant called Gaj’Uth. A brigade of his arcane guards go before him to clear the path, crushing those who refuse to move and demolishing structures so that not even mighty Gaj’Uth is made to touch the dirty city and its dirty people."

For context, the game is inspired by Arabian, Indian, and African mythologies and concepts. It is absolutely not a representation of any particular culture or people at all and is filled with all sorts of feverish fantasy flizbits from my brain that aren't even part of the three influences I mentioned. So it's kind of tricky to decide how to describe it, how to "market" it, and so forth. I'm doing it for my own pleasure and satisfaction, as I usually do everything for that purpose. I want to make something cool and wicked and evocative in the vein of pulp fantasy stories as filtered through my own head. So that means as much or more Tanith Lee as Robert E. Howard.

But I've said all this before. I even presented some mechanics from previous incarnations of the game on G+, generating some nice conversations and debates about how the game would work. I believe in those iterations I was enamored of using the descending AC to-hit matrix as a core mechanic for all game actions. While that's still a sexy idea in my book, I do not believe that's the way I'll go with this game. I have a pretty clear schema in my skullpan that I feel like makes some kind of sense. It's a theater of the mind approach for sure, with less emphasis on game tactics (such as blow by blow combat) and more emphasis on the bigger picture... the life's work of a character and the juicy way they fit snuggly into the game's setting.

And it does have a setting. I'm not shying away from that here. I have often tried to keep things loose in terms of setting so my work can be picked up and dropped into existing game campaigns. Not here. This is a very specific place with a specific ethos and way of existing with it. Not too complex, mind you. I don't like games with a huge wall of text or series of novels I have to read before I can "get it". I don't want to make that game.

Ah see now I ramble as is my wont. Stream of consciousness eat your heart out.

I will post again down the road a bit, probably discussing the mechanics. And I'll arrange some playtesting with my Monday night friends as soon as they will indulge me.

Until then, be kind and enjoy your moments.

Tanith and Stuff

Warning: I say naughty words and talk about sex in this one.

Haven't posted too much on ole G+ in recent days. So what have I been up to, besides hitting FB with political posts? What's the status? What's the scoop?

I haven't dived into Black Pudding #3 yet. I have 7 or 8 finished pages that MIGHT go in there, but they MIGHT go into their own book. I haven't made up my mind. It's part of a sandbox setting that would not fit in an issue. Maybe I'll dish it out one part at a time. I don't know.

I'm doing a bit of commission work and thinking about slowing down on it so I can focus on my own stuff. I'm always happier when I'm doing my own thing. Call me selfish. I like to do what I like to do and I don't like to do what I don't like to do. And while commissions are fun and I love getting my work out there to more eyes I sometimes feel hemmed in or dragged down when I have several on my plate at the same time. I've never been cut out for that kind of work like so many other great artists seem to be.

My good friend Cyd is running a Penny Hack for us on Mondays, which is probably wrapping up soon. At that point I will ask my cohorts to indulge me once again and dive into a campaign that is largely inspired by mixing up Tanith Lee, Robert E. Howard, Frank Frazetta, and Richard Corben. Some good ole S&S in a project I've been calling Dead Wizards (or Kanebok... not sure how it will appear yet). I ran this once before and it was nice but this is a totally revamped version. Trying some ideas. Breaking the old game down and working from its bones to make a new toy. If all goes well, this will be one of my 2017 publishing projects.

And, while I'm on it, I just gotta say Tanith Lee is fantastic. And queer as fuck, as my friend put it. I read Death's Master when I was 14. Have you read Death's Master? Homosexuality, attraction to cross eyed people, necrophilia, and a sex-shifting hero. It's no wonder I was so comfortable in my 20s drawing boobs and bits. Any inhibitions I had about whether or not sex was an appropriate topic for fantasy were destroyed by Lee's verbosity.

I'm currently enjoying Night's Master (the first book of the Flat Earth series) on audio. It's been many years since I read it. I had forgotten just how twisted it could be. You get demon-on-mortal sex right there in part one and then a dwarf-like demon (the Drin...sort of like duerger I think) fucks a giant spider. Yeah.

I mean, these are not porn books. They are not titillating. They don't get you off. These are dark, twisted faerie tales. Lee weaves wondrous, luscious, beautiful tapestries in her books. Each tale blends into the next, linking characters across space and time. This is where I got my great love for mythological or fable-like settings. IN my own broader fantasy setting, for example, there are a set of core entities. There are 12 of them, more-or-less. They are the gods and demons of the ancient world and they show up in nearly all my work. The Worm Witch, mother of 100 Dooms, was in Pan-Gea and again in a little sci-fi comic I did called Red Path. And she has been mentioned in numerous Labyrinth Lord games I've ran. When I run little one-offs I talk about Black Wing, the Bringer of Death. Or Hunter-Raven, also known as Frimm, God of War and the North. I talk of Nexus the World Tree and Sun and Moon. All of these beings linked together in a single narrative but split across many worlds.

This I owe to Tanith Lee's brilliant Tales From the Flat Earth series. Dark and delightful they are indeed.

Lots more to say about Tanith Lee's influence. But not tonight.