D10 Forgotten Comicbook Heroes of the Golden and Late Platinum Age

Not all heroes stand the test of time. Many of the adventurers of the Platinum Age and superheroes of the Golden Age have long since passed from collective memory. In this post I will be recalling ten of those forgotten comic book heroes who debuted during the 1930's and 1940's. 

This blog post is a gift, requested by the admirable, prolific and kind Tamás Kisbali of Eldritch Fields. This post is part of the OSR Discord server's annual Secret Santicorn event. Find other things I had made for this event here and for the Easter derivative; Secret Jackalope here. All art for this post was made using the DALL-E AI, excuse any wonkiness.

1. Captain Frankenstein 

First Appearance: December 1938

Last Appearance: September 1943

Original Publisher: American Argonauts

Created By: Robert Crowell

Revived using his great-grandfather's mad science, the highly-decorated war-hero, Captain Jericho Frankenstein, was transformed into a even more efficient killing-machine. Perfectly revivified and with newfound super-strength and endurance, Captain Frankenstein immediately continued in his unending war against the enemies of the America. Captain Frankenstein, who already possessed near superhuman abilities in life, is now impervious to 'automatic high-caliber chain-lighting guns', capable of punching holes through the steel hulls of tanks and performing great bounds across no-man's land.  

The author, Robert Crowell, a veteran of the Great War and who had seen action during the Meuse–Argonne offensive, was in equal parts cynical and excited by the concept of war and his Captain Frankenstein strips reflected this. The strips were full of gruesome death and destruction for both sides of the grim conflict but Captain Frankenstein excitingly and heroically leapt through it all and caused a great deal of it himself.

Captain Frankenstein fought for America against an unnamed enemy army in an unknown but completely wasted country. The Captain Frankenstein comic-strips saw the reanimated war-machine bound across no-mans land to smash death-rays, save POW's and on occasion, fight a robot or specialist-soldier that had been brought to the front to kill him specifically. After America's entry into the Second World War, Captain Frankenstein's foes were revealed to be the Nazis.  

Although this nazi-smashing super-soldier pre-dates Captain America, Captain Frankenstein was ultimately overshadowed by the more popular war-time hero. Ultimately, Captain America's image was clearer, less weird, more patriotic and optimistic. Captain Frankenstein’s author went on to write less outré, but equally grim, military comics and pulp war novels. 

2. Radioactive Skeleton Woman

First Appearance: Late 1938

Last Appearance: Early 1939

Original Publisher: Tales from Zonderland

Created By: Unknown

Published weekly in Utah based 'Tales from Zonderland' the rather uncreatively named Radioactive Skeleton Woman was considered too weird and macabre for the young audience the magazine was targeted towards and was cancelled after about a year. Very few copies of 'Tales from Zonderland' survive so much of Radioactive Skeleton Woman's weekly adventurers have become lost media. From what is available, it appears Radioactive Skeleton Woman has no dialogue nor alter-ego, she comes and goes without explanation and terrifies highly-deserving goons with her appearance or sickens them with her radioactive powers. While the character of Radioactive Skeleton Woman has been long forgotten, her concept and image remain in the collective memory of a few small old mining towns in Utah. These towns have a local legend of a mine-dwelling cryptid woman whose skeleton glows green. 

3. Kid Kolt

First Appearance: April 1949

Last Appearance: January 1951/ February 1951 (as Guy Gun)

Original Publisher: Great Spirit Publishing

Created By: Flynn Whip

Going by no name other than Kid Kolt, this child hero was known for his expert shooting skills and his unerringly deadly aim. Kid Kolt never carries a gun nor starts a fight... but he always gets ahold of the later and ends the former with precisely planned violence. All of Kid Kolt's villains died in their first encounter with the 'bright young lad' and the child hero's body count was enormous after just a few issues.

Kid Kolt saw good initial popularity, but the financially struggling and ever litigious Colt's Manufacturing Company filed lawsuits against Great Spirit Publishing as they felt Kid Kolt character infringed on their brand. In response, Great Spirit ceased publication of Kid Kolt tales but returned the character the following year as the rebranded 'Guy Gun'. The readership however, had moved onto other characters and Flynn Whip had lost interest in writing the character.   

4. Solar Andromeda 

First Appearance: December 1939

Last Appearance: March 1941

Original Publisher: Kinnock Press

Created By: Walter Kinnock

Utterly cosmic and undefeatable, Solar Andromeda possesses near infinite power and knowledge as a result of his study and subsequent mastery of the 'Seventeen Solar Sciences'. Solar Andromeda uses his limitless powers largely to fight bootleggers, interplanetary racketeers, corrupt space-cops, judges and mad scientists. Solar Andromeda's justice is notoriously biblical in scale and Old Testament in its severity. Among many cruel and zany acts of retribution; Solar Andromeda has blotted out suns, knocked unworthy planets from their orbits, turned the air around his foes to acid and his made his opponent's skeletons leap from their bodies and dance about while their still living owners watched in abject horror. Solar Andromeda was published monthly at Walter Kinnock's own expense until he was arrested for assaulting a woman he was attempting to court.  

5. Twenty-First-Century El Cid - Knight of 2009

First Appearance: January 1939

Last Appearance: November 1942

Original Publisher: Griff James

Created By: Cosmopolis Co.

Set in the far future of 2009, police captain Jed Johson is about to do final battle with the dreaded gangster and racketeer - Bullet Devilman. Knowing he cannot defeat the heroic Jed in a straight battle Devilman shoots the police captain with a plutonium-tipped dart. The dying police captain, with his final breath, demands his men place him on his police battle-cycle so he can lead them one last time against Devilman's gang. The Captain's motorcycle-bound body led the charge against Bullet Devilman's army of racketeering goons and with his body seemingly immune to their radium rattle-rifles, the cowardly mobsters are soundly defeated by the city's police force - all but the nefarious Bullet Devilman, who escapes. 

In the second issue, while the City of 2009 mourn's the loss of their best police captain, the spirit of Jed is welcomed by his ancestor (none other than Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the original El Cid himself) into 'Valhalla'. El Cid bequeaths Johnson his powers and sends him back to 2009 as the new El Cid - an immortal knight for the 21st century. El Cid of 2009 continued to fight against the criminal empire of Bullet Devilman and other villains until his author, Griff James, drowned during training after being drafted into the US Navy. 

6. The Monkey's Bite

First Appearance: November 1949

Last Appearance: December 1949

Original Publisher: Zing Weekly

Created By: Jim 'The Duck' Langley

After being poisoned by communist agents (for displaying too much 'American beauty') while holidaying with her boyfriend in West Texas, a dying Shelley Adams stumbles across a ruined Aztec shrine to an ancient monkey god. 'Montoko the Monkey-God' saves Shelley and transforms her into his champion; The Monkey's Bite. As The Monkey's Bite, Shelley Adams is an agile, cat-burgling vigilante who occasionally displays mystics powers as and when the story demands. Shelley tries to balance battling communists and criminals with spending time with her boyfriend, the eminently handsome and dreamy Mike, to whom Shelley tries hard to conceal her monkey-like behaviours. 

The Monkey's Bite, was intended to appeal to female readers, but with the heroine dressing and acting like a monkey, Zing Weekly was unsuccessful in this goal and the comic was soon cancelled. 

7. Lady Svengali 

First Appearance: October 1936

Last Appearance: October 1937

Original Publisher: Intriguing Tales Nightly

Created By: Vincent Mellinger

A complete vamp, Lady Svengali is an aristocratic spy with hypnotic powers and the occasional high-tech gadget. Lady Svengali was an extremely early comics anti-heroine - a seductive sleuth who came to match her wits and wiles with gentlemen-thieves, gangsters, foreign agents, cruel aristocrats and mad scientists. She had a small and dedicated fanbase but ultimately her stories were considered too sultry by mainstream audiences and even pornographic by some. Magazine distributors soon began removing copies of Intriguing Tales Nightly from shelves and selling them in brown paper envelopes to those that asked for the publication by name. Lady Svengali is a favourite of many early superhero scholars; experts consider her character an underrated outlier, well ahead of her time. 

8. The Scarlet Smog

First Appearance: January 1938

Last Appearance: December 1939

Original Publisher: Deluxe Publications

Created By: Algy Smith

The Scarlet Smog was a scientist who had invented 'smog pills' - a form of medication that when swallowed (or sometimes even thrown) gifted him vague smog based powers. Rather inaptly, his smog is not scarlet, so his moniker must be based solely on his striking crimson suit, skullcap and goggles. The concept was not picked up by readers and in annoyance, Algy Smith killed off The Scarlett Smog in what became his final issue. 'The Death of The Scarlet Smog' is considered the best story of the run and is full of doom, dread and pathos. 

 

9. The Transistor Twins 

First Appearance: July 1946

Last Appearance: September 1946

Original Publisher: Wisconsin Electronics Monthly

Created By: Terrence Blister

The Transistor Twins were two identical heroes named after the exciting upcoming peice of technology - The Transistor! The twin sisters exhibited a range of scientific powers such as 'television waves' that allow them to see distant locations or 'trans-conductive travel' that allowed them to travel through metal wiring. In their single, unfinished story they saved some local children from bullies and it is implied they come from another world. 

The comic strips were seen as a strange addition to Wisconsin Electronics Monthly, and quickly removed. Readers hadn't even learnt the twin's names or how to tell them apart. 

10. Witch-Buster

First Appearance: May 1933

Last Appearance: October 1938

Original Publisher: Black Cloak Comics

Created By: Howard J. Winters

Witch-Buster busts witches and the crooks they do business with. Don't let this erudite, pipe-smoking fellow's manners deceive you - he is a master of hand-to-hand combat and occult extermination. Witch-Buster possesses a grappling-hook gun, pocket-sized fire bombs and a variety of potions, occult charms and holy symbols. Witch-Buster's origins are mysterious and his identity unknown, maybe he doesn't have one. 

In Witch-Buster's long, pulpy run of stories he fought a host of occult and paranormal foes including werewolves, satanists, voodoo zombies and even some rather bootleg pseudo-lovecraftian entities. Witch-Buster's reputation among his paranormal enemies is so fearsome that on one occasion a demon slew their own conjurer and unsummoned themselves rather than face him. The character of Witch-Buster continued to feature in private short stories until the author's death in the 1960's.  

All Unused Art:

Captain Frankenstein 

El Cid of 2009

The Monkey's Bite 

Radioactive Skeleton Woman 

The Transistor-Twins

My Ability Score Generation Method - One 1 Once

Rolling up a character with the boys (they're impressed by my new method)

Everyone has a pet method for rolling ability scores, '3d6 in order' and '4d6 drop lowest - arrange to taste' are both very well known (I invite you to share your favored method in the comments under this post). Here's one I like to use and haven't encountered before. Therefore it's mine. I call it '3d6 - One 1 Once'.

Each player generates their ability scores in order using 3d6 - totalling them as usual. However, of these 3d6, two dice are the same colour and the third is of a different colour. This third die is your 'lucky die'. Whenever an ability score is rolled for and the lucky die results in a 1, it can be rerolled once - if it results in another 1 it cannot be rerolled again. Only the lucky die can be rerolled in this way. All ability scores are rolled for via this method, when complete, two ability scores may be swapped with one another. 

This method is fun enough, quick and does away with most (but not all) ability scores of 3 and can even turn 13's into 18's. The method results in similar average ability scores as rolling 3d6 alone does.

Searchers of the Unknown - Foreign Planets Edition

Searchers of the Unknown is a great little set of rules by Nicolas Dessaux. I have made(like many before me) my own version of the rules, making a few mechanical alterations/additions and rewriting some sections for clarity. I have tried to keep aesthetics, format and tone similar to the original. The rules fit on one double sided piece of paper and the standout mechanic is that there are no ability scores. Armour Class is the main determiner of what your character can and cannot easily achieve. The rules would work well for a series of connected dungeon-delving one shots.

Get the rules here

 

Doomed Polar Expeditions to Dread Hyperborea

The emperor has commissioned an expedition to explore the icy north of the continent – to reach the ruined, sorcerous realms of darkest Hyperborea. What exotic provisions are provided? What hazards will they encounter? What happens when the ice freezes the expedition in place?

This post should provide a host of ideas to kickstart your own doomed arctic campaign. The campaign is by definition - doomed, it’s a bleak and uncaring experience. AMC’s The Terror is quintessential Appendix N viewing for this blogpost. While the series features the paranormal, transposing the doomed arctic expedition concept into a low-fantasy world, where magic is supposedly more common, only increases the potential for fantastically misery inducing experiences and phenomena.

Below you will find several tables that can used to generate your own unique polar voyage. Starting with the number and type of ships, the personalities of the ship's officers, the supplies and crew (that sound good but will inevitably backfire), the strange and deadly phenomena of the arctic circle and a list of terrors that will doggedly hunt and destroy your wayward ships and ever diminishing and decreasingly sane crew. Soundtrack 1 or Soundtrack 2.

The Black Ruins of Hyperborea

A mysterious and ruined civilization known for it's black stone architecture. Great polished inky stones that sometimes defy gravity. While this is the ultimate destination of the expedition, reaching the ruined cities of Dread Hyperborea is not the point; failing on the way is. Should the expedition reach that desolate place, they'd be met with even greater and insurmountable struggles than they faced on the journey - demons awaking from millennial slumber, infinitely ancient sorcerer-kings, floating labyrinthine complexes of ever changing cyclopean and flawless stonework, the waking of countless cold-mummified Hyperborean thralls, of swirling neon blackholes and eldritch UFOs.

Ships of the Expedition:

The expedition should be comprised of 1-3 ships, two is most recommended. The ships are likely sturdy, albeit small, ex-military combat ships with complements of 50-75 men each.

If you’d rather roll, your expedition is comprised of d3 ships. Roll for each ship’s type using a d6.

1. Ex-Merchantman, crew 50, well-travelled with ample storage – roll one additional specialist item.   

2. Old Gun-Brig, crew 70, slow with one additional high-ranking officer.

3. Sloop-of-War, crew 100, still possesses a full battery of 20 cannons.   

4. Bomb Ship, crew 60, sturdy and hard to sink, still carries a bombardment gun and rockets.

5. Arctic Schooner, crew 20, fast and designed to withstand the pressure of being trapped in the ice.

6. Fly-Ship, crew 40, old fashioned but with an experienced crew.

(7. Something more exotic like an airship, balloon, strange beast, exotic ship or even a great many canoes)

Roll an extra detail for each ship with a d8. The ship…

1. is coated in crimson paint.

2. has black sails.

3. has a small shrine to minor god.

4. the ship’s crew has a fantastic animal mascot.  

5. has a monstrous figurehead.

6. is rumoured to be haunted.

7. the ship’s mast is covered with priestly sigils and carvings.

8. has a small scientific and alchemical laboratory with specimen jars of strange, preserved creatures.  

Roll for each ship's name using a d4 and a d12 on the table below.

Leadership

Next, name and generate the personality of each ship's captain and their second in commands. Then determine the order of their seniority. Both these things will be very important should anyone die or become incapable of leadership. All ships are assumed to have a medical officer/surgeon and a cook among many other positions. Larger ships will have a complement of marines. These NPC’s can be fleshed out as they come up in play.

Mundane Resources and Provisions:

A huge, detailed list of gear and provisions is not necessary to prepare. Assume you have 3 years of rations for the expedition’s full complement and if any player requests or searches for a specific item, decide by fiat if that item is or is not available. If unsure, give a x-in-6 chance of that item being aboard.

Fantastic Resources:

Each ship also carries 3 specialist items or crew, roll for them randomly on this d20 table, decide on a case-by-case basis if you reroll the same resource or crew member. These resources take the form of items, crew, additions to the ship or missions the expedition must complete on its voyage. They are all damning and despite best intentions will all actively make the journey more difficult or drag it into complete ruin.  

1. A repaired metal man, a special gift from the emperor. An ancient war-relic of forgotten millennia, now simply working as a tireless stevedore. Let us hope the black stonework of Hyperborea not reawaken his memory of primordial, emotionless violence.

2. A lunatic veteran of a failed expedition, he says he feels of sounder mind now and is surely safe and stable. I've heard at night he sleeps in a lead lined coffin; heard he screams in an unknown language too.

3. Half of our provisions are preserved via a new alchemical method! These strange untested chemicals will doubtlessly ensure our rations keep fresh and uncontaminated. Whoever keeps whispering about side-effects and a 'mutation of the brain' are just fear mongers. 

4. We are accompanied by a cruel witch, aboriginal to these regions. She will surely protect us from the dread weather and malicious spirits that inhabit this polar region

5. The mummified body of a dread Hyperborean. For reasons unknown to us, we are to return it to the black, funerary halls of his eldritch empire. The men joke expectantly about him coming back to life. They also say if he doesn't resurrect and the ship runs low on good rations, they'll try eating him. 

6. A local folk oracle, one of those cunning-folk from back home whose visions will advise us and help guide us through the ice. The crew are enamoured with him. He couldn't possibly be a messianic sham who gives terrible advice. 

7. A giant, mysterious egg found on a previous expedition. Scientifically, we are meant to find whatever laid it, but it could feed the crew for two weeks. Let us hope it doesn't hatch, or we eat it and the mother find us!

8. A polished Hyperborean stone, recovered from the captain's last expedition to Hyperborea. He uses the floating stone as a mirror in his cabin. Surely it doesn't show him strange dread-visions. The captain’s mind must remain sane for this expedition to be a success! 

9. The ship's fighting-marines have been gifted dire-wolf fur coats by the Emperor himself. The wolves were worshipped by some nameless cult of our empire's tribal enemies - their wolf-god's furs are not inhabited by the beasts' ferociously vengeful, possessive and animalistic spirits. 

10. Astrovox. A modified astrolabe that will supposedly be used to listen to the voices of the outer planets. Their voices are said to better permeate our world in its most northerly region. Let us hope their cosmic messages are kind, induce sanity and that their ire is not drawn against us. 

11. Our ship is fitted with a Borealis Attractor. Some hitherto untested and arcane machine that will call down those alien lights so they we may better study and understand them. One would suppose the lights are just that - light, but is the world not strange and cruel? Great mysteries await.

12. Why are we loading so many barrels of blood onto the ship? Is it a new, ghoulish alternative to lime juice? I'd rather get scurvy if that's the case... and why do we never see the captain’s second above deck during the day? 

13. Our ship is fitted with an experimental Solar Engine. The machine will melt the ice in the path of our ships. It is surely a reliable, safe and stable machine and well worth the 6 months of food and supplies we had to leave behind so we could store the Solar Engine's eminently corrosive fuel. 

14. The crow’s nest (which is manned by a dark, unpopular and slightly unhinged man) is fitted with an array of astronomical and nautical gauges along with a sniper's rifle. It's a bespoke heavy-sharpshooter's rifle with quick breech-loading and dense, armour-piercing bullets made of meteoric iron. The gun can shoot at all angles, even down into the rigging and onto the deck, though that would be very dangerous for the crew! Let us hope this malicious fellow remains of sound, loyal and patient mind.

15. Ninety-nine great-turtles, stacked alive. They're very hearty, long-lived and make for excellent long-term supply of meat. They're imported from a single, southerly island and soon there won't be many left. I've heard tales also of some parasitic-come-predatory leech from those parts that gestates within the great-turtles. God-forbid it infect one of the men, it would mean a blood-curdling end for him and hideous, killer creature for the rest of us.

16. Diving Suits for our mission to find evidence of a supposedly lost race of mythical, arctic-ocean dwellers - the Deep Elves. We hope (should we encounter any) that their nature is merciful, their intelligence comprehendible and benevolent (and their architecture euclidean)

17. The Resurrection Pills. Though unpopular with the men, the chief surgeon has been ordered by the naval academy to employ the use of Resurrection Pills. Why waste dead men when we can bring them back? True, the resurrected aren’t good for thinking or talking and after a while they start to act… peculiar but orders are orders. We have brought many hundreds of these pills. Enough for each man aboard to be brought back twice over.

18. A crate of featureless, whalebone masks. They were obtained from a polar culture contacted 50 years prior to this expedition. The tribe had just begun a mask cult and these masks were integral features of this tribe's newly burgeoning religion. Anthropologically, We are to check on them to see how they have developed. Hopefully their faith has grown to promote hospitality and non-violence.

19. A 'gift' for the natives to keep them diplomatic, engaged and pliable. It’s an open secret but in storage we have bushels and bushels of Yellow Zeng – the narcotic. It’s always guarded but I’m sure the captain won’t mind us taking the odd pinch of the stuff. It tastes like a good batch too, not that paranoia inducing cheap stuff.    

20. The Captain's pet indigo-tiger. God forbid we are unable to feed it. 

What terror doggedly pursues the crew?

This is the main threat to the expedition that will hound it mercilessly. It is clever, has mastery over and immunity to the hostile landscape and is almost unkillable. There is only one threat of this magnitude per expedition. Roll a d10  

1. The Bake-kujira, The Bone-Whale. A huge skeletal creature interested in the souls of mortal men. It exudes debilitating protoplasm and chalk-board screams. It is capable of swimming through the frigid wind in pursuit of men to devour.

2. The Flesh-Golem. 12 foot to the shoulder, this charnel beast of a ‘man’ lives an exiled half-life of self-hatred in the polar north. His self-loathing tempered only by his steely desire to visit abject vengeance upon mortal men. It is highly intelligent, cultured and literate. Its fists can pulp a man’s skull in a heartbeat.     

3. The Corpse-Mammoth. A wind-dried mammoth cadaver possessed by necromantic energies. A purposeless, primeval lich-creature created by dark cosmic chance.

4. The Monolith, high up against the white-grey sky a huge featureless black stone drifts across the horizon. It whispers in men’s minds, makes them do things to their compatriots. Anyone that touches the stone has the blood drained from their bodies.

5. The Star-Spawn. A writhing mass of tendrils and eyes that flies and swims on membranous wings. It’s as old as time. It was there when the Hyperborean Empire fell.  

6. The Inupasugjuk. Twelve stories high, the Inupasugjuk is a cannibal giant from beyond the northern ice sheet.

7. The Savage King, a swirling ice mist of fang, tooth, fur, talon and tusk. The Savage King of Wild Hyperborea embodies the primal destructiveness and territoriality of its native fauna. It hates us and our civilised ways.

8. The Polar God. At first, we thought it was just an idol. One of the aboriginal’s carvings, only much larger. We were wrong – it’s alive.

9. The Wendigo. We picked this fellow up off the ice. He was naked, very gaunt and thin and wild but after warming him through and feeding him he spoke in our accent. Says he’s the only survivor of his expedition but he’s not being specific with the details. His eyes glint with preternatural malice. He ate his previous crew. He's a monster now.

10. The Doomed Expedition. Generate a new expedition with a single ship, a captain, special equipment/crew and the things they encountered. Their undoings have become twisted strengths in their forlorn undeath.

The Weird Ways of the Polar North;

Weather and other atmospheric/paranormal or environmental effects to be encountered with a degree of regularity. Roll a d10 every 4 months after the expedition’s first year.

1. Arctic Pollen. Strange neon spores cloud the polar winds drifting in streaks across the grey-white sky and settling on deck, on your clothes, on your face. All we know is that we should burn it out before it starts to grow.

2. Carnivorous Ice. Ice that eats. Nearly indistinguishable from any other ice flow save for the faint streaks of seal blood frozen into it. The flesh and bone-eating ice cracks under its intended prey and quickly refreezes crunching and slicing away as a means of attack and mastication. Carnivorous Ice is not alive as far as we can tell.

3. Razor Lights. Angled shafts of faint light, comparatively bright against the dim polar twilight, litter the seas and stony beaches of the polar north. Beware the lights as they slash through cloth and flesh at the gentlest touch. 

4. Blizzard Watchers. Sometimes during blizzards, we see them. Black specks that move through the snow-grey clouds and hang above our ships. An officer observed them through his looking glass and said they looked like men in flowing black robes and would answer no other questions about what he saw. 

5. Screamers. The first rescue party sent to investigate the cries never returned. We don’t know what they are but after sunset and during the long sunless winter we hear them screaming. These things scream out on the ice, usually they are far from the ship and their shrill cries echo across the frozen waste. But recently, they’ve been getting closer. The men are getting unnerved. 

6. Anti-Sun. During the long night, when the sun sets and doesn’t rise again for months, another alien sun takes its place. An inverted solar eye, of a deeper black set against the darkness of the night, it emanates cold and malice. It wends elliptically across the inky sky sometimes halting to glower above us. 

7. Creeping Snowdrifts. Crawling across the ice fields or up your fur coat towards your face, the snow is trying to asphyxiate you. 

8. Messenger Columns. Huge pillars of solid, translucent ice thrice the height of a man stand isolated against the flat, pebble strewn islands and cracked spines of the ice-field’s bergs. Gazing into the column’s ink-swirled depths reveals shimmering, hallucinatory images of distant lands, of your home. Nerve-shot sailors find it hard or impossible to look away and will be found the following morning frozen into the icy column. 

9. Flesh-Stripping Pseudo-Waves. Great, mindless, moving hills of sea-grey jelly, rimed will polar frost that slowly circle the seas, icefields, tundra and rocky islands of the Hyperborean north swelling and sweeping up unfortunate seals, bears and sailors alike to be devoured in its colossal mass. These rare phenomena emerge from the depths of the ocean to float across its surface or press through cracks in the icefield sweeping the land for things to consume.

10. Poltergeist. Whether an effect of the strange magnetism that confuses our compasses or something altogether more supernatural, objects have been being stacked, rearranged and thrown. All men must be wary should rigging be knotted, the anchor dropped or an invisible hand carry a candle to the powder store.  

Vignette Encounters

These things are typically only encountered once per expedition. Roll a d8 for each year of the expedition, reroll results that have already been encountered or use it as an opportunity to revisit them.   

1.  Downed Monolith-Ship. We’d thought them only fanciful stories - of men, sky-pirates taking to the biting wind atop Hyperborea’s floating black masonry. But here they are. Their crashed rock’s rope bindings and wooden platforms lie smashed on the rocky shore. The crew’s skeletons scattering in the wind.   

2.  Night Fliers. Tens of thousands of them, these flying things - like jellyfish filling the entire night sky.

3.  Northbound Souls. Pale bodies move just below the ice and float ever northward. I wouldn’t touch them; they make me feel sick.

4.  Isle of Skulls. Those aren’t stones…

5.  The Abandoned Ship. Roll a new ship, name and one fantastic resource. The ship is completely abandoned, food and beds might still be warm. If the fantastic resource is a crew member, they are the soul survivor and shouldn't be trusted.    

6.  Friendly Aboriginals. Gods be praised. A tiny family of friendly natives. They have too little food to spare to so many of us but they might teach us a thing or two about how to survive.

7. The Shaman, a funny fellow of the native sort – strange, esoteric rituals and behaviours. If the shaman is mistreated by the crew a second terrible thing from the terror table is unleashed on the expedition. If he is treated well the shaman abates whatever is harrying the expedition for several weeks before departing further north.

8. Cannibal Shrine. The captain ordered us trusted crewmen to destroy it. It was built from (and possibly by) our own kin folk and countrymen, we could tell because the skeletons were wearing our nation’s uniform. It’s better the widows back home keep thinking that their men just disappeared.   

Kaiju Generator

Here is a set of tables for creating gigantic 'strange beasts' in the style of 20th century giant monster movies. This post was requested by Eldritch Fields and comes without stats for the time being. When I write some colossal scale combat rules I'll revisit this post.

KAIJU GENERATOR

Don't mind the document's self-serious artwork. The random tables are replete with kaiju gifs and even a few curious fan music-videos! Many are quite goofy, the 'cutting ray' gif is my favourite. 

I owe something to interwebkaiju whose kaiju-focused youtube channel I binged while writing this all up.

Universal Battle and War Framework

War, battles. Everyone has their own system for running them. Here’s my attempt. Whenever two forces meet in a contested space and the resultant conflict would be too large to game with standard OSR combat rules, this framework can be used. The framework allows for any scale of conflict to be simply fought - from a large skirmish to a year long siege to an entire front of an industrial war to a clash across the solar system by two opposing star-fleets. As such it eschews the granularity of individual troop movements, numbers and statistics. While the framework is a fully structured and ruled minigame; representing such breadth and variety of conflict requires a more narrative and abstract approach. This post was inspired by this document by an anonymous author. For much of this post, I will refer to these conflicts as battles as it is more likely that is what the framework will commonly be used for.

The framework is reasonably simple and quick with most of the battle prep performed during the session. There is no particularly demanding number crunching involved. The system also allows for opportunities for player intervention to be played out using your normal game system. All players equally command a front of a battle or theatre of a war. If the narrative of your campaign does not support this, allow the players to assume to role of commanders during the battle and their own player characters during battlefield interventions. There are additional rules and suggestions at the end of this post to expand upon the framework. The most important is a guide that allows different classes play the framework’s battle minigame differently like in ‘Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter’.

This framework requires a rather large quantity of d20’s and d12’s, three tokens or cards per player and an equal number of sets for the DM (each of the three tokens should be labelled assault, defend and manoeuvre) as well as a quantity of gems or glass beads, anything to represent attrition. The minigame is best suited for parties of 3 or more players.

To summarize the system; battles are fought on the strengths and advantages each respective army has over the other. These advantages - numbers, morale, supply, defensive terrain, magic, technology anything - are represented by pools of d20’s (dubbed battle dice). These battle dice pools denote an army’s overall fighting ability. These dice pools are divided amongst the players who each command their own front of the battle. Once the battle dice are divided into each player’s front, the battle begins. Each opposing front does battle by rolling their pools of battle dice against each other. The results of the roll can lead to effects such as eliminating an enemy battle dice, dealing out attrition, or even creating a flashpoint for the PC’s to intervene and turn the tide of battle. These opposed rolls are further modified by the orders given by the PC’s. A canny order can seriously disadvantage the enemy.

Conflicts are fought in this order. Each stage will be detailed with guidance and examples throughout this post. The bold stages repeat in descending order until the battle is concluded.

• Prebattle roleplay
• Planning stage
• Weigh-In Stage
• Orders stage
• Battle stage
• Morale stage

Prebattle Roleplay
This is your regular character driven game with the players roleplaying their various efforts in preparation for the conflict; moving their army, deciding on the location of the battle, bolstering the own army with allies, sabotaging and spying on the enemy – anything. All this will inform the next several stages of the battle minigame. Once the player’s and enemy’s armies are committed to fight move on to the next stage.

Planning Stage
This stage represents the meeting of the player commanders ahead of the battle to plan their strategy. Armies are only effective if their commanders understand how to best utilise them. As a team, the PC's consult on the strengths of their army and the advantages they have over their enemy. These advantages and strengths are the ones the player character commanders will press in the upcoming battle. These advantages can take any form and will likely be different depending on the context of each battle the army fights. It rewards knowledge of military tactics, of the player’s own army and of the enemy army. If an advantage is not selected by the players it is not an advantage the commanders will press in the battle. Each PC selects their one strength/advantage and the party moves into the army weigh-in stage.

Weigh-In Stage
This is the armchair general stage in which the relative strengths of each army (decided upon in the planning stage) are argued. At the start of this stage, both the PC and NPC armies are assigned a number of battle dice (d20’s) equal to the number of players present. Both sides want to increase the amount of battle dice their army can field and they will do so by leveraging the advantages and strengths of their respective armies. Begin with the PC’s arguments first. One at a time, each player will state the advantage that they had decided upon and make any arguments as to the strength of this advantage.

If there are 3-5 players, assign 1, 2 or 3 battle dice to the army’s dice pool depending on the strength of the argument. Assign in greater numbers if the player count is higher. The DM may state that the NPC army has a means to counter or weaken an advantage put forth by the players. This counter can reduce (or in some rare cases, cancel out) any awarded battle dice. Once the players have presented their advantages, it is the DM’s turn. The players can likewise provide counter arguments as the DM did to theirs. Keep this stage pacey, fair and consistent.

Once both sides have made their cases and amassed a pool of battle dice, share the battle dice equally among the players

For an example, a party has 4 players. They are leading a futuristic force against a primitive horde of monstrous humanoids and their tamed beasts:

• The first player states that their army’s weaponry and armour vastly outmatch their enemy’s - power-armour and laser-rifles vs furs and clubs. This is a clear advantage and a strong argument, so the DM assigns 3 additional battle dice to the player’s army.
• The next player states that their army is positioned along a clearly defensive range of hills and valleys and holds the high ground. The DM responds by saying that the enemy have a large contingent of huge burrowing worms that could weaken this advantage. This player's argument is rated good, and the party's army is given 2 additional battle dice.
• The third player is rather cocky and says that their character is so good at fighting they are their own advantage - the DM gives 1 battle die for this argument.
• The fourth player says they are fighting at night and that their army have night-vision goggles while the enemy rely on torch-light, a clever argument that earns 3 additional battle dice.

The party's total pool of battle dice = 13 dice. These 13 dice are divided among the 4 players for each player’s front.

The enemy has their turn to make arguments. The NPC army put forth their advantages and make the same number of arguments as the players. They start with the same number of battle dice as the player's do - four. Here are the arguments:

• The enemy troops are troll-like, much larger and stronger than the humans in the player's army. A player responds saying brute strength does not matter when shot with a laser-rifle. The DM agrees and assigns 1 battle dice to the enemy army.
• The enemy army vastly more numerous than the player’s army. A player responds saying that his army possesses area denial weapons such as flamethrowers and mortars and hold defensive passes and hills. A resounding argument so the DM downgrades the 3 battle dice he would have given to the enemy to 1 battle dice instead.
• The enemy has expert knowledge of the land and terrain so they can travel hidden at speed to surround the player’s army. A player suggests that his army has the technology to survey and analyse the landscape to prevent this but is reminded by the DM that they did not order any recon to be done when they were preparing for the battle during the prebattle roleplay of the normal game other than finding the biggest set of hills to position their army on. The DM assigns 2 battle dice.
• The enemy has a small number of captured laser rifles. 1 battle dice is assigned.

Enemy army total battle dice = 9 dice. These 9 dice are divided into 4 fronts to oppose the 4 player’s fronts.

Orders Stage
Each player (and each NPC commander controlled by the DM) is given a set of three tokens or cards labelled assault, defend and manoeuvre. Before rolling their battle dice, each player and the DM selects one of these tokens (the DM selects one token for each front). Each represents a particular tactic a commander can order their force to engage in. On the count of 3, all players and the DM will flip over or reveal their chosen order tokens and compare their order with the opposing front’s order.

• Assault beats Manoeuvre
• Manoeuvre beats Defend
• Defend beats Assault

Whichever front loses rolls d12’s instead of d20’s for their battle dice during the Battle Stage, if both sides draw then both fronts roll d20's…

Battle Stage
Now, all along the battlefield is violence and destruction. Each front, both player and DM rolls their pool of battle dice. Some fronts roll d12’s and other d20’s depending on the success of their tactics in the order’s stage. 

For each front, from each rolled pool of battle dice, the highest die is selected. This highest die is compared with the opposing front’s highest rolled die. The difference between these two highest dice determines the outcome of that front’s battle stage.

• If one front’s highest die is lower in value than the opposing fronts (but is not less than half value) that low rolling front gains one point of attrition - i.e., 8 vs 15. Give the losing front a bead to represent this point of attrition.
• If one front’s highest die is double the value of the opposing fronts, the lesser die is wiped out and removed from play and the losing front gains 1 point of attrition. – i.e., 16 vs 8.
• If the dice match, then there is an opportunity for the players to intervene. I.e., 16 vs 16. There is a section detailing the player interventions at the end of the post.

Attrition represents the grind of battle that consumes casualties, supplies and morale. On all subsequent battle stages, for each bead of attrition a front has suffered, it receives a cumulative -1 to future battle rolls. Attrition is also important during the upcoming morale stage.

Once all fronts have resolved their battle rolls move onto the Morale Stage.

Ensure the battle remains exciting by providing descriptive commentary of the battle. How attacks are repulsed and units wiped out by the whims of the dice. Allow the players to chime in with what is happening on the battlefield.

Morale Stage
Reeling back from the combat your forces must steel their resolve or withdraw the field. A front rolls its remaining battle dice (using d20’s) against the amount of attrition it has accrued in battle stages. Any dice that is lower than the amount of attrition withdraws from the battle. At this stage the players review the overall state of their army and decide whether to continue fighting. Should they wish to continue, then move back onto the Orders stage. The amount of attrition and battle dice a front possesses does not change in returning to the Orders stage and will continue to be worn down over the course of the battle as each stage repeats itself.

The enemy army should have some predetermined threshold of losses at which they route perhaps linked to the morale save of their chiefest commander or the elimination of 50 or 75 percent of their total battle dice.

Player Intervention
During the Battle Stage, if the two highest opposing battle dice match it represents that crucial moment where heroic PC intervention could turn the tide of the fight.  

An easy method for generating a scenario is to place one or several landmarks or key features within each player’s front such as a ruined keep atop a hill, a cave-pocked cliff face or crashed space-station. When the opportunity for PC intervention arises, place one of the opposing force’s strengths into this landmark for the PC’s to deal with. A cabal of fireball casting wizards could be placed into the ruined keep, enemy snipers could be ensconced into the cavernous cliffs, or the crashed space-station could be blown up to destroy a huge horde of enemy rad-zombies. Just like running a one-shot dungeon, rarely should player characters be expected to travel a great distance to reach the battlefield flashpoint - keep it pacey. 

Should the PC’s successfully deal with the situation the enemy front's matching enemy battle dice is wiped out and all enemy fronts gain 1 additional point of attrition. There can only be 1 player character intervention per battle stage

Other Rules to Consider:

Timescale
The DM should inform the players of the time scale over which the battle will be fought. The battle stage could take 10 minutes for a small engagement, an hour for a large battle or a whole month if simulating an entire low-intensity guerrilla war.

Class Commanders
Different classes engage in the battle minigame differently. While the roles are loosely class based, a player may select which role bests fits their character.

• Healing classes can deal with attrition. During a Healers morale roll, for each of the d20's that roll a result of 20 or equal to the amount of attrition their front has accrued, decrease that front's attrition total by 1.
• Sneaking classes can swap their order with another player who has lost after orders have been revealed, this can be done a number of times per battle equal to the player count.
• Arcane classes are better suited to commanding the weird and the magical. Arcane classes gain an extra argument during the Planning and subsequent Weigh-In stages. This argument must pertain to some fantastic advantage within the player’s forces but cannot provide more than 2 additional battle dice.
• Fighting classes: select a speciality order and get +4 to their battle dice whenever that order is used. A Fighting commander who is specialized in defensive tactics would get a +4 on their battle dice whenever they give the Defend order.

Enemy Leadership
Genius or blundering enemy leadership may have +1/-1 arguments than the players during the weigh-in stage.

Enemy Supplies
A well or under supplied army starts with more or less battle dice before arguments are made during the weigh-in stage. This allows players to sabotage enemy supplies before the battle even begins.

Predictable Enemies

Elves might prefer manoeuvre orders, Dwarves may favour Defend orders and Orcs are suited to Assault orders. 

The Killer:
Killer assets possessed by an army such as gigantic death-rays, summoned gods, titans, Achilles style warriors are represented with a d4 rather than a d20. The Killer (and the killer dice) is attached to a front. When that front's battle dice are rolled, also roll that front’s killer die. When compared to the opposing front's dice, any one die that is under the number rolled on the killer die is wiped out (but no attrition is gained). This is in addition to any dice that are doubled. If the killer die matches with a battle die. It allows the players to intervene and attempt to slay/disable the Killer asset and remove the killer die from play. However, there can only be 1 party intervention per battle stage.

Sieges
The side that is defending in a siege style scenario gets a free argument relating to their defences and preparedness. Battle dice are assigned according to the quality of the defences vs the attacker’s means of dealing with those defences

Different Styles of Warfare
Assault, defend and manoeuvre. These words can be changed into anything to better fit the style of warfare in your campaign, for example, Volley, Skirmish, Flank March for a more Napoleonic style, or Charge, Shield-Wall and Harass for something more medieval. Likewise Front should be altered to better fit the scale and period of the conflict, Theatre could be used for a continental conflict, Sector for science-fiction combat or even District for urban warfare or revolutions.

Fearless Foes
Fearless armies, such as the undead do not roll morale but still take the negative modifiers associated with attrition. Truly fearless armies are rare, even undead armies will have sentient commanders, such armies would have bonuses to their morale rolls instead.

Front Positioning
For simplicity's sake, assume that the player’s fronts are situated along the battlefield according to where they are sitting at the table. Gareth is sitting to the right of Lucy so his barbarian player character is leading his front to the right of her dwarf character's front.

Sending Reinforcements

To reinforce an allied front a battle dice may be transferred to an adjacent player at the end of the Morale stage. Battle dice can only be transferred to players whose fronts are next to one another. Only one battle die can be moved this was per player. A front's attrition remains the same despite reinforcements.

Maps

the system is largely writing for the theatre of the mind. That said providing a map of the battlefield greatly helps players to situate themselves and their individual fronts. Counters representing different units are not needed but a map showing the terrain and landmarks helps greatly. Assault, Defend and Manoeuvre orders suggest the movement of troops across the battlefield map.

Front Destruction and 2 Fronts Attacking 1 Front

If a front is completely destroyed or routed, the surviving opposed front joins an adjacent commander in battling a surviving enemy front. Multiple fronts may fight a single surviving front once they have defeated their direct opposing front. During the Orders stage one order is given for both fronts. In the battle stage, both fronts roll their own battle dice pools separately, comparing both the highest dice they roll with the single front's 2 highest dice. Therefore, two fronts fighting one front could wipe out two battle dice, inflict 2 points of attrition, are twice as likely to result in player intervention or any combination of these three result. However, the single front can only battle 1 front enemy front at a time, even if its highest dice doubles both enemy fronts it can only harm one of them. If a second front comes to the aid of the lone front then all 4 fronts pair off in opposition as they would in normal play.  

Player Front Destruction

When a wise player's front is reduced to a single battle dice they should combine with an adjacent player's front. If a player's front is destroyed the player(s) must decide to fight or flee. If they elect to stay and fight a last stand they should roll their HD, taking the result as damage - if they survive they inflict a point of attrition on the enemy flank, after this they may choose to flee, surrender or try and fight again until slain. If fleeing, save vs paralysis. If successful the player has escaped and moves to an adjacent player's front, if unsuccessful they are at the mercy of the enemy and will likely taken prisoner.       

Battlefield events 

I haven't thought much about this but during a battle roll if a d20 rolls a 1 (or perhaps equal to the commanders level during a Morale Stage) the commanding player roll on a random table and experience a battlefield event such as being wounded or getting shell-shock. I might be a later post if  people seem interested.