Maze of the Blue Medusa: Session 1

Our Heroes

Kellen Nancy, child of Anansi. Words are Endurance, Luck, and Passion. Born of the spider gods dream, he has made it his mission to find and help the worlds most hopeless person. He has reason to believe he (or she?) resides within the maze.
Eizen, son of Atlas. Words are Earth, Might, and Sun. A thrill-seeker who has spent a lifetime travelling the world in search of fun and profit. His journey in the maze was sparked by boredom, and a lust for unique sights and experiences not found in our world.
Nemora, son of Apollo and an unnamed Titan. Words are Earth, Endurance, and Sword. Trapped in a cave by his parents at a young age, he befriended Gaia, who eventually freed him. Since then, he has wandered the lands, training in every style and stance. He has entered the maze seeking a sword with the power to kill his parents.
Kali, daughter of Hades and Persephone. Words are Death, Fertility, and Health. Born in Erebus, she knew her mothers touch only four months out of every year. After earning her freedom, she set out on a quest to find a way to give her mother the same.

We began our session with the party having recently stolen the infamous painting, The False Chanterelle. The painting -- that of a naked woman chained from the ceiling in an opulent parlor room -- came with strange instructions: to explore the hallowed maze, touch this painting with a moonlit gaze. Under the next full moon, the party hangs the painting on the wall and flings open the shutter; in an instant, the painting comes to life. The woman turns her head and pleads for the party to touch the painting and rescue her. After briefly debating the relative merits of blindly trusting the words of an erotic drawing, the party decides that courage is nothing without a dash of recklessness, and steps forward to touch the canvas.

Inside the painting, the four interrogate the woman a bit more, learning that her name is Ashen Chanterelle and that she is being held here as a prisoner by Psathyrella Medusa, the warden of this place. She tells the party that she can open the locked door to the north, granting them access to the maze. However, Kali is a naturally distrustful person, and attempts to murder the prisoner nearly immediately. The other members manage to stop her from outright killing Ashen, but not before Kali has chopped off her hands. The rest of the party swiftly attempts to cauterize the wounds with a nearby torch, causing the woman to pass out due to shock. However, as the chains recede into small holes in the ceiling, they hear a click, and know that the door to the north is unlocked.

DM's Note: I deliberately changed this encounter from how it is written in the book (in which she is a treacherous backstabber who speaks nothing but lies). I knew my party would be suspicious of Ashen Chanterelle, so I decided to make her speak nothing but truths. In this way, I could foreshadow key aspects of the maze while still feeding into the players paranoia.

Ashen Chanterelle is still catatonic, however, and without the constant presence of Kali's stabilizing aura would perish in moments. Eizen hefts her onto his shoulders, and the whole party progresses through the northern door into a large, shadowy chamber. From deeper within they hear muttering, and upon approach they witness a very tall woman talking about destroying the maze. The lady, who sports midnight blue skin and a set of rams horns on either side of her head, introduces herself as Lady Crucem Capilli of Nyctopolis. After a short conversation in which she half-heartedly admonishes the party for nearly murdering an innocent captive, she requests the party bring her a piece of art from within the maze, alongside a detailed report on where it was found and what purpose it serves. With this, she fades back into the shadows and continues her conversation with herself.

Exploring the room, Eizen finds a trapdoor built into the east wall. He opens it, and immediately notices that something is wrong. The gravity inside this room has suddenly shifted, and Eizen finds himself falling sideways down a set of stairs towards the center of the new room. He swiftly rights himself and got his bearings: he is in a room with three staircases, each reorienting the gravity in the room to allow them to be safely traversed. Eizen attempts to open the door on the eastern side, but finds it locked. He motions for the other adventurers to follow him as he heads up the northern staircase.

The next room is even darker than Lady Capilli's, and the party halts before entering as they hear a light tune being hummed from within. Knowing that discretion is the better part of valor, they allow a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dark and walk forth to discover a strange, hermit crab-like creature cradling a malformed infant the size of a large dog. The shell lifts an arm to its mouth and whispers "shhh" before continuing its song, and the party heeds its warning and continues further north to a set of rope bridges.

Heading north from the bridges, the party enters a brightly-lit room dominated by half of a giant chessboard. The black pieces are all in place, minus both rooks, and on the other end of the room is a large, white, grub-like creature flailing spastically with a blunted toy sword. The party is speechless. After a spell, they attempt to make contact with the creature, but to no avail: the man-grub only babbles like a toddler and continues its forced, jerking movements. Nemora and Kellen get the idea to stand in the rook's position on the chessboard. As they do, they are immediately assailed by a psychic force. Nemora is overwhelmed and, with a forced flail, throws a sword at the grub. It misses by inches, and the spell is broken.

The players realize that something here is controlling the giant worm. Eizen moves closer to investigate and notices a strange bulge in what he assumes is the creature's stomach. With a mighty heave, he forces the grub to spit up its dinner: two stone rooks, slick with saliva. The forced flailings of the creatures limbs cease as the chess pieces are retrieved, and out of pity Eizen fashions a stone teething ring for the foolish child. Confident that this mystery has been solved, the party heads through the northeast arch to face the next challenge.

They step forth into a long room and immediately notice something is off about the floor. It's pitch darkness quivers slightly as they set foot on it, as if it were semi-solid. Several small disks float on its surface in random directions, but as the party enters they flip over to reveal large, dilated eyes and begin accelerating towards our heroes. Kali and Nemora make it across in time, but Eizen is caught in their gaze and is completely unable to move. As he begins to sink below the surface, a thorny vine erupts from Kali's hand, grasping and stretching through the room to wrap around Eizen's outstretched arm. The thorns dig into his skin, but he is pulled forth from the mire and successfully makes it across. As for Kellen, his godlike endurance renders him immune to the stony gaze of this room, and he strides across confidently.

However, all is not yet well. In the next room is a curious sight: a man with a crescent moon for a head, seated and drinking wine at a table alongside a giant hand and a mechanical fox. He sets his glass down and introduces himself as Mr. Torgos Zooth, chief servant of Psathyrella Medusa. He asks the party several questions: what their purpose is in the maze, how they are faring, if they've met anyone else here. As if under a spell, the party finds themselves unable to lie, and in their answers reveal the existence of Lady Capilli. This greatly interests Mr. Zooth, especially after Kellen mentions that Lady Capilli intends to destroy the maze. Torgos excuses himself, and his body fades away as the moon on his shoulders rapidly transitions from waxing to full to waning to gone.

At this point the party decides to head back to Lady Capilli's room and strike due west. The room they enter is a large and blindingly bright. A miniature sun rotates around the upper rim of the walls once a minute, casting long shadows on every object here. Eizen and Kali are the first to move through it, but as soon as Eizen's massive shadow passes over Kali she falls into it as if it were a pit. She sees the opening close above her, and makes an attempt to jump clear, but it's closing too fast. The light catches up to her just as her last leg is emerging from the pit, and it is cleanly removed below the knee.

Kali's screams echo through the silent maze. Eizen rushes back to help her, making certain that at no point do their shadows overlap. He manages to drag her into the next room, but she's losing blood fast. She demands that he cauterize her wounds the same as he did the Ashen Chanterelle's. Reluctantly he agrees, and thrusts a torch against the surgically-precise cleave. The smell of acrid flesh fills the air, and Kali passes out.

Nemora and Kali quickly rush across the room (one at a time, thankfully) to join their companions. Kali's scream has brought attention to the party, and from deeper within the Gardens a birdlike shriek is heard. Immediately, six dark, humanoid creatures emerge from the underbrush. Each wears an expertly carved bird mask, and communicate with each other in short chirps and whistles. They brandish their twisted rapiers and descend upon the party. The three standing party members form a protective wall between the bird men and the downed Kali. Eizen lifts his massive fists and immediately a stone cage erupts from the ground around the foes. Kellen subtly weaves fate to cause the creatures to stab each other in the immediate confusion, and Nemora begins stabbing his swords through the gaps in the cage. However, the bird men have another twist up their sleeve. The one farthest from the party begins to weave a magical cloud of darkness centered on the party, and the rest cast bolts of pure energy that rip through our heroes armor and force them on the defensive. With one member down and Nemora deeply wounded, the party decides that this is a fight that can be fought another day and retreat back through the Sun Room.

However, it becomes immediately apparent that the cloud of darkness surrounding the party functions in the Sun Room just the same as shadows. The entire room is now a pitch-black pit, and it's only through another twist of luck that the party manages to find their way back into Lady Capilli's room. Kali finally wakes from her catatonia, and immediately fashions a new leg out of fresh vines that sprout from the stump. Standing, she notices the sound of conversation from the other end of the room. The party moves to the origin of the racket and discover Torgos Zooth and Lady Capilli in a heated argument. Zooth is demanding that Lady Capilli forsake her purpose and leave the maze, but the daughter of dragons is unintimidated. Fuming, Torgos disappears, but not before warning Lady Capilli and the party that Madame Medusa will learn of their treachery.

After he departs, our heroes crestfallenly reveal that they have not found any artwork fitting the blue woman's high standards. She is disappointed, but not surprised. The party promises to further explore the Gardens in their next excursion, and with that, they leave the maze through The False Chanterelle.

Labrys Lamia

Simon Bull, 2006

The Maze of the Blue Medusa has always been a place for dangerous and unwanted things: in its halls exist malformed children of unholy unions, deadly art and architecture, and worse. Its mysteries beckon adventurers from all over; today, four have answered the call. These children of gods, brought together by chance, each seek their own answers within the maze. Little do they know that while many of its inhabitants were brought here due to the changing tides of culture, some of them are turning out to be quite deserving of their imprisonment...

I've been wanting to run this since it was released in 2016. Maze of the Blue Medusa, written by Patrick Stuart and Zak S., is a megadungeon set inside a massive labyrinth. It's a bit Stonehell, a bit Tomb of Horrors, a bit Painted World of Ariamis, and a whole lot of the weirdness I've come to expect from Patrick and Zak. Suffice it to say, I'm a fan.

The module is system-neutral, which I have decided to take full advantage of by running it in Kevin Crawford/Sine Nomine's Godbound system. In it, the characters play demigods, and the sort of world-rending power usually associated with high level play -- resurrection, shaping earth, making oneself immune to damage -- are available from the start. In most other dungeons, this would be a disastrous upheaval of the power dynamic (there's a reason all the Godbound modules I found were sandboxes), but I've found it works incredibly well with the weird, pseudo-godlike nature of most of the creatures within the maze.

That being said, I have had to make some changes to allow for a tighter dungeoncrawl experience. For those familiar with the system, this is what I've done:

• Fray dice have been removed, as have Influence, Dominion, and the Apotheosis word
• Each character gains 1 HP from a short rest, taking approximately 10 minutes. Random encounters are rolled during this time as usual.
• The dungeon resets every night, so here is no sleeping within it. All characters must be outside by the end of the session or die (this is less severe than it sounds, as the dungeon is for the most part laid out on a single level).

During character creation, I asked each player three questions about their prospective demigod: who is their divine parent, how do their character normally interact with mortals, and what does their character seek inside the maze. With that, let us meet our prospective heroes...

Kellen Nancy, child of Anansi. Words are Endurance, Luck, and Passion. Born of the spider gods dream, he has made it his mission to find and help the worlds most hopeless person. He has reason to believe he (she?) resides within the maze.

Eizen, son of Atlas. Words are Earth, Might, and Sun. A thrill-seeker who has spent a lifetime travelling the world in search of fun and profit. His journey in the maze was sparked by boredom, and a lust for unique sights and experiences not found in our world.

Nemora, son of Apollo and an unnamed Titan. Words are Earth, Endurance, and Sword. Trapped in a cave by his parents at a young age, he befriended Gaia, who eventually freed him. Since then, he has wandered the lands, training in every style and stance. He has entered the maze seeking a sword with the power to kill his parents.

Kali, daughter of Hades and Persephone. Words are Death, Fertility, and Health. Born in Erebus, she knew her mothers touch only four months out of every year. After earning her freedom, she set out on a quest to find a way to give her mother the same.

Stay tuned for the next installment, dear reader.

Welcome to Feyfield Academy

Chris Van Alsburg

In the deepest forests of the Sylphenland there is a school unlike any other. From every corner of the four continents students come to learn the secrets of witchcraft, alchemy, and enchantments. Built directly upon the largest fairy hill in Lithica, for centuries Feyfield Academy has been the mithril standard in teaching the magical sciences. But dark clouds have settled upon the once-shining palisades of this ancient citadel, and an unease falls over the new student congregation as they enter these ancient halls. What will they discover during their mystic lessons? Who will fall victim to the dangers that lurk in the forest of the fey? Come, dear reader, as we explore the seven year journey of the last students of Feyfield Academy. 

Feyfield Academy is an upcoming Beyond the Wall campaign based in and around a magical school. The player characters start the game as fresh-faced 13-year old students entering their first year, with each session covering the events of a year at Feyfield.

All characters will be mages, or multiclassed with a bit of mage in them. Together, over the course of seven sessions, they will discover the dark secrets of the academy, the fairy hill it sits on, and perhaps even themselves.

Inspiration: Harry Potter, Little Witch Academia, Patrick Rothfuss (I only read the first one), this tumblr post, Faeries of the Faultlines

I imagine a world where the strange and the magical are more than just accepted, they are an integral part of daily life. Outside of the academy, strange creatures -- some good, some decidedly not -- stalk in the woods and gardens, older than time itself. The Fey themselves are alien, terrifying in their power and ability to manipulate others. You should never trust them.

I'll probably post more about the setting in the coming weeks/months while I finish up MotBM.

What Your Weapon Choice Says About You

by Raja the Red, retired adventurer

Axe, Battle
You know the value of intimidation and consider sneaking to be a waste of time. The idea of attacking without screaming feels odd to you, like steak without potatoes or wearing a shirt.

Axe, Hand
As above, but sometimes your target is more than 5 feet away.

Club
If you're using a club, thats because you were disarmed and happened to see a log lying nearby. If you actually bought one of these in town, then I can only assume you eat dirt for breakfast and have, at one point in your life, attempted a plunging attack.

Crossbow
I hate crossbows, and I probably hate you. All the annoyance of a cowardly archer with none of the wrist strength. If we ever cross paths, you better hope that first shot kills me, because I'll be looting your corpse by the time you manage to rack another bolt.

Dagger
You're a magic-user. If you ever have to use this, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Dagger, Silver
You have reason to believe lycanthropes may be afoot. A smart decision, but, like the dagger, if this is your first choice of weaponry, I don't foresee you using it to any major effect.

War Hammer
You, I like you. A pragmatist, someone who says, "could be skeletons, could be slimes. Best to keep my options open." If you chose a warhammer as your weapon of choice, you can stop reading these now. There's nothing more I can teach you, noble soldier.

Javelin
Another excellent choice, given its portability and ease of use. Problem is, it's a bit of a one-trick-pony: you can't break down a door with a javelin, or cut a rope, and it's not even long enough to function as an impromptu 10-foot pole. That being said, any strong adventurer worth their salt would do well to have a few of these strapped to their back.

Lance
You enjoy murdering people from 10' away, on horseback. It fills you with a sense of joy that you never experienced with your father, the landed Baron D'Auvine, whome trainede youe frome childhoode ine thee wayse ofe thee straightsworde, thee rapiere, ande thee salade-forke.

Long Bow
You're an elf, or you might as well be with the amount of time you spend running through trees and hunting rabbits. 

Mace
You're a cleric, or a particularly snooty paladin. Because the gods frown on the shedding of blood, but are a bit fuzzy on the subject of kneecaps.

Pole Arm
Now we're getting into the fun stuff. Remember what I said about War Hammers? It's about 300 words up, so if you don't, you probably buy clubs. Anyways, take the war hammer and push that versatility up another notch. You need to stab a guy from across the room? Pole arm's got you covered. Smash his brains in? Yup. Slice his head off? You bet your sweet ass. Need to keep some rough customers at bay to give your friends some breathing room? You picked the right weapon, you lucky ducky. The polearm is basically every weapon you could ever need, strapped to a hefty 6-8' reinforced wooden shaft that's perfect for parrying. And hey! If it turns out you don't actually want to kill the thing thats attacking you (I don't understand it myself, but I'm told it comes up from time to time) just flip your halberd around and beat it senseless with the non-pointy end. The polearm is the weapon of champions, although if you call it a "bec-de-corbin" or a "bill-guisarme" I'll take you outside and beat you with a stick.

Staff
I don't trust you. There's only two kinds of people who use staffs: wizards, and monks. Either way, someone's waking up with one hell of a headache tomorrow.

Short Bow
You kill people from horseback, but even using a spear or lance is getting too close for comfort. Alternatively, you're too short to use a real bow, in which case I'd recommend you walk in front of me so I can swing above you.

Sling
I hesitate to classify this as a weapon, seeing as how I've never seen anyone over the age of 12 using it. I suppose if you need to break a dragons windows or torment a witches cat, there are worse ways of flinging a pebble. Oh, and I guess it doesn't classify as a "bladed weapon" for the god-bothering type.

Spear
Doesn't have all the benefits of a pole arm, but it does allow you to use a shield in the off hand. I'd probably allow you to lead the group while I throw javelins from the back row. 

Sword
Similar to the spear, you enjoy stabbing people from behind a large, comfortable piece of reinforced wood or steel. I'd say you're a coward, but odds are you're going to be the honorable sort who drags me unconscious and bleeding from the depths of hell, so I begrudgingly thank you for that.

Short Sword
You stab people for a living. Not goblins or orcs, but fair-hearted, just-trying-to-make-a-living people. And they don't even see you coming. Alternatively, you ride a large animal of some kind and wield one of these in both hands. Like a dwarf's braided beard, your style is very flashy and impressive, but ultimately useless.

Two-Handed Sword
What are you, a maniac? You take one look at a shield, the lifesaving instrument that is often the only thing between you and eating an arrow, and think, "well, it's nice, but then I'll only be able to use a regular-sized sword." Honestly, you frighten me. Not because you've clearly got nothing to lose and everything to gain by fighting me, but because being anywhere near you is a recipe for disaster when you start the pain hurricane a-spinnin'. No. Put that back, and get a reasonable weapon.

At My Table: Conflict Resolution

There's a nice guy I know who recently started a tabletop gaming group. Every time we talk the conversation inevitably turns to his campaign, and I'd be lying if I said his enthusiasm wasn't infectious. He's got more ideas than sense, though, as he demonstrated the last time I asked him how his players were reacting to his carefully-planned sessions.
"Well, it's weird." He said. "The game's going great, but I can't seem to get five minutes into it without an argument breaking out. I don't think my players know how to work with each other."

He went on to tell me about their latest session: things had been going alright until he'd introduced a coven of evil witches who had been abducting children to fuel their wicked rituals. When one of his players displayed serious apprehension at the topic, another reacted by calling them a baby, and the whole thing went south from there. By the time my friend was able to calm everyone down, nobody was in much of a mood to play.

At this point I know what was wrong, and I made sure to tell him as such.

"Buddy, it's not your players that are the problem. It's your campaign. Or at the very least how you run it."

Now, this is a sensitive topic for most DM's, because we're more often than not an outwardly-confident raconteur with a creamy nougat center of self-consciousness. Knowing this, I was sure to choose my words carefully.

"What I mean is, you have to have realized that your coven scene was...dreadful. I've only heard it second hand and I'm gonna have nightmares tonight. How did you expect your players to react?"

"But I wanted them to react that way!" He said. "It was SUPPOSED to be shocking. These are evil monsters, they do evil things. Plus I'm running a pretty dark homebrew world, so it fits right in." He was practically beaming at this last sentiment.

"That's all well and good, but your dark world is going to stay that way if you don't have any players to fix it."

"Well how would you have done it?"

I've always been the altruistic sort, so after convincing myself that one less bad DM in the world was a net positive for mankind, I told him how to fix his game.

"Just from that one session, I see three main problems with your approach. One: you have no eye for where your players boundaries are. Two: your players don't either. Three: when a boundary did come up, you pushed the blame on the player instead of acknowledging the problem.

Now there's nothing saying your campaign can't get dark every now and then. The big trend in gaming right now seems to be to push the boundaries of what people consider tasteful, and it's produced a lot of great content. We're all adults here, and there are real-world happenings scarier than anything you or I could write up. Surely a little blood-and-guts is to be expected from a genre that has been historically based around wandering into dark caves and killing the inhabitants.

This line of thinking assumes several things about your players. Mainly, that they have no aversion to dealing with these themes in a living world, acting as if they were truly there. For some, these ideas hit a bit too close to home. That doesn't make them bad ideas, nor does it make the offended a bad player. What it should make is an example on how to handle conflict.

Case in point: Maze of the Blue Medusa by Zak Smith and Patrick Stuart is one of the finest adventures I've ever had the pleasure of running. Veterans of the indie RPG community will recognize that neither of these creators have made their living off of feel-good hero stories. MotBM is a poignant and vicious story of loss and desire, and nowhere is that more evident than in the section named "The Gardens."

Luckily for DM's and players, the page introducing The Gardens also contains this message: "A major theme in this area is horrible creepy nightmare plants and invasive body horror and abusive relationships and parisitic seduction and gross undead babies and whatnot and it should go without saying that if your have players that are likely to be upset by this, change it. Know your players and practice grown-up judgment."

That is how you deal with tough topics. As a DM, you should already have a good idea of what's going into your game before the fighter rolls for their STR score. Let your players know that you're thinking of introducing some ideas that might be hard to handle. This warning doesn't always have to be at the start of the campaign, because emergent storytelling is a wonderful thing. A few sessions ahead of time is good. I would say that the start of the session where the trouble's bound to show up is the absolute latest you can tell your players and still have it count as a heads-up.

I'm not going to mince words here: if you get a sudden idea to try something novel in the middle of a session and you're not 100% sure your players are going to be okay with it, YOU DO NOT DO THAT THING. At the end of the day, these are games we're playing at, not invasive psychology. Know your players and practice grown-up judgment.

Now that you've got an idea of how to handle boundaries, we can move on to damage control. As I said before, both you and your other player didn't respect the first players' feelings regarding the witches coven. A big thing in human relations is the idea of "impact, not intent." While I don't really believe you meant to offend or disturb that player on a personal level, the matter of the fact is that you did, and that you should apologize. No, none of that "I'm sorry you got offended" nonsense. Own up to your mistake, and let them know you're making an honest effort to make things right again. You're not the first person to inadvertently give offense -- and you're certainly not going to be the last -- but you can be the one to say, "this stops here."

As for your other player, the one who called out the first player for having strong feelings, take them aside and let them know that a seat at your table comes with the expectation of a certain level of respect. I've always been of the opinion that while player characters may argue and fight, the players themselves may not. Do problems come up? Of course. If it can wait, I have the players deal with it at sessions end. If not, I call a quick snack break and pull them aside to work it out, adult-to-adult. Don't let a minor squabble escalate enough to destroy an otherwise-good session."

Saying this, I sat back in my chair and let my friend work his way through it. I could see the wheels behind his eyes running at full-gerbil speed. 

After a pause, he looked back up at me. "That all makes a lot of sense. I've got another session coming up this week. I'll see if I can get my players to give it one more shot." 

"They won't regret it. When it comes down to it, buddy, remember that your players are people too." I paused for dramatic emphasis. "But don't let anyone know I told you that. I've got a reputation to uphold as a killer DM."

A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Confession time: I've wanted to read this book for a very long while.

Edgar Rice Burroughs is my favorite author. Certainly others have occupied that title at different places and times: Mark Z. Danielewski weaves incredible meta-narratives in everything he writes, and John Keats had a poesy to him unparalleled to this day, but ERB had the spark of true genius within him, evident to me from my first reading of Tarzan of the Apes at the tender age of 12. His writing was simple yet elegant, with neither the flat affect of Ernest Hemingway nor the bombast of F. Scott Fitzgerald, two other titans of the early 20th century American literature scene. I won't be reading all of his books on the list at once, for too much of any good thing is poisonous, but I would be lying if I said I hadn't been waiting this entire time to begin the John Carter saga.

And what a saga it is! 11 books detail the daring exploits of Virginian gentleman Captain John Carter on the Martian world of Barsoom. This world, far removed from our own and yet similar in many ways, sets the stage for a tale of powerful love, unending strife, and the bitter resolve of a dying planet. If it sounds like I'm gushing, it's only because I am; I absolutely loved this book, that which kickstarted the "sword and planet" genre that Leigh Brackett later revitalized. 

I could spend the rest of this article giving you a synopsis of the story, but that wouldn't be very interesting and I'd feel like I was competing with the good people over at Wikipedia. Instead, I'd like to talk about why I like ERB so much, and why I've (paradoxically) read so little of his works. Burroughs had the idea that most anyone could be a hero, and it came through in his writing. Tarzan was the child of British nobility left alone and nursed on a gorilla's teat. John Carter is an (admittedly immortal) everyman soldier, who begins the story searching for gold in the then-uncharted West. David Innes of the Pellucidar series is blue-blooded investor. These are all interesting backstories, to be sure, but they lack the deterministic "half-blood child of a god/demon/monster" that later fantasy would popularize. At heart, Burroughs characters were ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and their stories revolved around how they reacted to and solved the problems they faced.

Say you're a child growing up in not the richest part of town, with not the best grades and not the best looks, who maybe had not the most friends or the most romantic opportunities or the most self-confidence. And you head on down to the second best library in town because they still have the old books and you pick up a tattered trade paperback with a burly dude clutching a half-naked woman on the cover. You take that book, and you sit down in one of the over-stuffed, patched chairs the library has and you start to read. And you learn that cover dude? He wasn't always burly. He didn't always have the woman. Hell, 20 pages in and he's naked and nearly dead after being chased down by giant green Martians with four arms. But you keep reading, and you get to the part where he romances Dejah Thoris, the titular "Princess of Mars." You read about the fights he gets in, the wars he influences, the way he changes the entire Martian society just because of how inherently different he is and for a moment you stop thinking you're so powerless. Maybe you start thinking you can be great too.

I don't have much more to say about this book; at least, I don't have much more that wouldn't sound like the ramblings of a man who should probably consider re-upping with his therapist. Go on and read some old adventure books, it'll be good for your soul.

The Book of Skaith, by Leigh Brackett

Today we look at The Book of Skaith, a collection of three novels featuring the hero Eric John Stark's adventures on the strange and deadly world of Skaith. EGG listed Leigh Brackett in Appendix N without further comment on her works; no recommendations are made for particular works or series. As even Wikipedia agrees that Stark is Brackett's most enduring character, I thought this would be a good representation of her storytelling and writing style.

The Book of Skaith comprises three 150-page novels: The Ginger Star, The Hounds of Skaith, and The Reavers of Skaith. I'll be going over each of these individually first, then giving my overview on the story as a whole.

The Ginger Star opens with Stark debriefing himself on his upcoming assignment. His mentor and adoptive father, Simon Ashton, has gone missing after a peacekeeping mission to the backwater planet of Skaith. Skaith was recently discovered by the greater galactic people, and its thriving natural community work on a technological scale more or less equivalent to Earth's medieval period. Stark learns that the planets citizens are by and large held under the thumb of the Lords Protector, a shadowy entity that, in an attempt to provide sustenance for the poor and sick, holds nearly a third of the planet in forced servitude. Misguided charity aside, the world of Skaith is dangerous in many ways; half-human monsters lurk in rivers, murderous, drug-crazed Farers wander the highways, and hellhounds stalk the northern mountains. Stark soon finds himself embroiled in a prophecy that threatens to change the world of Skaith forever.

Frankly, I wasn't a fan of the first book, although my mood improved greatly over the subsequent two. Stark is certainly an interesting character, a sort of Tarzan/John Carter pastiche tempered by the heat of battle (and Mercury). In this story, however, he serves as little more than the window by which we view the much more interesting secondary characters. Despite two brief contacts with the aforementioned fish-monsters and hounds, Stark doesn't do very much in this first book; Gerrith, the wise-woman who prophesies his adventure, and Halk, the expert swordsman out to avenge the death of his wife, are much more intriguing and end up solving the majority of the problems.

This changes immediately at the onset of The Hounds of Skaith, as Stark finds himself the new master of a group of what I can only call dire wolves. The hounds have a pretty cool ability to instill fear into intelligent creatures from a distance, either causing them to fall to their knees and weep or killing them outright. That is a cool idea, and it's used to great effect as Stark tries to escort Ashton back to the only spaceport on the planet. Brackett's creativity really shines in this book, as Stark is pitted against cannibals that ride sandstorms like surfers ride waves and hybrid bird-men that whip up whirlwinds with the beating of their massive wings. It's one of the reasons I've always liked the Sword-and-Planets genre: while fantasy has all too often fallen into the generic trap of sticking to classic European mythology, sci-fi has the freedom to explore the very limits of human creativity.

Stark's mission comes to a full head in The Reavers of Skaith, as his army begins to retake the planet that has been trying its damndest to kill him. This book also contains an extended scene between Stark and Ashton that reveals more of their history and relationship. As Stark and Ashton continue their race towards the spaceport, they have their first encounter with alien species not from Skaith, in the form of a treacherous space pirate and his crew. The juxtaposition of laser cannons and half-naked savages is done well, and really serves to illustrate the plight of Skaith's inhabitants: trapped on a dying planet, hopelessly backwards in comparison to the galaxy around them but fiercely protective of their autonomy. Bracket does a good job making you empathize with her characters, even if her protagonist is a bit wooden.

Altogether, The Book of Skaith is a perfectly sound Swords-and-Planets series, and if you take it as a single book (as I did) it manages to tell an entertaining and convincing story in about 450 pages, which wouldn't have taken me as long as it did had not the first chapter been so difficult to start. I pride myself on being able to slog my way through most things (I've read the entire ASoIaF series to date, and even managed to hate-read War and Peace), but the first few pages of The Ginger Star were not engaging in the least. As I mentioned before, this falls mainly on the shoulders of our protagonist, who has pathos equivalent to most stones; Stark rarely shows fear, which is par for the course with fantasy novels, but his equal refusal to show love, anger, or emotion of any kind certainly doesn't win him over to the audience.

I would be doing Brackett a disservice to not mention that the bulk of the Eric John Stark stories were written in the late 40's-early 50's, while the books contained in this collection were all published in the mid 1970's. I won't deny the possibility that Skaith represents Stark (and by extension, the author) on the downswing, because I have nothing else to compare it to. All I can say is this: the inhabitants of Skaith, varied and multifaceted as they are, seem to come to life in a way Eric John Stark never does. It is as if Brackett's writing evolved, but the established character she had been basing her stories around for 20 years never did. When I think about the world of Skaith, I come to images of brutal telepathic wolves, sandstorm-riding psychopaths, four-armed warriors, and the bringing of the whirlwind. I am reminded of a villain who is anything but and a story where most characters are as morally gray as any great space opera. I am brought to a story that manages to tell a great tale in such a small place and time, but I can't help but leave feeling that "The Adventures of Eric John Stark" are anything but.