En route to Britain, the Traveler encounters a lightning storm of shocking intensity. Coming right at the bronze zeppelin is another airship, a silver-and-glass creation like a flying chandelier. The ships collide, nose to nose, but seem to pass right through each other ...
... and suddenly everyone is aboard the silver airship, with their own ship receding in the distance!
Before they can take stock of the situation, small airboats grapple their ship and fantastic figures descend. Dwarves with brass steam-powered armor, other dwarves with black bronze picks and hammers, inhumanly quick Black Elves with mirror-sharp swords, and tall, thin, pale Elves with swords and arrows!
A large, sprawling fight breaks out. Doc locks himself in the engine room, transforms into a werewolf, and howls a call to Tranth, the Craftsman God:
Tranth, hear me! Give me a spark from your forge. Give me a wind from your bellows. Give me a blow from your hammer. And I will build you a construction more ingenious, more glorious, than any have offered you before."
Sources:
The fair world, and Doc's prayer to Tranth, are from Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
September 1931: The Lightning Maker
A German named Heydrich says he can make normals into Actives with a marvelous machine. He wants Actives to seize power in Bavaria and join the Austro-Serbo-Hungarian Empire.
Doc determines that Heydrich is a faker, floating people in the air and telling them they can fly. Heydrich gets very angry and starts blowing up entire buildings; like the Chairman, he's one of those guys that has ALL the Powers! Apparently on Jan. 1, 1900, several people were born with the potential to use all the Powers at once. The Chairman, as well as the Spellbound, were born on Jan. 1, 1800. Heydrich, like them, is a "century baby", which is why Doc's interest was piqued in the first place.
Francis floats a cable up to touch Heydrich's leg and George channels every ounce of his magic, his health, his will and his soul (minus one teaspoon!) into Heydrich, who just plain explodes.
Bavaria does not, in fact, join Austria. The wicked Austrians are once again thwarted, and the Grimnoir have a friend in Munich, in the person of a police agent named Goering, who was some kind of war hero back when.
Sources:
Reinhard Heydrich was, in real life, number two man in the SS and way smarter than his boss. He was a good bet to succeed Hitler if the Reich had won the war.
Goering is, of course, Hermann Goering, chief of the Luftwaffe and the Prussian police.
The "century baby" concept is from Planetary.
The idea of pretending to give people superpowers so they can join a master-race movement is my own, although I wouldn't be surprised if someone else had thought of it.
Doc determines that Heydrich is a faker, floating people in the air and telling them they can fly. Heydrich gets very angry and starts blowing up entire buildings; like the Chairman, he's one of those guys that has ALL the Powers! Apparently on Jan. 1, 1900, several people were born with the potential to use all the Powers at once. The Chairman, as well as the Spellbound, were born on Jan. 1, 1800. Heydrich, like them, is a "century baby", which is why Doc's interest was piqued in the first place.
Francis floats a cable up to touch Heydrich's leg and George channels every ounce of his magic, his health, his will and his soul (minus one teaspoon!) into Heydrich, who just plain explodes.
Bavaria does not, in fact, join Austria. The wicked Austrians are once again thwarted, and the Grimnoir have a friend in Munich, in the person of a police agent named Goering, who was some kind of war hero back when.
Sources:
Reinhard Heydrich was, in real life, number two man in the SS and way smarter than his boss. He was a good bet to succeed Hitler if the Reich had won the war.
Goering is, of course, Hermann Goering, chief of the Luftwaffe and the Prussian police.
The "century baby" concept is from Planetary.
The idea of pretending to give people superpowers so they can join a master-race movement is my own, although I wouldn't be surprised if someone else had thought of it.
August 1931: The Thunderbolt Ship
Japanese-Americans build an airship with a Peace Ray mounted on it to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet in San Francisco Bay. They use the naval supplies stolen in The Terror in the Navy.
The Continentals shoot down their airship with some help from the Chairman, who is outraged that the plotters raised up zombies from a Japanese graveyard. "Ghosts" (whites) are of no consequence, but Japanese dead belong with their families in the afterlife, not tottering around like beasts!
So the Chairman kills his followers, and explains to the Continentals why he wants to make the human race strong: the Power is alive, and there is another being which is hunting it. The Power has come to many worlds, given their inhabitants powers, and tried to develop enough power to defeat the Predator, but each time it has failed. When the Power flees a world, the Predator eats all the Actives on that world, but that is not enough, and it pursues the Power once more. This time, when the Predator catches up to the Power, the Chairman intends for humanity to drive the Predator off, and save the human race.
Francis and Heinrich think that's a great idea, and want to know how they can help. Later, they suspect the Chairman used his Mouth power to trick them.
Sources: The Chairman's plan is straight out of Hard Magic.
The Continentals shoot down their airship with some help from the Chairman, who is outraged that the plotters raised up zombies from a Japanese graveyard. "Ghosts" (whites) are of no consequence, but Japanese dead belong with their families in the afterlife, not tottering around like beasts!
So the Chairman kills his followers, and explains to the Continentals why he wants to make the human race strong: the Power is alive, and there is another being which is hunting it. The Power has come to many worlds, given their inhabitants powers, and tried to develop enough power to defeat the Predator, but each time it has failed. When the Power flees a world, the Predator eats all the Actives on that world, but that is not enough, and it pursues the Power once more. This time, when the Predator catches up to the Power, the Chairman intends for humanity to drive the Predator off, and save the human race.
Francis and Heinrich think that's a great idea, and want to know how they can help. Later, they suspect the Chairman used his Mouth power to trick them.
Sources: The Chairman's plan is straight out of Hard Magic.
July 1931: The Terror in the Navy
Ghost skeletons with machine guns are hijacking ships out of the air!
(You know what ... I'm not topping that sentence no matter how hard I try.)
(You know what ... I'm not topping that sentence no matter how hard I try.)
June 1931: The Dean of Death
John Sunlight has been raising the dead, but in ways which spare them the constant pain of most zombies. One he raised with fire, one with ice, one with radiation. In each case he has resurrected geniuses in various fields, coordinating their efforts to construct a negative-matter inverter. This turns regular matter into negative matter, which reacts explosively with regular matter. (Moderns would call it antimatter.)
As a first test, he blew up a section of the ocean near Catalina Island. Then he plans to do a second test shot on Los Angeles, to impress his buyers: a Japanese spy, a Soviet spy, and a Polish spy.
On the way to John Sunlight's hideout at Griffith Park observatory, Francis and Dex shoot a pursuing car off the road. It turns out to be driven by Count Ramadanoff and his daughter, Ludmilla. He's a Heavy, she's a Brute, and they wreck Francis' armored car pretty thoroughly until Dex fraudulently identifies himself as a fellow Communist. Then they let them go.
A fight breaks out at the observatory. John Sunlight has drained all the electricity in the greater Los Angeles area for his demonstration shot. The Japanese spy turns out to be a Massive, and nothing we do can hurt him. Francis levitates a wire onto the Japanese, then flicks switches to direct the stored electricity into him. This explodes the observatory, and incidentally explodes the Japanese.
Tadeusz Byreika, the Polish spy, grapples with John Sunlight. John Sunlight is hurled through a glass cabinet, but not only survives, but pops up dressed in brightly-colored formal garb with a monocle and a huge brass revolver. He demands to know "who's got fire?" in this group, but then everyone shoots him.
Byreika turns out to be Doc Caliban in disguise. The Ramadanoffs arrive, and are taken into custody by Agent Franks of the War Department.
Sources:
Byreika is from Monster Hunter Legion.
Ludmilla is Ludmilla X from Tom Strong comics.
John Sunlight is the Doc Savage villain from Fortress of Solitude and The Devil Ghenghis.
Franks is from the Monster Hunter series, especially Monster Hunter Nemesis.
"Who's got fire" is from Doc Sidhe, by Aaron Allston.
As a first test, he blew up a section of the ocean near Catalina Island. Then he plans to do a second test shot on Los Angeles, to impress his buyers: a Japanese spy, a Soviet spy, and a Polish spy.
On the way to John Sunlight's hideout at Griffith Park observatory, Francis and Dex shoot a pursuing car off the road. It turns out to be driven by Count Ramadanoff and his daughter, Ludmilla. He's a Heavy, she's a Brute, and they wreck Francis' armored car pretty thoroughly until Dex fraudulently identifies himself as a fellow Communist. Then they let them go.
A fight breaks out at the observatory. John Sunlight has drained all the electricity in the greater Los Angeles area for his demonstration shot. The Japanese spy turns out to be a Massive, and nothing we do can hurt him. Francis levitates a wire onto the Japanese, then flicks switches to direct the stored electricity into him. This explodes the observatory, and incidentally explodes the Japanese.
Tadeusz Byreika, the Polish spy, grapples with John Sunlight. John Sunlight is hurled through a glass cabinet, but not only survives, but pops up dressed in brightly-colored formal garb with a monocle and a huge brass revolver. He demands to know "who's got fire?" in this group, but then everyone shoots him.
Byreika turns out to be Doc Caliban in disguise. The Ramadanoffs arrive, and are taken into custody by Agent Franks of the War Department.
Sources:
Byreika is from Monster Hunter Legion.
Ludmilla is Ludmilla X from Tom Strong comics.
John Sunlight is the Doc Savage villain from Fortress of Solitude and The Devil Ghenghis.
Franks is from the Monster Hunter series, especially Monster Hunter Nemesis.
"Who's got fire" is from Doc Sidhe, by Aaron Allston.
May 1931: The Derrick Devil
Oil wells are being set afire in Los Angeles. Turns out to be a former burglar who is permanently on fire, having been resurrected with some kind of fire spell. Unless he's in the midst of burning oil, he's painfully cold, so he was setting the fires for warmth. Supplying him with fuel oil in exchange for staying in a salt mine is satisfactory to both sides.
The firebug says his boss, John Sunlight, is the one who made him this way.
Sources:
John Sunlight is a Doc Savage villain.
The firebug says his boss, John Sunlight, is the one who made him this way.
Sources:
John Sunlight is a Doc Savage villain.
April 1931: The Black Madonna
The Continental is hired to keep Floyd Thursby away from Miss Brigid O'Shaughnessy. They had stolen a medieval painting called the Black Madonna from a Russian general, then cut out the other half of their gang, the fat man Caspar Gutman and the dapper, creepy Joel Cairo.
Eventually the Continentals get their hands on the Madonna, palm off the Austro-Hungarians with a phony Madonna, and the Continental's owner, the celebrated Doc Caliban, buys the painting and gives it to Tadeuz Byreika, Polish demon hunter.
Sources:
The Maltese Falcon, obviously.
Doc Caliban: name from Philip Jose Farmer, nature from Doc Savage.
Tadeuz Byreika: Monster Hunter Legion (I think: the one in Vegas with all the international Hunters.)
Austria-Hungary being run by vampires: A little from Anno Dracula, but a little my own invention.
Eventually the Continentals get their hands on the Madonna, palm off the Austro-Hungarians with a phony Madonna, and the Continental's owner, the celebrated Doc Caliban, buys the painting and gives it to Tadeuz Byreika, Polish demon hunter.
Sources:
The Maltese Falcon, obviously.
Doc Caliban: name from Philip Jose Farmer, nature from Doc Savage.
Tadeuz Byreika: Monster Hunter Legion (I think: the one in Vegas with all the international Hunters.)
Austria-Hungary being run by vampires: A little from Anno Dracula, but a little my own invention.
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