A Cosmic Kirby-esque Caesar

These are costume designs of Caesar, Flavius, and Calpurnia that Kirby did for a production of Julius Caesar using previously discarded designs for Fourth World.

I think it's a great example of the type of characters I'd have running around my version of Eternia.

Want more? The Kirby Museum has plenty more where that came from--be sure to check them out!

RPG Mash Up: Masters of the Universe + Jack Kirby x Marvel Superheroes = WIN

A recent post by Jeff Rients got my cylinders re-firing on an old idea I've had to work up a Masters of the Universe campaign using the Marvel Superheroes RPG. I think there's great overlap here: the system is infinitely flexible and great at supporting both superhuman abilities, technology, and magic.

D&D and it's immediate derivatives (clones, etc.) would do okay, but the FASERIP system is an excellent complement to the kinds of characters, feats, and frivolity generated out of comics and the Marvel system "feels" right for He-man and co. I also think that the Universal Table--arguably the heart of the FASERIP system-- would make an great fit for MotU, especially when it comes to handling combat.

Now here's where it gets weird: Jeff's post was about Jack Kirby's (not worthy! not worthy!) Fourth World being run with 4E rules (Stay focused! We're not talkin' 4E here!).

It turns out that--apart from the obvious Conan/Sword & Planet references--Kirby's Fourth World was one of the inspirations behind MotU! At least--it was for the 1987 film. There's also a good case that several of the MotU characters are damn-near direct analogs from FW. Now it get's sticky when you assume that the entire MotU franchise was in fact a He-man muscle on a FW skeleton, as some have asserted and yet others have refuted. But the visuals--if not the characterizations--were greatly influenced and inspired by Kirby, and I think the assessment is still a fair one.

For my own campaign, I pictured Kirby-esque visuals blended with a few other ideas even before I knew this connection existed. I guess it's not that far a stretch given the melting-pot-like environment of 80s fantasy--but it was definitely a welcome surprise! To be honest, it's not like I'd want the Mattel characters as PCs, but I'd jump at the opportunity to develop the setting and ability to make up new characters that could go toe-to-toe with MotU contemporaries. And yet, I'm not looking to make it cartoony. Ya dig?

Okay, so now my brain is cooking and--oh, I've got zero time to run with this idea as I'm getting ready to fly to Toronto next week for work. Gah! Why do all the good ideas bubble up to the surface when you're busy?!

Comic maestro Bruce Timm did the He-man images for the MotU 80s mini-comic, Kirby is a hero of his..

My other fantasy muses

Yeah, Dungeon! my favorite boardgame cast a strong spell on the way I saw fantasy growing up in the 80s. And of course the box sets of D&D (and the accompanying illustrations) were also very influential. But there were a handful of other books, toys, movies, etc.--cheesy as they may have been. ;)

Man I played the hell out of Crypts of Chaos on my 2600. I never did have Adventure--and the official AD&D game was for the Intellivision (lame!). C of C not only sported awesome cartridge art featuring Luke and Leia stand-ins in a dream-like dungeon of weirdness--it was a FIRST PERSON GAME! The corridors of the dungeon would move toward you and wandering monsters would attack. You had mere seconds to get your wand or magic ring ready...which was usually out of charges. And I think the cart art still freaks me out....
 

 

 

Dragonslayer was one of the first full-length fantasy films I remember seeing and being impressed by. I saw it on VHS first and the scene with the baby dragons always made me quesy. Could have done without the page boy haircuts, but it still has one of the great wizard v. lizard battle scenes. Before this film, my idea of an amulet was a big, gaudy jewel--instead of the small, glowing crystal packed with white-hot magic featured in the film. Neat stuff!

Forest of Doom is a wonderful playset made by Dimensions for Children (a now defunct toy company) in a series of other great playmat-with-plastic-figures format sets. Reis O'Brien at Geek Orthodox has blogged extensively on the set which was part of the Dragon Riders of the Styx figure line. I can't say much more than Reis has on the subject, except that from my own experience I loved the iconic figures. They represented to me the basic monsters, wizards, and knights that make up the storybook "fantasy" template. I still have the set in it's original box and I've featured figures from it in the past on Spellcard.

Dungeon of Dread by Rose Estes was my first choose-your-own-adventure type book (TSR called their line "Endless Quest"), of which I later graduated on to the Zork books. The adventure itself is pretty basic, but the great Jeff Easley cover had me conjuring up adventures in my imagination for years to come.

Finally we come to the D&D cartoon, which I know a lot of OSR gamers detest--but I had great fun watching it when I was young. It also represented several AD&D classes as characters on-screen for the first time, so I had a good visual of what they were capable of (even though the cavalier didn't have a sword!). Anyway, I picked up the box set when it came out a few years ago and wasn't disappointed. It even came with a game scenario starring the main characters.

I also had many of the D&D toys, including this bad boy:

...The Fortress of Fangs! It was filled with crazy booby traps and was a great companion to Castle Greyskull.

Anyway, those are just a few of the fun relics. What's in your vault--games, books, movies, posters? Anything off the beaten path that inspired you back in the day? Feel free to list in the comments.

Update: Reis has taken down his blog, so here are some other Dragonriders of the Styx resources out there:

• Action Figures CA (this one has some good photos of the set I had)
• Virtual Toy Chest
• Toymania
• Topless Robot posts on fantasy toys of the 70s and 80s

Fight On! #8 arrived this morning!

I posted some pics on Exonauts, check it out!

A fever dream about Fight On!

So being that it's April Fools' Day today, my mind (of course) was playing tricks on me even before I woke up. I can safely say that I've never once dreamt about anything in the OSR--or even hobby related--until today.

I dreamt that Fight On! with infinite DM publishing powers at it's disposal, had a huge complex where they not only collated the material for the magazine--but actually fabricated huge miniature models of each submission to test before publishing. That's right--huge models--we're talking 3 or 4 ping pong tables in size. They tested everything from one-page dungeons on up to mega-sized labyrinths was ensured to provide "maximum play value".

Writers would give tips to "play testers" while research scientists would walk around in white lab coats taking notes on clipboards: TOO FEW HIT DICE, ADD TRAPS TO ENTRANCE

It was like Willy Wonka's factory, except no Oompa Loompas (thank God!).

Yeah....weird!

I'm sure none of this has to do with the fact that I ordered issue #8 of Fight On! which LuLu says shipped a week-and-a-half ago and still hasn't arrived.

UPDATE: It looks like Fight On! issue #9 is out even before I've received issue #8. And it's FREE to boot! ;)