We're Not Dead Yet...

The Savage AfterWorld returns to to regular posting this Halloween season. Stay tuned...

Phlegm Elementals And Killer Tomatoes Await In 32-Year-Old "Weird Works"

More than two years ago, I discussed the monster manual titled Weird Works I wrote back in 1982 when I was 16 years old. I donated this kid-written D&D monster tome to PlaGMaDA -- The Play Generated Map and Document Archive. But I stupidly neglected to make a copy of this hand-written book for myself before I mailed it off. Fortunately, Tim Hutchinson of PlaGMaDA was kind enough to send me a scan of the interior pages just the other day. And today, I'll share it with you. Click this link or the cover to the right to take a gander at my first gaming supplement. (One note: The cover is not a high-rez scan but rather a low-rez photo I resized for the PDF.)

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND: I wrote this when I was 16, so be kind to 32-years-ago me. I illustrated it to the best of my cartooning ability (Don Martin-esque, I think), and many of the entries are of a parody nature. ("Killer Tomatoes?""Phlegm Elementals?" "GIANT SMURFS?!?") But there are 17 creatures within that had some good idea kernels to them. In fact, some of these creatures ended up being the inspiration for future creatures that have appeared here on The Savage AfterWorld! (Click the links in the list below to see how these creatures evolved!)

Within, you'll find:

• Boogeyman
• Bookbat
• Cannon Creature
• Dragon, Plaid
• Golem, Paper
• Gravedigger
• Jitterbug
• Killer Tomato
• Oilque
• Quasi-elemental, Chicken Fat
• Quasi-elemental, Lint
• Quasi-elemental, Phlegm
• Quasi-elemental, Saliva
• Smurf, Giant
• Spinbuzz
• Venus Man Trap
• Zlophmore 

So there you have it -- the forerunner of both Deviant Databases. Hope you enjoy thumbing through a piece of my gaming history. And if you have gaming artifacts of your own to share, make arrangements with PlaGMaDa to give them a home!

Join The Ranks Of The D-Listers In The Great Stuper Powers Giveaway!

Wanna copy of my favorite "incompetent superheroes" RPG? I have two brand new copies of Stuper Powers! (first edition) that I'm giving away to two visitors to the Savage AfterWorld! If you want one of these, just comment to this post. Sometime tomorrow, I'll draw two names at random from the commentators, and those two folks will get a copy! I don't mind shipping to other countries, so this is open to everyone worldwide. Good luck!

Merry Christmas, My Mutant Minions!

All of The Savage AfterWorld's survivors would like to wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas! Here's hoping all of your Apocalygeddon Dreams for 2013 come true! (Or something like that...) 

I'm Dreaming Of An Old School Christmas

On my tree every year, I hang this ornament I made back in 1981. Still with me after all these years.

Do You Like It On Top Or On The Bottom?

...Numbers on your D4s, that is.

I think the first set I owned had the numbers around the base. This being my first set of polyhedrals, I recall thinking, "How very odd that you have to look for the one set of numbers that are "upright" on each face to determine what you rolled!" Later d4s I picked up had the numbers around the top tippy-pointy bit, marking that as the number you rolled. It still wasn't found on a "face," but at least it was the top-most number revealed. But the other upside-down numbers found near the bottom still throws me at times.

Anyway, how do you like your d4s? Has there ever been another form of d4? (Other than 1-4 marked twice on a d8 or something...)

(This was a mindless thought while I hammer out a more pertinent post for later...)

200,000

Just hit 200,000 page views. Now proceeding with obligatory, self-congratulatory, superfluous imagery:

Thanks for the hits. I'll have a real post for everyone in the morning.

The Savage AfterWorld's Cloud

My First Monster Manual Heading To PlaGMaDA

It's funny, but I really don't have a lot of homemade leftovers from the earlier formative RPG days. I have a lot of games and dice from the '80s, but nothing I created myself. Which is funny, as I made a LOT of stuff back in the day. My dad gave me one of his old briefcases and I kept all of my custom materials in there. I had a ton of Villains and Vigilantes badguys from a long-running campaign (Shatterer, The Pawn, Furnace, Dr. Dread, and my favorite, The Puzzler). I had some custom modules for V&V, AD&D, Ghostbusters, and Chill - all bound with nifty handdrawn covers. But over the years, all of those items were either lost or thrown out. However, several years ago, my mom called me to let me know she had stumbled across one handmade gaming item tucked in amongst my junior high award certificates and other flotsam: "Weird Works." The cover appears above..

You see, Weird Works was my version of a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. Over the years, anytime I had an idea for a monster, I'd stat it up, draw a picture of it, and place it in this flimsy red cardboard binder. Some were of a satirical bent ("Giant Smuf" and "Plaid Dragon" anyone? Oh, and the cover has an illustration of -- yes -- a "Killer Tomato".). But others were kinda cool in retrospect. In fact, a few of the creatures that have appeared on this blog (Fear Feeder and Salvo off the top of my head) were inspired by critters in Weird Works. When I hammered together my recent Deviant Database, I had this notebook beside me for inspiration. However, it's not a respource manual I plan to use at the gaming table; I've tapped out the more interesting items for other projects; and -- honestly -- it's a bit on the embarrassing side. (It's like that picture taken of you in 1976 when you were 10 and wearing that red, white, and blue sports coat that you pray your friends never see.) So the question of what to do with this (other than misplace it again one day) still loomed over my head.

And that when I discovered the PlaGMaDA -- the Play Generated Map and Document Archive.

Their Mission Statement: "PlaGMaDA's mission is to preserve, present, and interpret play generated cultural artifacts, namely manuscripts and drawings created to communicate a shared imaginative space.  The Archive will solicit, collect, describe, and publicly display these documents so as to demonstrate their relevance, presenting them as both a historical record of a revolutionary period of experimental play and as aesthetic objects in their own right.  By fostering discussion and educating the public, it is hoped that the folkways which generate these documents can be encouraged and preserved for future generations."

In other words, they collect, compile, and share homemade gaming materials from "back in the day." The archive they have is a fascinating snapshot of dreawings, character sheets, adventures, and other materials created in bedrooms, garages, basements, and study halls. Right now, they have a Kickstarter project to compile and print up a collection of this kid-generated adventures. I could think of no better place for this book to end up, so I dropped  them a line and they said they'd be glad to take it, scan it for the archive, and file the original away with all of the other homemade treasures they've accumulated. So tomorrow, this well-worn, well-read, and well-loved chunk of my childhood is heading to its final home.

But before it heads out, here are three creatures -- written up in 1982 -- I'd like to share:

 

And drop them a line to make your own donation if you have any home-created gaming materials from Ye Olden Dayes.

Yarrrrr...

YO-0-0, "The Cobalt Corsair," wishes all of you scurvy seadogs a very happy Talk Like A Pirate Day today! Avast! Forsooth! Arrrrrrr...

How To Host A Mutant Future Dinner Party

"JF" runs the Solo Nexus blog which is dedicated to solo tabletop gaming in all its forms: card games, board games, miniatures, and even RPGs. Taking his cue from an earlier-played solo gaming adventure, he recently hosted a dinner party at his house based on Mutant Future called "All Pigmen Must Die!" A special mutated menu was provided to his guests (I must try the Deconstructed Gazpacho!) prior to the game they played. I won't run through the details of the adventure, as I encourage you to go over and report of his game for yourself. Pigmen versus mutant plants? Sign me up! And with characters like "Colonel Kernel" and a Marilyn Monroe robot (not to mention Goldface and The Cactus With No Name), you know some Mutant Future madness ensued!

"They've Killed Fritz! Those Lousy Stinking Yellow Fairies!"

One of my favorite movies of all time is Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. The imagry, the story, the setting, the animation -- all of it adds up to a film I can watch over and over again. (And I have.) And best of all, it's a decidedly gonzo post-apocalyptic film. The rise of magic versus the evils of Ancient technology. The evil blasted landscape of Scortch against the good magical realm of Montagar. Good stuff here, and lots of fodder for your post-apocalyptic campaigns.

However, in spite of my fandom, I somehow missed the fact that there was a Wizards RPG released back in the '90s! Once I found out, I made it my goal to collect every item released for the game. My full collection completed today is pictured above. The Scortch and Montagar sourcebooks are filled with interesting lands to explore and bizarre mutants and creatures to battle. (Plus several adventure plot hooks as well as fleshed-out adventures!) Anyway, because of the post-apocalyptic setting, just wanted to show it off. I'm reading up on the system now -- point-buy-in based character generation, it seems -- and should be ready to actually run a game or two at Gary Con next March.

(I'd love to try to run a pick-up game at Gen Con next week, but there's no way in Hell I'd be able to learn a new system and hammer together a simple adventure in 7 days -- not when I'm prepping my games already on the docket!)

The Savage AfterWorld As A 1984 Zine

The newest meme racing through the RPG blogging universe is to imagine what your blog would look like if it had originally been created as a paper 'zine back in the 1980s. Several blogs have posted their decidedly low-tech concepts, so I thought I'd jump on in. It was a fairly easy matter, as I actually had an RPG 'zine back in 1984 named "AQ - Adventurer's Quarterly." I think I put out one or two, distributed free at the local game store. Anyway, here is what TSAW would look like if created in the same manner as AQ:

Thundarr... Korgoth... Now, GUNDARR!

In the beginning, there was Thundarr the Barbarian...

Then we met Korgoth of Barbaria...

Now, from the folks who brought us Happy Tree Friends:

Stupid, violent, gun-toting, testosterone-fueled barbarian versus "Todd The Evil Wizard" in a fantasy setting gone horribly wrong. I admit, I laughed out loud several times.. Had to share...

(And the Christmas episode is pretty funny too.)

Christmas at Ground Zero - Weird Al Yankovic

Been waiting most of the year to roll out this radioactive Yuletide video!
Merry Christmas from The Savage AfterWorld!

Arrrrrrr...

Captain Kordon, Queen of the River Pirates, wishes all of you scurvy seadogs a very happy Talk Like A Pirate Day today! Avast! Fosooth! Arrrrrrr...

More Apocalyptic Comics From the Digital Comic Museum

(A continuation of today's earlier post...)

And while I was reading issues of Whiz Comics (Captain Marvel FTW!) and Plastic Man, I also found these gems in the Digital Comic Museum archives:

Here are the links to get you started:
Atomic War:
Atomic War 001 -fixed
Atomic War 002 -fixed
Atomic War 003 -fixed
Atomic War 004 (missing cf)-32pgs -fixed

World War III:
World War III #01
World War III #02

Prepare For Armageddon With Free Civil Defense Pamphlets

I stumbled across the Digital Comic Museum archive over the weekend, and I'm really enjoying what they have there. Scans of hundreds upon hundreds of classic public domain Golden Age comics from the 40s and 50s, up to around 1959. Superheroes, horror, romance, westerns, combat, etc. Check this time sink out when you have a sec, and you'll never leave.

One section that caught my eye was the Government Pamphlets section. I poked around for some Civil Defense materials from the 1950, during the height of the Red Scare, and found three pieces that could be used as fodder for your End of Times game sessions. Don't forget to Duck and Cover, kids!

This Blog Is Rated "Red Dawn"

The first movie to be released in the U.S. with a PG-13 rating was Red Dawn, a movie depicting the onset of World War III. Seems somewhat apropos for this blog then, eh?

Savage AfterWorld GM Merit Badges

Stuart over at Strange Magic started the newest round of blog memes when he posted some GM Merit Badges. GMs can post these to give players a heads-up as to what kind of game they may encounter. Clever fun idea, but I noticed a distinct lack of post-apocalyptic-themed badges. So, I cobbled together a few that would be more apropo for my own games:

Splashing around in radiation will not give you new mutations. Most likely, it will kill you. So stop bathing in every toxic waste drum you discover. You're not going to grow an extra arm or develop telepathy. If you're lucky, you may make your saving throw and die in 10 minutes rather than immediately.

Go ahead and start pushing buttons and flipping switches on that odd piece of Ancient technology you discovered. Go ahead. I dare ya.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for the "It was Earth all along!" twist. You know it's Earth. I know it's Earth. Just try and act surprised when you find the Statue's torch on the beach or stumble across Mount Rushmore in a canyon.

Mutant human/animal hybrids are cool, and you will either encounter them or play them as pre-gens. They are not "furries." Stop calling them that. It's creepy.

At some point, the D30 will come into play. And when it does, the results will be AWESOME.

All of my games take place in "Norleans," "Shykago," "N'York," or some other slightly-altered place name location. Bask in my cleverness when you realize what "Klumbus" actually is.