Latrine Lurker

One of my favorite destinations on the Web is Darren Naish's Tetrapod Zoology, a cornucopia of information concerning- you got it- tetrapods.

A recent post related a tale, alternately hilarious and alarming, of two-toed sloths, lurking in latrines and snacking on the... uh... poopy goodness... to be found within.

Look at the claws on the sucker in the first picture- I think I'd rather deal with an otyugh!

High-Octane Nightmare Fuel

The faint of heart should not click this link to an article which details the discovery of a new species of leech which attaches itself to the mucous membranes of the nasal sinuses, and uses eight "teeth" in a single jaw to gain access to sweet, sweet blood.

Once again, nature presents us with something which makes the fevered imaginings of a Poe or Lovecraft seem tame by comparison.

Ragnarock Redux

Yesterday, I had a brief conversation with two tourists who have been stranded in New York due to the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. What could be more evocative of Ragnarok than the eruption of a volcano which had been buried beneath a glacier? Ice and fire, hrímþursar and Múspellsmegir, the two elemental forces between which Iceland is sandwiched, both impinging on the lives of the children of the Twenty-First Century.

Given the relatively scant mention of the Sons of Muspell in extant Old Norse literary works, I am inclined to agree with Bertha Phillpotts' thesis that Surtur gained prominence in Norse mythology after the colonization of Iceland. At any rate, Surtur appears to be a completely different sort of supernatural being than Logi, the personification of fire (note the gorgeous illustrations at the linked site!) with which Loki engaged in an eating contest in Utgard-Loki's hall.

Never Did Work on the Blogroll...

I was too busy having- if you must know- adventures.

Living in a part of the country which still has evidence of centuries of human occupation is a wonderful thing because we have (duh duh dununuh) ruins to explore.

The Old Croton Aqueduct, which used to supply water to New York City (the aqueduct terminated in the reservoir which served as the setting of ***SPOILER ALERT*** Caleb Carr's The Alienist), now underlies a trail, which leads from Croton-on-Hudson to Manhattan. The weather being fantastic, a hike was in order- I started at the Lenoir Preserve, a nature sanctuary on the site of two old estates, and hiked down to the aqueduct trail.


A view from a terraced garden to an archway, through which one must walk to access a wooded, precipitous path to the trailway, doesn't this just scream "Here be adventure?":





A closer view reveals crossed branches, seeming to ward off the curious:





A scramble downhill to the Aqueduct Trail, which abuts the site of ruined estates:





Here can be found evidence of a bygone era, a time before the oceans drank Depression pauperized Atlantis now-forgotten tycoons:





Actually, I believe that the "ruins" are part of the original Untermyer Estate, part of which was transformed into Untermyer Park, which gained infamy through a connection with the notorious Son of Sam case. The park itself, rumored to be the site of unhallowed rituals, is definitely worthy of a future post.

A Little Housekeeping is in Order

I started this blog mainly in order to post comments at OSR blogs, but I have been very remiss in linking to other blog. At this stage, I would consider myself OSR adjacent- my paucity of posts has mainly dealt with inspirational reading culled from folklore.

My gaming background is fairly deep, but narrow- I was introduced to the hobby through Moldvay Basic, then dabbled with a bit of Moldvay/Cook Expert, then went on the AD&D1E and never looked back to Basic (pity, but the siren song of d10 for fighter hit points was too hard to ignore). In high school, I played a fair amount of TFT, and Gamma World was a continuous one-shot diversion. To my shame, although I love HPL, I have never played a game of Call of Cthulhu. I actually find a lot of Lovecraft to be pretty funny- distressed gentlefolk who find themselves under siege by indescribable horrors which they then proceed to describe, love it but don't find it scary. I never did get to AD&D2E (why change a system that works for a lesser imitator), played a one-off Vampire game but decided that any "modern" simulation tends to draw out the Jane's enthusiast.

It has been a while since I've rolled a bunch of polyhedrons, but it's good to start reading about the hobby again, with the provision that it'll lead to playing once more.

I'll take this week to get a decent blogroll going, and finally throw the old skull into the ring for reals.

From Hibernia to the Astral Plane, via the Pliocene Five Planes

Reading over my last post's links to The Book of Invasions, I could not help but be reminded of Julian May's "Pliocene Exiles' Saga", which began with 1981's The Many-Colored Land. In the book, two related extraterrestrial races, the Tanu (based on the Tuatha de Danann) and the Firvulag (a mash-up of the Fir Bolg and the Fomorians) have emigrated to Pliocene-era Earth, forced out by the society which had given rise to them due to their adherance to an ancient religion rooted in race-based ritualistic warfare. The two races exhibit formidable psychic powers- the Firvulag have operant abilities (illusion-spinning being a particular talent), the Tanu having latent abilities which are stimulated to even more potent operancy through the agency of torcs. The status quo between the two races is disturbed by time-traveling 21st Century dissidents who choose to pass through a one-way time portal in Southern France. The arrival of humans, who are genetically compatible with the extraterrestrials (yeah, it's not hard science fiction at all), upsets the equilibrium of the two races, leading to an eschatological conclusion to extraterrestrial rule.

When I conceived the original title of this post, I had been under the false impression that The Many-Colored Land had been published in the late 70's, and that the githyanki/githzerai conflict had been inspired by the Tanu/Firvulag split in May's series. The book was, however, published in 1981, the same year in which the Fiend Folio was published. Charles Stross' githyanki (a name cribbed from George R. R. Martin's The Dying of the Light) originally appeared in White Dwarf #12, published in 1979, though I can find no mention of the githzerai making an appearance in the magazine. The original thesis of my post being shot down by the intrusion of fact, I would now propose that the inspiration of the conflict could be the Vadhagh/Nhadragh enmity in Michael Moorcock's Corum novels, which were also inspired by Celtic legendry. The Vadhagh and Nhadragh, like the Tanu and Firvulag, are also paranormally-gifted humanoid elder races shaken up by the advent of humanity.

At any rate, Julian May's novels are a goldmine for ideas concerning psionics, and a nice alternative take on Charles Stross' creations (potentially invaluable to those wanted to avoid entanglement with I.P. lawyers). Technological enhancement of psychic powers, "elves" who employ energy weapons and suborbital flyers, illusion-spinning mutant freaks- all can be found in May's gloriously sprawling books. In my research, I discovered that White Dwarf #51 contained writeups of May's creations- I wonder how many readers noticed a certain similarity to previous Fiend Folio creations.

Firbolg Ruminations

This being the eve of St. Patrick's day, it would be most appropriate to write about the Fir Bolg, a people described in the Book of Invasions as having been descended from an earlier people, the Nemedians, who were subjugated by the Fomorians. There are various theories regarding the derivation of the name, a possible translation of Fir Bolg would be "men with bags", according to legend, the name refers to a period of slavery, during which the Fir Bolg hauled dirt from fertile lowlands to less productive lands in leather bags. In some versions of the legend, these bags were sewn into leather boats, which were used by the Fir Bolg to sail to freedom in their ancestral homeland. Another possibly etymology would link the Fir Bolg to a Celtic thunder god, and attempts have been made to conflate them with the Belgae who Caesar mentioned in his Gallic War Commentaries.

According to legend, the Fir Bolg were defeated by the Tuatha Dé Danann in the First Battle of Mag Tuiredh, but were granted the province of Connacht due to their valor. In TheTain, Cuchulainn's foster-brother Ferdia was a noted Fir Bolg.

Despite there being no indication of superhuman stature in the Irish legends, the Firbolg (sic) managed to make it into the "Giants" section of the Monster Manual 2, along with the Fomorians of legend (another legendary foe of the Tuatha dé Danann). The Firbolg was presented as a sort of giant magical trickster, a leprechaun with a pituary condition. It was also the beginning of a wonky trend (continued into second edition AD&D) in which the damage inflicted by giants took the form (weapon type x N + strength bonus), rather than the classic Xd6 of the original Monster Manual giants. For game purposes, I like to conflate Fir Bolg and Gáe Bolg, so any Firbolgs encountered tend to be armed with double-sized spears and like weapons (tridents, partisans, spetums, and particularly harpoons- which seem to be a good substitute for the original barbed spear o' doom).

The computer real-time tactical game Myth: The Fallen Lords featured a really nice alternate portrayal of the Fir Bolg as forest-dwelling archers who, judging from the manual illustrations, came across as neo-Neanderthals.