Moby Dick & Mighty Mightor 1967 Kids Cartoon As A Quick Random Setting Encounter For An Old School Post Apocalyptic Or Sword & Sorcery Campaign Jump Starter

Did Space Ghost have an ancestor in the stone age? Well to my five year old imagination he did! Back when Saturday mornings were cool and cable television was brand new many exotic cartoons would filter down those magic wires including this one!



First let's upstart the old nostalgia juice here  for a classic Hanna Barbara Sixties era cartoon. This came out when Saturday mornings were fantastic. The artwork was superior to many later cartoons, the themes catchy and the plots were paper thin with voices to drive a parent up a wall at seven A.M. on a Saturday morning. But they've also got some great stuff for an old school dungeon master to plunder. 

Interesting there was way more Mightttorrr! then Moby Dick which suited my young impressionable brain (let's not get into the fact that the title sounds like a gay porno as my cousin would later interject each & every time this cartoon came on). Kids are weird anyhow especially back in the Seventies.
Anyhow according to wiki the set up for this was classic Hanna Barbara;"Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor is a science fiction animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions which ran on CBS from September 9, 1967 to September 6, 1969. Despite Moby's name coming first, he had only one short per half-hour episode, sandwiched between two with Mightor. The same structure was used the previous season for Frankenstein, Jr. and The Impossibles."
The plot line was straight out of a Sixties comic book company plot house which was fine because there was lots of prehistoric action and dinosaurs along with tons of underwater weirdness.

"One day, while on a hunting trip, a teenage caveman named Tor, along with his winged pet dinosaur Tog, rescue an old man who, as a reward, gives Tor a magical club. When Tor raises his club to the sky, he transforms into the masked and muscular Mightor, a prehistoric superhero very much in the Space Ghost mold who possesses superhuman strength and the power of flight through his club, which can also fire energy blasts."

Mightor protects his village from evil-doers. Amongst the villagers are the chief, Pondo, and his daughter, the beautiful redhaired Sheera. Sheera has a younger brother named Little Rok, who loves pretending to be Mightor. The characters have several pets, including Little Rok's dodo bird, Ork, and Sheera's mammoth calf, Bollo.

Tor is voiced by Bobby Diamond, while Mightor is voiced by Paul Stewart.^[1] Pondo, Tog, Ork, and Bollo are voiced by John Stephenson. Sheera is voiced by Patsy Garrett. Little Rok is voiced by Norma MacMillan." So it seems like your typical Saturday morning fare doesn't it? Well not quite. You see you've got an entire village protected by a 'champion' and a mystic item along with a bunch of jacked up cavemen who look like they came straight out of a kid's play set. Well back in the Eighties I took the entire village and characters changed the names and dumped them into Gamma World without any issues as an old school encounter for some kids. Mighty Mightor became a mutant who went around with an Ancient's artifact & was a part of a cryptic alliance of  super heroes. Thirty years later I took the same village & dumped it right into Carcosa & then for an Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea kid's game for a friend of mine I used it again.

The dinosaurs are straight up Carcosa mutants & almost all of them are Charles Knight dinosaur artwork redressed & given the Hanna Barbara treatment with a good dose of Alex Thoth whirl. The various foes of the village are all mutants & half Pict cavemen with animal empathy & domination mutations. Its really simple stuff that old schoolers eat up at the table with a spoon. These types of adventures click all kinds of buttons from dinosaurs to superheroes. They can be raided for Marvel Super Heroes for a different take and lost world era vibe or they can be used for a sword & sorcery style adventure.

When it comes to a game like Apes Victorious here's where things get really interesting. Take Mighty Mightor lock stock and dinosaurs then move his village to some isolated location in the Forbidden Zone & instant ape lost world with mutant dinosaurs & 'super heroes'. Easily back loaded into the back world of Mutant Future as well!


Flip this idea on its head and it could easily take place in the Dungeon Crawl Classic's fanzine Crawling Under A Broken Moon with zero modification. 

The kids from Moby Dick are creepy as all heck. What the hell were they eating and how the heck were they surviving under water for all that time? Well, for that answer we might need a combination of Mutant Future & Realms of Crawling Chaos from Goblinoid Games.  Simply put the kids are Ancients wizard with Deep One blood with their whale familiar. The apocalypse happened and their genes flipped on! These guys are completely insane & I've used em in Carcosa a couple of times as a sea hex encounter.



Once again old school  Saturday morning cartoons can provide a wealth of gaming material if you want to look past the corny elements to provide your table top with all kinds of inspiration. The Moby Dick cartoon had some fantastic factions to raid for classic Marvel Super Heroes adventures for an Atlantis game. These same foes came in really handy for a later Carcosa game. The whole thing  works well with games such as Mutant Future or Gamma World 1st & second edition where the technology of under water colonies is built right into the game setting itself.
"Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor " were of their time and for kids who grew up in the Seventies these were classic Hanna Barbara cartoons & sparked the imagination of generations of kids & Dungeon Masters!

The Mega Dungeons Of 'Journey To the Center of The Earth' Cartoon 1967 Episode 'The Living City'

When I've been going over some of the ideas for my 'New Hartford  Beta Max Black Edition Pellucidar' campaign setting including going over classic D&D and AD&D materials as well as OSR resources. But I started looking even further afield and going with classic cartoon resources including Filmation studios.  Way back in '67 Filmation studios produced Journey To The Center of The Earth cartoon. The program was bought by and picked up for cable networks cartoon line up way back in the early Eighties over here;
"Journey to the Center of the Earth is an American science fiction Saturday morning cartoon, consisting of 17 episodes, each running 30 minutes. Produced by Filmation in association with 20th Century Fox, it aired from September 9, 1967 to September 6, 1969 on ABC Saturday Morning. It featured the voice of Ted Knight as Professor Lindenbrook. It was later shown in reruns on Sci Fi Channel's Cartoon Quest.
It appears to have taken the 1959 film, Journey to the Center of the Earth, as its starting point rather than Jules Verne's original novel, e.g. including the character of Count Saknussen and Gertrude the duck. However it moved even further away from Verne's novel than the 1959 film."

This is one of those Sixties Filmation cartoons with no real beginning, or ending episode. For All I know the party of adventurers are still down there trying to get home.What does all of this have to do with classic D&D? One episode in particular has haunted me, this was the 'Living City' episode of  this Filmation cartoon classic.  There were a few things that stood out about Journey To The Center of the Earth as fodder for D&D all of the hostile races of the cartoon knew each other, there were treaties and trade between them as implied in the seventeen episodes of the series and all of them bowed to or had trade with Atlantis. Which was the central plot axis around which everything revolved.


"The Living City"  episode aired in  November 4, 1967 & we find our heroes in a vast cavern desert where they built an improptu wind vessel to sail through the desert only to be randomly attacked by flying beetles. Don't worry the insects will be very important in a moment, they're craft is wrecked and they find themselves in front of a vast Greco Egyptian ruined city. Professor Oliver Lindenbrook mumbles something about the city being such and such from mythology but you can tell he's no idea. The ruin has one important feature and that's a pure water source that the duck finds. That duck is the real brains of the party and the joining character with the classic 1959 film, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Everything in the city from statues to mummies attacks the party! There are tons of well preserved relics & such that turn on the characters. Lars(scout 6th level with animal companion)  is separated & attacked by mummies! The professor finally cottons onto the idea that the bugs that attacked them earlier are actually inhabiting the walls, statutes, etc. in the city.

The characters of course run across the scarab queen and killing  her after running for their lives as they seem to do in every single episode and continue their journey to Atlantis which is at the center of the Earth.The city is cast into ruins supposedly right after the queen's death. I don't buy it at all. The fact is that this is a multi leveled city in the middle of an isolated vast cavern with its own desert like ecosystem. I think the beetle colony simply reproduced another queen & continued to create ambushes for any fools they run across. Why? Well because they use humans, near humans, and the like for reproduction and they'd been created way back in Atlantis way back about in pre-cataclysmic Atlantis c. 100,000 BC. They were uncovered during the travels of Alexander The Great & used as a part of some of the inner mystery cult rites and rituals. But something went very wrong & the entire minor city state was taken by the gods the population devoured by the insects or perhaps they are the insects!? They're souls trapped for all eternity within the confines of the city along with all of its riches.


So how would this play out in D&D terms pick a monster, statue or your favorite undead then let the bugs animate the whole works and no turning undead. The queen of course is a giant beetle with a telepathic ability to control her animating swarm. The city state's ruins are just sitting in a cavern waiting for some poor party to stumble upon it and pay with their lives or worse!




If you want to watch the episode of this forgotten gonzo classic there a few episodes on Youtube and you can see this one here.  According to Wiki; "There are currently no plans to release the series on DVD and/or Blu-ray Disc from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment." All rights are reserved to their respective owners and this blog entry is meant for entertainment & educational purposes only not as a violation of the copyright or trademark of their respective owners. All opinions and ideas are the writers only.

Commentary On Inhumanoid Episode Eight Cult of Darkness (aired November 2, 1986) As A Quick Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaign Adventure Point

 

So last night I grabbed my copy of the Inhumanoids VHS tape and threw it into the VCR, fired up the old beast and randomly came into episode #8 Cult of Darkness. Suddenly I was blasted back in time to another era of awesome! Even though the Inhumanoids cartoon followed a very specific timeline, this was one that I've been wanting to rewatch for a long while and the awesome can't be contained within this cartoon!
You've got the Soviets double crossing the Earth Core & branding their new buddy Tank a traitor after having cut a deal with local Granite tribe. Tank meanwhile goes off to kill Metlar himself and complete his mission. But where this episode really ramps up is when investigative reporter Hector Ramirez of Twenty Questions. goes to  expose a local cult of  Brother Druid whose recruiting local San Franciso Bay teens faster then you can say disposable army. Brother druid is inciting the kids into acts of vandalism, running wild in the streets, and general mayhem. All of these kids are being recruited in an abandoned sky scraper and then the final revelation is made when D'Compose bursts through a wall.  There's a mind control gas that's been affecting the kids and of course  Blackthorne Shore is behind the whole scheme.
Herc and Auger are d'composed and its up to Earth Core to save their team mates as well as the zombified teens. There's also a subplot of a chemical formula that will allow D'compose and his zombie minions to survive in sunlight.



There is a lot here to mine for an old school post apocalyptic campaign from the ground up. You've got the Inhumanoids who are essentially post apocalpytic mutant god things recruiting the local flesh slugs(humans) into a scheme of an undead army. You've got a vast array of dungeon locations with the underground cathedral being used as a recruiting point for a wasteland location not to mention Skellweb, D'Compose's dead city. The zombies here would be close to giant Ju Ju zombies from AD&D and they're free willed almost akin to the Deadites from Army of Darkness. Skellweb, D'Compose's dead city is a whole underground adventure campaign location unto itself. Especially given that you've got these things running around it.




Does the episode make a whole lot of sense? Not in the least but its got some great ideas in it to mine for an old school campaign :

1. Modern cults straight out of a post apocalyptic wasteland with potential as a cross over point for both Goblinoid Games Labyrinth Lord & Mutant Future. These mutant god things are perfect stand in for demons or other boss monsters. 
2. These cults & groups are perfect DCC fodder especially Crawling Under A Broken Moon 
3. The super science relics of the Inhumanoid series are perfect examples of artifacts bolstered by hi tech junk yard finds. They even use a ton of 80's stuff to form Tank's armor. 
4. There is a quick random encounter with giant bats! 
5. This episode has some amazing connections between the front organizations & the god things showing how such an organization reaches down into the streets and urban locations of the cartoon. 
6.  Cult of Darkness presents a good plot to use with any old school post apocalypse game as a quick jump point to get your favorite demon or undead horror to present to your players.

This blog post is not a challenge to the copyright & trademark of the Inhumanoids cartoon holders or Hasbro properties.

The Inhumanoids 1986 Kids Cartoon As A Quick Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaign Jump Start

So what happens when you take the over excess of the Eighties add in power armor & over the top gigantic pre historic  monsters? You get the Inhumanoids cartoon an inner Earth weirdness fest that was air along side Jem and the Holograms back in '86. Even back then these things were gonzo bat crap craziness all of it owned by Hasbro;"Inhumanoids is an animated series and Hasbro toy property in 1986. In the tradition of other Hasbro properties such as Transformers and G.I. Joe, the show was produced by Sunbow and Marvel Productions and animated in Japan by Toei Animation. Inhumanoids tells the story of the scientist-hero group, Earth Corps, as they battle a trio of subterranean monsters called the Inhumanoids with the aid of elemental beings, the Mutores."

As you can read the whole wiki entry here about the series  and its pretty detailed but then there's this gentleman's video which goes into some pretty good detail about most of the plot points, cast, and lots of The Inhumanoid's weirdness.

There is so much to mine here that I can't do this Eighties gonzo giant monster  show justice. Inhumanoids was packed to the brim with so much goodness that in sixty five episodes there was lot of epic ground to cover. The plot of the Evil That Lies Within movie goes something like this;"The story begins with the discovery of a monstrous creature encased in an amber monolith buried in Big Sur national park, which is recovered by the government-funded Earth Corps, a geological sciences research team. The finding spurs corrupt industrialist Blackthorne Shore to clandestinely uncover a second monster buried elsewhere — a giant vine-like creature called Tendril, who attacks the amber block's public unveiling in San Francisco to release the macabre colossus trapped within, D'Compose. They rampage through city streets before fleeing into the watery darkness of the bay.
Earth Corps member Liquidator returns to Big Sur in search of further clues to the origin of these monsters, whereupon he discovers a race of sentient trees, the Redwoods, who explain that they are members of a subterranean population known as Mutores, and that their kind sealed the evil Inhumanoids Tendril and D'Compose beneath the Earth ages ago. The malevolent Inhumanoid leader, Metlar, remains imprisoned below the surface, paralyzed by the magnetic field of a Mutore duo named Magnokor.
A nocturnal assault by Tendril demolishes the Earth Corps base, prompting a chase into the depths of the Earth, but even with the help of another Mutore species, the rock-bodied Granites, they are forced to retreat back to the surface. When their budget is summarily cut by Senator Masterson — a crooked politician in Blackthorne Shore's shady pocket — they are approached by Sandra Shore, Blackthorne's sister, who has learned of her brother's sinister plot to liberate Metlar. Funded by Sandra, the team constructs new vehicles and embarks back below the Earth's surface, tracking D'Compose and Tendril to the city of the Granites, where an ensuing battle frees Metlar from Magnokor's hold. Having pilfered Earth Corps' engineering schematics via his ties to Masterson, Blackthorne joins the fray, now equipped with his own battle-suit whose magnetic powers he wields against Metlar, only to be derailed by Tendril's interference while Sandra falls victim to the mutative touch of D'Compose.
Earth Corps manages to escape and forms an alliance with the Granites. Herc accompanies them to D'Compose's domain of Skellweb while Auger and Liquidator venture into Metlar's kingdom of Infernac, and Bright convinces the Redwoods to help defend the surface world against attempts by the Inhumanoids to acquire sources of power. Herc and the Granites are able to defeat D'Compose's reanimated soldiers and restore Sandra to normal. Blackthorne pursues Auger and Liquidator to Infernac and tries to use his magnetic powers on Metlar once again but is foiled by Magnokor and taken captive by Metlar.
Acting on information forced from Blackthorne, the Inhumanoids raid a Soviet air base, stealing a handful of nuclear missiles. A seemingly repentant Blackthorne warns Earth Corps that the missiles are intended to shatter the divide between the Earth's crust and mantle, but upon travelling into the Earth to preclude this catastrophe, the team discovers that Blackthorne has set them up and that the missiles are actually meant to detonate the planet's core. Earth Corps is able to convince D'Compose to allow them access to Infernac — a deal made easier by the fact that the Inhumanoid already fears for his own survival in the face of Metlar's insane plan — and they manage to defuse enough of the missiles to thwart the explosive scheme.
Following a climactic battle, D'Compose is re-sealed in amber casing and Tendril is imprisoned by the Granites. Finally, Magnokor succeeds in neutralizing Metlar even as Blackthorne is arrested by Earth Corps. Senator Masterson provides the Earth Corps team with a new headquarters facility, but a tissue sample secured from Tendril during their first encounter with the monster has mysteriously gone missing...:" To this day this show still has some of the most devoted fans outside of Transformers I've ever encountered. What is there for the old school dungeon master to mine & borrow? Lots and lots of stuff as we're about to get into.


Now here's where I head South from the fiery depths of the Earth folks, Inhumanoids is the Eighties version of an adventure opera. This is seriously one show with so much ground to borrow from it isn't even funny. You've got scientists in power armor running around facing some of the weirdest monsters to burst forth from the depths of the Earth. Let's start with the fact that if you want to get into gonzo epic weirdness this is a show to emulate in spades. Inhumanoids is the perfect adventure cartoon to use as a template or plan to use for an old school gonzo game. And when it hit in Eighty Six we grabbed our copy of second edition Gamma World (no we didn't fall for that third edition Action Control Table stuff) & set an Inhumanoids style giant monster game right up after school during the Shadow Years! But when it comes to using a power armor party going against giant monsters I can only think of the Mutant Crawl Classics game being able to sort of handle a funnel style with an Inhumanoids giant monster bent. Did that after school game back in sixth grade make a whole lot of sense? Give me a break we were kids. But the sheer scale of the game was really one of the fun parts.

While Mutant Crawl Classics isn't out yet I can also see using the Crawling Under A Broken Moon fanzine for my own Eighties power armored VS giant monster fueled fun. Given the fact that the collected fanzine has all of the elements a DM would need for giant monster bashing fun. Yeah this style of campaign is a perfect marriage of gonzo retroclone weirdness. But there's a lot more going on below the surface here in Inhumanoids.



There was one thing that made Inhumanoids such a hit with the kids back in Eighty six & that was the sheer variety of monsters and races in the cartoon. There was an internal consistency to the background,history, plot points, and internal mythology of the cartoon. Yes it was completely over the top Eighties cartoon crazy but it was so in an internal universe way. This was something really important that as a DM I learned from Inhumanoids, the idea of world building with an internal setting with layers of back history, etc. that the players uncover the deeper into the adventures they go. Marvel had a Sunbow crossover series of comics and it kept this aspect of the show but it came out in '87 and was canceled. "Marvel Comics produced a short-lived Inhumanoids comic book under its Star Comics imprint in 1987, adapting the storyline of "The Evil That Lies Within". The series ended after only 4 issues and left readers with the cliffhanger of Metlar's escape from captivity and Sandra Shore's transformation into an undead minion of D'Compose." Boo, hiss.
Could the giant monster vs power armor work for other retroclone systems or post apocalyptic  games? Short answer yes on a number of levels. The Inhumanoid's inner Earth ecology is very applicable to a point crawl game with lots of potential for underworld mutant monster races & forgotten adventure locations. I used this idea as a part of my Warlords of the Outer Worlds game recently.

A  couple of years ago an ex friend of mine DMed a Lamentations of the Flame Princess/ Mutant Future crossover game which used giant mutant god monsters straight out of after school Eighties goodness. This far more generic game used a group of scientists who are transported lock, stock, and university onto an alien planet ala Carcosa and they had to fight giant god things to survive. The play sessions were interesting, challenging, and very well done. And that same formula also had a brother/sister rivalry of patrons as well but that's where things went in very different directions then Inhumanoids as the sister was killed as a sacrifice for one of the god things. The brother ended up as the patron of the party of adventurers after suddenly seeing the light. The whole thing  works well with games such as Mutant Future or Gamma World 1st & second edition where the technology of inner Earth travel was implied and was never used. Now adventure locations with Shadow Years flavor are easily within reach of PC's.

So why use this style of game campaign? Because its Eighties gonzo epic adventure opera at its best. The stakes are ridiculously high, the weirdness is up to Eleven, and its got giant mutant monsters to boot! I've had several of the Earth Core pop up from time to time as high level retired adventurers in various campaigns making NPC cameos. Even after all of these years there are still thousands of devoted Inhumanoid fans out there (myself being one of them). The basis for the cartoon series could be used for an epic gonzo campaign of incredible old school proportions. The series is out on Blu ray and DVD so its easily accessed for someone with the time to grab it. I love to see a big screen revamp of it, given the fact that so many Eighties cartoon properties are being given new life. This is one to take a look at. Obviously I'm not trying to violate the trademark or copyright of Inhumanoids and this blog entry is for educational & entertainment purposes only. None of the table top rpg's mentioned in this article are responsible for its content its all down to me and my warped DM's mind and opinions.

More Gamma World Saturday Morning Memories - 'Return of The Apes' An Old School Jump Off Point

When I was in middle school I was involved in a Gamma World first edition game involving the Return to the  Planet of the Apes. So I decided to revisit those memories & share that trip down the mutated old school lane.


So last night I shut down my computer, stayed the heck away from social media, and threw in a DVD because of the splitting head ache due to leaf mold with my algereies getting the better of me. I specifically started watching Return To The Planet of the Apes cartoon."RETURN TO THE PLANET OF THE APES was produced by DePatie-Freleng Productions in association with 20th Century-Fox Television for NBC-TV. This animated version aired on Saturday Mornings from September 6,1975 until November 29,1975. A total of 13 episodes were produced. NBC aired again on Saturday Mornings in repeats from November 30,1975 until September 4,1976. The cartoon was on NBC's Saturday Morning schedule airing at 11:00e/10:00c. The series was the replacement for the animated "Star Trek" which ran on NBC from 1973-1975."  The Return To The Planet of The Apes cartoon & the Planet of the Apes  television show were the perfect mediums to pull from for old school campaigns.

A while back I picked up this series for five dollars & the Planet of The Apes Television series. As a kid I had a friend who was into these films & the television series.


He was much older and wiser being twelve and all. He explained that this was another alternative timeline from the films. He had also read the novel & this animated series more closely resembles Pierre Boulle's original novel than the Fox movie series. As fodder for Gamma World & Metamorphosis Alpha 1st edition  there were other reasons to pull from this Saturday morning cartoon and the television show.  These same reasons apply to Mutant Future & Apes Victorious:

1. Because of the limited budget these shows took full advantage of kids appetites for monsters and mutant freaks. So we get giant spiders, ruins, and lots of Forbidden Zone action. 
2. Because of the alternative timeline elements familiar characters have weird tie ins with their movie counter parts. 
3. The apes tech levels are higher & there are far more opportunities for inspiration for points crawling and factional play.
   The biggest difference in pulling from these sources is the amount mix between wasteland & ape civilization. At the ape's highest levels of technology they seem to have a post WWII level of technology and yet the closer to the wastelands or rural areas the development is far more traditionally Planet of The Apes. 
4. Don't try to explain the mysteries of the time warps & other dimension shifts. The astronauts were messing around with FTL drives and physics. I think there was a huge degree of alternative timelines travel and travel going on. Now there was an original series  Star Trek/Planet of the Apes crossover   comic book that states The planet of the apes is an alternative Earth.
   
   The television show by CBS goes into this further because;  "the series begins with the crash of an Earth spaceship that encountered a time warp while approaching Alpha Centauri on August 19, 1980. The spaceship is manned by three astronauts, one of whom has died in the crash. The other two astronauts, Colonel Alan Virdon and Major Peter J. Burke, are unconscious but are rescued by a human who carries them to an old bomb shelter. After the human opens a book containing historical text and pictures of Earth circa 2500, the two astronauts are convinced that they are indeed on a future Earth. The crash is also witnessed by a young chimpanzee who tells his father, a village official who alerts the authorities. Ape counselor Zaius (an analog of the character from the original movie), notes that another such incident occurred ten years earlier. He orders the head gorilla, Security Chief Urko, to find the humans and bring them back alive. Zaius wants to find out as much as he can about the humans before they are eventually killed. Zaius doesn't trust Urko to follow his orders and bring back any surviving humans, so he sends along his newly hired chimpanzee assistant, Galen.
   Both Virdon and Burke go back to their ship to check the ship's chronometer. They are more than 1000 years in the future from when they left Earth. Virdon insists on retrieving the ship's flight log in the hopes that they will be able to analyze it and be able to return to their own time period, but while they are at the ship, they are captured, and the old man is subsequently killed by a group of apes"
   
   
   
   
   The Planet of The Apes show is the perfect blue print for a hex crawl  style of a campaign of wilderness wasteland wandering from encounter to encounter. "The three fugitives wander around the territory that used to be the western United States having various encounters with apes, humans, and old human civilization ruins."
   
   
   
   The only thing missing is some mutants, a wizard or two, and some other wasteland hazards. Our heroes are ready to go down into the wastelands of adventure! So I'm really looking forward to when Goblinoid Games launches Apes Victorious!
   The planet of the apes television show is trademarked and copy righted to CBS. This blog post is not an attempt to violate the trademarks or copy rights of that show.
   All other Planet of the Apes materials belong to Fox studios. This blog post is for entertainment & educational purposes only. The opinions and ideas expressed by the writers are his own & are not an attempt to violate the trademarks or copy rights of the table top systems described nor the Planet of the Apes films or television.

Gamma World Redux 1980 - The ' Never Too Many Tomorrows' Campaign

 
  Good afternoon kids your uncle Eric is back with a slightly different take on old school campaigns when we our ten year old players brains were thrown a curve ball. I was just hitting ten years old in 1980. The world was a grey ball full of promises & the ever looming threat of nuclear war. In fact looking back on it I don't think that there was ever a time when that shadow wasn't over my shoulder. So I was moving back to Connecticut from New York State in November of that year. There are some games & campaigns that stick with you as a player and DM. This was one when Barbra the wife of our regular dungeon master took over the regularly sceduled Gamma World 1st edition game. Up till then most of our games were gonzo ruin exploration crossed over with Space 1999 style ruins. Our DM was my father's best friend and a retired RAF pilot so things had definitive British slant. But he was called away for a few months and his wife took over our game (actually his mother had passed & he had to settle the estate with his siblings). I played with his kids who were best friends ( they're a whole other blog entry). Barbra was an Royal Air Force bride so she was a bit on the young side and as we would soon learn 'The Tomorrow People' show fanatic. She took Gamma World and sort of turned it on its ear.

Suddenly we were generating modern day PC's who were the next stage of human evolution (Homo novis) known colloquially as Tomorrow People. We were kids who had 'broken out' and were coming to terms with our abilities;"normal child might at some point between childhood and late adolescence experience a process called "breaking out" and develop special paranormal abilities. These abilities include psionic powers such as telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation." That little wrinkle that the show had where the characters "psychological make-up prevents them from intentionally killing others." Yeah that went out the window. The campaign resembled something between the 'Fury', 'Escape From Witch Mountain' & 'Carrie'.
Gamma World got a lot more weird as we discovered a modern day bunker in London with a weird set of Gamma World style computers & a very interesting A.I. who was going to be our guiding light, conscience, and Barbara's voice in the game. She followed the program loosely at best which was fine with us kids;"The original series was produced by Thames Television for ITV. The Tomorrow People operate out of a secret base, The lab, built in an abandoned London Underground station. The lab was revamped at the beginning of Series 6. The team watches for new Tomorrow People "breaking out" to help them through the process and sometimes deal with attention from extraterrestrial species as well as facing more earthbound dangers. They also have connections with the "Galactic Federation" which oversees the welfare of telepathic species throughout the galaxy. In addition to their psychic powers, they use advanced technology such as the biological (called in the series "biotronic") computer TIM, which is capable of original thought, telepathy, and can augment their psychic powers. TIM also helps the Tomorrow People to teleport long distances, although they must be wearing a device installed into a belt or bracelet for this to work. Teleportation is referred to as jaunting in the programme. The team used jaunting belts up to the end of Series 5, after which they used much smaller wristbands."
The teleportation, the connections to the Galactic Federation, and connections with her husband's Space 1999 style Metamorphosis Alpha 1st edition were sprinkled, picked up, and used as she needed them. It was a glorious campaign. She wrote all of her own adventures which had us zipping around the globe. There was a sprinkle of Dr.Who in there on occasion.



And what kinds of menaces did our little group of six kids face down? Well it was pretty simple actually the various Cryptic Alliances of Gamma World came back to our little corner of London down through time or through an alternative gate ways to menace us. There was the odd sprinkling of wizards and various things from the Monster Manual as the monster menace out of time. Barbra was one of my favorite DM's & possibly the one who had the most influence on me as a kid. How did the campaign end? Did the kids prevent the coming apocalypse? I never knew because I moved back to Connecticut & for awhile at least I lost track of my adopted uncle and his family. This was long before the internet & the chaos of family took far more of my time. More on that soon. Years later she would pass on from cancer way too young, I still miss her today. There have been so many times when I could have used her counsel & guidance in life & gaming.



There were a lot of firsts with this game campaign. Barbara was my first female DM & she was far better then her husband (she was patient, a methodical planner, a hell of a mapper & the pacing of her adventures were very well done) and she also reveled in the gonzo aspect of the science fantasy of Gamma World. She also sat me down & taught me how to look past the setting limitations of a table top rpg to make it my own as a DM.

'The Far Out Space Nuts' 1975 Kids Show As A Quick Random Encounter For An Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaign Jump Starter Take Two

So what happened to Gilligan after they got off the island? Well he became a NASA maintenance worker and astronaut? Well he did in my tiny five year old imagination. Far Out Space Nuts is a Sid and Marty Krofft children's television series that aired in 1975 for one season, and produced 15 episodes. It was one of only two Krofft series produced exclusively for CBS (the second being 1984's Pryor's Place). The basic plot is the usual Sid and Mardi hi jinks for a plot; "Like most of the Kroffts' productions, the show's opening sequence provides the setup of its fanciful premise: While loading food into various compartments to prepare a rocket for an upcoming mission, Barney instructs Junior to hit the "lunch" button, but Junior mistakenly hits the "launch" button. The rocket blasts off and takes them on various misadventures on alien planets.

Typically, in each episode, their spaceship (a NASA lunar module) would be captured by aliens (one being played by John Carradine, who so impressed Denver with his acting skills that the scene had to be reshot^[3]) and taken to some strange planet, or the spaceship would just land somewhere. Then, either Barney and Junior or the ship would be taken away by the strange creatures on the planet. After some weird mission was carried out, the two astronauts would be reunited with the spaceship and be off on their next mission"

So every dungeon master always faces the prospect of too few players & way too much of a big dream of running the game of their imagination. Sometimes its Dungeons & Dragons and sometimes its some other table top rpg. Well for me it was Gamma World, it was a bout '79 or '80 & I had moved back to Connecticut. I was in a brand new school & the number of kids into D&D let alone Gamma World was very low. I only had three players at the time that would change later on. Now the Space Nuts were in reruns at the time on a weekday I think on channel 11 out of New York. The first thing I did was kept the Apollo style landing module, ditched guys as pilots and added in my players mutant and pure strain human from Gamma World. I think later on we added in another player who was a mutant plant. What this format allowed us to do was to use the module to point crawl between communities and places especially in Metamorphosis Alpha 1st edition & Gamma World. Did any of this make any sense? Hell no we were kids & the party often got in way over their heads.  This also made it quite easy to have the adventurers land in some D&D fiesta setting such as Greyhawk or Blackmoor because of a solar storm or time warp or dimension gate. After all we were big into Land of the Lost.



We'd add or subtract adventure locations, sample monsters, adjust communities, and generally kill a ton of NPC's etc. We later on added in Space 1999 energy weapons & much bigger space craft when we added in new players but for a glorious retro future moment all was right with the world. But now many years on I'm thinking about this style of format & how it could work?! Well a huge influence was Star Wars and the aliens from Far Out Space Nuts always seemed like refugees from a Science Fiction convention. These guys were always mutants in our games with lots of powers and abilities far beyond the norm. These aliens always seemed half way between Lost in Space, Star Trek, and perhaps a low rent part of the Star War's Cantina. In  fact the Far Out Space Nuts might have been the inspiration for that scene;"Chuck McCann, who played Barney, said that Lucas was working on the same film lot in the early '70s, and wandered into the studio cafeteria one day to see the Space Nuts cast sitting around having lunch wearing various alien costumes - he believes that was the influence for the Cantina scene"

So what does any of this have to do with old school or retroclone gaming? Quite a bit actually by using the three or four adventurers with an interstellar or solar system vehicle model of play and setting we get a perfect set up for a post apocalyptic or near space opera style encounter point crawl. We don't even have to go outside of the solar system for this type of campaign set up to work.
  The whole thing  works well with games such as Mutant Future or Gamma World 1st & second edition where the technology of space travel was implied and indeed used for exploration of near orbit ruins. The various planets and what not that the Space Nuts have been visiting might actually be a part of Earth's or the Sol system's asteroid belt a fact that seldom if ever gets mentioned in post apocalyptic material except for Metamorphosis Alpha 1st edition and Gamma World's time line.



I had Barney pop up a couple of times in Alpha Blue in some lone space bar toasting his partner and grabbing some scores on the holo sports bar. 'The Farout Space Nuts' was of its time and for those of us who grew up in the 70's perhaps one of the first introductions to science fiction in our young lives.

'The Lost Saucer' 1975 Kids Show As A Quick Random Encounter For An Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaign Jump Starter.

The Lost Saucer was one of those 1975 Saturday morning CBS entries in the Kroft Super Show which was slotted back to back with a whole package of other kids shows. The reason why I mentioned Lost Saucer is that last night's game jarred a very old campaign idea from the dark recesses of my mind. First let's look at the basic plot and opening of The Lost Saucer. Fi (Ruth Buzzi) and Fum (Jim Nabors) were two really annoying androids who landed on Earth and invite two kids to go up with them in their space ship. Umm yeah righto. But hey this was a Saturday morning kids show and we really weren't thinking of strangers with vans or candy at the time.

Now I've been on a Logan's Run post apocalyptic kick as of late what does this have to do with the Lost Saucer? Everything and nothing at all but when your a dungeon master you make odd leaps and connections with stuff especially as a kid back in the 70's & 80's.

"The Lost Saucer was about two friendly time-travelling androids from the year 2369 named Fi (Ruth Buzzi) and Fum (Jim Nabors) who land their flying saucer on present day Earth. They good-naturedly invite a young boy named Jerry (Jarrod Johnson) and his babysitter Alice (Alice Playten) to check out the interior of their craft.

As onlookers begin to gather though, the two androids become nervous about attracting attention and abruptly take off with Jerry and Alice. The flying saucer has the ability to travel through time, but the controls which allow the androids to specify an exact date become damaged, thus preventing the androids from returning Jerry and Alice to their rightful time and place."
Here's where we part ways with the Lost Saucer right out of the gate. We're going to start taking a look at the nuts and bolts of the basic plot of the show but only superficially.  If we start taking apart the basic plot  outline of the Lost Saucer there's a lot of stuff to use for an old school game campaign there especially with a time travel  or alternative world twist to it. Way back when I was nine year old dungeon master I didn't have huge number of players for a Gamma World campaign. The guys wanted a Dungeons & Dragons campaign & I had the Dragon magazine with the crossover article. So without blinking an eye I got rid of the kids and the annoying androids ( I switched em out for some Gamma World androids) & suddenly the party was off to other worldly adventures. Mess with the androids and the saucer blows up killing you and your party out of the local time space continuum. That saucer is the classic 'Forbidden Planet' type with a time drive or two fitted in. This means that its easy to use and a sweet ride.


My androids from most of my post apocalyptic games come straight
from the Time Travelers 1964 show room.

There several important elements that work with this type of a campaign especially for smaller groups of players. The androids are time travelers from the year 2369 and in my own Gamma World campaign they were being sent from Cybernetic installations back in time to try and figure out what had happened during the Apocalypse. They also gathered local specimens to take back with them to the science facility located in a Thundarr the Barbarian style future. Add in cowboys from Boot Hill, Gangsters From Gangbusters, or any monster from the Monster Manual or mutant menace as needed. This sort of a campaign works especially well with a smaller venue of players and requires none of the really major dust up for a huge amount of prep time. Flipping adventurers from Labryth Lord or Mutant Future is only a saucer ride away and it retains the saucer in the DM's purview and control.

t
Sorry no Dorses are required on this trip.

Back in the Seventies it seemed that UFO's were everyplace so why not take full advantage of this situation.Where original show tried to work in moral lessons & hit its kid audience over the head with some great truth;"Each episode had a specific theme, usually a social or environmental one. "Fat is Beautiful", for example, depicted a future in which people were grotesquely obese due to over-dependence on push-button conveniences, and leanness was in fact outlawed. In "Get a Dorse", two scientists kidnap the Dorse to use as a power source because the world's fuel supplies were finally used up."  What we're going to do is to use the saucer and androids as a means to get your adventures from point A to alternative world or time line B. One of the retro clone style games this works well with is Dungeon Crawl Classics & incorporating in getting your adventurers over to Merica from the Crawling Under A Broken Moon fanzine.

The Sinister Undertones of the Logan's Run TV Show As Fodder For Your Old School Campaigns.

So the other night I started looking back into and rewatching the Logan's Run television series, this is the perfect compliment to Mutant Future, Gamma World,Crawling Under A Broken Moon  or many post apocalyptic retroclone games. The series starred Gregory Harrison as title character Logan 5, and Heather Menzies as Jessica 6.

There's actually lots of differences between the film & the television series; the basic plot expands in a completely different direction then the film;

"The series maintains the basic premise and visual style of the film in that Logan and Jessica have escaped from the "City of Domes" so that they will not have to die once they reach the age of 30. However, the series differs from the plot of the movie in various ways, and depicts Logan and Jessica on the run in each episode in various locations on future Earth as they search for the mythical place known as "Sanctuary". Logan and Jessica are also assisted in each episode by an android called Rem (Donald Moffat) who did not appear in the film version."
Right off the bat is the fact that adventure location is named & we get the party of adventurers running into all kinds of weirdness from the get go. They get a sweet little solar powered hover car and immediately begin hex crawling through the wilds of America. They're pursued by a sandmen team and Logan's old partner Francis. Each episode they stumbled upon another post apocalyptic society or small knot of survivors. But they also ran into aliens and there was a bit of a Star Trek feel to the series because; "D. C. Fontana served as story editor and worked alongside several other writers from Star Trek as well as one of the original novel's authors. Executive Producers of the TV show were Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, who had created Charlie's Angels the year before."  Man, you have to love the Seventies when it came to that sort of cross Hollywood and television politics. Now when it comes to gaming the television show was the perfect point between the film and the novel for gaming . In fact a couple of years ago I used the television series as part of an alternative Trek timeline during the world war that had taken place in the 90's. Anyhow the television series is a perfect template for old school post apocalyptic gaming with the party journeying from hex to hex to find Sanctuary or as a part of a wilderness or wasteland. 

There are wrinkles that a DM can take advantage of when it comes to planning out adventures in Logan's America.
The television series differed greatly from the film and wiki has a cool little break down of those differences:

Although based on the 1976 film (itself based loosely on the 1967 novel), the series differed from the film in several ways:

• The film is set in the year 2274. The series begins in the year 2318.
• In the film, the city in which Logan and Jessica come from is simply referred to as "The City". In the series, they refer to it as the "City of Domes".
• In the film, each citizen of the City has a lifeclock crystal implanted in the palm of their hand at birth, which changes color as they get older and blinks as they approach 30. The lifeclocks were not seen in the series.
• Logan's motive for the leaving the City of Domes is different. In the film, the City's computer makes his lifeclock blink early and sends him on a covert mission to find and destroy Sanctuary. In the series, Logan begins to question Carousel and the need to die at 30, and decides to run by himself.
• In the film, participants in Carousel were seemingly shot and killed in a shower of sparks (like a laser blast). When they are killed in the series, they glow and are vaporized.
• In the film, the City is run by a computer. In the series, it is run by a secret cabal of old men.
• In the series, the Sandmen are given vehicles with which they can travel outside of the City to pursue Runners. In the film there were no vehicles that travelled outside of the City. The solar-powered hovercraft vehicle that Logan and Jessica find and use was not featured in the film either.
• The character of Francis 7 was killed in the film version, but lives throughout the series.

This isn't the only way of utilizing & indeed inverting the Logan's Run television show to a DM's advantage. There are several factors that can turn the City of Domes into one of the most dangerous factions that a party can face. The first thing is the fact that the society that Logan comes from is an isolated, enclosed society with all of its own rules, norms, a completely enclosed package. It has it own private security and police force making it the perfect NPC menace or evil to dog PC's as a faction of extreme but limited power. Within its sphere of influence the Domed City is lord and master of the wastelands.
Replace the computer or the council of old men in the Domed City with Morlocks from George Pal's The Time Machine  and suddenly this wasteland location is an isolated colony of the Eloi. Suddenly the whole eco system takes on a far more sinister vibe then simply dying in Carousel.And whose maintaining those wonderful super science systems in the city of domes?


And what about Carousel? Doesn't that seem like a very inefficient and ritualistic way of murdering the youths of your society or does it actually seem like a bit of a Seventies sinister black magick rite in fact? Could the time of carousel actually be a rite for the Lovecraftian entity that's actually been living down below the 'City of Domes' for hundreds of years now all but forgotten by everyone?  What is actually below that giant pulsing red crystal whist the crowd cheers on the deaths of their fellow Dome City citizens? The crowd building to a point to feed the hungers of the monster blow the thing waiting for when the stars are right. In fact the idea of the runners being hunted could be used as a funnel with only the strongest surviving their ordeal only to find out the lie of Sanctuary



The City of Domes is the perfect Utopian cult society, lots of sex to control the flock, weird rites, a standing police force, and a limited shelf life for the worshipers. This is an option that I've used several times with Dome like societies in Gamma World, Carcosa, and even with far flung colonies of space dwellers.  The totalitarian future (23rd-century) society in which no one is permitted to live beyond age 30 always seemed to me to a good faction to add into the wastelands. It's blue print is perfect for a wide variety of applications for old school campaigns.



The television show only lasted from 1977 through 1978 but its a great blue print for old school wasteland and post apocalyptic adventuring!

New OSR Monster- Haunting Goblins For Your Old School Campaigns

There goblins that even other goblins are afraid of, beings who served the 'Old Ways' and the powers of darkness. These things are seldom mentioned in goblin society at all and these beings bring a shudder to those polite goblins who would rather have tea, speak of labyrinths, and discuss the latest debacle of their king. Baetulaullit keep to themselves, their own weird ways & their disturbing rites to their ancient masters. They move about various societies between the floor boards and behind the walls of ruins. They have ancient and deadly secrets all their own.

 

Frequency: Uncommon 

No Appearing : 1d6 

Armor Class: 8

Move: 10"

Hit Dice: 1-4 +1 

% in Lair: 70% 

Treasure: C
Initiative:7

No of Attacks:2 

Damage:1-6, Bite 3 or by weapon 

Special Attacks: Bite causes sleep as per the spell 

Special Defenses: Nil 

Magic Resistance: 10% 

Intelligence: Average 

Alignment: Chaotic 

Size: Small 3 foot 

Psionic Ability: Nil 

Attack/Defense Modes: Nil 
Morale: 7

 Baetulaullit,  also called stalking goblins, or haunting goblins are seemingly pathetic creatures that were a part of a shadow society of goblin kind that has always remained apart of normal goblin society. They cause revulsion in other goblins who won't even mention their name out of fear of attracting their attention. They are remembered with revulsion by human society by certain esoteric religions and myths. There are rites of Law that can seal them away or bind them to their lairs for hundreds of years. But these little horrors are bound to convert those that free them into one of their own. These horrors have a nasty habit of mumbling the names of their victims over and over when they fixate on such a victim. This often gives away their presence but serves to unnerve the target. Baetulaullit do not have the need for sleep, food, or real rest. They can exist for centuries in a sort of timeless and dreamless trance just waiting for some fool to stumble upon them. They often take trinkets, treasures, and junk from their victims to create small shrines or momento walls of their own former lives. Jewelry, gold coins, and even magic trinkets are often found there. These little horrors also keep bolt hole lairs as well in the ruins and areas they haunt.
The  Baetulaullit often fixate upon a target to convert into one of their own and will stalk this victim almost to the point of madness. They will try to kidnap  such individuals off to their warrens for their bodies and souls to be converted into more of these horrors. These victims are offered up in rites to their abominable masters and Lovecraftian Old Ones they serve. Baetulaullit have a diabolical and twisted intelligence; they are masters of tricks and traps. Their warrens are often a maze of dead falls, trip wires, and weird booby traps just waiting for adventurers. The monsters have dark vision up to sixty feet but are at a -1 on all rolls in artificial light. For individuals who are converted into these hideous creatures it  -3 Strength, +2 Dexterity, -4 Charisma as flesh bone and spirit are twisted into more pleasing shapes by their masters of vile and evil.
Baetulaullit have many of the abilities of thieves that they have developed out of necessity including the ability to hide in shadows and move without sound. The pads on their hands and feet dampen the sound.  They favor weapons and tools of their own design created by adapting the debris, trash, and left overs of human society. There are several clever +1 weapons that they use and count as +1 daggers but often these weapons lose their enchantment when exposed to sunlight. These horrors use 1d4 small hand made lock picks and tools as 6th level thieves. They are patient, mostly noiseless but there is an aura of the unholy in places that they frequent. Clerics and priests of the Old Religions may detect this with a 5% chance when in such areas.Dungeon masters should secretly roll for such encounters when such PC's enter these areas.
Baetulaullit every two centuries will produce a black cleric of the Old Ones who will secret itself away and progress up to 5th or 6th level and are able to cast spells and rites. These beings are dangerous stalkers and killers but also the wise men of the race. They will have at least four followers after three centuries often converting fledgling students of the priestly arts and young apprentices of the crafts to their ways. Baetulaullit have stowed away on vessels to other dimensions and are now found sometimes in the post apocalyptic wastelands, Hyperborea, Accursed Atlantis and even as far away as Thule. They are a far more subtle and deadly gathering of horrors able to convert slowly and insidiously between the cracks of human society.








This Halloween blog entry is meant as a homage to Don't Be Afraid of the Dark a television movie that aired in 1973   for educational and entertainment purposes and is not intended as a violation of the copyright or trade mark of ABC Broadcasting,USA Home Video, or
Warner Bros.