The Ecology Of The Eloi For Your Old School Campaigns

There are times when conversations with friends can be engaging and eye opening such as today when I got together with friends to discuss and play a bit of Mutant Future. We began the second half of the conversation that we were having two weeks ago about HG Well's Time Machine and the Morlocks

Tonight we started to talk about the Eloi and the relationship between the Morlocks & the Eloi. Its actually the Eloi who are really the key. Lately I've been revisiting Mutant Future and mixing it up with the Advanced Labryth Lord Companion. This all comes down from HG Well's Time Machine and the caste system ecology of the novel. But not all is as it seems as I learned tonight.

When I think of the Time Machine I think of the iconic George Pals Time Machine from 1960. The Pal film takes on a journey into a possible AD802,701. His Eloi are degenerate elf like short beings with mostly human traits and a very passive society preyed upon by the Morlocks. The film is so entrenched in science fiction fans minds that it has appeared in countless television shows, books, and pop culture references. The Eloi go back much further though.



In 1895 the Eloi first appeared in HG Wells novel the Time Machine and Wiki has a very good breakdown of the post human species; "By the year AD 802,701, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks, whereof the Eloi live a banal life of ease on the surface of the earth, while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing, and infrastructure for the Eloi. The narration suggests that the separation of species may have been the result of a widening split between different social classes. Having solved all problems that required strength, intelligence, or virtue, the Eloi have slowly become dissolute and naive: they are described as smaller than modern humans, with shoulder-length curly hair, pointed chins, large eyes, small ears, small mouths with bright red thin lips, and sub-human intelligence. They do not perform much work, except to feed, play, and mate; and when Weena falls into a river, none of the other Eloi helps her (she is rescued instead by the Time Traveler). Periodically, the Morlocks capture individual Eloi for food; and because this typically happens on moonless nights, the Eloi are terrified of darkness.

A portion of the book written for the New Review version, later published as a separate short story, reveals that a visit by the Time Traveller to the even more distant future results in his encountering rabbit-like hopping herbivores, apparently the descendants of the Eloi. They are described as being plantigrade, with longer hind legs and tailless, being covered with straight greyish hair that "thickened about the head into a Skye terrier's mane", having human-like hands (described as fore feet) and having a roundish head with a projecting forehead and forward-looking eyes that were obscured by lank hair." Here we get our first glimpse into a possible artificially evolved species. But why do I say they're an artificially evolved species? Well according to the Mutant Future wiki Eloi gain the following mutations; "Mutations: Atrophied Cerebellum, Bizarre Appearance (nymph-like features), Weak Will.

This is a weak PC, so a player would have to play carefully or treat as a challenge." Eloi are known to be; "

The Eloi are a race of meek, delicate humans, who are the descendants of the social elite. Generations of having every and all needs taken care of has resulted in them becoming vary docile and hedonistic. They are also not really smart, nor are they considerate of others. In their isolated, well hidden communities, they live in a perpetual bliss of drug-induced fantasies and sexual orgies. In the wild, they are just helpless animals to more savage creatures, who see them as easy pray. Some industrious creatures (like Morlocks) would provide all their needs -- from food and shelter, to drugs and protection. The only price is that they are nothing more then human livestock. Do to their unearthly beauty, docile nature and willingness to preform any carnal act, they have become highly valued sex-slaves.

An untouched Eloi community is usually an underground arcology, space station, or generation spaceship with a limited capacity. Population is controlled by special enforcers that hunts down rogue Eloi, who refuse to die a after their "last day" - an expiration date, based on their birthday (the maximum age could range between 16 - 30). "last day" could range between a trip inside a suicide booth, to an elaborate mass-suicide ritual." Yes there is a solid connection between Logan's Run and the Time Machine for reasons that we'll get into in a moment. And these reasons are tied within their origins.

The Eloi's origins can be traced into the novella "A Story of the Days To Come" written in 1897 and was first published in the June to October 1897 issues of The Pall Mall Magazine. It was later included in an 1899 collection of Wells's short stories, Tales of Space and Time. "This novella depicts two lovers in a dystopian future London of the 22nd century and explores the implications of excessive urbanization, class warfare, and advances in the technology of medicine, communication, transportation, and agriculture. Like "When the Sleeper Wakes", published in the same year, the stories extrapolate the trends Wells observed in nineteenth-century Victorian London two hundred years into the future.

The London of the early 22nd century is over 30 million people in population, with the lower classes living in subterranean dwellings, and the middle and upper classes living in skyscrapers and largely communal accommodations. Moving walkways interconnect the city, with fast air-travel and superhighways available between cities. The countryside is largely abandoned." It also happens to be the precursor to When The Sleeper Wakes which was published in 1910.
The plot of ' A Story Of The Days To Come ' is interesting on several levels and goes something like this;

A wealthy heiress falls in love with a middle-class worker of romantically quaint disposition. In part one, the woman's father hires a hypnotist to program his daughter to instead choose a more appropriate suitor selected by him. When that plot is unraveled, the couple secretly marry and flee into the abandoned countryside and attempt to live off the land. After being driven back into the city, the couple live a modest middle-class lifestyle until their money runs out. At that point, they move to the "underneath" area of London to toil in physical labor as lower-class workers. Finally, their issues are resolved through the machinations of her spurned would-be suitor, and they resume a middle-class lifestyle.

Among other things, this short story appears to anticipate technical developments toward massive urbanization, skyscrapers, moving sidewalks, superhighways, and intercontinental aircraft traveling at jet speeds.

Socially and economically, however, it predicts a very stratified class structure and a largely communal society where few mega-corporations control all means of production. It also predicts hypnosis as a supplement or replacement to psychology, "creches" where child-rearing is transferred from parents to professionals, and a megapolis served by city-wide moving walkways and escalators, with enormous cities (four in England) separated by abandoned countryside."
All of the plot elements of When The Sleeper Wakes are in play and we get to see the very mechanisms of the Eloi starting to be played out in the society of 'A Story of The Days To Come'. The dystopian future dovetails quiet nicely into the Logan Run's style stratified culture of Wells world.

When the Sleeper Wakes is a about Graham a man from contemporary London who sleeps over the course of decades, and awakens exactly 203 years later, in futuristic 2100. This is a stratified society where hundreds of thousands of Morlock like workers toil underground  and the elites of the White Council rule from above. The elite society resembles the decadent Eloi  and the novel traces the protagonist's journey into subversion and rebellion among the various factions of the city. London is portrayed as a dehumanised, industrialized quagmire caught in perpetual darkness. The lower classes are forced to work day and night in the factories, having nothing more to look forward to than some cheap amusements. As he examines this grim scene, Graham learns that Ostrog has ordered his troops to London to disarm the remaining
revolutionary workers.


It is from these elites that we start to get the clearer picture of who these Eloi are or will be. There is a further class of warrior Eloi who carry out the will of the White Council in the form of Hunter Eloi or the Sand Men from Logan's Run. These are dirrived from the armed forces that carry out the will of the White Council.


And what about the White Council themselves? Those ruling elite are Hyper Eloi who have developed hyper consciousnesses and gain the following mutations Bizarre Appearance (nymph-like features), Empathy, Frailty (infertility), Metaconcert, Mind Trust, Neural Telepathy, Tinker Affinity, Reduced Immune System from Mutant Future. Who are these elite bastards?  "Hyper-Eloi are a class of Eloi who have developed a degree of "super conscious." They are considerably more intelligent then normal Eloi, and they consider their own judgement and morality to be superior of all other races, but they are actually quite arrogant, aloof, and self-righteous. They may ignore the plight - the starvation; the brutality; the human-condition - of the outside world, but those that don't, would ether force outside to conform to the methods that allowed is type of Eloi to become Hyper-Eloi, or to exterminate the "animal-like savages" like vermin. In the later, they would rather bread a race of super-soldiers to carry-out the extermination, then to do it themselves" This would go on to explain the machinations of Ostrog from When The Sleeper Wakes. This species would later go on to evolve into the Eloi that we have come to know but they are not the only example of the seemingly docile post human species.



But the Eloi are not simply an artificial species that exists in one time line. In 1956 the science fiction film World Without End came out.  The film proceeded the George Pal effort by four years and had a plot so similar to HG Wells Time Machine that the rumors are that the Well's estate sued the production company of the film.


The film is a reverse text book example of Eloi and Morlock ecology here's some of the background according to Wiki; "In March 1957, Commander Dr. Eldon Galbraithe (Nelson Leigh), engineer Henry Jaffe (Christopher Dark), radioman Herbert Ellis (Rod Taylor) and scientist John Borden (Hugh Marlowe), are returning to Earth from the first spaceflight, a reconnaissance trip around Mars. Suddenly, their spaceship is somehow accelerated to incredible velocities, and they are knocked unconscious. Their ship crash lands on a snow-covered mountain. When they venture out, they discover that they have become victims of time dilation and are now in Earth's future.

They theorize, from seeing time-worn gravestones and after their ship's instruments register heightened residual radiation, that a devastating atomic war had broken out in 2188, and that they are at least 200 years past that date. (They later learn that the year is 2508.) Jaffe is particularly hard hit, as he realizes that his wife and children have long since died.

After surviving an ambush by giant, mutant spiders, they are attacked by one of two competing remnants of human society. The "mutates" (as the astronauts label them) are violent, primitive surface dwellers. They have mutated due to generations of exposure to heightened radioactivity. (However, the background radiation has decreased to tolerable levels, and the men later learn that normal humans are often born to the mutates. These, however, are enslaved.)

Seeking shelter from the attacking mutates in a cave, the four men discover the entrance to an underground city, whose residents are the descendants of those who fled there from the atomic war. These people live in a high-tech, sophisticated culture. They are a peaceful group led by Timmek (Everett Glass), the president of the ruling council. Underground, the men have grown less virile, and there are fewer and fewer children born each generation. In contrast, the women remain physically vital (and ready for romance). Elain (Shirley Patterson), admires a shirtless Herbert Ellis, commenting that the astronauts are "more muscular than our men". Deena (Lisa Montell), rescued from the surface as a child, falls in love with Ellis.

The astronauts try to persuade the underground people to arm themselves and reclaim the surface, but they are content with their comfortable existence."


World Without End could be thought of as another alternative timeline for an old school retroclone campaign from the time machine all of the trappings are perfectly lined up with classic 1950's sci fi film. Since the video game series Fallout has been in vogue World Without End is a perfect post apocalyptic fodder.
So Eloi might exist across multiple alternative dimensions and Earths, why would this be? This might be explained by the Morlocks themselves seeding various worlds with colony farms of Eloi to harvest at will.
This might partially be true. But this might help to explain the existence of divergence in the existence of the Eloi from the 2002 Time Machine film. These Eloi though are no different then any of the others described in this article all stem from the same Eloi genome simply engineered for different traits and artificial genetic mutations.


There might be a far more insidious explanation; there are several races that use the Eloi as post human livestock and have for quite sometime.  This also includes the Brain Lashers from Mutant Future. We've seen they're a race with a long line of using alien caste warriors, thinkers and more in their alien society. There are several reasons for this, easy of implantation, self sustaining live stock, & food source with a built in management group. The brain lashers have the mutations, time, and alien technology to clone, seed, and maintain these Eloi colonies. Other species of OSR monsters who deal with them are easily likely to pick up on their advanced alien super science methods.


Brainlashers also have the drive and incredible will power necessary to carry out extended exo colony farming projects such as this spreading the Eloi taint far and wide across several plane Prime time lines. I've used Skirmisher Publishing's Brain Lashers in the past. There have been several surprises when PC's have broken into the various palaces of green porcelain in the wastelands of my campaigns only to come face to face with these other dimensional farmers of the Eloi in the wastelands.  The Forbidden Monsters of Foree: Brainlashers (Cardstock CharactersTM) From Skirmisher Publishing has been one of my resources when using these behind the scenes movers and campaign shakers in the past.

The Eloi should never be under estimated when encountered in the wastelands they are far more dangerous and degenerate then they first appear. Many PC's have died in the mistaken belief that these simple appearing wastelanders are all that they seem.

The Surpising Ecology Of The Morlocks in My Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Campaign

I've written extensively about my obsession with HG Well's The Time Machine's Eloi & The Morlocks over the years on this blog. But last night I shut down on social media & began to dig back into my extensive notes about Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. What do the Time Machine & AS&SH  have to do with one another? Quite a bit actually, in my mind Hyperborea was a place that was once flourishing had its moments of incredible technology as the Hyperboreans inherited the forbidden ruins, legacies, & technologies of the Great Race of Yith & the Elder Things. They improved upon & refined these l in some respects. They had extensive colonies across the dimensions & planes making war with their former masters & overseers. By the time get to when the oceans drank Atlantis they were well into almost extinction. But these were not true Hyperboreans but hybrids who had settled down into the local respective societies.

"Meanwhile, the first of the Hyborian kingdoms has come onto existence, the rude and barbaric kingdom of Hyperborea, which had its beginnings in a crude fortress of boulders heaped to repel tribal attack. There are few more dramatic events in history than the rise of this fierce kingdom, whose people turned abruptly from nomadic life to rear dwellings of naked stone, surrounded by cyclopean walls." -- Robert E. Howard: "The Hyborian Age"

You get a sense of  legendary  about Hyperboreans or the mythical ones who lived "beyond the North Wind" This bit struck me from the Wiki entry;
"However, it is also possible that Hyperborea had no real physical location at all, for according to the classical Greek poet Pindar"

neither by ship nor on foot would you find

the marvellous road to the assembly of the Hyperboreans.

Pindar also described the otherworldly perfection of the Hyperboreans:

Never the Muse is absent

from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry

and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.

Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed

in their sacred blood; far from labor and battle they live"

Scientist philosopher kings who might have been messing with forbidden sciences far from the purview of the gods who began to fade into HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands as time went on.
I know that the Hyperboreans must worship Boreas as an important god in their former religion;"
Boreas (Βορέας, Boréas; also Βορρᾶς, Borrhás)^[6] was the Greek god of the cold north wind and the bringer of winter. Although normally taken as the north wind, the Roman writers Aulus Gellius and Pliny the Elder both took Boreas as a north-east wind, equivalent to the Roman Aquilo.^[7] Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell and wearing a billowing cloak.^[1] Pausaniaswrote that Boreas had snakes instead of feet, though in art he was usually depicted with winged human feet.
Boreas' two sons Calaïs and Zetes, known as Boreads, were in the crew of the Argoas Argonauts."

Wind god Boreas, Hadda, Afghanistan. Musee Guimet. Personal photograph 2005.

They began to fade from the pages of history & the realms of imagination or did the Hyperboreans actually fade because of a far more sinister reason. They had access to the Great Race's secrets & legacies because they were used by the Great Race as experimental fodder & slave labor. This has been implied from the pages of the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Referee Guide. The Great Race  is of course is  ;"The Great Race of Yith  a fictional race of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Introduced in Lovecraft's short story "The Shadow Out of Time," the Great Race was a prehistoric civilization that populated much of the Earth until their demise in the late Cretaceous era. Their great power derived from their mastery of precognition via time travel."  Suppose that the Hyperboreans began to mess the time travel & other dimensional machinery of the Great Race. Suppose that they began to look to other branches of time & alternative worlds of reality beyond The North Wind.

[T]he Great Race ... waxed well-nigh omniscient, and turned to the task of setting up exchanges with the minds of other planets, and of exploring their pasts and futures. It sought likewise to fathom the past years and origin of that black, aeon-dead orb in far space whence its own mental heritage had come – for the mind of the Great Race was older than its bodily form. . . The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets, had looked ahead for a new world and species wherein they might have long life; and had sent their minds en masse into that future race best adapted to house them – the cone-shaped beings that peopled our earth a billion years ago.

— H. P. Lovecraft, "The Shadow Out of Time"

The Great Race is mostly gone from Hyperborea except for perhaps a few hundred gate keepers & key master scientists who look after the machinery & works. It would be quite easy for the Hyperboreans to overwhelm their former masters & assume control of the machinery. They might have by this time assumed a height of incredible social & technological mastery over time & space; opened up colonies on various worlds and other dimensional locations until they came to Earth with a London of the early 22nd century. This is not our world instead its another world entirely. This is the world of  HG Well's "A Story of the Days To Come" & "When the Sleeper Wakes" "A world of early 22nd century is over 30 million people in population, with the lower classes living in subterranean dwellings, and the middle and upper classes living in skyscrapers and largely communal accommodations. Moving walkways interconnect the city, with fast air-travel and superhighways available between cities. The countryside is largely abandoned."


In other words a perfect location for a highly technologically magically advanced people to invade & cause all kinds of havoc by sewing confusion with a war between the East & West. . They released artificially created bio weapons upon this world with each side blaming the other for starting the apocalypse. Resulting in the perfect conditions for others to artificially create the Eloi & The Morlock species respectively.

So what happened to the Hyperboreans? They reaped what they sewed as they had not counted on the ripples across the space time continuum something the Great Race of Yith was well aware of. They never experimented with physical time travel to alternative time lines. Almost overnight the Hyperboreans were engulfed in madness & paradoxical spasms that caused a third of the population to go extinct. Dimensional ripples cut off other worldly colonies, interstellar settlements, and other dimensional locations without mercy. The hyper morlocks are aware of the part that the Hyperboreans played in their timeline's destruction. And there has been racial warfare between the two ever since. Underborea has seen extensive wars between the two races for centuries.  
Virgil Finley Time Machine artwork copyright & trade mark to their respective holders. 
Used without permission 

The Morlocks  made their way to Hyperborea from the still working time tunnels of the Hyperboreans bringing with them their Eloi cattle to settle in isolated parts of the world. From time to time their colonies are are found on isolated island or underworld locations. They receive extensive competition from a wide variety of the Underborean races but have managed to carve out their own niche on Hyperborea. 
This blog post is for educational and entertainment purposes only, any of the game company's mentioned here are not responsible for any opinions expressed here. This post is not an attempt to violate the trademarks of the holders of the 1960's Time Machine movie. This is the ramblings of a fanatical fan of  the film, HG Wells, and old school games. All ideas are copyrighted and trade marked to the author.

Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is trade marked and copyrighted to North Wind Adventures.

The Surpising Ecology Of The Morlocks in My Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Campaign

I've written extensively about my obsession with HG Well's The Time Machine's Eloi & The Morlocks over the years on this blog. But last night I shut down on social media & began to dig back into my extensive notes about Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. What do the Time Machine & AS&SH  have to do with one another? Quite a bit actually, in my mind Hyperborea was a place that was once flourishing had its moments of incredible technology as the Hyperboreans inherited the forbidden ruins, legacies, & technologies of the Great Race of Yith & the Elder Things. They improved upon & refined these l in some respects. They had extensive colonies across the dimensions & planes making war with their former masters & overseers. By the time get to when the oceans drank Atlantis they were well into almost extinction. But these were not true Hyperboreans but hybrids who had settled down into the local respective societies.

"Meanwhile, the first of the Hyborian kingdoms has come onto existence, the rude and barbaric kingdom of Hyperborea, which had its beginnings in a crude fortress of boulders heaped to repel tribal attack. There are few more dramatic events in history than the rise of this fierce kingdom, whose people turned abruptly from nomadic life to rear dwellings of naked stone, surrounded by cyclopean walls." -- Robert E. Howard: "The Hyborian Age"

You get a sense of  legendary  about Hyperboreans or the mythical ones who lived "beyond the North Wind" This bit struck me from the Wiki entry;
"However, it is also possible that Hyperborea had no real physical location at all, for according to the classical Greek poet Pindar"

neither by ship nor on foot would you find

the marvellous road to the assembly of the Hyperboreans.

Pindar also described the otherworldly perfection of the Hyperboreans:

Never the Muse is absent

from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry

and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.

Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed

in their sacred blood; far from labor and battle they live"

Scientist philosopher kings who might have been messing with forbidden sciences far from the purview of the gods who began to fade into HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands as time went on.
I know that the Hyperboreans must worship Boreas as an important god in their former religion;"
Boreas (Βορέας, Boréas; also Βορρᾶς, Borrhás)^[6] was the Greek god of the cold north wind and the bringer of winter. Although normally taken as the north wind, the Roman writers Aulus Gellius and Pliny the Elder both took Boreas as a north-east wind, equivalent to the Roman Aquilo.^[7] Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell and wearing a billowing cloak.^[1] Pausanias wrote that Boreas had snakes instead of feet, though in art he was usually depicted with winged human feet.
Boreas' two sons Calaïs and Zetes, known as Boreads, were in the crew of the Argo as Argonauts."

Wind god Boreas, Hadda, Afghanistan. Musee Guimet. Personal photograph 2005.

They began to fade from the pages of history & the realms of imagination or did the Hyperboreans actually fade because of a far more sinister reason. They had access to the Great Race's secrets & legacies because they were used by the Great Race as experimental fodder & slave labor. This has been implied from the pages of the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Referee Guide. The Great Race  is of course is  ;"The Great Race of Yith  a fictional race of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Introduced in Lovecraft's short story "The Shadow Out of Time," the Great Race was a prehistoric civilization that populated much of the Earth until their demise in the late Cretaceous era. Their great power derived from their mastery of precognition via time travel."  Suppose that the Hyperboreans began to mess the time travel & other dimensional machinery of the Great Race. Suppose that they began to look to other branches of time & alternative worlds of reality beyond The North Wind.

[T]he Great Race ... waxed well-nigh omniscient, and turned to the task of setting up exchanges with the minds of other planets, and of exploring their pasts and futures. It sought likewise to fathom the past years and origin of that black, aeon-dead orb in far space whence its own mental heritage had come – for the mind of the Great Race was older than its bodily form. . . The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets, had looked ahead for a new world and species wherein they might have long life; and had sent their minds en masse into that future race best adapted to house them – the cone-shaped beings that peopled our earth a billion years ago.

— H. P. Lovecraft, "The Shadow Out of Time"

The Great Race is mostly gone from Hyperborea except for perhaps a few hundred gate keepers & key master scientists who look after the machinery & works. It would be quite easy for the Hyperboreans to overwhelm their former masters & assume control of the machinery. They might have by this time assumed a height of incredible social & technological mastery over time & space; opened up colonies on various worlds and other dimensional locations until they came to Earth with a London of the early 22nd century. This is not our world instead its another world entirely. This is the world of  HG Well's "A Story of the Days To Come" & "When the Sleeper Wakes" "A world of early 22nd century is over 30 million people in population, with the lower classes living in subterranean dwellings, and the middle and upper classes living in skyscrapers and largely communal accommodations. Moving walkways interconnect the city, with fast air-travel and superhighways available between cities. The countryside is largely abandoned."


In other words a perfect location for a highly technologically magically advanced people to invade & cause all kinds of havoc by sewing confusion with a war between the East & West. . They released artificially created bio weapons upon this world with each side blaming the other for starting the apocalypse. Resulting in the perfect conditions for others to artificially create the Eloi & The Morlock species respectively.

So what happened to the Hyperboreans? They reaped what they sewed as they had not counted on the ripples across the space time continuum something the Great Race of Yith was well aware of. They never experimented with physical time travel to alternative time lines. Almost overnight the Hyperboreans were engulfed in madness & paradoxical spasms that caused a third of the population to go extinct. Dimensional ripples cut off other worldly colonies, interstellar settlements, and other dimensional locations without mercy. The hyper morlocks are aware of the part that the Hyperboreans played in their timeline's destruction. And there has been racial warfare between the two ever since. Underborea has seen extensive wars between the two races for centuries. 

Virgil Finley Time Machine artwork copyright & trade mark to their respective holders.
Used without permission

The Morlocks  made their way to Hyperborea from the still working time tunnels of the Hyperboreans bringing with them their Eloi cattle to settle in isolated parts of the world. From time to time their colonies are are found on isolated island or underworld locations. They receive extensive competition from a wide variety of the Underborean races but have managed to carve out their own niche on Hyperborea.

This blog post is for educational and entertainment purposes only, any of the game company's mentioned here are not responsible for any opinions expressed here. This post is not an attempt to violate the trademarks of the holders of the 1960's Time Machine movie. This is the ramblings of a fanatical fan of  the film, HG Wells, and old school games. All ideas are copyrighted and trade marked to the author.

Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is trade marked and copyrighted to North Wind Adventures.

The Ecology Of The Eloi For Your Old School Campaigns

There are times when conversations with friends can be engaging and eye opening such as today when I got together with friends to discuss and play a bit of Mutant Future. We began the second half of the conversation that we were having two weeks ago about HG Well's Time Machine and the Morlocks

Tonight we started to talk about the Eloi and the relationship between the Morlocks & the Eloi. Its actually the Eloi who are really the key. Lately I've been revisiting Mutant Future and mixing it up with the Advanced Labryth Lord Companion. This all comes down from HG Well's Time Machine and the caste system ecology of the novel. But not all is as it seems as I learned tonight.

When I think of the Time Machine I think of the iconic George Pals Time Machine from 1960. The Pal film takes on a journey into a possible AD802,701. His Eloi are degenerate elf like short beings with mostly human traits and a very passive society preyed upon by the Morlocks. The film is so entrenched in science fiction fans minds that it has appeared in countless television shows, books, and pop culture references. The Eloi go back much further though.



In 1895 the Eloi first appeared in HG Wells novel the Time Machine and Wiki has a very good breakdown of the post human species; "By the year AD 802,701, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks, whereof the Eloi live a banal life of ease on the surface of the earth, while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing, and infrastructure for the Eloi. The narration suggests that the separation of species may have been the result of a widening split between different social classes. Having solved all problems that required strength, intelligence, or virtue, the Eloi have slowly become dissolute and naive: they are described as smaller than modern humans, with shoulder-length curly hair, pointed chins, large eyes, small ears, small mouths with bright red thin lips, and sub-human intelligence. They do not perform much work, except to feed, play, and mate; and when Weena falls into a river, none of the other Eloi helps her (she is rescued instead by the Time Traveler). Periodically, the Morlocks capture individual Eloi for food; and because this typically happens on moonless nights, the Eloi are terrified of darkness.

A portion of the book written for the New Review version, later published as a separate short story, reveals that a visit by the Time Traveller to the even more distant future results in his encountering rabbit-like hopping herbivores, apparently the descendants of the Eloi. They are described as being plantigrade, with longer hind legs and tailless, being covered with straight greyish hair that "thickened about the head into a Skye terrier's mane", having human-like hands (described as fore feet) and having a roundish head with a projecting forehead and forward-looking eyes that were obscured by lank hair." Here we get our first glimpse into a possible artificially evolved species. But why do I say they're an artificially evolved species? Well according to the Mutant Future wiki Eloi gain the following mutations; "Mutations: Atrophied Cerebellum, Bizarre Appearance (nymph-like features), Weak Will.

This is a weak PC, so a player would have to play carefully or treat as a challenge." Eloi are known to be; "

The Eloi are a race of meek, delicate humans, who are the descendants of the social elite. Generations of having every and all needs taken care of has resulted in them becoming vary docile and hedonistic. They are also not really smart, nor are they considerate of others. In their isolated, well hidden communities, they live in a perpetual bliss of drug-induced fantasies and sexual orgies. In the wild, they are just helpless animals to more savage creatures, who see them as easy pray. Some industrious creatures (like Morlocks) would provide all their needs -- from food and shelter, to drugs and protection. The only price is that they are nothing more then human livestock. Do to their unearthly beauty, docile nature and willingness to preform any carnal act, they have become highly valued sex-slaves.

An untouched Eloi community is usually an underground arcology, space station, or generation spaceship with a limited capacity. Population is controlled by special enforcers that hunts down rogue Eloi, who refuse to die a after their "last day" - an expiration date, based on their birthday (the maximum age could range between 16 - 30). "last day" could range between a trip inside a suicide booth, to an elaborate mass-suicide ritual." Yes there is a solid connection between Logan's Run and the Time Machine for reasons that we'll get into in a moment. And these reasons are tied within their origins.

The Eloi's origins can be traced into the novella "A Story of the Days To Come" written in 1897 and was first published in the June to October 1897 issues of The Pall Mall Magazine. It was later included in an 1899 collection of Wells's short stories, Tales of Space and Time. "This novella depicts two lovers in a dystopian future London of the 22nd century and explores the implications of excessive urbanization, class warfare, and advances in the technology of medicine, communication, transportation, and agriculture. Like "When the Sleeper Wakes", published in the same year, the stories extrapolate the trends Wells observed in nineteenth-century Victorian London two hundred years into the future.

The London of the early 22nd century is over 30 million people in population, with the lower classes living in subterranean dwellings, and the middle and upper classes living in skyscrapers and largely communal accommodations. Moving walkways interconnect the city, with fast air-travel and superhighways available between cities. The countryside is largely abandoned." It also happens to be the precursor to When The Sleeper Wakes which was published in 1910.
The plot of ' A Story Of The Days To Come ' is interesting on several levels and goes something like this;

A wealthy heiress falls in love with a middle-class worker of romantically quaint disposition. In part one, the woman's father hires a hypnotist to program his daughter to instead choose a more appropriate suitor selected by him. When that plot is unraveled, the couple secretly marry and flee into the abandoned countryside and attempt to live off the land. After being driven back into the city, the couple live a modest middle-class lifestyle until their money runs out. At that point, they move to the "underneath" area of London to toil in physical labor as lower-class workers. Finally, their issues are resolved through the machinations of her spurned would-be suitor, and they resume a middle-class lifestyle.

Among other things, this short story appears to anticipate technical developments toward massive urbanization, skyscrapers, moving sidewalks, superhighways, and intercontinental aircraft traveling at jet speeds.

Socially and economically, however, it predicts a very stratified class structure and a largely communal society where few mega-corporations control all means of production. It also predicts hypnosis as a supplement or replacement to psychology, "creches" where child-rearing is transferred from parents to professionals, and a megapolis served by city-wide moving walkways and escalators, with enormous cities (four in England) separated by abandoned countryside."
All of the plot elements of When The Sleeper Wakes are in play and we get to see the very mechanisms of the Eloi starting to be played out in the society of 'A Story of The Days To Come'. The dystopian future dovetails quiet nicely into the Logan Run's style stratified culture of Wells world.

When the Sleeper Wakes is a about Graham a man from contemporary London who sleeps over the course of decades, and awakens exactly 203 years later, in futuristic 2100. This is a stratified society where hundreds of thousands of Morlock like workers toil underground  and the elites of the White Council rule from above. The elite society resembles the decadent Eloi  and the novel traces the protagonist's journey into subversion and rebellion among the various factions of the city. London is portrayed as a dehumanised, industrialized quagmire caught in perpetual darkness. The lower classes are forced to work day and night in the factories, having nothing more to look forward to than some cheap amusements. As he examines this grim scene, Graham learns that Ostrog has ordered his troops to London to disarm the remaining
revolutionary workers.


It is from these elites that we start to get the clearer picture of who these Eloi are or will be. There is a further class of warrior Eloi who carry out the will of the White Council in the form of Hunter Eloi or the Sand Men from Logan's Run. These are dirrived from the armed forces that carry out the will of the White Council.


And what about the White Council themselves? Those ruling elite are Hyper Eloi who have developed hyper consciousnesses and gain the following mutations Bizarre Appearance (nymph-like features), Empathy, Frailty (infertility), Metaconcert, Mind Trust, Neural Telepathy, Tinker Affinity, Reduced Immune System from Mutant Future. Who are these elite bastards?  "Hyper-Eloi are a class of Eloi who have developed a degree of "super conscious." They are considerably more intelligent then normal Eloi, and they consider their own judgement and morality to be superior of all other races, but they are actually quite arrogant, aloof, and self-righteous. They may ignore the plight - the starvation; the brutality; the human-condition - of the outside world, but those that don't, would ether force outside to conform to the methods that allowed is type of Eloi to become Hyper-Eloi, or to exterminate the "animal-like savages" like vermin. In the later, they would rather bread a race of super-soldiers to carry-out the extermination, then to do it themselves" This would go on to explain the machinations of Ostrog from When The Sleeper Wakes. This species would later go on to evolve into the Eloi that we have come to know but they are not the only example of the seemingly docile post human species.



But the Eloi are not simply an artificial species that exists in one time line. In 1956 the science fiction film World Without End came out.  The film proceeded the George Pal effort by four years and had a plot so similar to HG Wells Time Machine that the rumors are that the Well's estate sued the production company of the film.


The film is a reverse text book example of Eloi and Morlock ecology here's some of the background according to Wiki; "In March 1957, Commander Dr. Eldon Galbraithe (Nelson Leigh), engineer Henry Jaffe (Christopher Dark), radioman Herbert Ellis (Rod Taylor) and scientist John Borden (Hugh Marlowe), are returning to Earth from the first spaceflight, a reconnaissance trip around Mars. Suddenly, their spaceship is somehow accelerated to incredible velocities, and they are knocked unconscious. Their ship crash lands on a snow-covered mountain. When they venture out, they discover that they have become victims of time dilation and are now in Earth's future.

They theorize, from seeing time-worn gravestones and after their ship's instruments register heightened residual radiation, that a devastating atomic war had broken out in 2188, and that they are at least 200 years past that date. (They later learn that the year is 2508.) Jaffe is particularly hard hit, as he realizes that his wife and children have long since died.

After surviving an ambush by giant, mutant spiders, they are attacked by one of two competing remnants of human society. The "mutates" (as the astronauts label them) are violent, primitive surface dwellers. They have mutated due to generations of exposure to heightened radioactivity. (However, the background radiation has decreased to tolerable levels, and the men later learn that normal humans are often born to the mutates. These, however, are enslaved.)

Seeking shelter from the attacking mutates in a cave, the four men discover the entrance to an underground city, whose residents are the descendants of those who fled there from the atomic war. These people live in a high-tech, sophisticated culture. They are a peaceful group led by Timmek (Everett Glass), the president of the ruling council. Underground, the men have grown less virile, and there are fewer and fewer children born each generation. In contrast, the women remain physically vital (and ready for romance). Elain (Shirley Patterson), admires a shirtless Herbert Ellis, commenting that the astronauts are "more muscular than our men". Deena (Lisa Montell), rescued from the surface as a child, falls in love with Ellis.

The astronauts try to persuade the underground people to arm themselves and reclaim the surface, but they are content with their comfortable existence." 


World Without End could be thought of as another alternative timeline for an old school retroclone campaign from the time machine all of the trappings are perfectly lined up with classic 1950's sci fi and since the video game series Fallout has been in vogue World Without End is a perfect post apocalyptic fodder.
So Eloi might exist across multiple alternative dimensions and Earths, why would this be? This might be explained by the Morlocks themselves seeding various worlds with colony farms of Eloi to harvest at will.
This might partially be true. But this might help to explain the existence of divergence in the existence of the Eloi from the 2002 Time Machine film. These Eloi though are no different then any of the others described in this article all stem from the same Eloi genome simply engineered for different traits and artificial genetic mutations.


There might be a far more insidious explanation; there are several races that use the Eloi as post human livestock and have for quite sometime.  This also includes the Brain Lashers from Mutant Future and as we've seen they're a race with a long line of using alien caste warriors, thinkers and more to their alien society. There are several reasons for this easy of implantation, self sustaining live stock and food source with a built in management group. The brain lashers have the mutations, time, and alien technology to clone, seed, and maintain these Eloi colonies. Other species of OSR monsters who deal with them are easily likely to pick up on their advanced alien super science methods.


Brainlashers also have the drive and incredible will power necessary to carry out extended exo colony farming projects such as this spreading the Eloi taint far and wide across several plane Prime time lines. I've used Skirmisher Publishing's Brain Lashers in the past. There have been several surprises when PC's have broken into the various palaces of green porcelain in the wastelands of my campaigns only to come face to face with these other dimensional farmers of the Eloi in the wastelands.  The Forbidden Monsters of Foree: Brainlashers (Cardstock CharactersTM) From Skirmisher Publishing has been one of my resources when using these behind the scenes movers and campaign shakers in the past.

The Eloi should never be under estimated when encountered in the wastelands they are far more dangerous and degenerate then they first appear. Many PC's have died in the mistaken belief that these simple appearing wastelanders are all that they seem.

Anatomy of The Morlocks For Your Old School Campaigns

Last night I visited with friends and had a very eye opening conversation with another  rabid fan of H.G. Wells. It was quite eye opening on the subject of the Morlocks.Lately I've been revisiting Mutant Future and mixing it in with Advanced Labyrinth Lord, one of the more iconic monsters that's been featured in Mutant Future is HG Well's Time Machine's Morlocks. Mutant Future designates them as a Chaotic race of mutants and they are are as we shall see. The Morlocks exist within a caste system that has been artifically created over eons. When I think of Morlocks George Pal's wonderful film springs to mind.



When I think of the Morlocks I think of the iconic George Pal's 1960's Time Machine and they're depiction on screen as one of the more dangerous of the mutant cannibal races that operates in the wastelands. According to the Mutant Future Wiki these grunts gain the following mutations albinism, intellectual affinity (tinkerer), and thermal vision. And these beings are known to keep albino apes as pets and attack dogs. There are reasons for this affinity and we'll get to that in a moment.

How the Morlocks are put together reveals as much about their origins as it does there intended original  purposes. The Morlock race  has been defined by Wiki as; "The Morlocks are at first a mysterious presence in the book, in so far as the protagonist initially believes the Eloi are the sole descendants of humanity. Later, the Morlocks are made the story's antagonists. They dwell underground in the English countryside of AD 802,701, maintaining ancient machines that they may or may not remember how to build. Their only access to the surface world is through a series of well-like structures that dot the countryside of future England.

After thousands of generations of living without sunlight, the Morlocks have dull grey-to-white skin, chinless faces, large greyish-red eyes with a capacity for reflecting light, and flaxen hair on the head and back. They are smaller than humans (presumably of the same height as the Eloi). Like the Eloi, they are significantly weaker than the average human (the Time Traveller hurt or killed some barehandedly with relative ease), but a large swarm of them can be a serious threat for a man alone, especially unarmed and/or with no portable light source. Their sensitivity to light usually prevents them from attacking during the day. The Morlocks and the Eloi have something of a symbiotic relationship: the Eloi are clothed and fed by the Morlocks, and in return, the Morlocks eat the Eloi. The Time Traveler perceives this, and suggests that the Eloi–Morlock relationship developed from a class distinction present in his own time: the Morlocks are the working class who had to work underground so that the rich upper class could live in luxury. Their cannibalism is explained by the extinction of other sources of animal protein."
In the Mutant Future Wiki's universe the officers are upper strait of Morlock society, combat empathy, increased strength, intellectual affinity (martial), and [1d3-1] positive physical mutations.These are the most dangerous of foot soldiers and are rarely seen at all. They will be seen in communities with sixty or more individuals. "Do to their brutishness and simple skin clothing - if any - most people consider them primitive and simple-minded, but they are proficient engineers, and they and have an affinity for technological items, which they will employ whenever possible." This caste produces some of the most dangerous and technologically innovative engineers,thinkers, &  scientists. This description of the soldier Morlocks made me think of the illustrations of William Thresher and Skirmisher Publishing's card stock characters. 

Make no mistake but the Morlocks are one of the most dangerous of foes to run across in old school campaigns but where did they come from? Well the Morlock's origins actually echo through another HG Wells novel. When the Sleeper Awakes (1910) is a dystopian science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. In a nutshell according to wiki; " Its about a man who sleeps for two hundred and three years, waking up in a completely transformed London, where, because of compound interest on his bank accounts, he has become the richest man in the world." Within the novel our main character Graham visits a corrupt  future London where he encounters the real workers who keep this society going according to wiki;"

His carefree life soon comes to an end when a young woman named Helen Wotton explains that the people are suffering as badly under Ostrog as they did under the White Council. For the lower class, the revolution has changed nothing. Inspired by Helen's words, Graham begins to ask Ostrog questions about the condition of the world. Ostrog admits that the lower classes are still dominated and exploited but defends the system. It is clear that Ostrog has no desire to change anything, that the revolution was merely an excuse to toss the White Council out and seize power himself, using Graham as a puppet.

After pressing Ostrog, Graham learns that, in other cities, the workers have continued to rebel even after the fall of the White Council. To suppress these insurrections, Ostrog has used a police force, Black Africans recruited from Senegal and South Africa, to get the workers back in line. Graham is furious to learn of this and demands that Ostrog keep his police out of London. Ostrog agrees and promises to help Graham assume direct control over the world's affairs. Meanwhile, Graham decides to examine this new society for himself.

Graham and a valet travel through London in disguise and examine the daily life of the average worker. London is portrayed as a dehumanized, industrialized quagmire caught in perpetual darkness. The lower classes are forced to work day and night in the factories, having nothing more to look forward to than some cheap amusements. As he examines this grim scene, Graham learns that Ostrog has ordered his troops to London to disarm the remaining revolutionary workers.

The workers rise up once more and Graham makes his way back to Ostrog, who attempts to subdue Graham. With the help of the workers, Graham escapes Ostrog. He runs into Helen who, it is revealed, was the one who learned about Ostrog's treachery and made it public. With her by his side, Graham oversees the liberation of London from Ostrog."
These workers are already evolving into the Morlocks and showing signs of having lived their lives below ground.Some of these workers are actually foremen whose mental acuity is quite strong and have a certain cunning about them. These are the leaders among the Morlocks, the so called Warlocks. Whom according to Mutant Future Wiki  have the following mutations albinism, intellectual affinity (tinkerer), thermal vision, 1d4+1 mental mutations. But why? Well, because the White Council has been tinkering with their genes for centuries, the Morlocks are not a 'evolved' race at all but an engineered worker, soldier, and leader caste of humans  perfectly suited to take full advantage of the underground world that has been made for them.  The world of HG Well's future history is not our world at all. The capacity of the Morlocks to survive and thrive under adverse conditions is something we've seen in movies, television shows, and more across pop culture. Wizards and mutant overlords have for centuries been using this cannibalistic species for assassination, as engineering for their super science projects, and more. This has lead to the spread of this verminous species across the various alternative Earths. They're use of carnivorous apes hearkens back to the artificial nature of this species, they're intelligent cunning and very dangerous. Morlocks are one of the most underestimated mutant species in the wastelands.

This is an alternative history timeline option  and the use of artificially engineered cannibalistic races is something that we've seen in old school campaigns plenty of times with the introduction of the Grimlocks in the Fiend Folio in 1981.
The Grimlocks are very, very, dangerous and described in the Fiend Folio as "fierce subterranean humanoid warriors" with "blank and sightless" eyes, "thick, grey skin", "usually clad in dark rags", with "particularly white and sharp" teeth who were hard to detect when they were motionless"  Grimlocks are a race that has been artificially created from the Morlock genome and has been used expensively through out the various dimensions and alternative Earths.

Grimlocks are the perfect foils and workers for the grunt Morlocks to boss around, they're easily directed and are a very hardy caste. They're also far more passive then the more intelligent Morlocks upon which their based.
"Unusual characteristics of the grimlock included the ability to "see" using their other senses to a distance of 20 feet, a corresponding vulnerability to spells that caused auditory hallucinations and thus disrupted their "sight", a very high rate of movement in combat—twice that of a normal human—and extremely thick skin that was the equivalent of fairly good armour. These qualities plus the fact that they would be encountered as a mob of anywhere from 20 to 200 made them a formidable opponent for the average party of adventurers. The grimlock was said to be able to occasionally cooperate with medusae, since their blindness made them immune to the medusa's gaze. The illustration, presumably by Fiore, shows a group of snarling, muscular humanoids that resemble long-haired Neanderthals with shark-like teeth."
Given their worship of the evil extra dimensional entity Klagg by the Grimlocks we can rest assured that the spread of the Grimlocks will  continue. There have been incidents of the Grimlock rising up against their chaotic masters but this seldom happens. The whips of the Morlock keep tight reign on them. So be very careful before venturing down into the underground world of the Morlock, you might be in for far more then you expect.





This blog post is for educational and entertainment purposes only, any of the game company's mentioned here are not responsible for any opinions expressed here. This post is not an attempt to violate the trademarks of the holders of the 1960's Time Machine movie. This is the ramblings of a fanatical fan of  the film, HG Wells, and old school games.