I often listen to SWORD when working on stuff. Or even just doing the mundane stuff, like packing boxes. Great stuff. The vocals sometimes grate on my nerves, but overall I love the band.

Ghul wrote:

The vocals sometimes grate on my nerves, but overall I love the band.

TRUTH.

gizmomathboy wrote:

I know that the tuning grates on Francisca's nerves, at least the earlier albums before they had a guitar tech or something fix that for them :-)

Yeah, who woulda thunk tuning down a whole step would require twesaking the intonation so yer axe doesn't sound like buttocks above the 9th fret.

<Sigh>

But yes good stuf gizmo.  Night City off of Warp Riders always makes me think of a sort of high-tech Lankhmar.

Last edited by francisca (10/20/2015 11:46 am)

Tres Brujas might be an interesting sketch. Has the feel of running into Baba Yaga at the side of the road or even Ningauble or Sheelba.

Warp Riders are renown for never going home with any ugly, no matter how much liquor they consume.  If one were to ask a Warp Rider, the Rider would boast of not only great taste in people/creatures, but also attribute this to pure Charisma and "Like, Sex Appeal on a GALACTIC scale....can you dig it?", or some other such boast......

However, the learned scholars who have survived a night of imbibing with Warp Riders put it down to their goggles, which seem to be enchanted with a form of the spell True Seeing (q.v.), which are required for navigating while riding their Warp Bikes.

Warp Goggles: the lenses of these goggles allow the user to see things as if under the influence of the True Seeing spell.  They are useful to the Riders when they ride the Warp Bikes, as it allows them to see past the time/space distortion the bikes create, so they know when they've reached their favorite watering hole.

Last edited by francisca (10/22/2015 12:30 pm)

So, I walk into Francisca's office and he has playing something from Orange Goblin.

"Hey, I think The Sword cribbed from these guys," says the axe man.

Listening to them, Wo Fat, and a couple more bands I would agree. Especially since Wo Fat is from Dallas and The Sword is out of Austin.

So, last night while I was masking some of the panels to be painted for my new Wreckus Maximus I ginned up this idea.

There are various factions among the Warp Riders, most notably the Orange Goblins, Wo Fat Collective, and All Them Witches (a notably all female faction). Their attire automatically attunes to their faction. For example, when an Orange Goblin puts on the leisure/track suit it's trimmed/accented with orange, on the back it displays the crest of the faction. On the chest their name and rank is displayed along with any honorifics and flair that has been earned. When the hood is pulled up it transforms into the semblance of the skull of an orange skinned goblin.

That's right, time-travelling, space warping biker gangs. 

Barael's Blade

At first glance this bastard sword appears to be fashioned out of bone. On closer inspection it appears as if steel was fused into/absorbed by the bone.

The Blade is only a +1 vorpal sword in the hands of non-warlocks (this includes firelords, deathsoldiers, icelords, and the like). However, if picked up by a warlock it is +2 vorpal sword with the following powers:

0) The warlock is granted Weapon Mastery as a fighter of the same level while wielding the Blade.
1) +3 vs mi-go, great race and any otherworldy creatures, see Ranger for complete listing using their Otherworldly Enemies ability.
2)+4 vs Tlakk-Nakka and her followers
3) +1 CA for purposes of a spells effect, range, etc.
4) When casting spells against Daemons, +5 to CA for purposes of Magic Resistance saves.
5) It is rumored to be capable of storing spells or draining the knowledge from a victim.

Bael's Blade can not be given up by a warlock once it is used in combat. This includes casting spells while it is in the warlock's possession. Only the death of a warlock will free the warlock of this burden. It is attuned to them and no other warlock my access its powers until the burden is lifted. The Blade can be forcibly removed from the warlock's posession.  Other classes may pass it amongst themselves at will, the Blade is not concerned with their place in Hyperborea.

Of course, this now leads to the question, who is(was?) Barael?

Last edited by gizmomathboy (9/20/2016 11:57 am)

Joe---

I'm picturing your Warp Riders as Simon Bisley meets Russ Nicholson across a Rodney Matthews landscape.  Liking it :D

Allan.

Last edited by grodog (9/21/2016 7:57 pm)

I think when the football season is over, gizmo and I need to go kill a bottle of Four Roses and have a day long writing session.

No, most (if not all) of the Melnibonean mythos was Jeff Dee's work.

More random thoughts.

The Warp Riders nation/culture/whatever is a gynarchy even though almost all riders are male.

Along those lines the Gynarchy are steeped in magic that warps space-time but not to explicitly do it for time travel or time manipulation. That is chronomancy and that is an Abomination and Heresy. They do observe there are natural time warps and weird nexus location like Hyperborea. Time slips there are common. If a Warp Rider finds themselves in a time slip they can do a warp to correctly return to their "normal" time.

Chronomancers are almost exclusively male (because wtf not). They are hunted down and summarily executed by any Warp Rider.

As noted previously the natural enemy of Warp Riders are the Hounds of Tindalos. In a complementary fashion the natural enemies of chronomancers are time wraiths (stealing this directly from The Flash tv series unashamedly :-)