Wonderworld Comics #7 - pt. 1

The scene opens with a lone thug (a 2 HD mobster) being visited by spooks (a new mobster type in 2nd ed.).

These spooks are sometimes like the write-up I'd already done for them. Both are bulletproof, though these are bulletproof from being tough instead of intangible. These spooks aren't undead, though. Maybe these are fake spooks? I have an entry written up for fake undead too.

That's a big crowd. I can't quite count them all, but it seems like there's 100 fake spooks there. That would be a tough encounter for anybody!

This page tells more of the background of the Kikoos. They had also been called living spectres earlier in the story. I could stat them separately, but...that name "Kikoos"...it's really hard to take that seriously. I could stat them as fake spectres, but that would make them so tough we didn't need 100 of them earlier.

The fake spooks are particularly vulnerable to fire, perhaps taking double damage from it. An Editor can always add a vulnerability to a mobster type.

One last detail we learn about the half-spooks is that they have sharp claws. That's another difference between these things and spooks. Maybe I need to revisit that stat block...

It's long been established (both in Hideouts & Hoodlums and That Other Game) that magic-users suffer a special handicap, that they can't cast their spells if they can't see, or their hands are bound, or they can't talk. In Yarko the Great's case, it's apparently just being able to see. Here, the guy who's already beaten a devil before gets abducted by a couple of nomads who just happen to catch him by surprise.

So it turns out that it was only two nomads who managed to capture this master wizard. If this was from actual play, the Editor would have set this up as just a teaser, or a plot hook encounter. There's no way he could have predicted they would win! Luckily he had the hideout already planned.

The Ruins of Alchaz would be a good name for an adventure module. The art -- typical Eisner -- is evocative. We have a hideout with multiple entry points (since the walls have so many holes in them), a central domed chamber, and a tower that appears to be six stories tall.

Yarko casts Projected Image to get help. The ringing musical note is either flavor text the Editor allowed, or Yarko decided to cast some sort of Audible Glamer spell just for fun.

Note that Burke faces the exact same encounter, under the exact same surprise circumstances, and wins handily. This has to be the advantage of playing a fighter, the ability to take a beating and still win because of all the hit points they have. But -- the nomads are using grappling attacks to subdue, not to knock him out. Maybe I should give fighters a bonus to save vs. grappling attacks...?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)