HERE BE DRAGONS
An island of intrigue is the setting for our second scenario for a ‘30s pulp adventure.
As purchasers of this magazine may know from my previous articles, I have an interest in playing cinemagraphic style skirmish games. One genre I love playing are Pulp style stories from the 1920s and 1930s as these give a great range of options when creating entertaining and fun games.
THE PULPS
Pulp magazines, or “the pulps” as they were known, were inexpensive fiction magazines published from the late 1890s to the 1950s. In many ways they were successors to the Penny Dreadfuls or Dime Novels of the 19th century with the term pulp deriving from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed.
Pulp magazines often contained a wide variety of genres including stories about adventure,
detective or crime mysteries, fantasy, horror or the occult (including what was termed “weird menace”), science fiction, war stories and westerns. In fact many classic Science Fiction and crime novels were originally serialized in pulp magazines; but the magazines were best known for their somewhat lurid and sensational subject matter. Whilst the majority of pulp magazines were anthologies containing many short stories, the best were those that featured a single recurring character. These became known as “hero pulps” because the central character was usually a largerthan-life hero such as Flash Gordon, The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Phantom Detective, The Avenger, Hopalong Cassidy, Ka-Zar or The Spider. In addition, many characters who had their own series of novels also appeared in the pulps including Biggles, Buck Rogers, John Carter of Mars, Conan the Barbarian, Sexton Blake, Solomon Kane, Tarzan and Zorro.
At their peak of popularity in the 1920s and 1930s the most successful pulps could sell up to one million copies per issue and by 1934 it was believed that there were 150 pulp titles in production. The heroes created by the pulps soon filled the airwaves in radio serials in the 1930s swiftly followed by serialized cliff hangers on the cinema screen of the 1930s, 40s and 50s which, in this country, often appeared as fillers during Saturday morning picture shows. Indeed the 1933 film King Kong is a great example of a pulp story.
However, the paper shortages of the Second World War and changes in publishing style saw a steady
decline in these magazines and by 1957 the age of pulps was seen to be at an end, whilst changes in viewing and listening tastes in the 1960s saw the stories disappear from both the radio and film screens, although repeats were often seen on some TV channels. In the ‘80s the genre was successfully resurrected by George Lucas when he created The Raiders of the Lost Ark and the other Indiana Jones movies. These were followed by films of a similar nature such as The Rocketeer in 1991, The Shadow in 1994 and The Phantom in 1996. TV also rediscovered the genre with Bring Them Back Alive and Tales of the Golden Monkey both of which ran for a limited time from 1982 to 1983.
In many ways the spirit of the Pulps lives on in today’s graphic novels and super hero movies as comic book heroes are considered by many to be the direct descendents of the pulp style of Hero. Remember that Batman first appeared in comics in 1939 whilst Superman appeared a whole six years earlier in 1933.
PLAYING THE PULPS
To me the joy of pulp style stories is the ability to mix the most outrageous genres together for a game and get away with it. So two-fisted archaeologists versus lost civilisations and the undead, why not! How about alien Invaders versus Huge Apes or Cthulhu Cultists versus Chinese Tongs led by an Ancient Magician. Or try heroes with rocket packs trying to destroy a killer robot or a masked avenger fighting gangsters led by a vampire: it’s all there for you to use. What follows is a game which captures the spirit of adventure, danger and the unknown that can be found in all good pulp stories.
DRAGON ISLAND: THE ISLE OF MYSTERY
Firstly, some facts: Zheng He was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral during China’s early Ming dynasty. He led seven expeditionary voyages from 1405 to 1433 which explored the coasts of Indonesia, India, Ceylon, Arabia, Africa and many other countries in the Indian Ocean and it is speculated that one of his voyages may even have reached the west coast of America. These fleets were huge. For example the 1405 expedition consisted of 62 ships crewed by over 27,000 men.
Now some “Pulp Facts” for the Adventure: during the seventh voyage a Chinese nobleman accompanying the voyage fell ill and died. A ship was dispatched to bury his body surrounded by all of his wealth on a previously unexplored island. The island was found to contain many ruins as well as being home to a group of carnivorous reptiles which attacked the burial party. The survivors barely made it back to their ship.
On route back to the main fleet the ship encountered a fierce storm and sank. Only its navigator survived
and after being rescued by a passing ship he returned to China and drew a chart showing the location of the island which was placed in the imperial archives. On it were written the words Here be Dragons. The chart disappeared from the archives when the Summer Palace was sacked by British and French forces during the Second Opium War but the legend of the hidden island with its lost treasure guarded by Dragons lived on in the Far East.
It is now 1935 and a number of desperate characters have come together each with a piece of the chart which they acquired by various means, not all of them honest. Together the pieces make up the map and so they plan to seek the island and find the treasure. But can they trust each other and are they the only ones hunting for the island?
THE FORTUNE SEEKERS
The game is intended to be played with four treasure hunters and their companions, but you could play with less (assume something dastardly happened to those not in play) or have players take on more than one character. Sample characters for the adventure are set out below. They are designed to be used with our Quick on the Draw Rules with additions for the 1920s/1930s which together with stock characters from the pulp era can be found on the magazine’s web site. However, you can use any pulp style rules which allow for individual characters as well as unknown terrors such as Astounding Tales, Pulp Alley or 7TV with its new version TV Pulp. Alternatively you could adapt rules designed for 1920s gangster games or those for games set in the Old West.
THE ISLAND
The Island is surrounded by a dangerous coral reef and so the character’s ship has had to anchor beyond it and they have rowed ashore using a small boat. The island is covered in dense vegetation and jungle but here and there strange ruins appear obviously built by some unknown civilisation – perhaps the Island is a remnant of the fabled lost continent of Lemuria? Obviously it is filled with natural perils and both animal and human opponents who will ensure that the task of finding the treasure is dangerous.
Whatever the size of the table you use divide it up in to roughly 12” size squares. Each of these represents a zone in which an encounter may take place. So a
4’ by 4’ table would have 16 zones whilst a 4’ by 6’ would have 24. In at least 6 zones place some ruins, statues or interesting structures for the Treasure Hunters to explore. When you have created enough places of interest fill the remaining zones with dense undergrowth or jungle with paths winding through them leading to the ruins, etc or to the next zone.
On entering a new zone the Character(s) must role 1D10 and check on the table below – an appropriate skill, such as Expert Explorer, Sharp Senses, etc. allows them to reroll the dice but they must keep the second roll.
THE ISLANDS FAUNA
Apart from the usual species of birds, fruit bats, small lizards and rodents, the
Island has some unique species previously unknown to science.
These can be controlled by an umpire or another player.
Large Carnivorous Reptiles:
The top of the food chain and very dangerous, these man-sized reptiles can be portrayed as either a species of bi-pedal reptile evolved from Velociraptors or a species of large Monitor Lizard or Komodo Dragon.
Large Primates:
These large primates look like a cross between a chimpanzee and an orang-utan: solitary creatures they are not aggressive unless attacked or their territory is entered.
Monkey Troop:
These small monkeys travel in troops and are the prey of both the Reptiles and the Primates. As such they have developed an unusual defence strategy. If attacked or their territory is entered they flee to the tree tops and pee on the interlopers. Their urine is very pungent (think Skunk Spray!): any creature hit must wash off the stink before being able to do anything else, thus allowing the monkeys to escape.
Snakes:
The Island has a variety of poisonous snakes lurking across it.
Jungle Ant Swarm: these large social insects are about 2 inches long and move around the island in a swarm. Every creature on the island knows to get out of their path or be devoured when the swarm is one the move.
Ant Swarm Notes:
Swarms are treated as Immune – Swarms are immune to any attacks by weapons except fists, crushing weapons or fire. They also have Area attack: the swarm covers an area with a diameter of two paces; each move the character is in the area covered by the swarm they are automatically attacked: the swarm inflicts damage as if the character is defenceless.
SEARCHING THE RUINS
On entering each of the Ruins the Character(s) must spend a turn searching them. They take a card from the ruins encounter deck and see what, if anything, they have found. They may continue to search and draw a card each time. The full pack can be found on the MW website but examples read:
THE ENEMY
The Heroes are not the only ones seeking the treasure. One Eyed Feng, the leader of the notorious Green Dragon Tong, is a direct descendent of the nobleman who died all those years ago. By some mysterious means, and to ensure a good game, he and his men have arrived at the island at the same time as the heroes and are also searching for the buried horde.
Form these into three groups and allocate one card for each group placing it in the action deck. When the card is drawn from the pack roll 1D10: on a roll of 5+ the party will be put into play and will enter the board at a random location otherwise they do not appear on that turn. Do this until all three groups are in play. Once a group is in play continue to activate the group using one card until they encounter the characters. At this point all of the cards for the individuals in the Dragon Tong group should be put into the pack. If they are being controlled by an umpire or other player then the Area Encounter Rules apply to them as well.
Instead of the Tong the enemy could be: Islanders who are the degenerate decedents of sailors and passengers who were ship wrecked on the island; or the race that built the ruins and who are seeking human sacrifices; or they could all be female warriors seeking male slaves!
Alternatively they could be a rival expedition made up of sailors from a U- Boat led by a ruthless officer and an evil archaeologist who are seeking occult objects for their Nazi masters.
Remember that in most stories such forces cannot hit a barn door when shooting at the heroes so you might want to make the minor characters Poor Shots.
THE DIRECTOR’S CINEMAGRAPHIC FOE CONTROLLER
In most games an umpire or an additional player will control the adventurers’ foes or any hostile animals but if the players all want to play the characters they can instead operate them by using the Director’s Cinemagraphic Foe Controller or DCFC.
As soon as human enemies or animals are generated by the search cards or activation cards and are activated, roll 1D10 to determine where they appear and how far away
unpredictable (Gremlins in the works don’t you know) and to ensure fun and a cinematic game.
WHAT FIGURES TO USE
This pulp adventure actually needs few figures to play, eight for the adventurers and their companions, ten Chinese Tong (or their alternatives) and a small mixture of animal figures, so even if you don’t yet have any suitable figures the outlay to get some is not huge. Those who use 15/18mm are catered for by Blue Moon Manufacturing. We played this adventure in 28mm and in this scale players will have a wide selection of manufacturers to choose from. The biggest range comes from Pulp Figures although
Copplestone Castings also has a great range of characters. Figures from Wargames Foundry’s Darkest Africa range can also be used along with figures from their Egyptian Adventure and Victoriana ranges. Other suitable figures can be found in the Pulp Alley range. In addition Blue Moon and West Wind both have figures suitable for Pulp games. Crooked Dice is releasing a whole new range of pulp inspired figures and their other ranges are all well worth looking at.
So, grab your Fedora, uncoil your bullwhip and check the loads in your pistol, you’re about to set off on a rollercoaster of an adventure. Will you find the treasure? Will you thwart the villains? Will you survive? Only you and the Gods of the Dice will decide!
Happy Gaming. ■