Savage News: Super Powers Companion

The updated Super Powers Companion for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is now being crowdfunded via Pinnacle Entertainment Group's own site. You can pledge through 23 September 2021. Click on the link for details.

Savage Worlds Thought of the Day 2021-08-19

Thundarr the Barbarian, the 1980 Saturday morning cartoon about a post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 3994, "a world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery," would be a perfect setting for Savage Worlds. True, it has been unofficially adapted to other role-playing systems or used as an inspiration (e.g. Crawling Under a Broken Moon for Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, The World of Thundarr the Barbarian for Mutant Future, Under the Broken Moon via Over the Edge, et al), and those are fine, but I think Savage Worlds is very suitable for the setting, too. If it hasn't been done, I might take a stab at it myself.

I should mention here that the complete Thundarr the Barbarian is available from Warner Archives (and wherever Warner Archives products are sold) in both DVD and newly restored Blu-ray formats. Personally, I consider it to be the greatest Saturday morning cartoon of the 1980s, and it just happened to coincide with my entry into the role-playing hobby. It's a perfect embodiment of post-apocalyptic science fantasy.

Links

• Under a Broken Moon Compilation (by Reid San Filipo) for DCC RPG
• The World of Thundarr the Barbarian (by Tim Snider) for Mutant Future can be downloaded directly at Savage Afterworld
• Under the Broken Moon (by Brandon Blackmoor)
• Thundarr the Barbarian on disc and streaming

Adding to the Lists of Mongo

The Lists of Mongo continue to expand with:

• Peoples of Mongo (Alphabetical)
• Peoples of Mongo (Chronological)
• Technology of Mongo (Alphabetical)
• Technology of Mongo (Chronological)

Let Loose the Lists of Mongo

If you will observe above, there is a new tab called Lists of Mongo. This is where I will be compiling lists of Flash Gordon data for reference purposes. All lists will be presented both alphabetically and chronologically, with the date of first appearance included with each entry. All of the lists, at least initially, will be works in progress. It will be slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

For the moment, I am concentrating on the very first Flash Gordon source material, the Sunday comic strips that began in 1934. The first lists to be posted here are Beasts of Mongo (Alphabetical) and Beasts of Mongo (Chronological).

Listing the Beasts of Mongo

Almost immediately upon reading the earliest Flash Gordon comic strips, I started writing down the names of the various beasts of Mongo encountered therein and the dates of their first appearances. This will be the basis of an ongoing list in Savage Arts & Sciences that may be of use to those running and writing adventures for The Savage World of Flash Gordon. As I compile it, I will probably be comparing it to the creatures depicted in the game as well as the motion picture serials, the animated television show, and the 1980 movie (either within the bestiary page itself or as separate articles). This will be a slow process, but I think it has the potential to be fun and informative.

Gordon's alive!

Flash Gordon Inspiration: The First Movie Serial 1936

Two years after the debut of the comic strip, Flash Gordon burst onto the silver screen as a serial starring Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, and Jean Rogers. As an adaptation it took certain liberties owing to the usual constraints, but it was largely faithful to the source. The PBS show Matinee at the Bijou probably introduced me to the serials, and even though I had seen Star Wars several years earlier, I was nonetheless enraptured by the 1936 spectacle of Flash Gordon's adventures on Mongo.

Today's viewers may find humor where none was intended, and this can be part of the fun of watching it now, but there is much to glean in the serials for those who are running or playing The Savage World of Flash Gordon in terms of pacing, role-playing, and capturing the atmosphere of the setting.

I recently started watching the first serial again, and I can state honestly that I notice more and enjoy it more upon every viewing. I own it on DVD, of course, but I believe it is also available on certain streaming channels. I have also been listening to the Space Soldiers Podcast, which provides a commentary on each episode of the various Flash Gordon serials. These can be played synchronously in MST3K or RiffTrax fashion, but I prefer to listen to them separately.

Flash Gordon the serial from 1936 is still an excellent source of inspiration for one's Savage Worlds games.

N.B. The first Flash Gordon serial is also known as Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers, a later re-titling meant to prevent it from being confused with the 1950s Flash Gordon television show.

Savage News: Legends of Mongo Booster Box

The Legends of Mongo Booster Box for The Savage World of Flash Gordon role-playing game is currently in the process of being crowdfunded via Game On Tabletop. You can pledge through 3 June 2021. Click on the link for details!

Flash Gordon Inspiration: The Comic Strips 1934-1937

I first came to appreciate Flash Gordon as a fan of the movie serials starring Larry "Buster" Crabbe and the animated television series by Filmation, but even as an elementary school student, I was well aware that it all began with a comic strip in the 1930s. Created by artist Alex Raymond and ghostwriter Don Moore, it is considered one of the greatest strips in the history of the medium, and its influence on the genre of science fiction adventure is staggering.

To understand the full scope of Flash Gordon — and to appreciate the accuracy or inaccuracy of its various adaptations — one needs to go to the source, so I purchased Flash Gordon: On the Planet Mongo (Sundays 1934-1937) and two other volumes spanning the entirety of Alex Raymond's Sunday strips.

I am not even halfway through this volume and will forgo giving a review (other than to state I am very satisfied), but I thought I would share a few initial observations about the earliest strips.

• Ming is always referred to as "Ming, the Merciless" with a comma after "Ming."
• Flash Gordon's usual exclamations of surprise are "Great Scott," "Great guns," and "Good heavens."
• Dale's surname changes from "Arden" to "Ardan" and back again.
• Mongo is variously referred to as a "strange new planet," a "comet," and back to "planet."
• Zarkov's original plan was a suicide mission: deflect the course of the runaway planet/comet that was heading to Earth by flying a rocket into it. The fact that it was instead pulled into Mongo's gravity and forced to crash land was (somehow) unanticipated.

Reading the Sunday strips is enormously entertaining, and it is renewing my appreciation for the serial, the animated television show, and the 1980 film.

GORDON'S ALIVE

Savage Worlds Thought of the Day 2021-04-30

I wish Pinnacle Entertainment Group had waited to release The Savage World of Flash Gordon to coincide with SWADE so we wouldn't have to incorporate the changes ourselves. If they were to release an updated edition, I'd seriously consider buying it just to avoid filling my copy with errata-strewn bookmarks, but I imagine the odds of that happening are slim. I'm grateful that a PDF of the conversion is freely available, but I feel a little sad when I read it knowing how close it was to being a SWADE product. If only they had waited a little longer before releasing it. It was so close to being perfect.

Savage Worlds Online: Initiative

Until I have a chance to run or play Savage Worlds, the gaming content will be sparse here. In the meantime, I have been thinking about the challenges of running such a component-heavy role-playing game via Zoom, my preferred medium for online gaming. I am particularly interested in trying the initiative system, which looks very promising, but I'm sure it works best when used as intended: with a real deck of playing cards. Deck of Cards is probably the most viable substitute, and I'll report on that once I've tried it. As for other gaming components, I'll address them in the near future.