Love and Monsters

Howdy you Tenacious Apocalypse Survivors! 

How ya doing?  Seen any good movies lately?  Well, I saw one that I thought was pretty good, and I'm gonna tell ya about it.  Partly because it was pretty good, and partly to let you know that I watch some more modern stuff, too.

In case you missed the title of this particular post, I'll tell ya that the movie is "Love and Monsters".  

In case you don't know, "Love and Monsters" is a post-apocalyptic story about a guy who has been hiding in a bunker for seven years, finds out that his girlfriend is still alive in another survivor colony and decides to take the perilous journey to go to her.

How did the world end in this one?  Well, there was a massive asteroid headed for Earth, but that's not what got us.  Several governments fired nuclear missiles at it, to break it up and destroy it.  Kinda like in "Armageddon", except we didn't have to leave the planet.  Anyway, it worked!  The asteroid was demolished into smaller pieces and missed Earth!  

However, the chemicals in the rockets wafted back down to Earth and began to mutate all the lesser, vermin-type wildlife.  Little nuisance things like mice and insects grew to gargantuan size and went on a rampage.  About 95% of humanity died fighting them back while the rest hid in bunkers and shelters.

But our story is about Joel, played by some guy named Dylan O'Brien.  I'd never heard of this guy before, apparently he's in those "Maze Runner" movies.  

On a slight sidetrack:  I only know one actor in this whole movie, and that's Michael Rooker.  I know him because he's Yondu in "Guardians of the Galaxy" (the blue guy with the arrow that he controls by whistling).  In this, he's a wandering survivor.

Back to Joel.  His hometown was "ground zero" for the mutagenic chemicals, and his parents died while trying to evacuate the town.  He only survived because he was pulled into a pickup by some passing strangers.  

Anyway, apparently he managed to fix a ham radio and they were able to contact other survivors in other colonies.  He found out that his girlfriend, Aimee, is still alive.  After years of lonely brooding, he decides to go find her because being with her "was the last time he was truly happy".  

So, he packs some supplies and heads out on an 85 mile trek that should take him at least 7 days to travel.  Along the way he meets a dog mourning for his former master, a pair of survivors making their way to a new location high in the mountains where the monsters don't seem to go, and even a robot who was saving it's last hour of power for someone to find her.

And he does run into monsters!  Giant bugs!  Giant frogs!  Carnivorous worms!  Giant snails!  This movie felt like a cool combination of Gamma World and Fallout!  

I don't really want to tell you everything, after all, I don't want to ruin it for you if you decide to watch it.  But I DO recommend that you watch it!  It was pretty cool, and it was entertaining.

I streamed it on Amazon, and its got to be on DVD by now if you want to go that route.  

I also feel obligated to point out that if you like this movie, you might like my "Mutant World" stories, so check 'em out!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

Mutant Marauders

What ho and well met!

Welcome back Thaumaturgists, Adepts, and Swordmasters!

At long last you have returned, and so have I!  We're talking some more Mutant World here at the blog.  This time, we're gonna talk about the Marauders!

Who are the Marauders?  Well, they are a large mob of mutants, who rampage and terrorize various settlements throughout the wastelands.

So, first, I suppose I should talk a little about mutants in general.  Mutants in my afterworld are caused by the fallout of nuclear and chemical warfare.  As if that isn't bad enough, somewhere in the past there was a war with the Martians.  The Martians conducted weird genetic experiments on various Earth animals, which then got mutated by the fallout.

And so, by the time these stories take place, there are thousands of little sub-species.  Many of these are localized phenomena, because of what specific radiation is present in an area.

Some of the animals have human-like bodies.  They could look like minotaurs, or those animal-headed Egyptian Gods.  Some may have hair or fur or scales instead of skin.

Other animals look normal, at least at first glance.  Most likely they are a weird combination of two (or more) animals.  In the very least, they may have an extra limb, or wings, or crab claws, or something.

But the Marauders are NOT these kinds of mutants.

These guys are mutated humans.  Yes, some of them may have extra limbs, but these guys are covered with nasty, tumorous and cancerous growths.  They've lived in radioactive territory for so long that their skin has turned green.  


The Marauders are ugly and depraved in mind, body, and soul.  They hate unmutated humans and strive to exterminate them all from the face of the Earth.  

They believe that mutants are meant to be the new masters of the world.  They subjugate communities of mutant animals into submission, or kill them, too.

They are led by a self-styled warlord named Maligno.  He has two goals:  to destroy the scattered tribes of unmutated mankind, and to find more efficient weapons to accomplish it.  

To cross paths with the Marauders is certain death.  No one in their right mind would dare to challenge this small army of depraved mutants.  At least, not without an army.

But then, nobody ever said that Axel, Smogara, and Biter were in their right minds, now did they?  Why would they embark on such a suicidal adventure?  What prize could they hope to gain?  Will any of them come out alive?

YOU can find the answers to all these questions in:

Mutant World #3

The Might of Maligno

Available Now!
on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited!





Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

The Gecko Gang

Welcome back Travellers, Agents, and Survivors!

Here on the blog, we're still talking about Mutant World, and some of the creatures our heroes have to face during their adventures.  Today, we're talking about the Gecko Gang!

Who or what are the Gecko Gang?  Well, they are a rival group of post-apoc survivors, except these guys are mutant lizard men.  They wander the wasteland doing whatever odd jobs they can find:  bounty hunting, mercenary work, irreputable errands.  They aren't very picky.

There are five of them.  They stand about seven feet tall.  I started off thinking it would be kinda funny to have a rival band of lizard men all modelled after the Gecko from those insurance commercials, you know the guy!  But he didn't look mean enough, and I kept thinking of a head with a wide maw and bulging eyes, more like that purple guy from Monsters Inc.

But then I was drawn back to my D&D past, and I realized what I needed was something closer to this troglodyte drawn by Willingham in the B/X Basic Set.  Yeah, that's more like it!  Tall, and sleek, and mean, and strong.  Yeah...


So then I had to figure out how to differentiate between them  Should they have stripes?  Spots?  Combs?  Spikes?  Stegosaurus plates running down their spines?  Of course, then I realized I could just differentiate them by color.  It's an old fashioned cartoon trick, multiple characters that would look alike except for being different colors.  You know, like Donald Duck's nephews:  Huey, Dewey, and Louie.  


And their names, of course, which are all bastardized derivatives of giant movie monsters.  Gazillo, the yellow one, is the leader of the group.  The blue one, Gidoro, prefers hand-to-hand combat.  Gwanji, the red one, is the group's sniper.  The green one is Gorgi, and he ain't afraid to hunt down a beast, no matter how big it is.  Gam is the orange one, and he comes outta nowhere to help ya when ya need it the most!


Assuming, of course, that you're on his side!  If you're not...well, that's a different point of view!


But YOU can experience the adventure along with our heroes in

Mutant World #2

Scourge of the Sundered Sands

Available Now!
to Kindle and Kindle Unlimited!





Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

The Maulers

Greetings Treasure-hunters, Adventurers, and Survivors!

We're still talking about Mutant World, here at the blog.  Today we're going to talk about the mutant beasties that our adventurers face in the first story:  the Maulers!

Now, astute and learned readers will probably recognize that this adventure is basically a dungeon-crawl adventure in a stylized, fantasy post-apocalyptic world.  I've already explained the RPG influences, so that shouldn't be too surprising.

Anyway, this future-dungeon is a ruined shopping mall, so I reasoned that the people living there must be mall-ers.  But I had the good sense to change it to "Maulers", so it wouldn't be a straight-up joke.  ...Yet the pun is still there.

So, who and what were the Maulers?  Well, it was the first adventure, and thinking about role-playing games, your first adventure usually pits you against a relatively weak creature.

Kobolds immediately sprang to mind.  

I have a soft spot for D&D kobolds.  I first saw them pictured in the B/X Basic Set.  This pic by Erol Otus defined kobolds for me.  Back then, they were this weird little dog men.  Cunning and cowardly, but sadistic.  These brutal little dog men are now my default setting; these are what I think of when I think of kobolds.

In later editions of D&D somebody changed them.  Nowadays they are some sort of midget lizard man, with some sort of a connection to dragons.  This always annoyed me, because I thought they were fine the way they were.  But hey, what can ya do, right?

But suddenly it occurred to me:  they are a weird cross of dog and human.  That could just as easily be a type of mutant race in my story!  Hey, if Thundarr can have Moks, I can have kobolds!  Sure, I can't call them kobolds, but aside from that, they can basically be the same!

"Oh sure, they're cute now.  But they're gonna get mean, and nasty somehow, and there'll be a million more of ém!"

It really wasn't that big a change.  Mostly just in their costumes, props, and some weapons.  They can still be cunning.  They can still be cowardly.  They can still be sadistic.  They can still be subjugated and compelled to work for some stronger...

WHOOPS!
Sorry!  Almost gave away a vital plot point!   

But YOU can experience the adventure along with our heroes in

Mutant World #1

Mistress of the Mutant Maulers

Available Now!
on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited!





Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

Adventurers of Mutant World

Greetings from the End of the World!

You may recall that in our last exciting episode, I've promised to tell you more about my upcoming series, Mutant World, and even reveal the covers for the first three installments!  Well read on!

First off, credit where credit is due (and blame where blame):  What really ignited the prospect of Mutant World?  Well, it was really some artwork by Luigi Castellani, known in some circles as Artikid Arts.  He has a presence on DriveThru RPG and also on DeviantArt, where he usually does commision work for independent RPG publishers.

I saw some of the characters he's drawn over the years and I found them to be Terrific And Stylish!  More than that, they were a spark of inspiration!  So, I have arranged to use them on the covers for my stories!

I found the three figures that--in my mind--became Axel, Smogara and Biter, and almost immediately hammered out "Mistress of the Mutant Maulers".  But that wasn't enough to satisfy the idea.  It continued to grow, to evolve, to...mutate into something bigger and grander.

First off let me introduce you to my trio of heroes:

Axel is a normal (unmutated) human.  He comes from a wandering barbarian tribe called the Free Way Men, who have a nomadic lifestyle following the ruined interstates and are all named after car parts.  They are proud barbarians, and free men.  Their way is the Free Way!

As a post-apocalyptic barbarian, it may be difficult to distinguish Axel from similar characters like Thundarr or Kammandi.  But I like to think of Axel almost as an anti-Thundarr.  Axel is far more shallow and selfish and much less noble than Thundarr.  He's likely to do "the right thing" by accident by following his own self-interests.  He's also concerned with his fame, and claims he's on a quest to perform great deeds to prove to his tribe that he would make a good leader.

Smogara--pronounced smaw-GAR-uh--is a mutated human female with four arms.  Apparently she started out in life as a mutant slave, and escaped when she was young.  Her escape path took her through a radioactive swamp which made her ill.  She was rescued and given to a priestess to heal and raise her.  Eventually, she also set out on a life of adventure.

As a mutant, Smogara has some natural resistance to radiation.  She is far from immune to its adverse effects, but has a greater resistance than a normal human would.

Biter is a mutated badger.  He has a humanoid body, stands about three feet tall, wears a black leather jacket and carries a shotgun.  He has a mysterious background, but seems more competent with "ancient" machines and electronics than his companions.  

His personality seems to be a cross between Rocket Raccoon and Hannibal Smith (from the A-Team).  He is an outspoken jerk, and though he has some loyalty to his friends, I can't help but feel that he might betray them if he thought it was in his best interests.  After all, self-preservation and survival would almost certainly be your primary goals if you were stuck in a post-apocalyptic world.  

Obviously, they make a dysfunctional trio of heroes.  Now I'm sure you're wondering, if these terrible persons are supposed to be the heroes...what could the villains be like?!

Well, there are villains, of course.  And other problems, too.  But we'll wait and talk about that next time!  Until then I wish you..

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

My Latest Project...

Hello Explorers!  

So I think the time has come to talk about my latest project...

I am currently writing a series of stories that take place in a weird and wacky post-apocalyptic world.  Hey, what do you know, that totally ties in with my recent posts about the various post-apocalyptic movies and games that I've been writing about!  What an amazing and incredible coincidence!

I'm going to call the series Mutant World, and the series logo looks like this:

The series will follow the adventures of a post-apocalyptic human barbarian named Axel, a mutant girl with four arms named Smogara, and a humanoid badger called Biter.  

What was the great Calamity that ruined the world?  What caused all the weird mutations?  How did mankind survive?  What brought our band of adventurers together?  What are they questing for?  

I don't want to spoil too much right now, but I will be revealing more info about the story, the world, and the characters in upcoming posts.

What I can tell you right now...is that I'm planning to have a total of 9 stories in this series.  It will be available exclusively through Amazon, because I want to see how Kindle Unlimited works (from the writer's perspective).  I am expecting to have the first three installments ready and available to the public in February of 2020!

But that's not all!  Tune in next time and get a sneak peak at the cover art for the FIRST 3 stories!  So Tremble in Anxious Suspense and I'll see you next time!  Until then I wish you...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

Post-Apoc-A-Rama!

Hello and Welcome Back!

In our last exciting episode we were talking about bad post-apocalyptic movies from the 80's.  So that's where we start now.


I think the first movie I ever saw that could count as post-apoc would have to be The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price.
Of course, this isn't an 80's movie, and isn't at all akin to the sort of cheesy flick I wanna talk about.  But it's still the first one I ever saw.

The next one must have been Damnation Alley starring George Peppard an Jan-Micheal Vincent.  This movie was cool!  First off there was the Ultimate RV, a twelve-wheeled monster of an all-terrain vehicle designed to go anywhere in a ruined world.  There were giant scorpions and man-eating cockroaches.  This was sort of a slightly more realistic future than Thundarr presented:  no magic, no super-tech.  Somehow, though, there was enough gas to run the Super Rv and a motorcycle.

The next one that really stands out in my head is the Ralph Bakshi movie, Wizards.  This movie is just haunting and disturbing, but not really in a bad way.  The narration and the still-picture slide show in the beginning I find particularly haunting.  Then there's the weird animation style.  It's cartoony, as opposed to trying to render the weird creatures and characters realistically.  Then there's the weird rotoscoping and the subject matter itself.  Weird but cool.  

There was a movie called She, it starred Sandahl Bergman (she was Conan's girlfriend Valeria in Conan the Barbarian).  It was supposedly "based" on the H.R.Haggard story She, but the only resemblance I could see were in the title.  

In a post-apoc world survivors trade goods with one another until these raiders show up and cause a ruckus for no good reason.  They kidnap this girl, so her brother and her boyfriend go to rescue her, knowing full well they'll probably die.  But instead, they hook up with She, a powerful warrior-woman and she-who-cannot-die (thanks to her "magic" sauna in a cave in her village).  Through an episodic series of weird misadventures, including an incident with a werewolf commune, a mutant bridge guard who multiplies every time you hit him, and that standard stand-by a gladiatorial arena; our heroes find the bad guys and (spoiler alert!) rescue the girl.  It was weird stuff, seemed to have a definite Gamma World vibe to me.

Like I said, Terrible And Silly!


There were a bunch of other flicks, too.  After a while they kind of blend together.  But movies like The New Barbarians, and Land of Doom show us that people wear way too much leather in the post-apocalyptic desert.

  
Battletruck and Wheels of Fire show us that there will still be plenty of gas and bullets (and yet food and water will be scarce), and that all the vehicles will get pimped up with spikes. 

 Meanwhile, films like She-Wolves of the Wasteland and Stryker show us that there will be a great abundance of hot chicks, and a few cool guys...but apparently not enough clothes to go around (at least if you're adverse to the above-mentioned black leather).  

Are you ready for the punchline?  I've NEVER seen a single Mad Max movie.  Bits and pieces, but not the whole film.  But I've seen all of these flicks, and each one has left its indelible mark on the world I've created...or ended(?)...for the stories I'm writing.

And there were a few others, too.  But my point is this:  My post-apocalyptic world is not just drab and gray.  And there are more dangers lurking about than just zombies.  

When my world suffered its great calamity, there was advanced science.  AIs, robots, weird chemical medicines, advanced tech for daily appliances, experimental prototypes.  These things still exist and are half-understood (at best) by people trying to use them and repair the damage.  Weird chemicals and radiation have cause innumerable mutant sub-races and new hybrid species.  

Wanna know more?  Of course ya do!  So come on back next time, and I'll share some more about my upcoming science fantasy post-apocalyptic adventure series:  Mutant World!  Until then, I wish you...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

The End of the World As We Know It

Hey, hey and whattaya say!

How ya doing?  Great to see ya!  So glad ya stopped by!  How's the family?  How's work?  Sorry to hear that.  What's that?  What have I been working on?  Well, since ya asked...

Right now I'm working on a series of stories to post up on the Kindle Store at Amazon.  It's a science fantasy adventure series that takes place is a weird post-apocalyptic world.  What's weird about it?  Well, nowadays post-apoc is full of zombies, mine isn't.  Why not?  Well, I'm a child of the 70's and 80's, and when I was a kid, the post-apocalyptic world had more than just zombies.  Let me explain...

I think the first time I was exposed to the idea of a post-apocalyptic world was in the Saturday morning cartoon show Thundarr the Barbarian.  

Thundarr was a Conan-style barbarian in a ruined world full of mutants, magic, and super-science.  Thundarr was armed with his trusty Sun-Sword, a lightsaber knock-off.  He had two stalwart travelling companions:  Princess Ariel, an enchantress and daughter of a wizard; and Ookla the Mok, a burly cat-man mutant.  

Thundarr and his companions travel around the ruined country fighting against evil Wizards and their legions of Robots and Mutants as they try to enslave tribes of un-mutated human survivors.  

Each episode had weird mutant animals, ruins of identifiable landmarks, and machinery powered by magic.  The humans always lived in ruined buildings or primitive huts, while the evil Wizards always had a hi-tech stronghold.  There were very few guns (if any) but there were some magic wands that shot laser bolts, uh, I mean bolts of magic I guess.


The next time I encountered the concept of the post-apocalypse was in a catalog of other products by TSR Hobbies.  It was a small catalog booklet that came in my sister's D&D boxed set.  It was in this catalog that I first learned of the existence of the Gamma World Role Playing Game.  

Sadly, I never got play Gamma World.  I never even got to own any of the books,  But I learned what I could about it, it was full of mutant people, mutant animal-men, mutant animals, mutant plants, and robots galore!  Mutants; whether they were human, animal, or plant; were capable of having terrible deformities and/or weird powers.  Apparently characters start off with primitive medieval-style weapons, but through their adventures can find and use more advanced weapons, armor, vehicles, and random little appliances that you don't know how to use.  

It sounded VERY Thundarr.  I was entranced.  

Of course, today all these old supplements are available as digital downloads.  Also, there are new games, like Mutant Future, which are based and heavily inspired by the old Gamma World game.  I'm proud to say that I own an actual physical copy of Mutant Future, and that I have collected several digital files of past versions of Gamma World...and it's all I thought it was and more!  But you know what?  I still haven't played it!

But that's not all!  Like I said, I was a child of the 70's and 80's, and that means "post-apocalyptic" was an actual genre in the movies!  Thanks to this slew of cinematic treats, we all knew that a post-apocalyptic world would be Terrible And Silly!  But we'll wait and talk about that next time!  Until then I wish you...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell