THROWBACK THURSDAY: My Life and Humanoid Ducks In Roleplaying Games

Part of the reason for my passionate support for Darcy Perry's wonderful DuckQuest roleplaying game - and why I backed several of his anthropomorphic duck-related miniatures Kickstarters - stretches right back to my earliest days of gaming.

In the late '70s and early '80s the bulk of my long-form (rather than random one-shot) gaming was with Gublin, a friend who lived five doors down the road from me.

Although created for a specific Dungeons & Dragons adventure at our local gaming club, my enduring character from those days was a female half-elf fighter/cleric/magic-user called Staghind, who enjoyed a storied adventuring career, before becoming a queen of her own nation and retiring.

At some stage in her life she adopted an anthropomorphic duck called Quincy as one of her many children and he taught her Quack Fu. Or she was taught Quack-Fu by a master and then she adopted Quincy. My memory from those days is like Swiss Cheese!

My ideas about humanoid ducks were entirely shaped by reading Steve Gerber's bonkers Howard The Duck comics, rather than RuneQuest (which officially introduced ducks into the roleplaying consciousness).

This is also why I have a copy of this issue framed and hanging on the wall in our lounge with other key comics from my years of collecting and reading. 

Not just because of the incredible impact it had on me as a nascent comic book reader, exposing me to the gonzo possibilities of the medium, but also for the influence it had on me as a fledgling gamer.

Whilst my anthropomorphic duck gaming ended rather abruptly with Staghind's retirement, the concept endured with the help of one of my mum's delightfully random fandoms.

Once I was of working age (and writing nonsense for the local paper), my mum somehow became a massive fan of the late '80s kids cartoon Count Duckula, so I used my salary to ensure she had an extensive collection of VHS tapes and annuals (as that was the only merch available at the time).

These days duck characters can be found roleplayng games such as Dragonbane (from Free League Publishing), where they are called "mallards", and Twilight Sword (yes, this was a deciding factor in me backing this game).

In the latter game the duck kin are also known as "mallards" and were available, in print form (as a set of cards), as an early bird sweetener to entice backers to get the ball rolling on the crowdfunding campaign.

I hesitated and missed out on this bonus "kin", but understand it will still be available to all backers as a PDF. I can't NOT have ducks as a playable race in my version of Twilight Sword!

RPG REVIEW: DuckQuest by Darcy Perry

Cover art by Jon Hodgson

Picture a game that mingles Marvel's Howard The Duck and Rocket Raccoon, with the adventures of Usagi Yojimbo, Stan Sakai's rōnin rabbit, and a dash of Disney cartoonery, then pepper it with humour akin to Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.

Now you'll have an idea of what's to come when you leaf through the pun-packed pages of Darcy Perry's DuckQuest: Quack Starter Edition (from 2021).

Initially created as an adjunct to one of Darcy's Kickstarter campaigns for the wonderful, often anthropomorphic, miniatures he produces through Star Hat Miniatures, the game is now available for the general public to purchase as a gorgeously illustrated 64-page PDF (click here).

Back during the Kickstarter, Darcy explained the genesis of DuckQuest:

"Unlike other games where ducks are relegated as side-kicks or comic relief, imagine they're the star players; the heroic explorers on an epic adventure. It's an idea that didn't go away. The more I looked around, the more I noticed that ducks got a raw deal. Something had to be done. So combining the need for ducks to be represented in a better light and a lifelong dream of writing my own fantasy heartbreaker RPG. I took the plunge and dived in!"

Mechanically, DuckQuest is an ultra-lite and streamlined d20 game (the core mechanic is essentially roll a d20, add a stat, score over a Target Number), with a freestyle magic system (that still retains some simple mechanics to rein in overzealous players), and a wonderfully Tunnels & Trolls-like method to condense monster statistics to a minimum.

Although the book's fluff skews towards the players taking the role of ducks in the game, there's nothing stopping them from playing crows, cats, dogs, squirrels, turtles etc

Emphasising the science-fantasy leanings of the game, the A-Z of 26 suggested character backgrounds (their 'quackstories') even embraces cyborgs, time travellers, and stranded spaceship pilots.

After picking a quackstory and a suitable name, character creation primarily involves allocating one to five points between the five QUACKtributes (Quickness, Ugly, Arcana, Cool, and Kismet), determining physical (Heart) and mental endurance (Psyche), adding in some quirks (which are largely for flavour and roleplay prompts), and then sorting out what equipment you have.

The Dramatic Universal Cosmic Kudos System (DUCKS) core rules (light as they are, but with a basic scenario concept of "quests", often involving killing monsters and stealing their stuff) are certainly evocative of the 'old school'.

However, there's also strong elements of more modern narrative sensibilities in the rules, such as starting objects in a character's possession being colourfully named but their exact "crunch" being down to player suggestions and gamesmaster fiat.

An example of the game's gorgeous
and idiosyncratic art

Employing all the main polyhedrals (even up to a d30), DUCKS includes a small number of simple mechanics - such as dice steps and exploding dice - that tick all the right boxes for this fan of funky dice play.

With a core mantra of "it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to make fun", a great deal of emphasis in the book is put on a group shaping the game and the default setting of  Aqualoonia (if they even choose to set their campaigns there) to their own whims.

To be honest, beyond the evocative place names on the map, and occasional bits of lore dropped in along the way, Aqualoonia is largely a blank slate for players and gamesmasters to fill in as they see fit.

For instance, some of the breadcrumbs scattered through the text send my brain racing off towards the world of my beloved Mortal Engines, Philip Reeve's literary masterpiece, so that's another avenue my imagination could explore through the funhouse lens of DuckQuest..

The core game book also contains a delightfully inspirational page of "duck cryptids", compiled by legendary games designer Jennell Jaquays. These are folk tales and ghosts stories of the feathered folk that can work as delicious background matter and plot hooks.

DuckQuest, full of fowl humour and loving parodies of pop culture, is not a game to be taken seriously.

That said, it is a fully-functioning roleplaying system with enormous campaign potential thanks to its easy-to-grok "levelling up" rules and bulging bestiary of killer critters - ranging from tiny mushroom men to kaiju-sized monstrosities that would give Cthulhu a run for his money.

Given the solid framework that Darcy has created, DuckQuest is also primed perfectly for hacking, should you come up with a house rule or two on the way to conjuring up your own campaign.

The Life & Times of Staghind Starlight Aramioc-Blacksword

Lengthy "Tell Me About Your Character" Alert...

Last week's piece about my early RPG characters got me thinking about my most successful and enduring Dungeons & Dragons character: Staghind Starlight Aramioc-Blacksword The First.

By mid-1979, the club side of The Dark Tower had outgrown the rooms above the shop and relocated to a community hall a short distance away in a more suburban area of Tunbridge Wells.

As well as all the normal campaigns being run, one Dungeon Master (I don't recall his name) was running a "competition" dungeon, known as The Crypte Of The Courageous. He told me to create a third level character, so I turned for advice to the best source of reliable information I knew... the counter monkey at The Dark Tower.

His immediate suggestion was a half-elf magic-user/fighter/cleric (I had embraced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons by this time)... and so was born Staghind.

Staghind's first character sheet - from her run through The Crypte Of The Courageous

Not only did she (and her fellow adventurer whose name has faded into obscurity) become the first team to conquer The Crypte Of The Courageous in July 1979, but she would eventually become my longest surviving and, beyond a shadow of a doubt, favourite Dungeons & Dragons character.

Among her other achievements in her illustrious career - before settling down as Queen Of Norll, Jalla and Elfland - she rescued a fellow party member from boiling mud in White Plume Mountain (admittedly she'd knocked him in there first); liberated the Simarils from Morgoth; gained storm giant strength for 10 years from a raid on a giant's lair; and - most impressively - was taught martial arts by a duck master of Quack Fu!

Oh yes, she also met the legendary White Dwarf and her own god, Niffle. Apparently his mission is to seek out those who are worthy enough to worship him (he doesn't actively court worshippers). As it says on her character sheet below she has only ever actually met one other Nifflite - the high-priest of the faith, a gentleman by the name of Thor.

She was married twice; first to Gublin's main character Egghead Aramioc and then to Guy Huckle's Glorfindel Blacksword. She had seven children and adopted one (a duck by the name of Quincy).

Her eldest daughter, Elean, made an appearance in the first few sessions of  the first campaign I ran for the Tuesday Knights as a pirate leader (Staghind herself was masquerading as queen of the Amazonian island of Zenn).

I had always had a very definite idea of what Staghind looked like, but it wasn't until issue 24 of White Dwarf came out that I actually had a visual representation of my vision (see picture above).

However, in recent years I've begun to reimagine her as resembling Sandahl Bergman's Valeria from the 1980's Conan The Barbarian movie.

 

 

The final page of Staghind's "retirement" character sheet (immediately above) details her subterranean 'castle' (the former Halls Of The Elf King; a dungeon she took over), her fleet of ships, her magic horse and her small orc army.

Ahh, those were the days!

There was no set game world when we played, Staghind moved from campaign to campaign, Dungeon Master to Dungeon Master and no one questioned her ever-increasing wealth or powers. This goes a long way towards explaining the bizarre diversity of her travels and treasures - from obvious Tolkienesque material to Howard The Duck-inspired martial arts skills.

I'd like to point out that at some stage I deducted the "bonus experience points" she was gifted to start at 3rd level, so the experience points you see on her sheet were all earned by her own sweat and blood.

I certainly wouldn't be adverse, one day, to bringing her out of retirement, but - on the other hand - I'm quite content to leave her, safe and sound, on her throne, surrounded by all her wonderful acquisitions and memories.

Most likely though is I'll use either the map of her castle or of The Crypte Of The Courageous as a dungeon in a future campaign, with Staghind's numerous magic items and plentiful finances as the treasure.

Afterall, who could resist the chance to own the delightfully-named "vorpal sword of everlasting flame of disintegration"?

TALES FROM THE VAULT: Marvel Team-Up #96 (1980)

Chronologically this tale recounts the second meeting of Spider-Man and Howard The Duck (although Peter Parker isn't quite sure if their first meeting, in Howard The Duck issue one, wasn't just a bad dream).

In Marvel Team-Up #96, from 1980, Howard is working as a taxi driver and has driven a slightly kooky fare from Cleveland to New York, a former librarian and now self-taught orator who now goes by the soubriquet of Status Quo.

Status Quo is violently opposed to "fads" (from jogging and frisbees to roller-skates and disco music), which he believes are undermining the backbone of America.

Quo gets Howard to drive him to Central Park where he starts whipping up the crowds into a riotous frenzy.

Peter Parker sees what's going on on the news - and spots Howard in the background of the broadcast - and so swings over to make sure things don't get out of hand.

Status Quo is a typical Howard The Duck antagonist from the classic Steve Gerber era (even though this issue was written and drawn by Alan Kupperberg)

He's a fruitcake with a political point to make and - sudden and inexplicable - access to high-tech weaponry (exploding frisbees and jet-propelled skateboards!) who is ultimately defeated by dramatic irony.

Although the resolution involves - of course - fisticuffs, it comes down to Howard giving him a stern talking to in front of the assembled media that spells the end for Status Quo.

Among the many nutty moments of this issue, Spider-Man gets very serious (and references Hitler):

And Howard gets naked (and spends about half the issue in a state of undress!):

As an aside, I'd just like to point out that, to my mind, this is definitive Howard The Duck look... you know, like a duck, not that that strange elongated, scrawny appearance he developed after Marvel had a run-in with Disney over his supposed similarity to Donald.

Not really Howard The Duck...

That was my only real disappointment with the original Guardians Of The Galaxy movie, the Howard who popped up at the end didn't look like my Howard.

And, yes, I am one of the handful of people who likes the 1986 movie.

Given that Disney now owns Marvel isn't it about time they let Howard get his proper look back?