HellfireVanWinkle
First Post
This here is a thread for readers and fans of "Kane" by Karl Edward Wagner, a work that is unknown and sees little discussion online, which is why I'm making this post.
This thread aims to discuss how Kane would be adapted as a tabletop RPG Campaign.
Special thanks Dale Rippke who has compiled many useful informations about Kane on his blog The Darkstorm Files.
WHO WAS KARL EDWARD WAGNER ?
Karl Edward Wagner was a horror, fantasy and science-fiction writer born on December 12th 1945 in Knoxville Tennessee and died on October 14th 1994 at Chapel Hill in North Carolina. He first pursued a psychiatry PHD before giving up this work due to conflicts with his hierarchy which despised him, but also because of the treatment of mentally ill patients by the institutions (You did not want to be an Asylum patient in the 70s). After that he became both editor and writer, of books that conveyed his very dark and nihilistic vision of existence. His many torments would only get worse after his divorce, and alcoholism would eat him up more and more before finally killing him. This is who Karl Edward Wagner was.
WHAT IS KANE ?
The story of Kane by Karl Edward Wagner (which I will shorten to K.E.W) is a series of Sword & Sorcery novels and short stories published between 1975 and 1989. This saga amounts to three novels, sixteen short stories and even two poems! It focuses on the wandering of the biblical Cain character, here called "Kane", who was cursed by God for the murder of his brother Abel. Kane is damned by the heavens to be forever hated by his fellow men until the end of times, for he bears the "Mark of Kane", anyone who meets his gaze gets profoundly disturbed by the evil emitted from his eyes.
One cannot call this character a hero, nor an anti-hero, Kane is clearly malevolent, having invented violence and murder is clearly one hell of a stinker to have on your résumé. Kane's core concept is at the crossroads of three different genres which are: Sword & Sorcery, Pulp and Gothic Horror. Wagner's Kane takes as much from Howard's Conan than he does from Rohmer's Fu-Manchu and Stoker's Dracula. This villain being as good in brute force as he is in careful planning, he can still sometimes feel weakened by melancholy, an inevitable affliction from being both cursed and immortal. Never does Kane stops trying to conquer the world, always he ends up failing, but always he survives to try for it again some other day.
Kane is far from being a saint, but he somehow always end up pitted against people who are far worse than him. Because Kane does a lot of evil, but mostly out of necessity rather than pleasure. Indeed, in the world penned by K.E.W: there is no hero, not even a kind soul living here in fact. Kane lives in a world where people are spread between two categories: the weak and the strong, and Kane isn't the kind of guy to let others think he could be weak. This is what K.E.W calls "The struggle between Bad and Worse".
As the stories unfold, we get to witness Kane's advancement across human history. The saga begins with Kane as an Archmage in the first city of Carsutyale, to end up with Kane as a Druglord in London during the reign of Margaret Thatcher.
I would recommend starting with the first novel, Bloodstone, because it's in this opus that the author introduces his character properly. Regarding the rest of Kane's body of work, I would say that it's best to read the stories in chronological order (timeline available here: Lord of Chaos) even if K.E.W did not write them is this way. If Kane's saga is one of Fantasy, let it be known that K.E.W through kane's world has explored many different genres of fiction: Cosmic horror (The Dark Muse), Slasher (Death Angel's Shadow), War Stories (Dark Crusade) and even erotic literature (to be frank, I'd rather forget all about this one so I won't speak its name).
This saga, brilliant as it is will never be finished. Its creator being a chronic alcoholic, he eventually passed away in 1994. Karl Edward Wagner left behind him a work which is a reflection of his own life: which is the story of a lone man tormented by life and its ugliness.
A SWORD & SORCERY WORLD?
At first glance, one may be led to believe that Kane's Saga is one of Sword & Sorcery genre (at least in the beginning). Indeed, just like most Conan stories which the genre is modeled after, we follow the adventures of a lone warrior trying to survive in a world vaguely inspired by antiquity era, with only his wit and his sword. Magic is both rare and evil, in this world we don't find any kind of elves or dwarves but we do find creatures from biblical mythology (such as Giants, Demons and Angels). We also come across (sporadically) elements straight out of a B-Movie Sci-Fi Flick such as: space ships, laser weapons, aliens, quantum computers and even a green lantern type of ring. Kane novels in particular take a lot of inspiration from Peplum movies since Kane gets involved quite a bit in the geopolitics of the kingdoms and empires of his world, signing both peace and war according to his goals, with no regards for the lives he destroys in doing so.
… NOT QUITE SO!
To believe that Kane's world is only one of Sword & Sorcery would be a colossal mistake! As a matter of fact K.E.W always said that he was a horror writer first and foremost, not a fantasy nor a science fiction writer. In my opinion, I think this statement is only half true (and thus half false), but this sheds and interesting light on how the world of Kane is portrayed by its own author. Thus Kane's (aka Caïn) lineage with Bible Mythos, his role of protagonist who is both monstrous and sympathetic, all of this is a callback to the great gothic horror classics such as Dracula, Frankenstein and Melmoth the Wanderer (directly quoted by K.E.W in an interview). The shadow of horror fiction and the monsters within hangs on all of Kane's stories, no exception, they all end up including horror elements in one way or another. In addition to Gothic Horror, there is also quite a bit of Cosmic Horror, though only in the novels and not so much in the short stories, being the Lovecraft fan that he is (and he was a lovecraft fan before it was cool) Kane encounters many forgotten gods and abominations which are direct hommage to the Cthulhu Mythos, like the Dagon-like god depicted in Darkness Weaves. All this mixing up of different genres make Kane a precursor to Dark Fantasy.
WHY PLAY IN THE WORLD OF KANE?
Personally, I don't ask myself this question since I'm a huge fan, but I guess I gotta sell it to you all somehow?
If I think that the world penned by K.E.W wuld be deserving of a RPG adaptation, it's simply because I think it's a great work of art first and foremost! Which is kind of obvious since players and DMs seldom use mediocre worlds for their campaigns. But then there is also the fact that this world closely resembles other works already adapted to RPG such as Lankhmar, Hyborea or whatever Elric's world is called. But I think the greatest quality of this world as a campaign setting would be its ambiguity. The world of Kane has its foot set in many many genres such as: Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror which offers diversity and depth for both players and DMs. Thus a campaign in the world of Kane would not only be dedicated to adventure and action, but we could also have more contemplative and melancholic moments, since the idea would be to play powerful but cursed characters (Not Unlike Vampire the Masquerade).
THE THICK OF IT
After contextualizing this work, I can now properly begin our discussion and how to translate this saga into a Role Playing game.
WHAT KIND OF PLAYER CHARACTERS FOR A KANE CAMPAIGN?
This question doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's actually very important. In his eponymous work, Kane is very different from all the other Sword & Sorcery protagonists such as : Fafhdr, Grey Mouser, Conan, Elric or Bran Mak Morn. Thereforer the player characters in our campaign should ideally reflect this fact.
As I said before, Kane should be considered first and foremost to be a "Gothic Horror" protagonists who somehow wandered in a Sword & Sorcery world. This means a powerful but also tormented monster. Thus in a campaign true to the spirit of K.E.W, the PCs would not be adventurers seeking Gold and Glory, but a "super-vilain" team who would already be powerful enough (which means not XP evolution) and all of them would try to satisfy their lust for "something" (lust for conquest, lust for eldritch knowledge. The goal ofthe player characters would not be to gather XP, but to realize and ambition. To make a "Kane-like" character, one could take a gothic horror character and simply adapt him to Sword & Sorcery context: Dracula, Jekyll & Hyde etc etc.
This is however, only one way of looking at it, because I there is not just one way to do so, there is another.
When I was brainstorming for a Batman RPG, I figured that a PC can not be as powerful as batman, because Batman is alone (there is NO bat family) and usually there are 5-6 PCs on your table, which means that a lone PC can not be powerful, bu the 5-6 PCs have to be as powerful as Batman when they combine their forces. Diluting Batman's power among 5-6 PCs is extremely easy since Batman is a world class master in many disciplines, so you just give this mastery to only one PC, which means that one PC is the master detective, one is the master martial artist, one is the master infiltrator etc etc. I think you get the gist.
We could do the same thing for Kane, since he's one hell of a badass, Kane is pretty much every D&D class ever condensed into one character (save for paladin of course) so one could argue that your typical D&D group would be thematically fitting for a Kane campaign, but they would need to be all amoral and chaotic, like the Wild Bunch in the eponymous western classic, which is K.E.W favorite film.
WHICH PLACE SHOULD KANE HOLD?
We should not forget that the work discussed in this thread bears the name of its protagonist. In Stormbringer and other Elric-derived games, it is generally recommended by the authors to Keep Elric and Moonglum away from the PCs, and rightfully so since he's absolutely un-killable (this MF has a whopping 1000% combat score in one of Stormbringer's editions), there the same advice for Conan and Conan games but since most of these take place when he's a King it doesn’t really matter anyway. Despite all of this I think there could be a place for Kane in YOUR campaign. Every once in a while, it just so happens that Kane is not the main character of the stories taking place in his own world, even though Kane is still a central element since he's the progenitor of many kingdoms and creatures, which makes it difficult to put him in the shadows. Despite the fact that Kane is immortal and all powerful, he is not invincible, quite the opposite, many time Kane has required the help of somebody else, he has fled on many occasions, and on many more he has been defeated. Which means that even if Kane is quite the badass, he still has weaknesses. All of this means that in terms of game challenge, facing Kane is roughly not so different to facing a dragon for you typical party. I speak of him as an enemy, because that's what he's likely to be in your campaign, but Kane could also end up being the ally of your party, even if Kane's friendship is never free.
WHICH SYSTEM TO RUN KANE?
This is where the real talk begins, where theory meets practice.
Now I just want to say that I'm not a game designer, and probably never will be, so my opinion on the "System Matter" is just that, my opinion, and it's to be taken with a grain of salt.
That being said, I think I have a pretty good idea of what a "Kane System" should be, and the main criterias it should uphold:
1) The PCs must be "like Kane" but without being a copy of him:
a) They have to be unique, one way or another (use the "One unique thing" from 13th age)
b) They have to be powerful, but it doesn't necessarily mean in a martial kind of way, since even Kane has to flee sometimes, still they have to be able to impact the world.
c) They must be tormented, and their torment should be linked to the source of their power
2) The campaign should involve politics and faction play, with rules for mass combat.
3) Ideally the psychology of the player characters should have an impact on the gameplay, in order to display powerful and impactful bouts of emotions. A system not unlike Vampire or Pendragon.
Now this is the moment where I can only apologize, because given all these criterias, and all the RPGs I have red, I have still no met a system fit to run a Kane campaign. If I had to build something from the ground up, I guess I would go for a Vampire Hack, but quite frankly I’m not the kind of DM who likes to write rules.
MY PROPOSITION
I unfortunately don’t have any rules or hacks to share, however there’s quite a bit of RPG modules which I think would be great for a Kane campaign, and would be ready to play with minimal work.
This thread aims to discuss how Kane would be adapted as a tabletop RPG Campaign.
Special thanks Dale Rippke who has compiled many useful informations about Kane on his blog The Darkstorm Files.
WHO WAS KARL EDWARD WAGNER ?
Karl Edward Wagner was a horror, fantasy and science-fiction writer born on December 12th 1945 in Knoxville Tennessee and died on October 14th 1994 at Chapel Hill in North Carolina. He first pursued a psychiatry PHD before giving up this work due to conflicts with his hierarchy which despised him, but also because of the treatment of mentally ill patients by the institutions (You did not want to be an Asylum patient in the 70s). After that he became both editor and writer, of books that conveyed his very dark and nihilistic vision of existence. His many torments would only get worse after his divorce, and alcoholism would eat him up more and more before finally killing him. This is who Karl Edward Wagner was.
WHAT IS KANE ?
The story of Kane by Karl Edward Wagner (which I will shorten to K.E.W) is a series of Sword & Sorcery novels and short stories published between 1975 and 1989. This saga amounts to three novels, sixteen short stories and even two poems! It focuses on the wandering of the biblical Cain character, here called "Kane", who was cursed by God for the murder of his brother Abel. Kane is damned by the heavens to be forever hated by his fellow men until the end of times, for he bears the "Mark of Kane", anyone who meets his gaze gets profoundly disturbed by the evil emitted from his eyes.
One cannot call this character a hero, nor an anti-hero, Kane is clearly malevolent, having invented violence and murder is clearly one hell of a stinker to have on your résumé. Kane's core concept is at the crossroads of three different genres which are: Sword & Sorcery, Pulp and Gothic Horror. Wagner's Kane takes as much from Howard's Conan than he does from Rohmer's Fu-Manchu and Stoker's Dracula. This villain being as good in brute force as he is in careful planning, he can still sometimes feel weakened by melancholy, an inevitable affliction from being both cursed and immortal. Never does Kane stops trying to conquer the world, always he ends up failing, but always he survives to try for it again some other day.
Kane is far from being a saint, but he somehow always end up pitted against people who are far worse than him. Because Kane does a lot of evil, but mostly out of necessity rather than pleasure. Indeed, in the world penned by K.E.W: there is no hero, not even a kind soul living here in fact. Kane lives in a world where people are spread between two categories: the weak and the strong, and Kane isn't the kind of guy to let others think he could be weak. This is what K.E.W calls "The struggle between Bad and Worse".
As the stories unfold, we get to witness Kane's advancement across human history. The saga begins with Kane as an Archmage in the first city of Carsutyale, to end up with Kane as a Druglord in London during the reign of Margaret Thatcher.
I would recommend starting with the first novel, Bloodstone, because it's in this opus that the author introduces his character properly. Regarding the rest of Kane's body of work, I would say that it's best to read the stories in chronological order (timeline available here: Lord of Chaos) even if K.E.W did not write them is this way. If Kane's saga is one of Fantasy, let it be known that K.E.W through kane's world has explored many different genres of fiction: Cosmic horror (The Dark Muse), Slasher (Death Angel's Shadow), War Stories (Dark Crusade) and even erotic literature (to be frank, I'd rather forget all about this one so I won't speak its name).
This saga, brilliant as it is will never be finished. Its creator being a chronic alcoholic, he eventually passed away in 1994. Karl Edward Wagner left behind him a work which is a reflection of his own life: which is the story of a lone man tormented by life and its ugliness.
A SWORD & SORCERY WORLD?
At first glance, one may be led to believe that Kane's Saga is one of Sword & Sorcery genre (at least in the beginning). Indeed, just like most Conan stories which the genre is modeled after, we follow the adventures of a lone warrior trying to survive in a world vaguely inspired by antiquity era, with only his wit and his sword. Magic is both rare and evil, in this world we don't find any kind of elves or dwarves but we do find creatures from biblical mythology (such as Giants, Demons and Angels). We also come across (sporadically) elements straight out of a B-Movie Sci-Fi Flick such as: space ships, laser weapons, aliens, quantum computers and even a green lantern type of ring. Kane novels in particular take a lot of inspiration from Peplum movies since Kane gets involved quite a bit in the geopolitics of the kingdoms and empires of his world, signing both peace and war according to his goals, with no regards for the lives he destroys in doing so.
… NOT QUITE SO!
To believe that Kane's world is only one of Sword & Sorcery would be a colossal mistake! As a matter of fact K.E.W always said that he was a horror writer first and foremost, not a fantasy nor a science fiction writer. In my opinion, I think this statement is only half true (and thus half false), but this sheds and interesting light on how the world of Kane is portrayed by its own author. Thus Kane's (aka Caïn) lineage with Bible Mythos, his role of protagonist who is both monstrous and sympathetic, all of this is a callback to the great gothic horror classics such as Dracula, Frankenstein and Melmoth the Wanderer (directly quoted by K.E.W in an interview). The shadow of horror fiction and the monsters within hangs on all of Kane's stories, no exception, they all end up including horror elements in one way or another. In addition to Gothic Horror, there is also quite a bit of Cosmic Horror, though only in the novels and not so much in the short stories, being the Lovecraft fan that he is (and he was a lovecraft fan before it was cool) Kane encounters many forgotten gods and abominations which are direct hommage to the Cthulhu Mythos, like the Dagon-like god depicted in Darkness Weaves. All this mixing up of different genres make Kane a precursor to Dark Fantasy.
WHY PLAY IN THE WORLD OF KANE?
Personally, I don't ask myself this question since I'm a huge fan, but I guess I gotta sell it to you all somehow?
If I think that the world penned by K.E.W wuld be deserving of a RPG adaptation, it's simply because I think it's a great work of art first and foremost! Which is kind of obvious since players and DMs seldom use mediocre worlds for their campaigns. But then there is also the fact that this world closely resembles other works already adapted to RPG such as Lankhmar, Hyborea or whatever Elric's world is called. But I think the greatest quality of this world as a campaign setting would be its ambiguity. The world of Kane has its foot set in many many genres such as: Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror which offers diversity and depth for both players and DMs. Thus a campaign in the world of Kane would not only be dedicated to adventure and action, but we could also have more contemplative and melancholic moments, since the idea would be to play powerful but cursed characters (Not Unlike Vampire the Masquerade).
THE THICK OF IT
After contextualizing this work, I can now properly begin our discussion and how to translate this saga into a Role Playing game.
WHAT KIND OF PLAYER CHARACTERS FOR A KANE CAMPAIGN?
This question doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's actually very important. In his eponymous work, Kane is very different from all the other Sword & Sorcery protagonists such as : Fafhdr, Grey Mouser, Conan, Elric or Bran Mak Morn. Thereforer the player characters in our campaign should ideally reflect this fact.
As I said before, Kane should be considered first and foremost to be a "Gothic Horror" protagonists who somehow wandered in a Sword & Sorcery world. This means a powerful but also tormented monster. Thus in a campaign true to the spirit of K.E.W, the PCs would not be adventurers seeking Gold and Glory, but a "super-vilain" team who would already be powerful enough (which means not XP evolution) and all of them would try to satisfy their lust for "something" (lust for conquest, lust for eldritch knowledge. The goal ofthe player characters would not be to gather XP, but to realize and ambition. To make a "Kane-like" character, one could take a gothic horror character and simply adapt him to Sword & Sorcery context: Dracula, Jekyll & Hyde etc etc.
This is however, only one way of looking at it, because I there is not just one way to do so, there is another.
When I was brainstorming for a Batman RPG, I figured that a PC can not be as powerful as batman, because Batman is alone (there is NO bat family) and usually there are 5-6 PCs on your table, which means that a lone PC can not be powerful, bu the 5-6 PCs have to be as powerful as Batman when they combine their forces. Diluting Batman's power among 5-6 PCs is extremely easy since Batman is a world class master in many disciplines, so you just give this mastery to only one PC, which means that one PC is the master detective, one is the master martial artist, one is the master infiltrator etc etc. I think you get the gist.
We could do the same thing for Kane, since he's one hell of a badass, Kane is pretty much every D&D class ever condensed into one character (save for paladin of course) so one could argue that your typical D&D group would be thematically fitting for a Kane campaign, but they would need to be all amoral and chaotic, like the Wild Bunch in the eponymous western classic, which is K.E.W favorite film.
WHICH PLACE SHOULD KANE HOLD?
We should not forget that the work discussed in this thread bears the name of its protagonist. In Stormbringer and other Elric-derived games, it is generally recommended by the authors to Keep Elric and Moonglum away from the PCs, and rightfully so since he's absolutely un-killable (this MF has a whopping 1000% combat score in one of Stormbringer's editions), there the same advice for Conan and Conan games but since most of these take place when he's a King it doesn’t really matter anyway. Despite all of this I think there could be a place for Kane in YOUR campaign. Every once in a while, it just so happens that Kane is not the main character of the stories taking place in his own world, even though Kane is still a central element since he's the progenitor of many kingdoms and creatures, which makes it difficult to put him in the shadows. Despite the fact that Kane is immortal and all powerful, he is not invincible, quite the opposite, many time Kane has required the help of somebody else, he has fled on many occasions, and on many more he has been defeated. Which means that even if Kane is quite the badass, he still has weaknesses. All of this means that in terms of game challenge, facing Kane is roughly not so different to facing a dragon for you typical party. I speak of him as an enemy, because that's what he's likely to be in your campaign, but Kane could also end up being the ally of your party, even if Kane's friendship is never free.
WHICH SYSTEM TO RUN KANE?
This is where the real talk begins, where theory meets practice.
Now I just want to say that I'm not a game designer, and probably never will be, so my opinion on the "System Matter" is just that, my opinion, and it's to be taken with a grain of salt.
That being said, I think I have a pretty good idea of what a "Kane System" should be, and the main criterias it should uphold:
1) The PCs must be "like Kane" but without being a copy of him:
a) They have to be unique, one way or another (use the "One unique thing" from 13th age)
b) They have to be powerful, but it doesn't necessarily mean in a martial kind of way, since even Kane has to flee sometimes, still they have to be able to impact the world.
c) They must be tormented, and their torment should be linked to the source of their power
2) The campaign should involve politics and faction play, with rules for mass combat.
3) Ideally the psychology of the player characters should have an impact on the gameplay, in order to display powerful and impactful bouts of emotions. A system not unlike Vampire or Pendragon.
Now this is the moment where I can only apologize, because given all these criterias, and all the RPGs I have red, I have still no met a system fit to run a Kane campaign. If I had to build something from the ground up, I guess I would go for a Vampire Hack, but quite frankly I’m not the kind of DM who likes to write rules.
MY PROPOSITION
I unfortunately don’t have any rules or hacks to share, however there’s quite a bit of RPG modules which I think would be great for a Kane campaign, and would be ready to play with minimal work.
- Through Sunken Lands and Other Adventures. This games is essentially a DIY Sword & Sorcery RPG, there are even blank maps available in the book which means the world of this game could be translated to Kane’s own world with minimal effort and help from this article (The Darkstorm Files)
- Lamentations of the Flame Princess’ Carcosa. We would probably need more work than for number 1, but I have good faith that it would be possible to turn this Carcos into Kane’s own Carsultyal.
- The Evils of Illmire. This module is probably the one that requires the least amount of effort, since Kane is already pretty much a “Lovecraftian D&D World”, in general I think that every OSR module with heavy horror or lovecraftian influences could be turned into Kane, I do believe D&D-‘s Ravenloft would make for a pretty nice “Kane-esque” world though I haven’t red enough of it to be sure.
