OddHat
Jan 6th, '06, 04:22 AM
I've been looking over Jess Nevins' Nick Carter Page (http://www.geocities.com/jessnevins/carter.html), thinking about what can be borrowed from the Nick Carter stories for my campaign, and I thought others might like a look.
Carter's adventures started in 1886 and the most interesting bits take place before 1920. Carter was a sort of turn of the 19th century Doc Savage, a 5'4" master of disguise who could lift a horse and rider "with ease", a master of the martial arts, etc, etc. Very interesting stuff for those running an early pulp campaign.
Of special interest is his School for Detectives, and the many young detectives (Male and Female) he trained outside of the school. One of Carter's students was Japanese, spoke perfect English, and ended up marrying a French woman.
Carter was mainly a detective, but also discovered his share of hidden cities and ran into plenty of weird science.
One of his 1897 students was Jack Burton. Maybe the Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China had some interesting ancestors?
One 1907 Hidden City in particular features inhabitants of mixed Inian and Old Norse descent. Aryan tropes well before the Nazis. That particular story includes Amazon warriors, one of whom Carter brings back to civilization to become (possibly) his wife.
Another group of white skinned blondes (most of the the lost city inhabitants Nick runs into are white skinned blondes, with a few Indians; all have very dark brown eyes) in a hidden city has mastered "Vitic Energy" based science, with which they can build devices that grant Super Strength. Yet another group has invisible planes.
I think Marston (creator of Wonder Woman) may have been a Nick Carter fan.
His list of villains is huge, and I'll be stealing many.
There's a longer write up of Nick Carter in Nevins' Encyclopedia of Fantastic Vicoriana; It's well worth reading.
Carter's adventures started in 1886 and the most interesting bits take place before 1920. Carter was a sort of turn of the 19th century Doc Savage, a 5'4" master of disguise who could lift a horse and rider "with ease", a master of the martial arts, etc, etc. Very interesting stuff for those running an early pulp campaign.
Of special interest is his School for Detectives, and the many young detectives (Male and Female) he trained outside of the school. One of Carter's students was Japanese, spoke perfect English, and ended up marrying a French woman.
Carter was mainly a detective, but also discovered his share of hidden cities and ran into plenty of weird science.
One of his 1897 students was Jack Burton. Maybe the Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China had some interesting ancestors?
One 1907 Hidden City in particular features inhabitants of mixed Inian and Old Norse descent. Aryan tropes well before the Nazis. That particular story includes Amazon warriors, one of whom Carter brings back to civilization to become (possibly) his wife.
Another group of white skinned blondes (most of the the lost city inhabitants Nick runs into are white skinned blondes, with a few Indians; all have very dark brown eyes) in a hidden city has mastered "Vitic Energy" based science, with which they can build devices that grant Super Strength. Yet another group has invisible planes.
I think Marston (creator of Wonder Woman) may have been a Nick Carter fan.
His list of villains is huge, and I'll be stealing many.
There's a longer write up of Nick Carter in Nevins' Encyclopedia of Fantastic Vicoriana; It's well worth reading.