Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Rise of the Blood Queen by A.N. Meade QUEEN OF BLOOD: Film Review. Twenty years before Tobe Hooper’s botched blood suckers from beyond the stars movie Lifeforce arrived, Writer/ Director (Who Slew Auntie Roo?, Killer Bees, Devil Dog) crafted a similar sub-genre hybrid. But where Lifeforce was generally an earth/ London set endurance test, Harrington’s produced sci-fi/ horror wallows in deep space for its cumbrous majority before unveiling a novelty sting in its spine-tingling finale. Queen of Blood jumbles similar styles to Hooper’s vampiric space stinker but in a much more cowed and chic/ kitsch manner and with sneaky, unsettling scares. The problem is, for its majority, Harrington’s film is just another elongated, under-financed space opera and remains mostly flimsy until the creature arrives to stoke fear throughout the final third. “The year: 1990. The problem of travelling to the moon has been solved for many years. Space stations have been built there,” relays the opening voice-over in classic 50s news reporter style with the dramatic range and magnetism of an automated PPI call. Even though Queen of Blood landed in 1966 it resounds like a lost and lesser sci-fi from the early 1950s. More specifically, the paranoid, atomic-mutation age of The Blob, Phantom From Space and Them. Considering 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes arrived only two years later in 1968, Queen of Blood feels like a product from a bygone age and more like a stone’s throw from Ed Wood’s oeuvre than the progressive aforementioned. This is mostly due to the craptastic, but sometimes charming, effects and plethora of production faults in the form of fuzzy visuals (most of which were lifted from Russian features Mechte navstrechu (1963) and (1959)), ersatz performances, cut-out characters and perfunctory directing, but the miniature rockets and space station models bring a welcome charm. After receiving a message from deep space, informing earth that aliens intend to send an ambassador to vet our planet for potential habitation, the International Institute of Space Technology prepares for their imminent arrival. Soon after, the astral communications department receive a follow- up distress signal claiming the vessel has crash-landed on Mars. Cosmonaut Allan Brenner () then journeys with an observational satellite in attempt to rescue the alien spacecraft. His colleagues include a wet behind the ears astronaut Paul Grant (), Basil Rathbone as the officious and blithering Dr Farraday and Judi Mereditch as technician Laura James. The Queen of Blood of the title (brilliantly played by Czech actress Florence Marly) is a ruminating, green-skinned, femme-fatale, with a curious, continuous and strangely seductive smirk, a secret, voracious blood-lust and Medusa demeanour. She never explodes into monstrous rage or snarls like Nosferatu but gazelles in the manner of a rhythmic swirl, like a snake in a dress or personified lava-lamp, leisurely tempting men into blood laden mishap. Despite its similarities, what separates Queen of Blood from straighter, more refined sci-fi films from the 1950s is the plaiting of sharp horror scenes into its finale which resonate due to elegant weaving/ execution and their appearance out of context/ within an alien space realm. The crew encounter all kind of astrological hullaballoo as the bumbling action seeps into suspense yet Queen of Blood is merely a slip-shod curio which has a few memorable moments but is predominantly inept. Some amazing art decorates the backdrop of the opening credit sequence, along with an eerie score by genre specialist Ronald Stein (Attack of the 50 ft Woman, Dementia 13, She Gods of Shark Reef) but apparently Louis and Bebe Baron’s “tonalities” are hijacked from Forbidden Planet. Aside from its last act horror twists, a flurry of tension, implied kill scenes and a surprising amount of claret, for most of the duration, Queen of Blood is a bog standard b-flick with hammy dialogue (“That’s the one bad thing about space trips: no banana splits”) and an inability to escape it’s outdated genre trappings and innovatively rise above some glaring financial limitations. Rise of The Blood Queen. In a post-apocalyptic world devasted by war and pollution, run over by militias, cannibal bikers, cyborgs and mutants, survivors find refuge in the mysterious city-state of Holy City. Within its impressive walls rules a mighty christian fundamentalist cult that protects. and exploits. That is, until one of its victims rises to power through elaborate schemes and treachery to finaly unleash a mighty avenging angel! Witness blood and gore galore in this prequel to the Zombie Commandos From Hell! comic book series, where more of the Blood Queen's nefarious plans unfold upon a world already gone to hell. In the tradition of the original TMNT comics of the 80s, different artists contribute pages to the story, bringing a variety of styles to Dumais's Rise of The Blood Queen story from Bloody Gore Comix! Credits. Created and written by Steph Dumais. Illustrated by Walter Sablotny III, Mike Bauman, Steph Dumais, Adam Geyer, Mark K Allen and Croc Dave. Cover by Juan Jose Ryp, coloured by Steph Dumais. Review: The Blood Queen #1. Dark-fantasy and horror fans are familiar with the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, the sixteenth-century Hungarian noblewoman who infamously discovered a unique skin-care regimen: bathing in the blood of virgin girls. In reality, no evidence exists that she did this; according to court testimony during her two trials, she was more of a sadist who got off on torturing her young victims before occasionally murdering them. Her reputation as “the Blood Countess,” and her later connection to vampirism, grew in part because one of her countrymen was Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad Dracula, who went on to inspire Bram Stoker’s most famous novel, Dracula . (In fact, one of Bathory’s ancestors had fought beside Tepes against Turkish invaders in the 1400s.) Although she was never convicted of any crimes, her family sealed Bathory up in her bedchamber, where she died four years later. Which brings us to The Blood Queen #1 , Dynamite Comics’ latest entry in their growing list of female-led horror titles, joining the recently relaunched Vampirella and the upcoming reboots of the Chaos Comics femme fatales Purgatori and Chastity. (Hmm…with all this cleavage on display, you’d almost think Dynamite was trying to revive the 1990s notorious “bad-girl era” as a counterbalance to their many pulp-fiction titles. That would certainly be good news for loyal readers of Comics For Sinners !) In “Reign of Blood,” we’re introduced to Sir Ferenc (named after Bathory’s real-life husband, Count Ferenc Nadasdy, I’d imagine), a knight on a mission to save the life of his king and queen’s baby daughter. He’s been dispatched to the spellcasters-in-training camp of the Daughters of the Line to fetch the elder, Winnifred, to see if she can succeed where King Trevian’s physicians and in-house wizard have failed. Winnifred instead sends back Elizabeth, a much younger woman whom the elder insists is far more adept at healing magic now than she. But there’s more than just concern for the child in Winnifred’s mind—she has a mysterious plan that requires Elizabeth to put into play. But first Elizabeth has to solve the mystery of the illness afflicting the royals’ baby, and find out who’s responsible… My first thought upon opening the preview copy was, “Hmm… a dark-fantasy comic featuring a leading lady with…ample charms and a flirtatious nature. This sort of reminds me of one of those Grimm Fairy Tales titles published by Zenescope Comics.” That reaction made even greater sense when a little Google-fu revealed that writer Troy Brownfield happens to be a writer for Grimm Fairy Tales . Well, I’ll say this: he certainly knows his dark-fantasy tropes and how to use them. Blood Queen ’s plot involves a virtuous, shining knight in armor; a king and queen whose only child has been bewitched; a grumpy old wizard; and a self-assured, sexy heroine from an ancient order of sorceresses. The question is, with all these fantasy standards at play, will the story’s end result involve vampirism as the series title, and Brownfield’s admitted nod in interviews to Lady Bathory’s legend, would suggest? Perhaps; perhaps not. There’s a lot of talk of blood magic in this first issue, which leads me to believe that the queen of blood will be of a mystical, rather than supernatural, nature. We’ll have to see what happens as Elizabeth’s journey continues. Brownfield’s creative partner, Fritz Casas, may not have the same Zenescope pedigree, but his background as an artist for Dynamite’s Red Sonja: Berserker one-shot (written by new Vampirella scribe Nancy A. Collins) and Queen Sonja series has amply prepared him for this latest sword- and-sorcery project. His action sequences are top-notch, his “camera” angles and storytelling keep each scene moving, even the quiet ones, and he certainly knows how to draw attractive women. My one complaint is that he’ll sometimes cut corners on his backgrounds, relying on his colorists to make up for the lack of details. Two scenes in the king’s throne room are missing walls, a floor, decorations, and tapestries—and, in the case of a panel on the last page, background characters in plain sight are missing feet! Bottom line? If you’re a fan of fantasy, dark fantasy, or Zenescope-like leading ladies, then give The Blood Queen a try. This first issue is a slow build-up, but I have a feeling that when it comes to blood, the queen’s story will reach a Game of Thrones level of carnage before it reaches its conclusion. Blood Queen. This hideous monstrosity looks like an enormous curled maggot, varicolored like deeply bruised flesh. Three flailing tentacles adorn each side of the thing’s huge, pulsating mouth, and five more arch from its hindquarters. Blood Queen CR 23. XP 819,200 CE Gargantuan outsider (native) Init +4; Senses blindsight 120 ft., surrogate senses; Perception +39. AC 38, touch 6, flat-footed 38 (+32 natural, –4 size) hp 471 (23d10+345); regeneration 10 (good) Fort +28, Ref +9, Will +24 DR 15/epic and lawful; Immune disease, electricity, mind-affecting effects, poison, sonic; SR 34. Speed 10 ft. Melee bite +29 (2d6+10), 5 stings +29 (2d6+10/19–20 plus 2d6 electricity), 6 tentacles +24 (2d8+5/19–20 plus grab) Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft. Special Attacks horrifying bellow, swallow whole (15d6 acid damage, AC 26, 47 hp), unholy gestation Spell-Like Abilities (CL 23rd; concentration +36) Str 30, Dex 11, Con 40, Int 20, Wis 29, Cha 37 Base Atk +23; CMB +37 (+41 grapple); CMD 47 Feats Alertness, Awesome Blow, Bleeding Critical, Critical Focus, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (sting), Improved Critical (tentacles), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack, Vital Strike Skills Bluff +39, Diplomacy +39, Heal +32, Intimidate +39, Knowledge (arcana) +28, Knowledge (history) +28, Knowledge (planes) +31, Knowledge (religion) +31, Perception +39, Sense Motive +39, Spellcraft +31 Languages Abyssal, Aklo, Common, Draconic, Kuru, Undercommon; telepathy 100 ft. SQ blood link. Blood Link (Su) Three times per day as a standard action, the Blood Queen may psychically link to up to 23 Hit Dice of kuru within 100 feet of either itself or one of its kuru surrogates; it may choose which specific kuru it would like to affect with this ability, but HD that are not sufficient to affect a creature are wasted. Any kuru linked to in this way must succeed at a DC 28 Will save or be forced to carry out the Blood Queen’s telepathic commands to the best of its ability. In addition, a linked kuru gains a +4 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution and is immune to mind-affecting effects. The blood link lasts for 1 minute or until the Blood Queen ends the effect (a free action). When the blood link is broken, the affected kuru takes 1 point of Intelligence damage and cannot be linked to again for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based. Horrifying Bellow (Su) Three times per day as a standard action, the Blood Queen can release a terrifying bellow that affects a 30-foot-radius spread. Any creature within the affected area must succeed at a DC 34 Will save or be paralyzed for 1d4 rounds. The save DC is Charisma-based. Surrogate Senses (Su) In addition to its blindsight, the Blood Queen can constantly see and hear through its unholy kuru surrogates as though with a permanent clairaudience/clairvoyance spell. If at any time one of the Blood Queen’s surrogates is killed, it is dazed for 1 round. Unholy Gestation (Ex) Whenever the Blood Queen swallows an unconscious humanoid or renders a humanoid unconscious with its swallow whole ability, it moves the victim through its digestive track, where the victim no longer takes damage, but rather begins to gestate within the Blood Queen’s transformative stomach for 1d4 rounds. After the creature has finished gestating, it is regurgitated from the hindquarters of the Blood Queen, encased in an opaque mucous pod. Any attempt to remove a gestated humanoid from its pod causes massive system shock, and the humanoid takes 6d6 points of damage unless it succeeds at a DC 25 Fortitude save or those releasing it succeed at a DC 25 Heal check. As a swift action, the Blood Queen can send strong telepathic emanations to any pod within 100 feet, causing it to violently explode. The resulting spray of bilious ooze deals 6d6 points of acid damage to the creature encased in the pod and to any creatures in a 15-foot-radius burst. Alternatively, the Blood Queen may allow an encased humanoid to continue to gestate for at least 24 hours, and after that duration may release the fully metamorphosed creature from its pod at any point. When released, the victim completes its transformation into a kuru surrogate. The Blood Queen may create any number of pods, but can only possess up to six kuru surrogates at any one time (if the Blood Queen releases a seventh kuru surrogate from its mucus pod, the oldest surrogate immediately dies no matter where it is and the Blood Queen is dazed for 1 round). The save DCs are Constitution-based. Environment any Organization solitary Treasure triple. The Blood Queen has no eyes, per se—rather, what look like angry pustules all over its bloated body act as sensory organs. In addition, it is able to see and hear the world through the various kuru surrogates its followers have interspersed throughout the world. Its grotesque mouth is capable of articulating a number of languages, though if it deigns to speak with a creature it usually does so via its telepathy. While the Blood Queen uses the short tentacles that extend from its mouth to devour prey and sacrificial offerings, the tentacles that emanate from its hindquarters are long, muscular, and tipped with bone-like stingers that allow it to manipulate objects and electrify victims. The Blood Queen is nearly immobile, being a massive, swollen beast that sits in the middle of a huge underground temple chamber in its ruined cathedral. While it may slowly undulate its bulk in one direction or another, in the years since its appearance, the Blood Queen has grown far too large to fit through any of the limestone chamber’s exits. Only the Blood Queen’s high priest, those destined to become surrogate kuru, or sacrifices to the behemoth monster are allowed within this foul throne room. Sometimes unwilling sacrifices are dropped into the chamber from a hole in the ceiling and the exits are sealed so that the Blood Queen may toy with its food before it feeds. A being of monumental evil, the Blood Queen expresses its rage at its divine abandonment by spreading as much pain and havoc as it can. Whether it ever escapes its ancient, self-made prison remains to be seen, though all right-thinking creatures that know of its existence shudder at the prospect. Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Isles of the Shackles © 2012, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Mike Shel. Save the Queen. Save the Queen, also known as just Queen or its short-form of StQ, is a mysterious, purple liquid drug that takes users on extreme hallucinogenic trips. The drug has been growing ever popular to take in the Lower Tiers. It hasn't quite made itself known much to the Middle Tiers, let alone the Upper Tiers. yet [1] . People who are 'Queened' have taken up occasionally venturing into the middle tiers and injecting random people with it. Contents. Effects [ edit | edit source ] People do not take Queen to accomplish much; they rant, they rave, they trash their rooms and eat whatever they can find in their surroundings [2] . They lose control and forget whatever happened during the trip, making the drug a prime cause for wacky antics; Fuse himself has taken the drug once, and woke up naked in a park two days later with zero recollection of what happened. Some users feel they experienced life-changing hallucinations [3] - this has been, in part, how a cult has arisen alongside the rise of StQ. Save the Queen is also a mind-control drug that insidiously links users to a hive-mind, without their knowledge or permission. This effect, however, is not generally known by the public. Origins [ edit | edit source ] Most people who take Queen have no idea what is actually in the drug. Even the best chemists in the Lower Tiers have been unable to reverse- engineer it. The use of the drug has grown increasingly popular over the past few years, and the system is rigged like a huge pyramid scheme with no visible peak. While getting hands on it is easy enough, getting answers on where it comes from in the first place is impossible. However, Dr. Finch studied and researched the drug thoroughly, and together with his knowledge of Jane Doe's blood, was able to determine the actual components of StQ. [4] The reason chemists have been unable to reverse-engineer it have to do with the fact there is a bio printed blood component that camouflages itself as the other hallucinogens mixed in. Dr. Finch, however, is used to camouflage - and can even identify that this bio printed blood isn't nearly as good at it as Jane Doe's blood is. Reverse-engineering Queen [ edit | edit source ] There are two primary non-blood elements [5] in Save the Queen: Magic mushrooms [ edit | edit source ] A grossly mutated strain of psilocybin from radiation exposure. Gabriel a.k.a. crawl [ edit | edit source ] A synthetic disassociative anesthetic, mostly dealt by Dicers - one of the biggest gangs in the lower tiers. Bio printed blood [ edit | edit source ] StQ is mainly made up of a bio printed imitation of the blood that Zone Fifty found on Mars, which causes whoever takes the drug to become a part of a 'hive-mind' controlled by the person who has the most of this bio printed blood in their system [6] . However, it lacks some of the abilities that the real deal does, as there have been no signs that TH has a red like Jane and her mother do. As a side-note, whoever is sitting in the control seat of Save the Queen, it is likely to be someone using bad bio printed blood. [4] Innate unfathomable hate [ edit | edit source ] Jane's Mom's Red stated it was possible the innate, primal hatred for others like it could be built in to the bio printed blood that is being used for Save the Queen, simply because it is based on the alien blood found on Mars (see Blood on Mars for more info). This seems to track, as Jane's blood reacted aggressively when it was exposed to Save the Queen. Mom's Red also stated that the original Mars blood would probably also react aggressively to Queen, as it knows only that the blood is not itself. It wouldn't know or care that Queen is based on it, it would see it as an other, and thus react with aggression. [7] Save the Queen versus Protagonist's Blood [ edit | edit source ] Jane Doe did not originally have the capability of mind control, at least not intentionally or initially. Because of her blood's ability to perfectly imitate whatever it is next to, however, her blood - when it came into contact with bad bio printed blood from Mars - reacted by first overcoming the fake blood by calling it out and essentially schooling it, and then imitated Save the Queen. It did not just stop at imitating it, however, but it imitated it better , perfecting it. [1] The alien blood within Jane Doe seeks, innately, to destroy anything of the same kind. As such, it did not react well to the bio printed fake blood. Jane Doe fell into a death-like coma the first time she was injected with Queen while the alien side of her was stirred up and awoken from its lurking state in her, and when she woke again, her blood was properly 'awake' and had overcome the fake overwhelmingly. A such, if Jane Doe injects someone who has taken Queen with her own blood, that person is relinquished from the effects of Save the Queen, as her Jane's blood is simply 'better'; the bio printed fake is forced to submit while Jane's blood takes full control. Who is the Queen? [ edit | edit source ] It has been theorized that the "queen" mentioned in the name, "Save the Queen", is actually Enyo , or the Mars beast, an ancient alien originally defeated by Jane's mother in a battle that concluded over Mars. Zone Fifty found remnants of the Mars beast's blood, which was used in the Lasker Experiment, and served as a blueprint for the control blood experiments they started that Patton Thale would eventually pick up and refine.