Tuesday, February 17, 2015

A Brand New OSR Retroclone Campaign Setting - Atlantandria Port City Of Accursed Atlantis

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This is not the world you know at all, this is ancient world which exists between the  cycles of time  and the alternative shadows that have or will happen or has already. Between the sinking of Atlantis and the time when mankind reach for the stars there existed Atlantandria Port City to the stars. Atlantandria lost to the shadows of worlds.
This is Atlantandria Port City Of Accursed Atlantis born of the frustration of ancient disasters where super science  and the waxing of magic exist in a uneasy truce. A place whose knowledge and power echo through eternity and a place founded upon the bones of an ancient empire whose time is long past. A place whose skies and sea rest with the gleam of space craft. And a place whose ports are crammed with the wares from worlds like Arduin,Blackmoor, Hyperborea, and Delos as well as the shadows and reflections of other worlds far beyond.
The city is built quite literally on the bones of the Old Atlantis colony city itself; its remains lay beneath its streets, a twisting maze  of strange catacombs, ancient dungeons, and worse lay just below the gleaming city streets.
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"For there are worlds beyond worlds, as Kull knows, and whether the wizard bewitched him by words or by mesmerism, vistas did open to the king’s gaze beyond that strange door."
Robert Howard 
"The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" 

The wares of a million worlds are traded here and the seas are alight with the sails from ancient and decident kingdoms. The power of trade is only now reestablishing itself as tribesmen still wield the relic armor and energy weapons of Mu and Lemuria.
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Long guns are common among the tribes of the wastelands and mutants, monsters, and worse roam there. Ancient Atlantian battle machines still prowl these places, some only a few hundred miles from the city itself. 


This is a city build upon the forbidden knowledge of ancient magic and power, its very foundations awash with the magic of old Lumeria and Atlantis. Here ancient cults plot against one another and the city itself is awash in a thousand plots. Alien slave traders vie with those of Ixian blood in the shadow of ancient god kings.

The port city and space port is all that remains of this once great world. A place of sword and sorcery,super science as well as sorcery, but it is world in decedent decline filled with barbarian tribes and fierce independent adventurers who seek wealth, their fortunes, and glory.
But there is far more too this world  then one mere space port and the sea that surrounds it.


The Wastelands of the God Kings
“Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars.” 
― Robert E. HowardThe Complete Chronicles of Conan

When Atlantis sank beneath the waves there were many ruins left within the wastelands. An entire country full of the ancient remains of this once spectular ruler of not only this world but the once might colony worlds of Mars and Venus as well.
But now only the jade lined ruins and gleaming stoneworks remain above ground.
Below are mazes of corridors, dungeons of horror, and far more.
These wastelands are the home to roving tribes of barbarians, desert dwellers, and inhuman monsters.

 
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The wastelands of the god kings is the home to numerous ancient pyramids, ruins, and far worse wonders for time itself is broken in these places and many strange things come through the once stable gateways.

“By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power. 

Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, whch being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows --” 
― PlatoTimaeus/Critias


There are dungeons and ruins a plenty here to tempt adventurers and explorers into their depths, strange alien creatures stalk the wastelands and kill with little provocation.
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It is a dangerous time for this world. A place of mystery and horror just waiting for adventurers to set foot within its confines.


Hundreds of wizards rule these desert domains and ancient ruined palaces, doorways to a thousand universes open and close with the spinning of the stars. Ancient cults to Lovecraftian entities wander its trails and knights do battle with beings from beyond time and space in the shadow of wrecked space craft. 
From across the wastelands ancient alien traders and mutant adventurers travel with barbarian warriors and knights of old. 

The call of adventure awaits the party of adventurers brave enough and fool hardy to heed the siren call of this world, welcome to Accursed Atlantis! 


Welcome to my new campaign setting 'Accursed Atlantis', a test bed for the various sword, sorcery, and super science retroclones and material that I want to write about. This is my world born out of the destruction of seven years of campaign notes by my friend Peter. He just over the weekend dropped my copy of the Delian Book of the Dead and my campaign notes into a puddle of icy water.
Now most folks would be very angry and make no mistake that I'm, but there's an upside to everything. Now I'm free to create a brand new world and over the last couple of months I've been going over my retroclone material from various boards and internet sources.
Recently I read through Tankar's Tavern about using A Look at Using Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea as a DCC RPG "Monster Manual" HERE, but since I don't play DCC, I wanted a setting where I could get away with doing this. Enter Accursed Atlantis my kitchen sink setting. Not only can I get away with using AS&SH but I can easily retrofit in some of Lamentations of the Flame Princess and especially the wonderfully weird adventures of theirs.
This also gives me a prime opportunity to set up some of the material of other OSR authors and get to plug in Dwimmermount mega dungeon into a setting that can handle its science fantasy elements with easy.
Believe me when I say that Accursed Atlantis can. That's where Dwimmermount's located.




This is also one of the places that some of the material that Skirmisher Publishing puts out will be used such as the new 100 Oddities for A Wizard's lab. HERE



Recently with the physical copy of Fantastic Heroes
 and Witchery I've been looking for a new setting for that particular game. 

With this setting I'm going to using Atlantandria Port City Of Accursed Atlantis as my base for that wonderfully evocative retroclone system.



We've got more action coming up because I simply love to brew up new material! 

12 comments:

  1. Thanks David!
    I've been toying with this idea for a week or so,after some campaign notes and a book of mine were destroyed.I can't wait to unleash this one on my players! MUHAHAHA!

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  2. Please say that you'll eventually publish this in some form! This sounds like it woud be great as a Sword & Planet setting/potential toolkit.

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  3. I haven't any plans in that direction yet, but its only in the preliminary stages as of yet.I'll be putting out some ideas for this test bed setting very soon. I've had this world brewing in my head for a long time. So keep checking in and I'll be getting Atlantandria Port City Of Accursed Atlantis material out into the wilds as soon as possible.

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  4. Sounds like fun, looking forward to reading future posts.

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  5. You might want to look into tonight's Strange Stars post for a slight update Bill on Atlantandria. There's more coming up very soon.

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  6. I cast a vote for subglacial Antarctica as the location. "For this place could be no ordinary city. It must have formed the primary nucleus and centre of some archaic and unbelievable chapter of earth’s history whose outward ramifications, recalled only dimly in the most obscure and distorted myths, had vanished utterly amidst the chaos of terrene convulsions long before any human race we know had shambled out of apedom."

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  7. Well the Mountains of Madness have a role to play in this but what and how will have to remain to be seen Rainswept. Cheers and keep watching the skies.

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    1. Watch I will!

      Say, is there a post somewhere where you profile your gaming group? You seem to blessed with regular & multifarious players.

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  8. No my groups of players aren't profiled at the moment, not because their shy or anything. But because I keep my friends like to keep a low profile off of social media. I've met friends through friends and the one constant with some folks has been 'keep me off of the radar' so to speak. More on that later Rainswept. Cheers pal.

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