Commentary on Taken from Dunwich From North Wind Adventures For The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System

I've been rereading this module over the weekend and would have gotten this blog post up sooner except I got hit with a migraine Sunday night. But I went to bed early Sunday night and I'm back up to full capacity and thanks for the messages asking if I was alright. A good night's sleep was all I needed and now for some thoughts on Taken From Dunwich from North Wind Adventure for the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg system.

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The breakdown according to the product page;"Murder, mayhem, and abduction! After the Keltic village of Dunwich is victimized by the vhuurmis, degenerate quasi-men covered in umber-coloured fur, local druids offer land and title to those brave souls who would repair the situation. The vhuurmis are considered witless savages, seemingly incapable of organized incursions, but these particular brutes attacked with purpose and precision, taking men from Dunwich, and slaying any who opposed their black will."
Since Taken From Dunwich came out back in 2012 I became obsessed with the Dunwich setting  in the adventure. Here's one of the fantasy sources for this race of degenerate almost men;
"Also, much was said regarding the genesis of the Voormis, who were popularly believed to be the offspring of women and certain atrocious creatures that had come forth in primal days from a tenebrous cavern-world in the bowels of Voormithadreth. Somewhere beneath that four-coned mountain, the sluggish and baleful god Tsathoggua, who had come down from Saturn in years immediately foIlowing the Earth's creation, was fabled to reside; and during the rite of worship at his black altars, the devotees were always careful to orient themselves toward Voormithadreth."

"They stood only half erect, and their shaggy heads were about his thighs and hips, snarling and snapping like dogs; and they clawed him with hook-shaped nails that caught and held in the links of his armor."
Clark Ashton Smith, The Seven Geases
There are a variety of apemen and apemen like races that I wanted to include in my version of Hyperborea including two or more  of the Voormis. Especially another version that was presented in the Goblinoid Games Realms of Crawling Chaos product. There are the Voormis and the half breed near human PC race options. I simply made these another regional species  strain of the race presented in this adventure.  The White Apes and the other Ape races presented in AS&SH are all part of dying older order  and other hidden Hyperborean kingdoms representing lost ages slowly fading away as the eons wear on.







A bit of background on my version of the  Hyperborea setting for this adventure its full of villages next too brooding ruins. The Keltic village environments of the adventure reminded me of Scotland under the rule of the Romans combined with elements of the European Pleistocene. PC's are likely to encounter woolly mammoth, steppe mammoth, straight-tusked elephant, aurochs, steppe bison, cave lion, cave bear, cave hyena, Homotherium, Irish elk, giant polar bears, woolly rhinoceros, Merck's rhinoceros, narrow-nosed rhinoceros, and Elasmotherium in the wilds surrounding Dunwich.
Please note that this is my version of Dunwich and differs significantly from the author's and designer's versions which is alright. One thing I've found is that there are as many versions of Hyperborea as there are those who play AS&H. Because of the modular nature of the various AS&SH adventures players and dungeon masters can add or subtract adventure setting elements as needed. I have a feeling that this has been done on purpose as part of the design of the retroclone system.



This is a region that has seen the handy work of the Great Race for generations and they play a central role in the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborean. This is a region that has seen some very dangerous movers and shakers among the Lovecraftian races and your PC's are likely to stumble right into their machinations before too long.


There is plenty of room to modify and DYI out Taken From Dunwich for other systems as well especially given the passion for time and extradimensional travel that the Great Race has. This is a region with lots and lots of ruins dotting the landscape eternally sinking into the fens and moors of the Dunwich region.
I'm going to be using this area of Hyperborea for an upcoming convention set up game in a few weeks.