'Ill Met In The Nameless City' A Warlord Of The Outer Worlds Actual Play Event

Last night I ran some folks through my version of 'The Nameless City' an other dimensional location that moves across the multiverse and HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands. The city of the novella's title was accursed to wander across the dimensions after the reptilian inhabitants lost a 'slow war' with the serpent men back in ancient times. According to the ancient scrolls;"The Nameless City is an ancient ruin located somewhere in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula & Earth's dream lands and is older than any human civilization. In ancient times, the Nameless City was built and inhabited by an unnamed race of reptiles with a body shaped like a cross between a crocodile and a seal with a strange head common to neither, involving a protruding forehead, horns, lack of a nose and an alligator-like jaw. These beings moved by crawling; thus, the architecture of the city has very low ceilings and some places are too low for a human being to stand upright. Their city was originally coastal, but when the seas receded it was left in the depths of a desert. This resulted in the decline and eventual ruin of the city."


The city's inhabitants had an empire that stretched from Irem The City of Pillars to 'Sarnath the Doomed' but the black sorceries gave the city an other worldly quality allowing it to exist on many planes.Many adventurers have journeyed to its forbidden locations to plunder its secrets and treasures but few return.

"To myself I pictured all the splendours of an age so distant that Chaldaea could not recall it, and thought of Sarnath the Doomed, that stood in the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and of Ib, that was carven of grey stone before mankind existed."

Today the location is sacred to both the Cthulhu cult & is said to be the last  Earthly paradise of this ancient reptilian race who practiced many forbidden black sorceries and were users of incredible super science technologies. Many salvagers & ruin raiders have tried to plumb the depths of the nameless city. The place has been seen in the wastelands of Mars, the Arabian desert, even on the banks of extinct rivers upon the worldlets surrounding Jupiter.



The cult of Cthulhu continues to grow in influence & spread its chaos among the stars where mankind once trod. Its black wizards spread their taint among ancient colonies & the power of cults grows among the Outer Worlds as well as the wastelands of Accursed Atlantis. The telepathic mutants and twisted psychics of the Water Lizard cult also broadcast the ancient message of depravity and insanity.


Into the vast Dream Land wastes the  mega dungeons of the Nameless City stepped six players last night. Their PC's drawn from a mix of Dark Albion, Fantastic Heroes & Witchery plus The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg system. The stats for the Reptilian monsters from the Nameless City came from Realms of Crawling Chaos by Goblinoid Games.



We had the standard compliment of a wizard, thief, & bard(AS&SH) to start. Then we mixed in a White Ape fighter, his assistant, and  former knight of Unconquered Sun who was lost about three games back. The PC's 'gated' in via a relic that the bard was given by the PC's patron. The first thing that happened was the PC's had a random encounter with a trio of  Ether hounds  and their Astral Raider masters who were already there on an errand for their witch queen mistress. The combat was swift & very nasty. The melee seems to be going against our party of adventurers. Will they survive? We will find out next Thursday.
We had to end early however because of work and whatnot so we'll have to pick this one up soon.
Taken from the  Nameless City By HP Lovecraft 1921 Dream Cycle.
Public domain. All ideas and opinions copyrighted & trademarked to the owner of this blog
  & Dark Corner Productions Inc.
Astral Raider Masters & Ether Hounded used with permission