Halloween World of the Lost By Rafael Chandler & Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Adventure One Shot Or Mini Campaign Event

Halloween means something very different to me then some other folks; for me its the beginning of the holidays to get together with old friend's swill some beer, talk about table top role playing games, comic books, get into some campaign work shop design. So why is this critical? Because my gang of players is coming to another leg of my Warlord of The Outer Worlds game & I want to do Halloween game. There were about six of us tonight including of my favorite lady dungeon masters to lend me a hand. Karen & Alley are two ladies along with their husbands whom I've known forever & ever; well at least since I was running Mentzer Basic D&D, Vampire Dark Ages, a Mage The Ascension/Ars Magica crossover game, my infamous Kult/WoD campaign setting which later morphed into straight Kult, Trinity, etc. Both of these ladies took over for their husband's OD&D groups while both hubbies were in Iraq & Afghanistan serving in the armed forces. So they have a rather unique perspective when it comes to dealing with various table top issues. The topic of conversation was Lamentations of the Flame Princess World of the Lost


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World of the Lost brings several things to the table for OSR gaming. Not only are there some great setting tools in the book perfect for building city states, details on African mythos, tribal factions, and more. But there's a ton of lost or relic technology to steal from even tables for generating more. We took several notes on world creation as we tasted beer and discussed various OSR Halloween adventure pitches.

Using World of the Lost As Adventure
Location Tool Kit

So tonight I got together with friends trying various beers & BSing about old school gaming. The beers were solidly put together but it was really about Halloween gaming. So one leg of my Warlord For The Outer Worlds game campaign is ending & I really want to have a Halloween game. Richard one of the DM's at the table brought his copy of The World Of the Lost book by Mr. Rafael Chandler  . Several folks mentioned using the Amazons from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea but combining the equipment, character backgrounds, & tribal aspects from World of the Lost. They wanted advanced metal workers guarding an ancient half forgotten secret in a lost cavern world about the size of Europe.

So the set up in World of the Lost goes something like this; "Central Africa, 1551. The metalworkers of Awka rise in prominence, even as the Kingdom of Nri declines. Every year, the Awka who dwell in the shadow of the Great Plateau deliver their tribute to the gods that dwell there. To acquire this treasure for themselves, the adventurers must face great beasts like the gbahali, mokele-mbembe, and the kholomodumo. Then they must brave a dungeon where memory is an illusion and time is a weapon. No sane person would ever attempt this. But a thousand years of tribute paid in silver." So this is a 17th century fictional Nigeria and its way too tempting to not use as a much more advanced city state and plateau in the inner Earth  especially with some extreme and weird pulpy resources in the mix. Would a mix of World of the Lost & AS&SH change anything at all? Nope not in the least. But it needed much more then simply dropping both of these resources into the same setting. This piece of artwork that someone pulled up on their tablet gave part of the inspiration. "This heroine has strength of steel, indomitable resolve, and mystic sorcery to turn the undead! She would be victorious. Illustration by +Del Teigeler!" This piece for the second edition of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea kickstarter gave the group some inspiration. Keep all of the details on the paladin except change her over to one of the tribes from World of The Lost. We began giving her details, background, and more. There are several citystates of Amazons from Old Earth  guarding several inner Earth secrets.


Among them in the jungles  is a relic rich city of old Earth, this adventure location  isn't what it at first seems. This is an old Earth city straight out of the 1960's which is actually under a curse of Orcus the demon lord of the undead & Artemis. The city's former inhabitants have all been turned into ghouls by an undead plague & are getting picked off by the Amazon's guns. But there's a fortune in silver, gold, and other worldly relics all waiting for adventurers to grab or get grabbed. And what about that curse? Is this a case of a static situation or a slowly degenerating group of survivors guarding 
The Amazons are the only thing keeping these horrors from escaping their jungle ruins. Not to mention the hazards of the dinosaurs & other alien horrors that these tribes of warrior women  are guarding. There are several options on the table one of which is a the AS&SH adventure Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess. This wonderful little resource has a bunch of mutated & modified dinosaurs along with a really nasty adventure location that can be added to another inner Earth plateau.

Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess brings lots of interesting twists to the table; both Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea & Lamentations of the Flame Princess work really nicely together. Between the two systems you've got the making for a mini campaign that could last some months. The alien adventure location from the Lost World can easily be slipped onto another area for one of these city states. And there's enough weird adventures to keep a group of players going for years or even months of play.

A dungeon master can easily drop a party of AS&SH adventurers into the prehistoric or Amazonian mix of this style of campaign. The deadliness of the world can be at Alien's levels of danger & horror. Having the Amazons around as hirelings or PC's is a solid option according to my fellow DM's Here are some of our conclusions from last night's beer & BS session. 

Ten Reasons To Use Combined World Of The Lost & Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers Of Hyperborea 

1.  The systems work easily and are cross compatible with little issue making for a richer & fuller prehistoric sword & sorcery campaign experience 
2. Expansion of cultures, tribes, and possible NPC creation 
3. A wide variety of technological levels from the ground up from stone age through Bronze age tech as well as beyond. 
4. Far more PC options are brought to the table enriching both game systems PC creation. 
5. Random dinosaur, technology creation characters and more from World of the Lost 
6.  The World of the Lost city states can provide the PC's with a home base from which to adventure from. 
7. Sword & Sorcery sometimes needs a twist or two to bring home some of the horror of the setting played right and this type of adventure can have players pissing their pants. 
8. Sorcerers, medicine men, shamans are a must here and hunters, rangers, etc are not going to hurt. 
9. Warriors and fighters are going to get a work out. Guns & black powder nor even high technological weapons might not help. 
10.  There are a wide latitude for world creation here and the DM is going to be making some serious decisions about the how and why of certain elements of this style of campaign adventure.

This whole thing could be dropped right into the post apocalyptic wasteland for a real change up in some forgotten valley or other lost world plateau for even more unexpected OSR thrills.