Through The Green Door - The Islands of Purple Putresence - An Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Actual Play Event

Roman senate door by antmoose

So last night I got together with Steve & his players for a bit of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyeprborea. This isn't my regular group of players so I was kinda with my back to the wall. Yeah well I did have couple of aces up my sleeve in the fact that I've been running a  weekly The Islands of Purple Putrescence game powered by the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea first edition rpg engine rpg game. So out come my notes & we instantly begin with the PC's in the black magick market place from my regular game.
So Steve & his six players are in for a bad time when they ran into the skeleton man from Jupiter bounty hunter Tuff. Tuff has a love of control crystals & wields a radium pistol with deadly accuracy.Within moments they picked a fight with our bounty hunter & things started to go side ways. The party managed to make it out alive with a map that Tuff dropped & he went off to lick his wounds. But the map didn't belong to him as he was acting as an errant boy for an adventurer named Gideon. The map depicted an urban ruin in one of the lesser neighborhood belonging to the former Hyperborean 'house of Elr'. The party's cleric/scribe began to piece the history of this minor house of royals from before 'the Green Death.' The house of Elr were part of the 'life guild' & contributors to the growth of this end of the city. They were major importers/exporters of the healing arts & medical instruments so they had close associations with the deity 'El' which they took as a part of their name. They were a noble family that had blood ties going back all the way to Old Earth. Now someone named Gideon wants a 'treasure' deep within the ruins of the house.



Meanwhile all this sneaking around was too much for Grok the barbarian warlord & he marched right back over to Talis's house. He was interested in buying a control crystal for two Hyperborean artifacts. He pushed two of the wizard's bodyguards out of the way to deal directly with the wizard himself. Talis is a green skinned wizard surrounded by dozens of his animal women assassins, thieves, and operators. That didn't matter to our warlord & adventurer whose successful charisma role impressed the alien wizard with his bravo.



So the party of adventurers got the control crystal headed over to the house's 'ruins' but was a bit surprised when it turns out the house isn't quite as ruined as they thought. Meanwhile, Tuff has been listening from the shadows & follows the party. The party is confronted by a massive green door cut into a stone temple like mansion. The control crystal fits squarely in place & the massive door swings into darkness but the party hears the hum of machinery. That's never a good sign!

The adventurers were confronted with several strange Satanic robotic mechanisms of Old Hyperborea! They battled the hell beasts for what seemed like hours only to have their wizard & fighter snatched from within their midst and taken down, down several ramps into the bowels of the 'house of Elr'. Actually several lousy dice rolls did them in!
The party of adventurers hurried after their companions only to be distracted by the treasure house of Hyperborean relics around them!? After about ten minutes of examination they hurried down into the bowels of the house to find their companions drained of blood and put onto secret catacomb shelves.



The party's cleric/healer Ambrose of Hermes examined the strange way that the bodies were stored in the catacombs. He also saw the blood that the Hyperborean robotic mechanisms had taken from the bodies but that the bodies were still warm to the touch. There were signs of revivification that were possible but they were beyond his capabilities. His fellow adventurers were trapped in a living death like sleep. The rest of the adventurers were quite content to take some of the relics & leave! They'll be back another time to retrieve their fellow adventurers! They're just going to leave them to their fate at the moment!
So some of this I came up with from notes made from Venger Satanist's How To Game Master Like A Fucking Boss book.




1d20 Pulp Encounters Within
The House of 'House of Elr'

1. Giant skeleton wearing decaying armor of unknown design three of its ribs have been struck away and a +1 sword is stuck between his ribs. There are 300 silver piece of unknown design scattered on the floor. 
2. There are several carved crystal chalices scattered across the floor each of the challices is worth about 100 gold pieces and there is dried green powder in the bottom of each of them. 
3. A whirling dangerous Hyperborean flesh automaton confronts you and means you harm! It is angry, dangerous, and will murder anyone it gets a hold of. 
4. A powerful double hit dice gray ooze comes up from a floor grate. 
5. An animated giant suit of plate mail comes down a hallway the thing is covered with carbon scoring from numerous laser crossbow shots. It attacks on sight
6. A small Hyperborean skeleton bears the marks of murder with a cheap dagger sticking out of its skull. 
7. There are skeleton after skeletons walking around aimlessly here they don't attack but act confused and dazed. They're bones are covered in metal and worked through with strange broken mechanisms
8. A gargoyle moves to attack you! 
9. There are broken vases of strange chemicals and dusts all over the floor here they will animate within 1d6 rounds into an elemental whose very confused and angry! 
10. A Hyperborean zombie stumbles down the hall dressed in a royal lady's gown! She seems very hungry! 
11. 1d6 Hyperborean ghouls come out of a side room or hidden passage for lunch! You look very tasty indeed! 
12. 1d100 silver pieces and broken coffer sits on the floor above is a green slime which grows from the ceiling 
13. 1d20 broken alchemist's tools are on the floor & nearby are 1d20 gremlins who will be happy to eat you! 
14. The zombie of some time lost adventurer stumbles and shuffles into view! He carries a strange weapon or tool of black metal but can't remember how to use it! Then bang a tremendous clap of thunder goes off! 
15. Striges guard the entrance to the house shrine! There are 1d30 pieces of Hyperborean jewelry here. 
16. 1d6 ghouls of Hyperborean descent are feasting on some fool in armor whose recently been here. He has 1d3 relics. 
17. 1d3 skeleton warriors are playing dice with knuckle bone dice but will attack you for interrupting their game
18. A massive zombie warrior stumbles to attack you! 
19. Here a make shift shrine to Cthulhu has been set up and there are three gold bars as an offering do you dare disturb it! 
20. A wild vampire who hasn't fed in centuries has gone insane and will attack the first person entering here! He guards ten thousand gold pieces worth of artifacts!