OSR Commentary On - DA3 City Of The Gods By Dave L. Arneson and David J. Ritchie For Your Old School Campaigns

"Set amidst the blistered salt flats of the Valley of the Ancients, the City of the Gods is a strange and deadly metal metropolis whose powerful guardians do not welcome intruders. Yet it is to this place of deadly menace that Blackmoor's leaders now send a daring expedition - to bargain for aid in the coming wars - or to steal the magic of the gods."

So the eclipse came down today & I've seen picture after picture of the event on social media. I kept thinking about some of the odd ball stuff that I've run in the past. The second event that ended this past weekend was Gencon 50. I haven't seen the plethora of mega table top gaming announcements that seem to pour out of the tap when it comes with such an event.
I was quietly thinking about the infection that is the Egg of Coot today & the old school Blackmoor DA3 City of The Gods adventure. DA3 sets up another of my favorite mixes science fantasy, super science technology, & high level B/X Dungeons & Dragons. This is a module for PC's levels 10 to 14 or beyond. This isn't a light weight module, the plot is one of those twists on the usual Blackmoor stuff;
"In this scenario, the player characters (PCs) are sent to the City of the Gods by the leaders of Blackmoor to acquire divine magic, either by bargaining or by stealing.^[3] The PCs journey 4,000 years into the past to the land of Blackmoor. There, they are hired by The Fetch, previously seen in the adventure Temple of the Frog, because the Froggies, a cult introduced in the same adventure, have become active once more.^[1] The cult is using the futuristic technology of the City of the Gods to achieve their ends, and the player characters must attempt to contact the inhabitants of the city to turn them against the Froggies, and possibly form an alliance with the Kingdom of Blackmoor."

This isn't light weight stuff this is high level your PC's might not survive the experience adventure stuff. I ran this in 'Eighty Seven' because of the connections with the Blackmoor setting. Mystara has always been one of my special setting points because it wasn't as well known as the Forgotten Realms. Forgotten Realms is so well known that there are guides to its Underdark. Blackmoor always seemed like a lived in universe where adventure was  always in the offering. The Froggies were a nasty bunch of cultists who had more then a few tricks up their twisted sleeves. Anyhow this module fit the bill for dealing with the events after the events in Temple of the Frog.

I ran this one with my uncle John and his crew after our Ragnarok B/X event. Things were heating up in Mystara. I ran Temple of the Frog & then the events of the module introduced me to the Egg of Coot. Recently I was watching Alien Covenant & the black goo reminded me of the Egg & its power. The Egg of Coot is one nasty customer capable of being encountered almost anywhere. After the events of Temple of the Frog it began to stir! Make no mistake the Egg of Coot is a deadly thing. You can find some of its back story on this Dragon Foot thread.

This campaign arch claimed a lot of PC's from my uncle's family. There wasn't a player that at one time or another didn't lose a PC. I had access to a copy of Judge's Guild's First Fantasy campaign so I had some pretty good insights into the Egg of Coot's 'philosophy' or credo which goes something along these lines;" Might is Right. Might is Right. Don't Give a Sucker an even break. Winning _is_ everything. Get what you want by Hook or by Crook, but get it. The Ends always justify the means used to achieve it. The meek may inherit the Earth but that means the strongest will rule everything." You can find more secrets on the Comeback Inn's entry on the Egg of Coot. 

Once the Froggies showed up things got very complicated for the PC's. I played this module like a mix of Jack Kirby's Marvel Eternals series & bits of pulp weirdness that my uncle had by that time introduced me too. The PC's acquired a few alien devices off of the higher echelon Frog cultists whose stats for B/X or OD&D are still available
This was our Fall campaign & it lead to some very interesting crossover points. DA3 City of the Gods is not an easy module to play through unless your familiar with Blackmoor & you love the old school weirdness  of  it. My uncle had introduced me to Robert Kuntz's machine level 

Today to run this module I'd take at the Blackmoor Archives & save some of the maps for Blackmoor then get them printed and laminated. Did the players survive? Well that gets into some very interesting weirdness for another blog entry.