OSR Echoes Of 'The Old Earth' Setting Adventure Locations & Commentaries

Meanwhile last night I dug out my copy of C.L.Moore's Northwest Smith stories, Clark Ashton Smith, a bit Robert Howard, and some of the usual H.P.Lovecraft tales. This puts me right back square into the territory of Leigh Brackett. The post colonial world of Old Earth is three ticks from when the 'stars come right'. And this age is  a repeat of Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborean cycle

 The Hyperboreans coped with the changes and destruction of 'Old Earth' as best they could whist coming out of their bunkers to find themselves far off world. Hyperborea now sits out in the solar system. Meanwhile 'Old Earth' has been reduced to tribalism in spots with high tech city states here and there. A few Hyperborean states still exist but Antarctica is now the new continent of mystery & danger.

As I said in Clark Ashton Smith's 'Forbidden Planet' Movie Connections To The 'Old Solar System' Campaign Setting 

Earth has become one vast science fantasy resource with Leigh Brackett's Tribal Exploitation Corporation taking advantage to scoop in, take apart temporary temples and tribal shrines on the plateau of Leng. Then leave before the Tcho Tchos or the Gnophkehs swoop in & tear apart the whole hover craft or space ship. Antarctica is one of the most dangerous places on the Old Earth because of the return of the Elder Things and Shoggoths.

Cults of Ithaqua, Rhan-Tegoth  Aphoom-Zhah,  and the Ice Worm cults are also flourishing at the North Pole Aggregate an amalgamation of Alaska parts of Canada, & some fragments of Iceland. Making the whole of the the upper part of the Americas very dangerous indeed. The religion & cults  of the toad-god Tsathoggua is far more mainstream today. In many places there are hidden shrines and back wood temples not built by human hands. This happened after the return of the empire of the K’nyan. The conquest of the surface world took decades but the remains of the war abound. Hidden temples in the jungles of  Antarctica indicate that the formless demons of Tsathoggua guard dangerous secrets not meant for man's eyes. Unusual & weird artifacts appear in the marketplaces of what was once Australia and the near East.


Meanwhile in parts of Europe cities lay abandoned or taken over by various witch cults, bandit groups, adventurers, & unspeakable monsters. Lamia of many types inhabit parts of Europe, they are often the heads of cults or worse. Initiates often venture deep into other worldly wildernesses using the Aklo rites to become changed by the White People or other entities in rituals far too horrible to describe.  What comes back can hardly be described as human.


Outside the city states block after block of abandoned & lost cities stand empty as if waiting for new owners who might not come. The distant roar of atomic rock engines pierces the night sky with citizens  on their way to the gleaming  space stations that keep track of the strangely changing topography of the world below.


In what was Africa the empire of Opar has awoken from its ancient slumber & taken over their region of the world. The Atlantis refugees have reforged their ancient outpost but local tribes are still resisting them. Heroes have emerged from hidden enclaves of their own with sorcerous knowledge & relic technologies of their own. Various Hyperborean & human adventurers often find themselves here because of the old dolmen gateway systems that still function here. The empire of Opar is it said bows to hidden lizard king emperors who once ruled vast tracks of Africa from their Nameless City headquarters. Many adventurers come to Africa to try their luck in the dangerous ruins that dot the coast. Few if any ever return.


So what's going on here? Well I'm working on building some of the adventure locations and monsters of Old Earth. I've decided to use some of the classic OSR monsters from Rafael Chandler 's Teratic Tome for some of the weird Lamia style monsters after looking into several new ones from the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition ones.  The Tome is one of my all time favorite OSR monster books and should fill my needs for mid tier Swords & Weirdness monsters for my Saturday evening game.

I'm also working tonight with Dark Albion & Dark Albion Cults of Chaos to flesh out some of the cults of Old Earth. Because Dark Albion works so well with AS&SH, this is really an easy fix because of running out of time with work. Some of the material of Dark Albion's medieval resources have super easy tables to flesh out communities, villages, and more. This means some of the heavy lifting has been done for me as a dungeon master.


Cults of Chaos helps to put some flesh on my take on the Lovecraftian entities. The magick of Dark Albion actually fits rather well with some of the material I've got going with my personal game. Cults of Chaos seems rather well suited for creating the backwater horrors of Old Earth. I'm not looking for the skull crushing horror of the Lovecraft Mythos but the suitiblier horrors of Clark Ashton Smith occultism which Cults of Chaos hits nicely. Brandon has a nice Youtube review that hits the highlights nicely.