Pulp Era OSR Make Over For Advanced Dungeons & Dragons's Modue Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull's UK2 Danger At Dunwater Part I

"The little fishing town of Saltmarsh is threatened! Why are lizard men gathering force nearby and why have they been buying large quantities of weapons? A party of bold adventurers must answer these questions or the people of Saltmarsh will never live in peace!"
Its been a long while since I did anything with UK2 Danger At Dungwater after talking about turning UK1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh into a viable alternative Earth turn of the century introductory adventure. The turn of the century alternative Earth  old school OSR hybrid of Adventurer, Conqueror, King's Barbarians of Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu mixed in with Troll Lord Games Amazing Adventures firearms, modern equipment & more. The combination will be called Renegade Heroes, Tyrannical Conquerors, & Wasteland Kings!
There are several updates that I'd do to U2 to be closer to an alternative turn of the pulp  Earth New York city adventure campaign setting. Saltmarsh is a fishing town left mostly untouched by the Martian invasion but the poor & immigrants in the area are another matter. They  have much lower technological axiom then those living in the golden  halls of power around New York city. There are lots of hazards from the invasion, crime is deadly, and there is a far more pulpy feel to this sort of a campaign setting.

Danger At Dunwater is the second in the "U' trilogies of adventures and pits the characters into the aftermath of  The Sinister Secret Of Saltmash adventure and meshes right into the front and back adventure plots of U1 quite nicely. But as a a hook I would have several New York city residents going missing & using an old pulp trick I'd use a mid tier monster to get the adventurers involved. Taking Monsters of Mayhem #1 from Dark Wizard games I'd grab the Lagoon Creeper & spin it as a Deep One variant that has broken rank from the Koa Tua. 
The Lagoon Creeper's traditional native New York city fishing waters have been disturbed by their more advanced Koa Toa brethen then there's bound to be blood in the water.

The war preparations of the both the lizardmen & the Koa Tua have disturbed the monsters in their New York city salt water swamp lairs. And because their weird & very pissed off they've begun to take residents from around their lair as sacrifices in eldritch rites to their own horrid demonic gods. Perhaps as a way to summon an aquatic demon  to stop the efforts of their neighbors.

Lagoon Creepers are not monsters to be trifled with & so have moved closer inland taking up residence in the ruins of old buildings, submerged basements, and other areas where the Martian invasion has left swaths of devastation. In fact the Lagoon Creepers are hardier & better able to survive the frigid waters of the Atlantic & their own populations are pushing the Kao Tua out of the New York & Long Island waters. This could be prompting the entire war surrounding the UK1 -3 series of adventures.

With a bit of work with the Deep Ones RC class from Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu  & a large swath of ACK's Lairs & Encounters we can really give the Lagoon Creepers an NPC pulp make over. We get several side quest dungeons to hook into before diving into the main course of Uk2 Danger At Dunwater. The DM could infact use the Deep One RC class rules to do hybrid Lagoon Creepers as a player option but these should be few & very far between.




This is just the preliminary adventure set up because racial & biological pressures from events from  N1 Against the Reptile Cult have driven the lizard men out of their traditional New York state hunting grounds. These three events have triangled the perfect storm for events in UK2 Danger At Dunwater. But what happens to the fanatics left behind after the events of N1 Against The Reptile Cult. These nasty & rather dangerous  Lovcraftian cults of N1 Against The Cult of the Reptile God might be found in some of the back alleys of New York City stretching its coils & influence deep into New York State's back woods. This could be represented by the very Adult themed Obscene Serpent Religion by Rafael Chandler. 

In part II coming up we're going to get into the stank & middle core events of Uk2 Danger At Dunwater.