Halloween Hyperborea Hustle - A New Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Kickstarter

'As though a thousand vampires, from the day
Fleeing unseen, oppressed that nightly deep,
The straitening and darkened skies of sleep
Closed on the dreamland dale in which I lay.
Eternal tensions numbed the wings of time
While through unending narrow ways I sought
Awakening; up precipitous gloom I thought
To reach the dawn, far-pinnacled sublime.
Rejected at the closen gates of light
I turned, and down new dreams and shadows fled,
Where beetling shapes of veiled, colossal dread
With Gothic wings enormous arched the night.'
Nightmare By Clark Ashton Smith

Halloween is fast approaching but any dungeon master worth their salt knows that October is Sword & Sorcery game time. The winds have been howling here at Casa De Fabiaschi & I've had tons of yard work as well as an enormous amount of sewing machine repair work heaped upon me. Jeffery Talanian posted on G+ & a wide variety of social media that we'd be seeing a brand new Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Kickstarter. On Halloween with a wide array of brand new brand expanding products.

This kickstarter is very important for fans of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition & first edition for that matter. Hyperborea began to change with the second set of AS&SH OSR adventures with The FORGOTTEN FANE of the COILED GODDESS. This was at the same time Beneath The Comet came out & Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes. All of these adventures ushered in the second edition kickstarter & material.




The games artwork got better, the setting details were revealed more, etc. The real add on here for me is the Rats in The Walls expanded edition. The cover speaks volumes for a Halloween adventure but there's more to it then simply that. This is going to be a 'Basic' adventure for AS&SH;

"Rats in the Walls and Other Perils also will include two more short adventures: Chainsaw’s “The Brazen Bull”, and “The Lamia’s Heart”, by Jeffrey P. Talanian. (An early draft of the latter was published in the AFS fanzine.) Edited by David Prata, all three adventures are set in the dismal City-State of Khromarium and designed for from four to six characters of 1st or 2nd level. Like our popular adventure module The Anthropophagi of Xambaala™, we think you will find this to be a great AS&SH campaign starter. It contains just enough mystery and danger to whet the appetites of your players, introducing them to the weird world of sword-and-sorcery role-playing in the City-State of Khromarium.

• “Rats in the Walls”: A dockside tavern in Khromarium is plagued by rats of a most unusual breed. These abominable rodents have ruined the tavern keeper’s business and his life. The man is desperate, and he offers a substantial reward for the elimination of his horrific problem. 
• “The Brazen Bull”: Whilst traversing one of the seedier neighbourhoods of Khromarium, your party are solicited by a greasy-haired Pict. He offers to sell you a sheaf of magical lotus that allows one to see the future or to brew potions that empower the imbiber with sorcery. He beckons you to follow him into a dilapidated building....
• “The Lamia’s Heart”: Your party are contracted by the nascent master of an unsanctioned thieves’ guild. To earn his favour, you must steal a singular gem from the mansion of a prominent merchant. Purloining this gem, however, may raise the ire of the city’s official thieves’ guild; notwithstanding, the reward is significant."

This is super important because it helps to establish Hyperborea as a validated setting for the players. Any dungeon master worth their salt is going to take Rats in The Walls & Other Perils & customize the it to fit their own OSR campaigns in spades. Both the

The Beasts of Kraggoth Manor &  The Anthropophagi of Xambaala

are both perfect beginning points for an AS&SH campaign.
The Anthropophagi of Xambaala does an exceptional job f setting up the PC's at the cross roads of Hyperborea whist giving them an actual viable adventure location to spring board into more campaign action.
The adventure setting within this module  has lots of potential to help get old school players on board with AS&SH.

 The fact is that I keep seeing a bunch of lost Greyhawk or old school adventurers crossing the desert heat & ending up stranded on Hyperborea. The events of The Anthropophagi of Xambaala  unfold around them. This gets the characters spring boarded into the world of Hyperborea whist giving the DM the opportunity  to mix together two solid groups of adventurers. It could also act as a further opportunity to build a connection between the worlds. This give the players a few options to use existing characters to help build campaign cohesion.

 There are some solid campaign in roads that the Rats In The Walls adventures has to link up with the events of The Anthropophagi of Xambaala . This is especially true of the adventure “The Lamia’s Heart” which is inspired by Robert Howard & Clark Ashton Smith. PC's are going to have to be careful not to run afoul of the most dangerous elements of Hyperborea within these adventures. Make no mistake your PC's could end up not only on the menu but on the ingrediants table of some Hyperborean wizard. Happy Halloween folks & go here to help support the latest AS&SH kickstarter!