OSR Commentary - Dark Albion Cult of Chaos Sends The PC's to Hell

I posted a picture on Twitter this morning of the unholy trinity of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition books which have destroyed hordes of player's PC's over the years. But folks have lost their marbles over the fact that posted about Geoffry O'Dale's Judge's Guild adventure Inferno  . The fact that I was thinking about running with original Dungeons & Dragons or a retroclone.
What no one realizes is that I've run it in the past using an unholy combination of Rpg Pundit's Dark Albion, Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, & Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos. 


I can't say that this is an original idea at all I took my OSR pee's & ques from Tim Brannan 2016's Pundit's Dark Albion review; "I mentioned in the past that Dark Albion is particularily friendly to +Jeff Talanian's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Using a page from DA:CoC one could easily add DA style elves (and of course their cults) into the world of AS&SH.  AS&SH style witches and warlocks seem particularly suited for the the chaos magic of DA. "

I've used both Dark Albion & Dark Albion Cults of Chaos to create Inferno & Chaos cults based on the demons & devils from Dante's Inferno. I use these across the board for my various OSR campaigns.

The Dark Albion campaign has some excellent resources to portray the era of Inferno & its far reaching horrors. The Hell of Dante is an excellent antagonist for the royals of Albion. There are several reasons for this: 

1. The alternative Hell will confuse the heck outta of players who are used to the usual mythology of the classic TSR era planes.
2. Several of the devils & demons are very nice to see in their in their proper place & they fit the stereo types of Chaos quite nicely. 
3. The cults of the book are perfect replacements for the various infernal cults 
4. Several blood thirsty horrors from the Inferno are perfect for the edge of the world of Albion & even gasp Greyhawk 
5. Demons from Hell instead of the Abyss makes things very interesting for old school play.
6. Hell is very aggressive & has some real stakes to conquer  various planes Prime 
7. Using Dark Albion with Fantastic Heroes & Witchery one could create various agents of Law, Chaos, & Neutrality. 
8. The overview of the Rose War & real world history makes a very vibrant campaign tapestry. 
9. There are so many options that one could take the cult thing into the  Dungeon Crawl Classic funnel realm with the PC's being escaped damned. 
10. Hell takes thing unto the next level. 

Rpg Pundit's Dark Albion, Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, & Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos works very well with other OSR systems including the  Castles & Crusades rpg. There are lots of Hellish options with such a combination. The PC's are going to have to do a lot of dungeon exploration to keep two steps ahead of the powers of Hell.