Eggspectations & The Arneson angle - Dave Arneson, & David J. Ritchie's DA2 Temple of the Frog - Old School Lovecraftian Occult Tech Influences - Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign Commentary

"Try to imagine this.

A windowless room with just one exit. Inside it are people dressed in some hazmat suit like the ones we see on the crime scenes in some popular TV shows. These people have arranged the room, furniture and all, even some little animals, some pets. Then they go away, closing forever the only exit, so that they are certain nothing and no one will leave the room. All has been arranged in a way that whoever is inside the closed room, will retain no memory of their presence. But let’s imagine that a tiny hair or an even tinier speck of skin had fallen from one of these people. The crime scene is compromised for as tiny as this pollutant may be.

Now back to our idea: the Multiverse is the room, the Old Ones are the people in the hazmat suits, the Immortals the little pets, the Egg of Coot is the polluting element.

You may say that a tiny hair is still a tiny hair. An organic inanimate object, doomed to become impoverished, dry and in the end dissolve. With no doubt this is sound reasoning for mortal beings and perhaps for Immortal ones too. For me, this may be not true for beings (Entities? Powers?) as mysterious and powerful as the Old Ones.

During millennia, the tiny speck evolves, get a body and finally sentience. It is a progressive and enormously slow process.

When the Egg of Coot rises from the waters in front of the Blackmoor Kingdom, it puts the humanoid tribes of the North under its command and starts its journey to the world domination, it is still in the starting phase of its evolution.

The Egg, just to maintain the theme, has just hatched.

But the advent of techno-magic is a steep turning point and a big steer toward the evolutionary development for the Old One embryo.

We all know, always from official sources like Wrath of the Immortals, that the alien technology, through a lot of tinkering, first by one of the Old Ones then by the Immortals themselves, will become the energy form called Radiance.

Through the Radiance use (or influence) we know for sure that at least three Immortals are born: Rafiel, Benekander and then Rad.

With the Radiance then it is possible to create new Immortals!"
From 'The Return of the Egg' by Giuliano Michelon from Threshold Magazine issue 12

Thanks to the Vaults of Pandius 


Let me dive back into the heart & soul of my  Cha'alt/Godbound campaign. I had the complete nerve to bring up the Egg of Coot yesterday but my own history with the egg goes back quite a long time to running through Dave Arneson's Blackmoor & through Dave Arneson, & David J. Ritchie's DA2 Temple of the Frog. My PC died repeatedly in that classic module. Flash forward to Two thousand & nine, I'm wide eyed in the OSR. I come across Havard Blackmoor blog entry on the Egg of Coot here. If there was ever an entity that perfectly fits the Road of Night entries in the Godbound rpg then the Egg is it. I really have had my view on the egg coloured by that blog entry. But strolling across the wastelands of Nevada & Arizona are miniature 'Juggernauts of Doom'. Here's a quick reminder of what these nasty pseudo mecha like  war machines of chaos & darkness are! 



Here's a profile of one of the Juggernauts from Harvard's blog; "Juggernaut of Doom
This powerful War Machine is similar to regular Juggernauts and may travel through forested areas without any movement penalty due to huge cutting blades constantly swinging along its sides. Anyone approaching the juggernaut from the sides must save vs Dragon Breath or suffer 3d8 points of damage. The Juggernaut of Doom may carry up to 50 humanoids."
So what is the Egg of Coot doing on Earth & sticking its bio mechanical tendrils into the black pyramid's business? Simply put its an invasive supernatural occult pain in the arse NPC. Its wraith troops & witch cults have absolutely no business in this campaign making it its business. The appearance of Dwimmermount on Earth down in South America's Bolivia has attracted the Egg's attention.  Because as the Cha'alt warp washes against the back blow of Earth's reality Azoth is created. The Egg of Croot is using Azoth to power its own war machines & troops.

But there are other powers interested not only in this new play thing called Earth & those powers are greedy at the best of times & chaotically evil at the worst. Where the Egg of Croot is Stephen the Rock is. These two are always the ying & yang of evil for me.  Once again I'm using Havard's Blackmoor blog entry on Stephen The Rock.  While the Egg of Coot marches his armies onto Earth, Stephen The Rock quietly sets down a few cybernetically enhanced agents here & there.



Stephen The Rock looks like DC Brianic Five in my mind. Because of Harvard Blackmoor.
This artwork is from DC universe encyclopedia site & used without permission.
No copyright or trade mark violations are meant.
This is a blog entry for entertainment purposes only



The powers below the black pyramid of Cha'alt remain unimpressed with these two cosmic buffoons in their minds. Ancient mechanisms turn below the ruins of one of the former capitals of Cha'alt. Elven voices sing the praises of ancient forbidden gods.
Here's where Adventurer,Conqueror, King rpg's AX2 Secrets of the Nethercity comes into play.



Meanwhile the downed remains of a flying saucer that crashed in Nineteen fifty five spring to life. The telepathic circuits & psionic crystals glowing with a strange & unnatural colour. The crash site still hasn't been found in the Nevada desert wastelands. Here I'm pulling on another Venger Satanis product & in this case its Dead God Excavation which could be used as a zero session adventure for Cha'alt. But in my case its gonna be a fixed point that could be exploited by the PC's as a potential base or lair ala Adventurer,Conqueror,King's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu

These remains are what's drawing the attention of Stephen of the Rock but he's also watching the production of Azoth at the city state of a certain dragon NPC. A lot of this is being drawn from my experiences in my uncle's old Blackmoor campaign notes & OSR notes over the years.