OSR Campaign Ho Down & Clark Ashton Smith Campaign Commentary

 Cha'alt/Godbound rpg campaign that I've got going on centered around California, Nevada, & Arizona on a doomed Seventies or early Eighties  style Earth. The Cha'alt wave comes along through space & hits the Earth. It awakens the Lovecraftian forces that have been biding the eons away in places like the kingdom of K’nyan & the Hyperboreans who have been asleep deep within the Earth.
Things have not been going well as parts of Cha'alt including the Black Pyramid & the wastelands have been merging across the Earth. For some of the back bone gaming system & setting I've been using Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.



This game campaign basically takes place during the Hyperborean beginning events from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The PC's were summoned to this Earth as 'heroes' from a standard Dungeons & Dragons old school fantasy realm. They've been made into Godbound by the gods because they've been losing. The Hyperboreans come out in full military force from within the Hollow Earth. Across the world mega dungeons have appeared such as Dwimmermount because of the wave.

 

The Hyperboreans are very dangerous & their military relics are pretty well outlined in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. But its really the Black Pyramid  & its weird ass in workings that have been churning out some of the most dangerous cults in the game. But the real factor for the humans has been the appearance of other entities from Dungeons & Dragon's Blackmoor modules like the Egg of Coot.  The appearance of the Egg has really been keeping my players  completely off balance. 



For this leg of the campaign I've been going back to the original Clark Ashton Smith source material especially his  Hyperborea cycle:

• Coming of the White Worm, The (1941)
• Door to Saturn, The (1932)
• House of Haon-Dor, The (1989)
• Ice-Demon, The (1933)
• Lament for Vixeela (1953)
• Muse of Hyperborea, The (1929)
• Seven Geases, The (1934)
• Tale of Satampra Zeiros, The (1931)
• Testament of Athammaus, The (1932)
• Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles, The (1958)
• Ubbo-Sathla (1933)
• Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan, The (1932)
• White Sybil, The (1932)

Here's the thing that I've found with these tales there is always an inevitability with the CAS's tales. There are seasons to the epochs of mankind & the 'Great Old Ones' are there to see the cosmic destruction done. This happens again & again. But how does this match up with Cha'alt?
 Cha'alt's played for science fantasy gonzo. I've been using the Cha'alt source book as both serious & totally as a cosmic joke. In other words I've been using it like an issue of Seventies Heavy Metal magazines that I grew up with.


I don't use Cha'alt as a fifth edition D&D anything. I've pulled & totally mutilated with Venger's blessing I might add the source book for my own game campaigns. But there's campaign elements that I've pulled from way back in my own tool box of campaign madness. In AS&SH most of the technological occult treasures were made by Atlanteans. This brings me back to some of my campaign notes regarding X1: "The Isle of Dread" (1981), by David "Zeb" Cook and Tom Moldvay. There was a planar conflict in my campaign between the Atlanteans & the monstrous, mind-bending creatures known as kopru.



Within the last five years or so the X1's Isle of Dread appeared off of the coast of California.The  Atlanteans have made contact with the party & things are heating up around the waters of California. The call of the Black Pyramid continues to echo across the cosmos. Things are going to get to the level of self sacrifice coming up!