Deeper Lovcraftian Insights Into U2 Danger At Dunwater by Dave J. Browne, & Don Turnbull.

For a long time now I've been decoupled on the goings on of the OSR & returning to my original plans for campaigns of the past. Cannibalizing & rearranging campaign notes which brings me to U2 Danger At Dunwater by Dave J. Browne, &  Don Turnbull. 



Once upon a time I did an alternative adventure set up where the player's PC's had not stopped the events of U2 & the lizard men ransacked the town of Saltmarsh.. The PC's traveled to an alternative Earth where the Deep Ones had taken over. My notes indicate that this Saltmarsh was far closer to HP Lovecraft's 'The Shadow over Innsmouth' then I'd have liked. Because I fell back into the Lovecraft description of the Deep Ones in the 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth'; my mind; 

"I think their predominant color was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked ... They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design—living and horrible." 

This alternative 'U2 Danger At Dunwater'  is really more of a beach head to a brand new undersea empire of the Deep Ones because I used the Deep Ones as stand ins for the Sahuagin . Why?! Because the Sahuagin  feel & are to me copyrighted & trade marked Deep One stand ins. Besides which get far more information about the Deep Ones plans ala 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth'; 'One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wonders—destined for him as well—he had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too—I could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth.

I met also that which had been her grandmother. For eighty thousand years Pth'thya-l'yi had lived in Y'ha-nthlei, and thither she had gone back after Obed Marsh was dead. Y'ha-nthlei was not destroyed when the upper-earth men shot death into the sea. It was hurt, but not destroyed. The Deep Ones could never be destroyed, even though the palaeogean magic of the forgotten Old Ones might sometimes check them. For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved. It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time. They had planned to spread, and had brought up that which would help them, but now they must wait once more. For bringing the upper-earth men's death I must do a penance, but that would not be heavy. This was the dream in which I saw a shoggoth for the first time, and the sight set me awake in a frenzy of screaming. That morning the mirror definitely told me I had acquired the Innsmouth look.

So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheard-of splendors await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Iä-R'lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä! No, I shall not shoot myself—I cannot be made to shoot myself!

I shall plan my cousin's escape from that Canton mad-house, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever."

Yeah I've been Lovecraft walking back Saltmarsh ever since I experienced it back in 'U2 Danger At Dunwater'. This is because of the Cthulhu mythos entry in Kuntz & Ward's Deities & Demigods.


Picture via Wayne's books 

 The Deep Ones are immortal which means that these things can compete with any lich, vampire lord, etc. They are completely soul less as well & that means utterly alien. Basically the Deep Ones are an occult cosmic fish virus among the planes. Because U2 Danger At Dunwater requires diplomacy & a steady hand the PC's got the chance to see an Earth where things had gone wrong. So very wrong and they made an enemy that may still be following them.