The Shadows of The Serpent Men Campaign & Aryxyrmaraki's Almanac of Unusual Magic On Fund Raise Game On Table Top Commentary

 Over a thousand years ago, the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis reigned over a court notorious for its decadent arts and lavish opulence. The hidebound nobles of Zahar were troubled by the ascendance of the kingdom’s first female monarch. Semiramis was beset by over one hundred suitors, each one demanding that she marry him so that the kingdom might have a king. Many of these suitors were powerful spellcasters who wove enchantments upon her, but to no avail: The Sorceress-Queen wore the Ring of the Queen’s Heart, a legendary magic item gifted to her by the goddess Nasga that made her immune to her suitor’s charms.

As beautiful and cruel as her goddess, Semiramis instead seduced her perfidious suitors into swearing eternal love to her – then had them slain. The Sorceress-Queen mummified and interred all one hundred suitors in her own majestic sepulcher, where they would serve her as loyally in death as they ought to have in life."

Its been a rough couple of days & so I went on a bit of buying spree sort of. There are a few Adventurer,Conqueror, King rpg  adventures have on my mind for awhile now especially AX6: Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen (SoSQ).   There's been a bit of a serpent men kick at my writing table going back a few weeks.  What sent me down this Robert E.Howard inspired serpent hole was coming across Snake-men Box Set, Crew Ghost Archipelago! Just look at these figures! 

A bit of checking & there's already SERPENTINE - Oldskull Serpent Folk By 

Kent David Kelly  this book covers serpent men in a nice needed history & back ground that can be dumped whole hog right into a campaign. 

Serpent men have been a big part of my campaigns for years going all the way back to the release of  Lamentations of the Flame Princess's Carcosa. . Here's where things got interesting, the serpent men in my campaigns had huge sprawling intergalactic & interdimensional empires. So there were or are outposts that date back millions of years still in operation. 

So serpent men popped up in the oddest space dungeons & megadungeons. They also appeared in strange campaign & adventure locations. Such as the serpent men's outpost city on my post apocalyptic Mars campaign.  The serpent men were one of the power factions behind the rise of the Sorcerer's of the Black Gate straight out of the Warriors of the Red Planet rpg. 

Dusting off some of my campaign notes on Mars has been interesting. The reason for the dust off is that Autarch is has been publishing another book and in this case Aryxyrmaraki's Almanac of Unusual Magic looks very well done. But what got my attention is the following;"The Almanac is an awesome new sourcebook for ACKS and other OSR games that features 4 new magic types and 60 new spells. Be a gnomish alchemist, dwarven earth-forger, terran engineer, or a warlord!" So I backed Aryxyrmaraki's Almanac of Unusual Magic & the reason is more Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu rpg material. The terran settlers not only encountered but had some very bad dealings with the serpent men on Kanahu. 

When I was running a mini campaign of Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu  one of the main NPC antagonists was you guessed it. Serpent men because of their sprawling planar empire.The big complaint that I've heard over the years is that there isn't a beginning 1st level dungeon to get the PC's into the adventure mix. Let me present  Tomb of the Serpent Kings - Deluxe Print Edition by Skerples

 Tomb of the Serpent Kings - Deluxe Print Edition by Skerples is a perfect beginning level dungeon & lesson in OSR adventuring that can be used to set up a serpent men legacy right at the beginning of a campaign. This is one of those twenty five page dungeons that gotten multiple uses at my table top over the years. Tomb of the Serpent Kings is going to be my beginning introduction for my players coming for a set up for AX6: Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen (SoSQ).   So as you can imagine the Earthlings are going to be out of their depth in the far reaches of space this connects back into Venger Satanis's Cha'alt setting. But I'm putting my own spin on this.