B10 Night's Dark Terror By Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, Phil Gallagher For Your Old School Pulp Adventure Campaign

 "Barely one day's march from Kelven, the uncharted tracts of the Dymrak forest conceal horrors enough to freeze the blood of civilized folk. Those who have ventured there tell how death comes quick to the unwary - for the woods at night are far worse than any dungeon. But you are adventurers, veterans of many battles, and the call of the will is strong. Will you answer the call, or are you afraid of the dark terrors of the night?

Way back in the early Eighties I read a lot of X men comic books & I noticed that the group did a ton of wilderness based adventures. In fact if you begin looking into super hero comic books & graphic novels there's tons of lost world & such settings thrown into the mix. B10 Night's Dark Terror.  B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) was made  the TSR UK brain trust of Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, and Phil Gallagher. 


B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) is an old school adventure that I've used time & again with a wide variety of old school & OSR retroclones. Dungeon mastering B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) includes OSR systems like  Dark Albion & Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 2nd edition recently.

But I can already hear the groans from the reading audience, what the hell does one module have to do with two OSR game systems  & does this tie into the Thirty Year War? Wherever Chaos touches or washes against reality we've got mutation, supernatural issues, and the old Elven hills & pagan groves in some places are still opening upon Fairyland."The characters encounter a town under siege by goblins, a ruined city, and a lost valley" The Elves are doubling down on taking over a wide variety of realities & Fairyland is basically using old fairy rings & ruins across the planes. How does this work?
Fairyland is a rolling planar demi realm accessed as a higher parasitic dimension that touch on other realities.


For my purposes of 'The Otheworld' is another aspect of the realm of Fairyland that reflects the weirdness & the dangerous occult chaos of the other dimensional realm of the Elves. Each & every time these higher parasitic dimensions touch a reality they bring the subtle energies of chaos with them. So essentially each time a cult accesses an aspect of Fairyland it brings these places back into the world along with the chaotic ecological system. Dungeons are not simply created their borne of the chaos of the realm of Fairy.


D&D Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (1976), by Rob Kuntz & James Ward, is the fourth of four supplements for the OD&D game. It was published in July 1976 & has a solid roster of Celtic gods & heroes who have fought the powers of Fairyland to a stand still.  The 'Otherworld' is also an origin source of kings, heroes, & the destiny place  of warriors, knights, & wizards.

"The Otherworld was also seen as a source of authority. In the tale Baile in Scáil ("the phantom's ecstatic vision"), Conn of the Hundred Battles visits an Otherworld hall, where the god Lugh legitimizes his kingship and that of his successors.^{[1]"These various rolling dimensional aspects of  'the Otherworld' empower both the adventurers & heroes as well as fuel the whole of Fairyland. The original purpose of the place has been perverted.}
B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) is a perfect pulp adventure to use because  this is a transition module and takes PC's into the big leagues! That's right set B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) in some back part of Europe in middle of the Pulp Age or  the Golden Age of Superheroes and they're going to get noticed big time! 

Modern weapons are not going to be a huge deciding factor if your adventurer or pulp hero is looking down the business end of an owl bear! Way back in the Eighties many of the independent comic book companies had their own super hero & pulp teams encountering & recruiting wizards, clerics, thieves, etc. from Dungeons & Dragons style worlds into their ranks.

No one batted an eye & the number of Arthurian heroes that Marvel & D.C. used is numerous. The fact is that dungeon masters back in the Seventies & Eighties used whatever mythical or  fictional characters they needed as NPC's.

B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) is a stepping stone module & even with modern pulp style adventurers is going to be a challenge. 
So let's update this a bit with some more background. Dark Albion action with the Elves of Fairyland going full invasion with OZ & Wonderland playing a huge part in DM Steve's game last night & it took place in an alternative Earth 19th century. A campaign that I wrote by the way. But already DM Steve has been modifying & messing with it. 



So what does this have to do with B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986)?! Everything as our PC's found themselves in the Otherworld & even playing a werewolf I had B10 wilderness messing with me because it was a part of Fairyland. Imagine it like this, the whole of Earth has been pushing agaisnt the wilderness with the second Industrial Revolution in full swing due to the Martian Invasion round one. The Elves, Fey,etc. are taking a very dim view of this & have been exploding Wilderness from their world into ours! The chaos & weirdness of their world has been converting lots of folks on the fringes into Elven cults straight outta of Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos



Now all of this ties back into Brian Young's Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum 2nd Edition. Which outlines the Castles & Crusades take on the Celtic Fey & their cycles. Some of the factions of the Fey have been helping the PC's And some have been actively hindering them in very nasty ways. 




Much of what's in Brian Young's Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum 2nd Edition easily ties into the works of Welsh author Arthur Machen. More on this all later.