High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey - Runes, Chaos, Moorcock, & Heart of the World or Campaign

 

Today's been one of those days where the whirl of life tries to take the dream from the dungeon master. And yet if you let things go the whole cloth of an campaigns ideas, adventure, etc. all come flowing back fast, loose, & quickly. And this goes hand in hand with one of the ideas of Chaos that's been at my throat for ages now. If we go back to original Dungeons & Dragons many if not all of the darkest monsters including the Balrogs were Chaos at the very top of the list. Why?! Because these things were or are chaos incarnate! That's no joke & within Tolkien the fight  in Moria on the Bridge of Khazad-dum in The Lord of the Rings has so much more meaning behind it. A really solid break down of this can be found here. Now this has been on my mind now for sometime especially after several sessions of recent games including the current campaign with Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey. 
If you've been following recent events on social media then you know the drama with a recent player who cast withering aspersions my way. But then said player was replaced within twenty four hours. DM Ricky & his buddy DM Steve have been bringing up something is there a balance point between games such as Castles & Crusades & say Lamentations of the Flame Princess?! Yes but I think it goes out the window with one spell. And that spell is Summon. The spell is a key that opens the lock of chaos upon a campaign. 

Why?! Because there is no guarantee of what horror will come through that opening into a campaign. This means that all of the traditional Dungeons & Dragons monsters & horrors can. But it opens the  door to far weirder things to come in. This also opens the door for Lovecraftian things like Labyrinth Lord's Realms of Crawling Chaos to come in. Or to take things in a whole cloth other direction by applying mutations or powers that the player's won't expect & then use the Random Esoteric Creature Generator to be applied the traditional D&D  monsters. The reason is simple they are chaos incarnate.  The alignment scale isn't simply there to make sure that little Johnny adventurer is behaving according according to Law. Far from it but it gives the DM his yard stick to create monsters that are far more fitting to deal with both Law & Chaos. 
The randomly created alien artifacts, scrolls, & treasures from Realms of Crawling Chaos are just as dangerous as the Summoning spell from LoFP. Because the chaos keeps its insidious nature rolling as it gets passed from hand to hand spreading the weirdness of chaos with it. 
Is there anyway of stopping it?! There are a few but in C&C its the runelore book that can help bridge bridge the occult gap. And the class that can help repair reality after all of the damage has been wrought by some random Lovecraftian or Moorcockian horror has gone on a rampage? A high level Runemaster could theoretically do the job. But what about the damage to reality?! 

But what does this mean for reality itself?! We've never seen a reality where this has happened?! We've seen it in Michael Moorcock's Grail series of novels 'The Warhound & The World's Pain' this is the same entity that is tied into the Black Blade. We're gonna talk about the fact that both the Lovecraftian entities & stormbringer both fulfill the purposes of ending worlds & the cycles of universes. 

Within my game campaigns it means that certain cycles end & new ones are beginning but there are others happening.