OSR Commentary - Gregorius21778: 20 Encounters in the Ruins of the Elder Beings By Kai Pütz a.k.a. Gregorius21778 'A Pay What You Want' Title For Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rpg

 

"After I finished H.P. Lovecraft´s story “At the Mountains of Madness” the GM in me dreamed about an adventure that would be take place in some (other) subterranean ruins of the Elder Beings. Another city or outpost, perhaps smaller, or just the caverns that would lead to its entrance. An adventure about the strange creatures that could have developed there, based on some breeding stock the Elder Beings once kept. I thought about the Elder Beings attempting to slowly retake those places they left as they moved back into the oceans so long ago. I thought about a renewal of their conflict with the Mi-Go, one that is only at the beginning as Mi-Go recon parties try to locate and gauge the erstwhile settlements and strongholds of their rivals. And about what could happen when a party of (demi-)human adventurers would stumble upon all of this, on their search for riches or ancient wisdom."

"As I was not able to create a full-blown adventure out of my ideas, I rather created a set of 20 structured encounters. The difference to (completely) random encounters is that some of them are preliminary encounters that will trigger certain other encounters as a follow-up (or will be triggered instead of their follow-ups). In addition, a simple frame was given for the encounters and stats for six creatures and two strange items [all of whom are compatible with Lamentations of the Flame Princess(tm)]"

Gregorius21778: 20 Encounters in the Ruins of the Elder Beings By Kai Pütz a.k.a. Gregorius21778 'A Pay What You Want' Title clocks in a eleven pages for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg. 

Is a pretty solid series of encounters with H.P. Lovecraft's Elder Things ala from the 'At The Mountains of Madness' novella. The Elder Things were one of the powerhouse races in the Mythos. And this series of encounters is very dangerous fitting within each other like pieces of a puzzle. Take for example #14; "14# A Lost Soul Somebody or something runs towards the characters in the dark. After a moment, a tall and lanky man comes into sight. He wears dirty but sturdy clothes, his eyes are bloodshot and he storms towards the nearest character (no matter what). Once in reach, he grabs him with his huge hands. If the characters do not slay him outright the maddened adventurer, whose name is Henry, will grab the character with shaky hands and hoarsely yell “we must flee! WE MUST FLEEEE!!” and try to drag the PC along. Henry is a Level 1 Fighter with 8 hit points, but unarmed and scared out of his wits. If he cannot convince the characters to flee with him (or drag one of them along) he will just run off into the darkness. He belonged to a small group of adventurers, not unlike that of the characters, who encountered a Rogue Shoggoth. He was the only one who was able to flee, and dropped everything he had with him while doing so. Everything he says is “all are dead!” and “we must flee!”. This will only change after 2d6 rounds or after he left this place. If the characters search him (after they restrained or killed him), they will find 2d6 sp, the empty scabbard of a saber, a length of rope slung around his torso, two metal keys and a small blade in his left boot. When the characters head into the direction Henry came from, use 15# A Carcass in the Darkness (The bodies of adventurers) as the over-next encounter." And it's the use of the laying of the encounters that makes Gregorius21778: 20 Encounters in the Ruins of the Elder Beings work very well in my opinion. Not to give too much of this pdf away. But where can it be used for LoFP & Other OSR titles?! 

First place that one can see using Gregorius21778: 20 Encounters in the Ruins of the Elder Beings is with a straight up Antarctica adventure using LoFP. But Gregorius21778: 20 Encounters in the Ruins of the Elder Beings could also be used with 

Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa where the Elder Things are still active & alive. Carcosa remains one of the most dangerous areas for Elder Things because the serpent men's connection with them through Shubniggurath's continual rebirth of the species on the alien planet. Which means that they could be encountered anywhere there. 

Gregorius21778: 20 Encounters in the Ruins of the Elder Beings raises the stakes on these Lovecraftian horrors in three ways. One it brings a viable way to cross paths with them in LoFP. Two it brings the Elder Things works, alien agenda, and more into focus. And three it's very unlikely that PC's will be suriviving such an encounter not unlike other OSR games. For their are other Lovecraftian forces at work here. 

Gregorius21778: 20 Encounters in the Ruins of the Elder Beings By Kai Pütz a.k.a. Gregorius21778 'A Pay What You Want' Title For Lamentations of the Flame Princess Is Available Here