Spectre Of A Red Shadow - A White Star rpg , Warriors of The Red Planet & Hyperborea rpg - Post Apocalpytic Solar System Campaign- Actual Play Event

 During tonight's game the PC's were 'saved' by strange warplane that came outta of no place and strafed the tanker spider destroying it. The bright red warplane bore a black background with a white skull dropping bombs on the remains of the tanker killing the spy along with any hidden spiders. This blog post will pick right up from here. 

The PC's met some old nemesis on Mars in the form of the Red Shadows, the shadows organization are a cryptic alliance from the bowels of an underground base clones of the original members of the Red Shadow organization. An A.I. entity called Shadow unfroze the clones during the war & they've been acting as a maurading mercenary army ever since. 
Red Shadows 

Tech Level: IV 

TYPES: PSH (35%); H (45%); MA (40%); P (15%); A (10%) NUMBER: 1d10 BASE: A (5d10; along the dead sea bottoms ); B (2d10 + 50; along dead sea bottoms ); H (10d10+100; usually near the ancient enterances to the main sea bottoms) SECRET SIGN: Among human settlements a skull drawn in the red sands. 
A couple of years ago the party ran into the Red Shadows during a raid on an ancient Martian city to recover some super science items and devices. The Shadows pinned them down inside the dungeon & the party only escaped through the Martian underground. 

The only survived by engaging in a deep running fire fight with the Red Shadows and the Shadows released one of their fearsome combat droids. 

The party's necromancer used a scroll to summon an air elemental blowing the warplane off course. The necromancer's summoning sends a signal to the local hives and suddenly the air is filled with a swarm of scout bugs. 
Scout Bug AC: 4 [16] HD: 3 Atk: bite and tail whip Dmg: 1d6, and 1d6 Save: F3 Move: 180’/360’ These remarkable creatures are incredibly fast moving, sensitive to everything around them, and can move underground, in the air, and even into space. Their sole purpose is to scout the area around a hive, maintain surveillance in case of intruders, and report back to their Brain bug. They have +3 to initiative. +2 bonus to any rolls requiring detection.
These scout bugs are straight outta of Colonial Troopers: Knight Hawks and the party needed a radical plan to get outta of this slot. They figured that they were between the front line of the Red Shadows and  the bugs. 
The party's rune graver wanted to do something radical but the necromancer still had a teleportation scroll on him. But then the party had got the radical ideal to find the Red Shadow base nearby ie within 2000 mile radius as the party figures. 
But they still have to deal with this hive?! Tune in coming up! 

'Mi Go & Mythologies' More Old School & OSR Campaign Workshop

We've had some pop up thunderstorms & 'what not' weather here so I've been down under the weather today. But my mind's been churning over & over about this Godbound rpg  campaign. I've been writing in the back of my mind between work jobs. One of the primary foes that I had for my early games were the Mi Go. Specifically, the Mi Go of the early original  Dragon Magazine #12 (Feb 1978) which included "The Lovecraftian Mythos in Dungeons & Dragons" by J. Eric Holmes and Rob Kuntz . These Mi Go were very dangerous and according to my notes there's a very good write up on the Zenopus Archives site about 'Holme's Mi Go'. Over the years I've reworked these particular write ups as shock troops for a Stars Without Number game.  As well as a Conan mini campaign using Kuntz & Ward's Gods, Demi gods, & Heroes Conan entries as a set of guidelines. 

But over the years to illustrate the stratification of Mi Go hives I've used Kuntz & Ward's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Deities & Demigods  Mi Go entry from the Cthulhu's Mythos section. I had specifically avoided Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu rpg because of giving the Mi Go an upgrade later on in the campaign. Different Mi Go hives adapt in different ways to various conditions that these things find themselves in. Realms of Crawling Chaos for Labyrinth Lord has a slightly different variant of the Mi Go. But all of these modern take on the Mi Go derive from the D20 Call of Cthulhu released back in 2002. So the Mi Go are now available under the OGL which is where 90% of the OSR content comes from anyway.

For my Godbound campaign I've been rereading through campaign notes where humanity was almost wiped out against the Mi Go. The were great swaths of interstellar battle fields scattered  millions of mecha from across the planes. Many of these valuable mecha were left floating out in the void & now we've got the Mi Go on the move again. But their not the only foes that humanity is facing across the planes.
On the recommendation of a friend I busted out the Teratic Tome by Rafael Chandler. There are quite a few horrors in this bad boy that fit the line of campaign that I'm writing here Rafael Chandler's universe is chilling place with flashes of light coming from those willing to stand against the onslaught of darkness. 




I've got to work out a bit more of the mythologies & backdrops with this campaign but its coming together quite nicely. The balance between the modern OSR vs the old school material meshes very well. The question in my mind do the PC's have a chance? Honestly I don't know yet as it stands.

Edward Burne-Jones: The Wizard  

So this campaign is in no way shape or form ready for prime time at the table top level, yet. Part of the process for me is to keep refining adventures,campaign elements,etc. not to write scripts or stories but adventures that work. Its all a part of the process for me as a dungeon master. 

Mutant Massacre In The Capital Last Night's Actual Play Session Report

In last night's game the adventurers came face to face with some of the followers of Entropy. Mutant abominations. horrors that were the result of twisted mockeries created by those Immortals who seek the end of all things. If you've been following the controversial blog posts that I've been doing on The Immortals Box set by Frank Mentzer & Aaron Allston's Wrath Of The Immortals Box Sets respectively.  Then you probably have been following some of what's been happening. The freed slaves were brought into a local hospital & a few were infected with weird rot grub like abominations. Government troops in bio hazard suits were brought in with flame throwers. This game follows what happened back on June 1st, 2019. 

One of the PC's borrowed some of the items that an 'orderly' who was trying to break into one of the hospital wards was carrying after almost getting his head blown off Scanner's style. The orderly was quickly dispatched & the flame throwers came out.


Then a fight was happening deeper in the Riccian capital as Entropy cult forces were trying to break into a local museum. One of the PC's managed to get the drop on several cult members while government clawites helped the party out. The party's psycher managed to communicate with the clawites & direct them when picked up one of their tridents.  Every few moments the monster's would use pyrokinesis to light knots of the mutant abominations on fire. These mutants use the classic gargoyle stats from the AD&D Monster Manual with the additional mutations of esp, pyrokininis, & some random psionic mutations.




What the players don't know is the ganger/cultists have brought in one of their treasures an assault suit from the Warden from  S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks by Gary Gygax. Basically I'm trying to stall a bit until my other players catch up with us hopefully next week. 

What the players don't know is that power stations set up around the city are opening planar gateways while providing unlimited energy  for power to the capital of the Riccans. Meanwhile the plot thickens as the assault armor abomination closes in. Can the other player's PC's reach the party in time?




Whist all of this is occurring an aspect of the Egg of Coot looks on amused & the horror show continues.

Purpling The Isle of Dread Under A Hyperborean Sky - Franken Campaigning With The Isle Of Dread & The Island of Purple Haunted Putrescence

The Set Up For The Campaign
Under A Hyperborea Sky
 The weather here over the last couple of weeks has been terrible, Winter came back with a vengeance & the local hobby shop hasn't seen the local Dungeons & Dragons players in over a month. My plans for a game on the fifteenth of this past month have been put on the back burner. Or have they? Well I've been talking over plans this evening with some friends & getting caught up with possibly using Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers on Hyperborea. But I want to introduce the players to Hyperborea with a B/X adventure with a twist, so I went back to Isle of Dread for the set up with Venger Satanis Lovecraftian twist.
  "The characters somehow find a fragment from a ship's log, describing a mysterious island on which many treasures can be found, & set out to explore it."  I want to add a few more island adventure locations drawn from The Trinity of Awesome +1  's  adventure Slaves of Tsathoggua
"There's something in that cave... the cave all those villagers are afraid of.  What's inside?  Will the adventurers be able to leave once they enter?  What does this have to do with Tsathoggua?" Then from there branch into the Isle of Dread in the Hyperborean seas which will connect up with the Island of Purple Haunted Putrescence with all of its mind/reality bending gonzo weirdness. 





"There is an island in the seas surrounding Hyperborea perpetually wreathed in purple fog where the locals talk about ancient damned gods who still reign. 'Off of the tip of Hyperborea there is a legendary island chain where boats vanish, fishermen have seen weird lights, & hellish things have washed up on the shores of Hyperborea. The corpses of things that the villagers don't talk about. The fires burn with strange flames that  rise from the corpses even as the screams from no where die away'

Here the The Baleful Sorcerers of Tsathag'kha have reign over an ancient village where a treasure is rumored to be guarded by incredibly deadly monsters. So why use The Islands of Purple Haunted Putresence, its not only a great hex crawl, it’s also a great little campaign source book. That's one of the ways of introducing the players to Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea by throwing them into the deep end of the seas. This is a huge hex crawl that takes place on a set of islands lost to the dimensional winds that's haunted by a malevolent ever present Lovecraftian purple cloud god & the haunted black sand beaches of this book are perfect for an island hopping  mini campaign.

Can I get the PC's to 'Old Mars' or 'Old Venus'? Well by using the myriad of   alien races,crashed space craft, high weirdness, random mutation, and much more. This is done with the sort of stylish humor and old school weirdness that we've come to expect from Venger over the years! Now given the twenty two character classes in the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Player's Guide this is going to be right up the Hyperborean alley of the players.

So the first thing to do is to contact the players & do a quick 'character work shop' work up some PC's, throw together a fast 'your all marooned on an island when you find the ship captain's log' routine. Then see where we head into the next phase of this. This isn't the first time I've done this setup for a game of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.