The City of Greyhawk (2e) By Rick Rose, Carl Sargent, & Douglas Niles & Castles & Crusades

 When it comes to Castles & Crusades Greyhawk there's 'the other box set' in my humble opinion and that's the AD&D second edition boxed set The City of Greyhawk. According to the The City of Greyhawk Wiki entry; "The City of Greyhawk is an AD&D second edition boxed set detailing the Free City of Greyhawk. Written by Douglas Niles, Carl Sargent, and Rik Rose, the boxed set was released by TSR in 1989, and was highly praised by Dragon magazine." 

For a Castles & Crusades Greyhawk campaign this is where you want to set up your adventurers right within  'The Free City of Greyhawk, Gem of the Flanaess'. And this city certainly lives up to it's name and it's really the second book your going to want to use Folk, Feuds, and Factions. Folk, Feuds, and Factions has a bit of everything for the DM looking to get the PC's into the deep end of the city of Greyhawk; "The second book, Folk, Feuds, and Factions, describes a wide variety of NPCs, their fellowships and conspiracies, and their associated game mechanics, personalities, tactics, and loose narrative threads. Potential allies, patrons, informants, and enemies are available for any group of characters. External politics are intertwined in the city's internal affairs, and rival guilds compete for power and influence, while dark conspiracies are plotted beneath the streets. Folk, Feuds, and Factions also includes four adventure scenarios that develop themes and elements already presented in the city background." 
 The twisting & turning of the city's maps can be printed out. Because of this & other details baked into the urban landscape of the City of Greyhawk. This is a must box set for anyone running the low or high life grittiness of the Greyhawk campaign world. 
And 'The City of Greyhawk' box set is an excellent companion piece for James Ward's Greyhawk Adventure book. Seriously all of the campaign details spill over into each other. 

For C&C these two resources along with the Gygax Greyhawk Folio or boxset are enough to light the way into a successful campaign from the ground up! These resources give the Greyhawk setting the depth & breath it deserves especially when dealing with C&C's system asthetics. 

Castles & Crusades with Greyhawk doesn't suffer under its own weight of campaign setting history or legacy unlike the staleness of Forgotten Realms or what passes for a campaign setting today. But we  digress, Greyhawk's urban centers suit the full rank & treatment that Castles & Crusades provides even more so then the system's home campaign setting. Sorry, Trolls but its true even though there are place where the campaign setttings can & should overlap. And this is where Greyhawk Adventures and The City of Greyhawk shine. These old school resources blend & can be homebrewed into the mold that the DM needs & wants for his player's PC's. 
And these resources for   the AD&D second edition boxed set The City of Greyhawk box set tie into the urban encounter and tables that are in the Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper's Guide. 

Some OSR Thoughts On James Ward's Greyhawk Adventures & Castles & Crusades

  If there's one book that a DM has to have if their going to run Greyhawk in the minds of many players of AD&D or Castles & Crusades. It has to be James Ward's Greyhawk Aventures! Why?! Because of the fact that Greyhawk Adventures expands Greyhawk of course! Expands upon the dieties, the monsters, Hall of Heroes places, persons, & things of Greyhawk, huge nimber of magical spells, new Greyhawk magic items, the geography of Oerth, adventures on Greyhawk, zero level PC options & available customization, and a Greyhawk spell list. 

So while all of this is packed into here running Greyhawk with Castles & Crusades is going to be a bit of a challenge. Greyhawk Adventures helps a ton because it gives the dungeon master the first real expansion on Greyhawk since the classic box set. 

Greyhawk is the down & dirty fantasy Europe that never existed & yet its influence within modern campaigns is still felt. Forgotten Realms might get all of the credit as one of the most influencal campaign settings. But its Greyhawk that has such a devoted following. Geyhawk still retains its cult following as the oriinal iconic campaign setting unto itself. And Greyhawk Adventures follws right there the original box set's footing. The adventures within? The adventures are easily adaptable to your own campaign settings. 

What about the Castles & Crusades rpg system? Depending upon Greyhawk era & local setting C&C adapts quite easily with Jim Ward's Greyhawk adventures. The rounded out campaign elements of Greyhawk Adventures can easily be molded by the DM to their Greyhawk campaigns. This is one of the strengths of the classic era TSR AD&D first edition books. 

Greyhawk works for C&C because of its scope, adaptability, and use as a campaign world that fits your world campaign. The potenial there is to take the classic Greyhawk folio & using Greyhawk Adventures to mold the fluff to fit your own worlds of adventure. The reason why this works is that Greyhawk Adventures is a tool kit of adventure elements that can be added or subtracted from as needed in your C&C campaign world. 

WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins (2e) By Timothy B. Brown, & Blake Mobley With The Castles & Crusades rpg - Updated

  "Enter the infamous ruins of Castle Greyhawk, the most formidable and expansive dungeon on Oerth. Its mazes and catacombs have drawn hundreds of adventurers from around the Flanaess. They are intrigued by tales of its riches, undaunted by its reputation for death in countless unspeakable ways. Getting there is no trick-it's a well-traveled path. The trick is getting in and out again with your own hide intact!"

"Try your hand at the busiest dungeon ever created. There are more than two dozen levels of horror and treasures. Run into brutal foes and gain uncountable wealth-nearly 1,000 separate room descriptions in all!"

Greyhawk Ruins is a complete guide to the most famous dungeon in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. All you will need is the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition role-playing game, nerves of steel, and the resolve to challenge the puzzles and powers the ruins have to offer!"

WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins (2e) By Timothy B. Brown, & Blake Mobley is one of Greyhawk's most underrated dungeons. Oh sure there are better known & far more deadly classic mega dungeons but Greyhawk Ruins returns to the fold one better & dangerous ones. And it's with no irony that I bring Greyhawk Ruins up with Troll Lords whose  Castles & Crusades deals with "Castle Zagyg" (2005-2008). And while that set of dungeons is solidly done & easily one Troll Lords best. This blog entry is going to pick right from this blog post here. 
Greyhawk Ruins deals with something else entirely and that's Greyhawk. And yes, you can transfer "Castle Zagyg" to Greyhawk. Greyhawk Ruins does something else entirely & that's to ground this version of the famous mega dungeon in Greyhawk entirely. Is this Gary Gygax's creation? No. Is it his "Castle Zagyg"? No. Greyhawk Ruins is a mega dungeon that ties itself in deep to the lore of Greyhawk. And this works very well for Castles & Crusades rpg. 

Greyhawk Ruins connects deeply into the Greyhawk 2nd edition setting as a way of covering over the foulness that is Castle Greyhawk. The Greyhawk Ruins is a part of the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragon mega dungeon trend. And for the Castles & Crusade rpg style suits both the Greyhawk Ruins & even Robert Kuntz's  RJK1: "Bottle City" (2007) and "The Original Living Room" (2007) adventure modules.
The mega dungeon ideal is time tested & very well defined by the time we get to the second edition era. Its definition that was the megadungeon's undoing in a way. There were never enough adventures set witin the megadungeon settings to show DM's & players their real campaign potential in my opinion. 

Greyhawk Ruins doesn't see this out and instead present a series of mini adventures & campaign seeds within. We see this ideal expanded upon within,"Castle Greyhawk in Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk (2008), which revised some of the levels from "Greyhawk Ruins" and also invented new ones. " And this further makes it perfect for a C&C campaign. 

And these are adventure & campaign ideals that we saw previously within The City of Greyhawk & Greyhawk Adventures by James Ward. 

Warriors of the Red Planet rpg, Raiders of the Lost Artifacts, & Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa

 Sometimes it's time to go back to basics and a recent interview with Matt Finch by Captain Courageous has me thinking. Matt Finch gave an excellent interview about the OGL disaster a couple of months ago. It got me thinking my own use Night Owl Workshop's Raiders of the Lost Artifacts rpg. 

And we use this rpg system with the Warriors of the Red Planet rpg. And the PC's in our usual game are planning on diving further into the activities of the cabal of the Sorcerers of the Black Gate ( this is an alternative class within WRP but it's primarily meant for NPC's). And so I've been looking over my campaign outline & notes. And there was mention of The OSR Library blog. And boy, has David Baymiller been busy with alternative material for Raiders of the Lost Artifacts. 
There's also notes about Carcosa & it's alternatives. And calm down Venger we'll get back to Cha'alt another time. Right now I'd love to focus on Carcosa. 
 And so doing some research on the OD&D forums about Carcosa. And there's a ton of older material there. I remember a recent review of the first issue of Ulfire Tablets, a zine dedicated to roleplaying in science fantasy / planetary romance settings. There was a metric ton of solid Carcosa  material within the first issue of Ulfire Tablets. 

Now I'm thinking of dumping the PC's onto Carcosa for the second or third leg of the ongoing campaign. We

grabbed Tristan Tanner's Lost Carcosa a long while ago. Tanner's Lost Carocsa is more then slightly different to Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa. The inclusion of so many other classic Weird Fantasy author's races such as Edgar Rice Burroughs Green Martians & several Lovrcraft races is interesting. 
Then there's the fact that Lost Carcosa has the feel of another part of McKinney's Carcosa. Almost as if this was another side of the Lovecraftian sphere. 
We've had several teams of NPC archaeologists looking into the Martian desert's ruins. I've managed to sprinkle in serveral Lost Carcosa Green Martians. These have strange tatatoos & body oramentation on them. They are unknown or taboo to the local Green Tharks & dead sea Red Martian barbarian tribes the PC's know. These Carcosa Green Martians are servants to the sorcerers of the Black Gate. 

There are several gates that lead to Carcosa being used by cultists on our post apocalpytic Mars. There's only been one instance of a party of ours making onto Carcosa in the current campaign & they literally lost two party members to cultists. The other players immediately retreated back through the gate and sealed it behind them. 

Original Castles & Crusades Revolution - Prelude to Undeath - Session Report Five

Tonight our cleric was summoned by the spectral libararian & surprised to be greeted by a troup of desert wastlander barbarians within the underground ruins of the ghostly libarary. And this session picks right up from here. 

Rodney Mathews Trey of Swords used without permission

 In tonight's Castles & Crusades Zothique session the PC's encountered a party of desert barbarians.These were 2nd leve fighters who were on a mission to recruit our heroes for a slog down the wasteland dungeon or ruin known as the 'rabbit hole'. 

The rabbit hole itself is two hundred miles away from the party's current location. And the whole ruin is a spiral stair case warren of stairs & weird branching tunnels that run below the ruins of an ancient city. The rabbit hole itself has been disturbed by a black outlander wizard and his familar. The wizard is looking for an enchanted simitar dedicated to the 'lord of the seven hells'. And  barbarians are convinced that he's not on the trail of the legendary sword but something far worse. 

The ruined city was  actually dedicated to the sea god Basatan but he was overthrown when the cult of Alila "queen of perdition and goddess of all iniquities," The wasteland barbarians fear that an avitar of Alila may be a sleeping under that ruined city & will pay hansomely for the PC's to destroy the black wizard before she is awakened. The PC's ran across  Sabmon the anchorite  & the mighty sage had much to tell them;

" Sabmon, whose eyes were undimmed by age and astronomy and much poring over volumes of archaic ciphers, was pleased with Amalzain and found in the boy something of his mother's beauty. And for this reason he gave freely of his hoarded wisdom; and, after uttering many profound and pertinent maxims, he said to Amalzain:

"It is indeed well that you have come to me: for, innocent of the world's turpitude, you fare to a city of strange sins and strange witcheries and sorceries. There are numerous evils in Miraab. Its women are witches and harlots, and their beauty is a foulness wherein the young, the strong, the valiant, are limed and taken."" 

Clark Ashton Smith 'The Witchcraft of Ulua' 
 The PC's think that this avitar may be a dangerous vampire whose using the cult of Aila to cover its tracks within the ruined city & the  rabbithole. 

 

The next day the PC's aquired the services of a stuhać  elemental  witch & a vampire  hunter who joined their ranks. This two PC classes have been taken from Castles & Crusades Codex Slavorum By Brian Young but these classes fit the current campaign. And since our version of Zothique is a melting pot of the weird & damned its not uncommon to find others from far outside the sphere of the setting's influence within it. Now the PC's are riding with the desert barbarians to stop the black wizard from awakening this blight upon Zothique. 

Continuing OSR blogging & The Post Apocalpytic Mars Campaign

 First of all, fuck Echohawk & his thieving blog. I'm going to be moving forward with this blog for the moment until I can find another blog page  too support Swords & Stitchery blog. For the moment, the Echohawk situation is put to rest. And over the day I got together with various friends & cohorts. We spoke at length about the situation. The general consesus was to keep blogging. 
However the take away was the fact that some of my blog's deep commentary was on my Mars campaign. The Mars campaign was post apocalyptic game that used Night Owl Workshop Warriors of the Red Planet.  & Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers rpg. And reading through the old blog posts the question came up in my mind.


Could Warriors of the Red Planet.  & the new Hyperborea rpg support a new post apocalpytic Mar campaign?! Short answer is that I believe so. Our Mars wasn't the Mars of our solar system instead it was a dying alien world around Alpha Centuri. The planet was originally colonized by a race of Lovecraftian serpent men. We crossed our campaign over with Adventurer,Conqueror, King 's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu™ (BCK) & this was the step up for the PC's to confront the Terrans from BCK. The Terrans were actually running from the Bugs from Colonial Troopers rpg. 

And the bugs kept getting really dangerous to the player's PC's interests. And eventually we brought in Colonial Troopers Knight Hawks.  Our players eventually encountered some of the more dangerous bugs & the alien insectoid masters who were behind the scenes. These masters were directly from the ACK's product line. Eventually we brought our group over into Cha'alt & things progressed fairly quickly. But there are several threads within this campaign that were left unresolved. Such as did the Terrans know about the on coming interstellar bug swarm?
Did the Terrans fleeing before the Swarm drop bread crumbs to the PC's to get the alien & human race deeply involved in the interstellar war?! 
The players never trusted the Terrans & thought there might be time & planar travel plots involved. 
This campaign eventually led me into the Cepheus Engine rpg along with a  rediscovery of both the 2d6 system & the Swords & Wizardry system. 

                                                                                  

White Box Gothic, Adventurer, Conqueror, King & White Star Rpg In The Making of An Interstellar Campaign Setting

 Somehow lately it feels like part of me has lost it's way with the OSR & perhaps its the near constant drum of diversity in games & rpg sales. Everyone seems to be trying to make a buck as fast as they can before the next hammer comes down from Cowards of the Coast. Once again I went back to Swords & Wizardry. Specifically the James M. Spahn's White Box Gothic set which comes in at about fifty pages of OSR Gothic goodness. 

Why?! You've covered White Box Gothic before. So what gives?! I'm looking to use White Box Gothic For the White Star Galaxy edition rpg. There are lot of good stuff between these pages for White Star specially if your leaning towards the void knights side of the spectrum. Between magic items that reek corruption. Several classes that would fit right into a dedicated crew of champions of light or interstellar mercs. There's a nice array of monsters that could serve as void monster stand ins. 
And this get's into an idea that's been floating in the back of my mind for a long while now. This is using ACK's Kanahu as a back water world of the Washington Sector. And how does this relate to White Star?! Simply put Kanahu is a lawless back water Sword & Sorcery world where corruption & Pulpy Eldritch evil has run amok! The Star Knights haven't gotten around to taming this world because of the fact that it was an ancient Grey protectorate world. And the reason for this conversion is simple & that's DYS Games Between Star & Void which has conversions for Adventurer,Conqeuror, King. Making it easy to have your star knights go up against the evils of the warlords of Kanahu.

Original Castles & Crusades Revolution - The Unquiet Treasure of the Dead - Session Report Four

 This blog post picks right back up into our last session report here.  The party has settled into its role in the city as trouble shooters & problem solvers. This time the party responded to the plight of a local woman & her child who were haunted by the ghosts of the ancients. The wizards of the party were skeptical but the child talked about there being jewels & gold on them. 
The monther recalled the legends of " Mmatmuor and Sodosma" & yet the party's cleric was a bit confused about the matter. At three A.M. the first of the bejeweled  skeletons showed up at the mother's back door. Royal SKELETON NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1–10 SAVES: P SIZE: Medium INT: None HD: 1 (d12) ALIGNMENT: Neutral MOVE: 30 ft. TYPE: Undead (Common) AC: 13 TREASURE: 3 ATTACKS: Weapon XP: 10+1 
Armed to the teeth & glowing with necromatic energies the ten skeletons silently attacked our party. And it was a fight to the death. They seemed to come in endless waves as party pondered what to do. The giant swollen sun broke over the horizon & the skeletons faded with the coming sun! Were these skeletons connected with the royals of the last session?! 

Rodney Mathews artwork used without permission. 

The party was a bit freaked by the skeletons & the fact that there was no alien trader to save them. They needed answers to save the mother & child. With a quick trip into the town proper they began to engage the local cleric of  Mordiggian. The cleric was more then happy to help them if they would owe him a favor. And proceeded to tell them about an ancient royal cemetary that had been covered by the sands. The tomb was home to a very noble family whose retainers had died defending the tomb.The royals corpses themselves have gone on to protect the crypts. 
The party's cleric could engage the skeletons with a speak with the dead scroll for the price of a future job. It was agreed. And three A.M. the next night the ritual was cast and the cleric engaged while the fighters stood guard. 
And good thing they did because a bandit & his six henchmen had gotten wind of the ritual from a noisy neighbor. As the cleric engaged the ghosts the party dealt with the desert bandits! 
The ghosts of the royals were assured that the mother & child meant no harm & that thier crypts were being defended even now. The ghosts wanted concessions & the souls of the bandits were offered. The ghosts excepted. The screaming echoed throughout the neighborhood even as the ghosts offered the mother & son a jeweled trinket as a token. They offered three necklaces to the party in return for watching over the cemetary from time to time. And so the deal was struck! 
And now the cleric of Geol is being summoned by his spectral libararian for a mission! Tune in next week! 

Original Castles & Crusades Revolution - Skeleton Attack- Session Report Two

 This post picks right up from where we last left off here during our last session here. Our Sunday morning Castles & Crusades game came roaring in with our Dwarf exploring the outer edges of a forgotten temple on the Great Desert. The rest of the party wasn't up.. yet. But Felth Irontooth none the less came face to face with ten skeletons of unknown Zothique origin. They were just randomly rolled up! Honest! 
SKELETON NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1–10 SAVES: P SIZE: Medium INT: None HD: 1 (d12) ALIGNMENT: Neutral MOVE: 30 ft. TYPE: Undead (Common) AC: 13 TREASURE: 1 ATTACKS: Weapon XP: 10+1 SPECIAL: Undead
And that's when a alien desert trader happened upon our lone Dwarven warrior and that's when the rest of the party awoke! And rushed in getting thier rears handed to them by the skeletons! 

Rodney Mathews Into The Flame Lands artwork used without permission 

The party were freaked out because these skeletons spoke, were highly intelligent, and wanted the party as well as the trader very dead. It took a good hour of game play to dispatch all ten skeletons. After the trader used a fire ball scroll! And he wanted to be repaid for the scroll. And there was a good amount of back & forth until the Dwarf's player remembered the enterance to the temple! 
Writ inside the temple enterance was the following- The world itself, in the end, shall be turned to a round cipher. -Old prophecy of Zothique. The temple ruin was vast & seemed to strech for what seemed like miles & there were shelf after shelf scrolls moldering & turning to dust. Suddenly the party were confronted with a spectre of a temple libararian. He wanted to know what subject they were looking for within the temple of Yululun is a minor deity in Zothique. He is the "Keeper of the Tombs" (The Weaver in the Vault).
SPECTRE NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1–6 SIZE: Medium HD: 7 (d12) MOVE: 30 ft. AC: 15 ATTACKS: Incorporeal Touch (1d8) SPECIAL: Energy Drain, Create Spawn, Darkvision 60 ft., Incorporeal, Sunlight Powerlessness, Unnatural Aura SAVES: M INT: High ALIGNMENT: Lawful Evil TYPE: ExtraordinaryUndead TREASURE: 7 XP: 660+7
The party of adventurers began to tread very carefully now & asked about the section on the occult & sorcererous knowledge. The spectre led them down a series of dark halls & echoing chambers until they came to a vast shelf of moldering scrolls. The cleric of Geol from last adventure, harry's PC thanked the spectre & asked about borrowing policies. There was 20 silver piece fee for joining the library & the cleric dropped the coins into a nearby slotted box on the nearest wall. The rest of the party soon realized they had stumbled upon an opportunity here. 
But the spectre warned them about the giant rats  that were about them! RAT, GIANT NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1–100 SIZE: Small HD: 1 (d4) MOVE: 30 ft., 15 ft. (climb) AC: 13 ATTACKS: Bite (1d2) SPECIAL: Disease, Twilight Vision SAVES: P INT: Animal ALIGNMENT: Neutral TYPE: Animal TREASURE: 1 XP: 1+1

These 10 rats took a bit longer then they were expecting & the party finally was able to claim a huge & dangerous looking spell scroll that was sitting on a nearby shelf. The libarian mentioned that spell scroll had been left behind by a rather obnoxious wizard who was seen fleeing for his life some centuries ago. That book wasn't a part of the temple libarary & the spectre was more then happy to let the party have it for a small donation. About two hours latter the party climbed out of the hole & gave the alien trader the scroll spell book and he was more then happy  with this. 

The party has very potent resource in the form of the temple libarary. And six of the player's PC's moved a rather formible rock over the enterance to the ruin. The party is now inquiring about nearby rooms.
The party's barbarian Thog had a better idea & went over to the nearest ruin & checked it out. Other then desert runners & a few giant rats the place was secure. The party disatched the rats & moved in. They went cleaning up the place & fortified it. They bought several beds & furnature from the alien trader & looted several other ruined appartments. End of session two! 

Original Castles & Crusades Revolution - Royalty & Rot - Clark Ashton Smith Death of Ilalotha, The (1937)

 Black Lord of bale and fear, master of all confusion!
By thee, thy prophet saith,
New power is given to wizards after death,
And witches in corruption draw forbidden breath
And weave such wild enchantment and illusion
As none but lamiae may use;
And through thy grace the charneled corpses lose
Their horror, and nefandous loves are lighted
In noisome vaults long nighted;
And vampires make their sacrifice to thee —
Disgorging blood as if great urns had poured
Their bright vermilion hoard
About the washed and weltering sarcophagi.
-- Ludar's Litany to Thasaidon.

On The Staircase by Rodney Mathews has little to do with this post but Zothique always seemed like the lands of demon haunted swords & degenerate humanoids to me. Rodney Mathews artwork is used without permission. 

When it comes Clark Ashton Smith's Death of Ilalotha, The (1937) isn't one of his stories that get mentioned when Zothique get's brought up. Even from it's beginning it sets a tone of decident decay & horror; "According to the custom in old Tasuun, the obsequies of Ilalotha, lady-in-waiting to the self-widowed Queen Xantlicha, had formed an occasion of much merrymaking and prolonged festivity. For three days, on a bier of diverse-colored silks from the Orient, under a rose-hued canopy that might well have domed some nuptial couch, she had lain clad with gala garments amid the great feasting-hall of the royal palace in Miraab. About her, from morning dusk to sunset, from cool even to torridly glaring dawn, the feverish tide of the funeral orgies had surged and eddied without slackening. Nobles, court officials, guardsmen, scullions, astrologers, eunuchs, and all the high ladies, waiting-women and female slaves of Xantlicha, had taken part in that prodigal debauchery which was believed to honour most fitly the deceased. Mad songs and obscene ditties were sung, and dancers whirled in vertiginous frenzy to the lascivious pleading of untirable lutes." 
Where do the PC's come into play?! There are a variety of roles that Castles & Crusades adventurers can have within the walls of the palace of  Queen Xantlicha. Exotic mecenaries spring roundly to mind here. Mercenaries that have been hired to act as both ornament & entertainment. Hidden within the body of   Clark Ashton Smith's Death of Ilalotha is the subtle but creeping corruption of dark magicks & the foulness of sorcerers of long eon's past. These dark forces  have their influences within the legacy of this story of Zothique. And its this that adds to the undercurrent of darkness within the palace walls of  Queen Xantlicha. For C&C there's plenty of opportinies for fighters, thieves, clerics,  & even a wizard or two. 

 Queen Xantlicha palace is the site & focus of some of the events of The  Death of Ilalotha. But the spectre of magick most foul I believe is the actual cause of the events of the story & the legacy of alien undeath. 
And within 'The  Death of Ilalotha' there's opportunity. And that is too take over the kingdom once the events of the story has passed. And then the PC's are going to have to deal with some dungeon & tomb delving to clear out the former royals or what they've become actually.  There's an entire kingdom for the PC's to seize & take over. Why?! Because of the fact that a population actually does need a group of rulers to take over. 
However 'The  Death of Ilalotha'  proves that Zothique is a tourist world and one that does not welcome adventurers per say. Zothique  is a demon haunted world & the 'The  Death of Ilalotha' takes this to it's logical conclusion. Sometimes royals & tombs should be left alone. But these are adventurers here & players seldom leave the ruins & tombs alone. 

Original Castles & Crusades Revolution - Footloose On Zothique - Session Report One

 In tonight's Zothique game adventure the PC's came into one of the wasteland kingdoms at the outer edges of the Great Waste. The party has gated into the world of Zothique & needs to do a bit of equipping first on the tomb world. This post picks right up from here. 

Rodney Mathews artwork used without permission 

“The sand of the desert of Yondo is not as the sand of other deserts; for Yondo lies nearest of all to the world’s rim; and strange winds, blowing from a pit no astronomer may hope to fathom, have sown its ruinous fields with the gray dust of corroding planets, the black ashes of extinguished suns. The dark, orblike mountains which rise from its wrinkled and pitted plain are not all its own, for some are fallen asteroids half-buried in that abysmal sand. Things have crept in from nether space, whose incursion is forbid by the gods of all proper and wellordered lands; but there are no such gods in Yondo, where live the hoary genii of stars abolished and decrepit demons left homeless by the destruction of antiquated hells.” — The Abominations of Yondo, CAS 1929

The party was looking over the wares of the city & they noticed the fact that there were lots of demonic protect fetishes, wands, & other devices. The party finds itself deep in the city of Tasuun - a central desert kingdom. The party find a local scimtar & blade dealer who had a minor wizard on the payroll. The party got work within the city to take out several ankhegs that were living in several abandoned sections of the city. The ankhegs had taken several children and according to the wizard as well as the bladesmith they would provide the weapons if the party took out the vermin for free. The party agreed! 
There were a total of five of these abominations & with a bit of searching the party discovered the ankhegs nest! 
ANKHEG NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1–6 SIZE: Large HD: 5 (d10) MOVE: 30 ft., 20 ft. burrow AC: 18 ATTACKS: Bite (3d6+1d4) SPECIAL: Improved Grab, Spit Acid, Twilight Vision SAVES: P INT: Animal ALIGNMENT: Neutral TYPE: Beast TREASURE: 5 XP: 220+5

The rest of the game consisted of the dwarf acting as bait & the rest of the party acting as ambush in the meantime. Taking a sum total of a half an hour the ankhegs were mopped up swiftly! The adventurers discovered the lair of a former wizard that was being used by the ankhegs. But one of the fighters Sir Gwyain lost his life to the acid spray the monsters. 

The party found several skeletons & a ruined book, a small urn of silver coins, a wand, & small cache of gems. And came face to face with the ghost of the former wizard in question & after a bit of parley with the party's wizard. The party was able to depart with the items. They had no intention of telling the bladesmith or wizard about said treasure. The party put out the word about being available for a job on the street. They immediately were contacted by a cleric. 
The party came across a cleric of GEOL whose looking for adventurers to help him with a demonic infestation within his home temple. The adventurers when to meet the cleric at his quarters in the old quarter.As they went to knock on his door there was the sound of struggle with the apartment. They decided to knock the door down. Immediately they saw a strange creature merging it's flesh with the flesh of the cleric! The horror ( a doppleganger) stopped choking him & dropped the cleric as it took on his form. The "cleric" swore that he is the actual cleric & the victim was actually the false cleric. The party didn't believe the monster. Doppleganger NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1 SIZE: Medium HD: 4 (d8) MOVE: 30 ft. AC: 15 ATTACKS: Slam (1d12) SPECIAL: Twilight Vision 60 ft., Detect Thoughts, Change Shape, Class Abilities, Immunity: Sleep and Charm Effects SAVES: P TYPE: Shapechanger INT: High TREASURE: 4 ALIGNMENT: Neutral Evil XP: 120+4 
The Doppleganger had a ring of magic missiles which it proceeded to use on the party on the next round after getting the drop on them! The shape changer backed away from the party after they took cover. He slowly made his way toward the apartment window with a handful of scrolls! 
The adventurers closed in on it! And after a series of fighting that smashed the hell out of the room! And they did manage to dispatch the horror after a bit of a dust up! We ended here as the cleric of Geol joined the party after being healed by our other cleric. 

Original Castles & Crusades Revolution - Decay & Horror In The Tomb - - Clark Aston Smith's The Tomb Spawn

 "Evening had come from the desert into Faraad, bringing the last stragglers of caravans. In a wine-shop near the northern gate, many traveling merchants from outer lands, parched and weary, were re-freshing themselves with the famed vintages of Yoros. To divert them from their fatigue, a story-teller spoke amid the clinking of the wine-cups:

"Great was Ossaru, being both king and wizard. He ruled over half the continent of Zothique. His armies were like the rolling sands, blown by the simoom. He commanded the genii of storm and of dark-ness, he called down the spirits of the sun. Men knew his wizardry as the green cedars know the blasting of levin."

"Half immortal, he lived from age to age, waxing in his wisdom and power till the end. Thasaidon, black god of evil, prospered his every spell and enterprise. And during his latter years he was companioned by the monster Nioth Korghai, who came down to Earth from an alien world, riding a fire-maned comet."

Clark Aston Smith The Tomb Spawn 

Rodney Mathews artwork used without permission 

Let's pick it right up from the last blog post on Zothique here. 

Clark Ashton Smith's Tomb Spawn is one of those Pulp tales that helps not only to develop the world of Zothique. But to take it to the next level as for setting the entire campaign world unto itself. And for Castles & Crusades 'The Tomb Spawn' spins out a tail of alien horror & decay. The monster of the tale can be seen as the black wizard or the alien monster or both who are more then the sum of thier parts;""For many years King Ossaru was served by Nioth Korghai, and gave service to the monster in return. Then Nioth Korghai sickened with a strange malady, and men heard no more the cackling in the sunken vault; and the noises of drums and fountain-mouths grew fainter, and ceased. The spells of the wizard king were powerless to avert his death; but when the monster had died, Ossaru surrounded his body with a double zone of enchantment, circle by circle, and closed the vault. And later, when Ossaru died, the vault was opened from above, and the king's mummy was lowered therein by his slaves, to repose forever beside that which remained of Nioth Korghai." 

For Castles & Crusades Clark Ashton Smith's Tomb Spawn offers something unique. Because it allows the circumstances of the alien monster & the wizard that it serves to serve as an example of a unique cosmic encounter via the alien horror Nioth Korghai. And it also serves a very unique function in which we the audience see a example of dungeon delving on the part of the jewel merchants. Another factor is also the fact that PC's should be visitors upon the wasteland shores of Zothique. Other alien monsters or demons should be unique when PC's encounter them. And unique alien monsters or demons can easily be done with The Tome of the Unclean for Castles & Crusades. A demon or devil is chosen for the demon haunted wastes of Zothique. Several Chaos mutations or special abilities are used for the horror. And place it within a tomb or other wasteland ediface & your party of doomed fools will try to loot it. Why because of the fact that Ossaru was not the only black & foul souled petty wizard who thought he was the scourage of Zothique. 

And as the D20 Zothique supplement proves there's plenty of adventure to be had upon the sands & demon haunted shores of Zothique. The tomb of  Ossaru was guarded by the undead horrors the  Ghorri. It is not unreasonable to assume the fact that there are thousands of such ruins & tombs scattered across the sands also guarded by Ghorri or demons. That being said there is every reason to assume that there are literally hundreds of abandoned cities or mega dungeons on Zothique. And adventurers to these shores could very well find themselves with loot or cursed depending upon how avarious the party of adventurers are. And were there other minor nobles in the court of the wizard King Ossaru ?! Are these nobles & royals also buried & thier own tomb doors guarded by the undead scavengers of the Ghorri packs?! Perhaps as liches or vampires which CAS uses frequently, according to the D20 Zothique booklet ;" Clark Ashton Smith uses “lamia”, “lich” and “vampire” to generally describe a variety of wicked creatures, some of which may have more specific titles in traditional fantasy roleplaying. “Lamia” is used to describe a female semi-demon or vampire-like undead that haunts abandoned areas. The semi-demonic lamia will have beastial hands and/or feet which she is incapable of fully disguising. The vampiric lamia will be wan and furtive, but usually charismatic and beautiful." And it is these vampire lamia that I believe are the true masters of parts of the desert wastes of Zothique. And these undead masters are the horrors that C&C party are going to have to parley with or deal with passage through thier sections of the wastelands of Zothique.  Clark Ashton Smith's Tomb Spawn makes it clear that the death of a wizard doesn't mean that wielder of black magick is gone. He or she has merely passed unto another state of being. And these creatures are the rule not the exception to being dungeon dwellers. Zothique is a world of adventure but it's a world of adventures beyond the grave itself in some cases.