Through a Glass Upsidedown Further Thoughts On - Dark Albion, Stranger Things, EX2 Beyond The Magic Mirror As Old School Campaign Setting Set Up

The War of the Roses continues on & now we look into the deeper end of the weirdness of the Dark Albion setting with some unexpected connections!

So while I've been sick we got hit with a nice little snow storm with the unlikely name of Eugene. Anyhow let's dive into the deep end of Dark Albion & Cults of Chaos along with The  War of the Roses once again. This time let's turn up the volume on some of the weirdness. I got a chance to view Stranger Things from Net Flicks.  So what does Stranger Things have to do with War of the Roses? Everything & nothing by turns so buckle up things are about to get a bit weird & chaotic.



Special thanks to the Nelson Cash website for the Stranger Things sign maker

Just in case you don't know what Stranger Things is about;"Set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s, the first season focuses on the investigation into the disappearance of a young boy by his friends, older brother and traumatized mother and the local police chief, amid supernatural events occurring around the town including the appearance of a psychokinetic girl who helps the missing boy's friends in their own search. The second season is set a year after the first, and deals with attempts of the characters to return to normal and consequences from that season."
Not only does this show revolve around classic B/X Mentzer Dungeons & Dragons mixed with bits of Advance Dungeons & Dragons as a framing device but it uses it to book end the movie like quality of the show. Look there are numerous videos on the hidden meanings, Eighties movie & television homages, etc. Today I want to focus on the show's connection to Alice in Wonderland's sequel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) & the deep roots to classic D&D's The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (EX2) all of which revolves around The War of the Roses. More specifically the second half of the War of the Roses


Alice entering the Looking Glass. Illustration by Sir John Tenniel

Here the events revolve around "Warwick tried first to supplant Edward with his younger brother George, Duke of Clarence, establishing the alliance by marriage to his daughter, Isabel Neville. When that plan failed, due to lack of support from Parliament, Warwick sailed to France with his family and made an alliance with the Lancastrian Queen, Margaret of Anjou, to restore Henry VI to the throne.

This resulted in two years of rapid changes of fortune, before Edward IV once again won complete victories at Barnet (April 1471), where Warwick was killed, and Tewkesbury (May 1471) where the Lancastrian heir, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales was executed after the battle. Queen Margaret was escorted to London as a prisoner and Henry was murdered in the Tower of London several days later, ending the direct Lancastrian line of succession.

A period of comparative peace followed, ending with the unexpected death of King Edward in 1483. His surviving brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, first moved to prevent the unpopular Woodville family of Edward's widow from participating in the government during the minority of Edward's son, Edward V, and then seized the throne for himself, using the suspect legitimacy of Edward IV's marriage as pretext."
So during the second half of the War of the Roses the stakes are higher & chaos is on the ascendance, the forces of men, the dark supernatural, & warfare are in full play. If the PC's have survived up to this point then the campaign setting is going to get really dangerous. This might be a dark reflection of  "Through the Looking-Glass includes such celebrated verses as "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter", and the episode involving Tweedledum and Tweedledee." So whose going to be the 'Alice' this time?
The  direct Lancastrian line of succession is gone & the its going to be a now or never race to the throne! This is also going to be where the blood is going to be split on the stones of adventure! Like it or not the PC's are going to have to put up or shut up & here's where the high level play happens. No I'm not talking about the encounters, etc. found in EX2 which
"In his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, Lawrence Schick said that the scenario was "inspired by Alice and Wonderland, but with the whimsy replaced by opportunities for slaughter"". No I'm talking about dealing with both the politics of the War of the Roses & the partial planes of Fairyland that the Elves have been angling from this whole time. Oh did I forget to mention the frogmen and their Lovecraftian Gods will have tried an invasion or will be any second now?


Everything depends on the PC's who because their pawns in this 'game' are the perfect bait and switch. Like the 'Red Queen' they can move very fast & in any direction. This brings up the other players on the chess board 'the vampires'. That's right A Red & Pleasant Land is a partial plane and sinks up with The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.
"In this module, the player characters plummet into a strange partial plane.^[1] They meet the Jabberwock, the Bandersnatch, and the Walrus and the Carpenter, and become involved in a giant game of chess" The question is will the PC's realize in time just how big the chess game is? Because their actions might trap them as kings & queens or have them be in the Tower of London themselves!
Because the PC's are going to have to choose to carve out a domain within fairyland or move into Albion's harsh wartorn reality. Either way their going to have blood on their hands & rage in their hearts. There tough choices to be had in this sort of a campaign.

But how does does sink up with Stranger Things? I'm sure you think that Eleven is Alice & that the 'upside down' matches Fairyland? Umm yes & no. You see Will Byers is actually the 'Alice' whose very presence attracts the Demogorgon monster. The Upsidedown is the Plane of Shadows(they can't call it that without getting sued so it becomes the Vale of Shadows) which might be the strange Lovecraftian glue that holds the underworld of Dark Albion together. There are deep connections to the Roman Underworld & tthe Plane of Shadow was the largest Demi-Plane of the Ethereal Plane which might be the martial that the Elves of Dark Albion have been constructing these fairyland realms from.
There are other parrells between the Upsidedown & the chaos of Dark Albion. The highly personal corruption that results from the contact of magick in Dark Albion. The monsters and demons that seem to dwell in the magical realms of Dark Albion and the connection to the Welsh & Celtic 'other worlds' of mythology and legend.

So what heck has been happening on these partial planes? I haven't gone into the occult symbolism of Stranger Things (there are tons of videos & references on the subject a quick Google search will turn up dozens) but there literally hundreds of occult interpretations of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Most of these might relate to the strange fairyland connections and cults.
There are several reasons why this might be happening:

• The Elves might be using the plane of Shadows for rapid movement of VIP chaos cult assets & slaves during the Wars of The Roses. Their grip on their partial plane assets might be slipping 
• The murder of various War of the Roses royal parsonages might be a sacrifice to various otherworldly fairyland god things and deities remember one man's god is another man's demon 
• Undead, ghosts, etc. had vary different connotations in Dark Albion's War of the Roses period then they have in D&D. The setting makes all the difference or the Dungeon master's interpretation of mythology and legend is the final arbitrator in these matters. 
• Brushes with the creatures or things of the partial planes, fairyland or the Shadow Plane might infect the PC with some heinous chaos corruption.Save vs death or at the vary least poison might be called for
•  Any brush with these dark forces and the agents of the Unconquered Sun will have the PC's heads unless they themselves are conducting the inquistor's investigations.
  Campaigns in this vein are going to be trickery affairs because of their timing within  the Dark Albion setting. They call for patience and a well verse sense of the assets involved.

1d10 Random Finds From Across Space And The Planes Table Inspired By A Red and Pleasant Land

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Adventurers and reprobate heroes are likely to run across random and somewhat dangerous items that seem to be attracted by the floats om and jetsam  of Voivodja. The place is a whirl pool of hoary and dangerously imaginative evocative weirdness that picks up on the collective unconsciousness of the fairy tale like madness of the place and its vampire faction inhabitants. Here then are a chart of 1d10 bits and pieces of strange, unusual, sometimes destructive items that are found along the fairy pathways, roads, and worse as you make your way to the lands of the high weird.

1d10 Random Finds From Across Space And The Planes Table

1. A gossamer shroud of shadow stuff belonging to some noble vampire whose family is worried sick about the missing shadow. The semi living stuff is looking for some male or female vampire's soul to attach to. This treasured stuff can slip into the sbackground of a PC, it allows them to hide in shadows and see the invisible. 
2. An ornate knife that allows its user to cut and stab beings that are seemingly immune to the effects of physical objects and magical weapons. This knife has a secret compartment that holds a dram of demon's blood. The knife can also slice half truths well and was forged in the heart blood of a thousand lawyers. 
3. A short sword made of the remains of  several pairs of glass slippers. The sword is a +2 weapon and will glow in the presence of demons or demon blooded. The thing is named Mystic Willow. 
4. A small ornate box containing several miniature marbles which each contain a scene from a near by farm. The marbles will explode of 2d6 points of damage. The mtarbles were drawn from the fairylands and odd dreamscapes. 
5. A spinning wheel that will spin the owner a new skein from old dreams and nightmares. The owner will be a monster every new moon. The wheel will prick whomever is using it and activate with a drop of blood.  
6. An ancient deck of Tarot cards each deck is unique and has been created by an artist with hand painted cards each one able to bestow a vision of a possible future. The dreams and visions will animate by fairies bound within the cards. 
7. A dagger fashioned from a piece of wrought iron from Hell. The dagger is cold and icy able to cut the heart from a vampire. 
8. A collar for a griffon made from dwarven gold able to resist any escape attempt but able to be removed with a whispered song of old. The collar could be used for a human and it will add +1 to charisma. 
9. A silver pocket watch able to stop time for one minute. The powers itself from the blood of its owner with  giant silver needle that will do two points of damage every new moon.  The needle is a small +1 dagger in its own right. 
10. A small set of silver and gold fangs carefully artistically created to magically fit into a person's mouth. The fangs will add one point of damage each time they are used to draw blood. The fangs will telepathically and magically relate the latest gossip from fairy land and magically make its owner feel awake and alive. The fangs add +2 points during seduction and feeding attempts. 

This is merely a small selection of the objects and treasure floating around planes and byways near Voivodja

These types of treasure will most likely have weird and strange guardians nearby to destroy any interlopers into the realm of Voivodja. The undead hordes will try to stay one step ahead of  adventurers who come into possession of these items. 

A Red And Pleasant Land By Zak S. As Old School Plane & Time War Campaign

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Fairytales are massive parts of the human unconsciousness that we take on as children and realize just how nightmarish and dangerous they are as adults. We look back and we're thankful that we survive the experience.
Which brings us to A Red and Pleasant Land and its use as fodder for expansion into a whole cloth campaign and adventure campaign setting.

I came across Handy Haversack's review of A Red And Pleasant Land on Dragon's foot's forums which had some very interesting and valid points as well as a revelation.  You can read it HERE
Here's the bit of the review that got me right between the eyes: 

"The front endpapers of the print book (or two printable pages in the PDF) show the map of Voivodja, bounded north and east by the Carpathian Mountains, west and south by the Terrible Goblin Woods. These, of course, mean that you can tuck the Place of Unreason pretty much anywhere on your campaign map. The map here is about 300 miles by 400 miles, though the area between the boundary terrain is more like 200 by 300. I think that in practice this could probably be scaled down (e.g., I'm thinking of placing it in the Valley of Mists on the Hyperborea map for Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea). Also, because of the nature of the place, Voivodja does not have to take up as much space on your "real world" campaign map as it does on its own. Voivodja is strange. Time and space and manners and emotions and laws and gravity and loyalty can all be subjective here, sometimes all at once. Don't worry. There are tables for this."

And just like that I hadn't even thought about using A Red and Pleasant Land with Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers. My mind was awash with possibilities of  Voivodja  and its twisted vampire factions. The whole setting is rotten with Vampires. If they could be connected with AS&SH where else might they be connected into? Carcosa perhaps? But how does Lost Carcosa connect with Voivodja ? 

I began to think about the twisted fairy tale setting and its vampires? How were they connected with Old Earth? Are they the remains of some Old Earth colony that became twisted by  Voivodja's essence in the distant past or some dim future? I thought about Clark Aston Smith's Hyperborean Cycle (found HERE) and his other creation of Zothique.

Zothique really holds the answer to my perplexing and vexing question. How to connect Carcosa and Voivodja? According to Clark Aston Smith: 

Zothique, vaguely suggested by Theosophic theories about past and future continents, is the last inhabited continent of earth. The continents of our present cycle have sunken, perhaps several times. Some have remained submerged; others have re-risen, partially, and re-arranged themselves. Zothique, as I conceive it, comprises Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia, India, parts of northern and eastern Africa, and much of the Indonesian archipelago. A new Australia exists somewhere to the south. To the west, there are only a few known islands, such as Naat, in which the black cannibals survive. To the north, are immense unexplored deserts; to the east, an immense unvoyaged sea. The peoples are mainly of Aryan or Semitic descent; but there is a negro kingdom (Ilcar) in the north- west; and scattered blacks are found throughout the other countries, mainly in palace-harems. In the southern islands survive vestiges of Indonesian or Malayan races. The science and machinery of our present civilization have long been forgotten, together with our present religions. But many gods are worshipped; and sorcery and demonism prevail again as in ancient days. Oars and sails alone are used by mariners. There are no fire-arms—only the bows, arrows, swords, javelins, etc. of antiquity. The chief language spoken (of which I have provided examples in an unpublished drama) is based on Indo-European roots and is highly inflected, like Sanskrit, Greek and Latin.

Clark Ashton Smith himself described the Zothique cycle in a letter to L. Sprague de Camp, dated November 3, 1953.

Darrell Schweitzer suggests the idea of writing about a far future land may have come from William Hope Hodgson's novel The Night Land, noting that Smith was an admirer of Hodgson's work.

More right over HERE

This campaign revolves around very old and very strange planes, worlds, timelines, all part of a Plane & Time War fought across alternative worlds and dimensions where time and space intersect. 

Sometime in the future the powers of Quas, Misrule, and Unreason fight a protracted war against the forces of  Law, Order, Reason and the very gods themselves against the backdrop of the ultimate saga of a perishing cosmos.

The very fabric of time its rife with holes and man's kingdoms are strange, old, weird,and the PC's are drawn into the middle of it all. 

Hyperborea, Voivodja, Carcosa, The Unknown Island, The Night Lands, etc are all worlds connected across branches of pseudo European timelines. Time is not an arrow but a river full of eddies and branches fought over by monsters, gods, demons, and more.
More to come folks. 

A Red & Pleasant Land By Zak S. From Lamentations Of The Flame Princess On The Dark Corner Blog

Today on the blog we follow Zak Smith down the rabbit hole with his vicious and dangerously beautiful take on Alice In Wonderland with A Red and Pleasant Land on The Dark Corner Blog. A vampiric and wonderfully wicked setting called Voivodja.
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HERE