Terror From Antarctica With G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl by Gary Gygax The Second Part Of A Pulp Adventure Campaign Cycle

Your PC's grab a hold of an ancient  chain & your party is transported a world away to adventure!

So begins the TSR classic G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl by Gary Gygax the second in the Against the Giants line of adventures. 

This is isn't the first time that I've talked about using G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl by Gary Gygax with adventurers & super heroes. But any of the 'G' series of adventures which are a part of the mega adventure Against The Giants is a weird proposition in a pulp or golden age super heroes style campaign . I've adapted them to all kinds of D&D based games & retroclones before.

I'm going to keep the Lovecraft circle route here but bring it into a far further into the veil of our world.The ice giants lead by the Jarl Grugnur and emissaries  have settled into the former ruins of an Antarctic outpost of the Elder Things. The whole adventure is taking place at the extreme edge of the world because of the use of the ancient Elven gateways to Fairyland there. Some of the first creations of the Elder Things might actually have been the Elves of Europe at the very tale end of their existence.

One such Otherworld gateway is/was under the direct control of Gwyn ap Nudd from Welsh folklore.
"Gwyn ap Nudd (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈɡwɨn ap ˈnɨːð], sometimes found with the antiquated spelling Gwynn ap Nudd) is a Welsh mythological figure, the king of the Tylwyth Teg or "fair folk" and ruler of the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn, and whose name means “white son of Nudd”. Described later on as a great warrior with a "blackened face", Gwyn is intimately associated with the otherworld in medieval Welsh literature, and is associated with the international tradition of the Wild Hunt"

Gwyn ap Nudd is intimately associated with Lludd Llaw Ereint, "Lludd of the Silver Hand", son of Beli Mawr, all of these family members are of bloodline belonging to the Lovecraftian Chaos deity Nodens & his other masks as " the Roman gods Mars, Neptune and Silvanus, and his name is cognate with that of the Irish mythological figure Nuada and the Welsh Nudd."

All of this ties directly into King Arthurs Welsh adventures with giants of legend but both Arthur and Gwalchmai fab Gwyar have run ins with some nasty pieces of work. 

The fact of the matter is that our world even in the early Twentieth century isn't ideal suited for Jotun anymore. Law is on the up stroke & the era of the gods of legend is over. The time of the Jotunn is done or so it would seem.
"In Norse mythology, the Jotun (jötnar in Old Norse, a cognate with ettin) are often opposed to the gods. While often translated as "giants", most are described as being roughly human sized. Some are portrayed as huge, such as frost giants (hrímþursar), fire giants (eldjötnar), and mountain giants (bergrisar)." The Hrímþursar are alien creatures whose Glacial rift is a completely artificial ecology of Fairyland and its an artificial construct that is another outpost into our world. G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl by Gary Gygax is a scouting mission to access the situation for a full on invasion of our world.  But even with upper level adventurers from Troll Lord Games  Amazing Adventures! rpg line or Adventurer,Conqueror, rpg  The Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu I highly doubt the PC's will survive?! What?! There are some extremely deadly monsters scattered throughout this classic adventure that are more then capable of slaughtering even upper level adventurers. The giants are deadly opponents of the most extreme variety.

The main forces of the ice giants are ogres who are ideally suited to the extreme conditions that the adventurers find themselves.
G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl by Gary Gygax is a module that might as well take place in the realms of mythology. The PC's are dipping directly into the affairs of the gods here. The whole place is crawling with  yeti, frost giants, ogres, & winter wolves. Not to mention the the prison that  contains an attractive storm giantess. Storm giants are royalty of the Jotun. Holding a Jotun royal for ransom is a very risky proposition. Throughout this blog entry I've been using the Lion & Dragon rpg retroclone as a sort of mythological framework & OSR structure. I haven't talked about this but its there none the less.
If you want to find out why watch this video

Using some of the occult ideas from Dark Albion, Lion & Dragon, & Cults of Chaos its possible to build upon & out some of the old school classic elements presented G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl by Gary Gygax as an actual frame work for a pulp style game even for a modernish setting. The ideas of these products can help to flesh out some of the more esoteric elements presented in the Against the Giant series.

The Menace From Snowdonia With G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief By Gary Gygax - The Beginning Of A Pulp Adventure Campaign Cycle

Giants of different types have been raiding lands occupied by humans. Angered by this, the human rulers hire a group of adventurers  to "punish the miscreant giants." The players' party is informed that they must defeat the giants, or have their heads placed on the chopping block. The human nobles equip the party with weapons and horses, along with a guide and a map that shows the location of the hill giants."


So last night I cracked open a copy of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief By Gary Gygax. I've been working out how to use G1 in a more pulp setting is pretty easy because the amount of adventure prep work is small. The hill giants in G1  are actually
mountain giants (bergrisar) part of the Jotunn of Norse literature & mythology. "The Jotun (jötnar in Old Norse, a cognate with ettin) are often opposed to the gods. While often translated as "giants", most are described as being roughly human sized. Some are portrayed as huge, such as frost giants (hrímþursar), fire giants (eldjötnar), and mountain giants (bergrisar)."  The giants of G1 are least Bergrisar but Chief Nosnra is a full blooded Bergrisar who should have some of the magical abilities common to those listed of giants of Norse mythology in original Dungeons & Dragons Gods, Demi Gods, & Heroes By Robert Kuntz & James Ward.


In the Welsh Arthurian lore the region of Snowdonia is the home of one of the most infamous giant kings called Rhitta (or Rhudda) Gawr, G1 Chief Nosnra is a vassal of this monster. The Arthurian  legend of Rhitta  Gawr is key to understanding the menace that PC's will be facing down.

"A well-known tale concerns Rhitta (or Rhudda) Gawr, a giant who held court in Snowdonia. He marched against warring kings Nyniaw and Peibaw, overwhelmed their armies and took their beards as trophies of his victory and fashioned them into a cap for himself. The twenty-six kings of Britain assembled their armies to destroy Rhitta but were vanquished by the giant, who cut off the kings' beards and fashioned a great cape out of them to protect him from the cold. Sometime later, as Arthur "washed his hands after slaying the red-eyed giant of Cernyw", he received a message from Rhitta, demanding his beard to patch his cloak. Arthur refused, and Rhitta marched south with his armies to claim it from him. In the resulting confrontation, Rhitta is forced to shear his own beard, and retreats "much humbled in stature but much wiser in knowledge". A variant tale claims that after receiving the demands, Arthur marched furiously up to Snowdonia and fought against the giant in a duel, in which he "lifted up his sword and struck Rhitta on the crown of the head a blow so fiercely-wounding, severely-venomous and sternly-smiting that it cut through all his head armour and his skin and his flesh and clove him in twain.",^[3] According to the story, Arthur commands that a cairn be built over his body which forms Gwyddfa Rhudda (Rhita's Cairn). Over the intervening centuries the name of Rhudda was forgotten and Gwyddfa Rhudda became known as Yr Wyddfa."


In a pulp game the remains of Gwyddfa Rhudda have been disturbed & the undead giant chieftain is wretched back into our world. Rhitta  Gawr summons his armies from the chaotic shoals of Fairyland to Snowdonia. At first its only a small scout or expeditionary force and the PC's must contend with Chief Nosnra.

But the more time that goes on the monsters from the Chaos laced unreality of Fairy become real in our world. The troglodytes, bugbears, &  carrion crawlers are all native to the Welsh 'Otherworld' and here's where Lion & Dragon's retroclone rpg comes in handy to help fill in some of the gaps of  G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.




I keep using Lion & Dragon because it helps to fill in some of the adventure gaps between mythology & pulp. Take for example Troll Lord Games Amazing Adventures! Rpg where the PC's are heroes in the mold of Doc Savage & The Shadow. The PC's are going to get in way over their heads when it comes to discovering the undead horror behind Chief Nosnra.
But whose resurrected the monster Rhitta  Gawr & why? The answer is of course the Elves of legend whose presence more then makes a solid stand in for the Drow that we find later in the series. The Elves have been taking the place of the pagan gods for centuries & passing themselves off as the true inheritors of the Cosmic wisdom since the dawn of human history.

King Arthur faces a giant in this engraving by Walter Crane

This is only the start of it because if Snowdonia  falls then the rest of England will follow but this is the perfect opportunity for PC's to journey to Blackmoor, Greyhawk, or even Hyperborea  to recruit warriors & wizards who know how to deal with the menace of giants!
My strong suggestion for getting into G1 is to crack open Amazing Adventures! rpg Companion and use some of the expanded magical guidelines for really getting the Welsh mythological flavor right!

G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief By Gary Gygax is only the first part but where will part II of this adventure cycle take the PC? Tune in next time as we find out if the PC survive as the the fiery red menace

From Bohemia To Zothique With B1 In Search of The Unknown By Mike Carr - A Massive Pulp Commentary

 
"Dire was the Silver Death; and none knew the secret of its contagion or the cure. Swift as the desert wind, it came into Yoros from the devastated realm of Tasuun, overtaking the very messengers who ran by night to give warning of its nearness. Those who were smitten felt an icy, freezing cold, an instant rigor, as if the outermost gulf had breathed upon them. Their faces and bodies whitened strangely, gleaming with a wan luster, and became stiff as long-dead corpses, all in an interim of minutes.

In the streets of Silpon and Siloar, and in Faraad, the capital of Yoros, the plague passed like an eery, glittering light from countenance to countenance under the golden lamps; and the victims fell where they were stricken; and the deathly brightness remained upon them."
Isle of the Torturers Clark Ashton Smith.

Its been a very long time since I've cracked open B1 In Search of the Unknown & I've gutted Mike Carr's classic creation over & over again. Tonight I wanted to do another shadow of the Caverns of  Quasqueton. Some of this material in tonight's blog entry is a twisting of this entry that I did back in 2017.

This entire adventure campaign element is going to hinge on combining HPL The Shadow Out of Time with Isle of the Torturers Clark Ashton Smith. This marriage is then going to use certain old school sources with OSR published materials to create a pulpastic whole.

The idea here is that someplace in the central highlands of Bohemia overnight with the rising sun a ruined castle that hasn't been seen in centuries has appeared! Several locals have reported seeing what officials might think is an optical illusion or perhaps to the better informed a window into the past. The thing isn't really in the local space time just yet.


There hasn't been a lot of hoopla over the appearance of yet another ruined castle in Prague.
The event hasn't made the papers really but as a curiosity on some back page that only some adventurers would be of interest. The legend is a local affair & dates all the way back to Arthurian times.

"Many years ago two wealthy adventurers, Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, built a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton. From this base, they conducted their affairs away from the prying eyes of civilization. While of questionable ethical standing, the two drove back a barbarian invasion and gained the support of locals. Eventually, they gathered their own army and went on an expedition against said enemies, where they met their demise."
So why are the tales of the Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown important to the people of Bohemia?  Because these adventurers were closely tied into the legends surrounding "The Crown of Saint Wenceslas". This is closely tied into the myths & legends of the book  "The Arthur of the Germans: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval German"
This mythological tradition is given weight in the chapter;"King Arthur and his Round Table in the Culture of Medieval Bohemia and in Medieval Czech Literature"


Crown of Saint Wenceslas By
K. Pacovsky

The royal Bohemian crown jewels have some particular seasonal & time constraint conditions that have been ritualistically placed upon them. These are attached to the royal mythology & legends that surround them.


"Unlike many other European royal treasures, the St. Wenceslas Crown is not displayed publicly, and only a replica is shown. Along with the other Bohemian crown jewels, it is kept in a chamber within St. Vitus Cathedral accessible by a door in the St. Wenceslas Chapel. The exact location of the chamber is not known to the general public. The entrance to the jewels is locked by seven locks whose keys are held by the President of the Czech Republic, Chair of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament, Chair of the Senate of the Parliament, the Prime Minister, Mayor of Prague, Archbishop of Prague and the Dean of Metropolitan Capitule in Prague. The jewels are only taken from the chamber and displayed for periods of several days on notable occasions approximately once every five years. The crown was exhibited in May 2016 to mark the 700th anniversary of the birth of Charles IV, and in May 2013, celebrating the inauguration of a new Czech president."

All of this ties ties into the legends of (Saint) Wenceslaus I & his legendary  legacy;
"(Saint) Wenceslaus I (Czech: Václav [ˈvaːtslaf] ( listen); c. 907 – September 28, 935), Wenceslas I or Václav the Good^[1] was the duke (kníže) of Bohemia from 921 until his assassination in 935. His younger brother, Boleslaus the Cruel, was complicit in the murder.
His martyrdom and the popularity of several biographies gave rise to a reputation for heroic goodness that resulted in his elevation to sainthood. He was posthumously declared to be a king and came to be seen as the patron saint of the Czech state. He is the subject of the well-known "Good King Wenceslas", a carol for Saint Stephen's Day."


" According to legend, one Count Radislas rose in rebellion and marched against King Wenceslas. The latter sent a deputation with offers of peace, but Radislas viewed this as a sign of cowardice. The two armies were drawn up opposite each other in battle array, when Wenceslas, to avoid shedding innocent blood, challenged Radislas to single combat. As Radislas advanced toward the king, he saw by Wenceslas side two angels, who cried: "Stand off!" Thunderstruck, Radislas repented his rebellion, threw himself from his horse at the Saint's feet, and asked for pardon. Wenceslas raised him and kindly received him again into favor.
A second enduring legend claims an army of knights sleeps under Blaník, a mountain in the Czech Republic. They will awake and, under the command of St. Wenceslaus, bring aid to the Czech people in their ultimate danger. There is a similar legend in Prague which says that when the Motherland is in danger or in its darkest times and close to ruin, the equestrian statue of King Wenceslaus in Wenceslaus Square will come to life, raise the army sleeping in Blaník, and upon crossing the Charles Bridge his horse will stumble and trip over a stone, revealing the legendary sword of Bruncvík. With this sword, King Wenceslaus will slay all the enemies of the Czechs, bringing peace and prosperity to the land.^[15] Ogden Nash wrote a comic epic poem—"The Christmas that Almost Wasn't", loosely based on the same legend—in which a boy awakens Wenceslaus and his knights to save a kingdom from usurpers who have outlawed Christmas"



Wenceslaus' assassination: the duke flees from his brother (with sword) to a church, but the priest closes the door. (Gumpold von Mantua, 10th century)
"An old Czech legend says that any usurper who places the crown on his head is doomed to die within a year, as the Crown is the personal property of St. Wenceslas and may only be worn by a rightful Bohemian king during his coronation. During World War II, Reinhard Heydrich, the Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, is said to have secretly "crowned" himself while inspecting St. Vitus' Cathedral, and was assassinated less than a year later by the Czech resistance. Although there is no evidence proving that Heydrich did so, the legend is widely believed."
The crown is the key to unlocking the legacy of Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown.So what's happening?
"Many years ago two wealthy adventurers, Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, built a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton." Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown chose the location for the Caverns of Quasqueton on purpose to take full advantage of the location because they weren't the first the use the cavern complex. Eons ago The Great Race of Yith used the Caverns of Quasqueton location as a laboratory & mining facility.

The Errol Otus depiction of the Great Race of Yith from the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition. Deities & Demigods remains a personal favorite

The Great Race of Yith used the various shadows & alternative Earths as laboratory for their grand experiments. Down in the lower unfinished levels are some of the pre-filled rooms which include a museum, an arena, and grand cavern all of which points to incredible construction possibly started by others before our two adventurers moved in and took over. Many of the monsters & other residents that moved in speak of laboratories & other underground facilities. Lizardmen, troglodytes, fishmen all point to some very high level Lovecraftian racial experimentation in the Caverns of  Quasqueton.
The Caverns of  Quasqueton were actually build over a  old Great Race of Yith R&D laboratory. Deep within the caverns there is evidence that speak to the fact that
Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown drove back a barbarian invasion with a proto version of the Silver Death & gained the support of locals. Their interference in politics helped to turn support into fear & they were destroyed for their efforts.

Could a proto version of the Silver Death  have been created deep within the bowels of
Quasqueton & its still waiting for other adventurers to find?! In a word yes.
So what is 'The St. Wenceslas Crown''s connection to all of this? "The St. Wenceslas Crown is made of 21 to 22 carat (88 to 92%) gold and decorated with precious stones and pearls. It contains a total of 19 sapphires, 44 spinels, 1 ruby, 30 emeralds and 20 pearls" The arrangement of the gems is more then merely symbolic & has deep supernatural connections to the Great Race of Yith's ability to swap minds from across time & space as well as their abilities in matters of energy. Those wearing the crown can stand the proto Silver Death's effects easily. The Isle of the Torturers however is part of the  Zothique series & is set in the far distant future of Earth. At some point way in the future the Great Race comes back & takes possession of the Caverns of Quasqueton again. The mechanisms of the caverns were tripped taking the whole affair out of view & out of time.

"[T]he Great Race ... waxed well-nigh omniscient, and turned to the task of setting up exchanges with the minds of other planets, and of exploring their pasts and futures. It sought likewise to fathom the past years and origin of that black, aeon-dead orb in far space whence its own mental heritage had come – for the mind of the Great Race was older than its bodily form. . . The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets, had looked ahead for a new world and species wherein they might have long life; and had sent their minds en masse into that future race best adapted to house them – the cone-shaped beings that peopled our earth a billion years ago.

— H. P. Lovecraft, "The Shadow Out of Time""

The Silver Death from Clark Ashton Smith's Isle of the Torturers is exactly the sort of a soft kill weapon that they'd employ against their enemies. The appearance of the ruined castle of Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown isn't really a surprise at all. The castle has been sitting in a higher dimension in Bohemia all this time.

"The concept of dimension is not restricted to physical objects. High-dimensional spaces frequently occur in mathematics and the sciences. They may be parameter spaces or configuration spaces such as in Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics; these are abstract spaces, independent of the physical space we live in."


"The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets" may not have been breaking physics as may have suggested but have been using various laws of science to their advantage using alien techniques. We could be living with a wide variety of Great Race of Yith constructs & buildings right now & not even know it.
All of this ties in with the fact that in my own alternative Earth 1904 campaign setting various dungeons & ruins 'suddenly' appear across the surface of the Earth. This has connections to the Lion & Dragon Rpg  where the Tarot might be used for viewing these dungeons & ruins existing higher dimensions remotely & perhaps safely.





"Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play card games. In English-speaking countries, where these games are not played, tarot cards are used primarily for divinatory purposes.^[1] The Trump cards and the Fool are sometimes called the Major Arcana, while the ten pip and four court cards in each suit are called Minor Arcana. The cards are traced by some occult writers to ancient Egypt or the Kabbalah but there is no documented evidence of such origins or of the usage of tarot for divination before the 18th century."

In fact Rpg Pundit has recently released RPGPundit Presents #31: The Arcana (Medieval-Authentic Tarot) From Precis Intermedia which could be used for exactly the sort of thing.
"The Tarot was a late-medieval invention. Some say that it was created as a tool for magic, while others claim that it was merely a game. This issue focuses on using the Tarot for magical techniques, from reading the cards for divination to invoking the trumps, and even to pathwalk--visiting the planes to which the trump cards are linked in order to interact with spiritual beings"
I'll be doing a review of this pdf coming up soon but for now this use of the tarot is exclusive to only  the most learned of modern occultists & inner circles of supernatural societies.


The entire idea of using B1 In Search of the Unknown as a modern Lovecraftian OSR Pulp Victoriana adventure isn't something new. Many of the design elements presented here are my brain storming with the Amazing Adventure! rpg Companion.



You can bet that the second that B1's ruined castle appears that many occult & supernatural societies are going to be rushing to claim its secrets.Yes they will kill for them but these same modern occultists & inner circles of supernatural societies are not going to bargain for the secrets already lurking within. Can you own adventurers move in and take possession of Caverns of Quasqueton again?! The race is on for fortune & glo

Goblin Fueled Rage Of Erlkings & Elverkongens Datters - A Very Different Goblin OSR Ecology -

Goblins are ubiquitous in Dungeons & Dragons & in B10 Dark's Dark Terror adventure they're some of the central antagonists. But where are they coming from?! Well I turned my attention back to Dark Albion & the Lion & Dragon rpg once again.
 

Each & every time a gate way to Fairyland opens along with the waves of unreality there are Chaos impregnated fungal spores that enter our local space time. These spores eventually grow into malevolent life forms that pick up the local psychic vibrations & dreams of nearby humans with abandon. The goblins  take on the characteristics of humans in a twisted & evil mockery of  humanity. They are the shock troops & cannon fodder of Chaos & of Elven kind beneath notice.




Wiki's goblin entry provides the fodder;
"Alternative spellings include gobblin, gobeline, gobling, goblyn, and gobbelin.
English goblin is first recorded in the 14th century and is probably from unattested Anglo-Norman *gobelin,^[1] similar to Old French gobelin, already attested around 1195 in Ambroise of Normandy's Guerre sainte, and to Medieval Latin gobelinus in Orderic Vitalis before 1141,^[2][3] which was the name of a devil or daemon haunting the country around Évreux, Normandy.
It may be related both to German kobold and to Medieval Latin cabalus, or *gobalus, itself from Greek κόβαλος (kobalos), "rogue", "knave", "imp", "goblin".^[2][4] Alternatively, it may be a diminutive or other derivative of the French proper name Gobel, more often Gobeau,^[5][6] diminutive forms Gobelet, Goblin, Goblot, but their signification is probably "somebody who sells tumblers or beakers or cups".^[7] Moreover, these proper names are not from Normandy, where the word gobelin, gobelinus first appears in the old documents. German Kobold contains the Germanic root kov- (Middle German Kobe "refuge, cavity", "hollow in a rock", Dial. English cove "hollow in a rock", English "sheltered recess on a coast", Old Norse kofi "hut, shed" ) which means originally a "hollow in the earth".^[8][9] The word is probably related to Dial. Norman gobe "hollow in a cliff", with simple suffix -lin or double suffixation -el-in (cf. Norman surnames Beuzelin,^[10] Gosselin,^[11] Étancelin,^[12] etc.)
The Welsh coblyn, a type of knocker, derives from the Old French gobelin via the English goblin.^[13][14]
The term goblette has been used to refer to female goblins"



There are far darker connotations of goblins in both golden age horror comics  & German folk lore in the form of the Erlking. For me the great Eighties film with David Bowie Labyrinth has far darker connections with German mythology. Jennifer Connelly's character has far more in common with the
Erlking's daughter then we see in the classic dark fantasy musical film. According to Jacob Grimm, the term originates with a Scandinavian (Danish) word, ellekonge "king of the elves",^[2] or for a female spirit elverkongens datter "the elven king's daughter", who is responsible for ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge.^[3][4] The New Oxford American Dictionary follows this explanation, describing the Erlking as "a bearded giant or goblin who lures little children to the land of death", mistranslated as Erlkönig in the late 18th century from ellerkonge.^[5]
It has been suggested,^{[by whom?]} that the term may derive not from "elf-king" but from the name of Herla, a figure in medieval English folklore, adapted as Herlequin, Hellequin in medieval French, in origin the leader of the Wild Hunt, in French known as maisnie Hellequin "household of Hellequin" (and as such ultimately identical with Woden), but recast as a generic "devil" in the course of the Middle Ages (and incidentally, in the 16th century also the origin of the Harlequin character). Sometimes also associated is the character of Herrequin, a ninth-century count of Boulogne of proverbial wickedness.^[6]
Herla is cast in the role of a king of the Britons who ends up spending three centuries in the realm of the elves and thus missing the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in Walter Map's 12th century De nugis curialium. The origin of the name Herla would be erilaz ("earl", Old Saxon erl), also found in the name of the Heruli (so that German erl-könig would literally correspond to earl-king)
Alternative suggestions have also been made; in 1836, Halling suggested a connection with a Turkic and Mongolian god of death or psychopomp, known as Erlik Chan
Robert Howard often used the cult of Erlik Chan as the central villains behind many of his modern tales most dangerous outings.

What does this this all mean? It means that that there are far more to goblins & witch cults then might first appear. The Elf King's Daughter might well be a head of a coven or cult of chaos with an army of goblins backing her. Remember the name says it all ;
"female spirit elverkongens datter "the elven king's daughter", who is responsible for ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge"
In my own 1904 New York City campaign the maisnie Hellequin "household of Hellequin" is a group of  murderous & necrotic Elven cults I developed using Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos & the  Amazing Adventures Companion



These cults are strongly connected with the other Le Fey sister from Arthurian literature and these familial ties weave their way from England all the way to the Kaiser's Germany. There's far more to the groves of druids & witches then at first one may think. And that lack of knowledge may get one killed!

'B4 Tom Moldvay's The Lost City As Pulp Campaign Base' - More OSR Campaign Commentary

"Lost in the desert! The only hope for survival lies in a ruined city rising out of the sands. Food, water, and wealth await heroic adventures inside and ancient pyramid ruled by a strange race of masked beings"


So last night I began the task of thinking about moving historical events around in a pulp or supers style campaign world. What would be a good beginning B/X adventure to get the ball rolling on a group of super hero adventurers?! The answer would be of course be 'B4 The Lost City' By Tom Moldvay. There are a number of reasons for this & number one is adaptability of B4 The Lost City. The module is extremely customizable & perfect for adding into a pulp Earth. I've used 'The Lost City' multiple times & talked about it many times.

Lost city settings are some of the most enduring pulp backbone & comic book setting set pieces in the genre. There are some solid reasons to use this adventure for a more modern campaign.
"The module is described as a low-level scenario, in which the only hope of the player characters' survival can be found in a ruined city slowly rising out of the sands.^[3] The adventure is set inside a huge step pyramid, with the lower pyramid only sketched out and the city itself described with a list of the major areas and a map. The adventure’s main villain is Zargon, a giant one-eyed monster and his minions. The entire double pyramid, not including the city, contains over 100 rooms."

The adventure is pure location & factions but its pulp location and factions that be ported into your own home campaign. The faith of Zargon is a slippery & dangerous one to boot. There are several cursed items that can turn the PC's from adventurers to mini Zargon monsters themselves in the adventure. The fact is that the PC's might spread the seething corruption of Zargon to the surface themselves! This is the perfect opportunity to bring in a group of mercenary heroes to tract the PC's down.
The ancient ruined city of Cynidicea is a perfect faction of a subterranean species of humanoids  to introduce the a home campaign world.  "The inhabitants of  Cynidicea are addicted to narcotics and spend most of their time in drug-induced reveries, wandering around in costumes and masks." Don't let this fool you folks, these are very dangerous and evil adversaries to unleash upon a group of pulp adventurers or super heroes.
Personally I'd place the module in the deserts of Mongolia or the Rub' al Khali desert & let the corruption of Zargon cover the whole place!
Now I've talked about using Clark Ashton Smith's The Invisible City which
first appeared  in Wonder Stories June 1932. But be very careful with it. The occult technologies & artifacts of these peoples are extremely dangerous & can be campaign breakers.

The cult of Zargon itself is another matter & an extremely dangerous chaos cult but slow & subtle. Cults need time & patience to work their wiles on society & to flesh out Zargon's faith I suggest Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos.
Its got all of the tools needed to really bring forth the true under current of seething hate that echoes through the demonic monster's faith. This same chaotic  portrayal ties in nicely with the ACK's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu



Alright so let's talk about the three thousand pound elephant in the room the fact that B4 The Lost City doesn't have all of its levels filled in. There's a thread over on Dragon's foot B4 Lost City expansions that could be used as a starting point for this.

There's also even more information on Tom Moldvay's "lost modules" over on Havard's blog & its good stuff.

Troll Lord's Amazing Adventures! has some interesting ideas for bring pulp adventures to life. B4 The Lost City is a perfect location based adventure to help do this. But how does one go about actually using super hero adventurers or pulp heroes with a D&D or B/X Dungeons & Dragons game? I've got a bit of experience in that dungeon mastering in that direction.