Michael Moorcock's Elric, Clark Ashton Smith's Wizards, & The Mysteries of X2 Castle Amber (or Château d'Amberville) By Tom Moldvay

 Supreme with night, what high mysteriarch—

The undreamt-of god beyond the trinal noon
Of elder suns empyreal—past the moon
Circling some wild world outmost in the dark—
Lays on me this unfathomed wish to hark
What central sea with plume-plucked midnight strewn,
Plangent to what enormous plenilune
That lifts in silence, hinderless and stark ?
The brazen empire of the bournless waste,
The unstayed dominions of the brazen sky—
These I desire, and all things wide and deep;
And, lifted past the level years, would taste
The cup of an Olympian ecstasy,
Titanic dream, and Cyclopean sleep.

Desire of Vastness  (1922)
by Clark Ashton Smith

 

It's been my bithday & it's been very busy  its also afforded me the luxury of doing some heavy thinking about Clark Ashton Smith & Tom Moldvay's X2 Castle Amber. Specifically I've been thinking about the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville). Let's start off this blog entry with the understanding that Clark Ashton Smith's wizards are different. Even though Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) never appeared in the body of CAS's work he still operates on the same rules of conduct as other CAS wizards.



While they are alive these wizards are some of the most cunning & cagey foes that PC's can encounter. Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) is driven by two traits common to the wizards of Clark Ashton Smith his sumpreme arrogance & his desire for revenge against his family. His curse is just like Namirrha from CAS's Dark Eidolon, The (1935), its all consuming & bridge's space, time, & even history. But the real question is what was Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) like when he was alive?! The all powerful sorcerer Maal Dweb from the Xiccarph cycle maybe a good example to go by. When the CAS's wizard's are alive in their lives & have their demonic pacts, sorcerous knowledge, & arcane might backing them they are forces of nature to be reckoned with. Yes I know that this is the world of Averoigne.

But power like the Amber's family doesn't come cheap. Wizards of Clark Ashton Smith's variety love their arrogance & madness which  play into their theatricality. The Death of Malygris,  (1933) has this theatricality & revenge motif ramped up to eleven.
While these wizards are alive demons & ancient god things give them arcane  power on a grand cosmic scale but the reaper is not to be denied. In other words CAS's wizards have a cycle of power: their ascension to magickal power, the use of that power for twenty to fifty years or more, & their last reality altering curse or work. I think in my mind Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) when he was alive was a working wizard & scholar. He fits right into the world of Averoigne & he's cunning as well as very cagey combined with his sense of whimsical humor makes him very dangerous.
There's a sort of contrast between the wizards of Clark Ashton Smith & Jack Vance. They both have similar qualities & according to the List of Dying Earth Characters entry on Wiki;
"The most powerful wizards of the 21st Aeon of the Dying Earth are banded together in an association, and mostly reside in the territories of Ascolais and Almery. Unlike other wizards of the Dying Earth, such as Turjan and Mazirian, these wizards possess nearly godlike power. With little effort, they can travel to the distant past or the furthest reaches of the universe, freeze time (a popular dirty trick), prolong their lives for eons, change their shape and appearance, summon useful objects, and call forth numerous spells of protection, destruction, investigation, or simple amusement and experimentation. Much of their power comes from their ability to bind and control potent genie-like beings called sandestins, while they also derive power from their large stores of magical relics"

The all powerful sorcerer Maal Dweb from the Xiccarph cycle could & would rub elbows with Vance's contempory wizards. They probably play the usual sorcerous games of blood, & dust across time, space, & the cosmos.  But don't count Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) out of such games! On the contrary in his youth he was probably able to hold his own against any one of Vance's fop wizards. These wizards are borderline villains in many ways whose antics across space & time could endanger the innocent.
Zothique for instance boasts some of the most dangerous wizards to hail from a future world millions of years in Earth's future. Any dealings with these wizards could result in the PC's getting into circumstance way over their pay grade & heads. Death, desolation, decay & decadence always mark CAS's work. This makes Zothique the perfect place to encounter Michael Morcock's Elric & Moonglum  on some arcane errand.

Elric from
Deities & Demigods AD&D first edition
Artwork by Jeff Dee 

But the PC's will be lucky to make it out of any situation involving Elric alive. In the past any encounters with the white wolf resulted in player's PC's actually leaving the campaign area. And yes Elric has appeared in the world of Averoigne
Death is never denied in Clark Ashton Smith's cycles & may be cheated for a little while but never denied. Even undeath offers no rest for the wicked in Clark Ashton Smith's universe. The prospect of death offers an end to suffering but not for adventure.

For Fun & Profit - Fantasy Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers As The Vile Villains

So I've been doing a lot of thinking about villains & NPC's over the weekend because I've been sick as a dog. Over the weekend I got a chance to dive into Castle & Crusades The Adventurer's Backpack. Its an interesting mixed bag of essential & optional material for Castles & Crusades. I don't want to get too bogged down into the particulars. But grab it if your a C&C dungeon master.



But what it got me really thinking about were villains & specifically adventurers ala the 'murder hobo' trope that back about 2013 through 2016 seemed to be everywhere in OSR & D&D circles. The fact is what if those murder hobos actually were the villains of an adventure. Let's take it step further & go back to those evil parties that you & your friends always played in middle school & high school. But there's no examples  for those in current OSR circles!? Really?!  Because if you look at your average Dungeon Crawl Classic rpg party their exactly the sort of mercenary scum you'd see in a 70's Marvel comic book. In point of fact it states it right in the introduction; 
"You’re no hero.

You’re an adventurer: a reaver, a cutpurse, a heathen-slayer, a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets. You seek gold and glory, winning it with sword and spell, caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished. There are treasures to be won deep underneath, and you shall have them. "

Adventurers are dangerous, desperate, & very unpredictable making them perfect villain foils especially when they don't see themselves that way. Evil is after all all a matter of perspective to a dungeon master.  If you've been following what's been happening in  The Thulean - Japanese War  then you already know that the PC's have encountered many other adventurers from Sword & Sorcery & even high fantasy worlds. These raiders & murderers are already on the side of greed & pure profit. You have only to pit them against the player's PC's.


But surely gangs of D&D style adventurers don't have any place within an alternative pre WWI campaign world?! Well what you may not know is that pirates & privateers were operating all throughout the war timeline & with a world of adventurers & cutthroats its not a far throw to introduce individuals of superior talents & powers from other worlds. Especially in light of such real world characters such as the "Felix Nikolaus Alexander Georg Graf^[1] von Luckner (9 June 1881 – 13 April 1966), sometimes called Count Luckner in English"
"Felix Nikolaus Alexander Georg Graf^[1] von Luckner (9 June 1881 – 13 April 1966), sometimes called Count Luckner in English, was a German nobleman, naval officer, author, and sailor who earned the epithet Der Seeteufel (the Sea Devil), and his crew that of Die Piraten des Kaisers (the Emperor's Pirates), for his exploits in command of the sailing commerce raider SMS Seeadler (Sea Eagle) between 1916 and 1917." 


SMS Seeadler, the three-masted windjammer that raided the Atlantic
and Pacific in an age of dreadnoughts (painting by Christopher Rave)

 Count Luckner exploits make many of the Hollywood blockbusters of today pale by comparison & let's not even get into China's important role in WWI. So there is a precedence of desperate & very dangerous adventurers taking on the roles of raiders & marauders in the waters of the Orient. The idea of adventurers from other worlds  being on the main NPC villains & factions that are acting as dimensional marauders isn't so far fetched at all.



 In fact high level wizards using adventuring parties as scouts to assess & gauge the strength of a world has precedence in Appendix N fantasy. Imagine if you would if a character like John Dee who not only was an occult adviser to Queen Elizabeth but also her spy master. He might set up a series of scouts & spies to gauge the enemy's strength. Now imagine that some of the NPC adventurers that my player's have already encountered are not at all what they appear to be. The players might be in far more trouble then they realize! There are several reasons for this:

1. Adventurers are far from home & might not come back if they don't perform to their patron's satisfaction.
2. Wizard's families are a great bargaining chip.
3.  This is the perfect opportunity to slip a demon or other supernatural shape shifter into the mix to really twist the player's minds. 
4. 'Wolves in sheep's' clothing often move among pirates & marauders. Could this be a prime opportunity for a bit of NPC turn coat action? 
5. Necromancers often make excellent & unexpected additions to pirate or raider bands. 
6. Spies & assassins often lurk among pirates & in unexpected places. 
7. Brigands & bandit gangs also make excellent 'other worldly' spies. 
8. The line between mercenary & brigand is often a pay check away. 
9. Treasure & sacred relic is often relative to adventurers as the bad guys. 
10. The hand of adventurers is often very bloody indeed & their are often relatives & families that will want revenge of the murder or destruction of some fallen royal. 

Pirate & Play The Secret Origin Of The Skull Faced Formorians - Amazing Adventures Game Session Report

"A band of blood thirsty villains has been raiding a variety of worlds & our heroes have stumbled across one of their auctions. The heroes have managed to sneak aboard one of the blood thirsty pirates ships. Will they free the slaves?! Or die in the attempt!?"

My player's PC's have run run afoul of 'Skulled Faced Formorian' pirates (in terms of Castles & Crusades these are Hill Giants with superior intelligence) who were slave trading on Ricca. Ricca is a technological trade zone & full on black market port where anything goes.
One of the PC's got trapped on board the pirates tanker sub & had to fight & sealth his way out after letting loose a chaos slime that the pirates had on board. The pirates had let the slime into the duck works trying to kill our hero.

 'Skulled Faced Formorian' pirate's sub tanker based on this issues cover of Popular Mechanics Magazine - December 1958'


Skulled Faced Formorian' pirates are out & out worshipers of chaos. They would love nothing better then to see our heroes roasted on a spit at this point. Already our heroes had been busy sabotaging the sub at various points & one PC had snuck into a 'battle bridge' control room. Then they began messing with the submarine at various points such as causing as much mayhem as possible aboard ship. The pirates realized what was happening but over the course of a few games the PC's managed to make things very nasty for the pirates. Our hero fought his way off ship after managing to tag & tie the pirates system in knots The PC's towed the sub out of the black market harbor but then another sub showed up to pick the pirates as the PC's freed the slaves. But things are not at all as they seem.

'Skulled Faced Formorian' pirates are straight up Hill Giants out of Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure given a few 'extras' from the Amazing Adventures Book of Powers. 
There's someone very dangerous behind these tribes of Formorians & they're not showing their hand. These mad bastards have been raiding a variety of my campaign worlds for quite some time. This tribe of them has been taken on by some invisible hand going back ten or so years. They are mad & twisted Hill Giants with a lethal cunning & a taste for human flesh.


The Fomorians, as depicted by John Duncan (1912)

They have a taste for twisted technologies & occult technologies as well. They've been known to trade their own children for such items & some of their folks are comely. This allows these pirates to place family in a variety of locations & worlds allowing their operatives & agents to observe potential targets.
There are several monsters that will be coming out of The Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters for next week! Stay tuned fellow adventurers!
A brand new sub has arrived! And our heroes are being observed by a lone figure hovering above the horizon! 

The Deep Evil & Abiding Corruption Of WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun By Gary Gygax For Your Old School Campaigns

"A combined wilderness and dungeon adventure scenario. Background information, referee's notes, encounter keys, outdoor and dungeon level maps, and new monsters and treasures. While designed to interface with THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH, this module is capable of standing alone."

Where do I begin with my storied & varied history with WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun By Gary Gygax? Stretching all of the way back to '83 my history with module begins in when my uncle's players encountered the norkers on their way back from raiding some nearby villages. We were still licking our wounds from getting our collective asses stung from S4 THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH. The opportunity to tackle nearby local monsters sounded like a great idea. 

In retrospect that wasn't a great idea at all. The ultra creepy atmosphere of the temple its proceedings around the local area caused all kinds of issues. The whole run of this module if done right can create on of the most pervading atmosphere of dread seen at the table." Jim Bambra reviewed The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun for White Dwarf, and gave it 9 out of 10 overall. Bambra noted that "The Temple is brought to life excellently and contains plenty for players to think about, gaining entry requires good tactical play and an imaginative approach is needed to fathom out the Temple's hidden secrets."
So why is so well loved? I think because of the fact that WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun By Gary Gygax creates a creditable Lovecraftian style adventure for Greyhawk. Tharizdun is an interloper god into Greyhawk whose very existence is dangerous to a wide variety of planes. This is a mad god who wished to seize   the churning Elemental Chaos, the realm of the fallen primordials, which he hoped to seize as his own

This isn't some run of the mill god but a mad bastard god whose machinations have seen him trapped right at the center of his own web of horror.  WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun makes a lot of use of one of my favorite AD&D first edition monster books to great effect & that's the Fiend Folio.
Being known as the Elder Elemental Evil Eye, the god of WG4 has tricked a great number of entities into his web of influence; " known as the Elder Elemental Eye. In this guise, he communicated with the evil archomentals, Imix, Ogremoch, Yan-C-Bin, and Olhydra, the Princes of Elemental Evil, convincing them that they were his creations, thereby gaining their allegiance" This gives the dungeon master yet another link into the monster kin of the Fiend Folio

Now its no secret that I've attacked & reviewed WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun By Gary Gygax before on this blog. But I really want to establish the heart & soul of some of the module's Weird Tales feel. I've heard that the final fate of the module is very anticlimactic but given the Lovecraftian or Weird Tales feel to WG4 I think that the ending is completely appropriate. 
Greyhawk is as much a campaign setting as a world whose events have echoes across the planes. Tharizdun isn't something to be taken lightly & possibly one of the most dangerous deities that a party of PC's can run into. "Tharizdun was one of the deities detailed in Dragon #294 (2002), in the article "Beings of Power: Four Gods of Greyhawk."" And yes whist this is third edition D&D the suggestions of the article offer some of the shades of power of the god in my opinion for campaign use. Sometimes its not about stats but the influence of a god on a campaign setting. 


The warped insanity of this god after he was trapped in the cyst for eternity can be summed up by the dogma of his cult;"  Even when he appeared to his followers, he only spoke to them in the form of a shrieking babble that was impossible for mortals to comprehend. The following are his assumed teachings, followed by his cults.^[1]

“

Channel power to the Chained God, so he can break his chains. Retrieve lost relics and shrines to the Chained God. Pursue the obliteration of the world, in anticipation of the Chained God's liberation." Players could run into his influence anywhere as he thrashes in his prison in the Abyss. All though G4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun is a combined wilderness and dungeon adventure set in the Southern Yatil Mountains, focused on a temple dedicated to the evil and insane Greyhawk god Tharizdun. The dungeon master could have many different cult of the insane Greyhawk god appear in other campaign settings. This is something that I've done with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition. A glyph here or a dedicated cult NPC there is all it takes to fire the imaginations of players. This same tactic can be used in a variety of OSR games & recently dungeon master Steve & I were speaking about using G4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun  with Castles & Crusades.  There are two ways to go about this one is to run  S4 THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH with C&C . This puts the PC's through their paces & get's the DM plenty of adventure opportunities to bring in WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun By Gary Gygax.  The other way of handling this is to have different alien treasures & relics show up in other settings & dungeons. This is where things can get very interesting. For example I've played in games of  Victorious By Mike Stewart where artifacts of  archomentals, Imix, Ogremoch, Yan-C-Bin, &  Olhydra have show up next to those of Tharizdun. This is the same tactic that I'll be using when running WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun By Gary Gygax in my 'Old Solar System' game coming up. Is  WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun By Gary Gygax worth owning? Yes if the module is used in conjunction with S4 THE LOST CAVERNS OF TSOJCANTH. On its own WG4 takes a bit of work to utilize at the table. We've seen a thousand trapped & dead gods in comic books & literature. Power wise I'd say that Tharizdun  is about on the same level as Dr.Strange's foe's Shuma Goroth's level. In fact they have a lot in common. World altering magics, fanatical cults, world shattering levels of insanity. The fact is that if a dungeon master wanted to use Tharizdun in a modern setting then the classic issues of  Marvel Premiere #10, 1973 “Finally, Shuma-Gorath!”. These issues  would be an excellent template for a modern appearance of Tharizdun. All in all I think that  WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun By Gary Gygax is pretty underappreciated & utilized Greyhawk adventure by modern players & audiences.

Campaign Catastrophic Curse Or A Deeper Look Into The Realm of the Dungeon Master With The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide & The Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper's Guide

When it comes to campaign & world building sometimes its time to fall back into the fundamental books & guidelines. The powerhouse books often inspire deeper looks into the process of a fictional table top universe. But first let's go over some of the situation with some boots on the ground.

Dungeon master Steve's lot of players can't seem to make a commitment to a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night OSR game at the moment. So I'm fading back to back up plan 'A' which is to concentrate on my own weekend game of OSR /Amazing Adventures! rpg hybrid campaign. To this end I unpacked my copy of the Troll Lord games Castle Keeper's Guide & my copy of the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. Now at first these two books would seem to be at odds for a dungeon master. But in actuality they both have the bare bones of their respective old school & OSR systems. The Castle & Crusades Castle Keeper's Guide has the bare bones of the Siege Engine & some very solid systems for campaign implication.



But let's face facts this book doesn't have the advise & wisdom of Gary Gygax even though its a perfectly decent book. There's simply something about the DMG that has just a bit more under the hood of it. The Castle Keeper's book is however designed with several subsystems in mind that are perfectly suited to old school Pulp adventure & Sword & Sorcery. Oddly enough Castles & Crusades was designed to work with AD&D which is fine.  The Castle Keeper's Guide contains : player races, variants on the standard character races, different approaches to spells, spellbooks, material components and holy symbols, mana points, vehicles, lodgings, and hirelings. There’s a chapter on world design, including discussion of such elements as climate, geography, weather, calendars, government, a slew  of alternative settings  to the usual high medieval cultural setting such as Greco-Roman, Iron Age, Renaissance, or even Meso-American or Stone Age (and a later section even discusses futuristic and horror settings).

And its these that I'm going to be concentrating on. Now I've talked about using the Amazing Adventures! rpg by Jason Vey for some time. But the thing to remember is that the AA! rpg is completely & utterly cross compatible with the Castles & Crusades system.  Now that being said I'm going to get back to the weekend campaign that I've been working on based on several Appendix N sources. The far future world of HG Wells When The Sleeper Wakes & the year 2100 when the campaign takes place.



The first issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly, dated Winter 1928.
 The cover art is by Frank R. Paul^[1] for H.G. Wells' story When the Sleeper Wakes.Artwork is public domain.

The far future  world of 2100 is a very dangerous place with a lots of influences coming from Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique . All of this dovetails into Wells The Time Machine &  William Hope Hodgson's The Nightland. All of this has to do with the the artificial space-time structure ruins that have already cropped up in several of my games. And what about the demi gods & adventurers etc? Well this is a job for mortal men & women of adventure!


Already several of the Morlock & Abhuman factional blocks have had contact with the PC's. There the minions of several wizard's minions  prowling the New York City mega state & a bunch of artifacts from the Museum of Time & History have gone missing! Now all of this I just randomly rolled up from  the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide &  Troll Lord games Castle Keeper's Guide

The wilderness of the world of 2100 is indeed looking very dangerous! Already there are several crystal eggs that have shown up in my weekend game!  Special thanks to Heretic Werks blog for ruining my player's PC s day!

Clark Ashton Smith's Wizards & The Mysteries of X2 Castle Amber (or Château d'Amberville) By Tom Moldvay

Supreme with night, what high mysteriarch—
The undreamt-of god beyond the trinal noon
Of elder suns empyreal—past the moon
Circling some wild world outmost in the dark—
Lays on me this unfathomed wish to hark
What central sea with plume-plucked midnight strewn,
Plangent to what enormous plenilune
That lifts in silence, hinderless and stark ?
The brazen empire of the bournless waste,
The unstayed dominions of the brazen sky—
These I desire, and all things wide and deep;
And, lifted past the level years, would taste
The cup of an Olympian ecstasy,
Titanic dream, and Cyclopean sleep.

Desire of Vastness  (1922)
by Clark Ashton Smith

 

Once again I've been gone for the day yesterday but as I've said on line with social media the Christmas season is my busiest time of year. But its also afforded me the luxury of doing some heavy thinking about Clark Ashton Smith & Tom Moldvay's X2 Castle Amber. Specifically I've been thinking about the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville). Let's start off this blog entry with the understanding that Clark Ashton Smith's wizards are different. Even though Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) never appeared in the body of CAS's work he still operates on the same rules of conduct as other CAS wizards.



While they are alive these wizards are some of the most cunning & cagey foes that PC's can encounter. Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) is driven by two traits common to the wizards of Clark Ashton Smith his sumpreme arrogance & his desire for revenge against his family. His curse is just like Namirrha from CAS's Dark Eidolon, The (1935), its all consuming & bridge's space, time, & even history. But the real question is what was Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) like when he was alive?! The all powerful sorcerer Maal Dweb from the Xiccarph cycle maybe a good example to go by. When the CAS's wizard's are alive in their lives & have their demonic pacts, sorcerous knowledge, & arcane might backing them they are forces of nature to be reckoned with. Yes I know that this is the world of Averoigne.

But power like the Amber's family doesn't come cheap. Wizards of Clark Ashton Smith's variety love their arrogance & madness which  play into their theatricality. The Death of Malygris,  (1933) has this theatricality & revenge motif ramped up to eleven.
While these wizards are alive demons & ancient god things give them arcane  power on a grand cosmic scale but the reaper is not to be denied. In other words CAS's wizards have a cycle of power: their ascension to magickal power, the use of that power for twenty to fifty years or more, & their last reality altering curse or work. I think in my mind Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) when he was alive was a working wizard & scholar. He fits right into the world of Averoigne & he's cunning as well as very cagey combined with his sense of whimsical humor makes him very dangerous.
There's a sort of contrast between the wizards of Clark Ashton Smith & Jack Vance. They both have similar qualities & according to the List of Dying Earth Characters entry on Wiki;
"The most powerful wizards of the 21st Aeon of the Dying Earth are banded together in an association, and mostly reside in the territories of Ascolais and Almery. Unlike other wizards of the Dying Earth, such as Turjan and Mazirian, these wizards possess nearly godlike power. With little effort, they can travel to the distant past or the furthest reaches of the universe, freeze time (a popular dirty trick), prolong their lives for eons, change their shape and appearance, summon useful objects, and call forth numerous spells of protection, destruction, investigation, or simple amusement and experimentation. Much of their power comes from their ability to bind and control potent genie-like beings called sandestins, while they also derive power from their large stores of magical relics"

The all powerful sorcerer Maal Dweb from the Xiccarph cycle could & would rub elbows with Vance's contempory wizards. They probably play the usual sorcerous games of blood, & dust across time, space, & the cosmos.  But don't count Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) out of such games! On the contrary in his youth he was probably able to hold his own against any one of Vance's fop wizards. These wizards are borderline villains in many ways whose antics across space & time could endanger the innocent.
Zothique for instance boasts some of the most dangerous wizards to hail from a future world millions of years in Earth's future. Any dealings with these wizards could result in the PC's getting into circumstance way over their pay grade & heads. Death, desolation, decay & decadence always mark CAS's work. This makes Zothique the perfect place to encounter Michael Morcock's Elric & Moonglum  on some arcane errand.

Elric from
Deities & Demigods AD&D first edition

But the PC's will be lucky to make it out of any situation involving Elric alive. In the past any encounters with the white wolf resulted in player's PC's actually leaving the campaign area. And yes Elric has appeared in the world of Averoigne
Death is never denied in Clark Ashton Smith's cycles & may be cheated for a little while but never denied. Even undeath offers no rest for the wicked in Clark Ashton Smith's universe. The prospect of death offers an end to suffering but not for adventure.

OSR Commentary - Dark Thoughts On Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique & Tom Moldvay's X2 Castle Amber (or Château d'Amberville)

Deem ye the veiling vision will abide—
The marvel, and the glamor, and the dream
Which lies in light upon the barren world ? . . .
The wings of Phoenix towering to the sun,
Nor opals, nor the morning foam, may hold
The hueful light that as from faery moons
Is mirrored on the sand; where many a time,
From fields that hem with golden asphodel
A river like a dragon coiled in light,
Rise to the noon the hovering minarets
And soaring walls of cities Ilion-like,
Till the dim winds are hung with palaces
Of orient madreperl.
For ever lost—
Like sunset on a land of old romance—
The splendor fails, and leaves the traveller
In bournless deserts flaunting to the day.

Mirage  (1922) by Clark Ashton Smith

Frau vor untergehender Sonne (Sonnenuntergang, Sonnenaufgang, Frau in der Morgensonne

 By Caspar David Friedrich

I know that my PC  wizard will soon die but at what hour?! Oh don't worry this isn't a 'Black Leaf no!' situation.
Over the weekend its been incredibly busy & that's a good thing but some part of my demented mind was always on Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. Steve's Christmas game gave me a lot of pause & had me thinking about the Dying Earth genre & the OSR. Being on the other side of the screen for a change gave me a bit of pause & getting the chance to talk with other OSR guys. Getting the chance to play Castles & Crusades mixed with the Amazing Adventures! rpg was very cool. So much so that I had pre ordered the alternative cover bundle C&C from Troll Lords.

Slow down I'm still working my way through the books even though I've been running & playing the game. I've gotten a leg up on the system having run Amazing Adventures! rpg right out of the gate. But back to Zothique for a moment. I've always preferred CAS's  Zothique to the stuffy environs of Middle Earth or even Narnia. "Zothique...the idea of this last continent was suggested by the 'occult' traditions regarding Pushkara, which will allegedly become the home of the 7th root-race, the last race of mankind. However, I doubt if Theosophists would care for my conception, since the Zothiqueans as I have depicted them are a rather sinful and iniquitous lot, showing little sign of the spiritual evolution promised for humanity in its final cycles. Rosicrucianism seems to have some similar traditions regarding the lost continents."

-- CAS to L. Sprague de Camp,
    October 24, 1950


Over the weekend I kept thinking about how Zothique's demon haunted lands, dream harried ruins & demented wizards  fit together with a Dungeons & Dragons style of campaign. Over the weekend I went over some of my notes for the Zothique D20 sourcebook. Yes, I realize that Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea fits the bill quite nicely for a far future world millions & millions of years in the future. But these days I use the OSR retroclone & its very polished high quality adventures as world source book & setting book. Zothique is uniquely Smithian in its decadence & weird style. Because its so unique there's an air of the dangerously supernatural & oddly occult  about it in certain rpg circles. I've got to laugh this B.S. off right out of hand. But the fictional fact is that this little piece of information has inspired me to create a rather nasty cult that seeks to return all life on Earth back to Ubbo-Sathla.
This isn't the first time that this cult has reared its head in various campaigns of mine & my friends. In fact it was suggested last week that this cult might have ties to some of the goings on in the events of Castle Amber (or Château d'Amberville). Who I'm I to argue?! Players & friends can give a dungeon master endless fodder if he or she listens. Could be a common thread connecting these various alternative epochs together?


If Ubbo-Sathla plays a central role in Steve's game then there's going to a lot of Hell to pay? I've already seen some of his flare with using other members of the Mount Voormithadreth pantheon in direct opposition to the desires of the mad Outer God?! Our cleric was wielding a cross with an old school elder sign etched into the side of it.


Elder Sign By
Waerloeg



Steve name dropped several prominent NPC's from Tom Moldvay's X2 classic adventure during our session. So is he planning on dropping us into the Miocene, Castle Amber (or Château d'Amberville), or someplace even worse?! Because this is a mixed OSR &  Troll Lords game campaign there's lots of options on the table. Several NPC's have come into the mix from a variety of classic Dungeons & Dragons modules.
The wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) was rumored to be in Zothique while our party was there in the last adventure. The d'Amberville family was well known to the bandit tribe that we were staying with during the last game. And we pasted a noble house with the d'Amberville name on it. So what the Hell are the d'Ambervilles doing in the far future of Zothique? Knowing  the dungeon master's devotion to all things Clark Ashton Smith as I do our party may be for a serious ride. I've already got another PC standing by but I do think that Tom Moldvay's X2 Castle Amber (or Château d'Amberville) is going to be playing a very serious role in this mini campaign. It all wraps up by New Years!

The OSR Campaign Apocalyse - The Battle Lines of Ragnarok

When I wrote about Algernon Henry Blackwood's blog entry yesterday I wrote about his reality of fiction merely being the beach head into our world. In the far future the opening chess moves for the battle of humanity's place in the multiverse & its very soul's very existence. Ragnarok is not merely one event but a multitude of mini events leading up to the final confrontations;
The völva describes the state of humanity:

Brœðr muno beriaz ok at bǫnom verða[z] muno systrungar sifiom spilla. Hart er í heimi, hórdómr mikill —skeggǫld, skálmǫld —skildir ro klofnir— vindǫld, vargǫld— áðr verǫld steypiz. Mun engi maðr ǫðrom þyrma.	Brothers will fight and kill each other, sisters' children will defile kinship. It is harsh in the world, whoredom rife —an axe age, a sword age —shields are riven— a wind age, a wolf age— before the world goes headlong. No man will have mercy on another.
—Old Norse[14]	—English translation[14]

This brings me to William Hope Hodgson's House On The Borderlands, Hodgson was a contemporary of Algernon Henry Blackwood. The novel The House On The Borderland transcends mostly anything that H.P Lovecraft put out. And the cosmic themes of the novel are very close to the weird tales material that Arthur Machen wrote. 
We are merely tenants on this Earth & there have been multitudes of races before us many of which weren't human & these were very alien beings. These are the themes of these giants of the literature of the weird tale whose boundaries cross the definitions of science fiction, fantasy, horror, & cosmic horror spun.The House On The Borderland  weaves these themes into " a hallucinatory account of a recluse's stay at a remote house, and his experiences of supernatural creatures and otherworldly dimensions."

Sunrise in the Woods By George Inness

The Ragnarok comes in the last great days of the Earth when the heroes & gods of Earth are murdered & killed across countless cultures. Among countless worlds this happens  in the far future of Earth thousands or millions of years in our future. The recluse sees the victors of these events in The House on The Borderland;

 

"And then, as I peered, curiously, a new terror came to me; for away up among the dim peaks to my right, I had descried a vast shape of blackness, giantlike. It grew upon my sight. It had an enormous equine head, with gigantic ears, and seemed to peer steadfastly down into the arena. There was that about the pose that gave me the impression of an eternal watchfulness—of having warded that dismal place, through unknown eternities. Slowly, the monster became plainer to me; and then, suddenly, my gaze sprang from it to something further off and higher among the crags. For a long minute, I gazed, fearfully. I was strangely conscious of something not altogether unfamiliar—as though something stirred in the back of my mind. The thing was black, and had four grotesque arms. The features showed indistinctly, 'round the neck, I made out several light-colored objects. Slowly, the details came to me, and I realized, coldly, that they were skulls. Further down the body was another circling belt, showing less dark against the black trunk. Then, even as I puzzled to know what the thing was, a memory slid into my mind, and straightway, I knew that I was looking at a monstrous representation of Kali, the Hindu goddess of death.

Other remembrances of my old student days drifted into my thoughts. My glance fell back upon the huge beast-headed Thing. Simultaneously, I recognized it for the ancient Egyptian god Set, or Seth, the Destroyer of Souls. With the knowledge, there came a great sweep of questioning—'Two of the—!' I stopped, and endeavored to think. Things beyond my imagination peered into my frightened mind. I saw, obscurely. 'The old gods of mythology!' I tried to comprehend to what it was all pointing. My gaze dwelt, flickeringly, between the two. 'If—'

An idea came swiftly, and I turned, and glanced rapidly upward, searching the gloomy crags, away to my left. Something loomed out under a great peak, a shape of greyness. I wondered I had not seen it earlier, and then remembered I had not yet viewed that portion. I saw it more plainly now. It was, as I have said, grey. It had a tremendous head; but no eyes. That part of its face was blank.

Now, I saw that there were other things up among the mountains. Further off, reclining on a lofty ledge, I made out a livid mass, irregular and ghoulish. It seemed without form, save for an unclean, half-animal face, that looked out, vilely, from somewhere about its middle. And then I saw others—there were hundreds of them. They seemed to grow out of the shadows. Several I recognized almost immediately as mythological deities; others were strange to me, utterly strange, beyond the power of a human mind to conceive.

On each side, I looked, and saw more, continually. The mountains were full of strange things—Beast-gods, and Horrors so atrocious and bestial that possibility and decency deny any further attempt to describe them. And I—I was filled with a terrible sense of overwhelming horror and fear and repugnance; yet, spite of these, I wondered exceedingly. Was there then, after all, something in the old heathen worship, something more than the mere deifying of men, animals, and elements? The thought gripped me—was there?

Later, a question repeated itself. What were they, those Beast-gods, and the others? At first, they had appeared to me just sculptured Monsters placed indiscriminately among the inaccessible peaks and precipices of the surrounding mountains. Now, as I scrutinized them with greater intentness, my mind began to reach out to fresh conclusions. There was something about them, an indescribable sort of silent vitality that suggested, to my broadening consciousness, a state of life-in-death—a something that was by no means life, as we understand it; but rather an inhuman form of existence, that well might be likened to a deathless trance—a condition in which it was possible to imagine their continuing, eternally. 'Immortal!' the word rose in my thoughts unbidden; and, straightway, I grew to wondering whether this might be the immortality of the gods."
Its not merely these powers of chaos & evil that wait patiently for the cracks in the universe & the stars to come right. But its their followers that work from within the confines of our own home universes. For example the Egg of Coot whose followers work for one of the multiplicity of pieces of the higher dimensional planar aspects of the entity. An entity that wants nothing more then to tear apart the dimensional structure & replace it with its own flawed order.

Even in worlds such as Bruce Heard's Calidar there are always those who act to unwittingly to allow powers from beyond the Outer Darkness into the realities of humanity. Take for example the Guild of Demonologists. These people have truck with demons from beyond the pale;

"craft is tolerated in Caldwen because of local culture and faith in deities with demonic ancestry. This stance is rooted in the knowledge that the darkest of evils can be redeemed. Demonology does not limit itself to such values, however: it is also about knowledge and power."


Symbol & Seal of The Guild Of Demonologists
copyrighted & trademarked to Bruce Heard.

Knowledge & power are the two watch words that have allowed others such as the Hyperboreans to ascend to power on Earth in the eons  after the events of Ragnarok. Long before the coming of the empires of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique , Hyperborea was wretched into space.
How could these powers come back into the world & gain such a following among mankind? Through the power of men's dreams & those worlds where they touched. The only thing that prevented the complete extinction of mankind were heroes! Heroes & gods whose sacrifice at every turn secured the continued legacy of humanity.


The Hyperboreans were only a part of the events & after a span of thousands of years did their ancient gods return to Earth stirring even more destruction. The Earth's subjugation under their yoke was dark & very dire.


Hyperborea Players' Manual front cover pencils by Val Semeiks

Heroes & newer gods sacrificed themselves for the fate of humanity as the immortals watched from Mystara & beyond into Greyhawk. Time & space meant nothing to the gods whose lives were snuffed out like candles in the wind of the apocalypse. Only a few heroes & adventurers were left after the cycles completed themselves. They would train another group of heroes as dark powers watched from the shadows.


The victors would sit smug in the knowledge that they would have the upper hand for a while. The ever changing landscape of the planes insured that balance was forever out of reach. Across time & space the next stage was setting itself up. Heroes of course were not confined merely to the dreams of men but across many battle fields.Troubling nightmares plagued the undead dreams of an ageless villain roiling in the depths of a dungeon ancient beyond reckoning.

Review & Commentary Of Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum By Brian Young For Your Old School Campaigns

"The Codex Celtarum contains a veritable host of gaming material. Built around the complete mythological cosmos of the Celts, in it you'll find new spells for your druid, cleric, and illusionist. New monsters, including mountains of fey. New magic items. For the very bold, there are new powers for your characters, allowing your characters to become fey! 190 new spells 90 gods and monsters from the Celtic mythos 150 powers for the fey monsters & characters (optional) The Druids."

 

For the last two years I've been looking at the cover for Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum & pretty much wrote it off as yet another "elf games" source book for Castles & Crusades. Every time a Troll Lords sale would come up I look & think maybe?? Two things have occurred that changed my mind. One I'm actually running a Seige Engine powered game. Two I've got players who are nuts about all things Celtic. So I contacted (stalked) Troll Lord Games about the Mythos Bundle for Castles & Crusades.
When they didn't contact me right away I went ahead & bought the entire line of physical books. I loath & hate pdfs but love books at the table. Over the years I've seen various hog pog incarnations of pieces of Celtic mythology in many editions of  Original Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 3.0, OSR etc.
There is a lot of material to cover & this book tackles the subject head on & goes right into the meat & patatoes of the material. Is this a book for the player or the dungeon master? The answer is both. This book clocks in at about a hundred & seventy six pages of very well researched material.  Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum came out about five years ago & Troll Lords has expanded the Mythos line quite a bit.
This is a book for the serious dungeon This book is for the dungeon master who wants to run an entire Castles & Crusades game within a mythological Celtic Iron age setting with Fey & all that goes with it. In one book you get all of the tools for doing this because your going to be placing all of those elements into the realm of the Fairy. This book was written by an academic who knows, eats, breathes, & lives his material. Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum encompasses the entire experience of playing within & without in the realm of Fairy & Fey.
This book boils down all of the classic elements of Celtic mythology & legend into an actual playable supplement for Castles & Crusades. It does with professionalism, class, & its very well written. Brain Young is an academic who really gets into his mythological gaming material with wit & solid writing.
The layout is solid, the writing is easy to get through, the material sparks the dungeon master's imagination. But is Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum
good for other  Siege Engine products? Could this book be useful for say Amazing Adventures?!

The answer to this is yes! Much of the material here is straight up fantastic to adapt to a pulp setting & it easily lends itself to whole cloth idea. The Fey are legendary & very alien their own right. These are not weird Elves & lets play them, this is straight up epic mythological C&C material. This makes it unexpected & straight out of the box a surprise to player in a pulp game campaign. If you are going to use Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum with Amazing Adventures what are you going to need?Much of this material has been filtered  after a fashion & adapted to the Amazing Adventures Companion by its author Jason Vey.

With 190 new spells 90 gods and monsters from the Celtic mythos 150 powers for the fey monsters & characters (optional) The Druids all of these C&C elements can be ported over easily into other Troll Lord products including Amazing Adventures! rpg. I can actually see using Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum with the Victorious Rpg.  Using Victorious or Amazing Adventures I can see a pulp investigative or heroic campaign using the Celtic mythological material as adventure fodder. The adventure elements within the Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum are very fresh & well presented.
The book packs a lot into its one hundred & seventy five pages. But is the book worth its price of admission into the Celtic world of the Fey & Fairy? In a word yes! I think that Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum is not only a high quality book for Castles & Crusades but for any OSR or old school dungeon master. I give the Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum a solid five out of five.