The Domain Level Adventure Locations Of 'Landscape Giants' For Your Old School Campaigns

Landscape shaped like a face. State 1. from Wenceslaus Hollar

So when is the PC's domain,adventure location, etc. also the monster & perhaps siege weapon? When it happens to also be 'a landscape giant'. This of course comes from the great polymath from the 17th century  Athanasius Kircher whose been my dungeon saint for years now. I'm zipping around the public domain review site this morning and stumbled upon this.
The possibilities with this really are endless, the dungeon can suddenly become an NPC itself as the explorers have to navigate the inner workings of the adventure location itself. The story is according to the article;
"One of the most popular versions of the anthropomorphic landscape is the depiction of a bearded man, horizontal in rocky profile. The beginnings of this can be traced back to an image created by the great 17th-century polymath Athanasius Kircher, featured in his Ars magna lucis et umbrae (1645/6). Kircher’s design is said to have been inspired by a story related by Vitruvius about the 4th-century-BC architect Dinocrates’ plan to sculpt into Mount Athos a colossal image of Alexander the Great, who would hold a small city in one hand and with the other pour a river into a sea by means of a gigantic pitcher. Kircher’s more modest rendering — involving only a face rather than full body — was to be copied and riffed-upon many times over the next decades, including by Wenceslas Hollar, who in his rendition trims the “beard” and “hair” for a general smarter appearance."

Forget fighters having mere fortresses & wizards having towers, what if our adventurers have entire giants made up of their holdings as a possible siege weapon or dungeon. The investiment in time and resources isn't that far off what we see in AD&D or B/X D&D but its really within the Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg system  line that things begin to shine.

Joos de Momper the Younger, Anthropomorphic Landscape c.1600-1635


The recent Heroic Fantasy & Barbarian Conquerors Collection kickstarter presents the spell singing rules in their most recent update and here the idea of this sort of spell casting to awaken such a giant becomes quite appealing from a OSR adventure potential element perspective;

"He chanted a song of wizardry, / Of piercing, opening, of treachery / Revealing, uncovering, betraying. – The Lay of Leithian in The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien) 
Spellsinging is an alternative way to perform magic that is more fluid and flexible than traditional spellcasting. Spellsinging was inspired by the magic of Middle Earth, as used by Tom Bombadil and Lúthien Tinúviel; the magic of the Kalevala, itself based on traditional Finnish spellsongs; the magic of the Greek hero Orpheus; the magic of Blue in the Apprentice Adept series; and more. It could also represent other fluid types of spellcasting, such as the Wheel of Time’s channeling. The following rules explain how spellsinging works. The Elven Spellsinger class in these rules is built on these mechanics, but the Judge may convert other classes to spellsingers if desired." The PC or NPC doing such a casting is going to seriously burn through some very large amount of spell points to pull this off. Read more right over here

Study by Herman Saftleven
This also opens up the possibility of using these types of creatures for full borne adventure locations within a post apocalyptic wasteland. These sorts of giants might be controlled by ancient A.I.'s or other half forgotten super science technologies. Assigning a range of stats for this sort of an adventure location is sort of foolish but there are plenty of adventure ideas that can be used with this sort of a domain. The upkeep alone is going to require double the amount of magical energies, food stuffs, resources,etc. They might well be a part of a wasteland waiting to be sprung on unsuspecting adventurers.

A Hilly Landscape with an anthropomorphic design

Periodic spell singing or rituals might be needed to keep such a location asleep & ready for a possible military application of these monsters. Your talking at least several miles of landscapes, buildings, etc. to support such monster's Gygaxian ecologic needs. These monsters make ideal dungeon locations unto themselves especially for a sword & sorcery style game. These monsters might be the remains of Hyperborean horrors that were created centuries ago within the bounds of Hyperborea as temple, wizard tower, or Hyperborean city locations for the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game.

All in all these landscape giants are a perfect old school campaign element that can add another lay of adventure and weirdness to your campaigns.



Momper, Joost de the Younger - Allegorie des Frühlings


All artwork shown is within the public domain and breaks no copy right. So enjoy!

The Mega Dungeons Of 'Journey To the Center of The Earth' Cartoon 1967 Episode 'The Living City'

When I've been going over some of the ideas for my 'New Hartford  Beta Max Black Edition Pellucidar' campaign setting including going over classic D&D and AD&D materials as well as OSR resources. But I started looking even further afield and going with classic cartoon resources including Filmation studios.  Way back in '67 Filmation studios produced Journey To The Center of The Earth cartoon. The program was bought by and picked up for cable networks cartoon line up way back in the early Eighties over here;
"Journey to the Center of the Earth is an American science fiction Saturday morning cartoon, consisting of 17 episodes, each running 30 minutes. Produced by Filmation in association with 20th Century Fox, it aired from September 9, 1967 to September 6, 1969 on ABC Saturday Morning. It featured the voice of Ted Knight as Professor Lindenbrook. It was later shown in reruns on Sci Fi Channel's Cartoon Quest.
It appears to have taken the 1959 film, Journey to the Center of the Earth, as its starting point rather than Jules Verne's original novel, e.g. including the character of Count Saknussen and Gertrude the duck. However it moved even further away from Verne's novel than the 1959 film."

This is one of those Sixties Filmation cartoons with no real beginning, or ending episode. For All I know the party of adventurers are still down there trying to get home.What does all of this have to do with classic D&D? One episode in particular has haunted me, this was the 'Living City' episode of  this Filmation cartoon classic.  There were a few things that stood out about Journey To The Center of the Earth as fodder for D&D all of the hostile races of the cartoon knew each other, there were treaties and trade between them as implied in the seventeen episodes of the series and all of them bowed to or had trade with Atlantis. Which was the central plot axis around which everything revolved.


"The Living City"  episode aired in  November 4, 1967 & we find our heroes in a vast cavern desert where they built an improptu wind vessel to sail through the desert only to be randomly attacked by flying beetles. Don't worry the insects will be very important in a moment, they're craft is wrecked and they find themselves in front of a vast Greco Egyptian ruined city. Professor Oliver Lindenbrook mumbles something about the city being such and such from mythology but you can tell he's no idea. The ruin has one important feature and that's a pure water source that the duck finds. That duck is the real brains of the party and the joining character with the classic 1959 film, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Everything in the city from statues to mummies attacks the party! There are tons of well preserved relics & such that turn on the characters. Lars(scout 6th level with animal companion)  is separated & attacked by mummies! The professor finally cottons onto the idea that the bugs that attacked them earlier are actually inhabiting the walls, statutes, etc. in the city.

The characters of course run across the scarab queen and killing  her after running for their lives as they seem to do in every single episode and continue their journey to Atlantis which is at the center of the Earth.The city is cast into ruins supposedly right after the queen's death. I don't buy it at all. The fact is that this is a multi leveled city in the middle of an isolated vast cavern with its own desert like ecosystem. I think the beetle colony simply reproduced another queen & continued to create ambushes for any fools they run across. Why? Well because they use humans, near humans, and the like for reproduction and they'd been created way back in Atlantis way back about in pre-cataclysmic Atlantis c. 100,000 BC. They were uncovered during the travels of Alexander The Great & used as a part of some of the inner mystery cult rites and rituals. But something went very wrong & the entire minor city state was taken by the gods the population devoured by the insects or perhaps they are the insects!? They're souls trapped for all eternity within the confines of the city along with all of its riches.


So how would this play out in D&D terms pick a monster, statue or your favorite undead then let the bugs animate the whole works and no turning undead. The queen of course is a giant beetle with a telepathic ability to control her animating swarm. The city state's ruins are just sitting in a cavern waiting for some poor party to stumble upon it and pay with their lives or worse!




If you want to watch the episode of this forgotten gonzo classic there a few episodes on Youtube and you can see this one here.  According to Wiki; "There are currently no plans to release the series on DVD and/or Blu-ray Disc from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment." All rights are reserved to their respective owners and this blog entry is meant for entertainment & educational purposes only not as a violation of the copyright or trademark of their respective owners. All opinions and ideas are the writers only.