Amazing Adventures Rpg Session - Face The Giant Bugs! Investigation of

 The PC's went up against a group of wrestlers & they survived!  But the wrestlers were out for blood! There was no reason for this?  So we started looking into the reason behind this explosion of violence. 
We were investigating & we're getting close to dealing with a force that was behind the violence within the wasteland! This session picks right up from the last session here on the blog. 

As we investigated the TV station that was a front for something. We went looking into the TV station & came face to face with giant mutant cockroaches! These things came up from the toilets as a swarm. We retreated into the hallway and threw in a few shock grenades! Then it was back into the bathroom! And we finished off the bugs leaving a mess for the TV station janitor. The bugs weren't done! 

Something was off however because our biggest fighter started to attack us. Jameson Saint John got a strange look in his eyes hit his best friend in the face! We knew it had to be the mutant roaches. The player failed his saves earlier. And from the hallway there were a horde of nasty small goblin like monsters. Our party retreated to snap our friend from his fugue state. We identified these horrors as Gibberling & these horrors are definitely under the control of 'something'. Our cleric Father Calahan was injured by a sword cut from one of these things. 

We began to search for a 'dimensional gateway''s energies and the readings were through the roof. These readings were in line with the bass gateway that we've encountered before. This is how we ended up on this post apocalyptic wasteland when we went though brass gate in The Ruins of Ends Meet. 

This picks up because  Battle Arena of Mr. Millennium adventure is back on the table top! There's more wrestling coming this coming up! 

Amazing Adventures Rpg Session - Yellow Musk Terror & The Jungle Dragon Encounter - Sleepy Time At The Garage Session Four

  Our party decided to check in at the garage where we were getting our vehicles worked on after the last session. Hanging around the garage were mutant mercenaries and they were armed waiting for us. We didn't want to deal with combat right after the encounters in the wastelands last session.  These mutants were looking for trouble and had two heavily muscled lizard men mutants among their ranks. 

 We think that these lizard men mutants might be with the local demon lord's army. And since we didn't want trouble we tossed in a bunch of sleep gas grenades that we found in the ruins. 

And then we contacted the local sheriff and these cretins locked up. Turns out that there was a reward for the capture of the three mutant outlaws! They were not happy at all that they'd been captured! They wanted violence and murder! What they got was a jail cell. 
And this is when we ran into Sir Amico The Brave a paladin who had crossed over into the wilds of post apocalyptic 1989 Earth from Greyhawk! We picked him up at the sheriff's office where he'd been helping out with little problem with 'night demons' around the town. The night demons are  from the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters.

 We then got reminded that our party had three of our number committed to taking on the mutant wrestlers in town at a no holds barred match! Battle Arena of Mr. Millennium adventure is back on the table top! 

Amazing Adventures Rpg Session - Yellow Musk Terror & The Jungle Dragon Encounter - Session Report Three

 Tonight's Amazing Adventures rpg campaign went in an interesting direction as we began to deal with the wastelands around the city & here's where things got interesting with our PC's stumbling upon a jungle dragon feasting on the corpse of a deer. The jungle dragon is from the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters & this monster was clustered around the ruins of a former skyscraper.

 Our Castles & Crusades adventurers were not impressed with this jungle dragon & we had our Elven archers positioned near the head of the monster. The adventurers were seeing shiny mini hoard of artifacts that the jungle dragon was using to luring a mate. 

The second we closed in and the jungle dragon became aware of our intentions, it's second 'trick' became apparent. All around our party were the undead corpses  of  past victims who began to arise! That's when we saw the strange vines growing through the flesh of the jungle dragon! The horror was living in symbiosis with a Yellow Musk zombie plant & in command of those minions. They closed with our party! 

The rest of the evening was spent in combat with these monsters avoiding being infeccted by them. We concluded that the jungle dragon's hoard of artifacts was not worth this hassle. The Yellow Musk Creeper is of course from the classic AD&D Fiend Folio. 

On our way back to town we stumbled upon a small set of ruins and came across a medikit, medicines, and more minor artifacts. Back in town we traded these artifacts for fuel for our vehicle. But we've still gotta deal with the mutant wrestlers and horrors of the wastlands coming up! 

Commentary On The Fiend Folio For 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons For Your Old School Science Fantasy Campaigns

 When it comes to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Fiend Folio there's something to remember about the monsters. These monsters have a completely different feel then thier American counterparts. This makes them ideal to use with Science Fantasy rpg's. Now I've talked extensively about the Fiend Folio on this blog. 

This is especially true of the OSR based games such as Stars Without Number where the creatures & monsters can easily be stand in's for alien creatures and monsters. 

Stars Without Numbers the number of systems that have been isolated by the Scream is numerous. We have no idea what or whom has been trapped. 
This makes perfect fodder for having the humanoid tribal  races that are in the Fiend Folio to the forgotten & fallen remains of alien empires. 

This goes back to something I said in my commentary on the Fiend Folio; "The Fiend Folio is the forgotten Monster Manual and the monsters are easily discounted and overlooked. This makes perfect fodder for the DM to use them and reintroduce his or her players to the terrors of them. " Stars Without Numbers has numerous space dungeons & ruins baked right into the campaign background. And this same principle applies to the undead of the Fiend Folio; "This book has some great undead in it and they are so great to add into post apocalyptic games such as Mutant Future and Gamma World as needed for alien planets and ruins. Yeah, there's a bit of science fantasy over flow with Fiend Folio and the gonzo factor is such an appeal here" 

Coming across a Vodyandi on a waterworld someplace in the interstellar back of beyond would cause quite a stir among players. The Fiend Folio has mostly been forgotten by today's fifth edition & Shadowdark crowd. This makes it a perfect suppliment to get a second life as a post apocalpytic or Science Fantasy supplement. 

Let's go back to our friend the Voyanoi here for a second. These alien horrors could have been bred by Interstellar Kua Toa and used as muscle, guardians, etc. The empire dies off and this leaves the ancient guards still going about thier duties. There's plenty of  life in the Fiend Folio as a supplement for OSR Science Fiction games. This brings up the encounter tables in the back of the Fiend Folio; "Fantastic encounter tables in the back of the book make dungeon and wildness setting design and monster placement a snap. This keeps things moving at the table during play. "

And this is doubly so for OSR Science Fiction games where a fast moving encounter can mean the difference between a successful game campaign and the loss of a player. 

It Came From A Cold Hell - The Ecology of the Xill in the Fiend Folio & Beyond

 The following is based partially on my conversation with DM Raj yesterday & his experiences with the Xill in all of their alien glory in his own games. Make no mistake he makes his player's PC's fight for every inch of space dungeon & salvaged treasure from the depths of his Spelljammer campaign. There are sprinkles & seeds from other OGL sources as we'll see. And the horrors of the Xill have been visited upon the Castles & Crusades game as well.. 

So let's get back to the Fiend Folio for a New York minute & my continuing writing for a Godbound rpg campaign. I've been quietly watching & reading of a number of bloggers since 2017 when the Kevin Crawford game came out who have converted Games Workshop 40K material.  But why?! The Fiend Folio already has an otherworldly quisi devil like creature that may or maynot have a chaos cult dedicated to their cause. That cause is the implantation, propegation, & continuation of this invasive planar species straight outta of the Fiend Folio. Yeah, I'm speaking of the Xill.



Hailing straight outta of the Ethreal & into menacing your PC's. The Xill are supposedly ripe to make a comeback in my games! They excellent proto devils just waiting to spread their madness on others as they implant an eggs & spread the infection of their race. A xill stands 4 to 5 feet tall and weighs about 100 pounds. Xills speak Infernal. Make no mistake about it these things are utterly alien & they represent entities from before even the time of gods or Hell itself.  The Xill grapples you and then parazlysis the hapless victim.
Those bitten by the xill must save vs paralyisis or be suffer paralyisis for 1d4 hours.  An xill can lay eggs inside a paralyzed creature. The young emerge about 90 days later, literally devouring the host from inside. A remove disease spell rids a victim of the egg.

The Xill are in the OGL & here we get even more info on them, they have dark vision up to  60 ft. Meaning that these bastards are from a dark environment.They can plane walk but its not at will according to their OGL entry;"

"These planar travelers like to slip between the folds of space to attack enemies as though from thin air. They can cross from the Ethereal Plane with a move action but take 2 rounds to cross back, during which time they are immobile. As a xill fades away, it becomes harder to hit: Opponents have a 20% miss chance in the first round and a 50% miss chance in the second. A xill can planewalk with a willing or helpless creature."

If the Xill sound like an alien entity straight from the Alien 1977 playbook you might not be too far off. Pathfinder in 2015 introduced the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Bestiary. This gave us the  xill matriarch. This monsterous queen's big advantage over her minions is two fold one is the speed she can implant her eggs & the cult she can create around herself; "a xill matriarch can lay 4d6 eggs in a helpless creature. These eggs hatch in 24 hours, at which point the young consume the host from within, dealing 1 point of Constitution damage per hour per young until the host dies. The young then emerge and planewalk to the Ethereal Plane, if possible."

"Xill matriarchs can take mental control of creatures in which they have implanted eggs as a full-round action. This functions as dominate monster (CL 13th) and works at any distance, even between the Ethereal Plane and Material Plane. The host takes a –4 penalty on the saving throw to resist the matriarch's control. While dominated, the victim is immune to xills' paralysis ability. The matriarch can use greater scrying on the dominated victim at will (no saving throw). A matriarch can maintain one such link at a time; if she wants to use dominate monster or greater scrying on a different creature implanted with her eggs, she must end the effects on her current victim (though she can switch back later)."
It doesn't take much to translate this into an OSR game system & so Xill matriarchs can easily be brought over into the OSR with little fan fare. These alien menaces from the coldest hells around dead stars are exactly the sort of things that the gods would be battling straight out of a Jack Kirby comic book. 


The Apotheosis of the Medici: Cosimo III sat central between his two sons and his brother below him, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
It doesn't take much to thinking that a group of Xill will come outta of the Ethreal pick on some isloted country village & begin using the place whole cloth as an incubation vessel for their young. The adventurers are part of a strike force of the gods brought in to cleanse the land of this infection when they run into an Xill matriarchs and then things get complicated. The Xill are completly alien & it doesn't matter to these alien things if your PC's are gods,demigods, or adventurers its all a matter of the survival of the species. In many ways this reflects the mind set of H.P. Lovecraft while paying homage to the uncaring nature of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. 

There are many reasons why the Xill work in campaigns: 

1. The Xill can pop up literally anywhere making them an alien menace of epic proporations. 
2. These bastards have a very dark infernal component to their make up making them easily mentionable as a race in  blasphemous tome. This means that they might easily summoned to the plane Prime ala the summoning spell from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. 
3. Ghosts & other undead resulting from an infection by the Xill might be an early warning for these monsters. 
4. Gods don't like them because they cause havoc among the psychic landscape of worshipers offerin the DM an opportunity to add them to a campaign as a possible side quest. 
5. Xill are excellent 40K stand in menaces that can act as a dangerous one shot or as a possible on going chaos cult within campaigns. 
6. Royals who have an infestation of Xill are going to be under tremedous pressure to deal with them giving opportunity for treasure or more importantly influence. 
7. Crashed space craft, ruined temple complex, deep in the dungeon there are million ways to bring Xill into your campaigns. 
8. Xill infestations could easily disrupt the flow of divine engeries in a campaign bringing to bare the full weight of the gods upon adventurers as their clerics get screwed as the holy warriors of the gods. 
9.  Xill matriarchs are part of a vast array of an alien ecology that the PC's are only beginning to grasp. 
10. The Xill fit nicely into the insanity of many of the megadungeons that populate the OSR & old school landscape giving them a two fold purpose within games. Destroying the campaign from within & taking away valuable populations without for their own reproduction. 

Against The Eye of Fear & Flame - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Session Report One

 So last I got a chance to fill in on a slot in DM Steve's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons homebrew campaign. My PC was a thief and we came up against one of the most dangerous of the Fiend Folio's monsters. We came face to face with an Eye of Fear & Flame which was intense. The thing wanted us to slay a captive goblin that we were using to guide us back to his nest's lair. Or have one of us kill one of the other party members. Neither option actually happened because we challanged the thing to a riddling contest instead. The winner takes the soul of the loser. And we knew the Eye would cheat. 

We knew the Eye would cheat and try to out flank us. And as we went through the various riddles we knew The Eye's riddles were always about corruption and the nature of evil. This is right along with the monster's description. 
Meanwhile our paladin hung back and did nothing. The party went round and round with this thing while it tried to sew discord between the group and my thief. This all took place in the dungeon between a throne room and the inner court ruins of a castle. This was not my first go around with Eyes. Finally the paladin and his knight got close enough to the Eye to get a good strike on it! 
And that's when we figured out that the thing was in the Ethereal! Son of a bitch we watched our knight and paladin use thier magic swords! Things got very intense but the Eye fled! That's right it just up and left! 
Or did it?! Wandering deeper into the dungeon we got the impression of the horror was stalking us. It was the little things like the hairs on the back of your neck or the dripping of the ichor down the castles ruined walls. We wanted to know why such a horror was in the ruined castle?! We still had a goblin nest to deal with and so put the Eye behind us? Or so we thought! And then we entered an area of total darkness and the Eye cameback with a bargain?! It would give us a map to a lower level of the dungeon if we brought it back a living Fey?! Sir Brendan & Sir Tristen were all for it because they wanted to thwart the Eye. And we took the map. I was expecting a fireball but there wasn't one. 

This was very odd indeed because I was expecting a fireball to the face. And the horror faded back into the darkness after giving the paladin the map almost but not quite mocking him. So this brings up the question, what the Hell is the Eye's game?! We plyed deeper into the pits of the dungeon peering and expecting an attack? 
What we got were a small number of giant rats! And we took our time dispatching those. This brought us to the end of the game. Very creepy encounter and weird. 

A Different OSR Ecology Of The Gibberling For Your Old School Campaigns

 Hast heard the voices of the fen,

That softly sing a lethal rune
Where reeds have caught the fallen moon—
A song more sweet than conium is,
Or honey-blended cannabis,
To draw the dreaming feet of men
On ways where none goes forth again?

Beneath the closely woven grass,
The coiling syrt, more soft and deep
Than some divan where lovers sleep,
Is fain of all who wander there;
And arms that glimmer, vague and bare,
Beckon within the lone morass
Where only dead things dwell and pass.

Beware! the voices float and fall
Half-heard, and haply sweet to thee
As are the runes of memory
And murmurs of a voice foreknown
In days when love dwelt not alone:
Beware! for where the voices call,
Slow waters weave thy charnel pall.
Warning by Clark Ashton Smith

There are some places that mankind should not go, places where the weird energies of the Astral & more sinister radiations have had their ways with  things older then men.There were beings here on this world & others long before mankind walked upright. The hand of the Enki & others has their finger prints all over these beings. These are creatures of incredible violence & malignancy, beings who are  inimical to mankind in all ways. These are beings of extremes with violence,insanity & depravity their modus operadi. They have many names across the planes Gibberling, 'The Violent Ones', 'those that murder' & their names are legion as the crimes they commit without order or reason. There is no pattern to their actions only the insanity that a comes from their twistedly insane souls.

Their murderous cannibalistic  rages & hordes pure across their target with a shocking violence & fury that always ends in the quiet of the grave. These beings pour from their hiding places to murder anyone or anything they come across with their swords. Swords created from any scrap metals they come across reforged into a generic shape that has been programmed into these beings of violence. Their swords are plain affairs but very sharp capable of slicing through bone, flesh, and muscle with easy. These beings have no society, art, language, culture,etc. They simply exist under the Earth or out among the asteroids as the remains of a biological weapons system that has gone to seed long ago or so it would seem. These beings are actually the product of weird cosmic radiations that warp the mind and souls of their victims. Latent alien genes created by beings more ancient then the Earth itself created these beings right before the last Ice Age of their epoch. They were created in honor of Nyarlathotep in ancient days but have been seen as the possible final forms of mankind in the distant future millions of years in the future of some nameless Earth.
"I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown."

Nyarlathotep by H. P. Lovecraft

There are others who whisper that in certain passages of the Necronomicon there are hints that these beings are the spawn of  Lahamu. There hints that they are possibly a prototype of mankind gone wrong or the future fate of mankind after it interbreeds with something hideous out among the stars. The tarot of Lahamu has horrid symbolic meanings in its
representations of the anti zodiac,demon-stars, and the dead constellations of many millions of years hence. There are hints in the scrolls of Varq that the reason for the Gibberlings psychotic behavior is the species cold & dim recognition of what they truly are in the face of an uncaring universe.
 Make no mistake the Gibberlings are not human in a capacity as we know it. They are species that can exist in a state of hibernation for 1d100 years as their inhuman physiology slows their organs processes to a crawl. Their alien senses draw them to places where black dimensional  occult magick energies have invaded our universe. These same energies drive them into frenzies of violence & depravity when they must murder, feed, & mate in strange sexual practices that are best not described. These involve the ritual murder of one of their own releasing the alien bacterial infection of Gibber into the air. Any survivors of one of their massacres must save vs disease or in three days take on many of the characteristics of a proto Gibberling. They will seek out the nearest sharp object, be drive into a blood lust of murder by the 'Song of the Gibber' & seek to be with their own kind on an instinctive level. These beings will seek places of desolation, ruin, & loneliness as a matter of course. 

There is a 30% chance that the proto Gibberling will commit three or more murders locally to satisfy its own mad blood lust consuming the corpses of its victims. The thing will seek out the nearest local urban village or location & commit its own ritual suicide with as many witnesses as possible to spread the contagion. Victims will begin turning into more of the monsters with a three day incubation period. These beings will seek out the scent path lead by the first of their kind & go into a quiet cocoon period beginning the final transformations. They will repeat this cycle 1d10 more times until there is a nest of 300 or more Gibberlings. Many times if caught within the first 1d8 hours powerful healing magicks can cure these beings but the change is swift. Many villages or interstellar colonies have inquisition units that handle the eradication  of nests of Gibberlings. 

Gibberlings are sensitive to other dimensional eldritch energies often seek out ruins, dungeons, or other planar locations. Their alien senses, weird physiologic make up, & instinctive level of violence make them perfect top tier predators for other worldly locations. They have been found out around the Asteroids and the Outer Worlds near the far colonies of Pluto. These beings have an instinctively dangerous cunning that has allowed the species to survive for thousands of yeas spreading their brand of madness to the far corners of the dimensions. The are not sentient in the traditional sense but share a horde hive mind with quasi telepathic & emphatic instincts on a base level. This gives some hordes a +1 on initiative during combat because of these monsters psychotic blood lust.  They bark, hiss & spit the praises to their respective forbidden gods but this is done by instinctive route.
 In the post apocalyptic wastelands recessive genes of the Gibberling species crop up in death lands as the potent mutational cocktail activates the recessive profile for this species.  The loath Morlocks, ghouls,  cavemen, mutant, and many goblinoid species which are instinctively seen as competition.
Interstellar & colony locations of deep space the Gibberling disease often manifests on failed colonies, dead worlds, & where demonic or other planar incidents have happened. The disease that creates these beings flourishes in conditions such as those. It is said among certain space wizards that the Gibberling species were used as anti personnel species by certain Lovecraftian races. 
There are certain Lovecraftian cults  which see these monsters as the true inheritors of the Earth when the stars come right. They create, interbreed, and encourage the spread of the Gibberling tribes. These same cults often find themselves on the end of the swords most often used by the monsters but see this as a necessary evil for the spread of the infection to continue.

1d20 Random Lovecraftian Encounters With Gibberlings
& Their Hordes Table 

1. There is a group of 1d8 men infected with the Gibberling disease that is headed your way. They have blood lust in their eyes and knives in their hands! Run you fools! 
2. A sink hole has opened nearby and 1d20 Gibberlings has crawled out with blood lust in their beady eyes! What will you do? They are closing with their sword which are caked with alien gore? 
3. Over head a comet of ill rumor flew last night. It was actually an escape pod of the Ancients. There is a proto Gibberling onboard with sword in hand ready for murder! 
4. Nearby a woman screams like a demon and reveals a short sword, she kills herself in spectacular fashion spraying a nearby crowd with gore. She then closes on you! Will the infection spread and will you be its next victims?
5. There are screams as a man is dragged off to nearby underground chambers that the Gibberlings have been murdering  their victims in! Will your PC's be next? 
6. Sounds like a strangled scream come from a nearby alley and a local doctor is infected with the Gibberling disease. He wields a scalpel and bone saw to take down his latest victims. At his feet lay two of his victims! 
7. A box lays in the street and inside is a strange book containing queer writing. This is a spell book belonging to a wizard whose brother has been turned into a Gibberling and the location of a nearby nest. 
8. A horde of Gibberlings pours forth from a nearby sewer system! There are at least 1d100 of the mad bastards who are on the rampage! 
9. A series of murders reveals a strange and dangerous throw back Gibberling which strangely has its mind intact but insane. It goes on a murderous spree but can't control the urge to kill! Now it wants one of the PC's! 
10. A nearby dimensional vortex has deposited a blanket of planar energies that changes anyone it touches into a Gibberling! 
11. Locals are on the hunt for a Gibberling disease infected child that ate its parent. The thing has shark like teeth and will inflict a very nasty wound on anyone it comes across. 
12. An ancient site is the home to a cult of Gibberlings and they've targeted your PC for murder! 
13. Twelve Gibberlings are on the hunt for a local wizard who has opened up a portal to an alternative dimension with a tribe of ancient Gibberlings who need more sacrifices to their forbidden and alternative sorcerous gods 
14. Two Gibberlings are acting as scouts for their tribe and want the fresh kill of a man whose crossed them with his family. 
15. An ancient relic has turned over some very dangerous designs that have attracted the arcane senses of  a group of Gibberlings. 
16. Two ancient wizards are at war but the local Gibberlings keep killing both sides. A team of specialists is enlisted for assassinating the problem.
17. An ancient cryo sleep pod contains a proto Gibberling who will go on a murderous spree if awakened! There are 1d10 local Gibberlings who are drawn to the arcane energies of the Gibberling that has come home! 
18. There is a massive horde of Gibberlings on its way to kill everyone! 
19. Twenty two swords arranged into the shape of a symbol of murder & mayhem mark the spot where an ancient warrior fell against the Gibberling horde. Now he has com back for revenge! 
20. An ancient Gibberling horde has come up from the underworld to kill your PC's! The PC's have a minor relics that that attracts them!

Blood & Webs - An Alternative Ecology For The Ettercap For Dungeons & Dragons

 I'm an unapologetic AD&D first edition Fiend Folio fan & user of all of the insane monsters within that incredible game book. The monsters in the Fiend Folio have served me very well & perhaps a bit too well. I've used all them from the first time I got the book & thumbed through it again & again for hours on end.

Among my absolute favorite Fiend Folio monsters is the Ettercap created from the life blood verse of Tolkein's Bilbo Baggins Hobbit. The Ettercap is a humanoid spider monster with the features of an insane man & the abilities of a spider. They are expert poisoners, web & trap builders, & very sneaky as well as stealthy in the extreme.
Wiki lists them as; "An ettercap is a race of bestial spider-men aberrations in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game" But there's some very interesting fiddly bits & pieces about the Ettercap. First they are found in temperate locations such as forests, swamps, etc. & they are a nightmare in their home environment. Imagine making camp under the large noses of something like this.


They have an AC of six & there's a thirty percent chance of encountering them in their lairs which are going to be an obstacle course of webbed booby traps, dead falls, trip wires, & possibly even webbed poison walls. They attack like ninja using the natural terrain to their advantage & they keep loyal pet spiders. Even though their intelligence is low they are very cagey & cunning using pack tactics to take down larger groups of adventurers.
Adventurers don't actually stand a chance against these things because of the traps they lay & the fact that their senses are so keen. Ettercaps are going to strike at night & we can draw several conclusions from Russ Nicholson's Fiend Folio artwork.

First there are the eyes which seem to indicate binocular vision on these humanoid spiderlike beings & that huge nose. So we've got a monster with low light vision & a keen sense of smell. The claws are massive & look razor sharp along with the claws on the feet perfect for climbing trees & maneuvering through their forest environment.
But where did the Ettercap come from to begin with? There are several theories in mythology over the years strongly connected with much of the lore of Dungeons & Dragon's later editions. But I've got my own campaign origin for these monsters for they are the spawn of  Arachne the spider goddess  of Greek mythology even though her origin goes back much further. The most popular story of Arachne comes from the poet Ovid;
"

One version appears in the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid.

In this version, Arachne was a shepherd's daughter who began weaving at an early age. She became a great weaver, boasted that her skill was greater than that of Athena, and refused to acknowledge that her skill came, in part at least, from the goddess. Athena took offense and set up a contest between them. Presenting herself as an old lady, she approached the boasting girl and warned: "You can never compare to any of the gods. Plead for forgiveness and Athena might spare your soul."

"Ha! I only speak the truth and if Athena thinks otherwise then let her come down and challenge me herself," Arachne replied. Athena removed her disguise and appeared in shimmering glory, clad in a sparkling white chiton. The two began weaving straight away. Athena's weaving represented four separate contests between mortals and the gods in which the gods punished mortals for setting themselves as equals of the gods. Arachne's weaving depicted ways that the gods had misled and abused mortals, particularly Zeus, tricking and seducing many women. When Athena saw that Arachne had not only insulted the gods but done so with a work far more beautiful than Athena's own, she was enraged. She ripped Arachne's work to shreds and hit her on the head three times. Terrified and ashamed, Arachne hanged herself. Then Athena said, "Live on then, and yet hang, condemned one, but, lest you are careless in future, this same condition is declared, in punishment, against your descendants, to the last generation!" After saying this she sprinkled her with the juice of Hecate's herb, and immediately at the touch of this dark poison, Arachne's hair fell out. With it went her nose and ears, her head shrank to the smallest size, and her whole body became tiny. Her slender fingers stuck to her sides as legs, the rest is belly, from which she still spins a thread, and, as a spider, weaves her ancient web."^[4] This showed how goddesses punished mortals who dared to insult them."

There is mythological evidence that the goddess had prophetic abilities & the abilities to divine the affairs of the gods. Her children inherited her bitterness toward the gods & their chosen heroes. She was consigned to the underworld. Rumors abound of  Arachne being consulted by numerous dark gods, arch devils, demon lords, & many lower world powers some escaping her wrath barely. Many others  gaining knowledge only to be consumed by her crazed lust & insane hunger for the supernatural blood of the gods.




Her children were consigned to the furthest reaches of the planes & outer dimensions . The Ettercaps were   locked away from humanity for a time but they made war upon humanity. The bitterness of the Ettercap tribes knows no bounds even today. They still lurk on the outer fringes of the wildernesses & wastelands of many lands even to this day. Ettercap mercenaries & assassins were renowned in supernatural circles for their violence & ferocity in military operations of sabotage.


Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley from 1894 edition of Lucian's True History of a battle between the People of the Moon and the People of the Earth using giant spiders.


The Ettercap tribes have deep ties with the spiders of Leng in Earth's far future Dreamlands & with the spider creatures of Zothique. The Ettercap have a strong but murky tie with the spider goddess Atlach-Nacha as she is served by several tribes of the monsters. These worshipers are of slightly more dangerous variety of the Ettercap  as they share the hatred of being disturbed from their devotion to their spider goddess. Her divine work of bridging the waking world & the Dreamlands is seen as all consuming. The Ettercaps of
Atlach-Nacha are some of the best trap makers & engineers in existence. They may be summoned by a monster summoning spell but must be paid with a live student of the arts & an offering of at least 780 gems worth of treasure before they will entertain a temporary assignment.
Don't cross the servants of Atlach-Nacha or they will not only eat the summoner but everyone else within a house or block. Only their webs left behind with odd & disturbing designs that no mortal should see. 



Image from https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/1c/cf/c834b870cad7e7bc145a6ca5bf38.jpg Gallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/V0050571.html

These creatures are sometimes employed by certain forbidden cults to create divine traps & divine dead falls in the name of their forbidden gods. Some divine dungeons & strange ruins taken over by these horrid cults often have supernaturally consigned dungeon engineers who built & maintain the tricks & traps.
These Ettrcap live for the day when the Earth will be cleared of humanity & they can once again take their rightful place under a blotted red sun.

The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition Fiend Folio As Post Apocalpytic Undead Campaign Fodder

 So after the weekend's zombie  superhero  fiasco game which went rather well for being last minute four dollar pick up. OSR thoughts  have been swirling around my head after one of the players said something about claiming the hotel as their domain for the party. The fact that we haven't done Sword & Caravan yet is because of the fact that it's a huge sprawling campaign & we're still toying with the setting. There are a lot of moving parts & pieces to the campaign setting. That's a good thing. But post apocalpytic domain play is another matter entirely. It  was very interesting because of the fact that the hotel was mostly a zombie wasteland. There are several OSR thoughts that are rattling around my head and this has to do with the zombies in our game. Zombies are one thing but when a zombie apocalypse happens the undead index of that world is going to go through the roof. And in classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons this points to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Fiend Folio. Why the Fiend Folio?! Because many of the monsters within it are easily popped right into a post apocalpytic old school or OSR game. There are a ton of undead that would fit right into an apocalpytic world especially the undead. 

Now according to this Dragon foot thread by Geoffrey from 2007; "Here are the eleven monsters that are undead in the Fiend Folio:

apparition
coffer corpse
death knight
huecuva
penanggalan
poltergeist
revenant
sheet ghoul
sheet phantom
skeleton warrior
son of Kyuss

Here is a note from Don Turnbull, the editor of the Fiend Folio:

"The Eye of Fear and Flame is not undead. If it were, it would be on the undead table (page 115). Nor is the Crypt Thing an undead monster. In neither case does the text leave any doubt--and even if it did, the undead table would resolve the matter." (from p. 10 of Dragon #55, Nov. 1981)"
The fact that there high level unead that are completely unturnable is one of those things that should exist in the Grand Game; "Death Knights and Skeleton warriors should turn as liches. As they are basically antipaladin lich and fighter lich respectively." 
Death Knights & Skeleton warriors could be the generals of a horde of undead that have come to take out the living. These horrors along with their abilities from the Fiend Folio intact could scare even hardened veteran players. 

Thinking of other OSR supplements James Mishler Games Ghosts might also be an excellent addition with lots of varied ghostly undead to add into the mix. But we're getting way ahead of ourselves here. 

According to our players the zombies might only be the start of the undead plague and they've been talking among themselves as to how to prepare. Bare in mind that none of this has been planned but the players extraploated these conclusions on their own. 

Commentary - The Magical & Alchemical Legacy Of The Lost Grimiore (Arduin Grimoire volume 4) By Dave Hargrave

" The Arduin legacy continues with 147 pages jammed packed with new ideas, tips and tricks to delight even the most discriminating gamers.

* 40 new arcane spells, conjuration’s and divine rituals, as well as a look at seven (7) new specialty mages and their craft.

* New character races, such as “Swampers”, “Red Dwarves” and the rarest of all Arduin races – the mysterious and elusive “Tzikki” folk."

"* 30 new potent potions, lotions and amazing alchemical concoctions.

* 25 new horrific monsters to challenge even the most accomplished adventure seekers.

* 17 legendary weapons and other renowned magikal treasures.

* A brief visit to one of Arduin’s famous taverns for a glass of “Black Heart Brandy” or any one of Arduin’s 37 other distinctive ales, beers, wines and liquors.

* A short jaunt into the undercity and lunch at “Dirty Dorgs”, one of Arduin’s most notorious restaurants – where anything can be had for a price!" 

If we're going to talk about the  magical & alchemical  legacy Of Arduin then we're going to dive into The Lost Grimiore (Arduin Grimoire volume 4) By Dave Hargrave. This is the Grimoire that drives home the fact that Arduin is one of the most potent magical settings for original & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition.  The fact is that the forty new arcane spells, conjuration’s and divine rituals, as well as a look at seven new specialty mages and their craft. Are perfectly aligned to slide into the role of NPC villain or enemy to a party of adventurers. 
The monsters bear this out as well. If you play a wizard, witch, or magic user on Arduin then this is the volume your going to want. Here the stakes get higher as the NPC villains & enemies have just as much access to thirty new potent potions, lotions and amazing alchemical concoctions. And some of these are quite potent and dangerous. 
The streets of the capital of Arduin are teaming with alien races, deodanth citizens, and much more. Just look at the back cover artwork for  The Lost Grimiore (Arduin Grimoire volume 4). 

If there is one location on Arduin of scum & villainy then its 'Dirty Dorgs' & you can bet that every third rate black wizard is going to know of this underworld resturant & bar. Here barred assasssins, banned thieves guild members, and other far more alien monsters cut deals, sell slaves, and much worse get done. This all takes place far below the streets of the capital of Arduin. 'Dirty Dorgs' is the place where some of the evil humanoid races of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition's Fiend Folio meet with the humans from above. If they've got the guts to..

The Lost Grimiore (Arduin Grimoire volume 4) By Dave Hargrave Is Available Here