Adventuring in the OSR Lovecraftian Nighmare - Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa & Beyond

 

Its been a while since we kicked the tires on an OSR Saucer & Sandel campaign. The first thing that came to mind was Geffeory McKinney's Carcosa. Why?! Because tonight I came  Killer DM's  "Fighting Styles and Incantations for Carcosa"  Carcosa still remains one of the most polarizing rpg books of the OSR. To tell the truth, the players don't really care about the controversy. But there's been a lot of water under this bridge since this was one of the first real OSR books that came into my hands. But at this point what the Hell would we run Carcosa with?! Honestly it would probably Night Owl Workshop's Warriors of the Red Planet rpg system. 

Sometimes its all about getting back to basics & not worrying about the OSR or the New Wave of Rpg players. The alien shores of Carcosa beckon & at this point it's sorta like returning to a battered alien friend. But this time I'd add in Jason Vey's Age of Conan OD&D rpg hack & supplements. These are absolutely essential in my mind. These go right along next to Realms of Crawling Chaos by Goblinoid Games.  When you need weird & alien technologies, actual relics then this is the book to use. 

There's so much muddy Lovecraftian water under the bridge of the romps across the Carcosaian landcape that many of our players remember Carcosa as a Lovecraftian dumping ground. A sort of hex crawl from the lower depths of some fever crazed nightmare. Many have said that today Carcosa is almost but not quite quant in point of fact. My own experiences with DMing Carcosa & playing in the setting are quite different. 

1. Carcosa is more then the sum of its parts. And depending upon whose DMing the setting can be quite jarring for inexpeienced players. 
2. Sorcerers are going to be your bad guys. And their infamous magicks should be infamous but not something the players need to expeience per say. Hint & inuendo go a long way let the player's mind infer details but never make a player uncomfortable at the table top. 
3. Carcosa is savage & brutal, use this to your advantage as a DM. Encounters should be memorable not but not nesssarily fatal each & everytime. 
4. This is the land of nightmares and there are lots of advantages to uses the lore of Carcosa to your advantage especially for creating dangerous NPC villains. 
5. Not every sorcerer has to be a card carrying evil jerk there are Law aligned sorcerers. 

Mutation Solution - Carcosa & Cha'alt World Campaign Setting Building - Dusting Off New Ideas for Great Old Ones

Let me start off by saying that none of the rpg writers or makers have anything whatsoever to do with with this campaign. This was all me because this was one of my all time favorite campaigns. Why?! Because I was in love with all things Jack 'King of Comics' Kirby & pre Disney Marvel movies back in 20o8. Back then it was all about a hybrid BECMI Dungeons & Dragons/Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition system that was used to convert everything on the fly. Was I violating trade mark & copy right?! Not for a personal home game I wasn't sure occasionally I'd publish a particularly good Lovecraftian or classic Marvel NPC or monster. But all of this came under the heading of personal parody rpg campaign.  

Once upon a time I was quite constantly taking care of every little bit of Carcosa rpg information that crossed my desk back in 2007 to 2012. Lately my tiny brain has been working on possibly resurrecting my Marvel Super Heroes rpg/Carcosa rpg game campaign. Over time tastes change & so do players. 

And if your a reader of this blog then you know of my passion for Cha'alt but that brings us across the fact that how would I go about incorporating this hybrid Lovecraftian planetary setting?! 

So let's talk about the fact that you've several distinctly sets of Lovecraftian factions at not only each other's throats but also possibly creating their own unique agents to travel across face of  both Carcosa & Cha'alt. The way I'm envisioning Jeffrey McKinney's Carcosa is that the book is one part of the planet & Cha'alt is the  desert part. But what the Hell is this religious war going on across the face of the planet. 

"THERE IS ALWAYS MORE TO SEE. THE UNIVERSE HAS NO END... AND NEITHER DO I."

There are legends about them on every planet, in every galaxy. They are timelss, ageless. They appear when great danger threatens, and then vanish just as quickly. Some revere them as gods, others fear them as demons. They call themselves the Immortals... and they may be the answer to your dreams, or the source of your nightmares."

Right now we're  working on incorporating some of the ideas from Steve Miller's Neulow Games D20 Secrets of the Immortals into the mix for this campaign but at the moment this is in the early phases. 


Some of the powerblocks that he's got in here are going to be make some appearances coming up in the next couple of weeks. I've already got several local players lined up for this so watch this space.