A Sword & Sorcery Take On The Borderlands - Two Free Modules Lead to An OSR Sword & Sorcery Campaign - Mark Taormino's Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #0 Village of the Borderlands Module & The Hyperborea rpg

 "Something evil has descended at the extreme border of the kingdom. Villages are being attacked and citizens are being killed. Some rumors say a coven of witches is responsible for the terror. Other rumors link the attacks to creatures that came from depths of hell. A group of hardy adventurers is needed to stop who or what is behind the attacks."

When it comes to balls to the walls Advanced Dungeons & Dragons sometimes you've got to settle back into the unexpected. That's where LG3: Evil in the Borderlands by Claude M. LeBrun comes in. It clocks in at 25 pages including maps & does the job for a module for characters levels 9-12 from 2016.  It brings home the pain with the PC' investigating an old foe of theirs; "The player character’s old nemesis, the evil wizard Gandilor, is back and he is more powerful than ever. After he was routed from his previous stronghold near Fort Kraken, Gandilor took to the hills to recover and recuperate. After many months he began of searching for new stronghold. He found a new stronghold in the mountainous land to the southeast of the kingdom."

This module is a straight up nasty run at a wizard & its got twists as well as a few turns in the right areas with action heating up an OSR campaign easily. Claude M. LeBrun brings in his usual standard of writing & for a free module this one's got solid encounters & an easy flow to the writing. The encounters are nasty. This one is part three in a module adventure chain; "This adventure was originally written for my kingdom of Sandidar, but the adventure can be inserted into any world. This adventure is the third module in my LG series. Completing either of the previous modules, Module LG1 – Terror in the Forest of Gizzick and Module LG2 – Famine at Fort Kraken, is not required in order to run this adventure. "
That suits me fine and this is obviously a homage to B2 Keep on The Borderlands By Gary Gygax. But it would be unfair to compare LG3: Evil in the Borderlands to B2 The  evil wizard Gandilor, could face the PC's down indirectly during the events of B2 and then encounter him in  LG1 – Terror in the Forest of Gizzick. 




The events in Keep on The Borderlands gives an adventure spine to the surrounding weirdness that comes into play in  Module LG2 – Famine at Fort Kraken, the second or third time that the PC's run into  the evil wizard Gandilor. Fort Kraken is another of those forts in the network that we see in the Borderlands.

"The people living in and around Fort Kraken are starving and they need your help in determining the cause of this famine so it can be stopped. Do your player characters have the mettle to end this tragedy? An adventure for Characters Levels 5 to  9."



Could these modules work in an OSR game such as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea? The answer is yes & here's how. The evil wizard Gandilor, is an Ixian necromancer hired by the cult of Chaos on one of the old disputed borders between the Vikings & the Keltic tribes. These ancient enemies haven't had an issue in a hundred years but the cult & its humanoid cultists have been slowly stirring the pot especially around the nearby areas of Brigand's Bay.
 The old humanoid birthing generators used by the chaos worshiping Hyperboreans to created disposable troops has been hijacked by cults of chaos to create an instant army. This can be backslid into LG1 – Terror in the Forest of Gizzick.  This whole thing winds up with LG3: Evil in the Borderlands.   Claude M. LeBrun's modules are generic enough that the dungeon master can easily adapt them to OSRIC with little issue.




This combination of modules should take characters from level one right up to nine if they survive. The dungeon master is going to have to work the angles to adapt some of the AD&D first edition elements of  Claude M. LeBrun 's modules  to their favorite Swords & Sorcery campaign but it can easily be done.
The adventure path from first level PC's to ninth & beyond goes something like this: 

1. B2 Keep on The Borderlands By Gary Gygax. 
2. Module LG2 – Famine at Fort Kraken
3. LG3: Evil in the Borderlands.

From here the action can be heated up with adding in the Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes by Jeffrey Talanian adding a map of the the depths of Diamond Desert in the belongings of the necromancer Gandilor. We strength his ties to the hermit in the caves of Chaos in B2 Keep on The Borderlands By Gary Gygax.  The mystery deepens but its the Ixian  necromancer's speculations about the artifacts that may add the cult of chaos in Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes.  The time factor may not be on the PC's side as the clock is ticking towards the Hyperborean Winter when things become ice & snow locked. The PC's might be in for a race against time. 

After the events of Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes the DM could tie the events into running in  the Lug Wasteland with Tim Callahan's The Beasts of Kraggoth Manor where the necromancer Gandilor's maps might lead with his speculations about  long-lost Atlantean technology.  And here's where we get back into the realms of the Borderlands. The necomancer is the latest in a series of destablizing agents that we have unhinging the Borderland region of Hyperborea. This ties directly back into Mark Taormino's Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #0 Village of the Borderlands fitting into the backround of Gary Gygax's B2 Keep on the Borderlands & T1 The Village of Hommlet. These agents have been placed within the Borderlands to bring in the armies of Chaos in force. And this goes right back into the ideas we've been dissussing here on the blog for this Hyperborea rpg campaign. 

And the T1 The Village of Hommlet is key to making this whole set up work for us as both players and DM's. 

Campaign Session Report 2 - Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes - Bandits attack!

 



So we're diving back into DM Steve's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign today. I'm playing Ragnar Blodshod Runengraver whose just jointed up with a band of cut throats travelling along the diamond desert. I'm dropping into the middle of the AS&SH's 'Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes'. The merchant caravan that my PC has now found himself in the middle of has been traveling for several weeks. Meantime my PC was stalked out for the giant ants and saved by the gang of cut throats. 

The same tribe of desert bandits that stalked my PC is getting ready to attack the caravan! And my PC knows this vital information. In exchange for healing magick by the caravan's wizard. I'm able to bargain with my information. Some supplies & weapons then my PC is part of the adventure. That night the bandit move in & things get ugly really fast! What was nice was being able to be on the other side of the screen for a change. More next week! 

A Sword & Sorcery Take On The Borderlands - Two Free Modules Lead to An OSR Sword & Sorcery Campaign

"Something evil has descended at the extreme border of the kingdom. Villages are being attacked and citizens are being killed. Some rumors say a coven of witches is responsible for the terror. Other rumors link the attacks to creatures that came from depths of hell. A group of hardy adventurers is needed to stop who or what is behind the attacks."


When it comes to balls to the walls Advanced Dungeons & Dragons sometimes you've got to settle back into the unexpected. That's where LG3: Evil in the Borderlands by Claude M. LeBrun comes in. It clocks in at 25 pages including maps & does the job for a module for characters levels 9-12 from 2016.  It brings home the pain with the PC' investigating an old foe of theirs; "The player character’s old nemesis, the evil wizard Gandilor, is back and he is more powerful than ever. After he was routed from his previous stronghold near Fort Kraken, Gandilor took to the hills to recover and recuperate. After many months he began of searching for new stronghold. He found a new stronghold in the mountainous land to the southeast of the kingdom."

This module is a straight up nasty run at a wizard & its got twists as well as a few turns in the right areas with action heating up an OSR campaign easily. Claude M. LeBrun brings in his usual standard of writing & for a free module this one's got solid encounters & an easy flow to the writing. The encounters are nasty. This one is part three in a module adventure chain; "This adventure was originally written for my kingdom of Sandidar, but the adventure can be inserted into any world. This adventure is the third module in my LG series. Completing either of the previous modules, Module LG1 – Terror in the Forest of Gizzick and Module LG2 – Famine at Fort Kraken, is not required in order to run this adventure. "
That suits me fine and this is obviously a homage to B2 Keep on The Borderlands By Gary Gygax. But it would be unfair to compare LG3: Evil in the Borderlands to B2 The  evil wizard Gandilor, could face the PC's down indirectly during the events of B2 and then encounter him in  LG1 – Terror in the Forest of Gizzick. 




The events in Keep on The Borderlands gives an adventure spine to the surrounding weirdness that comes into play in  Module LG2 – Famine at Fort Kraken, the second or third time that the PC's run into  the evil wizard Gandilor. Fort Kraken is another of those forts in the network that we see in the Borderlands.

"The people living in and around Fort Kraken are starving and they need your help in determining the cause of this famine so it can be stopped. Do your player characters have the mettle to end this tragedy? An adventure for Characters Levels 5 to  9."



Could these modules work in an OSR game such as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea? The answer is yes & here's how. The evil wizard Gandilor, is an Ixian necromancer hired by the cult of Chaos on one of the old disputed borders between the Vikings & the Keltic tribes. These ancient enemies haven't had an issue in a hundred years but the cult & its humanoid cultists have been slowly stirring the pot especially around the nearby areas of Brigand's Bay.
 The old humanoid birthing generators used by the chaos worshiping Hyperboreans to created disposable troops has been hijacked by cults of chaos to create an instant army. This can be backslid into LG1 – Terror in the Forest of Gizzick.  This whole thing winds up with LG3: Evil in the Borderlands.   Claude M. LeBrun's modules are generic enough that the dungeon master can easily adapt them to OSRIC with little issue.




This combination of modules should take characters from level one right up to nine if they survive. The dungeon master is going to have to work the angles to adapt some of the AD&D first edition elements of  Claude M. LeBrun 's modules  to their favorite Swords & Sorcery campaign but it can easily be done.
The adventure path from first level PC's to ninth & beyond goes something like this: 

1. B2 Keep on The Borderlands By Gary Gygax. 
2. Module LG2 – Famine at Fort Kraken
3. LG3: Evil in the Borderlands.

From here the action can be heated up with adding in the Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes by Jeffrey Talanian adding a map of the the depths of Diamond Desert in the belongings of the necromancer Gandilor. We strength his ties to the hermit in the caves of Chaos in B2 Keep on The Borderlands By Gary Gygax.  The mystery deepens but its the Ixian  necromancer's speculations about the artifacts that may add the cult of chaos in Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes.  The time factor may not be on the PC's side as the clock is ticking towards the Hyperborean Winter when things become ice & snow locked. The PC's might be in for a race against time. 

After the events of Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes the DM could tie the events into running in  the Lug Wasteland with Tim Callahan's The Beasts of Kraggoth Manor where the necromancer Gandilor's maps might lead with his speculations about  long-lost Atlantean technology. 

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea's Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes & S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks By Gary Gygax

"Somewhere in the depths of Diamond Desert lie the skeletal remains of Ymir’s Serpent, a legendary Viking longship. In days of yore, Sigtrygg Forkbeard led his company upriver, piercing the desert’s hostile heart. There the Vikings unearthed a lost mine brimming with green diamonds, but the River Æolus desiccated as the Serpent prepared for launch, and the ship was swallowed by the dunes. Forkbeard and his company were never seen again, but tales of a shimmering Viking ghost ship gliding over the dunes persist to this day."

Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes By Jeffrey Talanian is the one beginning adventure for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg that I'd run straight outta of the gate for getting a campaign off of the ground. Ghost Ship isn't really based on any one H.P.Lovecraft, Robert E.Howard, or Clark Ashton Smith story or novella per say. But its got my gears turning when it comes Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky. Who was Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky? Well according to his wiki entry;
"Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (Russian: Константин Эдуардович Циолковский, IPA: [kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɪdʊˈardəvʲɪtɕ tsɨɐlˈkofskʲɪj] (listen); 17 September [O.S. 5 September] 1857  – 19 September 1935) was a Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory."
Its really Tsiolkovsk's book 'The Will of the Universe' that's got me thinking about certain aspects of AS&SH's Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes;
"Tsiolkovsky wrote a book called The Will of the Universe. The Unknown Intelligence in 1928 in which he propounded a philosophy of panpsychism. He believed humans would eventually colonize the Milky Way galaxy. His thought preceded the Space Age by several decades, and some of what he foresaw in his imagination has come into being since his death. Tsiolkovsky also did not believe in traditional religious cosmology, but instead (and to the chagrin of the Soviet authorities) he believed in a cosmic being that governed humans as "marionettes, mechanical puppets, machines, movie characters",^[22] thereby adhering to a mechanical view of the universe, which he believed would be controlled in the millennia to come through the power of human science and industry."
What would happen if you had a sort of 'anti 2001' event happening upon Hyperborea's Diamond Desert? Imagine if you will that the cycle of the Great Old of Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea also marks other trans cosmic events. In this case an alien intelligence out in the middle of the alien desert of Hyperborea. Something infinitely more dangerous then would first appear. 
Maybe something truly alien has been using life forms out in the desert as merely pawns?! The events of Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes By Jeffrey Talanian continue normally but after the adventurers find the adventure's conclusion. Something else is awoken by their stirrings in the sand!?!
One of the most dangerous & yet easily overlooked truly alien races in AS&SH is the Great Race of Yith.  The Great Race are from The Shadow Out of Time a novella  H. P. Lovecraft.

Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories.
"[T]he Great Race ... waxed well-nigh omniscient, and turned to the task of setting up exchanges with the minds of other planets, and of exploring their pasts and futures. It sought likewise to fathom the past years and origin of that black, aeon-dead orb in far space whence its own mental heritage had come – for the mind of the Great Race was older than its bodily form. . . The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets, had looked ahead for a new world and species wherein they might have long life; and had sent their minds en masse into that future race best adapted to house them – the cone-shaped beings that peopled our earth a billion years ago.

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


If one of the Great Races of Yith's techno occult bases was uncovered by the meddling of adventurers then the truly alien inheritors & time travelers from beyond the stars may have renewed their time  war upon humanity. Yes I said time war. The Great Race is beyond our standard comprehension but let's wax nigh for a moment. The Great Race has been warring with humanity for the destruction of their own timeline has been happening for eons.
What if for a moment here the that this war with the Great Race went full on hot? Could humanity deal with the fall out?! Imagine if you will a minor historical event that causes a space craft to crash land into a primitive world? You know like a space craft crashing into the Grand Duchy of Geoff just outside of the countryside of Hyperborea? Then those monsters started showing up?! 
"The Grand Duchy of Geoff has recently been plagued by a rash of unusually weird and terrible monsters of an unknown sort. This western area, particularly the mountain fastness which separates the Grand Duchy from the Dry Steppes, has long been renowned for the generation of the most fearsome beasts, and it has been shunned accordingly -- save a handful of hardy souls with exceptional abilities. Within the last few months, however, a walled town not far distant from the area, and four small fortresses as well, have been destroyed by mysterious attacks!"


The Great Race stands back & watches as the humans scramble & the introduction of the invasive Mind Flayer aliens again are introduced to another world! The fallout from such an introduction would be devestating to the local ecology! 


Unwelcome vistor via the artwork of Jeff Dee from SC3 Expediation
To the Barrier Peaks
Not only could the machinations of the Great Race of Yith go on for centuries undetected but the monsters would ravage the countryside of Hyperborea. Adventurers would have years of campaign time to clean up the land sharks,veggie pygmies, & other horrors.
All arranged by the Great Race!



Great  Race of Yith miniature from the Cththlhu Wars Game.
 Minature available here. 

All of this is to keep the PC's out of the Great Race of Yith's tendrils. The Yithians have a very large network of  underground library city bases across the underworld of Hyperborea. They use them to experiment on the population of Hyperborea using a variation of their standard mind swapping techiques. The other time traveling drug they use is a variation of Clark Ashton Smith's 'The Plutonian Drug'. Their trying to find the best route through the time streams to the local space time continuum using the human mind & soul. But the real reason is time properties of the  separation of consciousness that we'd see later on from the Martians of CAS's Mnemoka (1955).

The question becomes are some or all members of the Great Race of Yith part of the Tsiolkovsky's The Will of the Universe  or  The Unknown Intelligence? Or is it really this cosmic alien intelligence that their trying to escape by time jumping to escape from it? 

Retro Campaign Commentary - X4 Master Of The Desert Nomads By David "Zeb" Cook For Expert Dungeons & Dragons With A Clark Ashton Smith Campaign Twist

 
If you were playing Expert Dungeons & Dragons back in Eighty Three then one of the more dangerous modules to get your PC's embroiled in was the  second sword and sorcery style adventures that came from the pen of David "Zeb" Cook. X4 Master of the Desert Nomads. This adventure puts your PC's right in the cross hairs of two armies on their way to defeating 'The Master'.


"Everything seems to start off with a war and the PC's are caught right in the middle of the action in the Sind desert.
 

"To arms! To arms! The battle lines are drawn as desert men and inhuman tribes wait poised to strike on the fertile and rich lands of the east. The call has gone out through the civilized lands. The armies have been raised to match the invading foes from the west. Nobles and peasants have joined swords to greet the foes.
But Fate or Chance has decreed another role for a small few. No glorious banners will wave on their march. No squadrons of knights will charge at their word. Instead, they will fight the war through stealth, secrecy, and cunning. The risks they will take are great, but the fates of both armies lie with them.
It begins one night for your party far from the fighting. Suddenly you are entrusted with the most dangerous missions of the war. Can you cross the Sind Desert, occupied now by enemy armies, to find the Great Pass? Can you find the one known only as The Master? What will you do if your do find him?""


But how can this classic be adapted into a fully functioning campaign adventure, we'll with a bit of help from Clark Ashton Smith its a perfect vehicle to open the door to a whole cloth Sword & Sorcery  campaign set within Zothique or the far future of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition. But why Zothique at all? According to a letter written to Clark Ashton Smith himself described the Zothique cycle in a letter to L. Sprague de Camp, dated November 3, 1953;
" Zothique, as I conceive it, comprises Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia, India, parts of northern and eastern Africa, and much of the Indonesian archipelago. A new Australia exists somewhere to the south. To the west, there are only a few known islands, such as Naat, in which the black cannibals survive. To the north, are immense unexplored deserts; to the east, an immense unvoyaged sea. The peoples are mainly of Aryan or Semitic descent; but there is a negro kingdom (Ilcar) in the north-west; and scattered blacks are found throughout the other countries, mainly in palace-harems. In the southern islands survive vestiges of Indonesian or Malayan races. The science and machinery of our present civilization have long been forgotten, together with our present religions. But many gods are worshipped; and sorcery and demonism prevail again as in ancient days."
This sounds exactly like the sort of desert weirdness that the PC's encounter in Master of the Desert Nomads. The master is simply another in a long line of cult leaders & lost kings who have come across the trackless wastes of the Diamond Desert erm the "immense unexplored deserts" which bound Zothique to the north. As per usual I've already heard from friends that Empire of The Necromancers is a perfect frame work in which which this classic of the B/X era should dropped into? Actually X4 fits the campaign frame work of CAS's The Weaver In The Vault.  The idea of the ruined kingdom with  mercenary scouts doing dirty deeds in the desert fits the rough & tumble ideals X4. It fits the sardonic humor of CAS.
"Three of the king's roughest henchman began losing their nerve as they descended into the dark catacombs of a long-forsaken, earthquake-ruined burial site in Chaon Gacca. Their assignment, to recover the remains of an ancient king, was detestable enough. However, nothing could compare to the horrific sights and sounds....of the weaver!"



X4 The Master Of The Desert Nomads is one of those adventures where the classic wilderness crawl is full effect. The PC's can wander where & when they need to within the frame work of this hex crawl as the adventure take them. The village on the border of the Republic of Darokin there is a priest  looking for scouts to seek out the Master a mysterious figure who is uniting the various tribes of humans and humanoids in the Sind desert.

1. The PCs are presented as mercenary scouts in almost but not quite Robert Howard Conan fashion in the X series. This is a perfect set up for adventurers & fits the rough & tumble nature of Sword & Sorcery adventures. 
2. The wilderness crawl presents the opportunity to introduce other side quests for the party & allows the DM to customize X4 as their own. 
3. The various desert locations are the perfect place to add in the adventure locations of  necropoli, abandoned ruins, epidemics & more that  fit the  far distant future of Zothique. 
4.  X4 is the perfect vechile for the that typical CAS vivaciousness! 
5. Master of the Desert Nomads has a bit of that Pulp weirdness we love already but with a bit of a push can be inverted into a hard core campaign. 
6.   Because the set up is a classic sword & sorcery adventure the X series of modules could be used to frame work around the Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes as a lost world style mini campaign. 

 

Within a pseudo historical setting X4 Master of The Desert Nomads could be used in an alternative dark fantasy Egypt or North African style adventure set around the Fourteenth or Fifteenth century. The dungeon master might want to draw from the Robert Howard well of dark fantasy literature with Solomon Kane and “The Fire of Asshurbanipal". This adventure will also work on the Chinese Gobi desert style Silk Road setting  which pulls from the Oriental and Middle Eastern mythological traditions. This plugs directly into the ideals of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique & yet keeps the adventure from becoming overly stale.
X4 remains a very different feeling adventure with its encounters wrapped around the central wheel house of  dark fantasy encounters, odd supernatural encounters, dangerous pieces of old school sword and sorcery action. This was one of the adventures that I've run over and over again with PC's coming face to face with weird monsters and becoming hooked on the desert series.

Reconsidering The Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes From North Wind Adventures For The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System & Your Old School Games

Sometimes there are adventures that I've owned and always wanted to run again, Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes for the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is one of those. Its a great adventure that I pulled off of my hard drive & began to take a look at for an upcoming gaming event.


Clocking in at about sixty pages, this adventure follows the new direction of AS&SH was starting to take a few years ago. There is a coastal village with a lycanthrope issue some great rumors tables then a hunt for some radioactive green diamonds all wrapped around a plot that sounds like it came from an Eighties swords and sorcery paperback. "Somewhere in the depths of Diamond Desert lie the skeletal remains of Ymir’s Serpent, a legendary Viking longship. In days of yore, Sigtrygg Forkbeard led his company upriver, piercing the desert’s hostile heart. There the Vikings unearthed a lost mine brimming with green diamonds, but the River Æolus desiccated as the Serpent prepared for launch, and the ship was swallowed by the dunes. Forkbeard and his company were never seen again, but tales of a shimmering Viking ghost ship gliding over the dunes persist to this day."
I hadn't looked at Ghostship for a few months almost close to a year because of my dad getting sick. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the maps of Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood Design.

I almost had forgotten about the giant radioactive ants & the hyena men who ride giant chameleons all wrapped around the central plot of the long ship! Ghost Ships is one of the those adventures that plays fast and loose with the player's PC's motives for dealing with the reality of the ship. The monsters here are vicious dangerous & highly creative.

 The radioactive berserker zombies are still one of my favorite monster elements of the Ghost Ship. This adventure brings a lot to the table for PC's. There's enough action to make the quest, action, sword & sorcery elements and more all work well together.Expectations of the legend of the Ghost Ship by weaving its own Hyperborean mythology and legends around Ymir’s Serpent all of the while drawing the PC's deeper and deeper into the adventure while revealing more of the mysteries of Hyperborea's glorious past.  In point of fact there is a ton of elements of dungeon crawling, investigation, a bit of plundering, and lots and lots of sword and sorcery action. This adventure adds lot of Hyperborean details and story line to the world of Hyperborea which brings me to the point. This isn't simply another bit of Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea but a full blown expansion.


Everything in this adventure fits together like a glove, the adventure elements are not that over the top to be on the stupid or completely gonzo. They work and work well together. The PC's are not going to be coming out of the adventure with all kinds of campaign wrecking treasure. If they survive the experiences of  The Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes there will certainly be a profound respect for the creative effort that the author brings to the table  with this one.


Ghost Ship of The Desert Dunes remains an old favorite of mine and a very dangerous adventure to unleash on a party of unsuspecting adventurers. Its an adventure that has great risks but deep rewards. Ghost Ship is well written and easily available through Drivethrrpg.

GRAB IT RIGHT OVER HERE

1d6 Random Deep Desert Encounters Table For Your Old School Campaigns

Here are several random encounters that I've recently used with X4 Master of the Desert Nomads to help pad out some of the random wandering wilderness desert encounters. Many of these were quick and easy to deal with vignettes that helped to set the stage until the PC's made it to the Abbey and to help set the stage for the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea vibe I was going for during play.


1d6 Random Deep Desert Encounters Table

1. 1d8 displaced clan of desert nomads whose village was burnt to the ground, they are fleeing away from the devastation of the humanoid forces and are willing to trade water for food and information. They are quite suspicious of outsiders but are willing to give the benefit of the doubt. They are led by a 6th level shaman as their head man and have three 2nd level fighters among their party. 
2. A spice trader caravan of 1d10 merchants who will be very flighty with their humanoid caravan guards. These 2nd level fighters are armed with short bows and are on camel back. The caravan is lead by a 5th level fighter who is also a prince of a local desert clan, he is spying on the forces of the Master and may trade water and food for information. 
3. A group of 1d6 desert noblemen on an errant for their master, they seek a certain cursed oasis for a plant that grows their but they are very cautious with the Master's forces in the area. They will agree to travel with you for their is strength in numbers. They are actually 3rd level thieves and will slit the throats of adventurers in the night to steal all they have an sell the information to the Master's forces. 
4. A wizard's party winds its way among the dunes, he is fleeing from the Master's forces and is willing to trade information for small services. He has 1d8 2nd level warriors with him on camel back and armed with swords, short bows, arrows and shields. He has map to a nearby small set of ruins near an oasis for five hundred gold pieces that he is willing to trade for and for a 3,000 gold pieces will cast a cure light wounds for the injured. 
5. A sand priest of a nearby tribe wanders the wastes searching for enlightenment and insight into recent events by communing with the gods and spirits of the wastes. He is looking for information and numbers about the Master's forces. He is actually a master spy for a nearby kingdom and is willing to trade silver and gold or a map for information. He knows the terrain and local legends quite well. 
6. A family of traveling performers of half human stock is fleeing in the wake of a nearby oasis settlement being burnt to the ground. They are very flighty and panic stricken, they have with them a 3rd level desert fighter who has sword, bow and arrows, and a shield. They have a 400 gold piece diamond that they stole from a temple to help them start a new life in a nearby kingdom. They also have 140 gold pieces that they will be willing to pay for the PC's to provide them with an escort to said kingdom.

Retro Review X4 Master Of The Desert Nomads For Expert Dungeons & Dragons & Your Old School Campaigns

If you were playing expert Dungeons and Dragons in Eighty Three then you got a chance to play in one of the second sword and sorcery style adventures that came from the pen of David "Zeb" Cook. X4 Master of the Desert Nomads puts your party center stage on a daring recon mission of dangerous and deadly proportions to find the 'master'.



Everything seems to start off with a war and the PC's are caught right in the middle of the action in the Sind desert.
 

"To arms! To arms! The battle lines are drawn as desert men and inhuman tribes wait poised to strike on the fertile and rich lands of the east. The call has gone out through the civilized lands. The armies have been raised to match the invading foes from the west. Nobles and peasants have joined swords to greet the foes.

But Fate or Chance has decreed another role for a small few. No glorious banners will wave on their march. No squadrons of knights will charge at their word. Instead, they will fight the war through stealth, secrecy, and cunning. The risks they will take are great, but the fates of both armies lie with them.

It begins one night for your party far from the fighting. Suddenly you are entrusted with the most dangerous missions of the war. Can you cross the Sind Desert, occupied now by enemy armies, to find the Great Pass? Can you find the one known only as The Master? What will you do if your do find him?"

Here's one of the classics of the expert set of Dungeons and Dragons adventures,a wilderness crawl through one of the more deadly regions to appear in  OD&D. Master of the Desert Nomads puts the PC's front and center on the border between civilization and desert wasteland in a Conansque style adventure using a loose and classic sword & sorcery  comic book frame work to gather the PC's as part and parcel of a military recon into the deep end of a desert wastes to find the Master. This is another of David Cook's dips into the sword and sorcery deep in this adventure.


This module has all of the elements of  the classic wilderness crawl told within the frame work of a series of adventure encounters that mold themselves to the party's wanderings. The village on the border of the Republic of Darokin there is a priest  looking for scouts to seek out the Master a mysterious figure who is uniting the various tribes of humans and humanoids in the Sind desert. The Republic's army forces have already moved out and the PC's are left behind to fill in on this dangerous mission.
There are really three reasons to use Master of the Desert Nomads for a retroclone game -

• This is a solid adventure divided into two easy to run parts for the dungeon master but also an  adventure that will challenge a party of mid level adventurers to their core. There are opportunities for both dungeon crawls and wilderness hex crawling. .
• There are several opportunities for subterfuge and deception are built in  within the confines of the adventure.  The PC's can act as both scouts and actual warriors  in this adventure.
• The first half of the adventure deals with the PC's journey to the master and the second deals with their handling of an evil abbey which has its own darkness  to deal with. 
• Treasures, relics, and artifacts are key to several adventure plot points making them not simply PC window dressing. 

The module is very well done for its time and presents several encounters which might be right at home within a Michael Moorcock novel or as a part a 70's sword and sorcery novel from a drugstore spinner rack. Wiki has a good break down;"In the adventure that follows, the adventurers must tackle a series of wilderness encounters, including journeying up a sluggish river to its source, passing through a dismal salt marsh, crossing an inhospitable desert, and searching for a pass through the high and forbidding mountain chain on the far side of the desert. If successful, the adventure ends at an abbey situated on a mountain spur above the alpine meadows"
The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg can run Master of the Desert Nomads quite easily and there are several desert locations within the game that can easily be used as a stand in for the Sind desert. Because the set up is a classic sword & sorcery adventure the X series of modules could be used to frame work around the Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes as a lost world style mini campaign.
Within a pseudo historical setting X4 Master of The Desert Nomads could be used in an alternative dark fantasy Egypt or North African style adventure set around the Fourteenth or Fifteenth century. The dungeon master might want to draw from the Robert Howard well of dark fantasy literature with Solomon Kane and “The Fire of Asshurbanipal". This adventure will also work on the Chinese Gobi desert style Silk Road setting  which pulls from the Oriental and Middle Eastern mythological traditions. 


X4 remains a very different feeling adventure with its encounters wrapped around the centeral wheel house of  dark fantasy encounters, odd supernatural encounters, dangerous pieces of old school sword and sorcery action. This was one of the adventures that I've run over and over again with PC's coming face to face with weird monsters and becoming hooked on the desert series. This is one of the stronger modules for Expert edition D&D and seems to hook its players early and the encounters are keyed for the mid range party of adventurers.X4 Master Of The Desert Nomads remains one of the classics for a reason and in my humble opinion X4 remains very vital and is an easily to access adventure to draw a campaign up very quickly and drop the party into the deep end.

Review & Commentary Of Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes From North Wind Adventures Adventure For The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers Of Hyperborea and Your Old School Campaigns

Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes is one of the latest action packed sword and sorcery adventure titles for The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea and adds a whole new wasteland and desert set of adventure elements to this title. 

Grab It Right Over
HERE


This one of those adventures that was a part of the Astonishing Swordsmen & Swordsmen of Hyperborea's Kickstarter, its also one of the adventures I've been wanting to check out for a very long while now. Real life has been kicking my behind as of late and work has had me tied up lately. But I did make time to dive into the deep end of  Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes by AS&SH's author Jeff Talanian . I'm happy to say that it was A.worth the wait and B.does exactly what I thought it would do. The Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes extends the world of Hyperborea by seven league designer boots. We get more background and intrigue into the unique end of Jeff Talanian's version of Hyperborea. And it works out quite nicely for what it does and it does it very well.  If the cover looks like an early 80's Marvel Conan style comic birthed into an OSR, it's been done for a reason and that very reason is to echo what this module does. It plays with and revels in the sword and sorcery aesthetic that get's revealed in its plot.
"Somewhere in the depths of Diamond Desert lie the skeletal remains of Ymir’s Serpent, a legendary Viking longship. In days of yore, Sigtrygg Forkbeard led his company upriver, piercing the desert’s hostile heart. There the Vikings unearthed a lost mine brimming with green diamonds, but the River Æolus desiccated as the Serpent prepared for launch, and the ship was swallowed by the dunes. Forkbeard and his company were never seen again, but tales of a shimmering Viking ghost ship gliding over the dunes persist to this day."

This adventure plays fast as well loose with the players motives & expectations of the legend of the Ghost Ship by weaving its own Hyperborean mythology and legends around Ymir’s Serpent all of the while drawing the PC's deeper and deeper into the adventure while revealing more of the mysteries of Hyperborea's glorious past as well as details about its peoples, details, setting bits, and even more weirdness. In point of fact there is a ton of elements of dungeon crawling, investigation, a bit of plundering, and lots and lots of sword and sorcery action. This adventure adds lot of Hyperborean details and story line to the world of Hyperborea which brings me to the point. This isn't simply another bit of Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea but a full blown expansion. Ghost Ship does another trick that original Dungeons and Dragons module series adventures also did at the same time it fleshes out details it also gap fills all of the little bits and pieces about its corner of the Hyperborean setting and world through its adventure encounters, NPC portraits, background details, and game elements.
 Jeff's adventure adds a three sectional approach to Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes adventure allowing a progression approach to the sword and sorcery elements of the adventure's story line. This isn't a whole bunch of rail roaded adventure elements but a consistent journey that the PC's are put on. But does it live up to the ten dollar price tag? I think so given the way that the
Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes is laid out. Here lives are going to be changed and ruined as well  as people dying under the heat of the uncaring Hyperborean sun! Wait till this one goes on sale and then grab it. I give this adventure a five out of five because of the balance, weird elements, and original use of its content. If your a sword and sorcery fan this is one to pick up.

How To Use The
Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes
For Your Old School Campaigns
The Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes is a campaign touch stone and has been made to take PC's from Afour to six characters of 2^nd through 4^th level & this is where the fun begins. The design takes full advantage of the pulpy nature of swords and sorcery fiction to weave itself in as a part of a AS&SH campaign specifically. This isn't an adventure designed to dovetail in with other OSR retroclone systems, Ghost Ship is made to introduce and then raise PC's into the world, history, and setting of AS&SH's Hyperborea.

Ghost Ship is grounded right into the world of its own creation and moves PC's into the world of the Ymir’s Serpent  & the various adventure locations. My best advice is there are several points for working in PC's from other OSR retroclone worlds but don't. Take Ghost ship as a Hyperborean only adventure. There is potential here to move PC's up several levels especially because of the vary nature of the adventure. There's lots and lots of hooks and reels scattered through out the adventure for lots of further adventures in the wastelands of Hyperborea in Ghostship.