Cults on the Edges of the Map - OSR Commentary - Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing in the 1900's through the 1930's

Of our relation to all creation we can never know anything whatsoever. All is immensity and chaos. But, since all this knowledge of our limitations cannot possibly be of any value to us, it is better to ignore it in our daily conduct of life.

H. P. Lovecraft

 There's a fairly serious void in the Swords & Wizardry rpg market for 'Eldritch Horror' or at least it  was the thought that ran through what's left of my head. Then I remembered 'Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing' From Raven God Games. If you want to set a 1920's style Halloween one shot. This is the OSR rules set to use. 

 'Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing'is right in line White Box Gothic from Gallant Knight Games. Why because it adds the Gothic horror in spades with an OSR Swords & Wizardry twist or two. 

The late 1900's through the 1930's were really the last golden ages of exploration on Earth. The last places where the Earth's darkest places were finally revealed. And these are the last edges of the map where the Lovecraftian cults might exist. For White Box Swords & Wizardry this is a perfect time to squeeze in a mini game with OSR overtones. Indianna Jones & Call of Cthulhu style PC's whose exploits cover the gamut of occult & supernatural happenings. 

With world wars, market crashes, & more make such a campaign very dynamic. Especially if we use the dreaded Clerical Lich as a part of the cult of the Lovecraftian horrors or even the dread cult of Cthulhu itself. Check the stats from White Box Gothic; 
"Clerical Liche Armor Class: 1 [18] Hit Dice: 12 - 18 Attacks: By weapon (1d6) Special: See Below Move: 12 HDE/XP: 15/2,900, 16/3,200, 17/3,500, 18/3,800, 19/4,100, 20/4,400, 21/4,700 While the vast majority of liches have mastered the arcane arts of the Magic-User in rare cases, some of them devote themselves to the service of a malign god or goddess with such zeal that they rises as powerful and terrible 42 Eric Fabiaschi (Order #34172416) masters of corrupted divine magic. These are known as Clerical Liches. They are able to cast spells as a 10th level Cleric. In addition, they have also mastered the spells of a Magic-User, though to a lesser degree than traditional liches. A clerical liche can memorize and cast spells as a MagicUser with a level equal to half their normal hit dice, rounded down. This means that a liche with 14 or 15 hit dice would memorize and cast spells as a 7th level Magic-User and as a 10th level Cleric. Clerical liches cannot paralyze with either their touch or aura, but can Turn Undead as a Chaotic Cleric of 9th level, as described in Swords & Wizardry: WhiteBox."
With a clerical liche as the head of cell of a Lovecraftian cult then the PC's are going to have their hands full! What many people don't realize is the global reach of the Cult of Cthulhu. 

If we take a look at Ken Kelly's 'OLDSKULL LIBRARY - The Shadow over Innsmouth' then we've got an excellent prop to get the PC's involved in a campaign why? Because Ken Kelly's OLDSKULL LIBRARY - The Shadow over Innsmouth treats the HP Lovecraft story an rpg prop ;  "a confessional journal created by Robert Martin Olmstead, who disappeared some years after revelations that he experienced in exploring the seaside fishing and gold refining town of Innsmouth. Instead of treating Olmstead’s writings as fiction, I have created a series of artworks which crystallize the events, locales, thoughts, and nightmares experienced by Olmstead and later his brother and his “bride”." 

 Ken Kelly's 'OLDSKULL LIBRARY - The Shadow over Innsmouth' is a great way to bring in Innsmouth into a Lovecraftian campaign. Especially when such a campaign takes place within a 1920's or 1930's in New England. And this New England connection could lead to Raven Games 'The Eldritch Inquirer #1' 's Return of The Wind Walker. 

This campaign's  'Return of The Wind Walker' could plug into some of the Lovecraftian adventure elements present within  'OLDSKULL LIBRARY - The Shadow over Innsmouth'. 

Eventually such a Lovecraftian campaign could lead to other horrors including pathways even into Lamentations of the Flame Princess's Rpg Mark Hess's Colony of Death. Within this campaign is a Mi Go connection in the mountains of Maryland. The Mi Go also have connections to the cult of Cthulhu. And this could lead even further down the Lovecraftian rabbit hole.

Witch cults are a clear part of the Lovecraftian landscape. And as we've seen in H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witchhouse they have their own links into the Cult of Cthulhu. So what is my own point here?! That the world wide cult of Cthulhu has its tentacles in many,many, areas of the pre modern world. And that these areas can be just around the corner of civilization. 

The Shadow Out of Yith - Some Thoughts on Using The Great Race of Yith In Your OSR & Old School Rpg Campaigns

"AFTER twenty-two years of nightmare and terror, saved only by a desperate conviction of the mythical source of certain impressions, I am unwilling to vouch for the truth of that which I think I found in Western Australia on the night of 17-18 July 1935. There is reason to hope that my experience was wholly or partly an hallucination—for which, indeed, abundant causes existed. And yet, its realism was so hideous that I sometimes find hope impossible.

If the thing did happen, then man must be prepared to accept notions of the cosmos, and of his own place in the seething vortex of time, whose merest mention is paralysing. He must, too, be placed on guard against a specific, lurking peril which, though it will never engulf the whole race, may impose monstrous and unguessable horrors upon certain venturesome members of it."
The Shadow Out of Time By  H.P. Lovecraft 1936 

 H.P. Lovecraft's 1936 novella The Shadow Out Of Time has been a major inspiration for me for many years. But the one thing that seems to get forgotten is the fact that the real treasure and threat of the novella isn't the time conquering Great Race of Yith. 

Reading through the Wiki entry I came across this bit; "The Shadow Out of Time indirectly tells of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended time and place. The story implies that the effect, when seen from the outside, is similar to spiritual possession. The Yithians' original purpose was to study the history of various times and places, and they have amassed a "library city" that is filled with the past and future history of multiple races, including humans. Ultimately the Yithians use their ability to escape the destruction of their planet in another galaxy by switching bodies with a race of cone-shaped plant beings who lived 250 million years ago on Earth. The cone-shaped entities (subsequently also known as the Great Race of Yith) lived in their vast library city in what would later become Australia's Great Sandy Desert (22°3′14″S 125°0′39″E)"

So basically out in the middle of Austalia's Sandy Desert is one of the largest repositories of the Great Race of Yith's searches across all of time and space on Earth. Unfortunately its guarded by some of the most horrid things to ever invade Earth and that's the flying  polyps. These things have caused three massive extinctions of all life on Earth. And the protections that have been keeping them prisoner on Earth have been failing for eons now. 
And now the works of the Great Race of Yith have been slowly being uncovered on Earth & elsewhere. And could this be the next cause for the next extinction level event. Unless the adventurers can find their way around this. Now over the years the works of the Great Race of Yith have appeared in my games as treasures, lost technologies, artifacts, etc. But the real horror is going to be the flying polyps that could cause massive problems or die off's in old school & OSR games. 

Flying Polyp miniatures from Petersen Games here. 

In various games of Lamentations of the Flame Princess's Carcosa, Labyrinth Lord, Stars Without Number, ACK's, and other OSR games over the years that I've run each & every time the spectre of the flying polyps have been there. These are the horrors that really guard the treasure, technology, and other relics of the Great Race of Yith. 
And this gets into the real issue of using the Great Race of Yith, they are one of the most alien of Lovcraft's races. Sure they almost seem to be on level of humanity's consciousness. But in reality we are nothing more then a bit of experimentation and a target to be left for the polyps to devert their attention away from the Yithians. And this could also be exactly the reason why they'd leave behind ruins & dungeons across the multiverse. 

Appendix N Sword & Sorcery - HP Lovecraft & Henry Kuttner OSR Witch Dreams

 "WHETHER the dreams brought on the fever or the fever brought on the dreams Walter Gilman did not know. Behind everything crouched the brooding, festering horror of the ancient town, and of the mouldy, unhallowed garret gable where he wrote and studied and wrestled with figures and formulae when he was not tossing on the meagre iron bed. His ears were growing sensitive to a preternatural and intolerable degree, and he had long ago stopped the cheap mantel clock whose ticking had come to seem like a thunder of artillery. At night the subtle stirring of the black city outside, the sinister scurrying of rats in the wormy partitions, and the creaking of hidden timbers in the centuried house, were enough to give him a sense of strident pandemonium. The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound—and yet he sometimes shook with fear lest the noises he heard should subside and allow him to hear certain other fainter noises which he suspected were lurking behind them."
"The Dreams in the Witch House"  H. P. Lovecraft, Weird Tales 1933 

The Dreams in the Witch House is one of the cornerstone tales of H.P. Lovecraft that no one really talks about. There's so much too this tale from the mathematics, to the higher dimensional realms travel, to the sheer weirdness of the appearance of the Elder Things in a brief cameo. There's a lot to take on board here but what was happening in New England at this time that kicked off the witch pacts between witches & the Lovecraftian gods?! 

The rat thing Brown Jenkins who served Keziah and Nyarlathotep,is only one of the alien horrors that lurks in Massachusetts. These weren't just simply witches making pacts with the 'Devil'. No this was the influence of Nyarlathotep itself. Now its too bad that there wasn't a follow up to Dreams in th Witchhouse. What if I told you that in point of fact there was a story with a witch house, a curse, strange noises, bad dreams. Throw in the old gods and  even the Necronomicon?! What if I told you that it was written in 1937 by one of the leading lights of the Lovecraft Circle?!  We're talking about C.L. Moore's husband here Henry Kuttner & the tale in question?! Well it takes place right down the road from Arkham in witch house haunted Salem. Kuttner's Salem is a place of crumbling haunted houses, streets with dark histories, haunted places, & of course the Lovecraft gods. The Salem Horror  (1937)  by Henry Kuttner  from Weird Tales Volume 29, Issue 5

'The Salem Horror' isn't a sequel to 'Dreams in the Witch House' rather its more of a side quest of a story that takes place within the same Lovecraft New England as the rest of the Cthulhu mythos. Surely though there isn't an OSR connection here right?! What if I said that there were more then two?!

The Black Man", an aspect of Nyarlathotep as described by H. P. Lovecraft in "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1932). Acrylics on cardboard 34×23 cm by 
Jens Heimdahl - Facebook : Art of Jens Heimdahl

 How many more keys & gates were left behind by the witches thar created pacts with Nyarlathotep?! How many of those gates are still active today?! If such witch gates are active they could theoritically lead anywhere or anywhen! But what happens if one of these gates leads deep into the far future world of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcereres of Hyperborea rpg?! 

How?! Well one gate is hidden within a historic museum of the Salem witch trials which is a converted former witch house that leads to the dungeons within AS&SH's Rats in the Walls & Other Perils. This gate is simply a hidden litle hidey hole within the adventure that I added several years ago. Still hasn't been found. 

The second gate is down in the sewers of Arkham & leads into the dreamlands of Swords & Wizardry's Encephalon Gorgers on the Moon  This one of those adventure modules that works within a campaign if its padded out with some solid background especially if its paired with some solid appendix N authors. 

And the third witch gate leads into the dungeon locations of England, 1620. within the dungeons of No Salvation for Witches for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg. Another possible choice is that the gate leads into Germany or the battle fields of 'Better Then Any Man'. 

Needless to say that anyone using one or any of these witch gates is going reek of Chaos & dark magicks. The authorities are going to take note of this & there might be other consquences folks. 

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? 

A Very Different & Dangerous Occult Ecology For The Will O The Wisps From Dungeons & Dragons

'Tis said these blossom-lanterns light
The elves upon their midnight-way;
That fairy toil and elfin play
Receive their beams of magic white.

I marvel not if it be true;
I know this flower has lighted me
Nearer to Beauty's mystery,
And past the veils of secrets new.
Fairy Lanterns  (1912) 
by Clark Ashton Smith


"Tru looked down at the swamp around her feet as she fled through the undergrowth. That was not Dar her brother at all. She still stung from the strange burns on her arm but she was trying to find the game path that her family used since she was a girl. The glow was following a leasurely pace sure of its quarry. She made the path & was about to break when she saw the smaller creature's glow off to the side of the path. It was a miniature of the young halfing trader she'd met at the trade fair. Tru didn't have time to speak as the sound of an electrical discharge echoed off of the bark of the trees around her. They were silent witnesses to the look of utter shock on her face as she fell to the ground with a crash of surprise & shock. She barely registered the small shapes already gathering from the swamp to drag  her corpse back into the muck & mire. She only wanted the fairy gold to help her family's farm. But it was far too late now. The corpse candle glow of the Wisps came in low over the corpse to feed as the boggarts disappeared in quick flashes of light & Fey sparks. "


The will-o'-wisp have been in my games since my very first brown box of original Dungeons & Dragons. But my version of these classic monsters differs from the traditional monster because it straddles the line between mythological fairy monster & the classic horror from the 1st edition AD&D Monster Manual. Why? Because will-o'-wisps are manufactured monsters & universally reviled the world over.  The will-o'-wisp is a monster that guards fairy gold & is created from a copy of  the  electrical brain activity of a dead or dying person. These monsters creation is done by a Fairy necromancer spirit that finds the decaying brain matter of a corpse. A sixth level spell is then used to draw a negative material copy of the human or near human essence into an alien immature boggart vessel. These creatures are often used to guard ancient vaults or lost caches of fairy gold. Through out Europe & the Americas these monsters have been universally used by the alien powers of the Fey.  


"Danes, Finns, Swedes, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Irish people and amongst some other groups believed that a will-o'-the-wisp also marked the location of a treasure deep in ground or water, which could be taken only when the fire was there. "




Many believe that Boggarts are the immature forms of Will - O'- the - wisps, that these monsters are actually undead souls who have taken on the shape shifting powers of Fairyland. These monster's immature form is an energy being know as a boggart. Boggarts can take on various forms these  include a small halfling, young gnome, a goblin imp, young xvart, or norker neut. The reality is that these's beings forms are held together with a patterned charge of negative planar electricity.

These creatures will advance along their ranks until they ascend into the higher dimensional state known as the Will o wisp. There are numerous legends about these dangerous chaotic beings in Europe; 

"The will-o'-the-wisp can be found in numerous folk tales around the United Kingdom, and is often a malicious character in the stories. In Welsh folklore, it is said that the light is "fairy fire" held in the hand of a púca, or pwca, a small goblin-like fairy that mischievously leads lone travellers off the beaten path at night. As the traveller follows the púca through the marsh or bog, the fire is extinguished, leaving them lost. The púca is said to be one of the Tylwyth Teg, or fairy family. In Wales the light predicts a funeral that will take place soon in the locality. Wirt Sikes in his book British Goblins mentions the following Welsh tale about púca.

A peasant travelling home at dusk sees a bright light traveling along ahead of him. Looking closer, he sees that the light is a lantern held by a "dusky little figure", which he follows for several miles. All of a sudden he finds himself standing on the edge of a vast chasm with a roaring torrent of water rushing below him. At that precise moment the lantern-carrier leaps across the gap, lifts the light high over its head, lets out a malicious laugh and blows out the light, leaving the poor peasant a long way from home, standing in pitch darkness at the edge of a precipice. This is a fairly common cautionary tale concerning the phenomenon; however, the ignis fatuus was not always considered dangerous. There are some tales told about the will-o'-the-wisp being guardians of treasure, much like the Irish leprechaun leading those brave enough to follow them to sure riches. Other stories tell of travelers getting lost in the woodland and coming upon a will-o'-the-wisp, and depending on how they treated the will-o'-the-wisp, the spirit would either get them lost further in the woods or guide them out.

Also related, the Pixy-light from Devon and Cornwall is most often associated with the Pixie who often has "pixie-led" travellers away from the safe and reliable route and into the bogs with glowing lights. "Like Poltergeist they can generate uncanny sounds. They were less serious than their German Weisse Frauen kin, frequently blowing out candles on unsuspecting courting couples or producing obscene kissing sounds, which were always misinterpreted by parents."^[19] Pixy-Light was also associated with "lambent light"^[20] which the Old Norse might have seen guarding their tombs. In Cornish folklore, Pixy-Light also has associations with the Colt pixie. "A colt pixie is a pixie that has taken the shape of a horse and enjoys playing tricks such as neighing at the other horses to lead them astray".^[21][22] In Guernsey, the light is known as the faeu boulanger (rolling fire), and is believed to be a lost soul. On being confronted with the spectre, tradition prescribes two remedies. The first is to turn one's cap or coat inside out. This has the effect of stopping the faeu boulanger in its tracks. The other solution is to stick a knife into the ground, blade up. The faeu, in an attempt to kill itself, will attack the blade"
What  the faeu boulanger (rolling fire) is actually doing is grounding itself out on the knife blade. The blade acts as a sort of occult lightning rod retaining the electrical 'finger print' of the last person who held the blade. 

The Asian varieties & subspecies of  Will - O'- the - wisps can be downright lethal in their own right. Only experienced occultists & black magicians should have any truck with these creatures;

"Aleya (or marsh ghost-light) is the name given to a strange light phenomena occurring over the marshes as observed by Bengalis, especially the fishermen of West Bengal and Bangladesh. This marsh light is attributed to some kind of marsh gas apparitions that confuse fishermen, make them lose their bearings, and may even lead to drowning if one decided to follow them moving over the marshes. Local communities in the region believe that these strange hovering marsh-lights are in fact Ghost-lights representing the ghosts of fisherman who died fishing. Sometimes they confuse the fishermen, and sometimes they help them avoid future dangers.

Chir batti (ghost-light), also spelled chhir batti or cheer batti, is a strange dancing light phenomenon occurring on dark nights reported from the Banni grasslands, its seasonal marshy wetlands^[14] and the adjoining desert of the marshy salt flats of the Rann of Kutch^[15] near Indo-Pakistani border in Kutch district, Gujarat State, India. Local villagers have been seeing these sometimes hovering, sometimes flying balls of lights since time immemorial and call it Chir Batti in their Kutchhi–Sindhi language, with Chir meaning ghost and Batti meaning light.^[14]

Similar phenomena are described in Japanese folklore, including Hitodama (literally "Human Soul" as a ball of energy), Hi no Tama (Ball of Flame), Aburagae, Koemonbi, Ushionibi, etc. All these phenomena are described as balls of flame or light, at times associated with graveyards, but occurring across Japan as a whole in a wide variety of situations and locations. Kitsune, mythical yokai demons, are also associated with will 'o the wisp, with the marriage of two kitsune producing kitsune-bi (狐火), literally meaning 'fox-fire'.^[16] These phenomena are described in Shigeru Mizuki's 1985 book Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms (妖怪伝 in Japanese)" 

Care should be taken when dealing with these variety as they have been known to congregate around entrances to the underworld & other vary dangerous Hell planes.


It has been suspected that there are deep occult ties between  a game called "Troy Town" (the last of which is a reference to actual practices involving labyrinths or labyrinthine dances & Arthur Machen's 'The White People' with Will O The Wisps.
These alien monsters fit into the weird alien mind other worldly landscape of the White People & may be further evidence of the deadliness of some occult & supernatural aspects of the weird space time of Fairyland.



The alien other planar landscape of places that Will O The Wisps create around them maybe part of the break down of space time caused by their mere presence. Certain black wizards & occultists have from time to time paid hags & Annis to create Will O The Wisps for them with human soul electrical essences. These Will O The Wisps will over time create naturally occurring chaos laced entrances to some of the darkest & most dangerous areas of Fairyland or the other realms. Often this is for the guarding of some forbidden treasure or occult dungeon  temple in the area.



Because of the vary dubious  nature of the hags its been implied that these realms border the most dangerous places of  The Dreamlands . Further speculation is best left to the experts & adventurers are advised to bring qualified priests & clerics with them to thwart the black efforts of both  Will O The Wisps & their hag allies. 

During the far futures cycles it is known that when the Fey return that there will a vast population explosion of Will O The Wisps & the boggarts around the former cities of man. These monsters mark the points to the ruins that contain the most desirable & important relics of the former species known as mankind. There is some evidence that the "Aklo letters" known to occultists & black wizards allow communication with both Will O The Wisps &  colours out of space indicating that there may be an electrical component to both species. What is known that both species give each other a wide berth & will not impinge on the territories of the other. Extreme caution should be taken by adventurers when dealing with either species.  

1. There are connections between Will O The Wisps & the elemental eye cults across the planes. 
2. Monster Summoning rituals can serve to throw wisps into states of extreme violence & feeding frenzies 
3. Warzones near swamps often attract vast numbers of wisps to the dying & wounded on certain historically significant battle fields. 
4. Wisps are known to attend very powerful Elven black wizards as both familiars & bodyguards. 
5. Swamp labyrinths created to house powerful fairy treasures should be avoided as they will have a network of Will O The Wisps & boggart attendants. 
6. Cults of Chaos often attract wisps through their unhealthy sacrifices & practices of bloodshed. Corpse candles often are summoned during certain ceremonies & should be avoided by adventurers. 
7. Powerful artifacts from fairyland often attract wisps & can summon them when needed. 
8. Will O The Wisps will attract themselves to certain graveyards & places of occult power because of their connection to negative planar energies. 
9. Entrances to the Abyss,  often have several wisp guardians who wait to feed on adventurers. 
10. Wisps are often attached to swamps & marshland associated with the powers of Chaos & depravity. 

A Knight Before The Darkness - H.P. Lovecraft, Appendix N, & The Mutating Underworld In Old School Campaigns

"Then down the wide lane betwixt the two columns a lone figure strode; a tall, slim figure with the young face of an antique Pharaoh, gay with prismatic robes and crowned with a golden pshent that glowed with inherent light. Close up to Carter strode that regal figure; whose proud carriage and swart features had in them the fascination of a dark god or fallen archangel, and around whose eyes there lurked the languid sparkle of capricious humour. It spoke, and in its mellow tones there rippled the wild music of Lethean streams.
"Randolph Carter," said the voice, "you have come to see the Great Ones whom it is unlawful for men to see. Watchers have spoken of this thing, and the Other Gods have grunted as they rolled and tumbled mindlessly to the sound of thin flutes in the black ultimate void where broods the daemon-sultan whose name no lips dare speak aloud.
"When Barzai the Wise climbed Hatheg-Kla to see the Greater Ones dance and howl above the clouds in the moonlight he never returned. The Other Gods were there, and they did what was expected. Zenig of Aphorat sought to reach unknown Kadath in the cold waste, and his skull is now set in a ring on the little finger of one whom I need not name.
"But you, Randolph Carter, have braved all things of earth's dreamland, and burn still with the flame of quest. You came not as one curious, but as one seeking his due, nor have you failed ever in reverence toward the mild gods of earth. Yet have these gods kept you from the marvellous sunset city of your dreams, and wholly through their own small covetousness; for verily, they craved the weird loveliness of that which your fancy had fashioned, and vowed that henceforward no other spot should be their abode.
"They are gone from their castle on unknown Kadath to dwell in your marvellous city. All through its palaces of veined marble they revel by day, and when the sun sets they go out in the perfumed gardens and watch the golden glory on temples and colonnades, arched bridges and silver-basined fountains, and wide streets with blossom-laden urns and ivory statues in gleaming rows. And when night comes they climb tall terraces in the dew, and sit on carved benches of porphyry scanning the stars, or lean over pale balustrades to gaze at the town's steep northward slopes, where one by one the little windows in old peaked gables shine softly out with the calm yellow light of homely candles.
"The gods love your marvellous city, and walk no more in the ways of the gods. They have forgotten the high places of earth, and the mountains that knew their youth. The earth has no longer any gods that are gods, and only the Other Ones from outer space hold sway on unremembered Kadath. Far away in a valley of your own childhood, Randolph Carter, play the heedless Great Ones. You have dreamed too well, O wise arch-dreamer, for you have drawn dream's gods away from the world of all men's visions to that which is wholly yours; having builded out of your boyhood's small fancies a city more lovely than all the phantoms that have gone before.
"It is not well that earth's gods leave their thrones for the spider to spin on, and their realm for the Others to sway in the dark manner of Others. Fain would the powers from outside bring chaos and horror to you, Randolph Carter, who are the cause of their upsetting, but that they know it is by you alone that the gods may be sent back to their world. In that half-waking dreamland which is yours, no power of uttermost night may pursue; and only you can send the selfish Great Ones gently out of your marvellous sunset city, back through the northern twilight to their wonted place atop unknown Kadath in the cold waste.
"So. Randolph Carter, in the name of the Other Gods I spare you and charge you to seek that sunset city which is yours, and to send thence the drowsy truant gods for whom the dream world waits. Not hard to find is that roseal fever of the gods, that fanfare of supernal trumpets and clash of immortal cymbals, that mystery whose place and meaning have haunted you through the halls of waking and the gulfs of dreaming, and tormented you with hints of vanished memory and the pain of lost things awesome and momentous. Not hard to find is that symbol and relic of your days of wonder, for truly, it is but the stable and eternal gem wherein all that wonder sparkles crystallised to light your evening path. Behold! It is not over unknown seas but back over well-known years that your quest must go; back to the bright strange things of infancy and the quick sun-drenched glimpses of magic that old scenes brought to wide young eyes."

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath  (1943)
by H.P. Lovecraft

 

So it was David C. Sutherland III (April 4, 1949 – June 6, 2005) birthday yesterday the artist who helped shape the look of early Dungeons & Dragons & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books & products. He's also very significant for today's blog entry. His famous A Paladin In Hell from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first Edition Player's Handbook was a piece of artwork that I used to stare at for hours. The lone paladin knight against hordes of demons in Hell & in those days we had no backstory except perhaps in some long forgotten issue of The Dragon. And no I don't need to know the issue I can easily look it up at some point. This one image was burned into my back lizard brain for years here & there I'd see the occasional tribute piece of artwork.


But then last night I was looking through the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual & there's our knight again. We can trace the party of adventurers throughout the books until they drop into Hell & our knight sacrifices himself to allow the party to escape. He lives as we'd find out later on via the book," A Paladin in Hell. " But the book at best is at best a retrocon of a classic piece of  old school Sutherland artwork.

Then last night I was thumbing through my copy of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition .After getting off the phone with a friend of mine who got through telling me that the far future setting  of Hyperborea isn't clearly the far future of millions of years from now in the game setting. Well, I cam across a piece of artwork titled 'Holy Avenger A Paladin in Underborea' in the AS&SH second edition book. Ragnarok already happened & many of the gods were killed. There wasn't simply one apocalyptic event there were many. The Poetic Edda poem Völuspá  goes deeply into the events leading up to the battle of the gods and its aftermath.

Brothers will fight

and kill each other,

sisters' children

will defile kinship.

It is harsh in the world,

whoredom rife

—an axe age, a sword age

—shields are riven—

a wind age, a wolf age—

before the world goes headlong.

No man will have

mercy on another

Zothique's period is long after this time when the cycles of  the apocalyptic events have run their course. The Last Hieroglyph by Clark Ashton Smith goes into the signs & portents of the end or beginnings of these cycles. It always begins quietly & dangerously.

"The world itself, in the end, shall be turned to a round cipher.
     -Old prophecy of Zothique

"Nushain the astrologer had studied the circling orbs of night from many far-separated regions, and had cast, with such skill as he was able to command, the horoscopes of a myriad men, women and children. From city to city, from realm to realm he had gone, abiding briefly in any place: for often the local magistrates had banished him as a common charlatan; or elsewise, in due time, his consultants had discovered the error of his predictions and had fallen away from him. Sometimes he went hungry and shabby; and small honor was paid to him anywhere. The sole companions of his precarious fortunes were a wretched mongrel dog that had somehow attached itself to him in the desert town of Zul-Bha-Sair, and a mute, one-eyed negro whom he had bought very cheaply on Yoros. He had named the dog Ansarath, after the canine star, and had called the Negro Mouzda, which was a word signifying darkness.
In the course of his prolonged itinerations, the astrologer came to Xylac and made his abode in its capital, Ummaos, which had been built above the shards of an elder city of the same name, long since destroyed by a sorcerer's wrath. Here Nushain lodged with Ansarath and Mouzda in a half-ruinous attic of a rotting tenement; and from the tenement's roof, Nushain was wont to observe the positions and movements of the sidereal bodies on evenings not obscured by the fumes of the city. At intervals some housewife or jade, some porter or huckster or petty merchant, would climb the decaying stairs to his chamber, and would pay him a small sum for the nativity which he plotted with immense care by the aid of his tattered books of astrological science.
When, as often occurred, he found himself still at a loss regarding the significance of some heavenly conjunction or opposition after poring over his books, he would consult Ansarath, and would draw profound auguries from the variable motions of the dog's mangy tail or his actions in searching for fleas. Certain of these divinations were fulfilled, to the considerable benefit of Nushain's renown in Ummaos. People came to him more freely and frequently, hearing that he was a soothsayer of some note; and, moreover, he was immune from prosecution, owing to the liberal laws of Xylac, which permitted all the sorcerous and mantic arts."
"The Last Hieroglyph" (Weird Tales, April 1935)

Its when these cycles of death & rebirth of the gods is revealed that the inherit Cosmicism of the circle of H.P. Lovcraft's circle of writers is revealed.  Even the crawls & tendrils of the Outer Gods is helpless against these circles of cosmic history. The fact is that in dungeons adventurers are far closer to the cosmic prison of the Underworld then they'd like to be. This comes through loud and clear in the tribute piece of artwork AS&SH's Holy Avenger A Paladin in Underborea.



Peering deeply into Gods, Demi Gods, & Heroes by Robert Kuntz then we see that a significant number of ancient people's pantheons from antiquity are represented. These same cultures go on to make up the bulk of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique cycle;
"Clark Ashton Smith himself described the Zothique cycle in a letter to L. Sprague de Camp, dated November 3, 1953:

Zothique, vaguely suggested by Theosophic theories about past and future continents, is the last inhabited continent of earth. The continents of our present cycle have sunken, perhaps several times. Some have remained submerged; others have re-risen, partially, and re-arranged themselves. 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. Oars and sails alone are used by mariners. There are no fire-arms—only the bows, arrows, swords, javelins, etc. of antiquity. The chief language spoken (of which I have provided examples in an unpublished drama) is based on Indo-European roots and is highly inflected, like Sanskrit, Greek and Latin."

These same peoples appeared in the pages of The Dragon Magazine & various other early original Dungeons & Dragons products. The cycles of the gods are something that's inherit in the mythology of Western & Eastern culture. The Apocalypse always seems to provide fodder for the dungeons & ruins throughout a campaign setting. You can well bet that below the ruined cities of the Hyperboreans there are millions of damned souls still being tortured by various demons.

AS&SH art by Del Teigeler for the Kickstarter winding up in 10 days!

I mentioned yesterday the inherit weird energies that always accompany invasive monsters in reality. Almost each & every time demons or beings of Outer Darkness are mentioned in Robert Howard's novels & stories there's more then a bit of trepidation over the corruption of the occult & supernatural & with good reason.

"Yonder in the unknown vastness"—his long finger stabbed at the black silent jungle which brooded beyond the firelight—"yonder lies mystery and adventure and nameless terror. Once I dared the jungle—once she nearly claimed my bones. Something entered into my blood, something stole into my soul like a whisper of unnamed sin. The jungle! Dark and brooding—over leagues of the blue salt sea she has drawn me and with the dawn I go to seek the heart of her. Mayhap I shall find curious adventure—mayhap my doom awaits me. But better death than the ceaseless and everlasting urge, the fire that has burned my veins with bitter longing."

"The Hills of the Dead" (1930)

Dungeons & the underworld are repositories & toxic waste dumps of the universe scrapping against the outer edges of chaos & Hell. Anyone living close to such areas are bound to be 'not right'. These are mutants & throw backs to other ages that we so often in old school gaming. Val Semeiks latest offerings on Corey Walden, The Anthropophagi of Xambaala & the artwork clicks all of my old school throwback buttons.


In Arthurian lore these beings are those who have dallied with Fairyland  a bit too long. The chaos energies warp the very energies of their being making them mutants of the first order. Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun by Rpg Pundit has a complete system for generating mutant OSR PCs races and its one that intend to use with my Lion & Dragon game setting. Yes once again I'm using a 'Gonzo' source for mutant PC's but since it plugs in I'm more then happy to adapt it into the mix! The energies of Chaos have been lapping against the shores of Briton and even during the time of Arthur they knew to put certain tribes of marauders to the sword & torch as given in the History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth   Book 7: The Prophesies of Merlin;
"As Vortigern, king of the Britons, was sitting upon the bank of the drained pond, the two dragons, one of which was white, the other red, came forth, and, approaching one another, began a terrible fight, and cast forth fire with their breath. But the white dragon had the advantage, and made the other fly to the end of the lake. And he, for grief at his flight, renewed the assault upon his pursuer, and forced him to retire. After this battle of the dragons, the king commanded Ambrose Merlin to tell him what it portended. Upon which he, bursting into tears, delivered what his prophetical spirit suggested to him, as follows:—
"Woe to the red dragon, for his banishment hasteneth on. His lurking holes shall be seized by the white dragon, which signifies the Saxons whom you invited over; but the red denotes the British nation, which shall be oppressed by the white. Therefore shall its mountains be levelled as the valleys, and the rivers of the valleys shall run with blood. The exercise of religion shall be destroyed, and churches laid open to ruin. At last the oppressed shall prevail, and oppose the cruelty of foreigners. For a boar of Cornwall shall give his assistance, and trample their necks under his feet. The islands of the ocean shall be subject to his power, and he shall possess the forests of Gaul. The house of Romulus shall dread his courage, and his end shall be doubtful. He shall be celebrated in the mouths of the people; and his exploits shall be food to those that relate them. Six of his posterity shall sway the sceptre, but after them shall arise a German worm. He shall be advanced by a sea-wolf, whom the woods of Africa shall accompany. Religion shall again be abolished, and there shall be a translation of the metropolitan sees. The dignity of London shall adorn Dorobernia, and the seventh pastor of York shall be resorted to in the kingdom of Armorica. St David's shall put on the pall of the City of Legions, and a preacher of Ireland shall be dumb on account of an infant growing in the womb. It shall rain a shower of blood, and a raging famine shall afflict mankind. When these things happen, the red one shall be grieved; but when his fatigue is over, shall grow strong. Then shall misfortunes hasten upon the white one, and the buildings of his gardens shall be pulled down. Seven that sway the sceptre shall be killed, one of whom shall become a saint. The wombs of mothers shall be ripped up, and infants be abortive. There shall be a most grievous punishment of men, that the natives may be restored. He that shall do these things shall put on the brazen man, and upon a brazen horse shall for a long time guard the gates of London. After this, shall the red dragon return to his proper manners, and turn his rage upon himself. Therefore shall the revenge of the Thunderer show itself, for every field shall disappoint the husbandmen. Mortality shall snatch away the people, and make a desolation over all countries. The remainder shall quit their native soil, and make foreign plantations. A blessed king shall prepare a fleet, and shall be reckoned the twelfth in the court among the saints. There shall be a miserable desolation of the kingdom, and the floors of the harvests shall return to the fruitful forests. The white dragon shall rise again, and invite over a daughter of Germany. Our gardens shall be again replenished with foreign seed, and the red one shall pine away at the end of the pond. After that shall the German worm be crowned, and the brazen prince buried. He has his bounds assigned him, which he shall not be able to pass. For a hundred and fifty years he shall continue in trouble and subjection, but shall bear sway three hundred. Then shall the north wind rise against him, and shall snatch away the flowers which the west wind produced. There shall be gilding in the temples, nor shall the edge of teh sword cease. The German dragon shall hardly get to his holes, because the revenge of his treason shall overtake him. At last he shall flourish for a little time, but the decimation of Neustria shall hurt him. For a people in wood and in iron coats shall come, and revenge on him his wickedness. They shall restore the ancient inhabitants to their dwellings, and there shall be an open destruction of foreigners. The seed of the while dragon shall be swept out of our gardens, and the remainder of his generation shall be decimated. They shall bear the yoke of slavery, and wound their mother with spades and ploughs. After this shall succeed two dragons, whereof one shall be killed with the sting of envy, but the other shall return under the shadow of a name. Then shall succeed a lion of justice, at whose roar the Gallican towers and the island dragons shall tremble. In those days gold shall be squeezed from the lily and the nettle, and silver shall flow from the hoofs of bellowing cattle. The frizzled shall put on various fleeces, and the outward habit denote the inward parts. The feet of barkers shall be cut off; wild beasts shall enjoy peace; mankind shall be grieved at their punishment; the form of commerce shall be divided; the half shall be round. The ravenousness of kites shall be destroyed, and the teeth of wolves blunted. The lion's whelps shall be transformed into sea-fishes; and an eagle shall build her nest upon Mount Aravius. Venedotia shall grow red with the blood of mothers, and the house of Corineus kill six brethren. The island shall be wet with night tears; so that all shall be provoked to all things. Woe to thee, Neustria, because the lion's brain shall be poured upon thee: and he shall be banished with shattered limbs from his native soil. Posterity shall endeavour to fly above the highest places; but the favour of new comers shall be exalted. Piety shall hurt the possessor of things got by impiety, till he shall have put on his Father; therefore, being armed with the teeth of a boar, he shall ascend above the tops of the mountains, and the shadow of him that wears a helmet. Albania shall be enraged, and, assembling her neighbours, shall be employed in shedding blood. There shall be put into her jaws a bridle that shall be made on the coast of Armorica. The eagle of the broken covenant shall gild it over, and rejoice in her third nest. The roaring whelps shall watch, and, leaving the woods, shall hunt within the walls of cities. They shall make no small slaughter of those that oppose them, and shall cut off the tongues of bulls. They shall load the necks of roaring lions with chains, and restore the times of their ancestors. Then from the first to the fourth, from the fourth to the third, from the third to the second, the thumb shall roll in oil. The sixth shall overturn the walls of Ireland, and change the woods into a plain. He shall reduce several parts to one, and be crowned with the head of a lion. His beginning shall lay open to wandering affection, but his end shall carry him up to the blessed, who are above. For he shall restore the seats of saints in their countries, and settle pastors in convenient places. Two cities he shall invest with two palls, and shall bestow virgin-presents upon virgins. He shall merit by this the favour of the Thunderer, and shall be placed among the saints. From him shall proceed a lynx penetrating all things, who shall be bent upon the ruin of his own nation; for, through him, Neustria shall lose both islands, and be deprived of its ancient dignity. Then shall the natives return back to the island; for there shall arise a dissention among foreigners. Also a hoary old man, sitting upon a snow-white horse, shall turn the course of the river Periron, and shall measure out a mill upon it with a white rod. The shall break forth the fountains of Armorica, and they shall be crowned with the diadem of Brutus. Cambria shall be filled with joy; and the oaks of Cornwall shall flourish. The island shall be called by the name of Brutus: and the name given it by foreigners shall be abolished. From Conan shall proceed a warlike boar, that shall exercise the sharpness of his tusks within the Gallic woods. For he shall cut down all the larger oaks, and shall be a defence to the smaller. The Arabians and Africans shall dread him; for he shall pursue a furious course to the farther part of Spain. There shall succeed the goat of the Venereal castle, having golden horns and a silver beard, who shall breathe such a cloud out of his nostrils, as shall darken the whole surface of the island. There shall be peace in his time; and corn shall abound by reason of the fruitfulness of the soil. Women shall become serpents in their gait, and all their motions shall be full of pride. The camp of Venus shall be restored; nor shall the arrows of Cupid cease to wound. The fountain of a river shall be turned into blood; and two kings shall fight a duel at Stafford for a lioness. Luxury shall overspread the whole ground; and fornication not cease to debauch mankind. All these things shall three ages see; till the buried kings shall be exposed to public view in the city of London. Famine shall again return; and the inhabitants shall grieve for the destruction of their cities. Then shall come the board of commerce, who shall recall the scattered flocks to the pasture they had lost. His breast shall be food to the hungry, and his tongue drink to the thirsty. Out of his mouth shall flow rivers, that shall water the parched jaws of men. After this shall be produced a tree upon the Tower of London, which, having no more than three branches, shall overshadow the surface of the whole island with the breadth of its leaves. Its adversary, the north wind, shall come upon it, and with its noxious blast shall snatch away the tjird branch, but the two remaining ones shall possess its place, till they shall destroy one another by the multitude of their leaves; and then shall it obtain the place of those two, and shall give sustenance to birds of foreign nations. It shall be esteemed hurtful to native fowls; for they shall not be able to fly freely for fear of its shadow. There shall succeed the ass of wickedness, swift against the goldsmiths, but slow against the ravenousness of wolves. In those days the oaks of the forests shall burn, and acorns grow upon the branches of tell trees. The Severn sea shall discharge itself through seven mouths, and the river Uske burn seven months. Fishes shall die with the heat thereof; and of them shall be engendered serpents. The baths of Badon shall grow cold, and their salubrious waters engender death. London shall mourn for the death of twenty thousand; and the river Thames shall be turned to blood. The monks in ther cowls shall be forced to marry, and their cry shall be heard upon the mountains of the Alps.""

Apocalyptic times of history are never simple things in old school campaigns but they can provide fodder for all kinds of adventure as long as the dungeon master & players don't take them too seriously. The underworld is an unending source of dungeon fodder for classic adventures. There's far too much material to cover in one blog entry we'll get more into it tomorrow! Remember sometimes having a paladin or knight in the party is necessary. Keep your holy avenger handy kids!