OSR Keys & Gates - The Castles & Crusades Rpg Aligned With The Star Ship Warden Rpg book

 Back in Nineteen Eighty, the Wilderlands of High Fantasy was growing & changing with each & every expansion. Spies of Light Elf is another wilderness expansion for the Wilderlands from Judges Guild. 

 Spies of Lightelf: Wilderness Book Two By Bryan Hinnen- Wilderlands project, histories, 25 maps, tables, three villages  Fantastic wilderness detail. Spies of Lightelf: Wilderness Book Two fills in a lot of the details on the side of the campaign setting for the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. And surprisingly it does this very well. The question in my mind is there far more going on out in the wilderness of the Wilderlands then anyone suspects. Yesterday we spoke about Portals of Torsh. And the opinion not fact that could there be a definitive connection between the occult technologies of the brass rings of  Castles & Crusades Stains Upon The Green and the portals of JG's portal series?! 

The portal technologies of  the module series Portals of Torsh, Portals of Irontooth, and Portals of Twilight concern a series of planar locations & dungeons which the characters can stumble into or explore. But these portals may lead to ancient locations in dungeons & other ruins that few survive from exploring. Such trips maybe one way. But these portals are reminding me of the microdimensional planar technologies of the Empire of the Petal Throne rpg. 

Given the collapse of the dimensional gates from the Human Empire. Are we actually looking at old gateway technologies that other races stumbled upon and started using?! Anything is possible but the number of campaign setting worlds that might have been cut off by the collapse of the gates of the Human Empire?! 
How many planets continued as local interstellar  governments struggled with keeping up with the local sector demands?! 
Could this partially responsible for the full on cut off situation that we see in original Traveller?! 
Might this same style of hyperspecial gate collapse & hyperspacial shunt  be responsible for some of what has  happened to the Starship Warden?!? 

The brave starship flies through & hyperspecial gateway which messes with the unreality of the ship. Throughout space & time the events of the the microdimensional planar technologies of the Empire of the Petal Throne rpg echo. These events even blast a number of psychics causing the 'Scream' in Stars Without Number Revised. Star faring empires suddenly caught in the wake of events without their control. 

Now imagine that one of these worlds cut off from the rest of the interstellar community might be called Blackmoor & that a treacherous interstellar spacer sees an opportunity to land during the chaos. This is merely idle speculation but it begs the question. Does the wilderness hold far more then the adventurers suspect?! 

Secrets of Judges Guilds "City State of the Invincible Overlord" By Bill Owen and Bob Bledsaw - The Castles & Crusades Rpg Aligned With The Star Ship Warden Rpg book

 Its been ages since we've talked about Judge's Guilds "City State of the Invincible Overlord" By Bill Owen and Bob Bledsaw. There's some very interesting little tidbits worked into the background of the grand ol'e fantasy city state. I went over the some of the ins & outs of Judge's Guilds "City State of the Invincible Overlord" By Bill Owen and Bob Bledsaw here. 

Yesterday's OSR Nexus The Infinite City rpg session got me thinking again about Troll Lord's The Starship Warden & its possible relationship to 'The Wilderlands of High Fantasy'. More specifically ideas about  the planar rings of  the Rings of Brass, magical portals that lead to dwarven roads carved through the planes from Castles & Crusades Stains Upon The Green.

These Brass Ring portals  might in fact be portals created by the same occult technologies that appear in Judges Guild's Portals of Torsh?! Portals of Torsh was by Rudy Craft from 1980. And the module series Portals of Torsh, Portals of Irontooth, and Portals of Twilight concern a series of planar locations & dungeons which the characters can stumble into or explore. These were early planar travel modules. They are very underrated today & most players wouldn't have a clue about them. 

Portions of the Starship Warden that are stabilized & civilized in a sorta of pseudo European setting might have planar traders come in from the 'Wilderlands of High Fantasy' to trade with them. This leads into many possibilities including the fact that the wily invincible overlord or his court may have maps to the starship Warden. Then the question becomes what other destinations & secrets does the court of the overlord have?! Could they be making a packet selling information about other dungeons & adventure locations from aboard the Warden?! 

The Wilderlands of High Fantasy Boxed Campaign Set Achievement Unlocked & Now With More James Mishler

So over the last couple of months I've been debating what to do with the Judge's Guild issue that's been going on in my campaign. Not the controversy of Bob Bledsaw II but instead getting my hands on the The Wilderlands of High Fantasy Boxed Campaign Set for 3.5 D&D. This is one of my unicorns for my archives & next to impossible to get a hold of. With some networking among contacts & friends I was finally able to snag a copy from a friend's family one of whom's players has passed. God rest his soul. 

So what does this have to do with my Castles & Crusades game?! Quite a bit actually. Over the years more then a few of my games have been spent in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy.  Why?! Well as its explained;"It is also gonzo as hell, having been born in the time when scifi and fantasy were not clearly distinct, and gleefully embracing both into a weirdass pulp land where both Conan and Flash Gordon would be right at home. The land is littered with crashed spaceships - as mentioned up above - thanks to a prehistoric space war between two different alien coalitions, and amongst the standard fantasy races you've got folks like cavemen (riding mammoths!), amazons (with captive women doing all the menial work and men kept for reproduction), lion, cat, hawk, and even chicken people, and it's not at all uncommon to bump into a perfectly normal human except with his skin blue, red, green, or even entirely transparent."

But surely there can't be a Castles & Crusades connection?! Well thanks to the hard work by James Mishler with Monstrous Menaces #2: Blade Dancer, Goblin, and Tharghûl I can add more depth & weirdness to the Higherlands.  And the rest of this series.


First of all in no way shape or form is this benefiting the latest incarnation of Judge's Guild & second these bastard monsters are perfectly suited to add into James Ward's  Tainted Lands setting. This setting is the perfect overlay for the Demon Lands of Judge's Guild fame. Especially since I'm adding in just a tinge of Arduin with the Hellmaiden thanks to the 'In The Cities.dotcom' entry on Arduin Demology entry on Hellmaidens; "Randall, at Retroroleplaying, provides this description of the Arduin Hell Maidens:

“Hell Maidens (5 to 8 HD) are lovely warriors from the neck down, but their heads are skulls. Generally wear chainmail and use a shield, lance, and sword. While they are NOT undead, only silver or magic weapons harm them, they have all undead immunities as will as immunity to confusion and level drains. They ride Hell Horses. They screech and gibber in combat — and collect the bodies of those they kill for food. Unlike their riders, Hell Horses are undead, skeleton horses with cat-like fangs and green flames for eyes. They have 5 to 10 HD. They have all undead immunities, only silver or magic weapons hit, and they hate dwarves, attacking them on sight unless successfully restrained by their rider.”

This creature is described as a “demoness” in the Pegasus issue – not exactly the case according to a close reading of Hargarve, but they do seem pretty demonic in aspect. One of his other demons is described explicitly as resembling a larger version of the Hell Maiden."
Now what would happen if the Rumps had been dallying with the demonic forces of the Demon lands!? Perhaps one of the Rumps of royal linage is a Tharghûls .

This brings into focus the fact that the forces of Hell are pushing our alternative Earth toward's World War One. Making this the perfect excuse to pull out my copy Tome of the Unclean. Here's where the devil & demon cults are operating behind the scenes in both French & German societies. Agents double dealing from the shadows, cabals of secret societies crossing over into fantasy worlds.


Alliances happening as heroes struggle to keep the cap on things as ray gun battles happen in back alleys of Europe. "A series of swift Prussian and German victories in eastern France, culminating in the Siege of Metz and the Battle of Sedan, saw French Emperor Napoleon III captured and the army of the Second Empire decisively defeated." sets up everything as the forces of the  Victorious rpg scream towards World War One. Its here that James Mishler's Vampires of the Olden Lands comes in really handy for constructing the vampire lords of Europe this slots right into The Codex Slavorum material. 

My campaign is a world where cult leaders regularly cross planes into fantasy realms to dally with wizards & demons. This is an Earth where the bounds of sanity are regularly tested & steampunk horror is only around the corner.
The alien Fey of Cha'alt are in a battle for sheer survival against the natural order of this Earth. This isn't anything new & has been happening for thousands of years.



There's a war coming in the shadows & its not going to be pretty at all! The world is growing darker & stars are not quite right.




New game session coming up this week! So stay tuned & keep em rolling for the moment! Stay healthy folks! 

Arduin,Barsoom,& Tegel Manor - Deadly Campaign Connections In My Castles & Crusades Game

Deodanth concept art by Greg Espinosa for the Arduin Monster Cards,1977
Nothing exists in isolation & I haven't canceled a game in months but today because of work I've had to. We're very busy & its getting to be a bit much for me. So I went ahead & last night after taking on so much sewing machine repair work. But there's an Arduin side came up in my Tegel Manor campaign notes! Arduin itself is a world of planar doors & there's been lots of campaign interaction between Greyhawk, Arduin, & Tegel Manor going back years in our games. The dimensional wandering Tegel Manor spreads its evil across the planes subtly. The Rumps infiltrating & investing in many ventures & their corruption turns up in the most surprising places.



That's right there's a blood feud between my bard player's PC & a group of deodanth bounty hunters going back to 2019.  The bard has a death wish & wants revenge on these after the bounty hunters were hired by certain powers of Cha'alt black pyramid. Yes there's a horde of bounty hunters roaming the planes with the PC's wanted posters in their back pockets. 


Then in my wanderings across the internet I stumbled across this video which brought home using certain aspects of Arduin. This a brief but concise video of many of the Arduin products of yesteryear.

But how does one go about using Arduin with Castles & Crusades?! This is a Swords & Wizardry homage to the original Arduin & its free! Completely  compatible with Swords & Wizardry, fast, its free, & its very easy to use!

For the Castles & Crusades crowd that wants to use a Deodanth hit squad I recommend the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition states over at the Underworld Cleaning Service blog from 2012. 
Now with the original Judge's Guild  Tegel Manor there's another lesser know Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom book  aspect to JG's Tegel Manor. There's a group of Green Martian Warriors that were roaming & fighting in the original random encounter charts!


So someplace on the Manor grounds there's a planar  portal Barsoom & I as the dungeon master have been taking full advantage over the years to slip in the occasional Warriors of the Red Planet rpg monster. But this isn't the only Mars I've slipped in under the player's noses. There's a bit more Barsoom with a group of NPC adventurers whose make up is straight outta of Jason Vey's conversion of Doc's OD&D Mars material.  All of these remind me of the classic Frazetta covers from my youth.


This same gateway opens onto the Mars of Empire of the Petal Throne's Rpg via Brett Slocum's Warriors of The Lost Planet free Warriors of the Red Planet Add on campaign book. 



This is my homage to my uncle's Empire of the Petal Throne rpg campaign that we played in '84 through '91. All of these elements are cross compatible with the science fictional/science fantasy elements found in the Castle Keeper's Guide. 



Now what does this have to do with lich lord The Duke De Lamont & his connection's to the Prussian's special projects division?! How will the players react to all of this via their PC's?! I'm gonna have to wait till next week to find out! There's a ton of stuff happening & my players are down with all of it. 

The Deodanth Gamit & The Free Swords & Wizardry Book J. Miskimen's Ruins of Arduin

So last night I was sitting around with DM Steve at the usual watering hole & we were going over my notes for the upcoming Las Vagas Godbound/Cha'alt game. He's thumbing through Cha'alt & comes in with there's too many God damn Elves in this game! And this starts us off on a discussion about original Dungeons & Dragons & Advanced Dungeons's PC Elven race. This gets us involved in our running through Judge's Guild's Portals of Tosh in high school & our party of adventurers had escaped through a teleportation device! We found ourselves on a world of humans & lizardmen with a smattering of humanoid races. There's two towns one lizard man & one human plus the wizard lizard's tower. Just outside of the wizard lizard's tower is where we encounter them!  The most evil race of nasties this side of bloody,bloody, Arduin. We had encountered a Deodanth war party.
 The Deodanths are a race of chaotic evil undead, demonic, Elven/catmen race  created as a biological weapon from the  far future by an unknown power. They have been sent back or escaped back in time to the Arduin campaign setting/multiverse.


Deodanth concept art by Greg Espinosa for the Arduin Monster Cards,1977

We never got to complete Judge's Guild's Portals of Tosh  & instead our party of adventurers  got slaughtered, tortured for days, the Elves in our party were killed to a man, & some of the human's organs were taken for trophies. Now why had this happened?! Well its probably because certain clitches within the players were taking Elven PC's for almost every game cycle.
My uncle at that point had had it with the PC Elves & wanted some variety in his games. Or perhaps he just wanted to wipe out the cocky kids once in awhile using Arduin. Now if I was going to run Arduin then I'd want to run it smooth, simple, & OSR quick. That brings me to  J. Miskimen's Ruins of Arduin. This is a Swords & Wizardry homage to the original Arduin & its free! Completly  compatible with Swords & Wizardry, fast, its free, & its very easy to use!


Now lately I've been getting a lot of flack because supposedly I haven't been supporting Castles & Crusades. This is utter drek & not true at all. For the Castles & Crusades crowd that wants to use a Deodanth hit squad I recommend the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition states over at the Underworld Cleaning Service blog from 2012. 

In my experience Deodanths are truly nasty customers & should never be underestimated in any way,shape, or form. But are they going into my current campaign? Well of course! I've also got an encounter written up for the upcoming game! 


Deodanth with trophy head available from Emperor's Choice Games here. 

Bloody, bloody, Arduin forever!

Shoring up Tegel Manor With The Wilderlands of High Fantasy Session Report

"Home to the City State of the Invincible Overlord and other classic Judges Guild products, the Wilderlands of Fantasy is the ultimate epic high fantasy setting. The Wilderlands of High Fantasy was the first campaign setting ever fleshed out in print for fantasy roleplaying and now Necromancer Games brings this classic Judges Guild setting to you!"

The party tonight was able to make it through through tonight's game of Judge's Guild's Tegel Manor game session. They were able to secure several minor treasures & relics from the NPC's. What I did was draw in several other Judge's Guild products from the original  Wilderlands of High Fantasy & Necromancer Games of  Wilderlands of High Fantasy 3.5  products.



I've been using this material with Castles & Crusades mixed with the 3.5 & the players seemed to be on board with this. Tegel Manor's material  matches up with both of these resources & now its getting to appear more as a whole cloth campaign from the ground up. I've been coming several OSR systems added into the mix. With the OSR  Humble Bundle which I picked from the website.
What I can say is that the bundle is well worth it. 



Now during tonight's game session one of our Psions were able to grab bunch of pesudo illiad minor artifacts our other adventurers had by passed. The rest of the adventurers were defending the monstary from an alien incursion that has been in coming. The alien influences & monsters have a definite chaos bent to them. I used Dark Albion Chaos Cult to give the usual D&D  monsters a very different chaotic feel. 


During tonight's game the player's learned about the The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o From The Book of Artifacts. The cults have found that the mechanism has been moved into the dungeons below the manor. Things are going to get very interesting in the week after next's game session. 

Commentaries On Judge's Guild's "City State of the Invincible Overlord" By Bill Owen and Bob Bledsaw With A Castles & Crusades Twist

"The City-State of the Invincible Overlord was the first fantasy RPG setting ever published (1976). It features a huge walled city that is ruled by the eponymous (lawful evil) Overlord and the surrounding environs that are full of adventure possibilities. What was so striking at the time that it was first released was the incredible level of detail that the product contains. Hundreds of streets are mapped, named, and populated with shops, temples, inns, taverns, brothels, houses, barracks, and the like. Hundreds of NPCs are listed along with their stats and rumors they know (for starting adventures). The history and political system of the City State is described along with relevant laws the PC's must abide by while inside the city. It includes dungeon levels beneath the City State and detailed information for nearby adventure / dungeon sites: the dwarven fortress "Thunderhold" and the "Sunstone Caverns".
The City State was designed for Dungeons & Dragons (Original Edition) but was not officially licensed for D&D until 1978. The license ended in 1983. It was printed many times over the life of Judges Guild and changed in size and configuration in subsequent editions." 
From the RpgGeek Entry here



There are times when I really need to start thinking about fading into the background of the OSR for a nano second. Tonight's been one of those nights & when this happens I go & do a bit of research. In this case it was Judge's Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord  .  City State of the Invincible Overlord was first released at Gen Con IX in August 1976.^[3] City State of the Invincible Overlord launched Judges Guild as a company, and was the centerpiece of its Wilderlands of High Fantasy campaign setting, the first licensed and published Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting"




I was sorting through a thread on Dragon's foot when I came across this little gem from poster Dragondaddy ; "The Invincible Overlord was mostly lawful Evil. However he would do good or benevolent deeds once in a great while, especially if it would strengthen his rule. Slavery as well as Torture, Whippings or Public Floggings, Gauntlets, and being Impressed, or Drafted into Service, is all legal in the City State of the Imperial Overlord by his decree. Torture aswell asmost of the other punishments herein doesn't make the Lawful Neutral playbook.

My CSIO Booklet I in the Background Guidelines on page I-16 describes him thusly;

The Overlord himself is Lawful/Evil leaning towards Good and employs all alignment types in his efforts to maintain a firm power base. The strict enforcement of laws and lack of religious bigotry has widened the Overlord's Power. There is a 16% chance per week of an emergency tax of 2 Gp per LVL on Nobles, 1 Gp per LVL on Gentlemen and Merchants, and 1SP per LVL on all others. In addition, the Overlord's Secret Police (called the Black Lotus) pervades all social levels to the extent that any organized rebellion will come to his attention (1 in 6 chance per day) no matter how secret.

I won't describe all the awesome magic and weapons the Overlord carries, but will mention that his personal bodyguard includes a Mind Flayer, a Beholder, and a Balrog, as well as two Dwarven Myrmidon Champions, three Hell Hounds and in the Throne Room, an Iron Golem. None of this sounds very Lawful Neutral to me.

The Summer Palace,is of course guarded by all LG creatures."

Any military commander that travels into the City-State with an army of 200 or more without a direct invitation of the Invincible Overlord is automatically guilty of high treason and will be arrested and/or assassinated depending on the circumstances."
Another poster on the thread had said that the Invincible Overlord sounded like a stone cold bad ass. And I have to agree with that sentiment.  While Water Deep from the Forgotten Realms claims to be a hive of scum & villainy, the city state was/is the real deal. A campaign setting with everything a dungeon master needs to set his original Dungeons  & Dragons or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games.
And another thing that I didn't realize is that James Mishler did a whole host of conversion & new material for Castles & Crusades for the Wilderlands of High Adventure. These were authorized & approved by Judge's Guild for the Castles & Crusades game. 

Basically this is making me think about a  Judge's Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord powered by a Castles & Crusades engine. For the moment this is only a fleeting thought on my brain & one which I'm filing away in the back of my lizard brain for handy reference later on. The advantages of a Castles & Crusades fueled campaign are many including pulling out older Judge's Guild material into the mix. James Mishler is a solid writer & game designer so the advantages weight on my mind a bit.

There are a myriad of reasons why a  Judge's Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord powered by a Castles & Crusades engine would work:

1. A huge number of JG's beloved & solid products to pull from 
2. Quickly & easily convertable number of supplements & adventures that are beloved by OSR & old school players. 
3. Many of the Judge's Guild products are easily converted over to a Sword & Sorcery theme with a back bone of AD&D style high fantasy on the fringes. 
4. Many of the Judge's Guild products are out in the rpg wilds & easy to get as pdfs and relatively unknown by the majority of 5th edition players. 
5. A stable & easy to reach group of players & audience 
6. AD&D goes easily with Castles & Crusades 
7.   Judge's Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord is bad ass & easily clampable with Greyhawk, Blackmoor, & even.. Mystara. But Mystara could even be pushing it unless I use the AD&D Mystara material. 
8. Even Astonshing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is convertable to this sort of a campaign so win/win in my book. 
9. There is so much to explore in Wilderlands of High Fantasy & it will take years. 
10. Prep time is cut in half with this sort of a campaign. 

Tengel Manor Session Report III - Tigers By The Tale The Stormhaven/Cha'alt Connections

Now there's a lot going on over the last two days of play in my plane hopping version of Tegel Manor. So try & keep up with what's been happening to our idi erm heroes.  The second session had our party of adventurers in a heap of trouble under the manor last week's session.  

I've had a full on weekend of gaming, last night I got together with my players & things went side ways. For a very long time now I've been using Stormhaven Michael Stackpole from the Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes rpg  as a background element of my campaigns for years. But last night I introduced a Tiger acquisitions  unit ( the Tigers are the private security firm that handles all of the security for Allard Electronics) that was at the mansion returning some of the artifacts of the manor.  The party managed to rescue them from skirmish of a chaos warrior from the  the megadungeons of Cha'alt who was charged by his mistress Rump Rus Witch Queen & Priestess of Nyarlathotep with killing the Tigers. The chaos warrior is Ravaging Russ Rake of Rascus whose supposed to bring his cousin the heads of the Tiger team. Little did the party know they had taken some one very nasty amid the young adventurers rescue last week. A doppelganger assassin was secret among them! He wasn't just any doppelganger but a courier that was meeting the Tigers with a very special artifact called the 'Stone of Fire'. He was working for one of the young adventurers who was Ravus Rump a young royal who has the backing of his father Duke Richard Rump.  

The party tormented the doppelganger finding out where the 'stone of fire' had come from? The 'Stone of Fire' is actually one of the items from Flying Buffalo's Treasure Vault. Since the passing of Rick Loomis I thought it was appropriate to use several Flying Buffalo products in last night's session. I didn't get to drop in Grimtooth's Traps.. yet. But they were able to find out the 'fire stone' had been located in the megadungeons of Cha'alt  where it was liberated at the cost of several adventurers & doppelgangers lives. But they had also found the Skull of Doom which had been given over to young Ravus Rump but was quickly taken over after the party knocked the NPC out. The Tiger's acquisition unit was supposed to have acquired the Skull of Doom but never did after encountering the machinations of young Ravus.  The Tigers don't know that the party has the Skull of Doom & the Stone of Fire. 

This game got even further with several of the other weird connections when our adventurers figured out Rump Rus Witch Queen & Priestess of Nyarlathotep was awakened by DM Steve's players a few years ago! The player's old PC's had encountered several adventure elements that pointed to the fact that her objects had been taken from the mansion allowing her to escape.  This all ties in recent "Campaign Commentary - Tegal Manor, Castles & Crusades, Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes" blog entry. But wait there's more! DM Steve has his own Amazing Adventures! Rpg group going into the manor looking for the Skull of Doom! This after they've heard rumors that its in the manor from a ghostly butler. DM Steve recently acquired the the megadungeons of Cha'alt  on my recommendation but from what I hear his player's didn't have a good time. They lost two party members from what I understand. 


Meanwhile today's session had out party making plans to explore the valley of Tegel manor as its made planar passage into its next destination. They've got to gather supplies, rearm, & the players are going over old PC's to get some of their back history on the manor. 
I've already got another NPC in from Cha'alt in their mist after today's session so now its a case of them going back to the manor. Will they survive?! Tune in next week!

Tengel Manor Session Report II - All In The Family or the Connection With The Stairway of V'dreen.

The PC's encountered several young adventurers tonight by the time they made it too Tegel Manor. Young adventurers hellbent on avenging their royal families. They were based on a classic  September 17, 1983 cartoon  you might have heard of called Dungeons & Dragons. The party helped  the youglings from a very hungry room.


Tegel manor was a bit of a test tonight for the players as the haunted halls of the manor called the players back to itself. The ghostly legacy was put to the test with the attention of Rump Rus Witch Queen & Priestess of Nyarlathotep. The party managed to thwart a sacrifice of some mind controlled victims whose vitality was going to become a part of the soul of the witch queen. There were several reminders of the importance of watching their backs within the haunted halls of the manor itself.

They lead the fools back through the garden & into the lands surrounding the haunted manor. The grounds were teaming with ghostly revellers but the party snuck past them with little incident. Through twisting halls and overgrown gardens the whole party managed to actually use some caution getting the kids outta of harms way. They returned to the manor to face down the vengeance of their old nemesis. She's set up several traps before the PC's can even encounter her.

I revamped my campaign notes for Tegel Manor & pulled James Mishler's Ghosts – The Incorporeal Undead  The book provides some excellent resources for upgrading the undead & ghosts within an in OSR campaign.

The PC's are not even aware that vampiric agents are scattered across the lands that they've visited. Several are now on their trails & connected with the Rump family. The family tried to lock up the horrors of the manor but these ghostly horrors don't ever give up. They have their own agendas & now with the party within the hallowed halls of the manor the players are only now starting to remember their brush with the  Stairway of V'dreen. This  this adventure quickly drops the party into this ever-shrinking land, provides a couple set encounters, a couple of adventure sites, and a handful of factions the party can interact with. But Tegel Manor's alien agenda is very strange & dangerous but the players are completely in the dark of this adventure location. But the Rumps are very aware of the Stairway of V'dreen

 Rump Rus Witch Queen & Priestess of Nyarlathotep has deep ties to  the  Stairway of V'dreen. But what magic item or artifact does the witch queen want with that weird plane?! What does this have to do with the megadungeons of Cha'alt? Well only time will tell. 

Why does Cha'alt have such strange connections with lots of other OSR setting well according to some recent comments from Venger Satanis; "So, when I began Cha'alt... I had no idea exactly how it would look when it was finished. That's half the fun for me. A lot of people can't do that because they'd just flake out on the project and leave their backers with nothing.

Obviously, I didn't know the book would end up at 218 pages (what did I say originally 100? 125?)... or else I could have gotten more backers and funding, I'm sure. If you look back, you'll see that I had a totally different idea for The Black Pyramid dungeon (5 separate levels). Similarly, I had every intention of drawing more from the 5e rule-set... but the more I ran it during playtests, the more I realized that this was veering quite a bit closer to OSR than 5e. Presenting Beneath Kra'adumek was my way of testing the waters to see if that would be acceptable to the majority of backers. Two separate books with different mechanics / stat blocks was never an option for a project of this scale what with printing and the fact that I do all of this myself, with the help of Glynn on layout.

So, for those 5e gamers who reject Cha'alt because it's hardly 5e at all, I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to mislead. Things just flowed a certain way and I managed to keep my head above water."

Tengel Manor Session Report - The Vengeance of Rump Rus

Somehow according to friends & others I'm supposed to let the dust settle once again on this blog. Well, that's not gonna happen my friends. The dust of ages retreats as a soul comes howling from the Abyss back to her haunted ancestral home to take vengeance on the enemies of her ancient people & their descendents . Rump Rus Witch Queen & Priestess of Nyarlathotep has been reborn among the haunted timbers of Tegel Manor! She has come to claim her due & she will not be denied!

Rump Rus Witch Queen & Priestess of Nyarlathotep was a mummy that the PC's left behind in the temple of Set inside Tegel manor three years ago. She's one of the original inhabitants of the ancestral lands of the Rumps & was brought back to the manor by Sir Percy Rump. She has been gathering power & strength. She's based on 'Reaper Miniatures Dark Heaven Legends Mummy Queen' figure.



'Reaper Miniatures Dark Heaven
Legends Mummy Queen' figure available right here. 

Her soul escaped from the black pits of the Outer Darkness & the Abyss after the events of 

Battle For The Purple Islands happened.


That's a blog entry for another time but she's come back to the multidimensional version of Tegel Manor with a vengeance for the player's PC's.  The party desecrated her temple & then left for parts unknown. It took many long years for her to reform in the aftermath.  What the party doesn't know is that  Rump Rus is not all what she appears to be. She's a fragment of a goddess incarnate an idea that stole from VS's Dead God Excavation & the classic Hammer film Blood From the Mummy's Tomb. Rump Russ has a modern incarnation fragment known to the PC's as Countess Ruby Red.



She's a patron of the party obsessed with Cha'alt Venger Satanis's newest project because part of trappings & artifacts have been secreted away inside the mega dungeon for safe keeping by the Purple Priests of Pem.  VS's Dead God Excavation has many ideas on creating a rather nasty version of one of these weird semi divine Great Old One style beings. But she must bide her time for the moment until the manor & its valley arrive in the Sea of Dust. 



Then she can go out in the seas eternal sands & dust to "The Ruins of Andril" and raise her undead army of horror & wreck vengeance throughout the planes or can the party stop her?!  I'm using Castles & Crusades to run this leg of the campaign & its been turning out quite nicely for me as the DM. The players on the other hand have their hands full in spades. I'm going to bring the game closer to the halls of Cha'alt coming up soon!