Showing posts with label Locations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Locations. Show all posts

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Rshaeic-logh A Krell Out Post - A Location Encounter For Any Space Opera

 File:Lewecke-gateport.jpg

"In times long past, this planet was the home of a mighty, noble race of beings who called themselves the Krell. Ethically and technologically they were a million years ahead of humankind, for in unlocking the meaning of nature they had conquered even their baser selves, and when in the course of eons they had abolished sickness and insanity, crime and all injustice, they turned, still in high benevolence, upwards towards space. Then, having reached the heights, this all-but-divine race disappeared in a single night, and nothing was preserved above ground"
Dr. Edward Morbius
Rshaeic-logh circles a medium blue green star at a very minor star vector off of the usaual busy trade routes. This once beautiful world sits surrounded by a corna of crackling lightning. Unknown & sleeping now. 
           This was once an outpost of the mighty Krell. 2.5 billion years ago the Krell were locked in a mighty war with the Elder Things of  Hamaogglo-tho. The war dragged on for centuries until the Elder Things unleashed the Shoggoths upon the Krell. 
Within seven days the war was over but something went very wrong. The installations still sit waiting & guarding their secrets to this day. 
Rshaeic-logh is world protected by a corona of electrically charged gases. Each time a space craft penetrates the atmosphere there will be a 1d4 damage lightning strike that will play merry havoc with any electronics hit by it unless a save is rolled. 
File:Rising-lewecke.jpg

The outpost's buildings & such still sit in brand new condition even though they are a billion years gone. They have been created with natural diamond shaped by Krell technology. They stand for another billion years without issue.
 Those who stay on the planet for more the 1d4 hours may be subject to horrifying vistas of reality that may appear on the horizon of the planet only to vanish hours, moments, & seconds later. Those who see these sights must roll save vs death or be struck dumb with the cosmic horror of it all for 1d4 hours. 
File:Nemesis.png
These are the after effects of the reality shattering weapons employed by the Elder Things. Most major Krell cities were turned to  dust in a matter of moments. Only the out post weathers all of the major horrors. Krell mechanisms tuning, turning, cleaning, etc. the shaggoths allow this to happen. Why is unknown. 
The Krell weapons still lay in the deep sands of the planet waiting for the shaggoths to blunder into them. The mechanisms form themselves from nano particles & create 1d20 hit point plasticoid temporary creatures. These monsters will attack the shaggoths & destroy them utterly only to return to sands from which they came. 
Scattered through the various debris fields left by the major battles are relics & minor treasures to be had. 
Minor Krell Treasure Table 1d10 
  1. Mono metal item or sheet of metal that reassembles itself in 1d4 rounds 
  2. Krell Time piece metal disk hovers & follows the user giving the local space time & others in various alien languages 
  3. Flat 2d personal computer 12 inches wide & long. .001 inch thick. Also resembles itself in 2 rounds.Alien language  
  4. Nuclear powered rod or writing device will write on any metal 
  5. Metal plate books of the Krell. Still readable but very alien with some disturbing revelations 
  6. Psychic metal object with the terror & memories of the destroyed Krell. Roll save versus insanity 
  7. Symbols of the Krell - The nearest thing to a religious text the Krell had relating to time & space. Alien 
  8. Pink Jelly Like Battery - Must be stretched & shaped to generate a charge. Enough to power a house. 
  9. Mental enhancer -A coin sized object that holds the last memories of the terrified being. May be used as a weapon doing 1d4 points of telekinesis damage! 
  10. A record of Krell music. Very strange stuff but will increase intelligence score by +1 if the player can be found. 

The outpost itself holds 72 levels down into the solid bedrock of the planet & holds its secrets well.
The mega dungeon like structure holds animal pens, labs, & much more.
At the core of the installation is a blob of non time suspended between three mini white holes. The stuff is stable enough for containment within magnetic bottles but terrifying to the fool who spills it! The distilled time is a key ingredient within the time drives of the Krell. 
File:TIME CAPSULE 2001, SIDE VIEW, show.jpg
1d6 Ill Effects Table of  Distilled Time 
  1. Age prematurely 1d20 years -2 to all stats 
  2. Everything around you decays 1d20 years accept you. Your thrown 1d3 days into the future 
  3. Your character has a pin prick sized hole of time within them. They will begin to act as minor black hole within 1d10 rounds. 
  4. Your erased from history along with all all of your alternative selves 
  5. Your caught in a space time warp & moved back to the time of the Krell become an experimental animal 
  6. Your Pc evolves to his next evolutionary stage & leaves the party far behind to take his place on the cosmic ladder. Roll another PC 
Well field 



Deep within a desert field is a 40 mile square patch of soil with control panels every 40 yards & capped by a strange looking well like structure. These shafts have been sunk 20 miles into the surface of the planet. Here the Flying Polyps await release from their slumber after being trapped by the ancient Krell! They will attack anyone after 1d4 days!
File:Flying Polyp.jpg
The artifacts of this planet are without question priceless but so is the horror of unleashing some of the things that sleep here. 

Saturday, February 1, 2014

MegaStructures As Megadungeon Fodder For Your Old School Science Fiction or Fantasy Campaign

Science Fiction artwork from the nineteen hundreds through now has been filled with Mega Structures. Incredibly breathtaking and inspiring locations that seem to echo throughout old school rpg campaigns. These can make or break a game setting by simply being there.
They make great opportunities for exploration and looting potential.





One concept for the space elevator has it tethered to a mobile seagoing platform. This concept has appeared in Gamma World campaigns and recently a Mutant Future campaign 
 What is a Mega Structure? 
Well wiki has a pretty clear definition of the Megastructure:
 
A megastructure is a very large manmade object, though the limits of precisely how large this is vary considerably. Some apply the term to any especially large or tall building.[1][2]
Some sources define a megastructure as an enormous self-supporting artificial construct. Other criteria such as rigidity or contiguousness are sometimes also applied,[citation needed] so large clusters of associated smaller structures may or may not qualify. The products of megascale engineering orastroengineering are megastructures.
Most megastructure designs could not be constructed with today's level of industrial technology. This makes their design examples of speculative (or exploratory) engineering. Those that could be constructed easily qualify as megaprojects.
More right over HERE



 A couple of proposed Megastructures that I've used in my games: 
  • Trans-Global Highway, highway systems that would link all six of the inhabited continents on Earth. The highway would network new and existing bridges and tunnels, improving not only ground transportation but also potentially offering a conduit for utility pipelines.
                                                      Appendix N For Megastructures 
Here are a couple of titles to get the DM started on Mega structure design for their old school games. Often times measurements, mapping, diagrams and more have been done making incorporating these elements in your campaigns easy and simple.
  1. Urban Structures For The Future 
  2. Megastructure By Reyner Banham 
  3. Urban Futures Of The Recent Past 
Dark Roasted Blend is another great site for a boat load of potential 
megastructures. They have at least three articles that will provide hours of inspiration for the DM looking to use megastructures as potential for their games!
Recently I was reading the Mega Structure Update from Avi Abrams on Dark Roasted Blend. The writer captured proposed Megastructures going all the way back to the thirties and more recent ones as well.
These would make incredible set pieces for many games but they especially brought to mind games like Carcosa, and many of the post apocalyptic games like Mutant Future. The ones below are only a sample and you can find the complete article right over HERE
Its really worth taking a look at. These maga structures below are perfect to be 

turned into Meg dungeons with their own Gygaxian ecology.
Heck even the 'Warden' could be considered a space going mega dungeon
And many of these might be ripe to put into various planets or alternative Earths

as locations of danger and darkness!
These are only a sample of some of the awesomeness found in the Dark Roasted Blend article. 





(image via)


This design by UK architect Yheu-Shen Chua has been awarded Third Place in eVolo's 2011 Skyscraper Competition: "One of the main purposes of the project is to allow the water from the upstream river to engage directly with the visitors through a series of containers. A hanging tower above the 700-foot drop into the Black Canyon would be used as gallery and a vertical aquarium."


Belgian Architect Vincent Callebaut dreamed up a combination of skyscraper and airship, where the skyscraper itself floats in the air, feeding on a green "algae" energy: the "Hydrogenase" project is as eco-sustainable, as it is beautiful - more info:



(images credit: Vincent Callebaut)


Vincent Callebaut uses organic shapes in his designs and and dreams BIG - see all of his fantastic projects here.



Floating Observatories: Unreal Tower Proposed for Taiwan



Strange combination of a tree-like skyscraper and huge Zeppelin airship-inspired floating observation decks is a radical vision by RomanianDorin Stefan Birou Arhitectura - more info and images here







(image via)


The flowing shapes of this skyscraper remind us of the work of late Jan Kaplicky: on the left is the new national library in Prague, on the right is the Selfridge building, part of the Bullring complex in Birmingham, England:



(image via)


The Taipei City Museum of Art concept by OODA is based on two hypercubes and looks like an alien artifact:




Another alien creature-like Taipei concept is proposed for the Performing Arts Center, by B+U design:



(image via)






Friday, January 10, 2014

Review and Commentary On The Free OSR Resource - Introduction to the Realms of Chirak From Zodiac Gods Publishing


Get It Right over 
Need a location for your PC's to dive into for an encounter, a place to re equip, get the latest rumors , tangle with important NPC's, and perhaps have a mini adventure, this might be your location.
With a bit of restructuring and a science fantasy flavor this might become a mini star port, important off world trade center, or cultural jump point for the races of this star system.
Drive thru rpg blurb : 

This introduction to The Realms of Chirak provides a concise overview of the setting, including its people, cultures, and religion. Includes a map of the Sea of Chirak region.

This book can serve as a handy overview to give to players, and is system neutral. It can be used as a mini-gazetteer for any system.

Using Introduction to the Realms of Chirak From Zodiac Gods Publishing
In sixteen pages we're given everything we need to add the 'The Realms of Chirak into an OSR campaign. A brief but informative overview of the races, culture, and religions. A few blurbs about the backgrounds and then just enough material to get started.
There is just enough for a DM to fill in most of the background himself and customize what he needs to get started. There's interesting ideas, religious conflicts, and encounters lurking in the background and waiting to be fleshed out.
The material is well written, quickly presented, and given a concise write up in the booklet.
The maps are well done and concise easily dropped into an existing background while giving enough blank spots that can easily be filled in.
The material is system neutral and easy to adapt to most any gaming system. This product could easily be dropped into most any retroclone gaming system as an encounter location. The locations are perfect for a sword and sorcery game such as 'Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea.' Then again it might be used ad hoc into a game of 'Swords and Wizardry'.
With very little work and some imagination this book could be dropped into a space based retroclone games as well. With the wealth of detail and some additional locations this book could serve as a gate way of trade with this campaign world. This location is perfect to get space based PC's into a world of trouble and hurt.
Because this book is system neutral introduction is both seamless and quickly done using your favorite system.
Introduction to the Realms of Chirak From Zodiac Gods Publishing is a nice addition to my gaming arsenal and I've got plans for this one! Grab it while you can and I look forward to getting into more of the Realms of Chirak From Zodiac Gods Publishing!

Sunday, December 8, 2013

"Pyramiden" A Great Post Apocalyptic Loction At The Ends Of The Earth For Your OSR Post Apocalypic Game


Need a forbiddening location for John Carpenter inspired adventure, an isolated community that has been abandoned since the end of the cold war, or simply a research facility that has been forgotten by society when the mushrooms begin sprouting. 
 According to wiki : 
Pyramiden (meaning "the pyramid" in most Scandinavian languages; called Пирамида, Piramida, in Russian) is a Russian settlement and coal mining community on the archipelago of SvalbardNorway.


The ghost town at the end of the earth
This article appeared upon my radar yesterday. An artic community that is sort of abandoned and waiting among the snows. This island location is almost literally at the ends of the Earth. You can see more pictures 
The ghost town at the end of the earth
History According to Wiki : 

Pyramiden was founded by Sweden in 1910 and sold to the Soviet Union in 1927. It lies at the foot of the Billefjorden on the island of Spitsbergen and is named for the pyramid-shaped mountain adjacent to the town. The nearest settlements are Svalbard's capital, Longyearbyen, some 50 kilometres (31 mi) to the south, Barentsburg approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) south-west and the small research community of Ny-Ålesund, 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the west.
Owned by the state-owned Russian mining company Trust Arktikugol, which also owns the settlement of Barentsburg, Pyramiden once had a population of over 1,000 inhabitants. It was abandoned on 10 January 1998. Until 2007, Pyramiden was practically a ghost town where, within the buildings, things remained largely as they were when the settlement was abandoned in a hurry.[1]
A book has been written about Pyramiden by Norwegian author Kjartan Fløgstad.[2] A recent episode of the History Channel programme "Life After People" featured Pyramiden. It predicted that due to the low rate of decay in a frigid climate, the abandoned town's major buildings would be visible 500 years from now.
The world's northernmost grand piano is located at Pyramiden; a "Red October" (Красный октябрь)[3] grand piano is located in the auditorium of the cultural centre.
Pyramiden is accessible by boat or snowmobile from Longyearbyen, either as part of a guided tour or independently. There are no restrictions on visiting Pyramiden, still owned by Trust Arktikugol, but visitors are not allowed to enter any buildings without permission even if they are open. While most buildings are now locked, breaking into the buildings, vandalism and theft of "souvenirs" have become a serious threat to Pyramiden as it contributes to the accelerating deterioration of the buildings.[4][5]
Since 2007, Trust Arktikugol has been renovating the hotel and upgrading the infrastructure, including building a new power station with diesel generators, in order to accommodate tourists in the old settlement. Up to 30 workers have been living in the settlement year round to maintain the facilities and guide the tourists visiting from Longyearbyen.[6] As of 2013, the Tulip hotel has been reopened and it is possible to stay overnight in Pyramiden. In addition, there is a small hotel built of old shipping containers near the harbour.[5]However, there are no plans to renovate and reopen the whole settlement.
 More information right over on Wiki : HERE
File:Norway Svalbard location map.svg

Using "Pyramiden" In Your OSR Campaigns 
File:Pyramiden settlement.jpg

This location just screams Artic post apocaylyptic horror at the ends of the Earth. this place makes a great colony after the disater ends society in a game like Mutant Future. A great location for an isolated cult of Wendigo worshipers who are operating forgotten among the last great frontier! 
Perhaps an isolated  launch site for Mecha in a post apocalyptic world.
File:DSC02457PyramidenSisteBlikk.JPG

What possible secrets does the old coal mine hold? A waiting to be discovered Great Race base or perhaps the island might be a Mi Go site that has yet to be exploited? Could there be relics from a forgotten era or stem going into the core of the Earth itself?

File:Pyramiden july2011 7.jpg
 What of the community? Could this location be used as a possible settlement for survivors of a coming war? A place preseved for over five hundred years and only now being exploited by your party or PC's? The possiblitiies are endless. And its only now that this location is even garning some attention from the outside world. 

Further On line Support 

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Friday, November 15, 2013

Ancient And Accursed Terra - A New Campaign Setting For Astonishing Swordsmen And Sorcerers of Hyperborea on The Dark Corner

File:Amulet of Venus and Mars.png

An ancient world of horror, magic, myth, beyond the Black Gulf and in the grip of the forces of the Inner World!
Ancient And Accursed Terra upon the Dark Corner Blog For the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg
Here

Friday, November 1, 2013

Commentary And Review Of The Free Horror Setting - Jack Shear's Slithdale Hollow PDF Available For Download On The Dark Corner Blog



Find yourselves in Jack Shear's Slithdale Hollow
 Right over  HERE

There is a weird and woolly neighborhood that's just appeared upon the rpg block. A place that is just downright disturbing where friends, family, and the neighbors just aren't right at all. The shadow of 
Jack Shear's Slithdale Hollow has extended its grasp into your world right now.
 Go download it for free now! 

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Messiah of Evil 1973 As Halloween Adventure Location For The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg On The Dark Corner Blog



The gates to Dune Point are open once again and the blood moon rises!
The sacrifices must be made and in this 1973 movie the dead stalk the streets!
Can your adventurers survive the horrors and wrestle the dread secrets of the
Messiah of Evil  for
Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea! 

Boreas Snows Ancient And Deep ~ A Sword & Sorcery Adventure Setting For Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea ~History Part Two & Encounter Set Up On The Dark Corner Blog

Remorhaz.JPG
 Just in time for Halloween is the final part of the Boreas Snows Ancient And Deep Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea mini campaign!
The keys and the gates have been opened!
Dare you step through into adventure and glory?
Right Over
HERE

Monday, October 28, 2013

Boreas Snows Ancient And Deep ~ A Sword & Sorcery Adventure Setting For Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Upon The Dark Corners Blog

File:Wooly rhinoceros.jpg
Your journey begins
HERE


 Something ancient and evil stalks the lands once again! 
Caught beyond edge of the world of Hyperborea is an the ancient world of Venseclav.
A world of cold, horror, and ancient adventure!
An ancient evil stalks the land once again from the time of my father's father and his father!
We need heroes!
Right here and Right now! 

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

The Free OSR Download Map Pack PDF From Dragon's Foot - "Original Red Brotherhood Citadel" For Use With Your Old School Science Fantasy Campaigns

Need a twisting tower of doom and destruction for your mad brotherhood of mystics on some forgotten planet of the damned? A lair of evil in the middle of some remote corner of a hell spawned galaxy? Have I got just the place for you! The original 'Red Brotherhood Citadel' is the perfect piece of evil real estate for your game!
 Get it Right Over
HERE

Another piece of twisted tower madness from the folks at Dragon's foot! This is a real nasty location perfect for those dark side of the force style mages and wizards that travel between planets, planes, and everywhere in between!
 This map pack clocks in at fourteen pages and its almost fully stocked with maps, descriptions, details, etc. all you have to do is stock it with NPC's, monsters, 'treasure', relics, and a dazzling science fantasy plot hook!
This is a really nice free fourteen page jump off point for any old school campaign but I'm going to be using this for my favorite science fictional retroclones. One thing though is that if stocked with NPCs make sure they correspond to the description within the map pack and that these are of a level in accordance with your players PC's