The 'Pay What You Want' OSR Adventure Resource - RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban For Your Old School Campaigns

Good morning kids your uncle Eric is back with another OSR goodie that has plenty of potential at your table. I'm speaking of  RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban.

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE

This is a great thirty page dungeon adventure complete with maps, NPC's,etc. all boiled into an adventure location that you could drop into any existing D&D or AD&D style campaign world. And its very good at what it does. The set up is nice and classic adventure plotline that works on a number of levels to click the emotional buttons of the DM and players;"Approximately 230 years ago the magic-user
Reynaldo Lazendry retired after a twenty year adventuring career, building a wizard's tower atop a
hill. Shortly after retirement he become very bored. Having mastered magic to his satisfaction (he was
an archmage), he decided that the world needed hisgenius applied to the arts.
Realizing that his tower lacked the room to pursue the arts, he began expanding the cellars below his tower into a domain suitable for his endeavors.
After 30 years of retirement, the top of the tower exploded, as wizard tower's are apt to do. The rest
of the tower collapsed into rubble, and Reynaldo was presumed dead. Eventually the local villagers investigated and sifted through the rubble (and looting anything of value), but any entrance to the cellar below was under tons of rock.Years of weathering and recent, massive storm have finally displaced enough rubble to make the cellars accessible again."
Here's the thing that makes this such a great adventure; Reynaldo Lazendry was an adventurer himself there are all kinds of possible plot and adventure hooks scattered throughout the adventure if the DM wants to use the wizard as a recurring but unseen NPC for his own party. There are so many possible uses for this line of thinking that its one of the reasons I started looking into the RL1 once again. Then there's the tower itself, you've got a completely worked up adventure location that you can DYI yourself as needed.




So the set up for this is a classic D&D style but here's the thing this adventure it has plenty of room to make this adventure  into either a sword and sorcery scenario ala Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea or it could easily be given a horror slant with more of the background details about the wizard being revealed through play making this a perfect vehicle to introduce some or make this adventure a possible Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure. Could the The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry work for say Dark Albion? Possibly but it might have to be modified with some of the details and background ironed out a bit more and a change or two with some of the NPC's. Don't mistake this for an easy low level scenario or adventure; it isn't and can be very deadly if PC's make unwise decisions.
There are new spells, new monsters, and some other bits & pieces that reek of  Professor Barker's infamous Saturday night specials school of adventure design ala Empire of the Petal Throne. The idea of several unexpected and highly dangerous things or events lurking in the background of play. This isn't a bad thing in my humble opinion. Then there's a six page appendix featuring Cowford. The matter of Cowford is interesting. The backwater town of Cowford has it's own appendix; the details of the town are very well done but suggest that place is off the beaten path and could be used with Labyrinth Lord or even (sic) Mutant Future. In point of fact the whole adventure could be dropped straight into some sleepy backwater Gamma World style town location and it would still work quite well for the PC's to explore a retired wizard's tower! This town could serve as a fantastic base of operations from which to adventure from.
And that's part of the beauty of RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban; its easy to drop into an existing campaign and modify it as the dungeon master needs. Think that the level between completeness and leaving the details to the DM is a fine balance and that the author does an excellent job with this adventure  A four out of five adventure to say the least! I highly recommend this title!

OSR Review & Campaign Commentary On The Castles & Crusades Codex Germania By Brian Young

"The Codex Germania unearths the mythological realms of the ancient Germans. From the murky forests of their beginnings rise the myths, the magic, gods, goddesses, monsters, heroes and legends of the ancient Germans, all brought to life for your Castles & Crusades game."



Let me go on record as saying that 'The Codex Germania'  is a big book for Castles & Crusades weighing in at 112 pages! That 112 is packed in wall to wall Germanic mythological goodness & its perfect for Halloween! With new PC classes such as the witch & variations on the slayer class not to mention the variety of horrid monsters waiting to chew on your PC?! But there's more here then simply that. Brian Young goes into the book's contents in the intro & it sets the tone for the entire book;

"This book allows both the Castle Keeps and the players to explore the breadth of early Germanic  mythologies and culture.For the sake of history and religion, the pre-Christian Germans are covered because their imagination and colorful beliefs hadnot yet submitted to a European commonality. By the time of Christianization, the Germanic world largely lost it imaginative heritage of wondrous sagas about divine heroes, other worlds,supernatural creatures, and magic. This codex attempts to capture some of that essence and places it into the hands of gamers"

But does the 'The Codex Germania' deliver on its promise of mythological Germany rife with new monsters, PC classes, spells, & more?! Well the mythological &  historical background is right on point with the beginning chapters;
'This chapter serves a twofold purpose in telling history. First, it will give a brief overview of early Germanic history in Europe, giving beginners in this field of study a basic understanding.
Secondly, it gives the creation mythos from the early Germanic  pagan religions as best as possible. Note, that due to the variations among the many tribes, those disparate but similar strands
of myth among Germanic peoples do have a commonality and a link to the Nordic sources that came later.' The book here is really on point & gives the dungeon master an actual usable thumbnail view of ancient Germany's history & mythology. The second chapter in we get even more background focusing on the peoples &  land itself after the first chapter with a an inter spacing of some mythological elements ;
The many descendants of Tuisto dwell in many lands throughout Europa, from east to west and have large tribes often numbering a 100,000 or more members. The three groups of peoples have covered a wide territory over time, from the boundaries of
the furthest south (Roman Empire and Spain) to Britannia to the west, Scandza to the North and the Black Sea to the east.
In this section, the many tribal confederations and regions across Europe, from east to west, will be given a detail that joins both the mythical and historical into a unified perspective for
game play. Germania, on the far side of the Rhine, was seen in Roman eyes as Germani Liberia (Free Germania) where the many tribes there were not under imperial control.
Mythical places in the Germanic Otherworld will also be describedas best as information can be gathered from the limited sources. Key locations in Germania and other settled (and invaded) regions by Germanic tribes are detailed here for places that CKs can use in their games. The mythical locations in the Codex Nordica can be used to enhance those listed here by the CK."
This sets everything up to come just as we've seen in  The Codex Celtarum because we  get a detailed history on the two ancient Germany's. Germania Inferior & Superior are brought to the forefront by Caesar Augustus;
'Caesar Augustus sought to have total control over all of Germania early in his reign before letting this wild and untamed part of Europe deluge the Empire. His designation was Germania
Magna or ‘Great Germania’, but this was cut short after the fatal Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 C.E.
It was deemed unrealistic that Germania would ever be completely in the Empire’s possession and so other strategies were employed to find means in which to incorporate this untamed land. The method of divide and conquer, which had been working well against the Greeks and Celts, was not so simple in the
face of this newly encountered people.'
You get a really nicely detailed semi mythological setting with lots of historical details & then the book jumps feet first into the mythological realms of Germanic mythology after detailing  swaths of history on kings, tribes, & gobs of history.  This material parells many of the Teutonic & Norse mythologies that I've seen over the years but its got a slightly different take here. Take for example 'ÆLFHÁM – Home of the Elves
This magical world exists outside of the reach of Middangeard normally and is bound tightly to the tree of Irminsul, as it is filled with its constant magical energies. The elves that live here are whimsical and frivolous acting among each other, but they turn sinister and devious towards strangers (specifically humans) if they are interrupted.
Fair beings, standing both short and tall, the ælf-kind are purely composed of magic. Their world is a large, wild forest-land filled with other magical beings and creatures that can be called faery.
These ælves can glow with a white light from within in a heavenly manner if needed to banish away evil or dark beings keepingthis world untainted by the presence of darkness.
 Wēland the smith (or deor) is their king (Ylfcynig), who dwells in a simple forest smithy away from the hustle and bustle of the court and palace. In his stead, he has many stewards and chiefs that function for him while he creates wondrous items at his
forge. Wēland’s crafts have been sought after by many across the worlds, and they have attempted many deceptive plots to do so.
To outsiders, the myriad rulers of Ælfhám will appear lofty and arrogant in manner, but this is due to the immortals’ difference from mortals, and the possession of their great magic. The land is largely untamed and filled with wondrous sights and beings beyond all comparison (CK can refer to the Codex Celtarum for faery abilities and extra beings not in this particular codex).
The inhabitants of this world choose to intrude on Middangeard often, becoming involved in the affairs of mortals and altering events to suit their own purposes. They do not, however,
allow mortals to meddle in their business. Mortals are looked down upon by the ælf-kind for their crudeness, vulgarity, and lack of refinement.
The goddess Frigge dwells here and is often seen riding in her chariot in the forests, surrounded by her faery entourage. It is wisest by mortals and invited strangers to never interrupt her ride. This world has never known the scourge of the giants or other invaders in its history because of the powerful enchantments possessed by its natives.'
These are the Elves I grew up hearing & reading about with my German neighbors in my home town. Yes they have some of the qualities of the Tolkein Elves but these are the origins & their every bit as alien & weird. The realms of Fairy & the Germanic gods are not to be treated upon by mankind.  The monster section folds neatly within the mythological places & realms of the gods starting with alp is a type of elf vampire & then finally ending with the Germanic dragons which we get solid guide line rules ala Beowulf.
The Germanic dragons are nasty pieces of work & this might happen to your PC's.


Myths and legends of all nations; famous stories from the Greek, German, English, Spanish, Scandinavian, Danish, French, Russian, Bohemian, Italian and other sources by Marshall, Logan, tr Publication date 1914
Not artwork from the book but these are the type of monsters in 'The Codex Germania' .

Chapter four In Wizardry & Enchantments goes into the magic PC classes, magicks, spells, & enchanted items of 'The Codex Germania';
'There are many new character classes included that are different from the normal wizard and illusionist classes in that their approach to spell-casting and enchantments are
not typical, the Erilaz or (rune master), and Wælcyrig/Halirúna
or (witch).
The many aspects of rune magic are detailed here and how they can be used in normal gaming. Runes in gaming have always been somewhat close to the ancient Migration Period attestation of runic magic and their later Viking parallels. This chapter
will outline a system that is closer to those mentioned previously." Yes I'm skipping over the ring oaths because there's a ton of background with these which are for adventures & I'll go into this later. This chapter is very well done in my opinion & really sets  'The Codex Germania' apart in its approach to handling the whole of Germanic mythological magick in Castles & Crusades. And this brings me to Serve the Gods which really dives deeply into the Germanic Pagan & Druidic traditions. It dives deeply into the Germanic mythological pantheon from the creator gods to the gods of warfare to hearth & home. Sacred groves & funeral practices actually get a solid style of use for Pagan cleric PC classes here.
Chapter six 'Skilled in Battlecraft' gives the PC martial classes something to use in the Germanic mythological world. We get more pseudo historical information on the Germanic warrior, further details of the ring oaths of a warrior, & more useful information on the martial affairs of Germanic warriors, soldiers, etc. Including historical information on women warriors of Germany. Deadly rules for ancient artillery & arrows along with the shield wall. Property, land, blood money, and more all used in ancient warfare in Germany. Then finally two new PC classes The Dragonslayer & the Wod or Germanic 'Fury' which is similar to Norse beserker but they have some of their own mythic or divine wrinkles. Both classes are very well done. The slayer & witch classes from the magic section are excellent foils for both of these classes & I can see using all of this to put together an adventuring party for ancient Germany.
Finally we get to the Castle Keeper's information about ancient Germany, its rulers, & society. This is a very well laid out chapter & has critical information about the whole of running a campaign. Again its very well put together. 'The Codex Germania' is a solid & well put together product. I like how accessible it is & how well put together all of the information is in this book. I think that the 'The Codex Germania' is a solid five out of five.


Now for the Amazing Adventures! rpg dungeon master this is another in my mind essential book. Why?! Because of the fact that there is so much to pillage & use. The Wod, the Dragon slayer, the slayer class,the witch, & more make excellent foils for the Pulp adventuring of AA!


But once again this is a solid case of using the Amazing Adventures companion & the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters especially because of the Dragon Slayer class.  The dragons & NPC witches of 'The Codex Germania' are solid evil & make excellent vile villains. They have motives, personalities, & out and out agendas that should they find their way to civilization would wreck havoc. The Monsterous Manual has a wide array of minor dragonic monsters that could also wreck havoc with the world of ancient Germany. The Wod could be used as the basis for a nasty PC class of fighter or adventurer. The use of 'The Codex Germania' for a World War two game is both intriguing & beyond the scope of one blog review & yes I will go into this more as my Amazing Adventures campaign continues!

Review & Commentary Of Castles & Crusades ' The Codex Slavorum' By Brian Young For Your Old School Campaigns

"Norv & Galv crawled along the guttural entrance to the former Roman temple, its gods long replaced by something much worse. 'Did you bring the torches?!', the voice quivered & it wasn't the rime cold or the slime under Galv's backside. Norv made his way to the ruin's gated remains which had been bent years before by something it hitting it from inside with great force. The candle light arched around the rusted remains & Norv held his hand up for silence. He took the ox oil from his pack & literally applied it but neither warrior saw the spent made from darkness as thick as a man's thigh crawl from right over their heads. The monster was another limb of the thing of darkness that lived in the ruins of the temple. The village chief would keep his half of the warriors bargain & his daughter. Norv's son would marry another & he would mourn his father. There were no time for screams & only the wet sucking sound of flesh then silence played in the aqueduct. But this was the price to pay whist messing in the darkness in the affairs of wizards & demons. ."

 There are a few OSR products & rpg products that use the Slav mythology & occult traditions as the basis for an rpg  setting. The Codex Slavorum does exactly this & perhaps a bit more.


"The Codex Slavorum opens roads into the mythological realms of the ancient Slavs. Born in the shadow of Siberia their myths and magic, their gods, goddesses, monsters, heroes and legends offer an untouched wealth of material for your Castles & Crusades game.
New Classes! New spells! More monsters!
Bring the ancient Slavic worlds to life!"



I opted for the physical package & grabbed my order on Friday  from the mail.The books are beautiful with the cover art striking with a Chrenobog demon being confronted by a Slavic wizard in the spirit realm. Drivethrurpg lists three books in the Mythos line for Castles & Crusades by Brian N. Young.   Young presents the Slav spiritual & mythological world as easily accessible & fundamentally usable to the dungeon master ( no I'm not nor will I ever be a Castle Keeper, I'm a dungeon master as Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson were).  I'm going to turn this book on its side because I'm planning on using this material in my campaigns. But I want you to see the quality of the layout & the black & white artwork.
Peter Bradley does a bang up job with his artwork.

Opinions about the 'The Codex Slavorum' vary wildly from Amazon 3 star rating by Chrytal Cartwright . Then there is  the five star rating on Good  Reads by
Winston Crutchfield.
Can't understand the hate nor the three star rating because I happen to be on the Crutchfield side of things. Here's why.

 I'm really glad I spent the money to grab this book because the Slavic material is actually useful to me. Al of the OSR setting &  campaign material is in the front of the book & the PC stuff is in the back with a solidly done index. Yes this book has an actual index enabling the reader to quickly access the section he or she needs. This layout is similar to the older Ars Magica rpg books. The quality of 'The Codex Slavorum' reminds me of those books. The setting here is pure Castles & Crusades Slavic world setting with a solid overview of both the Slavic/Russian 'real world'  & the spiritual world. This includes a good array of monsters, spells, Gods, interactions, & low & behold a good damn solidly usable  Slavic Shaman class! Growing up in a Polish neighborhood with Russians, Hungarians, & lots of Eastern Europeans the Slavic shaman & some of the mythical traditions of Eastern Europe make me twitchy with the traditional Dungeons & Dragons clerical classes. They don't mix well. In 
The Codex Slavorum we finally get the mix of the Slavic myths & the spiritual realms with D&D style elements even though its Castles & Crusades. Volkhv & their ilk finally get their due & its well done. Among these folk your not going to find any flashy fireball wielders unless you want to get burnt at the stake. This is set during the 'Time of Legends ' & folks like Oleg are important NPC's. The artwork(not in the book btw) below illustrates the importance of the occult world against the world of man.  There are some dark reasons for this. 'The Codex Slavorum' presents the all too real struggle of light vs darkness with the Slavic shades of blood red & dark mythic gore. This is an epic book & tool kit.

  Oleg meets the volkhv.
Painting by Viktor Vasnetsov

Most folks think of the world of Slavic mythology being the world dragons, liches,a myriad of ghosts, spirits, etc. but its really the world of the vampire. The vampire of  'The Codex Slavorum' is not a monster to be taken lightly at all. This is a force of undeath at its worst & there is a PC vampire hunter class here to counter it. I have to say that there must be more then a few very dead vampire hunters. Sure they may be formidable but here the vampires are very dangerous indeed. These are the vampires of Slavic legend fueled by the gods of the underworld. Forget your cinematic vampires these are the horrors of legend & they make the vampires of "Flavenlost" look tame. The forces of darkness & horror are well represented in the ninety eight pages of the ' The Codex Slavorum'.  But the forces of light have their due with Eagle Knights, heroes of legend, the gods, Pagan priests, hunters of the supernatural, & more are also  within these pages. The Slavic world of ' The Codex Slavorum' is a complex & dangerous world intertwined with the gods as well as native legendary knights. Mythic knights whose stories are as complex as any of the legends of Arthur & his band. There are as many versions of these stories as well all across the Slavic world. They have a very boiled down version of these knights that can be used as PC class. I was very pleased to see this.
So what does all of this material in the ' The Codex Slavorum' mean for the Amazing Adventures dungeon master? Well many of the monsters & elements have been transcribed & filtered into  The Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters.

This isn't a slight on Jason Vey's work but when you want to have a party of adventurers meet the forces of the Slavic underworld head on. There's nothing like having the original source book in your hands to pull from in order to do it.Sure there's Wiki entries & internet what not but when you want your OSR source book to pull from when constructing then your going to want the ' The Codex Slavorum'.
I've already gotten the question of 'how can an Amazing Adventures rpg demon hunter class & the vampire PC class coexist. The answer is simple. The vampire which was transcribed over to  the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters & the demons of Slavic lore are all under the umbrella of the gods of darkness.
 There is more then enough darkness across the planes for an army of demon hunters & vampire slayers besides the two classes work extremely well together.
For the pulp/super hero gamer who wants a Slavic slant on their character's origins this is a must buy. Raiders & the like who are looking for far deeper depth on the artifacts & treasure that their going after this is the book that can give your PC's deeper grounds. Five out of five for me because of easy of use, utility, & a solid no BS approach to the Slavic mythology & material .

Gold, Corruption, & OSR Appendix N Inspiration With A. Merritt's The Face In The Abyss

So its  A. Merritt birthday yesterday  & I supposed to do a blog entry earlier today on him. Well, work came on me as it always does on a Sunday & now its ten P.M. at night. I'm finally getting around to this. A.Merritt isn't for everyone & his prose isn't for the faint of heart. But his imagination, execution of his novels, & his lost world tales are top drawer. Way back about '89 I started feeling the crunch of second edition AD&D against my current campaign, ahh the more things changed. So I did what anyone in '89 did I completely ignored second edition until literally friends of mine bought me the AD&D second edition player handbook,DM's Guide,etc. It was around this same time period that I discovered in Appendix N A.Merritt's novels and grabbed a used 1974 copy of  The Snake Mother with the cover artwork by Rodney Matthews.So I was hooked hardcore but already there was a huge push back then to get on board the usual fantasy train of Lord of The Rings style fantasy imitation or at least what some folks think it is. See I love Tolkien but not the knock off stuff we find today so frequently on some rpg table tops but that's a blog entry for another time. So back to A.Merritt.
1974, Great Britain, Futura Publications Ltd., ISBN 0-86007-025-5, Pub date 1974, Paperback. Artwork copyrighted & trademarked to Rodney Matthews

used without permission for entertainment & educational purposes.

I've only recently rediscovered my love of Seventies  cover art's surreal qualities  & my love of obscure American & British Heavy Metal music with bands such as Nazareth Magnum, Praying Mantis, & The Tigers of Pan Tang, etc. So if my current campaign has a sound track its probably those bands that inspired it subconsciously. The Face in The Abyss first appeared in the weekly pulp magazine  Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1931. The story hit all of the high notes I was looking for during that time from lost world setting civilizations  in South America, weird religious & sorcerous connotations, corrupted wizard god things, even dungeon crawling through the ruins of a lost city.
"The novel concerns American mining engineer Nicholas Graydon. While searching for lost Inca treasure in South America, he encounters Suarra, handmaiden to the Snake Mother of Yu-Atlanchi."
A player of mine in high school during that time gave me a copy of A.Merritt's Fantasy Magazine July issue which featured the story. Today its available for free for download!

Everything about 'The Face in the Abyss' is perfectly keyed around the factions, ancient dungeon location & at the time I was reading a lot of Lovecraft. I noticed the similarities between the civilization that trapped  Nimir, the Lord of Evil & the empire created by
 H.P. Lovecraft  as a ghostwriter called "The Mound." So much so that during my second edition daze I used the South American adventure location as a colony of the empire of  subterranean civilization of  the realm of K'n-yan.

My justification for this came in 2007 when "Peter Levi has noted parallels between "The Face in the Abyss" and a story H.P. Lovecraft created as a ghostwriter, "The Mound." in
Lovecraft Annual No. 1, Hippocampus Press.

This is also something that I'm doing in my current Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition  'Old Earth' campaign with necromancer tyrants of K'n-yan being a huge faction in the take over of Earth in the setting's past. A.Merritt casts a long shadow over my rpg campaign worlds, settings,adventures, so much so that I've been rereading his works over the last four years or so. Dismiss Merritt at your own risk as a dungeon master because of his critics ala Damon Knight.

Sure his novels, stories,etc. seem dated but they were written in a vastly different world & culture then 2018. Look again for there is idea, after idea, after world setting, after dungeon inspiration, factions, and much more  that can be lifted whole cloth into an on going campaign.


There's a lot more gaming related OSR stuff I could get into about A.Merrit's novels & stories but those will wait for another time. For now I'm content to bring this fantastic writer of fiction & so much more to your attention.

This blog entry is not an attempt to violate the trademarks & copyrights of the various artists & publishers named in this blog entry. This blog entry is for entertainment &  educational purposes only. North Wind Adventures is in  no way responsible for the content of this blog nor the opinions of the author. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is the trade mark & copyright of North Wind Adventures @2018 and is used without permission. All opinions & commentary are the writings of the deranged mind of the author & copyrighted & trademarked to Dark Corner Productions @2007 to 2018.

'A Bad Case of Crab Cultists' An Astornishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Actual Play Event & A Free Appendix N Sword and Sorcery Download - Avon Fantasy Reader 14 (1950) For Your Old School Campaigns

The PC's went to get a magic item identified from a recent adventure  in tonight's game at the local temple of Mercury. They quickly became embroiled in a plot of kidnapping, intrigue, & cultists!


Tonight's game was all about Crabmen in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game. I've moved the crew in tonight's game onto to the Hyperborean mainland.In tonight's game there was  a tight little encounter with a temple of Mercury that's been having their clergy snatched for sacrifice or so it would seem.
The elder priest quickly identified the a wand like item as a piece of half Hyperborean crabmen cultists magic item. The rod of disintegration does 2d4 +3 damage with a range of 30 feet & it usually has 1d10 +2 charges. These items are easy to manufacture for the Hyperborean crabmen who equip their cultist cannon fodder soldiers with these items.  For a god of trade, the afterlife, magick, & thieves the priests in the temple didn't charge the PC's with the identification & there were so few priests that it was a bit unnerving for the players.
The PC's were given beds for the evening & a meal as the priests quickly explained that their numbers were being kidnapped for sacrifice on the altars of the crab men cultists!
The PC's bedded for the night & were awoken by the sound of gun shots coming from down the street. A group of hyperborean knights & the city watch had pinned in some of these crab cultists! Long gun shots were being exchanged with the crab men's rod weapons but the tide of battle was starting to turn on the city watch.
The PC's got into the middle of the fray & helped out the city watch. There were already some cultists prisoners & one of the PC's found out that these cultists had tendril slug things in these priests necks! A lengthy interrogation commenced & so did the deaths of a few priests. The PC's learned that there were twelve more cultists hiding in the sewers for some nefarious purpose. So huge beast had gone through the streets & entered the sewers. There were cobble stones that were knocked out of place & large foot prints in some of the holes. The tracks lead straight to the sewers.


After a quick meeting with the city watch the knights allowed the PC's to venture into the ancient sewer system. The walls were coated with a slick slightly sickly clear slime & the smell of methane was replaced with the smell of sea salt & ocean rime.
The first thing that the PC's encountered was the corpse of what might be a man dressed in archaic armor with his face and part of his head chewed off. He's also missing his hands but he still has his side arm. The sight was too much for our intrepid heroes and we ended there tonight.


So what's going on in the sewers of this minor beach front city state of Hyperborea? Well it all begins with me reading "The Voice of El-Lil" by Robert E. Howard. earlier this afternoon. If you haven't read it then by all means do! Its got a great design & layout for a crab god cult as your going to get. The Avon Fantasy Reader 14  actually has everything your going to need plus more sword & sorcery action then you can shake a sword at.

This issue has a bit of everything but it contains some solid material with "Temptress of the Tower of Torture and Sin" (aka "The Voice of El-Lil") by Robert E. Howard. Other stories in this issue are all top drawer stuff. 

1. "Temptress of the Tower of Torture and Sin" (aka "The Voice of El-Lil") by Robert E. Howard  is the main attraction here with a good solid adventure story that can be adapted for a wide variety of OSR games.
2. "Ylla" (aka "I'll Not Look for Wine") by Ray Bradbury
   is a first contact story with Martians that has some really interesting bits for an old school Mars adventure. " First human contact with Martians turns fatal - for humans."
3. "The Three Eyed Man" (Tubby series)] by Ray Cummings is one of those stories with potential to turn things in an old school adventure in a twisted direction especially for a science fantasy adventure.
4. "The Cave of the Invisible" by James Francis Dwyer  is a very interesting pulp story by one of the masters of the genre that could be used as the basis for an OSR adventure with a pulp twist or two. 
5. "Guard in the Dark" by Allison V. Harding  is about a young boy whose in possession of a set of magical soldiers but he could use the help of some PC's !
6. "The Still Small Voice" by Clive Jackson is a tale of the supernatural with a twist that could be the basis for a very different OSR adventure
7. "The Curse of Yig" by Z. B. Bishop is a classic of the Lovecraft mythos with the potential for a Boot Hill crossing that makes this an easy fit for an old school campaign 
8. "The Yeast Men" by David H. Keller, M.D.  novella is by one of the early masters of science fiction & this novella is a perfect one to steal a few ideas for your favorite OSR system.
9. "The Headless Miller of Kobold's Keep" by Irvin Ashkenazy  is another supernatural classic with a twist to keep things moving. Some of the ideas here are perfect for adapting for an old school adventure
10. "The Shadows" by Henry S. Whitehead  is one of my favorite writers of the other end of the Lovecraft circle,  " R. H. Barlow would later describe Whitehead as a member of "the serious Weird Tales school".^[2] Whitehead's supernatural fiction was partially modelled on the work of Edward Lucas White and William Hope Hodgson.^[2] Whitehead's "The Great Circle" (1932) is a lost-race tale with sword and sorcery elements." This tale is no different. Perfect OSR adventure fodder.
    
    YOU CAN DOWN LOAD  Avon Fantasy Reader 14 (1950) HERE

Free Appendix N Sword and Sorcery Download - Avon Fantasy Reader 05 (1948) For Your Old School Campaigns

So good afternoon its a bit after one here in Connecticut and today I wanted to bring to your attention The Avon Fantasy Reader # 5. They don't get any more important then this one folks. So over the last two years there's been a huge uptick in interest in Swords & Sorcery fiction & science fantasy. There is a ton of stuff here that can be mined here & much of it ties directly in with what I've been doing for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The Avon Fantasy Readers were always a cut above the rest of the run of the mill stuff back in the Forties & Fifties.
"The Avon Fantasy Reader was a magazine (sometimes classed as a series of anthologies) which re-published science fiction and fantasy literature by now well know authors. Avon strived to bring readers little known stories by then little recognized writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, C. L. Moore, A. Merritt, Murray Leinster and William Hope Hodgson. The Avon Fantasy Reader was published from 1946 to 1952 and had 18 issues in full. A short lived sister publication, Avon Science Fiction Reader, had three issues featuring just science fiction."
This issue has it all! Classic material from across the spectrum of  the science fantasy & sword & sorcery authors.

• "Scarlet Dream" (Northwest Smith series) by C. L. Moore
• "Sambo" by William Fryer Harvey
• "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" by Robert Bloch
• "The Random Quantity" by Carl Jacobi
• "The Gold Dress" by Stephen Vincent Benét
• "The Miracle of the Lily" by Clare Winger Harris
• "In the Court of the Dragon" by Robert W. Chambers
• "A Study in Amber" by Frank Owen (as Richard Kent)
• "The Words of Guru" by C. M. Kornbluth (as by Kenneth Falconer)

Now I mentioned Robert Bloch in my Mythos Memory Wrap Up Commentary For Adapting I5 Lost Tomb of Martek Adventure For The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System & Your Old School Campaigns.Well, here's the Robert Bloch tie in with Fane of the Black Pharoah, this one's got it all & its perfect material for mining for your old school sword & sorcery adventures set against HP Lovecraftian mythos.  Ready for a North West Smith tie in for that Astonishing Swords Men & Sorcerers of Hyperborea/ Warriors of the Red Planet campaign? C.L. Moore's Scarlet Dream makes the grade with great Martian retro future action! Carl Jacobi is a master of the Weird Tale and his work with Arkham House was top drawer stuff.  "The Gold Dress" by Stephen Vincent Benét 

is a first rate ghost story with a twist but there's a lot of adventure potential here. 

Then we dive into  "The Miracle of the Lily" by Clare Winger Harris

this is a very important story which is a part of a science fantasy world of lots of adventure potential but one that gets seldom mentioned in D&D circles?!

Robert W.Chambers doesn't need any introduction on this blog and his 'In the Court of the Dragon' ties directly in with several threads running through my OSR adventures.

Players of mine stay the hell out of that link or you will lose experience points!  Frank Owen is a name that's seldom bandied about today in pulp circles and that's too bad because he was good journeyman pulp writer. 

His work has some potential for old school adventures. There are hidden things in the woods and only the Words of Guru by Cyril M. Kornbluth can reveal them. This tale is a gem and first appeared in Stirring Science Stories in 1941. This same author also revealed a certain doctor's bag that  Rod Serling used  for an episode of his Night Gallery series 'The Little Black Bag' . This dramatization starred Burgess Meredith.   

Scene from Night Gallery episode "The Little Black Bag. "

YOU CAN GRAB
The  Avon Fantasy Reader 05 (1947)
RIGHT  HERE

So that's all for today and keep em rolling folks we've got more to come!

Free Appendix N Sword and Sorcery Download - Avon Fantasy Reader 7 (1948) For Your Old School Campaigns

I've noticed the ever increasing circle of sword & sorcery & weird fiction  fans has recently been on the increase. This is always a good thing in my estimation. Because it means that a lot of the solid material being brought to the surface of OSR collective. Now take the Avon Fantasy Reader issue #7 from Nineteen Forty Eight. Why was this issue important? Well first of all it has a little bit of everything for the weird fiction fan & the sword and sorcery guy. Everything here is double dipped in awesomeness.
"The Avon Fantasy Reader was a magazine (sometimes classed as a series of anthologies) which re-published science fiction and fantasy literature by now well know authors. Avon strived to bring readers little known stories by then little recognized writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, C. L. Moore, A. Merritt, Murray Leinster and William Hope Hodgson. The Avon Fantasy Reader was published from 1946 to 1952 and had 18 issues in full. A short lived sister publication, Avon Science Fiction Reader, had three issues featuring just science fiction."
The covers were always top notch, the quality was better then a lot of the run of the mill fare back then and they don't make em like this anymore.


So why is issue great? Well look at the cast of classic stuff you've got in this issue. This is the sort of whose who of pulp writing that we just don't see today. All of this material could effectively be assembled into a complete campaign with little effort.
"Shambleau" (Northwest Smith series) by C. L. Moore
"The Curse of a Thousand Kisses" by Sax Rohmer
"The Dreams of Albert Moreland" by Fritz Leiber
"The Slugly Beast" (Joseph Jorkens series) by Lord Dunsany
"The Cairn on the Headland" by Robert E. Howard
"Aquella" (aka "The Planet Called Aquella") by Martin Pearson
"The Empire of the Necromancers" (Zothique series) by Clark Ashton Smith
"When Old Gods Wake" by A. Merritt
"The Were-Snake" by Frank Belknap Long
"The Gun" by Frank Gruber

So whose the genius behind the Avon Reader series? Probably someone whose name you've never heard but whose efforts you've probably read. Meet Donald Allen Wollheim a super science fiction, fantasy fan, sci fi writer, publisher, etc.  from way back in the Golden age of Science Fiction.  This man helped to shape the way we read science fiction & fantasy today from its foundations to its modern incarnations. Go and read his story for yourself his accomplishments are far to numerous for me to list here.

Photo taken by Amy Meadow, Wollheim family friend

A member of the Futurians and the founder of  DAW Books, Robert Silverberg said, "that he may have been "the most significant figure" in American SF publishing. "  Today he's one of the most criminally  underrated figures in the annals of Science Fiction. Those awesome yellow spined Daw SF books that you find at the good garage sales or Half Priced books if your really lucky that was Donald Allen Wollheim & his wife's baby. Mr. Wolheim may be gone, he passed in 1990 but he's far from forgotten.


Science Fiction fans of Donald Allen Wollheim's caliber become the next generation of leading lights for fantasy & science fiction authors a situation that I wish would continue more then it seems to today. But this is a blog post for another time. Back to the free stuff for the moment.



Anyhow I've always loved the Avon Fantasy Reader series, there was always so much you could mine from the anthologies pages from the exotic past of Sax Rohmer to the echoes of sword & sorcery awesomeness of Robert Howard. These magazines were always quality read. I came across them in the Summer of Eighty Six at yard sale in my home town. They were stacked neatly and waiting to come to a good home. So they came home with me. My dad always loved em because they had top drawer authors. The majority of the stories and material in Avon Fantasy Readers were older pulp reprints and that's exactly why they make excellent dungeon master fodder.

GRAB Donald A. Wollheim (ed.) Avon Fantasy Reader no. 7 (1948) HERE

Even More Commentary On Using The OSR Resource Book Dark Albion By Dominique Crouzet & RPGPundit For Extended Campaign Play

I just got back home after a very long industrial sewing machine repair job and I want to get back to talking briefly about the extended campaign play options available in the Dark Albion setting book. PC's in Dark Albion gain a social standing and have differences in their wealth in the beginning of character generation. Now one would think that this would make it rather restrictive for campaign or adventure play. Not so because there is one great equalizer going on. The Rose War which is tearing Albion apart from within. All of the violence, depravity, courtly intrigue, and more is going on right under the PC's noses. This is a grown up game of politics and violence set during one of the most brutal times Albion's history. This isn't a joke its a fact and it also brings up the fact that the events of Albion follow the real world history of the Rose War verbatim. One might think that this would make campaign planning a pain in the ass. Not at all. Here's why.

GRAB THE PDF RIGHT HERE


Albion's version of the Rose War opens up the wounds of society enabling various classes to rub elbows and even get along together. This means that adventures can be set against or around the battles, courtly politics, and more of the Rose War. This isn't some for the DM to ignore instead its a central spoke of and theme of the book's setting. By 1st level your characters are minor pawns on the board of the war, 2nd and you've moved up in the world of Albion, and by Third level your a mover and shaker because of  the fact you've survived and your reputation follows you around for good or ill. There is a "Prior Event Table" that randomly determines backgrounds for PC's allowing their history to mesh together both on the short term and the long haul.But your going to have to expect blood and guts on the pavement of history. Even though there isn't any remotely gross or adult in Dark Albion there is a degree of uncertainty that pervades everything in the setting.



With so many royals, backroom deals, simple good old boy politics, and black magic plus demons thrown into the mix Dark Albion delivers on its promise of extended play by giving the DM reams of history to pull from for their own extended campaigns. This also plays into the idea of the domain gaming being the end all of this sort of an rpg campaign. Domain play is at its heart a beginning and Dark Albion provides a robust set of guidelines to keep a campaign going for years at a clip.


Because of the nature of the Rose War being both royal driven and such a bloody affair the PC's are going to need the favors of a royal as a patron and that enables the idea for and extended campaign within a military slant to it. This sort of a campaign supports the PC's being mercenaries and sharing an adventuring life on the road and more as they follow the progress of conflicts within the Rose War's arena  and how it will impact upon their patron. Dark Albion is the perfect hex crawling or domain level game because everything is set up out of the gate but not etched in stone as some would have us believe.



He who gets to sit on the throne are going to affect the lives of millions for generations to come. And its going to be the PC's who are going to help or hinder this effort. This is almost the complete opposite of other old school games where the outcome in a module is predetermined or completely rail roadie. There is a wide open playing field when it comes to extended campaign settings and levels. Dark Albion is an adventure setting with lots of areas just off the map that has the perfect venue for PC's to set up their own domains or to take over someone else's domain or kingdom through circumstances of war, battle, or other factors. This is another place where Dark Albion shines by providing a ton of old school resources to really show off the wide openness of the campaign setting. All in all you get a lot of bang for your buck from Dark Albion and it really makes getting that campaign going for years to come a snap.

Revisiting The OSR Resource & Campaign Setting Book Dark Albion by By Dominique Crouzet & RPGPundit For Your Old School Campaigns

Blood, horror,war, English terror, Rome, and more is exactly the sort of thing that your going to find on the fields of an alternative historical England in Rpg Pundit's Dark Albion. Good evening kids, I'm taking off a bit of time to do a quick retrospective on one of last year's most evocative and weird historical setting books to come out. I'm talking about Dark Albion by By Dominique Crouzet, RPGPundit This book puts your characters front and center in an alternative Earth's War of the Roses setting right into the middle of England. But this isn't any England that you know, oh no this is a world of Gothic horror and a setting where the heroes can and might go from being no bodies to national heroes or vile villains possibly all in the same campaign.
This is domain game driven rpg in both setting sense and the sense that it drives adventures around the spokes of the history of the game's settings universe. Imagine if Rome had never given up England, magick is very real, dark things slink at the edges of Empire, and the throne is up for grabs as the events of the Rose War cascade around your PC's.
GRAB THE PDF RIGHT HERE

So is this a domain driven setting book? You can bet your behind it is! Here domain and station are everything and your PC's can be everything from knights, mercenaries, to adventurous souls who are ascending and threading their way through the pages of this alternative history setting. There are reasons why your party is adventuring and making a name for themselves in the world. Here's the dire events of the Rose War have taken a sinister turn and the cracks in the Empire are starting to show.

If your expecting the darkness to be there it is in both the interior belly of the beast of the setting and without as the forces of the world are watching the chaos of England with malevolent eyes. There are horrors outside of the edges of the world and they want to tear the place apart even as the Empire within England is striving to expand itself.

Dark Albion breaks two very old conventions of old school role playing, one is the domain as retirement or end game of adventurers and two is that lower level PC's can make a difference to the larger campaign world. The entire setting is one solidly constructed domain level adventure campaign setting  ripped apart by internal warfare & strife. This breeds all of the opportunities that PC's need to handle, exploit, and seek opportunities that will move them past their social rank and standing. Warfare and adventure breed opportunity as it feeds upon itself in Dark Albion. The second thing is that Dark Albion breaks the old school bollocks of lower level PC's not being able to affect change in the world around them. Because this setting is built upon the War of the Roses via an alternative Earth history conceit that Rome and not the Holy Roman Catholic church was one of the prime movers of history.This means there is plenty of opportunities for the DM to use the time lines of Dark Albion to make the setting their own. Even as the PC's are moving themselves through adventures,political intrigues and more as this is built right into the back end of  the character's stats via social rank.



Right from day one in Dark Albion the PC's are going to be wheelers and dealers in the politics of the dark fantasy setting influencing their liege or expanding his influence. This gives  you have something with immediate benefit to the game's background goings on and this is an on going issue that will haunt or help your PC's as they try to navigate the events and weirdness of the War of the Roses as it unfolds.
When I say that Dark Albion is a all encompassing setting I mean it, this was and is a passion of the author and we've already got a basic adventure right in the pipeline to set up the PC's in their new setting.

DAA1 - The Ghost of Jack Cade on London Bridge From  DOM Publishing  

isn't your usual first level adventure. This is both investigation and has a bit of political goings on in the background as well; "This is a low level (i.e. intended for 1st level, probably newly created, characters) introductory adventure, that occurs on London Bridge. This is mostly an investigation adventure, without dungeon crawls (though several buildings may be explored). It would be typically run in a single 4-5 hours gaming session. This adventure will be perfect to set the mood of a Dark Albion campaign."
I've gotten a chance to read through this adventure and I would say to thread your party of players through this one very carefully and there is a chance if played wrong with some bad dice rolls murders, PC death, and dismemberment may result. Some of the conceits to remember with Dark Albion is that this isn't our world at all but one seen through the dark glass lens of fantasy and the fantastic with its feet firmly in the grounding of real world history. The setting book even gives this sort of commentary and then twists it around. This makes Dark Albion have the sort of weird almost real world history vibe so disconcerting in some respects.


Here are ten o of my reasons why Dark Albion is highly regarded at my table:

1. Dark Albion is playable with any of the editions of the world's most popular fantasy role playing game. This makes converting or generating characters a snap. It gives plenty of utility for the table top and plenty of opportunities for the DM to mix or match their favorite OSR monsters as needed.
2.   There are seventeen (17) digital maps which blends in with the setting &  real world historical events while being true to the elements of the dark fantasy aspects of the campaign setting. This appeals to both the wargamer and DM in me. That means that things remain consistent throughout the product. 
3. A playable dark fantasy setting there are frog men in France waiting to rain down Lovecraftian horror on the countryside right across the way and there is the looming threat of the other worldly and weird that bleeds from every adventure aspect of Dark Albion. Pick a cult, region, and faction then expand upon it as necessary for your own home campaign. 
4. The setting is original & has a dark take on the deities,religions,and paganistic elements of Dark Albion which means there's plenty of room to put your own thumb print upon the setting and make it yours. 
5. The politics of Dark Albion are right there and in your PC's face they're not some extraneous background element that the players are not going to pay attention to. They are literally one of the motivating factors for the adventurers to get out and adventure so they can gain an advantage for themselves as well as their liege. 
6. An original take on magick that presents both reason and reward for those who wield the powers of the gods, supernatural, and tread the pathways in between. There is some very nasty pieces of the other worldly waiting for your PC's to fall off the razor's edge in Dark Albion. 
7. England is center stage and center of the PC's world with the back ground events of real history to abet one that has been twisted by the events of a weird world War of The Roses. This makes pull from history both easy and rational to get to the next leg of your campaign but it also means that a DM is free to customize things with a dark twist of their own. 
8. Royalty is both a blessing and a curse for the PC's as the world Dark Albion takes full advantage of the dark secrets, intrigue,and worse of the War of the Roses  to draw in the adventure right into the center stage of it all. 
9. There are plenty of foreign lands, weird mythologies, monsters, lost adventure locations, and more all in Dark Albion. You buy one book and its packed to the gills with everything you need to start a dark campaign at the edge of the world and beyond in one book! 
10. Dark Albion is a game which can be used over and over to create an endless sea of OSR goodness with your favorite version or retroclone so that you don't have to be tethered to an endless stream of splat and setting books. You can use it for Lamentations of the Flame Princess one day and AD&D 1st edition on another. There are so many uses for this book that its not even funny. 

Dark Albion is one of the best game setting books  of 2015 & its a solid background to set an OSR style campaign in, with the right group of players and a dungeon master this is a setting with the potential to keep you coming back to the table again and again.