Commentary On Free The Giants Stair Adventure For The Corum Rpg By Darsyde Productions

 " Rising from the sea to a height of nearly one hundred feet, the Giant's Stairs lie several hundred yards out from the harbor. The massive collection of basalt pillars does indeed resemble a huge staircase when silhouetted against the eastern sky. At most times it is nothing more than a rocky island, but once every seven years on the seventh night of the seventh month two of the fifteen planes intersect here and at gate is opened that allows passage into another plane where dwells a hiddeous giant. If any have ventured through this gate, none have returned to tell of it..."

Over the last couple couple of days I've been doing a lot of  research on the Corum rpg and this included visiting the Darcsyde Productions website. And suprise to surprise the site still has the 'Giants Stair' adventure.

And it's s very interesting little basic adventure for the Corum rpg involving the PC's into the fate of a child deep within the former regions of the five planes. The PC's have to mount a mission to save a child after a dream or nightmare alerts them to the fate of a child.

The child is tied into the island that is shaped like stairs & it's giant inhabitant. There's an adventure hook that ties deeply into the Corum mythology and one of the favored champions of Chaos.
I really don't want to spoilt the back story of 'The Giant's Stairs' but there's enough here where the DM could with a bit of work actually use this adventure with the Stormbringer rpg with little issue. And in point of fact this is how I would use 'Giant's Stairs'.  The PC's are a part of a Corum, Young Kingdom, or Hawkmoon or mixed party of adventurers who experience the dream or nightmare about the child and are transported to the worlds of the five planes. And they have to save the child and during the course of events of' 'The Giant's Stairs' the party finds itself emeshed in the world of Corum.

At only thirteen pages 'The Giant's Stairs' doesn't over stay it's welcome.

The Giant's Stair presents a woven Celtic mythology into the world of Corum. And the PC's are going to have the chance to play the heroes. And also gain the possible aire of the gods of Chaos. And during the events get themselves deeply into the events surrounding the Five Planes. 'The Giant's Stairs' is going to be very alien to the Stormbringer or Dungeons & Dragons players. Seriously Corum's world is vastly alien and weird in all of the right ways. Grab a copy and down load it  for your Stormbringer or even your Runequest third edition group of players. We used 'The Giants Stairs' to get the players into the world of Corum and the five planes. The player's PC's ended up playing through most of '02 through the world of the Five planes. 

Coursing & Crawling - More Commentary On - Runequest Cities A Generic Role Playing Supplement

Now let's pick it up right back here on the blog with Runequest Cities.  But what makes Runequest Cities so damn useful for Sword & Sorcery OSR and BRP games?! When it comes to Stombringer Rpg cities, the Runequest fourth edition's Runequest Cities is an excellent resource and one that is especially useful when round out the Sword & Sorcery's Young Kingdom. Why?! Because between adventures there's a catch up system that allows Stormbringer & Elric adventurers to have events outside of the dungeon. Even in the description says so;" The Fourth Edition of the Cities supplement from Midkemia Press was brought into the Avalon Hill/Chaosium Runequest series as a generic sourcebook. This served as one of a number of AH Runequest supplements in their "Gateway" series, intended to broaden the RQ system beyond the Glorantha setting." 

"From the publisher:
RUNEQUEST CITIES: the natural arenas for fantasy roleplaying adventures, city events are the most interesting, city dungeons the deepest, city biways the darkest, city dangers the most invidious, city activities the most tempting, and city rewards the most fabulous.
A unique guide to urban possibility, RQ CITIES includes clear instructions, more than 60 tables, additional dozens of sub-tables, and many illustrations and silhouettes.

RUNEQUEST CITIES: Entertaining, systematic, indispensible.

• Challenging Encounters
• City Populating Procedures
• Character Catch-Up System" 

As I stated my own recent experience with Runequest Cities has been Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg. Where the PC's are between adventures and need to have experiences on thier own terms many of which have gotten rewoven through back play and the like into the Borderlands campaign that we've been doing on and off for years now. The Borderlands is rich with several Bronze Age civilizations and societies. And because of the very nature of Runequest Cities we were able to bring to life many of the lesser areas around the Borderlands to life as minor cities and the like. 
And the same was true with the Young Kingdoms there were minor kingdoms and road  side towns that needed to be fleshed out. And Runequest Cities was a God sent of a product. Many of the plethora of random tables allowed us to flesh out Sword & Sorcery cities without the need for other 'official D20' style supplements. This went hand and glove with many of the ideals that echoed in the aftermath of the D20 implosion.  

Because of it's very nature Runequest Cities is perfect for the Young Kingdoms allowing minor areas of The Sea Kings of the Purple Towns  & Perils of the Young Kingdoms to be filled in with living and thriving areas of vice and trouble across the board. 

Commentary On Free The Giants Stair Adventure For The Corum Rpg By Darsyde Productions

" Rising from the sea to a height of nearly one hundred feet, the Giant's Stairs lie several hundred yards out from the harbor. The massive collection of basalt pillars does indeed resemble a huge staircase when silhouetted against the eastern sky. At most times it is nothing more than a rocky island, but once every seven years on the seventh night of the seventh month two of the fifteen planes intersect here and at gate is opened that allows passage into another plane where dwells a hiddeous giant. If any have ventured through this gate, none have returned to tell of it..."

Over the last couple couple of days I've been doing a lot of  research  on the Corum rpg and this included visiting the Darcsyde Productions website. And suprise to surprise the site still has the 'Giants Stair' adventure. And it's s very interesting little basic adventure for the Corum rpg involving the PC's into the fate of a child deep within the former regions of the five planes. The PC's have to mount a mission to save a child after a dream or nightmare alerts them to the fate of a child. The child is tied into the island that is shaped like stairs & it's giant inhabitant. There's an adventure hook that ties deeply into the Corum mythology and one of the favored champions of Chaos. 
I really don't want to spoilt the back story of 'The Giant's Stairs' but there's enough here where the DM could with a bit of work actually use this adventure with the Stormbringer rpg with little issue. And in point of fact this is how I would use 'Giant's Stairs'. The PC's are a part of a Corum, Young Kingdom, or Hawkmoon or mixed party of adventurers who experience the dream or nightmare about the child and are transported to the worlds of the five planes. And they have to save the child and during the course of events of' 'The Giant's Stairs' the party finds itself emeshed in the world of Corum. 
At only thirteen pages 'The Giant's Stairs' doesn't over stay it's welcome. 

The Giant's Stair presents a woven Celtic mythology into the world of Corum. And the PC's are going to have the chance to play the heroes. And also gain the possible aire of the gods of Chaos. And during the events get themselves deeply into the events surrounding the Five Planes. 'The Giant's Stairs' is going to be very alien to the Stormbringer or Dungeons & Dragons players. Seriously Corum's world is vastly alien and weird in all of the right ways. Grab a copy and down load it for your Stormbringer or even your Runequest third edition group of players. We used 'The Giants Stairs' to get the players into the world of Corum and the five planes. The player's PC's ended up playing through most of '02 through the world of the Five planes. In the end we used the 

Twisting Alleyways & Outlaw Thieves - Haven The Free City & The Stormbringer Rpg

 "HAVEN — The Free City can be used with any fantasy role-playing system that accepts the existence of magic and a multi-racial universe, and is designed as an interrelated series with Thieves' Guild™, forming the basis for a complete campaign universe. Ample space is provided for the GM to incorporate features, politics, and personalities from his own campaign into the fabric of the city. This package includes:

• An Overview of the city of Haven and the region of the Ten Cities, and explanations of the terminology used in the books;
• 7 booklets describing the 7 boroughs and neighborhoods of the city, with major families, personalities, shops, taverns, and residences, and possible adventures;
• A booklet of random encounters and statistics for all NPCs described in the text;
• 11 detailed neighborhood maps showing the locations of shops and other places of interest described in the text; (Actually, it's 10 cardstock maps... this is a misprint)
• A poster-sized color map of the entire city, showing over 100 noted landmarks.

"So if your players are looking for a place to spend the ill-gotten gains from their last expedition, seeking to establish a more permanent base of operations for their favorite adventurers, or are just plain tired of skulking around uncharted dungeon corridors for the twentieth week in a row, bring them to HAVEN — The Free City, the biggest and best fantasy city ever published!"

1984 ... Gamelords 3930"

Wayback in the early two thousands our group of retrobates got deeply involved with using our scale ship for pirating and raids against the Pan Tangian empire. And we needed an off the cuff deeply involved city to unload our ill gotten  goods too. We had a mixed crew of renagade Pan Tangians, Tragic Millenium, Vikings, and Young Kingdom rejects. And my uncle started us with Gamelords Haven The Free City but adapted it straight into a Stormbringer rpg location. Here our Vikings speaking an archaic form of French & Pidget trade language unloaded our ill gotten goods. And man we took a bath on some of the trade goods. We got our scale ship upgraded, traded out our exterior crew, upgraded the dry dock for her, and somehow Haven became our home away from home during the Nineties under my uncle's ever watchful DM's eye. Haven can still be gotten from Game Science right over here. Now our Stormbringer rpg campaigns began to incorporate more outlaws, renagades, and scallywags. And this was due to our almost constant need to keep up with repairs on our scale ship. We kept running into Pan Tangian & Tragic Millenium agents who were trying to find our crew because we were known outlaws. Why didn't we go back to Sancutary?! We weren't exactly welcome back there because our party owed money to every bookie and loanshark in the city. 

So our base of operations became in Haven and it was fitting. To this day Haven has a soft spot in our hearts and our party really fit in among the riff raff of Haven. We also had quite a few urban based adventures among the back alleys and businesses of Haven. 

Then there was the fact that Haven really fit the back alley nature of the thieving, pirate, and renagade life style that our party developed during our Stormbringer play. And then there was the fact that Haven supported piracy with Lair of the Free Booters supplement and adventure. 
Haven had a sorta of aura of adventure about it. Because it fit the Stormbringer, and Avalon Hill Ruinquest Third edition vibe far better then we as players expected. 

When one of our crew was killed we'd spin out the next crew member into our party of scum & villainy. 
Trade Town from Lair of the Freebooters was a perfect little port for piracy. That is until the damn Pan Tangians showed up again. And we really began to concentrate on building our crews with more outlaws and mercenaries after the last encounter. We had the local pirates on our side after the Pan Tangians consigned more then a few of the pirates souls into waiting tentacles of Pyray the Whisperer of Impossible secrets. 

Our party eventually wound up within the Grand Arena having to go undercover, to buy back, escape from, and finally fight our way out of the same arena. Our party ended up in the Grand arena and this is where Avalon Hill's Runequest third edition's Monster Collseum appeared on the table top. And here's where our group actually got deeply into 15 MM miniatures! These miniatures work so well with the Avalon Hill Runequest Monster Coliseum set. If your looking for a very good overview/review of Haven The Free City check out this entry on the Blackgate blog here. 

To Recover The Grimoire - Experiences With The Stormbringer rpg & Poul Anderson's Three Hearts & Three Lions

 So wayback in the early 90's  we were playing in Stormbringer fourth edition & our party was up to it's eyeballs in debt to a Young Kingdom's wizard. This was a cleaver and rather nasty logic trap that my uncle had designed. We'd go out on missions and recover items or run errands for this S.O.B. after he saved the life of one of our party. The wizard in question whose name I can't remember for the life of me added us in our return to theYoung Kingdoms from demon haunted Zothique. And this blog entry is going to pick right up from here. After going through 'The Shattered Isle' we had picked up several Viking warriors PC's who had been time snatched by the mutant master. 

We had by this time at least three or more Viking warriors with our party and this came about as a result of having dealth with Avalon Hill's Vikings boxset. The Vikings Box set is for third edition Avalon Hill Runequest and man it is so damn underrated today! The Avalon Hill Vikings set is packed with stuff and it's got a fantastic Norse style Earth; "The year is 780 A.D...

The homeland was quiet. No strangers or deadly monsters troubled the stead. When Thorgrim Greatmouth asked for volunteers to raid the southlands, many brave warriors responded.
Thorgrim's dragon-prowed longship now sails the stormy seas, his crew plundering many petty kingdoms from mystical Thule to the great Middle Sea. They are all Odin's men, red-handed reavers ranging far and wide across the world, spreading terror and gaining glory, plunder, and fame." 

"Vikings includes:
• Players Book — character generation notes, occupations, new skills, viking ships, personal virtues, the family and clan, kinsmen, the thing, social structure, living conditions, customs, norse religion and magic, gods without godar, norse runes.
• Gamemasters Book — viking world view, an adventuring history, Scandinavian creatures, mistaken identities.
• Scenarios Book
• Vikings Digest — collected statistics for typical viking warriors, berserks, and various creatures.
• Play Aids — ship plans, stead diagram, fjord map.
• Adventurer Sheets"

"Vikings is a RuneQuest supplement set on Earth. The gamemaster can choose to introduce only historical elements into his Vikings campaign, or he can add the gods, giants and monsters from viking legend to create a fascinating blend of history and myth."" 

So our Chaos aligned wizard wants to send us tripping through the million spheres to recover a grimoire that is no longer being used by one Holger Carlsen  an American-trained Danish engineer. Holger is actually an aspect of the Eternal Champion named  Ogier the Dane & a champion of Law. And he's been using this grimoire to travel between alternative timelines.  Ogier has been moving across the Million Spheres from timeline to timeline. The grimoire or a copy of it was left at the 'Inn Between Worlds' & we were to recover it. Ogier The Dane is from Three Hearts & Three Lions  by American writer Poul Anderson, one of my uncle's favorite books due to it's connection to Dungeons & Dragons & where Moorcock drew (stole) the idea for Law & Chaos. Now it was as I recall a very perilous journey to the 'Inn Between Worlds'. Now Ogier was gone when we got to the Inn and these events take place between his appearance in Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest & Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. We never took stock nor noticed  2014's   Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds in which ; "Harry Turtledove wrote, as his contribution to Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds, edited by Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois,^[3] a short story, "The Man who Came Late". To those of us who are still in contact this  "The Man who Came Late" is considered non connial & fan fiction at worst. Let me back track Holgar aka Ogier was using the grimoire to jump from timeline to timeline according to the Three Hearts & Three Lions wiki entry; "Holger later appears as a minor character in Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest in which he is seen in a mysterious "Inn Between the Worlds" after he managed at last to leave the 20th century and to wander the various alternate timelines by using the spells from a medieval grimoire. However, he had little control over where he would get and a small chance of locating the one that he wants. At the inn, he encounters Valeria Matuchek, a character from another Anderson book, Operation Chaos, who instructs him in the sophisticated scientific magic of her world and gives him a better chance." 
We encounter not Holgar but Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane at the Inne Between Worlds and that bastard in posession of the grimoire! 

Kane literally gives us the grimoire and tells us to be on our way. We took the thing and once a few miles outside of the Inne took a look at it. Now this grimoire was actually three or more  rather sophisticated demons of Chaos bound together in book form. A demon of knowledge, one of transportation, and a demon of lust. This grimoire was an object of Chaos and we wanted to be rid of it fast! 
So our wizard asked the demon of transporation to take us back to the Young Kingdoms. 
And it was on the way back to the wizard's tower when we were attacked by degenerate broo erm beastmen of Chaos. Why we didn't know. But things got interesting when we got back to the wizard's tower.  Holgar aka Ogier had our wizard pinned with his enchanted sword at his throat. He demanded to know where the grimoire was & stabbed it as soon as it was brought forth! We didn't have a clue what was happening but he did pay us for our troubles.  And then he left.
Then our wizard started cackling like a loon and brought forth an exact replica of the grimoire that had been destroyed. The adventures with the 'Inne Between Worlds' was just beginnning however. And this would not be the last time we'd encounter Holgar aka Ogier. Because you see our Viking characters spoke the archaic form of French that Holgar aka Ogier spoke otherwise we would have been run through with a rather nasty mystic short sword of Law.. 

OSR Commentary - Rune Quest Cities A Generic Role Playing Supplement

 Let's pick it up from the other day here on the blog.  And now I mentioned yesterday to one of my players how I was shaping a Stormbringer campaign and we started talking about the game. He mentioned having a collection of early Chaosium material and mentioned that there was a book that I was going to need from 3rd edition Runequest. That book is Runequest Cities from 1988 is one of the best generic universal urban supplements ever. 

Rune Quest Cities is a solid sixty six pages of urban encounters and random tables that isn't simply useful for Runequest but game after game of Sword & Sorcery as well as fantasy. 
And it's all keyed with dice matrixes across the board. Rune Quest Cities is even useful for Cepheus Engine or old school Traveller where you need primitive or other Bronze age world encounters. And so it's incredibly useful for a game of Stormbringer or even another OSR game. 

And my most recent use with  Rune Quest Cities has been with Adventurer, Conqeuror, King.  Yes that's right Rune Quest Cities works very well with a late Roman Empire Style campaign. 
And this was around the time when I had quit D&D completely for about two years. D20 had taken over the entire spectrum of the market. And older players wanted something or anything besides 3.5 or even 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Our Stormbringer campaign had seven or at one point as many as ten players who rotated in and out of the game.