Planetary Exploration & Dangerous Planets - Science Fantasy The OSR Way Using The OSR Game Hulks & Horrors rpg

 

Sunday morning coffee after church today with my fellow DM's consisted of surgically taking apart one of this blog's recent posts about using Hulks & Horrors rpg as campaign setting fodder. And how  the game's background lends itself to a Stars Without Number rpg & Cepheus Engine rpg hybrid campaign setting. DM Steve too me to task over coffee & tea after mass, 'Eric you'd be an excellent DM if you could get out of your own way'. 'You need to trim down what supplements your using & take it from the adventure side out', the voice was steady & without any hint of mockery. Hmmm there might be a point here to consider.



Since I've been playing in DM Steve's hybrid game his advise cuts to the quick. Perhaps he's right! Joseph Mohr does some excellent Cepheus Engine rpg adventures & I've been eying two of his recent adventures in particular for this style of campaign. One was 'the pay what you want'  adventure 'The Sleeper Awakens' which has as its background an easily adaptable plot with its own planetary complications; "Freedom fighters from the world of Lage approach the travelers in order to hire them for an important mission. An imminent invasion from forces of the Jorum Family threatens their world. In order to fend off this invasion they need someone to retrieve, and repair, a massive robot warrior partially buried on a nearby desert world. They need to robot brought to Lage in time to help defend the planet. Of course....this desert planet nearby has dangers of it's own...." 

The writing is nice & tight so its easily adaptable to your own campaign. But what makes  'The Sleeper Awakens'  with the Hulks & Horrors rpg background is the extended adventure & planetary circumstances. Everything here fits together nicely.. And what's more if the DM uses this adventure  material as part of its campaign background then it dovetails nicely into Zozer Games Material. This is especially true with it diving  into Hostile's background specifically from that rpg line's supplement  Explorers by Paul Elliot. Both Michael Brown's Cepheus Engine rpg  adventures & Joseph Mohr's focus on planetary exploration themes. This makes excellent use of the Explorer's planetary exploration & exploitation  rpg motif. With Earth cut off in H&H, hyperspace is only now opening back up! 

This is also something we find further in Joseph Mohr's Furnace adventure with the added benefit of a war mission & up twist in the mix. The adventure is well done with a Hellish planetary background & complications added in. Furnace is tightly paced, excellently done, and very well done  with a great adventure storyline thrown in! 

All in all this is simply the beginning but picking up from the adventure module  into the campaign works well as the jump point into a full blown interstellar campaign. 

Desert Ruins & Abandoned Sectors - Science Fantasy The OSR Way Using The OSR Game Hulks & Horrors rpg

 "We are not alone in the Universe, but we have few friends. As we emerged on the galactic stage, we found a universe stripped bare of sentient life by a great Plague, leaving only the wild beasts and twisted plague horrors wandering the ruined hulks of lost civilizations."

Artwork for Hulks & Horrors Indie 2012  Indie Go Go campaign used without 
Peremisson. 

"We are the Surveyors. We explore the uncharted sectors of space and hunt these ruins for the treasures they contain and the riches they might bring to what sentient life remains. We are not brave, merely foolhardy and desperate. Those who survive become rich beyond dreams. Very few survive."

So with my fellow DM's we met to toss back & forth several OSR ideas for campagin work. Here are some of our OSR conclusions from tonight's meeting. 

So this blog post is going to pick right off from where we last left off here on our blog.  What if we had a galaxy where the Reticulan empire of 'These Stars Are Ours'  had filled the power vaccum of a plague torn galaxy. Humans have recently begun moving back into space after their power had been shattered by what many had thought been a human rebellion.What happens if it wasn't actually the rebellion at all? What if it was actually the Shattering or the Shuntering event. A psychic event  of epic propporations related to the plague itself. Hyperspace trembled leaving all kinds of colonies cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Reading through Hulks & Horrors rpg after watching a video on  July 5th put  Erik Tankar by   on Hulks & Horrors rpg Basic Black Edition. This video got me thinking about the structure of a galaxy torn apart. Mankind & a dozen races are just starting to explore beyond the hyperspacial wall again. 

So there could be entire sections of the galaxy or beyond cut off from the normal interstellar & trade of flow of Earth itself. So with Cepheus Engine rpg's  in the wings & some fantastic resources from that sysrem. It was time to dive back into Hostile by Zozer games specifically from that rpg line Explorers by Paul Elliot. What the Hell are you talking about?! A serious retro sci fi rpg & the gonzo weirdness of John S. Berry III rpg?! Everything because by using Explorers with a Hulks & Horrors rpg Basic Black Edition enables the DM to overlap this into Stars Without Numbers rpg revised. Why?! Because both games share similar OSR systems along with the original  Traveller rpg skill system. 

Besides the OSR adventure generation  tools in Hulks & Horrors rpg Basic Black Edition another tool box to use is also SWN's Dead Names: Lost Races and Forgotten Ruins. This book while only eighty four pages long  could provide a DM with endless adventure locations & ruins to have his or her players explore. 

But what if these ruins & such were part of the holdings of a former empire?! I began looking back at notes with my fellow DM's tonight especially Adventurer,Conqueror, King rpg 's Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen. Imagine for a moment that the Sorceress Queen once ruled a small corner of the galaxy with an iron fist. Then this psychic plague swept the galaxy! Her rule was broken & she now rules a desert planet as an undead horror. 

The party lands on this planet & things begin to go from bad to worse as the horrors start coming out of the wood work. And could this planet also be one that one of the mining concerns of this universe be looking into?! I thinking about Joseph Mohr's an Unfortunate Discovery for the Cepheus Engine rpg here. Weird circumstances lead to the exploration of strange & unexpected discoveries on this former world. 

OSR Space Dungeons & Sectors - Science Fantasy The OSR Way - The Forgotten OSR Game Hulks & Horrors rpg

 Never let it be said that any good good deed goes unpunished. On July 5th Erik Tankar put out a video on Hulks & Horrors rpg Basic Black Edition. So a copy of Hulks & Horrors rpg was ordered from Drivethrurpg. Now anyone whose been reading blog knows of my absolute love of Science Fantasy esepcially OSR Science Fantasy. Over the years Hulks & Horrors has been of especial interest for me as reviewer Philip C put its susinctly in his review of H&H on Drivethrurpg;"Love this game. The mechanics are 1st Edition of the Gygax game which work fine for an RPG that is all about Dungeon Crawling or more appropriately a lost starship, space station, pod colony, science complex and ruined city crawler. While there are no starting adventures in the book (sorry to those who need everything handed to them), there are more than enough examples and charts (lots of charts) that make it easy to create an advanture which is tailored to your play group.

The only down side of this game is that there was never any follow up and the game looks to only have this one book."

While there's no follow up book for the Hulks & Horrors rpg its gotten my mind reeling back towards several years ago. The thought at the time was could Hulks & Horrors serve as basis for the Stars Without Numbers revised/Cepheus Engine hybrid game as an active source book?! According to several sources, the answer according to ancient OSR theorists is yes. Outlaw D&D writes on this thread on Reddit; "I am actively blending WS with SWN for the best of both worlds, as they are more largely compatible than many folks realize." 
So if we use SWN as the basis replace the space ship rules with Cepheus Engine rpg then we are left with a very active campaign setting waiting to drop in PC's! 
Imagine that after the Shundering that a great plague swept across the universe. Billions & billions of sentient species were extinguished or worse. 

The Reticulans of 'These Stars Are Ours' come into this power vaccuum &  void left by these other races disappearance.  They found thier empire without a single shot being fired. The Reticulans take over & move in. Then upstart man comes upon the scene & he begins messing with Pandora's boxes & ruins. He raises up to a certain point & then mankind has a long hard fall into the present day. The are long forgotten mankind has crawled back to Hostile's technological level nine. 

Then one of the flash point plagues crops up except this time there's a possible cure in the Sanora sector as Joseph Mohr's Rumble In The Jungle adventure provides one possible cure & or treatment.  The trick is surviving Mr.Mohr's pay what you want adventure?! Mohr in twenty six pages neatly wraps up a solid adventure and its easy to use for Cepheus Engine or other OSR games. 
Mohr is on the level of unsung OSR creators such as Michael Brown whose own work on a little number called Lifeform Yeti might well fit such a campaign. Ancient engineered life form capable of surviving extreme artic temperatures & yet is capable of breeding with mankind. Sounds like something one of the ancient races of Hulks & Horror might have done. 

One can well imagine an entire sector of abandoned planets & space craft  made up by the plague mutated life forms of former races. Giant space wrecks & alien craft tumbling through space waiting for the lurcritive contents to be exploited. And what other horrors are waiting for our party of adventurers.