Exploiting I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City With X1 Isle Of Dread Plus OSR & Appendix N Resources

"Somewhere in the heart of the steaming jungle lies the answer to the whispered tales - rumors of a magnificent city and foul, horrid rituals! Here a brave party might find riches and wonders - or death! Is your party brave enough to face the terrors of the unknown and find - the Forbidden City!"

In the southeast corner of the Flanaess, lies an ancient, ruined city or at least that's the general notion. Let's go under the premise that in fact Dave Cook's l1  Dwellers Of The Forbidden City could be used to extend & expand X1 The Isle of Dread. Dwellers is a a sandbox / open game adventure  where you as the dungeon don't feel shoehorned into the usual D&D corners. Couple this module with Goodman Games X1 Isle of Dread & the campaign world begins to feel a bit like 1931 King Kong's Skull film; a world alien & truly removed from the normal flow of humanity. 



Yesterday I wrote about Elemental Plane of Water & the Sea of Worlds getting the PC's into the deep end of trouble. Why!? Because in this l1 Dwellers In The Forbidden City does something unique, it sets up a fallen empire waiting to have its history & backstory exploited for the players by the DM. The factions of the module become the focus for a once great fallen empire. The perfect adventure canvas for the DM to pain the serpent men empire. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea's The Forgotten Fane of The Coiled Goddess adventure as a mini mega Swords & Sorcery  campaign.



This makes it ripe to couple this campaign with Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. The gods & empire have fallen in the thousands years since the sun has become red & raw with age.

He who has trod the shadows of Zothique
And looked upon the coal-red sun oblique,
Henceforth returns to no anterior land,
But haunts a later coast
Where cities crumble in the black sea-sand
And dead gods drink the brine.

He who has known the gardens of Zothique
Were bleed the fruits torn by the simorgh's beak,
Savors no fruit of greener hemispheres:
In arbors uttermost,
In sunset cycles of the sombering years,
He sips an amaranth wine.

He who has loved the wild girls of Zothique
Shall not come back a gentler love to seek,
Nor know the vampire's from the lover's kiss:
For him the scarlet ghost
Of Lilith from time's last necropolis
Rears amorous and malign.

He who has sailed in galleys of Zothique
And seen the looming of strange spire and peak,
Must face again the sorcerer-sent typhoon,
And take the steerer's post
On far-poured oceans by the shifted moon
Or the re-shapen Sign.

Zothique

Clark Ashton Smith
l1 FORBIDDEN CITY is a fun but somewhat generalized trip through a ruined city in a jungle.But this makes it ripe to mate it up with both Isle of Dread &Zothique. The sea of worlds leads to ruined straights of the seas of CAS's Zothique. CAS's Zothique cycle is unique in that the old gods have fallen after the 'stars have come right'. The Old Ones have come, the gods of mythology have died, & the dying world of Zothique has taken its place & CAS cycle bares this out; 

• Black Abbot of Puthuum, The (1936)
• Charnel God, The (1934)
• Dark Eidolon, The (1935)
• Dead will Cuckold You, The (1950)
• Death of Ilalotha, The (1937)
• Empire of the Necromancers, The (1932)
• Garden of Adompha, The (1938)
• In the Book of Vergama (1934)
• Isle of the Torturers, The (1933)
• Last Hieroglyph, The (1935)
• Mandor's Enemy (1989)
• Master of the Crabs, The (1948)
• Morthylla (1953)
• Necromancy in Naat (1937)
• Shapes of Adamant (1935)
• Tomb-Spawn, The (1934)
• Voyage of King Euvoran, The (1931) [Illustration "Quest of the Gazolba" By Boris Dolgov]
• Weaver in the Vault, The (1934)[CAS Illustration]
• Witchcraft of Ulua, The (1934)
• Xeethra (1934 [CAS Illustration]
• <Zothique (1951)

All of this sets up Zothique & Dwellers as the perfect Sword & Sorcery blend for exploitation by a mixed group of Pulp style adventurers. Troll Lord Games Castles & Crusade can be used with this heady mix. 

  X1 Isle of Dread is an isle of castaways filled to the brim with pirates, dinosaurs, & horrors undreamt of. But its also a place ripe with possibilities for a group of players to use their own PC's to meet on terms outside the bounds of a normal Dungeons & Dragons game..Exploiting the possibilities for having Pulp heroes fighting side by side with their fantasy counterparts from the player's favorite setting is very exciting for some groups of players. Its the perfect opportunity to have classic Greyhawk characters fighting shoulder to shoulder with Pulp adventurers. 

Next time we dive deeper into the Pulp side of things to get the player's ready for what or who might be waiting to exploit the PC's in such a heady campaign mix. So stay tuned for more madness coming up. 

Serpentmen,Castaways,Dinosaurs, & The Cycle of OSR Campaign Commentary Continued

"Hundreds of miles from the mainland, surrounded by dangerous waters, lies an island known only as the Isle of Dread. Dark jungles and treacherous swamps await those who are brave enough to travel inland in search of the lost plateau, where the ruins of a once mighty civilization hold many treasures - and many secrets! "


So begins the introduction of the classic Isle of Dread but there's much more going on with this isle of castaways then what might be at first seen.




Just beyond the pale of civilization lay incredibly ancient & alien disturbing races that want nothing more then to take back the lands that were once theirs. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Robert Howard, & Algernon Henry Blackwood  all hint of this. Earth if you will has been a battle ground through the centuries for a great many ancient & very alien  races. American writer Robert E. Howard takes more then a few hints from Algernon Henry Blackwood 's weird fiction. Howard used his characters like real people who were subject to incredible wrenching  vistas & influences beyond the pale. Take for example  his poor mad  poet Justin Geoffrey;


"Justin Geoffrey (1898–1926) A poet who wrote "The People of the Monolith" after visiting the village of Stregoicavar and died "screaming in a madhouse" five years before the events of the story. He is remembered by the villagers as acting in an odd manner, with a habit of mumbling to himself. The story opens with this stanza, which is attributed to him:

They say foul things of Old Times still lurk
In dark forgotten corners of the world.
And Gates still gape to loose, on certain nights.
Shapes pent in Hell."

Robert E. Howard 'The Black Stone' published in the
 the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales.

He was one of those who got more then a glimpse of the beyond & went mad for his efforts. Algernon Henry Blackwood 's The Willows shows us a glimpse into another world as two men are subject to dangerous influences of 'other worldly beings';"We stood there, listening attentively together. At first I heard only the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent surface. The willows, for once, were motionless and silent. Then a sound began to reach my ears faintly, a peculiar sound--something like the humming of a distant gong. It seemed to come across to us in the darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. It was repeated at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell nor the hooting of a distant steamer. I can liken it to nothing so much as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky, repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as it was repeatedly struck. My heart quickened as I listened.

"I've heard it all day," said my companion. "While you slept this afternoon it came all round the island. I hunted it down, but could never get near enough to see--to localize it correctly. Sometimes it was overhead, and sometimes it seemed under the water. Once or twice, too, I could have sworn it was not outside at all, but within myself--you know--the way a sound in the fourth dimension is supposed to come."

I was too much puzzled to pay much attention to his words. I listened carefully, striving to associate it with any known familiar sound I could think of, but without success. It changed in the direction, too, coming nearer, and then sinking utterly away into remote distance. I cannot say that it was ominous in quality, because to me it seemed distinctly musical, yet I must admit it set going a distressing feeling that made me wish I had never heard it.

"The wind blowing in those sand-funnels," I said determined to find an explanation, "or the bushes rubbing together after the storm perhaps."

"It comes off the whole swamp," my friend answered. "It comes from everywhere at once." He ignored my explanations. "It comes from the willow bushes somehow--"

"But now the wind has dropped," I objected. "The willows can hardly make a noise by themselves, can they?"

His answer frightened me, first because I had dreaded it, and secondly, because I knew intuitively it was true.

"It is because the wind has dropped we now hear it. It was drowned before. It is the cry, I believe, of the--""
Algernon Henry Blackwood 's The Willows

There has been a slow war going on for a long time with a wide variety of the mythological races of the Earth. What we call the occult & mythological races are simply masks that our lower dimensional brains can understand;
"They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died. This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him."
"There had been aeons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before men came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars, and brought Their images with Them. "
These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape — for did not this star-fashioned image prove it? — but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die..."  HP Lovecraft 'The Call of Cthulhu'  1926. The things that are depicted in 'The Willows' & some of the intermediately Lovecraftian & weird fiction stories are the ancient gods now fallen to the status of demonic monsters of chaos & insanity waiting at the threshold of reality. Some of these things are found waiting at the frontier edges of the world waiting to comeback to claim what's theirs. 

The Goblin, Watercolor Illustration to Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso by William Blake

The Kopru are the perfect example of the type of fallen & degenerate remains of a once proud race. These things are as dangerous as they come & are the left overs from something foul beyond reckoning. These things will feed on anyone who can be claimed by their claws & charm abilities.  They have an alien agenda all of their own for the PC's.

X1 The Isle of Dread has about the adventure the feel of a 'lost world of castaways' cut off from the rest of whatever campaign world its put into. PC's subject to its wiles will never be the same again.  For Amazing Adventures! rpg X1 The Isle of Dread is the perfect pulp adventure location. Here the player's PC's can cross over easily with their Castles & Crusades counterparts whist dodging through the machinations of the the Kopru, pirates, dinosaurs,  & all that the isle has to offer. The Amazing Adventures! rpg Companion is key to crossing over all of the AA! elements easily. 

Adding in David Cook's l1 Dwellers of The Forbidden City enables the DM to add background into a serpent men backed horror fest to X1 The Isle of Dread. The whole thing comes off as a mini campaign of epic proportions of time lost adventurers adrift on the sea of worlds.

 

With a bit of prep time & some further play the whole campaign affair could be linked into Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea's The Forgotten Fane of The Coiled Goddess adventure as a mini mega campaign. Cue Raiders of the Lost Ark march here.


The Sea of Worlds & the Elemental plane of Water provides the perfect excuse to get the PC's into more trouble as we'll see tomorrow. Stay tuned.

OSR Commentary - Strange Lost Worlds of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition's I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City By Dave Cook

"Somewhere in the heart of the steaming jungle lies the answer to the whispered tales - rumors of a magnificent city and foul, horrid rituals! Here a brave party might find riches and wonders - or death! Is your party brave enough to face the terrors of the unknown and find - the Forbidden City!"
Where do I really begin with I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City By David Zeb Cook? Its an old favorite module of mine that I've run countless times for large groups of experienced players & it reeks with the hollowness of its pulpy underpinnings. The real heart of the module is the quasi oriental city of the module. With Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition winging its way to the door steps of the Kickstarter backers I'm dusting this classic off from 1981. Today I began to think about 'I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City' because of its self contained adventure setting & isolated adventure location. I1 is a mini sand box location with its own self contained factions & weirdness that could potentially be used as a Hyperborean fragment adventure location. 



This is a module for PC's from levels 4 - 7 within an isolated ruined cityscape straight out of Robert Howard or even a Doc Savage novel. David Zeb cook thinks I1 might be the reason why he was hired by TSR in the first place.
"The module was written by game designer David "Zeb" Cook, who partly ascribes his hiring by TSR to his work on this module. In the adventure, the characters are hired to find an object taken to a lost oriental-style city, which has been taken over by a cult of snake-worshipers, the yuan-ti, and their servants, the mongrelmen and tasloi." But its the influence & deadliness of the snake cult that interests me tonight. These various factions compete against one another within I1 but many of the monsters of the modules compete against one another but could the mind numbingly dangerous religious cult of the Yuan-ti escape from I1 and back into Hyperborea? Hear me out here. The serpent men of Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess be another faction competing against the Yuan-ti? With so many dwelling places within the city ruins of I1 its not hard to imagine.


Everything within I1 is geared for a South East Asian style adventure with its own unique Lovecraftian style twist. Having visited Thailand I can honestly say that the Yuan-ti can easily compete with or be traded in for the Serpent men  of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition's 'Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess.' Given the map of I1 its easy to see how the hidden ruined city can become another part of the 'Serpent Isles'. By making the adventure module locations separate its easy to run I1 first to get the PC's levels up and then bring them through Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess'. This gives the whole affair an epic mythological quality.

We are not talking a light weight campaign we're talking about a mini campaign of more then a couple of months.  Because I1 was a competition module originally there is an element of having this become a campaign location where the party of adventurers will have to dip in and out of it in the tradition of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel. This also means that the link between I1 & The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess is going to more then fleeting.
"Less than a month ago, your party found itself in Port Zangerios, where you heard of an Esquimaux thief selling a treasure map. Low on wealth but high in courage, you sought him out. The man turned out to be a fearful ex-slave who had “acquired” the map from his Ixian master. The map is incomplete but shews the Isle of the Serpent in far-off Lemuria, where rests a fabulous treasure called the Feathered Crown of Nanasa (or so thought the Ixian). Pooling your money to purchase the unfinished map, you bought passage on an Amazonian trade ship. After passing through tempests and torrential rains that shimmered with auroral light, you have come to the great city of Jhaman Ket. Now you must seek out the location of the Isle of the Serpent."

Within the introduction we're getting the outline to the placement, ideas, and possible hooks for not only the PC's but further adventures within this adventure. I've said before Forgotten Fane is as much source book as it is adventure. This means that the PC's are going to have more then their hands full with it. They're going to be running for their God forsaken lives with some of the monsters from this adventure.
The menace of  the Yuan-ti make an excellent counter point to the lost world horrors of the monsters of the Forgotten Fane. If the Yuan ti get to the mainland of Hyperborea's jungles then there's going to be Hell to pay for the already beleaguered continent


I've written extensively about using I1 with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea as a jump off point for domain level games. This style of lost world game is the complete opposite & journey into the heart of darkness of a lost world setting. Something similar to many of the ill conceived adventures of Clark Ashton Smith's "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" or Robert Howards Temple of the Toad From 'The Thing on the Roof'

The jungles of Lemuria from 'Forgotten Fane  of the Coiled Goddess' are highly dangerous & incredibly weird settings. The PC's are going to be up against some of the toughest customers that the old school can through at them in a one on one style of balls to the walls adventure mini campaign. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition has many of the existing monsters from Forgotten Fane and simply catalogs them. Players are not going to expect the Conrad's Heart of Darkness old school style mini campaign.

OSR Commentary On The Forgotten Fane of The Coiled Goddess By Joseph D. Salvador From North Wind Adventures As Old School

"More than a month ago, your party found itself in Port Zangerios, where you heard of an Esquimaux thief selling a treasure map. Low on wealth but high in courage, you sought him out. The man turned out to be a fearful ex-slave who had “acquired” the map from his Ixian master. The map is incomplete but shews the Isle of the Serpent in far-off Lemuria, where rests a fabulous treasure called the Feathered Crown of Nanasa (or so thought the Ixian). Pooling your money to purchase the unfinished map, you bought passage on an Amazonian trade ship. After passing through tempests and torrential rains that shimmered with auroral light, you have come to the great city of Jhaman Ket. Now you must seek out the location of the Isle of the Serpent."



  I've seen a lot of people who have spoken of using various OSR modules with other game systems then the retroclone's that they were designed for. Recently I've been touting Adventurer,Conqueror, King & really enjoying picking it apart, kicking the tires, & preparing to run an old school campaign mini event with the system. Earlier today I posted an idea of running a mixed Frankenstein OSR  post apocalyptic campaign based on an email request. Well rest assured I'm not leaving the realms of  sword & sorcery behind nor the OSR itself. As I said the other day there are as many flavors & colours of OSR gaming as their there are parts of the visible spectrum of light. Each & everyone is valid & interesting, so it got me thinking about one of my favorite mini campaign adventure resources for the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game I'm speaking of Joseph D. Salvador's Forgotten Fane Of The Coiled Goddess. 

I've had it sitting on my hard drive for the better part of a year or so. Way back in October of last year I was running a few mini adventures for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. If there was one module that I think is essential to the tone & encapsulated Hyperborea as a world setting this is it. Because it expands the world of Hyperborea by adding in the remnant of Lemuria to the world setting. This does a few things in spades:

1. This adventure location becomes open to other retroclone systems as a viable option other planar adventure setting location. What I mean is that you can bring PC's into it to adventure and your not going to break the Hyperborean world. 
2. As an OSR resource this adventure can function as a blue print for expansion of other 'lost world' settings that can be added into its South China sea pulp stylings. 
3. I've heavily modified Forgotten Fane a number of times and even tacked on Isle of Dread with some very good results last year. 
4. Many of the creatures, monsters,magic items are perfect add on's for other sword & sorcery serpentmen themed adventures. I'm hoping to see an expansion of this adventure in the next year or so. In fact I wasn't worried when the 2nd edition of AS&SH was announced, the quality of this module was kinda of what sold me on the announced Kickstarter. 
5. This is a living, breathing, Lumeria that goes on regardless of the PC's that makes it work as a setting. You could drop in Norse adventurers or the usual mix of D&D style Elves & Dwarves, The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess is going to work. In fact I used several of the NPC races outlined to create replacement PC's for players after they're initial ones bit the dust. To facilitate the dark underbelly of the serpent men's religions and variations of it I used Neo Plastic Publishing's Obscene Serpent Religion (warning this is an adult title) for other serpent religions operating in the Lemurian remanent's countryside. This style of game could be used as an inquisitor's game for Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos. This is something we encountered when one of the players wanted to add in their Dark Albion character after Cults of Chaos hit the OSR wilds. 

So what does this have to do with Adventurer, Conqueror, King? Quite a bit actually, if we look at the Lumeria remnant as a possible domain for the PC's to tame then this opens up just the type of a campaign that ACK's was designed to handle. The Domain's of War system is designed to handle such incursions & invasions with impunity and given the prehistoric lost world of Forgotten Fane of The Coiled Goddess this is a viable option. But your going to ruin the feel of the world of the module? Perhaps but this is the type of campaign that could take years to run.  'But this goes against the entire grain of Hyperborea' was the cry I heard today. Hyperborea is a world customized by many DM's including the creator himself.

In fact I would strongly suggesting creating your own version of Hyperborea and customizing to your own home campaigns. This is one of the beauties of this world, its flexible and so rich with sword & sorcery possibilities.  

All of the heavy lifting of creating ACK's classes and adapting them to Hyperborea has been done and awaits your reading. This remains one of my favorite Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea adventures. There's so many possibilities & so much stuff has been packed in. The writing is compact but evocative and I keep returning to the adventure again & again to dip my quill in the rich prehistoric waters here.
The question becomes where do I take this idea from here? Only time will tell from this point on.

Retro - Review and Commentary On U2 Danger At Dunwater Adventure For Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition

There are adventures you never forget and adventures that during play come to bite you in the behind. Danger At Dunwater is a surprisingly well written but sparse adventure that plays like clock work and one that frustrates the hack and slash player and makes the party investigate the goings on of the Lizardmen they heard about in the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh U1.

Danger At Dunwater is the second in the "U' trilogies of adventures and pits the characters into the aftermath of  The Sinister Secret Of Saltmash adventure and meshes right into the front and back adventure plots U1 quite nicely.  Danger At Dunwater was designed for 6-10 characters of level 1-4 and it can be a mean little adventure. The PC's  must track down Lizardmen to their lair, to stop them from massing for an assault on the town of Saltmarsh.
But of course not all is as it seems, when you dive below the surface of Danger At Dunwater, the real enemies begin to reveal themselves for who they really are.

There's a bit of investigation, wilderness adventure and a fair amount of dungeon crawling in U2. There's also a creepy Lovecraft vibe running through the action in this adventure and yet I've had more then one hack and slash player complain of the lack of combat because they had to use their brains to figure the ins and outs of the goings on in Saltmarsh. Danger at Dunwater by Dave J Browne and Don Turnbull (TSR, Inc., 1982) is an adventure that builds on the events of Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh and then twists things around for the PC's.

Because of  the set up of the alchemist's mansion in U1& some of the items that the PC's have found and because I was running Sinister Secrets of Salt Marsh with the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg I inserted the map from Forgotten Fane of The Coiled Goddess adventure into the ongoing plot of the U series to keep the action going for the next leg of the campaign. I know that its an old trick but it worked and provided a much needed hook to keep the action moving along later. The action centers around the fact that the Lizardmen have been buying pretty advanced weapons for what authorities feel is the slaughter of Saltmarsh and its surroundings. Adventures from around this time were made to a pretty high standard and you've got NPC's and even the monsters with their own motives, personalities, and goals. They're not their to simply be slaughtered.


The town of Saltmarsh itself plays one of the central rolls in Danger At Dunwater and the dungeon master is supposed to flesh this town  adventure setting out for themselves. Now over the years I've heard of friends and other dungeon masters taking the town from The Secret of Bone Hill by  Lenard Lakofka   using it as Saltmarsh and its environs. The adventure in and around the fishing port of Restenford which fits squarely into the plot and details of Danger At Dunwater. There's a very nice little thread about combining these two classics together on Dragon's Foot. Can it be done and should it be? Well in my humble opinion, yes its easily accomplished and yes it does work. The process really enriches the events of the U series of adventures and gives the events of The Secrets of Bone Hill a resonance with players that helps to build a mini campaign in the regions of Greyhawk. It also feeds into the flavors of both Dunsany and Moorcok that the U1 and U2 seem to echo with. The U series really has the British sense of the gritty fantasy that would later come to hallmark the UK series of TSR modules. They're distinct in some ways, they have a far different feel then other TSR modules from the time.


So rather then spoil the adventure plot lines of the U series I wanted to take a moment to really address some of the reasons why I keep using AS&SH for running the U series. The level of the PC's for the FORGOTTEN FANE of the COILED GODDESS is  four to six characters of 5^th through 7^th level.  By running the PC's through the U adventure series the adventurers are ready to tackle the hazards and weirdness of the Forgotten Fane. They're not going to balk at some of the hazards of this module. The sea themes of  Danger At Dunwater and Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, speak of far off lands, tales of old sailors, and the lore of lost islands. This is exactly the sort of vibe that the Coiled Serpent goes for. By simply changing out the real enemy of the U series for Lovecraft's Deep Ones you have a deeper tie in for AS&SH. Something very simple that makes all of the difference in the world. This module could also easily be adapted with a bit of conversion work into Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The gritty feel of the adventure, how it handles magic and some of its low level adventure elements are ideally suited for LoFP's no nonsense approach to OSR adventure gaming. The amount of treasure should also be adjusted for both retroclone systems. Sometimes with these adventures less is more.

 For myself once the events of Danger At Dunwater are wrapped up the party is ready to advance to U3 The Final Enemy and we'll go over that one sometime in the next day or so. If you haven't gotten in on Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea's adventures now is deffinately the time to do so. Jeffery Talanian has a sale going on,"For my gaming pals out there, my small press RPG outfit, North Wind Adventures, is having a 15% off sale on all in-print adventure modules. Stop by my website, www.hyperborea.tv and enter code BLACKFRIDAY15."


Danger At Dunwater is another high mark in a series of modules that helped to define a certain era in TSR. Do I think its worth playing and DMing still? Yes I do in spades.

Review & Commentary Of The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess From North Wind Adventures For The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers Of Hyperborea and Your Old School Campaigns

There are times when you want to grab a group of players, some dice, and more then head right over to your favorite table and sit down for your favorite adventure. The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess From  North Wind Adventures  for the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg system  has everything you could want from a sword and sorcery OSR adventure. The thing reads like a Marvel Conan Seventies comicbook come to life to devour your OSR adventurers.
This adventure is part quest, part dungeon crawl, and pulpy high end Hyperborean adventure set on a seldom trodden piece of the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea world and beyond.


 GRAB IT RIGHT OVER HERE

I love everything about this dense sixty page Hyperborean tour de force; this adventure features everything that you could want out of an AS&SH adventure from the background of the setting of  The Forgotten Fane to the brand new Hyperborean elements that this adventure adds to the world. This really isn't simply an another adventure but a full blown add on to the world of Hyperborea. I followed the AS&SH adventure three pack adventure Kickstarter for months. This produced three essential AS&SH adventures; seriously these are not simply adventures but sourcebooks that paint even more setting and background to the AS&SH gaming system.  The plot reads like something straight out of the pages of Weird Tales;
"More than a month ago, your party found itself in Port Zangerios, where you heard of an Esquimaux thief selling a treasure map. Low on wealth but high in courage, you sought him out. The man turned out to be a fearful ex-slave who had “acquired” the map from his Ixian master. The map is incomplete but shews the Isle of the Serpent in far-off Lemuria, where rests a fabulous treasure called the Feathered Crown of Nanasa (or so thought the Ixian). Pooling your money to purchase the unfinished map, you bought passage on an Amazonian trade ship. After passing through tempests and torrential rains that shimmered with auroral light, you have come to the great city of Jhaman Ket. Now you must seek out the location of the Isle of the Serpent."  This is several  crawls,  an adventure, and a lost world world adventure mini campaign all in one.


The adventure paces itself quite nicely someplace between placing the PC's deep into the Hyperborean underworld then switching gears into a weird science fantasy lost world mode that is both deadly and telling at the same time of the wonder of the world of Hyperborea. "Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess" written by  Joe Salvador with maps by Monkeyblood Designs, and features all of the dinosaurs featured in the artwork and more. The world is partially Lovecraftian hi jinks, lots of adventurer sword and sorcery action and the whole thing could be deadly unless the PC's think and are very careful. This is an adventure meant for our to six characters of 5^th through 7^th level and the designers and writer mean it. Seriously straight out of the gate the PC's are going to be challenged and are going to be running for their lives. Much of the action is going to center on the PC's as one encounter after another is going to challenge them on every live. This isn't an adventure your players are going to get up from the table for to go to the bathroom. The encounters are quick and take place without rail roading the PC's into a corner or conclusion.

 There are reasons for the PC's to be dealing with hell and horrors of the Forgotten Fane at the same time dovetailing their motives deep into the back setting of Hyperborea and that's another place where this adventure shines. This is a mini sourcebook that in sixty pages manages to shove a lot of science fantasy and Lovecraftian goodness into back burner of it. There is at least several weeks worth of play here and in addition with a clever DM miles and miles of campaign adventure hooks to keep this adventure on the DM's nightstand for a long while to come.
 Because of the set up for The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess, DM's can add in any of the revers and freebooters of the AS&SH rules set with little problem. The PC's are in for a hell of a time trying to deal with all of the adventure elements. If a party isn't careful this might be their fate at the hands of several factions of serpent people and there is more. But is The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess actually playable? Yes in spades. This adventure adds in details, bits and pieces to the world of Hyperborea and adds other fragmentary colors to the weird work of art  that is Hyperborea itself.


Do I think that  The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess
 is worth getting for the AS&SH system? Yes in spades, this is because the AS&SH three pack are perhaps some of the most essential and important adventures and sourcebooks to come out for the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers Of Hyperborea rpg system.

How To Use The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess
With Your Old School Campaigns
Can the The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess be used with other old school and retroclone systems? And can it be used well with other OSR game systems? Short answer is yes in spades. This adventure features so many weird tales and pulpy elements that plugging in your favorite adventurers at certain points during this adventure will be a snap.




The plot lends itself very well to adding in your favorite adventurers into the lost world or adventure elements quite nicely. The Coiled Fane  can be used as a basis for a cross over adventure for a party of OD&D, Sword & Wizardry party or your adventurers. With the focus here on Hyperborea DM have an opportunity to carve out their own niche of this rich world and make it their own. There are several key points in The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess  where the PC's from the DM's favorite retroclone can be introduced into the world of Hyperborea. The lost world action and science fantasy elements of this adventure shouldn't overwhelm the adventurers at all letting them shine in the spotlight as they will. There are more then a few monsters in this adventure that can easily take the heads off of stupid PC's and there several points where if the PC's are not careful they'll end up very dead. The other party members may be searching through dinosaur poo for the limbs and entrails of comrades for a resurrection spell or two.
Yet this is an adventure with plenty of gold, glory, and high weirdness to keep the PC's busy for months.  The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess  adventure could be used to plug in a Lamentations of the Flame Princess party but DM's might want to restrict the gun powder issue. Also Dark Albion  adventurer parties might make a flying visit but this would  allow the expansionist adventuring parties of Dark Albion to see a rich and all to exploitable world for their Albion empire. This is a perfect way for the setting up  for a rich campaign of warfare and future conflict as the two worlds cross over an all too common missed opportunity. Planar cross over is easily one of my top five ways of bringing conflicting worlds into focus with one another like ships passing in the night.
This is yet another beautiful bit of the design of the The Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess  adventure and one of the reasons why this remains one of my favorite AS&SH adventures to come out to date.