Ravagers of Saltmarsh - OSR Commentary On U3: "The Final Enemy" (1983) By Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull

" At last! An opportunity to avert the threat to the little town of Saltmarsh! The real enemies have been identified - evil, cruel creatures, massed in force and viciously organized. Can the brave adventurers thwart this evil and ensure the safety of Saltmarsh?"

So I had this dream last night about U3 The Final Enemy because I was reading through the module before bed. I've been on the move with work for three days running with service calls, errands, etc. which is why I'm a sort of late with this blog entry. Anyhow," U3: "The Final Enemy" (1983), by Dave J. Browne with development by Don Turnbull, is the final adventure in the "U" trilogy and the fourth product overall from TSR UK. It appeared in 1983" And this is more of a thinking man's module based around the fact that there are some very iconic elements, dangerous twists,& an all together large series of underwater adventure elements hence the 'U' letter in the title.

So what happens after the events of the U3 The Final Enemy? I've been thinking about modifying the U series for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition after reading through that game over the last couple of days. Sure I've talked about doing this before.

"The  sahuagin make excellent stand ins for Lovecraft's Deep Ones and they have wide variety of applications outside of this module and can be used to set up a cult within the environs of the Saltmarsh countryside." Let's just throw this idea out & simply fill in the Deep Ones of Lovecraft. I'm going to adapt this module series to some backwater area of my own 'Old Earth' campaign setting.

No this is different because this takes place after the events of U3 end. The Deep One temples  of the area around Saltmarsh are not going to be quiet. There could be very large military backlash that the PC's are not going to be expecting!? We know that there there other colonies of these aquatic bastards all over the map in the seas surrounding Saltmarsh.



If we're using HP Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth then there might be a blood relative connection to one of the PC's making events of U3 The Final Enemy a bit complicated!!?
"But the worst shock came when my uncle shewed me the Orne jewelery in a downtown safe deposit vault. Some of the items were delicate and inspiring enough, but there was one box of strange old pieces descended from my mysterious great-grandmother which my uncle was almost reluctant to produce. They were, he said, of very grotesque and almost repulsive design, and had never to his knowledge been publicly worn; though my grandmother used to enjoy looking at them. Vague legends of bad luck clustered around them, and my great-grandmother's French governess had said they ought not to be worn in New England, though it would be quite safe to wear them in Europe.
As my uncle began slowly and grudgingly to unwrap the things he urged me not to be shocked by the strangeness and frequent hideousness of the designs. Artists and archaeologists who had seen them pronounced their workmanship superlatively and exotically exquisite, though no one seemed able to define their exact material or assign them to any specific art tradition. There were two armlets, a tiara, and a kind of pectoral; the latter having in high relief certain figures of almost unbearable extravagance.
During this description I had kept a tight rein on my emotions, but my face must have betrayed my mounting fears. My uncle looked concerned, and paused in his unwrapping to study my countenance. I motioned to him to continue, which he did with renewed signs of reluctance. He seemed to expect some demonstration when the first piece—the tiara—became visible, but I doubt if he expected quite what actually happened. I did not expect it, either, for I thought I was thoroughly forewarned regarding what the jewelery would turn out to be. What I did was to faint silently away, just as I had done in that brier choked railway cut a year before.
From that day on my life has been a nightmare of brooding and apprehension nor do I know how much is hideous truth and how much madness. My great-grandmother had been a Marsh of unknown source whose husband lived in Arkham—and did not old Zadok say that the daughter of Obed Marsh by a monstrous mother was married to an Arkham man through a trick? What was it the ancient toper had muttered about the line of my eyes to Captain Obed's? In Arkham, too, the curator had told me I had the true Marsh eyes. Was Obed Marsh my own great-great-grandfather? Who—or what—then, was my great-great-grandmother?"

HP Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth


The PC's would most likely have to contend with a small army of Deep Ones coming up upon Saltmarsh or half breed Deep One pirates likely sailing to retake the entire Saltmarsh area!? There is some evidence in the Poseidonis cycle of  Clark Aston Smith that something like this took place. Here people thought of themselves as Atlanteans — "members of an aboriginal race of Atlantis" survived on Poseidonis as slaves ("A Voyage to Sfanomoe", Clark Ashton Smith).
Can the PC's avert the bloodshed & chaos induced turmoil coming their way?! If your interested in using some of the Poseidonis cycle of  Clark Aston Smith for DMing  here you are.

• Atlantis (1912)
• Death of Malygris, The (1933)
• Double Shadow, The (1933)
• Last Incantation, The (1930)
• Muse of Atlantis, The (1922)
• Tolometh (1958)
• Vintage from Atlantis, A (1933)
• Voyage to Sfanomoe, A (1931)

This whole cycle of branching adventure plots could be moved to Hyperborea where there are wide array of Deep One colonies all along the coasts of the continent. To survive this they're going to have to really pull the resources of the area of Saltmarsh together. 
For the  'Old Earth' setting I might put the whole thing right off the shores of Spain.  Will the PC's survive the experience?! Only time will tell.


If I turn this entire idea upon its ear then it could easily be worked into a Lion & Dragon rpg game with easy. Here the adventure would be set on the shores of France right in the middle of the Hundred Years War. Here the Marais salant has been a poor area for centuries avoided because of its legendary status as cursed & the home to the devils of the sea. But with the Hundred Years War wrapping up and the PC's having vanquished back the fish people &  frog demons  back to their ancestral home the danger has ended. Or so they think!
Here's where the vileness of the situation creeps in. The sea is the realm of horror unbound during the Hundred Years War. You can bet that the Church is going to get involved and that there's going to be a ton of executions. But will anyone notice during the turmoil of the Hundred Years War?!

Battle of Sluys from a manuscript of Froissart's Chronicles, Bruge, c.1470

U3 The Final Enemy has a ton of potential to act as a jump off point for a campaign in a wide variety of OSR theaters. There are a lot loose ends that the dungeon master can pick up and run with.

Ecology of the Crab Men from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition & The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg Systems For Your Old School Campaigns

So you thought that all of my posting about the 'U' series of modules and then The Secret of Bone Hill was over and finished? Well your Uncle Eric is back with a twist or two to bedevil your players with yet and it involves crabs. But this just doesn't involve just any crabs but space going Lovecraftian humanoids crab men from  Poseidonis. The U series main villains are the Sahuagin who once the characters have cleared out the entire run of the Salt Marsh run of modules. Who will fill the vacuum once they've been taken out? Well once again Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers comes to the rescue. The Referee's Manual contains one of the more advanced alien races are the Crabmen. These monstrous humanoids are actually an advanced race of alien humanoids who have settled in Hyperborea  from their home world  of Poseidonis in spacecraft.

 These humanoids are advanced tool users and have high technology, they're very weird and dangerous. Certain species of Picts worship these humanoid bastards and the Crabmen are expansionists  as well. With such a void left by the defeat of  the Sahuagin or Deep Ones this will be seen as weakness by the Crabmen who will see such a defeat as prime opportunity. The residents of Salt Marsh and the Lenore isles might be caught within a cross fire of such an underwater war. This is a prime opportunity to bring the PC's into the action where heroism might help turn the tides of blood back. These Crabmen also use laser pistols and more. They are are highly organized, intelligent, and dangerous to those races around them. Not to much is known about them though. There was some speculation among players of mine who have encountered them that these Crabmen might not be cognitive or even conscious in the traditional sense of the word. They could share a gestalt telepathic hive mind that centers around a higher controlling intelligence. These beings might have different species or rolls within the Crabmen's hierarchy or colonies.

 Crabmen are prime opportunists of the highest order looking out for the needs of the colony and creating soldiers, workers, hivers, and others as the details of the colony's needs dictates.
There are certain conceits within the text of these monsters but why would they bother with the humans around them besides being prime sources of protein? For that we must look to the original source material for the Crab Men. In this case its the Fiend Folio from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons first edition. The original Crab Men worker class is described as attacking anyone who might have silver or silver items upon their person? Why would a species of aquatic humanoids be attracted to silver a metal which has the properties of purity and luster according to myths and legends? The Crab Men of the First Edition Fiend Folio attack anyone suspected of carrying the metal. " Crabmen greatly value silver and will go to any lengths to obtain it, even attacking a character suspected of carrying any item made of this metal. In normal circumstances, however, they are quite pacific creatures, though from time to time an instinct makes them leave their coastal dwelling to mount a savage raid inland, roaming in bands of 30 or 40 creatures and pillaging all property in their path, not hesitating to attack those who would defend." The answer is quite simple really the commonly encountered Crab men are workers who have an inbred instinct to collect the metal for their colony. 

For ages silver has always had an association with magick & mysticism as well as the occult. The crab men use the material for time space gates in their space craft's faster then light drive systems, it holds a special religious place because of its significance within their lives. Live, breed, and continue to expand. The interesting part is the fact that the Deep Ones have kept the Crab men in check all these years in the U series and the Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh. Other OSR campaign settings and retroclones spring to mind,especially those of a weird or dark fantastic bent. Imagine Crab Men coming to shore off the coast of Spain ala 2001 Lovecraftian horror film after the Deep Ones have been defeated to slaughter anyone left on shore. The Deep Ones might be the only thing keeping these things from expanding onto the harbors and dry land. Shades of Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Realms of Crawling Chaos from Labyrinth Lord suddenly spring to mind here.

What will happen now that the Deep Ones have been defeated and their colony's machinations have failed? How will Salt Marsh, Restenford, and the Lenore Isles cope? Well my dear friends that is going to be up to you and your dungeon master.


Please note that none of this speculation and campaign notes are a part of the main story line or Setting of Hyperborea or of the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea game. Nor is this an attempt to violate the trademarks or copyrights of the holders of that game nor of the U series of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons modules or the L1 series. This is all of my own invention for a personal table top rpg adventure campaign. This post is for entertainment and educational purposes only.

Retro- Review & Dark Fantastic Campaign Commentary On L1 The Secret of Bone Hill For Advanced Dungeons and Dragons First Edition

Well, I wrote the reviews and background of U series of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons First Edition adventures but I almost left off L1 The Secret of Bone Hill by  Lenard Lakofka for PC's level two to four.  The cover blurb is classic Eighties TSR;
"Danger lurks in the Lendore Isles. Bands of evil creatures prowl the hills overlooking the town of Restenford, seeking unwary victims. Now you have come to this sleepy little village looking for adventure and excitement. You seek to fathom the unexplored reaches of Bone Hill and unlock the mysteries of Restenford."

Here the PC's adventure in and around the fishing port of Restenford and the sandbox nature of L1 comes out very quickly. The mini campaign setting settles itself right around the Lenore Isles and is more of a mini sandbox dungeon then anything else.   Restenford a small town that has secrets and many of them are deadly. This adventure was a revelation to me as a dungeon master perhaps more so then Keep on The Border Lands because of the fact that you've got an entire community with NPC's, small back histories, and not one or two small dungeon locations.  But  several locations  with a main bit of dungeon crawling at the adventure location itself.
 I knew  Len Lakofka's name in wargaming circles for years, the man knows his stuff and then some. The Secret of Bone Hill was an adventure location from his own home campaign which later on became part of his own Lenore Isles campaign it was run for the Nystul family from approximately 1978-1985.
Bone Hill is a wholly realized community in the sense that its a sort of AD&D Lovecraftian Peyton Place. There are secrets within the confines of the module's location, its peoples, and some really strange background elements. Everyone within the module has stat blocks including guards, innkeepers, cooks, etc. This alone makes it a fun walks through for the DM but there's more to it.
There's a certain dungeon or adventure location ecology to the place the bug bears hold Bone Hill during the day and then the undead come out to play. There's also a weird sense that something very weird and tragic happened here ages ago and the party is coming in late on the events. There's a weird horror to it that echos some of the eeriness of Sinister Secret to Salt Marsh. Its also low level and very friendly for dungeon masters who want to introduce the environs of Restenford.
So what does all of this have to do with Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea and the previous articles on adapting the U series? Quite a bit actually, there is as I a sense that the inhabitants of Restenford are not the original settlers of the place. There's a weird Lovecraftian style of history to the place born out of the extensive rumors table and subtle background hints in some of the dungeons and adventure locations  in the adventure.  The Restenford project has a vast amount of resources for the DM who wants to adapt this adventure as the town that described in the Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh. One of the things I've done running The Secret of Bone Hill is to strengthen the ties between the Deep Ones and the wizard of the tower. This gives a far more eerie take on the events of U3 and takes the PC's deeper into the mysteries that L1 presents. This means that the succession of wizards, the corrupt king of the castle and more all have back ties to the founding of the castle.
Then there are humanoid races and tribes in the area as well as the all pervading sense of evil to the castle and its surroundings. The magick and corruption of Bone Hill speaks of chaos and weird horror from foul sorcery heavily influencing the location. Men and elves have recently occupied the location but the locals don't even seem to be aware of why? Then there's the spectator which is only summoned to guard very valuable treasures for over one hundred and one years. Who in the succession of wizards and undead has summoned such a horror and why? This would be a fourteenth level wizard or highe, this is not a light weight spell caster. This is a gray wizard of considerable power and occult knowledge.
There are other adventure events going on here such as why humanoid tribes and wolves are stacked up on one another and how do they exist? My solution to this was the spontaneous dungeon life form generation first created by James Mishler  This is not only happening but replenishing the ranks of the local gnolls, orcs, and other humanoids while the undead of Bone Hill own the night and are mostly unchallenged.

This gives the adventure location of Bone Hill some horrific background elements and history but it also creates a perfect breeding ground for more adventures in the hills of the place amid the lost ruins and weird locations. There are several smaller dungeons in town that hint at not only dangers below the town but a sense of corruption that creeps just below the radar of the town itself. This includes a new monster called the 'spectator' a beholder kin who has several interesting features that fits more into the realm  of the film 'Big Trouble In Little China' then AD&D.  There are several monsters from the OSR or AS&SH that can easily take the place of the spectator if necessary.

What the spectator really points out is the presence of some very powerful black wizards or neutrally aligned wizards in L1. A trend that would continue with the L series as we shall see soon in other entries. Bone Hill and its other adventure locations hint at some very dark history in its background. This fact can easily be used to re enforce the dark connections between the the sahuagin or deep one communities off the coasts of the Lenore isles. This face can easily be exploited to give a game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess a much more grounded and dark fantastic nautical feel. I myself did this by placing the Salt Marsh and its setting materials into a twisted version of Earth using the coast of Spain as the stand in. The 2001 Spanish horror film Dagon takes place in "Imboca", a Spanish adaption of "Innsmouth".




But I digress from my original take on The Secret of Bone Hill, its subject matter and very nature
Puts the entire Secret of Bone Hill and the 'U' series into the AS&SH pulpy Weird Tales wheel house but  the locations of Restenford and the Lenore isles as a whole can be ported directly over to Hyperborea without a single tear drop. This option enables a dungeon master to tie all of the loose ends of the 'U' series together in a nice single wrapped up campaign ready to play. Now I've heard several folks ask me about higher level adventures and actually Mr. Lenard Lakofka  with the addition of the L5 series which takes place entirely within the Lenore Isles themselves. This is a free addition that can not only continue the adventures but to help fill in some of the missing bits and pieces of The Secret of Bone Hill. As a mini sand box Bone Hill is not only a flexible frame work but can give you as the DM everything you need to continue your adventures within a nasty, dangerous and dark fantastic frame work of adventure. More coming up soon.

Retro- Review and Commentary On U3 The Final Enemy For Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition

U3 The Final Enemy is a rip roaring conclusion to the Sinster Secret of Salt Marsh U series of modules. These modules are dark and pulpy sort of weirdness that you just don't find in today's modules. But there's more to the waters of U3 The Final Enemy.

U3 The Final Enemy is the last in the U series of adventure module for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons; it represents the last of the trinity of adventures in this series.  It has a lot to offer in terms of page count and gritty sword and sorcery content. That's one of the secrets of the U series that they have a totally different feel to one another in terms of goals and getting the adventures into the deep end of the events surrounding Saltmarsh.


This module has a totally different tone to many other AD&D first edition modules, not only is there the back drop of the events of the Secrets of Saltmarsh but now with the events of Danger At Dunwater at the PC's backs events are reaching the height of their apex in Saltmarsh's bloody waters. This adventure is for PC's of levels three through five and make no mistake one miss step and your party will be shark bait. Wiki has a pretty damn good break down of the plot from an outside the adventure's perspective; "After identifying the evil creatures, which have massed in force and viciously organized as a threat to the village of Saltmarsh, the player characters have the opportunity to thwart the creatures' plans and ensure the safety of the little town. The Final Enemy is an underwater quest to penetrate the lair of a species of fish-like monstrous humanoids called sahuagin."  Right off the bat U3 contains rules for underwater adventuring and combat; and the adventure has the gritty feel of a full blown military operation and investigation with the PC's not only looking into the strengths and weaknesses of the forces that have circled around them since U1 but lizardmen allies of the PC's are there to help move the adventure along. You might think that U3 is only for higher level PC's but that's where you'd be dead wrong there are several potions of water breathing scattered throughout U3 and a wand of polymorph to help the PC's get into their ultimate goal, the underwater lair of the Sahuagin.


There are several key factors with U3 The Final Enemy, this is one of the most Lovecraftian AD&D module of the U series involving a very alien and weird enemy in the form of the sahuagin which over the years I've converted into Deep Ones when running the U series with the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea retroclone rpg system. Not only are these creatures incredibly dangerous but the U series had a grim and nasty streak that suited the climate of this underwater adventure location.


Foolish PC's are going to get themselves slaughtered in the underwater environs of the monsters and there are several weird variations of the sahuagin to contend with including the iconic four armed version and several places in the adventure where running can ensure that your PC's are going to live. The adventuring climate of  The Final Enemy is one that dovetails very nicely into the back end of L1 The Secret of Bone Hill. The reason I say this is because L1 more of a mini-setting than an adventure, offering several adventure locations, events, and NPC's that can be dropped right into  The Final Enemy for even more expansion of the adventure.


The Final Enemy is gritty, action packed, and shows off several features that would come to dominate other modules in different ways. The idea of investigation over combat is one such conceit of U3 and that evil exists right under the PC's very feet in the communities. There are several cross references in U3 that tie the entire plethora of adventures of the U series together into a neat little whole of a mini campaign setting. Some notes about using this adventure series with the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea game. U3 presents a very unified and dangerous whole of an adventure. The  sahuagin make excellent stand ins for Lovecraft's Deep Ones and they have wide variety of applications outside of this module and can be used to set up a cult within the environs of the Saltmarsh countryside.

After this particular adventure is done with a the PC's are ready to move on, there are several options that can be done to exploit the PC's involvement with the events of the U series and this includes taking the adventure elements and moving them around the countryside of Hyperborea add hock.
There is plenty of room to shift around the locations of the U series of adventures for Hyperborea, this is especially true of the Deep One infested areas of the map of that world. The technology levels, the grittiness, the Weird Tales style of backdrop of AS&SH all fit into the U series of adventure modules.
This very aspect of the Final Enemy is one of the things that allows the U series to blend into the background of the setting. It also makes this one of the must have adventures to convert over to Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The weird pseudo historical setting of the U series enables it to be inserted into everything from LoFP to adding on and building upon several of the Lovecraftian principles of the modules .


U3 The Final Enemy has some incredibly evocative and iconic monsters, encounters, and strange NPC's that can still surprise jaded players of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This is one of the other strengths of the U series, that no matter how many times you play it there is more going on under the hood then most folks expect and its different every time. This makes U3 The Final Enemy a very well put together adventure that will have players coming back to the table again and again.