Mutant Massacre In The Capital Last Night's Actual Play Session Report

In last night's game the adventurers came face to face with some of the followers of Entropy. Mutant abominations. horrors that were the result of twisted mockeries created by those Immortals who seek the end of all things. If you've been following the controversial blog posts that I've been doing on The Immortals Box set by Frank Mentzer & Aaron Allston's Wrath Of The Immortals Box Sets respectively.  Then you probably have been following some of what's been happening. The freed slaves were brought into a local hospital & a few were infected with weird rot grub like abominations. Government troops in bio hazard suits were brought in with flame throwers. This game follows what happened back on June 1st, 2019. 

One of the PC's borrowed some of the items that an 'orderly' who was trying to break into one of the hospital wards was carrying after almost getting his head blown off Scanner's style. The orderly was quickly dispatched & the flame throwers came out.


Then a fight was happening deeper in the Riccian capital as Entropy cult forces were trying to break into a local museum. One of the PC's managed to get the drop on several cult members while government clawites helped the party out. The party's psycher managed to communicate with the clawites & direct them when picked up one of their tridents.  Every few moments the monster's would use pyrokinesis to light knots of the mutant abominations on fire. These mutants use the classic gargoyle stats from the AD&D Monster Manual with the additional mutations of esp, pyrokininis, & some random psionic mutations.




What the players don't know is the ganger/cultists have brought in one of their treasures an assault suit from the Warden from  S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks by Gary Gygax. Basically I'm trying to stall a bit until my other players catch up with us hopefully next week. 

What the players don't know is that power stations set up around the city are opening planar gateways while providing unlimited energy  for power to the capital of the Riccans. Meanwhile the plot thickens as the assault armor abomination closes in. Can the other player's PC's reach the party in time?




Whist all of this is occurring an aspect of the Egg of Coot looks on amused & the horror show continues.

Raid on the Ware House! Last Night's Actual Play Session Report

In last night's session I pulled in a ton of S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks by Gary Gygax when the player's PC's did a raid on an Egg of Coot slaving center. There were row after row of cryotubes packed back to back.  The players encountered egg minions in light scout armor based on some of the artwork from S3. The Egg kept taunting the party as it attacked the minions with the knowledge that they were killing off 'innocents'.


With some help from some local heroes the party finally made its way to the warehouse's office which had been 'converted' by the Egg into a data node. The whole floor was covered in a russet mold & at its center was a psychic crystal. The whole affair was guarded by a group of veggie pygmies who would not leave the twenty foot proximity of the crystal or the egg's influence.

All of this started because of the party of adventurers had fought and killed a strong minion of the Egg. They were able to down load the data base from the cyborg & then burnt the body. But they were able to claim a bounty on the bastard from the Riccians. Even though its a pirate nation the Riccians don't want any unauthorized slaving going on. Currently the party is completely unaware of St.Stephen of the Rock's manipulations behind the scenes  but its only a matter of time. They made about four hundred gold & I'm going to get them back to Zothique or the California wastelands very soon. The Riccians sent in a squad of guys with flame throwers to clean the place up.



The Riccian warehouse was part of an experimental  power complex that I based on the Kelenföld Power Station from Hungry. The place is amazing & so inspirational for old school science fantasy role playing. I'm thinking the Egg of Coot is attracted by the power fields generated from the place.

 Former Kelenföld Power Plant. From Lágymányos Bay park. Industrial monument. ID 1097 - Hengermalom Street & Budafoki Street cnr. - Budapest District XII., Hungary.
Photo by Globetrotter19
So what happens from here? One of the Riccians mad scientists is doing an examination of the slaves who were recovered in the cyro tubes & seeing if there is any cybernetics that have been left behind. The party has been invited to witness the event. 

For Fun & Profit - Fantasy Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers As The Vile Villains

So I've been doing a lot of thinking about villains & NPC's over the weekend because I've been sick as a dog. Over the weekend I got a chance to dive into Castle & Crusades The Adventurer's Backpack. Its an interesting mixed bag of essential & optional material for Castles & Crusades. I don't want to get too bogged down into the particulars. But grab it if your a C&C dungeon master.



But what it got me really thinking about were villains & specifically adventurers ala the 'murder hobo' trope that back about 2013 through 2016 seemed to be everywhere in OSR & D&D circles. The fact is what if those murder hobos actually were the villains of an adventure. Let's take it step further & go back to those evil parties that you & your friends always played in middle school & high school. But there's no examples  for those in current OSR circles!? Really?!  Because if you look at your average Dungeon Crawl Classic rpg party their exactly the sort of mercenary scum you'd see in a 70's Marvel comic book. In point of fact it states it right in the introduction; 
"You’re no hero.

You’re an adventurer: a reaver, a cutpurse, a heathen-slayer, a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets. You seek gold and glory, winning it with sword and spell, caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished. There are treasures to be won deep underneath, and you shall have them. "

Adventurers are dangerous, desperate, & very unpredictable making them perfect villain foils especially when they don't see themselves that way. Evil is after all all a matter of perspective to a dungeon master.  If you've been following what's been happening in  The Thulean - Japanese War  then you already know that the PC's have encountered many other adventurers from Sword & Sorcery & even high fantasy worlds. These raiders & murderers are already on the side of greed & pure profit. You have only to pit them against the player's PC's.


But surely gangs of D&D style adventurers don't have any place within an alternative pre WWI campaign world?! Well what you may not know is that pirates & privateers were operating all throughout the war timeline & with a world of adventurers & cutthroats its not a far throw to introduce individuals of superior talents & powers from other worlds. Especially in light of such real world characters such as the "Felix Nikolaus Alexander Georg Graf^[1] von Luckner (9 June 1881 – 13 April 1966), sometimes called Count Luckner in English"
"Felix Nikolaus Alexander Georg Graf^[1] von Luckner (9 June 1881 – 13 April 1966), sometimes called Count Luckner in English, was a German nobleman, naval officer, author, and sailor who earned the epithet Der Seeteufel (the Sea Devil), and his crew that of Die Piraten des Kaisers (the Emperor's Pirates), for his exploits in command of the sailing commerce raider SMS Seeadler (Sea Eagle) between 1916 and 1917." 


SMS Seeadler, the three-masted windjammer that raided the Atlantic
and Pacific in an age of dreadnoughts (painting by Christopher Rave)

 Count Luckner exploits make many of the Hollywood blockbusters of today pale by comparison & let's not even get into China's important role in WWI. So there is a precedence of desperate & very dangerous adventurers taking on the roles of raiders & marauders in the waters of the Orient. The idea of adventurers from other worlds  being on the main NPC villains & factions that are acting as dimensional marauders isn't so far fetched at all.



 In fact high level wizards using adventuring parties as scouts to assess & gauge the strength of a world has precedence in Appendix N fantasy. Imagine if you would if a character like John Dee who not only was an occult adviser to Queen Elizabeth but also her spy master. He might set up a series of scouts & spies to gauge the enemy's strength. Now imagine that some of the NPC adventurers that my player's have already encountered are not at all what they appear to be. The players might be in far more trouble then they realize! There are several reasons for this:

1. Adventurers are far from home & might not come back if they don't perform to their patron's satisfaction.
2. Wizard's families are a great bargaining chip.
3.  This is the perfect opportunity to slip a demon or other supernatural shape shifter into the mix to really twist the player's minds. 
4. 'Wolves in sheep's' clothing often move among pirates & marauders. Could this be a prime opportunity for a bit of NPC turn coat action? 
5. Necromancers often make excellent & unexpected additions to pirate or raider bands. 
6. Spies & assassins often lurk among pirates & in unexpected places. 
7. Brigands & bandit gangs also make excellent 'other worldly' spies. 
8. The line between mercenary & brigand is often a pay check away. 
9. Treasure & sacred relic is often relative to adventurers as the bad guys. 
10. The hand of adventurers is often very bloody indeed & their are often relatives & families that will want revenge of the murder or destruction of some fallen royal. 

An Amazing Affair on The Danube Part II - In Search of the Unknown - Dungeons & Dragons Module B1 by Mike Carr

"B1: "In Search of the Unknown," by Mike Carr, was originally released in November 1978 with a monochrome yellow cover. At the time, it was probably TSR's eighth adventure. It was also the first TSR adventure by someone other than Gary Gygax." Well this is the official history but let's delve deeper into the  Caverns of Quasqueton.

When you start to delve in deep into the history of WWI then you begin to understand the causes & effects of not only history but the patterns leading up to WWII. The Astro Hungarian Empire  was very ordered &  a joint operation between  the German  Intelligence Bureau & the German Foreign Office, have uncovered ancient documents relating to the two wealthy adventurers, Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown would be right on the menu . Those ancient adventurers who built a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton along the Danube were up to something very questionable indeed. The caverns were still in use by a conspiratorial occult conspiracy which had ties throughout pre WWI & post WWII ( this is a blog entry for another time). The two 'heroic adventurers' beat back a horde of invading barbarians with their mercenary army but stumbled upon the ruins of a temple of Nodens that contained occult ruins & horrors that they made note of.
" While of questionable ethical standing, the two drove back a barbarian invasion and gained the support of locals."

The proto Caverns of Quasqueton were born & Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown were trying to contain the evil that festered below in the caverns. By the time that the adventurers are sent in things have gone very wrong for the German  Intelligence Bureau & the German Foreign Office as well as the Astro Hungarian soldiers. "A variety of monsters wander through the finished upper level of the dungeon including orcs, troglodytes, and giant rats. " Those are actually Chaos infected mutations & other worldly monsters.
When Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown were killed. Well local apprentices & acolytes of Zelligar the Unknown were already a part of a local branch of a secret mystery cult dedicated to an Outer God who had been using the guise of Pan for eons.  The cult opened a door to an Earth like world of traditional fantasy races with some of  English author Algernon Blackwood 's The Willows &  "Pan" influence. But's its Arthur Machen's Great God Pan that shows what the cult was really trying to accomplish. 



Arthur Machen's Great God Pan plot goes something like this according to Wiki; "Clarke agrees, somewhat unwillingly, to bear witness to a strange experiment performed by his friend, Dr. Raymond. The ultimate goal of the doctor is to open the mind of someone so that he may experience the spiritual world, an experience he notes the ancients called "seeing the great god Pan". He performs the experiment, which involves minor brain surgery, on a young woman named Mary. She awakens from the operation awed and terrified but quickly becomes "a hopeless idiot".

Years later, Clarke learns of a beautiful but sinister girl named Helen Vaughan, who is reported to have caused a series of mysterious happenings in her town. She spends much of her time in the woods near her house, and takes other children on prolonged twilight rambles in the countryside that disturb the parents of the town. One day, a young boy stumbles across her "playing on the grass with a 'strange naked man,'"; the boy becomes hysterical and later, after seeing a Roman statue of a satyr's head, becomes permanently feeble-minded. Helen also forms an unusually close friendship with a neighbour girl, Rachel, whom she leads several times into the woods. On one occasion Rachel returns home distraught, half-naked and rambling. Shortly after explaining to her mother what happened to her (never revealed in the story), Rachel returns to the woods and disappears forever. Clarke relates these events in a book he is writing entitled Memoirs to Prove the Existence of the Devil.

Years later, Villiers happens across his old friend Herbert, who has become a vagrant since they last met. When asked how he has fallen so low, Herbert replies that he has been "corrupted body and soul" by his wife. After some investigation with Clarke and another character, Austin, it is revealed that Helen was Herbert's wife, and that a well-to-do man killed himself after seeing something that terrified him in Herbert and Helen's home. Herbert is later found dead.

Helen disappears for some time; according to rumor, she spent the time taking part in disturbing orgies somewhere in the Americas. She eventually returns to London under the pseudonym Mrs. Beaumont. Soon after, a group of stable, happy men in London commit suicide; the last person known to have been in the presence of each of them was Mrs. Beaumont, whom they are implied to have slept with. Villiers and Clarke, each learning of Mrs. Beaumont's true identity, band together and confront Helen in her house with a noose. They tell her that she must kill herself, or they will expose her. Helen has a very abnormal death, transforming between human and beast, male and female, and dividing and reuniting, before turning into a jelly-like substance and finally dying."

What happened between   the German  Intelligence Bureau & the German Foreign Office officials as well as the Astro Hungarian soldiers in the lower depths?! Something from a scene from a horror movie or worse! 
A door to the real of chaos & madness exists  within the Caverns of Quasqueton & its influence has been spreading across Europe. Because its not the only otherworldly gateway.  

 Farnese Ceiling, Pan and Syrinx By Anibale Carracci


Once events within  the Caverns of Quasqueton come to the attention of the Astro Hungarian officials they'll send in a demon hunter to deal with the situation. The attention of the cult across Europe & its cabals of  occultists, witches, & the like will go on high alert. This is only the beginning though.  Helen Vaughan appears as a Succubus Siren from the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters. She checks almost every last box but that's not all. 

Coat of arms Astro Hungarian Empire

The fact is that many of the themes & ideas here could use the Lion & Dragon rpg for the chaos cults, the occult background, & much more but that's another blog entry for another day. 

An Amazing Affair on The Danube - In Search of the Unknown - Dungeons & Dragons Module B1 by Mike Carr

Sitting lazily on a mostly unknown stretch of the Danube lays a very unsettling set of castle ruins. A joint operation between the the German  Intelligence Bureau & the German Foreign Office, have uncovered ancient documents relating to the two wealthy adventurers, Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, who built a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton. Now the Astro Hungarian empire is sending in top men & capes of their own to the hidden valley along the Danube.




The locals have been terrorized by unknown pig like warriors & there have been several deaths. The military maybe in way over their head. The head office is sending in your team to investigate Caverns of Quasqueton. So this not your standard take on 'In Search of the Unknown (Dungeons & Dragons Module B1)' (Dungeon module) by Mike Carr (1981-11-08). 

For  'In Search of the Unknown (Dungeons & Dragons Module B1)' (Dungeon module) by Mike Carr in my alternative WWI Amazing Adventures! rpg/Victorious hybrid I'd be using many of the additions from the Zenopus Archives. But what the Hell has been happening on the lower levels of the Caverns of Quasqueton? For that I'd turn back to English author Algernon Blackwood 's The Willows once again. A cult of centuries old witches &  Chaos worshipers have been using the crumbling site for rituals for ages. There is a door to another occult  world within the caverns! The cult has been opening doors that should have remained closed.

Many of the monsters from Brian Young's Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum fit the D&D paradigm with a Celtic twist & turn or two. But additionally I'd actually turn to the Castles & Crusades Codex Slavorum to really punch up the menace & feel of the module into the realm of dangerous occult madness. Such a gateway might belong to the Arthur Machen's chaotic & dangerous  White People the gate leading  to the dangerous world of these evil fairies. 

Are  the Caverns of Quasqueton far more dangerous then they might at first appear?! That's going to be up to the dungeon master. But such a set of ruins can't fall into the hands of the Germans or their allies. This might be a prime opportunity to use the occult & alien Fairy survivors from ancient Pre second Ice Age days. The deadliness of their relics & artifacts is detailed in 
"The Red Hand" (1895).

But there's a lot more going on within the Caverns of Quasqueton then at first meets the eye. Tomorrow we get into the lower levels, monster placement, & the deadilness of the whole affair on the Danube. 

Reshuffling & Reassignment of Amazing World War One Campaign Elements & Notes Or What Do With A Setback

Well originally this was going to be a post about Gary Gygax's Necropolis D20 book & how to expand it into an alternative WWI supers & Pulp campaign using the Amazing Adventures! Rpg & the Victorious Rpg. But that went out the window because some of my players read Troll Lord's Amazing Adventures! rpg official Facebook group. 

So on phone call later from one of my newer players who isn't crazy about the Gary Gygax  D20  book blah,blah, etc. & I've had to rethink a major portion of this campaign. Well, when your a dungeon master & you need to think outside of the box then you go back to the well spring. In this case I went back to the original concept for part of this WWI campaign the HP Lovecraft story ghost written with Harry Houdini called "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs".


Harry Houdini was pleased with the result of Lovecraft's work 
and collaborated on several other projects with him prior to Houdini's death in 1926.

""Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" (called "Under the Pyramids" in draft form, also published as "Entombed with the Pharaohs"^[1]) is a short story written by American fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft in collaboration with Harry Houdini in February 1924. Commissioned by Weird Tales founder and owner J. C. Henneberger, the narrative tells a fictionalized account in the first-person perspective of an allegedly true experience of escape artist Harry Houdini. Set in 1910, in Egypt, Houdini finds himself kidnapped by a tour guide, who resembles an ancient pharaoh, and thrown down a deep hole near the Great Sphinx of Giza. While attempting to find his way out, he stumbles upon a gigantic ceremonial cavern and encounters the real-life deity that inspired the building of the Sphinx."


We're never really told who or what the Lovecraftian monstrosities were within the Sphinx but I've gotta more then a theory from my Uncle's old notes from ""Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" ;

"At length I succeeded in reaching the steps and began to climb; keeping close to the wall, on which I observed decorations of the most hideous sort, and relying for safety on the absorbed, ecstatic interest with which the monstrosities watched the foul-breezed aperture and the impious objects of nourishment they had flung on the pavement before it. Though the staircase was huge and steep, fashioned of vast porphyry blocks as if for the feet of a giant, the ascent seemed virtually interminable. Dread of discovery and the pain which renewed exercise had brought to my wounds combined to make that upward crawl a thing of agonizing memory. I had intended, on reaching the landing, to climb immediately onward along whatever upper staircase might mount from there; stopping for no last look at the carrion abominations that pawed and genuflected some seventy or eighty feet below—yet a sudden repetition of that thunderous corpse-gurgle and death-rattle chorus, coming as I had nearly gained the top of the flight and showing by its ceremonial rhythm that it was not an alarm of my discovery, caused me to pause and peer cautiously over the parapet.

The monstrosities were hailing something which had poked itself out of the nauseous aperture to seize the hellish fare proffered it. It was something quite ponderous, even as seen from my height; something yellowish and hairy, and endowed with a sort of nervous motion. It was as large, perhaps, as a good-sized hippopotamus, but very curiously shaped. It seemed to have no neck, but five separate shaggy heads springing in a row from a roughly cylindrical trunk; the first very small, the second good-sized, the third and fourth equal and largest of all, and the fifth rather small, though not so small as the first.

Out of these heads darted curious rigid tentacles which seized ravenously on the excessively great quantities of unmentionable food placed before the aperture. Once in a while the thing would leap up, and occasionally it would retreat into its den in a very odd manner. Its locomotion was so inexplicable that I stared in fascination, wishing it would emerge farther from the cavernous lair beneath me.

Then it did emerge. . .  it did emerge, and at the sight I turned and fled into the darkness up the higher staircase that rose behind me; fled unknowingly up incredible steps and ladders and inclined planes to which no human sight or logic guided me, and which I must ever relegate to the world of dreams for want of any confirmation. It must have been a dream, or the dawn would never have found me breathing on the sands of Gizeh before the sardonic dawn-flushed face of the Great Sphinx."

What if the operations in & around Egypt in 1908 were actually a cover for the extermination of something very dangerous? Say the last surviving cults of Stygia of the Robert Howard Conan stories. 


Franz Stuck: The Kiss of the Sphinx 

Human foes he did not fear, nor any death by steel or fire. But this was a black land of sorcery and nameless horror. Set the Old Serpent, men said, banished long ago from the Hyborian races, yet lurked in the shadows of the cryptic temples, and awful and mysterious were the deeds done in the nighted shrines." -- Robert E. Howard: "The Hour of the Dragon"

What if the ancient priests of  Atlantis &  Stygia awakened in Egypt around 1900 to 1914  & began to reestablish their hold on the country in secret & earnest. Did the German  Intelligence Bureau for the East know some of the horrifying secrets that various rebels were conspiring with?
What if there were much more ancient tombs under the sands of Memphis & Gaza? The Spring rains may have uncovered exactly the sort of occult help that some of the forces were looking for?  

The German mission in Istanbul

How you may ask? Well after the events of  I3-5 Desert of Desolation  the local time space continuum has cracked because of the occult forces of the tower of Martek. Now these events have drawn several members of the immoral  Æsir to the areas around Egypt because of the cults activities & summoning especially within the Persian and Egyptian satellite states. So whose behind all of this? 

The hooded priest is in  fact another survivor of Atlantis  similar to Robert Howard's Skull Face. 

An Atlantian survivor of the worst kind that interweaves with Robert  Howard's Steve Costigan character.
"The story stars a character called Steve Costigan but this is not Howard's recurring character, Sailor Steve Costigan. The story is clearly influenced by Sax Rohmer's opus Fu Manchu but substitutes the main Asian villain with a resuscitated Atlantean necromancer (very similar to Kull's arch-foe Thulsa Doom) sitting at the center of a web of crime and intrigue meant to end White/Western world domination."
There is evidence to suggest that Kathulos might have actually been a part of a secret order of necromancers from Atlantis similar to Clark Ashton Smith's The Empire of the Necromancers. Possibly echoing lost survivors of ancient Atlantis showing up in later future epochs of Earth such as Zothique.
What the implications of the appearance of such a cult within World War I is pretty horrid. The main Amazing Adventures ! Rpg rule book  & the Manual of Monsters actually has several Egpytian themed horrors build right in. The mummy lesser & greater are a must, the lich is a perfect stand in for a Kathulos stand in, plus there are several boss level Egyptian horrors build right into the book.

Even bringing capes & beings of extraordinary powers to such a fight isn't going to make one ioata of difference. The War goes on next time other fronts! 

Concluding the The Amazing Shifting Sands Of I3-5 Desert of Desolation By Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman, Philip Meyers, Peter L. Rice

"Your sleek cloudskate skims across the Skysea. It is midnight. All day long, the glass sea soaked up the scorching desert sunlight. Now, that heat lifts your ship a few inches off the glass and fills its sails. The only sound you hear is the soft swish of the diamond-edged rudder as it cuts a path across the Skysea. 

One thousand years ago, the wizard Martek knew that you would come to find his Sphere of Power. Now, one of his glowing Star Gems shows you the way. The starlight, reflected in the glass beneath you, flickers peacefully. 

Suddenly, the Skysea before you bursts up into a thousand shards of splintered glass, showering into the moonlight! A horrible creature is silhouetted against the moon. You strain against the rudder to keep your ship upright.

Too late! Your cloudskate tips onto one runner, and then tumbles over, skidding to a stop on the glass. As your companions struggle to right the ship, you turn and face the monster. You must hold the creature back to give them time. Without the ship, none of you can get off the glass before the sun rises in the morning. 

Martek's prophecy spoke of heroes, tests, and dangers. Are you the heroes? What are the tests? What dangers and riches lie ahead? "
Yesterday we talked about The Oasis of the White Palm module but now we move on "I5: "Lost Tomb of Martek" (1983) . 
You know the official history of this module,"I5: "Lost Tomb of Martek" (1983) was the third adventure in the Desert of Desolation trilogy and the fifth adventure in TSR's "I" series of Intermediate-level adventures. It was published in July 1983." Everything here is going to hinge on the PC's succeeding in the City of the Phoenix. At some point the PC's have crossed over from the real world of alternative Earth WWI over into the fantasy world of your home campaign. This is essential for bringing home the 'other worldly pseudo Pulp Egyptian qualities' I5: "Lost Tomb of Martek" (1983). 



The PC's are going to need every trick in the book to survive the major issues of traps & tricks that surround the Star Gems. There are monsters & horrors hidden within & surrounding the I5: "Lost Tomb of Martek". This might be a good time to introduce new heroes & C&C PC's to the fold. There is more then a little other world quality to this module. This module  combines wilderness and dungeon adventures with an underlying storyline but it does so with some very deadly random wilderness encounters. When I ran  I5: "Lost Tomb of Martek" using the alternative WWI background I did so with the fact that time & the spirit realms were very fractured. So I was able to pluck different eras of WWI soldiers, capes, & adventurers into the mix.

Personnel from the Armenian volunteers
including Khetcho, Dro, and Armen Garo, 1914.
 
We had a very mixed party of high level adventurers playing this super module because of its design.  The Mobius Tower, whose levels are magically linked in a loop & whose inhabitants appear to be frozen are actually part of a higher vibrational dimension. So this was beginning to fracture & affect the local time space continuum. The two movers & shakers of the conclusion of  I3-5" Desert of Desolation" are the wizard Martek and the efreeti. But its the PC's who are the heroes! This is something to very much keep in the center of the action of play when running  I5: "Lost Tomb of Martek".



Once I5: "Lost Tomb of Martek" concludes it might be time to take a small break & then move on with a Gothic World War I style game. The gates have been shattered even

though the PC's have succeeded in their endevours with the star gems! There is a possibility of using  adapting 2nd edition Ravenloft  RA3 Touch of Death (2e) by Bruce Nesmith  to expand the ancient evils of the Mists into this alternative world C&C game. 


On the whole running through   I3-5 Desert of Desolation  is going to take the better part of a year & half of actual non stop play to go through every  dangerous factions, with the super module's twists & turns of epic campaign level play.


Where I3-5" Desert of Desolation" succeeds is on the actual table top during play. There are all kinds of possiblities that open up with having run through the entire I3-5" Desert of Desolation" triliogy. On the whole there are some really nice narrative adventure lines of play that can be fleshed out. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition Ravenloft  RA3 Touch of Death (2e) by Bruce Nesmith adventure isn't the only option either to flesh out more of a Gothic World War I/pulp supers game either. But we'll get into that tomorrow.  The two essential books here are the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters & the C&C Monsters & Treasure book.   
Both of these books expand the possibilities of the adventure campaign  add ons & the  loot from the I3-5" Desert of Desolation" . 

Amazing Transformations with I4 Oasis of the White Palm By Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman, Philip Meyers, Peter L. Rice.

"The Oasis of the White Palm, which is on the brink of turmoil! Shadalah, who is to be the bride of the sheikh's eldest son, has been kidnapped!"
Here begins the second part of  the revised I3-5 Desert of Desolation series by Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman, Philip Meyers, Peter L. Rice. The Oasis of the White Palm is very dangerous in several regards. The events here are world shaking & there is a solid push on the role playing aspect. 

Now at first I4 Oasis of the White Palm seems like a straight forward module that could even as part of the Desert of Desolation series be easily adaptable to the WWI alternative series that I've been talking about. But in fact there are several wrinkles here starting with the super module itself; "In 1982, TSR published Pharaoh as a thirty-two-page booklet with two outer folders, for the first edition of AD&D.^[7]:101 It was designed for 6-8 player characters of levels 5-7,^[10] and formed the first of the three-part Desert of Desolation module series.^[1][7]:101

Oasis of the White Palm is the sequel to the Pharaoh module.^[2][7]:102 TSR published this adventure in 1983 as a thirty-two-page booklet with two outer folders, and the adventure was written by Tracy Hickman and Philip Meyers with cover art by Jim Holloway and interior illustrations by Keith Parkinson.^[7]:102 It was intended for 6 to 8 characters of levels 6-8.^[11] Lost Tomb of Martek is the third module in the series, and was designed by Tracy Hickman, for 7th-9th level characters.^[7]:102[5] Lost Tomb of Martek was published in 1983 as a 32-page booklet with two outer folders.^[7]:102

The compilation module Desert of Desolation was printed in 1987.^[12] The compilation features a cover by Keith Parkinson.^[7]:101 It is a revision of the I3, I4, and I5 AD&D game modules, with additional design and revision by Peter Rice and William John Wheeler.^[13] Wheeler attempted to expand on the originals, without altering their tone.^[14] The adventures in Desert of Desolation are designed for a 5th-10th level party and have been reworked to fit into the Forgotten Realms setting, and the material was made compatible with the Wilderness Survival Guide rules.^[3] In the revision, the designers added additional background material, as well as staging tips for the Dungeon Master.^[13] The details of various elements that had been open-ended elements were spelled out." Seems pretty clear add in Oasis of the White Palm to WWI Egypt & away you go.
Well. no. The interactions between the  the sheikh's  tribe &
the politics of the situation needs to be mapped out. These tribes of 'Arab style nomads' know
about the fellow tribesmen on Earth & they'll use the PC's to smuggle in support, weapons,
 supplies, etc., This is going to give the dungeon master 

one more 'carrot & stick' opportunities for WWI's Middle East situation during the war. 


Not only are the PC's having to balance this political beast within the oasis but they will have
balance going to the temple of Set and the crypt of Badr al-Mosak. Not to mention the sacred relics of the peoples of the Oasis with the gems being pivotal to the module's conclusion. 

I3-5: Desert of Desolation, by Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman, Philip Meyers, and others,also expands upon the original module & fleshes out lots of the I4 backgrounds. Dungeon masters need to be aware of this fact or disaster could result.

Set artwork by Jeff Dahl 

This module is going to take place long before the 1920 discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb by Howard Carter. This is not to taken lightly as it allows the dungeon master to sneak in lots of adventure or campaign  little side notes. There's lots of room for expansion with some of the  wilderness of these modules taking center stage. The Amazing Adventures! rpg Companion is going to be a massive help here. From magic to equipment this is the book with all of the bases covered.

Outside of the Egyptian state WWI Egypt is extremely dangerous to say the least; "In 1914
 the Egyptian Army was a largely native home-defence force. It comprised 17 battalions of infantry (8 Sudanese and 9 Egyptian), 3 companies of mounted infantry, a Camel Corps, support services and various local militia groups. It was organised, expanded and equipped by the British during the prewar years, and led by British officers. Although a few field artillery units participated voluntarily in the defense of the Suez Canal in early 1915, the Egyptian Army was primarily employed to maintain order in the troubled Sudan.^[3][4] It has been estimated that a million Egyptian soldiers participated in the First World War during the reign of Hussein Kamel of Egypt, of whom half a million perished!"

The dungeon master might want to be aware of the role that Hussein Kamel of Egypt played in WW1 and the complexities of the balance that the Egyptian peoples played during this time.



 Hussein Kamel of Egypt

Supernatural & occult goings on in the desert created by the White Palm situation will not be looked on favorably. Add in the possibilities that adventurers & capes present not to mention Castles & Crusades fantasy characters & running afoul of the authorities could become a real problem. Oasis of the White Palm is not an adventure to be taken lightly & should be run with the understanding of the dangers that are present within its pages.
There are few reasons to consider I4 Oasis of the White Palm; 

1. The dangers of the I4 Oasis of the White Palm are very real & quite pulpy in context of the confines of the adventure. Players should not underestimate them. 
2. Wilderness & random encounters can be quite nasty in I4 Oasis of the White Palm
3. PC & pulp powers will not unbalance this adventure. 
4. Likewise fire arms are not going to effect if the PC's die or live. They are not a game adventure breaker. 
5. There's more politics within I4 Oasis of the White Palm then the players will be expecting 
6. Monsters in I4 play for keeps & they will destroy PC's without hesitation 
7. Stupidity isn't repaid at all in this module. Keep extra character sheets. 
8. The vision of the module has a clear objective & players need to consider that. 
9. The frame work & adventure locations can serve a continuing campaign in the region which will become very important next adventure. 
10. The  three Star Gems (the one from Amun-Re's tomb in the previous adventure and two more introduced here) are going to be handy not only for this adventure but for future excursions into the region of I4.