A Piece of The Martian Action - Post Apocalpytic Solar System Campaign Commentary - Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu & The White Star rpg

 Today is one of those days where time is of the essence & I'm having to pull from my knowledge of Science Fiction & OSR gaming. So the players in our Mars game want to pull on owning their own piece of the action. So let's go back to April 23 of last year & this blog entry where we contrasted Kane of Old Mars by Michael Moorcock & Leigh  Brackett's heroes & anti heroes here. 

Back around that time period we were using Adventurer, Conqueror, Kings rpg Barbarian Conqeurors of Kanahu By our friends Omer Joel, &  Alexander Macris to carve up a piece of the solar system one planet at a time. Can BCK actually be applied to our version of Magic Pig Media's Have Death Ray Will Travel?! 

And if we want to carve up the Stellar Legion taking over various planets against the spiders from Colonial troopers well then BCK has this covered as well. Will this campaign work with the White Star Galaxy edition?! Again quite easily. 

Now we've got a whole lot of solar system scum among our ranks in this party and this brings up Star & Void. Star & Void hits the middle ground with the alignment lining up nicely with all of the old school & OSR resources. Star & Void knights are perfect antagonists against some of the Lovecraftian beasties. And what does this have to do with BCK & Law Vs Chaos?! Welll a bit of everything really. 

Not only does Adventurer, Conqueror, King feature the Law vs Chaos axiom but BCK implies that it's a cosmic principle that overlaps the Lovecraftian. The Lovecraftian aspects fit the implied Moorcock vs Moore & Leigh Brackett solar system. We are not the first tenants of this solar system nor will be the last and there's very little to stop the march of the cosmic line of aliens, gods, and monsters. Well little accept the sanity of the players 

The Gerry Anderson OSR Campaign Options - More Campaign Workshop Thoughts Part III - When A 'White Star' shines

 

A big problem with the OSR is the noise factor, the 'buzz' for new products & books has become a bit of a scree in the ether. Take for example the fact that putting a Gerry Anderson inspired Pulp campaign has been very challenging. Taking a look back at Mentzer Dungeons & Dragons has been a bit of an eye opening experience. You can read part II here. 

Lately a player of mine has been asking me if the campaign will have 'real' warefare rules,  about 'space ship' construction, & so forth. It got me thinking about using more resources from Adventurer,Conqueror,King rpg. This brings me to the cross over between Mentzer & Labyrinth Lord or more specifically the Goblinoid Games rpg Apes Victorious rpg.  There's a tremendous nostalgia between late Sixties & early Seventies Sci fi that driven by the 'Planet of the Apes' films. 

There has to be a meet point between the star spanning alternative Earth of U.F.O. & the Lovecraftian rest of this campaign. The problem with cosmicism ; "the literary philosophy developed and used by the American writer H. P. Lovecraft in his weird fiction.^[1][2] Lovecraft was a writer of philosophically intense horror stories that involve occult phenomena like astral possession and alien miscegenation, and the themes of his fiction over time contributed to the development of this philosophy.^[3]

The philosophy of cosmicism states "that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence."^[4] The most prominent theme is humanity's fear of their insignificance in the face of an incomprehensibly large universe:^[5][6][7] a fear of the cosmic void" That void in ACK's world is the 'realms of chaos '

Is that getting players to open up & say,'ahh' for it is the incredibly difficult aspect of mixing gritty heroics & Lovecraftian bleakness. PC's should struggle to be heroic even in the fact of cosmic indifference. We get all kinds of Adventurer,Conqueror,King style Conan/A Princess of Mars goodness this is where ACK's 'The Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu' is playing a healthy part within this campaign. 

But what about 'the greater implied' universe of this campaign?! Hmm if only there was a Pulpy science fantasy alternative that could work with all of this & still retain the flavor of the whole affair?! 

The answer has been sitting on my hard drive since 2015, Between Star & Void From DYS Games is for The White Star rpg system now in the White Star Galaxy edition and its completely backwards compatible with all previously-written third-party White Star content.

But,but, its not Pulpy enough were the cries heard the other night. Fortunately Charles Thorin did me a solid by producing a whole bunch of Pulp inspired classes & whatnot through his Magic Pig Media imprint .  So we've got Space Amazons coming up! 

This contrasts really solidly with the darkness of a Carcosa/Cha'alt setting especially given the changes that we've seen in Venger Satanis's Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise. Eighteen months have passed & the black pryamid is on the move with the political forces of Cha'alt exploiting the demon worms & the alien  natives. 




The do gooders of such a campaign are in for more then a passing 'bitch slapping' by the forces of Cha'alt including the Great Old Ones. But I've got more thoughts on that coming up.