OSR Drama, Compromise, & Commentary - Gods, Monsters, & The Dungeon Master

This morning I got a phone call I was dreading. Over the last twenty four hours there's been some descent in Steve's group of players over if they want to continue on Clark Ashton Smith's  Zothique using the Siege Engine system by Troll Lord Games or try Sine Nomine Pubblishing's game Godbound rpg. Over the last twenty four hours I've been reading Godbound & it reads like an epic & sweeping vision of its creator like Stars Without Numbers for mythology & demi godhood. I like what I'm reading. The problem is that the ball is in play already & the players don't realize it.
Over Christmas time my wife made a great investment in the form of grabbing me the whole Troll Lord Games  product catalog. The first thing as a dungeon master I needed to do was take care of all of this from the ground up & with boots on the ground. I made a call to everyone involved under the pretense of 'the player's schedule' & began feeling out the situation. Everyone really enjoyed the game but didn't want to stray too far away from the tradition 'Pulp Dungeons & Dragons' feel of our mini holiday game. Even with 'modern elements' there was was a cohesive whole to the mini campaign. 


Some folks also didn't like the idea of straying into a brand new gaming systems & the learning curve that it put on me as a dungeon master. Thanks for the concern guys but I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons style games for forty years. The biggest thing I've learned is the art of compromise when it comes to dungeon mastering.  Sine Nomine Pubblishing's game Godbound rpg isn't simply a game based on gods & demi gods. I've been reading Kevin Crawford's games for a very long time.  I've learned that his games are whole cloth tool boxes for designing & playing around in the sand boxes of the man's imagination. So even if your playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition or even Castles & Crusades there's a lot that you can get out of his games. Case & point are fantasy religions & cults.



So with that in mind I'm compromising using Steve's forty pages of  Zothique notes & looking at Godbound. Maybe even using some of it with Castles & Crusades. But further investigation has me dusting off  Peter Adkins The Primal Order as well. I love math, gods, planes, etc. as well as combining them with super heroes & pulp elements. Its been a long & many moons since I really sunk my teeth into a good & solid campaign like this.

I surprised the players who were expecting arguments & drama. Nope that's not what this is all about. The fact is that with a little elbow DM grease this has some real potential. Back in the 90's & early 00's when players got sick of the 'angst' of White Wolf, we always fell back into an AD&D/BX game campaign with the Primal Order backing it. Time to dust off the campaign notes & see where the Hell we are. God I do so love this hobby! 2019 is shaping up to be a great year! 

Divine Destruction & Possible New Gaming Group With An OSR Twist - Godbound Rpg By Kevin Crawford Campaign

Against my heart your heart is closed; you bid me go:
What ways are left in all the world for love to know ?
Desolate oceans, and the light of lonely plains,
Dead moons that wander in the wastes of ice and snow—

These, these I fain would see, and find the splendid bourn
Of sunset, or the Brazen deserts of the morn,
That I might lose this ever-aching loneliness
In vaster solitude; and love be less forlorn,

Faring to seek with alien sun and alien star
The strange, the veiled horizons infinite and far;
Spaces of fire and night, the skies of steel and gold,
Or sunset-haunted seas where foamless islands are.The Exile  (1922) 
by Clark Ashton Smith

So its two twenty A.M.  & I'm just getting back from saying good bye to my buddy Steve & his crew. Five of the seven players stayed on for drinks after the good bye/holiday party tonight. We all had a good laugh & sent Steve along with his brothers off in grand fashion. But there was more then the usual reluctance on the players part. There was a sense of uneasy in the air tonight. I hadn't seen some of these folks since 2016. That was three years ago but it might as well have been the blink of an eye.
So I took aside my friend Brian & wanted a word as to what the problem was?! Apparently folks had been talking & they were missing a regular gaming group. Now I'm already running a regular gaming group using Troll Lord Amazing Adventures! rpg. 'We know but there was an OSR  game that some folks want to try out that looks really good & we know that your familiar with the system.' Alright that got my curiosity up. 'The problem is that we know it might be outside of your comfort zone.
Well why is that?!
Because we'd like you to run Godbound: A Game of Divine Heroes by Kevin Crawford (Author), Jeff Brown (Illustrator), Christof Grobelski (Illustrator), Aaron Lee (Illustrator), Joyce Maureira (Illustrator), Tan Ho Sim (Illustrator), Maxime Plasse (Illustrator), Craigg Judd (Illustrator).

The Godbound rpg is one of those unicorn games for me. That is to say that back in 2016 I was getting ready to run this game & it went extinct on me in a mythical sideways situation. So I don't own the game in a physical hard copy nor on pdf. The basic premise sounds like something out of the mythological plot play book; "The Throne stands empty. Heaven has fallen, and the Words of Creation thunder from new throats. Undestined, unfettered, unchosen, you are Godbound, and your will is writ with fire. Godbound is a tabletop role-playing game of divine heroes in a broken world, men and women who have seized the tools that have slipped from an absent God's hands. Bound by seeming chance to the Words of Creation, these new-forged titans face a world ravaged by the mad ambitions of men and the cruel legacy of human folly." 
Basically you play demigods & children of the gods struggling to put right what has gone wrong in the with the planes & the Heavens. I haven't said yes or no to this campaign yet. But I did do a whole lot of research on about Godbound & if this was a game that was right for this group. 
Godbound is a game that uses Kevin Crawford's original style Dungeons & Dragons rules system but spun in very different directions then say Stars Without Number. But I want to focus on an original Dungeons & Dragons classic TSR era module or more modern OSR sources. 
For example I've been itching to use the Teratic Tome by Rafael Chandler  From 

Neoplastic Press. Yes I realize that many of the monsters in this book are world enders but that's sort of the point here. There are some very dangerous creatures capable of all kinds of mayhem. But what is the point of being the child of a god if you are not capable of defending against the forces of darkness. 

The dragons alone from  the Teratic Tome are worth the price of admission & perfect for a world shattering campaign. So my possible future players were able to get me a pdf copy of the Godbound rpg along with two of the supplements. The Lexicon of the Throne is one of the more interesting looking of the Godbound line; "The Lexicon of the Throne is a sourcebook that contains not only a host of new Words of Creation for your Godbound game, but also extensive guidelines for creating new Words and gifts for your own campaign". The 'words' are the sort of divine foundation key powers for the gods & the PC's. They seem easy to convert on the fly  & use in game. 

 All I did flipping through both books was feel like I was reading a primer for a party of demi gods going to take on the classic  Temple of Elemental Evil By Gary Gygax & Frank  Mentzer. The characters get drawn into the sleepy town of Hommlet & everything starts go wrong around the PC's party. 

Could the temple & its evil be at the center of a group of god's pantheon greatest worry that  knows the threat the the mind bending & sanity shattering horrors that lurk in the Temple of Elemental Evil. For the moment I'm not yet committed to this campaign game.. yet but only time will tell if I can get everyone's schedule arranged for get together & character work shop. 

Final Death & Depravity In The Zothique Wastelands - Clark Ashton Smith Inspired Zothique Actual Play Session Report Five

Deep in my heart, as in the hollow stone
And silence of some olden sepulcher,
Thy silver beauty lies, and shall not stir—
Forgotten, incorruptible, alone:

Though altars darken, and a wind be blown
From starless seas on beacon-fires that were—
Within thy tomb, with oils of balm and myrrh,
For ever burn the onyx lamps unknown.

And though the bleak Novembral gardens yield
Rose-dust and ivy-leaf, nor any flower
Be found through vermeil forest or wan field—
Still, still the asphodel and lotos lie
Around thy bed, and hour by silent hour,
Exhale immortal fragrance like a sigh.

Sepulchre  (1918) 

by Clark Ashton Smith

Steve our dungeon master had been playing with our party one by one Ten Little Indians style but this game was different. It was the end & there wasn't anything anyone could do. The end of the year game had come on the shores of Zothique! We were to face the wraith of  the dead necromancer king's whose tomb we had looted. He didn't want the treasures back he wanted revenge!



Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual Lich artwork by Dave Trampier
Copy write & trademarked to Wizards of the Coast Used Without Permission.


We were face to face with the necromancer lich king himself. A few of us had survived but as noon approached a force of raiders  the likes of which we'd not seen before was upon us. The necomancer king's army was upon us!



We tossed fire balls & shot his way  but the endless stream of warriors was way too much for us. There was no coming back from this but then the words of power streamed from his decayed & swollen lips. Call down the wraith of Thasaidon the ruler of the Seven Hells onto our heads! It was glorious! The shifting sands opened upon our heads! The end came swiftly in the form of an Earth Element/storm conjured up by the wraith of Thasaidon. This thing tore through our party like tissue paper! 
earth elemental [Earth Elemental Design by Christopher Onciu]
artwork used without permission

Well that's it folks. My PC is officially dead & past the point of resurrection. The end of my PC came swiftly in the light of the red day on Zothique.  
There isn't a track of us or our modern equipment on Zothique. The whole affair took about three hours because we had thwarted Steve's plans with the ghouls that he was planning on sending our way earlier that night. But this was dungeon master wasn't going to be denied. So we were ready & our PC's were going to go out in style! Well no they weren't?! Everything that we'd done in the campaign had been wiped out in one swift sweep of the Liche's wraith!
But that wasn't the end! 

 "In all things, the people of Cincor performed the actions of life at the will of Mmatmuor and Sodosma. They spoke, they moved, they ate and drank as in life. They heard and saw and felt with a similitude of the senses that had been theirs before death; but their brains were enthralled by a dreadful necromancy. They recalled but dimly their former existence; and the state to which they had been summoned was empty and troublous and shadow-like. Their blood ran chill and sluggish, mingled with water of Lethe; and the vapors of Lethe clouded their eyes.

Dumbly they obeyed the dictates of their tyrannous lords, without rebellion or protest, but filled with a vague, illimitable weariness such as the dead must know, when having drunk of eternal sleep, they are called back once more to the bitterness of mortal being. They knew no passion or desire. or delight, only the black languor of their awakening from Lethe, and a gray, ceaseless longing to return to that interrupted slumber."

The Empire of the Necromancers

Clark Ashton Smith

We rose with the commands of power of the necromancer king & followed him back into the tomb to serve him for all eternity! Now we have to wait till June or July to see if we can put our PC's from their miserable undead existences! Can our heroes be freed from the yoke of undeath & depravity. Steve's direct inspiration was Clark Ashton Smith's The Empire of the Necromancers. The wraith of necromancers & liches is swift & very dangerous! 

Cosmic Calamity, Ultra Weird Violence, & The Return of the Gonzo OSR Dungeon

So I'm not sure when this happened exactly but apparently the stars aligned in a cosmic OSR display again as three things quietly happened at the same time this past week. The first of which is the fact that James Mishler has quietly been building his own gonzo campaign setting based on the Labyrinth Lord retro clone system; 

"This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to building a library of races, classes, spells, magic items, technological devices, and various charts and tables dedicated to building and exploring a new LABYRINTH LORD campaign setting – LEGENDARIA."

This isn't Mishler's first time dealing with these elements within his table top system but its the first time I'm seeing this

I'm no stranger to the gonzo  style of gaming as any reader of this blog knows. The fact is that there are other indications that this style of Gonzo dungeon crawling. Venger Satanis has his latest Kickstarter out which seems to be another gonzo post apocalpytic Dungeons & Dragons fusion setting;

"The world of Cha'alt started as a fairly typical medieval land with elves, dwarves, snake-men, clerics, and magic-users; steeped in superstition along with antediluvian traditions, before the Old Gods went mad.  

Three-thousand years passed. The surface dwellers split from the malevolent creatures who slithered below. Those who remained on the surface lost the understanding of magic, but their civilization became a highly developed, technological empire of domed cities welcoming interstellar travelers, their massive starships hovering high above in blue skies.

But in the deep crevasses of the world, a power older than time stirred from its deathless slumber. The Ancient Gods, long forgot, had not died but continued to dream... growing chaotic and full of darkness.  And those living underground hastened the Old Ones' rising because they yearned to reclaim Cha'alt for themselves.

When the Great Old Ones awakened, they were angered by the lack of worship, sacrifices, or even casual acknowledgement that they had fashioned the world and all life upon it. 

Soon enough, Cha'alt was all but destroyed by those vengeful Gods, jealous of their creations' achievements and bitter that they had been forgotten.  Civilization in ruins, the surface-dwellers of Cha'alt turned to barbarism as sorcery reappeared, dragons appeared in the now-magenta sky, and demons took hold once more.

Cha'alt is a mysterious world where you're likely to encounter mutant bikers with laser rifles, tentacled sandworms in the deep desert, tribal warfare as blood-splotched shamans ululate at the crimson rock, and alien pirates on anti-grav skiffs looking to steal relics of a bygone age."

The more I read about this adventure setting the more it reminds me of a trend that I've seen in the past & Venger's always been about bending & molding his campaign settings into his own. I totally get that & understand the 'hows' & 'whys' of the author's desires & gaming adventure goals.

But today has been one of those days when I was sitting down with two of my friends & speaking about the growing desire to get back to playing in this style of campaign play with traditional original Dungeons & Dragons adventurers. This isn't rocket science, you simply take a set of old school D&D or retroclone rules & go play. But the fact is that as a dungeon master there's an odd mis balance that has to be achieved with players. Its not simply enough to throw player's PC's on to some far flung corner of the planes.

For me the gonzo OSR dungeon goes all the way back to 2011 with the Black Ziggurat project from the Planet Algol blog. Man, I miss the Planet Algol blog there were so many cool OSR ideas that came from that blog & Blair's twisted mind. Even the Wyrmspittle setting had its own Black Ziggurat dungeon from the Hereticworks folks. 

Before my complete party wipe in my recent Mars 9889 setting I was planning on introducing my own version of the Ebonite Ziggurat which lies deep within the Martian badlands. The structure was part of the launching facility of the invaders to the Earth in 1898.  We don't know that much about the structure at all. The superstitious Red Martians avoid the structure  like the plague & there are rumors that strange lights have been seen at night when Phobos crosses the sky.

 If the rumors are to be believed then the structure may be related to the 'Originators' the insect race that terraformed  & engineered the original life forms of Mars. Transcosmic radiation has been detected on the areas surrounding the structure & many psychics as well as mentalists will black out when trying to penetrate the deeper aural levels of reality that surround the Ebonite Ziggurat. There is a vast sea of bones & shattered skulls that surround the red sands of the ziggurat all of which have varying degrees of violence about them. The ziggurat itself gives off strange sub etheric vibrations that cause any who sleep within a 3 mile radius of it terrible dreams.Main canal routes are very ancient around the structure & no modern ones connect with it. The local kilt wearing Red Martian tribes have many strange legends surround it but it is considered taboo by most right thinking people. The ziggurat borders the small human nation state of  Igarth & one of its Martian post colony neighbor nations. Both societies avoid any mention of the place but certain tribes of savage Green Martians use the lands surround it for 'rites of passage' for their young. There have been sparks of violence between Greys & the Green Martians over the ziggurat lands & court yards. Strange alien monsters have been seen destroying any interlopers who come to close to the buildings of the ziggurat & its structures. Few Martians will speak of the rumors of underground structures & the connections to the Martian invaders cities that surround the Ebonite Ziggurat. There are the remains of hundreds of different sky ships & space craft around the place some wreckage has been found from as  far away as Calidar. But once again these are merely rumors & could be considered the stuff of adventurers whose tongues wag from the strange strong Martian drink that they seem to consume in the space taverns of Igarth.

So not only have I began to notice gonzo dungeons entering back into the OSR consciousness but locally a friend is taking about running Faster Monkey Games Realm of the Technomancer. This is because lots of folks have gotten their copies of the combined Advanced Labyrinth Lord retroclone book which has been hitting shelves because of last year's kickstarter. Suddenly, interest in both Mutant Future & Labryth Lord have started again.  Faster Monkey Games Realm of the Technomancer is a 'pay what you want' adventure that combines the games just like the first edition Gamma World/Advance Dungeons & Dragons first edition into one campaign. This adventure makes a great intro for a campaign setting such as ASE1: Anomalous Subsurface Environment by Patrick Wetmore. 

Only time will tell if we continue to see this return to Gonzo dungeon crawling  trend continue in 2019. As for my own tastes in the realm of the OSR Gonzo adventuring or misadventuring only time will tell. The holidays are just starting to wind down now & so well see the where the gaming takes me over the course of the next year. 

Review & Commentary On The Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure Box Set By Jeff Grubb, Aaron Allston, & Thomas M. Reid

"Karameikos ... a classic fantasy setting where bold adventurers can become Legendary heroes. Whether you have played only the First Quest audio CD game or have enjoyed the AD&D game for years, you'll find high adventure in the kingdom of Karameikos. Discover a magical land sure to challenge the bravest hearts and sharpest swords. Hear this realm come to life in two extraordinary quests featuring dramatic sounds on compact disc! Inside you'll discover . . . * an interactive audio compact disc featuring thrilling sound effects, character voices, music for two adventures in Karameikos * a 32-page Adventure Book "

"There are always frontiers where adventurers can carve out their own piece of the wilderness where monsters lurk around every corner. The Kingdom of Karameikos is one part wilderness & two parts of the mirror darkly of the Mideveal Dark Ages Europe. Here adventurers still have the chance to pit themselves against the worst that the world has to offer & still bring their families glory.
Take one part Tsarist Russia & stir with a mix of fierce goblins & monsters dark & dire. Here you will find The Kingdom of Karameikos."Over the holidays I received The Kingdom of Karameikos box set as a gift from a friend for Christmas. The box set was a surprise & generally is incredibly well put together By  Jeff Grubb  (Author), Aaron Allston (Author),  & Thomas M. Reid (Author). The history of the setting centers around ; 
"King Stefan Karameikos, a Thyatian who gained rulership over the nation in AC 970 by trading his ancestral lands, the Duchy of Machetos, to Emperor Thincol of Thyatis in exchange for autonomous rulership over the Imperial Province of Traladara.The nation was originally called the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, and theoretically owed fealty to Thyatis, but following the great war between Thyatis and Alphatia, which greatly damaged Thyatis and resulted in Alphatia's sinking, Duke Stefan sold out his homeland and friend^[1] and declared himself King, and Karameikos gained greater prominence in the Known World. "

I was generally surprised at how useful the entire box set seems to be with swaths of   Karameikos history, language, and culture, which completely describes the minute details of the this Kingdom in the Known World. There are not one but two low level adventures that can be used with AD&D & as the reviewer Rick Swan concluded in  Dragon magazine #216 (April 1995); "He stated, "You're a newcomer to the AD&D game. You've played the First Quest game. You've read the Player's Handbook and understand about half of it. Now what? Well, you can 1) close your eyes, buy one of the zillion or so supplements, and hope for the best; 2) design your own adventures from scratch (good luck!); or 3) invest in the exquisite Karameikos campaign set."^[1] Swan concludes: "If you're a beginner and Karameikos fails to make your heart race, you might as well go back to crossword puzzles.""

Yes its that good & solidly done. Yet it seems to be seldom mentioned today!?
With so much setting  history & detail I don't get the look over that this box set gets?! I've seen it mentioned  that the  2E the crunch is very low and converting it to OD&D isn't  hard. So the gaming utility of the Karameikos campaign set is incredible in my humble opinion. 


The low level PC adventures don't end with the three in the box set. Indeed the classic B11 King's Festival By Carl Sargent can be played with the  Karameikos campaign set to set the stage for an epic campaign of incredible proportions. 

This is a classic adventure by Carl Sargent & the fact that someone has decided to borrow a cleric adds a bit of a flare as the PC's quickly get in over their collective heads. "Someone has "borrowed" a cleric, and without him, the fabled King's Festival cannot go on. Unfortunately, it looks like the orcs have him, and your characters must rescue him." All in all this is a solid adventure with deep connections to the Karameikos region. There are also connections to the Dark Knight of Karameikos fantasy novel by Timothy Brown, an interesting article by David Keyser piggy backs everything back into  the  Karameikos campaign set . The Vaults of Pandius has quite a nice array of support material for the  Karameikos campaign set including adventures.  I was surprised at how quickly a mini campaign came together when I added in B12 Queen's Harvest to the mix by Carl Sargent. Using both King's Festival and Queen's Harvest together adds some of the best introductory adventuring for players starting out. 

 The Karameikos campaign set for Mystara feels like coming home for me. The fact that its so compatible with even the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition books as well as really useful for the Basic set of Dungeons & Dragons is an added bonus in my opinion. On the whole I think that  the Karameikos campaign set should get far more attention then it does. I give it five out of five stars in my humble opinion marking it as one of the high water marks of the second edition eras. 

A Sword & Sorcery Hundred Years War, Dark Albion, & More Classic X2 Castle Amber By Tom Moldvay ( sort of)

'A desperate sorceress, a land wracked by war, & a very dangerous war open gateways better left closed. The mysterious Castle Amber, you find yourselves cut off form the world you know. The castle is fraught with peril. Members of the strange Amber family, some insane, some merely deadly, lurk around every corner. Somewhere in the castle is the key to your escape."

The year is 1940 & Paris is occupied by Nazis forces across the country small elite teams of SS are combing a small backwater village & its accompanying cathedral. They are seeking the ruins of the Castle Amber (Chateau d' Amberville) for the skull of the sorceress Istarelle, the sorceress of Averoigne. Said to be in the possession of the the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville).  What the SS soldiers don't know is that they have crossed a boundary of the lych way. Setting in motion the shattering of time around the castle ruins & beyond. 



The fools have released the  Breton Ankou, who was trapped in a tomb in Fairyland at the end of the lych way . Already two of the S.S. soldiers are dead & neither the living nor the dead are safe from this creature of Chaos. Meanwhile, tower of the sorceress Istarelle exists across time  & space leering its shadow into Avalon,  Averoigne during 1940 & 1337 at the start of the Hundred Years War, & even beyond. The PC's have been smuggled in during the occupation of 1940 as consultants & occult trouble shooters to the French resistance. Should they encounter  a living shadow of Istarelle they must save vs charm or perhaps fall in love with the sorceress. The tower boasts a living shadow of Istarelle  reputed to be the daughter of Satan himself. She is aware of the  Breton Ankou ( the equivalent  of a Pit Fiend AD&D Monster Manual first edition). But she must have the ring of Ebon to cast the ritual  of banishment. The ring rests within the Chateau d' Amberville. But the PC's may become trapped there. 


Another shadow caught in the mists of the Chateau d' Amberville are the events of the Hundred Years War set in motion in another echo outside of time & space. 

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck says:

Now it is the time of night, That the graves all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide.

"The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of France"
 This is one of the places where Dark Albion  & Dark Albion Cults of Chaos is key.
The freeing of the  Breton Ankou allows other chaos based horrors to grow bold enough to escape the confines of Fairyland. A band of chaos infected 3rd level human warriors trapped since Roman times is not out of the question. These infected might be the former chaos cult of  the  Breton Ankou. Trapped for all eternity to do the bidding of this demonic monster of death & destruction. 


The PC's might encounter Will O'Wisps or worse that accompany the wagon or the warriors of the Breton Ankou. Corpse Candle lights will be the first indication of this monster's presence;
"A corpse candle or light is a flame or ball of light, often blue, that is seen to travel just above the ground on the route from the cemetery to the dying person's house and back again, and is particularly associated with Wales.^[7] A corpse fire is very similar as the name comes from lights appearing specifically within graveyards where it was believed the lights were an omen of death or coming tragedy and would mark the route of a future funeral, from the victim's house to the graveyard, where it would vanish into the ground at the site of the burial. The appearance was often said to be on the night before a death." 

Should the PC's fail in their attempt to recover the ring of Ebon to set things right. The tower of the sorceress may drift back to Fairyland or even Earth's Dreamlands. The fact is that neither the Castle Amber (Chateau d' Amberville) nor  Averoigne are wholly of Earth. 

This begs the question what will happen when the Inquisition of Albion finds out about the forces of chaos being let loose on Earth? More then likely a squad of troops will be dispatched or a smaller force of Inquisition investigators.  This might start with the appearance of witch balls or baubles appearing in various places around Averoigne;

"This was part of a broader fear of spirits that might flit into dwellings. Witch bottles were common throughout Europe – bottles or glass spheres containing a mass of threads, often with charms entangled in them. Its purpose was to draw in and trap evil and negative energy directed at its owner. Folk magic contends that the witch bottle protects against evil spirits and magical attack, and counteracts spells cast by witches, also forestalling the passage into habitations of witches flying about at night.^[25] A witch ball was much the same; however, a more light-hearted belief was that the witch saw her distorted face in the curved glass and was frightened away. The term witch ball is probably a corruption of watch ball because it was used as a guard against evil spirits.

If straight lines did not hinder the passage of spirits, then convoluted or tangled "lines" could ensnare them and ancient stone and turf labyrinths, found in many parts of Europe and Scandinavia, could serve the purpose of capturing evil "

And what of the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville)? Will he stand idly by whist the occult barriers of time & space are smashed in his very backyard while a monster of Chaos roams his lands?! I doubt it! The fact is that the Ambers are a blood line of incredibly dangerous occultists in the tradition Clark Ashton Smith.  Albion's authorities know how dangerous the Dreamlands & the Celtic Otherworld is. They've seen Fairyland wash normal reality away at the very edges of their empire. Note that that this from my personal Dark Albion campaign. 

Note that this is just the start of this campaign idea which came from a discussion I had with my friend Steve over the Christmas & New Year holiday. More coming up soon!

I literally just came across this resource post on Facebook from the Atlas of Mystara site. 
Fantastic map & resource for Mystara. 

Death & Darkness In The Zothique Wastelands - Clark Ashton Smith Inspired Zothique Actual Play Session Report Four

We seven players had been playing in my buddy Steve's Zothique game using a variety of OSR resources including the  Zothique D20 Guide hosted on the  The Eldritch Dark website. Bits & pieces of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea & Amazing Adventures! rpg by Troll Lord Games 

But my second time lost  wizard from Alexandria had incurred the wraith of a demon by associating with my current party of adventurers. Our time was literally running out on Zothique as Steve & his family were leaving my home town this week at the end of the holidays. So we were starting to  wrapping up our holiday game. 

Crossing the Desert by Rodney Mathews, this is how Zothique looks in my mind.
The artwork is used without permission & no copyright or trademark infringement was or is intended.



Like arabesques of ebony,
The cypresses, in silhouette,
Fantastically cleave and fret
A moon of yellow ivory.

Like orient lamps the rays illume
A leafy pattern manifold,
And all the field is overscrolled
With curiously figured gloom.

Like arabesques of ebony,
Or like Arabian lattices,
For ever seem the cypresses,
Before a moon of ivory.

Arabesque  (1922) 

by Clark Ashton Smith

Our party settled down in an alternative location & my character reloaded his spells & mediating under the alien sky of Zothique. Something wasn't right at all. The night was too quiet & in the early morning there were strange signs among our hosts that something was very wrong. At the edge of my vision I saw a blur or shape & my dice roll caught me by surprise! A bandit attack & an assassin!? The assassin caught me full in the chest with a poisoned dagger!
But this was no ordinary assassin?! No I heard the voice of the demon that had been plaguing our doomed party the second we had broken into that accursed tomb of the necromancer?!  The demon made some rhyming poem about my death but it was too late. I looked straight into the inhuman eyes of the assassin as the cloying darkness began to spread among camp. Steve was using one of my tricks on my me!?! The rest of the players PC's awoke to the sounds of slaughter as the desert version  Dark Creepers from the Fiend Folio attacked our party

Russ Nicholson Dark Creeper from The Fiend Folio First Edition.

All I could do is slowly watch as three PCs were slaughtered right before my eyes in the middle of the game. The four remaining PC's used a continual light spell to drive back the ab human bastards off of our backs!

These things were not nice to deal with & even with some 'modern' weaponry we had only the core party of adventurers surviving the night with the assistance of  'The Thousand Falcons' tribe. We knew that Chieftain Frad The Wise would swear vengeance upon the Da'rus The Dark Creeper nation. There would be a blood feud for our players to deal with next Christmas & New Years in the sands of Zothique. 

Arab horseman with a falcon By Henri Emilien Rousseau the basis for the NPC adventurer's patron 
Frad' Count of a Thousand Falcons


We limped back to the capital where the PC's had my poor fool of an adventurer given to the cult of Mordiggian . 
But some of us had to make new PC's. The Dark Creeper attack was devastating & we knew it. But were the Creepers in the capital? More then likely. Steve had used the Castles & Crusades version of the Dark Creepers from this blog. 



I know because two years ago I used this same write up to slaughter one of his beloved PC's but such is life at the table. Suck it up & roll up another PC. Within about 20 minutes I had another Wizard PC ready to go. One of my assistants became the latest in a small line to take over the laboratories that I had established. Once again I made the Voorish Sign around my laboratory & made sure it was clean before going on. Then I began the task of dealing with a local alchemist for some vital anti demon unguents. But now things have to wake until next week when we get together. My latest PC is making a number of rounds to some NPC's for vital sorcerous supplies.  Things are not boding well for our party of adventurers.

Steve's been drawing deeply from the following Clark Ashton Smith stories for this part of the mini campaign: 

• In the Book of Vergama (1934)
• Isle of the Torturers, The (1933)
• Last Hieroglyph, The (1935)
• Mandor's Enemy (1989)
  
  I'm still in the dark as to the ties with  Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) too all of this on Zothique but no good can come of it. So stay tuned till next time!