So this morning while cruising around the internet looking for some reference material on Advanced Dungeons and Dragons first edition modules I came across the following picture. There is a variety of modules here that can be all interconnected into a righteous sword and sorcery campaign. This of course for me makes a perfect Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea side trip.
The real key stone block here is Sakatha, his black dragon, and the legacy of Lovecraftian taint that spreads from his clawed hands. His agenda upon awakening and spreading his influence could set the stage for the PC's to discover the maps, scrolls, and other esoterica that the wizard lizard vampire was planning as part of his hidden agenda. By making Sakatha the big bad you can have a ready made sword and sorcery campaign of epic proportions.
By using Tomb of the Lizard King as the starting point and putting Dwellers of the Forbidden City back to back with The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, one gains a full megadungeon experience that can be incorporated in as a set of Atlantian or other ancient extinct Hyperborean adventure locations. This could hint at a series of forgotten Lizardmen or Atlantian holdings that have since become epic megadungesons.
"Just when my fancy merged into real sight I cannot tell; but there came a gradual glow ahead, and all at once I knew that I saw the dim outlines of the corridor and the cases, revealed by some unknown subterranean phosphorescence. For a little while all was exactly as I had imagined it, since the glow was very faint; but as I mechanically kept on stumbling ahead into the stronger light I realized that my fancy had been but feeble. This hall was no relic of crudity like the temples in the city above, but a monument of the most magnificent and exotic art. Rich, vivid, and daringly fantastic designs and pictures formed a continuous scheme of mural painting whose lines and colours were beyond description. The cases were of a strange golden wood, with fronts of exquisite glass, and contained the mummified forms of creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most chaotic dreams of man." HP Lovecraft The Nameless City
All of which could in point of fact be easily connected up with Forgotten Fane of The Coiled Goddess
after completing the Dwellers of the Forbidden City and Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan location. This forms an over arching lost world mega campaign with lots of hints and tricks for a Lovcaftian series of factions and elements that could be used for years and years of game play.
This all could be back connected to the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerer of Hyperborea series of adventures Under The Comet and Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes. The massive world spanning campaign tale could take several dire spins and cross points to pull off.
The final key it to the campaign adventure piece is the Ghost Tower of Inverness. The Duke of the Ghost Tower is one of the key royals and NPC players of the old school foursome allowing the Hyperborean royals and minor courts to be the glue that holds the modules together as a tapestry of sword and sorcery adventure. This is a world shaking and spanning campaign idea and could easily take out PC's left, right, and center as the serpent/lizard man conspiracy takes flight over Hyperborea in spades. The true extent and power structure would be staggering and could take years to unravel the whole truth of the taint that winds its way through the Hyperborean aristocracy.
There is plenty of room here for DM's to customize this sort of a campaign into their own vision of Hyperborea and could place players on high alert each time this sort of a campaign might take place. The possibilities are nearly limitless where you could take this sort of a sword & sorcery campaign and it could test both the players and DM's. That being said the quality of such a game of Astonishing swordsmen and sorcerers of Hyperborea would be both epic and damn fun.
The Ghost Tower could hold all sorts of secrets and pieces of forbidden knowledge from the time before the oceans drank Atlantis. The idea here is to both use the existing adventure but at the same time customizing it so that you can back bleed its influence throughout this campaign.
Perhaps the Ghost Tower is in fact a serpent men's laboratory, and on going experiment. This was an idea that I stole from an old friend many moons ago, the adventurers being nothing more then guinea pigs in a maze of terror. Treasure and encounters become much more life and death in this sort of a situation.
In the end for this sort of a campaign to work I think that a dungeon master should work with a co dungeon master or two to be able to pull this sort of a job off. There's lots of preparations that need to be made, some sort of a time line, minor NPC's to create and perhaps a village or town or two for the campaign backdrop. That being said I think that this campaign idea if fleshed out would be a perfect touch stone point to bridge the old and the new for a dynamic and dangerous Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign of incredible proportions.
The real key stone block here is Sakatha, his black dragon, and the legacy of Lovecraftian taint that spreads from his clawed hands. His agenda upon awakening and spreading his influence could set the stage for the PC's to discover the maps, scrolls, and other esoterica that the wizard lizard vampire was planning as part of his hidden agenda. By making Sakatha the big bad you can have a ready made sword and sorcery campaign of epic proportions.
By using Tomb of the Lizard King as the starting point and putting Dwellers of the Forbidden City back to back with The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, one gains a full megadungeon experience that can be incorporated in as a set of Atlantian or other ancient extinct Hyperborean adventure locations. This could hint at a series of forgotten Lizardmen or Atlantian holdings that have since become epic megadungesons.
"Just when my fancy merged into real sight I cannot tell; but there came a gradual glow ahead, and all at once I knew that I saw the dim outlines of the corridor and the cases, revealed by some unknown subterranean phosphorescence. For a little while all was exactly as I had imagined it, since the glow was very faint; but as I mechanically kept on stumbling ahead into the stronger light I realized that my fancy had been but feeble. This hall was no relic of crudity like the temples in the city above, but a monument of the most magnificent and exotic art. Rich, vivid, and daringly fantastic designs and pictures formed a continuous scheme of mural painting whose lines and colours were beyond description. The cases were of a strange golden wood, with fronts of exquisite glass, and contained the mummified forms of creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most chaotic dreams of man." HP Lovecraft The Nameless City
All of which could in point of fact be easily connected up with Forgotten Fane of The Coiled Goddess
after completing the Dwellers of the Forbidden City and Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan location. This forms an over arching lost world mega campaign with lots of hints and tricks for a Lovcaftian series of factions and elements that could be used for years and years of game play.
This all could be back connected to the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerer of Hyperborea series of adventures Under The Comet and Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes. The massive world spanning campaign tale could take several dire spins and cross points to pull off.
The final key it to the campaign adventure piece is the Ghost Tower of Inverness. The Duke of the Ghost Tower is one of the key royals and NPC players of the old school foursome allowing the Hyperborean royals and minor courts to be the glue that holds the modules together as a tapestry of sword and sorcery adventure. This is a world shaking and spanning campaign idea and could easily take out PC's left, right, and center as the serpent/lizard man conspiracy takes flight over Hyperborea in spades. The true extent and power structure would be staggering and could take years to unravel the whole truth of the taint that winds its way through the Hyperborean aristocracy.
There is plenty of room here for DM's to customize this sort of a campaign into their own vision of Hyperborea and could place players on high alert each time this sort of a campaign might take place. The possibilities are nearly limitless where you could take this sort of a sword & sorcery campaign and it could test both the players and DM's. That being said the quality of such a game of Astonishing swordsmen and sorcerers of Hyperborea would be both epic and damn fun.
The Ghost Tower could hold all sorts of secrets and pieces of forbidden knowledge from the time before the oceans drank Atlantis. The idea here is to both use the existing adventure but at the same time customizing it so that you can back bleed its influence throughout this campaign.
Perhaps the Ghost Tower is in fact a serpent men's laboratory, and on going experiment. This was an idea that I stole from an old friend many moons ago, the adventurers being nothing more then guinea pigs in a maze of terror. Treasure and encounters become much more life and death in this sort of a situation.
In the end for this sort of a campaign to work I think that a dungeon master should work with a co dungeon master or two to be able to pull this sort of a job off. There's lots of preparations that need to be made, some sort of a time line, minor NPC's to create and perhaps a village or town or two for the campaign backdrop. That being said I think that this campaign idea if fleshed out would be a perfect touch stone point to bridge the old and the new for a dynamic and dangerous Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign of incredible proportions.
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