OSR Campaign Commentary - White Dwarf Issue Eighty Eight & Brian Lumley's The Sorcery in Shad

Wayback in 98 I quit Dungeons & Dragons for a time to run the Stormbringer rpg. The local Dungeon & Dragons player scene had dried up & those that remained wanted something different.


White Dwarf Magazine, Issue 80  from 1986 has one of my favorite adventures,Ancient & Modern is the first part of a two-part adventure for AD&D and/or Call of Cthulhu by Graham Staplehurst. This adventure was set in Brian Lumley's Theem’hdra fantasy stories setting when a cult summons up a horror beyond time & space. Atht is the greatest white wizard of this ancient world & calls the party of adventurers to stop them. 

 Way in the future the PC's descendants in the 1920's are called to a French coast by a witch whose a doing a ceremony which ties in with the occult  works of Atht. Here's where the ceremonies tie in with Call of Cthulhu. While the player's ancient PC's battle the cult's minions their descendants battle the swords & horrors of the modern time displaced monsters. 
Brian Lumley's Sword & Sorcery heroes are flawed & tie in nicely with some of his Cthulhu Mythos efforts. These adventures tie in nicely with the Sorcery in Shad books. Ancient & Modern ties this up nicely & could help set the player's PC's for further adventures into the darkness of the time & space if they wish to continue. 


Since this was the case back in '98 I continued to read the Lumley books & tie them in with bits & pieces of history & Sword & Sorcery. A good contender to really do a modern OSR  campaign with 'Ancient & Modern'  justice would be to use Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea or even Stormbringer again.

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea offers several wildly good solid options for the table top to really bring to life 'Ancient & Modern'. The wild cycles of worlds & ancient epochs crashing into the modern world. The horrors of Lovecraft & more all fit into the bite sized horror of the world of AS&SH. But that's only part one of this bit the adventure next time coming up we'll get into part two.