Sunday, January 12, 2020

The Forces Of Chaos - Old School Hell & OSR Damnation - The Uses of the Hordes Hell From The Lion & Dragon RPG & Beyond

So I've been doing research while shaking this cold, I've been looking into Chaos & Hell! I've been looking at Dark Albion, Lion & Dragon rpg,Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos,  & RPGPundit Presents: The Old School Companion 1 . But I want to use these with my current Cha'alt/Godbound rpg campaign. Why?! Well because while Games Worshop was 'borrowing' from Michael Moorcock for the Realms of Chaos, & Slaves To Darkness books. I was borrowing GW's Realms & Slaves books for a Stormbringer rpg campaign that I ran for two years. Flash forward to 2015 & Dark Albion's published & I've been vibing on Fantastic Heroes & Witchery  Chaos induced madness. Now  Dark AlbionLion & Dragon rpg , & RPGPundit Presents: The Old School Companion 1  Chaos is more then slightly different to Realms of Chaos. The taint of Chaos takes time & warps its way into the daily life of the residence of Albion.



The sticky wicket in the bunch has been the inclusion of doing Chaos without Games Workshop folks. I love the Oldhammer stuff but hate GW's issues on copyright & trademark. So I began looking around & discovered Eureka Miniatures Chaos line based on the works of Hieronymus BoschPieter Bruegel!  



But we're still gonna need Chaos champions?! There's a nice little outfit called Creative Scuplt Ltd. who do some awesome Oldhammer style Chaos champions! Can you imagine these forces pouring outta of a Chaos gateway?!



Yeah but we're gonna need demons? Well the folks at Antediluvian miniatures have you covered! The gates of Hell straight outta of Dante can easily be unleashed!


But surely there's no old school module to cover this?! Well actually there is. Wayback in the beginning of time in 1980 there was Geoffry O. Dale's Inferno published by Judge's Guild. Now there's a whole wiki entry on the JG Inferno module.  But the interesting part is the review for the module written  in The Space Gamer No. 31 by Ron Shigeta ; "Ron Shigeta reviewed the adventure in The Space Gamer No. 31.[2] He commented that this adventure "is for those that have gotten cursed scrolls saying, "Go to Hell!!" or owe a Geas to some Lawful Good cleric. Hell is everything it's cracked up to be. Not just anybody can dash in and out of this place. As a matter of fact, it would be the achievement of a character's career to get out alive, as it should be. Everything is covered, from Tiamat's cave to the palace of Minos – and nothing is easy; both new and old Devils and monsters abound here."[2] He continued: "But not everything is as it should be. Minos' Palace has 13 rooms and Tiamat's cave has four paragraphs, where it should have a book of its own. Often a description of some new magical item will take up more room than the overall description of the level it's on. Usually the only major encounters are those on the road through, leaving the rest of the circle one big random encounter area."[2] Shigeta concluded the review by saying, "I bought Inferno because I wanted the plane of 9 Hells in my campaign and didn't have the time to do it myself. Anybody who wants to spend a few weeks on it can probably do as well or better, and with the gaps in Book 1, I feel little confidence in the forthcoming book 2, which contains the remaining five levels, the infernal City of Dis, all the Monster Manual Arch-Devils, and the only way off the plane .... Perhaps Mr. O'Dale should be playing Napoleon instead."[2]"

Needless to say I don't agree with this review & the JG Inferno module has always
been a counterpoint to the
 
Ed Greenwood's "The Nine Hells Part I and II" from Dragon #75 and #76. And the problem has been the fact that particular issue is so infamous & well known among certain circles of gamers. 


 There are a few points I disagree with & have run Judge Guild's Inferno numerous times. 
Now Mr.O'Dale has a ton of other titles spun off of his Inferno module &  campaign
on Drivethrurpg.

 He's been a friend of mine for many  years & he's got some excellent sources of adventures. The coming of the Cha'alt rift

has created a backdoor for the forces of Hell & Chaos. 
The events of the campaign have been heading towards a full Apocalypse & so I've been contemplating unleashing the hordes of Chaos upon Earth especially in California. Which somehow seems unusually apt. I'll dive into this more in the coming months. 

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