Twisting & Turning Through Castles & Crusades A2 Slag Heap By Davis Chenault

"The hunt is on! Agents have hired out the infamous Redcaps to raid along the Hruesen River and Baron Botkin wants them brought to justice. A mad run by the goblins left a trail of ruin along the river road but the time to act is now, before the trail goes cold. the evil doers broke off the raid and now lie in hiding somewhere in the Barren Wood. There in the deeps of the forest stands the legendary Slag Heap - an ancient complex of unknown origin and terrifying reputation for years ago the Heap served the Horned God's minions as a bastion against the fey of the Barren Wood. But now all the forest is hostile to outsiders, whether good or ill."




Now I've always loved the cover artwork for  Castles & Crusades A2 'Slag Heap' by Davis Chenault. Right out the  ate I'm gonna start modifying this adventure right out the gate. Right now I'm listening to CCR's 'Run Through The Jungle' cus it fits my mind set today;
"The men of the Barren Wood are fierce, independent, and distrustful of outsiders. Facing them is a daunting task in the best of times and now they seem to be protecting one of their own. Discovering the real powers in this region only brings the characters closer to doom as they travel to piles and heaps of slagand detritus that was once a glorious abode and temple to the dark powers before the age of man."Once again we're confronted with this idea of a D&D style adventure taking place before the age of man so  let's go with this. I really like the idea of powers from beyond meddling with man & the adventurers playing in the debris of other ages. It feels like A2 'Slag Heap' could be dropped straight into Advanced Dungeons & Dragon's Greyhawk box setting with little effort. And yes I need the whole cloth of the 'A'  of C&C modules but I'm purposely taking A2 'Slag Heap' out of module context to get the feel of it. The more I'm reading the more that this feels like  A2 'Slag Heap' could be ported over to my War 1870's home brew  campaign as an alternative Earth fantasy setting point. Here's where two other Castles & Crusades products come to mind. The Codex Celtarum is perfectly suited to add to the mix here. There's an almost horror Fey element through A2 'Slag Heap' for me. 



Davis Chenault for good or not has imbued  A2 'Slag Heap'  with a bit of dream like Celtic quality here. And here's why I think that this module would be perfect for James Ward's Tainted Lands.  And this starts going a long way towards fitting into my hybrid Victorious rpg/Castles & Crusades home brew campaign. 



I'm getting a full on Arthur Machen 'White People'  gritty down & dirty Celtic feel from A2 'Slag Heap'. And that's the fantasy campaign world that I'm going to brew up for this module.  

A Sword & Sorcery fantasy world set amid the piles of the former Pre Flood Biblical style remains of the 'gods'.
 But there's gonna be a very strong weird tales horror vibe too this module when I run this 
module in my War 1870's campaign  
The feel here with my take away from A2 'Slag Heap' is that you might 
 disappear  around the next coal pile in rural England & end up trapped in a fantasy world where your a spear point 
away from death by spear point wielded by a Drider.