Advanced Options in the Wasteland - Undead Princes & the Wastes More Campaign Workshop Commentary

In terms of iconic pieces of artwork they don't come more iconic then this piece of artwork  in the Fiend Folio for me. For hours I just stare at it wondering about circumstances that led to this nasty confrontation between the fighter & the lizard men. 

This piece of artwork screams 'Sorcery & Planet' to me. What I'm really thinking about is monsters or specifically Dungeons & Dragons or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition monsters that could be put in a 'Sorcery & Planetary' adventure campaign. I was really diving deep into Bill Willingham's artwork from the early Dungeons & Dragons B/X rule books. 

And I've been specifically doing a lot of thinking about undead. Specifically wraiths or the more 3.5 advanced versions of these undead horrors the 'dread wraiths'. Why?! Because what happens to the kings & royals of these various wasteland 'Sword & Planet' settings? These ancient kings & queens are not going to go quietly into the sunsets of their empires & reading through some of the D20 Hypertext bears this out;"The oldest and most malevolent wraiths lurk in the depths of forgotten temples and other forsaken places. They can sense the approach of living creatures, and hunger for them. Despite its size, the dread wraith possesses unearthly quickness, and makes use of its Spring Attack feat and natural reach to strike with deadly effect and melt back into the shadows—or the walls." Truly it seems like there should be tons of undead haunting these various desert landscapes in various old school or  OSR product. Dark Sun made quite the effect of their undead. But I'm thinking of a Mars filled with various classic unead. This brings to mind Frank Frazetta's 1972 Norseman artwork. The print is available through the Frazetta girls site here. The artwork is used without permission. But as inspiration for these undead kings hungering for the life force of the living. 

That brings me to Venger's  Cha'alt:  Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise setting/dungeon book. This monster clocks in at two twenty five & it really brings home the fact that this is a far more advanced book then the normal Cha'alt book. Adventure & campaign events in Cha'alt have moved on as more then eighteen months have passed. Don't let the cover artwork fool you. This is a straight up monster of a campaign book. This book details & fleshes out In this book the city of A'agrybah, and its within this city that adventurers are going to want to start their Cha'alt machinations. The real gem of the Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise the offworlder high-tech facility called Elysium which is both faction & adventure goal. These folks are literally Dune like world ravagers & these folks should not be taken lightly. There's tons of ideas literally dripping at the goo of the pages but its actually indexed & better organized. 

For me Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise  is the advanced options book for Cha'alt & it does what it needs to so well. Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise  really brings into focus the hard core essence of the game system. Buy this book! Could  Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise  be used with many of the Sorcery & Planet options that I was talking about yesterday?! Yes in a very large way! Many of the tables in this book are perfectly aligned in taking the materials talked about in  Tom Moldvay's 'B1 The Lost City'  to the next level! 

New cults, new npc's, & tons of artifacts could be added into the mix from Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise to make  Tom Moldvay's 'B1 The Lost City' another wasteland destination with the fire & fury to make PC's beg for the dawn when they can escape the confines of the ruins! There are whole cloth sections of 'B1 The Lost City' that could hold many of the secrets that PC's will need to take down the factions described on Cha'alt. But are the player's PC's willing to pay the price?!