More 'Old Earth' Campaign Inspirations & C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan by Harold Johnson & Jeff R. Leason

 

I'm being squeezed by a giant East Coast snow storm & a head cold but I've got to get my 'Old Earth' hybrid game off the ground. I need to fill out the Western Wastelands of Old Earth quickly & somewhat quietly. So once again I turn to 'an old friend' of Appendix N aficionados namely the 1920's master of dark fantasy A. Merritt.
Namely I'm looking at his 1932 book Dwellers in the Mirage specifically for adapting to use as a hidden ruined landscape for one of the Hyperborean style races in a lost valley in the former location of Alaska.



The book's details are straight on the nose for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition. The time lost hero with past incarnation syndrome, the two love interests, the ancient lost technologies of another age, the traditional Lovecraftian foes of the various peoples of the valley. The plot as explained by Wiki is pretty spot on for almost all of the themes of AS&SH;

"The novel concerns American Leif Langdon who discovers a warm valley in Alaska. Two races inhabit the valley, the Little People and a branch of an ancient Mongolian race; they worship the evil Kraken named Khalk'ru which they summon from another dimension to offer human sacrifice. The inhabitants recognize Langdon as the reincarnation of their long dead hero, Dwayanu. Dwayanu's spirit possesses Langdon and starts a war with the Little People. Langdon eventually fights off the presence of Dwayanu and destroys the Kraken."

The little people sounds like one of the degenerate little men races of Athuer Machen's novels & Robert E. Howard's Cthulhu mythos entries: 

The Great God Pan, Arthur Machen.
The Shining Pyramid, Arthur Machen.
The Three Impostors, Arthur Machen.
The Little People,Robert E. Howard.
Worms of the Earth, Robert E. Howard. 

People of the Dark, Robert E. Howard.
The Children of the Night, Robert E. Howard
The Shadow Kingdom, Robert E. Howard.

We see even more about the origin of the 'little people' of Robert Howard & HP Lovecraft from their letter in July of 1930. The hidden valley's people smack of the same sort of culture as A.Merritt's Moon Pool but there are echoes of H.P. Lovecraft's subterranean civilization  the realm of K'n-yan from "The Mound" by H. P. Lovecraft (ghostwriter) and Zealia Bishop (original idea). The necromancer tyrants of these lands are long passed on but their legacies & subjects remain especially on 'Old Earth'.

This hidden valley routine reminds me of one of my favorite Advanced Dungeons & Dragons modules C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan by Harold Johnson &  Jeff R. Leason. 

The hidden valley of Tamoachan could be another hold over the necromancer tyrants on 'Old Earth'. A locked away gem in the depths of some new volcanic crater of  Earth created when Hyperborea was ripped into space.


The place is a seething location of sacrifice & corruption by a people who have been brain washed by the technologies of the valley long ago. These peoples believe themselves to be the Olman culture of the World of Greyhawk, but are not simply another lost group of refugees who have been manipulated by a far older and more dangerous elder being (more on this puppet master villain later on). The cults & tales of the Hidden Shrine fuel many of the outside world cults who see the lost valley as a type of religious 'Heaven' while the reality is very different.
I'd be adding even more mythos elements and keep the various A.Merritt story & novel locations as adventure locations for the Western Wastelands. There are several adventure elements already in play that I've got to flesh out. I've used the brainwashed
Olman culture bit before and its worked like a charm. Fantastic Novels v03n03 (1949 09) has a version of the  Dwellers in the Mirage  for download but its the one with the tragic ending. "There are variant endings of the work. In the original, Leif's love dies, but the publisher inartistically has her survive. The original tragic ending has been reinstated in some/many recent reprint"

Mechanisms of the Gods & Appendix N - Old School Lovecraftian Occult Tech Influences - Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign Commentary

The  Mighty Servant of Leuk-O which first appeared in OD&D Eldritch Wizardry doesn't have any of the back story that appears in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second edition book The Book of Artifacts. 

I've been doing a ton of thinking & dealing with several folks today who wanted details on my  Cha'alt/Godbound campaign specifically on what's happening in Las Vegas. Why has the warp gone full rogue & what happened to this Earth's technologies?! Everything that happened in my campaign started with the ground work that was laid down in the particle accelerator in section 82 of Area Fifty One  Nevada.  The 'Hargon protocols' experiment took place about a year or so ago in this campaign. The protocols basically used an antimatter inversion particle experiment to find the edge of known space time. It did more then that & tapped into one of the black pyramid of Cha'alt occult generators. This tied into a secret United States military base in the Las Vegas desert own particle accelerator's experiment taking place at the same time  as a part of the  'Hargon protocols'. The Cha'lt warp & wave encircled the globe sending out a pulse of tremendous occult power.
What happened?! Cha'alt happend! A  wave of power ripped through the local space time continuum. And the US military uncovered an entrance to completely unknown planar worm hole dungeon called the Belching Vortex. A whirling  cocofinny of planar energies with the remains of a vast battle field of war machines & strange mecha. After fighting of vast hordes of occult bio mechanical horrors & what not the U.S. Military came into possession of a minor version of the  Mighty Servant of Leuk-O. 
The  Mighty Servant of Leuk-O is not something to be trifled with by anyone. But its appearance along with the Cha'alt wave signaled something very dangerous within the 'Hallows' of the Earth. 

 The  Mighty Servant of Leuk-O an artifact with lots of secrets & intricate histories tied into it. I'd venture to guess that its another example of Darkmoor technology from the fleet that came with the Warden. This time it had fallen on Greyhawk.  Why do I say Greyhawk? Because the 'Mechanism of Lum the Mad' appeared first appeared in Eldritch Wizardry for original Dungeons & Dragons. But this gets into a theory I've got about much of the S3 Expediation to the Barrier Peaks By Gary Gygax  technologies, artifacts, etc. are essentially all cursed in one way or another. These battles between kingdoms, warlord activity, battles of the gods, etc. This might help to explain the constant cycle of these artifacts being uncovered & then continuing the cycle. This gets into the heart of the cycle of constant warfare but could there be something in the background feeding upon the violence, degradation, & warfare. Time & again I keep finding myself going back to the Egg of Coot here. The Egg has not only the capacity but the motive to keep this cycle of death & destruction going. All of that power is centered on it as well & given all of these I keep thinking that the Egg is motivated to keep the wheel going gaining power as things continue their cycle. I was reading   'The Return of the Egg' article on The Vaults of Pandius site
by Giuliano Michelon from Threshold Magazine issue 12. Its got me thinking about the Egg's continuing influence on both Greyhawk & my own campaigns.  Yes I just repeated information from the September 19th 2019 blog entry for reasons that will become clear below.




Egg of Coot witches from Portland area of the United States covertly recruiting for their master.

In terms of the Godbound rpg 'The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o' would be a prize found someplace on some back end of the Road of Night. This artifact would have fought in many wars perhaps even in the Wars of Hell & the minor Heavens. This gets into my version of Cha'alt & its black pyramid mega dungeon. Mega dungeons have a life of their own & the entities of the black pyramid have an agenda that put them in direct conflict with not only gods of Earth but also the Old Ones of this Prime Material version of Earth. The appearance of Cha'alt &  the  Mighty Servant of Leuk-O awakened the Hyperboreans who had been sleeping within the Earth in their vaults awaiting for the 'stars to be right'.  That didn't quite happen & instead the Cha'alt wave spread across the Earth giving not only the opportunity for the Hyperborean armies to spread out & go on genocidal run across the globe. But for Ragnarok to begin! The war of the gods had come to Earth!

In response to all of the above various cults, fringe religions, etc. all across the globe began to summon heroes, adventurers, godbound, etc. to help them with  Ragnarok! Yeah that didn't work out terribly well as they began to fight not only the armies but also themselves. This is where my player's adventuring party comes in. They were summoned to the Earth 

 Events have been on going for a year of a half game time & things are getting worse. This is my version of events leading up to 'Old Earth' from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 2nd edition rpg setting.   This is due in part for my version of the Hyperboreans having influence at the fringes of the Earth ala  American Pulp  writer Abraham Merritt's Moon Pool, & the occult technologies explained in his novel The Metal Monster (1920).



This came about as a result of the spread of several prominent cults that popped up in the Bay area of California. There are also several out in the mid Western United States these worshipped  Cthulhu, Yig, Shub-Niggurath -and, until a certain incident, Tsathoggua. These are related to the K'nyanians who are related to & a part of the Hyperboreans located in Hollow Earth areas described in 'The Mound' a horror/science fiction novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft. The  K'nyanians nor their Hyperborean allies have any wish to surrender the Earth to dangerous influences of the Elysium & their allies the 'slavers'. 
Meanwhile the Cha'alt wave continues to grow.


Can the door be shut or is it too late & what is the US military's continuing research within malignant magics of  'the   Mighty Servant of Leuk-O'? What are they planning be low the grounds of Area Fifty one? 

OSR Commentary - Kuntz & Wards's Gods, Demi Gods, & Heroes - Dieties & Humanity With a Lovecraftian Twist or Two

So incase you haven't been following I've been going back over my collection of original Dungeons & Dragons books. Over the course of several days these books were inspiring me to write a Godbound campaign which supposed to be for my friend DM Steve's players. Yeah there's been a few finiancal reversals that happen to many folks. DM Steve & his family are on the mend so its all good. Today has been a day of distractions & that came in the form of the OSR Humble Bundle.  But once again I'm looking into this Godbound campaign & also I'm unpacking Dieties, Demigods, & Heroes, again. Glen Taylor's review of Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes in The Space Gamer No. 9 gets into some very interesting points;
"Glen Taylor reviewed Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes in The Space Gamer No. 9.^[3] He states that as "the fourth and purportedly last supplement to Dungeons and Dragons" it "might be expected from such a 'last bow,' as it were, this newest supplement is different from all three of the previous ones, in a major way. [...] This is by no means 'standard' D&D material."^[3] He commented that "I'm no scholar of ancient (and modern!) legends, but it seems to me the authors have given a view of the various mythological concepts which is both panoramic and scrutinously details, and as complete as possible within the space limitations imposed [...] Kuntz and Ward have taken material which has come down to us in a sometimes distorted and almost always nebulous form, and clarified it into a solid material which would fit in well with any fantasy game."^[3] Taylor concludes his review by saying that Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes is worth the price "for the mere pleasure of reading it. For students of ancient legends it's a Type I treasure. It should much lived up any D&D campaign in which it is used"

Why?! If your playing a transhumanistic game where humanity has stormed Heaven & things have gone rather badly. Then it might be time to look at the  strange mythological  cosmologies of Ward & Kuntz Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes. 


This gets into one of my favorite Egyptian gods from Gods, Demigods, & Heroes;

"PTAH GOD OF OUTER SPACE "OPENER OF THE WAYS"
Armor Class — 5 Magic Ability: (See Below) Move: ? Fighter Ability: 18th Level Hit Points: 200 Psionic Ability: Class 6
Ptah is said to have existed before the Gods. He stands 10 feet tall, with a humanoid shape, jet black skin, and eyes that seemingly appear invisible but upon closer inspection are really pools of outer space. He can force beings into a nameless void with the look of his eyes (magic saving throw applicable). Sending one being per melee round into this void, only he can bring them out again. He is not affected by magical weaponry, and there is no known limit to the speed he can travel on land or in the air. In combat he never uses armor and fights with the Scepter of the Gods. This weapon tells its user of the strong points of any enemy faced, is able to nullify one of any type spell used against it per melee round, can also do this with the powers of other magic items used against it, and hits for 1-100 points of damage.
Ptah enjoys new ideas and devices. When a being creates a device that is highly useful (judge's option) there is a 10% chance that the God will reward that being with a Thet. This device is an amulet geared to do one of two things: it can project an antimagic shell around the user which does not affect the user's ability to cast spells, the second allows the wearer to go ethereal once a week."  Taken one part of Marvel's Doctor Strange's Eternity & HP Lovecraft's Outer God Yog-Sothoth. Why because he is both the key & the gate to all known time & space as well as the planes. It exists outside of & beyond these things.

“	Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.	„
	~ HPL , The Dunwich Horror

Yog-Sothoth is a cosmic entity and Outer God. Born of the Nameless Mist, he is the progenitor of Cthulhu, Hastur the Unspeakable and the ancestor of the Voormi. He is also the father of Wilbur Whateley."


Vision d'artiste de Yog-Sothoth by Dominique Signoret

I think that PTAH GOD OF OUTER SPACE "OPENER OF THE WAYS" is fact another aspect similar to 'Umr at-Tawil (Arabic عمر الطويل) The [Most Ancient and] Prolonged of Life' avitar of  Yog-Sothoth. These two are some of the more benificial aspects of the Outer God;"'Umr at-Tawil (Arabic عمر الطويل) The [Most Ancient and] Prolonged of Life), also spelled Tawil At-U'mr or Tawil-at'Umr,^[5] is described as an avatar of Yog-Sothoth in the story "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", by Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price. In the story, he presides over the timeless halls beyond the Gate of the Silver Key and the strange, near-omnipotent Ancient Ones that dwell there. He is described as the silhouette of a man behind a strange, shimmering veil. He is one of very few apparently benign Lovecraftian Great Old Ones who does not cause insanity in those who view him."
At some point in the far future millions if not billions of years from now some strain of humanity bargains with PTAH GOD OF OUTER SPACE "OPENER OF THE WAYS". They do this in order to gain mastery over time & space itself. No this doesn't go well for them either. PTAH isn't a regular part of the Egyptian pantheon he's much older. 

Now basically in Godbound humanity has stormed Heaven & killed all of God's angels, attendants,etc.,etc. only to find that the throne of Heaven is emply. They conclude that they've become the Biblical God themselves ( no worries their not). The Shattering happens & anyone that studies mythology has seen this style of event` a million times. The fall of humanity because they've gotten too close to the realm of the gods resulting in huge affair that shatters their grip on the stars & cosmos. The question that I keep asking is, 'Is there room in a campaign for the infernal, theDivine with a capital 'D', Transhumanistic elements, & even a Lovecraftian mythos'.  I believe the answer is yes.  And it all comes down to the writings of A. Merritt especially his book the Moonpool.  This book isn't his best & the prose is very archaic to modern readers but the ideas, settings, etc are killer the basic plot goes something like this; "The plot concerns an advanced race which has developed within the Earth's core. Eventually their most intelligent members create an offspring. This created entity encompasses both great good and great evil, but it slowly turns away from its creators and towards evil. The entity is called either the Dweller or the Shining One.

Eventually of the race which created it only three are left; these are called the Silent Ones, and they have been 'purged of dross' and can be described as higher, nobler, more angelic beings than are humankind. They have also been sentenced by the good among their race to remain in the world, and not to die, as punishment for their pride which was the source of the calamity called the Dweller, until such time as they destroy their creation—if they still can. And the reason they do not do so is simply that they continue to love it.

The Dweller is in the habit of rising to the surface of the earth and capturing men and women which it holds in an unholy stasis and which in some ways feed it. It increases its knowledge and power constantly, but has a weakness, since it knows nothing of love. The scientist Dr. Goodwin and the half-Irish, half-American pilot Larry O'Keefe, and others, follow it down. Eventually they meet a woman, beautiful and evil, named Yolara, who in essence serves the Shining One, and the 'handmaiden' of the Silent Ones, beautiful and good, named Lakla. Both want O'Keefe and eventually battle over him.

There is also a race of very powerful and handsome Polynesian-like 'dwarves' and a race of humanoids whom the Silent Ones developed from a semi-sentient froglike species.

There develops a battle between the forces of good and evil with not only the entire world, but perhaps even the existence of good itself is at stake. But can the forces of good prevail using fear as a weapon? Or will they have to rely upon love expressed by willing sacrifice?"
Basically it goes like this 'the advanced race at the Earth's core' is what's left of some of humanity after bargaining with the PTAH GOD OF OUTER SPACE "OPENER OF THE WAYS" aspect of Yog-Sothoth. They gain their power but pay for it in other aspects. The plot of the Moonpool goes ahead & all is right with the pulpy world. But humanity has become aware of the events of the Moonpool, the 'Shining Ones', and the threat of these alternative groups of humanity from these 'lost worlds'. The thread that ties all of this together is  Dr. Goodwin who later on appears in the Metal Monsters. His work is what ties all of these cults & whatnot together. 

Now this all ties back in with the fact that way back in January of this past year I was doing a bunch of stuff connected with Dungeons & Demons - Mayfair Games Demons Box Set One - OSR Campaign Commentary. There's also the fact that I've got Luz still in play from Greyhawk in this from OSR Commentary - The Luz Dossier - A Paler Shade & Echo of Greyhawk - Campaign Notes . So where do I go with this campaign mess?! Well I start running with it as a dungeon master & amazingly the players will sort it out for me. This is often the case amazingly folks. 

Infernal Mechanical Secrets of Original Dungeons & Dragons's Eldritch Wizardry by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume.

Back in the mists of time in the early 90's the Satanic Panic was still in full swing in certain back water areas of the United States. This included the born again Christian high school I went to, a 'friend of mine' had borrowed my copy of original Dungeons & Dragons  Eldritch Wizardry by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume. He turned it into one of the teachers working in the high school & I was expelled for two weeks. At the time I was working two jobs one I was working as a waiter at local Friendlies resturant & on the weekends I'd help a friend who was running a local comic shop selling Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books. Before the end of the term I stole my book back from the high school but this wasn't the end of that part of my high school/college daze.  Everyone talks about sci fi & science fantasy technologies coming into Dungeons & Dragons in S3 Gary Gygax's Expediation to Barrier Peaks. My experiences are a lot different & they stretch back all the way back to the 70's  original Dungeons & Dragons  Eldritch Wizardry by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume. For this I'm pulling out my notes for DM Steve's Godbound rpg  campaign & all of the stops are coming off.

Now let's get a bit of history & perspective for a moment on this ancient tome;
"Eldritch Wizardry is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume, written for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game, which included a number of significant additions to the core game. Its product designation is TSR 2005. is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume, written for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game, which included a number of significant additions to the core game. Its product designation is TSR 2005."

Diving right into the Summmer of '79 & our little group of players under my uncle is exploring a particularly heinous dungeon on Greyhawk & level after level of golems, weird mechanisms, etc. I've got that we made it through five levels of dungeons until we get right to the heart of the dungeon & that's where we saw it; "THE MACHINE OF LUM THE MAD This gigantic piece of intricate machinery is far too heavy and bulky to move by hand. It may be teleported or dimension doored, but other means of transportation will probably result in the destruction of the machine's delicate workings. If the machine is dropped after a teleport, etc., it will lose at least one function and. if it falls far enough, be destroyed. It is far too complex to be repaired. The machine has 70 levers and 30 dials. It also has a type of booth large enough for four people to stand inside. If a person or item is inside the booth, and a lever is pulled or a dial turned there may be an effect on the person or object inside. Of the 70 levers and 30 dials, 20 are no longer functioning due to the extreme age of the machine. The other items should have effects drawn from the tables in this back of the section and from the creative mind of the DM. Suggested powers: TABLE I: 25 of the powers. TABLE II: 25 of the powers. TABLE III: 10 of the powers. TABLE IV: 10 of the powers. TABLE V: 10 of the powers"

The best representation of this piece of hellish occult technology is a piece of artwork by  Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad Concept art by Conceptopolis/Jetpack7 - https://www.jetpack7.com #concept_art #dungeons_and dragons #forgotten_realms

This artwork will confur the sheer scale of power & insanity that this mechanism brings to the table top. The original artwork was found right over here 



Here's the colorized version of the artwork & even more it brings home that wickness just waiting to envelop your PC. Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad Concept art by Conceptopolis/Jetpack7 - https://www.jetpack7.com #concept_art #dungeons_and_dragons #forgotten_realms



Some of our group of players in my uncle's game pulled levers & punched buttons, we died rather badly that day. But the mechanism is still in that dungeon waiting. Waiting for my current plaers to stumble upon it at some point.
But where the Hell did my uncle come across it? My notes indicate that he was 'inspired' by American writer Abraham Merritt's The Metal Monster & especially Dr. Goodwin who first appeared in The Moon Pool who inspired the mad mage who sent us on our epic journey into that Hell dungeon.



The plot of 'The Metal Monster' by A. Merrrit is one part 'lost world' & one part encounter cosmic horror  with truly alien mechanisms & technologies;"Dr. Goodwin is on a botanical expedition in the Himalayas. There he meets Dick Drake, the son of one of his old science acquaintances. They are witnesses of a strange aurora-like effect, but seemingly a deliberate one. As they go out to investigate, they meet Goodwin's old friends Martin and Ruth Ventnor, brother and sister scientists. The two are besieged by Persians as Darius III led when Alexander of Macedon conquered them more than two thousand years ago.

The group is saved by a magnificent woman they get to know as Norhala. She commands the power of lightning and controls strange metal animate Things, living, metallic, geometric forms; an entire city of sentient cubes, globes and tetrahedrons, capable of joining together and forming colossal shapes, and wielding death rays and other armaments of destruction.

They are led to a hidden valley occupied by what they name "The Metal Monster", a strange metal city occupied by the metal animate Things Norhala commands. This city is governed by what they call the Metal Emperor, assisted by the Keeper of the Cones.

Ruth is slowly being converted by Norhala to become like her; her little sister. Martin, her brother, tries shooting the Metal Emperor, who retaliates with a ray blast, putting Martin in a comatose state.

Closed in between the Metal Monster and the Persians, it falls to Goodwin and Drake to find a way to escape their predicament."

Yeah that dungeon has/had elements of A.Merrit written all over it but the real inspiration from my perspective was Robert Kuntz Machine level from the original campaign. Mr. Kuntz has been a heavy influence on me over the years. The man doesn't get half of the credit he's due for his years with orginal Dungeons & Dragons but that's another blog entry for another time.
Here's the thing that dungeon is still out there with the mechanism of Lum the mad working & talking to itself. But what about the Metal Monster itself? The book 'The Metal Monster' is in the public domain in the United States & you can down load it right here. But the technologies of the book are way ahead of anything we've got right at the moment. There are lost places & strange osisis of the nanite like technologies of the 'Metal Monster' just waiting for adventurers to stumble upon them. And author Mike Stewart alright wrote them up in Victorious's Hunter & Hunter calalog put out by Troll Lord Games. May I also strongly suggest downloading Jason Vey's Conan books for original Dungeons & Dragons.  They have just the right tone of creeping corruption for such a campaign.




Could the 'Metal Monster' & its kind be quietly spreading their own cults across the cosmos? Are they insidiously infiltrating various planes after the fall of Heaven? Are occultists & wizards just noticing now the dread influence of these ancient & highly alien A.I. entities?
Could any hero or party of adventurers really stand up to such an onslaught?

Well back in Kuntz & Ward's Dieties, Demigods, & Heroes we've got the Dragon Ship another sorcerous mechanism that seems straight out of a high occult or techno machincal Atlantis or Lumeria. The craft is capable of incredible feats;

"DRAGON SHIPS

A sailing ship in the form of a winged dragon. The wings of the ship are the sails, the front talons are used in grappling, the nostrils of the dragon shoot a type of greek fire, and the long neck and head serve as a boarding platform. In all things pertaining to sailing treat this vessel as a large galley with twice the speed."

Are there eras of time when technologies & ideologies clashed that the PC's haven't a clue about? Well isn't that part of the point? The hidden histories & occult conspiracies that even the gods fear? For now keep em rolling.

OSR Commentary - Hacking Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea With Gamma World 4th Edition's Treasures of the Ancients (GWA1) By Dale "Slade" Henson

After having a beer tonight with some friends & fellow gamers, we got into a heated discussion about Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea's Old Earth. Everyone agrees with the fact that AS&SH's world campaign setting takes place millions of years in the future. So what happened to the 'Old Earth'?
What if I told you that sometime way down the line time, the laws of physics, & general physics breaks down during Ragnarok. What happens if the gods died, time cracked open, & the Earth almost perishes. You see thousand perhaps  millions of years in the future the future cycle of Earth ends possibly due to the return of magick & the Outer Gods. Now AS&SH is a mixed weird fantasy setting based on many of the Lovecraft circle of writers this includes HP Lovecraft himself, Robert Howard, & Clark Ashton Smith. Smith's Hyperborea cycle actually holds the clues. According to the Wiki entry on Clark Ashton Smith's  Hyperborea;  "Smith's cycle takes cues from his friends, H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard and their works. Lovecraft wrote to Smith in a letter dated 3 December 1929: "I must not delay in expressing my well-nigh delirious delight at The Tale of Satampra Zeiros [Smith's short story]... [W]hat an atmosphere! I can see & feel & smell the jungle around immemorial Commoriom, which I am sure must lie buried today in glacial ice near Olathoe, in the Land of Lomar!".^[1] Soon afterward, Lovecraft included Smith's Tsathoggua (which originally appeared in "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros") in the story "The Mound", ghostwritten for Zelia Reed (Zelia Bishop) in December 1929. Lovecraft also mentioned Tsathoggua in "The Whisperer in Darkness", which he began on February 24, 1930.^[2] Because Smith in turn borrowed numerous Lovecraftian elements, the cycle itself may be regarded as a branch of the Cthulhu Mythos. In a letter to August Derleth dated 26 July 1944, Smith wrote: "In common with other weird tales writers, I have ... made a few passing references (often under slightly altered names, such as Iog-Sotot for Yog-Sothoth and Kthulhut for Cthulhu) to some of the Lovecraftian deities. My Hyperborean tales, it seems to me, with their primordial, prehuman and sometimes premundane background and figures, are the closest to the Cthulhu Mythos, but most of them are written in a vein of grotesque humor that differentiates them vastly. However, such a tale as "The Coming of the White Worm" might be regarded as a direct contribution to the Mythos."" 

So what's this got to do with Treasures of the Ancients (GWA1)? Well the Hyperborea books have to do with the ending of cycles especially with life, social values, & matters that pertain to the way of life in  the capital city of  Commoriom. What happens when all of the advanced technology of the Ancients gives way to the reality of magick & the Outer Gods? Much of the old ancient technologies disappear the second that second when the Hyperboreans come to claim the 'Old Earth'.

The rise of the empire of the Hyperboreans is one of brutality, conquest, bloodshed, magic, & nightmare. We get hints of this from various parts of the AS&SH rule book & the North Wind Adventures modules.  Think Michael Moorcock's Elric meets Clark Ashton Smith in dark alleyway with classic Pulp science fantasy. But full on Thundarr The Barbarian style action as wizards & warlords claim the Earth as their own. Time & space as we know it shatter into a brilliant cascade of glittering pieces. The Outer Gods & Old Ones return after several thousand years bringing the Age of Man to an end. Ragnarok has happened &  the gods have died out. The black miracle of Hyperborea's disappearance from 'Old Earth' signal the end of an era.
But where the Hell did the armies of the Hyperboreans come from? They came by the millions from outposts & forgotten cities from the remotest corners of the Earth & from deep within 'Old Earth' itself.
Four Appendix N writers hint about this including A.Merritt's Metal Monster goes into some of the occult technology left behind by the Hyperboreans until their return.


We see more of their legacy with the HP Lovecraft's The Mound. In these novellas & stories the descendants of the originators were seemingly gone & their legacy had been picked up by decadent descendants who brutally & insanely carry out their original missions. We see this getting picked up in A.Merrit's  The Moon Pool once more.  In all of these stories the invaders from below are brutal, efficient, completely genocidal towards mankind quite literally casting the works of mankind into ruins. We see this theme extended in  the footsteps of Bulwer-Lytton, Burroughs, Conan Doyle, and others of the Weird Fiction tradition. 
The polar ice caps metal & we are left with mankind's  scarps at the remote corners of 'Old Earth'. The first of a series of plagues in the genocidal wake of the summoning of the Green Death happens. Some of the earliest migrations to Hyperborea happen with the descendants of the Esquimaux stock making their appearance in  Corey R. Walden's AS&SH adventure The Anthropophagi of Xambaala. We get a glimpse into how the ancestors of  tribes came to almost dominate the Hyperborean city of Lomar in HP Lovecraft's story Polaris. 


Biological weapons used by the Hyperboreans are left behind in the form of mutants & monsters on 'Old Earth' & Hyperborea in AS&SH. The occasional military artifact crops up from some forgotten bunker or other dungeon ruin. 

Using The Castles & Crusades Monsters and Treasure book & The Siege Engine For An A.Merritt Lost World Campaign Gap

So today's been one of those days where I've taken a step back & been looking into the frame work of my campaign. Last night I popped a beer & had a phone call with an old friend about my Victorious rpg /Amazing Adventures! Rpg campaign. His recommendations were very interesting to say the least.
So out comes Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure  & we start going over the ins & outs of some of the monsters contained here in for a Pulp & super heroes campaign. There are some folks who often use Dungeons & Dragons style games for augmenting other genres.





This book can act as an addition to the Amazing Adventures! rpg Manual of Monsters .  Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure  can be used to augment the implied setting of Amazing Adventures! rpg that is the world of the Pulps & Capes spanning from pre World War one up through the early 70's & 80's of exploitation & action movies. This also goes back down the rabbit hole of Appendix N literature which I love. Speaking of which that includes my favorite racist uncle in the room of the Mythos H.P. Lovecraft.



But really the one that really jumps out at me is A.Merrit's The Metal Monster. The Metal Monster is the perfect lost world & city story for my hybrid campaign. A potential source of weird science mayhem waiting beyond the known limits of the world. But what exactly has the city of the Metal Emperor been waiting for?! So what's with all of the Lovecraft & Howard in the back & foreground?! "This book was a favorite of H. P. Lovecraft, though he at first avoided the revised version, at the suggestion of C. M. Eddy, Jr.. According to his March 6, 1934 letter to James F. Morton:

Other recent items on my calendar are ... A. Merritt's old yarn The Metal Monster, which I had never read before because Eddy told me it was dull. The damn'd fool! (nephew — not our late bibliophilick friend) Actually, the book contains the most remarkable presentation of the utterly alien and non-human that I have ever seen. I don't wonder that Merritt calls it his "best and worst" production. The human characters are commonplace and wooden – just pulp hokum – but the scenes and phaenomena... oh, boy!" 

 The Metal Monster  features the return of Dr. Goodwin who first appeared in the "The Moon Pool" (1918) and its sequel, "Conquest of the Moon Pool" (1919) in All-Story Weekly . Both of these have been combined into the complete novel the Moonpool.  Could the lost races,worlds, & technologies be left overs from ancient days long before the Pre Biblical Flood? I'm thinking of HP Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop's the Mound here." The Mound is a horror/science fiction novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written by him as a ghostwriter from December 1929 to January 1930 after he was hired by Zealia Bishop to create a story about an Indian mound which is haunted by a headless ghost. " 

So what happens if the invasion of the Drow race into these other worlds isn't an accident all but a calling back of ancient servitors to the noble houses of the inner Earth?! What if the royal houses of Atlantis and Lemuria are planning their return to come to rule the upper Earth & the Drow are only doing exactly what they were planned to right from the ancient days?! Could the weird technologies of the A.Merritt's Metal Monster be another part of their diabolical plan?! These strange & deadly alien technologies might be guarding ancient vaults full of relics & treasures hidden deep within the Earth. There might also be monsters of dangerous aspect there which is one of the places where

What if A.Merritt's novels are all part of some grand scheme that unfolding around the world as the stars again are coming right?! The Metal Monster, The Moon Pool, The Ship of Ishtar, The Face in the Abyss, & Seven Footprints to Satan are all interlinked to form an overarching old school Pulp secret history of the Earth? A secret history of both its past & its possible future!?

 

So what does this have to with Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure ? Quite a bit actually, imagine that dragons, forgotten monsters of mythology, & even Earth's possible future millions of years in the future. This is  all tied together with the binding of custodian wizards who have kept the ties of magick in hidden citadels under the Earth dating back to the time of the second Biblical flood. There are ancient relics & treasure hidden across the world as the war between the forces of light & darkness is now heating up! The power of capes & Pulp is going to get caught in the cross fire. What does all of this have to do with the far future of man? Tune in tomorrow! 

The Metal Monster Is Available Right Here 

You Can Find "The Mound"  horror & sci-fi novellaBy  H. P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop HERE