'Old Earth' Adventure Location 'The Ruins of Londonium' For Your Old School Campaigns

Londonium was one of the most prosperous cities of 'Old Earth' but it is now one of the dangerous wasteland mega ruin locations. The domain of giant monsters,mutants, & worse. The city holds some of the richest relic hordes on the planet of old technologies, relics, and more. It is also one of the last locations that holds a working FTL ether craft in existence. The problem is not only Londonium the home to giant mutated prehistoric monsters but this is the domain of the Green Horde.


Londonium was once the central hub of much of the super science & sorcery of Old Earth, it has become a hotly contested arena for various mutant overlords and factions. But they soon become a meal for one of Old Earth's most dangerous undead horrors the Green Horde. A byproduct of bygone military terror weapons program gone array the horde are creatures of horrid unending appetites. Those who venture into the Londonium ruins seldom come out.


The Green Horde

No. Enc.: 1d6

Alignment:Choatic evil

Movement: 40 feet

Armor Class:6

Hit Dice:8 

Attacks: 2 Slash, Acidic Bite 

Damage: 1d6, 1d6, 1d8 

Save: F8

Morale: 10
Specials:  They are immune to Charm or Sleep and unaffected by illusions.

The Green horde is a tribe of reptilian like undead horrors that were created  a weaponized mix of demon & ogre blood strains. They can rip a man in seconds & come back for more, they're appetites know no bounds. They can consume every part of a corpse in a matter of moments because of powerful stomach acids. The members of the horde are a demonic hive mind able dimly conceive one another's thoughts telepathically making them all the the more dangerous. They are intelligent & very dangerous with eighteen double zero strength making them able to rip through soft metals with easy. The Green Horde can be turned as standard undead but they will later regroup and redouble efforts to murder the priest or cleric. Those bitten by the horde members will receive horrid acidic wounds that can only be healed by expensive magick or super science.

The green horde is always at war with another faction of undead that makes the Londonium ruins its home, the tribes fleshless ones are some of the most dangerous creatures anyone can encounter. They are highly intelligent skeletal looking undead mutant creatures that seemed to have evolved with us. These monsters hate adventurers, the living, and the Green Horde with a vengeance bordering on insanity.



The Fleshless Ones set up various cults, magick cabals, & worse to godlike entities of the Outer Darkness, the Beyond, and even some of the lesser known Hells themselves. They are cruel, evil, and totally without mercy but they also possess knowledge of relics & artifacts going back centuries.
Fleshless Ones

No. Enc.: 1d6

Alignment:Chaotic evil

Movement:20

Armor Class:6

Hit Dice:3

Attacks: By weapon 

Damage: 1d4, 1d4,weapon,Constitution Drain   

Save: F8

Morale: 9
Specials: All undead immunities making them  immune to Charm or Sleep and unaffected by illusions.
Fleshless Ones have Dark Vision because of their undead connection.

The Fleshless Ones are a mutant/undead tribe of beings that has been plaguing humanity since the beginning of time. They undead horrors that hate all other beings living, undead, & even demonic but have several rites of necomatic magick that allows them to pass among the living. These undead horrors increase their number by infecting the living with a powerful radioactive magick from the Negative Material plane or with artifacts from the twisted dimension known as 'the Beyond'. Only powerful magick or expensive super science has any hope of saving a victim.
These diabolical bastards have a twisted unholy thirst for the blood and flesh of the living which absorb through their bones. Each round they wound the living with bony claws the suck up 1d4 points of constitution. They are greedy for the blood and gore of the living. These creatures revel in it as a part of the twisted rites to their unholy demonic or Lovecraftian patrons. The Fleshless Ones often have weapons or relics on their person or nearby to cause the maximum carnage to the living for this purpose! They are foul undead mutant horrors that can be turned by only the most holy of men & women. They loath and fear such beings with a burning passion. There have been reports of Fleshless Ones found on temples on the moons of Saturn. These will most likely be powerful necromancers or other black wizards of the most foul stripe imaginable. 

The Fleshless Ones of Londonium compete with the tribes of Green Hordes for human & humanoid resources as well as magick power making them a most hated enemy.
The Fleshless Ones have managed to open a portal beneath St Barthemows into the lower depths of 'the Outer Void Hell' making them the leading power so far in Londonium.


This post was inspired by this poem from Clark Ashton Smith


'Neath blue days, and gold, and green,
Blooms the glorious land serene,
Flaming shields of dawns between;
And the rapt white flowers suffice
To illume
With their bright eyes
Fluctuant ecstatic gloom
'Twixt the fallen emerald sun
And the unrisen azure one.

But the season of the night
Comes in all the suns' despite;
And, ah, gorgeous then their sorrows
At departure into morrows
Of remoter lands forgot—
Until now remembered not
For the lovelier flowers of this,
And each lake's pure lucency,
And recalled regretfully,
Regretfully, for leaving this.

In the star-possessèd night
The land knows another light—
All the small and evil rays
Of the sorcerous orbs ablaze
With ecstatical intense
Hate and still malevolence—
Dwelling on the fields below
From the ascendancy of even
Till the suns, re-entering heaven,
Glorify with triple glow
The dim flowers smitten low.

Ah, not cold, or kind, as ours,
The stars of those remotest hours !
Peace and pallor of the flowers
They have fevered, they have marred
With the poison of their light,
With distillèd bale and blight
Of a red, accurst regard:
All the toil of sunlight hours
They undo
With their wild eyes—
Eldritch and ecstatic eyes,
Stooping timeward from the skies,
Burning redly in the dew.

The Land of Evil Stars  (1922)
by Clark Ashton Smith

1d20 Random Ancient Encounters of the Damned & Forgotten of the Underworld Table

Grey hells, or hells aglow with hot and scarlet flowers;
White hells of light and clamor; hells the abomination
Of breathless, deep, sepulchral desolation
Oppresses ever—I have known them all, through hours
Tedious as dead eternity; where timeless powers,
Leagued in malign, omnipotent persuasion—
Wearing the guise of love, despair and aspiration,
For ever drove through ashen fields and burning bowers
My soul that found no sanctuary. . . . For Lucifer,
And all the weary, proud, imperious, baffled ones
Made in his image, hell is anywhere: the ice
Of hyperboreal deserts, or the blowing spice
In winds from off Sumatra, for each wanderer
Preserves the jealous flame of sad, infernal suns.

Inferno  (1918)  by Clark Ashton Smith

The old world passed into the Outer Darkness as the seas boiled, the sky cracked, and reality ran like hot wax. The Old Ones returned and the hidden things crawled from the lost corners of the world as Ice Land & Greenland were ripped from the oceans cast by forces beyond comprehension into the sky to orbit around Saturn. A new smaller sun illuminates Hyperborea to this day. But the old world did not go quietly and there are bits & pieces of the Old Earth sitting in the underworld. This is the world of old gods, ghosts, demons, & worse. The doorways skirting the edges of Hell itself sometimes can be seen here & there in the underworld.

Old demons, damned souls to foul to move on & even the relics of the old world as it was litter this place. The eddies & weird tires from the Outer Darkness play havoc with the reality of this underworld as alien fungus, strange half demonic alien life forms feed on the damned & any unlucky souls they find down here. But this is a place that attracts adventurers & outlaws by the score. There are rich pickings indeed here among the deadmen & the half forgotten half real world of the dead souls. Necromancers of Xinaián ply their craft on the unfortunate damned who are too dull & wicked to pass onto their final reward. This is also the realm of the lich kings who make their home among the bones of their past.

Half forgotten cities & temples via for the attentions of Gugs, ghouls, & ghasts who compete with a million other undead fiends & demons that parasite off of the energies of the Outer Darkness & the negative material planes that wash continually with the thousand forgotten heavens & hells that wash their dimensional tidal energies among the forgotten worlds. There are ancient horrors not seen in a million years here in the twisting ancient caverns & tunnels. For every hour spent down here there is a 30% chance of running into a half demon mercenary or utterly alien undead thing that crawls in the dust and darkness of this world.

There are dozen score of half forgotten Hell rooms & labryths here where the damned, deranged, & insane come to worship foul beings of blackest magickal power. There are Earth bound demons whose sole purposes in these twisting halls are all but forgotten but whose presence guards ancient treasures & relics beyond compare. Time & again the underworld attracts monsters, gods, demons, and far worse to feed & feed well on the souls of a world far gone and whose glory is fading from existence with each passing year.

For every six to nine hours spent down in this twisting world of the past there is a 20% chance of an encounter with a demonic warrior or some other undead horror from the last world. These encounters mean that the undead creature is hunger & highly dangerous.  These beings have a 20% chance of having some ancient relic or trinket from Old Earth to remind them of the world they've left behind and their former existence. There is a 4% chance that this might be some magickal relic or treasure.

1d20 Random Ancient Encounters 
of the Damned & Forgotten of the Underworld Table

1. 1d8 grey gargoyles armed with archaic blaster rifles on a scouting party for the sacrifice stone. There will be 1d4 ghoul servants in tow with various minor weapons or relics . 
2. A gug mercenary and slave hunter with 1d10 slaves in basket cages armed with electric spear that does 1d6 points of electrical and stunning damage. 
3. 1d10 ghoul knights on lizard bird back with laser pistols and short bows. They're after a magical relic. 
4. A very lost & terrified explorer from 1932 from the Ford Foundation expedition into South America. He's infected with an alien parasite that will burst forth in eighteen hours. 
5. Six serpent men mage kings on antigravity disks seeking a temple of Yig and looking for sacrifices for their gods. They are seventh level wizards of darkest aspect. 
6. An massive soul worm made up from the damned of WWI who are hunting for more souls to add to its bus sized bulk. Same stats as a purple worm of double hit points. 
7. 1d6 night gaunts looking for prey. 
8. A massive hunter shoggoth looking for prey and souls for its foul masters. 
9. A gang of 1d20 demonic goblin warriors looking for a group of humans for easy prey. 
10. A necromancer of  Xinaián on the back of a modified ghast of unusual aspect hunting for humans and armed with a blaster rifle. He's 9th level and very dangerous. 
11. A giant cave frog has been modified and fitted with a heavy laser. His master is a Hyperborean bounty hunter with foul demonic master of his own. He watches from the shadows. 
12. 1d10 series of dangerous Earth bound demon warriors armed with heavy laser crossbow weapons are looking for victims. 
13. 1d20 Giant mutated leeches with a horrid ringed sucker mouths are  after a church group that got trapped here through a dimensional warp.They will try to have you attend an all night prayer group to send them back to the world where they came from. There is a 10% chance that this might world. 
14. Six giant ghoul things are after your party for food, their souls, and their corpses. 
15. An avatar of the black pharaoh haunts this section of the undead tunnels looking for souls to feed on. 
16. 1d6 horrors from below these tunnels is hunting for souls and bodies to  eat. Your PC's are in the fair game as well. 
17. An alien underworld engineer is here checking out the area for exploitation purposes for his corporation who handles miners from elemental plane of Earth. 
18. 1d20 ghosts and phantoms from Old Earth are hunting for souls in the tunnels nearby. They are dangerous and hungry. 
19. A star spawn of Hastur has been loosened from his ages long sleep to hunt for prey. Guess whose on the menu. 
20. A foul lich king and his four succubus body guards are moving among the tunnels and are gathering souls to turn into larva for his demonic masters. You might make a good larva!
    
    I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height,
    A mountain's utmost eminence of snow.
    Beholding ashen plains outflung below
    To a far sea-horizon, dim and white.
    Beneath the spectral sun's expiring light
    The world lay shrouded in a deathly glow;
    Its last fear-laden voice, a wind, came low;
    The distant sea lay hushed, as with affright.
    
    I watched, until the pale and flickering sun,
    In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,
    And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.
    Then Night, that war of gulf-born Titans won,
    Impended for a breath on wings of doom,
    And through the air fell like a falling sky.
    
    The Last Night  (1912)
    by Clark Ashton Smith

This  post is not an attempt to violate the copyrights or trademarks of any 
of the films nor properties named in this post. All ideas are for a 
private table top rpg campaign. None of the ideas or opinions expressed 
in this post are meant to violate the trademarks nor copy rights of any 
of the table top rpgs discussed nor are they in away responsible for the
 thoughts or opinions of the author. The writing, ideas, and opinions 
are copyrighted and trade marked to the author and Dark Corner 
productions. This post is for entertainment & educational purposes 
only.

1d6 Random Dimensions of Chaos & Hell As Adventure Encounter Location Table For Your Old School Campaigns

When the Old Earth had passed away into the oblivion of the Outer Darkness there were other places that awaited many of the souls that had been dragged down into the lower dimensional depths of the pits of the Astral winds.
These were other Hells, those smaller Hells that have been dreamed of by the older gods. Those  jealous gods of the ancient texts of the damned. Those places inhabited by gods no one worshiped anymore out of fear & those powers of Chaos that had been consumed by depravity & twisting bouts of cosmic insanity.


It is often to these settings that adventurers find themselves for the pickings of artifacts & treasures are rich. Few venture near these places for they are the abode of ancient prime plane bound demons of the lowest order whose mere existence is torture. These things vent their frustration on any living that cross into their dimensional prisons. These are places where the venting of Chaos & the Boreas winds bring only the debris of a previous universe. The fires of destruction continue to burn for all eternity & those that remain here will pick up mutations of Chaos that come with even short stays in these places. Undead of the lowest denominator & demons of every strip haunt the landscape tormenting them. 


Here they continue to act out the nightmare dream cycles of their own destruction as other demonic entities consume them. These are not settings to be taken lightly as those that entire these nightmare lands through simple black magick gate rituals are subject to the laws of these settings of Chaos. There are hundreds of forgotten saints & gods that haunt these dimensions. Often these places orbit dead stars while other forgotten creatures howl their praises to long dead patrons. Dretch sporting 1d8 mutations haunt the by ways and trails of these places often lurking along particularly dangerous open sewer like pits along the landscape.  Quasits scurry across the land drawn by the specticle and violence of the place. They feed on the damned & will be drawn to any evil or depravity as larger demons feast on any Quastis who survive the carnage. Larger demons will have treasure type M or better stashed in caches along edge of these quasi Hells There is a 20% chance of another Hellish mercenary looking off an easy mark and he or she has been drawn to the PC's.

"The desert of Soom is said to lie at the world's unchartable extreme, between the lands that are little known and those that are scarcely even conjectured. It is dreaded by travellers, for its bare and ever-moving sands are without oases, and a strange horror is rumored to dwell among them. Of this horror, many tales are told, and nearly all of the tales are different. Some say that the thing has neither visible form nor audible voice, and others that it is a dire chimera with multitudinous heads and horns and tails, and a tongue whose sound is like the tolling of bells in deep funereal vaults. Of the caravans and solitary wanderers who have ventured amid the sands of Soom, none has returned without a story to tell; and some have never returned at all, or have come back with brains devoured to madness by the terror and vertigo and delirium of infinite empty space.

..Yes, there are many tales, of a thing that follows furtively or with the pandemonium of a thousand devils, of a thing that roars or whispers balefully from the sand or from the wind, or stirs unseen in the coiling silence; or falls from the heavens like a crushing incubus: or yawns like a sudden pit before the feet of the traveller....

But once on a time there were two lovers who came to the desert of Soom, and who had occasion to cross the sterile sands. They knew not the evil rumor of the place; and, since they had found an abiding Eden in each other's eyes, it is doubtful if they even knew that they were passing through a desert. And they alone, of all who have dared this fearsome desolation, have had no tale to relate of any troublous thing, of any horror that followed or lurked before them, either seen or unseen, audible or heard; and for them there was no chimera, no yawning pit nor incubus. And never, never could they comprehend the stories that were told by less fortunate wayfarers."

The Abomination of Desolation Clark Ashton Smith

1d6 Random  Dimensions of Chaos
& Hell As Adventure Encounter Location Table 

1. Lagodorgulkor is the lowest point of a Hellish Old Earth location that was dragged down into the depths of the Astral realms and consumed by a Great Old One. The place retains many of the treasures of Old Earth waiting for a band of adventurers. There are lots of Earth bound demons and the damned here who await their torments. 
2. Vaeth is flat plane scrubbed free of any surprises, only the demons and the damned retain this place. There are stacks of spell books of the damned that can only be read by the light of the damned star that flies overhead to illuminate this place. Each books contains 1d8 spells of black magic that the demons hate and they will murder any who try to steal them.
3. Welimorcalimir a former piece of Old Earth that saw the rise of the zombie hordes & the demons to tend them. There are 1d6 major demons who the party will encounter when the cycle of undeath rebirth happens as the red blotted 'sun' rises from the East. This place is a strong hold of necrotic magic & there will be many minor adapt travelers here to learn the black arts from lich masters 
4. Obelau is a former province of Rome that slipped between the dimensional cracks and now is the abode of shades & harpies who watch over them. There are treasures and artifacts everyplace but there is a 40% chance that any piece taken from here will have a very vengeful ghost attached to it. 
5. Uglrothithath was a ancient Chinese city from the far future that was taken by a pack of demonic gods of the damned. The place is filled with high technological treasures and artifacts but it is the abode of demons and the damned. Each night the damned and undead rise from the unmarked graves around the city.
6. Rirolko is an ancient abode of several demonic cults who heralded the arrival of their master god by sacrificing themselves en mass to open a demonic gate way into the Outer Darkness. They succeeded & an entire Hyperborean city crossed the dimensional threshold. Today the place fades in and out of its old location bringing demons and undead from their home dimension. The place has an incredible array of Hyperborean artifacts.
   

   This  post is not an attempt to violate the copyrights or trademarks of any 
   of the films nor properties named in this post. All ideas are for a 
   private table top rpg campaign. None of the ideas or opinions expressed 
   in this post are meant to violate the trademarks nor copy rights of any 
   of the table top rpgs discussed nor are they in away responsible for the
    thoughts or opinions of the author. The writing, ideas, and opinions 
   are copyrighted and trade marked to the author and Dark Corner 
   productions. This post is for entertainment & educational purposes 
   only.

Blood,Fire, & The Importance of Campaign Feel During Adventure & Campaign Construction

Hoping that everyone's having a fantastic 2017, I've been doing quite a bit of contemplation of this upcoming Ancient & Accursed Terra campaign of mine using Adventurer, Conqueror, King & they're Guns of War rules. What I'm trying to go for is the feel of a Hammer pirate film such as The Pirates of Blood River but I want to dial back down the fire arms to the wheel lock era. 

So yeah that's one element of it and another is to mix in the usual sword & sorcery vibe of Robert Howard maybe with a bit of classic black powder B/X D&D  era weirdness combined with the  isolation of the original Aliens film. There are dragons here & PC's should and will be wary as death is around the corner. 

These are not so much rule choices but zeroing in on the flavor of B/X D&D that's going to work for your old school campaigns. I've said it before and will again there are as many flavors of D&D as their colours in the spectrum. Trying to decide what's going to work for your players & yourself is part of the battle. Then taking that material to construct adventurers around is part of the organic process of adventure construction. Its not rocket science but there a bit of an art to it that I've had to learn the hard way over the years. Here are some of the guidelines that have worked for me as a dungeon master over the years when constructing an adventure or a campaign setting:

1. Don't be afraid to experiment with different types of adventures but be sure to advertise exactly what type of adventure your going to be running to your players. 
2. Ask the players what it is that they want you to run & design around those parameters but don't be afraid to color outside of the lines. 
3. Adapt, fold, & mutilate published work to fit your campaign style not the other way around. Take classic D&D or AD&D first edition modules and use them as you the DM need to. Add or subtract monsters, encounters, ideas, and more as needed. 
4. Create your own finger prints on your setting. & don't worry what others think but your players. 
5. Your style may work for your but not others and that's alright. 
6. There are no rules but there are guidelines that can help you but its only a game. You can pick up or put it down anytime. 
7. All of human history is your toybox and don't be afraid to raid it with impunity.
   
   So what does this have to do with Dwimmermount? When the mega dungeon's doors opened it touches off all kinds of major weirdness across the face of Terra. Azoth flows and cosmic events begin to unfold across the globe.Because the megadungeon draws from pulp era inspirations like Abraham Merritt and Edgar Rice Burroughs, & many others there is a consistence to the backstory. But I'm more then happy to modify this setting as I need to. Gasp yes I said that more then happy to take a scalpel to James Maliszewski's baby if I need to. 

The sacred cow routine of AD&D & D&D goes out the window during the campaign construction phase. This is something that many folks seem to forget, these modules were made to be tinkered with and modified at the whim of the players and the DM. This is something that I've seen others observe doing research for this campaign coming up. 

Anyhow more coming up.
 Hope you have a good rest of your New Year holiday!
Cheers! 

Review Of Horrido Publishing's Old Shanghai Sourcebook For Your Old School Campaigns

I came across  Horrido Publishing 's Old Shanghai's source book in the G+ Gangbuster Rpg group and asked to take a look at the book. Boy, I'm glad I did! The book is sixty two pages of deep look into the old city of Shanghai from before WWII. Shanghai was the setting for many of the pulps I read in my youth and this book captures the look and feel of it from its beginnings right up through the pre eras. This is a place tailor made for adventure and a bunch of folks who are looking for fortune and glory.

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE

This book presents Old Shanghai as a pulpy adventure setting and its a damn fine place to have an adventure! The material is well done, nicely presented and easy to integrate into a wide variety of rpg systems including several OSR systems but let's dive right in shall we. Horrido Publishing's Old Shanghai is a completely system neutral and has a nice chapter right out of the gate outlining the history, background, and major high points of Old Shanghai. This is a city right on the edge of another era and yet desperately trying to cling to all the sides of the cultures that are shaping the future of Shanghai. Add into this mix the forces of organized crime, international smuggling, the various Tong families and a whole host of East meets West weirdness all of which wraps this city setting in a solid pulpy setting. This is a city on the edge of history and its city with its back against the wall. There are three reasons to actually use Old Shanghai:

• This is a very well done PDF resource and presents all of the adventure locations, setting material and adventure hooks a dungeon master could use. Everything is well laid out and easy to get through.
• Old Shanghai is a place that you'll want to send adventurers and anything really does go.You get a solid overview of the city's heart and soul such as descriptions of the eight main districts of the city, including maps and places of interests, such as the Shanghai Club and the Canidrome. All the actual useful material without the extranious BS that you find in many other source books. 
• You have NPC's who can and will have an impact upon a party of adventurers dealing with  the complicated social mesh of Old Shanghai. Presenting a number of schemes and plots to be used as adventure hooks which dove tail into the various factions and politicians of the city. This is a city on the edge of the coming century and echos of war to come.

For games such as Call of Cthlhu or Gangbusters with a totally different adventure setting venue, The Old Shanghai source book is a must. The book presents a highly detailed and well plotted out product that will challenge adventurers to dive into the back alleys and high stakes areas of Old Shanghai.
Have you ever wanted to know where all of those occult artifacts smuggled and various Lovecraftian cults operate right under the shadow of Russia and China Old Shanghai is the place to find out. This book also presents  supernatural abilities, magic and gothic themes that dove tails into a variety of supernatural investigative horror and old school rpgs.

As I said earlier I discovered this book in the Gangbusters rpg G+ plus group and the product easily will slip in seamlessly into the Gangbusters rpg. Between the smuggling, gambling, corruption, vice and more of Old Shanghai this is a city tailor made to hand a fun hard boiled rpg system. There is something very appealing about running a campaign in this city. The book portrays a cosmopolitan melting pot about ready to boil over. The book carefully rips and breaks down all of action of the city in plain language and with a style all of its own that translates into a nicely wrapped product that can spark entire adventures with Old Shanghai without a hint of the supernatural at all. Personally, there's so much potential for adventure I can see using The Old Shanghai source book for a variety of OSR style games from Call of Cthulhu to a D20 modern game set during the heyday of this famous city.  Be sure to grab  "The Siccawei Appendix." for free which contains a wealth of additional information for the source book as a free pdf expansion to the source book's themes and the old city itself. This is an extremely useful free pdf gaming expansion.

Do I think that Horrido Publishing's Old Shanghai Source book is worth the price of the download and worth your time? Yes, as a mater of fact I do and here's why;the book has been carefully researched and gets straight to the point without huge gobs of useless information and gives the reader exactly what they need without lots of useless details. The material is well laid out and the maps in this book are exceptionally nice for the price point of the product. The Old Shanghai source book has little in the way of fluff but gives enough hits to warrant further investigation and development into a full blown adventure encounter. I give the Old Shanghai source book a four out of five for all of the right reasons and I look forward to actually using this book at my table.

Review and Commentary On Drongo: Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms From Leviathan Publishing For The DCC rpg System And Your Old School Campaigns

I'm very familiar with Mark Hunt's work in rpg's over the years because of his long time work in the new school rpg circles. Anyhow Mark has been dealing out some incredible awesome work for the White Star rpg retroclone system & the DCC rpg  with Ships of Shade Space (this product is for White Star) and now the campaign setting Drongo: Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms.  for White Star and DCC. Which comes in two sword and planet pulp  flavors for your old school table top fun.

What is Drongo? Well take one part Flash Gordon add in a good dash of Buster Crab and stir with a huge dollop of Flash Gordon's Mongo and add in the nasty aspects of the DCC rpg and you've got the makings of a science fantasy world that crosses over point for putting your DCC adventurers into harms way. This campaign setting trods down many of the same roads as Crawl Jammer and Crawling Under A Broken Moon.  But Drongo: Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms goes further by offering new PC classes, races, plenty of setting material, and the product has its feet clearly in the sword and planet and science fantasy realm. The presentation here is top notch. I've seen the author's work and his artist's pieces here are very well done and indicative of the setting. The PC classes match up to some of the material that I've seen offered in Crawl jammer and Crawling Under A Broken Moon. There is an element here of the post apocalyptic lurking in the setting background of the product ala Flash Gordon. The PC classes were a bit science fiction generic in some sense but match the lost planet vibe of Drongo.


Grab It Right Over HERE

This is a world in peril and the campaign setting is ruled by a wizard on his way to godhood. Shades of Ming the Merciless in spades here. The author knows his stuff and the rules for ray guns and science fantasy material are top drawer. There's lots to steal from this product for a DCC rpg campaign such as Peril of the Purple Planet and there's certainly enough of a cross over point to have the PC's wandering through Drongo for more then a quick session. There's months of play here but there are issues in this campaign book. The firearms rules are repeated and their already available in the DCC rule book. The technology rules are fast and well done. Rules for generating modern humans in the Drongo campaign setting strike a certain lost planet cord for me. Another problem is the psionic rules, these are strictly alright available in the DCC rule books as well. But this doesn't take away from the product and the pulp ideals that this pdf sets up. 

The book contains a solid amount of world setting information  in its sixty four pages, a well built gazetteer that fills in many of the major game gaps. The world is well laid out and thought out, it pays homage without making fun of its origin points. Speaking of the world building, the cartography needs to be upgraded the maps should have had some of the blank spaces filled in. But its a minor complaint in a product that pays homage to its pulpy roots by setting out to make its own way in the market place that has many such settings by being different on its own terms. There's some great suggestions about aliens boss monsters, guidelines for plenty of DCC action echoing both Saturday morning cartoons like Dark Star while leaving the door open for plenty of future products. This is an over arching setting with plenty of room for the DM to carve out and customize his own areas of  the Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms for DYI gaming. Is Drongo worth the price of admission? Yes it is in my humble opinion. The setting plays around with its own planetary romance and space opera vibe with homages to certain types of Seventies science fiction and fantasy films, literature, and what not scattered through out.
Drongo: Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms is a two fold product, one its a pulpy science fantasy or sword and planet campaign and adventure setting. Two this is a fully functioning cross over point for having regular DCC adventurers cross over, straight over into a niche market. This product taps straight into the same gonzo over the top old school market that the DCC rpg has fought to hard to grab. Clocking in at sixty four pages there's probably a ton of DM out there who will mine the heck out of this products for their own sword and planets campaigns. This product plays to its strengths and it knows how to have a good time? The book reeks of fun and gives a DM some sold tools to include plenty of Saturday morning cartoon planetary action. Drongo: Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms carves out its own space in the world of Dungeon Crawl Classes with new monsters, tribes, humanoid and alien races. The arrangement, distribution, and ideas here set this product apart from others and make using and adapting it a snap. This setting could be used to adapt and be used as a cross over campaign setting to bring over your regular DCC adventurers and a gang of Crawljammer spacers along with a gang of mutant murder hobos into a crossover setting. 
The bottom line is that this a damn fine product and one that I can seen DCC rpg DM's using it and other DCC rpg dungeon masters looking at this book and mining it for ideas.. There is plenty of action happening within the covers of this book to justify the sword and planet action. My recommendation is to pick this one up and get together with friends for a Saturday or Thursday game of DCC tonight!




The bottom line is that Drongo: Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms pays and cleaves its sword and sorcery source material homages without copying a great deal or borrowing from the worlds of Robert Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or other authors. The author uses the tropes and conventions to weave and create his own world which stretches across his world. This is a solidly done sixty four pages of sword and planet adventure with plenty of room for DM's to bring a DYI sense to their version of Drongo: Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms. Is it worth the price tag? Yes in spades and it really needs to be better known. If your a DCC DM this is one to pick up and flesh out used in conjunction with other DCC products Drongo: Ruins of the Witch Kingdoms could become a campaign that could run for months and months. Personally I think its great value for the money.