OSR Campaign Commentary - Back To Original Dungeons & Dragons With A Twist of OSR Conan & Bloody, Bloody, Arduin rpg

 This past week my Spring headcold has been kicking my ass. And no it's not Covid I've gotten tested. So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about going back to original Dungeons & Dragons with all of the bells & whistles. And this brings me back to Jason Vey's Conan materials. The addition here would be using Bloody,Bloody, Arduin with it. Why? 

Stephen Fabian artwork used without permission 

Well first of all is that I want to get back to Carcosa &  Bloody,Bloody, Arduin fits the bill more. And the optional PC classes seem to be on the table with my players. Yes we're in the middle of a campaign or three already but we need to get back to our table I was told. This means going back to OD&D basics with the supplemental  options on the table. 

If the Nexus gates blow open & there's a raid into the PC's world this is how this campaign should kick off. The gates are guarded by various factions of Elves & humans at some of the fortresses surrounding the gates. But with multi colored warriors armed to the teeth pouring through with 'Jack Kirby' style weapons things should get very interesting. This is where we're going to kick things off coming up. Another PC  optional set of rules is Lost Carcosa by Tristan Tanner. The reason is simple, the alternative PC races such as Zoogs & Ghouls is very tempting to the players. The real draw from what I've heard from players  are the Lovecraftian  cleric & magic user spells. 

Where we take this will depend this week with the players but I'm hoping to plug back into Cha'alt if the players play things correctly. As we've moved up the Cha'alt timeline 

OSR Commentary - Actually DMing A Cha'alt Campaign

 

Now the Carocsa & the 'Cha'alt 'After Dark' blog posts generated some controversy on my table top with folks talking about how both settings are extremely dangerous to PC's. They actually very much are! Would I run either Science Fantasy setting as is?! Oh Hell no! In point of fact if I was going to run Cha'alt ( I will coming up but its a scheduling issue at the moment folks) then I would actually start with Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise. Why?! Because Cha'alt needs to be your OSR setting & not Venger Satanis's! Yup, I absolutely said that & Venger will agree with me here. You need to customize your OSR settings & make them your own. 

How?! Add or subtract what you want in the setting. This is one of the absolute strengths of Carocsa as a sand box setting. You have no idea what's around the corner as a player. Want to run Carcosa as 'Masters of the Universe then go for it. Next time as a primitive Lovecraftian horror fest. Sure, why not?! 
Cha'alt is very different in some respects & that's because its 'Brand Venger' setting & universe to some extent. And I believe it was Rpg Pundit who said, 'A little Venger goes a long way.' And while this is true don't let it intimidate you as a player or DM. The thing about it is that Cha'alt needs to be used and the players are going to do a lot of the heavy lifting for the setting through play. And this goes back to something else that needs to be said. Run the setting with whatever OSR rules system you want or the players want. Personally for this combo I'd pick Warriors of the Red Planet rpg & bring a healthy brew of Swords and Super-Science of Xuhlan to boil. These two together could help really make either OSR Sword & Saucer setting shine. 

If you want this campaign setting to actually work? Then Jason Vey's Age of Conan OD&D hack could smooth out the edges of the campaign. Don't write a damn script. Some simple adventure notes, some ideas, a few encounters, & set the game in the city of A'agrybah, let things go from there! 

1. Let adventure & campaign elements be completely alien and let the players find their own level of play. 
2. Add or subtract adventure elements as needed. 
3. Don't go overboard with OSR books let the hexcrawl work its magic especially with Carcosa. 
4. Its OK sometimes to have 2 dimensional NPC's just go with it. 
5. Sorcerers can be incredibly alien NPC & can be very dangerous let the players find this out. 
6. Run what you want with Cha'alt don't be constrained by the opinions of any author or game designer. 
7. Have fun! None of this is supposed to be super serious business let the play happen. 
8. Carcosa is very dangerous and death is frequent warn players to have back up PC's. 
9. House rule the crap outta of your campaign the way you want. 
10. Its only a game. 

Adventuring in the OSR Lovecraftian Nighmare - Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa & Beyond

 

Its been a while since we kicked the tires on an OSR Saucer & Sandel campaign. The first thing that came to mind was Geffeory McKinney's Carcosa. Why?! Because tonight I came  Killer DM's  "Fighting Styles and Incantations for Carcosa"  Carcosa still remains one of the most polarizing rpg books of the OSR. To tell the truth, the players don't really care about the controversy. But there's been a lot of water under this bridge since this was one of the first real OSR books that came into my hands. But at this point what the Hell would we run Carcosa with?! Honestly it would probably Night Owl Workshop's Warriors of the Red Planet rpg system. 

Sometimes its all about getting back to basics & not worrying about the OSR or the New Wave of Rpg players. The alien shores of Carcosa beckon & at this point it's sorta like returning to a battered alien friend. But this time I'd add in Jason Vey's Age of Conan OD&D rpg hack & supplements. These are absolutely essential in my mind. These go right along next to Realms of Crawling Chaos by Goblinoid Games.  When you need weird & alien technologies, actual relics then this is the book to use. 

There's so much muddy Lovecraftian water under the bridge of the romps across the Carcosaian landcape that many of our players remember Carcosa as a Lovecraftian dumping ground. A sort of hex crawl from the lower depths of some fever crazed nightmare. Many have said that today Carcosa is almost but not quite quant in point of fact. My own experiences with DMing Carcosa & playing in the setting are quite different. 

1. Carcosa is more then the sum of its parts. And depending upon whose DMing the setting can be quite jarring for inexpeienced players. 
2. Sorcerers are going to be your bad guys. And their infamous magicks should be infamous but not something the players need to expeience per say. Hint & inuendo go a long way let the player's mind infer details but never make a player uncomfortable at the table top. 
3. Carcosa is savage & brutal, use this to your advantage as a DM. Encounters should be memorable not but not nesssarily fatal each & everytime. 
4. This is the land of nightmares and there are lots of advantages to uses the lore of Carcosa to your advantage especially for creating dangerous NPC villains. 
5. Not every sorcerer has to be a card carrying evil jerk there are Law aligned sorcerers. 

Mirror, Mirror - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door - Session Report

 Over the weekend we were able to get together & play a round of Night Shift The Veterans of the Supernatural! Things in Bingham have really heated up! 

The PC's got in way over their heads by going into the Morley mansion & finding the Goblyn Glass in the basement. They crossed  over into the dreamlands of  Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door series! And things got much weirder as they found Christopher St.John's 'workshop' along with the magic mirror that dominated the entire basement. The whole mirror radiated with occult  power drawing everything around it! 
The PC this time shot Robert St.John dead & made sure of it! But the guardian of  the Goblyn Glass had them! A giant hairy hand belonging to a Gug reached through & drew them into the glass! 

The The Mirror of Erised photo by  Rob Young from United Kingdom was my player handout stand in for the Goblyn Glass. 

And then the party came face to face with the dungeon of Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door! Things got very weird indeed when it became clear that the party was hip deep in the dream wilderness of  Ultan's Door! They wanted to turn around & go back to Bingham. The mirror wouldn't let them! So now they are face to face with the weirdness of the dreamlands of Ben Laurence. Will they survive the experience?! 

What's really happened is that the PC's have aquired a very special occult key from from Edward Dimond, who wants to see the PC's near the Morley manor. But will it make any difference & can the PC's figure it out in time?! And now a pride  of cats is shadowing the PC's. Now what the PC's don't know?! Agents from the U.S. Army have moved in & claimed the Goblyn Glass! How will they survive?! 

Shot in The Dreams of Others - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door

 So the PC's in this session of the on going hybrid got a chance to do a bit of investigative work around the old inn in Bingham. This session picks right up after the last one . The PC's ran into Christopher St.John & they shot him! They plugged him dead! 
Or did they?! 

Well not exactly.  They plugged instead one of his doppleganger marionette's made from the dead bodies of his victims. You see Christopher St.John is a puppeteer who got is education within the dungeon outlined in Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door series. The players didn't take any chances with the marionette & burnt the remains then their cleric/priest Father Callihoun sprinkled holy water on it & gave it a proper send off. 
The party cornered the smuggler a  very young  Amos Bradford aka The Raven more ammo & weaponry of a particular type just as he was leaving town. They almost got themselves shot but he was more then happy to take their money.  The party ran across a lost child near the Morley manor. And the players were expecting to find a murdered family or some such. They didn't. But they did find a very terrified family outside of their house. They had no idea how they had gotten there & were covered in blood. But whose was it?! 
And that's when the cat's pride showed up. 

A gang of forty cats on sure footed paws showed up & surrounded the party. The magus of the pride cast a sleep spell to put the family out & the cat general incharge of the pride handed the party a note explaining that they needed to take the Donaldson's away from the house now! There's something really dangerous happening besides the machinations of Christopher St.John! The players didn't make their saves & the meows of the cat magus became very tiring to listen to. 

Illustration from  Through Ultan's Door series.

The party got very tired & each one dropped looking at the yellow golden eyes of the cat magus. They awoke in their own beds in the morning each with a battered cat looking at them. They had their equipment, weapons, etc. all with muddy shoes. But no idea how they got there. But who or what did the cats save them from?! 
Under the pillow of Father Callihoun was a letter from Edward Dimond, who wants to see the PC's near the Morley manor. Near the broom close in  the inn where the PC's were staying one of the cats showed Lord Reggie a curious sword that was left behind by Kane when he was staying there. Weird green dried fluid is on the blade.  

Session Report Zero - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door

 So today we've  gotten the chance to put into practice some of the things we've been talking about here for sometime. And this goes back into a whole cloth other direction in today's game session or one shot. Or should I say the Connecticut one shot. In 1919's Connecticut in the little town of  Bingham tucked in the  Northwestern hills the residents  are stumped by the disappearance of twenty people into thin air! What's going on?! In 1785 a young boy fell through a hole in reality & right near the dungeon outlined in Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door. What came back in 1919 isn't even remotely human at all! Christopher St.John is a 13th level  undead puppeteer fully grown & murderous! Christopher is a thirteenth level puppeteer whose trained under some of the monsters of the dungeons of  Through Ultan's Door.

The PC's were called in by the Pilgrim a mysterious immortal figure who wanders New England searching out local urban legends & stories. The Pilgrim  was a fellow of Cotton Mather & a part of the society of intellectuals & people in the know. He's recruited the PC's who are also a part of this society to find out what's happening. And much of the mythology behind this comes straight out of Skirmisher Games The Mythos Society of New England by Clint Staples. 

Clint Staples was a historian & one of the best writers/designers for Skirmisher Games. And I should have took far more advantage of the friendship on social media then I did. Since then several things have become evident. The OSR ruleset that we're using for this are Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey both have many of these same elements within them. Today was a PC workshop to get characters up & running within this campaign. The men & women of this game are people of extraordinary means. We're not sure if this is going to be an on going campaign. We're not sure if we're going to be using Pagan Publishing's 1995 Coming Full Circle. But its on the agenda as a possibility. 

Bingham seems like your typical New England sleepy town or village. Its anything but. The town has ties to the smuggling operations of a very young  Amos Bradford aka The Raven.  The PC's are investigating the Morley manor house that goes back to the Civil War era which is the home of Silvia Dyer one of the social & political lights of Bingham. And the PC's were met by a horror beyond human kin inside the manor! 

A  marionette that had been created from the body of Silvia Dyer one of the town's leading socialites & member of the board that runs the town under the mayor himself. 

This quick mock up campaign uses several things here at once with a large debt to Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg. The unique lay on of the monster/NPC, the crew of NPC's of the town, & several options. We can  add in the Lovecraft mythos as needed or not. Amazing Adventures rpg by Jason Vey from  Troll Lords is on the docket if we need to tap into it. The local Bingham historian is a former New York City Museum of Natural history executive officer in charge of the Cimmerian collection named Robert Howard.  Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane just left Bingham & the PC's heard the riot act about this scandalous Bohemian businessman. Quite the scandal in Bingham. 

High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Law vs Chaos with the Weird

" The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death.
Part Two, Ch. 4"
On the Road (1957) Jack Kerouac

 Now we've talked frequently about the modular nature of the various OSR clones on the market these days. But sometimes its all about going back to the well. There seems to be a variation of the idea that with a certain world the elements of standard Dungeons & Dragons exist. Elves & Dwarves exist & all goes about its business. But dipping back down the well of original Dungeons & Dragons has its place. Sometimes you've got to go back to it. From the introduction to the 1973 original Dungeons & Dragons set; "These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs' Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" 
This blog post is going to pick up right where this one leaves off. 

This is a game of imagination & sometimes you go back to the well so to speak & often times I rely on the weird & infact trust in it. The Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg Referee book has an entire section devoted to the weird tale; "The main thing that separates a Weird Tale from a conventional horror story is the forces completely out of the control of those who encounter them. A thing that cannot be explained, cannot be defeated, cannot be solved. This is easy to do in a story, as the writer can easily manipulate the entire tale in order to serve the purpose of inducing the reader to feel as the writer wishes. In a role-playing game, this is not so simple. Player  charaŎers  must  have  agency.  They cannot be puppets or mere observers to events. The Referee is not telling a story (this must be stressed as often as possible), but presenting an environment and situations within that environment. The story is the summation of what happens during play" 
The weird & the weird tales elements of play frequently seem to bleed over into each other during play. Players can do far more for creating the heavy lifting of the presenting the weird to a campaign then we as dungeon masters can often presents. But with a supernatural game the lines between weird tales Pulp & the occult blurr. They twist with the enviroments of the dread not necessarily horror but the weirdness of dread. 

Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey both have many of these same elements within them. Campaigns using these two might cross paths with the a more conventional old school campaign setting such as the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. Because of the fact that Sword & Sorcery thrives on the very elements that we over the last couple of months on this blog have been concerning ourselves with. While naturalists, sages, & the like concern themselves trying to classify every harpy & monster. The weird simply looks at them & laughs. Why?! Because chaos & entropy are the handmaidens of mutation or worse. You don't need an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual you need to make things weird. The occult tech that we talked about earlier today from ' The Legacy of Lum The Mad & Leuk-O In Greyhawk & The Wilderlands of High Fantasy' is bleeding over into our reality at the very edges. These edges are exploited by others. The wizards, mutants, & cranks from a dozen realities. 

“Treasures are not won by care and forethought but by swift slaying and reckless attack.”
–Michael Moorcock, Elric The Stealer of Souls

At the end of last year we ran through LoFP Black Blade of the Demon King by Ahimsa Kerp, & Wind Lothamer. It was an adventure that taught us a few things, the whole affair was like a Moorcockian fever dream with a combination of Elric mythologies combined with traditional Norse mythology but mixed with something weirder. The upshot was that the Sword & Sorcery adventure elements left quite a few parts & pieces still in play. 

There's so much potential of the world of the supernatural & The Fey colliding with the edges of a campaign reality that frequently get mentioned in supplements like OD&D's Gods, Demi gods, & Heroes by Ward & Kuntz. And this isn't always a good thing & in point of fact is the underlying premise behind the Black Blade of the Demon King! 

If we look into the introduction to Black Blade of the Demon King we get a very clear definitation of the Moorcockian mythology behind the interactions between the alien forces of Law & Chaos with PC's; ". This is not a story about delving for treasure or fighting hordes of monsters, nor is it intended to be a quest for the Black Blade—or at least not really. You see, the Blade is the villain of this story and its powerful ego and dark magic are behind all of the hazards and obstacles that the PCs must overcome in their adventure. It is evil incarnate and will overpower and destroy whomever is unfortunate enough to wield it, just as it has done for time immemorial"

These forces which are behind the masks of Law & Chaos are taking full advantage of the weird. They use it as a sort of cloak to move their own agendas along. And parties that get involved with these forces are at great risk to become involved in far deeper ways then they can even understand. Kevin Hite's Qelong has only a mere shading of this. I know that I'm going to sound like a broken record here. If the two god things of Qelong are warrior gods for Chaos & Law imagine what would happen if they crossed over into our current reality?! 

These forces & others like them draw in adventurers like moths to the flame of opportunity. The party is both acting as both fulcrum & lever for these various alien powers agendas. This is where adventurer's such as Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane & Michael Moorcock's Elric come in. 

High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Original Dungeons & Dragon's The Underground & Wilderness Adventures

 
We should be wondering tonight, "Is there a world?" But I could go and talk on 5, 10, 20 minutes about is there a world, because there is really no world, cause sometimes I'm walkin' on the ground and I see right through the ground. And there is no world. And you'll find out.
"Is There A Beat Generation?" forum at Hunter College, New York, New York (8 November 1958)
Jack Kerouac





Someplace along the lines yesterday or the day before the wilderness started getting to me. This blog post picks right back up after this blog post here. 

The underground & the wilderness surrounds us even in the urban landscape we're not even aware of it 99.9 of the time in my experience. The wilderness & underworld intrudes big time on our universe in ways that we don't expect. And that's the key here. The wildness & the underworld don't wait because they as well as their inhabitants are mythic. There's something deeply mythological in the nature of the wildness & dungeon enviroments. The fear of the unknown & inhuman that as the older one gets that one can feel deep down.

Eric Haddox A composite image of the 2007 Guatemala city sinkhole

The dungeon doesn't wait for you it comes for you, your family, & everything else. Mythic landscapes of the invasive dungeon are as instinctive as our fear of the alien, the other, & the unknown. These fears & point of fact our fears feed these realms.Is there a weird  wilderness planar realm that bleeds into our world on occassion taking humans as food, slaves, or worse?! Blobs of planar weirdness that Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane alludes to & Michael Moorcock's Elric slid into on occassion that PC's might find themselves in becomes a possibility. 

 

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

Stanza 5
Edgar Allan Poe's the Raven. "

Wizard warlords are not going to wait around for the wilderness & the underworld to expand themselves. Instead their going to use the natural buffering of worlds & planes to impose the alien invasive landscape onto our natural reality. And this is something that we see time & again in Sword & Sorcery. When you least expect it then you're suddenly going to find yourself an adventurer regardless of circumstance or more likely because of it. So time & again we see treasure being liberated by parties of adventurers & they sell it there's never any repercussions of this from a wizard, lich, etc.. But their most likely dead or destroyed?! Really?! No doubt it. Most likely that was  double or the party ran away or were they let go?!Think about it, the 'treasure' might in point of fact be spreading the alien landscape & dungeon's influence as it passes from hand to hand. The PC's doing the tyrant's work spreading the plane's alieness as it goes. 
Suddenly an entire neighborhood find itself engulfed in the  alien chaos of the Fey's world. The familiar finds itself face to face with the unknown & the horror of it quickly escalates. 

"The Cave of Spleen", illustration by Aubrey Beardsley for The Rape of the Lock (1896) by Alexander Pope

Suddenly a neighborhood convience store is engulfed in chaos only to be swept away by monsters & demons from some Hell of the unknown. The central idea that the Bakshi & Bourroughs realms are off over there someplace runs counter productive to the ideas put forth in the original Dungeons & Dragons games in a way. Let me bring this back to Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey.

The PC's are at the edges of reality dealing with these incursions of the reality of the forces of the unknown. Perhaps the million spheres are actually aspects of this unreality that occasionally allows horrors into this Earth. Time & again we keep coming back around to the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg. Not so much because of the adventures or the rpg itself but the adventure design philosphy of James  R. Raggy the third within the game. Monsters being unique, the dungeon as incredibly dangerous weirdness waiting to spring upon the PC's, and more. These philosphies are as important to me about LoFP as the actual rpg is itself. 


Would the mythic underground realms actually wait for the PC's to find them like a predator waiting to strike its prey. Or would the dungeon or wilderness barrel into the PC's because of its own machinations?! 
Why does Jack Kerouac keep getting qouted?! Because there was an HP Lovecraft Beat generation pastche that was written by Nick Matmas called 'Move Underground'.  And while it was solidly done the ideas put forth in the book really hit home for use with the Wilderness & Unworld OD&D book. 


 And I'd read it when LoFP's Carcosa came out. This became the basis for a very long running campaign which is where the High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure label comes from. And one where Venger Satanis's Cha'alt books have played havoc with colliding campaign realities. 
For what's going on in this campaign setting, LoFP's No Salvation for Witches By Rafael Chandler demon generators might be on tap. 

The idea of the wilderness & the underworld isn't simply the sum of its parts. Its a dangerous predator waiting to spring on the party of adventurers. 

High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Lamentations of the Flame Princess

 

"I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Ecstacy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass."

The Dharma Bums (1958) By Jack Kerouac

There isn't a day that goes by in life when social media absolutely drives me insane. The sameness of it all cuts like a knife through a man's soul. So when I've been away from it for a day or so its like break fromthe hollow desert of an empty echoing chamber. So let's pick it up again from this blog entry here. 
 And that brings us to thoughts of a wilderness that lays just beyond the substance of the imagination of reality  in the for now & the yet to be. Over the years there's been this campaign & setting that's been aching to get out of my head.  Someplace between the Phantasm films, hard core Sword & Sorcery, bits of the CW's Supernatural, & original Dungeons & Dragons or perhaps B/X D&D. Somplace between a modern supernatural horror game & full on Sword & Sorcery.  Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane keeps prowling the edges of dreams & nightmares. If Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane is the anti champion of the Balance then perhaps he looked upon his Earth & things went down hill from here. Did the gods & supernatural monsters really ever really leave Earth? Or are they still here? 
Is there a weird  wilderness planar realm that bleeds into our world on occassion taking humans as food, slaves, or worse?! Blobs of planar weirdness that Kane alludes to & Elric slid into on occassion that PC's might find themselves in becomes a possibility. 

Now talking with DM Rick & Steve we spoke at length about the Bakshi Burroughs realms. How PC's crossing over into these demi planes may pick up mutations or worse from their stay. And how wizard warlords often use Chaos  magics to make mutates or mutants as shock troops or guards. 

What happens when your average PC & party from say a modern world of the '00's finds himself face to face with a mutant warrior group from Bakshi's Wizards only to find out that its not a come on. And then finds themselves saved by a Robin hood style fighter whose party has been hustling out in this realm for ages. We got glimpses of this in the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon episodes 'The Time Lost' episode 23  from season three in 1985 & the 'Lost Children'  episode 12 Season one in 1983. 

Let me bring this back to Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey. The Age of Conan sorcerer rules are fierce & very dangerous. They give black sorcerers teeth, & have almost all of the usual Lovecraft along with Conan monsters &  demons of the Outer Darkness to them. If you were paying attention to yesterday's blog entry on Mars. Then you know that the gods of Law & Chaos from Michael Moorcock's eternal champion mythos wear different masks depending upon the reality of the Million spheres. And perhaps the million spheres are actually aspects of this unreality that occasionally allows horrors into this Earth. 

This brings to mind many of the abominations, freaks, & horrors that seem to prevade Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures. The idea of one off horrors that could be randomly created due to the weird radiations of Law & Chaos are very appealing. But also the idea of many of Lamentations of the Flame Princess's dungeon & adventure design philosphy might also apply here. 

A mix of the normal Dungeons & Dragons monsters as well as the occasional mutated one off that has some special tie to with regards to the adventure or location. These are all elements that are still being toyed with at the moment. 

Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, & Karl Edgar Wagner - Age of Conan & Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey

  Yesterday was one of those days where you find yourself stuck in a waiting room of a garage. This happened to be in my home town which meant 2 hours or so of garage back & forth for car parts. So grabbing the first printed out pdf from the stack. And in this case it was a print out of two classic OD&D resources Grey Elf' (Jason Vey)'s Age of Conan II: Secrets of Acheron,a sourcebook for sorcerers and sorcery in the Hyborian Age & Age of Conan III: Secrets of the Black Circle, a further sourcebook for Hyborian Age campaigns. Now all of this back slots into Jason Vey's Age of Conan original Dungeons & Dragons rpg hack. 

Several things jumped out at my attention immediately  in  Age of Conan III: Secrets of the Black Circle, the use of fate points was very fimilar. These are points that are used in the O.R.G.E. system of Night Shift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars rpg. Could the sorcerer & black wizard magick systems in Age of Conan be applied in Night Shift?! 

Who cares?! Well lets go backward for a moment, the Age of Conan sorcerer rules are fierce & very dangerous. They give black sorcerers teeth, & have almost all of the usual Lovecraft along with Conan monsters &  demons of the Outer Darkness to them. If you were paying attention to yesterday's blog entry on Mars. Then you know that the gods of Law & Chaos from Michael Moorcock's eternal champion mythos wear different masks depending upon the reality of the Million spheres. But what if there was another mythology that was done by one of the other titans of modern dark fantasy that joined into both the Robert E. Howard stories & Michael Moorcock's stories. 
Yes I'm talking about Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane here & last night reading through The Midnight Sun: The Complete Stories of Kane several things stuck in my brain. Kane is the one who created his world's apocalpyse & shares many of the darkest characteristics of Elric. Kane is in many ways far worse then Elric. Kane rips across his world causing mayhem, horror, & insanity in his wake even as he tries to make the world better?! 

In the past with my uncle we ran through his Stormbringer rpg Kane appeared as a major NPC. And we as a party of adventurers worked for (we really didn't have any choice), under,& finally fled from this Gothic antihero. On the East of Eden Karl Edgar Wagner fan site there was a very interesting little tid bit:'Gothic Touches in The Gothic Touch   The first Karl Edward Wagner story I ever read was The Gothic Touch. This was a crossover between Wagner's anti-hero Kane and Michael Moorcock's iconic albino, Elric of Melnibone, which appeared in an anthology of Elric stories called Tales of the White Wolf. At the time that I read it, I knew very little about Kane, Wagner, or the Gothic Novels of the eighteenth century. All that would soon change.

Like many people who hadn't actually read the Kane books, I assumed he was just another Conan knock-off. The Frank Frazetta covers of the Warner paperbacks did a lot to further this image, showing the usual sword & sorcery images of a big guy in armor fighting demons or just standing there looking dangerous. Reportedly, Wagner wasn't completely pleased with Frazetta's vision of Kane, but a Frazetta cover certainly didn't hurt sales in the mid 1970s.

As I began to track down and read the Kane stories though, I soon learned that Kane not only wasn't a Conan clone, he wasn't even a barbarian. He was instead, a staggeringly well read and intelligent man who had traveled his world for centuries and was able to discuss music, poetry, politics, and any number of subjects. He was also a born killer and completely amoral. He was, in fact, the biblical Cain, an immortal who must walk the world until slain by violence. And Kane is darn hard to slay.

In his essay, The Once and Future Kane, Karl Edward Wagner discusses the origins of his character. While Wagner admits to admiring and being somewhat influenced by the works of Conan's creator Robert E. Howard, he gives his primary influence as the Gothic Novels of the 1700s." 

Kane has in several of his stories gone after & killed immortals, gods, & others in his eternal game with his mad version of the Almighty. Which begs the question, 'If Kane is still out in the multiverse & playing his own game against the powers of Chaos & Law what could the fall out be?!' Imagine for a moment that the Cults of Chaos or Law  are operating on a modern Earth ala CHAOS CULTS OF THE YOUNG KINGDOMS BY CHARLES GREEN. Kane isn't going to stand the competition in any arena. And this makes the immortal incredibly dangerous. 

But your crew of Gothic themed defenders of mankind come up against the machinations of Kane. What would a crew of immortals do against Kane whose agendas often seem to wreck entire countries or empires. Neulow Games Secrets of the Immortals could easily be converted over to Nightshift.Giving a possible organization that could potentially have Kane in its sights.

 

 Vampires, immortals, gods, oh yes Kane's killed all them& more besides . But it seems that the black sorcerers of Age of Conan present a real target & challenge. Kane the immortal represents a very dangerous antagonist & possibly an anti champion of both Law & Chaos. Kane might even be the dark champion of the Balance. 

Would this set up work as an OSR supernatural thriller & horror game with a Sword & Sorcery spin?! Very possibly & we're talking with DM Steve & DM Ricky right now.