Dead Gods - Algernon Henry Blackwood & Goodman Games Original Adventures Reincarnated series 2 The Isle of Dread"

From the title  you would think that I was speaking of good old HP Lovcraft & in that regard you'd be dead wrong. No instead I'm going to point in the direction of a writer of weird fiction that many don't even know today. I'm speaking of Algernon Henry Blackwood the British Writer weird fiction  of no little repute; Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 – 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's."^[1] and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".

So what does Algernon Henry Blackwood  have to do with Goodman Games  Original Adventures Reincarnated series 2 The Isle of Dread? Well quite a bit you see he was a contemporary of Arthur Machen another favorite Appendix N author of mine but his influence as an author stretches much further; "Authors who have been influenced by Blackwood's work include William Hope Hodgson,^[12] George Allan England,^[13] H. P. Lovecraft, H. Russell Wakefield,^[14] "L. Adams Beck" (Elizabeth Louisa Moresby),^[15] Margery Lawrence,^[16] Evangeline Walton,^[17] Ramsey Campbell ^[18] and Graham Joyce."
"H. P. Lovecraft included Blackwood as one of the "Modern Masters" in the section of that name in "Supernatural Horror in Literature"" "His two best-known stories are probably "The Willows" and "The Wendigo"." His use of nature as a gateway into the world of the Other & the older supernatural  races of the Earth is a theme that would have a major influence on HP Lovecraft & other

"Goodman Games  Original Adventures Reincarnated series 2 The Isle of Dread" features the titiular isle of the original adventure module. We know that there are a great many ancient  legacy's  & lost factions on the isle but its another angle that we'll connect up with the writings of both HP Lovecraft & the Lovecraft circle. What if I was tell you that the isle of Dread was once a very important part of the Robert Howard's Serpent People & will be again?



B6 'The Veiled Society' takes place in the same world of Mystara as X1 The Isle of Dread. The fact is that the island was once a part of a world spanning empire ruled by the serpent men. 
The island became a battle field for the ancient enemies of the serpent men but the hidden temple inhabited by monstrous, mind-bending creatures known as kopru hints at things. Things that reveal the terrible enemies of the serpent men the kopru. Algernon Henry Blackwood  hints at the fact that just beyond the glossy cover  of the wildness there is a teeming world  of supernatural & occult horror. Flipping back to the reptile cult from Tomb of the Lizard King is the fact that the Lizard Kings were the royal servants & vassal class of the serpent men. This comes from the fact that the serpent men once ruled the Lizard coast of Hyperborea. Again this is something that we see X6 'Quagmire'.

Because of the local issues with the local time space continuum we see a lot of issues with the isle of Dread. This makes me wonder if a super weapon or final solution of genocidal proportions was used. The the terrible enemies of the serpent men the kopru seemed to have backed the serpent men into a corner. This all takes place in the far future of Earth thousands of years down the road. This is where   N1: "Against the Cult of the Reptile God" (1982) can be used to build up both the first module & this mini campaign by turning adventure elements onto themselves. 
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg campaign setting capital is built upon the bones of the serpent people figuratively & literally. 

The aim to move the world of the far future much closer to the world that the serpent people  had left behind. There is little doubt in my mind that the PC's are going to be able to handle the full story of the extent of the serpent people's infiltration. Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique is another front in the Hyperborean war. But what we're not clear on is where either Zothique or Hyperborea is within such a timeline of future history. What we can be certain is that Ragnarok has happened & a great many of our conventional gods of mythology are dead in AS&SH. Did these events open doors that should have been closed right from the beginning of time itself? Possibly but what you really have happening is the appearance of the isle of dread & its appearance scares the hell out of both the serpent men & the gods. The fact that it touches the plane of Water, Hyperborea, & Zothique shocks & terrifies the gods. There are a great many rotting but still unliving carcasses in the waters surround the isle & in the oceans of Zothique. When & how is unimportant but the fact that there there signals the beginning of the end for the contemporary gods.  Who & why we'll get into tomorrow. 

Pirate & Play The Secret Origin Of The Skull Faced Formorians - Amazing Adventures Game Session Report

"A band of blood thirsty villains has been raiding a variety of worlds & our heroes have stumbled across one of their auctions. The heroes have managed to sneak aboard one of the blood thirsty pirates ships. Will they free the slaves?! Or die in the attempt!?"

My player's PC's have run run afoul of 'Skulled Faced Formorian' pirates (in terms of Castles & Crusades these are Hill Giants with superior intelligence) who were slave trading on Ricca. Ricca is a technological trade zone & full on black market port where anything goes.
One of the PC's got trapped on board the pirates tanker sub & had to fight & sealth his way out after letting loose a chaos slime that the pirates had on board. The pirates had let the slime into the duck works trying to kill our hero.

 'Skulled Faced Formorian' pirate's sub tanker based on this issues cover of Popular Mechanics Magazine - December 1958'


Skulled Faced Formorian' pirates are out & out worshipers of chaos. They would love nothing better then to see our heroes roasted on a spit at this point. Already our heroes had been busy sabotaging the sub at various points & one PC had snuck into a 'battle bridge' control room. Then they began messing with the submarine at various points such as causing as much mayhem as possible aboard ship. The pirates realized what was happening but over the course of a few games the PC's managed to make things very nasty for the pirates. Our hero fought his way off ship after managing to tag & tie the pirates system in knots The PC's towed the sub out of the black market harbor but then another sub showed up to pick the pirates as the PC's freed the slaves. But things are not at all as they seem.

'Skulled Faced Formorian' pirates are straight up Hill Giants out of Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure given a few 'extras' from the Amazing Adventures Book of Powers. 
There's someone very dangerous behind these tribes of Formorians & they're not showing their hand. These mad bastards have been raiding a variety of my campaign worlds for quite some time. This tribe of them has been taken on by some invisible hand going back ten or so years. They are mad & twisted Hill Giants with a lethal cunning & a taste for human flesh.


The Fomorians, as depicted by John Duncan (1912)

They have a taste for twisted technologies & occult technologies as well. They've been known to trade their own children for such items & some of their folks are comely. This allows these pirates to place family in a variety of locations & worlds allowing their operatives & agents to observe potential targets.
There are several monsters that will be coming out of The Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters for next week! Stay tuned fellow adventurers!
A brand new sub has arrived! And our heroes are being observed by a lone figure hovering above the horizon! 

A Very Different & Dangerous Occult Ecology For The Will O The Wisps From Dungeons & Dragons

'Tis said these blossom-lanterns light
The elves upon their midnight-way;
That fairy toil and elfin play
Receive their beams of magic white.

I marvel not if it be true;
I know this flower has lighted me
Nearer to Beauty's mystery,
And past the veils of secrets new.
Fairy Lanterns  (1912) 
by Clark Ashton Smith


"Tru looked down at the swamp around her feet as she fled through the undergrowth. That was not Dar her brother at all. She still stung from the strange burns on her arm but she was trying to find the game path that her family used since she was a girl. The glow was following a leasurely pace sure of its quarry. She made the path & was about to break when she saw the smaller creature's glow off to the side of the path. It was a miniature of the young halfing trader she'd met at the trade fair. Tru didn't have time to speak as the sound of an electrical discharge echoed off of the bark of the trees around her. They were silent witnesses to the look of utter shock on her face as she fell to the ground with a crash of surprise & shock. She barely registered the small shapes already gathering from the swamp to drag  her corpse back into the muck & mire. She only wanted the fairy gold to help her family's farm. But it was far too late now. The corpse candle glow of the Wisps came in low over the corpse to feed as the boggarts disappeared in quick flashes of light & Fey sparks. "


The will-o'-wisp have been in my games since my very first brown box of original Dungeons & Dragons. But my version of these classic monsters differs from the traditional monster because it straddles the line between mythological fairy monster & the classic horror from the 1st edition AD&D Monster Manual. Why? Because will-o'-wisps are manufactured monsters & universally reviled the world over.  The will-o'-wisp is a monster that guards fairy gold & is created from a copy of  the  electrical brain activity of a dead or dying person. These monsters creation is done by a Fairy necromancer spirit that finds the decaying brain matter of a corpse. A sixth level spell is then used to draw a negative material copy of the human or near human essence into an alien immature boggart vessel. These creatures are often used to guard ancient vaults or lost caches of fairy gold. Through out Europe & the Americas these monsters have been universally used by the alien powers of the Fey.  


"Danes, Finns, Swedes, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Irish people and amongst some other groups believed that a will-o'-the-wisp also marked the location of a treasure deep in ground or water, which could be taken only when the fire was there. "




Many believe that Boggarts are the immature forms of Will - O'- the - wisps, that these monsters are actually undead souls who have taken on the shape shifting powers of Fairyland. These monster's immature form is an energy being know as a boggart. Boggarts can take on various forms these  include a small halfling, young gnome, a goblin imp, young xvart, or norker neut. The reality is that these's beings forms are held together with a patterned charge of negative planar electricity.

These creatures will advance along their ranks until they ascend into the higher dimensional state known as the Will o wisp. There are numerous legends about these dangerous chaotic beings in Europe; 

"The will-o'-the-wisp can be found in numerous folk tales around the United Kingdom, and is often a malicious character in the stories. In Welsh folklore, it is said that the light is "fairy fire" held in the hand of a púca, or pwca, a small goblin-like fairy that mischievously leads lone travellers off the beaten path at night. As the traveller follows the púca through the marsh or bog, the fire is extinguished, leaving them lost. The púca is said to be one of the Tylwyth Teg, or fairy family. In Wales the light predicts a funeral that will take place soon in the locality. Wirt Sikes in his book British Goblins mentions the following Welsh tale about púca.

A peasant travelling home at dusk sees a bright light traveling along ahead of him. Looking closer, he sees that the light is a lantern held by a "dusky little figure", which he follows for several miles. All of a sudden he finds himself standing on the edge of a vast chasm with a roaring torrent of water rushing below him. At that precise moment the lantern-carrier leaps across the gap, lifts the light high over its head, lets out a malicious laugh and blows out the light, leaving the poor peasant a long way from home, standing in pitch darkness at the edge of a precipice. This is a fairly common cautionary tale concerning the phenomenon; however, the ignis fatuus was not always considered dangerous. There are some tales told about the will-o'-the-wisp being guardians of treasure, much like the Irish leprechaun leading those brave enough to follow them to sure riches. Other stories tell of travelers getting lost in the woodland and coming upon a will-o'-the-wisp, and depending on how they treated the will-o'-the-wisp, the spirit would either get them lost further in the woods or guide them out.

Also related, the Pixy-light from Devon and Cornwall is most often associated with the Pixie who often has "pixie-led" travellers away from the safe and reliable route and into the bogs with glowing lights. "Like Poltergeist they can generate uncanny sounds. They were less serious than their German Weisse Frauen kin, frequently blowing out candles on unsuspecting courting couples or producing obscene kissing sounds, which were always misinterpreted by parents."^[19] Pixy-Light was also associated with "lambent light"^[20] which the Old Norse might have seen guarding their tombs. In Cornish folklore, Pixy-Light also has associations with the Colt pixie. "A colt pixie is a pixie that has taken the shape of a horse and enjoys playing tricks such as neighing at the other horses to lead them astray".^[21][22] In Guernsey, the light is known as the faeu boulanger (rolling fire), and is believed to be a lost soul. On being confronted with the spectre, tradition prescribes two remedies. The first is to turn one's cap or coat inside out. This has the effect of stopping the faeu boulanger in its tracks. The other solution is to stick a knife into the ground, blade up. The faeu, in an attempt to kill itself, will attack the blade"
What  the faeu boulanger (rolling fire) is actually doing is grounding itself out on the knife blade. The blade acts as a sort of occult lightning rod retaining the electrical 'finger print' of the last person who held the blade. 

The Asian varieties & subspecies of  Will - O'- the - wisps can be downright lethal in their own right. Only experienced occultists & black magicians should have any truck with these creatures;

"Aleya (or marsh ghost-light) is the name given to a strange light phenomena occurring over the marshes as observed by Bengalis, especially the fishermen of West Bengal and Bangladesh. This marsh light is attributed to some kind of marsh gas apparitions that confuse fishermen, make them lose their bearings, and may even lead to drowning if one decided to follow them moving over the marshes. Local communities in the region believe that these strange hovering marsh-lights are in fact Ghost-lights representing the ghosts of fisherman who died fishing. Sometimes they confuse the fishermen, and sometimes they help them avoid future dangers.

Chir batti (ghost-light), also spelled chhir batti or cheer batti, is a strange dancing light phenomenon occurring on dark nights reported from the Banni grasslands, its seasonal marshy wetlands^[14] and the adjoining desert of the marshy salt flats of the Rann of Kutch^[15] near Indo-Pakistani border in Kutch district, Gujarat State, India. Local villagers have been seeing these sometimes hovering, sometimes flying balls of lights since time immemorial and call it Chir Batti in their Kutchhi–Sindhi language, with Chir meaning ghost and Batti meaning light.^[14]

Similar phenomena are described in Japanese folklore, including Hitodama (literally "Human Soul" as a ball of energy), Hi no Tama (Ball of Flame), Aburagae, Koemonbi, Ushionibi, etc. All these phenomena are described as balls of flame or light, at times associated with graveyards, but occurring across Japan as a whole in a wide variety of situations and locations. Kitsune, mythical yokai demons, are also associated with will 'o the wisp, with the marriage of two kitsune producing kitsune-bi (狐火), literally meaning 'fox-fire'.^[16] These phenomena are described in Shigeru Mizuki's 1985 book Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms (妖怪伝 in Japanese)" 

Care should be taken when dealing with these variety as they have been known to congregate around entrances to the underworld & other vary dangerous Hell planes.


It has been suspected that there are deep occult ties between  a game called "Troy Town" (the last of which is a reference to actual practices involving labyrinths or labyrinthine dances & Arthur Machen's 'The White People' with Will O The Wisps.
These alien monsters fit into the weird alien mind other worldly landscape of the White People & may be further evidence of the deadliness of some occult & supernatural aspects of the weird space time of Fairyland.



The alien other planar landscape of places that Will O The Wisps create around them maybe part of the break down of space time caused by their mere presence. Certain black wizards & occultists have from time to time paid hags & Annis to create Will O The Wisps for them with human soul electrical essences. These Will O The Wisps will over time create naturally occurring chaos laced entrances to some of the darkest & most dangerous areas of Fairyland or the other realms. Often this is for the guarding of some forbidden treasure or occult dungeon  temple in the area.



Because of the vary dubious  nature of the hags its been implied that these realms border the most dangerous places of  The Dreamlands . Further speculation is best left to the experts & adventurers are advised to bring qualified priests & clerics with them to thwart the black efforts of both  Will O The Wisps & their hag allies. 

During the far futures cycles it is known that when the Fey return that there will a vast population explosion of Will O The Wisps & the boggarts around the former cities of man. These monsters mark the points to the ruins that contain the most desirable & important relics of the former species known as mankind. There is some evidence that the "Aklo letters" known to occultists & black wizards allow communication with both Will O The Wisps &  colours out of space indicating that there may be an electrical component to both species. What is known that both species give each other a wide berth & will not impinge on the territories of the other. Extreme caution should be taken by adventurers when dealing with either species.  

1. There are connections between Will O The Wisps & the elemental eye cults across the planes. 
2. Monster Summoning rituals can serve to throw wisps into states of extreme violence & feeding frenzies 
3. Warzones near swamps often attract vast numbers of wisps to the dying & wounded on certain historically significant battle fields. 
4. Wisps are known to attend very powerful Elven black wizards as both familiars & bodyguards. 
5. Swamp labyrinths created to house powerful fairy treasures should be avoided as they will have a network of Will O The Wisps & boggart attendants. 
6. Cults of Chaos often attract wisps through their unhealthy sacrifices & practices of bloodshed. Corpse candles often are summoned during certain ceremonies & should be avoided by adventurers. 
7. Powerful artifacts from fairyland often attract wisps & can summon them when needed. 
8. Will O The Wisps will attract themselves to certain graveyards & places of occult power because of their connection to negative planar energies. 
9. Entrances to the Abyss,  often have several wisp guardians who wait to feed on adventurers. 
10. Wisps are often attached to swamps & marshland associated with the powers of Chaos & depravity. 

The Darkest Magic Play Session Report - The Use & Abuse of Mayfair Games Role Aids Arch Magic Box Set

We've gone from doing campaign notes to a quick update on Steve's AD&D/BX/OSR game latest play session report! So I've been getting it right in the neck. Steve's game ended with Apocalypse right now because of yesterday's blog entry.

Mostly  because I've been using a variety of old school sources & combining them with OSR resources to create the type of super hero & pulp campaign that my players have wanted.   Now my original campaign notes are a B/X & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hybrid which had its roots in deep mythology with some classic modules as backdrop. I've been using Mayfair games Role Aids to help with some of the heavy DM lifting & lets continue to look at the Archmagic box set which delves into some of the blackest of magics.Going all the way back into Ninety Three the Archmagic box by

Daniel Gelon, Julian Jackson, Mike Nystul, & Doug Tabb

set didn't seem like it was going to set the AD&D world on fire & it wasn't supposed to. The box set was supposed to fill in a very specialized niche of the fantasy gaming hobby. And it did; "Adds high-powered spells and items to any fantasy campaign, but is "presented for use with ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS".

Rules for Archmages, Artifacts, Grimoires and Archmagics are presented.

Includes an adventure utilizing the rules within. Also includes maps of various mystic places and props depicting various powerful items.

Contains:

64 page rulebook
32 page adventure
48 page map book
12 loose single-sided sheets of props"

Now the thing about this box set is that it ports right into the Demons line of Mayfair products in a reverse screw sort of campaign adventure way. Now I've already heard the teeth gnashing from Steve my friend about there being no conversions for Archmagic into the Original Dungeons & Dragons rules set. The Vaults of Pandius site came through an Archmagic to  OD&D  conversion by Scott Moore. 

This means that about 90 percent of the box set of materials will work with the Godbound rpg by Kevin Crawford. For Troll Lord Games Castles & Crusades or Amazing Adventures! Rpg we'll be using the system straight on!
One of the reasons is for their to be Arch magicians guarding reality & dealing with the problem of necromancers & black wizards from beyond. Another is that arch mages are often the fulcrum in comics between the 'gods' & various super heroes as well as adventurers. They recruit local talent & parties of adventurers  to take on Herculean tasks. This is the whole cloth premise of Marvel's Seventies comic book group  the Defenders! Who often seem to act more like adventurers at the table top then some of the polished fantasy novels I've read.




Now I've already talked about the rise of the Primordial dragons yesterday but one of the things that Arch magic box set brought to the table was the ability of very high level magicians to create planes themselves. As my buddy Steve said this is a show of  'local talent' on the part of the arch mages & directly under the purview of the gods. This is sort of like  when Marvel's High Evolutionary went mad; after the Beyonders looked at his version of  Earth  & put it on display in one of their museums.  This was an example of local talent for Marvel's 616 universe.
This brings me to Chessboards By Dave Howell for the Primal Order cap system which is their book on planes. That's a bit simplified. The Planes book covers ;"covers such topics as the various types of planes and their relationships, planar growth cycles, ways to planes, and several varieties of interplanar travel.For those using The Primal Order, it also includes expanded guidelines on planar use primal energy, planar artifacts, and advanced interactions between planes and deities. Five samples metaplanes provide inspiration and illustrate important concepts. Usable with any roleplaying system, this reference work will give GMs the tools they need to create exciting new planes, run multiple settings in one campaign, or link several campaigns into one logically organized multiverse."


Much of what's in Planes bares a striking resemblance to some of the material in the Godbound rpg fannon & rpg resources. So its very interesting seeing the parallel design work across the table on this material. 
This all ties into me inheriting my co dungeon master Steve's game where the PC's have just taken an artifact of Luz back to their Earth! Things are quickly going to Hell quite literally. The dragons have awoken. The party has now got a major succubus from the Amazing Adventures! rpg Manual of Monsters on their behinds! Steve read yesterdays notes & played out the ideas there as an actual game.
Now I've got to pull two of my best friends in to help me co dungeon master my way outta this! So stay tuned! 


Its all pretty glorious! Thanks for reading & we've got more coming up! 

OSR Campaign Preparation Dragons & Divinities - The Rise of The Primordial Dragons

"A collection of powerful minions, monsters, and other entities. Divine servants to intercede between your PCs and their distant deities, mighty beasts to defy even your strongest party, or just a few fascinating creatures for your adventurers to glimpse and wonder about."

Once upon a time I traveled fifty miles to one of my best friend's house to buy a copy of The Primal Order's book Pawns. These creatures are the ones that I pull out when I want to shake up a campaign. But its been a long time since I've cracked open The Primal Order's Pawns book but then again its been a long time since players have challenged me this much. The biggest bugaboo has been trying to get players on board with a Thursday or Friday evening game.
The fact of the matter is that when your taking a variety of player personality types things can get very interesting very fast. I've been thinking about doing something very different for a long time now. Role Aids product line  from Mayfair games has been sitting on my shelves & now these books need to be used right along with The Primal Order Pawns book  by Nigel Findley. 



I've been toying with the ideas of using the Primorial dragons mythology & background for my campaign world. This mythology fits in with some of the draconic ideas presented in  the Teratic Tome by Rafael Chandler .
These are campaign leveling dragons and not your run of the mill wyrms but monsters capable of burning down Heaven itself. Many of these monsters are world enders  one of the reasons that you'll see the Teratic Tome mentioned in conjunction with high level divine campaigns.
So why do this?! I've been toying with using Luz for a while as an actual force of evil on the planes organizing chaos & sewing strife across the universe. His back alley cults have been hatching plans to awaken the dragon's nests across the Earth. He has knowledge of these through his maternal (by adoption)  grandmother  Baba Yaga,



These are not times to simply back down on heroes. The world really needs demi god heroes to step out of the shadows! But can it happen? That's going to depend upon if and when I can arrange for my players schedules to jive. Meanwhile I continue to pull out my campaign notes & the rise of certain mummy led cults of Orcus deep in the wastelands of the Empty Quarter. And what is it about those black eyed children who keep muttering the ram headed lord's praises on the fringes of society?




All of this comes from the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters & what  the effects that the rise of the Primordial dragons are having on the rest of the Earth's dragons?! What does the stirring of ancient evil have on Earth's heroes? Are they even noticing the increasing horrors around them?

Next I'm dusting off the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition  Fiend Folio for some of more dangerous & aggressive monsters to throw into the mix coming up! We'll get into those coming up! 

Cosmic Calamity, Ultra Weird Violence, & The Return of the Gonzo OSR Dungeon

So I'm not sure when this happened exactly but apparently the stars aligned in a cosmic OSR display again as three things quietly happened at the same time this past week. The first of which is the fact that James Mishler has quietly been building his own gonzo campaign setting based on the Labyrinth Lord retro clone system; 

"This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to building a library of races, classes, spells, magic items, technological devices, and various charts and tables dedicated to building and exploring a new LABYRINTH LORD campaign setting – LEGENDARIA."

This isn't Mishler's first time dealing with these elements within his table top system but its the first time I'm seeing this

I'm no stranger to the gonzo  style of gaming as any reader of this blog knows. The fact is that there are other indications that this style of Gonzo dungeon crawling. Venger Satanis has his latest Kickstarter out which seems to be another gonzo post apocalpytic Dungeons & Dragons fusion setting;

"The world of Cha'alt started as a fairly typical medieval land with elves, dwarves, snake-men, clerics, and magic-users; steeped in superstition along with antediluvian traditions, before the Old Gods went mad.  

Three-thousand years passed. The surface dwellers split from the malevolent creatures who slithered below. Those who remained on the surface lost the understanding of magic, but their civilization became a highly developed, technological empire of domed cities welcoming interstellar travelers, their massive starships hovering high above in blue skies.

But in the deep crevasses of the world, a power older than time stirred from its deathless slumber. The Ancient Gods, long forgot, had not died but continued to dream... growing chaotic and full of darkness.  And those living underground hastened the Old Ones' rising because they yearned to reclaim Cha'alt for themselves.

When the Great Old Ones awakened, they were angered by the lack of worship, sacrifices, or even casual acknowledgement that they had fashioned the world and all life upon it. 

Soon enough, Cha'alt was all but destroyed by those vengeful Gods, jealous of their creations' achievements and bitter that they had been forgotten.  Civilization in ruins, the surface-dwellers of Cha'alt turned to barbarism as sorcery reappeared, dragons appeared in the now-magenta sky, and demons took hold once more.

Cha'alt is a mysterious world where you're likely to encounter mutant bikers with laser rifles, tentacled sandworms in the deep desert, tribal warfare as blood-splotched shamans ululate at the crimson rock, and alien pirates on anti-grav skiffs looking to steal relics of a bygone age."

The more I read about this adventure setting the more it reminds me of a trend that I've seen in the past & Venger's always been about bending & molding his campaign settings into his own. I totally get that & understand the 'hows' & 'whys' of the author's desires & gaming adventure goals.

But today has been one of those days when I was sitting down with two of my friends & speaking about the growing desire to get back to playing in this style of campaign play with traditional original Dungeons & Dragons adventurers. This isn't rocket science, you simply take a set of old school D&D or retroclone rules & go play. But the fact is that as a dungeon master there's an odd mis balance that has to be achieved with players. Its not simply enough to throw player's PC's on to some far flung corner of the planes.

For me the gonzo OSR dungeon goes all the way back to 2011 with the Black Ziggurat project from the Planet Algol blog. Man, I miss the Planet Algol blog there were so many cool OSR ideas that came from that blog & Blair's twisted mind. Even the Wyrmspittle setting had its own Black Ziggurat dungeon from the Hereticworks folks. 

Before my complete party wipe in my recent Mars 9889 setting I was planning on introducing my own version of the Ebonite Ziggurat which lies deep within the Martian badlands. The structure was part of the launching facility of the invaders to the Earth in 1898.  We don't know that much about the structure at all. The superstitious Red Martians avoid the structure  like the plague & there are rumors that strange lights have been seen at night when Phobos crosses the sky.

 If the rumors are to be believed then the structure may be related to the 'Originators' the insect race that terraformed  & engineered the original life forms of Mars. Transcosmic radiation has been detected on the areas surrounding the structure & many psychics as well as mentalists will black out when trying to penetrate the deeper aural levels of reality that surround the Ebonite Ziggurat. There is a vast sea of bones & shattered skulls that surround the red sands of the ziggurat all of which have varying degrees of violence about them. The ziggurat itself gives off strange sub etheric vibrations that cause any who sleep within a 3 mile radius of it terrible dreams.Main canal routes are very ancient around the structure & no modern ones connect with it. The local kilt wearing Red Martian tribes have many strange legends surround it but it is considered taboo by most right thinking people. The ziggurat borders the small human nation state of  Igarth & one of its Martian post colony neighbor nations. Both societies avoid any mention of the place but certain tribes of savage Green Martians use the lands surround it for 'rites of passage' for their young. There have been sparks of violence between Greys & the Green Martians over the ziggurat lands & court yards. Strange alien monsters have been seen destroying any interlopers who come to close to the buildings of the ziggurat & its structures. Few Martians will speak of the rumors of underground structures & the connections to the Martian invaders cities that surround the Ebonite Ziggurat. There are the remains of hundreds of different sky ships & space craft around the place some wreckage has been found from as  far away as Calidar. But once again these are merely rumors & could be considered the stuff of adventurers whose tongues wag from the strange strong Martian drink that they seem to consume in the space taverns of Igarth.

So not only have I began to notice gonzo dungeons entering back into the OSR consciousness but locally a friend is taking about running Faster Monkey Games Realm of the Technomancer. This is because lots of folks have gotten their copies of the combined Advanced Labyrinth Lord retroclone book which has been hitting shelves because of last year's kickstarter. Suddenly, interest in both Mutant Future & Labryth Lord have started again.  Faster Monkey Games Realm of the Technomancer is a 'pay what you want' adventure that combines the games just like the first edition Gamma World/Advance Dungeons & Dragons first edition into one campaign. This adventure makes a great intro for a campaign setting such as ASE1: Anomalous Subsurface Environment by Patrick Wetmore. 

Only time will tell if we continue to see this return to Gonzo dungeon crawling  trend continue in 2019. As for my own tastes in the realm of the OSR Gonzo adventuring or misadventuring only time will tell. The holidays are just starting to wind down now & so well see the where the gaming takes me over the course of the next year. 

Double Death In The Desert - OSR Play Session Report Two

" The Earth is striking a blow against the Martian invaders with the 1964 military expedition back to the launch point city  for the 1895 invasion of Earth. Strange radio transmissions & weird lights were seen on the Martian surface after the Atomic War of 1960. The Earth is united in its commitment to destroy any trace of the Invaders!'


In our last game the players have been attacked have by Grey saucers & they overcame these saucers but it cost them. Now this session they were meeting some of the local Red Martian tribesmen.But outside of the city they were attacked  the Grey's  Chupacabra guard dogs! 
Artist LeCire

After a lengthy battle the PC's were able to destroy the guard dogs & gain access to the wasteland tunnels beneath the old launch site city. They wandered through the countless tunnels & finally found a power crystal along with samples of growing Red Weed . The weed was of a slightly different variety then some the party's American patrons had on Earth. They also encountered two different Invader robots but these didn't pay them the slightest interest. But they made their way to the surface in an unexpected move?! Once they reached the surface they started to zig zag for a maintenance facility & I rolled up a Martian tripod for a random encounter! The party had been getting some help from a Red Martian scout from a Earth  sympathetic Martian tribe. 


As a dungeon master I figured that they'd run away. Martian tripods are nothing to trifle with!?! Instead they stood & fought the giant war machine & within ten minutes I knew that things were going to go very badly! The dice started to work against them & even with seven players the fate points started to be spent! Twenty minutes in & it was over with a heat ray blasting the party & vaporizing them! So yeah it was a total party kill tonight.


So yeah I grabbed this whole holiday from my bag of tricks. I used The Best of The Dragon Issue#1 & #2 especially the article  Deserted Cities of Mars By James M Ward . Then I grabbed HG Wells & Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars. The system we used was Amazing Adventures! rpg & the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters