'You will not find it on any map. But you know its name...' 'A Revelry In Torth By Venger Satanis- Actual Play Event

The PC's into tonight's adventure ended up in Aryd's End after trying to track down a member of the Merchants faction a group of post apocalyptic mad scientists & gene splicers. Duvaul is a dirt bag low level black wizard & shadow priest upon whom the adventurers have sworn vengeance some months ago. The party knows that some secret society has been acting as a patron for Duvaul for months but they weren't sure who it was. Meanwhile Duvaul had become infected with a dangerous parasite & ported over to Torth through through a planar spell via a dimensional door scroll. The party's wizard followed quickly on the heels of Duvaul and ended up in Aryd's End instead of the basement summoning circle in the temple where their enemy was. Fortunately they ended up in a back alley instead of the in the middle of the neighborhood. Sorcery and magick has a bit of a bad reputation in the world of Torth.The party after almost buying it with a group of tribal assassins manages to track down our NPC to a local house of a well known noble.



Finally they were able to make heads & tails out of the locals after not seeing a single sun nor a sunrise at all after many hours. The locals went about their business but a cold wind blew across the desert as the party made their way through the streets filled with milling people. Traders, exotic warriors, tradesmen all went about their business. The smell of fried desert rat & other weird food filled the nostrils of the PC's. The PC's were able to meet with Count Indengogilaeg  a  bard & traveling minstrel ( the class is detailed in Revelry In Torth) who is actually a wheeler dealer information broker of the highest caliber. He does give the best details about artifacts, relics,etc but takes them for every penny he can. So after a sizable down payment he gave them the name of the house of Vaugoduangiatu. That got a groan from the players to say the least.



The house of Vaugoduangiatu are a clan of  renegade Drow (these Drow are actually cast off slaves of a race of near god like Elves whom they loath, they settled upon Torth because of the lack of sunlight )  the party has had dust ups before with the Vaugoduangiatu. The house is headed up by the lady Anangla a wealthy widow and trader who specializes in erotic cargoes, high end relics, antiquities, weapon running, and a healthy dose of slavery. Have I mentioned that she's had dealings with the Merchants before and settled in Torth after a lengthy campaign of assassination among certain clans of space pirates. The wrath of  Atlach-Nacha is said to have been visited upon them.  The house has deep ties to that which dwells under Mount Voormithadreth.




The party made its way into the house grounds where an orgy was in full swing, they were able to make their way to the central rooms and finally figured out that they were in deep trouble. The place was in full gear not for an orgy but a summoning and birth of the parasite! The party was to be the sacrifice! Oh how the tables had turned! The party killed off a few guards & managed to double cross the Merchants by offering the Vaugoduangiatu triple rate for Duvaul's head. The party had no part in the god thing summoning nor the valuable parasite  & so in the middle of the 'fight' the pact was struck. Of course the party is going to triple cross the Vaugoduangiatu with the royal inquisition but they've gotten themselves captured and are now in the king's dungeons as well! The Vaugoduangiatu have made a tidy profit & have payed off certain royal officials to look the other way about the whole affair.



This isn't the first time I've run my version of  Revelry In Torth by Venger Satanis. Torth is a combination of  sword & planet, Robert Howard's Conan, the Lovecraft Mythos, bits of Dune thrown in there, and a whole helping of Biblical weirdness drawn from countless hours of classic movie viewing. The place is a howling alien desert planet in perpetual night with countless factions and aliens at each others throats all centered around the decadence of ancient Torth's technological past. This is how I run the setting and the above factions are all my creation that have been worming their way through my games for years now. Revelry in Torth is a great setting and one that's going to get more air time at my table. The Merchants made their first appearance in my Accursed Atlantis setting under my Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rules. Tonight's game was a hybrid of fifth edition and those rules which worked out quite well but the crew of players wants to go back to our AD&D 1st edition hybrid. More to come.

Beyond Appendix N - J.G. Ballard & Vacation Spots On The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence From Kort'thalis Publishing

 The summer of 1985 introduced me to the hustlers, conmen,women, and lovers of Vermillion Sands by J.G.Ballard. Who is J.G Ballard well according to Wiki;"James Graham "J. G." Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009)^[2] was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He came to be associated with the New Wave of science fiction early in his career with apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) novels such as The Drowned World (1962) and The Crystal World (1966). In the late 1960s, Ballard produced a variety of experimental short stories (or "condensed novels"), such as those collected in The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which drew comparisons with the work of postmodernist writers such as William S. Burroughs. In the mid 1970s, he published several novels, among them the highly controversial Crash (1973), a story about symphorophilia and car crash fetishism, and High-Rise (1975), a depiction of a luxury apartment building's descent into tribal warfare."  So there is plenty of fodder here for the post apocalyptic D.Y.I.  dungeon master especially for Gamma World
Set Up and Background
So lately I've been mainlining a lot of J.G. Ballard, John Brunner, and other classic new wave science fiction authors. Let's stick with J.G. Ballard for the moment and how I got into him. I can tell you the exact moment in a little used book store in Torrington,Connecticut. I was with my best friend and at the time he had scooped up every single Sword & Sorcery title in the place. Sigh. He was my co -dungeon master at the time and knew I was running out of ideas at the time. I needed a literary hit and fast, neither of us ever believed the Dragon magazine article whatever it was called books are books and all that nonsense. I had devoured everything even remotely connected with Michael Moorcock's works and Jerry Cornelius was on my radar at the moment then. It was the year when adult themes and such were entering the picture.  And that's when I spotted this cover and I knew my fate was sealed. So I paid my 1.00 and the corruption started when I got home. At the time I was running an AD&D/Gamma World mash up and this title blew me away. What is Vermillion Sands? It is  vacation colony spot drawn from a post modern hell molded with technology from someplace via a Sears catalog  from the depths of an alternative Earth. According to Ballard,"

Where is Vermilion Sands? I suppose its spiritual home lies somewhere between Arizona and Ipanema Beach, but in recent years I have been delighted to see it popping up elsewhere — above all, in sections of the 3,000-mile-long linear city that stretches from Gibraltar to Glyfada Beach along the northern shores of the Mediterranean, and where each summer Europe lies on its back in the sun. That posture, of course, is the hallmark of Vermilion Sands and, I hope, of the future — not merely that no-one has to work, but that work is the ultimate play, and play the ultimate work.”
J.G. Ballard. Preface to Vermilion Sands, 1975."

In other words its the perfect place to draw from for a rather bizarre and down right weird Gamma World location with far more subtle dangers then the more usual run of the mill mutant menaces. Ballard's characters are damaged folks;" the characters themselves often exhibit the same obsession, anomie and psychological disintegration typical of Ballard's characters, the emphasis on elaborate and sometimes humorously imagined art forms gives these stories a playfulness unusual in his other stories."
Why was this such a good source to pull from? The decedent and technologies of the Vermillion Sands stories which were downright dangerous. I hate to use Wiki again but they have a damn nice break down of these stories:

• "Prima Belladonna" focuses on music, especially singing, via singing plants and a 'mutant' voice.
• "The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista" focuses on architecture, via mobile, mood-sensitive houses.
• "Cry Hope, Cry Fury" focuses on painting, through paints that respond to the presence of light/objects (an example of decadence through the evaporation of skill).
• "Venus Smiles" focuses on sculpture, through the creation of a (strangely growing) sound sculpture.
• "Studio 5, The Stars" focuses on poetry, through automated poetry machines (another example of skill vanishing, this time into automation).
• "The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D" focuses on a peculiar kind of sculpture made by carving clouds - painting also appears in this story.
• "Say Goodbye to the Wind" focuses on fashion via living fashion and sound jewelry (non-aural music and erotic food are also mentioned in passing).
• "The Screen Game" has no unusual technologies, but an unusual aesthetic - jewels and screens dominate.
• "The Singing Statues" returns to sound sculpture (which may have been why it was removed from the American Berkley Medallion edition of 1971).

So at the time I was also running Lords of Creation with my friend but we were substituting the AD&D 1st edition rules for some of the broken parts of that game. The Omegatron adventure became another Gamma World timeline and the game campaign was a blast. The cloud sculptors became another faction for this campaign.


So what does this have to do with the The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence? Well quite a bit actually, one of the players stumbled across the wreckage of a cloud sculptor vehicle and looked out into the Other Dimensional Stream ( a roaring ocean of other dimensional space time) and saw an island covered with sound sculptures. There were two players with whom I've known for a very long time and they weren't amused at all remarking about a mutant wizard with whom they have no wish to cross swords with another. You know your doing something right when your player's memory dregs that up. Years later in the 90's Vermillion Sands would return as a part of an Over The Edge campaign adventure.

The Wreck Of The St.John On The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence From Kort'thalis Publishing - An Actual Play Event

 Set Up and Background
So today the plan was to get back into the on going Star Frontiers game campaign in which I've been on the other side of the screen as a player. Well that plan turned to crap as two of our players have had a family emergency and the DM was called back into work today. So right before I was leaving for the game after work I got a phone call from our dungeon master, " Hey Eric would you mind doing a quick one shot pick up adventure for tonight's game? The players are coming at seven and I know you've got something up your sleeve." So this was at five thirty after I got done with repair work. "Sure Steve that's no problem.I'll meet them over your house but you owe me a six pack of beer." So actually I did have an adventure written up as a side adventure. Right so all of this sort of goes back to the other day when Venger Satanis put the The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence on sale because of the passing of his royal purple badness.

 GRAB IT RIGHT HERE

The basic premise goes something like this; the wizard Azaliveus lives on a small temple tower complex off of the main purple haunted island. He has control of very special time  crystal that once belonged to the serpent men that controlled the island. Azaliveus uses the crystal to reach into nearby timelines and pluck adventurers, ordinary people and a few castaways scattered across time and space for a special mission.
So what actually happened here is I had six of my players generate six characters who analogs of grade B and C movie characters of their design. These were adventurers summoned by Azaliveus's time window and simply stepped through into his tower.  All of the adventurers were generated using Alpha Blue's rules and the mutation tables as well as the starting equipment and whatnot.


There were six adventurers including Steve's mutant PC Azgar The Terrible mutant overlord, Sarah's mad scientist Dr. Hilda Bramly who was quick with her twin ray guns, Adventurer/ Electrician  Norm Johnson wielder of the demon sword V'ru, Cy'bro Five free lance android adventurer, Doc Johnson gunfighter/adventurer from 1860, and Sir John The Black post apocalyptic atomic knight and bad ass.


Our party of adventurers drawn from across time and space to the tower of Azaliveus.
 The Mission
And the mission was simple really, retrieve an android head belonging to Unit #6, an android who served aboard the atomic rocket ship St.John. A zoological ship from the Federation which had crashed on a nearby isle and whose crew had spread themselves among the Purple haunted islands to seek their fortunes. The alien zoological specimens have stayed behind around the ship as if some weird hyperdimensional intelligence kept them around the time haunted space craft. And then things got really weird.



Carla our DM's wife came home and wanted to play and joined the party as Eve an assistant to Azaliveus. Or at least that's how it seemed. The party were very suspicious of Eve's motives and with good reason. Eve was actually a purple haunted island monk of chaotic bent which was secretly influencing the party.



Things got weird as the party made it to the island and after battling their way past a cult of a Lovecraftian demon spawn they finally made it to the Saint John. Two of the PC's bit the big one though giving their lives for their team mates. Dr. Hilda Bramly and Doc Johnson gave their lives to save two fellow adventurers.



The time also found out why the wizard wants the android head, or at least the real reason!?! The Saint John had encountered an outpost of the Great Race of Yith. Unit Six was under special orders to collect that data at all costs including the lives of the crew of St.John. When the St.John fell into a worm hole and ended up crashing onto the island Unit Six destroyed itself rather then let the knowledge of the Great Race fall into others hands.



The adventurers encountered a Great Martian ape on the small side island fought tooth and nail to defeat it. After dealing death to the thing our party of adventurers returned the head to Azaliveus. Then they found out he really was when one of our heroes asked him how he knew about the St.John in the first place? The response stopped the game cold, "I knew because I was the captain of the St.John."

Here's a list of random encounters I threw together for tonight's game.
 1d20 Minor Purple Island

Random Monster Encounters Table

1.    1d20 flesh eating mutant crabs on the hunt for human flesh 
2. 1d6 cultists of Cthlhu looking for a sacrifice for the alter 
3. 1d8 space god cultists armed with ray pistols and out for blood. 
4. 1d4 mutant raiders looking for slaves and 'fun' 
5. 6d10 zombies on the hunt for human flesh. 
6. 1d4 Radio active giant slugs 
7. 1d6 flesh eating ghouls looking for a good time and your face for a meal. 
8. 1d10 giant army ants looking to strip the flesh from bone 
9. 1d6 alien drones on patrol armed with death rays 
10. A spawn of Cthulhu on the hunt for hunt souls and prey 
11. A wrecked space craft containing thousands of weird alien bugs 
12. 1d6 random adventurers looking to loot some artifacts and relics 
13. A gang of 1d6 grey aliens armed with death rays 
14. 1d10 alien clown gangers looking for a 'good time' 
15. A bounty hunter tracking prey across the bowels of this horrid landscape. He will murder anyone who stands in his way 
16. A lost battalion of Revolutionary war soldiers looking for a route home, they are vary in appearance due to their rag tag nature and weapons. 
17. A shaggoth! 
18. Cyclops guardian looking for man flesh to eat and consume. 
19. A pack of rabid Blink dogs on the hunt for prey and they are very dangerous. 
20. Analogs and dopplegangers of the PC's begin to hunt them during certain portions of the adventure.

Revisiting & Using The Revelry In Torth Adventure By Kort'thalis Publishing For Your Old School Campaigns

With the Alpha Blue Kick Starter starting to wind down in eight days for Venger Satanis, I was thinking about one of my favorite sword and sorcery setting Revelry In Torth. Confession time, I basically swore last year that I'd use the world of Torth and set a few things in the adventure setting but it got away from me. There are only so many hours in the day. This adventure contains mature content and adult themes.Its not for the kids and should be run with a group of adults. This one isn't an adventure for the easily offended.
The world of Torth is a world of twilight & darkness whose dependent on the cycle of the engines and machinery for its existence. Pieces of sci fi, science fantasy, and other pop culture sword, sandal and sorcery are all a part of existence with a healthy heaping of Lovecraftian goodness on top. Right and you've heard all of this before and this isn't a commercial for the adventure.

There are actually several ways that this adventure/source book's setting  can be used and used for old school gaming. Because its always night, things may have evolved different because of the ancients. There are Cthulhu devil sand squid already lurking in the setting just waiting for PC's to stumble into the desert sands. This setting is equal parts Heavy Metal, He Man style sword & sorcery as it is Biblical artwork of Dustave Dore. This is just the sort of a political situation that's going on right now in Aryd's End; the setting's main city state that's detailed with a murder investigation adventure. So we have equal parts Robert Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs seen through the lens of Dore on acid. There's this strange Lawrence of Arabia meets Alien in an alleyway where they get it on quality about the place.


Most of the important NPC's of Aryd's End are themselves as cagey or dangerous as any of the royals in Dune or an ERB's Barsoom adventure and they interweave back and forth with some of the NPC's on the street level that adventurers and freebooters are likely to meet. Torth is a trading world in every sense of the word. This is a lost world trading cross point both for what the sword and sandal world provides and what it needs. And believe me Torth needs a lot in terms of slaves, manpower, trade goods, technology, luxury goods and more.  This is both Aryd's End & Torth's function in a sword and sorcery campaign. Even though it plays fast and loose with both 5th edition and the OSR. I've used Revelry In Torth a number of times as port of call for other worldly adventurers and its NPC factions as levelers and traders for games many times now. One of the reasons is the adventure setting is rife with demons as both background and as sword & sorcery powers. And demons in this adventure resource are incredibly dangerous to both the adventurers and the residents of this world make no mistake of that. And with the taboos on magick in the general tribal and city state populations. The citizens of Torth need all of the help they can get.


This is where Torth comes in handy as place to set sword & sorcery adventures of slightly more twisted bent. The setting not only lends itself to this but almost determines it with weird magick enhancing drugs and mountain sized hives of giant bees. The two classes the Shadow Priest and the Wandering Minstrel I've grafted onto existing PC classes. I've used the Shadow Priest as demonic pact option  for the Occultist class in Fantastic Heroes and Witchery as well as an add on for the wizards in Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The Shadow Priest doesn't specify any level progression or saving throws so this sort of a thing is a snap to do.
To fill out the rank and file of the population of Torth as well as its various dimensional traders, black magicians, and others I turned to the Weird Tales races from Fantastic Heroes and Witchery or for using the setting with an OD&D vibe I relied on the races in Realms of Crawling Chaos from Goblinoid games.
On the issue of monsters keep the Lovecraftian in mind for Torth with an eye towards the Abyssal and Chaotically nasty. A good example of this is a monster that I imported over into Torth from my Accursed Atlantis campaign. The more chaotic factions worship these things found in the various ruins and half forgotten temples that get unburied by the various sand storms and evil winds that blow through the alien desert landscape.

False Idols
Frequency : Uncommon on Accursed Atlantis and Torth.
No Appearing: 1d3 
Armor Class: 6 
Move: Non 
Hit Dice: 12 
% in Lair : 100
Treasure Type: D
Number of Attacks: 3 
Damage: 2-12/2-12/3d6+2
Special Attacks: See Below 
Special Defenses: See Below 
Magic Resistance: 60% 
Intelligence: Semi to Average 
Alignment: Chaotic Evil 
Size: 10 to 20 feet tall 
Psionic Ability: 100 

Attack/Defense Modes: D/F

False Idols are demonic entities that have displeased powerful demonic overlords in the past on the various planes of Hell. They are punished by being transformed into stone statues of their alien demonic god masters.  Assuming a rough  likeness of these beings they are cast into the wastelands of various worlds in the name of their masters and are often teleported into the hearts of old ruined temples and vaults of half forgotten places. These alien life essences are bound in stone and can wait hundreds or thousands of years before some fool stumbles upon them and it communicates telepathically. The false idol makes a demonic pact with its priest whose soul powers it for the next one hundred years and the process of starting to gather a cult in the name of its alien master begins.
The horror can cause fear (as per the wand), has telekinesis 4000 gold pieces worth of weight, read languages, cure or cause both light wounds or heavy, gate in demons types I-III, dispel magic, and animate for up to one hour per day.
While animated this horror can cause darkness in a 10' radius at will and hits with powerful fists or claws. This horror can also blast a target within a twenty foot radius with a powerful eye searing chaotic energy blast for 3d6+2 points of damage.
While it is powerful it's warty stone like skin has most of the standard demonic resistances but animating takes a lot of effort on the idol's part and it will regenerate 2 hit points per day but it must rest in a stasis like state. The monster's intellect and intelligence drops to semi and it is only vaguely aware of its surroundings in this state. 1d8 2nd level cult fighters and body guard fanatics watch over their demonic master when this is happening. They are led by a cleric or dark priest of 3rd or better level armed with a demonic weapon of some type.


By their very nature these parasitic demonic horrors latch onto the righteous temple grounds of extinct or long forgotten religions causing the gods of these places to rise from their slumber and seek out their own followers to wage war. This state causes even more violence in the wars of Law, Chaos, and Neutrality fulling the war machine across the planes and pleasing the demonic masters of these blood stained horrors.

Revelry In Torth By Kort'thalis Publishing For Your Old School Campaigns

There are places of sword and sorcery violence where heroes are needed and this is such a place of high adventure and sorcery. Welcome to Revelry In Torth By  Kort'thalis Publishing.

This adventure contains mature content and adult themes.Its not for the kids and should be run with a mature group of players!

Revelry In Torth is listed as rather mature product which it is but it shares the ironic and pulptastic roots of Venger's other adventures but this time we've got an Orientalist twist on the adventure and setting. It clocks in at only a mere thirty nine pages and if you think oh DM that its a mere thin volume of wasted space nothing could be further from the truth.
Revelry in Torth is packed wall to wall sandbox desert sword and sorcery 80's inspired pulp adventure with a good dollop of Lovecraft thrown on top. But it continues Venger's ethos of part sand box and part kitchen sink source book.
You've got two brand new classes in this one, The Shadow Priest and The Wandering Minstrel. Each class is a stand alone character class that can be used outside of  Revelry. But really they've been made to tie into the backdrop and history of Torth. But that's really where the product shines in the world of Torth itself. Venger has done a bunch of clever background table magic and fluff to bring the tribes and history to life with the introduction of the world.
The Shadow Priest is a character class that could easily be overladen on to your existing favorite cleric PC within your retroclone system. The Shadow Priests have some very ominous and twisted shadow based abilities.
The Wandering Minstrel is a nice twist on the Bard but leans far more in the direction of a sword and sorcery take on the class pointing directly at the thief and rogue respectively. 

 Grab It Right
HERE

Then we get into the heart of this dusty desert driven world of tribal sword and sorcery with tribal history, backdrop information, and some twisted sorcery takes on the familiar tropes of a world of  violence and historical horror thrown into the mix. This is a world where the use of magic is forbidden and taboo but you've got Lovecraftian horror and cults right around the corner. Each tribe values magic but the secret societies plot in the shadows. If your thinking this is Dark Sun, forget it. This is more alike the California desert seen in every cheesy sword and sorcery movie from the 80's with better casting. The whole thing feels like a homage to Frank Herbert  Dune with its tribes favoring magick and sorcery but with a 'don't look and touch' as the forces from beyond bend societies from the shadows. There's even a magick enhancing drug throw into the mix and plenty of tribal details from colour schemes to backgrounds. Very helpful stuff.
Now there's something else about Torth that he's done, its open source for anyone to use and he wants us to add to it. I didn't know that until I started looking through the original Kickstarter for Revelry right over HERE

And that takes us right into Aryd's End. This is the prime adventure location and gets a whole section of its own. The flavor here is a cross section of a sword and sorcery urban setting right out of Venger's imagination. We get sayings, local culture, some weird bits on the city and local locations. Then we jump into the rulers, NPC's and scumbags. These are the kinds of folks who might rule wonderfully aren't the kind of folks you really want to leave alone with each other someone could be murdered and probably will. PC's should watch out around these folks. 

The adventure itself takes place within and around the city of Aryd's End. There are a series of rather sinister encounters which rope the PC's into the darkness surrounding the city. There is a ton of dungeon crawling action with some downright nasty monsters! Get your Lovecraft on with some of these nasties in spades.

There's the bordello and the Curiosity shop that reminded me of two cult classic horror films but they needed more fleshing out in my humble opinion.
We get two solid pages of spells and magic items that fill in the whole package and are perfectly faithful for what Venger is going for with Revelry. 

There's the main adventure and a smaller micro dungeon thrown into the mix and its all very much in the sword and sorcery vein in spades. The author does a nice job and its got the look and feel of a solid module. 

Surprisingly there were some issues with the adventure. A lack of a table of contents is a bit of a let down. The adventure needed headers for what what each block of content. The watermarked glyph on each page was a bit well distracting.

This adventure hits the high water marks for its maps, artwork, the originality of its encounters,the world and history, setting details, original monsters, and more. All in all I want a physical copy of this one.

Using Revelry In Torth 
For Your Old School Campaigns 

This is an adventure with all of the high marks of being perfect for an OSR retroclone system adventure that can easily be thrown into a wide variety of high end adventure systems to challenge PC's. You can run this with OD&D,AD&D first edition,OSRIC, hell even the Lamentations of the Flame Princess setting with some modification to the background as the PC's are the ugly foreign mercenaries.

But the truth is that this is a perfect bolt on adventure for the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea or Fantastic Heroes and Witchery. The adventure has a vast array of material to mine from and use in those systems. The PC classes in Revelry are perfect for both games, the world is solidly done and easily incorporated, and there's plenty of room to add more to it. All in all Revelry packs a lot into its thirty nine pages of old school solidly done sword and sorcery adventure. 

'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescene' Adventure By Venger Satanis for Your Old School Campaigns

If your a reader of this blog, then by all means you know how much I love the gonzo. Well I went after and pestered the hell out of Venger Satanis for a review copy of  the infamous 'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescene'. And this isn't one for the kids, the Pat Robertson Crowd, or the easily offended. If you're still reading this then let's move on and go right into the breakdown of this adventure. First of all this is a straight up unapologetic OSR module for any edition of the world's most popular fantasy role playing game or any of its retroclones.
Hell you can use this module with other old school post apocalyptic rpg's such as Mutant Future or Mutant Epoch.

Grab It Right Over
HERE

Let's get right down to it, with the cover art. That behind has been bothering me for months! Where on Earth have I seen that behind? And then it suddenly came to me.
That behind belongs to one of the Taarna fighters whose landed on the time haunted isle. But my feeling is that this Venger's homage and love letter to the Heavy Metal movie from 1981. And that's really one of the things  that this module is all about. I suspect that the author Venger Satanis is about right around the same age as I. Which means he grew up with all of the same nerd and pop culture influences.

This is a huge hex crawl that takes place on a set of islands lost to the dimensional winds that's haunted by a malevolent ever present purple cloud monster and the black sand beaches of this mini campaign. Venger has infused this place not as simply an adventure which it is but an entire mini hex crawl campaign. 'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescene' has charts and lots of them for every sort of  background and encounter that links back to the islands. This is the sort of adventure that could take years and years to play, there are alien races,crashed space craft, high weirdness, random mutation, and much more. This is done with the sort of stylish humor and old school weirdness that we've come to expect.
There are really two parts to the module, one is a straight up balls to the walls hex crawl of incredible potency, and the other part is an OSR tool kit that brings forth the Satanis formula of PC infusion with purple laced madness. There's a new PC class called the monk and more. The artwork is fantastic for a gonzo module but that's because that's exactly what it is but don't let it fool you. This is a slight of hand trick on the author/designer's part,he's created a gonzo module but with some really nice even quality that emulates products that never existed.
There are over forty pages of house rules, tweaks for connecting PC's to the Islands to sword personality roll charts, and much,much, more. Note that the maps are really nice and completely fit the tone of the adventure.

I've been a huge fan of  Faustie and Zarono  for years now and they're used to complete effect in this adventure. Every square inch of   tentacle  rending artwork is simply perfect for setting the tone of this adventure. This is an island out to play merry havoc with the PC's. And there are a ton of backhanded and well done pop-culture references and more.This entire set of islands is like having your campaign in the  second Fallout video game on the special encounters mode. There are going to all kinds of weird and deadly encounters cropping up again and again. Some beneficial and some deadly.

And this set of islands is out to get your characters,in fact the islands reward your PC's for putting their needs first. There's plenty of NPC's that will push your PC's to their limits and beyond.
 

One thing about this adventure is the author's tone and writing,he never talks down to his audience and goes into the history,setting, and many options. This was done on purpose and Venger set out to do exactly this right from the get go on his Kickstarter Video.
Which lays down some of Venger's ethos that went into this hex crawl, you get a sense of what he was going for. 

  This is a hex crawl that your never know what is going to come up in the next hex,and this fits exactly where this module's strength is. 'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence' can be used as an entire mini campaign. There are dimensional gates being opened all the time by sorcerers,mad scientists, and a ton of other NPC factions across the islands.
There are a ton of weird locations,mini dungeons,downed space craft, dimensional gateways, and much more. Used correctly and this adventure could be used as a side campaign for a very long time to come.

How To Use The 'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence 

For Your Old School Campaign 

  So you buy this adventure but what the hell are you going to run it with? Well any of the original AD&D or OD&D systems could be used for running  'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescene' adventure. There are a few options that spring to mind immediately. One is Mutant Future or Mutant Epoch because of some of the post apocalyptic themes on some of the hexes. If your group of players has been up to their necks in Lamentations of The Flame Princess's Carcosa and you want to switch them up to a mini side campaign then this is the one. Hell you could easily gate the party back and forth between Carcosa and this adventure. If you need new PC's for Carcosa, Islands presents a viable option for the inclusion of fresh blood. Because Lamentations of the Flame Princess presents a solid working system, it could well work with the next set of old school options. 

 The second set of options that sprung to mind is the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Which contains a system that will not only handle this mini hex-tastic campaign adventure but give the DM all kinds of options for PC's and be able to handle the science fantasy goodness the predominates the setting. The other option that I might be doing is the Fantastic Heroes and Witchery rpg system. This system presents a boat load of PC classes and handles many of the elements and setting details that makes 'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescene' unique, interesting and decidedly fantastic. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves this style of old school play. In closing the only thing that I'd love to have is a physical copy of this module. Because of the nature of the encounters,hexes,and elements of 'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescene' a physical copy is a must. The artwork alone makes an excellent reference for players