Cha'alt & Breaking The House Campaign Session Prep - PC Death Breeds Opportunity ! Now With More Fiend Folio!

 

'So now you've made a fine mess of it!' this was the conversation at six A.M. from DM Steve. But DM Steve was in 'idiot mode' so we'll let him go for the moment. Let's fade back several months to when the  Godbound/Cha'alt campaign set in Las Vegas was in full force before Corvid 19 hit & hit hard. Back then I was quietly using several original Dungeons & Dragons third party books this included Dragon Tree Press's 'Amazon Mutual Wants You'. So why is this important?! Because this '82 book's premise was simple & very effective its adventure hook;"Amazon Mutual Wants You!: Volume One consists of four adventures in which the player characters are hired by Amazon Mutual Life Insurance to recover bodies of policyholders'. Is it a good book? Its up to many of the books by Dragon Tree press during the Summer of '82. 

Here's the problem? Rick's Godbound paladin had a contract with Amazon Mutual's god division. Or in his case the demi god division. His soul is now part of Hel's underworld or more specifically The Wilderlands of High Fantasy version of Hel.So now his contract is pending & I'm gonna tap Terrence to grab his soul from the Underworld. But how did we get here? Well Rick's PC was made using James Mishler's Demigod PC rules & then ported over to the Godbound rpg. Was he unbeatable or unkillable? Hel no! 

Now was I a complete bastard for killing off his PC?! Well in a way no! The roll of the dice determined the outcome! Is the player complaining? Nope this was in the cards when we started this campaign. But the PC's death breeds adventure opportunity. In this case his patron goddess wants his soul back & Terrence is the hired gun to get it back! 
But now its time to bring up the big bad Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Fiend Folio.  Rick's paladin PC soul is in the delicate han erm claws of  Hel's mezzodemons.

And what's this got to do with Cha'alt?! Well there's a gang of half demons who happen to be a hit squad  working for the Elsyium corporation who want not nothing more then to murder any godbound they come across. There are number of mezzodemons among their ranks. 

The Chaos hit squad of NPC's is taking shape as we speak. This Halloween prepare to get your demon on! The Nalfeshnee-Kin Racial Class for Labyrinth Lord is perfect for the sort of bastards who will be on Terrence's trail coming. I've talked with Terrence's player already & he'll be on the trail soon! 

The Cut of a Certain Blade -Cha'alt & Breaking The House Campaign Plus OD&D's Eldritch Wizardry Session Report Now With More Cha'alt

 

Talking about original Dungeons & Dragons with some friends in the off hours last night & that brings up one of the divine hazards that's been running around in the background of my  Godbound/Cha'alt campaign set in Las Vegas. There was a series of murders of Godbound PC's in our early games. Now a player from another game has approached me about doing something with one of his older Godbounds. The Sword of Kas has been weaving a path of destruction going back to October 9, 2019. The sword recently possessed a soldier around one of the battle fields of the gods. Kas has been very careful & malevolent cutting a path of destruction through the back alleys & deserts of Los Vegas. But going back to OD&D 's Eldritch Wizardry  its always been evil as the Abyss;

"The Sword of Kas - Another item connected with the legend of the lich Vecna is the Sword of Kas, his onetime bodyguard. This sword is said to have a thin, grey blade of some metallic substance. Its powers are only dimly hinted at by legend, but Kas was said to be the mightiest swordsman of his age. The Sword has +3 bonus, +5 vs. undead, demons and godlings, and an Intelligence of 18 and ego of 18. It also has one extraordinary power that is normally available to swords. It is evil, and if possible, it will control any fighter who picks it up and turn him evil. Additionally, it has One power from TABLE I, two from TABLE II, and one from TABLE IV and one from TABLE V. This sword will, of course, attempt to dominate its owner."

Now its gone & done something truely evil. Last weekend I got together with my Los Vegas group of players. The  Godbound paladin 's player Rick wanted to get in on the tracking down the Sword of Kos & its host. In fact this was his all consuming reason for being in Vegas. The rest of the party warned him against going after the sword by himself. 
It didn't take him long to track down the sword's host & it all went South with a series of bad rolls & a very bad misplaced '1'. The Sword drown his character in a park fountain amid the ruins of the war of the gods that took place in Vegas. So why is this evil? Rick's PC along with his party was summoned from The Wilderlands of High Fantasy world setting. The PC's were heroes who came to this Earth to help oppose the Cha'alt invasion after the wave of dark magick took out every last piece of technology. The Earth was plunged into a nineteeth century level of technology. Dungeons & Dragons fantasy races walk the Earth & the godbound are supposed to be helping those around them. Instead they've been fighting & warring among themselves. 
Now Hel has claimed the body soul of the paladin because he had drowned. The sword mocked the rest of the party & vanished from sight leaving the party without a paladin.The US army moved in with Cha'alt mecha & friendy Godbound wizards to drive back the goddess of the unquiet dead. 

"Hermod before Hela" (1909) by John Charles Dollman.

And what about the paladin's god of justice from the Wilderlands?! Well he's got his own hands full in another campaign. So he's hired a possible PC. A half Elven nara'd do godbound who might possibly slip between the cracks of reality to free the soul of the paladin from Hel's grip. Terrence has had dealings with gods before & this isn't his first go around with the forces of Cha'alt. But things have changed up recently. 
Eighteen months have passed & there's lots of new players on the Earth scene from Cha'alt. The alien Mega-corporation, Elysium has increasingly grown desparate as the collapsing ecological system of Cha'alt has invaded Earth in this campaign. Venger has taken it upon himself to pull in more & more Crimson Dragon Slayer Rpg resources into Cha'alt. 


Robert's character Terrence has been tracking the raw supplies & intel on the alien Mega-corporation, Elysium. He's been doing a one man guriella war against the mega corp in hopes of stalling some of the fallout to the Earth. Things have not been good. But now he's gotten wind of Kos being on the move again but can even he stand up to the black blade of Kos? 

Welcome to Vegas baby! Enjoy your stay! 

Vegas Sign artwork by Anasofiapaixao

Matters Metal, Cosmic, & Demonic - Divinity, Higher Dimensional Entities, & The Old School Campaign

I've got a real problem with owing anyone any favors or debts. This goes back a very long way too my childhood & beyond. So today when I had the chance come up I backed Rafael Chandler's Metallic Tome kickstarter.  When my pay check came up today  I back this kickstarter quick..
Why?!


I got my fifty coming up fast & Rafael Chandler is a really nice guy but I wanna support my friends efforts. But there's a selfish reason for backing this kickstarter. I've already got plans for this setting coming up. Years ago I'd ask for a review copy of a particular OSR rpg or I'd get sent one. These days not anymore. Today I buy what I like or want. Not need for actual play. There in lay the two middle grounds of play. 'Like' & 'need' are vastly different things.. I'm I really excited about the  'Metallic Tome' yes because I know the author's mind set. On one of the social media platforms Mr.Chandler said there's a shared background universe to his gaming works. makes it clear that there's monsters among the Chandlerverse's planes 'The Teratic Tome' that are truly end campaign horrors. 

"This enchiridion of entities should only be used by DMs inclined towards malfeasance, sadism, and base wrongdoing.

Torn from the pages of the Books of Pandemonium, these horrific fiends -- including the grotesquely talented Curhadac, the sadistic Eremite, and the death-singing Acronical -- will test the mettle of any adventuring party."

But are they really?! The more I've read of  'The Teratic Tome' the more I'm convinced that these 'monsters' while are monsters are actually just other NPC planar travelers among the larger scope of an incredibly dangerous multiverse. This book is filled with the minor minions & major players in this. What can we take away that I'm trying to make myself feel better for pledging or that's an author's fictional universe agenda at work here? Well, let's start with the fact that I believe the latter without giving the former any mental fodder. But who or what is watching at a distance?!
One set of gods of chaos opposes another & in this case Cha'alt speaks volumes into & unto itself.
Alien entities so alien that they are for all intents & purposes gods inimical to mankind. 

The Black Pyramid smacks of the 'cosmic indifferentism' of the same lines of the monsters of the  'The Teratic Tome'. Two sides of the same forces warring over the resources of our population; "Though cosmicism appears deeply pessimistic, H.P. Lovecraft thought of himself as neither a pessimist nor an optimist but rather a "scientific" or "cosmic" indifferentist,^[15] a theme expressed in his fiction. In Lovecraft's work, human beings are often subject to powerful beings and other cosmic forces, but these forces are not so much malevolent as they are indifferent toward humanity.^[16] This indifference is an important theme in cosmicism. The noted Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi asserts that "Lovecraft constantly engaged in (more or less) genial debates on religion with several colleagues, notably the pious writer and teacher Maurice W. Moe. Lovecraft was a strong and antireligious atheist; he considered religion not merely false but dangerous to social and political progress."^[17] As such, Lovecraft's cosmicism is not religious at all, but rather a version of his mechanistic materialism. Lovecraft thus embraced a philosophy of cosmic indifferentism. He believed in a meaningless, mechanical, and uncaring universe that human beings, with their naturally limited faculties, could never fully understand." 
This is the same passion of design that we see in G1-3 Against The Giants by Gary Gygax . No I'm not comparing either authors with Gary Gygax's module tour de force. Instead I'm pointing out the fact that forces beyond the ken of mankind are in control of the lives, existence, & even the reality of their victims & targets. All the while indifferent to the suffering  among the humans that they cause.

The giants are the willing pawns of powerful forces beyond the ken of men that goes back thousands of years. This makes the point even with 'cosmicism' at its center is the fact that  heroes are needed even more. The weight of history cries out to the blood of player's PC's focus's on the map of their world setting. The  'Metallic Tome' smacks of the violence & horrors in a huge metal rock & roll world of horrors.

Is the world setting of the 'Metallic Tome' subject to similar horrors as   'The Teratic Tome'? In a word I believe so because all of these creations are part & parcel of the mind of the writer. So has this world of metal horror been the future of a world not unlike Cha'alt in way? A far more twisted fantasy version of a fantasy module classic such as B4 The Lost City by Tom Moldvay?

 

All planar Prime quantum echoes of higher dimensional alien entities completely indifferent to the insects called humanity. Meanwhile minions scatter, caper, & dance to the alien tunes of their masters while these things war with each other? The mind boggles at the possibility as the cosmic indifference of affairs allows them to go on with their alien agenda.



The 'metal PC's' of Thrash Dwarves, Black Paladins, Death Rangers, Glam Wizards, and Doom Thieves of  the 'Metallic Tome' are the sort of player characters who are perfectly suited to take on alien monsters of Cha'alt. Could the PC's actually not only take back portions of Cha'alt but win for themselves vast wasteland domains?! The gods & monsters warring among themselves puts vast group of victi erm  humans at risk. I'm taking many of my 'P''s & 'Q''s from classic sources such as "Supplement IV" Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes by James M. Ward & Robert Kuntz. 

 But what's really happening is that I'm digging out my copy of Eldritch Wizardry. Why?! Because a version of the Rod of Orcus has been floating around my campaign settings for awhile now. Its time that I got serious about this particular artifact and that brings me back to  'The Teratic Tome'. 


Several of the undead horrors in that book are absolutely primed to be used by a servant of the foul demon lord of the Undead. Is there a connection between Cha'alt black pyramid & the demon  lord of the undead? Absolutely there is but what this is has yet to be revealed to the players! 

Cha'alt 1870's - Tegel Manor Session Zero Report Part I

So tonight I got out the twins & began to go back over Cha'alt. I've owned Venger Satanis's Cha'alt now for a few months as a physical book & its been one of the best OSR gonzo Science Fantasy books on today's market. The PC's have over the last year made some really nasty enemies within the walls of the black pyramid. Those Lovecraftian  enemies are well aware of the PC's movements & the appearance of the dimensional traveling Tegel Manor.

So the powers of the black pyramid are sending some bounty hunters after the PC's. And they've got it coming! The Cha'alt/Godbound game is still on going but different aspects of the black pyramid have multiple incarnations across the planes. So deep in the Mexican desert of 1870 the black pyramid has been influencing the local cults & some of the wasteland horrors from Cha'alt have been taking locals. Various artifacts, treasures, etc have been turning up in small shops, marketplaces, & other places as the black influence of Cha'alt is making itself known in 1870's Mexico. This is attracting expeditions of the Prussians during the Franco Prussian war.  Otto Von Bismark wants to get his hands on some of the advanced weaponry & other weirdness that's been reported by his agents in Mexico at the time.



 This sort of other worldly attention  is gonna attract adventurers, planar travelers, & others seeking supernatural delights & temptations  of the world of Cha'alt. There's already Cha'alt agents within Tegel Manor after several other bounty hunters tried to murder the PC's. Some of those earlier bounty hunters still survive. Otto Von Bismark has slipped some of his Spezialprojekte agents into Tegel manor. His steam powered & clock work mecha has been seen in the areas where the planar boundaries of Cha'alt has been strengthening. Von Bismarck is absolutely ruthless in his ambition for colonization. He is also looking for an advantage over The United States its  Board of Magnates for the coming war in Europe. 

Von Bismarck's forces have managed to capture & brainwash several Cha'alt mutates to his force's side. How many is not known but there are rumors that these Cha'alt mutates weren't captured at all! There was some sort of technological  exchange between Cha'alt forces & the Germans. Von Bismark's occultists & scientists have in their possession a crystal skull from Eugène Boban. What are the German's intentions with this powerful mystical artifact? It is unknown at this time. 


Could the Crystal skull at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris be the twin to the one that the Germans have?! What amazing powers & abilities does it possess?! Is it the key to the Germans controlling Tegel Manor?! 

The Rumps of course are double dealing with anyone & everyone they can trying to undue the curse of the haunted manor. The family has powerful connections to the underworld  & the afterlife even as they along with Tegel manor  get sucked across the planes again!


So to run this I'm using a combination of the Victorious rpg by Mike Stewart & Castles & Crusades. Venger Satanis isn't too keen on the Seige Engine but that's not really my issue at this point. This is a combination of the Vengerverse & lots of OSR experimentation. Fortunately I've got my players behind this! Note that I run Cha'alt as a sort of Lovecraftian Rifts cum post apocalyptic cryto fantasy game of epic proportions. But then again I also run my Castles & Crusades games like Rifts as well with out regrets! 

Strangers In A Sword & Sorcery Land - A Leap Day Sale - Cha'alt & AS&SH combined with Old School Campaign Goodness

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!

There's a leap day sale on Cha'alt! 

I've owned Venger Satanis's Cha'alt now for a few months as a physical book & its been one of the best OSR gonzo Science Fantasy books on today's market. But its tempering the weirdness with a solid Sword & Sorcery OSR system that can handle the sheer awesomeness of the setting book. For me that's been Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. 



Hands down these two OSR books work like retroclone peanut butter & jelly. While Cha'alt has Crimson Dragon's Slayer D20 built into it. AS&SH has this plug & play ability with the setting book that makes it just that wee bit more Sword & Sorcery purple weirdness. In fact drop in Tom Moldvay's classic B4 The Lost City & you could have a full on mini campaign of solid adventure for months or years!


The factions in B4 The Lost City line perfectly up with all of the material in Cha'alt & the dangers of the cults of Zar'gon or its children are right in line with the horrors presented by Venger's world. In fact the setting of the lost city could be found within the wastelands of Cha'alt. The small cities of Cha'alt might do a fair trade in some of the artifacts recovered from some of the ruins scattered across the Lovecraftian planet.
Hyperborea might have Cha'alt as a satellite in orbit around one of its lesser moons close enough to be legend but far enough away to only have Cha'alt residents make a forced landing or two. 


Zar'gon & his ilk might have some claim on Hyperborea but B4 The Lost City might have a gateway or two onto the demon worm planet of Cha'alt. The possibilities here are dangerous & these cults could become a real world problem for the residents of both Hyperborea & Cha'alt itself. Adventurers from Hyperborea stuck on Cha'alt are going to have to make their way in an alien  world that they hardly understand. I would use the starting equipment from AS&SH for PC's trapped on Cha'alt. The learning curve is going to be huge for those stuck on the world of the black pyramid. 


The magicks of Cha'alt itself are intense dangerous & very violent! Travel between the two worlds would depend upon the whims of the Boreas winds. And the attitudes of the gods. In the end there's some real fusion possible with the right group of players. 

Dread & Corruption - I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City by David 'Zeb' Cook With Additional OSR & Old School Resources - Session Report Eleven

"Somewhere in the heart of the steaming jungle lies the answer to the whispered tales - rumors of a magnificent city and foul, horrid rituals! Here a brave party might find riches and wonders - or death! Is your party brave enough to face the terrors of the unknown and find - the Forbidden City! Information is presented here to reconstruct this exciting tournament and even more has been given to expand play. Here characters may adventure several times in a unique and interesting mini-campaign. Included in this module are background and tournament notes, referee's keys, new monsters, pre- generated characters, and eight different maps."
So begins the infamous I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City: An Adventure for Character Levels 4-7 (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) by David Cook published in 1981.



Now two modules that I've always used together are I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City & E2 Isle of Dread by Dave Cook & Tom Moldvay. Now surely these two modules couldn't be used with my Cha'alt game could they? Well that's where your wrong! Sometimes talking with a player can stir up memories of the beginning of the campaign. In this case its my Cha'alt/Godbound rpg campaign set in a late Sevenities & Eighties modern day California. The Cha'alt dimensional/planar warp is opening up & gathering all kinds of weirdness to it merging worlds & time.  In this case E2's Isle of Dread & I1 The Dwellers of the Forbidden City have become part of the new frontier for adventurers. 

Right off the Channel Islands on the California coast things have gotten very strange & there are rumors of preshistoric monsters but what are the Channel Islands ; "The Channel Islands (Spanish: islas del Canal, Archipiélago del Norte) form an eight-island archipelago along the Santa Barbara Channel in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Southern California. Five of the islands are part of Channel Islands National Park, and the waters surrounding these islands make up Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The islands were first colonized as early as 13,000 years ago. Human remains from that period have been discovered."  in the Pacific ocean the Isle of Dread & I1 have positioned themselves. Scavengers & scum from Cha'alt have already infiltrated the islands. There's been clashes with the US military but there's been rumors of strange serpent men & even worse on the islands. Right now they are off limits to civilans but many Californians feel compelled to visit the islands. 

 In the adventure, the characters are hired to find an object taken to a lost oriental-style city, which has been taken over by a cult of snake-worshipers, the yuan-ti, and their servants, the mongrelmen and tasloi. So there's no real reason to change this leg of the module. But strange seemingly unknown South Eastern Asian people have been seen cycling through the population of Californians in the area. Because  Mr.Cook pulls a great deal of his monsters from the Fiend Folio this makes using I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City for this campaign an ideal choice for this campaign.

Another idea that I'm thinking of using is to put  the Hidden Shrine of Taomochan onto the island to give the gods of Cha'alt a run for their money. Now this is nothing new at all. I've written about using some of the resources of the old Dragon's foot forums before;
"I put the Hidden Shrine of Taomochan into the city" this makes perfect sense and there's some really great resources in the Expanding I1 The Dwellers In The Forbidden City Thread on Dragon's foot's forums. 
Another great set of suggestions is by Ulan Dhor:
"Imade some changes to the module detailed here:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=71580&p=1673164&hilit=forbidden#p1673164


My campaign journal for our run through the module is detailed here:

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=67564&start=90#p1642464

Have fun with it, I found it to be one of my favorite runs through a published module, lots of open ended potential.

Cheers,

Ulan Dhor' 


This is gonna really put the 'cat among the pigeons' with our party's portal mage. . There are many weird Lovecraftian touches in I1 that could lead to even more adventure hooks and possibilities amid the ruins. One of my favorite monsters from the Fiend Folio is the Yellow Musk Creeper & Zombie. The Clark Ashton Smith story The Seed from the Sepulchre has some awesome suggestions about using such a Lovecraftian or is it Smithian monster. The sandbox nature of ' Dwellers of the Forbidden City' is in  a similar vein to  CAS 's The Demon of the Flower which can be used as an inspiration to unleash all kinds of Hell upon a party and might be grown by the Yu erm serpent men.

I might also locate a Cha'alt drug factory producing Zoth on Santa Rosa island. They've been blending into the local background while strong arming their way with the locals. But what they don't know about is the unholy presence that's taken up residence under the  Santa Cruz national park.

Dyson Logos  generously pointed out that he's done a number of maps for various locations throughout I1 Dwellers In The Forbidden City. "I've done some maps to detail some parts of the city when we last played through it."

https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/tuesday-map-temple-complex-ruins-of-the-forbidden-city/

https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/friday-map-the-ruined-hatak-temple/

https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/friday-map-temple-of-the-snake/

https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/friday-map-redstone-shrine-with-time-lapse-video/

" And for those planning on running it, here's a cleaned up scan of the main map with all DM notations removed - particularly handy if the party enters via the giant tree access point which gives them a good overview of the city"

https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/dwellers-in-the-forbidden-city-the-city-map/

All of this can be used to pretty much establish the Y erm serpent men empire right within the heart of California. The gods & immortals of Cha'alt are not gonna sit down for this however. 

Commandments of Desolation - Using I3-5: Desert of Desolation The supermodule by Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman, & Philip Meyers, With Additional OSR & Old School Resources - Session Report Ten

Among the sands of 'The Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes' — an 18 miles (29 km) stretch of coastline dunes on the Central California Coast, from southern San Luis Obispo County to northern Santa Barbara County a brand new set of pyramids & strange ruined peusdo Egyptian style cities have emerged! Tales of ghostly riders,spectres of pharoahs,  strange ancient ships sailing along coast, & even adventurers who speak of  the sands of Raurin, the incomparable Desert of Dust!  The 'Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes' are now the home of a small ancient military outpost of an empire that never existed here!



The Gates of Rameses
Cecil B. DeMille - The Ten Commandments (1923) Public domain 

All of this was brought about by a storm that lasted three days. This seemingly supernatural storm brought with it tons of new sand & hidden Egpytian city ruins that were seemingly used as set pieces  by Cecil B.Demill during the filming of his magnus opus film 'The Ten Commandments'. But something was very wrong. There were over night the appearance of villages, strange travelers, camels, & even monsters in the confines of a stretch of eighteen miles of California desert & national park beaches!


Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt
Cecil B. DeMille - The Ten Commandments (1923) public domain

There have already been clashes between the settlers here & those of the world of Cha'alt.  The spirit of Amun-Re, the last pharaoh of Bakar, cursed to wander the desert has come to this world looking for adventurers skilled enough to free him from his curse. The desert itself is multidensional & those who wander into its ancient sands are whisked away to another world. But there are rumors that there is a death lord named Queen Tera who has designs upon the otherworldly location. Her cult grows among those who dwell outside of the  'Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes'.

The coming of the Cha'alt warp's planar energies have brought with it another casulity of the events of Ragnrok in the form of I3-5 The Desert of Desolation. I3-5: Desert of Desolation the supermodule collection , by Tracy Hickman, & Laura Hickman, Philip Meyers, and others, is a supermodule for AD&D. It was published in May 1987. It happens to be a particular favorite among the supermodules  of mine. I've been wracking my brains as to how to incorporate it into the Godbound/Cha'alt campaign mix. But then I remembered a story from 2015 on the Smithsonian website by Marissa Fessenden entitled 'There's a Fake Egyptian City Buried in California'.

A bit of imgination & some campaign notes later & the ' I3-5 The Desert of Desolation' was adapted into my on going Cha'alt/Godbound campaign.


So does the black pyramid of Cha'alt call other megadungeons to it on the California coast?! This isn't an ordinary megadungeon & there are other death gods that have interest in this seemingly endless planar desert that has appeared within the confines of the national state park. In fact wizards, adventurers, guides, etc. have begun a cottage industry of exploiting the megadungeon, villages, & other exotic places within the park as a sort of 'exotic Egypt of California'. While the state of California coffers have expanded with taxes the frustration of pharoah's ghost has grown in response.  Other deathlords have taken full advantage of this situation expanding the planar desert realm for thier own benefit while the confines of 'The Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes' national park remain the seemingly the same at least in the daylight. 

The attentions of the lords of Cha'alt have not been unruffled by the appearance of this new hazard to their operations in California. Operatives & agents from both the Black Pryamid & Elysium are trying to penatrate the mysteries of this new developments.


So there's got to be an Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg angle here? And there is the Lairs & Encounters book which has some fantastic desert encounters that can be put in & some solid mummy style lairs with all kinds of neat sideline adventures to add to the play  mix. This book has a huge number of monsters & encounters with maps & all the other information in a high quality package to run everything outta of the gate! 


Another AD&D book that we seldom hear about today that could also be of use when fleshing out a desert or any adventure or campaign environ is REF3: The Book of Lairs (1986),by James M. Ward and Mike Breault. REF3: The Book of Lairs (1986), by James M. Ward and Mike Breault, is the third AD&D REFerence and the first of the Lairs books of short adventures. It was published in September 1986.
So this book takes some of the iconic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons monsters & gives the dungeon master a range of mini encounters or side adventures for the monster. All of this with cover by  D&D artist Clyde Caldwell. 

'Breaking The House' Cha'alt / Godbound rpg - Session Zero Character Workshop & Lovecraftian Adventure Location - The Tolgey Woode

Just below Fairyland & connected with the lands of Fairy are the Tolgey Wood, a region of dark woods, wastelands, & mysterious shadows. Shadows so deep that some connect to the plane of Shadow.  These woods are home to many species of Jabberwocky. They are also connected with many lands through mysterious gates of old which lead to many planar bolt holes of ancient species much older then man. Here red caps hunt the locals  with with vorpal knives sharper then surgeon's steel. These have been made for them by fey who collect elemental iron from the winds that blow between worlds. These woods are deceptive for there are kingdoms of humanity within them. Made of the lost, the royal, the insanes, & those who have fallen between the dimensional cracks. Many species of lizard men, kobolds, & troglodyte make their homes here in the fens, swamps, & edges of the many pools that dot the landscape.

Dave Trampier Lizardman
 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Monster Manual

These monsters have ancient rivalries with the many Jabberwocky that make this place their home. These tribes are the ancient servants to the lands of Mnar & Ib which the Tolgey Wood connects. Though those other worldly places the wood connects with wastelands of 'the forgotten universes' where the echoes of Thomas's Moore's lines still waffle down the future epochs of mankind's doom; "A reservoir of darkness, black
As witches' cauldrons are, when fill'd
With moon-drugs in th' eclipse distill'd
Leaning to look if foot might pass
Down thro' that chasm, I saw, beneath,
As far as vision could explore,
The jetty sides as smooth as glass,
Looking as if just varnish'd o'er
With that dark pitch the Seat of Death
Throws out upon its slimy shore."

These wastelands were once the domains of the mummies lizard kings of far future Zothique. They loath mankind for they were from elsewhere & when. Their forgotten cities cross gulfs of time & space. The elder gods banished them from the Earth in time lines long forgotten. Yet their cities & ruins make the crossing from time to time slipping through the cracks onto the planes Prime. The cults of the Jabberwocky & the hated mummies of the lizard kings even now hold court in the deserts around Las Vegas.


So tonight is the zero session & character workshop in my Cha'alt/ Godbound rpg crossover Las Vegas campaign.  I wanted to leave the door open for Zothique, Dungeons & Dragons elements, & especially Lovecraft. So I'm toning down the gonzo at this point & turning the fantasy elements up to eleven with the Lewis Carol  'Through The Looking Glass', HP Lovecraft's 'Dreamlands' cycle including the Nameless City , & Clark Ashton Smith 'Zothique'  adventure elements.


Wyvern
Dave Trampier artwork from The
 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Monster Manual

The reason for this is because I've got several touch stones with other OSR & old school campaigns that I've run in the past. The reason for the zero session is simple, get all of the players on the same page right outta of the gate. I'm using all of the tools at my disposal to get the players on the same page right out of the gate & then get moving on Vegas next week. The best use with the time I've got is the best way to get everyone on the same hymn sheet! 

Matters of Mythology - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Deities & Demigods, Tartarus, & Matters of Darkness

Let me first take a moment to appoligize for the lateness of this blog post & give a very nice shout out to the Tales of the Whispering Thief blog. Thanks for the back shout & all of the amazing Godbound rpg content over the years. I gotta say that blog & its posts continues to impress. Especially the Corpse of the Machine-God series of posts part 1. Part of the Corpse of the Machine God part II The City & Part III The Tower.  There's some deeply influencial & highly creative deep OSR adventure backgrounds at work on that blog. I want to take a moment to take a step back from my Cha'alt/Godbound Las Vegas campaign that I've been planning over the last couple of weeks. 
Once again when ever I'm thumbing my way through Godbound somehow Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition's Dieties & Demigods finds its way into my hands. Sometimes I think of it as a sickness really, the GrecoRoman gods section opened up & I started to read a bit about Zeus. There's far more going on below the surface within the leader of the gods of Olympus. 


I began to think about the battle field of the Shadowfell. Wait what battle field are you speaking of!? When Zeus was born there was one titan last titan that was created Typhon; "Typhon (/ˈtaɪfɒn, -fən/; Greek: Τυφῶν, [typʰɔ̂ːn]), also Typhoeus (/taɪˈfiːəs/; Τυφωεύς), Typhaon (Τυφάων) or Typhos (Τυφώς), was a monstrous serpentine giant and one of the deadliest creatures in Greek mythology. According to Hesiod, Typhon was the son of Gaia and Tartarus. However one source has Typhon as the son of Hera alone, while another makes Typhon the offspring of Cronus. Typhon and his mate Echidna were the progenitors of many famous monsters.

Typhon attempted to overthrow Zeus for the supremacy of the cosmos. The two fought a cataclysmic battle, which Zeus finally won with the aid of his thunderbolts. Defeated, Typhon was cast into Tartarus, or buried underneath Mount Etna, or the island of Ischia.

Typhon mythology is part of the Greek succession myth, which explained how Zeus came to rule the gods. Typhon's story is also connected with that of Python (the serpent killed by Apollo), and both stories probably derived from several Near Eastern antecedents. Typhon was (from c. 500 BC) also identified with the Egyptian god of destruction Set. In later accounts Typhon was often confused with the Giants."



The battle field of the war of Typhon was so incredible that it carved a shadow of the plane Prime & the acts of violence & emotion so incredible that its impressions made way for the Feywild. Typhon is now locked away in Tartarus & nothing could possibly happen to release this plane destroying entity?! 

What if I told you that the titan was the father of some of the fiercest & most dangerous monsters of GrecoRoman mythology? "According to Hesiod's Theogony, Typhon "was joined in love" to Echidna, a monstrous half-woman and half-snake, who bore Typhon "fierce offspring""  Now imagine that if the Shadowfell is the dark reflection to the planes Prime then perhaps the Shadowfell also touches the prison plane  of Tartarus. The shadow plane is the home of some of the most dangerous undead & there is a good reason for this because it overlaps the prison plane of Tartarus; 

"As for the place, Hesiod asserts that a bronze anvil falling from heaven would fall nine days before it reached the earth. The anvil would take nine more days to fall from earth to Tartarus.^[5] In the Iliad (c. 700 BC), Zeus asserts that Tartarus is "as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth."^[6] Similarly the mythographer Apollodorus, describes Tartarus as "a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky."^[7]

While according to Greek mythology the realm of Hades is the place of the dead, Tartarus also has a number of inhabitants. When Cronus came to power as the King of the Titans, he imprisoned the one-eyed Cyclopes and the hundred-armed Hecatonchires in Tartarus and set the monster Campe as its guard. Zeus killed Campe and released these imprisoned giants to aid in his conflict with the Titans. The gods of Olympus eventually triumphed. Cronus and many of the other Titans were banished to Tartarus, though Prometheus, Epimetheus, and female Titans such as Metis were spared (according to Pindar, Cronus somehow later earned Zeus' forgiveness and was released from Tartarus to become ruler of Elysium). Another Titan, Atlas, was sentenced to hold the sky on his shoulders to prevent it from resuming its primordial embrace with the Earth. Other gods could be sentenced to Tartarus as well. Apollo is a prime example, although Zeus freed him. The Hecatonchires became guards of Tartarus' prisoners. Later, when Zeus overcame the monster Typhon, he threw him into "wide Tartarus"."

Over the centuries there have been many entities working towards freeing Typhon & his mate Echidna. These two entities are still spawning some of the most dangerous monsters that make their way onto the various planes Prime & into many of the dungeons. 

Tartarus isn't simply the prison plane of the gods but also the domain the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hags. Tartarus is also the home of the Graeae the mother of the hags, they are not the biological mothers but the occult ritual mothers of the creation rites of hags. The wiki entry on the Graeae goes into their history;

"The Graeae were daughters of the sea-deities Phorcys and Ceto (from which their name the Phorcydes derived), and sisters to the Gorgons.^[3] The Graeae took the form of old, grey-haired women. Their age was so great that a human childhood for them was hardly conceivable. In Theogony, however, Hesiod describes the Graeae as being "fair-cheeked". In Prometheus Bound, the Graeae are described as being half-swan.

Hesiod names only two Graeae, the "well-clad" Pemphredo (Πεμφρηδώ "alarm") and the "saffron-robed" Enyo (Ἐνυώ "horror" the "waster of cities" who also had an identity separate from this sisterhood).^[4] Pseudo-Apollodorus lists Deino (Δεινώ "dread", the dreadful anticipation of horror) as a third.^[5] Calling them "Phorcides", Hyginus, in addition to Pemphredo and Enyo, adds Persis noting that "for this last others say Dino".^[6]

They shared one eye and one tooth, which they took turns using. By stealing their eye while they were passing it among themselves, the hero Perseus forced them to tell the whereabouts of the three objects needed to kill Medusa (in other versions the whereabouts of Medusa) by ransoming their shared eye for the information.^[3]

The Graeae are similar to the Greek Moirai, the northern European Norns, the Roman Parcae, the Slavic Sudice, the Celtic Morrigan, and the Baltic goddess Laima and her two sisters. The Three Witches from the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare also are similar to the three Graeae." 

So the cults & covens of the Graeae persist well into the tulmus chaos of history of Western Civilization. 

The Graeae and Perseus (WG416) miniatures from the Foundry 

But the iron walls of Tartarus isn't simply the home to Typhon but some of the most dangerous cosmic entities that have ever graced creation. According to the wiki entry on Tartarus; "Tartarus occurs

in the Septuagint of Job, and in Hellenistic Jewish literature from the Greek text of 1 Enoch, dated to 400–200 BC. This states that God placed the archangel Uriel "in charge of the world and of Tartarus" (20:2). Tartarus is generally understood to be the place where 200 fallen Watchers (angels) are imprisoned.^[18]

In Hypostasis of the Archons (also translated 'Reality of the Rulers'), an apocryphal gnostic treatise dated before 350 AD, Tartarus makes a brief appearance when Zōē (life), the daughter of Sophia (wisdom) casts Ialdabaōth (demiurge) down to the bottom of the abyss of Tartarus."



Well, surely Tartarus has nothing what so ever to do with the Las Vegas campaign setting & Venger Satanis? Well actually it does! You see not directly but you see there are alien priests of shadow moving among the population here & there in Vegas. These priests of Shadow are from an ancient & highly alien world known as Torth! These dangerous & devilish masked priests come from a technological post apocalytic wasteland world from the fevered imagination of Venger Satanis. That's right I've brought Revelry in Torth to the table top.  



The planar crack of  Cha'alt has allowed the alien world of Torth to rise in the Las Vegas sky & things are about to get much more dangerous & weirder in the Vegas desert sands! Stay tuned!