Battling The Solution on The Mad Scorcerer's Isle - The Campaign World of CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan For The FASERIPopedia! Rpg

 During tonight's edploration of the scorcerer's tower on Crom's world  in the Mad Sorcerer's Isle hex we ran straight into another group of superheroes called 'The Solution'. These guys were tough to say the least. We've been dealing with our Ascendant Rpg  campaign. And we've been dealing with security robots, cybernetic sabertoothed cats, etc. within  the CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan  For The  FASERIPopedia Rpg. This of course picks right up from our last session here. 

Everything was going pretty solidly until we'd gotten a particular artifact called the Cyberseed. This is when we ran into Dropkick a cybernetically enhanced martial artist. 
Dropkick wasn't alone! He's part of a team called 'The Solution' . We ended up battling them through at least two levels of the tower! This was getting ugly fast and so we let the cyber seed go! Outrage was a real monster of an alien mercenary who rocked two of the PC's world. 
Charlemane's Champion took him one to one and almost got his clock cleaned. Almost until he dropped three walls on him with his sword. 

Outrage will survive but he did end up with quite a few sword cuts but they'll heal. Eventually anyway. The group took out 'The Solution's sorcereress Shadowmage early in the melee. 

The party was not amused because afterward we had to go deeper into the wizard's tower. We found a bunch of cyber seeds within a laboratory. And a dozen security bots. 
The party was getting tired and punch. Fire Falcon wasn't amused and went full 'nova' and melted all of em. 

We make use of the Ascendant's Rogue's Gallery rules and add ons. 'The Solution' in tonight's game are an up and coming super mercenary group with the rules for factions getting an excercise. 

Exploring the Mad Socrerer's Isle - The Campaign World of CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan For The FASERIPopedia! Rpg

 So awhile back I worked on the Mad Sorcerer's Isle hex from the CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan  For The  FASERIPopedia supplement to augment and expand our Ascendant Rpg  campaign. This session report picks up right from November7th on the blog. 

 Now the Sorcerer's Isle was originally an ancient citadel that was abandoned during Crom's early ages. This builting and it's holdings were supposedly haunted only to be taken over by a succession of sorcerer's and thier families over the generations. The place being abandoned during the last age. This place is the orgin point for at least three of our Ascendant rpg characters. The player's PC's were immediately attacked by humaniod warriors who looked rough and unfinished. 

The ancient buildings were in ruins that is above ground. Below ground was an entirely another story with vast sprawling complexes and centers full of energy sources and other machinery. This is    according to our own PC Livewire 'master of eletricity and magnatism'  Our party came across a hidden doorway leading down into a high technological tunnel with decontamination booths. The air was pleasant and highly filtered having a highly oxigenated smell about it. 

We were then attacked by soldiers who turned out to be advanced androids armed with blasters. They gave chase and we fled rather then fight. We want the citidel in decent shape so that we can figure out it's operation and more. We ended here today. 

We're using Ascendant's Rogue's gallery's characters  to dovetail with some of the origins of Ascendant's Rogues Gallery to Crom's world for our campaign. 

Crom's world has intersected with our own timeline at various points through out history. This includes our Ascendant campaign when a time doorway allowed Charlemane's Champion to come through. And yes we totally stole him from here. 

He has zero memory of how he came to the modern age. Super strong, highly resistant to damage, and yet capable of great charity. Charlemane's champion has become a valued member of our group as long as he can speak English. We taught him after saving him from a gang of super criminals who had him on ice. 

The Campaign World of CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan For The FASERIPopedia! Rpg

 "Taking as its inspiration Saturday morning science fantasy cartoons and the Golden Age comics era character CROM THE BARBARIAN, this sourcebook brings the full fantasy roleplaying experience to FASERIPopedia!"

"CROM features some of the most startling art and monsters, most exciting characters and settings of any FASERIPopedia game!

A full sandbox chart set is provided to generate detailed "hexes" to explore or fight over as well as a generator for the scattered city-states of CROM's world!

The Bestiary lists cosmic horrors and exotic threats quite unlike the normal and a real challenge even for hyper league superheroes!"

So I'm taking this time with the CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan  For The  FASERIPopedia supplement to augment and expand our Ascendant campaign. And today's blog entry is going to pick right up from here on the blog. CROM's realm is unique because of the fact that in our game it functions as a whole cloth Sword & Sorcery dimension. 

Crom's realm offers a whole campaign's worth of adventure because of the fact that there's a ton of wizards and warlords who have custom cyborg organisms left over from the ages before everything went post apocalpytic. The fantasy wastelands of CROM are not nice places. There are a ton of left over mutant and horrors from outside to challenge player's PC's. The realm of Crom was last accessed during the Seventies when portals from  Subterraea into Bloodville caused a major rift. This Rift was used by raiders from Crom's world for years in our Ascendant rpg campaign.

These incursions into our campaign world have shaped certain cults & occult groups which have crossed over from Crom's realm. Some of these cult members have gone on to be powerful wizards and shamans who thrive in Subterraea. While others are in our campaign world biding thier time and gathering followers. 

Meanwhile back in Crom's realm these cults have expanded to become major threats. The suppplement CROM has a ton of random tables, monsters, and tools to create your own threats. Be warned that many of these threats are far stronger then would at first seem to be scaled for a FASERIP & Marvel Super Heroes advanced rpg game. 

This gets back into some of the logicistics of scaling and creating a CROM campaign as the hexes of Crom's world are huge. There are literally thousands of ruins, dungeons, and more that have been left by the Ancients. And this offers a unique spin on an Ascendant rpg with me dovetailing some of the origins of Ascendant's Rogues Gallery to Crom's world for our campaign.

Crom's world also offers a nice 'Thundarr The Barbarian' & DC's New Gods style setting with the serial numbers filed off. This makes it easy to bring a brand new perspective to a campaign without stealing Marvel or DC properties. However some of Crom's monsters and NPC's can be very powerful so some caution is advised! 

OSR Commentary On CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan For The FASERIPopedia! Rpg

 "Taking as its inspiration Saturday morning science fantasy cartoons and the Golden Age comics era character CROM THE BARBARIAN, this sourcebook brings the full fantasy roleplaying experience to FASERIPopedia!"

"CROM features some of the most startling art and monsters, most exciting characters and settings of any FASERIPopedia game!

A full sandbox chart set is provided to generate detailed "hexes" to explore or fight over as well as a generator for the scattered city-states of CROM's world!

The Bestiary lists cosmic horrors and exotic threats quite unlike the normal and a real challenge even for hyper league superheroes!"

Right, so let's pick it right up from here on the blog.   We're talking Sword, Sorcery, and Super Science! 
CROM THE BARBARIAN By Jothanathan Nolan  For The  FASERIPopedia! Rpg is an incredibly diverse sourcebook. Part Sword & Sorcery sourcebook, part low fantasy  setting & partially a campaign book all in one. Crom the Barbarian is set to take the FASERIPopedia! Rpg in slightly different direction. This is not Conan but instead a completely different character. 

We've used the Crom The Barbarian supplement like a side realm where the PC's have gotten themselves into some real trouble as raiders from Crom's world have given our Marvel Super Heroes rpg & Ascendant rpg players bloody noses. Crom is about as well organized and laidout as other  FASERIPopedia! Rpg (because an editor could go a long way towards getting this material into better shape). That being said there's so much good stuff that gets handed to the players and DM.  FASERIPopedia! Rpg supplements love to cover just about everything about the PC that they can. Crom is no different. 
Here we get a plethora of over arching themings that hit all of the right points for the the FASERIPopedia! Rpg. So for our own campaigns Crom's realm is a realm that is far removed from the normal Earth.
The realm of Crom was last accessed during the Seventies when portals from  Subterraea into Bloodville caused a major rift. This Rift was used by raiders from Crom's world for years in our Ascendant rpg campaign. Villainous goons from Crom's world are much more powerful then the PC's at first thought. And this comes into Crom's scaleable villain and NPC rules.  And then there's Crom's monsters and bad guys whom are designed on the Saturday morning 'Thundarr The Barbarian' model of more power and less brains. 
Crom presents some rather unique challenges to heroes of both Ascendant & FASERIP rpg powered games. 

OSR Commentary - The Ascendant Rpg, FASERIPopedia's Crom , & the Unofficial Marvel Superheroes Cannon Project's Marvelous Myths & Monsters volume 6 The Otherworld By Andrew Goldstein

 So let's pick it up with our current Ascendant rpg campaign & Ginger aka The Pink Fey & her PC's connection to the Marvel  Otherworld. here on the blog.  Going through my older campaign notes I noticed that there was mention of  FASERIPODIA's Crom supplement. 

So what is Crom?! Well it's FASERIPopedia game's Sword & Sorcery supplement mixed with a healthy dose of Saturday morning cartoons of the Lords of Light variety. 
Last time we talked about mixing in the Camelot rpg supplement for FASERIpodedia's into the Unofficial Marvel Superheroes Cannon Project's Marvelous Myths & Monsters volume 6 The Otherworld By Andrew Goldstein  as a part of the Ascendant campaign setting to back up the Pink Fey's origin.
Me being the terrorist dungeon master wants to fade back into our Crom notes for our Ascendant campaign. Crom has more of a Thundarr meets He Man meets Marvel Super Heroes rpg feel to it. Camelot in our game touches several legendary locations in England and Wales. These locations also overlap into the Sword and Sorcery post apocalypstic world. And there may be more going on here with other hero's origins in our campaign then at first meets the eye. 
Crom has a ton of interesting details and bylines within it that crosses into the gonzo post apocalyptic asthetic of classic Bronze age Marvel style comic books. Crom's world is deadly and more then a match for several of the knight style super heroes we had last campaign. 
There are several meet points within Crom and The Otherworld supplement. This folds in nicely for our campaigns and it's going to be matter of deciding how deeply we want to go into the gonzo. 

Crom Deity of An Extinct People - A Different Twist On A Classic Cimmerian God For Your Old School Campaigns

Crom by aquilianranger on DeviantArt

...He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?

Queen of the Black Coast by Robert E. Howard

Ever since I was a kid Robert E. Howard's Crom has been on my mind in one sense or another. But Crom is both as mysterious as he is dangerous. The wiki entry on Crom goes into the gods details;"Crom is the chief god of the Cimmerian pantheon, and he lives on a great mountain, from where he sends forth doom or death. It's useless to call upon Crom, because he is a gloomy and savage god who despises the weak. However, Crom gives a man courage, free-will, and the strength to kill their enemies at birth.^[1] Crom doesn't care if individuals live or die, and he despises weakness, therefore the name of Crom is typically only invoked during an oath or curse. He is the only member of the Cimmerian pantheon named with any regularity." 
In Robert E. Howard Conan stories Crom is the silent divine  witness to every one of Conan's exploits. Crom is the head of a pantheon of the extinct Cimmerian peoples. His rites, his rituals, & even his prayers mean nothing. Crom is gives a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian's mind is the best a man could ask for. 



Conan movie 1982

"His gods were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth dooms and death. It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings. But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian's mind, was all any god should be expected to do.In "The Phoenix on the sword though" king Conan indicates that he prefers the ways of the nordheimr also in religious matters.

The Tower of the Elephant by Robert E. Howard"

Who or what were the other members of Crom's Cimmerian pantheon? We actually have some solid information about these god; "Conan swears often by Crom but also mentions Lir and Manannan mac Lir by name. Howard, in his notes, also listed some other familiar Celtic deities as belonging to the Cimmerian pantheon:

• Badb
• Morrigan
• Macha
• Nemain
• Diancecht
• Dagda"

Crom is highly detailed in original Dungeons & Dragon's Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes 's ROBERT E. HOWARD'S HYBOREA ;
"CROM Armor Class — 4 Magic Ability: (See Below) Move: 18" Fighter Ability: 20th Level Hit Points: 300 Conan's diety, a grim savage human type presides over a great hall in the high mountains filled with powerful fighters. He hates any form of weakness and to call on him in this state is to bring dooms instead of help. He has the power to teleport and fights as a Storm Giant. He wears plus 4 armor and uses a plus 3 sword."



Crom has resurfaced in the OSR back in Jan 29, 2014  in Greg Gorgonmilk's free Underworld Lore issue#3 in which an alternative HYBOREA Lore is detailed. James Mishler' version of Crom presents a grim divine warrior.


Mishler's Crom gets a solid entry in Petty Gods: Revised & Expanded Edition where he is counted among the Petty Gods. But really there are those among certain Howard & HP Lovecraft fans who insist that Crom is an Elder God. Among my fellow Robert E.Howard & HP Lovecraft local fans there is a fan theory that states Odin is a future incarnation of Crom;"Beginning with Henry Petersen's doctoral dissertation in 1876, which proposed that Thor was the indigenous god of Scandinavian farmers and Odin a later god proper to chieftains and poets, many scholars of Norse mythology in the past viewed Odin as having been imported from elsewhere. The idea was developed by Bernhard Salin on the basis of motifs in the petroglyphs and bracteates, and with reference to the Prologue of the Prose Edda, which presents the Æsir as having migrated into Scandinavia. Salin proposed that both Odin and the runes were introduced from Southeastern Europe in the Iron Age. Other scholars placed his introduction at different times; Axel Olrik, during the Migration Age as a result of Gaulish influence.^[66]

More radically, both the archaeologist and comparative mythologist Marija Gimbutas and the Germanicist Karl Helm argued that the Æsir as a group, which includes both Thor and Odin, were late introductions into Northern Europe and that the indigenous religion of the region had been Vanic.^[67][68]

In the 16th century and by the entire Vasa dynasty, Odin (as Oden) was officially considered the first King of Sweden by that country's government and historians. This was based on an embellished list of rulers invented by Johannes Magnus and adopted as fact in the reign of King Carl IX, who, though numbered accordingly, actually was only Carl III.^[69]

Under the trifunctional hypothesis of Georges Dumézil, Odin is assigned one of the core functions in the Indo-European pantheon as a representative of the first function (sovereignty) corresponding to the Hindu Varuṇa (fury and magic) as opposed to Týr, who corresponds to the Hindu Mitrá (law and justice); while the Vanir represent the third function (fertility).^[70][71]

Odin, in his guise as a wanderer, by Georg von Rosen (1886)

Another approach to Odin has been in terms of his function and attributes. Many early scholars interpreted him as a wind-god or especially as a death-god.^[72] He has also been interpreted in the light of his association with ecstatic practices, and Jan de Vries compared him to the Hindu god Rudra and the Greek Hermes"


In the far future of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea we see both Crom & Odin take the battlefield of Ragnarok;"The völva continues that Jötunheimr, the land of the jötnar, is aroar, and that the Æsir are in council. The dwarfs groan by their stone doors.^[13] Surtr advances from the south, his sword brighter than the sun. Rocky cliffs open and the jötnar women sink.^[16]

The gods then do battle with the invaders: Odin is swallowed whole and alive fighting the wolf Fenrir, causing his wife Frigg her second great sorrow (the first being the death of her son, the god Baldr).^[17] Odin's son Víðarr avenges his father by rending Fenrir's jaws apart and stabbing it in the heart with his spear, thus killing the wolf. The serpent Jörmungandr opens its gaping maw, yawning widely in the air, and is met in combat by Thor. Thor, also a son of Odin and described here as protector of the earth, furiously fights the serpent, defeating it, but Thor is only able to take nine steps afterward before collapsing. The god Freyr fights Surtr and loses. After this, people flee their homes, and the sun becomes black while the earth sinks into the sea, the stars vanish, steam rises, and flames touch the heavens.^[18]

Battle of the Doomed Gods (by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine, 1882)

The völva sees the earth reappearing from the water, and an eagle over a waterfall hunting fish on a mountain. The surviving Æsir meet together at the field of Iðavöllr. They discuss Jörmungandr, great events of the past, and the runic alphabet. In stanza 61, in the grass, they find the golden game pieces that the gods are described as having once happily enjoyed playing games with long ago (attested earlier in the same poem). The reemerged fields grow without needing to be sown. The gods Höðr and Baldr return from Hel and live happily together.<sup>["

Crom himself as the grim warrior has his own people among the Viking & Keltic
 peoples of Hyperborea. He saw the coming conflict
between Old Earth & Hyperborea. He raised his cults of warriors among the
 elite orders of the military. Crom agenda has not changed
at all. Strong backs, good sword arms, and the code of the warrior all please the grim one.


 King Conan composed by Roy Thomas King Conan issue # 8</sup>