The Continuing Outer Realm War Round Three/Four - Godbound/Cha'alt Play Session Recap

So the trip to the Cosmic Kitten ended up with DM Steve's PC giving over a minor artifact to Barron (nothing ever good comes from getting involved with Barron. Ever). They learned about major goings on in the Hollywood Hills which Barron referred to as a "great party".  Guess where DM Steve's PC headed as soon as they got back to 'Earth'?! This got a great chuckle from Barron whose attention went back to his latest play thing. 

During last night's game DM Steve learned a very important truth in our Godbound/Cha'alt session. Don't mess with the Elves on Cha'alt! His Godbound PC was literally torn apart & sacrificed to a parasitic god! He was playing it fast & loose striking out on his own without the rest of the party to back him up! They warned him & lately we've been incorporating a number of B/X sources into our game including a free pdf called Adding Unspeakable Horrors From Beyond The Stars. There are Lovecraftian Space Elves that have been the source of many of the Elven tribes on Cha'alt/Carcosa. A huge mob of about 60 of these bastards got a hold of his PC last night. They been trying to open a gate on the Night Road  in California's Hollywood Hills for their parasite god! Well the rest of the Godbound party warned him not to go without backup. He encountered several Cha'alt space elves assassin strike teams.They caused him waste his energies & that was that. The rest of the mob overwhelmed him with shear numbers. Then the knife came down! 

A desert  Phkeh Giant came to take the sacrifice on behalf of his god  & things slid way down hill. Now DM Steve is off making a new PC to bring in next week. So to say it wasn't pretty is an understatement. These things are the raw chaotic  & Lovecraftian Elves that have been eluded to in the Dark Albion setting & the Lion & Dragon Rpg. 

This isn't the only mention of these Elves! Now throughout this game campaign the  Adventurer,Conqueror,King's rpg has been in use! ACK's dungeons & adventure modules have been a part of this campaign since the beginning.  AX4: Ruined City of Cyfandir's ruins have appeared near the deserts of Utah. The dragon king warned the party to stay clear of 'em. The Elves are still occupying them & they are extremely dangerous.  But if you take your motorcycle ride up to the Hollywood Hills & then challenge the space elves then roll a '1'. Well folks your gonna die even if your Godbound. 

The party of adventurers right now has summoned a 'lawyer demon' straight outta of The Metallic Tome. To see if they can bargain for DM Steve's old character's soul. But as the demon told them, 'Sometimes dead is dead even in the Abyss'. 

So this goes back over year ago when DM Steve's PC & his team  were  messing with AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. They barely made it out alive & my other player's adventures plus the American military's mecha had to mount a rescue! The pig faced orcs serving the horror behind the stone wanted their souls for lunch badly. 

The PC's hiked it back to the dragon king last night & they had picked up a hitch hiker NPC who looks suspiciously like Barron's latest play thing. Lisa Watts is the lead singer in the 'Crags' a hard core metal band & adventurer. Is she godbound or perhaps demon spawn?! Unknown at the moment but the team's hover van broke down right after stranding them in the middle of nowhere squared & that's when the Cha'alt manticore attacked! 

Everyone was getting to roll initiative & I purposely ended right there on that cliff hanger because I'm that much of a bastard. 

The Continuing Outer Realm War Round Two - Godbound/Cha'alt Play Session Recap

 

Between January 24th 2020 to today 9/9/2020 there have been two deaths at our table, two of our most experienced players have passed. Twenty twenty has been a rough time for many of us but for our players its been an especially rough time. Back in January 2020 I had my first Godbound/Cha'alt session you can read about that right here. 
Now with stiff drink in my gut & having had a meeting with my players about this game. There's been a consense to get this campaign back on track. There are several reasons for this. Eighteen months game time have passed everyone wanted the player's PC's buried with appropriate shrine locations worked into the campaign. Cha'alt waits for no one however. The EMP spread across the planet, millions dead or were converted into mutants or demonic something elses.  Now with Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise out  it was only a matter of time before the California campaign came back in spades. 



 Xanthium-183 which has been showing up across the underworld of  the United States & as well as California for sometime. The United States military has been incorporating vast amounts of alien military advisors, weapons, mecha, etc. from Cha'alt. The cabals of Elysium have engaged with the US military & been found wanting on several battle fronts. 



During tonight's game the PC's had to go to the USA's military base in the Grand Canyon to summon more PC Godbound  from a nearby fantasy Prime plane. The player's PC Godbound were taken into the US military base built into the Isle Temple & Cancid's Caves. The place is heavily guarded by US Cha'alt converted mecha. 


Something went entirely wrong as the moment the PC's were summoned. An old foe namely the Egg of Coot decided to attack the California base in tonight's game! The PC's teleported back via one of their new Godbound allies. And yes this is Havard's Giger version of the Egg of Coot! 


And the cybernetic army along with a Juggernaut of Doom is fully engaged with the PC's & the US military. Things are looking very grim indeed for our PC's if only there might be some possible allies?! Note that the DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor isn't geared toward Mystara but Greyhawk. Note that my version of the classic Greyhawk is actually Sword & Sorcery Greyhawk with twists & turns within its history. With this campaign world setting I've used a good deal of AS&SH along with Adventurer, Conqueror, King's product line to build this & expand it out. Will the PC's survive?!

Black Roads & Deodanths of Destruction - Play Session Report Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign

Today's  Godbound/Cha'alt game has been an adventure unto itself. The Corona virus scare has made my gaming & even blogging very interesting in Connecticut. Half of my day was gathering supplies,shopping, & then finally settling in for my usual Friday night game. In tonight's game I have a gang of Deodanth acting as a  hit squad warriors to take out the party. The Deodanths are working for the Egg of Coot. They've been tracking the party for the better part of three months. 
Dealing with these Deodanth took up a good proportion of the evening. The Deodanths had replaced a good portion of the dragon king's soldiers & almost succeeding in doing in the party. 


The Deodanths in tonight's games came from the Underworld Cleaning Service blog from 2012. The most evil race of nasties this side of bloody,bloody, Arduin. We had encountered a Deodanth war party.
 The Deodanths are a race of chaotic evil undead, demonic, Elven/catmen race  created as a biological weapon from the  far future by an unknown power. They have been sent back or escaped back in time to the Arduin campaign setting/multiverse.


Deodanth concept art by Greg Espinosa for the Arduin Monster Cards,1977

The in my experience Deodanths are truly nasty customers & should never be underestimated in any way,shape, or form.. Now if I was going to run Arduin then I'd want to run it smooth, simple, & OSR quick. That brings me to  J. Miskimen's Ruins of Arduin. This is a Swords & Wizardry homage to the original Arduin & its free! Completely  compatible with Swords & Wizardry, fast, its free, & its very easy to use!



The deodanths infiltrated the mob that was attacking the walls of the dragon king's city state. The walls of the city state were attacked by clock work cybernetic zombies working for the Egg as fodder. The zombies senses were connected to the Egg itself.


Deodanth with trophy head available from Emperor's Choice Games here. 
Off in the distance a cackling cybernetic presence tries to open a night road below the castle's walls but the PC's weren't having it. The portal mage fought off the attack as a horde of deodanth knights were prepared to mob our heroes.

The gods of the black pyramid are amused & are using the Egg of Coot in their machinations but what will happen coming!? 

Going Full Cha'alt - Volton The Deathless Major NPC!

Resurrected from the billion year old junk yard of super science & demonic energies beneath the shifting purple sands of Cha'alt's Vega Corso. A lone demonic agent of chaos strides out for his mecha again. Call from beyond by the demon worm sultan of Cha'alt Nevar'us the Damned. Volton The Deathless has been called forth from the Abyss to defend the armies of  the Egg of Coot. The blind Elven occult technicians make the final adjustments to his war wheel mecha. And the agents lives.. again to tear the wastelands apart! 


Gray Morrow - Robot Soldier Illustration  that I think is exactly the right style for my NPC Voltan the Deathless a Godbound rpg agent of Chaos. Art is used without permission but no copyright or trademark infridgement is meant. This blog post is for educational & entertainment purposes only. If you don't know who Gary Morrow is then read about this over looked master right here. 


So this morning things have been very interesting. The concept of an anti paladin A.I. mechanism came to me while rewatching Hawk The Slayer film last night. This Voltan is a cloned  organic brain in a cybernetic body mechanism. This Voltan has been service to the forces of Chaos for thousands of years. This is another job in a very long line of jobs from the time that the brain has been cloned & recloned time after time. The mecha pilot cybernetic organism has been asleep beneath the sands for thousands of years. Well, there's no rest for the wicked & the blind Elven occult technicians have been working for two weeks straight without rest on his war wheel! And now the mechanism has taken off across the wasteland!



Voltan speaks exactly like Jack Palance's character in Hawk The Slayer & feels imaginary pain from his optics. He's so over the top & is gonna be great fun to play chewing up the scenery while going on full on bouts of chaos,mayhem, as well as rounds of destruction!
And he's on a mission of revenge for the players closing the planar gateway in last night's game. What other horrors lurk below the shifting sands of Cha'alt's Vega Corso wasteland junk yard?



Straight outta of the shifting sands of Cha'alt baby!


Voltan The Undying was created from the ground up using Cha'alt/Godbound rpg systems & then bringing home the tone of the cybernetic bastard in all his glory! The fact is that he's actually a triple agent working for the demon worm sultan of Cha'alt Nevar'us the Damned whist in the employ of the Egg of Coot. But his loyalties might lay elsewhere in actuality!  

He may in his full on bouts of insanity descide that one of the PC's is his long deceased brother Hawk & go on a blood fueled bout of ultra-violence soaked round of revenge for imaginary crimes! He's tear assing across Cha'alt wastelands now for the nearest Chaos warp for the wastelands & the PC's! 

Crack & Lash Blackmoor & Beyond - Using A0-A4: Against the Slave By Lords David "Zeb" Cook, Allen Hammack, Harold Johnson, & Tom Moldvay For Your Old School Campaigns

Taking a long look at that slave lords organization from A0-A4  Against the Slave Lords specifically the collected 'super module' that came out way back in 2016 or so. I think that slave lords is a perfect example of a Pulp era Swords & Sorcery secret villain organization. They & the organization's members are specifically like a revolving door of scum & villainy. The slave lords are the perfect organization to use as a planes reaching villains who are out to exploit the masses.




In the history of Greyhawk the slave lords are inimical to the classic setting's history & peoples. They are the exploitable resources to the masters & monsters of the slave lords line up especially from info from the D&D wiki ;

"In 574 CY, Klim and his allies returned to Suderham, where they slew its last king, Roderic and took control of the town. By 576, the organization had become known as the Slave Lords, though its ruling council was still known as the Nine. Known members of the Nine from 576-580 include:

• Stalman Klim (also known as Mordrammo).
• Eanwulf (Also known as Feelta), a human pirate lord.
• Edralve, an exiled drow priestess of Lolth from Erelhei-Cinlu.
• Lamonsten the Lazy, an illusionist from Dyvers.
• Nerelas, a human assassin.
• Slippery Ketta, a human rogue.
• Ajakstu, a human wizard.
• Brother Milerjoi, a human monk of the Scarlet Brotherhood.
• Brother Kerin, a human monk of the Scarlet Brotherhood, Milerjoi's assistant.
• Theg Narlot, a half-orc assassin.

From 576 to 580 CY, the Slave Lords thrived, raiding for slaves in a number of towns on the Gearnat coast, making slaves one of the Pomarj's most valuable exports. The Slave Lords' operations came to an end in 580, due to the machinations of adventurers hired by a coalition of legal authorities known as the Lords of Gearnat, and the destruction of Suderham by a volcanic eruption.

Other known members of the Slave Lords during this period, who were not members of the Nine, include:

• Markessa, an elven wizard who performed arcane experiments.
• Icar, a blind human fighter, perhaps of Touv stock.
• Blackthorn, an ogre mage.
• Wimpell Frump, a human illusionist.
• Sturm Blucholtz, a human rogue."

When the overall details of the slave lords are devolved into & analyzed they could be easily used in say Mystara. Demos Sachlas has an excellent little article on the vaults of Pandius site on using the Slave Lords series on classic Mystara called  Setting modules A1-4/Slave Lords in the Gulf of Hule.

What makes the slave lords so universally despised is the fact that their villainy rings true across the classic D&D settings. So much so that I've seen multiple incarnations of the slavers used in campaign cycles & adventure paths.



Piazza member BotWizo had a fantastic idea in the[Adapting Modules] A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords  adapting the following ; "Do you have a plan to bring the whole mega campaign path to Mystara?
This would be;
Temple of Elemental Evil T1-4
Slavers A1-4
Queen of Spiders GDQ1-7

I had set this path in Mystara in the late 80s so now I have to see if I still have notes on what I did and where things were set.
At the time I did not have Gazetteers, I was just using "known world" material, I didn't know about the setting being called Mystara until later.

So now the implementation of setting this path in Mystara probably would be much different than my first approach.

Off the cuff, Temple somewhere in known world or thyatis, Slavers on or near Isle of dawn, Queen of spiders (location ?) .

I would also change the make-up of opponents in some of the products to be more elemental themed throughout."

Personally as a dungeon master I'd go further back then that & use some of the time & plane slip magic that the slavers have access to & drop them right into classic Dave Arneson & David J Richie's  DA1 Blackmoor. 

The reason why this works is the time frame of Dave Arneson & David J Richie's  DA1 Blackmoor.  The slavers easily slip into the Blackmoor setting without a nod & wink continuing to carry on their nefarious business with hardly a nod & a wink! 
I've used this scenario countless times with Dave Arneson & David J Richie's  DA1 Blackmoor. A couple of mini game campaigns with this set up & it works like a charm. The players loath & hate the slavers with a burning passion. And these modules fit the times & the setting of Blackmoor like an armored glove. Smashing & destroying one small part of the slave lords operation isn't going to be the end of it as we shall see coming up.

More Commentary On D2 Temple of The Frog By Dave L. Arneson & David J. Ritchie

Why is DA2 Temple of The Frog so critical to the history of  Dungeons & Dragons? Well for many folks it was the first time they had heard of Dave L. Arneson.

And the extensive history surrounding his contribution to the creation of Dungeons & Dragons in Nineteen Eighty Six.  David J. Ritchie had done a bit of a service to the Dungeons & Dragons community by pulling together all of the Dave L Arneson's incredible elements into their world of Blackmoor. Now lots of folks could experience the horrors of the Great Dismal Swamp. We're talking epic Pulp level heroism on the part of the PC's if they survive the experience.
The history & timeline of the Temple of The Frog speaks volumes of the horrors that St.Stephen of the Rock has been visiting on the surrounding countryside. Mind control, mutated monsters, forbidden cults, human ritual sacrifice, & worse?! There are conversions of the human races of Blacmoor for Basic Dungeons & Dragons. These same races are the prime motivation for the Egg of Coot whose pure evil basic & simple.
But when you begin adding into the mix the actual elements of Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign. Then the events of DA2  begin to turn legendary. Make no mistake about it the Egg is threat because of its status as it manipulates events,people, &  battles both in front of as well as  behind the scenes.


At some point the Egg & its cults will begin the conquest of various worlds but seems to have run afoul of something in Greyhawk. But Greyhawk's version of the Egg seems to be waiting for something. 

There is evidence that the Egg's spies & agents have been working for decades in Judge's Guild's City State of The Invincible Overlord. The thing is that both St. Steven The Rock & The Egg of Coot may have bitten off more then they can chew when it comes to the Wilderlands of Fantasy. Judge's Guilds Wilderlands of High Fantasy had/has an extensive list of NPC's that were perfectly suited for the shenanigans of  the Froggies.


The beauty of DA2 Temple of the Frog is how easily it slots into an existing campaign setting. Factions & such are perfectly aligned with the old school play style when this adventure hits the table. I think its the excitement that bleeds out from David Arneson's creations & coupled with David J. Ritchie's work on adapting it.


Because DA2 is easily adaptable I seen a few folks over the years retrocon the adventure into their original Dungeons & Dragons Blackmoor setting. The reverse enginnering of this style of play gave me some pause as I realized just how much of Blackmoor was Arneson's work & play with his players. Buts its only going to be a matter of time before the Egg's forces & the Froggies will once again march across the planes to accost the many worlds of the plane Prime!

OSR Commentary On DA1 Adventures In Blackmoor By Dave L. Arneson and David J. Ritchie

"Blackmoor is beset!"
On every side the storm clouds gather. To south and east, the Great Empire of Thonia plots to end Blackmoor's independence and reclaim its lost province. To the west, the implacable Afridhi are on the move. To the north, the evil Egg of Coot prepares to cross the thundering sea and once again bring fire and sword into the heart of the small kingdom. Beyond the realm of the Egg, the hated Skandaharian Raiders are building longships and preparing to fall upon Blackmoor's unprotected coast while its tiny army turns to meet these other threats.
Into this time of black despair, there steps a band of adventurers who clutch strange swords and wear most curious armor - and who claim that Blackmoor sank beneath the ice 3,000 years ago!"


Years & years  ago I picked up DA2 Temple of the Frog before DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor by Dave L. Arneson and David J. Ritchie.

"Adventures in Blackmoor is a 64-page^[1] Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game adventure, designed to be compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set."
The PC's travel back in time three thousand years back to the time of Mystara ancient past into the time of Blackmoor. "The PC's are transported from their "modern" time to the time of Blackmoor and must rescue King Uther from The Prison Out of Time"
Anyone that knows me as a dungeon master knows that I love dimension & plane hopping adventure setting locations & the inn from Adventures in Blackmoor is a brilliant adventure plot device. But Mystara & Blackmoor should have have been separate adventure settings each unto their own rights. Yet they could have been connected using this series of adventures. But instead the whole adventure line was cancelled.
Anyone with this adventure & Judge's Guild's First Fantasy Campaign by David Arneson have all of the tools the dungeon master  needs to run a complete campaign in their own right.


How?! By using the fully developed NPC's & information in DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor. There's just enough to flesh out swaths of the this hybrid Blackmoor.
"The final 20 pages of the adventure give a description of Blackmoor, and detail 38 prominent NPCs from the setting.^[3] The module includes campaign setting material on Blackmoor and the Thonian Empire."
This is a very different Blackmoor then the free wheeling Blackmoor described in the First Fantasy Campaign. Locations are fully fleshed out whole cloth, NPC's  have strong motivations & back history, the empires have static histories of the past that have further effects on the 'now'.
It's less of an adventure than a primer into Blackmoor culture and intrigue.And this speaks somewhat of Blackmoor very different place within the Gygax Greyhawk box set. Blackmoor in Greyhawk is mirror reflection of the dark & forbidden secrets of the Blackmoor setting. A weird & twisted place of dark dreams & dangerous nightmares bubbling just below the surface.  But which is the 'true' Blackmoor?  I feel that each of these version of Blackmoor is but a representive of David Arneson's vision.

Now I've mentioned St.Stephen of the Rock but let me say again that he is one of Dungeons & Dragon's true evil madmen & should ever be under estimated. I've had two PC's back in '87 killed odd by the murderous bastard. His evil along with the Egg of Coot
infects everything within DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor this runs from David Arneson's original ideas & expansive  game play. David J. Ritchie codified those ideas & fleshed them out for DA1. The legacy of DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor is found on the table tops of those who continue to use this iconic campaign setting & its adventure. It also continues to speak to the incredible amount of work contributed to the hobby of table top gaming by David Arneson & his work for the creation of Dungeons & Dragons as a whole.

Next time we get into the deeper connections between Blackmoor & the Temple of the Frog, motivations for the Egg, more Greyhawk hooks, & the weirder aspects in Mystara