Deadly Legacy - James Mishler Games Short Cuts to Adventure The Lost Gnome Mine Using Fantastic Heroes & Witchery With Dark Albion Session Report #1

 So there's been a ton of personal issues to deal with this weekend from scheduling mishaps to angry x girl friends. And I loath social media on top of all of this. Let's sweep this aside for a moment. Readers of this blog know that for the pass two or three years on and off there been Fantastic Heroes & Witchery rpg campaign on going on my watch. 

And yes this spilt over into Pundit's Dark Albion rpg campaign supplement & this later on became our Dark Europe campaign setting. We've had Cymric nobles, lost kingdoms, Arthurian influences, etc. you name it. And this brings up a fairy legacy that's been hanging out there in limbo! And so today I had my ears pinned back to run our campagin that uses Fantastic Heroes & Witchery's path through Dark Albion! 

And that brings up James Mishler Games Short Cuts to Adventure The Lost Gnome Mine. Right on the edge of one of noble's holdings that fades into the land of Fairy is the lost gnome; "Here long ago a clan of gnomes discovered a huge and beautiful black diamond. So magnificent was it, they began to worship it. Then, strange and terrible things happened, and the gnomes disappeared. But it is said that the huge black diamond, worth a king’s ransom, remains to be found…"  And this became the lost legacy for our current ruined noble on the edge of his property. So the rest of the party has gotten roped into helping their fellow party member. 
 Games Short Cuts to Adventure The Lost Gnome Mine is only eight pages long & can seamlessly be inserted into an ongoing campaign. There's a great little map & the black diamond is a nasty little servant of  Chaos & evil with its influene growing sending its tendrils into the real world slowly but surely within Wales. 

At only eight pages, we've (DM Steve & myself) have had to pad out the encounters around the old gnome mine in Fairy with the locals coming to their laird for help. And then there's the fleeing goblins! The fleeing goblins the party encountered as they made their way to the old gnome mine. And then the party encountered the hobb lord & his witch doctor advisor. There was a parley between the laird & the goblin lord who explained that they wanted to flee from the nasty influence of the mine. The party wisely returned to the noble's home to arm up & take on the evil of the mine. 
The players are not happy one little bit about the gnome mine really want to recon it before taking it on. Mission achieved on my part today. Is James Mishler Games Short Cuts to Adventure The Lost Gnome Mine worth the price of a dollar for a download?! In a word yes! There's enough adventure inducing meat here to flesh out what encounters and whatnot that you need to add the James Mishler Games Short Cuts to Adventure The Lost Gnome Mine to your own campaign. 

James Mishler Games Short Cuts to Adventure The Lost Gnome Mine Is Available Right Here

Raids, Ruins, & Hersey In The Countryside - G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (1e) By Gary Gygax & The Hundred Years War

 So what happens when the giants during The Hundred Year War start to stir in the Welsh terrorities?! The players have already gone through the N1 Against the Reptile Cult & that's been put down. Now reports of giants have begun to get reports that giants are raiding the countryside. 

Now here's the thing, a prisoner has escaped back to the authorities, & she reports a pagan hersey involved as well. She seen Ysbaddaden Bencawr; "Ysbaddaden, Chief of Giants, among them.



Illustration by John D. Batten (1892)

Whose Ysbaddaden?  Ysbaddaden Bencawr is  the chief antagonist of the early Arthurian tale How Culhwch won Olwen. And very dangerous as well as cunning;"Ysbaddaden Bencawr; "Ysbaddaden, Chief of Giants," is the primary antagonist of the Welsh romance Culhwch ac Olwen.^[1] A vicious giant residing in a nigh unreachable castle, he is the father of Olwen and uncle of Goreu fab Custennin.

Culhwch's father, King Cilydd son of Celyddon, loses his wife Goleuddydd after a difficult childbirth. When Cilydd remarries, the young Culhwch rejects his stepmother's attempt to pair him with his new stepsister. Offended, the new queen puts a curse on him so that he can marry no one besides the beautiful Olwen, daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden. Though he has never seen her, Culhwch becomes infatuated with her, but his father warns him that he will never find her without the aid of his famous cousin Arthur. The young man immediately sets off to seek his kinsman. He finds him at his court in Celliwig in Cornwall and asks for support and assistance.

Arthur agrees to help, and sends six warriors to join Culhwch in his search for Olwen. They travel onwards until they come across the "fairest of the castles of the world", and meet Ysbaddaden's shepherd brother, Custennin. They learn that the castle belongs to Ysbaddaden, that he stripped Custennin of his lands and murdered the shepherd's twenty-three children out of cruelty. Custennin set up a meeting between Culhwch and Olwen, and the maiden agrees to lead Culhwch and his companions to Ysbadadden's castle. The warrior Cai pledges to protect the twenty-fourth son, Goreu, with his life." 

Make no mistake this turns 'G1 The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief ' by Gary Gygax into a full on inquistor's campaign starter module involving Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos . The PC's are going to be acting as the Black Prince's agents in the Welsh countryside. 

Edward The Black Prince is a major NPC influence here & isn't to be taken lightly. The PC's are going to report directly too him through mystical means. The major NPC villain here is going to acting through intermediatary NPC's so the chief in Gary Gygax's Steading is a vassel or chieftain of Ysbaddaden Bencawr. 
The PC's are dealing with the fall out of Arthur and Gwalchmai fab Gwyar efforts & this propels things ahead at break neck speed. The PC's are going to be up to their necks in this one. 

Culhwch at Ysbaddaden's court. An illustration by E. Wallcousins in Celtic Myth & Legend, Charles Squire, 1920 "Horses shall I have, and chivalry; and my Lord and kinsman Arthur will obtain for me all these things. And I shall gain thy daughter, and thou shalt lose thy life." "Go forward...and when thou hast compassed all these marvels, thou shalt have my daughter for thy wife."

The Drow are going to be mentioned & they have an entirely different agenda & its not a good one. "
Temple found under the steading is explicitly stated to be dedicated to the Elder Eye, which by 4th edition was synonymous with Tharizdun." And this might tie in with Norkers being a part of the mercenary armies of the Drow and  'The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun' by Gary Gygax. 

The PC's are being manipulated from all sides here & they are going to be dealing with some very heavy duty foes. Extra player characters are going to need to be on stand by. Basically this is simply going to turn into yet another front in the Hundred Years war. The Drow are following an age old pattern set out by their Elven god ancestors to manipulate the humans. They don't bank on humanity's ability to cope with the mythological at this point. 

We'll get into the tie in with 

RPGPundit Presents: The Old School Companion 1 coming up! 

Cults, Chaos, & Dungeons Design Amid War - More D1 Descent Into The Earth By Gary Gygax Commentary

 So PC's have explored Gary Gygax's D1 Descent Into The Depths of the Earth & now the world is safe! The Hundred Years War is wrapping up, all is right, & now events are in motion after  the Battle of Castillon. The party can relax & move on with their lives! Not in the least. Moping up the affairs of Europe are going to years and here's why.

Right so one of the side lines of talking about adapting the Hundred Years War into an actual campaign for Lion & Dragon is that fact Chaos is a constant threat & theme throughout a campaign. But where exactly is chaos coming from?  The simple fact is that the entire countryside of Dark Europe is riddled with ancient prehistoric highways created by the slaves of the Elves thousands of years ago. These tunnel systems lead throughout Paris, the countryside of France, England, Italy. most of Europe, & this includes Spain as well.


Battle of Poitiers (miniature of Froissart)


So where is Chaos coming? The dungeons both within this world of Dark Europe & outside of it in the realms of the Fairylands. This occurred to me reading through Gylnn Seal's Middenlands campaign which uses the idea of Chaos as a mutating and constant threat. Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood Design has a new Middenlands Kickstarter campaign expansion coming up I highly suggest that you support. The Middenlands isn't simply some backwater country area. The setting  exposes the mutating & near constant threat of Chaos.



Top this off with cults of witches & ghouls that are quietly striking at the heart of Europe from within and well scenes like this are all too common in Dark Europe.  You are going to get entire families wiped out by war, famine, & monsters. Titles,lands, & deeds are going to be the rewards of the day. The Church is going to another huge factor when the forces of Chaos are around.



But why are scenes like this common in both folklore & mythology in Dark Europe even admist the turmoil of the Hundred Years War? Because there is a marked history of conflict going all the way back to the Elven empires of thousands of years ago. So whose exposing these dungeons? The monsters are! They're basically operating a brush fire war amid the battles & mini wars of the humans! 



Why?! Because there's no Underdark but an Underworld! The Underworld is both physical & occult touching both the realms of the Fairylands & Earth. This is because it was arranged by the Elves thousands of years ago. The strange radiations & energies of these dungeon lands have very bad effects upon the humans who are exposed to them for too long. This has been happening since the time of the Greeks & well before that into the time of the secondary last Ice Age.

Peter Paul Rubens - Aeneas in the Underworld

So why would these dungeons, ruins, haunted mountains,etc. always be open & have adventurers stumbling into them? Well its the monsters of Chaos & the cults who are opening them up for the alien gods from below. At the end of the day this isn't our world sure it uses real world history as the basis for a campaign but there has to be a balance between the Dungeons & Dragons elements & real world history.

Frans Francken (II) - Orpheus in the Underworld.


The Church & the royals is going to be busy purging the elements of Chaos from amid their lands but for every one they catch two or three may slink back into the darkness. The forces of Satan & the Underworld are vast & very tempting for average man or woman during this time. Cults are going to flourish and dungeons in remote areas could well become full blown menaces to various kingdoms. Dungeons offer meeting places, hidden temple areas, and vast resources for a cult. Add in the alien influence of the Underworld here & well the uptick in secret societies we see during the Rose War is understandable. Clark Asthon Smith's Mother of Toads has some interesting notions about the alien influence of the occult upon the senses of his protagonist.
Given that its a part of the  Averoigne stories it certainly fits the genesis of the themes today.

Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld

For cults dungeons are full on places of religious significant & all that implies. There are villages where the ruins at the edges of the place are places where forgotten sacrifices ensure a bountiful harvest and this means the difference between life & death. This is especially true during the Hundred Years War. Don't forget that the vast mazes, warrens, etc.  that Gary Gygax describes in Descent Into the Depths of the Earth are a part of a far vaster network & its right below the streets of Paris itself. This puts the heart of Chaos right into the midst of the heart of France! This puts soul searing temptation, danger, & mutation right at the heart of the PC's during the Hundred Years War!

Fangs, Falsehood, & The Rise of the Serpents Doug Niles N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God & The Hundred Year War Campaign

 "Who fares to find the sunset ere it fly,

Turning to light and fire the further west,
Shall have the veils of twilight for his guest,
And all the falling of an ashen sky.

On lands he shall not know, the splendor lies—
A pharos on some alienated shore,
In foam and purple lost forevermore,
Where dreams are kindled in remoter eyes."

Ashes of Sunset  (1922) 
by Clark Ashton Smith

"Terror by night! The village of Orlane is dying. Once a small and thriving community, Orlane has become a maze of locked doors and frightened faces. Strangers are shunned, trade has withered. Rumors flourish, growing wilder with each retelling. Terrified peasants flee their homes, abandoning their farms with no explanation. Others simply disappear. . .

No one seems to know the cause of the decay -- why are there no clues? Who skulks through the twisted shadows of the night? Who or what is behind the doom that has overtaken the village? It will take a brave and skillful band of adventurers to solve the dark riddle of Orlane!"

So I'm dusting of N1: "Against The Cult of the Reptile God" (1982), by Douglas Niles, for a moment as a thought excecise. My players last night were saying that their familiar with the 
 Dark Albion rpg setting, Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos, & the Lion & Dragon Rpg. The background of this rpg is the historical Rose War. But since they know of the historical events. We're going to twist things up a bit using a classic TSR module;"N1: "Against The Cult of the Reptile God" (1982), by Douglas Niles, is the first adventure in a novice-level series for AD&D. It was written in February 1982, so it was probably published in the first half of the year." 

This campaign was a thought excercise using OSR resources to run a Hundred Years War campaign in a Dark Europe. I ran this campaign from 2017 through 2019 using Dark Ablion, Cults of Chaos, & finally Lion & Dragon.
This campaign started with 

Blood, Thunder, Beer, & The Hundred Years War - Campaign Commentary Set up 

Europe was changing fast & the occult forces of Law & Chaos along with the supernatural raged in the background;"The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts in Western Europe from 1337 to 1453, waged between the House of Plantagenet and its cadet House of Lancaster, rulers of the Kingdom of England, and the House of Valois over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. "

Edward as a Knight of the Garter, 1453, illustration from the Bruges Garter Book, British Library

Imagine if you will that in 1343 'The Prince of Wales' faced down a threat to his throne during  the Hundred Years' War through the machinations of an inhuman threat taken on by his agents ( the adventurers) in the Welsh town of Orlane. The Black Prince acts through his agents the PC;

 "Edward of Woodstock, known to history as the Black Prince (15 June 1330 – 8 June 1376),^[1][a] was the eldest son of King Edward III of England, and the heir to the English throne. He died before his father and so his son, Richard II, succeeded to the throne instead. Edward nevertheless earned distinction as one of the most successful English commanders during the Hundred Years' War, being regarded by his English contemporaries as a model of chivalry and one of the greatest knights of his age.^[2] He is on the other hand remembered in France for his well documented brutality and the massacres he ordered.^[3]

Edward was made Duke of Cornwall, the first English dukedom, in 1337. He was guardian of the kingdom in his father's absence in 1338, 1340, and 1342. He was created Prince of Wales in 1343 and knighted by his father at La Hogne in 1346."

At this point the Black Prince isn't sure if his court has been infiltrated by serpent men/liszard men shape shifting turn coats. His advisors know of some of the influence that the witch covens & former reptile cults have in the area but those are merely the prattlings of old men & the local Welsh. Right?! 

Edward of Woodstock already got his hands full in many of the fields of battle, politics, and the state of England. The black prince has heard of some of the reports of a hersey. His agents know some of this from events from Cults, Chaos, & Dungeons Design Amid War - More D1 Descent Into The Earth By Gary Gygax Commentary. 

This version of N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles takes a good deal of its Lovecraftian thunder from Children of the Night by Robert E. Howard.

"Humans they were, of a sort, though I did not consider them so. They were short and stocky, with broad heads too large for their scrawny bodies. Their hair was snaky and stringy, their faces broad and square, with flat noses, hideously slanted eyes, a thin gash for a mouth, and pointed ears. They wore the skins of beasts, as did I, but these hides were but crudely dressed. They bore small bows and flint-tipped arrows, flint knives and cudgels. And they conversed in a speech as hideous as themselves, a hissing, reptilian speech that filled me with dread and loathing.

They are frequently described as snakes or having snake-like qualities. So are the old serpent kings rising again in the area?! The hills, standing stones, lonely moorlands that lead to the underground fairyland like world may have far more sinister connotations then the PC's realize. 

The adventure will balance out with the inclusion of a showdown in a "traditional" dungeon at the end of the module.And given the Welsh headlands around the area this is going to be quite the challenge. 



The troglodyte are an excellent minion link up between the serpent men & the lizard men of N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles. The dimensional byways & doors used by the ancient serpent men & Elves 
 make an excellent bridge gap between a traditional Greyhawk campaign & a more modern adventure.


A better question is once N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles ends do others in the vicinity bear the Lovecraftian taint of Children of the Night? Will the Black Prince then station the player's PC's in the area to act in his stead as a reward & will the hills remain silent? As the drone of bloodshed & war rage across England will the shadow of the serpents rise again?


But the big question comes at what happened to the the Cymric people in the Dark Albion setting if we N1: "Against The Cult of the Reptile God"? Was there far more to their wandering & displacement?! I think so. Given the idea that maybe they were attacked thousands of years ago from all sides. Imagine if you will that after the defeat of their former Elven masters in a weakened state the hated enemies the serpent folk used this opportunity to strike at them. Here's where SERPENTINE - Oldskull Serpent Folk by Kent David Kelly comes in really handy. As a displaced people even from their own homeland the Cymric are not going to stand idly by while ancient enemies dispoil their homeland. 

The french providence of  Averoigne by Clark Ashton Smith has quite a bit of experience with these serpents/reptiles. 

And this is where RPGPundit Presents: The Old School Companion 1 comes in handy to fill the gaps. This isn't the only royal though watching  the goings on of the PC's. We'll get to him soon coming up next. 

Some Thoughts on Appendix Arabian Nights - AL-QADIM Zothique OSR - Planar Matters

"In a lost land, that only dreams have known,
Where flaming suns walk naked and alone;
Among horizons bright as molten brass,
And glowing heavens like furnaces of glass,
It rears with dome and tower manifold,
Rich as a dawn of amarant and gold,
Or gorgeous as the Phoenix, born of fire,
And soaring from an opalescent pyre
Sheer to the zenith. Like some anademe
Of Titan jewels turned to flame and dream
The city crowns the far horizon-light
Over the flowered meads of damassin ....
A desert isle of madreperl ! wherein
The thurifer and opal-fruited palm
And heaven-thronging minarets becalm
The seas of azure wind....

(Note: These lines were remembered out of a dream, and are given verbatim.)"

The City in the Desert  (1922) 

by Clark Ashton Smith

So the more I go through  the Al- Qadim the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons second edition   Arabian Nights box set focused setting for Forgotten Realms. The more I'm convinced that it would make an excellent stand in for Clark Ashton Smith's  Zothique. The Earth of Zothique is a world that has seen the weight of a very occult & empire laden history. While its similar to '1001 Nights' in tone there is an occult  degeneracy about the tales. "Campaign Journal: Scimitars Against the Dark" (by Wolfgang Baur, Dragon magazine 198)  goes through some of the pit falls & campaign avenues to use to bring a dark version of Al-Qadim to life for old school play. But Zothique is a different matter & world whole cloth. This is a world that hasn't just experienced demons its a world that has endured them for eons & eons. The genie of Al Qadim transported over to the Zothique setting might be the most human of the elemental entities that wizards know.

Secrets of the Lamp by Wolfgang Baur makes a good starting place for such an argument that elemental or genie powered OSR warlock PC's  might best be confined to the outer fringes of Zothique. This is where the DM could & should grab his copy of the Fiend Folio & Monster Manual II. The weird elemental alien monsters hinted at in the Zothique stories are easily pulled from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons excellent weird old school monster sources.


Reading through CAS's Zothique cycle the setting's planar material must be made of Cheese Cloth. The planar veil is a forgotten & distant memory as the beleaguered churches of Law try to repair the leaking sieve of this far future Earth. Demons & worse from the Fiend Folio must regularly answer the calls & summons of necromancers on Zothique. 



Magic & occult rituals are going to be full on deadly. The sorcerers and occult masters are almost perfectly aligned with some of the degenerate wizards that we see in Dark Albion & Cults of Chaos which might actually make a perfect add on to this mix. The spells & rituals must be more balanced again with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition but the systems are too far apart mathematically. 

Using & Expanding UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave (1e) By Dave J. Browne, Tom Kirby, & Graeme Morris

Fleeing the rage that consumed their feuding families, Juliana and Orlando fled to the Cave of Echoes, where it is said every wish is granted. Two years have passed, and all attempts to return the lovers to their parents have failed, though some believe them lost in the enchanted garden beyond the cave.

Many are the rescuers who have entered that enchanted park; a few have returned after long absences, their minds and memories curiously disturbed. Now, the handsome reward offered for the return of the lovers has tempted you, but who knows what lies beyond the Crystal Cave?


For the better part of Holloween into 2020  now I've been dealing with a cold & sinus issue that has seriously kicked my ass. Not that it has in any way or shape cramped my style when it came to my gaming for 2020. The fact is that I've also been thinking of Rpg Pundit's Lion & Dragon as well as RPGPundit Presents: The Old School Companion 1 From Spectre Press. I've been thinking about adapting UK1: 'Beyond The Crystal Cave into a Dark Albion or Dark Europe setting using the Companion. 

UK1: "Beyond the Crystal Cave" (1983) is the first adventure in the "UK-series" of modules produced by TSR UK. It was released in 1983. The adventure is for PC's between the levels of 4-7. This is not an easy adventure to adapt to more modern OSR games or is it? The module actually seems far easier to marry to Lion & Dragon because of the star crossed lovers. The module is partially based on Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet with a healthy dosage of the Tempest. Not at first this may not seem like a marriage suited to the Lion & Dragon Rpg.  


Let's pump the breaks here. The party made up from both worried family's retainers & adventurers working together to track down the where abouts of a pair of star crossed lovers who have fled into a enchanted garden of the ancient Elves?!
This module relies heavily on the Fiend Folio of monsters including a rare Yu Lung dragon! Echoes of this formula would be seen throughout U.K. TSR run of modules. But the Cave of Echoes has such potential even through this is a thinking man's module! Set UK1: "Beyond the Crystal Cave"  against the backdrop of the Rose War & suddenly things can get very complicated indeed. 


Juliana and Orlando as minor royals set's off all kinds of alarm bells at court because their disappearance could signal the fact that both families have been weakened by a loss of face against the tapestry of  'the War of the Roses'. The War of the Roses is for the very soul of the throne of England.Not only are the heirs of the families missing but the family's are distracted. This means that thier full attention to their duty to the crown is disconcerning to the other royals. Parties of adventurers are actually going to have to think their way out of UK1: "Beyond the Crystal Cave". 

This is where the UK1: "Beyond the Crystal Cave" shines & the 

RPGPundit Presents: The Old School Companion 1  shines because it allows the players take all of the hints dropped in U.K.1 & flesh them out. Family dynamics, double crosses, & more bring the facts into their game. 
 UK1: "Beyond the Crystal Cave"  is an excellent module to start a campaign with the party of adventurers becoming entrenched in three different royal family of means lives. The advantage is that the PC's have a duty to the plot of U.K.1 without getting rail roaded if the DM takes full control & advantage of the module.  UK1: "Beyond the Crystal Cave"  is a rare example of a campaign starter that might lead to ever greater glory or even an inquistor investigation of the dangerous Chaos influences hinted at in the module! 

Primal Chaos & The OSR Lovecraftian Legacy - A Very Different Ecology Connection For Your Old School Campaigns

"Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all—

the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste.

It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight;

and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap!"



When it comes to old school games & OSR games Chaos has been an on going substance of evil all the way back to the days of mythology. The material of creation & the substance that binds reality & planes together. Passages in Hesiod's Theogony suggest that Chaos was located below Earth but above Tartarus. Primal Chaos was sometimes said to be the true foundation of reality, particularly by philosophers such as Heraclitus. The material is deadly to anyone exposed to it for even short periods of time. The power of chaos is often associated with both the power of the blackest magick & the Lovecraft's circle of the Cthulhu mythologies. This goes all the way back to the days of Dungeons & Dragons Supplement IV Gods Demigods & Heroes By Robert Kuntz & James Wards. Back then the Conan Mythology had many of the essential Chaos elements within it. 

The OSR has recently discovered this association that we saw crystallized in Deities & Demigods way back in 1980. The Cthulhu mythology really has its alieness & power within the fact that the original Lovecraft  deities are right in line with early third party Dungeons & Dragons products. These entities are extremely dangerous & downright deadly. This trend continues into right into the OSR products of today.

The Greco Roman mythological tradition has a long history of Chaos inside its bounds & its the fact that belongs to an older set of gods. Many of these predate the Greek & Roman gods of old.

"Hesiod and the Pre-Socratics use the Greek term in the context of cosmogony. Hesiod's chaos has been interpreted as either "the gaping void above the Earth created when Earth and Sky are separated from their primordial unity" or "the gaping space below the Earth on which Earth rests".^[9]

In Hesiod's Theogony, Chaos was the first thing to exist: "at first Chaos came to be" (or was)^[10] but next (possibly out of Chaos) came Gaia, Tartarus and Eros (elsewhere the son of Aphrodite).^[11] Unambiguously "born" from Chaos were Erebus and Nyx.^[12] For Hesiod, Chaos, like Tartarus, though personified enough to have borne children, was also a place, far away, underground and "gloomy", beyond which lived the Titans.^[13] And, like the earth, the ocean, and the upper air, it was also capable of being affected by Zeus' thunderbolts.^[14]

Passages in Hesiod's Theogony suggest that Chaos was located below Earth but above Tartarus.^[15] Primal Chaos was sometimes said to be the true foundation of reality, particularly by philosophers such as Heraclitus.

The notion of the temporal infinity was familiar to the Greek mind from remote antiquity in the religious conception of immortality.^{[clarification needed][16]} This idea of the divine as an origin^{[clarification needed]} influenced the first Greek philosophers.^[17] The main object of the first efforts to explain the world remained the description of its growth, from a beginning. They believed that the world arose out from a primal unity, and that this substance was the permanent base of all its being. Anaximander claims that the origin is apeiron (the unlimited), a divine and perpetual substance less definite than the common elements. Everything is generated from apeiron, and must return there according to necessity.^[18] A conception of the nature of the world was that the earth below its surface stretches down indefinitely and has its roots on or above Tartarus, the lower part of the underworld.^[19] In a phrase of Xenophanes, "The upper limit of the earth borders on air, near our feet. The lower limit reaches down to the "apeiron" (i.e. the unlimited)."^[19] The sources and limits of the earth, the sea, the sky, Tartarus, and all things are located in a great windy-gap, which seems to be infinite, and is a later specification of "chaos".^[19][20]

In Aristophanes's comedy Birds, first there was Chaos, Night, Erebus, and Tartarus, from Night came Eros, and from Eros and Chaos came the race of birds"

There have been artifacts & other unexplained relics that have been found throughout mythology for little to no reason. I think that these occult artifacts were left overs from the 'Time Before'. 

Richard Corben artwork illustrating on my favorite artworks of his.

The fact is that Chaos is one of the most dangerous material that PC's can come across. There is one deity that composed of the primal Chaos itself;
 "There, in the grey beginning of Earth, the formless mass that was Ubbo-Sathla reposed amid the slime and the vapors. Headless, without organs or members, it sloughed from its oozy sides, in a slow, ceaseless wave, the amoebic forms that were the archetypes of earthly life. Horrible it was, if there had been aught to apprehend the horror; and loathsome, if there had been any to feel loathing. About it, prone or tilted in the mire, there lay the mighty tablets of star-quarried stone that were writ with the inconceivable wisdom of the pre-mundane gods. 
—Clark Ashton Smith, Ubbo-Sathla"

Ubbo-Sathla is the essence of primal chaos itself & one of the most dangerous beings in the planes;"Ubbo-Sathla ("The Unbegotten Source", "The Demiurge") is described as a huge protoplasmic mass resting in a grotto deep beneath the frozen earth. The being is of a monstrous fecundity, spontaneously generating primordial single-celled organisms that pour unceasingly from its shapeless form. It guards a set of stone tablets believed to contain the knowledge of the Elder Gods.

Ubbo-Sathla is said to have spawned the prototypes of all forms of life on Earth; though whatever its pseudopods touch is forever devoid of life. Ubbo-Sathla is destined to someday reabsorb all living things on Earth."



The Elder Things of HP Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness novella used the primal chaos of Ubbo-Sathla to create the Shoggoths & all life on Earth as both a cosmic joke & servants of plastic aspect & design; "They seemed able to traverse the interstellar ether on their vast membranous wings—thus oddly confirming some curious hill folklore long ago told me by an antiquarian colleague. They had lived under the sea a good deal, building fantastic cities and fighting terrific battles with nameless adversaries by means of intricate devices employing unknown principles of energy. Evidently their scientific and mechanical knowledge far surpassed man's today, though they made use of its more widespread and elaborate forms only when obliged to. Some of the sculptures suggested that they had passed through a stage of mechanized life on other planets, but had receded upon finding its effects emotionally unsatisfying. Their preternatural toughness of organization and simplicity of natural wants made them peculiarly able to live on a high plane without the more specialized fruits of artificial manufacture, and even without garments, except for occasional protection against the elements.

It was under the sea, at first for food and later for other purposes, that they first created earth-life—using available substances according to long-known methods. The more elaborate experiments came after the annihilation of various cosmic enemies. They had done the same thing on other planets, having manufactured not only necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of molding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community. These viscous masses were without doubt what Abdul Alhazred whispered about as the "Shoggoths" in his frightful Necronomicon, though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existed on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb. When the star-headed Old Ones on this planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of Shoggoths, they allowed other cell-groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose presence became troublesome.

With the aid of the Shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, the small, low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing labyrinths of stone not unlike those which later rose on land. Indeed, the highly adaptable Old Ones had lived much on land in other parts of the universe, and probably retained many traditions of land construction. As we studied the architecture of all these sculptured palaeogean cities, including that whose aeon-dead corridors we were even then traversing, we were impressed by a curious coincidence which we have not yet tried to explain, even to ourselves. The tops of the buildings, which in the actual city around us had, of course, been weathered into shapeless ruins ages ago, were clearly displayed in the bas-reliefs, and showed vast clusters of needle-like spires, delicate finials on certain cone and pyramid apexes, and tiers of thin, horizontal scalloped disks capping cylindrical shafts. This was exactly what we had seen in that monstrous and portentous mirage, cast by a dead city whence such skyline features had been absent for thousands and tens of thousands of years, which loomed on our ignorant eyes across the unfathomed mountains of madness as we first approached poor Lake's ill-fated camp."
The first mention of Cthulhu seems to have appeared in Feb 1975, in the  Greyhawk Supplement by Gary Gygax & Robert Kuntz.  Feb 1978 an article titled Lovecraftian Mythos in D&D by Holmes and Kuntz appears in The Dragon #12. Giants in the Earth in The Dragon #36, Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay include an entry for "H.P. Lovecraft's Richard Upton Pickman the so called King of the Ghouls. Terminal Space rpg was one of the first OSR games to mention the Elder Things.

The Primordial Ones would appear later on in the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea by North Wind Adventures rpg , Realms of Crawling Chaos supplement for Labyrinth Lord and the Advanced Edition Companion. & Lamentations of The Flame Princess Carcosa rpg setting 

The Primorial Ones Errol Ortiz Deities & Demigods


"Ubbo-Sathla possibly dwells in gray-litten Y'qaa. The being may also dwell in Mount Voormithadreth and may have spawned another of its residents, the being Abhoth, whose form and nature is very similar. This similarity has led some writers to speculate that Ubbo-Sathla and Abhoth are the same entity viewed at different epochs under different names"

Any dealings with the primal chaos & works of the Cthulhu mythos or its works leads to PC's being exposed to weird radiations & rampant mutation as well as insanity.. Lovecraftian Demons and god things are attracted to the energies left behind by the works of the Primordial Ones & later Mythos races.  The Immortals have taken the gods place there after several were murdered by the Great Old Ones. Several biological weapon systems in the form of certain D&D monsters still prowl the waters after the legacy left behind by the Elder Things. Rumors are that they still watch from beyond the veil of the Outer Darkness across the eons.
This is something that we see in the recent Aventurer, Conqueror, King, rpg sourcebook
 Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu™ (BCK) By Omer Joel, & Alexander Macris.

The Dreamlands of HP Lovecraft isn't immune to the machinations of the Old Ones, several mythos gods have connections to both our reality & the dream chaos of the lands beyond dreams. The countries of Fairy & Arcadia are deeply connected to the creation of the Elves who were spun from the mutated stuff left from the death of the gods. Dark Albion's Elven kings & rulers took advantage of the power of chaos to mold their great works & magicks. 


I go into this in far more detail with the connection between The Legendary Legacy of The Knight of the Yellow Pentacle & Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos in this blog entry. 
100 Oddities for a Chaotic Mutation, the 13th entry in Skirmisher Publishing's series of “100 Oddities” titles is solid for creating any random exposures that PC's happen to come across.



Primal chaos knows neither time nor space as many of the classic Pulp settings uses many of the classic Lovecraftian cults & monsters. Many of  the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters by Troll Lord Games has many Lovecraftian monsters whose very presence have a sheen of chaos about them.



These are some of the most dangerous monsters that PC's can run across in OSR games. The cults of these monsters are actively working on tearing apart the local time space continuum. There is a dramatic shift in the violence that the Old One's cults are taking towards various old school & OSR campaign settings.