Review & Commentary On Ninja City! By Rev. Joey Royale From Get Haunted Industries For Your Old School Eighties DCC Inspired Campaign

"A role-playing game tribute to the 1980’s Ninja explosion, built upon Dungeon Crawl Classics rules."

"The Bad Guyz have taken over!  Drug lords, street gangs, and crooked cops have the city in a stranglehold! You and your crew have rediscovered the lost secrets of the Ninja and it is time to take back your turf! Welcome to Ninja City!  Ninja City is where Kosugi, Dudikoff, Storm Shadow, and the manager from the sword store at the mall all come together on a Saturday afternoon to party hard and throw some stars."

Ninja City takes the DCC frame work and applies it to those gonzo over the top awesome Eighties ninja film inspirations. Now, Ninja City takes the martial arts action into your DCC campaign and it does it in twenty four pages. The ninja action is fast & furious with the DCC system converted to the  S.W.O.R.D.Z. system. 
The system emulates a lot of the ideas & action of Cannon films style action. If you want to clean up the psycho crime ridden streets of your city then Ninja City is for you. 

Ninja City does its job so well & brings the DCC game into the Eighties retro martial arts action. And for an evening's DCC entertainment Ninja City brings the 'beer & pretezel's goodness. Ninja City can be used with other OSR rpg systems easily meaning that campaign play is easy to do. Could a long campaign of Ninja City be done?! Yes if you've got a group of players who are into martial arts & weird movies. If your looking for the halcoyn days of the Ninja & want to recapture the martial arts  VHS memories of your youth.

 Ninja City! By Rev. Joey Royale From Get Haunted Industries Is Available Here. 

Sorting & Adapting Through The Free D20 Adventure Tower of the Elephant For Your Old School Sword & Sorcery Campaigns

"In the temple district of Arenjun, Zamora's notorious City of Thieves, stands a glittering tower said to house a fabulous jewel called the Heart of the Elephant. The city's thieves avoid the tower and the jewel, fearing its master, the sorcerer Yara, who is said to be 300 years old. The PCs, being brave or foolish (or both), have no such hesitations. They set out to steal the jewel from the wizard. Inside the tower, the PCs learn why the jewel is called the Heart of the Elephant and how it turns out to be their key to destroying Yara. The PCs should have little trouble getting directions to the Tower. At the same time, they hear rumors of Yara's dark powers, his incredible age, and how his power is drawn from the magical jewel. No unwanted visitor has ever returned from the tower."

 Venture in the footsteps of young Conan as he braves the terrors of the Tower of the Elephant in Arenjun, Zamora's City of Thieves!  Written by  Robert E.Hoaward is a classic Tower Of The Elephant, first appearing in in Weird Tales, March 1933. This is one of the most iconic of the original Howard Conan tales. It has a little bit of everything a dangerous adventure location, vile traps for would be thieves, barbarian wisdom, & much more. Castalia house has an excellent breakdown of the Robert Howard classic here.  Jason Vey threw down the gauntlet today saying that he'd be using his Free Grey Elf Original Dungeons & Dragon  Conan  rules to run the Free D20 HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron adventure. The truth of the matter is that I've already got a Sword & Sorcery  Castles & Crusades/Siege engine game already going.

This brings me to what I'd do with the Free Tower of the Elephant 20 adventure from the incredibly useful https://hyboria.xoth.net site, Tower of the Elephant:  adapted and edited by Wesley Connally. Written by Thulsa.  Now Tower of the Elephant is great for a mid level party of adventurers & has everything I would possibly need to run it straight outta the gate. Except I wouldn't be using it on Conan's Hyboria. Instead I'd set Tower of the Elephant on Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. There are several reasons for this: 

1. The PC's have already visited Zothique & have had dealings with its inhabitants. There's a D20 Zothique pdf available for free.
2. Campaign ties between Zothique & my version of X2 Castle Amber By Tom Moldvay
3.  There's been expeditions to Zothique from my Amazing adventures game campaign over the last year. 
4. A renegade NPC magistar escaped to Zothique from my Dark Albion/Lion & Dragon adventures last year.
5. There's a lot more going on here then meets the eye for the player's PC's & its already at play. 

Yag-Kosha is a transcosmic being & they exist on a multiplicity of planes at the same time. That means that there's already a version of the Tower of the Elephant even whist there's one during the  the Thurian Age;" Long before the dawn of man, and before even the Thurian Age began on Earth, a conflict raged on the far-distant world of Yag. The noble and peaceful people retreated into exile across the stars, coming at last to Earth. Here they hid in the deep jungles, living simple lives, not interfering with the evolution and history of mankind. However, as time went by, more and more of the people died, and at last only Yag-Kosha remained. "
Adapted by Marvel in  Conan the Barbarian I#4 (April, 1971)  this is one of Howard's seminal tales & a very deadly adventure location. Caution should be used when using this adventure & this is one that could easily be used with Dungeon Crawl Classics easily. For Amazing Adventures several of the artifacts, details about Yag-Kosha race, & more can easily be adapted to your campaigns as background material. 


On Zothique the tower is shunned by most right thinking peoples & exists within an urban capital city. There are numerous rumors about Yara. the wizard but its a place of horror & time haunted weirdness. Within it a facet of Yag-Kosha still acts upon his eternal vengence on the wizard. PC's can enter the tower, help with the vengence, & take treasures but Heaven help them should they try to deal with Yag-Kosha himself. The write up on YAG-KOSHA on the Appendix To the Marvel Universe Handbook site has additional details. Yes there is a Tower of the  Elephant box set for the D20 Conan game but I don't have access to it at this time. So instead I've opted to take the PC's into a slightly different direction. This adventure could easily be adapted into Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. 

Using The Free Gamma World Adventure GW5 Rapture Of The Deep As Post Apocalyptic Dungeon Crawl Classic's Wasteland Adventurer Funnel

So I'm speaking with friends last night about the last travesty of my using Legion of Gold as a funnel for a post apocalyptic Dungeon Crawling Classics game using the Crawling Under A Broken Moon rules. So the big complaint that I heard from my friends and players was that they couldn't afford Legion of Gold but loved the ideas of such a funnel. Too bad there isn't a free Gamma World module that could be used in much the same way? Well actually there is! In fact this module has a straight up dangerous high level and very lethal faction from Gamma World introduced way back in an early issue of Dragon magazine. It really doesn't matter which one because everything you need is actually in GW5 and its free. It happens to be for second edition Gamma World and that's really not going to be a problem.

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE 

So what exactly is GW Five Rapture of The Deep and why is it free?
It's a fan made module created to fill the gap in the TSR GW sequence, GW5. For intermediate to advanced players. Here's where the funnel takes place your PC's are some of the victims caught within the attacks happening along the former Florida panhandle.

"A terrible menace from the sea is threatening villages all along the coast. Whole shoreline communities have been disappearing without a trace.
After going through the usual DCC funnel style experience using a bunch of aquatic mutants and their gear, the PC's should have a small side adventure in the ruins of Florida.  Then this bit get's them straight into the action;
"The remaining area inhabitants have banded together and sent for a group of experienced heroes to help. They want to know what could be causing these horrible events, and more importantly, what can be done to put a stop to them. Is it some new terrifying monster from the depths? Or is there something more sinister at work? "
The biggest hurltle the dungeon master and players might have is the use of the underwater rules for DCC but they are out there in the wilds of the internet if you do a bit of research. Here's some that might be of use. 
"The adventurers will travel deep beneath the waves to discover the answer. Can they survive the strange and dangerous ocean depths of Gamma World? Can they solve the mystery before it's too late? " This adventure is an extended campaign for underwater post apocalyptic adventure and there is a ton to encounter and deal with in Rapture of the Deep. This is an underwater sandbox that I've seen several side adventures worked into the background of play over the years and even with DCC it shouldn't be any different.
So that's really the set up for the post apocalyptic DM and his players. The adventure contains a whole plethora of Gamma World underwater madness including: " game master notes, background information, maps, rules for underwater adventuring, new equipment, and over 30 new aquatic creatures."

Rereading through Rapture of the Deep it brought home the opportunities for expansion of several set pieces I've seen used in Gamma World, Mutant Future and other PA games that other DM have used one of which has been floating space ship launch sites controlled by A.I.'s and machine intelligence gods. Many of these ideas were perfect for off of the coast or Florida and Gulf of Mexico, this fits in perfectly with the Merica of Crawling Under A Broken Moon. There are some free resources to that end right over HERE 


Rapture of the Deep features an extensive style of underwater campaigning and this adventure could take months for a group of experienced players to go through. Have several PC's ready and make extensive use of this time to establish an underwater domain or base for PC's because by the time they're done your going to have very high level adventurers at least three or forth level in DCC. If they survive the experience. For myself I used the pattern of the movie Leviathan from 1988 as the pattern for the domain that the players had. A roving under sea mining and scavenging  platform that the PC's managed to free from its A.I. god became they're domain. This same formula could easily work for a DCC game.

GW 5 has its own set of challenges but also an extensive set of rewards and ideas for a range of extended post apocalyptic play. The module remains a favorite of mine. For issues of Crawling Under A Broken Moon that would help I suggest issue #11, 10, 7, UX01: High Caliber Hijinks, and more. Hell just buy the whole damn run and you won't be sorry. More Gamma World and DCC goodness coming up.  

Campaign Commentary - Tegal Manor, Castles & Crusades, Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes

So yesterday I reported about my interactions with Timothy Brannan & Jason Vey both of whom are close friends of mine. I can say that I've interacted with them on a regular basis & talked with them. You can read about that right over here. Now for some months I've been running a Castles & Crusades game campaign. To me Castles & Crusades is the OSR done right but the game or neo clone remains controversial in some hobby circles. Its simply BS to me as a dungeon master & my players.


Now that being said I've been using my planar traveling version of the classic haunted house Tegel Manor. The manor is moving into a 'Lost world' location & simply put the reasons for this are economical.


 I'm going to be pulling from many of the public domain  jungle comics & Pulps   from my youth that adopted uncle made sure I read as a kid. A really solid read through is the Brothers of the Spear article by Mark Carlson-Ghost. Now contrast this with the  "Tales From the Code: The Near Extinction of Sheena"  January 25, 2013  By Joe Sergi.  There are some very interesting dichotomies when it comes to the jungle & lost world genre. My campaign setting is gonna focus on the fundamentals of the genre itself as we see from the Lost World genre entry 0f wiki ;"King Solomon's Mines (1885) by H. Rider Haggard is sometimes considered the first lost world narrative.^[2] Haggard's novel shaped the form and influenced later lost world narratives, including Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King (1888), Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912), Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot (1918), A. Merritt's The Moon Pool (1918), and H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness (1931)."
For part of the background I've busted out my Conan D20 books By Mongoose games  to convert & use with Castles & Crusades. There is some lag in certain areas but over all the material looks pretty cross compatible but more as we get into the conversions later on.



Now it seems I'm gonna take some heat for not including in the Amazing Adventures ! Rpg but that's just not true. Pulling from the the Amazing Adventures Manual of Monsters is monster resource that I've used numerous times for games. There are several dragons, serpent, & Lovecraftian creatures I'll be pulling into this game. 

But, but, I can already hear the gnashing of teeth that this style of plane or campaign setting isn't OSR or old school enough. Again this is pure drek & I've already heard that why are you not using X1 Isle of Dread  by David "Zeb" Cook and Tom Moldvay? Well the reason is simple my players know the module way too well. If you don't think that this is OSR enough well I want to mention that Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure  Dungeon Crawl Classics #84: Peril On The Purple Planet pulls lots of influences from both the Lost World Genre & the Sword & Planet pulps respectively. There's a great thread on Reddit about third party DCC supplements that goes deeper into this. 

One of the influences that I'm gonna be pulling from for an old campaign idea that I got for a 'Stranger Things' sort of NPC group from the original Mercenaries, Spies, & Private eyes rpg. Allard Electronics has had its hands into all kinds of interesting deals but back in the Eighties Stormhaven was the center of some very Lovecraftian stuff. Rick Loomis is a friend & he's suffering with cancer there's a go fund me & a very solid bundle of Holding for Tunnels & Trolls as well as Mercenaries Spies & Private Eyes. If you find it in your heart please contribute. Thank you. 

Right now Allard Electronics Tiger Team explorers are in the manor and they might run into our PC's but there's another vile villain already within the manor making his way to execute the PC's. But there's more going on behind the scenes. 

OSR Campaign Set Up With the Free D20 Sword & Sorcery Module HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones Adapting It For Your Old School Campaigns

"Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and in the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its darkhaired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery...”


Oh boy did I open a can of worms with my blog  rebuttal/commentary on Wm. John Wheeler's HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron from the wonderful blog piece that Timothy Brannan did about  this blog today.  Yes HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron is actually the end of a long D20 campaign. Tonight's commentary is on the first module in the trilogy homage to Gary Gygax's "D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa". The designer's notes in the module HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones goes into why & why was changed; "This is a homage to the original classic adventure module, “D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa”, by Gary Gygax, reimagined for sword and sorcery gaming in Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age using Mongoose’s Conan RPG ruleset. Many of the original’s high fantasy elements have been removed or toned down, but the module should be instantly familiar to those familiar with the classic scenario, as much of the text is verbatim from Gygax’s original manuscript. I have turned the subterranean Shrine into a ruined temple on a nameless island, changed the Kuo-Toa into Black Ones, and the Sea-Mother into a tentacled horror from the Mythos. The amount of treasure has been significantly reduced from the original."
Here's the important fact the treasure has been significantly reduced which is gonna reflect in where I'm going with this for campaign purposes.

“Into the west, unknown of man, Ships have sailed since the world began. Read, if you dare, what Skelos wrote, With dead hands fumbling his silken coat; And follow the ships through the windblown wrack Follow the ships that come not back.” – The Pool of the Black One By Robert E.Howard

Please,please, before running this adventure make sure to read Robert E. Howard's The Pool of the Black Ones.  Now  HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones  is not your average module & instead is set & padded out for PC's of levels ten through twelve. That means that if your gonna run this with  Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea or  Castles & Crusades  the encounters are gonna have to be scaled. The treasure has been reduced & encounters are gonna be brutal & very dangerous.



HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones  takes the lone island location from the original story & turns the setting, ideas, etc. on their collective heads. When start to look at the stats for  'Black Ones' then we get an idea of the typical D20 Conan gaming stats we're facing down;
"Black One Large Outsider (native) Hit Dice: 6d8+30 (57 hp) Initiative: +7 (+2 Dex, +5 Ref) Speed: 25 ft. (5 squares) Dodge Defense: 19 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +8 natural) DR: 7 Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+16 Attack: Claw +11 melee (1d8+6) Full Attack: 2 claws +11 melee (1d8+6) and bite +6 melee (1d4+3) Space/Reach: 5 ft./10 ft. Special Attacks: — Special Qualities: — Saves: Fort +10, Ref +7, Will +5 Abilities: Str 22, Dex 15, Con 20, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 16 Skills: Balance +11, Climb +15, Bluff +12, Jump +15, Knowledge (arcana) +11, Hide +11, Intimidate +12, Move Silently +11, Perform (ritual) +12, Search +11 Feats: Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Steely Gaze Environment: Isle of the Black Ones Organization: Solitary or group (6-10) Advancement: — " Again this would be easily translated into classic Castles & Crusades.  We're given a damn good overview of the island  in HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones  


We're given some really weird details about the island that reads like a prime set up for a Sword & Sorcery campaign or something straight outta Weird Tales; 
"The island is some eight to ten miles long in the north-south direction, and perhaps eight miles broad at the widest point. At the north end of the island, there are five smaller islands, all uninhabited. On the western coast is a shallow bay, which has a white beach bordering an expanse of gently grassy slopes, masked by green trees. The trees grow in irregular clusters, and between these groves stretch rolling expanses of meadow-like slopes. Between the slopes lie gentle declivities, likewise swarded. The scenery seems to melt into itself, or each scene into the other; the view is singular, at once broad and restricted. Over all a dreamy silence lies like an enchantment."

The fact that this isolated island could be in a sea any sea in fact. The mystical forces of the Black Ones could in fact connect this island to a great many times & places across the planes. The island is a prime candidate for getting the Clark Ashton Smith Zothique treatment. Again be sure to grab a copy of Zothique D20.  Zothique is millions of years in the future of our time & its a perfect world where the intersect of the churning seas meet with the island terror of HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones . This is also the perfect opportunity for plugging in Jason Vey's Amazing Adventures into the mix. The pulp elements mix very well with the horrors of the module but again there's that pesky scaling of the PC's monsters, treasures, etc into the mix.


 Here are some further notes on using HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones .

1. HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones  is free & easily adapted to your favorite OSR or D20 system. But there's going to be some very messy deaths of PC's have backups prepared. 
2. The customization of the adventure is essential for running this with your favorite system. There's enough here in the module but getting into that perfect zone is essential for play at the table top level. 
3. This is a beginning high level Sword & Sorcery  adventure with lots of Weird Tales elements here. 
4. The module could be turned into a survival horror story adventure with lots of scares & unknowns in the mix. 
5. Understand your audience because this isn't a light weight roam of an adventure so have a few additional encounters perhaps with some pirates or other sea born horrors to continue the adventure after the module concludes. 
6. The Black Ones are evil, dangerous, & very Lovecraftian to have their own minor cults within the campaign world so there's plenty of opportunities to continue these foes and use them for long term campaign foes. I'm thinking of Robert Howard's Solomon Kane stories as inspiration for some of the campaign goodness. 
7. Danger, intrigue, & horror abound within this module so its a great one to introduce some ship wrecked NPC's into the mix. 
8. The author knows his subject & the module balances encounters but there's room for an additional adventure location if necessary. 
9. Connecting AS&SH with HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones is as easy as an oceanic planar gate or two. 
10. Other Robert E. Howard NPC's might appear on the shores of this module there's plenty of solid ideas in his stories to bring into HD2 The Shrine of the Black Ones 

The Many Facets of The Free D20 Adventure HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron By Wm. John Wheeler & Its Use In OSR Games

"Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and in the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its darkhaired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery...” In the Graaskal Mountains south of Hyperborea there is rumored to be an ancient hoard of unsurpassed value, a treasure of such fame that scores of adventurers have perished in search of it. Find the perilous Lost Caverns of Acheron and you may gain the hidden wealth of a long-dead civilization — if you live! "


I've gotten a lovely shout out from Tim Brannan of the Otherside of the blog today about his use of this blog's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign resources. He's planning on running the  Adventures of the Hyborian Age website's D20 Sword & Sorcery adaptation of S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth back in the days of D20 Conan. The result was Wm. John Wheeler's HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron. Now I've run this adventure extensively using the  AS&SH system for DM Steve's group of players. Now this was not without issues and they included the following because of the D20 system:

1. Scaling the PC & monster  experience system for a smooth transition & converting over the monster's stats into a more sane AS&SH OSR set up. 
2. This is an upper level slice & dice D20 module and should be for King Conan level PC characters 
3. Module should be set within Conan's Hyboria setting & its saturated in the material. The author knows his stuff. 
4. This is a campaign module & I strongly recommend running this the  Adventures of the Hyborian Age other adventures. 
5. Have lots of other PC's standing by this is a deadly adventure. 

So after dealing with conversion issues, delays, monster stats, etc. I decided to run Wm. John Wheeler's HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron with a sensible D20 OSR system. Enter Castles & Crusades which is a proper OSR system easily able to accommodate the whole of the HS4 adventure in spades. 



For those of you who are doubting me of the easy of this check out the Realm of Dungeons & Dragons blog entry from 2010 for converting D20 over to Castles & Crusades ; "For those of you who doubt it as easy as people claim, or want a formulaic way of converting Monsters and Scenarios to Castles and Crusades - presented here are some guidelines.

These ideas were originally posted on the Goodman Games Forum way back in 2006 by Chris Rutkowsky (who did the conversion of the Mysterious Tower from d20 to Castles and Crusades, and has written an original module using the Castles and Crusades system for Goodman Games).

If the monster you want to convert is not in the Monsters and Treasure Book, the easiest way is to consult your AD&D/D&D Monster Manuals and find the Creatures entry in there (or the NEAREST suitable entry) and use those stats."
So the HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron plays easily & smoothly but there are several things that bug the high holy Hell outta of Amazing Adventure! rpg players. How is my modern character going to get to Hyboria? The answer comes in the form of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique & its Free D20 Zothique download. A sorcerous gateway from Zothique to Hyboria allows the PC's to get into the Sword & Sorcery realm.




'But, but, your betraying your OSR roots ??!' Yeah, I heard that BS for far too long because the OSR has been made on the back of D20. The fact is that AS&SH's adventures work quite nicely with Dungeon Crawl Classics & so will  with a bit of work.


Now with all of this surely you couldn't use HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron with the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg? Well, don't be too sure. The fact is that with a bit of scaling of levels down to thirteen, the expansive second edition monster listings, the expanded treasures of AS&SH, etc.  Yes with an educated guess I think that it is & that Tim Brannan was on the right course. See I ran HS4 The Lost Caverns of Acheron with first edition AS&SH but the second edition game greatly expands upon the original system.

Quick Kickstarter OSR Update & Beyond Attention Getters

Kickstarter is filled with all kinds of projects possibly worth your attention but two that have caught my eye. The first is a solid DCC Cthulhu Mythos/Horror Western mash up called Dark Trails.

This book has been making waves across the DCC/OSR community & I don't see it going away anytime soon. 

"The largest challenge for my new life on the frontier was building shelter and pulling food from the ground I plowed before winter settled in.

That was before the shadows came to life that fateful night and claimed the lives of those I loved.  I’d heard a rumor of things born of darkness skulking around and the idiots hellbent on ushering more of them into the world, but like most folks eager to carve out a new life braving the western frontier, I chalked it up to tall-tales fueled by whiskey and superstition.

My last sight before being overwhelmed and feeling those needle-sharp teeth pierce my jugular, was watching my youngest take her last terrified breath, as something dragged that kindly woman (whose love kept me on the path of good intentions for so long) kicking and screaming into the shadows.  That was when the soft whisper of Death called to me, wrapping my soul in its dark embrace, preparing me for a different journey.

A distant light set against a starless night pulled at my weightless soul.  A lifetime of memories flashed before me as I sped towards the afterlife.  The power in those memories slowed my final journey.  Unfinished business pulled at my stubborn soul and proved stronger than the promise of that peaceful light.  I returned to my broken, bloody body and willed it back into a mockery of life.

Almost a year has passed now, and the bittersweet memories of my family fuel a never-ending thirst for vengeance.  I returned that night with the strength of the grave coursing through my rotting veins, no longer living, nor dead.  Since the night it took my family, I’ve picked up a posse of folks equally kissed by the supernatural and equally determined to take the fight to the sinister agents of the night.          

 -from the journal of Samuel Mundy"
 "The Dark Trails RPG is a game which pays homage to the popular weird West genre.  It can be used as a standalone game or as the perfect complement to a growing line of products that all utilize the rules found in the Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) RPG.   As a player, you’ll find a wealth of material that allows you to assume the role of one of 11 unique classes, with descriptive names like: the Calavera, the Bedlamite, and the Sin-Eater.   As a Judge, you’ll find over 400 pages of material giving you a wealth of resources for designing and running fantastic adventures set against the haunted landscapes of an unforgiving weird West. "
So this sounds really ace & we need a new Western horror game & this sounds like it has all of the parts & moving pieces of a classic in the making. You can support The Dark Trails Kickstarter here. 


So yeah, the pretty much had me at fully compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics & I can actually see using Dark Trails with Jason Sholtis Operation Unfathomable to create a Weird West horror come mega dungeon. 

The Second Kickstarter that I think is worth your time in my estimation is the Troll Lord's Amazing Adventures Fifth Edition Kickstarter by Jason Vey. Its made two of its stretch goals & seems to be a vast upgrade to the previous edition. 

I've been watching this project for some months now in the AA! Facebook group but have kept my  distance because of running the Amazing Adventure classic edition campaign that's on going. But I've had any number of people whispering good things in my ear about this project & kickstarter. Take a look for yourself & if your so inclined then by all means support it right over here. 
There's some great campaign  potential here with this Amazing Adventures newest edition. Let's see how far we see these kickstarters go! 

Using The Complete Book of Beholders from Goodman Games For Dungeon Crawl Classics or Any Old School Campaign

Yesterday I wrote about Castles & Crusades along with one of the better fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons books that I've bought Ghosts of Saltmarh. Today I wanted to go back in time to another era & speak about one of the better regarded 3.0 edition era books that can be used with Castles & Crusades. Another book that I think shouldn't be confined to the dustbin of the 3.0 era is The Complete Book of Beholders from Goodman Games. 




This book presents the Beholder as it needs to be a nasty & rather dangerous horror waiting to take on parties of adventurers in its own environment & its own terms. This is a dungeon master book right from the get go & incorporates  both the dreaded beholder & the beholder kin into a rather nasty package. There are tons of ideas here including beholder cults & all kinds of nastiness for the DM to inflict on his or her players. The eyekin are humans corrupted by beholders & are sort of available as a playable race.



Bradley K. McDevitt's artwork is among some great artwork in
The Complete Book of Beholders from Goodman Games

The Complete Book of Beholders from Goodman Games came out right in the middle of the D20 boom & its still a great game book to use to add beholders into a game campaign. Here's where the dice hit the table. The Complete Guide to Beholders could be easily used as a launch point for a full scale beholder invasion of a campaign.



The Eyekin warriors planarly gate into the campaign world & begin to fry everything. Those that survive are going to be the party of adventurers. The PC funnel is now complete. Step two is to introduce the various beholder generals & warlords leading the army. The PC's find out about the plans of the beholders through a dungeon or adventure location & then begin to incorporate their own resistance. And the campaign continues with the DM trotting out various beholder types & horrors featured in the book.  This same plan could be used with Mutant Crawl Classics as well to really change events up in a Mutant Crawl Classics game.

In terms of the Castles & Crusades rpg retroclone the switch over with the The Complete Book of Beholders from Goodman Games isn't all that of a power stat struggle. The book is very low key when it comes to working up the stats over to a campaign. The Complete Book of Beholders from Goodman Games is also a perfect add over for a game of the Amazing Adventures rpg. 

There's a great article on using eyekin as PC's on Geek Native right over here.  

Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen In Time by Michael Curtis & Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Connection

"Eons-old secrets slumber beneath the forbidden Ghost Ice. Since the time of the Elders, the local tribes have shunned the crawling glacier, knowing it as taboo land that slays all who tread its frigid expanse. Now, the Ghost Ice has shattered, revealing hints at deeper mysteries entombed within its icy grasp. Strange machines and wonderful horrors stir beneath the ice…"

So I've been doing a lot of thinking about  Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen In Time by Michael Curtis & how it might be used with Blackmoor. Think about it a time thief has been using this place as a base on some backwater planar world.  So let's change Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen In Time up a bit shall we? 


We've got a complex that's been moved across time over to Blackmoor from a post apocalyptic world. Yeah I know. I'm totally messing with the historical timeline of the module but we'll get to that. So the PC's surviving the machinations of the complex & its various trips, traps, & tricks make it to level one PC starting in DCC but what then?! In Blackmoor what was the original purpose of the time thief? Whom was he  working for? Are there clues left behind in the oral traditions of the PC's tribe on Blackmoor? Yeah actually I may already have some answers to this mystery.  The Egg of Coot has all of the machismo to employ such a nefarious hireling. The Egg of Coot is bio mechanical villain &  relic from Blackmoor's ancient era. The thing has been around since Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign from the early days of OD&D. My own interactions with the evil of the Egg came about when my friend Larry came across Harvard Blackmoor's 2009 Egg of Croot blog entry. There was a lot of misery involved. But what if the complex featured in Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen In Time by  Michael Curtis  was a back up plan from events from the Great Rain of Fire. Yeah, I'm taking a lot here from Havard's Blackmoor material. Some have called Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen In Time by  Michael Curtis   the weakest adventure in the DCC line of products & that's fine with me. It means I've got much more  way to monkey with it. So the PC's complete the dungeon & the complex activates! 
This is a mock up cover of an adventure that doesn't exist. Havard did a great job
 & its a favorite Larry Elmore piece of artwork of mine.

The PC's survive & all is right with the space time continuum. Umm no everything is really in a bad state! The completion of Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen In Time by  Michael Curtis  means that the Egg of Coot is now aware of the PC's & that its gambit has paid off! 
All across the planes Prime scattered to the four winds are other complexes almost but not quite like the one featured in Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen In Time by  Michael Curtis. This will allow the Egg & its forces access to the local space time continuum making them ripe for the conquering! Remember that Barony of  Blackmoor location mentioned  within Greyhawk box set?  Well that's one of the Egg's backwater military staging areas!


But don't worry we're just getting started with this one folks! 

Monsters & Mayhem - Some Alternative OSR Monster Book Options for Dungeon Crawl Classics

What happens when your players know every last classic monster in the Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, & even the Fiend Folio? This applies especially when you want to run something different in a retro clone mod like Dungeon Crawl Classics. Never fear we've got some monstrous options.

One of the biggest problems lately that I've found with OSR players? They know all of the classic monsters & many of the classic TSR era variations. Lately I've been slipping into Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg mode & while I have the option of using 3.0 & 3.5 D&D monsters converting on the fly is a giant pain in the behind. While Sword & Wizardry's Swords & Wizardry OE Reloaded: Monster Book is bloody brilliant & I highly recommend it. The monsters don't have the same punch when every player has a copy. 


So what's a dungeon master gonna do?!! Well sometimes you've got to go back in time few years.  In this case I'm pulling out the Teratic Tome By Rafael Chandler which has been free on Drivethrurpg  the last couple of years. Rafael Chandler has been off social media since about 2018. He remains one of the more original OSR creators in my mind. Many of the monsters in this book are plane ending threats & fit the all or nothing view of monsters with certain OSR games.

Since I've been doing a lot of Castles & Crusades lately I've taken a very close look at how monsters are put together & there are a lot of classics in the Monsters & Treasure book. The Monsters & Treasure book for Castles & Crusades offers a lot of options but Teratic Tome By Rafael Chandler coupled with Monsters & Treasure is a perfect combination for an almost upper tier Swords & Sorcery or higher fantasy comic book style fantasy campaign.
While it seems that I'm getting away from Dungeon Crawl Classics, I'm not at all. The fact is that by combining these monster resources the dungeon master has an entire palette of mayhem to work with.


If I continue the thread of monster mayhem then I'd remiss to mention to the other other free monster resource by Mr.Chandler's   Lusus Naturae  a bestiary for Lamentations of the Flame Princess (and other old-school games). This book is an 'R' or even 'X' certificate monster book perfectly suited to vileness of some corners of the planes & other dimensions. These monsters are very twisted & have far reaching implications far past the dungeon & may affect a campaign on a very deep level. 

CC1 Creature Compendium From  New Big Dragon Games Unlimited  is another option to throw on the table. The book has been widely praised & well received in certain corners of the OSR. So the DM may want to simply use the monsters & not tell the players until they are well into the campaign instead. There are many original & classics here that have lots of dangerous bits & sharp teeth to end adventurers lives.


Another option for the table top that while top notch will require a bit of adaption is The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign there are some solid variations on many of the old classic monsters & I guarantee that players will not see this one coming. 

These are just some of the options to throw into the mix for running a Dungeon Crawl Classic rpg campaign with a bit of a more OSR flare. 

The Dungeon Crawl Classics Rpg Connection Between DA2 Temple of the Frog By Dave Arneson, David J. Ritchie & The World of Mystara

"Green Death...

That's what old hands call the Great Dismal Swamp. For centuries, this tangled maze of sluggish watercourses, stagnant ponds, and festering marshes has defended Blackmoor's southwestern frontier. Large armies and smaller parties have disappeared altogether inside its vast, dripping, claustrophobic corridors.

Among those who have dropped from sigh in this arboral hell is young Rissa Aleford, one of Blackmoor's most important leaders. Carried off to the sinister City of the Fron, she is now being held by the eccentric Monks of the Swamp. By making the baroness captive, the deranged monks have serioulsy weakened Blackmoor at a time when enemies already threaten it from all sides.

Yet, even as the Froggies gloat, the king of Blackmoor dispatches a small band of bold adventures to the rescue. Deep into the Great Dismal Swamp they must go - far from sunlight and sanity - there to seek and save the swamp, there to find the Temple of the Frog."

Let's get this module's history right out of the way; 'DA2: "Temple of the Frog" (1987), by Dave Arneson and David J. Ritchie, is the second of the four Blackmoor adventure. It was published in January 1987.' 

So I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg. Blackmoor especially some of  Traianus Decius Aureus 's D20  creature  conversions over at the Blackmoor Archives. I started thinking about how these could be used with Dungeon Craw Classics to create a Blackmoor funnel. What would happen if the player's PC's were survivors from the events of raid to capture  the Baroness Rissa? Some may turn to the power of the occult, whist others grab a sword & become fighters, still others steal from others for their very existence & yet the violence of the froggies bonds them together. 



The PC's must get back the princess from Stephen of the Rock who is arguable one of the most diabolical D&D villains ever & Havard has a cracking write up & history.  Stephen has access to some very dangerous technology & the PC's go from farmer to adventurer as they must avenge their homestead from the violence of the 'swamp monks'. Those that survive are going to have their professions chosen by circumstances. Given how DCC's patrons are set up its not off the mark that perhaps Stephen The Rock might have access to Tsathoggua. The Great Old One  may have taken a notice of the devotion of Stephen The Rock to his favored children in the form of the mutated frogs. Now Tsathoggua is a fickle & dangerous god thing at best but Stephen is no fool & makes use of the higher dimensional existence of the demonic monster.  What makes DA2 such a dangerous module isn't simply the level of it but the infiltration of society of the locals. 

What makes DA2 Temple of the Frog also invidiously lethal is the inclusion of the Beagle's technologies.  One of the things that I've done over the years when having player's PC's recover various high technological relics from the downed crew is having these relics  'tainted' with the strange radiations of the cosmic accident that downed the craft. To me there's always been something insidious about the various relics & sci fi elements of DA2. Once someone has been using the various weapons & relics I've always made it a point that they always seem to want more. I always give a minor corruption score to most of the relics in Blackmoor. But what I would really do is run DA2 Temple of The Frog on Mystara using Dungeon Crawl Classics. 

The Great Dismal Swamp itself is very much a pitch perfect DCC setting with mutated frogs, cultists, & a wide variety of adventure elements waiting to swallow up the PC's.  Because there's already a D&D 3.5 set of conversions using DA2 Temple of the Frog with Dungeon Crawl Classics should be a snap. Froggies are the most dangerous & yet highly underrated cult of villains ever to come out of original Dungeons & Dragons. Even if the PC's put an end to the temple in true D&D fashion is it going to end the cult of the Froggies? I highly doubt it. When we start diving into 'The Great History of Skothar' by Francesco Defferrari from Threshold Magazine issue 20 we start getting a better outline of the world DA2. A sort of ancient society with the remains of greatness all around it. Here's why its so easy for Saint Stephen The Rock to capture so many people's attention. The remains & relics of the down craft literally are all around the temple & its environs.  The dangers of the world setting of DA2's version of Blackmoor puzzled into Mystara gives more then a few hints of the world around the module. Its a world in literal peril as the relics & technologies of another world dance around the party.
DA2 Temple of the Frog sends the PC's back into Mystara's ancient past so it only stands to reason that this module could actually be an alternative timeline of Mystara. There are so many unanswered questions with DA2 that it wouldn't be a small feat to alter many of the details of the module to suit the DM's campaign.

Frog and Mouse by Getsuju Japan,
 late 18th-early 19th century 90.3 x 167.8cm Ink
 on paper Kaikodo, New York Source