To really dive into the back end of Appendix N fantasy there are two writers that I've constantly used besides Clark Ashton Smith. I'm speaking of Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, & English civil servant and author, writing epic fantasy author Eric Rücker Eddison. Today I want to quickly concentrate on Lord Dunsany, today & use his book 'The Gods of Pegāna' as a bit of a campaign setting basis & sort of update.
Over the last couple of days I've been going over "The Sea-Wolf's Daughter' by Jeffrey P. Talanian & going over my monochrome copies of various Dungeons & Dragons & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons module titles if you've been following my Twitter account. But what you might not know is the fact that I've been thinking about revisiting B1 In Search of the Unknown by Mike Carr. Also I'm not planning on using it as its written either.
"At the edge of the world of Hyperborea while the Boreas winds blow by there stands the ruins of a castle that might have belonged to the mighty Hyperborean adventurers Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown. But who knows?! Deep with the wilderness of Hyperborea another version of this ancient castle also sits now in ruins. "
So basically I'm taking B1 In Search of the Unknown by Mike Carr classic maps, adventure locations, etc. & adapting it to Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg world edge as a sort of negative Lovecraftian version of itself. This adventure location is going have me taking full advantage of the resources that are being offered at the Dragon's foot site here. Dunsany's gods are intimately tied into the fates of the Hyperborean versions of adventurers Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown. The Caverns of Quasqueton in my campaign are infected with a hive of Nightgaunts & a very hideous cult of the god Nodens. I'm still working on this angle of the campaign but needless to say I'll be using Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos.
Nightgaunt by King of Rats from Deviant Art.
Ultimately this is going to tie back to the black pryamid of Cha'alt that's wrecking havoc in California within my campaign. But The Caverns of Quasqueton are also going to be directly tied into the dungeons of the ACK's version of Dwimmermount . I got the idea of this while reading through Tom Moldvay's X2 Castle Amber which might also be connected to the The Caverns of Quasqueton.
I'm going back over old notes from my Castles & Crusades game & another OSR resource is The Codex Celtarum by Brian Young for some of the Celtic weirdness that I want to bring to bear on this part of the campaign.
This all ties back into my use of ACK's Barbarians of Kanau by Omer Joel, Alexander Macris. Now I don't really care if these folks get along or like each other politically. This is my personal campaign & I'll use what I want, which systems & authors,etc.
Life works in strange & mysterious ways, last night I had wicked migraines, these are something that I've had since I was a kid. I know what causes them & their nothing to be concerned about but my work schedule has been a bit scattered & hectic to say the least. But in my travels up at the wilds of the wild & wholly Litchfield hills of my home I came across not one but two treasures beyond compare. Two flag ship books in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison (April 1967) & The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, H. P. Lovecraft (May 1970) (#01923-7) both in prime to good condition.
So why was/is this book imprint important? Because once upon a time there wasn't an internet & these books were the only way of getting anything right & proper in the Appendix N of the Dungeon Master's Guide from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Here's the back history on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series imprint from Wiki;"The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series was an imprint of American publisher Ballantine Books. Launched in 1969 (presumably in response to the growing popularity of Tolkien's works[1]), the series reissued a number of works of fantasy literature which were out of print or dispersed in back issues of pulp magazines (or otherwise not easily available in the United States), in cheap paperback form—including works by authors such as James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Ernest Bramah, Hope Mirrlees, and William Morris.[2] The series lasted until 1974.
Envisioned by the husband-and-wife team of Ian and Betty Ballantine, and edited by Lin Carter, it featured cover art by illustrators such as Gervasio Gallardo, Robert LoGrippo, David McCall Johnston, and Bob Pepper.
The agreement signed between the Ballantines and Carter on November 22,
1968 launched the project. In addition to the reprints comprising the
bulk of the series, some new fantasy works were published as well as a
number of original collections and anthologies put together by Carter,
and Imaginary Worlds, his general history of the modern fantasy genre."
Professor J.R.R. Tolkein today gets all of the press but for me Eric Rücker Eddison, CB, CMG (24 November 1882 – 18 August 1945) was & is the superior writer. His creation the The Worm Ouroboros stands head & shoulders above his contemporaries but still has resonance with a modern audience. This novel has all of the intricacies,mythology, warfare of Game of Thrones with out the bull shit narcissism & weirdness to get in the way. Wiki sums the central plot nicely for me;"The book describes the protracted war between the domineering King
Gorice of Witchland and the Lords of Demonland in an imaginary world
that appears mainly medieval and partly reminiscent of Norse sagas. The work is slightly related to Eddison's later Zimiamvian Trilogy, and collectively they are sometimes referred to as the Zimiamvian series."
The characters of the are operatic in stature and life, beings molded in the turn of the century style. Heroes & villains of depth & status totally indifferent to the struggles of the common men & women around them. People die by the score but so do the heroes.
This doesn't make them any less likable but of a mythic status for the action of the novel doesn't take place on our world but a secondary world referred to as Mercury. These are characters in the older almost medieval & mythic mode but they're essentially humans of a completely different cut. Even though we have both the lords & ladies of both Witchland & Demonland they're human beings but drawn from the expansive imagination of E. R. Eddison. They still die in battle & war.
In fact the world of the The Worm Ouroboros can be considered the inversion of everything that Tolkien does in his fiction. The book was written thirty two years before 'Lord of the Rings' The heroes are made great by the deeds of their continuing war with Witchland. Demonland's warriors adhere to the old Norse war code of glory & loyalty in battle. This doesn't make the sentiments as such. But it does offer the DM plenty of opportunities for exploiting the circumstances for their own campaigns. 
So what does The Worm Ouroboros have to do with an old school campaign? Especially my Old Earth style game which draws heavily from the Clark Ashton Smith style school of dark fantasy. At first the high fantasy of the novel clashes with the dark fantasy of Clark Ashton Smith & Lovecraft circle of writers. This brings me to my second find today, 'The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath' by HP Lovecraft. Now I mentioned the larger then life characters, mythology, etc. of The Worm Ouroboros. What if the events of the Zimiamvian series are taking place in another dreamlands? What if these races of Demonland & Witchland are actually a variant of the Hyperboreans that have somehow slipped past the Boreas winds into the dream lands of Mercury? We know that Zothique has its roots in the far future of Earth in the times to come. But what if the events of
The Worm Ouroboros happened in the distant past & only the PC's can save the world. But is this a world that wants to be saved?Are the answers someplace deep within the Dreamlands of HP Lovecraft or The Gods of Pegāna's dream worlds?
The Hyperboreans have the same distain for humanity that the characters of the world of Mercury show for the humans around them. I think that there's more then a passing connection.
I've used the places, ruins, battles of The Worm Ouroboros to create a number of dungeons & other adventure locations in the past for B/X Dungeons & Dragons & perhaps its high time I begin to do this again. The larger then life high fantasy fits the operatic Jack Kirby style of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second especially after the glory & heroics has faded to wrack & ruin.
Past the winds the distant sounds of battle can be heard as the clash of swords & warfare winds its way across strange vistas as the forces of Demonland & Witchland forever clash together as it will be forever more.
If Your Interested In Downloading & Reading " The Worm Ouroboros"
Its Available For Free Here
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