OSR 2d6 Review & Commentary Free Resource - Cepheus Engine Journal Issue #11 For Cepheus Engine & Other 2d6 Science Fiction or Fantasy Rpg's

 Up on the slab is Cepheus Engine Journal Issue #11 which is one of the best free resources for 2d6 centric rpg's. This issue's focus is similar to issue #10 and that's the 'alien centric' theme in this issue. And it does an excellent job of presenting that feel for the table top. 

We dive into the P-O Bergstedt driven 'From The Editors' which covers the latest direction for the venerable Cepheus Engine Journal itself and more. Then Todd Bradley takes on the question of  'Cepheus Deluxe Personal Combat' & it's a solid addition to the Cepheus Deluxe array. And then we're given our first glimpse into a new alien race for your Cepheus Engine interstellar campaigns with the 'The Koszrans' by Paul Drye. And then Jim Vassilakos gives us 'Designing Aliens' & it's another great article with lots of practical & hands on advice for the 2d6 DM. There's some solidly done tables. Brett Kruger gives us 'Other Folks Gold' which isn't an article that one would expect; "In this article, which I hope will be the first of many, I’ll be looking at the Netflix original series called Love Death and Robots to see what role­playing nuggets I can mine from it, hence the title. Season one was made up of eighteen episodes. In future articles I’m going to be mining the science fiction of tv shows, short films and movies for gaming goodness." And that's exactly what he does for 2d6 game campaigns. There's some really good stuff in here for Cepheus Engine,  Sword of Cepheus,  or Barbaric taken directly from the Net Flix's series Love, Death, & Robots'. 
And then we get a Todd Bradley article about converting from 'Converting PCs from CE to CD'. This becomes more relative as new titles & adventures adapt to the CD 2d6 rpg format. Brett Kruger is back with Dump Demons a very interesting alien set of alien colony or organisms  as it were; "The Dump Demon is not actually an individual entity but, just like coral reefs, is a colony of creatures that act together as a single semi­sentient creature. Like a reverse hermit crab, as the colony grows it collects objects from its surroundings to build its form. Dump Demons grow by consuming objects and incorporating them into their mass, and especially love the discarded rubbish locations of sentient creatures. Dump Demons do not like environments where they can't consume waste to grow. Dump Demons spawn when a piece of at least one kilogram of the colony is broken off from its host colony. This never happens naturally and is always the result of violence." These are very alien, nasty, & I can't wait to use them. 
Brett Kruger as interviewer with an ' Interview with Omer Golan­Joel of Stellargama' and it's a solid interview with one of the 2d6 independant designers in our part of the hobby. 
 Jon Zeigler gives us 'Four Aliens' for the Human Destiny setting;"The premise is that in the mid­21st century, Earth and humanity are “annexed” (conquered) by a vast interstellar empire, the Khedai Hegemony. The Hegemony doesn’t seem interested in exploiting us for its own benefit. Instead, as has happened with many other pre­interstellar cultures, we were on the verge of self­destruction; the aliens wanted to rescue us and guide us into mature membership in interstellar civilization." The alien races are well done & the whole article feels & reads like a preview of a coming sourcebook but this is a really well done set of aliens. 

Then we get into 'Almost Alien' By Jo Jaquinta which is about uplifted creatures; "The concept of “uplift” ­ transforming a species of animal into a more intelligent variety, was started in Science Fiction as far back as H.G.Wells, but was most popularized by a series of David Brin’s novels. The essence is that the particular genes or traits that code for intelligence are determined, and these are spliced into existing creatures to create intelligent forms of them. This is a handy tool that a referee can use to create any number of interesting entities to add to their games. Rather than dwell on that, this article will focus on one example and look at it in terms of not just physical stats, but a broader social aspect. " Again the article provides a solid foundation for the player or DM looking to take their game in the article's direction. There's some really solid legs here for an established 2d6 Science Fiction campaign that wants the direction of uplift without the rules heavy aspects. Jo Jaquinta brings more of his 'Raider's Lament' in part five of the ongoing Science Fiction saga. Again really good details. 
'Beast From Beyond The Stars' by Norton Glover is another stand out article detailing a really interesting invasive alien species for Barbaric! & Sword of Cepheus! So well done and I don't wanna spoilt the surprises here. 
'Down & Out In Low Orbit' by Jo Jaquinta catters to the lowlife & seedy side of the 2d6 interstellar aspects of the spacer life in the black. Where local conditions such as gravity, infections, and worse are waiting for the low life spacer PC. 
P-O Bergstedt gives us  'The Imko and The Flertvad' alien racees with enough flavor for the edges of three campaigns. These are very well done aliens and are actually alien while being extremely playable. 
We get a 'What's New' rundown of the latest 2d6 titles with tons of new products entering the market and there's some great stuff! Finally we end with Ricardo Emilio providing us with a selection of 100 ton starships! All in alll well worth the band width and down load for our 2d6 Cepheus Engine driven games! 

You Can Download  Cepheus Engine Journal Issue #11 For Cepheus Engine & Other 2d6 Science Fiction or Fantasy Rpg's  Here 

Beer, Clark Ashton Smith, & B/X D&D Deconstructing B8 Journey To The Rock By Michael Malone

Not my beer image by (c) 2005 Zubro
Lots of good ideas seem to start over a beer in my town & end of a conversation about  the hobby. Let's start with last night's discussion & workshop with B/X Dungeon's & Dragon's Journey To The Rock. Will the deconstruction, discussion, & ideas from last night's old school bar visit work?

Book cover of Journey to the Rock by Michael Malone, artwork by Larry Elmore

So I got together with friends last night & we started talking about B8: Journey to the Rock. The module is mostly well regarded within the old school gaming community locally. The fact is that for a B/X D&D game its a good introductory module but we came to the conclusion it would have to be heavily modified ergo gutted to make it a slightly more sword & sorcery friendly. Wiki has a good breakdown of the over arching plot of the module;
"Journey to the Rock is a wilderness scenario, which includes rules for wilderness play.^[1] The wizard Lirdrium Arkayz wants to know the secret of 'The Rock' and hires the characters to uncover it.^[2] The player characters are hired to find the secret of "the Rock", and to get there they must pass through a perilous countryside using one of three possible routes" At its heart & soul, B8: Journey to the Rock is a wilderness crawl with a twist where the party is doing an errand for a wizard to help bring back a city lost to time. Stop right there it sounds fantastic doesn't it, Journey To The Rock comes across as flat as cardboard in rereading it. By taking a sip of beer & then almost everyone came up with the same name Clark Ashton Smith.

Clark Ashton Smith proved us with exactly the sort of make over we need for Journey To The Rock with his Zothique stories. Each of the paths through the wilderness in Journey to the Rock leads to slightly different take on the plot. That take is the wizard himself which with a bit of polish can be molded into the Smithian NPC mode. A wizard with more then a slightly ironic twist to him trying to relive the days of glory of his city that is slightly out of phase with time brings the setting of Zothique to life in spades. Zothique has a very interesting quality to its setting which is that there are a variety of environs in the cycle. This enables the DM to take the setting adhoc and bring the adventure right into alignment with it.


The flatness of the Journey To The Rock is replaced by the alieness & strangeness of the pulpy flare of Smith's Zothique cycle. This puts the wizard into a desperate & rather dangerous light where the PC's are unsure of his motives as well as the place in his schemes. Going along with this scheme several of the encounters would have to be punched up to match the oddity of the world setting. The composition of the Zothique cycle falls right into the same branches of old school pulpy role playing as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea but DM's are going to need a few resources bringing this style of campaign to life.


Fortunately the Eldritch Dark site has quite a few resources perfect for bringing this old school favorite to life for a DM.  Introduction to 'Tales of Zothique' by Mike Cothran is an excellent starting point for a dungeon master whose unfamiliar with these classic tales. A quick search of the site turned up a plethora of resources all of which are freely available to a DM looking for excellent commentary on Smith's stories.
But does this sort of deconstructionism of a classic module work? Yes I think so. Because it takes a low level adventure & twists it into a sword & pulp direction that the players will not be expecting. Suddenly lower teir PC's are thrust into an alien environment where the red bloated sun is above their heads and the stars are a bit too bright. This also gives DM's license to hook in all kinds of weird monsters, alien encounters, & some very dangerous factions from Clark Aston Smith's stories. 

Deconstructing & Using The Free OSR Adventure 'Wrack & Rune From Faster Monkey Games For Sword & Sorcery OSR Campaign Construction.

"It's a typical job: Go get the thing, bring it to the wizard. Of course, you should keep a few details in mind... like the thing is a three-ton statue... probably broken in pieces... and sunk to the bottom of Eel Bight, a dangerous bay haunted by thick fogs, Reef Devils, and a magic island full of kidnapping fairy-folk. Oh, and this wizard is in a hurry, so the reward drops every day. Other than that, no problem!"





Sometimes you've got to lean back into the classic modules & sometimes you begin looking around for something else. In this case I was talking with a friend of mine who blew into and then out of town this morning. I was wondering what else I might use as a stop gap Winter time module for my Old Earth campaign setting. His answer was inspired & interesting, he suggested Wrack & Rune from Faster Monkey Games.

The adventure by Jeff Sparks has the weirdness & definiteness of old school style writing but how adapabable is it to other settings?
Suddenly lower tier PC's are thrust into an alien environment where the clock is ticking & the DM is facing down some pretty hard pressed PC's. Since this module is set up for a ticking clock it requires a bit of imagination on the part of the DM but its got some solidly done encounters, the writing is tight, and everything centers around a plot that's not unfamiliar to fans of Sword & Sorcery style games.
There's a sense to Wrack & Rune that the whole adventure has room for a bit hook for all kinds of weird monsters, alien encounters, & some very dangerous factions from Clark Aston Smith's stories in this module.Maybe its the poetry aspect of this module or the fact that the adventure plays so well with its own world.
The module  is set in Faster Monkey Games’ Eastern Valnwell campaign setting, but there is nothing to stop the Dungeon master  from dropping it into his own campaign world. And this is one of its strengths. The other is that this one is for lower level PC's & it does a solid job of creating that sense of adventure to a certain extent foreboding. This module could be used to generate an entire campaign path.
This campaign adventure path might include the following classic TSR era as the fate of
the Lady Elaine might cross over into the classic U series, I'm of course speaking about the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh series. Could the town, its events, horrors, and more all be connected with the evil alchemist of Saltmarsh? I think so even if the DM strings the material together with overlapping NPC's, a few treasures, and more.


'Desolate and abandoned, the evil alchemist's mansion stands alone on the cliff, looking out towards the sea. Mysterious lights and ghostly hauntings have kept away the people of Saltmarsh, despite rumors of fabulous forgotten treasure. What is its sinister secret?'
'The module serves as the introduction to an underwater campaign set in the town of Saltmarsh, which the DM can design from the guidelines provided' This basically means that Sinister Secret becomes linked up with 'Wrack & Rune' can be placed on the 'Old Earth' setting or as an adventure that has certain elements  replaced by the alieness & strangeness of the pulpy flare of Smith's Zothique cycle. This puts the wizard into a desperate & rather dangerous light where the PC's are unsure of his motives as well as the place in his schemes within Wrack & Rune. Certain other elements of the module could be used as 'call back' elements as events overlap with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea's Port Greely. 

Be careful because lower level PC's are going to be slaughtered by certain horrors of Port Greely. Hence taking them through the U series first before attempting to jump aboard the over arching horrors of Port Greely. 

So what does all of this mean? Well it puts the PC's squarely in the center of an underwater campaign setting that can be shifted over to a salvage, piracy, or weird fantasy campaign with little issue. Its this 'Weird Tales' old school aspect that takes the PC's up the ladder of campaign play that places this one firmly into the old school court. The events of the 'U' series have a further twist to it. 'The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh can be played by five to ten characters of 1st–3rd levels.' Five to ten players are the perfect number to set up a salvage, pirate, or exploratory company.

There are ten reasons why this sort of a campaign works:

1. Ships are a mobile home base and provide the players & the DM with ready made plot hook into itself. 
2. Sea adventures are cool and can be made to work a jaded group of players in completely different directions of thought and play. 
3. Dungeons & ruins take on a whole other aspect and the range of monsters increases by order.
4. All of the upkeep for a ship eats gold like candy giving the DM the perfect treasure siphon. The PC's are broke always looking for adventure. 
5. There are nasty and dangerous things under the sea, the DM giveth and monsters can taketh the  ship which can become an entire campaign goal arch itself. 
6. Weird Tales under sea adventure locations 
7. Under water cave complexes are cool. 
8. Sea based cults appear again and again across Appendix 'N' literature. They make excellent enemies. 
9. Many treasures are found underwater leading to more opportunities for more adventure. 
10. Sea monsters are some of the most dangerous foes a party of adventurers can face.

With a bit of work this style of campaign the PC's could set sail for a upper level campaign in this style of campaign and you want to add in a bit more gonzo then the Battle For The Purple Islands by Venger Satanis Kickstarter is wrapping up soon. But the purple islands have plethora of old school gonzo elements that can warp or add to such a campaign depending on what you want to do.


Approaching Wrack & Rune from a whole other end might mean busting out your old B/X expert copy of Isle of Dread.

There are some really good solid lead ins & weird tales potential cross over ideas for Wrack & Rune. The feel is really well done and works well to sustain both adventures. The PC's are not going to know what's hit them. There's some great crossover potential there to really bring home some of the lost world and pulpy elements of both adventures. Wrack & Rune has a ton of great ideas hidden in its pages.

You Can Download
Wrack & Rune For Free Here!

'A Bad Case of Crab Cultists' An Astornishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Actual Play Event & A Free Appendix N Sword and Sorcery Download - Avon Fantasy Reader 14 (1950) For Your Old School Campaigns

The PC's went to get a magic item identified from a recent adventure  in tonight's game at the local temple of Mercury. They quickly became embroiled in a plot of kidnapping, intrigue, & cultists!


Tonight's game was all about Crabmen in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game. I've moved the crew in tonight's game onto to the Hyperborean mainland.In tonight's game there was  a tight little encounter with a temple of Mercury that's been having their clergy snatched for sacrifice or so it would seem.
The elder priest quickly identified the a wand like item as a piece of half Hyperborean crabmen cultists magic item. The rod of disintegration does 2d4 +3 damage with a range of 30 feet & it usually has 1d10 +2 charges. These items are easy to manufacture for the Hyperborean crabmen who equip their cultist cannon fodder soldiers with these items.  For a god of trade, the afterlife, magick, & thieves the priests in the temple didn't charge the PC's with the identification & there were so few priests that it was a bit unnerving for the players.
The PC's were given beds for the evening & a meal as the priests quickly explained that their numbers were being kidnapped for sacrifice on the altars of the crab men cultists!
The PC's bedded for the night & were awoken by the sound of gun shots coming from down the street. A group of hyperborean knights & the city watch had pinned in some of these crab cultists! Long gun shots were being exchanged with the crab men's rod weapons but the tide of battle was starting to turn on the city watch.
The PC's got into the middle of the fray & helped out the city watch. There were already some cultists prisoners & one of the PC's found out that these cultists had tendril slug things in these priests necks! A lengthy interrogation commenced & so did the deaths of a few priests. The PC's learned that there were twelve more cultists hiding in the sewers for some nefarious purpose. So huge beast had gone through the streets & entered the sewers. There were cobble stones that were knocked out of place & large foot prints in some of the holes. The tracks lead straight to the sewers.


After a quick meeting with the city watch the knights allowed the PC's to venture into the ancient sewer system. The walls were coated with a slick slightly sickly clear slime & the smell of methane was replaced with the smell of sea salt & ocean rime.
The first thing that the PC's encountered was the corpse of what might be a man dressed in archaic armor with his face and part of his head chewed off. He's also missing his hands but he still has his side arm. The sight was too much for our intrepid heroes and we ended there tonight.


So what's going on in the sewers of this minor beach front city state of Hyperborea? Well it all begins with me reading "The Voice of El-Lil" by Robert E. Howard. earlier this afternoon. If you haven't read it then by all means do! Its got a great design & layout for a crab god cult as your going to get. The Avon Fantasy Reader 14  actually has everything your going to need plus more sword & sorcery action then you can shake a sword at.

This issue has a bit of everything but it contains some solid material with "Temptress of the Tower of Torture and Sin" (aka "The Voice of El-Lil") by Robert E. Howard. Other stories in this issue are all top drawer stuff. 

1. "Temptress of the Tower of Torture and Sin" (aka "The Voice of El-Lil") by Robert E. Howard  is the main attraction here with a good solid adventure story that can be adapted for a wide variety of OSR games.
2. "Ylla" (aka "I'll Not Look for Wine") by Ray Bradbury
   is a first contact story with Martians that has some really interesting bits for an old school Mars adventure. " First human contact with Martians turns fatal - for humans."
3. "The Three Eyed Man" (Tubby series)] by Ray Cummings is one of those stories with potential to turn things in an old school adventure in a twisted direction especially for a science fantasy adventure.
4. "The Cave of the Invisible" by James Francis Dwyer  is a very interesting pulp story by one of the masters of the genre that could be used as the basis for an OSR adventure with a pulp twist or two. 
5. "Guard in the Dark" by Allison V. Harding  is about a young boy whose in possession of a set of magical soldiers but he could use the help of some PC's !
6. "The Still Small Voice" by Clive Jackson is a tale of the supernatural with a twist that could be the basis for a very different OSR adventure
7. "The Curse of Yig" by Z. B. Bishop is a classic of the Lovecraft mythos with the potential for a Boot Hill crossing that makes this an easy fit for an old school campaign 
8. "The Yeast Men" by David H. Keller, M.D.  novella is by one of the early masters of science fiction & this novella is a perfect one to steal a few ideas for your favorite OSR system.
9. "The Headless Miller of Kobold's Keep" by Irvin Ashkenazy  is another supernatural classic with a twist to keep things moving. Some of the ideas here are perfect for adapting for an old school adventure
10. "The Shadows" by Henry S. Whitehead  is one of my favorite writers of the other end of the Lovecraft circle,  " R. H. Barlow would later describe Whitehead as a member of "the serious Weird Tales school".^[2] Whitehead's supernatural fiction was partially modelled on the work of Edward Lucas White and William Hope Hodgson.^[2] Whitehead's "The Great Circle" (1932) is a lost-race tale with sword and sorcery elements." This tale is no different. Perfect OSR adventure fodder.
    
    YOU CAN DOWN LOAD  Avon Fantasy Reader 14 (1950) HERE

Free Appendix N Sword and Sorcery Download - Avon Fantasy Reader 05 (1948) For Your Old School Campaigns

So good afternoon its a bit after one here in Connecticut and today I wanted to bring to your attention The Avon Fantasy Reader # 5. They don't get any more important then this one folks. So over the last two years there's been a huge uptick in interest in Swords & Sorcery fiction & science fantasy. There is a ton of stuff here that can be mined here & much of it ties directly in with what I've been doing for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The Avon Fantasy Readers were always a cut above the rest of the run of the mill stuff back in the Forties & Fifties.
"The Avon Fantasy Reader was a magazine (sometimes classed as a series of anthologies) which re-published science fiction and fantasy literature by now well know authors. Avon strived to bring readers little known stories by then little recognized writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, C. L. Moore, A. Merritt, Murray Leinster and William Hope Hodgson. The Avon Fantasy Reader was published from 1946 to 1952 and had 18 issues in full. A short lived sister publication, Avon Science Fiction Reader, had three issues featuring just science fiction."
This issue has it all! Classic material from across the spectrum of  the science fantasy & sword & sorcery authors.

• "Scarlet Dream" (Northwest Smith series) by C. L. Moore
• "Sambo" by William Fryer Harvey
• "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" by Robert Bloch
• "The Random Quantity" by Carl Jacobi
• "The Gold Dress" by Stephen Vincent Benét
• "The Miracle of the Lily" by Clare Winger Harris
• "In the Court of the Dragon" by Robert W. Chambers
• "A Study in Amber" by Frank Owen (as Richard Kent)
• "The Words of Guru" by C. M. Kornbluth (as by Kenneth Falconer)

Now I mentioned Robert Bloch in my Mythos Memory Wrap Up Commentary For Adapting I5 Lost Tomb of Martek Adventure For The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System & Your Old School Campaigns.Well, here's the Robert Bloch tie in with Fane of the Black Pharoah, this one's got it all & its perfect material for mining for your old school sword & sorcery adventures set against HP Lovecraftian mythos.  Ready for a North West Smith tie in for that Astonishing Swords Men & Sorcerers of Hyperborea/ Warriors of the Red Planet campaign? C.L. Moore's Scarlet Dream makes the grade with great Martian retro future action! Carl Jacobi is a master of the Weird Tale and his work with Arkham House was top drawer stuff.  "The Gold Dress" by Stephen Vincent Benét 

is a first rate ghost story with a twist but there's a lot of adventure potential here. 

Then we dive into  "The Miracle of the Lily" by Clare Winger Harris

this is a very important story which is a part of a science fantasy world of lots of adventure potential but one that gets seldom mentioned in D&D circles?!

Robert W.Chambers doesn't need any introduction on this blog and his 'In the Court of the Dragon' ties directly in with several threads running through my OSR adventures.

Players of mine stay the hell out of that link or you will lose experience points!  Frank Owen is a name that's seldom bandied about today in pulp circles and that's too bad because he was good journeyman pulp writer. 

His work has some potential for old school adventures. There are hidden things in the woods and only the Words of Guru by Cyril M. Kornbluth can reveal them. This tale is a gem and first appeared in Stirring Science Stories in 1941. This same author also revealed a certain doctor's bag that  Rod Serling used  for an episode of his Night Gallery series 'The Little Black Bag' . This dramatization starred Burgess Meredith.   

Scene from Night Gallery episode "The Little Black Bag. "

YOU CAN GRAB
The  Avon Fantasy Reader 05 (1947)
RIGHT  HERE

So that's all for today and keep em rolling folks we've got more to come!

Beer, Clark Ashton Smith, & B/X D&D Deconstructing B8 Journey To The Rock By Michael Malone

Not my beer image by (c) 2005 Zubro

Lots of good ideas seem to start over a beer in my town & end of the hobby. Let's start with last night's discussion & workshop with B/X Dungeon's & Dragon's Journey To The Rock. Will the deconstruction, discussion, & ideas from last night's old school bar visit work?

Book cover of Journey to the Rock by Michael Malone, artwork by Larry Elmore

So I got together with friends last night & we started talking about B8: Journey to the Rock. The module is mostly well regarded within the old school gaming community locally. The fact is that for a B/X D&D game its a good introductory module but we came to the conclusion it would have to be heavily modified ergo gutted to make it a slightly more sword & sorcery friendly. Wiki has a good breakdown of the over arching plot of the module;
"Journey to the Rock is a wilderness scenario, which includes rules for wilderness play.^[1] The wizard Lirdrium Arkayz wants to know the secret of 'The Rock' and hires the characters to uncover it.^[2] The player characters are hired to find the secret of "the Rock", and to get there they must pass through a perilous countryside using one of three possible routes" At its heart & soul, B8: Journey to the Rock is a wilderness crawl with a twist where the party is doing an errand for a wizard to help bring back a city lost to time. Stop right there it sounds fantastic doesn't it, Journey To The Rock comes across as flat as cardboard in rereading it. By taking a sip of beer & then almost everyone came up with the same name Clark Ashton Smith.

Clark Ashton Smith proved us with exactly the sort of make over we need for Journey To The Rock with his Zothique stories. Each of the paths through the wilderness in Journey to the Rock leads to slightly different take on the plot. That take is the wizard himself which with a bit of polish can be molded into the Smithian NPC mode. A wizard with more then a slightly ironic twist to him trying to relive the days of glory of his city that is slightly out of phase with time brings the setting of Zothique to life in spades. Zothique has a very interesting quality to its setting which is that there are a variety of environs in the cycle. This enables the DM to take the setting adhoc and bring the adventure right into alignment with it.


The flatness of the Journey To The Rock is replaced by the alieness & strangeness of the pulpy flare of Smith's Zothique cycle. This puts the wizard into a desperate & rather dangerous light where the PC's are unsure of his motives as well as the place in his schemes. Going along with this scheme several of the encounters would have to be punched up to match the oddity of the world setting. The composition of the Zothique cycle falls right into the same branches of old school pulpy role playing as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea but DM's are going to need a few resources bringing this style of campaign to life.


Fortunately the Eldritch Dark site has quite a few resources perfect for bringing this old school favorite to life for a DM.  Introduction to 'Tales of Zothique' by Mike Cothran is an excellent starting point for a dungeon master whose unfamiliar with these classic tales. A quick search of the site turned up a plethora of resources all of which are freely available to a DM looking for excellent commentary on Smith's stories.
But does this sort of deconstructionism of a classic module work? Yes I think so. Because it takes a low level adventure & twists it into a sword & pulp direction that the players will not be expecting. Suddenly lower teir PC's are thrust into an alien environment where the red bloated sun is above their heads and the stars are a bit too bright. This also gives DM's license to hook in all kinds of weird monsters, alien encounters, & some very dangerous factions from Clark Aston Smith's stories.

Free Appendix N Sword and Sorcery Download - Avon Fantasy Reader 7 (1948) For Your Old School Campaigns

I've noticed the ever increasing circle of sword & sorcery & weird fiction  fans has recently been on the increase. This is always a good thing in my estimation. Because it means that a lot of the solid material being brought to the surface of OSR collective. Now take the Avon Fantasy Reader issue #7 from Nineteen Forty Eight. Why was this issue important? Well first of all it has a little bit of everything for the weird fiction fan & the sword and sorcery guy. Everything here is double dipped in awesomeness.
"The Avon Fantasy Reader was a magazine (sometimes classed as a series of anthologies) which re-published science fiction and fantasy literature by now well know authors. Avon strived to bring readers little known stories by then little recognized writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, C. L. Moore, A. Merritt, Murray Leinster and William Hope Hodgson. The Avon Fantasy Reader was published from 1946 to 1952 and had 18 issues in full. A short lived sister publication, Avon Science Fiction Reader, had three issues featuring just science fiction."
The covers were always top notch, the quality was better then a lot of the run of the mill fare back then and they don't make em like this anymore.


So why is issue great? Well look at the cast of classic stuff you've got in this issue. This is the sort of whose who of pulp writing that we just don't see today. All of this material could effectively be assembled into a complete campaign with little effort.
"Shambleau" (Northwest Smith series) by C. L. Moore
"The Curse of a Thousand Kisses" by Sax Rohmer
"The Dreams of Albert Moreland" by Fritz Leiber
"The Slugly Beast" (Joseph Jorkens series) by Lord Dunsany
"The Cairn on the Headland" by Robert E. Howard
"Aquella" (aka "The Planet Called Aquella") by Martin Pearson
"The Empire of the Necromancers" (Zothique series) by Clark Ashton Smith
"When Old Gods Wake" by A. Merritt
"The Were-Snake" by Frank Belknap Long
"The Gun" by Frank Gruber

So whose the genius behind the Avon Reader series? Probably someone whose name you've never heard but whose efforts you've probably read. Meet Donald Allen Wollheim a super science fiction, fantasy fan, sci fi writer, publisher, etc.  from way back in the Golden age of Science Fiction.  This man helped to shape the way we read science fiction & fantasy today from its foundations to its modern incarnations. Go and read his story for yourself his accomplishments are far to numerous for me to list here.

Photo taken by Amy Meadow, Wollheim family friend

A member of the Futurians and the founder of  DAW Books, Robert Silverberg said, "that he may have been "the most significant figure" in American SF publishing. "  Today he's one of the most criminally  underrated figures in the annals of Science Fiction. Those awesome yellow spined Daw SF books that you find at the good garage sales or Half Priced books if your really lucky that was Donald Allen Wollheim & his wife's baby. Mr. Wolheim may be gone, he passed in 1990 but he's far from forgotten.


Science Fiction fans of Donald Allen Wollheim's caliber become the next generation of leading lights for fantasy & science fiction authors a situation that I wish would continue more then it seems to today. But this is a blog post for another time. Back to the free stuff for the moment.



Anyhow I've always loved the Avon Fantasy Reader series, there was always so much you could mine from the anthologies pages from the exotic past of Sax Rohmer to the echoes of sword & sorcery awesomeness of Robert Howard. These magazines were always quality read. I came across them in the Summer of Eighty Six at yard sale in my home town. They were stacked neatly and waiting to come to a good home. So they came home with me. My dad always loved em because they had top drawer authors. The majority of the stories and material in Avon Fantasy Readers were older pulp reprints and that's exactly why they make excellent dungeon master fodder.

GRAB Donald A. Wollheim (ed.) Avon Fantasy Reader no. 7 (1948) HERE

Free Original Dungeons & Dragons Resource - All the OD&D Monsters Excel Downloadable Spreadsheet

So last night I was poking around the OD&D forums, and came across a wonderful little excel resource by member waysoftheearth way back in 2011 created an Excel spread sheet of every monster in OD&D.
To say this is awesome would be an understatement, the man is a prince. This makes dungeon mastering a real treat at the table. Oh and the spread sheet includes the Thoul in case your wondering.

I don't have a whole lot of time today and I've got work strangling me with repairs and such I thought I'd share.

scan of the cover to the original Dungeons & Dragons set by Gary Gygax, (TSR Inc., 1974) Use covered by fair use for this article.

Basically you can design the adventures, dungeons, ruins,etc. that you and your group want. This is a great little resource & reference  for the dungeon master to reach into to pull from for monster stats at the drop of a hat. Its very well done and I really have to thank
waysoftheearth.

Of course if someone was very resourceful they might be able to adapt these to Swords and Wizardry with little issue. Anyhow I'll be back on soon with more stuff.
Which you can download right here.

Alternative Download link Here

A Few More OSR And Classic Science Fiction Resources For Your Old School Campaigns

So last night once again I was cruising through the internet to calm down after a game, I came across really nice OSR resources these included the run of OD&DITIES  by Richard Tongue  from Dragon Foot   a class fanzine for OD&D hosted by Dragon's foot but preserved for the internet archive.  Next up is  Career Paths for 3d6 Fantasy by Arnold Kemp  of Goblin Punch Blog fame.

 a very useful tool for generating backgrounds, occupations, and more for your tradition old school rpgs. Used this in last night's adventure to generate NPC backgrounds and more on the fly.
Next up is one of the classics of science fiction, the entire run of Galaxy magazine is up to mined and read through for your old school science fiction campaigns. A bit of background on Galaxy,"
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction (sf) magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology.

Gold published many notable stories during his tenure, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman", later expanded as Fahrenheit 451; Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters; and Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. In 1952, the magazine was acquired by Robert Guinn, its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazine's production. When Gold's health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting officially at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time."

 GRAB THE COLLECTION RIGHT HERE


Next is a great little horror themed 1st level adventure  Cult of the Skin Demon

by Jurgen Mayer

 This is a great little adaptable adventure that can easily be used to fill in the gap or test a party of adventures. This is a good adventure to slip into the backdoor or as a side quest for an old school campaign.

An old favorite from way back in the dawn of the two thousands,  The Complete Netbook of Demons and their Relatives

 This little gem is a perfect add on to your old school campaigns when you want something dangerous and highly infernal but don't want the usual resources for monsters and kin to be used. This netbook contains a whole range of infernal foes and horrors waiting to be sprung upon your old school campaigns. Uses these wisely or dangerous horrors in Hell await your PC's or worse.

Some Free OSR And Classic Science Fiction Resources For Your Saturday Old School Campaigns

I was cruising through the Internet Archive last night at five am and came across three OSR  to resources. One of which is Greyhawk Appearance Generation table that's perfect for generating an adventurer's appearance in a Greyhawk game. I used it last night to create a number of traders, merchants, and NPC's in last night's adventure on the fly.


The second resource I came across is a complete OSR campaign setting called Anchorhold by Jason Morningstar

This campaign setting is rife to be used and customized by an OSR dungeon master to their heart's content. Its easy fast and has a ton of potential for your old school games as a complete setting that can stand on its own or can easily be dropped into an existing fantasy world.
Then there's Infinite Stars Issue #2 for Stars Without Number but has the odd bit for Traveller and more. Its not a bad little piece of old school science fiction gaming fandom material. The expanded world creation rules alone are worth the download.



Finally there's the entire run of If  Science Fiction magazine, IF was one of those classic science fiction magazines you always hear about in science fiction history books but can never find an issue except at a tag sale or get charged an arm and a leg at a used bookstore if your lucky.
"If was an American science fiction magazine launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn. The magazine was moderately successful, though it was never regarded as one of the first rank of science fiction magazines." Well that's total bull manure because the magazine went onto win some awards when,"It achieved its greatest success under editor Frederik Pohl, winning the Hugo Award for best professional magazine three years running from 1966 to 1968."
There's  is really a lot of fine science fiction to read and mine from for your old school space campaigns and science fantasy settings. The entire run of IF magazine  is right over here for free



You've got to love a rat in the android head cover from IF, these covers were always classic and they remind me of one of my pair of favorite WB characters. Naff
Well that's all folks!


Pinky and the Brain are copyrighted and trade marked to their owners, this post is for entertainment and educational purposes only.

Reconsidering The OSR Free Adventure Resource - Fire Mountain For The Basic Fantasy rpg System Or Your OD&D Style Campaigns

I'm always on the look out for a free adventure for the Basic Fantasy Role Playing game, such adventure always seem to have other uses for retroclone systems .. Take 'Fire Mountain' a seventeen page low level crawl that has elements of both old English elements and several lost world features. Now in the play test phase this adventure features several adventure bits that make it perfect as a low level weekend intro game adventure or as a one shot. This is a low level but very lethal dungeon crawl with ruins, pulpy weirdness, and lots great encounters.

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WEB PAGE
FOR THE PLAY TEST VERSION OF Fire Mountain

The set up goes something like this; "an adventure for low level characters. The party travel to a dragons' graveyard located in a dormant volcano in search of an ingredient that will hopefully allow the court magician to cure a plague that is ravaging the kingdom. In the process they must overcome a tribe of lizardmen and persuade a malicious red dragon to let them go"

All of the maps and everything you need are there ready to go straight out of the gate and the adventure needs to be played. Fire Mountain could easily be connected to Cult of the Reptile God's meta plot to provide an intro into that classic's plot line and keep the pulpy fun going. Or the lizard men of Fire Top Mountain might be another arm of the cult from N1. There are several possibilities in the mix to allow the DM to adapt this adventure to their own campagin and this is one of the strengths of the Basic Fantasy RPG adventures, they work on a number of levels.

If the PC's piece everything together in Fire Top Mountain n adventure they might still be in for
a rough time. This is a perfect module to use another 'gag' that I'm fond of doing with retroclone adventures such as Fire Top Mountain is reusing the same adventure location for multiple games.  Often this is so that adventurers from one game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess might find the corpses of PC's from a Labyrinth Lord game. With some adjustment this is a solid module to convert to Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, you can easily stick this isle right into the back end of any of the warmer temperate environs  of that game. Another way that this adventure might be worked into the back plot of AS&SH is to have this adventure link up with either Taken from Dunwich or .Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent From North Wind Adventures. In the case of Taken From Dunwich Fire Mountain would have to take place after the events of Taken, and there would have to be several adjustements made for certain monsters in Fire Mountain. For the Charnel Crypt several factors in the adventures time line place Fire Mountain as an addition to or side adventure. The various classic monsters from D&D or Basic Fantasy would have to be modified heavily for their stats and might be one offs from classic Atlantis for AS&SH.
For Lamentations of the Flame Princess or other alternative world  historical games, Fire Mountain might be set out in some backwater location with a bit of volcanic activity such as the borders of Russia or certain smaller island locations in temperate waters. This adventure could be used for a lost world location off the coast of Greenland or Iceland where volcanic activity could easly destory any evidence of it's existence to history.

I've always been a huge fan of lizard men and this adventure takes advantage of those reptile bastards. There is plenty of potential for lots of PC mayhem with Fire Mountain. So do I think that  this adventure is worth your time and efforts? Yes, yes, I do. I think that there is a ton of potential for a DM with a little bit of imagination and some time  to craft this adventure right into the background of their own game campaigns.

DAT artwork not used in Fire Mountain
but since I love lizardmen, its pretty damn iconic

Fire Mountain is a solid old fashioned adventure that hearkens back to older time in gaming and even though is outlined and advertised for the Basic Fantasy Rpg is a nice addition to any old school dungeon master's arsenal of adventures. This is a solid four out of five in my book and needs wider appreciation to get out of the play testing phase and out onto the Basic Fantasy Rpg's roster of polished adventures.

Reconsidering The OSR Free Adventure Resource - JN2 Monkey Isle For The Basic Fantasy rpg System Or Your OD&D Style Campaigns

Right, so yesterday one of the resources that I shared for X1 The Isle of Dread adventure module was JN2 Monkey Island from the wonderful folks over at the Basic Fantasy rpg pages. This is a low level but very lethal wilderness crawl with ruins, pulpy weirdness, and lots great encounters. This adventure clocks in at about thirty two pages of encounters and neat wilderness hex crawling. Its a great prehistoric wilderness environmental adventure crawl that takes PC's across an island landscape with all of the old favorites from the blue book expert set of D&D from the Eighties. Note that any dungeon master worth their salt can easily adapt the monsters using the Monster Manual I& II. Seriously its pretty damn ease to do.
What makes Monkey Isle unique?According to the module's intro  "Monkey Isle is a "lost world" setting - an island inhabited by prehistoric beasts and other strange creatures. It includes background material for the GM (Game Master) and several ready-made adventures. The intent is to give the GM an island to use for their own adventures. It is a place the gamers can visit and revisit as they desire"
Right and because its both well thought out and generic it allows the DM to place it, mold it, modify it as they see fit. Sounds vaguely like Isle of Dread?


So why bother downloading this booklet and module if you own Isle of Dread? Well, after your party has completed the island as part of the Isle of Dread what then? For my games this adventure served as a part of a chain of lost islands which also included when the PC's were advanced enough the Islands of Purple Haunted Putrence.

I've also used Monkey Isle as part of an on going Inner Earth campaign that I'll soon be returning too.
There are thirty two pages of adventure encounters and locations but among those is mention of farm lands, this incredibly important detail that any fans of Robinson Crusoe will tell you. PC's often need a home base from which to venture into the wilderness and a safe point to return to between encounters. And this adventure has those. Many adventures don't make mention of them and its often this detail is overlooked.
Let me also make mention of the maps, there are not simply one or two, the whole damn second half of the module is filled with map after map to make it easy on the DM to chart out, show, print out and mix in details of the isle.
Another thing that I also happen to be a big fan of with retroclone adventure locations is using the same locations that other game campaigns have already been too. Often this is so that adventurers from one game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess might find the corpses of PC's from a Labyrinth Lord game. With some adjustment this is a solid module to convert to Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, you can easily stick this isle right into the back end of any of the warmer tropical seas of that game. The monsters might need a bit of work but for a beginning party this might be just the ticket to cut their blades on this one.
This adventure even includes a bit of dungeon crawling in addition to prehistoric wilderness hi jinks. There's even a set of ill defined ruins to stick your own mini or larger dungeon on the isle.


Basically this is nice set of tools for the DM to play with, stick in some Sleestak and you've got your own Land of the Lost mini adventure. Add or subtract from this adventure as necessary or use it as a template to create your own mini defined OSR prehistoric campaigns.