OSR Thoughts on The Gamma World Rpg, Thundarr The Barbarian Cartoon & The Hyperborea Rpg?! Mindok The Mind Menace Comes To Call

 Let's pick up the Thundarr thread from here & let's bring on of the most dangerous villains of The Thundarr The Barbarian cartoon. 

Mindok The Mind Menace: "I am supreme among wizards. I have taught this to Zoa; now, Thundarr must learn it as well." Mindok is the primary antagonist of the season 1 episode 3 Mindok the Mind Menace. He was one of the more formidable opponents faced by Thundarr and his allies.

Mindok is one of the most powerful wizards that Thundarr & co have faced. And he get's transplanted into a brand new cybernetic body. Mindok then goes into large outer ring Earth orbit around Old Earth in one of the most formiable war machines he has ever constructed. And according to Ariel he shall remain there forever. 
Or so it would appear?! What if Mindok doesn't remain in orbit but instead rides the Boreas winds until his warmachine is knocked off course?! 
And then travels to another world or asteriod. Then our insane evil wizard begins building his powerbase from the ground up again. 
Mindok has survived the Great Cataclysm, developing both magic & mental mutations. Let's assume that he is around the eighth or nineth wizard mark.And he's capable of using variations on the phantasmal force school of spells as well as telepathy. And also capable of using other mental based spells ala the Hyperborea rpg. 
Even with variations of several minor mental mutations add onto Mindok's NPC profile. The fact is that he's more then a match for almost any experianced party. The key to this is the robotic body with it's hill giant style strength. The cybernetic body is at best clumsy & at worst more of a utility unit. 

And while Mindok has been in deep orbit he's bound to have repaired his cybernetic body. And that warmachine seen at the end of the episode is likely to house other robotic servants or minions. That warmachine is not to be underesitmated either. These robotic units could have an engineering bot on board with time & energy repaired the control board on the warmachine.

If we're using Hyperborea, Mindok might have found his way to the Cracked Moon of Old Earth. And we know absolutely nothing about this moon. However we know that it is a been subject to the same cosmic forces of the Earth that created Thundarr's world.  

If Mindok did reach Old Earth's cracked moon then it's possible that he made serious repairs to his war machine with the relics & technologies that were found on the Cracked Moon. And from here Mindok sets out to look for new worlds to conquer. 
And the Boreas winds take Mindok's warsmachine into deep orbit around the outer edges of Hyperborea. And here's where events get tricky. Mindok uses the ancient Atlantian space locks to dock after he encountered relics of Atlantis on the Cracked Moon. The Gamma World fourth edition rpg hints that there's been crossovers with the world's most popular fantasy rpg. Gamma World fourth edition has a ton of space colonies, intersellar generation ships, all of which could theoricially link up with the fact that  the Great Cataclysm could have a mythological explaination. Meaning that Mindok could easily see Hyperborea as a another opportunity for conquest. 

Mindok starts going about as business as usual for a deadly black wizard with access to a full blown operational warmachine. Can a party of adveturers stop a wizard of Mindok's power?! Yes I believe they can and we'll get into how & why next time! 

OSR Thoughts on The Gamma World Rpg, Thundarr The Barbarian Cartoon & The Hyperborea Rpg?! Lords of Old Earth Campaign Idea

 So back on December 14th there was a post on this blog about Thundarr The Barbarian available right here. And there's something bothering me about dropping the subject so let's get back to it. 

Thundarr The Barbarian for my young brain pretty much was the underpinning for everything that was to come with Sword & Sorcery. But let's get into a 2011 OSR frame of mine for a moment. . The World of Thundarr Barbarian sourcebook is still available on the right hand side of the Savage Afterworld blog here. 

The World of Thundarr Barbarian sourcebook has been an essential part of many a Gamma World 1st & 2nd edition campaign.
And yes, obviously we've used Mutant Future as both a supplement & system to run 'The World of Thundarr The Barbarian with the sourcebook as campaign from N'york to the ruins of Disn'y. We've covered & crisscrossed the Wasted Lands of Merica.  Let's talk about the 400 pound mutant gorilla in the room here that no one wants to mention. And that's the  the Hyperborea Rpg All of the treasures, classes, etc within the Hyperborea are direct or indirect call backs & homages to the 'Thundarr The Barbarian' cartoon. 

Now recently (as in this morning) my clutch of gamers were talking about the gem of Thundarr The Barbarian as a possible future campaign location. Yeah,yeah, I know add it to the pile of ideas that gets thrown around this blog. This idea has merit however on several fronts. Front one is the fact that in the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Dungeon Master's Guide there are conversion guidelines. Then again Gamma World fourth edition is far closer to the damage guidelines of the Hyperborea rpg. 
How could such a campaign be done?! Quite easily actually. The 'Old Earth' setting is already baked into the background of Hyperborea. Switch around some of the details & that comet hurtling between the Earth & the Moon might be a piece of moon when Hyperborea was taken into space 

So could Gamma Terra actually be Old Earth!? Anything is possible but given our gaming schedule as of late. There's lots of ideas that would have to be ironed out first! 

Gamma World Fourth Edition Blues - OSR Campaign Commentary

With yesterday's blog entry I've been taking another look at Gamma World fourth edition once again.This one was always a personal favorite because it was usable with the old TSR Buck Rogers rpg & even D20 with quite a bit of twisting. Hell there's even a conversion article for TSR Buck Rogers game right over here. 

But for some reason we're never supposed to speak about the Buck Rogers rpg because of the whole twisted history of Lorraine Williams. Personally I loath the whole affair but the Buck Rogers rpg remains a good & solid addition to Gamma World fourth edition. I've been looking into actually doing something with Buck Rogers because of my Cha'alt/Godbound rpg game. 



Its been a couple of years since I cracked my notes on these two games. The Buck Rogers Rpg 'Hardware' book is awesome & is equally useful for Gamma World fourth edition. The Treasures of the Ancients book has some really nasty bits & pieces in it. There's lots of fun things to get the party into all kinds of trouble. 

GWA1 Treasures of the Ancients by Dale "Slade" Henson which remains almost unsung by gamers except the Gamma World fans & players. Dale "Slade" Henson  did both of these books for TSR back in '93. Recently they've become available & I've used both of these books for Mutant Future since the game came out. There's a certain Gamma World or ruined Earth flavor to these books. Plus that fourth edition Gamma World artwork on Treasures of the Ancients makes it so iconic of the 90's TSR era. 

The fact that its easily available through Drivethurpg makes me very happy for two reasons. One these books are now affordable for just about everyone. Two their easily adaptable to any of the earlier eras of AD&D first or second edition. Plus it gives me an excuse to dust off my notes for Gamma World Gamma Knights soon. 




Sure this marks a low point in TSR productions but their so much good solid classic material here to mine for my campaign.Fourth edition Gamma World's Gamma World Gamma Knights  could be ported over to the Cha'alt setting allowing spice frackers & death stalker anti paladins to emerge from the purple desert sands.


I have to step up my game campaign with dreams of desert versions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual owl bears bearing down on a party of reprobate adventurers looking to cause harm.