The Decaying Mile High Club - Using Castles & Crusades With Gary Gygax's S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks For A Post Apocalyptic High Fantasy Campaign

"An unraveled dream of new worlds turned nightmare; lost in the deep beyonds, the Warden is your home, your world, your end."
Imagine your going about your daily life & the world you know erupts in nuclear fire. Your descendants awaken in a new universe inhabited by mutants & monsters!

So its been another day where I've been out on the road but S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks by Gary Gygax  has been on my mind again. The idea of a crashed space craft smashing into the Earth & possibly reducing the Earth to level of the Dark Ages. This setting idea has been something I've toyed with during other campaigns over the years. But with the recent Kickstarter for a new seventh printing of the Castle Keeper's Guide with brand new artwork. The idea of S3 has once again entered my consciousness.



The idea of one of the ships of the Warden crashing into Earth & causing the meltdown of civilization as alien creatures are dumped on Earth isn't a new one. I can totally see using various Castles & Crusades material for this. This small side ship of the Warden's mission slams into the Earth & sets off World War III. The Earth is perfectly suited for a mutant & alien creature hoe down.America & Russia nuke the heck out of each other as they mistake the crash for a provocation to war. The Siege engine setting rules in the back of the Castle Keeper's Guide are geared for a sci fi setting.


So its really not a hard stretch at all to be using this book to run Gary Gygax's S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks with Castles & Crusades. Especially if the dungeon master was to take the adventure & pair it with the recent The Starship Warden Kickstarter. This Warden is another 'runner' ship for the larger vessel that's still up in orbit & it's computer banks thinks its home! The fact of the matter is that the DM could plug this idea in & run with it using various Metamorphis Alpha resources especially the Goodman Games Original Adventures Reincarnated #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

Castles & Crusades can & does handle many of the same table top rpg systems issues in the Siege Engine that fifth edition does. This new incarnation of   Expedition to the Barrier Peaks allows the DM to move their games from the high fantasy of a Dark Ages Earth.  Up & possibly onto decaying orbiting monstrosity of the  49 miles long mutant infested Hell ship circling the said Earth. Add in your Castles & Crusades Player's Guide & bang your ready to start rolling up PC's!

The Dire Legacy of Good Man Games OAR #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks By Gary Gygax & Michael Curtis

"The Grand Duchy of Geoff has called for help, asking for you to investigate a mysterious cave in the Barrier Peaks, and it's unlike any other cave in the world. In fact, it's not really a cave at all. It does however have alien inhabitants—crazed robots, eerie androids, and even stranger things—who endanger the world. The adventurers must confront these threats and navigate the unearthly interior of the wrecked starship, puzzling over and mastering alien technology to defeat their foes. If you’ve ever had the urge to zap an umber hulk with a laser rifle while commanding a robotic servant, this adventure is for you!"

So Goodman Games just sent me the latest announcement in the Original Adventures Reincarnated line of products. OAR #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is going to follow in the wake of the other titles in that line which means that its going to be fifth edition D&D & I find myself increasingly not liking that system. If your playing Fifth edition D&D fantastic for you. But let's take a step back for a moment & think about what this module means for campaign play. Now if OAR #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks follows in the foot steps of other titles in the OAR line then we're looking at an expanded Warden, adventure encounters, & much more. 

Now I've been reading early issues  of 'The  Dragon' magazine which covers many different early game products in the TSR line. This includes Metamorphosis Alpha first edition which I've used in the past to expand S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks by Gary Gygax. Corridors, rooms, etc. can all be switched up for more expansive play. Why? Because many players know S3 inside & out. Change the encounters up a bit or expand upon the ship using the table in Metamorphosis Alpha & things get very interesting. 

Another Metamorphosis Alpha art piece by Trampier

But let's talk about the four hundred ton gorilla in the room that nobody mentions the various alternative world versions of the Warden. The ship is a world ender & really a campaign starter across a number of D&D settings including Blackmoor, & Mystara because I personally think that the U.S.S. Beagle was or is a part of the Warden's colony fleet. The technology, the cybernetic life forms, etc. are all very similar in many respects. So who or what would be after the Warden that crashes into the Barrier Peaks? Well two vile NPC villains come to mind right off the bat. St.Stephen of the Rock & his cult of Froggies have the time, motivation, & technology to cross worlds & the Warden would be a prime target.

But then there's also Egg of Coot whose more then capable of using planar travel to get that sweet savory technology. The Egg of Coot loves to to use to enslave various peoples as minions & expand its planar  way stations & check points of its higher dimensional empire. But is it the only interested party in S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks by Gary Gygax? Sure there's the Egg of Coot but are we forgetting some one or something? Aboard the Warden there are any number of intelligent alien species & creatures that have their own agendas especially the Mind Flayers.Copyright & Trademarked artwork to Jeff Dee used without permission.


If OAR #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks  is going to expand the encounters, monsters, and perimeters of the Gary Gygax classic then we might see that the Mind Flayers aboard the Warden not only crashed it. But they  created the planar & dimensional rift to create the various alternative versions of the ship to expand their species! This species appears in Blackmoor, Mystara, & Greyhawk but can be encountered anywhere in the planes quite literally.


Is it really the Mind Flayers behind all of the events aboard the Warden? Including dumping every last monster could be a tactic to terriform some of these world settings. The wreckage of the Warden is world altering & will continue to bleed into the Duchy of Geoff. 
What will this mean for those who live in the area? Well I've got a few ideas in this direction:

1. The Mind Flayers make contact with the outpost that they've already established on Greyhawk 
2. The reactors aboard the Warden go critical & spew weird radiations across the countryside causing all kinds of havoc. The weird radiation might cause all kinds of mutations & horrors. 
3. The confusion caused by the crash within the Barrier Peaks might be just the sort of distraction that a wizard or cabal might be waiting for to take over. 
4. There could be any number of Dark Druids waiting to grab some of these alien monsters to cause evil in various parts of Greyhawk.
5. There could be a hidden evil we've not seen within the Warden & that might be yet another unknown waiting to spring forth from the bowels of the ship. 

These are just off the top of my head & there might be some other mind blowing revelations to come out of OAR #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks  but we'll have to wait & see. 

Goodman Games Original Adventures Reincarnated line: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks & The Use of Mega Dungeons In Old School Campaigns

So I've been doing a lot of research & thinking now that Goodman Games has announced Original Adventures Reincarnated line: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks next. And the announcement has me  thinking about my 2100 alternative World War I game. What would happen if a star ship crashed into a technologically sophisticated world someplace in Europe? What would this mean to a  Victorious/ Amazing Adventures! Rpg  game?


There's a few things happening here such as the fact that we'd be looking a full on race to be the first to break into the ship & then there's the fact that you've got the monsters adding to the boil of events brewing in Europe in the world of 2100.
The Thulean Empire would make a mad dash for it but where would the crash happen? Let's say that right on the edge of the Thulean Empire would work on the outskirts of the Black Forrest. Why would the PC's be involved? Because  the Grand Duchy of Geoff is an independent kingdom right on the Thulean Empire & while it provides taxes & levies it gets very little in the way of help from the Thuleans. 

 Guardians of Lemuria. from Antediluvian miniatures

 have been my go too  Thulean  army for our game. 

Once the monsters start showing up you've got the Thuleans fighting on another front & things could get very hairy for the PC's indeed.
But what if this isn't the only ship falling from the sky? What happens if this only one of several of these craft that have come outta warp at the edge of the solar system?  What happens if another spacecraft falls into the European or Canadian wilderness? Well what if we slip Patrick Wetmore's  ASE1: Anomalous Subsurface Environment adventure into the mix? 

Well a few things are going to happen, these mega dungeon relic ships in Europe might be a tipping point for this campaign. These bastions of monsters, lost technologies, & nation building potential might cause all kinds of international havoc inside this pressure cooker of a campaign.

This pressure cooker could be a real mounting problem as nations see potential military assets & a world tipping asset. So given the number of factions these dungeon settings are much more then merely legendary adventure locations.
They could be a potential source for all kinds of havoc as various factions fight for control but what they don't realize is the potential of an enemy coming from within. Any monsters already on the ground within a campaign that make their way into such a dungeon have the power to wrestle control of a piece of the action. This could come as a real shock to a party of adventurers. They could be caught within a power play between the political powers of a campaign & the forces within that threat to tear them apart.


The mega dungeon becomes not only a source of monsters but a source of power. These locations serve as not only the center piece of a campaign but one of its main motivators. The power of the mega dungeon in the hands of a dungeon master should never be underestimated. Here are ten more ways to really bring the heat with these dungeons of doom:

1. The dungeon has been converted to a temple of light but below the dungeon is a bubbling cornucopia of horror & depravity. 
2. The PC's stumble upon a mega dungeon in motion & things go from bad to worse as a gold rush race to grab its power & resources happen. 
3. Mega dungeons are sources of power & supernatural terror they could be one of the sources of mythological power within an area but they might also be a potential source for good as well. The PC's are going to have their hands full. 
4. Treasure brings headaches & heartache as well so DM's might take full advantage of the economic implications of a mega dungeon's discovery. 
5. The megadungeon might be location for any number of mundane NPC's who use its deadliness & horror as a cover for their own nefarious doings. 
6. Balances of power could hinge on the real placement such megdungeon locations. 
7. Cults worshiping the monsters of a megadungeon could potentially be the crew for maintaining its traps, lures, and lethality. They might be monsters unto themselves.
8. Mega dungeons could serve as the lair for god or demi god leading to all kinds of issues with the locals who worship & actually love the god. 
9. Dragons should never be underestimated in using such complexes as megadungeons their the perfect boss for such locations. 
10. Technologies & relics brought from mega dungeons even not working are very valuable potentially.