Sword, Sorcery, & Low Level Holmes Dungeons & Dragons - Dungeon Locations For Your Old School Campaigns

'Can your PC's survive the deadly horrors of the ruins and dungeons of a demon haunted world where anything can happen?' Well, they can if we delve into the past for some help with Holmes Dungeons & Dragons.

So I've way behind on my blog entries because ultimately work has been busy as sin & has me running across the countryside. The whole time  my Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea has been on going with the characters shipwrecked onVenger Satanis's The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence . The black demon haunted sands, purple & strangely hued jungles, & tentacled terror filled environs have landed them in the temple of Nodens just shy of their ultimate goal. The problem is that I don't have the time to flesh out the temple of Nodens the way I want. Well fortunately I've got a bunch of experienced dungeon masters and old school friends to point me the way.  Not only can Holmes point the way on scaling the encounters for first level PC's. But its got a sample dungeon or two that can really help fill in those old school weird pulpy gaps. This includes being a stand in for a certain temple that was originally a wizards tower that was converted into a temple during the time of the Green Death plague.  There are other lower level ruins & dungeons scattered around my version of the islands.

 The Sample Dungeon in Holmes ala The Tower of Zenopus was incredibly important to a certain generation of gamers. Its iconic, incredibly easy to run and has great potential to really set the tone for first level PC's.Its easy for them  to get a handle on that pulpy sword & sorcery vibe that seems to really echo through Holmes. Another dungeon that I want to have the PC's explore is  "The Sample Level in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures" by Gary Gygax there's just something incredibly iconic about it that begs it to be run with low level PC's.

When I was around my preteen years I taught a group of much younger gamers who had a book called What is Dungeons & Dragons by John Butterfield, Philip Parker, and David Honigmann. It is was published in the U.S. in 1984 & before that the UK in 1982. Well within that book was a little dungeon called The Shrine of Kollchap. 

I ran my uncle's kids through this dungeon several times. They went on to be dungeon masters in their own right.  The shrine has a bit of everything for a dungeon master looking to really sprinkle on bits & pieces of the old school D&D feel without the completely lethal edge that comes with the turf. What's really nice is how easily it is to modify out for games like AS&SH. These dungeons can keyed so that Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea will provide all of the necessary stats and monster profiles to set up & spawn any of the horrors for this campaign to succeed.
Finally there's the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album By Gary Gygax which has for many years had a love affair among old school players & fans alike. Included as a part of the coloring book is a dungeon that is ultimately a part of the background of the coloring book itself. All of the monsters, creatures, adventurers are all keyed into the book's setting. Now here's the bit about this dungeon, its actually pretty deadly & lethal! It also follows the Holmes edition dungeon very closely. There's a great break down from the OD&D boards by Zenopus & even more details on it. 

 This dungeon could be used as a mid point island location with a multi planar twist enabling PC's from AS&SH to experience some of the more iconic & pulpy D&D elements without polluting Hyperborea's unique setting. This means that the dungeon might be a nexus dimensional point or gateway for Hyperborea into a sword & sorcery Greyhawk. But this is going to be for a much higher level point in the campaign.

Parts & Purpled Pieces Under The Hyperborean Sky - A Deeper Look At OSR Campaign Construction

B/X Dungeons & Dragons has always been far push away from the OSR material that inspired especially with the third wave of OSR stuff that has come out recently or has it? Let's take a deep gaze into the background of  classic TSR era Dungeons & Dragons, Venger's Satanis's material, & call to pulp adventure once again.

When it comes to classic B/X Dungeons & Dragons I draw down from the classic Seventies & Eighties schools of adventure table top role playing games and comic books. There seems to be a sense to this era that anything goes at the table. The latest trends in gaming just don't seem that interesting lately.
I keep glancing at a stack of Eighties comic books and suddenly my eye rests on an advertisement that seemed to be everywhere back then.



Mentzer,Moldvay,& Holmes Dungeons & Dragons are sort of my soul's comfort food when it comes to designing, reading, & going through the motions of thinking of the philosophy of B/X D&D. Its this comment from a discussion about The Mentzer D&D set that caught my attention today from Simon H over on Drivethrurpg;

"Reading Moldvay recently was a revelation. At every turn the implicit assumption is that your Basic D&D character is awesome. Of course your character can ride a horse, fight from the saddle, swim or command a ship! Simply state it on the character sheet and maybe give a short explanation how the character gained the ability. Done! Magic is powerful, the spells have none of the limitations and ‘safety catches’ that tame them in other editions. Instead their raw power is exposed. Finally, there’s a small rule in the back of the book that makes the game. If there’s not a rule for doing something, just ask the player to roll 1D20 equal to or less than an appropriate characteristic, maybe with a modifier. Boom! At a stroke your characters become truly heroic, able to have a go at anything. Not even level is a limiting factor. Unfortunately this rule was excised in the Mentzer edition."
Its just that process of you can do anything with D&D  that gets me back into the frame of mind to create OSR material. The creative process is one of the reasons why I'm drawn into D&D at my age & it seems to resonate with both players & dungeon masters alike for the same reasons.
So that being said I'm quietly putting together what I can actually do with the Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence & I pulled out my copy of Liberation of the Demon Slayer to add to the heady mix. I'm using Liberation of the Demon Slayer as more of a source book rather then an actual adventure at the moment. Convert the Elves over to Hyperboreans & your good to go. Cradle of Rabies has a really nice review of Liberation of the Demon Slayer.


One of the things I really like about the location of the islands on Hyperborea is the fact that I can add or subtract anything 'Bermuda Triangle' style from across time & space which still won't break the setting into tiny pieces. This means I can add in a  classic historical Roman fort someplace on the islands holding its own against the forces of demonic horror & still not break the setting. A classic Castra showing up upon some part of one of the islands is something I've been tossing around for awhile now. You need a few points of stability & trade among the chaos and horror of the purple. A good example of what I mean is this piece of cartography done by
Mediatus  from wiki commons note the classic playing card diagram.


This also means that I can as a dungeon master incorpote different NPC's from other OSR products or setting elements as needed. Case in point is Rpg Pundit's Dark Albion which is perfect for creating time or dimension lost adventurers, outlaws, and other NPC's from the world of Albion and sticking them on The Islands of Purple Putrescence. They're not simply another faction on the islands but there in the service of their demon gods & trying to further the causes of the Rose War back home. 

Monsters of these islands are going to have their own unique feel and abilities. Kobolds for example might be far more pulpy entities then your normal run of the mill horrors. Purpled up cockroach style monsters with the abilities of a troll's regeneration & the ability to over run adventurers. They serve the islands god hive mind and its needs. They're mad, bad, & dangerous but far more rare then standard goblins. The islands generate them as needed.


The islands & Hyperborea have their own take on the classic B/X & D&D monsters, this isn't actually me as the dungeon master taking liberities with the setting but the fictional setting itself taking liberties with its own mythology. Going all of the way back to Clark Aston Smith's Hyperborean cycle which takes its cues from H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Aston Smith. Venger Satanis & Jeff Talanian as both writers and designers are well aware of this fact. They've read the Hyperborea cycle stories and have incorporated the Hyperborean Demonology, inspired by the works of Clark Ashton Smith into their game design.

Some of the delightfully demonic artwork of mrzarono.deviantart.com appears in various Kort'thalis Publishing's products giving me a much needed clue about the origins of this end of the Lovecraftian hi jinks. All of this leads back to the Old Solar System campaign model that I've talk about ad nausea before.  Here's the pulpy Clark Aston Smith stories for Hyperborean reference:
 
"The following short stories are considered part of Smith's Hyperborean cycle:

• "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" (1931)
• "The Testament of Athammaus" (1932)
• "The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan" (1932)
• "The Door to Saturn" (1932)
• "The House of Haon-Dor" (1933) [story fragment]
• "The Ice-Demon" (1933)
• "Ubbo-Sathla" (1933)
• "The Seven Geases" (1934)
• "The White Sybil" (1935)
• "The Coming of the White Worm" (1941)
• "The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles" (1958)
  You can find all of the Clark Ashton Smith tales that are mentioned in this blog post on  www.eldritchdark.com. In my opinion Hyperborea has always been the last refuge of the people of Old Earth. Its not a pleasant or easy world to survive on. The place has always been a world of extremes and add to it the horrors of the Lovecraftian and its a heady and somewhat pulpy mix.
  This post is not an attempt to violate the copyrights or trademarks of any of the films nor properties named in this post. All ideas are for a private table top rpg campaign. None of the ideas or opinions expressed in this post are meant to violate the trademarks nor copy rights of any of the table top rpgs discussed nor are they in away responsible for the thoughts or opinions of the author. The writing, ideas, and opinions are copyrighted and trade marked to the author and Dark Corner productions. This post is for entertainment & educational purposes only. Don't forget to take a look at and support the newest Trinity of Awesome Returns Kickstarter.

Commentary On Using Holmes B/X Dungeons & Dragons With The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence For Old School Campaign Fodder

So I've got kinda of a quandary with my Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, I've shipwrecked a bunch of first level PC's on Venger Satanis's The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence which I've cast into the waves of Hyperborea. Surely these fools will not survive upon the haunted black sands of the island as everything will try to eat them. Well that's the plan anyway or is it? Many of the hex crawl's encounters are pretty high level and for first level PC's a total wipe out. Well not quite. I have a cunning plan and it involves Holmes Basic Dungeons & Dragons. One of the things I've been doing is researching, & reading Holmes D&D  again. What could Holmes possibly have to offer?

Well a few things like advice on scaling encounters to fit the levels of the PC's & how to keep things moving. There was post about sandbox campaigns going wrong and I intend to avoid that. By  plugging in some of the lower level monster encounters from Holmes I can get a better rounded adventure path for the players & their characters. The stats are no problem because many of the monsters have AS&SH equivalents built into the rules set.

Because   The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence  is outside of known time & space the perfect excuse is available to encounter a plethora of horrors. So I can sneak in a wide variety of lower tier encounters without having to skimp on quality. What we're looking at is a cross selection of undead, skeletons, humans, berserk warriors, slimes, goblins, and many of the weirder monsters of OD&D. This would also include lizardmen and more dangerous horrors as middle men & finally minotaurs and some giants as boss creatures. The pulp aspect might be in the dungeon locations as the wreckage of flying saucers & space craft becomes the temples, stock dungeons, & ruin locations on the Islands now the home of some perhaps weird or mutated D&D monsters.

The sheer iconic weirdness of Holmes makes it one of my favorite go to sources for pulpy D&D wisdom & the vibe of this edition has always to me fit many of the gonzo aspects of early Seventies and Eighties old school. This also means that its always at the back of my mind as a reservoir of wisdom for these types of situations. The
Monster List by HD - Reference Sheet v1.1  is one of those invaluable resources for Holmes D&D from the Zenopus Archives site.
Given the weirdness of the Islands of Purple Putrescence the "One Hit Point Monsters v1.0 - twenty new monsters with one hit point, for use with single characters, small parties " is a natural download to help give some of the alien flavor of the place.

 The artwork from the U.K. Games Workshop edition of Holmes is especially evoctive of the animal witch women that the party will be running into in next week's game.

So why does this work out so well for a weirdly generic gonzo OSR style book like the Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence?  Because Dr. Eric J. Holmes was a huge fan of pulp magazines, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and he knew the aesthetic of pulp gaming. This was a man who wrote Mahars of Pellucidar by John Eric Holmes which was published by  Ace Books in 1976 with cover art by Boris Vallejo. This was an authorized sequel of the Pellucidar books by Dr. Holmes and given the green light by the Burroughs estate.


Everything here is keyed so that Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea will provide all of the necessary stats and monster profiles to set up & spawn any of the horrors for this campaign to succeed. The balance here is in the gonzo, weirdness, and otherworldly adventure that the The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence  & Holmes provides all mixed up in an OSR cocktail with AS&SH as it backbone!