Quick Kickstarter OSR Update & Beyond Attention Getters

Kickstarter is filled with all kinds of projects possibly worth your attention but two that have caught my eye. The first is a solid DCC Cthulhu Mythos/Horror Western mash up called Dark Trails.

This book has been making waves across the DCC/OSR community & I don't see it going away anytime soon. 

"The largest challenge for my new life on the frontier was building shelter and pulling food from the ground I plowed before winter settled in.

That was before the shadows came to life that fateful night and claimed the lives of those I loved.  I’d heard a rumor of things born of darkness skulking around and the idiots hellbent on ushering more of them into the world, but like most folks eager to carve out a new life braving the western frontier, I chalked it up to tall-tales fueled by whiskey and superstition.

My last sight before being overwhelmed and feeling those needle-sharp teeth pierce my jugular, was watching my youngest take her last terrified breath, as something dragged that kindly woman (whose love kept me on the path of good intentions for so long) kicking and screaming into the shadows.  That was when the soft whisper of Death called to me, wrapping my soul in its dark embrace, preparing me for a different journey.

A distant light set against a starless night pulled at my weightless soul.  A lifetime of memories flashed before me as I sped towards the afterlife.  The power in those memories slowed my final journey.  Unfinished business pulled at my stubborn soul and proved stronger than the promise of that peaceful light.  I returned to my broken, bloody body and willed it back into a mockery of life.

Almost a year has passed now, and the bittersweet memories of my family fuel a never-ending thirst for vengeance.  I returned that night with the strength of the grave coursing through my rotting veins, no longer living, nor dead.  Since the night it took my family, I’ve picked up a posse of folks equally kissed by the supernatural and equally determined to take the fight to the sinister agents of the night.          

 -from the journal of Samuel Mundy"
 "The Dark Trails RPG is a game which pays homage to the popular weird West genre.  It can be used as a standalone game or as the perfect complement to a growing line of products that all utilize the rules found in the Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) RPG.   As a player, you’ll find a wealth of material that allows you to assume the role of one of 11 unique classes, with descriptive names like: the Calavera, the Bedlamite, and the Sin-Eater.   As a Judge, you’ll find over 400 pages of material giving you a wealth of resources for designing and running fantastic adventures set against the haunted landscapes of an unforgiving weird West. "
So this sounds really ace & we need a new Western horror game & this sounds like it has all of the parts & moving pieces of a classic in the making. You can support The Dark Trails Kickstarter here. 


So yeah, the pretty much had me at fully compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics & I can actually see using Dark Trails with Jason Sholtis Operation Unfathomable to create a Weird West horror come mega dungeon. 

The Second Kickstarter that I think is worth your time in my estimation is the Troll Lord's Amazing Adventures Fifth Edition Kickstarter by Jason Vey. Its made two of its stretch goals & seems to be a vast upgrade to the previous edition. 

I've been watching this project for some months now in the AA! Facebook group but have kept my  distance because of running the Amazing Adventure classic edition campaign that's on going. But I've had any number of people whispering good things in my ear about this project & kickstarter. Take a look for yourself & if your so inclined then by all means support it right over here. 
There's some great campaign  potential here with this Amazing Adventures newest edition. Let's see how far we see these kickstarters go! 

Adapting B5 Horror On The Hill As A Campaign Jump Off Point With a Cult Classic Twist

"Between the sun's departure and return, the Silver Death had fallen upon Yoros. Its advent, however, had been foretold in many prophecies, both immemorial and recent. Astrologers had said that this mysterious malady, heretofore unknown on earth, would descend from the great star, Achernar, which presided balefully over all the lands of the southern continent of Zothique; and having sealed the flesh of a myriad men with its bright, metallic pallor, the plague would still go onward in time and space, borne by the dim currents of ether to other worlds.

Dire was the Silver Death; and none knew the secret of its contagion or the cure. Swift as the desert wind, it came into Yoros from the devastated realm of Tasuun, overtaking the very messengers who ran by night to give warning of its nearness. Those who were smitten felt an icy, freezing cold, an instant rigor, as if the outermost gulf had breathed upon them. Their faces and bodies whitened strangely, gleaming with a wan luster, and became stiff as long-dead corpses, all in an interim of minutes.

In the streets of Silpon and Siloar, and in Faraad, the capital of Yoros, the plague passed like an eery, glittering light from countenance to countenance under the golden lamps; and the victims fell where they were stricken; and the deathly brightness remained upon them."
Clark Ashton Smith Isle of The Torturers 

Connecticut has been one small snow zone for the past two days & I spent almost the whole day dealing with the white stuff in one way or another. So because of the weather & the avalanche of sewing machine repairs at work I haven't been doing a lot of DYI D&D or retroclone table top rpging lately. Lately being the last week & a half or more because of the Winter weather. But that hasn't kept me from watching a few flicks here & there in the blu ray or Netflix. One of which happens to be one of the best horror remakes of all time The House On Haunted Hill. What the hell does a horror movie remake from 1999 have to do with Dungeons & Dragons or its retroclones? Quite a bit this all started when I was on the phone & he began talking about Douglas Niles lovely low level adventure  romp B5 Horror On The Hill. 
I kept thinking he had said 'The House on Haunted Hill' & well we all know how dungeon master Steve's mind works. He says to me why not combined them?! 

"So what you do is take the remake of 'The House On Haunted Hill' & set it in our Zothique campaign & then have the place survive as a ruin in a wilderness oasis on some temperate island or country. Grab your copy of  Clark Ashton Smith Isle of The Torturers  & Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition. Change the location of the insane asylum into the monastery ruins from Douglas Niles B5 Horror On The Hill & your ready to roll! "
Why didn't I think of that. Everyone loves Douglas Niles B5 The Horror on the Hill & if you don't believe me check this review out here. 
The reviewer thinks the module is criminally underrated & so do I. I love the original Vincent Price House on Haunted Hill but its just a bit too beloved & cultclassic these days. With the remake from 1999 you always get players writing the film off & forgetting about it. This creates the perfect opportunity to really grab the player's PC's by the throat! The player's PC's receive an invitation to clear the fortress out of monsters from B5 so that's intact but then the tables get turned & twisted.
The basic adventure plot of Horror on the Hill is intact;
"The scene of the action is Guido's Fort, located at the end of a road, with only the River Shrill, a mile wide, separating it from "The Hill".^[1] At the Fort, hardy bands of adventurers gather to plan their conquests of The Hill, the hulking mass that looms over this tiny settlement. They say the Hill is filled with monsters, and that an evil witch makes her home there. No visitor to The Hill has ever returned to prove the rumors true or false. " The action with the goblins & hobgoblins remains including the action. But then the ruins of the monastery are actually the home of very sinister goings on. 


Goblin by LadyofHats  

The whole monastery has been in the ancient past the home of a vile ancient order of ancient  torturers priests whose undead spirits have been called back to the Earthly plane. They did not survive the White Death erm Green Plague but their insanity has come back because of a foul necrotic spirit of incredible power who is gathering the forces of evil to take back its own in the outside world. The spirits of the ancient priestly torturers are actually specters ala The AD&D Monster Manual first edition. But the twist is that they drain a PC a bit at a time with nightmarish visits & dreamlike encounters.


The whole fortress is an artifact & partially alive & has drawn in the s goblinoids, which includes hobgoblins, bugbears, and others to it. The monastery might exist in both Zothique & possibly AS&SH's Hyperborea simultaneously because of a planar instability.  The monastery might sit in a small hidden  valley right outside of  Khromarium (the largest city). The rumors of the place draw in adventurers like flies to golden honey. The gold piece reward keeps a nice rotation of prey to the valley & its holy order. A jade Hyperborean noble might be hosting a party in the ruins & he might be a party to all of the goings on. 


Originally the order was for Hyperboreans but as the Green plague approached the order's priests pressed & brainwashed more slaves & the like magically corrupting & imprinting them with the ancient one's memories. The goblins & humanoids are mutant one offs & the chaotic half demonic scum are descendants of the servants of the old order. Because of the isolation of B5 being set on a volcanic island in the midst of a river there has been little contact with normal people outside of the valley.

When it comes to a modern or Pulp game then events can get even more interesting. The PC's are drawn into the valley & river location with tales of a lost tribes of humanoids, fabulous treasures, magical treasures, & all of the dressings of a pulp Weird Tales adventure.
Its really not all of that difficult to guess that a powerful undead god thing such as the one in The House On Haunted Hill remake might easily be using its influence to open gates into the weird space time of the valley & its hordes. Adventurers such as those in Amazing Adventures by Troll Lords or even the Victorious rpg  are going to have a very hard time resisting the charms of both a gold reward & the chance at the ruins of a legendary supernatural monastery with its ruins?! But getting out is a whole other story! 
If you really want another option for B5 Horror On The Hill but with a Swords & Wizardry twist. Then grab Simon Washbourne's  Superheroes X Swords & Wizardry super hero variant & a copy of Terror Tales - X! for a perfect OD&D retro clone house of horrors with B5 Horror On The Hill. 

If your looking to screw with the players heads even further why not connect the tunnels with the dungeon levels to Jason Sholtis's Operation Unfathomable campaign setting with everything intact. I guarantee they will not be expecting this twist.



B5 The Horror On The Hill By Doug Niles is a classic D&D module but these modules are so adaptive & flexible that they can be used in very unexpected & weird ways at the table top. This is one of the reasons why I love em so. For now keep em rolling & I hope you make your saves! Stay warm kids! Here are several ways to really keep players guessing with this campaign idea. 

1. The priestly order in this redo of B5 has NPC agents in a variety of campaign setting locations that  spy & do the work's holy work in the outside world. The are always on the look out for new candidates.  
2. The goblins & humanoids have started scouting into nearby areas & the player's PC's have heard legendary rumors of these demonic humanoids. There's much more going on here then meets the eye. 
3. The goblins are far more of a threat then they might seem. See the anime Goblin Slayer for even more ideas. Note that this is an anime for mature audiences only. 
4. The themes of B5 The Horror on The Hill are easily expanded upon by the dungeon master & should have some solid crossovers into deeper areas of the campaign in weird & unexpected ways. 
5.  Sholtis's Operation Unfathomable's inhabitants might pop up in strange places along with several relics & artifacts from the setting in places that the PC's might not expect. This might be the hook needed to kick things off. 
6. The dangers of the Hill might filter back with a lone survivor who tells tales of riches & dangers just before dying. Corny? Absolutely but perfect for a pulp or super hero style game. 
7. The NPC factions of the Hill are unto themselves very much  an open invitation for the adventurers to get involved in the events of the place & its dungeons. The dm should not take them lightly. 
8. There are several 'new monsters' in B5 with a bit of help might be used as cryptids for modern characters to go after. Never underestimate the lure of a cash or gold reward. 
9. The occult influence of the Hill might have some dire ramifications on the local space time & prompt wizards & men of authority to fund an expedition to the hidden 'lost world' of B5. These same men of authority might covet the treasures & artifacts of the player's PC's. 
10. Running B5 Horror on the Hill in a WWII style game with all of the trimmings might really get the players going imagine facing down Nazi or Thule priests in a race for the treasures of the module! 

OSR Commentary - Beer & Dragons - In the Shadow of Monsters Campaign Set Up

So last night it was beer & getting together with friends for the holidays & lots of talk about old school Dungeons & Dragons, Pulp adventuring, & OSR stuff. The most difficult part is going to be the scheduling on the part of the players. We settled on Castles & Crusades as the in house system but the setting was something else entirely.
 

Two of these players Jan & Steve were in an old campaign of mine which resulted in me findout that there was a louse in my midst years ago. We did a lot of DCC during that time period & it was an interesting ride. But now they want to bring back their beloved PC's. So I'm dusting off my science fantasy campaign 'In The Shadow of Monsters.'..  A decidedly different take on the usual fantasy D&D world. Inspired by the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne,etc. Scanlon is a world plagued by magic, doubt, & worse.
The background for In The Shadow of Monsters places a mythic European colony of D&D races down in the bowels of the Inner Earth where they fled during the 'The End  of Magic'. Since then races of pseudo Vikings, barbarians, Europeans, all live in a massive cavern the size of Europe surrounded by an inner Earth sea. These city states are always in an uneasy series of cold wars & peaces over resources & economics of the caverns. This cavern isn't the true inner world however merely another in a series of caves, tunnels, etc. all reaching to the inner world with its true miniature sun & moon. The place is lit by phosphorescence phenomenon that mimics sunlight & lave tubes of incredible complexity.



Elves & Fey exist along side their neighbors with an incredible divide between the two races along with the ancient Pagan gods. Certain caverns lead to other worlds, times, & places. They have black powder weapons  & advanced metallurgy techniques putting them on par with Europe around 1500. But because of the strong magical influence black powder is an iffy propitiation at best. The reason why are the dragons & monsters that use these caverns as nesting sites. They dwell in ruins that were ancient when the first of the peoples were led down into the depths of the Earth.



These dragons sleep for ages & project their minds into the deepest parts of the Outer Darkness & beyond. Hunting & killing the deadly spawn of the Outer Gods that dwell there. They keep the human population safe even on occasion walking among them to take a wife. The unions of such couples become great heroes in their own right. But the dragons know that the true heart of horror lurks in mankind itself.


Chaos & worse lurk on the fringes of Scanlon, there are tribes of marauding barbarians from places like Hubris & from the other worldly caverns where dwell titanic Chaos Godlings and their unsavory cults.

There are terrible dragons dwelling under each of the major cities of the world & many of the wizards of Scanlon are predicting disaster. The signs are starting to appear in the sky of Earth & the auroras are shifting meaning the time of awakening is happening.
This is another world in desperate need of heroes & adventurers, there have been knights & other heroes who have appeared upon the surface world but they have been dismissed as insane or delusional. But now the tremors have started & heroes are starting to gather.


 So I'm going to start rounding up all of my OSR resources & they'll include :

1. The Teratic Tome from Neo Plastic Press  
2. Dungeon Crawl Classics 
3. Labyrinth Lord\
4. Mutant Future rpg  
5. Amazing Advenures rpg 
6. Castles & Crusades  

These are just a few of the OSR resources that I'm going to be using in the coming weeks I'll post more rpg campaign fodder as it comes up. This is comprise with both the fantasy & the super heroic pulp elements.. 

Possible Mid Winter Mini Campaign On Dungeon Crawl Classics #84: Peril On The Purple Planet But With An OSR Twist

"The Purple Planet: Where tribes of man-beasts wage an endless war beneath a dying sun. Where mighty death orms rule the wastes, befouled winds whistle through ancient crypts, and forests of fungi flourish in the weirdling light. Where ancient technologies offer life … or a quick death.

Bereft of patron, friend or god, your survival depends on quick wits and a strong blade. Will you and your companions stand as conquerers atop this alien land? Or will you fall beneath the blast of an ink-black death rays, just another corpse left to litter the wastes of the Purple Planet?"

Over last twenty four hours I've had my back to the wall with work quite literally & I've been trying to deal to deal with a small but vocal group of players. Over the last couple of months I've had friends want me to run a Dungeon Crawl Classics set of adventures but not with the DCC rpg. So I've had time to think long & hard about it. Earlier this year I was given a gift of Dungeon Crawl Classics #84 also known as Dungeon Crawl Classics #84: Peril On The Purple Planet (box set).

But how does one go about running a gonzo Sword & Planet adventure with a traditional Dungeons & Dragons style game or retro clone?
The answer is Troll Lord Games Castles & Crusades & I've already been running a supers game using Amazing Adventures! Rpg by Jason Vey. Its not that much of a stretch to take the Siege engine that much further & conversion is a snap. But these days I'm much more inclined to create my own fantasy world for a C&C campaign.
In my local area its a lot easier to get folks to play a retroclone of Dungeons & Dragons then it is to get them to play Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #84: Peril On The Purple Planet (box set)

has quite a bit to offer but its going to really depend on the route that the players want to go. I'm going to have my work cut out for me. There are more then a few people who have experience with my style of gaming & the fact that their are rumbles of adding in super heroes & pulp adventurers into the mix. So there may be more DYI Dungeons & Dragons & OSR elements on my part.




Another option to get the players into the bowels of this campaign is to go the route of adding in the PC's to the Purple Planet via  a doorway via  Jason Sholtis's Operation Unfathomable mega campaign dungeon. For months now Jason Sholtis has teased Unfathomable artwork & concepts via G+ & Me We.
The science fantasy gonzo aspect fits the bill for adding in the right fictional elements to the back end of a campaign.





Operation Unfathomable isn't the only possibility to play the long card of DCC mix & match OSR goodness. Mike Evens also had a lovely little world of hellish violence & possible weirdness to add to the mix. Hubris dives right over the edge into the pulp, sword and sorcery roots of the fantasy genre with an ultra violent twist on things.


I have a meeting in the afternoon tomorrow & we'll see what happens but these are not the only OSR titles I have up my sleeves. There are several other options on the table so to speak that may be used.

Operation Middenlands - Marrying Jason Sholtis Operation Unfathomable & Monkey Blood Design's Middenlands Setting

So I've been thinking about the Advanced Labyrinth Lord  Kickstarter & playing around with using Swords & Wizardry adventures & settings with it. I read about Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood Design's bad news tonight; "Okay, so my pickup truck failed its MOT test.To get it through, the running total is now at £920 GBP. Holy shit! I've never had a failure that bad... and I need my truck.

It turns out this year was the wrong year to go freelance.
If anyone wants to empty their wallet buying MonkeyBlood Design stuff, or commission me (although I'm tied up for a few weeks at the moment), or just share this around, please feel free to do so and thank you in advance!"



But this also got me thinking about Glynn's Midderlands mini sand box setting which is really weird because its for Swords & Wizardry. But it takes very little to convert on the fly from one OSR system to other.

Part of the idea of the Midderlands mini setting is that the deeper down you go the further you get into the green tinged Gloomium & primal chaos of the setting. This idea of primal chaos also got me thinking of Jason Sholtis's Operation Unfathomable.

 

Seal's Midderlands has a completely different feel then Shotlis setting. The Midderlands is completely fantasy United Kingdom on acid with splashes of dark fantasy scattered throughout. While Sholtis's setting that has a mix of dark fantasy comic book meets high weirdness with touches of Lovecraft & they had  a dungeon setting love child. Operation Unfathomable is weird & bizarre OSR adventure.
There would seem to be very little in common between the two product's settings except for the fact that both have a miasma of chaos madness  tinged in the center of their respective underground worlds. 
Its in the dungeon underworld where the two settings can be completely hooked up. The Middenlands could be an isolated & comparatively idyllically stationed backwater of a campaign world. The rest of the world however is a stinking mire of  dark fantasy typical an old school or OSR game Europe.
There are a few ways that marrying these two settings can easily & painlessly done in my mind:

1. The Operation Unfathomable world elements are on the other side of the campaign world. It takes a mounted expedition or two too get to the high weirdness. 
2. The dungeon underworlds of both the Middenlands & Operation are deeply connected because of the strain of primal chaos seething through the core of the campaign world. 
3. The solar system of this campaign world is of great importance to certain alien  factions in both  settings. They've been at war for a very long time & neither side wants to give up. 
4. Neither of these worlds is cosmically important but the wheels were set in motion billions of years ago. The chess board has to be played out. 
5. Glynn Seal's Demon Stones adventure   has several setting design options for bringing in Gloomium Outer Darkness goodness right out of a clear blue sky into a campaign. 
6.  Lots of Operation Unfathomable's factions are ripe to exploit the chaos laden goodness of Gloomium especially those bastard mushroom scientists of Sholtis. 
7.  The human race in both settings is completely & utterly expendable in the face of some of the factions in both books. They really do need heroes & adventurers to survive. 
8.   There's something very uniquely unsettling about the thought that in some libarary in the Middenland  is a  book & map from a failed expedition to the dungeons of Operation Unfathomable. Mounting an expedition would take lots & lots of money, time, treasure, ships, resources, etc. The PC's are perhaps going to be a part of a much larger operation.
9. The natives of  Operation Unfathomable are not friendly & should they become aware of the Middenlands Europe, then all bets could be off for those poor people. Or maybe they are aware of these folks & they don't care because their completely & utterly unimportant to their alien plans. 
10. I keep thinking of a campaign world where the world is much weirder & far more dangerous then the provincial fantasy Europeans think it is. The expansion of the West into the lands of Operation are going to be an eye opening experience.
     

Stefan Poag's artwork from the Operation Unfathomable book  quickly illustrates the exact sort of a situation that I'm speaking of.
" The above illustration shows an ‘Underworld ranger’ discharging his lightning pistol at a perfidious mind-bat while another ranger reels from the psychic attack they have already suffered — all creatures and situations from the dark corners of Sholtis’ fertile imagination."


I really can stop thinking about marrying this up with the back story of Henchmen Abuse's the Anomalous Subsurface Environment  ASE1 & ASE2&3 world.  Everything is completely in place for a massive campaign world. The factions, the science fantasy high weirdness, the world churning events, etc.
The whole affair would be massive undertaking with three or more dungeon masters handling the gonzo & completely dangerously insane world affair. This is why I'd run the whole thing with Labyrinth Lord.

 The question is are the adventurers of the Midderlands mini sand box setting ready for the high weirdness awaiting them in the greater world or underworld?!

Highcastle Guard
Under the command of Sir Hestel Vinethorn of Brignorth.

I think that both OSR settings have a lot of campaign milage to offer the players & the dungeon master. This is a sweet little chaos laden campaign affair that could have players coming back to the table for many years to come!

 Next time back to Arduin on the blog tomorrow!