'A Dog Has His Day' - Further Mediations on The Stormbringer rpg & OSR Campaign Memories

 

We played a ton of Stormbringer rpg sessions in '91 but it was the visit to a variation of Jack London's Scarlet Plague Earth that nearly broke our backs. Our party was making its way to the museum to locate the 'Other Grail'. We had survived our encounter with  Karl Edward Wagner Kane as an NPC last session. It was when we ran into the  'The Thing in the Red Robe' 's Chaos Hell hounds that things turned really nasty. Try to imagine a Chaos Hell hound made from the fevered damned soul of the dead of the Scarlet Plague. Even with demon weapons we did not even try to take on these things. 

Hell hounds artwork by  

000Fesbra000 on Deviant Art 

Each & everytime we'd tear into one of these bastard spawn of Chaos it would reform from the molten soul stuff around us. Eventually we figured out that there was pack leader containing all of the souls & were able to kill it before it reformed again. 

We made it too the museum where we  had to face down a riddling demon with a sword warpact on it guarding the 'Grail of the Other'. The walls were covered in the praises of the 'Sword Queen'.  Now things got very interesting. This was our old friend   'Queen Xiombarg''s doing & her handy work was about the museum in the form of her beast men. 

I wasn't a fan of her's then & I'm not now. The demon thing had eight riddles & wouldn't give up or else required the soul of one of the adventurers of the party. Yeah, like that was gonna ever happen. 

Just as we solved the last one 'The Thing in the Red Robe' appeared behind us. He was the embodiment of 'the Scarlet Plague' that  walked this Earth & a formitable lord of Chaos. It aparently did not like trespassers or visitors to its domain. 

 Illustration of Prince Prospero confronting the "Red Death" by Arthur Rackham, 1935. One our number went down as its blood soaked hands touched Arthur's PC & he died in a sputter of blood & his soul was devoured! 

We didn't even try to fight we grabbed 'The Grail of the Other' & instantly activated a demon of transportation! Our party had no idea where we'd end up nor how close we came to dying, again. 
This would not be the last we'd see of the 'The Thing In The Red Robe' but we arrived just in time to see the sun rise on a strange peaceful looking village. Things were looking up just in time to see a strange pale warrior with a huge sword on his back. He was  leaving a tavern followed in to by a strange looking little steele limbed fellow a head shorter then him. 
We let Elric & Moonglum go off on their merry way & ran straight into the NPC Dog! The warrior & former crewmen of the Rogue Mistress. As I said before 1991 was a Hell of a year for the Stormbringer rpg and one of the most epic campaign adventure  books published for the game was Rogue Mistress.  Rogue Mistress was by Fred Behrendt, Lane Grate, Keith Herber, Michael Szymanski, Lawrence Whitaker. 

We were confronted by the NPC mercenary Dog who was working for our old 'friend' Charles D'vere The First Duke of La Roy & the second grand inquistor of the Emperor of Tragic Europe. Dog introduced himself by killing off two of our party immediately. Dog was a combination of a Shakespherian character & '90's Marvel Sabertooth or that's how our DM Charles played 'em. He wore demonic armor & carried a rather nasty sword. He wanted the 'Other Grail' & we'd already hidden it in the local money guild's vaults. We knew La Fey wasn't going to take no for an answer. There was no way we could stand up to Dog who also had other NPC bandits/mercs with him. The numbers were simply aganist us. So we ran! That's right a band of hardy adventurers turned tail & ran! A tactic that kept us alive so many times in the Stormbringer rpg. We zig zagged through a bunch of alleyways & with a few successful dice rolls we lost 'Dog & his company'. 
As soon as we got back to our hotel , the clerk said that there was a man of wealth & taste waiting the hotel resturant. Yes, we could with the seven of us afford to stay in a hotel. And sitting behind a rather nice table was Satan in a rather nice get up. 
We set four of our number to the money guild to get the grail all of the while watching out for 'Dog' and co. They made it back with some lucky die rolls & Satan had 'the other grail'. Business concluded right?! We get a boon & the chaos lord of Hell gets his artifact right?! 

Satan got the 'other grail' & we were down two PC's! We also incurred the wraith of Morgan Le Fey. A wraith that is still on going by the way. More on that later on! Satan insisted that we get paid for our efforts but the group held back on that one. An 'infernal ace in the hole' so to speak. Because what happened next session we'd need it. We went to a local watering hole & got plastered!!? Welll sortal, instead what we did was to go search for local talent to replace the two dead NPC's. 
So instead we left the 'Great Beast' with his grail & high tailed it outta of there. 

The Study in Scarlet - Meeting Kane - Further Mediations on The Stormbringer rpg & OSR Campaign Memories

 

After last session we needed a plan & to somehow regroup from our latest assignment. 'The Great Beast' had literally left & we were on our way to our PC's rooms. But a knock on our door got us involved with a bigger issue & NPC. A stranger came to call, a  man with hooded eyes,reddish hair, & the stare of a killer from beyond recorded time. He introduced himself as simply as 'General Kane' an 'interested party' of our exploits. Some of us already had read Karl Edward Wagner Kane stories we knew who & what we were dealing with. 

Frank Frazetta artwork used without permission. Fine artprints available
through them here. 

We had to tread carefully with this NPC & we all knew it, he told us he knew where 

'The Grail of the Other' was if we were willing to turn over the 'The Ring of Winter's Regret'. Well we actually did & to wit he had provisions, gear, etc. for our party. Our party of adventurers got sleep & then in the morning we found Kane nowhere to be found. Much to our relief. But we got the surprise of our life when we opened the door of the inn all around us was ruined city  after city blocks. And a letter from Kane warning us of the chaos lord, 'The Thing in the Red Robe' the ruler of this plane. 
 By now it was late Autumn '91 & we had switched to the fourth edition of  'The Stormbringer rpg ' there were three reasons for this. The game was relatively inexpensive, readly available as many players had ditched their copies, & two game shops that sold used games. The system was at once familiar & easily grasped. 

As our party wandered the empty streets of the urban landscape there were abandoned shops, lots of animals, etc. We then almost got our heads torn off by a bunch of Young Kingdom cultists & humans transforming into beastmen. These  belonged  to our our old friend   'Queen Xiombarg'. But had a break as strange red & ragged demonic dogs tore into them! We had a map to follow leading us to the city's largest museum. We also found the rapidly decaying body of a boar warrior the face red & bloated as if wearing a red mask. 
We knew that our dungeon master was a fan of Edgar Allen Poe but there was another writer he was fond of the American writer Jack London. Jack London wrote 'The Scarlet Plague'.



And 'The Thing in the Red Robe' was a direct reference to the lord of chaos of this domain. The embodiment of 'the Scarlet Plague' walked this Earth. It aparently did not like trespassers or visitors to its domain. 

Illustration of Prince Prospero confronting the "Red Death" by Arthur Rackham, 1935

So how the Hell were we going to escape this plane?! Sure our party had demons of transportation but we were on a mission & we knew that the 'The Thing in the Red Robe' was waiting for us. We needed answers, help, & some insight into our circumstances or the party was dead! 

Matters of Alignment & Violence - Sword & Sorcery Campaign Using The Castles & Crusades Mythos Series Thoughts on Karl Edward Wagner's 1973's Death Angel's Shadow &

 Tonight is one of those nights I seek the soltice of books and especially the moldering Sword & Sorcery paperbacks of the 70's. And in this case it's a bit of a resolution into a dive into  American author Karl Edward Wagner's 1973's Death Angel's Shadow. This anthology features a favorite story about Kane and the Dark Fantasy anti hero wracks up so much violence and horror that a knight mounts a crusade against Kane. 
What if this same storyline was applied to a group of adventurers who are being run by players. Imagine a group of adventurers so infamous that a paladin leads an army to hunt them down. 

And this anthology's story brings home an idea that been brewing in the back of my mind for some months. 
And that is the idea of a hunt for a group of anti heroes goes very wrong indeed. 'Cold Light' has it's grotusque and subdued moments. And Wagner really leans into those. 
It puts me in the mind of the epic peom Beowulf & Codex Nordica of Castles & Crusades fame. Why?! Because of the fact that plot of Beowulf hints at the darkness & underbelly of Europe's mythic and dangerous past days; "The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory." 
Wagner draws on elements of his own mythic creations and in many ways Beowulf and Kane are cut from the same cloth. Both are chosen of indifferent gods. And subject to thier whims. Kane is an excellent example of the Lawful Evil alignment within an antihero. His reasons are his own. And his reasons give meaning to his life or his existence for the sake of themselves. And this unto itself reminds me of Castles & Crusades Codex Nordica where the PC's are trying to carve out thier own little piece of a crumbling mythic world. Actions that might not be as they seem to others. 

Yet the more I look deeper into the effects that PC's could have upon a campaign it's not out of the realms of possibility that thier actions looked at through the lens of others might be seen as truly evil. And the lens of alignment within Castles & Crusades allows for morally flexible adventures to be experienced. And this especially true within a Sword & Sorcery campaign. Couple this with the back beat of Castles & Crusades Codex Germania and things become very dangerous indeed. When you as adventurers are playing fast  & loose with conquest, carving out a kingdom, and making your name for gold & plunder. You will find yourselves within the machinations of the gods. Alignment plays it part regardless of your wants or needs.  Yes, you might be the heroes to some but your might be the monsters to others. 
And even Beowulf, questions his place within the spheres of history and myth. Where the man ends the king begins. 

Mirror, Mirror - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door - Session Report

 Over the weekend we were able to get together & play a round of Night Shift The Veterans of the Supernatural! Things in Bingham have really heated up! 

The PC's got in way over their heads by going into the Morley mansion & finding the Goblyn Glass in the basement. They crossed  over into the dreamlands of  Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door series! And things got much weirder as they found Christopher St.John's 'workshop' along with the magic mirror that dominated the entire basement. The whole mirror radiated with occult  power drawing everything around it! 
The PC this time shot Robert St.John dead & made sure of it! But the guardian of  the Goblyn Glass had them! A giant hairy hand belonging to a Gug reached through & drew them into the glass! 

The The Mirror of Erised photo by  Rob Young from United Kingdom was my player handout stand in for the Goblyn Glass. 

And then the party came face to face with the dungeon of Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door! Things got very weird indeed when it became clear that the party was hip deep in the dream wilderness of  Ultan's Door! They wanted to turn around & go back to Bingham. The mirror wouldn't let them! So now they are face to face with the weirdness of the dreamlands of Ben Laurence. Will they survive the experience?! 

What's really happened is that the PC's have aquired a very special occult key from from Edward Dimond, who wants to see the PC's near the Morley manor. But will it make any difference & can the PC's figure it out in time?! And now a pride  of cats is shadowing the PC's. Now what the PC's don't know?! Agents from the U.S. Army have moved in & claimed the Goblyn Glass! How will they survive?! 

Shot in The Dreams of Others - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door

 So the PC's in this session of the on going hybrid got a chance to do a bit of investigative work around the old inn in Bingham. This session picks right up after the last one . The PC's ran into Christopher St.John & they shot him! They plugged him dead! 
Or did they?! 

Well not exactly.  They plugged instead one of his doppleganger marionette's made from the dead bodies of his victims. You see Christopher St.John is a puppeteer who got is education within the dungeon outlined in Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door series. The players didn't take any chances with the marionette & burnt the remains then their cleric/priest Father Callihoun sprinkled holy water on it & gave it a proper send off. 
The party cornered the smuggler a  very young  Amos Bradford aka The Raven more ammo & weaponry of a particular type just as he was leaving town. They almost got themselves shot but he was more then happy to take their money.  The party ran across a lost child near the Morley manor. And the players were expecting to find a murdered family or some such. They didn't. But they did find a very terrified family outside of their house. They had no idea how they had gotten there & were covered in blood. But whose was it?! 
And that's when the cat's pride showed up. 

A gang of forty cats on sure footed paws showed up & surrounded the party. The magus of the pride cast a sleep spell to put the family out & the cat general incharge of the pride handed the party a note explaining that they needed to take the Donaldson's away from the house now! There's something really dangerous happening besides the machinations of Christopher St.John! The players didn't make their saves & the meows of the cat magus became very tiring to listen to. 

Illustration from  Through Ultan's Door series.

The party got very tired & each one dropped looking at the yellow golden eyes of the cat magus. They awoke in their own beds in the morning each with a battered cat looking at them. They had their equipment, weapons, etc. all with muddy shoes. But no idea how they got there. But who or what did the cats save them from?! 
Under the pillow of Father Callihoun was a letter from Edward Dimond, who wants to see the PC's near the Morley manor. Near the broom close in  the inn where the PC's were staying one of the cats showed Lord Reggie a curious sword that was left behind by Kane when he was staying there. Weird green dried fluid is on the blade.  

Session Report Zero - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door

 So today we've  gotten the chance to put into practice some of the things we've been talking about here for sometime. And this goes back into a whole cloth other direction in today's game session or one shot. Or should I say the Connecticut one shot. In 1919's Connecticut in the little town of  Bingham tucked in the  Northwestern hills the residents  are stumped by the disappearance of twenty people into thin air! What's going on?! In 1785 a young boy fell through a hole in reality & right near the dungeon outlined in Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door. What came back in 1919 isn't even remotely human at all! Christopher St.John is a 13th level  undead puppeteer fully grown & murderous! Christopher is a thirteenth level puppeteer whose trained under some of the monsters of the dungeons of  Through Ultan's Door.

The PC's were called in by the Pilgrim a mysterious immortal figure who wanders New England searching out local urban legends & stories. The Pilgrim  was a fellow of Cotton Mather & a part of the society of intellectuals & people in the know. He's recruited the PC's who are also a part of this society to find out what's happening. And much of the mythology behind this comes straight out of Skirmisher Games The Mythos Society of New England by Clint Staples. 

Clint Staples was a historian & one of the best writers/designers for Skirmisher Games. And I should have took far more advantage of the friendship on social media then I did. Since then several things have become evident. The OSR ruleset that we're using for this are Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey both have many of these same elements within them. Today was a PC workshop to get characters up & running within this campaign. The men & women of this game are people of extraordinary means. We're not sure if this is going to be an on going campaign. We're not sure if we're going to be using Pagan Publishing's 1995 Coming Full Circle. But its on the agenda as a possibility. 

Bingham seems like your typical New England sleepy town or village. Its anything but. The town has ties to the smuggling operations of a very young  Amos Bradford aka The Raven.  The PC's are investigating the Morley manor house that goes back to the Civil War era which is the home of Silvia Dyer one of the social & political lights of Bingham. And the PC's were met by a horror beyond human kin inside the manor! 

A  marionette that had been created from the body of Silvia Dyer one of the town's leading socialites & member of the board that runs the town under the mayor himself. 

This quick mock up campaign uses several things here at once with a large debt to Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg. The unique lay on of the monster/NPC, the crew of NPC's of the town, & several options. We can  add in the Lovecraft mythos as needed or not. Amazing Adventures rpg by Jason Vey from  Troll Lords is on the docket if we need to tap into it. The local Bingham historian is a former New York City Museum of Natural history executive officer in charge of the Cimmerian collection named Robert Howard.  Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane just left Bingham & the PC's heard the riot act about this scandalous Bohemian businessman. Quite the scandal in Bingham. 

High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Law vs Chaos with the Weird

" The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death.
Part Two, Ch. 4"
On the Road (1957) Jack Kerouac

 Now we've talked frequently about the modular nature of the various OSR clones on the market these days. But sometimes its all about going back to the well. There seems to be a variation of the idea that with a certain world the elements of standard Dungeons & Dragons exist. Elves & Dwarves exist & all goes about its business. But dipping back down the well of original Dungeons & Dragons has its place. Sometimes you've got to go back to it. From the introduction to the 1973 original Dungeons & Dragons set; "These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs' Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" 
This blog post is going to pick up right where this one leaves off. 

This is a game of imagination & sometimes you go back to the well so to speak & often times I rely on the weird & infact trust in it. The Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg Referee book has an entire section devoted to the weird tale; "The main thing that separates a Weird Tale from a conventional horror story is the forces completely out of the control of those who encounter them. A thing that cannot be explained, cannot be defeated, cannot be solved. This is easy to do in a story, as the writer can easily manipulate the entire tale in order to serve the purpose of inducing the reader to feel as the writer wishes. In a role-playing game, this is not so simple. Player  charaŎers  must  have  agency.  They cannot be puppets or mere observers to events. The Referee is not telling a story (this must be stressed as often as possible), but presenting an environment and situations within that environment. The story is the summation of what happens during play" 
The weird & the weird tales elements of play frequently seem to bleed over into each other during play. Players can do far more for creating the heavy lifting of the presenting the weird to a campaign then we as dungeon masters can often presents. But with a supernatural game the lines between weird tales Pulp & the occult blurr. They twist with the enviroments of the dread not necessarily horror but the weirdness of dread. 

Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey both have many of these same elements within them. Campaigns using these two might cross paths with the a more conventional old school campaign setting such as the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. Because of the fact that Sword & Sorcery thrives on the very elements that we over the last couple of months on this blog have been concerning ourselves with. While naturalists, sages, & the like concern themselves trying to classify every harpy & monster. The weird simply looks at them & laughs. Why?! Because chaos & entropy are the handmaidens of mutation or worse. You don't need an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual you need to make things weird. The occult tech that we talked about earlier today from ' The Legacy of Lum The Mad & Leuk-O In Greyhawk & The Wilderlands of High Fantasy' is bleeding over into our reality at the very edges. These edges are exploited by others. The wizards, mutants, & cranks from a dozen realities. 

“Treasures are not won by care and forethought but by swift slaying and reckless attack.”
–Michael Moorcock, Elric The Stealer of Souls

At the end of last year we ran through LoFP Black Blade of the Demon King by Ahimsa Kerp, & Wind Lothamer. It was an adventure that taught us a few things, the whole affair was like a Moorcockian fever dream with a combination of Elric mythologies combined with traditional Norse mythology but mixed with something weirder. The upshot was that the Sword & Sorcery adventure elements left quite a few parts & pieces still in play. 

There's so much potential of the world of the supernatural & The Fey colliding with the edges of a campaign reality that frequently get mentioned in supplements like OD&D's Gods, Demi gods, & Heroes by Ward & Kuntz. And this isn't always a good thing & in point of fact is the underlying premise behind the Black Blade of the Demon King! 

If we look into the introduction to Black Blade of the Demon King we get a very clear definitation of the Moorcockian mythology behind the interactions between the alien forces of Law & Chaos with PC's; ". This is not a story about delving for treasure or fighting hordes of monsters, nor is it intended to be a quest for the Black Blade—or at least not really. You see, the Blade is the villain of this story and its powerful ego and dark magic are behind all of the hazards and obstacles that the PCs must overcome in their adventure. It is evil incarnate and will overpower and destroy whomever is unfortunate enough to wield it, just as it has done for time immemorial"

These forces which are behind the masks of Law & Chaos are taking full advantage of the weird. They use it as a sort of cloak to move their own agendas along. And parties that get involved with these forces are at great risk to become involved in far deeper ways then they can even understand. Kevin Hite's Qelong has only a mere shading of this. I know that I'm going to sound like a broken record here. If the two god things of Qelong are warrior gods for Chaos & Law imagine what would happen if they crossed over into our current reality?! 

These forces & others like them draw in adventurers like moths to the flame of opportunity. The party is both acting as both fulcrum & lever for these various alien powers agendas. This is where adventurer's such as Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane & Michael Moorcock's Elric come in. 

High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Original Dungeons & Dragon's The Underground & Wilderness Adventures

 
We should be wondering tonight, "Is there a world?" But I could go and talk on 5, 10, 20 minutes about is there a world, because there is really no world, cause sometimes I'm walkin' on the ground and I see right through the ground. And there is no world. And you'll find out.
"Is There A Beat Generation?" forum at Hunter College, New York, New York (8 November 1958)
Jack Kerouac





Someplace along the lines yesterday or the day before the wilderness started getting to me. This blog post picks right back up after this blog post here. 

The underground & the wilderness surrounds us even in the urban landscape we're not even aware of it 99.9 of the time in my experience. The wilderness & underworld intrudes big time on our universe in ways that we don't expect. And that's the key here. The wildness & the underworld don't wait because they as well as their inhabitants are mythic. There's something deeply mythological in the nature of the wildness & dungeon enviroments. The fear of the unknown & inhuman that as the older one gets that one can feel deep down.

Eric Haddox A composite image of the 2007 Guatemala city sinkhole

The dungeon doesn't wait for you it comes for you, your family, & everything else. Mythic landscapes of the invasive dungeon are as instinctive as our fear of the alien, the other, & the unknown. These fears & point of fact our fears feed these realms.Is there a weird  wilderness planar realm that bleeds into our world on occassion taking humans as food, slaves, or worse?! Blobs of planar weirdness that Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane alludes to & Michael Moorcock's Elric slid into on occassion that PC's might find themselves in becomes a possibility. 

 

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

Stanza 5
Edgar Allan Poe's the Raven. "

Wizard warlords are not going to wait around for the wilderness & the underworld to expand themselves. Instead their going to use the natural buffering of worlds & planes to impose the alien invasive landscape onto our natural reality. And this is something that we see time & again in Sword & Sorcery. When you least expect it then you're suddenly going to find yourself an adventurer regardless of circumstance or more likely because of it. So time & again we see treasure being liberated by parties of adventurers & they sell it there's never any repercussions of this from a wizard, lich, etc.. But their most likely dead or destroyed?! Really?! No doubt it. Most likely that was  double or the party ran away or were they let go?!Think about it, the 'treasure' might in point of fact be spreading the alien landscape & dungeon's influence as it passes from hand to hand. The PC's doing the tyrant's work spreading the plane's alieness as it goes. 
Suddenly an entire neighborhood find itself engulfed in the  alien chaos of the Fey's world. The familiar finds itself face to face with the unknown & the horror of it quickly escalates. 

"The Cave of Spleen", illustration by Aubrey Beardsley for The Rape of the Lock (1896) by Alexander Pope

Suddenly a neighborhood convience store is engulfed in chaos only to be swept away by monsters & demons from some Hell of the unknown. The central idea that the Bakshi & Bourroughs realms are off over there someplace runs counter productive to the ideas put forth in the original Dungeons & Dragons games in a way. Let me bring this back to Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey.

The PC's are at the edges of reality dealing with these incursions of the reality of the forces of the unknown. Perhaps the million spheres are actually aspects of this unreality that occasionally allows horrors into this Earth. Time & again we keep coming back around to the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg. Not so much because of the adventures or the rpg itself but the adventure design philosphy of James  R. Raggy the third within the game. Monsters being unique, the dungeon as incredibly dangerous weirdness waiting to spring upon the PC's, and more. These philosphies are as important to me about LoFP as the actual rpg is itself. 


Would the mythic underground realms actually wait for the PC's to find them like a predator waiting to strike its prey. Or would the dungeon or wilderness barrel into the PC's because of its own machinations?! 
Why does Jack Kerouac keep getting qouted?! Because there was an HP Lovecraft Beat generation pastche that was written by Nick Matmas called 'Move Underground'.  And while it was solidly done the ideas put forth in the book really hit home for use with the Wilderness & Unworld OD&D book. 


 And I'd read it when LoFP's Carcosa came out. This became the basis for a very long running campaign which is where the High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure label comes from. And one where Venger Satanis's Cha'alt books have played havoc with colliding campaign realities. 
For what's going on in this campaign setting, LoFP's No Salvation for Witches By Rafael Chandler demon generators might be on tap. 

The idea of the wilderness & the underworld isn't simply the sum of its parts. Its a dangerous predator waiting to spring on the party of adventurers. 

High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Lamentations of the Flame Princess

 

"I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Ecstacy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass."

The Dharma Bums (1958) By Jack Kerouac

There isn't a day that goes by in life when social media absolutely drives me insane. The sameness of it all cuts like a knife through a man's soul. So when I've been away from it for a day or so its like break fromthe hollow desert of an empty echoing chamber. So let's pick it up again from this blog entry here. 
 And that brings us to thoughts of a wilderness that lays just beyond the substance of the imagination of reality  in the for now & the yet to be. Over the years there's been this campaign & setting that's been aching to get out of my head.  Someplace between the Phantasm films, hard core Sword & Sorcery, bits of the CW's Supernatural, & original Dungeons & Dragons or perhaps B/X D&D. Somplace between a modern supernatural horror game & full on Sword & Sorcery.  Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane keeps prowling the edges of dreams & nightmares. If Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane is the anti champion of the Balance then perhaps he looked upon his Earth & things went down hill from here. Did the gods & supernatural monsters really ever really leave Earth? Or are they still here? 
Is there a weird  wilderness planar realm that bleeds into our world on occassion taking humans as food, slaves, or worse?! Blobs of planar weirdness that Kane alludes to & Elric slid into on occassion that PC's might find themselves in becomes a possibility. 

Now talking with DM Rick & Steve we spoke at length about the Bakshi Burroughs realms. How PC's crossing over into these demi planes may pick up mutations or worse from their stay. And how wizard warlords often use Chaos  magics to make mutates or mutants as shock troops or guards. 

What happens when your average PC & party from say a modern world of the '00's finds himself face to face with a mutant warrior group from Bakshi's Wizards only to find out that its not a come on. And then finds themselves saved by a Robin hood style fighter whose party has been hustling out in this realm for ages. We got glimpses of this in the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon episodes 'The Time Lost' episode 23  from season three in 1985 & the 'Lost Children'  episode 12 Season one in 1983. 

Let me bring this back to Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey. The Age of Conan sorcerer rules are fierce & very dangerous. They give black sorcerers teeth, & have almost all of the usual Lovecraft along with Conan monsters &  demons of the Outer Darkness to them. If you were paying attention to yesterday's blog entry on Mars. Then you know that the gods of Law & Chaos from Michael Moorcock's eternal champion mythos wear different masks depending upon the reality of the Million spheres. And perhaps the million spheres are actually aspects of this unreality that occasionally allows horrors into this Earth. 

This brings to mind many of the abominations, freaks, & horrors that seem to prevade Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures. The idea of one off horrors that could be randomly created due to the weird radiations of Law & Chaos are very appealing. But also the idea of many of Lamentations of the Flame Princess's dungeon & adventure design philosphy might also apply here. 

A mix of the normal Dungeons & Dragons monsters as well as the occasional mutated one off that has some special tie to with regards to the adventure or location. These are all elements that are still being toyed with at the moment.