OSR Commentary - Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Summoning Spells, Dark Albion, & DA2 Temple of the Frog

So we're just getting back after a day of work & Lamentations of the Flame Princess has been on my mind.Why!? There are a myriad of reasons for this & one of the reasons is just how ingrained some of the ideals of LoFP have become within our games. 

A good example of this is the first level Summon spell that has caused a myriad of motives & problems for PC's in numerous campaigns. Numerous times I've used scrolls of Summoning as the 'treasure' within the lair of a cult or magus's abode.
After long considerations about LoFP the Summoning spell is one that I've turned into ritual. There are several reasons for this. 
While I've kept the level at first the spell became a ritual & one aligned with Chaos at that. Possession of this ritual has become one that carries with it the death penalty within our campaigns. This came up as a result of a Dark Ablion game in which a player's ousted magus spoke to the party about the ritual. 
Instantly the character became prime enemy number one on the Sol Invictus's wanted list. What however is so dangerous about the Summoning ritual? 
There are in point of fact two reasons. The ritual not only summons an unknown creature of Chaos. But it opens a doorway for the things of the unknown to gain enterance into our campaign world. 
Due to the influence of Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos the  corrupting nature of Chaos continues to be a problem long after the other worldly monster has been dealt with. 
And this is an issue that has cropped up in any number of games where the influence of Blackmoor continues to rear it's head as well. 

DA2 The Temple of the Frog  By Dave Arneson & David J. Richie has become a staple as one of the origin points for the demonic frog humanoids in our various Dark Albion game campaigns over the years. 

Stepthen The Rock as a discipline of Tsathoggualo continues to plague everyone of my campaigns as another clone body is released via the clone tapes with his last stored memories of his demise by the PC's fresh on his mind. His Chaos cult is also one of the sources of the Summon ritual. Tsathoggua continues to be amused by the antics of his favored son. The Temple of the Frog is the source for the Chaos humanoid frogs who rule France in our Dark Albion campaigns. The humanoid frogs were released thousands of years ago & began their ascend into full on sentience & take over of Albion. 

The Rose War has stunted the machinations for exploration but for hundreds of years Europe had been exploring their world & beyond. And it's this beyond that has led them into other realms. This ties into  

Mad Scribe Games Sword & Caravan which in turn ties back into today's Red Tide campaign setting. 

 The Red Tide energies means that PC's from the Dark Albion era are able to rub elbows with Dark Albion NPCs's as well. These energies extend the life of those who spend time on the islands. These same energies are also the leaks from the war of the two unknown archons from Qelong. These are all due to the Celestial Engine breaking down over billions of years. 
Each time a summoning ritual is used another pin prick point of damage is done to the Celestial Engine. But what does this all mean?! 

OSR Review & Commentary On Lost Carcosa By Tristan Tanner From Bogeyman Gaming For Your Old School Campaigns or OSR Fantasy Role Playing Game.

"ENTER A WORLD OF HIGH ADVENTURE AND COSMIC HORROR!

Lost Carcosa is an exciting new supplement for the ORIGINAL FANTASY RPG, inspired by the works of Robert W. Chambers, H.P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard! Within its pages, you will find:

• Dozens of horrifying new monsters
• 11 new spells for use with either the Cleric or Magic-User classes
• 21 new magic items
• 7 regions, detailed with encounter tables and 50 possible things to find in each region
• Simplified rules for wilderness generation and exploration
• Brief biographies of prominent NPCs and deities
• And more!" 

Lost Carcosa by Tristan Tanner from Bogeyman Gaming is a Weird Fiction OSR supplement & addition too your favorite OSR retroclone system. It essentially walks the same course as Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa with quite a few distinct differences. And Lost Carcosa starts off with Men & Magic offerng Zoogs & Ghouls as a PC race. Then we've got spell additions with essential salts & a host of other Lovecraftian spells. And then we get a ton of Lovecraftian monsters and did I mention that this is all for OD&D and B/X Dungeons & Dragons style games. And there's a good dose of Edgar Rice Burroughs thrown in there for good measure. And there's a whole truck load of weird & Lovecraftian magic items for good measure. Here's an example; "Image Of Ghatanathoa: These typically take the form of wooden boxes with hinged lids, within which is a statue of the Great Old One Ghatanathoa. Anyone who looks upon the visage of Ghatanathoa is instantly petrified, their body mummifying and fossilizing while their brain remains alive. A saving throw versus stone can be made to avoid looking at the statue." 

And then we get into 'Lost Carcosa' proper yes that's right this actually is a  'Robert W. Chambers' campaign setting and its pretty detailed with random enconters, adventure goals, & much more thrown in. 

And a huge amount of significant areas described but there's no map at all for any of these Lovecraftian locations! There's the Carcosan underworld that rates its own sections & it goes in for the deep dive on those with more random encounters and much more. And then into Carcosa mini dungeons! 
Then there's the Dieties of Carcosa including the King in Yellow himself, and more Lovecraftian dieties to boot! And then we dive into exceptionally important NPC's on Carcosa such as; "THE WOMAN IN THE WALLPAPER The King in Yellow feeds on intelligence and creativity, inciting obsession and madness. The Woman in the Wallpaper is one of his many victims, corrupted into a monster by his unholy influence. Once she was an ordinary young woman from Earth, suffering from clinical depression in an age where treatment for such a condition was locking the unfortunate woman in an empty room for days. The King in Yellow crept in through the ugly yellow wallpaper which decorated her room, and began to corrupt the woman. She started to see impossible patterns in the lines of the walls, illuminated by the pallid moonlight, until she could see a distorted, crawling figure behind the wallpaper. In time, she came to realize that it was herself, and in a frenzy stripped the wallpaper off the wall and began to change into something not quite human. Her husband died of shock" 
And then we get 'Appendix A' a random mutation table & 'Appendix B' -'Appendix B: Dark Young Of Sheol-Nugganoth' section! And then inspirational films, literature, etc. 
Alright let me slow down because all of this is packed into Eighty Nine pages of a glorious Lovecraftian  campaign  of a supplement in 'Lost Carcosa'. And what 'Lost Carcosa' reminds me of is Dave Hargrave's Arduin rpg supplements. Lots of incredibly interesting & somewhat insane Lovecraftian ideas thrown into the mix of 'Lost Carcosa' that you as a DM can use or not. 

Could 'Lost Carcosa' be used with Geoffery McKinney's Carcosa?! I believe it not only could but that was the intention here.  'Lost Carcosa' offers an alternative OSR campaign setting to LoFP's Carcosa or another face of the classic OSR campaign setting. Perhaps another side of Carcosa where we have even more weirdness happening. 'Lost Carcosa' is an interesting addition to the OSR landscape and one that I hope to be using coming up! 

 Lost Carcosa By Tristan Tanner For Your Old School Campaigns or OSR Fantasy Role Playing Game Is Available Right Here! 

Appendix N Sword & Sorcery Commentary - Sword Mistresses of Robert E. Howard & C.L. Moore

 Tonight its a night spent  with C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry, a French Sword & Sorcery sword mistress of the first caliber. According to the wiki entry on her; "Jirel of Joiry is one of the most notable creations of writer C. L. Moore, who appeared in a series of sword and sorcery stories published first in the pulp horror/fantasy magazine Weird Tales. Jirel is the proud, tough, arrogant and beautiful ruler of her own domain—apparently somewhere in medieval France. Her adventures continually involve her in dangerous brushes with the supernatural."  And its these brushes with the supernatural & the occult that set Jirel of Joiry on a simlar path to Robert E. Howard's Dark Agnes de Chastillon (also known as Agnes de Chastillon, Dark Agnes, Agnes de la Fere and The Sword Woman) who has her adventures in in 16th Century France. 

The Robert E. Howard stories have a very similar Sword & Sorcery element but the occult is only present in the last story. Jirel of Joiry drips with he presence of the supernaural. The world is a hostile & dangerous place for a swordswoman whose talen it both natural & trained. Both of these adventuresses possess a fiery temper. And yes I'm purposely avoiding Red Sonja. She has her own blog post coming up. Jirel of Joiry is one of the first ladies of Sword & Sorcery. Because her brushes with the supernatural come at a steep price for her. The ego she has is vast but her attitudes humanize her. 
Her adventures are both understandable but her attitudes separate her from the pack of later swords women.  Jirel of Joiry is the master plan of a mercenary adventurer taught her sword craft by a master swordmen. Only to have her teacher murdered in the second half of the stories. 

There's something about the Pulp writing of C.L. Moore's that speaks volumes to the Appendix N aspects of both the OSR & the old school Dungeons & Dragons. Both of these Pulp swords women are easily the equivelant of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg adventurers. Both  Jirel of Joiry & Dark Agnes are ladies pushed into the life of adventuress by circumstances beyond their control. Both have brushes with the supernatural 
                                                                                                    

Neither of these ladies is superhuman in any way shape or form but they do fit the heroic Pulp heroine. And they more then a match for thier respective time periods of history. An excellent overview of the red haired sword women of both Robert E. Howard & C.L. Moore can be found at this episode of Pulp Crazy here. 

According to the wiki entry on Moore's Jirel stories there's a little nugget of information included; 

"Moore's Jirel stories include the following:

• "Black God's Kiss" (October 1934)
• "Black God's Shadow" (December 1934)
• "Jirel Meets Magic" (July 1935)
• "The Dark Land" (January 1936)
• "Quest of the Starstone" (November 1937), with Henry Kuttner
• "Hellsgarde" (April 1939)

These stories, except for "Quest of the Starstone", appear in the collection Jirel of Joiry (1969), and in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks compendium Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams (2002). All six appear in a collected edition under Paizo Publishing's "Planet Stories" imprint, compiled under the title Black God's Kiss." 
The volume to get that contains all of the Jirel stories is the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks compendium Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams (2002) available from Amazon for 18.00 dollars US a real steal. 

Appendix N Commentary - Robert E. Howard's Rattle of Bones - A Tale of Solomon Kane

 

"Fool that I was to trust a Frenchman!"
Rattle of Bones Robert E. Howard 1929 

Its been a long while since the cracked spine of Robert E.Howard's Solomon Kane graced my hands. Last night after a rather long day on the road it was time to settle in with a bit of drink & Kane. Appendix N reading is interesting. The volume in question The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane Paperback - June 29, 2004 you can find it here. The story Rattle of Bones  (1929)  by Robert E. Howard & what a great little supernatural venenace tale it is. Lots of food for adventure here.  The puritan adventurer stops at the Cleft Skull in the Black Forrest  & mayhem ensues. Supernatural mayhem to be exact. If your reading this blog then I don't need to explain who Solomon Kane is or why the Robert E.Howard stories of Kane are so essential to reading for Dungeons & Dragons or their retroclones. Solomon Kane is a character  of focus, commitment, and . . . sheer will. And also faith. Kane in my view is the perfect paladin who doesn't wear armor. Kane has worked as a bounty hunter, instrument of vengence, adventurer, and wanderer. Timothy Truman's artwork of the puritan adventurer captures the essence of the character. Joe Murray is the artwork's owner & I have to say that I'm insanely jealous. 

There's something about Solomon Kane that echoes in my mind. He's far more human then many other Howard characters. And the supernatural happens both around & too him. There's a challenge about him that speaks volumes in both his morality & violence that seems worlds away from Conan. If there's one character that speaks volumes for Lamentations of the Flame Princess  rpg to me its the works of Solomon Kane. Everything in the Kane tales is on point when it comes to Weird Tales feel & tone of Kane's world. And this is a world of grim adventurers, nasty Weird Tales occultism, & the promise of nasty adventures. 

Solomon Kane is the kind of adventurer that you want handling your back. But he is definitely not the guy that you want on your trail. The relentless and dangerous violence that follows in his wake is paramount but in this tale he's both causal witness & almost victim. Rattle of Bones  (1929)  is a mini primer on Solomon Kane in one small package. 

The Legacy of Lum The Mad & Leuk-O In Greyhawk & The Wilderlands of High Fantasy

There are ton of thoughts roaring through my head today after speaking with DM Steve & DM Ricky. One of those was looking over notes from 2019 concerning our Godbound/Cha'alt game campaign. Some of this goes all of the way back to our 2019 Victorious rpg campaign. That morphed into Godzilla 1889 & then bled into Amazing Adventures. The real question was, in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy was there a Lum The Mad & his collaborator then betrayer  Leuk-O?! 

So why would I be putting these two into my version of the Wilderlands? Well two reasons actually one is the fact that within Greyhawk there's the land of black ice which was the City of the Gods & later Blackmoor.  This is now the kingdom of Greyhawk's version of the  Egg of Coot and a land of eternal ice. The Bleching Vortex has been one of those creeping little cliff hanger adventure hooks that still lingers in Greyhawk. But does it lead to the Wilderlands of High Fantasy?! I think so with  the Secret of Passage card artifact the passage between Greyhawk & the Wilderlands is still available. The connections here are part of the quisi science fictional/science fantasy campaign weirdness of early original Dungeons & Dragons that just won't let go. This goes back to the early Kuntz & Gygax family games of early TSR fame. 

Lum The Mad is still out in  the plane of Limbo in the middle of the swirling eddies according to our campaign notes due to his connection to the machine. This was explored in Vortex of Madness from 2000 by Jennifer Clarke-Wilkes, Harold Johnson, & Chris Pramas. And yes it was for second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. But the fact is that if there is a wilderlands version of these two tyrantical  madmen then its possible their still out there someplace in Limbo waiting. In the Wilderlands of High Fantasy its possible that they destroyed a huge swath of land with their occult tech artifacts. And my thought is that the demon lands might be exactly where these two squared off. 

And this has got us thinking about adding this into the back end of running an AS&SH game using the Higherlands of High Fantasy. But it might be time that our group looks into Castles & Crusades?! But if the Earth Shaker mech is uncovered what then?! 
So if the Earth Shaker mecha is found & this further uncovers more secrets of the 'Legacy of Giants & Amazons'. Then does this put both the Wilderlands & Hyperborea on track for the hypothetic events of Havard's DA10 God War  By David J Ritchie & Dave Arneson?! 

These occult technologies should have a very dangerous & infernal feel to them. This is another lesson from the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg & early Dungeons & Dragons. Any artifact or occult technologies should be absolutely dangerous as well as beneficial to PC's. 

'You've Got Mystara in My Wilderlands' - Weird Tales Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy- The Havard Blackmoor Option

 All of the following started early this morning with me tooling around the Piazza & talking with fellow DM's about Jeff Grub releasing a sourcebook for Mystara. 

So its been a very busy day here & through it I was able to met with a bunch of my co dungeon masters. And then DM Ricky started in on me about Mystara & using Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg to run the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. Over the weekend I talked about using various OSR  resources to help shore up aspects of the Wilderlands. But DM Ricky feels that Mystara is getting short changed. Well that all changed when we plugged into Google Wilderlands of High Fantasy in Mystara & came across Blackmoor Regional Maps the work of my friend Havard. And this means that the City of the Gods 

This means quite literally that DA3 City of the Gods By David J Ritchie & Dave Arneson could potentially take place on a version of ancient Mystara with City State of The Invincible Overlord around the corner. This has some very disturbing connotations unto itself. Why?! 

This means that the gods themselves if they die in a  Ragnarök  event then they get replaced by the immortals of Mystara in the far future. And it also puts Steven of the Rock's DA2 Temple of the Frog By David J Ritchie & Dave Arneson  within the sphere of influence of Hyperborea. Hyperborea in the past of our games has had a Temple of The Frog. But the temple of the frog  had a far more reaching cult then on Blackmoor. 

The Froggies on Hyperborea were quite literally very well entrenched with their cult. They were one of the leading religions because of the mix of their occult technologies & the favor of Tsathoggua. Saint Steven of the Rock  was manipulating everything behind the scenes through the head of the cult. But is it actually Tsathoggua whose providing the priests their power?! And is there far more to the temples then it seems on Hyperborea? 

This puts the events of the Sea Wolf's Daughter AS&SH adventure into a whole new light?! The entire end point dungeon suddenly takes on a whole new meaning . 

So if the Earth Shaker mecha is found & this further uncovers more secrets of the 'Legacy of Giants & Amazons'. Then does this put both the Wilderlands & Hyperborea on track for the hypothetic events of Havard's DA10 God War  By David J Ritchie & Dave Arneson?! 

And where does this leave The Egg of Coot?! Could the Egg be a relic from a earlier Law vs Chaos  war or time period?!


Could the Egg itself be a minor Chaos lord from another universe similar to the two divine beings that we saw in Lamentations of the Flame Princess's  Qelong by Kennith Hite. The implications here are pretty damn staggering in a way?! Where does this leave the legacy of Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown?! This campaign setting would be ancient Blackmoor & possibly not even Mystara in our view at this point. But there's far more to consider here before going forward with this idea especially if the nexus gates of World of the Lost are on the campaign docket. 

And could St. Stephen The Rock keep his hands out of other times & places that the Nexus Gate ways of such a campaign offer??! Going back to game sessions in 2018?! Umm no he did not at all. 
But that's a blog post for another time. You can find Harvard Blackmoor's blog here. 

Legacy of Giants & Amazons OSR Commentary - Weird Tales Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy- Shield Maidens of Sea Rune by Bryan Hinnen & CM4 Earthshaker By David 'Zeb' Cook

 "The third book in the "Wilderness Series" with 22 wilderness hexes for Campaign Map 1 are detailed in this book along with description and maps of the major points of interest.  Warrior Women plot to regain their home lost to the barbarous Skandiks, fearsome sea reavers all.  Torn between their Gods of the North and the Druidic worship of nature, the Skandiks grow weak.  Beware the cruel and evil Anti-Paladin who stalks this area looking for blood; he may be the death of you yet!  Can you thread the perilous path to fame and riches in this saga of unforgettable Adventure?"

Shield Maidens of Sea Rune by Bryan Hinnen has some very interesting connections with the rest of the history of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. This one of the best of the Wilderness series & it presents an implied sci fi background history for the Amazon tribes  of the area. And since we're going to be running the old school Wilderlands of High Fantasy campaign setting  with the OSR's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg let's dive back in. 

Like we talked about in yesterday's blog entry  some rather nasty business happened in the ancient past of the Wilderlands. Some planar event shattered the Wilderlands reality & this lead to the Nexus Gates being created. An educated guess by DM Steve is that it might have been an all out war with the powers of Law & Chaos or something much worse. Kevin Kiersky in his Amazon review of Shield Maidens of Sea Rune; "This super-module is cleverly set to work well with Calandia [City-State of the Invincible Overlord and Wilderlands] as closely or loosely as needed or wanted. It's also easy to work with various versions of gaming -- even if fairly directly set for AD&D-like gaming. There is even a distinct sci-fi aspect implied by both the general history and local history. Semi-Celtic and semi-Nordic cultural aspects are presented -- but, as usual, neither over-done nor under-done -- like the good gaming gender balance -- even via the lurid-and-lush cover art -- afterall she's got a reclining male lion behind her +++" 

Semi Celtic & Semi Nordic cultures  sounds very familiar to the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerer of Hyperborea DMs among my players. Even though these people's names  have slightly different spellings in AS&SH. Perhaps these folks made the nexus gate crossing hundreds or thousands of years ago. Why?! 

We get clues as to the why back here in B1 In Search of the Unknown by Mike Carr. Many of the classic rooms of the upper levels of Quasqueton speak about a pretty solid knowledge of occult & supernatural workings far in advance of many other rank & file  Sword & Sorcery wizards. Why?! Because the campaign worlds of both Hyperborea & 'The Wilderlands of High Fantasy' imply a war with the gods. And not just any war. I'm talking about  Ragnarök  here of the many gods of Earth. Just look at the fragmented pantheons of both AS&SH & the Wilderlands. They don't make sense or do they?! Those gods who are left over after the dust settles are the survivors. AS&SH rpg  can take place thousand or millions of years in the future. The science fantasy artifacts made far more sense scattered across Hyperborea if it was one of the battle fields of mankind in the ancient past. If the Wilderlands have their own Blackmoor then that means that they also  means that CM4 Earthshaker by David Zeb Cook is also on the menu. 

That's right the Blackmoor technologies of early original Dungeons & Dragons is on tap & the Wizards of the Coast ad for CM4 puts it rather squarely in the realms of science fantasy; 

"Mixing science-fiction with fantasy was very popular in D&D during the 70s, starting with TSR's premiere adventure, "The Temple of the Frog," found originally in Supplement II: Blackmoor (1975). The most famous instance of science fantasy in D&D is probably S3: "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" (1980), which centers on a crashed space craft. "Earthshaker!" - with its steam-powered giant robot - is thus a return to form.

The in-game origin of the Earthshaker is described thus: "[It] was built at least 3,000 years ago, probably by a race of evil gods similar in skill to dwarves or gnomes." Since Blackmoor is set 3000 years before the modern day of the Known World, and since its science-fantasy technology is sometimes said to come from "gods," many presume that Blackmoor is the source of the Earthshaker technology." 

So we know that Blackmoor is a part of the Wilderlands & possibly a resting place for all kinds of artifacts of war. This means that CM4 could be taking place in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy with only the City of the Gods as a possible source for stopping the giant. But does this mean that Hyperborea wastelands hold similar weapons of war?! Could parts of the Diamond Desert & other abandoned wastelands be housing incredible artifacts of alien construction?! And could the Amazon tribes of various worlds scattered to the four winds be the only other source for any techno occult information?! Is there a connection between  Shield Maidens of Sea Rune by Bryan Hinnen & a Nexus Gate that we see in World of the Lost?! It's very possible indeed. 

 

Could the Earth Shaker technologies actually have been created to fight the incredible beings from Qelong by Kennith Hite?! And as we've said in the past do these beings actually represent members of the courts of Law & Chaos?! DM Steve made the point that the Earthshakers couldn't touch the weaponry of the divine beings of Qelong. 

Let's not forget the mystic & deadly green diamonds of Ghost Ship of the Desert  Dunes. The perfect power source & weapon for an Earthshaker! There may have been far more to the works of  Quasqueton then even those who live there know about. Are these campaign lands nothing more then chess boards to the gods & the entities of Law & Chaos?! The answer may be, yes! 

OSR Commentary - Weird Tales Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy- S3 'Expedition To The Barrier Peaks' By Gary Gygax & 'The Sea Wolf's Daughter'

" I just discovered my spot illo of the Zirconium Suit for the AS&SH 2E adventure The Sea Wolf’s Daughter bears an uncanny resemblance to the Powered Armour in S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!"
So Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood Designs drops this on social media. And your thinking so what?! Big deal?! Well over the last couple weeks St.Jude's AS&SH Bundle of Holding has players around my area going through a bit of Sword & Sorcery campaign whip around. 

So what its a little 'Easter Egg' for the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg adventure 'The Sea Wolf's Daughter'. Well don't be so quick,  the Zirconium Suit is one of the highest level artifacts in the AS&SH rpg itself. So is there a connection between S3 'Expedition To The Barrier Peaks' By Gary Gygax  & Judge's Guilds Wilderlands of High Fantasy?! 
                                                                                                                  

Is there far more going on here then meets the eye?! Was the 'Warden' of S3 from an alternative timeline or Earth?! A place where mankind & the Hyperboreans were engaged in exploration & battle with something far more sinister?! Not only do I think so but we get a glimpse of the sort of alien menace in S3. Something went terribly wrong aboard the science vessel in S3. 

But what does any of this have to do with the Wilderlands of High Fantasy?! Well quite a bit one of the advantages of the Wilderlands is the placement of Blackmoor within the Wilderlands. There's a perfect spot within the campaign setting for it. 

That means there's also a perfect spot as well for the module DA3 City of the Gods by Dave Arneson, & David J. Ritchie. Harvard Blackmoor's Blog goes into a deeper dive into the background here.  Could the Lovecraftian horror aboard the 'Warden science vessel' be the real face of evil across the Nexus Gates of the Wilderlands?! And could this be the horror that the 'gods' of DA3 have been preparing for?! 


If these campaign over arching adventures are happening across nexus gates & planar barriers does this menace  tie into some of the revels that we've seen recently within the Hidden Serpent & other B1 In Search of the Unknown sequels?! Did Vespero the Antiquarian  have it right all along?!  For Lamentations of the Flame Princess could this actually tie into a Nexus Gate that we see in World of the Lost?! It's very possible indeed. 

Could Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown stumbled into not only several money making & power climbing situations in B1 but ultimate have stumbled into several world shattering issues at once?! Anything is possible. In the past The Secrets of Acray from Vacant Ritual Assembly issue #2 held some of the secrets for a set up similar to this one. 

OSR Commentary - Weird Tales Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy- Monsters & Treasure, Ready Reference Sheets, & The Random Esoteric Creature Generator

 "This MONSTER AND TREASURE ASSORTMENT (Levels One to Three) is one of a set and is designed as a playing aid for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. By using the assortment lists, game judges can generate any number of appropriate monsters or treasure simply by dice rolling - thus saving time in play and preparation."

Monster & Treasure assortment is one of those odd little early TSR products that fullfils a very specific need for the Dungeon master for original Dungeons & Dragons and according to the Monsters & Treasures assortment wiki entry; "
The Monster & Treasure Assortment supplements lists of pre-generated monsters and treasures for dungeon levels with 100 sets for each level. Book One is for dungeon levels 1-3; Book Two is for dungeon levels 4-6; and Book Three is for dungeon levels 7-9." The reviews on the various incarnations of Monsters & Treasure have been very mixed shall we say over the years;

"Elisabeth Barrington reviewed the 1980 compilation of Monster and Treasure Assortment in The Space Gamer #36 in 1981.^[2] While she felt that the lists would be of great use to the Dungeon Master for impromptu or random encounters, she went on to say, "Thirty-four pages of lists? And a lot of details are obscure - the DM has to create spells to go with magic items, and describe some monsters that aren't in the manual."^[2] Barrington could only recommend this product "to DMs who suffer from occasional or temporary mental blocks."
Well who gives a crap no one cares about that old Monsters & Treasures book for original Dungeons & Dragons?! Interestingly a number of people seem to with a whole cloth history of the book & its incarnations or publications available on acaeum.com.  Well interestingly there are two things that immediately come to mind. Thing one is the fact that the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide has the Random Dungeon Generator which has many of the same qualities of the Monsters & Treasures Assortment booklet. 

Now ages ago we covered the Ready Reference Sheets on this blog but we've been talking about both Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg. And we've been talking about running Judges Guilds Wilderlands of High Fantasy with the AS&SH system. But if we back track to  the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide which has 'the Random Dungeon Generator'. We can use this tool to knock together all kinds of randomly created Sword & Sorcery ruins or dungeons easily. If we use these tools with the Ready Reference Sheets by Judge's Guild we get a whole cloth randomly created campaign setting material at cost. This means that the players will have absolutely no frame of reference to rules lawyer or ruin the randomly created dungeon that 'isn't supposed to be there'. 

This basically means that while a pain in the behind the DM has total freedom to lay down their own take on the dungeons & ruins encountered among the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. But what about adding in something really different?! Well I keep mentioning the Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. What if there was a way to create random NPC abilities that are more akin to chaos mutations then they are to spells randomly generated. I ran across this thread on the LoFP forums from '09 that suggests exactly this by Geoffrey from 2010. 

Add any of these adventure elements to our discussion on B1 In Search of the Unknown by Mike Carr & you end up with a very random & dangerous Swords & Sorcery Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting with a highly Chaos driven twist! 

'Of Gates & Sequels' OSR Commentary - Weird Tales Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy- B1 In Search of the Unknown By Mike Carr

" Mike Carr wrote In Search of the Unknown and intended it for use as an instructional adventure for new players. Interior art was by David C. Sutherland III, while Sutherland and David A. Trampier did the cover of the original monochrome edition. The updated 1981 edition featured front and back cover art by Darlene Pekul."
From the B1 In Search of the Unknown D&D Fan Site Wiki entry here. 

Oh no not another recap blog entry into how great B1 'In Search of the Unknown' By Mike Carr  module is tinged with nostalgia. Umm no I'm gonna talk about what a pair of bastards the  two wealthy adventurers, Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, are for a moment. As you go through the upper levels of Quasqueton something becomes apparent it's two owners were into some shady stuff. Hell even Dyson Logos loves B1.  Because of the module's  customization there's ton of options that the DM can pull out.  Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, were facing down a very dangerous horde of barbarian raiders. My own experiences with B1 have been interesting with player's PC's claiming Quasqueton as their own to use as base in the past once the dungeons & various levels have been cleared out. Recently we've  been reading through Pacesetter's Games B1 sequel Legacy of the Unknown.  

B1 "Legacy of the Unknown" (2011) by Bill Barsh. 
 Illustration by Chris Letzelte


This was on the recommendation of DM Steve who recommended that we read this blog entry here on squeals to B1 In Search of the Unknown. B1 Legacy of the Unknown is a very well done mini campaign done in seventy two pages. This whole cloth module covers the fates of Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown to an unknown lost city location based on documents found in the caves & caverns of  Quasqueton. The problem is that the module connects up with C1 Circle of Fire. Yeah, I'd rather it connected up with Bo5 Secrets of the Unknown by  Bill Barsh instead which it can if circled back around to B1 In Search of the Unknown. 

In several players minds way to the North of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy is giant piece after giant piece of Sword & Sorcery Atlantean debris sitting in the giant grass fields of the Wilderlands. Over the horizon is a Lovecraftian style. This all plugs into a Nexus gateway that leads near several locations mentioned in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea's The Sea Wolf's Daughter. 

Where does this place B1 'In Search of the Unknown' By Mike Carr within the Wilderlands of High Fantasy?! I would say it would be near one of the temperate zones of the Wilderlands not necessarily smack in the middle of one the raving hordes of barbarian turf. The Quasqueton complex has to be far enough away from civilization to not have been looted by just any 'Johnny Q' party of adventurers. But where the Hell could a party of lagitmate explorers find information about the complex?! Fight on issue #3 has 'Haghill by James Mishler of Adventure Games Publications, detailing the legendary village near the City-State of the Invincible Overlord and the communities monstrous and mundane that surround it!' This is the perfect cut throat location to bring explorers of the unknown into the fore. 

Would the B1 'In Search of the Unknown' By Mike Carr adventure locations be of interest to any other OSR adventurers?! In the past we've added several rival adventuring groups from Spain & England from Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg as those wanting to gain the 'wisdom' of Zelligar the Unknown. This was after using Vespero the Antiquarian as an NPC from Vacant Ritual Assembly issue #1. 

Vespero the Antiquarian had ties to the court of Spain & several of Zelligar the Unknown occult treasures. So the PC's came fact to face with Spanish guns. The two forces had to join up after a group of incredibly dangerous pig faced orcs & their barbarian allies showed up! 
Could this whole cloth outline tie in with yesterday's blog entry?! Possibly but it would me a whole lot of juggling on the levels of Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown