Everything In World War Two & Your Mother - The Free Marvel Super Heroes rpg Netbook Adventure 'In The Shadows of Evil' Compiled, Written and Designed by Christopher P. Tyne

 Ages ago back in 2020 we dealt with a World War II campaign using Marvel Super Heroes rpg on this blog here. Our heroes were in New York City doing a warbond tour for the war effort & ran directly into Baron Blood!  He was on a mission to assassinate a German scientist who had defected to the Allies! 

Baron Blood by John Byrne used without permission. 

The Baron was also  leading a group of Nazi vampires on a sabotage mission! We handled the situation with our first game in a long while! Fortunately we had the help of Batman & Robin to mop up the vampires!  This series of adventures served as prelude to the Marvel Super Heroes rpg Netbook Adventure  'In The Shadows of Evil' Compiled, Written and Designed by Christopher P. Tyne. 

We had to report into the Invaders and Captain America about Blood and co. The whole mission had a very WWII prelude mission feel about it. As the Invaders were in town under the warbonds telethon feel. Meeting us was Adam's PC's Doctor Henry Jones 

Doctor Jones was there to escort us to the Middle East & a meeting with another group of capes. And then another clandestine meeting with a general about some artifacts. Jones had the details but wasn't saying a word because this mission was way above our paygrade. Note that this isn't the first time I've run  'In The Shadows of Evil' Compiled, Written and Designed by Christopher P. Tyne. But playing the adventure is a whole other ball game. 
This is a really dangerous adventure! 

OSR Commentary On "The Savage Sword of Conan As OSR Campaign or Adventure Resource

So its Nineteen Seventy Four & I'm four years old digging though my favorite uncle's stash of comics & comic magazines. I spy a new one he's just gotten & he waves me off of it. We're talking about The Savage Sword of Conan Curtis imprint.

"The Savage Sword of Conan was a black-and-white magazine-format comic book series published beginning in 1974 by Curtis Magazines, an imprint of American company Marvel Comics, and then later by Marvel itself. Savage Sword of Conan starred Robert E. Howard's most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, and has the distinction of being the longest-surviving title of the short-lived Curtis imprint."

This is one of the most iconic & cultastic comic magazine titles that stayed on my comic shop pull box & it hardly ever disappointed;
"As a "magazine", Savage Sword of Conan did not have to conform to the Comics Code Authority, making it a publication of choice for many illustrators. It soon became one of the most popular comic series of the 1970s and is now considered a cult classic. Roy Thomas was the editor and primary writer for the series' first few years (until issue 60), which featured art by illustrators such as Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema, Alfredo Alcala, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Pablo Marcos, and Walter Simonson. Painted covers were provided by such artists as Earl Norem, Bob Larkin, and Joe Jusko."
 It was nasty, lusty, & had Sword & Sorcery action in spades & it was fantastic fodder for a fledgling dungeon master to bring the players to the table.  This wasn't simply a magazine but a great resource for a budding dungeon master.
It was also some of the first exposure that I had to H.P. Lovecraft & Clark Ashton Smith's mythos.

" The cover of issue #5 sports a Boris Vallejo painting of Conan being crucified, from the story "A Witch Shall Be Born". This story features Conan at his most resilient, surviving a desert crucifixion to get revenge on the man who put him there."

This was Conan at his most resilient & dangerous, Sword taught me a lot about how PC's should be put in danger & the lengths that they'd go to to gain revenge on NPC villains. These were stories straight out of the back bone  of various eras of Conan's life & it gave a formula for writing adventures that could take place in various eras of a PC's life. This meant that a dungeon master wasn't restricted to linear game play.
This was a trick that I've used time & again to pin ball levels & eras suiting play around the players rather then the adventure.

"The adventures in Savage Sword of Conan are not always consecutive (as they are in the color Marvel title Conan the Barbarian), and they cover different eras of Conan's life. The Savage Sword stories mostly feature an older Conan, and adapt R. E. Howard stories and pastiches starting from "Black Colossus" (according to the Miller/Clark chronology), thus following the Roy Thomas stories in Conan the Barbarian."
Everything in The Savage Sword of Conan is keyed to the interactions being grand gestures of Sword & Sorcery. Conan is a driven inhuman being of incredible acts of both bravery & savagery. There's plenty of dungeon crawling within these books & Marvel provided lots of T&A or implied it I should say.



The Savage Sword of Conan was a magazine that took lots of riskier from the moment that it broke on the scene & it was a comics magazine that didn't pull punches with its audience. Treasures were recovered but frequently lost to the gambling of Conan. There was also lots & lots of violence on the bad guys. Savage was relentless on Conan's war on the bad guys. His never give up or surrender could infuriating for some readers but this was from a very different time period.

For old school adventure design there was a definitive old school Sword & Sorcery  formula for the writing:

1. Conan would go to great lengths for revenge and this could dove tail in with the on going soap opera of NPC's in a the mix 
2. Various ruins often hold secrets form an unknown age. Make sure player's saga is played out on the field 
3. Adventure plot hooks connect in early in these adventures to take sure advantage of the soap like mix of adventure ideas '
4. Adventure have to be really tight and this comes across in the Robert Howard 's fiction. Marvel Sword sometimes players fast & loose with the Conan mythos but not their own internal consistence. 
5. NPC villains often moved in the background of the adventures only to be revealed later on in the story line. 
6. Rage fueled much of the Conan stories in particular 
7. Monsters are either one offs or the ancient remains of something drawing from the planet's ancient past 
8. Magick is dangerous & highly unpredictable. 
9. Corruption & Chaos were the products of the Outer Dark and should never be taken lightly. 
10. Adventures always had lots of fall out that might take months to resolve

The Savage Sword of Conan is trade marked & copyrighted to its respective copyright & trade mark holders. This blog post is not an attempt to violate the respective copyright & trade marks of the The Savage Sword of Conan. This blog post is for educational & entertainment purposes only.

Everything In World War Two & Your Mother - A Review of The Free Marvel Super Heroes rpg Netbook Adventure 'In The Shadows of Evil' Compiled, Written and Designed by Christopher P. Tyne

"It is the winter of 1943. The world is in the grip of war. Three quarters of the European continent is in ruins, crushed beneath the heel of a German jack-boot. Neither the sands of Africa nor the steppes of Russia are safe from the Nazi scourge. On the other side of the world, the waters of the Pacific run red with blood. While the valiant allies struggle against seemingly overwhelming odds, the dictators in Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo gleefully divide the world amongst themselves for conquest. As the sun sets over europe, freedom is soon to become little more than a fond memory. Welcome, true-believers, to Dreamslayer’s first Classic Marvel Superheroes RolePlaying Game Crossover Extravaganza! In the Shadow of Evil is designed for a Judge and up to eight players. The adventure can be played either on its own or as a prelude to a World War II ongoing adventure."

I have a huge soft spot in my heart for TSR Marvel Super Super Heroes rpg & it seems to remain a classic with a fanatically devoted  fan base. I went looking for some inspiration the Classic Marvel Forever website that's one of the most developed fan sites on the internet net & its got a bit of a reputation as a pirate site as well. But what I stumbled upon in the netbook section gave me chills Marvel Super Heroes rpg Netbook Adventure  'In The Shadows of Evil' Compiled, Written and Designed by Christopher P. Tyne. 

'In The Shadows of Evil'  is a love letter for the Marvel Super Heroes rpg game for everything 80's & 90s fantasy, adventure, & horror film related spun through the lens of a Marvel Super Heroes rpg mini campaign . 'In The Shadows of Evil'  features elements of classic 70's Invaders Marvel Comicbook mixed in with an healthy dose of Aliens, Indiana Jones, & much more. All of this goes back to the fact that during the '76 I was reading about Captain America, The Submariner, Union Jack, all going head to head with Baron Blood the vampire Nazi blood sucker! All this while OD&D was being played around my little six year old brain. 

Flash forward to 'Eighty four & the first editions of Marvel Super Heroes Rpg which had a huge incarnation of classic Forties Marv erm Timely heroes in the pages of Dragon magazine in the Eighties. Then in the Nineties we got Marvel's Ultimates Avengers &  Captain America  from which sprang the classic Disney MCU we've all known & loved. 

'In The Shadows of Evil'  it does it s job of creating a mini World War two cinematic/comic book Marvel Super Heroes game universe for the player's PC's to go to town in! Seriously if your classic Marvel 70's Invader's fan there's plenty of weirdness to sink you teeth into. And it takes the game into the realm of an alternative 90's style Marvel Captain Marvel War World II campaign. 

There is a ton of fan service here for the players & its solidly done with some hard love. Everything but the kitchen sink has been thrown in for the Marvel Super Hero rpg player & fan. Personally I'd love to completely & utterly run this! There's even a bit for the classic Clive Barker Hellraiser fan thrown in to boot! That includes me folks btw! 

Is  'In The Shadows of Evil' worth the down load?! As a free Marvel Super Heroes min campaign certainly! Is it worth it just for the laughs?! Well actually in my mind this is a tightly written & designed adventure sure there are some flaws but 'In The Shadows of Evil' will provide a year or more's worth of World War II Marvel Super Heroes rpg action! 

OSR Commentary - Martian Echoes Of S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks By Gary Gygax

"The Grand Duchy of Geoff has recently been plagued by a rash of unusually weird and terrible monsters of an unknown sort. This western area, particularly the mountain fastness which separates the Grand Duchy from the Dry Steppes, has long been renowned for the generation of the most fearsome beasts, and it has been shunned accordingly -- save a handful of hardy souls with exceptional abilities. Within the last few months, however, a walled town not far distant from the area, and four small fortresses as well, have been destroyed by mysterious attacks! "



Last night I worked late into the night, I needed something breezy & quick to read. I turned to 'S3 Expedition the Barrier Peaks' Let's get this module's history out of the way quick;"Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was first played at the Origins II convention in 1976, where it was used to introduce Dungeons & Dragons players to the science fiction game Metamorphosis Alpha. In 1980, TSR published the adventure, updated for first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The adventure was not updated for later rules systems, but a Wizards.com article did provide a conversion to Future Tech. It included a separate booklet of illustrations, in both color and black and white." Now I've been lately rereading a lot of pulp magazine sci fi & science fantasy stories which I've been incorporating into my 'Old Solar Solar' system setting. But bizarrely it was rereading  the Killraven mini series from Marvel comics about '03 when I noticed some parallels between the two series & Edgar Rice Burroughs. Killraven first appeared in Amazing Adventures 30 (1970) & I literally grew up with him. He's a gladiator stuck in a Martian area who escapes with fellow gladiators who wander a Martian wasteland that was once our Earth. This invasion was the second or third wave of HG Wells War of the Worlds semi set in the Earth of the alternative Earth-691 that happened in 2001.

This series has always sort of shared the Marvel super heroes world with Earth's mightiest heroes dying badly & repeatedly over the years trying to prevent Killraven's world from coming about. Its only now when I reread the '03 updated mini series that I started seeing the subplot of the Martians trying to terra form the Earth into something resembling Edgar Rice Burroughs & Albert Otis Kline's Mars?! Killraven has always had some really weird & funky concepts from Logan Run style gladiator areas, psychic & telepathic Martian soldiers, Martian gene modified beast men, to the Martians themselves. The series history has been interesting & problematic at times;"Co-creator Neal Adams' early ideas for Killraven involved the character being the son of a Doc Savage archetype.^[1] This conception had been reworked by the first issue, a multiple-creator goulash in which the two originators and co-plotters turned the scripting over to another writer, and in which artist co-creator Adams penciled only the first 11 pages and Howard Chaykin the remaining nine. The second issue was fully written by the debut's scripter, Gerry Conway, followed in the third by Marv Wolfman.



After this, the book became the province of writer Don McGregor for an acclaimed run^[2] from #21 (Nov. 1973) to the final issue, #39 (Nov. 1976). Pencillers were Herb Trimpe, Rich Buckler, Gene Colan, and, most prominently, P. Craig Russell from issue #27 on."

"Alan Davis' 2002 miniseries Killraven depicted an alternate-future variation of the original series, set on the parallel universe Marvel Comics designates "Earth-2120"." This mini series comic version of the original saga pays homage to the original series but takes the action in another direction. Mainly we see Killraven & his freemen dealing with the transformation of Earth, its people, and the high cost of peace between Martians & humanity. Its a well done mini series & I highly recommend it.


What strikes me is the artificial nature of the Martian subjugation & transformation of Earth in the original series. This is a very invasive species.  McGregor's writing on the original series has parallels with the nature of concepts laid down in Gary Gygax's writing in S3. According to "McGregor and Russell, however, remain the series' signature creative team; more than two decades after the original series' end, comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that,It was writer Don McGregor who transformed the Killraven saga ... into a classic. Of all of Marvel's writers, McGregor has the most romantic view of heroism. Killraven and his warrior band were also a community of friends and lovers motivated by a poetic vision of freedom and of humanity's potential greatness. McGregor's finest artistic collaborator on the series was P. Craig Russell, whose sensitive, elaborate artwork, evocative of Art Nouveau illustration, gave the landscape of Killraven's America a nostalgic, pastoral feel, and the Martian architecture the look of futuristic castles"
This same feel in many ways comes across in S3 where the definitions of what D&D is and could be are challenged, bent, & in some places broken. Something that Killraven for me would go on to do with comic books. But back to the monster ecology. The Warden of S3 comes into & transforms the world of Greyhawk introducing an alien ecology that continues to plague that world for centuries. The lessons of both Killraven & 'Expedition To The Barrier Peaks' can be applied easily to the current OSR. Invasive ecologies can serve as the prime motivator for a campaign quite easily. Take as an example many of the monsters of  Clark Ashton Smith or Lovecraft which fit the stereo typical 'outsider' or alien ecologies.


This is something we see time and again in adventures from Lamentations of the Flame Princess & Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. It was also something that Robert Kuntz saw using many of the well established principals of science fiction and science fantasy to challenge many of the original players of this hobby of ours. Again the same thing happens in Killraven where species continue to plague the world over & over again. We become the monsters under the tendrils of the Martians something that gets repeated again & again as they continue to transform Earth into their new home. All of these themes are something we see again & again in pulp magazines going back to the childhood of both Gygax and McGregor.  The dungeon isn't a static organism or adventure location, instead its a point fixed by both circumstance & opportunity of creation.


Both S3 'Expedition To The Barrier Peaks' & Killraven are products of their time. They work to create what we know as the modern wasteland dungeon in pop culture. Killraven was/is one of my all time favorite comics, over the years its been a well written and incredible foot note in the incredible pop culture landscape. Both of these products are part of the  legacy of Marvel comics & Dungeons Dragons. Mainly due to the incredible writers and artists of Marvel comics & Gary Gygax.
Without Killraven we would not get the awesomeness of Ape Slayer but that's another blog entry for another time! For now keep those dice rolling.

OSR Commentary - Barsoomian Echoes In Original Dungeons & Dragons Campaigns & Adventures

Strap in, grab your short sword,long sword, dagger, & radium pistol as we make an astral projected journey back in time to 1977 with a merry Marvel excursion of Barsoomian goodness and old school adventure!

Cover scan taken from the awesome Giant Sized Marvel Blog

There are years in your life that you remember forever & for me it was '77 & '78. Not only was it the year that 'Star Wars' premiered but it was one of the golden ages of Marvel comics. Marvel kept coming out with some fantastic comics & during the Seventies they were looking for that sci fi market key. John Carter Warlord of Mars was special! For me as a kid the series hit all of the Edgar Rice Burroughs notes!

"John Carter, Warlord of Mars is a comics series published from 1977 by American company Marvel Comics. Created by Marv Wolfman (writer) and Gil Kane (penciller), it was based on the Barsoom series of Edgar Rice Burroughs and featured the eponymous character." The very next week I went to the local book shop that had really well displayed Edgar Rice Burroughs Michael Whelan paperbacks on display. But my uncle chided me because he had my Dad's full paperback run from when they were younger. I still collected the Whalen covers though. Now back to the Marvel Warlord of Mars, there was something very dynamic and well done about them. They fit in with the times & were pretty faithful to the books(mostly). Like all kids we were Star Wars crazy & my uncle channeled this into getting us kids to read anything science or science fiction related. As for myself I channeled it into anything related to this stuff from comics to original Dungeons & Dragons was far game. For campaigning on Barsoom the Marvel comics were a perfect fit because of the time period the series to place during in the ERB novels.

This page taken from the awesome Marooned on Mars blog here

"The entire series (with few exceptions) takes place between the third and fourth paragraphs of chapter 27 of Burroughs' novel A Princess of Mars."  This basically meant that PC's were going to come right in the background of those events as the Warlord made his rise onto power on Barsoom. We kids were bugging my adopted uncle to run us through Barsoom all through the year but we had to play the current campaign. It wasn't until the next year in '78 when we saw another film that would change my life that he got the idea for a campaign. Warlords of Atlantis was directed by Kevin Connor and co-starring Peter Gilmore, Shane Rimmer, Cyd Charisse, Daniel Massey, Lea Brodie and John Ratzenberger. From the same production team that made "The Land That Time Forgot", "At the Earth's Core", "The People that Time Forgot", and "Arabian Adventure". I watched everyone of these films and ate them up with a spoon.  These sorts of films make excellent adventure fodder especially for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

My uncle planned an island hopping campaign with our Original Dungeons & Dragons PC's. There had been a fire in the sky and our boat was wrecked by the streaking horror that howled through the clouds. The next morning we found ourselves on a beach with none of our equipment surrounded by six armed Green Martian warriors with strange metal antenna sticking out of their heads! Our treasure was gone and we were placed in a dungeon and had to escape. We came across and killed a group of telepathic elite Martian big brained leaders. My wizard was killed by a vicious calot pack allowing the party to escape. The invasive Martians became regular foes in our campaign world according to the scat notes that I've got from that time. But the important point here was the fact that my uncle used the Barsoomians as an invasive and invading species in our world. Martians scouting parties  began to show up with regularity. For modern & retroclone systems this style of gaming can be fun until the players catch on. The campaigns must have over arching goals end points this was something that would become more evident in the second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons prepackaged campaign world era.


To this day I blame James Ward's article 'Deserted Cities of Mars' from 'The Strategic Review Volume 1 issue #3 from 1975. Which I know for a fact that my uncle owned because I've still got my copy. We did the island hopping campaign for quite awhile in the Bermuda Triangle. Here's where the valuable lesson of setting vs substance was learned. If the dungeon master wants introduce a monster or setting element the 'monster of the week' format allows one to take on an issue by issue adventure style. I wasn't until much later on that I would go on to develop my own style of this type of dungeon mastering. Original Dungeons & Dragons encouraged this. Note that this was years before 'Isle of Dread' would appear in 1981. Don't forget to keep those dice rolling & I hope you make your saves this weekend kids!


Dungeons & Dragons Warriors of Mars, by Jason Vey is one of the closest resources to Barsoom that I've seen & its cross compatible with original Dungeons & Dragons as well as number of OSR games. I'll get into the book another time. 

This blog entry is for entertainment & educational purposes only. It is not an attempt to violate the trademarks & copyrights of Marvel Comics nor the original writers nor artists of such comics. John Carter Warlord of Mars belongs to its trade mark and copy right holders this blog entry is not an attempt to violate those holdings. Original Dungeons and Dragons is owned by Wizards of the Coast and this is not an attempt to violate that copy write or trade mark. All commentary and opinions belong to Dark Corner

An Age Undreamed of With Jason Vey's Free OD&D Booklet Age of Conan For Your Old School Campaigns

"When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, Under the caverned pyramids great Set coils asleep; When the world was young and men were weak, and the fiends of the ight walked free; I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? -Robert E. Howard, “The Phoenix on the Sword” "


So I've been down in the workshop trying to get caught up on repair work & some thoughts about what the OSR means to me personally. One of the first things I ran across was Jason Vey's original Dungeons & Dragons hacks he did of Conan under his nom de plume of Grey Elf. 
Now Mr.Vey went out of his way to really create a very usable & versatile booklet in under fifty seven pages. There are a number of free resources on his page which I think you should check out.
 

But let's talk The Age of Conan which delivers exactly what it promises on the tin an actual & usable original Dungeons & Dragons Conan campaign. Everything here is spared down to the wire & it captures the whole of Conan's world quite well.. It does this by using & recommending certain books that while they seem interesting are wholly useful for running a Conan style Sword & Sorcery campaign;
1. The Age of Conan (You have it in your hands!) 2. Dungeons & Dragons, Tactical Studies Rules, 1975-79 3. Chainmail, Guidon Games/Tactical Studies Rules, 1971-79 4. Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods, & Heroes, Tactical Studies Rules, 1976-79

The following books and booklets are highly recommended for play 1. Supplement I: Greyhawk, Tactical Studies Rules, 1975-79 2. Supplement II: Blackmoor, Tactical Studies Rules, 1975-79 3. Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry, Tactical Studies Rules, 1976-79 4. Swords & Spells, Tactical Studies Rules, 1976-79 5. The Strategic Review, Issues 1 through 6 6. Return to the Road of Kings, Mongoose Publishing, 2007* 7. Conan Role Playing Game, TSR, inc., 1985*



I wrote all about using clerics but its really the material that's covered in the Age of Conan that set's off some of the most dangerous material that was lightly brushed over in the Gods, Demi Gods, & Heroes. But that Vey has brought to light with his great rules on magical corruption;
" Corruption The easiest way to track how many failed saves a sorcerer has, is to measure it in terms of levels of corruption. Whenever a sorcerer fails a corruption save, his level of corruption increases by one, and every five points of corruption applies a penalty to all future saves and ostensibly a slide in alignment. However, it is important to note that no matter what alignment with which a character begins play, the same number of failed saves are required to fall to the next level as would be required if she began play as good. Going from good to evil requires 15 failed saves—Five to go from good to unaligned, Five more from unaligned to balance, and Five more to go to evil. If a character begins play as unaligned, he still requires ten failed saves to go from unaligned to balance. Why? Just because a character starts off with lower or different morals from a human standpoint does not mean he is corrupted by sorcery. Characters who start off as unaligned still have corruption zero. They are just less likely to note the effects sorcery is having upon them until they rack up more corruption than a good character would. As in the first Age of Conan booklet, sorcerers begin to show physical (and metaphysical) effects of Corruption as they become more overwhelmed by the sorcery. For an excellent list of examples of Corruption effects, see Mongoose Publishing’s Conan Role playing Game."
This right here brings to light the very fact that wizards in a Sword & Sorcery game are at a strong disadvantage. They are playing & dancing with the forces of Chaos in a struggle of life & death for the very power of their own souls.



Savage Sword of Conan 141 cover artist  Bob Larkin 

 Age of Conan introduces a bard class which is the perfect PC foil for some of the horror bubbling under the surface of a Hyborian age game campaign. Jason Vey does a good solid job of getting across that while there may not be a world spanning war between Chaos & Law in Conan. There is certainly a whole other original Dungeons & Dragons black magick that can bring the pain to PC's. Age of Conan introduces who all kinds of dangerous & dire elements to throw at PC's in an age undreamed of !

(1967)

Illustration for 'Conan the Usurper' paperback by Robert E. Howard artwork by Frank Frazetta available here. 

Jason's Vey's material from Age of Conan  could be used in a wide array of original Dungeons & Dragons  campaign & adventure applications. The corruption rules,the magic items, the NPC stats, & more could all be used to enhance an existing original Dungeons & Dragons campaign. This means that the dark & dire evil of the Hyboria age could appear in a wide variety of classic or OSR campaign settings. The rules of evil are exactly the sort of horror & weirdness that players long for. The fantastic literature's settings  of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith are all done & PC's easily transported into worlds designed by you the DM & your players using Jason Vey's free OD&D booklet Age of Conan

Faith & Fortune - Fighters, Wizards, & Priests In Your Old School Campaigns

When we start looking at original Dungeons & Dragons clerics then we're getting right into the heart of the bed rock of the game in many ways. Clerics are so much more then their given credit for. Back in the Seventies &  Eighties clerics & their churches as well as the temples were the center pieces of adventures. Clerical orders were the movers & shakers among kings, queens, & royals. They were often the lynch pins holding campaigns together.




According to the Original Dungeons & Dragons consolidated  rules site ;

"Clerics can use magic armor and all non-edged magic weapons (no arrows) plus they have a number of their own spells. They are able to use some magical items that are denied to fighters. Remember that only men can be clerics.
The prime requisite for clerics is wisdom.
Clerics are either Law or Chaos (see Alignments). There's no such thing as a Neutral cleric. If a Patriarch receives the benefits described and he changes alignments, all benefits will be removed immediately."

Alright right off the bat I'm going to ignore the whole only men can be clerics nonsense business. Clerics are the holy warriors of their temples & churches given the handle of chaos making its way into the campaign world. We see this again & again in Arthurian literature & even in Clark Ashton Smith's  Averoigne stories.
Given the cycle of stories there isn't any doubt in my mind that the clerics of these stories have their work cut out for them; 

• Beast of Averoigne, The (1933)
• Colossus of Ylourgne, The (1933)
• Disinterment of Venus, The (1934)
• Enchantress of Sylaire, The (1941)
• End of the Story, The (1930)
• Holiness of Azédarc, The (1933)
• Maker of Gargoyles, The (1932)
• Mandrakes, The (1933)
• Mother of Toads (1934)
• Rendezvous in Averoigne, A (1931)
• Satyr, The (1931) [Variant Conclusion to "The Satyr"]

I wish I were joking but these poor bastards must have called in every favor in the book at times to deal with specter of dark forces that they had to deal with. Churches & temples are going to have to rely on the holy forces that protect any given area from the forces of chaos.  The single most important book for the cleric in my humble opinion comes in the form of Robert Kuntz & James Wards Gods, Demigods, & Heroes.  This book takes the cleric in the solid position of holy warrior & expands it by twenty.

I've seen various OSR Illuminati describe how their campaigns aren't about 'religion' end quote. Well the good campaigns I've played in & run are all about religion with it being at the core & foundation. Religion is the prime motivator for adventure & yet the least used that I've seen lately.
One reviewer said according to wiki ; "Glen Taylor reviewed Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes in The Space Gamer No. 9.^[3] He states that as "the fourth and purportedly last supplement to Dungeons and Dragons" it "might be expected from such a 'last bow,' as it were, this newest supplement is different from all three of the previous ones, in a major way. [...] This is by no means 'standard' D&Dmaterial."^[3] He commented that "I'm no scholar of ancient (and modern!) legends, but it seems to me the authors have given a view of the various mythological concepts which is both panoramic and scrutinously details, and as complete as possible within the space limitations imposed [...] Kuntz and Ward have taken material which has come down to us in a sometimes distorted and almost always nebulous form, and clarified it into a solid material which would fit in well with any fantasy game."^[3] Taylor concludes his review by saying that Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes is worth the price "for the mere pleasure of reading it. For students of ancient legends it's a Type I treasure. It should much lived up any D&D campaign in which it is used""
This I completely agree with & absolutely disagree with, Lawrence Schick who  calls this book "the least important supplement to Original D&D" in his book 1991 book Heroic Worlds. Why?! Because churches & temples pay adventurers to rid the land of chaos & evil. Given the scope & breath of many campaigns it stands to simple reason that clerics would be assigned to & given over to adventuring parties.


In point of fact clerics & priests should be used as the central rallying point for the call to adventure! Yeah I said it. The fact is that priests & their ilk are going to seek out wizards & fighters for help ridding some god or goddess forsaken land of some monstrous evil. I was just speaking to a friend this morning about how a single troll seen in a kingdom was a rallying point for every adventurer in the region to wipe out the horror that had invaded the land.


Each piece of that walking abomination has the potential to create an infection that must be cleansed from the landscape. This also comes straight across in the AD&D first edition Fiend Folio with the troll variants when their first seen.  A giant troll is a cross between a troll and a hill giant, resulting in a troll over 10 feet tall full on Chaos unbound. The cleric & its network of temples can & should be the rallying points for adventure in old school campaigns! Why?!


Clerics are the holy warriors & agents of their gods these are the boots on the ground agents against the forces of light & darkness or chaos & law. I can't stress enough how dangerous the role of the cleric is in original Dungeons & Dragons along with its latter incarnations of this class. Treasure is the fuel that keeps this holy machine running & the peoples who in habit campaign safe & free from harm that adventurers face on a daily basis.

For looking at a number of Dungeons & Dragons style clerics who do exactly this sort of work in their own world. I have to reach over to grab my copy of the Record of the Lodoss War comic books. These comic books have several excellent examples of the type of clerics that we're speaking of in this blog entry.


A most misguided character that is a perfect set up for a reverse villain turned hero is Marvel's Crusader who while he uses a sword could be used to pattern a heroic cleric quite easily. This is a solid character who is operating in the modern world. 



But the Crusader's zeal & conviction is easily the sort of holy fire that needs to burn away the infection of chaos right across the landscape. Clerics are the sort of character class whose mere presence is a balm of holy religion to the plight of the lands where evil dwell.But clerics can only hold or destroy evil there are other forces to blow it apart. Tomorrow the seed of destruction in original Dungeons & Dragons 

The Kree Sentry For The High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure Campaign & Old School Campaigns

The alien Kree empire created billions of Sentry cybernetic life forms to guard all of their important caches of weapons, artifacts, & even spacecraft. These robotic sentries are capable of taking on many threats to their charges & should be used sparingly by dungeon masters. Kree Sentries are found through the remains of the Kree Empire & their former interstellar colonial protectorates. The sentry series are incredibly durable, resilient, & can survive for thousands of years on the barest of their self regenerating energy systems.



The Kree Supreme Intelligence may at anytime hear or see through the eyes of any Sentry unit within the ancient Kree Empire. It can act as the eyes & ears of its master across the vast interstellar gulfs.
All Sentries know how to use any & all Kree artifacts but may not be inclined to share this information with adventurers or enemies of the Kree Empire. 

Alignment : Lawful 'Programming  dependent'

# Appearing 1-3 

AC: 5
HD:8

% In Lair : 80%

Treasure : M or better

Powers & Abilities 

Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects abilities & magic
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, & necromantic effects
All abilities as per Constructs 
Strength As A Hill Giant but can increase strength up to Stone Giant strength

Regeneration as a Troll due to Nanite repair systems 

Omni Blast Beam Attack 1d8 to 2d8 damage( for Mutant Future or Gamma World systems with a 30 foot radius up to six times a day 

There is a 60% should the Supreme Intelligence deem it that it will gate in another sentry unit should the first deem that its charge or treasure cache is in danger.Sentries will also be dispatched to any number of distant worlds where the colonial interests of the Kree empire are in danger. Most sentry units will sell for about 600 gold pieces on the intergalatic or planar black market. Once a sentry unity is defeated there is a three day window for the circuits & parts of the unit to be scavenged. After this certain key & critical systems will begin to disintegrate rendering a unit's value on the black market to only 200 gold pieces.

Kree Sentry Units on Carcosa are there for a two fold purpose one to monitor the activities of the influence of the star gods & Great Old Ones. Two the Sentries are found among the ruins & space wrecks of the Kree Empire craft that have crashed onto Carcosa.  There are two Kree 'ultra Sentries' who attend the temples of two unknown gods of Law on Carcosa. These Kree Sentries have access to many advanced & dangerous weapon systems but these 'ultra Sentries' true alien purposes are unknown. 
These ultra sentries will have 1d6 additional advanced nanite weapons systems for dealing with truly dangerous threats in the alien minds of the Kree empire. 


Note that this blog post is not an attempt to violate the copyright or trademark of Marvel Comics nor its trademark or copyright holders. This blog post is for educational & entertainment purposes. None of the rpg writers or designers named is any way responsible for the contents of this blog post. Artwork used without permission. 

The Kree Sentry For The High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure Camapign & Old School Campaigns

The alien Kree empire created billions of Sentry cybernetic life forms to guard all of their important caches of weapons, artifacts, & even spacecraft. These robotic sentries are capable of taking on many threats to their charges & should be used sparingly by dungeon masters. Kree Sentries are found through the remains of the Kree Empire & their former interstellar colonial protectorates. The sentry series are incredibly durable, resilient, & can survive for thousands of years on the barest of their self regenerating energy systems.



The Kree Supreme Intelligence may at anytime hear or see through the eyes of any Sentry unit within the ancient Kree Empire. It can act as the eyes & ears of its master across the vast interstellar gulfs.
All Sentries know how to use any & all Kree artifacts but may not be inclined to share this information with adventurers or enemies of the Kree Empire.

Alignment : Lawful 'Programming  dependent'

# Appearing 1-3 

AC: 5
HD:8

% In Lair : 80%

Treasure : M or better

Powers & Abilities
Low-light vision.
Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects abilities & magic
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, & necromancy
Strength As A Hill Giant & can increase  Strength all the Way To Stone Giant Strength

Regeneration as a Troll due to Nanite repair systems 

Omni Blast Beam Attack 1d8 to 2d8 damage( for Mutant Future or Gamma World systems with a 30 foot radius up to six times a day 

There is a 60% should the Supreme Intelligence deem it that it will gate in another sentry unit should the first deem that its charge or treasure cache is in danger.

Kree Sentry Units on Carcosa are there for a two fold purpose one to monitor the activities of the influence of the star gods & Great Old Ones. Two the Sentries are found among the ruins & space wrecks of the Kree Empire craft that have crashed into Carcosa. There are two Kree 'ultra Sentries' who attend the temples of two unknown gods of Law on Carcosa. These Kree Sentries have access to many advanced & dangerous weapon systems but these 'ultra Sentries' true alien purposes are unknown.



Note that this blog post is not an attempt to violate the copyright or trademark of Marvel Comics nor its trademark or copyright holders. This blog post is for educational & entertainment purposes. None of the rpg writers or designers named is any way responsible for the contents of this blog post. Artwork used without permission.

Thoughts The Dungeon Ecology of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad 1973

If you need a recap on the overall plot & high points of one of my favorite Ray Harryhausen films go here. We're going to be diving deep into the background of this classic film & its comic book adaptation

Unknown Worlds issue #7 from the 'my comicshop' website.
 

So last night I watched the classic Conan film from '82 & then moved on to 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad'.

This film has so many classic old school Dungeons & Dragons  elements in it  & Prince Koura (Tom Baker) might as well have been the poster boy for so many black wizards that my PC's have faced over the years.

In Worlds Unknown 7 & 8. These two issues adapt the film “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad” & they're very well done. I've had these two comics through fire,flood,ex girl friends, & the demons of darkness knows what else. "Marvel Comics published a two-issue adaptation in Worlds Unknown #7–8 (June & Aug. 1974).^[5] Titled The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: Land Of The Lost, it was scripted by Len Wein, penciled by George Tuska and inked by Vince Colletta."  Sure they're not worth a lot but they have meaning for me beyond the mere cover price. Marvel's version of Sinbad was proper Sword & Sorcery  in many respects & appeared in various D&D games as a reference.
What a lot of folks don't realize is that the film & comic adaptations present some classic 'how to do a dungeon' elements especially for a Sword & Sorcery campaign. One of Sinbad's first mates states right off the top that this Lumeria is one of the island remains still sticking out of the sea. Shades of Clark Ashton Smith's Atlantis? If Smith's Poseidonis is "the last isle of foundering Atlantis" then this remain of Lemuria has grown corrupt with its own magick. Yet its still trying to influence the world of Sinbad's 8th century. The statue of that goddess isn't even necessarily Kali but like the Romans adapting local gods & goddesses to suit their needs. This is a corrupted  Lemuria version of the classic goddess look how easily Prince Koura animated it. Sure he paid the price for his black magick but he was a menace beyond most sanity.



That was the thing with the Unknown Worlds comic book it had top quality fare but the public was more interested in Star Wars then science fiction or Sword & Sorcery. The Seventies were a funny time & golden age for comic books & comic book style magazines. This phenomenon would of course reach its height in the black & white crash of the Eighties.

"Marvel Comics' science-fiction anthology Worlds Unknown ran eight issues, cover-dated May 1973 to August 1974. The title was one of four launched by Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Roy Thomas to form a line of science fiction and horror anthologies with more thematic cohesiveness than the company's earlier attempts that decade,^[1] which had included such series as Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows. Whereas those titles generally presented original stories, these new books would instead adapt genre classics and other works."

There's more here as well with the Clark Ashton style survival beyond its appointed time theme happening with the film's Lemurian descendant natives especially the God of the Single Eye and the Fountain's Guardian of Evil. The degenerate centaur & griffon are all that remains of the legacy of Lemuria in the film yet the natives maintain the dungeon out of religious tradition or a touch of destiny.
Again there's a sense of  CAS's Poseidonis about the Lumurian survival sticking up out of the ocean waters after all these centuries. Do the peoples living around the island think of themselves as Lumurians just as CAS's cycle of stories suggest about Atlantis?
"a large isle", "the last isle of foundering Atlantis" — "with its opulent seaports, its eon-surviving monuments of art and architecture, its fertile inland valleys, and mountains lifting their spires of snow above semi-tropic jungles" — "mountains of the interior" — people thought of themselves as Atlanteans — "members of an aboriginal race of Atlantis" survived on Poseidonis as slaves ("A Voyage to Sfanomoe", Clark Ashton Smith)

This pattern of dungeon location design that we see in the Golden Voyage of Sinbad is very similar to the ideas laid down in Dungeons & Dragons Vol. 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. This idea of native cultures & cults being centered on the dungeon location as both a place of worship & ancestral occult power is pervasive throughout Appendix N  literature.


Just like in the first Raiders of the Lost Ark film's  Hovito people's temple which is another 'lost world' remnant that's turned into a trap laden dungeon as well as a temple of occult power. The Lumurian survival island  is a clear anchor of the once powerful supernatural  legacy of the gods of this place. But its become corrupt, powerfully unbalanced, & could actually be a very real danger to those around it. This is exactly the sort of location well on its way to being a sink of evil ala Adventurer, Conqueror, King given few more centuries.
Of course in two strokes the Grand Vizier takes on not simply one crown but two.


Think about it, he's taken on the island kingdom as well. This isn't evident but he's a very wise man to out flank Prince Koura with Sinbad's help but is he about to leave that little island sitting out there? Who knows what other little Lumurian treasures are waiting for adventurers to stumble upon them?! Would your party leave such an adventure location?