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

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

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



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



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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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





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


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