Review & Commentary On Castles & Crusades S1 Heart of Glass By Stephen Chenault with Todd Gray For The Castles & Crusades Rpg or Your Old School Campaign

 "The Paladin sighed, looking to the ground. “I would not bring this upon you . . . . If I could, I would suffer your damnation!” He shook his head, “But . . . there is nothing else that we may do.”

"Malcom of Helliwell turned away. “You’re a bastard. But of course you know this.” He looked to his hands. Wrinkles and bones, they no longer bore the strength to wield a blade or heft a shield. How had this come to pass, he mused, his youth stolen in so few years? In days he aged months, in month’s years. There was no doubt eldritch magic involved, somehow involved with the wars. He stood upon the brink of death, and he knew it."

 

"And now they needed him. They needed his life prolonged for some spell or some such. Somehow he was the key.

“How long do I have, mage?”

The old wizard shook his head. His voice was cool and calm, “A day, two at the most. You either take Sagramore’s way or we bury you and the power you carry.”

Castles & Crusades Castles & Crusades S1 Heart of Glass By Stephen Chenault is a sixty eight page low 3-5 PC level adventure that brings the PC's into the dark underbelly of   the back alleys and abandoned neighborhoods of the Sea Towns of Ihlsa.
And this is an excellent adventure for introducing the Thieves guilds & criminal underbelly of the Sea Towns. Pirates,cutthroats, and other encounters with the underworld abound. Heart of Glass is part guide book and adventure centered around these areas. Encounters are well written but not balanced in the party of adventurers favor in anyway. The PC are going to have to have thier wits about them. Make no mistake for C&C this is a solid adventure to add underworld and scummy elements of the criminal to your campaigns. The writing here is solid, the layout good, and the fonts easily readable. 
And according to Heart of Glass's description; "The adventure takes place in the Sea Towns of Ihlsa:  Ra-veen, Nochiand Capayrnha. Portions of each town are detailed, including economy, government, persons of note, guilds, and places of interest. The adventure, the events surrounding the magical Heart of Glass, provides a backdrop to the towns, and serves to introduce both the CK and Players to what should develop" I'm happy to report that this is the case & Heart of Glass gives plenty of details on the Sea Towns which could become your adventurers base of operations for a while. S1 has it's deadly bits and it could be quite easy for a party to lose one or more members. 

S1 provides plenty of opportunities for the adventurers to get in way over thier heads. Heart of Glass has a bit of everything from urban encounters to a bit of dungeon crawling. S1 is a solid adventure to bring in both experienced and new players of Castles & Crusades. I recommend S1 as a solid introduction to the Castles & Crusades rpg. 

Review & Commentary On 'Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination: An OSR adventure' By Marcelo P Augusto

 ""Something evil and cruel has been terrorizing the peaceful villagers of Woodsmen Village. Who will be the brave adventurers able to discover the source of this evil and restore peace to the land?"

" Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination is a level 1-2 OSR adventure, all in old school fun."

Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination: An OSR adventure By Marcelo P Augusto is a low level 1-2 adventure that clocks in at twenty four pages. It's not a bad little first level adventure that centers itself around a small wilderness and village set of encounters. Is Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination excetptional?! No and it really doesn't have to be to a solid stepping stone adventure. 
What 'Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination' is a first level wilderness and dungeon delve that can and will have player's PC's encountering any number of wilderness & village encounters. And that's fine.  Marcelo P Augusto has a bit of diaherra of the pen in some of his descriptions of rooms, encounters, and artifacts. At twenty four pages 'Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination' doesn't over stay it's welcome. 'Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination' does is present a workable start point for a group of OSR gamers & thier PC's. 

 'Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination ' adventure has a variety of random or fixed encounters that center around the village and it's wilderness environs. This leads back into the main adventure plot and that works. Where  Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination would work is as a side adventure or quest for a classic module such as B2 Keep on the Borderlands or as an introductory adventure into a home brew campaign. There's enough meat here and encounters. But the real gist of ' Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination' is as a lower tier introductory adventure.  And I can easily see 'Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination: An OSR adventure' By Marcelo P Augusto being used with Castles & Crusades or other OSR rpg systems. 
With the Borderlands the events of B2 could be used to highlight the adventure elements of the keep and it's surroundings. The orcs that the party randomly encounters are centered around the Caves of Chaos. The monsters are trickling in from the dungeons of the caves. And the events of ' Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination ' could be back engineered into the adventure material of B2. 

The small village and it's wilderness environs could play host to the events surrounding ' Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination' by being connected with B2's rise of chaos. There's enough between the two modules to get PC's up to level four. If they survive the encounters and are extremely careful. 
'Into the Caves of the Pestilent Abomination: An OSR adventure' By Marcelo P Augusto works because it plays on being a highly servicable and easily modifiable module for beginning PC's. 

OSR Commentary On The Wizard's Scroll - Issue 1- A 'Pay What You Want' Swords & Wizardry Fanzine

 So back in 2016 'The Wizard's Scroll' premeired & since then nothing. Now normally this wouldn't be an issue but since the on going OSR games that I'm involved with have a number of dungeon masters & players with floating dungeon masters. There have been a number of OSR resource that have come to my attention through the other DM's that I share the chair with. This is one of those OSR  resources & this post is going to pick right back up from this blog post here. And this blog post  here as well 

There's a few NPC's that are going back into our current campaign & one of these is Niptuck by Tod Roe. This skinless sorcerer has taken two our number back on Carcosa and turned them into skin bags. All of this centers around the adventure the Demon Shattered Tower By Steven A. Cook from the The Wizard's Scroll - Issue 1. And the tower in this adventure  can be & is a deadly little addition to an ongoing campaign. 

There a couple more adventures in 'The Wizard's Scroll - Issue 1' & one of these is Charles Mason's The Wizard's Tower. The Wizard's Tower is a solid set up for a an isolated expeditionary adventure; "The wizard’s tower is said to be haunted by demons and devils. The tower itself has two demon heads carved into the stone on the east and west sides. The only living inhabitant now is no demon, but he has stared into the depths of the abyss. The wizard acquired the old fortress and renovated it when he was very young. He had the demon heads added to the tower, perhaps to scare off the locals or possibly as tribute to demon patrons. That was over 150 years ago." This is a nasty four level affair in a wizard's tower perfect for a wilderness romp. 
The Wizard's Scroll - Issue 1-  A 'Pay What You Want' Swords & Wizardry Fanzine is available here. 

For a gritty Greyhawk campaign The Wizard's Scroll is a no brainer. It has a ton of potential with just these two adventures. But add in the idea of a Midevil authantic campaign & the Wizard's Scroll  works out even better. 

And the Wizard's Scroll could easily be slipped into a Castles & Crusades rpg campaign with little issue or fuss. The combination of the adventure ideas, locations, etc. all fit with the traditional nature of a C&C driven Greyhawk easily. 

B10 Night's Dark Terror By Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, Phil Gallagher For Your Old School Pulp Adventure Campaign

"Barely one day's march from Kelven, the uncharted tracts of the Dymrak forest conceal horrors enough to freeze the blood of civilized folk. Those who have ventured there tell how death comes quick to the unwary - for the woods at night are far worse than any dungeon. But you are adventurers, veterans of many battles, and the call of the will is strong. Will you answer the call, or are you afraid of the dark terrors of the night?

Way back in the early Eighties I read a lot of X men comic books & I noticed that the group did a ton of wilderness based adventures. In fact if you begin looking into super hero comic books & graphic novels there's tons of lost world & such settings thrown into the mix. B10 Night's Dark Terror.  B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) was made  the TSR UK brain trust of Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, and Phil Gallagher. 


B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) is an old school adventure that I've used time & again with a wide variety of old school & OSR retroclones. Dungeon mastering B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) includes OSR systems like  Dark Albion & Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 2nd edition recently.

But I can already hear the groans from the reading audience, what the hell does one module have to do with two OSR game systems  & does this tie into the Thirty Year War? Wherever Chaos touches or washes against reality we've got mutation, supernatural issues, and the old Elven hills & pagan groves in some places are still opening upon Fairyland."The characters encounter a town under siege by goblins, a ruined city, and a lost valley" The Elves are doubling down on taking over a wide variety of realities & Fairyland is basically using old fairy rings & ruins across the planes. How does this work?
Fairyland is a rolling planar demi realm accessed as a higher parasitic dimension that touch on other realities.


For my purposes of 'The Otheworld' is another aspect of the realm of Fairyland that reflects the weirdness & the dangerous occult chaos of the other dimensional realm of the Elves. Each & every time these higher parasitic dimensions touch a reality they bring the subtle energies of chaos with them. So essentially each time a cult accesses an aspect of Fairyland it brings these places back into the world along with the chaotic ecological system. Dungeons are not simply created their borne of the chaos of the realm of Fairy.


D&D Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (1976), by Rob Kuntz & James Ward, is the fourth of four supplements for the OD&D game. It was published in July 1976 & has a solid roster of Celtic gods & heroes who have fought the powers of Fairyland to a stand still.  The 'Otherworld' is also an origin source of kings, heroes, & the destiny place  of warriors, knights, & wizards.

"The Otherworld was also seen as a source of authority. In the tale Baile in Scáil ("the phantom's ecstatic vision"), Conn of the Hundred Battles visits an Otherworld hall, where the god Lugh legitimizes his kingship and that of his successors.^{[1]"These various rolling dimensional aspects of  'the Otherworld' empower both the adventurers & heroes as well as fuel the whole of Fairyland. The original purpose of the place has been perverted.}
B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) is a perfect pulp adventure to use because  this is a transition module and takes PC's into the big leagues! That's right set B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) in some back part of Europe in middle of the Pulp Age or  the Golden Age of Superheroes and they're going to get noticed big time! 

Modern weapons are not going to be a huge deciding factor if your adventurer or pulp hero is looking down the business end of an owl bear! Way back in the Eighties many of the independent comic book companies had their own super hero & pulp teams encountering & recruiting wizards, clerics, thieves, etc. from Dungeons & Dragons style worlds into their ranks.

No one batted an eye & the number of Arthurian heroes that Marvel & D.C. used is numerous. The fact is that dungeon masters back in the Seventies & Eighties used whatever mythical or  fictional characters they needed as NPC's.

B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) is a stepping stone module & even with modern pulp style adventurers is going to be a challenge. With the Amazing Adventures! rpg from Troll Lord Games the challenge will be keeping the PCs alive to get to the back bone of this adventure!

A Gloomuim Laden OSR Commentary On The Demon Stones Adventure By Monkey Blood Design For Your Old School Campaigns

So while I'm having a beer last night & I'm on the phone with a friend speaking at length about his Midderlands campaign.  The following statement  came up during the conversation, "Unfortunately there's no real adventures available for the OSR setting? "  This gets into one of the actual problems that I've had with OSR bloggers over the years and we'll get to that adventure in a moment.



One of the real problems I have with OSR adventure reviews on various blogs is that the writers in question don't actually use the various adventures in play during their campaigns. Yup they do tons & tons of reviews both good & bad but very seldom do I see bloggers actually use these products that they're send in pdf  or book form in actual play. So over the years I've created a variety of kitchen sink campaign worlds to test out a wide variety of OSR products without breaking the campaign that I'm running. I'm not a guy who has an rpg book sitting on shelf someplace and this brings me to the Midderlands by Monkey Blood Design. The campaign setting is rife with its own green hued Gloomuim laden chaos inducing mutational magick. Glenn isn't paying me for this nor have there been any bribes. But he's got a Kickstarter on right now to expand the English countryside inspired OSR setting.

So right now in my own home Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Second Edition home game I'm making a bit of plans to back door right in my own version of the Midderlands! A nice little isolated group of country locations with some secrets!  This brings me to that introduction adventure there's a lovely little OSR adventure for Swords & Wizardry called The Demon Stones by Monkey Blood Design.

“The sun had set an hour ago, and the rain lashed down and the wind howled on the dark moor. A storm this late in the season was unusual, but this one seemed different. The clouds were more menacing, tinged with anger, the rain colder and more biting than usual.
Skerrill had to find the lost calf and get him back to the farm before his father came back from the city on business. He’d been looking for two hours now, and he was right in the middle of the moor when the storm hit. He knew he should have turned back as soon as darkness fell, but then he was never the brightest boy in the valley. If only he had remembered to lock the farm gate.
The calf was now likely dead anyway having stumbled among the boulders and rocks, panicking in the dark, and then fallen in a floodwater stream and drowned. Either way, he was in more trouble than he could imagine.
Suddenly, a bright flash of white light and a roaring peal of thunder were preceded by an explosion as a huge object fell from the sky and impacted the ground of the moor no more than a stone’s throw from him. Dirt, mud, water, and debris erupted from the impact site, flying high into the air and then covering the moor for hundreds of feet all around.
Skerrill was knocked to the ground instantly and covered in the fallout from the blast. His ears rang and his head spun, but he staggered to his feet in a daze.
He stumbled to where the blast had happened only moments before, and in a depression in the ground lay a huge stone glowing orange as if hot. Skerrill passed out.
Two more thunderous explosions crashed in the distance.”

The Demon Stones shares many of the same locations & monsters as the Midderlands & can seamlessly be inserted into a campaign as an introduction adventure. Sure some of the encounters, PC levels,etc. will have to be adjusted for a beginning set of PC's. But this could prove to be a perfect set up to get the players into the setting without breaking the bank.

Many of the basic elements of the adventure can be seen in this flip through of the adventure. This includes some of the cartography, maps, and set up. The Demon Stones adventure could be worked out for a Dark Albion or The Lion & Dragon retroclone game as well.

The reason why I've stopped doing reviews is because I actually own this adventure & I want to use many of the OSR books that have been gathering dust. I want these adventures used in play & that's exactly what's going to be happening in the next couple of months!
I'm going to put out session reports, adapting commentaries, & more!

A Totally Different Take On B10 Night's Dark Terror By Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, Phil Gallagher For Your Old School Campaign

"Barely one day's march from Kelven, the uncharted tracts of the Dymrak forest conceal horrors enough to freeze the blood of civilized folk. Those who have ventured there tell how death comes quick to the unwary - for the woods at night are far worse than any dungeon.
But you are adventurers, veterans of many battles, and the call of the will is strong. Will you answer the call, or are you afraid of the dark terrors of the night?"

So I've been thinking of aligning the events of the  Thirty Years War  with B10 Night's Dark Terror.  B10: Night’s Dark Terror (1986) was made  the TSR UK brain trust of Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, and Phil Gallagher.  You can't possibly use B10 with the Lion & Dragon rpg system?! Right? Wrong given the fact that there are a few improvements in black powder weapons, medicine,etc. from the Medieval period its not a stretch to move the time line forward a bit after the Rose War. Cut the reload time in half, adjust some of the healing checks, update the maps, revamp the religious issues & your ready to go! The Thirty Years war is perfect campaign fodder. We'll see where religion plays it hand in this campaign!
"The Thirty Years' War was a war fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648."  Why would Night's Dark Terror work for a Dark Europe game? Fairyland has suffered extensively during the history of the world up till this time. Well sort of.
Fairyland is a collection of heavens, Hells, & pure Chaos where the dreams & souls of mankind are the stuff supernatural fuel. Given the religious nature of the Thirty Years War well this is perfect fodder for bringing goblins back into the world. Certain groups of Elves have been using the cover of the war to move among humanity almost undetected. Wherever Chaos touches or washes against reality we've got mutation, supernatural issues, and the old Elven hills & pagan groves in some places are still opening upon Fairyland. So the Elven courts are taking full advantage of the foolishness of Humanity & in someplaces opening the gates to Fairyland where their own alien wilderness is taking over! That's right Night's Dark Terror is the Elves uncovering the ruins of a former fortress right in the middle of their realm that hasn't been used in centuries. They're going to feed on the souls of those fools who fall into the wilderness to expand their own empire. This means that Night's Dark Terror could be set in Hungry, Bohemia, Austria, or the Black Forrest of Germany.


 

Don't forget this is a wilderness crawl and it can swallow entire parties quite easily and even with black powder weapons parties can easily die in the blackness of this adventure. I would probably set B10 Night's Dark Terror in the realms of the Hungarian wilderness. The elements of the slavers and more cry out for it. The realms of  Russia are way too far away from the clash of the Thirty Years war. When could this adventure be set? Right around the time of the Bohemian Revolution of 1618.
"The Bohemian Revolt (1618–1620) was an uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty that began the Thirty Years' War. It was caused by both religious and power disputes."
The Thirty Years War is just starting, events are far more up in the air in Europe then they've ever been. And there's rumors of the Devil about in every nock and cranny of Europe especially around the Czech lands.


But B10 Night's Dark Terror is a second level to forth level adventure & players want an adventure path right back into something resembling a character level  ascendancy. Fear not because by using Gary Gygax's  B2 Keep On The Borderlands its possible to get the PC's right into the thick of events!  The PC's are minor noble or upper class adventurers who get themselves sent onto the border of Bohemia or Hungry to look into rumors of supernatural horror. The woods, dungeons, etc of the Caves of Chaos are actually in Fairyland. The keep itself has been touched by the forces of Chaos & everything begins to come together from there. The PC's are low ranking royals whom the various families want out from under foot. They have the important job of investigating the border and they're out of the way of the events of the new Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, coming to power!


B2 could get PC's up to level second or even third level but B10 Night's Dark Terror is perfect for shunting PC's with Elven fairy slavers taking full advantage of the chaos & fog of war. Even with black powder weapons its not going to make a blind bit of difference against an owlbear or worse.


So why use B10 Night's Dark Terror for Thirty Years War Campaign? Because this is a transition module and takes PC's into the big leagues. Should they survive they'll know of the dangers & possible alien threat that Fairy posses to the world of men. Beyond the petty religious squabbles of Europe there are alien things nipping at the heels of the world.


So how does a dungeon master deal with the serious nature of the Thirty Years War? There are lots of old wounds & prickly bits to deal with. That's actually very simple, you treat them as you would with a bit of humor & go the route of the classic BCC Black Adder television show. Have a good time and make sure everyone is open season and I do mean everyone! Don't leave your players hanging!



Don't worry dear readers I haven't abandoned Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. We've got a hook up campaign & adventure point coming up!

Review & Commentary On The Battle For The Purple Islands By From Kort'thalis Publishing For Your Old School Campaigns

I have a very strong connections with The Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence, its a very flexible & dangerous adventure location/setting from the warped mind of Venger Satanis. A gonzo science fantasy setting with  liberal doses of  'R' rated  sex, gore, & lots of mayhem. All of which collide with the  concepts from H.P. Lovecraft's circle of Cthulhu mythos writers. But what are the islands themselves & the brand new factions, horrors, & the adventure kit? Wait what?! Didn't you know that the new Heavy Metal style magazine aesthetic adventure & expansion book The Battle For The Purple Islands has hit the shelves of Drivethrurpg

"What are they? A forbidden sanctuary of weirdness in the middle of the ocean. Three large islands next to

each other with dark purple sand, unbelievable creatures, and treasures untold. It’s a gonzo science fantasy paradise!

You see, much of the dark forces reigning supreme over the purple islands were vanquished by adventuring heroes. They came, they saw, and they slaughtered. A few years went by without incident.

Everyone started coming to the islands after things quieted down—colonists, anthropologists, big game hunters, sightseeing tourists, etc. But then obscene purple blasphemies deep within the islands began to resurface"

The islands have a bit of an overhaul & get back into the multi dimensional madness that them great as an adventure location in the first place. There's lots of reasons for your PC's to be on the islands and the book actually provides a number of random tables to give your characters a reason to be there. The whole affair clocks in at about twenty three or so pages. There's Venger's usual OSR & O5R vibe through out but in this case that's not a bad thing. Basically this book is a number of interconnected adventure plot points with factional information scattered throughout as much adventure as tool kit. Battle for The Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence is Venger's Seventies & Early Eighties wet dream love letter with blood slime from 'Cannibal Holocaust' mixed with 'Stop Motion' dinosaurs from 'Land of The Lost'.

There are expansions of existing Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence factions & new ones like 'Cannibal' tribes that will eat your PC's in heart beat, yes you do meet HP Lovecraft & yes there is an Alpha Blue adventure in for you Satanis veteran players. This is an extremely dangerous little book with lots of new pit falls & weirdness waiting for PC's. I'm talking new factions such as the Sorcerers of the Crescent Moon who are serpent men from another time just waiting for PC's. "When at least one of the purple moons is crescent, a snake-man sorcerer named H'ssan comes down from the mountain to steal warm-blooded humans. Under cover of darkness, H’ssan procures sacrifices for Xivirinthi, the ancient wyrm who lives inside the third moon."
Then you've got Talking Apes an in for Apes Victorious if you ever needed one! Why? Why not because everything is better with apes! "The purple islands allow for travel through time, space,
and other dimensions. So, it’s no wonder that certain areas of the jungle have been altered by the
quantum upheaval. Such changes bring civilizations from parallel worlds and alternate universes. Talking apes that walk upright like men is just one example.
The apes are part of a community called New Ape City. They carry machine guns, attempting to conquer the purple islands whenever they meet a force that threatens them—both physically and intellectually… radical ideas that go against their
religious-scientific belief system."
The ones you really don't want to meet are the brotherhood of the Unquiet Void, "A religious order calling themselves Brotherhood of the Unquiet Void devote themselves to those outer
abominations whose slime drips down from another universe, a universe of throbbing, twitching, screaming
flesh, gory and insane and spilling out into the unreachable darkness. The brotherhood worships
entities that hail from such places, and they have a leader named Kaion Vasus" Sort of a combination of the underdwellers from Battle For The Planet of the Apes & what happens to the world population in the film In The Mouth of Madness. These are not folks you want to invite over for supper. Then there's encounters with Lovecraft younger & older(don't ask). Lots of encounter tables for hex crawling across the islands. This is where the book shines of OSR style games especially if your into own a couple of OSR retroclone systems and want to expand your players adventuring! This also takes place in a timeless setting meaning that this is the book your going to want to pick up to introduce new players to the gonzo Lovecraftian sleazy jungle dripping action of The Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence.
Is Battle For The Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence worth the five dollar price tag? In a word yes, even if you don't own the original then Battle is your entry level drug for the weird science fantasy setting. This book brings home the setting and there are several tables that should have been in the original book. Your not paying twice for same setting folks this book has lots and lots of new material that isn't the 'special features' that ended up on the cutting room floor. Instead this is an add on book for the setting. Which leads into the next question should there be another book in the Purple Haunted Putrescence setting series of books? In a word yes.
If your into the All Night Long USA style gonzo cheese and weirdness of Venger Satanis's science fantasy setting then this is book for you. Will I be using it in future and upcoming games? In a word yes!
But this isn't a perfect book, I wanted more awesomeness and cult crazy gonzo adventure but this is a gateway & continuation book. In this alone the book sustains and in some points exceeds its goals. I'd say an even five out of five for purple haunted weirdness!

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE ! 

Six More Public Domain OSR Resources For Your Old School Campaigns

I've heard some friends  recently speaking about the OGL during a recent debate the other night at my house about the fact that 'all of the good magic items & treasures were taken' & there was nothing left to use. Well your uncle Eric is here to give you some shiny public domain treasures, artifacts, and relics that can kickstart your old school games into high gear. All of these are from wiki & easily sourced back to their original sources.



The first up is The List of mythological objects this includes all kinds of things;"a variety of items (e.g. weapons, armour, clothing) found in mythology, legend, folklore and religion from across the world. This list will be organized according to the category of object"
Then there's the grand list from the 'List of mythological objects (Hindu Mythology)' this includes (e.g. weapons, armor, clothing). There's some awesome treasures and relics that relates to many of the sagas & stories. Perfect fodder for all kinds of adventures & OSR setting material.



Then there's the 'Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain list' which is includes;"The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain (Welsh: Tri Thlws ar Ddeg Ynys Prydain) are a series of items in late medieval Welsh tradition. Lists of the items appear in texts dating to the 15th and 16th centuries.^[2] Most of the items are placed in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North", the Brittonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and Northern England; some early manuscripts refer to the whole list specifically as treasures "that were in the North".^[2] The number of treasures is always given as thirteen, but some later versions list different items, replacing or combining entries to maintain the number" These are perfect fodder material to slide your OSR adventurers into a Celtic or Authurian game setting or adventure with little issue. These can slide right into the Four Treasures of The  Tuatha Dé Danann   as a sacred side note to slip into place right inside a dark Europe adventure.



There's also a slew of relics, items, and artifacts from the Bible perfect fodder for adventures with a historical spin.  The artifacts in biblical archaeology list is extensive and easily back fitted into the  Relics associated with Jesus 
 entry which is perfect to spin all kinds of adventures around. This could include things like Nazi occult hunters, a bit of time travel, and spinning this stuff into adventures like the Lamentations of the Flame Princess dark historical setting or even as possible fodder for Eighties style horror with overtones of the Keep.

This makes back to back adventures a snap, Mayfair games did a 'Keep'  adventure where you play adventurers in the past and their descendants in the future. Since then I've used this gimmick a few times and as long as the players are down with it. This seems to be a hit with some people who really enjoy this style of play.
I also came across this list of  10 Amazing Mythological Objects from listverse.

 In the end with a bit of research some time and energy plus google you can come across a vast array of artifacts and relics that will have your players wondering at the sources & game books your using.



Remember to keep those dice rolling.

Six Free Public Domain Resources Perfect For The Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rpg System or Your Old School Campaigns

I was doing some research earlier today and ran across six wonderful public domain review resources that are perfect for either Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Dark Albion or your old school campaigns. First up is Spectropia; or, Surprising Spectral Illusions (1865) "A book of Victorian hi-tech ghost conjuring which allows the reader to summon, as the sub-title proclaims, “ghosts everywhere and of any colour”. Accompanying the set of wonderfully gaudy images, are directions on how to use them, and a more detailed scientific description about how the illusion works" Just the thing to have your wizard or dark conjurer unleash upon an unsuspecting party of adventurers someplace in the Alps during the Hundred Years War or upon the forgotten plains of the Rose War.


Next up is the book From India to the Planet Mars (1900) which basically details a medium's contact with Mars and some of her other 'visitations' with other worldly entities. "She also claimed to have contact with people living on Mars and to be able to speak their language which she wrote down during her seances, as well as sketches of the landscape she witnessed" Perfect material for a star cult for Dark Albion or as a side project for a wizard in Lamentations of the Flame Princess's dark version of Europe. Much of the material here reminds me of Empire of the Petal Throne and other weird alien OSR landscapes.



Another piece of artwork is the wood cut from Japan about the legendary sea monster known as the sea monk. This is the sort of horror that would easily fit in with the Mad Monks of Kowtoon or Qelong according to the account from the piece;"This ukiyo-e woodblock print, by the late Edo period artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861), illustrates a story involving the “Sea Monk” or Umibōzu, a spirit in Japanese folklore. The ocean dwelling spirit — so called because of his smooth monk-like round head — is said to capsize the ship of anyone who dares speak to it. Kuniyoshi’s woodblock tells of a sailor Kawanaya Tokuzo who, despite it being considered unlucky in the world of seafaring, decides to go to sea on the last day of the year. A terrible storm breaks out, and the giant figure of the Umibōzu appears. Against the roar of the waves the apparition asks, “Name the most horrible thing you know!” Tokuzo yells in reply, “My profession is the most horrible thing I know!” The answer apparently satisfies the monster as he then disappears along with the storm." Maybe the thing could be used as a part of a funnel for DCC which the contact with the monster is enough to jump start the fighting spirit of a fighter, the evil of a thief, and the brush with the supernatural enough to cause a wizard to be birthed into the world.



Need some other worldly races or something different for PC races well  Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing  has you covered. "Images from an illustrated version of a 13th-century Arabic treatise by Zakariya al-Qazwini titled ‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt (Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing). The text is probably the best known example of ‘ajā’ib or ‘jā’ib al-makhlūqāt literature, a genre of classical Islamic literature that was concerned with “mirabilia”: cosmographical and geographical topics that challenged understanding. Al-Qazwini’s treatise explored an eclectic mix of topics, from humans and their anatomy to strange mythical creatures; from plants and animals to constellations of stars and zodiacal signs"
This is a perfect resource to pull from for those weird occult items, monsters and people encountered. Bits and pieces of this book could also be printed out and used as player handouts for your games.



Along the same vein is the The Dream-God, or A Singular Evolvement of Thought in Sleep (1873) which is;"A short and curious work recounting an extremely vivid and elaborate vision while under the influence of morphine. The tale seems to be based on a true story, an experience of the author John Cunningham who explains in a “Letter to My Friends” that “Although requested by a number of you at various times to write this condensed narrative of an event in my life, associated with much misfortune, sadness and suffering which have continued for some years, it was not until during a lonely period of quietude at Brooklyn, N.Y., in the summer of 1872" This is perfect fodder for HP Lovecraft  dreamlands  or visionary OSR style adventures. "The morphine-addled “Sleeper”, as he is referred to throughout, then proceeds to accompany the “Spirit” on a long and winding flight witnessing a range of strange and marvellous natural phenomena – such as a window at the North-pole down into the fiery core, and 500 foot primordial lizards – as well as a whole host of spiritual and philosophical encounters with the likes of Confucius, Cleopatra, and Zoroaster." Talk about NPC random encounters and the idea of a party out to help awaken some poor soul trapped in the dream world would be a truly epic quest.


Finally what about a mysrterious real world occult book about the powers of Hell itself! Talk about your great player handouts and adventure hooks;"The Clavis Inferni (“The Key of Hell”) by Cyprianus, is a late-18th-century book on black magic. Written in a mixture of Latin, Hebrew, and a cipher alphabet (namely that of Cornelius Agrippa’s Transitus Fluvii or “Passing through the River” from the Third Book of Occult Philosophy written around 1510) the book has remained rather mysterious due to its unknown origin and context. It is said to be a textbook of the Black School at Wittenburg, a supposed school somewhere in Germany where one could learn the dark arts." This is a perfect book to find in the library of a wizard or black magician.


But apparently there wasn't only one author but a slew of wizards who used the title or name  Cyprianuses:" Benjamin Breen writes in The Appendix of how the existence throughout history of various magically-inclined Cyprianuses – from “a Dane […] who was so evil that Satan cast him out of hell” to the Greek wizard St. Cyprian of Antioch (who later converted to Christianity) – led to the name becoming a popular pseudonym for “people at the edges of society who were trying to do real black magic”." Just the tid bit to use as an adventure hook for either Lamentations or Dark Albion. Print out some of the pages and get rolling on seeking out the author or the black school of dark magick.  

Many of these resources would make perfect additions to England Upturn'ed especially in the libararies of some of the NPC wizards or scholars. I already did a complete review of England Upturn'd right over here and I think its a damn bloody good piece of thunderously nasty book for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess system.

Commentary On The Driftwood Verses Kickstarter & Some Free Resources For The Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rpg System

Well, first of all I just got home after a day of repair work and more so its time for me to unwind and begin to look at some of the OSR material coming across my desk. Let's start with the fact that Clint and Cassie Krause  plus the Red Moon Medicine Show folks just hit 11,301 for Driftwood Verses!
Congrats to another successful kickstarter and there's more rewards and such to unlock yet. So head over there and check it out! There's something damn well appealing about Driftwood Verses and as a Herman Melville fan this really hits the same spot as some of the haunted sea tales that I grew up with in Connecticut. Now Driftwood Verses is Melville meets David Cronenberg meets Gothic Literature spun through a fever dream and drenched in acid for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess system.
You Can Support It Here!

I have a tendency to think of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg as a separate system completely from many of the other retroclone on the market. There are a variety of reasons for this one being that the add ons & adventures are system enclosed products unto themselves such as 'Better Then Any Man', two the system is modular so that it will work with, 'The Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia' and the quality of LoFP titles have been consistently useful at my table. Which brings me to the Red Moon Medicine Show's LoFP material which is almost always of a slightly better quality then some of the OSR efforts that I've seen over the years. The Red Moon Medicine Show's Vacant Ritual Assembly LoFP zines are killer and so are they're adventures. I would expect that The Drift Wood Verses is going to be up too or exceed this standard.

Some other free resources that I ran across today on the Public Domain Review website also fit some of the themes, ideas, settings, and elements explored in  Vacant Ritual Assembly and with a bit of work could be used to blow open entire campaign venues into past or future histories for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Let's start with some of the more obvious ones :

Living Lights: a Popular Account of Phosphorescent Animals and Vegetables (1887)

Want a hook for drawing your PC's into the world of Driftwood Verses, perhaps the account of a scientist whose barely able to understand the weird entities and creatures of Driftwood. With a bit of work there's tons that can be mined from this book on glowing fauna and flora. 

 

Shells and other Marine Life from Albertus Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (1734)

Is the perfect collection of marine life to stick that odd item, mystical relic, or biological curiosity into the collection of the Dutch pharmacist and collector Albertus Seba (1665-1736) was an ardent collector of plants, insects, and animals, amassing a collection which in 1716 was bought by Peter the Great. Together with the collection of one of Seba’s countrymen, the anatomist Frederik Ruysch, the collections formed the base for the Kunstkammer in St Petersburg, the first museum in Russia. In 1734, Seba published his Thesaurus, titled Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio, translated as “Accurate description of the very rich thesaurus of the principal and rarest natural objects”, and consisted of four volumes of which two were published after Seba’s death.

Orbis Sensualium Pictus – or The World of Things Obvious to the Senses drawn in Pictures, as it was rendered in English.

"In the mid 17th-century John Comenius published what many consider to be the first picture book dedicated to the education of young children" and its a weird little affair of a book with lots of strange illustrations and more. The perfect thing to use as a hand out for PC's to find aboard a drifting wreck or ghost ship especially with other pictures drawn into the margins or blood stains on the sides of the book.

Need a conspiracy of vice and rich folks as villains for your LoFP campaign? Especially ones with ties down into modern times then go behind the scenes of Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy

What about rumors and weird tales of sailors and legends of the  Driftwood Verses settings? Perhaps the tales might be found in one of the many hundreds of brothels and taverns talked about 17th-century London which saw an explosion of nocturnal activity in the capital, most of it centring around the selling of sex.The Nightwalker and the Nocturnal Picaresque is the perfect resource to get the tall tales going and the sex moving your plots along. 

"In On the Threshold of the Unseen (1917) he wrote that “it is not a very incredible thing to suppose that in the luminiferous ether (or in some other unseen material medium) life of some kind exists”. He imagined such beings to be “human-like, but not really human, intelligences — good or bad daimonia they may be, elementals as some have called them”. But where, then, did they dwell?" all of this comes from  Worlds Without End a look into the occult practices of the 19th century perfect fodder for Driftwood Verses and even more LoFP hi jinks.

 
  This is just a small sample of the wealth of information that's out there for old school games  with a bit of patience you can dig up some fantastic resources. I've got more material coming up soon.  But for now keep those dice rolling!