OSR Echoes Of 'The Old Earth' Setting Adventure Locations & Commentaries

Meanwhile last night I dug out my copy of C.L.Moore's Northwest Smith stories, Clark Ashton Smith, a bit Robert Howard, and some of the usual H.P.Lovecraft tales. This puts me right back square into the territory of Leigh Brackett. The post colonial world of Old Earth is three ticks from when the 'stars come right'. And this age is  a repeat of Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborean cycle

 The Hyperboreans coped with the changes and destruction of 'Old Earth' as best they could whist coming out of their bunkers to find themselves far off world. Hyperborea now sits out in the solar system. Meanwhile 'Old Earth' has been reduced to tribalism in spots with high tech city states here and there. A few Hyperborean states still exist but Antarctica is now the new continent of mystery & danger.

As I said in Clark Ashton Smith's 'Forbidden Planet' Movie Connections To The 'Old Solar System' Campaign Setting 

Earth has become one vast science fantasy resource with Leigh Brackett's Tribal Exploitation Corporation taking advantage to scoop in, take apart temporary temples and tribal shrines on the plateau of Leng. Then leave before the Tcho Tchos or the Gnophkehs swoop in & tear apart the whole hover craft or space ship. Antarctica is one of the most dangerous places on the Old Earth because of the return of the Elder Things and Shoggoths.

Cults of Ithaqua, Rhan-Tegoth  Aphoom-Zhah,  and the Ice Worm cults are also flourishing at the North Pole Aggregate an amalgamation of Alaska parts of Canada, & some fragments of Iceland. Making the whole of the the upper part of the Americas very dangerous indeed. The religion & cults  of the toad-god Tsathoggua is far more mainstream today. In many places there are hidden shrines and back wood temples not built by human hands. This happened after the return of the empire of the K’nyan. The conquest of the surface world took decades but the remains of the war abound. Hidden temples in the jungles of  Antarctica indicate that the formless demons of Tsathoggua guard dangerous secrets not meant for man's eyes. Unusual & weird artifacts appear in the marketplaces of what was once Australia and the near East.


Meanwhile in parts of Europe cities lay abandoned or taken over by various witch cults, bandit groups, adventurers, & unspeakable monsters. Lamia of many types inhabit parts of Europe, they are often the heads of cults or worse. Initiates often venture deep into other worldly wildernesses using the Aklo rites to become changed by the White People or other entities in rituals far too horrible to describe.  What comes back can hardly be described as human.


Outside the city states block after block of abandoned & lost cities stand empty as if waiting for new owners who might not come. The distant roar of atomic rock engines pierces the night sky with citizens  on their way to the gleaming  space stations that keep track of the strangely changing topography of the world below.


In what was Africa the empire of Opar has awoken from its ancient slumber & taken over their region of the world. The Atlantis refugees have reforged their ancient outpost but local tribes are still resisting them. Heroes have emerged from hidden enclaves of their own with sorcerous knowledge & relic technologies of their own. Various Hyperborean & human adventurers often find themselves here because of the old dolmen gateway systems that still function here. The empire of Opar is it said bows to hidden lizard king emperors who once ruled vast tracks of Africa from their Nameless City headquarters. Many adventurers come to Africa to try their luck in the dangerous ruins that dot the coast. Few if any ever return.


So what's going on here? Well I'm working on building some of the adventure locations and monsters of Old Earth. I've decided to use some of the classic OSR monsters from Rafael Chandler 's Teratic Tome for some of the weird Lamia style monsters after looking into several new ones from the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition ones.  The Tome is one of my all time favorite OSR monster books and should fill my needs for mid tier Swords & Weirdness monsters for my Saturday evening game.

I'm also working tonight with Dark Albion & Dark Albion Cults of Chaos to flesh out some of the cults of Old Earth. Because Dark Albion works so well with AS&SH, this is really an easy fix because of running out of time with work. Some of the material of Dark Albion's medieval resources have super easy tables to flesh out communities, villages, and more. This means some of the heavy lifting has been done for me as a dungeon master.


Cults of Chaos helps to put some flesh on my take on the Lovecraftian entities. The magick of Dark Albion actually fits rather well with some of the material I've got going with my personal game. Cults of Chaos seems rather well suited for creating the backwater horrors of Old Earth. I'm not looking for the skull crushing horror of the Lovecraft Mythos but the suitiblier horrors of Clark Ashton Smith occultism which Cults of Chaos hits nicely. Brandon has a nice Youtube review that hits the highlights nicely.

Clark Ashton Smith's Novella The Plutonian Drug To The 'Old Solar System' Campaign Setting & the Slow War

The Plutonian Drug is one of the cooler early efforts by Clark Ashton Smith & fits right into the Old School Solar system nicely. The connections are there for the other H.P. Lovecraft's circle of writers & the Plutonian drug lays down some very deep connections indeed. The Plutonian Drug, published in Amazing Stories for September, 1934 isn't that well known outside of fans of Lovecraft & CAS.



Not only do we get a quick overview of how dangerous space exploration is but we get a quick nod to a Moon expedition in 1975!
"'It is remarkable.' said Dr. Manners, 'how the scope of our pharmacopoeia has been widened by interplanetary exploration. In the past thirty years, hundreds of hitherto unknown substances, employable as drugs or medical agents, have been found in the other worlds of our own system. It will be interesting to see what the Allan Farquar expedition will bring back from the planets of Alpha Centaurt when -- or if — it succeeds in reaching then and returning to earth. I doubt, though, if anything more valuable than selenine will be discovered. Selenine, derived from a fossil lichen found by the first rocket-expedition to the moon in 1975, has, as you know, practically wiped out the old-time curse of cancer. In solution, it forms the base of an infallible serum, equally useful for cure or prevention.'"  This might be a homage to HG Wells First Men in the Moon later made into the classic '64 film.

This story outlines not only one of the CAS early efforts but the planet where the Mi Go of HP Lovecraft's Whisperer in the Darkness  had a colony. By the time we get to CAS novella 'The Plotonian Drug' the Mi Go & Yuggoth have moved on. There are lots of little details about space exploration & the science of the time that get into the myriad of hazards of the 'Old Solar System'.


Mi Go artwork by Khannea SunTzu

Now I haven't gotten into the artifact that is the Plutonian Drug. Its a drug that unhinges the individuality of a person from their personal time space continuum, it shows them all of their selves along the lattice of existence. If this wasn't enough it also makes the person vulnerable to space & time traveling entities such as the Hounds of Tindalos or Dimensional Shamblers. 


"'Plutonium,' explained Manners, 'as its name would indicate, comes from forlom, frozen Pluto, which only one terrestrial expedition has so far visited — the expedition led by the Cornell brothers, John and Augustine, which started in 1990 and did not return to earth till 1996, when nearly everyone had given it up as lost. John, as you may have heard, died during the returning voyage, together with half the personnel of the expedition: and the others reached earth with only one reserve oxygen-tank remaining.

This vial contains about a tenth of the existing supply of plutonium. Augustine Cornell, who is an old schoolfriend of mine gave it to me three years ago, just before he embarked with the Allan Farquar crowd. I count myself pretty lucky to own anything so rare.

'The geologists of the party found the stuff when they began prying beneath the solidified gases that cover the surface of that dim, starlit planet, in an effort to learn a little about its composition and history. They couldn't do much under the circumstances, with limited time and equipment; but they made some curious discoveries — of which plutonium was far from being the least.

'Like selenine, the stuff is a bi-product of vegetable fossilization. Doubtless it is many billion years old, and dates back to the time when Pluto possessed enough internal heat to make possible the development of certain rudimentary plant-forms on its blind surface. It must have had an atmosphere then; though no evidence of former animal-life was found by the Cornells.

'Plutonium, in addition to carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, contains minute quantities of several unclassified elements. It was discovered in a crystalloid condition, but turned immediately to the fine powder that you see, as soon as it was exposed to air in the rocketship. It is readily soluble in water, forming a permanent colloid, without the least sign of deposit, no matter how long it remains in suspension.'

'You say it is a drug?' queried Balcoth. 'What does it do to you?'

'I'll come to that in a minute — though the effect is pretty hard to describe. The properties of the stuff were discovered by chance: on the return journey from Pluto, a member of the expedition, half delirious with space-fever, got hold of the unmarked jar containing it and took a small dose, imagining that it was bromide of potassium. It served to complicate his delirium for a while — since it gave him some brand-new ideas about space and time.

'Other people have experimented with it since then. The effects are quite brief (the influence never lasts more than half an hour) and they vary considerably with the individual. There is no bad aftermath, either neural, mental, or physical, as far as anyone has been able to determine. I've taken it myself, once or twice, and can testify to that.

'Just what it does to one, I am not sure. Perhaps it merely produces a derangement or metamorphosis of sensations, like hashish; or perhaps it serves to stimulate some rudimentary organ, some dormant sense of the human brain. At any rate there is, as clearly as I can put it, an altering of the perception of time — of actual duration — into a sort of space-perception. One sees the past, and also the future, in relation to one's own physical self, like a landscape stretching away on either hand. You don't see very far, it is true -merely the events of a few hours in each direction; but it's a very curious experience; and it helps to give you a new slant on the mystery of time and space. It is altogether different from the delusions of mnophka.'"

The novella picks up the ball of time travel & twists it in a very personal direction but its what happens when it wears off that the fun begins. This brings up the real potential here for adventurers who are more then likely to try this ancient horror from the past with a whole host of old school adventure complications for a campaign!
Were the Mi Go using this drug to cause those trapped within those brass brain cases to travel down their own personal time continuum for some alien purpose? Adventurers  are going to face destruction from a wide variety of sanity destroying sources! On the whole the whole affair might be similar to the Fungi From Yuggoth poetry cycle that HP Lovecraft wrote back in '29. 

"It is a certain hour of twilight glooms,
Mostly in autumn, when the star-wind pours
Down hilltop streets, deserted out-of-doors,
But shewing early lamplight from snug rooms.
The dead leaves rush in strange, fantastic twists,
And chimney-smoke whirls round with alien grace,
Heeding geometries of outer space,
While Fomalhaut peers in through southward mists.

This is the hour when moonstruck poets know
What fungi sprout in Yuggoth, and what scents
And tints of flowers fill Nithon’s continents,
Such as in no poor earthly garden blow.
Yet for each dream these winds to us convey,
A dozen more of ours they sweep away!"
The Fungi From Yuggoth By  HP Lovecraft

The Plutonian Drug from Clark Ashton Smith should be used with some restraint within old school campaigns because it can both enhance or wreck a carefully laden pulpy setting easily. Doses of the stuff are easily going to go for 10000 gold pieces each and only obtainable through a qualified scientist or wizard. Dungeon masters should read the original story carefully before using it within a campaign and adventurers who obtain the stuff would be paid about three to four thousand gold pieces themselves. Those who are exposed to it must save vs poison or experience its sanity shattering effects for themselves.

You can download the original

Amazing Stories (1934 issue 09) Right Over Here
that contains CAS's Plutonian Drug novella

 Time is a subjective illusion & we've seen that the Mi Go have been playing with time for eons. But is the drug we've seen in CAS's  Mnemoka (1955) Fragment. Might be  same time altering substance or belong to the same family as we've seen CAS's The Plutonian Drug. The effects almost entire seem to be based around the subjective nature of time itself. The other Lovecraft race that made war & had conflicts with the Mi Go were the Yithians. The Shadow Out of Time has a fragment about it but HPL's At The Mountains of Madness goes deeper down that rabbit hole. The Mi Go & the Yithians war never stopped & they've been fighting it on multiple fronts for eons.
  All of this leads back into the idea that perhaps the royal houses of Atlantis and Lemuria had a bit of outside help & left behind servant races to take care of their interests upon Earth after the second Biblical Flood. This gets into the universal cultural constants we see in many lost worlds especially those of A.Merritt. The time drugs are not the only theme that we see used repeatedly.
The forces of light & darkness's war is heating up but why!?! Tune in tomorrow & find out! 

Comets, Wordlets, Appendix N Solar System Settings, & Free Science Fantasy Downloads - OSR Commentary

"Man's conquest of the interplanetary gulfs has been fraught with many tragedies. Vessel after vessel, like venturous motes, disappeared in the infinite — and had not returned. Inevitably, for the most part, the lost explorers have left no record of their fate. Their ships have flared as unknown meteors through the atmosphere of the further planets, to fall like shapeless metal cinders on a never-visited terrain; or have become the dead, frozen satellites of other worlds or moons. A few, perhaps, among the unreturning fliers, have succeeded in landing somewhere, and their crews have perished immediately, or survived for a little while amid the inconceivably hostile environment of a cosmos not designed for men.

In later years, with the progress of exploration, more than one of the early derelicts has been descried, following a solitary orbit; and the wrecks of others have been found on ultraterrene shores. Occasionally — not often — it has been possible to reconstruct the details of the lone, remote disaster. Sometimes, in a fused and twisted hull, a log or record has been preserved intact. Among others, there is the case of the Selenite, the first known rocket ship to dare the zone of the asteroids."

Master of the Asteroid

Clark Ashton Smith

The asteroid belt is home to the remains of several worlds including planet X & Y along with the ruins of its moons. Many ancient & alien civilizations once thrived there but now only dust, comets, & asteroids remain or is there more here?!

Cover of Wonder Stories, October 1932 Artwork is public domain
Download available right here.  

The inner worlds of my OSR  'Old Solar System' setting have been haunting with my weekend game of Troll Lords Castles & Crusades mixed with a healthy dose of Amazing Adventures. So I've been dusting off some of my Old Solar System notes about Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore, & many other Appendix N authors. What it brings to mind are mini campaign settings that I've used in the past for OSR game adventure nights. Lately I've been missing my 'Old Solar System' OSR setting & I've decided to go back to it.  "The Lake of the Gone-Forever" By Leigh Brackett (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1949) is an old favorite tale of mine which is freely available from the Internet Archive here. 

Since I can't seem to get a straight answer from Dungeon Master Steve's players I'm working on a set of mini campaign settings based around some of the ideas that filtered through  'Off On A Comet' By Jules Vernewhich is an old favorite novel of mine. I still loath & hate the Anti Semitic totally unnecessary part of the novel.  But the novel has some incredible ideas for a mini campaign setting including a miniature worldlet being the comet. That bit I think has more then a bit of merit & could be used as a part of a Lovecraftian Sword & Science fantasy backdrop for the asteroid belt for my 2100 Era Earth. 



A Comet by Jules Verne 1964 Ace D 245
Verne's book depicts a chunk of Europe being taken by the comet & a pre World War I style empire building in miniature happening with German, English,etc characters building countries on the banks of this comet worldlet. Besides giving a dungeon master a chance to use early 1900's adventurers in such a setting the book also indicates that there were prior civilizations on the comet that were marooned on its shores. And here's where things get interesting. 



Both C.L. Moore & Leigh Brackett also used comets, asteroids, & meteor style worldlets to preserve the remains of ancient civilizations. But long before them HP Lovecraft mentioned In The Shadow Out of Time that a split of the Great Race had been preserved out in the asteroid field in a inter system colony. Why are they out there & are they watching the miniature colony worlds that they created such as those from  "The Lake of the Gone-Forever" By Leigh Brackett (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1949

Віщун - http://vixis24m.deviantart.com/art/Great-Race-of-Yith-394630656


There are parts of a comet that are a remnant of Atlantis & Hyperborea. Parts & pieces that have  become a part of a comet as various cultures have been swept up to become a part of this comet worldlet. This includes some very alien cultures from across the scattered multiverse mixed in with a variety of human ones. In fact I'm thinking of miniature human cities perhaps something akin to some of H.G. Wells more advanced humanoid ones from When The Sleeper Wakes. 


The fact is that I'm thinking that one or more of these small jeweled asteroids might be the preserves of ancient Elves, Dwarves or other fantasy races. These races in turn might be sitting on some very dangerous  lesser known demons, gods, alien Lovecraftian entities that have been hinted about in various classic modules. Yes I'm speaking of WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun  written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1982. Set the module on a comet or asteroid world & you have an instantly incredibly weird & dangerous classic dungeon romp! 


In point of fact if the dungeon master wanted to have a campaign cross over point between different OSR or old school settings a comet or asteroid is the perfect adventure staging ground.
Case in point is crossing over Bruce Heard's World of Calidar  with say Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea? Well an asteroid is the perfect point as desperate bands of adventurers try to cope with a hostile & dangerous environment as well as their respective alien cultures! 



Under alien sky these bands of adventurers company may be the least of their worries. The magick of their sky & void ships may be fading fast & they'll have to survive many of the classic or OSR monsters that a dungeon master will dream up! 

Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique As Old School Campaign Destination

"the sun no longer shone with the whiteness of its prime, but was dim and tarnished as if with a vapor of blood. New stars without number had declared themselves in the heavens, and the shadows of the infinite had drawn closer. And out of the shadows, the older gods had returned to man…. And the elder demons had also returned, battering on the fumes of evil sacrifices, and fostering again the primordial sorceries."

Clark Ashton Smith

The Zothique stories are some of my favorite Clark Ashton Smith pieces that I've read over the years. The dead outnumber the living & adventurers are not as much in evidence. Yet I keep finding myself wondering if there are connections between the demonic planar scum that feed on the bones of the Earth during the time of Zothique & the alien entities of C.L. Moore's North West Smith space stories.

  Yet somehow I'm left with the gut feeling that 'Zothique' exists as an alternative Earth location  or adjunct location to Hyperborea within my own 'Old Solar System' campaign. If Hyperborea is waning under the Hellish eye of  Cykranosh ( Saturn ) then Zothique is one step away in another dimension or an alternative time line. 


Smith tells his tales with a gusto of vocabulary & vividness of a fever dream  that takes the reader on a delirious journey into his far future world. I'm often left feeling that there's far more going on below the surface of these tales, the irony & cruelty is both enticing & frustrating. I've written about Io being perhaps the Hyperboreans weapons testing facility within my home campaign. 

Yet the far future happenings of 'Isle of the Torturers' shows the mirroring cycles of events from 'The Silver Death’ — on the city of Yoros to the shadow of death from the ghastly events in the  city of Zul-Bha-Sair in the story “The Charnel God”

The dread sorcerer Namirrha of the story "The Dark Eidolon" is exactly the sort of wizard that might be socializing  with the sorcerers & wizards of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.

“The Dark Eidolon”

Completed December 1932. First published in Weird Tales, January 1935.

Yet I mentioned C.L. Moore's North West Smith at the beginning of this blog post. So what does he have to do with this? Well, many of the pseudo demonic horrors that Moore's hero fights might be far more at home in Zothique then simply the planets of the solar system. Everything in these stories goes in cycles including mankind's ascend & extinction. Death & entropy are central themes laced with irony within the Zothique cycle. This same theme plays itself out within C.L. Moore's & Leigh Brackett's solar system stories. Zothique is one of the most dangerous places in the multiverse because of the excursions of 'otherness' from the 'Outer Blackness'. Wizards have been empire building for countless centuries here.

Gnome press dust jacket for North West Smith


So could the central government of 'Old Earth' (is there such a thing as its only two minutes to midnight when the 'Stars Come Right'?) know about Zothique? Not only do they, there's possibly a twenty to fifty thousand gold piece reward for such artifacts from the crypts & vaults of the setting. Because of monsters such as the ones found in CAS's 'Weaver In The Vault' & 'The Tomb Spawn' we are left with the feeling that very few with collect such a reward. The noses of the Leigh Brackett's Terran Exploitations Company & the Earth government or Terran authorities are going to be investigating any artifacts & relics by 'top men' in their fields. After which all of these artifacts are going to be consigned to a secret warehouse some place.

Warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981

We know that Hyperborea of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition fame is the far future of an Earth. But could there have been a Hyperborean people on Zothique which experienced the Silver Death? The answer is a resounding yes! Ulua, the daughter of the king of Tasuun, from The Witchcraft Of Ulua By CAS is one whose description perfectly fits a Hyperborean sorceress of the highest orders & they are not someone to be trifled with.
"During his first month in Miraab, Amalzain heard much of the Princess Ulua, sole daughter of Famorgh and Queen Lunalia; but since the women of the royal family seldom attended the banquets or appeared in public, he did not see her. The huge and shadowy palace, however, was filled with whispers concerning her amours. Ulua, he was told, had inherited the sorceries of her mother Lunalia, whose dark, luxurious beauty, so often sung by bewitched poets, was now fallen to a haggish decrepitude. The lovers of Ulua were innumerable, and she often procured their passion or insured their fidelity by other charms than those of her person. Though little taller than a child, she was exquisitely formed and endowed with the loveliness of some female demon that might haunt the slumbers of youth. She was feared by many and her ill will was deemed a dangerous thing. Famorgh, no less blind to her sins and witcheries than he had been to those of Lunalia, indulged her in all ways and denied her nothing."

So perhaps the 'Silver Death' caused the 'Hyperboreans' of Zothique to build vast vaults just as they had in Hyperborea. And those vaults became their tombs. There are thousands of undead or worse waiting below the sands of Zothique. But could the 'Silver Death' or 'Green Death'  have been a milady of the soul rather then simply one of the flesh? There are eerie parallels with the movie 1985 film Life Force with its alien space vampires. The comet swings around Earth depositing the 'Silver Death' plague upon  on the city of Yoros as well as perhaps Hyperborea.
What other horrors await adventurers out in the Asteroid Belt as the Boreas Winds blow through? Zothique could well become more tomb then 'world of adventure' for your party's 'heroes'

'The Derelict' from '85's film Life Force.

Adventurers journeying to Zothique are going to have to be high level, prepared for a wide variety of undead, necromanctic magick, and far worse. There are few reasons why I'd position Zothique as an adventure destination:

1. The setting works on its own and has a richly detailed setting primed & perfect for an old school Sword & Sorcery campaign. 
2. There are literally thousands of potential dungeon & adventure locations. 
3. Perfect as destination for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition's higher PC levels. 
4. There are plenty of chances for necrotic adventures with high level undead such as liches, vampires, and more. 
5. Demons, demons, demons, the setting is rife with extraplanar demons. 
6. Perfect store house for foul and degenerate magicks of all types.
7. Locations are alien enough to be molded into adventure settings for popular AD&D first edition or B/X D&D adventure modules. 
8. The weird & strange seem right around the corner. 
9. A world setting with a definitely history with lots of holes perfect for the DM to squeeze in their own DYI D&D creations with lots of epochs of undefined time periods & empires. 
10. The perfect setting for all of those crazy Fiend Folio Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition monsters.

OSR Echoes Of 'The Old Earth' Setting Adventure Locations & Commentaries

Meanwhile last night I dug out my copy of C.L.Moore's Northwest Smith stories, Clark Ashton Smith, a bit Robert Howard, and some of the usual H.P.Lovecraft tales. This puts me right back square into the territory of Leigh Brackett. The post colonial world of Old Earth is three ticks from when the 'stars come right'. And this age is  a repeat of Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborean cycle

 The Hyperboreans coped with the changes and destruction of 'Old Earth' as best they could whist coming out of their bunkers to find themselves far off world. Hyperborea now sits out in the solar system. Meanwhile 'Old Earth' has been reduced to tribalism in spots with high tech city states here and there. A few Hyperborean states still exist but Antarctica is now the new continent of mystery & danger.

As I said in Clark Ashton Smith's 'Forbidden Planet' Movie Connections To The 'Old Solar System' Campaign Setting 

Earth has become one vast science fantasy resource with Leigh Brackett's Tribal Exploitation Corporation taking advantage to scoop in, take apart temporary temples and tribal shrines on the plateau of Leng. Then leave before the Tcho Tchos or the Gnophkehs swoop in & tear apart the whole hover craft or space ship. Antarctica is one of the most dangerous places on the Old Earth because of the return of the Elder Things and Shoggoths.

Cults of Ithaqua, Rhan-Tegoth  Aphoom-Zhah,  and the Ice Worm cults are also flourishing at the North Pole Aggregate an amalgamation of Alaska parts of Canada, & some fragments of Iceland. Making the whole of the the upper part of the Americas very dangerous indeed. The religion & cults  of the toad-god Tsathoggua is far more mainstream today. In many places there are hidden shrines and back wood temples not built by human hands. This happened after the return of the empire of the K’nyan. The conquest of the surface world took decades but the remains of the war abound. Hidden temples in the jungles of  Antarctica indicate that the formless demons of Tsathoggua guard dangerous secrets not meant for man's eyes. Unusual & weird artifacts appear in the marketplaces of what was once Australia and the near East.


Meanwhile in parts of Europe cities lay abandoned or taken over by various witch cults, bandit groups, adventurers, & unspeakable monsters. Lamia of many types inhabit parts of Europe, they are often the heads of cults or worse. Initiates often venture deep into other worldly wildernesses using the Aklo rites to become changed by the White People or other entities in rituals far too horrible to describe.  What comes back can hardly be described as human.


Outside the city states block after block of abandoned & lost cities stand empty as if waiting for new owners who might not come. The distant roar of atomic rock engines pierces the night sky with citizens  on their way to the gleaming  space stations that keep track of the strangely changing topography of the world below.


In what was Africa the empire of Opar has awoken from its ancient slumber & taken over their region of the world. The Atlantis refugees have reforged their ancient outpost but local tribes are still resisting them. Heroes have emerged from hidden enclaves of their own with sorcerous knowledge & relic technologies of their own. Various Hyperborean & human adventurers often find themselves here because of the old dolmen gateway systems that still function here. The empire of Opar is it said bows to hidden lizard king emperors who once ruled vast tracks of Africa from their Nameless City headquarters. Many adventurers come to Africa to try their luck in the dangerous ruins that dot the coast. Few if any ever return.


So what's going on here? Well I'm working on building some of the adventure locations and monsters of Old Earth. I've decided to use some of the classic OSR monsters from Rafael Chandler 's Teratic Tome for some of the weird Lamia style monsters after looking into several new ones from the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition ones.  The Tome is one of my all time favorite OSR monster books and should fill my needs for mid tier Swords & Weirdness monsters for my Saturday evening game.

I'm also working tonight with Dark Albion & Dark Albion Cults of Chaos to flesh out some of the cults of Old Earth. Because Dark Albion works so well with AS&SH, this is really an easy fix because of running out of time with work. Some of the material of Dark Albion's medieval resources have super easy tables to flesh out communities, villages, and more. This means some of the heavy lifting has been done for me as a dungeon master.


Cults of Chaos helps to put some flesh on my take on the Lovecraftian entities. The magick of Dark Albion actually fits rather well with some of the material I've got going with my personal game. Cults of Chaos seems rather well suited for creating the backwater horrors of Old Earth. I'm not looking for the skull crushing horror of the Lovecraft Mythos but the suitiblier horrors of Clark Ashton Smith occultism which Cults of Chaos hits nicely. Brandon has a nice Youtube review that hits the highlights nicely.

1d15 Random Mid Tier Ascended Transcomic Encounters Table For Your Old School Campaigns

" In our veins was the chill of the ancient night of Time, with a premonition of the lentor of Lethe: over us, like invisible vampires, brooded the innumerous hours on their sable and unremoving pinions: the very skies were fraught with oppression, and we breathed beneath them as in a sepulcher, forever sealed with all its stagnancies of corruption and of darkness."

Clark Ashton Smith From The Crypts of Memory 

Ogu a dangerous alien entity from Space Adventures #11 (May-June 1954)
There are those trans cosmic entities that trade with the lesser beings of the 'Old Solar' system for amusement, profit, & see their role as cosmic jesters of the highest degrees. The humans & Hyperboreans around them see them as monsters or demons of the highest order. They wander across the face of the system causing mayhem and horror where they go.
These are the ultimate foreigners & visitors to our reality. These are strange, dangerous beings who are corrupt in every sense of the word want nothing more then to murder your PC's or worse. 
These are the 'ascended ones', beings high up on the ladder of transcosmic existence who could be considered demons or worse in the grand scheme of the dimensional & planar underworld.

Dr.Skull Pocket Comics #2 (1941)

 Many of these entities were once or are wizards of the highest orders who use a variety of magic and relic technologies to ascend to the higher realms. They often have access or have been corrupted by alien gods of the lowest orders. They often feel that they have passed beyond the norm of their species ruling over star systems or small other worldly demi Hell planes. Many have the minor powers of demons or other entities. They are immune to electricity, & poison. They take half damage from acid, cold, & fire never realizing that in actuality they have become vulnerable to clerics abilities of turning or rebuking. The elder sign can bar these beings entrance into our curved space time but only if done within a round or two of their teleporting into normal space time realm. Many are telepathic & have many demonic or chaotic traits including the ability to gate or summon demons. Many trans cosmic entities can only summon the most minor or common demons.Trans cosmic entities are often reluctant to use this power until in obvious peril or extreme circumstances.
 Many of these entities often use humans or beings of our normal space time continuum as a part of their wares or  as parts of forbidden demonic technologies.


Ikzip from Nature Boy # 5  February 1957

It seems to me that I have lived alone—
Alone, as one that liveth in a dream:
As light on coldest marble, or the gleam
Of moons eternal on a land of stone,
The days have been to me. I have but known
The silence of Thulean lands extreme—
A silence all-attending and supreme
As is the sea's enormous monotone.
Upon the waste no palmed mirages are,
But strange chimeras roam the steely light,
And cold parhelia hang on hilt and scaur
Where flowers of frost alone have bloomed. . . . I crave
The friendly clasp of finite arms, to save
My spirit from the ravening Infinite.

Desolation  (1922) 
by Clark Ashton Smith

 

 1d20 Random Mid Tier Ascended
Transcomic Encounters Table

1. Duroronarora considers itself a trader in lives, souls, & lesser entities beneath its contempt. Originally from the universe before ours, this entity deals in the brains, biological systems, & modifications to organs of life forms for others. It considers humans utterly beneath its contempt. It wears a variety of bodies from android to little boy nothing is beyond its approach to get its hands on new material. A calm, methodical psychopath of the highest order.
2. Melcom Crowne - An A.I. born from the mind of an alien wizard, this being wanders the cosmos stealing the dreams & souls of those it can to capture the moments of existence that it sells back to the victim's races as entertainments. A monster of the lowest order that uses android bodies for its work. 
3. Azgogorm alien whore & wizard this thing steals the dreams of innocents & clothes itself in them to experience and gain profit over others. It delights in the gore of foulness and murders wantonly. It often body switches using Yithian technology that it builds on the fly. 
4. Werargroririma a mercenary artist  and visitor to our time space continuum it controls two star systems on a demi plane and it loves to toy with the lesser beings of our universe to create weird biological art works from our bodies. These it takes off to alien market places in weird hellish dimensions. It especially loves to use families in show pieces. 
5. Thatula Vangllrg former succubus/incubus who now wanders infinity taking the kind energies of the old to use as a youth formula for those of evil bent. The stuff will ease the skin, wrinkles, etc by restoring 1d30 years but the victims themselves then become the next product's harvest as they are forced to do 'good' deeds. The wizard harvests their essence after 1d6 month or years.This wizard observes as a pet or companion to its victims selecting the right moment to harvest the 'product'.
6. Olamegoroglaeg a insect traveler in the further reaches of biological experimentation. She specializes in nerves, brains, other cells of its victims which she harvests at the highest points of pleasure. This is done in the most spectacular fashion as she considers herself an artist and her clients pay for the experience of the murder as much as for the wares. She controls three bio processing facilities in the greater asteroid fields. 
7. Ugrogot Ulingog an android seller of children's souls & innocents essences that moves with the speed of death and loves necrotic magic. This thing loves to wander from human to human colonies using biological dummies. 
8. Ldrng the worm magus is a brain super intelligent  parasite that plays chess using people's souls as it pawns against a demonic essence. These things specialize in selling their experiences to higher trans cosmic entities. Many colonies have gone down in flames from their 'games'
9. Halrothakordo a humble collector and seller of souls who switches bodies and controls three star systems. He also happens to control elemental magick and loves to wreck colonies for sick fun! He often freezes colonies to sell as disaster artwork to jaded demon gods. 
10. Enturormethil Egorinca a Yithian essence that loves to murder and kill entire generations of families one victim at a time and sell the souls to the highest bidder at the moment of torture and pain. An alien body switcher and shape shifting monster 
11. Farnarod a dealer in just brains that's all this alien insect demon takes and all it will sell. The more product it moves the better often using Mi Go brain cylinders & great old preserve it fluid. A common sight in back alley magick market. The more victims and horrors it can turn into product the better it loves it. The things claws are +3 surgical swords of the most delicate type. 
12. Margliaunglk collector of souls and experience that body swaps its clients with its victims for the ultimate experience and pleasure but leaves them in their new bodies. That is if it happened at all because demons can often pass themselves off as wizards. 
13. Motuguil this entity steals the precious things of families to sell back to them a generation later. A being of low caliber and demeanor it wanders from colony to colony. 
14. Ongoturira is a wizard specializing genetic racial memories and forbidden knowledge that often offers to take a client back down the evolutionary track to moments of 'great revelation', 'incredible magick power, & 'the glory of the Great Old Ones'. A tiny part of the victim's brain is then sold on the black demonic market place for thousands of credits. It controls seven alien star systems. 
15. Balau alien demonic wizard specializing in the dark souls of evil beings that it sells to other wizards to fuel their own twisted magics and forbidden technologies.

1d7 Random Lovecraftian Outer Void Asteroid Adventure Locations Table For Your Old School Campaigns

When the 'Word' was spoken & the ninth & tenth planets were shattered into the asteroid field in the solar system there were places that survived. Ancient treasure vaults that should never be found. As mankind and the near  humans races expand into the nearby some of these places will be uncovered & nothing will ever be the same again.


The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets, had looked ahead for a new world and species wherein they might have long life; and had sent their minds en masse into that future race best adapted to house them – the cone-shaped beings that peopled our earth a billion years ago.

— H. P. Lovecraft, "The Shadow Out of Time"

1d7 Random Lovecraftian Outer Void Asteroid Adventure Locations Table

1. Ngothu-ghott'ru- An Elder Thing Shoggoth development location that is now a living asteroid ecology disguised as merely another asteroid. The organism has been collecting & cataloging life forms for millions of years and even a small sample of it is worth hundreds of thousands of gold pieces but the price is very high. There is also a quite insane Elder Thing brain at its center capable of ripping an ape brain of a human to shreds.
2. P'sachabot' Lar- A lair for a library of Yithinan wisdom the place is guarded by swarms of nanite Cifal monsters will tear apart ships and adventurers with easy. There are twelve ether power stations here for a Yithian time space gate which presents some very dangerous possibilities. Treasure type F is here but why is unknown.
3. Ranra- Remains of a Deep One statue depicting an unknown god and covered with future prophecies of the Earth. There are 1d100 black magick spells carved over its surface and the whole affair feels like the flesh of some living creature. The thing is guarded by space undead dwelling hook horrors made from the skeletal remains of past adventurers
4. Thola- An abandoned Mi Go mine that hasn't seen use in thousands of years or so it seems. There is a large hive in the center of the asteroid. There are over a million brain cylinders working in conjunction but won't come on line until someone enters the mine and other other side of the asteroid is a particle beam weapon of unknown design & perhaps mining purpose.
5. Zak-elaq- A Hyperborean asteroid ship that has been flash frozen with all hands on board and there is giant claw print with an elder sign straight across the thing. There is type F treasure aboard but the whole place has demons of Saturn who have come to eat and feast on the souls of those aboard. There is a working Hyperborean space engine and several metal forbidden books of ancient magick on board as well.
6. Zhalzhath- This was a temple of the Elder Things and the place is still guarded by 1d20 shoggoths in suspended animation. There are several puppet proto species of creature aboard this asteroid ruin and lots of weird biological constructs that seem based on Mimic bio technologies.
7. Ot'augt- The last resting place of an Atlantean princess who is actually a demonically possessed lich queen surrounded by a royal court. She is a servant of Cthulhu & Tsaquaga & is waiting for the stars to be right once again. She has some treasure type G & H in her temple/crypt palace locations
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Bleak is the night and long
   While slumber waits apart,
   Refusing this lone heart,
   These lips forlorn of song.
   Deep is the night and slow
   Whose gulf obscurely swarms
   Mad, somber, faceless forms,
   Blind masks of bale and woe.
   The moon's late-risen ray
   Through paling panes is shed. . . .
   From dreams uncomforted
   I rouse before the day.
   Now, ere the morning break,
   Would that my head found rest
   Upon thy halcyon breast
   To sleep, and not to wake.
   

   Before Dawn By Clark Ashton Smith