'And The Cosmos Bore Witness' - Sword & Sorcery OSR Thoughts on 'X4 Master of the Desert Nomads' By David Zeb Cook , Michael Moorcock, Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg, & More

" To arms! To arms! The battle lines are drawn as desert men and inhuman tribes wait poised to strike on the fertile and rich lands of the east. The call has gone out through the civilized lands. The armies have been raised to match the invading foes from the west. Nobles and peasants have joined swords to greet the foes.

But Fate or Chance has decreed another role for a small few. No glorious banners will wave on their march. No squadrons of knights will charge at their word. Instead, they will fight the war through stealth, secrecy, and cunning. The risks they will take are great, but the fates of both armies lie with them.

It begins one night for your party far from the fighting. Suddenly you are entrusted with the most dangerous missions of the war. Can you cross the Sind Desert, occupied now by enemy armies, to find the Great Pass? Can you find the one known only as The Master? What will you do if your do find him?"

So yesterday we spoke about  X5: "Temple of Death" (1983), by David "Zeb" Cook, if X5 is South East Asia then X4: "Master of the Desert Nomads" (1983), by David "Zeb" Cook is definitely the Arabian Pensulia with a whole lot of Sword & Sorcery trappings. So if we're going with yesterday's brief outline then we know similar to the collapse of civilization during the Bronze Age.                           

                                                                                                                                

If we have beings of incredibly potent cosmic power fighting over the usual areas of Law & Chaos within old school Dungeons & Dragons then. We are going to see this same fight trickling down across the plane of this proto Mystara. This is going to lead to economic collapse, religious presssure, and situations which various peoples are going to take advantage of. Yes, we're referring here to the 'Master' of X4. Because Zeb Cook takes full advantage of the heratiage of Pulp Sword & Sorcery in X4 Master of the Dersert Nomads. This isn't a disavantage here its a feature of this Sword & Sorcery old school adventure. So what does this have to with Moorcock & Lamentations of the Flame Princess?! Quite a bit in a way. We mentioned Qelong by Kennith Hite because it typicifies the Lamentations of the Flame Princess module. The idea that vast cosmic forces are leaning down on the shoulders of the general populace of the Prime Material plane. You have two powerful cosmic level immortals at war with each other. 

This is affecting everything within the setting around them. But this is a small slice of a bigger picture and its one that is a part of not only a greater battle but a larger war. An alien cosmic war that is being played out without any difference to the human beings around it. If we go with Michael Moorcock's Elric or Corum saga as a possible venue for this cosmic warfare. Then the forces of  Law & Chaos are up to their usual feuds. But what if this is only a part of it. What if the economic collapse is so bad that only a tyrant is holding the strings of civilization together?! What if I told you that the real reason why there's a lack of humanoids in X4 is that they've been consumed by the forces of Law & Chaos?! Ramses III was the only thing holding Egypt together after the Invasion of the Sea People. 

Perhaps its the fact that we're seeing 'the master' holding what he or she can within X4 against the forces of the occult far beyond his control. Does this sound familiar? It should its a very similar situation to one that we've seen before countless times in Michael Moorcock's work. Are we saying that the Master isn't evil? Hell no! Are we excusing his behavior?! Nope not at all. We are saying that the saga of the eternal champion plays out countless times. 

Your full of crap?! There's no proof that X4 has anything similar happening within this adventure?! Armies marching across wastelands, countless weird & desparate encounters within X4, villages just barely holding together against the coming onslaught of an army of nomads, & let's not mention the PC's stuck in the middle of encounters & forces beyond their control. Now imagine  Now imagine chaos spawn dropped into X4's desert wastelands  from The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and Their Modern Simulacra.

And you've got the connective tissue that we've seen in countless Conan & Elric stories time and again. In point of fact you as the DM can adapt the monsters to the desert wastelands to act as an adventure bridge gap. This adventure might not be the start point at all. Not unlike the Moorcock's the Eternal Champion the party might find themselves right in the middle of a comflict between cosmic powers within X4 the alien metal seen in Qelong foreshadowed in this module. The lack of humanoids might indicate a mass die off of humanoids or demihumans. The human population has been pushed to the breaknig point. 

The PC's are not only aware of their fate within X4 but have been actively summoned to take part within their destiny. This is another aspect of the Eternal Champion that we can borrow & recycle a point that Moorcock does as well. This is something we see alluded to in  "Supplement IV" Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes  by Robert J. Kuntz and James Ward (two of my favorites) in the Robert E, Howard's Hyborea

Elric and Melnibone sections. 

                                                                                                                                

Are we seeing the hints of the dimensional vortex on full display in X5? Yes in a way in X4 Master of the Desert Nomads. We see peeks of things to come, & its possible that one or two of the encounters in X4 could foreshadow this by dropping in one or two monsters mentioned in the Denizen's of Nightmare thread on the Vaults of Pandius website. 
Why?! Because this isn't Mystara or even Blackmoor The First Fantasy campaign instead this is a proto Mystara carved out from the Prime Material plane. A bauble of the Million Spheres where only the PC's are going to make a difference in the realms of alien gods, monsters, demons, of Law & Chaos. All of this is gonna be happening as the conflict rages. 

'If This Be Our Last Battle Ground' Sword & Sorcery OSR Thoughts On X5: "Temple of Death" (1983), by David "Zeb" Cook, Michael Moorcock, Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg, & More

 "Sent on a desperate mission into an unknown land, you must seek out one called "the Master" and his Temple of Death. There is little time to waste, as you must act before the Master's armies destroy your homelands. But to complete your task, you must battle fearsome guardians, travel through a hostile kingdom, and discover the secret of the Master. Can you survive his defenses and win?"

This is one thing that's been said across the table top X5 Temple of Death deserves a ton more Sword & Sorcery credit then it gets. X5: "Temple of Death" (1983), by David "Zeb" Cook, remains a pivotal campaign center piece for a wide variety of old school campaigns. X5: "Temple of Death" has all of the trappings of South East Asia & eventually evolved into Mystara.
There's something evokative about X5 that really makes it ideal to adapt to a Sword & Pulp campaign. Perhaps its the fact that the dimensional vortex makes its first appearance in this module. This planar constraint isn't found in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Great Wheel at all. And its this conceit that has me thinking about Lamentations of the Flame Princess tonight. Especially Qelong by Kennith Hite where you have two powerful cosmic level immortals at war with each other. 

What if these two beings are expressions of warfare of something  far more sinister then at first it seems. What if X5: "Temple of Death" (1983) & Qelong are part of the same South Eastern style campaign setting. What happens if these two barely conceived beings are actually rival  combatant god soldiers for the Lords of Law?!  Imagine if you will that you've got both the Lords of Law & Chaos duking it out as per usual in Michael Moorcock's mythos. But the twist here is that the Dimensional Vortex ala BECMI's  ala the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (1991) is holding something back both very dangerous & very valuable to the colllective gods as well as the immortals. 
Is the nightmare dimension simply another aspect of the collective prison for the entities from outside or another part of the collective unconsciousness of humanity?! According to James Mishler's Demension of Nightmares article on the Vaults of Pandius site a bit of both. Now imagine chaos spawn dropped into X5's hot steaming jungles from The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and Their Modern Simulacra

The alien metal that infects the land of Qelong could in fact be another manifestation of the ever widening contamination of the Lords of Chaos & Law.

 Manifestations that we've seen several times since the 90's in the fiction of Michael Moorcock. But especially the tribute Elric  Sword & Sorcery paperback Tales of the White Wolf. 

     This proto Mystara is merely another battle ground to the world striding Lords of Chaos & Gods of Law. The PC's are witnesses to the ever widing gulf of the cosmic action & perhaps this is in fact the motivation for the villain of the modules. Rulers desparately trying to hold onto power against total anihilation. 
What could the PC's do?! Could they make the situation better or worse?! What if the PC's and the villains put aside their differences to save their world & simply asked the divinities to leave ala Corum?! The divine events of the Qelong River valley may be only the tip of the iceberg here?! 
Could this be run with Elric or The Stormbringer rpg?! Yes but let's face facts here OSR D&D or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition would also work here. Why?! Because a mad group of adventurers is gonna be facing down gods, demons, or worse in their journey past both Qelong & X5. Could the party of adventurers ultimately deal with both Chaos, Law, & the Courts of Nightmare!? Hard to say but its really up to the players & dungeon master.                                                                                                 

Battle of the Gods - Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg & Kenneth Hite's Qelong For A Sword & Sorcery Campaign

 There are times when its really hard to face down the barrel of a campaign gun.And in this case its been picking up Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg. Lately, its been the fact that going over old campaign note books & there are tons of those.But with the death of two  players of mine its been difficult to crack open this Sword & Sorcery note book lately. These demises were several months ago now & the dead have been sufficiantly mourned in my opinion to put them to rest. 

AS&SH's campaign world is one that has been one that's been modified over & patch worked through as its been needed to be. There's a definitive campaign mythology unto our Hyperborea that fits the campaign dialetic. This includes the fact that in some portions of the world of Hyperborea someone still hasn't told the gods that the days of  Ragnarök are long over. But in Port Zangerios there is talk about the battles around Sajavedra. Here's where Kenneth Hite's Qelong comes in. After the events of Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess the PC's are going to be in the higher level range. If they survive.. 

If they do then bring them over to the battle ground that is the Qelong River valley at the edge of the near-cosmic battlefield. Let the player's PC's actually do some good if their able to. The adventure has enough within its pages to make a mini campaign. 

There are times on line where Kenneth Hite's Qelong has been described as 'fantasy  Vietnam' that's not even close to it. Qelong is far more closer to many of the myths & legends about rural Thailand's demon & god battles. Applying the adventure to Hyperborea gives the landscape a very Jack Kirby battle of the gods quality without losing the module's dangerous qualities. Even though this is a Lamentations adventure there's some solid legs for a Swords & Sorcery campaign. 

 Qelong could be used to expand Hyperborea into a proto South Asia campaign setting. Something akin to an upper teir of the South Asia corridor. More on this as it develop.. 

Revisiting Qelong By Kennith Hite For The Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg & Your Old School Campaigns

Your PC's are a band of freebooters and adventurers taking full advantage of the peoples, circumstances, and tragedy of Qelong. And now we're going to slice in deeper below the surface of Kennith Hite's tour of a war torn mythic South East Asia Alternative location. Unlike other Lamentations titles there is little here of the adult themes of Lamentations. Instead you get a tight setting with lots of potential for not only PC death but also for use as a long range campaign.


 
Grab It Right
HERE
   So today I was cleaning up old notes and campaign logs for the past two years, one of which was from March 2015 when I cracked the pdf open up of Qelong & began to really start thinking about as well as running Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg system. Well, Qelong got me really interested in South East Asia and its environs including Thailand,Pakistan, India, Iran, and Iraq of the Bronze Age, Iron Age, but especially the pulp and pop culture mythology of these areas. Kennith Hite does a bang up job with the material. So today I referred back to a review I did back in March and ran across this guy Troy V's review of Qelong : "In the typical LotFP fashion, the "winning" scenario is damn near impossible, the adventure contains numerous devices which screw player characters royally, and is grimdark to a fault, replacing wit and imagination with tragedy and cruel jokes. Your characters might as well just stay in the tavern, tea house, inn, or drug den. Better yet, tell your referee to lighten up or replace your referee, and stop pulling these tasteless, depressing pranks on you and the rest of the players." 
Well being one of those referees I'm going to not only address 'Troy V's' criticisms and claims but take them to their logical conclusion.  Normally I don't like to feed trolls at all. But this guy touched a nerve with me. Each & every time I went to reference or  deal with a LoFP product there was a nasty one or two star review, the 'reviewer' in question left the same comment for a Lamentations product varying the comment just slightly. Well, according to Troy the winning scenario is damn near impossible. This is because according to the campaign setting introduction, 'Qelong is a classic “exploration” adventure,set in a wet, poisoned sandbox. While the Cylinder is the focus of outside magicseekers,and makes a convenient “center of the labyrinth” for goal-directed players, the Qelong Valley is a setting first and foremost. That means that antagonists – set against the heroes and against each other – and environments play major roles in driving drama, conflict, and story.'

You've got a jungle mythological wilderness adventure setting with two divinities at each other throats whose war has invaded the Qelong region with their machinations. You've got a cylinder poisoning the entire region with magical toxic horror. The natives are contaminated with the magic of the cylinder plus you've got mercenary factions dividing up the land. Then there's the issue of aakom poisoning, this is the magickal energy source powering the divine weapons of the divinities and its very,very, nasty. There's no trick here at at all. This is straight up magickal toxic sludge poisoning and the PC's abilities to affect the locals are going to be rather limited and that's a real issue here because each and every faction in the setting is out to exploit the situation. Does this  adventure contain 'numerous devices which screw player characters royally, and is grimdark to a fault, replacing wit and imagination with tragedy and cruel jokes' , no not really because what the adventure does is work on the same level as Heart of Darkness novel by Joseph Conrad if it was combined with the Jain Agamas's  war torn landscape then spun through a lens of pulpy weird goodness. Is it grimdark? Yes, yes, it is and unapologetic in its own way. Which means that not only is the landscape exploiting the PC's  but there are lots and lots of monsters here with motives strongly connected with the encapsulating the setting of  Qelong. The ultimate futility of the setting is a nod to Vietnam contemporary conflict of the Seventies. Yet this is a post apocalyptic dark fantasy setting with some weird and warped creatures many of whom were once human.  Yet everything here is exploited by the combined effects of the two demi god's conflict and the four factions at work. We have the Myrmidons who are human males possessed by a swarm of large (finger-sized), pinkish ants and combined the worst aspects of foreign invaders and something completely alien and their very,very, dangerous in horrible kinda way.  Then there are the Naga Qelong and her kin ( shades of the Bride With White Hair film here mixed with Lovecraft) who was the local demi goddess but has been corrupted by the conflict. There is a creepy almost but not quite legends of Thailand  vibe echoing through the product. Aakom poisoning makes the undead of the Sajavedran landscape especially hard to turn except for local clerics. I was at once rereading Qelong taken back to my time spend in Thailand and rolled into a stinking alien irradiated jungle world waiting to be explored.  Which brings me to the other faction banner, the Varangians are elite mercenaries from a far-off land, one perhaps closer to the characters’ homeland than Sajavedra is. I seen these guys described as something akin to the Black Company. I really didn't quite get that with the Varangians. Instead I put them half way between a force that came from a Michael Moorcock novel and an army out of a novel by  Karl Edward Wagner. Like all of the players in this novel their down, dirty, and nasty with some tricks that the PC's might end up taking advantage of. The land of Sajavedra reminds me of some the darker regions of South Thailand in the back villages in the misty mornings. Everything isn't quite real yet and the nightmare qualities echo with a deeper sense of an adventure waiting to happen.

Photo from

Paul Brockmeyer (brockzilla) from Chicago, USA

So is Qelong perfect as a setting book? No, lack of maps is one minor point of contention that I've seen. But this is one of the tightest written setting books that has come down the pike for not only the  Lamentations line but also any OSR system. There are several reasons for this the editing is very well done. The material is original and has a sense of accessibility to it not the  , 'You must use this material this way'. Instead we are given an expansive palette of old school goodness to design everything you need for a variety of old school far Eastern adventures with a sense of its own identity.

Actually Using Qelong For Your Old
School Campaigns


This brings me to actual experience using Qelong, I've actually had quite a bit of playing with the various bits and pieces of the setting. You can easily drop your Lamentations adventuring crew right into the center of the setting with little issue. I've seen some folks waffle on about how fire arms are going to make a difference in
Sajavedra. It really won't given the various mutant horrors, former human beings, semi divine things, and the hordes of undead. Couple this fact with the constant weirdness around them and LoFP setting book is going to alter the destiny of any adventuring crew up in the middle of the material. There have been various folks who have been outspoken about Qelong being the prime opportunity for LoFP to introduce a monk class. There are plenty of first edition monk resources that can be easily and seamlessly added to your existing campaign if the Lotus Monk faction needs to be added. One of these is the high end book by Kabuki Kaiser Mad Monks of Kwantoom setting book whose own creatures and monsters fit right into the back end of Qelong with little to no issue. The fact that its on sale for five dollars is another plus. You get a ton of old school bang for your buck. A fact that I exploited to great effect over the past year. Mixing and matching various OSR elements is one of the more interesting things that the book allows for without breaking the setting at all. Not only can this book be used for cross over but because of this fact Qelong is a  nightmare fueled mythological East Asian book that can be used for all kinds of fusions you can get into all kinds of trouble with it. For example Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea offers a pimped up sword and sorcery setting that easily works with LoFP. Simply drop your AS&SH PC's into a dimensional warp and away you go.


But there's more to it then that, reading through Qelong tonight I was reminded by the aakom & god technology of the myths of Vimana and other pseudo UFO lore such as the Ancient Atomic warfare theories of pop culture. This is not the full mythological or religious elements described in Hindu texts and Sanskrit epics. Of which I have the greatest respect and admiration for. No this is the pop culture pseudo material that has come into play over the years through Orientalism in pulp magazines and Western perceptions of these wonderfully rich sources. These bastardizations could be retro fitted into a  fully exploitable campaign setting to fill in the rest of the Sajavedra story line. Mohenjo-daro  and several sites in the Indus Valley Civilization could be used as stand ins for an alternative Earth setting.
 This also goes back to another source of potential OSR exploitation in the use of Dark Albion The Rose War  as another potential setting to back fit into Qelong as a sort of 'stranger in a strange land' faction. The various powers trying to exploit the landscape of Sajavedra is in keeping with the expansionist attitudes of the Rpg Pundit book. Though he might argue me to the ground, Dark Albion's pulpy setting tropes mash well with the alien lunacy and OSR  attitude that the LoFP setting book has. Its a sort of Solomon Kane meets the Rose War via a mythic South East Asian hell. If you haven't gotten the feeling that Qelong is one of my favorite Lamentations books, then this commentary has been for naught. Qelong will be used in spades in the near future. I'll keep you posted.

Qelong By Kenneth Hite For The Lamentations Of The Flame Princess rpg System And Your Old School Campaigns

Imagine your party of adventurers caught up in a blood soaked land of an alternative South East Asia where two armies of incredibly dangerous beings of divine aspect are engaged in an eon old struggle. And your party is caught within the shadow of the forces of these beings.
This is a wilderness adventure in a world torn apart by war, strife, incredible devastation and very deadly forces including mutated horror, terrible monster of inhuman aspect and much,much more.



Grab It Right
HERE

I can honestly say that Qelong is one of the best setting and adventure books that's come out for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg retro clone system. I don't own a physical copy of this book and only have it on PDF after asking James Raggi for a review copy. I'm not giving the book a good review on that account. I'm giving it a good review because its that solidly well done book. And its certainly not getting enough press in my humble opinion. Kenneth Hite has done a bang up job of fleshing out his setting material for the Lamentations rules set with a variety of factions set against each other's throats and the natives who forced to the edge of existence in this module. The PC's can be part of the solution, the problem, or much more in this adventure.


The basic plot goes something like this according to the Drivethrurpg write up:
Two barely conceivable beings have fought a war for a generation over Sajavedra, a barely legendary land far to the southeast. They wish to claim its rich harvests of souls and fields, its intricate networks of ley lines and temples, for their own. They have devastated it utterly! Now, a forgotten weapon in their war - a neglected sorcery fallen from a distracted archon's attention - lies in the Qelong River valley at the edge of this near-cosmic battlefield, ripe for the taking! A hellish southeast Asian setting by Kenneth Hite, Qelong is suitable for character levels 4-6 for use with LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing and other traditional role playing games.


You can find out more about Kenneth Hite right HERE

Kennith Hite is a name I'm very familiar with from his days at Last Unicorn games. And their fantastic work on the Star Trek Icon system books. I then followed his work on the Gurps book WWII Weird War II title. But it's his stellar work on one of my favorite new school games that I really enjoyed; the Unknown Armies second edition rpg and some of that line's source books.

Qelong takes many of the lessons of Hite's style of writing and design and puts it into a setting that is at once both eerily familiar and utterly alien in the form of the Qelong River valley. There are wheels within wheels within the plot of Qelong. A forgotten item left on the battle field has become the focus for forces beyond the pale of the inhabitants of this world. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. This is a devastated world that has so many possibilities lurking in the background. This is really a thinking man's sandbox adventure. There are rumor tables, things that will each your PC's, nice maps, plenty of factions, and each location is fleshed out a bit with plenty of room for customization. The maps are wonderfully evocative and dangerous locations abound with lots of South East flavored action. And a very nasty piece of magical environmental pollution that is seeping into everything and if your PCs are not careful could change them forever.

This isn't a setting that you can simply drop a party into. Well you could quiet easily do this but with a bit of care Qelong could become a permanent setting for a variety of adventures. There's a dark undercurrent to Qelong and its got a very Conrad's Heart of Darkness vibe running throughout it. And this is part of its strength. There are a ton of new monsters,weird bits of spiritual and physical corruption trickling down into the setting. And that's exactly what this module is part sand box setting book, part adventure, and part all around campaign world under one title. 
The book fleshes out an entire sandbox under one heading and gives the DM plenty of bang for the buck. The ideas here are some of the best I've read for a Lamentations book, and if your looking for a book where the PC's are thrust into the deep end ringed into the setting's problems and background then this is it. The magical corruption in this book is harsh stuff and God forbid that the PC's continue to adventure in this world.They're going to run into some major problems just waiting for them to trip into. That leads to some of the factions in this war torn world. None of them are to be trusted and this evens the playing field across the board as far as the PC's place in the war torn world of Qelong. The setting has pockets of oriental and occidental city-states.There are islands of peace among the worn torn South Asian style strife. There are plenty of areas of customization in Qelong for a DM to exploit and the mercenary vibe is alive and well for a party of adventurers to exploit. Will the black powder weapons of Lamentations make any difference here? Not in the least, there are monsters,powers, and horror that will dwarf any advantage that these weapons might provide at all. 
Do I think that Qelong is worth your money? Yes every penny for its setting material,epic ideas, and solid writing which is some of the best I've seen in a while.Should you grab this book? Yes if your looking for a setting that utilizes a very different take on the usual tropes of war,fantasy, divinity, and high weirdness in a sand box setting. 
All in all I really want and need a physical copy of Qelong. I'm glad I got the opportunity to check this one out. Its possibly one of the essential books for the Lamentation line of products and a great little investment for your old school retro clone dollar.