Arduin,Barsoom,& Tegel Manor - Deadly Campaign Connections In My Castles & Crusades Game

Deodanth concept art by Greg Espinosa for the Arduin Monster Cards,1977
Nothing exists in isolation & I haven't canceled a game in months but today because of work I've had to. We're very busy & its getting to be a bit much for me. So I went ahead & last night after taking on so much sewing machine repair work. But there's an Arduin side came up in my Tegel Manor campaign notes! Arduin itself is a world of planar doors & there's been lots of campaign interaction between Greyhawk, Arduin, & Tegel Manor going back years in our games. The dimensional wandering Tegel Manor spreads its evil across the planes subtly. The Rumps infiltrating & investing in many ventures & their corruption turns up in the most surprising places.



That's right there's a blood feud between my bard player's PC & a group of deodanth bounty hunters going back to 2019.  The bard has a death wish & wants revenge on these after the bounty hunters were hired by certain powers of Cha'alt black pyramid. Yes there's a horde of bounty hunters roaming the planes with the PC's wanted posters in their back pockets. 


Then in my wanderings across the internet I stumbled across this video which brought home using certain aspects of Arduin. This a brief but concise video of many of the Arduin products of yesteryear.

But how does one go about using Arduin with Castles & Crusades?! This is a Swords & Wizardry homage to the original Arduin & its free! Completely  compatible with Swords & Wizardry, fast, its free, & its very easy to use!

For the Castles & Crusades crowd that wants to use a Deodanth hit squad I recommend the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition states over at the Underworld Cleaning Service blog from 2012. 
Now with the original Judge's Guild  Tegel Manor there's another lesser know Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom book  aspect to JG's Tegel Manor. There's a group of Green Martian Warriors that were roaming & fighting in the original random encounter charts!


So someplace on the Manor grounds there's a planar  portal Barsoom & I as the dungeon master have been taking full advantage over the years to slip in the occasional Warriors of the Red Planet rpg monster. But this isn't the only Mars I've slipped in under the player's noses. There's a bit more Barsoom with a group of NPC adventurers whose make up is straight outta of Jason Vey's conversion of Doc's OD&D Mars material.  All of these remind me of the classic Frazetta covers from my youth.


This same gateway opens onto the Mars of Empire of the Petal Throne's Rpg via Brett Slocum's Warriors of The Lost Planet free Warriors of the Red Planet Add on campaign book. 



This is my homage to my uncle's Empire of the Petal Throne rpg campaign that we played in '84 through '91. All of these elements are cross compatible with the science fictional/science fantasy elements found in the Castle Keeper's Guide. 



Now what does this have to do with lich lord The Duke De Lamont & his connection's to the Prussian's special projects division?! How will the players react to all of this via their PC's?! I'm gonna have to wait till next week to find out! There's a ton of stuff happening & my players are down with all of it. 

Black Roads & Deodanths of Destruction - Play Session Report Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign

Today's  Godbound/Cha'alt game has been an adventure unto itself. The Corona virus scare has made my gaming & even blogging very interesting in Connecticut. Half of my day was gathering supplies,shopping, & then finally settling in for my usual Friday night game. In tonight's game I have a gang of Deodanth acting as a  hit squad warriors to take out the party. The Deodanths are working for the Egg of Coot. They've been tracking the party for the better part of three months. 
Dealing with these Deodanth took up a good proportion of the evening. The Deodanths had replaced a good portion of the dragon king's soldiers & almost succeeding in doing in the party. 


The Deodanths in tonight's games came from the Underworld Cleaning Service blog from 2012. The most evil race of nasties this side of bloody,bloody, Arduin. We had encountered a Deodanth war party.
 The Deodanths are a race of chaotic evil undead, demonic, Elven/catmen race  created as a biological weapon from the  far future by an unknown power. They have been sent back or escaped back in time to the Arduin campaign setting/multiverse.


Deodanth concept art by Greg Espinosa for the Arduin Monster Cards,1977

The in my experience Deodanths are truly nasty customers & should never be underestimated in any way,shape, or form.. Now if I was going to run Arduin then I'd want to run it smooth, simple, & OSR quick. That brings me to  J. Miskimen's Ruins of Arduin. This is a Swords & Wizardry homage to the original Arduin & its free! Completely  compatible with Swords & Wizardry, fast, its free, & its very easy to use!



The deodanths infiltrated the mob that was attacking the walls of the dragon king's city state. The walls of the city state were attacked by clock work cybernetic zombies working for the Egg as fodder. The zombies senses were connected to the Egg itself.


Deodanth with trophy head available from Emperor's Choice Games here. 
Off in the distance a cackling cybernetic presence tries to open a night road below the castle's walls but the PC's weren't having it. The portal mage fought off the attack as a horde of deodanth knights were prepared to mob our heroes.

The gods of the black pyramid are amused & are using the Egg of Coot in their machinations but what will happen coming!? 

Matters of State & Megadungeon - ACK's Dwimmermount & Dave Cook's X5 Temple of Death - Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign Commentary

"The gates of Dwimmermount have opened. After years of rumors, it is time to discover the secrets of this vast mountain fortress for yourself…"


For my  Cha'alt/Godbound campaign I've been looking over any number of old school resources but I stettled upon one that speaks to me from an earlier part of the OSR. 

Finding a copy of ACK's Dwimmermount is utterly ridiculous, its like find a needle in a haystack in New England. Sure I can get a Dwimmermount  hardback  copy from Drivethrurpg & that would be fine if I wanted it to sit on a shelf. But I'm looking for something I can use for the table top level.
Now I know that there's a whole bunch of people who got butt hurt about the Dwimmermount kickstarter controversy business. But this isn't that book.

According to Autarch forum member koewn; "IIRC, the only real differences are the inclusion of domain statistics for the various settlements, plus trade details, etc, in the ACKS version versus the LL version.There may also be more detail in the back for various rituals surrounding Termax. Monster stats will differ in AC and Morale, since ACKS/LL use different metrics for those. I've checked a few encounters and they all match up.

LL/ACKS both count B/X as their ancestor, so I'm pretty sure that the treasure amounts are the same - I've spot-checked a few rooms in the first and last levels and they all match up. (if anything, the treasure is less compellingly mixed than if it was ACKS-only, as ACKS' treasure tables are superior)." 

For my campaign I'm looking for a gonzo balls to the walls dungeon of early D&D style games. So because this is Adventurer,Conqueror, King I know that the game  material in Dwimmermount has filtered itself through other ACK's products. Along with this I've been looking back into Dave Hargrave's Arduin rpg & specifically the free Swords & Wizardry adaption of it by JMiskimen available right over here. 


There are several reasons for using the free Swords & Wizardry of Ruins of Arduin  JMiskimen  for my Cha'alt Godbound campaign. One is the inclusion of Arduin which has already been established within this campaign setting. The second is the rainbow of well established & fleshed out old school race options from Arduin. The third is that the Cha'alt warp has brought all kinds of monsters & old school horrors to Earth. South America's Boliva is the center for the inclusion of Dwimmermount. The forces within the Black Pyramid are well aware of the alien visitor to the planar shores. And they are none too happy about it.


 There are other raiders to the shores of Earth & they are already harvesting the rich source of Azoth & taking the bounty of humanity. This is where Dave Cook's X5 Temple of Death comes in. The master is a part of the slave lords faction & he's taking full advantage of the Cha'alt wrap. His forces have already invaded the deserts between Nevada, Arizona, & California.


My Cha'alt/Godbound campaign dragon has been fighting the 'master's' forces of chaos for some time.  The Slave Lords who have an alliance with the rulers of  Elysium. The nomads & humanoids don't belong on the Earth's deserts but their being whipped into a frenzy by the thought of conquest.  The  'Order of the Lords of Mystery' has been observing this hot white mess for some time & knows this might end in tears.
To loop this back around there's been fighting between the forces from Dwimmermount & several of the 'master's' armies along the Mexican/California border. This has been on going & the PC's caravan from last week's game are about to get caught right in the cross fire coming up this week!


Will the PC's survive?! Tune in soon kids! 

The Deodanth Gamit & The Free Swords & Wizardry Book J. Miskimen's Ruins of Arduin

So last night I was sitting around with DM Steve at the usual watering hole & we were going over my notes for the upcoming Las Vagas Godbound/Cha'alt game. He's thumbing through Cha'alt & comes in with there's too many God damn Elves in this game! And this starts us off on a discussion about original Dungeons & Dragons & Advanced Dungeons's PC Elven race. This gets us involved in our running through Judge's Guild's Portals of Tosh in high school & our party of adventurers had escaped through a teleportation device! We found ourselves on a world of humans & lizardmen with a smattering of humanoid races. There's two towns one lizard man & one human plus the wizard lizard's tower. Just outside of the wizard lizard's tower is where we encounter them!  The most evil race of nasties this side of bloody,bloody, Arduin. We had encountered a Deodanth war party.
 The Deodanths are a race of chaotic evil undead, demonic, Elven/catmen race  created as a biological weapon from the  far future by an unknown power. They have been sent back or escaped back in time to the Arduin campaign setting/multiverse.


Deodanth concept art by Greg Espinosa for the Arduin Monster Cards,1977

We never got to complete Judge's Guild's Portals of Tosh  & instead our party of adventurers  got slaughtered, tortured for days, the Elves in our party were killed to a man, & some of the human's organs were taken for trophies. Now why had this happened?! Well its probably because certain clitches within the players were taking Elven PC's for almost every game cycle.
My uncle at that point had had it with the PC Elves & wanted some variety in his games. Or perhaps he just wanted to wipe out the cocky kids once in awhile using Arduin. Now if I was going to run Arduin then I'd want to run it smooth, simple, & OSR quick. That brings me to  J. Miskimen's Ruins of Arduin. This is a Swords & Wizardry homage to the original Arduin & its free! Completly  compatible with Swords & Wizardry, fast, its free, & its very easy to use!


Now lately I've been getting a lot of flack because supposedly I haven't been supporting Castles & Crusades. This is utter drek & not true at all. For the Castles & Crusades crowd that wants to use a Deodanth hit squad I recommend the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition states over at the Underworld Cleaning Service blog from 2012. 

In my experience Deodanths are truly nasty customers & should never be underestimated in any way,shape, or form. But are they going into my current campaign? Well of course! I've also got an encounter written up for the upcoming game! 


Deodanth with trophy head available from Emperor's Choice Games here. 

Bloody, bloody, Arduin forever!