The Egg of the Coot & The Demon Worm - Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign Commentary Session Report Part Ten

The Witch Coven of Garlghast & the Egregore set by Privateer Press (34035), make excellent substitutes for the witches of Egg of Coot. 

 Cha'alt/Godbound  campaign had a high rate of ultra violence! 
In tonight's game the party encountered a Cha'alt demon worm along with purple demon  cleric summoner  & its  the sky ship guardians. The demon worm turned on the handlers as its cleric was teleported away! The party was on its way back to the dragon's city state & had to deal with a scout party controlling a minor Cha'alt demon worm or was it the other way around.  The demon worm is going to be seeking revenge on the party of adventures 


Rex Harenae Crawler In Toxix found out that his guards were way laded by a group of Egg of Coot witches & an egg aviator. The group took their time dealing with the witches & had a bit of a rough time with the avatar.



Voltan the Deathless had a bit of a confrontation with the party but they beat feet away from him! He's porting in  a part army of the Egg of Coot to lay siege to the dragon king's city state. Stepthen the Rock's spies are watching all of the action happening at the city state. There is no love lost between the Stephen The Rock & the Egg of Coot. The Egg is very petty that way & beyond capriciously chaotic evil itself.

The action is picking up next week as Cha'alt's power grows in intensity around the PC's. There is an alliance between one of the Demon worms of Cha'alt & Voltan the Deathless. A confrontation between the dragon, the party, & the Egg of Coot is coming up next week!



Gray Morrow - Robot Soldier Illustration  that I think is exactly the right style for my NPC Voltan the Deathless a Godbound rpg agent of Chaos. Art is used without permission but no copyright or trademark infridgement is meant. This blog post is for educational & entertainment purposes only. If you don't know who Gary Morrow is then read about this over looked master right here. 

The Egg of Coot Forces & The Dragon's Lair - Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign Commentary Session Report Part Four

The Witch Coven of Garlghast & the Egregore set by Privateer Press (34035), make excellent substitutes for the witches of Egg of Coot. 

The party was accompany my dragon king NPC's hover caravan in the  Cha'alt/Godbound campaign play session tonight. 
In tonight's game the party encountered the Egg of Coots scout army coming through the gateway into one of the Egg's base cities. A fire on the horizon along with a fiery Boreas indicated the presence of a Juggernaut of Doom surrounded by the chosen of Egg of Croot & its witch covens. There were orc,goblin, & hobgoblins that had been converted over to full Egg convert technicians with clock work cybernetics connected with the occult supernatural network. 



Our party's gate wizard godbound was able to teleport away six of the Egg's minor technicians who then went completely catatonic & confused away from the Egg of Croot's neural network. The party then found a rival NPC group of mercenary adventurers who were working for one of the Egg of Coot's witch covens. They argued over getting paid by the witches & the portal wizard took the opportunity to teleport the NPC adventurers to their camp. The player's PC's recruited the rivals to work for them instead. 
The party then find out that Cha'alt Syndicate had taken over Las Vegas & the adventurer mercenaries had gotten in hock to the Syndicate over their own mecha. They were recruited to spy on the Egg of Coot's army. The egg wanted them to help recover an artifact god walker but didn't want pay for it. The Egg is very petty that way & beyond capriciously chaotic evil. 


Some of the occult technology used in tonight's session came from DA2: "Temple of the Frog" (1987), by Dave Arneson and David J. Ritchie. This points up the foreshadowing presence of Stephen The Rock .

The player's party then ran off as the dragon king's wizard cast the 'dawn's teleport' ritual. The party's camp found themselves just outside of the dragon's city state on a prepared plateau location. Part of the Dragon King's army met up with the party & accompanied them the rest of the way. The PC's were brought to the workshop castle of the dragon king. 



 Rex Harenae Crawler In Toxix (King Sand Crawler The Toxic) was made using the guidelines found within Adventurer,Conqueror,King rpg's ACK's The Heroic Fantasy Handbook

Inside gates of  Rex Harenae Crawler In Toxix (King Sand Crawler The Toxic)'s city state the party was brought to a local tavern where the dragon in human form questioned the player's PCs & then offered them employment. He explained the fact that he took over the Grand Canyon because the Cha'alt wave activated the serpent men's lost city planar gate way. The dragon didn't want the serpent men gate way falling to any other factions.
Rex Harenae Crawler In Toxix has a number of Hyperborean mercenaries in his employ. The fact is that many of the occult secret within the city state's walls are straight out of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg. 


There are several members of  'Order of the Lords of Mystery' are among the advisers of Rex Harenae Crawler In Toxix  & he is well aware of their hidden agenda. Cha'alt's black pyramid is a far too dangerous to allow near the city state.


Next week the party sinks deeper into the old school & OSR weirdness of an Earth under assault by the Cha'alt warp & wave! 

Eggspectations & The Arneson angle - Dave Arneson, & David J. Ritchie's DA2 Temple of the Frog - Old School Lovecraftian Occult Tech Influences - Cha'alt/Godbound Campaign Commentary

"Try to imagine this.

A windowless room with just one exit. Inside it are people dressed in some hazmat suit like the ones we see on the crime scenes in some popular TV shows. These people have arranged the room, furniture and all, even some little animals, some pets. Then they go away, closing forever the only exit, so that they are certain nothing and no one will leave the room. All has been arranged in a way that whoever is inside the closed room, will retain no memory of their presence. But let’s imagine that a tiny hair or an even tinier speck of skin had fallen from one of these people. The crime scene is compromised for as tiny as this pollutant may be.

Now back to our idea: the Multiverse is the room, the Old Ones are the people in the hazmat suits, the Immortals the little pets, the Egg of Coot is the polluting element.

You may say that a tiny hair is still a tiny hair. An organic inanimate object, doomed to become impoverished, dry and in the end dissolve. With no doubt this is sound reasoning for mortal beings and perhaps for Immortal ones too. For me, this may be not true for beings (Entities? Powers?) as mysterious and powerful as the Old Ones.

During millennia, the tiny speck evolves, get a body and finally sentience. It is a progressive and enormously slow process.

When the Egg of Coot rises from the waters in front of the Blackmoor Kingdom, it puts the humanoid tribes of the North under its command and starts its journey to the world domination, it is still in the starting phase of its evolution.

The Egg, just to maintain the theme, has just hatched.

But the advent of techno-magic is a steep turning point and a big steer toward the evolutionary development for the Old One embryo.

We all know, always from official sources like Wrath of the Immortals, that the alien technology, through a lot of tinkering, first by one of the Old Ones then by the Immortals themselves, will become the energy form called Radiance.

Through the Radiance use (or influence) we know for sure that at least three Immortals are born: Rafiel, Benekander and then Rad.

With the Radiance then it is possible to create new Immortals!"
From 'The Return of the Egg' by Giuliano Michelon from Threshold Magazine issue 12

Thanks to the Vaults of Pandius 


Let me dive back into the heart & soul of my  Cha'alt/Godbound campaign. I had the complete nerve to bring up the Egg of Coot yesterday but my own history with the egg goes back quite a long time to running through Dave Arneson's Blackmoor & through Dave Arneson, & David J. Ritchie's DA2 Temple of the Frog. My PC died repeatedly in that classic module. Flash forward to Two thousand & nine, I'm wide eyed in the OSR. I come across Havard Blackmoor blog entry on the Egg of Coot here. If there was ever an entity that perfectly fits the Road of Night entries in the Godbound rpg then the Egg is it. I really have had my view on the egg coloured by that blog entry. But strolling across the wastelands of Nevada & Arizona are miniature 'Juggernauts of Doom'. Here's a quick reminder of what these nasty pseudo mecha like  war machines of chaos & darkness are! 



Here's a profile of one of the Juggernauts from Harvard's blog; "Juggernaut of Doom
This powerful War Machine is similar to regular Juggernauts and may travel through forested areas without any movement penalty due to huge cutting blades constantly swinging along its sides. Anyone approaching the juggernaut from the sides must save vs Dragon Breath or suffer 3d8 points of damage. The Juggernaut of Doom may carry up to 50 humanoids."
So what is the Egg of Coot doing on Earth & sticking its bio mechanical tendrils into the black pyramid's business? Simply put its an invasive supernatural occult pain in the arse NPC. Its wraith troops & witch cults have absolutely no business in this campaign making it its business. The appearance of Dwimmermount on Earth down in South America's Bolivia has attracted the Egg's attention.  Because as the Cha'alt warp washes against the back blow of Earth's reality Azoth is created. The Egg of Croot is using Azoth to power its own war machines & troops.

But there are other powers interested not only in this new play thing called Earth & those powers are greedy at the best of times & chaotically evil at the worst. Where the Egg of Croot is Stephen the Rock is. These two are always the ying & yang of evil for me.  Once again I'm using Havard's Blackmoor blog entry on Stephen The Rock.  While the Egg of Coot marches his armies onto Earth, Stephen The Rock quietly sets down a few cybernetically enhanced agents here & there.



Stephen The Rock looks like DC Brianic Five in my mind. Because of Harvard Blackmoor.
This artwork is from DC universe encyclopedia site & used without permission.
No copyright or trade mark violations are meant.
This is a blog entry for entertainment purposes only



The powers below the black pyramid of Cha'alt remain unimpressed with these two cosmic buffoons in their minds. Ancient mechanisms turn below the ruins of one of the former capitals of Cha'alt. Elven voices sing the praises of ancient forbidden gods.
Here's where Adventurer,Conqueror, King rpg's AX2 Secrets of the Nethercity comes into play.



Meanwhile the downed remains of a flying saucer that crashed in Nineteen fifty five spring to life. The telepathic circuits & psionic crystals glowing with a strange & unnatural colour. The crash site still hasn't been found in the Nevada desert wastelands. Here I'm pulling on another Venger Satanis product & in this case its Dead God Excavation which could be used as a zero session adventure for Cha'alt. But in my case its gonna be a fixed point that could be exploited by the PC's as a potential base or lair ala Adventurer,Conqueror,King's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu

These remains are what's drawing the attention of Stephen of the Rock but he's also watching the production of Azoth at the city state of a certain dragon NPC. A lot of this is being drawn from my experiences in my uncle's old Blackmoor campaign notes & OSR notes over the years. 

Happy Dave Arneson Day - Campaign Commentary On DA2 Temple of the Frog by Dave Arneson, & David J. Ritchie.

"Green Death...

That's what old hands call the Great Dismal Swamp. For centuries, this tangled maze of sluggish watercourses, stagnant ponds, and festering marshes has defended Blackmoor's southwestern frontier. Large armies and smaller parties have disappeared altogether inside its vast, dripping, claustrophobic corridors.

Among those who have dropped from sigh in this arboral hell is young Rissa Aleford, one of Blackmoor's most important leaders. Carried off to the sinister City of the Fron, she is now being held by the eccentric Monks of the Swamp. By making the baroness captive, the deranged monks have serioulsy weakened Blackmoor at a time when enemies already threaten it from all sides.

Yet, even as the Froggies gloat, the king of Blackmoor dispatches a small band of bold adventures to the rescue. Deep into the Great Dismal Swamp they must go - far from sunlight and sanity - there to seek and save the swamp, there to find the Temple of the Frog."

For me everyday is Dave Arneson day, the Egg of Coot has been a active & very dangerous presence in any number of my campaigns. The egg's presence was something we as players ran across in my uncle's campaign as a piece of  graffiti on one of the walls of the temple of the frog.  To say I've got history with Blackmoor is an understatement, Blackmoor has been my go to campaign for longer then I can remember. It connects with my earliest memories of gaming back in '77 when my uncle ran us through his modified version of the temple & we died. Boy I was hooked on original Dungeons & Dragons. I've got a whole blog piece from back in 2o16 about my experiences with Blackmoor. 
Here's some of the back history according to wiki on the original Temple of the Frog adventure found in the original Dungeons & Dragons Blackmoor supplement; "Following the release of the original Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson decided to publish expansions of their respective campaigns. For Arneson, this expansion would be based on his Blackmoor campaign, which had originated with the 1971 Fantasy Supplement to the Chainmail rules.^[10] In March 1975, Gygax told a wargaming newsletter that Arneson was working on a final draft, and TSR began accepting preorders for the product and advertised it in The Strategic Review. The booklet was delivered late, in part by having gone through two editors (Brian Blume and Tim Kask) and being temporarily misplaced. The final edit was done hastily in a few weeks.^[5]:111 The Blackmoor expansion was published by TSR, Inc. in 1975^[11] as a sixty-page, digest-sized book.^[1] It was the second supplement to the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set and bears the designation "Supplement II," with Gygax's Greyhawk preceding it in the same year.

Illustrations were provided by David C. Sutherland III, Mike Bell, and Tracy Lesch. The supplement was edited by Tim Kask,^[12] who also did development on it.^[13]

The Temple of the Frog was later revised, expanded, and released as DA2 Temple of the Frog."

Instead I wanted to talk about bringing the DA2 Temple of the Frog by Dave Arneson, &  David J. Ritchie. My own experiences with this module started back in '90 when a friend bought me a copy for my birthday. But in 2019 what are the machinations of St.Stephen of The Rock & his followers doing in the Dismal Swamp? 

For me as a dungeon master Mystara & Blackmoor are two separate yet interconnected timelines via the Planes Prime. There's a series of articles on the Vaults of Pandius site that go into the fannon of this stuff. 

St.Stephen is a nasty villain who is going to be doing two things looking for other worlds to expand his empire into for future conquest. And securing his place in Blackmoor via the temple of the Frog. Over the years I've had St.Stephen clash with adventurers in Dark Albion, he's appeared in Hyperborea any number of times, etc. The bottom line is the enduring impact that Dave Arneson's creations have had on gaming. The Egg of Coot is a whole other ball game taking an active role of causing havoc with my player's PC's over & over again. But St.Steven hasn't been idle not when he's got the toad god Tsathoggua on his behind. Someplace out in the multiverse in my games these two struck a bargain. The soldier had his knowledge & given the science fantasy aspect of DA2 this isn't surprising. The toad god sees the temple & its monks as another playing piece in the grand game of time for its own amusement. 



All throughout the time streams, history, etc. the 'Temple of the Toad' must exist in one form or another. Stephen has been sending out small expediations over the years to explore the planes. These have sometimes ended in conquest or sometimes in disaster. But this doesn't deter St.Stephen & his master isn't a patient entity. I do believe its time for St.Stephen & his monks to take the stage once again. Happy Dave Arneson day folks!

Thanks to Havard now in my mind St.Stephen looks like
Brainac 5. Brainic 5 is trade marked & copyrighted to DC comics.
Artwork used without permission. This blog post is for entertainment & educational purposes only. 


But can the Egg of Coot be far behind?!

And if you want to set the record straight about Blackmoor then go watch Secrets of Blackmoor for an inside look into the other history of old school gaming.

OSR Thoughts & Ideas On The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o From The Book of Artifacts

If there's one metaphor in life its that one mess takes care of another, & I hate getting blindsided by players or dungeon masters at my table. Happens all of the time as my lovely wife is so fond of reminding me of. Such as today when while working on my Tegel Manor campaign. I've been today that there's been the sighting of  The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o. on the plane where the manor has appeared.  

"The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o is a towering automaton of jet black metal, shadowy crystal, and several mysterious fibrous materials. The device stands over nine feet tall, is nearly five feet wide, and some six feet deep. It is rounded and might remind one of a cross between an overly stout (if gigantic) dwarf and a lumbering beetle. The servant has two stocky legs, on which it walks with a curious swaying motion, and a pair of dangling arms.

An internal compartment is configured to seat two man-sized creatures comfortably. Externally, as many as five others might perch safely upon the servant when it is in motion. As might be expected, this dreadful thing is quite heavy, weighing nearly two tons, and is hideously noisy when in operation."

"The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o made its appearance in the the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide as well as  he Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Book of Artifacts. Further research on the FATAL & Friends site shows the dangerous nature of this artifact; "The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o’s powers are written with what I think are rules for large-scale battles, so it makes sense that the book suggests that giving this artifact to an antagonist so the players have to raise an army to stop him or her. While the book says the artifact isn’t something that should be left with players for long because of its curse, it also says that adventures can be made for finding out how to use the Mighty Servant’s powers"

The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o has 60 hit points and -6 AC. It can only be struck by +2 weapons or better. Bludgeoning weapons do only 1 point of damage against it, while edged weapons only cause half their normal damage, rounded down. It has 90% Magic Resistance, and is utterly immune to acid, cold, heat, normal fire, vacuum and water. Lightning, electricity and magical fire inflict 20% normal damage, assuming the attack gets through the MR. If damaged, the Mighty Servant regenerates 2 hp/round. Anyone inside the Mighty Servant is fully protected from outside attacks. Given all these defenses, it is possible to destroy the Mighty Servant by reducing its hp to zero.

The interior of the Mighty Servant is akin to a modern cockpit, and anyone trying to use its active powers needs either to consult sages or tomes or experiment through trial and error. At least the DM is told to just abstract this learning process. The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o has a movement of 3, and can only be active for 12 hours at a time. After-which the machine must be inactive for an hour to recharge its energies. The Mighty Servant “strikes as a 10-HD creature” (does that mean it uses the default THAC0? Why not just give the THAC0? Damnit, TSR!). It can attack once a round (or at least that’s my reading) and each blow does 1d6 x 10 points of damage. The Mighty Servant is strong enough to destroy castles. If used as a siege engine, it does the same damage as a screw or ram. If used in a BattleSystem game, its stats are AD d12+d8, AR 4, HD 10, Hits 5, MV 3. For random powers, the Mighty Servant gets 6 Offensive Powers, 6 Major SLP, and 2 Healing Powers that apply to any one creature inside the interior compartment. Using any of these abilities drains one hour of continuous usage.

Major SLP: 24, 7, 50, 46, 65, 99

• 4-7: Cast animate dead 1/day
• 24-26: Cast destruction 1/week
• 44-46: Cast magic jar 1/day
• 47-50: Cast mindshatter 1/week
• 96-100: cast wither 1/week

Offensive Powers: 1, 2, 18, 1, 18, 8

• 1: Cast age creature 1/day
• 2: Cast Bibgy’s crushing hand 1/day
• 8: Cast disintigrate 1/week
• 18: Cast suffocate 1/week

Healing: 20, 19

• 19: Cause all healing spells applied to the user to be doubly effective
• 20: Erase scars and other disfigurements caused by battle (at will)

The Mighty Servant’s curse has both a short- and long-term component. First, every time the operator uses a power, he must make a save vs spell or goes into a battle frenzy for 24 hours. “During that time, the artifact is used in a rampage of destruction to any and all within reach.” Considering that the Mighty Servant has to take an hour break every 12 hours, it seems that might be difficult. Second, the character using the Mighty Servant risks Artifact Transformation. “Those affected by this power gradually have their alignment shifted to chaotic neutral”. That-that’s not what Artifact Transformation is used for. 

Besides hitting it a lot, there are two other means of destruction suggested

• A self-destruct command phrase. This causes an explosion-no specifics beyond “very big”

One of the powers of the Machine of Lum the Mad is to destroy the machine. If Lum knew that such a power existed, he never used it."

The fact is that its an artifact with lots of secrets & intercate histories tied into it. I'd venture to guess that its another example of Darkmoor technology from the fleet that came with the Warden. This time it had fallen on Greyhawk.  Why do I say Greyhawk? Because the 'Mechanism of Lum the Mad' appeared first appeared in Eldritch Wizardry for original Dungeons & Dragons. 



But this gets into a theory I've got about much of the S3 Expediation to the Barrier Peaks By Gary Gygax  technologies, artifacts, etc. are essentially all cursed in one way or another. These battles between kingdoms, warlord activity, battles of the gods, etc. This might help to explain the constant cycle of these artifacts being uncovered & then contiuing the cycle. 


This gets into the heart of the cycle of constant warfare but could there be something in the background feeding upon the violence, degredation, & warfare. Time & again I keep finding myself going back to the Egg of Coot here. The Egg has not only the capacity but the motive to keep this cycle of death & destruction going. All of that power is centered on it as well & given all of these I keep thinking that the Egg is motivated to keep the wheel going gaining power as things continue their cycle. I was reading   'The Return of the Egg' article on The Vaults of Pandius site
by Giuliano Michelon from Threshold Magazine issue 12. Its got me thinking about the Egg's continuing influence on both Greyhawk & my own campaigns. 




In terms of the Godbound rpg 'The Mighty Servant of Leuk-o' would be a prize found someplace on some back end of the Road of Night. This artifact would have fought in many wars perhaps even in the Wars of Hell & the minor Heavens. The mecha could teach priest technologists the hidden means of some of the secrets of making its style of mecha. But would a party of adventurers survive its wrath?! This might be an adventure unto itself down the line. Possibly a raid on a wizard's tower or other ruin where the last party of adventurers tried to find it & met their demise at its claws.

The Sacking of S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks & The Military Campaign Beyond It!

"A genius mad man with access with the technology of the stars. The keys & gates have been broken  all of time & space is open to his madness. Can our heroes stop the horrors  before he moves on to other worlds to pillage & plunder?! "

I've been running around like a mad man but let's get back right now to Saint Stephen of The Rock & S3  Expedition to the Barrier Peaks By Gary Gygax. Let's assume then the events of Thursday, March 29, 2018 had already have happened & St. Stephen has had his day with the 'Warden' science vessel. Saint Steven  has opened a planar gate into the corridors of Earth's history now. The Froggies with the help of their god  Tsathoggua are looking to conquer & spread the faith of the Froggies cult. 

So the events of human history march on but with the vision & reach of the mad wizard of the family d'Amberville  there will be very interested parties in the sacking of the Warden science. We know for a fact that  the Averoigne region survives due to the efforts of the Amber royal family. But we also know that a wide variety of black wizards of  CAS's Maal Dweb status might have also had a hand.

So with this type of interdimenional warp gate technologies available to St.Stephen Gamma Terra seems ripe for conquest by his Chaos based forces So why would St.Stephen the Rock be interested in Gamma Terra? The expansion of his own Chaos based cult of the Toad god right in the heart of another plane is perfect. 


The problem is that Gamma Terra already has a faction of nastiness that's been ruling from the shadows for years now. He's been devoting years to gaining his cybernetic life forms a foot hold on the world of the 25th century. The Egg of Coot has been quietly sending in its forces into North America & Europe for years from Greyhawk. 



Unfortunately for the Egg of Coot there are many god level A.I.'s that have started mini brush fire wars with the entity. The Reaper A.I. from the Warden Science vessel has not responded well to its former master & been using its own troops to harry locals into attacking the Egg's cybernetic life forms.
Heroes from across time & space are at a great deal of risk dealing with these forces. They can quite literally appear anyplace to cause undue horror.  But there are other agendas at play even though the player's or their PC's might not even realize it.




The fact is that these are not the only factions that have been using the prime material planes as a chess board. There are other horrors that are slithering through & around the pillars of history & space. We'll cover those coming up!