Back To The Manor Baby! Tegel Manor Session Zero Play Report

One of the ideas that's been kicking around my head has been using Castles & Crusades with the older 3.5 Ravenloft books but twisting it around Tegel Manor. But there's far more to my version of Tegel manor. But that could wait as we dive back into Tegel Manor's long & storied history in my OSR games. 

Sorry folks but I've been a wee bit absent for the last day & a half but campaign preparations have been made. Its back to the manor or in this case back to the original Judge's Guild  Tegel Manor or my campaign setting's  version of it. The time & space dimensional traveling version of Tegel Manor that's been terrorizing my players for more then 15 years now! Now with Castles & Crusades systems powering my games I feel that's its time to resurrect the manor & the machinations of the Rump family!



This coming Friday my players will be facing down a steam powered nightmare in all of its glory! Muhahaha! Its alive! The manor, its valley, & the surrounding land settings will be transported across history into the middle of an alternative Earth's Franco Prussian war right into the middle of the 1870's  battle zone!



Column of Prussian field artillery by the side of a road at Torcy in September 1870

What the Prussians don't know about is the PC's history with the house & its various appearances upon Venger Satanis's Isles of Purple Haunted Putrescence. The haunted house of horror will be appearing along the time line of one of the PC's NPCs brother's whose had interactions with  Tegel Manor.



There are two parties right now inside Tegel Manor & their up to their eye balls in the affairs of the Rumps. And things are about to heat up as mercenaries working for the Prussians begin to mettle in the affairs of Tegel Manor & the Rumps. All of this is going to bring the Hammer Horror & Victorious rpg  aspect of this campaign down on the heads of the players!

Asssasin In The Temple- The Islands of Purple Putresence - An Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Actual Play Event

The PC's have been exploring the ruins of a giant healing temple belonging to the HP Lovecraft god Nodens. It took them two weeks but they're very happy with last week's game!

The PC's finally escaped the giant temple of  Nodens & managed to steal not one but two Hyperborean healing chambers from the decaying facility. This version of Nodens has many of the traits associated with the Lovecraftian chaos deity. But this  Nodens (Nudens, Nodons) is a Celtic deity associated with healing, the sea, hunting and dogs whose drawn from the Dark Albion Cults of Chaos book.


Cults of Chaos is a very handy book to use tho flesh out cults of Chaos & especially some of the details, artifacts, spells,etc. because it works very well with so many OSR games. Its quick, handy, & very easy to use. Meanwhile there were a number of malfunctioning & ruined healing/cryo chambered filled with Hyperborean zombies. It took them the better part of an hour so to deal with these undead horrors.


Meanwhile a number of Hyperborean knights of Nodens were awakening from slumber unaware of the danger that was all around them. One or two of the ten knights had awakened only to be attacked and bitten by a zombie or two. The PC's managed to save the majority of them but then an unknown assassin took two shots at one of the PC's! This was after he or she drained all of the energy crystals from the PC that they had collected. Unknown to the PC's at this time is the fact that this person was a servant of the Eld who had targeted the adventurer in question as a target who would some time in the future interfere with the plans of the Eld. The bastard managed to teleport away! The PC's were pissed but managed to save the knights as I said. I'm planning on using the Eld more in this up coming campaign. These are the same beings who appear in Chris Kutalik, & Robert Parker's  Misty Isles of the Eld from the Hydra Cooperative.

The PC's managed to escape the underground ruins of the temple & make their way topside to sell their booty to the crime lord/wizard. The knights used a Great Race of Yith teleporter unit to take the PC's to an Hyperborean outpost. These knights have been in cryo sleep for more then five hundred years! What the PC's don't know is that an Eld raiding party is at this very moment tracking them across space/time to the outpost! Even now their drawing closer and closer!

Sword, Sorcery, & Low Level Holmes Dungeons & Dragons - Dungeon Locations For Your Old School Campaigns

'Can your PC's survive the deadly horrors of the ruins and dungeons of a demon haunted world where anything can happen?' Well, they can if we delve into the past for some help with Holmes Dungeons & Dragons.

So I've way behind on my blog entries because ultimately work has been busy as sin & has me running across the countryside. The whole time  my Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea has been on going with the characters shipwrecked onVenger Satanis's The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence . The black demon haunted sands, purple & strangely hued jungles, & tentacled terror filled environs have landed them in the temple of Nodens just shy of their ultimate goal. The problem is that I don't have the time to flesh out the temple of Nodens the way I want. Well fortunately I've got a bunch of experienced dungeon masters and old school friends to point me the way.  Not only can Holmes point the way on scaling the encounters for first level PC's. But its got a sample dungeon or two that can really help fill in those old school weird pulpy gaps. This includes being a stand in for a certain temple that was originally a wizards tower that was converted into a temple during the time of the Green Death plague.  There are other lower level ruins & dungeons scattered around my version of the islands.

 The Sample Dungeon in Holmes ala The Tower of Zenopus was incredibly important to a certain generation of gamers. Its iconic, incredibly easy to run and has great potential to really set the tone for first level PC's.Its easy for them  to get a handle on that pulpy sword & sorcery vibe that seems to really echo through Holmes. Another dungeon that I want to have the PC's explore is  "The Sample Level in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures" by Gary Gygax there's just something incredibly iconic about it that begs it to be run with low level PC's.

When I was around my preteen years I taught a group of much younger gamers who had a book called What is Dungeons & Dragons by John Butterfield, Philip Parker, and David Honigmann. It is was published in the U.S. in 1984 & before that the UK in 1982. Well within that book was a little dungeon called The Shrine of Kollchap. 

I ran my uncle's kids through this dungeon several times. They went on to be dungeon masters in their own right.  The shrine has a bit of everything for a dungeon master looking to really sprinkle on bits & pieces of the old school D&D feel without the completely lethal edge that comes with the turf. What's really nice is how easily it is to modify out for games like AS&SH. These dungeons can keyed so that Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea will provide all of the necessary stats and monster profiles to set up & spawn any of the horrors for this campaign to succeed.
Finally there's the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album By Gary Gygax which has for many years had a love affair among old school players & fans alike. Included as a part of the coloring book is a dungeon that is ultimately a part of the background of the coloring book itself. All of the monsters, creatures, adventurers are all keyed into the book's setting. Now here's the bit about this dungeon, its actually pretty deadly & lethal! It also follows the Holmes edition dungeon very closely. There's a great break down from the OD&D boards by Zenopus & even more details on it. 

 This dungeon could be used as a mid point island location with a multi planar twist enabling PC's from AS&SH to experience some of the more iconic & pulpy D&D elements without polluting Hyperborea's unique setting. This means that the dungeon might be a nexus dimensional point or gateway for Hyperborea into a sword & sorcery Greyhawk. But this is going to be for a much higher level point in the campaign.

Through The Green Door - The Islands of Purple Putresence - An Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Actual Play Event

Roman senate door by antmoose

So last night I got together with Steve & his players for a bit of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyeprborea. This isn't my regular group of players so I was kinda with my back to the wall. Yeah well I did have couple of aces up my sleeve in the fact that I've been running a  weekly The Islands of Purple Putrescence game powered by the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea first edition rpg engine rpg game. So out come my notes & we instantly begin with the PC's in the black magick market place from my regular game.
So Steve & his six players are in for a bad time when they ran into the skeleton man from Jupiter bounty hunter Tuff. Tuff has a love of control crystals & wields a radium pistol with deadly accuracy.Within moments they picked a fight with our bounty hunter & things started to go side ways. The party managed to make it out alive with a map that Tuff dropped & he went off to lick his wounds. But the map didn't belong to him as he was acting as an errant boy for an adventurer named Gideon. The map depicted an urban ruin in one of the lesser neighborhood belonging to the former Hyperborean 'house of Elr'. The party's cleric/scribe began to piece the history of this minor house of royals from before 'the Green Death.' The house of Elr were part of the 'life guild' & contributors to the growth of this end of the city. They were major importers/exporters of the healing arts & medical instruments so they had close associations with the deity 'El' which they took as a part of their name. They were a noble family that had blood ties going back all the way to Old Earth. Now someone named Gideon wants a 'treasure' deep within the ruins of the house.



Meanwhile all this sneaking around was too much for Grok the barbarian warlord & he marched right back over to Talis's house. He was interested in buying a control crystal for two Hyperborean artifacts. He pushed two of the wizard's bodyguards out of the way to deal directly with the wizard himself. Talis is a green skinned wizard surrounded by dozens of his animal women assassins, thieves, and operators. That didn't matter to our warlord & adventurer whose successful charisma role impressed the alien wizard with his bravo.



So the party of adventurers got the control crystal headed over to the house's 'ruins' but was a bit surprised when it turns out the house isn't quite as ruined as they thought. Meanwhile, Tuff has been listening from the shadows & follows the party. The party is confronted by a massive green door cut into a stone temple like mansion. The control crystal fits squarely in place & the massive door swings into darkness but the party hears the hum of machinery. That's never a good sign!

The adventurers were confronted with several strange Satanic robotic mechanisms of Old Hyperborea! They battled the hell beasts for what seemed like hours only to have their wizard & fighter snatched from within their midst and taken down, down several ramps into the bowels of the 'house of Elr'. Actually several lousy dice rolls did them in!
The party of adventurers hurried after their companions only to be distracted by the treasure house of Hyperborean relics around them!? After about ten minutes of examination they hurried down into the bowels of the house to find their companions drained of blood and put onto secret catacomb shelves.



The party's cleric/healer Ambrose of Hermes examined the strange way that the bodies were stored in the catacombs. He also saw the blood that the Hyperborean robotic mechanisms had taken from the bodies but that the bodies were still warm to the touch. There were signs of revivification that were possible but they were beyond his capabilities. His fellow adventurers were trapped in a living death like sleep. The rest of the adventurers were quite content to take some of the relics & leave! They'll be back another time to retrieve their fellow adventurers! They're just going to leave them to their fate at the moment!
So some of this I came up with from notes made from Venger Satanist's How To Game Master Like A Fucking Boss book.




1d20 Pulp Encounters Within
The House of 'House of Elr'

1. Giant skeleton wearing decaying armor of unknown design three of its ribs have been struck away and a +1 sword is stuck between his ribs. There are 300 silver piece of unknown design scattered on the floor. 
2. There are several carved crystal chalices scattered across the floor each of the challices is worth about 100 gold pieces and there is dried green powder in the bottom of each of them. 
3. A whirling dangerous Hyperborean flesh automaton confronts you and means you harm! It is angry, dangerous, and will murder anyone it gets a hold of. 
4. A powerful double hit dice gray ooze comes up from a floor grate. 
5. An animated giant suit of plate mail comes down a hallway the thing is covered with carbon scoring from numerous laser crossbow shots. It attacks on sight
6. A small Hyperborean skeleton bears the marks of murder with a cheap dagger sticking out of its skull. 
7. There are skeleton after skeletons walking around aimlessly here they don't attack but act confused and dazed. They're bones are covered in metal and worked through with strange broken mechanisms
8. A gargoyle moves to attack you! 
9. There are broken vases of strange chemicals and dusts all over the floor here they will animate within 1d6 rounds into an elemental whose very confused and angry! 
10. A Hyperborean zombie stumbles down the hall dressed in a royal lady's gown! She seems very hungry! 
11. 1d6 Hyperborean ghouls come out of a side room or hidden passage for lunch! You look very tasty indeed! 
12. 1d100 silver pieces and broken coffer sits on the floor above is a green slime which grows from the ceiling 
13. 1d20 broken alchemist's tools are on the floor & nearby are 1d20 gremlins who will be happy to eat you! 
14. The zombie of some time lost adventurer stumbles and shuffles into view! He carries a strange weapon or tool of black metal but can't remember how to use it! Then bang a tremendous clap of thunder goes off! 
15. Striges guard the entrance to the house shrine! There are 1d30 pieces of Hyperborean jewelry here. 
16. 1d6 ghouls of Hyperborean descent are feasting on some fool in armor whose recently been here. He has 1d3 relics. 
17. 1d3 skeleton warriors are playing dice with knuckle bone dice but will attack you for interrupting their game
18. A massive zombie warrior stumbles to attack you! 
19. Here a make shift shrine to Cthulhu has been set up and there are three gold bars as an offering do you dare disturb it! 
20. A wild vampire who hasn't fed in centuries has gone insane and will attack the first person entering here! He guards ten thousand gold pieces worth of artifacts!

More Hyperborean Hi jinks Under A Purple Sky - The Islands of Purple Putresence - An Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Actual Play Event

Last night it was time for my group's weekly The Islands of Purple Putrescence game powered by the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea first edition rpg engine. There's been a lot happening since last game.

The PC's have been messing around with the crystals on the islands & getting into as well as out of all kinds of trouble.


Two things came in handy for last night's game from The Zenopus Archives Monster List by HD - Reference Sheet v1.1 - single sheet listing statistics for all 80 monsters in the Monster List, ordered by HD.
Second page has some tips for using the table & One Hit Point Monsters v1.0 - twenty new monsters with one hit point, for use with single characters which helped to set the alien nature of the islands without killing every last PC. This is
The party's shaman has acquired a purple fairy familiar, really messed around with a hedge wizard/slave trader, & he's managed to get the party in lots of trouble over crystals which this PC seems to have natural affinity for. That's not a good thing in a way. The group's shaman has traded in several crystals for an animal woman slave whose become his bodyguard. Nula was this particular animal woman's name & she is a third level assassin. Blessed with an almost supernatural psionic empathy sense & the ability to communicate without actually speaking she  was more then a match for several of the NPC's  the party encountered on the island. To say she's been busy is an understatement.


The PC's in last night's game encountered a Hyperborean teleporter which brought them straight into the heart of one of the island's lesser city states which is on par with Pompeii. And they almost came face to face with the G'R'ruiri's  magician's guild.
These guys are a faction made up of academics, survivors of certain Federation space craft, & purple wielding  jerks who consider themselves the 'true inheritors' of the island's power. The guild is made up of 4th through 9th level magicians who have taken the 'oath' of power. They're mostly molded on the free  The Baleful Sorcerer of Tsathag'kha From Kort'thalis Publishing

Throughout the local city state they wield power & influence by fear, power, intimation, & connections to certain nasty groups such as the Deep Ones and other Lovecraftian entities. Think Roman senator with all the corruption & now add in purple magick power.


Needless to say that the party left after a minor vulgar display of power between PC's and the party was lead into the city state's black market magick quarter which was where Talis holds court. Here the party encountered lots of alien half men, mutants, & races from a dozen realities. Talis is a green skinned wizard surrounded by dozens of his animal women assassins, thieves, and operators. But his most dangerous operative is the skeleton man from Jupiter bounty hunter Tuff. Tuff has a love of control crystals & wields a radium pistol with deadly accuracy. He took an instant dislike the party & went off in a snit after Talis accepted the party's offer.




1d20 Random Pulp Encounters
Within The  Black Market Magick Quarter  Table 

1. 1d6 black magicians buying herbs that scream the songs of the damned. These herbs grow from the rotting skin of gods on the islands south side. 
2. A group of very bewildered survivors from a space craft on the beaches of purple sand. They need a guide and fast before the thieves get a hold of them in 1d6 rounds 
3. Alien pick pockets working the crowd, they're 2nd level thieves & alien vampires. 
4. 6 black magicians looking for adventurers for a job and quest to one of the islands god kings. 
5. A group of very confused Alpha Blue adventurers who are waking up from an a night bender 
6.  Post apocalyptic adventurers who are on a quest for a certain magickal potion to help cure a plague back home. 
7. Alien merchants selling human dreams and emotions bottled in magick containers. These get you high and help to make dreams come true. Did I mention that they're very addictive. 
8. Crystal seller looking to unload worthless junk. He's got an assassin after him already, a wisdom check is needed to see that this is a dead man walking. 
9. A possessed body walks the streets with purple demons running through her. Very dangerous and slightly radioactive to anyone within 20 feet of her.
10. A reptile mummy from another dimension is buying magickal components for an upcoming ritual. Looking for help locating several crystals for it. 
11. Screaming & walking a muscle bound barbarian sells his skills as a tracker between worlds rather loudly. He's good but needs others for a side mission. 
12. Merchants from a dimension of sound are selling the calls of the dead for necrotic rituals. These can call 1d8 ghosts within 1d6 rounds but beware the dangers of this. 
13. A man is selling pieces of his soul to the highest bidder. Actually their pieces of his neighbor whom he hates. These pieces can be used to create 1d20 rot grubs with the right rituals. 
14. This merchant is selling pieces of a cake of unreality. Those who eat of it will fade from existence within 1d20 rounds and be hurled into a random dimensional plane. 
15. A merchant is selling pieces of  witch cigars that can create a shield of antimagic for 1d6 rounds for 200 gold pieces each 
16. You hear the screams of captive mutant humanoid children's ghosts. These things are deadly hunters of others. She wants 1d200 gold pieces for each soul bottle. 
17. Dr. I.D. Fy a serpent man priest in human disguise is selling his services for identifying magic items or relics. 100 gold pieces each or a slave of humanoid stock for each item. 
18. Several alien harlots are recruiting for a trip to Alpha Blue. Actually these are cultists looking for sacrifices for a local back alley murder. 4th level black magic assassins who might sell their services to the right client. Lots of fast talking and several Charisma rolls might be in order.
19. A group of adventurers is looking to sell their latest magical treasure for 5 slaves or 700 gold pieces. They've got a piece of alien preserved brain in a jar that grants wishes. Actually what they've got is a piece of an alien god that opens 1d20 doors to other realities and its getting ready to recall back its flesh. Anyone within a forty foot radius will be caught in the effect. They'll be lunch and their soul will be swallowed.
20. Several alien pirates are selling 1d20 relics and ill gotten artifacts for dirt cheap. They've been compelled to under a curse. Those who pick up these treasures will be under a geas to complete a quest for an unknown power. The items & powers behind this are up to the DM.

Many of the ideas in last night's adventure were created using several suggestions  from  Play Your Character Like A Fucking Boss.  Yes this book works for both the players and the DM's kids.

 

Renagades a Go Go On The Islands of Purple Putresence - Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Actual Play Event

Tonight we got together for our weekly The Islands of Purple Putrescence game powered by the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea first edition rpg engine

So earlier this evening my players have embarked upon the interior of the Islands of Purple Putrescence. What I really began to draw from was the Eighties classic Holmes D&D edition mixed with a healthy dose of classic era Pulp resources. I created several factions & ideas for this game which I set upon first edition Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign world.


Over the last several weeks the PC's have collected crystals, pissed off minor hedge wizards, explored the ruins of a Roman fort & generally almost gotten themselves killed several times over. Well in tonight's game the stakes began to go up the group's shaman has traded in several crystals for an animal woman slave whose become his bodyguard. Nula was this particular animal woman's name & she is a third level assassin. Blessed with an almost supernatural psionic empathy sense & the ability to communicate without actually speaking she  was more then a match for several of the NPC's  the party encountered on the island.


Deeper in the thick of the jungle the party ran into several mutant slavers who were in a bad way; the slavers last week had run into a rather dangerous cosmically radioactive horror & seemed to be easy pickings for the party. A bit too easy but the party managed to recover several artifacts & even more Purple island crystals but that's when after a moment the party encountered one of the island's pylons.
The party's Hyperborean shaman started to mess with this dangerous device of alien horror & created several doppelgangers of himself as the Einsteinium time space hi jinks started. 
The player is completely unaware that the island has already marked him as one of its own & the crystals keep finding the party. Time and again at several of the Roman forts they've encountered along the way there have been several ape men traders & slavers who have been warning the party of the islands alien influence. Now it seems that the Lovecraftian powers of the islands have been quietly exerting more & more power over certain events but only time will tell how this turns out. 

The party has met several of the various Greyhawk mercenaries that I've used over the years including a renegade Amazon princess whose taken an instant dislike to one of the PC's. Needless to say that a future confrontation has been set up. Needless to say she's not at all what she appears to be, she's actually Joane De Val'u servant of Shub-Niggurath and renegade Amazon cult leader on the islands furthering her mistress's twisted goals.


The players are quite unaware that they've been followed by this dangerous and deranged cult leader. The question is whose goals is she furthering her own or the islands. Only time will tell. Joane was created using Venger's Free OSR resource Three Swordsmen From Kort'thalis Publishing  

& several suggestions from  Play Your Character Like A Fucking Boss. 

 

We ended with our characters camped for the night & several horrors out in the jungles closing in on them. What will happen? Will our heroes survive their night's terror and why are powers of the islands taking such an interest in them?

The Purple Haunted Dr. La Sing & The Classic B3 The Palace of the Silver Princess For Your Old School Campaigns

I'm not going to lie, I've been laid low by the Flu. & so I've had to push off my Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game till next week. I also spent the night in a fever dream of reliving some of the more weird details of the Palace of the Silver Princess mini campaign I ran. Yes I know the module's plot is a mess, but the weird fairy tale aspects of it have passed into local legend in Hyperborea. I was dreaming of Dr. La Sing the NPC villain behind sending the PC's almost to their doom back in 2015. The Palaces are still there trapped in timeless fairy tale pulpy fashion like something right out of a Clark Aston Smith novelette.




The vile villain behind the PC's involvement in the whole affair, Dr. La Sing. La Sing is an NPC Oriental mastermind in the true tradition of pulp magazines. Except he isn't what he seems at all. You see Dr. La Sing is actually David Carter adventurer from 'Old Earth' who was driven mad by the Lovecraftian forces of the Islands of Purple Putrescence. David was convinced that he was being cursed by the evil mastermind Dr. La Sing & that the evil vile forces of the island was his Hell. His mind cracked under the strange forbidden forces & the doctor was only to glad of a force to step into the lime light of David's mind. The calm, cool, collected evil doctor stepped into the body of David & was only too glad to embrace the dark purple forces of the islands. Now Dr. La Sing lives as a forth level purple monk &  seventh level black necromancer dressed in long draped purple robes of the sage. He is surrounded by loyal mercenaries, mutants, & savage warriors. His ever present opium water pipe bubbles with weird scented smoke that curls into dragonlike humanoid shapes and his strange hooded eyes regard the world with malevolence. But he is very honorable, wise, but extremely dangerous (there are rumors from his most loyal retainers that think that the real Dr.La Sing controls this one magically but they are never whispered in his presence). Even now several bounty hunters range across Hyperborea looking for David Carter.

Image from http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_
images/4a/10/72f2fd40dc3af4505b2520eeac77.jpg

Dr. La Sing controls all manner of vice, slave trade, & other vile pass times. It is rumored that he has ties to deep cults within the Narcosa dimension. There are also rumors of his trade upon Mars of the Beast Jewels and his operatives have been seen as far as Alpha Blue. 

1d6 Random 'What's in Dr. La Sing's pipe today' Table 

1. A small dragon fetus from another planet 
2. The pickled head of the doctor's last enemy 
3. Hashish from the mountains of H'Rmu 
4. The ground powder from a +1 sword named Tem're 
5. Bones from a thousand heroes selfless deaths 
6. The bones from a worshiper of the Elder Gods

 But it is the Palace of the Silver Princess that haunts Dr.La Sing trapped in time and outside of space. The forces of chaos & degenerate horror play within this bauble and like him it is subject to the whims and depredations of the black gods. the presence of Arikof the Hundred Eyes patron of Forbidden Secrets & the Lost was there causing all kinds of havoc for the good doctor's operatives. There are rumors that there has been a protracted war between the forces of La Sing & the ancient god thing.



There have been several attempts over the years for the PC's to kill the good doctor but they're pretty afraid that one of them might be chosen to take La Sing's place. It seems that the forces of the islands enjoy their insane cat's paw and he still has uses to them. They made this very clear a few times in the past, so for the moment Dr.La Sing is still a thorn in my player's side.
I've also used him as the patron who sent the adventurers into the Palace of the Silver Princess - An Adventure by the DIY D&D Community. Available in PDF for FREE.That did not go too well for them & several of the PC's died, the good doctor was most amused by this turn of events. It is also known that La Sing has in the past contact with the "The Stairway of V'dreen " from Venger's latest kickstarter. In terms of Adventurer, Conqueror, King La Sing runs several criminal enterprises as a nineth level thief & a sixth level black wizard. He maintains a forth level market place & has a wide variety of vice based criminal enterprises on Hyperborea.

Parts & Purpled Pieces Under The Hyperborean Sky - A Deeper Look At OSR Campaign Construction

B/X Dungeons & Dragons has always been far push away from the OSR material that inspired especially with the third wave of OSR stuff that has come out recently or has it? Let's take a deep gaze into the background of  classic TSR era Dungeons & Dragons, Venger's Satanis's material, & call to pulp adventure once again.

When it comes to classic B/X Dungeons & Dragons I draw down from the classic Seventies & Eighties schools of adventure table top role playing games and comic books. There seems to be a sense to this era that anything goes at the table. The latest trends in gaming just don't seem that interesting lately.
I keep glancing at a stack of Eighties comic books and suddenly my eye rests on an advertisement that seemed to be everywhere back then.



Mentzer,Moldvay,& Holmes Dungeons & Dragons are sort of my soul's comfort food when it comes to designing, reading, & going through the motions of thinking of the philosophy of B/X D&D. Its this comment from a discussion about The Mentzer D&D set that caught my attention today from Simon H over on Drivethrurpg;

"Reading Moldvay recently was a revelation. At every turn the implicit assumption is that your Basic D&D character is awesome. Of course your character can ride a horse, fight from the saddle, swim or command a ship! Simply state it on the character sheet and maybe give a short explanation how the character gained the ability. Done! Magic is powerful, the spells have none of the limitations and ‘safety catches’ that tame them in other editions. Instead their raw power is exposed. Finally, there’s a small rule in the back of the book that makes the game. If there’s not a rule for doing something, just ask the player to roll 1D20 equal to or less than an appropriate characteristic, maybe with a modifier. Boom! At a stroke your characters become truly heroic, able to have a go at anything. Not even level is a limiting factor. Unfortunately this rule was excised in the Mentzer edition."
Its just that process of you can do anything with D&D  that gets me back into the frame of mind to create OSR material. The creative process is one of the reasons why I'm drawn into D&D at my age & it seems to resonate with both players & dungeon masters alike for the same reasons.
So that being said I'm quietly putting together what I can actually do with the Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence & I pulled out my copy of Liberation of the Demon Slayer to add to the heady mix. I'm using Liberation of the Demon Slayer as more of a source book rather then an actual adventure at the moment. Convert the Elves over to Hyperboreans & your good to go. Cradle of Rabies has a really nice review of Liberation of the Demon Slayer.


One of the things I really like about the location of the islands on Hyperborea is the fact that I can add or subtract anything 'Bermuda Triangle' style from across time & space which still won't break the setting into tiny pieces. This means I can add in a  classic historical Roman fort someplace on the islands holding its own against the forces of demonic horror & still not break the setting. A classic Castra showing up upon some part of one of the islands is something I've been tossing around for awhile now. You need a few points of stability & trade among the chaos and horror of the purple. A good example of what I mean is this piece of cartography done by
Mediatus  from wiki commons note the classic playing card diagram.


This also means that I can as a dungeon master incorpote different NPC's from other OSR products or setting elements as needed. Case in point is Rpg Pundit's Dark Albion which is perfect for creating time or dimension lost adventurers, outlaws, and other NPC's from the world of Albion and sticking them on The Islands of Purple Putrescence. They're not simply another faction on the islands but there in the service of their demon gods & trying to further the causes of the Rose War back home. 

Monsters of these islands are going to have their own unique feel and abilities. Kobolds for example might be far more pulpy entities then your normal run of the mill horrors. Purpled up cockroach style monsters with the abilities of a troll's regeneration & the ability to over run adventurers. They serve the islands god hive mind and its needs. They're mad, bad, & dangerous but far more rare then standard goblins. The islands generate them as needed.


The islands & Hyperborea have their own take on the classic B/X & D&D monsters, this isn't actually me as the dungeon master taking liberities with the setting but the fictional setting itself taking liberties with its own mythology. Going all of the way back to Clark Aston Smith's Hyperborean cycle which takes its cues from H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Aston Smith. Venger Satanis & Jeff Talanian as both writers and designers are well aware of this fact. They've read the Hyperborea cycle stories and have incorporated the Hyperborean Demonology, inspired by the works of Clark Ashton Smith into their game design.

Some of the delightfully demonic artwork of mrzarono.deviantart.com appears in various Kort'thalis Publishing's products giving me a much needed clue about the origins of this end of the Lovecraftian hi jinks. All of this leads back to the Old Solar System campaign model that I've talk about ad nausea before.  Here's the pulpy Clark Aston Smith stories for Hyperborean reference:
 
"The following short stories are considered part of Smith's Hyperborean cycle:

• "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" (1931)
• "The Testament of Athammaus" (1932)
• "The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan" (1932)
• "The Door to Saturn" (1932)
• "The House of Haon-Dor" (1933) [story fragment]
• "The Ice-Demon" (1933)
• "Ubbo-Sathla" (1933)
• "The Seven Geases" (1934)
• "The White Sybil" (1935)
• "The Coming of the White Worm" (1941)
• "The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles" (1958)
  You can find all of the Clark Ashton Smith tales that are mentioned in this blog post on  www.eldritchdark.com. In my opinion Hyperborea has always been the last refuge of the people of Old Earth. Its not a pleasant or easy world to survive on. The place has always been a world of extremes and add to it the horrors of the Lovecraftian and its a heady and somewhat pulpy mix.
  This post is not an attempt to violate the copyrights or trademarks of any of the films nor properties named in this post. All ideas are for a private table top rpg campaign. None of the ideas or opinions expressed in this post are meant to violate the trademarks nor copy rights of any of the table top rpgs discussed nor are they in away responsible for the thoughts or opinions of the author. The writing, ideas, and opinions are copyrighted and trade marked to the author and Dark Corner productions. This post is for entertainment & educational purposes only. Don't forget to take a look at and support the newest Trinity of Awesome Returns Kickstarter.

Commentary On Using Holmes B/X Dungeons & Dragons With The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence For Old School Campaign Fodder

So I've got kinda of a quandary with my Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, I've shipwrecked a bunch of first level PC's on Venger Satanis's The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence which I've cast into the waves of Hyperborea. Surely these fools will not survive upon the haunted black sands of the island as everything will try to eat them. Well that's the plan anyway or is it? Many of the hex crawl's encounters are pretty high level and for first level PC's a total wipe out. Well not quite. I have a cunning plan and it involves Holmes Basic Dungeons & Dragons. One of the things I've been doing is researching, & reading Holmes D&D  again. What could Holmes possibly have to offer?

Well a few things like advice on scaling encounters to fit the levels of the PC's & how to keep things moving. There was post about sandbox campaigns going wrong and I intend to avoid that. By  plugging in some of the lower level monster encounters from Holmes I can get a better rounded adventure path for the players & their characters. The stats are no problem because many of the monsters have AS&SH equivalents built into the rules set.

Because   The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence  is outside of known time & space the perfect excuse is available to encounter a plethora of horrors. So I can sneak in a wide variety of lower tier encounters without having to skimp on quality. What we're looking at is a cross selection of undead, skeletons, humans, berserk warriors, slimes, goblins, and many of the weirder monsters of OD&D. This would also include lizardmen and more dangerous horrors as middle men & finally minotaurs and some giants as boss creatures. The pulp aspect might be in the dungeon locations as the wreckage of flying saucers & space craft becomes the temples, stock dungeons, & ruin locations on the Islands now the home of some perhaps weird or mutated D&D monsters.

The sheer iconic weirdness of Holmes makes it one of my favorite go to sources for pulpy D&D wisdom & the vibe of this edition has always to me fit many of the gonzo aspects of early Seventies and Eighties old school. This also means that its always at the back of my mind as a reservoir of wisdom for these types of situations. The
Monster List by HD - Reference Sheet v1.1  is one of those invaluable resources for Holmes D&D from the Zenopus Archives site.
Given the weirdness of the Islands of Purple Putrescence the "One Hit Point Monsters v1.0 - twenty new monsters with one hit point, for use with single characters, small parties " is a natural download to help give some of the alien flavor of the place.

 The artwork from the U.K. Games Workshop edition of Holmes is especially evoctive of the animal witch women that the party will be running into in next week's game.

So why does this work out so well for a weirdly generic gonzo OSR style book like the Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence?  Because Dr. Eric J. Holmes was a huge fan of pulp magazines, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and he knew the aesthetic of pulp gaming. This was a man who wrote Mahars of Pellucidar by John Eric Holmes which was published by  Ace Books in 1976 with cover art by Boris Vallejo. This was an authorized sequel of the Pellucidar books by Dr. Holmes and given the green light by the Burroughs estate.


Everything here is keyed so that Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea will provide all of the necessary stats and monster profiles to set up & spawn any of the horrors for this campaign to succeed. The balance here is in the gonzo, weirdness, and otherworldly adventure that the The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence  & Holmes provides all mixed up in an OSR cocktail with AS&SH as it backbone!

Astonishing Swordsmen Upon The Purple Islands, Random Encounters, & Free OSR Pulp Resources At The Actual Play Event

So tonight I got together with players to do a PC workshop for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The PC's filled in character sheets, discussed system mechanics, chose races, classes, and then I proceeded to ship wreck them on The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence by Venger Satanis.


I was looking to get back to my roots as a friend of mine said about The Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence  a weird-fantasy gonzo-sandbox with sci-fantasy, lots of lovecraftian overtones and a "Heavy Metal" aesthetic which is pretty much my comfort zone. 

So a fishing junk with a mixed crew of rough neck fishermen encountered a weird storm & the main mast was hit by lightning. The  boat drifted for what seemed like days until it reached the shoals of some ancient and accursed island off the coast of the Hyperborean mainland. There were hundreds of wrecks & a coying mist that clung to the islands shores. The party's shaman alright has felt a strange pulsing magic from the fog and weirdness of the black sandy beach with its weird vegetation.

I gave out the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Player's Guide & gave a bit of background for the player's PC's. A long time ago I bought two copies of both the Player's and Referee's manual so that it would be easier to run a game without having to stop every two minutes to cross reference during character workshops. Everything came off very smoothly with the player's equipping their PC's and just waiting to get into the mainland with its sword & sorcery action.


The players are expecting more of  the Eighties sword & sorcery material that inspired Venger's latest Crimson Dragon Slayer fueled Kickstarter which is just a hundred bucks shy of its goal for the Return of the Trinity of Awesome.  Yes its worth back in my opinion. 
But already I've got other plans & schemes worked out for them, lately I've been drawing from a much deeper well then simply the usual Eighties awesomeness.
I've always been a Fantastic Adventures pulp fan, the covers were always incredibly lurid & starkly science fantasy. They freely mixed both sword, sorcery & science fiction with generous helpings of horror and weird fiction. In other words its material that's ideally suited for the style of campaign that I want to run.

"Fantastic Adventures was an American pulp fantasy and science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1953 by Ziff-Davis. It was initially edited by Raymond A. Palmer, who was also the editor of Amazing Stories, Ziff-Davis's other science fiction title. The first nine issues were in bedsheet format, but in June 1940 the magazine switched to a standard pulp size. It was almost cancelled at the end of 1940, but the October 1940 issue enjoyed unexpectedly good sales, helped by a strong cover by J. Allen St. John for Robert Moore Williams' Jongor of Lost Land. By May 1941 the magazine was on a regular monthly schedule. Historians of science fiction consider that Palmer was unable to maintain a consistently high standard of fiction, but Fantastic Adventures soon developed a reputation for light-hearted and whimsical stories. Much of the material was written by a small group of writers under both their own names and house names. The cover art, like those of many other pulps of the era, focused on beautiful women in melodramatic action scenes. One regular cover artist was H.W. McCauley, whose glamorous "MacGirl" covers were popular with the readers, though the emphasis on depictions of attractive and often partly clothed women did draw some objections." "
Like so many of the Ziff Davis pulp material much of this stuff is public domain now and so great stuff to draw on for a sword & sorcery campaign especially Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. A great example is  Fantastic Adventures v10n07 1948-07, solid cover and some top drawer material. And its a free download over here

A second example of the heady mix of classic sword, sorcery, & weird fiction would be Avon's Out Of This World's Adventures. A strange hybrid of pulp magazine, comic book, & weird fiction all under one public domain roof, it only lasted two glorious issues.
" Out of This World Adventures was a pulp magazine which published two issues, in July and December 1950. It included several pages of comics as well as science fiction stories. It was edited by Donald A. Wollheim and published by Avon. Sales were weak, and after two issues Avon decided to cancel it."
Once again we see Donald Wollheim's name associated right in the middle of one of the classic pieces of 1950's science fiction and fantasy. This magazine led the way for the digests and zines of the 50's through 80's.



You can download Out of This World issue One & Two HERE 

 The type of weird fictional random encounters that I'm looking to do here in this campaign are woolly, dangerous, pulpy & with a good twist of the Lovecraftian thrown in for good measure.
1d20 Random Purple Islands Pulp Encounters Table   

1. 1d8 crewmen of a lost world war two bomber who have been lost on the island for two years

2. A group of mutant pilgrims on their way to sacrifice themselves to one of the island's horrid elemental purple volcano gods. There is a twenty percent chance of them having relics on them. 

3. A dark necromancer and his zombie monster bodyguards on their way to cause a plague upon one of the rival tribes 

4. A band of mutant adventurers from the far future on a mission from their mutant god master for animal women slaves. 

5. A barbarian with his mutant animal companions on their way to a shrine of his ancient god forebears. He is for hire and needs to complete his mission for his god. 

6. A giant mutant ooze that is simply out to eat everything it encounters. 

7. Hyper intelligent dinosaurs all part of a dangerous alien hive mind are looking to collect human slaves to take back to their world as a part of a weird experiment. 

8. A giant brain mutant from the future is looking for his mate and to pay homage to his Lovecraftian gods. He will pretend friend ship to sacrifice PC's to his gods. 

9. A dangerous alien crystal entity is after an agent of chaos and suspects one of the PC's of being that agent. It will destroy anyone in its path. 

10. A team of serpent men seeks one of the PC's for his or her role in their species extinction before it happens. 

11. A Lovecraftian cloud thing is looking for slaves and things to exploit for its sorcerous whims. 

12. A lone astronaut is being pursued by ape men bounty hunters from a dying world and they are armed with death rays and force field belts. They ride cyber horses 

13. A crew of Eighties seamen have survived being ship wrecked but they are being hunted by mutated birdmen who wish to eat or enslave them. They are armed with tridents and spears. 

14. Twelve alien plant men are tearing through the sky on clouds of sorcerous vapor looking for flesh bags and humanoids to take to their brood mother goddess to eat. 

15. A strange twisted being of alien flesh and bone is looking for captives or slaves to make a part of himself with necrotic magic. A very dangerous wizard of highly dangerous aspect. 

16. A demon from Saturn seeks a mate for his wizard master and he's not choosy. 

17. A lone spawn of Cthulhu seeks to awaken his dark master for an alien agenda and he needs sacrifices. 

18. An amazon panther rider seeks her sisters to slay a demonic overlord someplace on the islands. 

19. Ancient horrors from beyond are looking for one of the PC's & the dangers they pose to their dark masters. 

20. An ancient magician of the purple gods seeks to gain the soul of some poor fool. Guess who he's looking for.

1.