Showing posts with label The Mythos Society Guide To New England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Mythos Society Guide To New England. Show all posts

Friday, June 11, 2021

Session Report One - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure campaign - Amazing Adventures Fifth Edition - Influence of the Jungle Tomb of the Mummy Bride By Levi Combs From Planet X Games

 Tonight's Amazing Adventures fifth edition session picks right up from last week's zero session. 


A player hand out printed from the papers recovered from Mr.Smithers the town historian. 
The photo was marked with the following;"Wehrmacht officiers, 1941. Unidentified site, picture from the personal archives of Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr." 
The following artwork is used without permission from Andrea Bonazzi

The players are poking around the old Morley mansion & came across the town historian's belongings?! Mr. Smithers had set up a makeshift room inside the old mansion & they found a bunch of classified papers from WW II & a four foot high jar. The jar began to move & out bust a swarm of thousands of  tiny hand like creatures that crawled towards the PC's!? There was an odd disembodied cackling that came from off in the ether. There were a series of photographs, an oddly annoited & noted map of the seas around South America & a journal in archaic German!?!  The same Wehrmacht officiers appeared in front of a dire looking jungle tomb in the South American bush! Smithers himself isn'r anywhere to be found?! 



The PC's decided to press deeper into the Morley place & discovered a secret tunnel passage that led down into tunnels running below the Morley place. In one of these the PC's came across a dug out room with an alchemist lab set up within it! And there was a rather nasty blood splatter across the floor & green ichor mixed with it. None of the player's PC's touched the foul bubbling stuff mixed with the blood. 

We drew tonight's game to a close rather early because of work schedules for tomorrow morning. 





A few take aways from tonight's game of slipping in the adventure  crow bars of Jungle Tomb of the Mummy Bride. Amazing Adventures fifth edition has the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition's or Castles & Crusade's alignment system in full effect. Running away is always an option esepcially for OSR style adventures. 
The PC's also have run into a little sip of paper that contained the following; 
 "Keep women, thrones and kingly lands,

Grant me—to work all mankind dole

To cleave their skulls and split their hands,

To kill the body, damn the soul." 
Keep women, thrones and kingly lands ...
by Robert E. Howard

They have no idea what this verse means but their about ready to charter a plan to South America near a little fishing village where  Mr. Smithers was staying at some months ago. 

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Character Workshop & Zero Session - Now With More Tomb of The Mummy's Bride By Levi Combs From Planet X Games

 
"Tales of the cursed pyramid and the sleeping tomb of the Mummy Bride have long been a traveler’s tale, passed along by wayward explorers and greedy plunderers alike. Deep within the verdant jungles of the south, amidst a Green Hell of impenetrable jungle, savage cannibals and ancient myth, lies the shattered remnants of a once-powerful civilization and the terrible gods who ruled over them. Rumors swirl of untold riches and un-plundered magic for those brave (or foolish!) enough to claim it. Will your players survive… and what will be left of them?" 



We've closed up shop for the moment on the Veterans of the Supernatural Wars rpg mini campaign for the moment. So we're in the planning stages for an Amazing Adventures 5th editions rpg campaign romp. Except we've already got a fifth edition AA mini campaign already on the run! This one takes place in 1965 when a group of adventurers is looking into the legends of the Goblyn Glass. 




This goes back several months & the fact that we had a group of players go through Goodman Games Classics Reimagined #2 Isle of Dread . The isle appeared off the South American panhandle. The problem?! A complete party wipe on the isle & its chain of mini islands. 



So where does this leave Jungle Tomb of the Mummy Bride?! The fact that this undead dark lord is on the rise on this Earth! But what's the connection to small Connecticut town of Bingham?! We'll there's a ton of connections with the town historian Mr. Smithers whose family has a strong ghoul strain running through it. This family line slides in with the witches history that  interconnects with Skirmisher Publishing's ' Games  Mythos Guide To New England '



Mr. Smithers has several artifacts in his possession that have deep ties to the Mummy Bride herself. Smithers has consulted the renowned occultist John Grimlan whose recently comeback into the world of the living.  John Grimlan is the occultist  from the classic horror story by  Robert E. Howard' called 'Dig Me No Grave
'. The U.S. army has the Goblyn Glass at the moment. 
Now things are starting up again at the old  Morley Manor property. There's been several disappearance in & around the old place. And Smithers has had the where with all to call in the player's PC's. Now however Smithers has disappeared! 

Monday, June 7, 2021

Mirror, Mirror - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door - Session Report

 Over the weekend we were able to get together & play a round of Night Shift The Veterans of the Supernatural! Things in Bingham have really heated up! 


The PC's got in way over their heads by going into the Morley mansion & finding the Goblyn Glass in the basement. They crossed  over into the dreamlands of  Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door series! And things got much weirder as they found Christopher St.John's 'workshop' along with the magic mirror that dominated the entire basement. The whole mirror radiated with occult  power drawing everything around it! 
The PC this time shot Robert St.John dead & made sure of it! But the guardian of  the Goblyn Glass had them! A giant hairy hand belonging to a Gug reached through & drew them into the glass! 



The The Mirror of Erised photo by  Rob Young from United Kingdom was my player handout stand in for the Goblyn Glass. 
And then the party came face to face with the dungeon of Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door! Things got very weird indeed when it became clear that the party was hip deep in the dream wilderness of  Ultan's Door! They wanted to turn around & go back to Bingham. The mirror wouldn't let them! So now they are face to face with the weirdness of the dreamlands of Ben Laurence. Will they survive the experience?! 



What's really happened is that the PC's have aquired a very special occult key from from Edward Dimond, who wants to see the PC's near the Morley manor. But will it make any difference & can the PC's figure it out in time?! And now a pride  of cats is shadowing the PC's. Now what the PC's don't know?! Agents from the U.S. Army have moved in & claimed the Goblyn Glass! How will they survive?! 

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Shot in The Dreams of Others - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door

 So the PC's in this session of the on going hybrid got a chance to do a bit of investigative work around the old inn in Bingham. This session picks right up after the last one . The PC's ran into Christopher St.John & they shot him! They plugged him dead! 
Or did they?! 



Well not exactly.  They plugged instead one of his doppleganger marionette's made from the dead bodies of his victims. You see Christopher St.John is a puppeteer who got is education within the dungeon outlined in Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door series. 
The players didn't take any chances with the marionette & burnt the remains then their cleric/priest Father Callihoun sprinkled holy water on it & gave it a proper send off. 
The party cornered the smuggler a 
 very young  Amos Bradford aka The Raven more ammo & weaponry of a particular type just as he was leaving town. They almost got themselves shot but he was more then happy to take their money.  The party ran across a lost child near the Morley manor. And the players were expecting to find a murdered family or some such. They didn't. But they did find a very terrified family outside of their house. They had no idea how they had gotten there & were covered in blood. But whose was it?! 
And that's when the cat's pride showed up. 



A gang of forty cats on sure footed paws showed up & surrounded the party. The magus of the pride cast a sleep spell to put the family out & the cat general incharge of the pride handed the party a note explaining that they needed to take the Donaldson's away from the house now! There's something really dangerous happening besides the machinations of Christopher St.John! The players didn't make their saves & the meows of the cat magus became very tiring to listen to. 




Illustration from  Through Ultan's Door series.

The party got very tired & each one dropped looking at the yellow golden eyes of the cat magus. They awoke in their own beds in the morning each with a battered cat looking at them. They had their equipment, weapons, etc. all with muddy shoes. But no idea how they got there. But who or what did the cats save them from?! 
Under the pillow of 
Father Callihoun was a letter from Edward Dimond, who wants to see the PC's near the Morley manor. Near the broom close in  the inn where the PC's were staying one of the cats showed Lord Reggie a curious sword that was left behind by Kane when he was staying there. Weird green dried fluid is on the blade.  

Sunday, May 2, 2021

Session Report Zero - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door

 So today we've  gotten the chance to put into practice some of the things we've been talking about here for sometime. And this goes back into a whole cloth other direction in today's game session or one shot. Or should I say the Connecticut one shot. In 1919's Connecticut in the little town of  Bingham tucked in the  Northwestern hills the residents  are stumped by the disappearance of twenty people into thin air! What's going on?! In 1785 a young boy fell through a hole in reality & right near the dungeon outlined in Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door. What came back in 1919 isn't even remotely human at all! Christopher St.John is a 13th level  undead puppeteer fully grown & murderous! Christopher is a thirteenth level puppeteer whose trained under some of the monsters of the dungeons of  Through Ultan's Door.

































The PC's were called in by the Pilgrim a mysterious immortal figure who wanders New England searching out local urban legends & stories. The Pilgrim  was a fellow of Cotton Mather & a part of the society of intellectuals & people in the know. He's recruited the PC's who are also a part of this society to find out what's happening. And much of the mythology behind this comes straight out of Skirmisher Games The Mythos Society of New England by Clint Staples. 



Clint Staples was a historian & one of the best writers/designers for Skirmisher Games. And I should have took far more advantage of the friendship on social media then I did. Since then several things have become evident. The OSR ruleset that we're using for this are Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey both have many of these same elements within them. Today was a PC workshop to get characters up & running within this campaign. The men & women of this game are people of extraordinary means. We're not sure if this is going to be an on going campaign. We're not sure if we're going to be using Pagan Publishing's 1995 Coming Full Circle. But its on the agenda as a possibility. 

































Bingham seems like your typical New England sleepy town or village. Its anything but. The town has ties to the smuggling operations of a very young  Amos Bradford aka The Raven.  The PC's are investigating the Morley manor house that goes back to the Civil War era which is the home of Silvia Dyer one of the social & political lights of Bingham. And the PC's were met by a horror beyond human kin inside the manor! 
A  marionette that had been created from the body of Silvia Dyer one of the town's leading socialites & member of the board that runs the town under the mayor himself. 

































This quick mock up campaign uses several things here at once with a large debt to Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg. The unique lay on of the monster/NPC, the crew of NPC's of the town, & several options. We can  add in the Lovecraft mythos as needed or not. Amazing Adventures rpg by Jason Vey from  Troll Lords is on the docket if we need to tap into it. The local Bingham historian is a former New York City Museum of Natural history executive officer in charge of the Cimmerian collection named Robert Howard.  Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane just left Bingham & the PC's heard the riot act about this scandalous 
Bohemian businessman. Quite the scandal in Bingham. 

Sunday, May 17, 2015

The Planar Battle For Tau Seti IV - Fantastic Heroes and Witchery Actual Play Event



The Void Ship Vengeance sailed this evening on a mission of extreme urgency at the request of the grand council of Atlantica. The ship was crewed by a band of desperate pirates and planar outlaws in the Outer Darkness who were on a mission of extreme danger. A Demon Whale  was leading an Abyssal demonic horde to tear one of the trade partners of Atlantica Tau Seti IV. A 11:00 hours the crew engaged the horror and its demonic horde. The battle went on for over two hours rolling in the darkness between dimensions the Vengence engaged the enemies and was nearly destroyed as the creature summoned foul magicks from the darkness between the stars. The ship launched torpedoes and was able to fend off the beast's compatriots. 
File:Gesner, Conrad — Historia animalium 1563 — Seite 97 recto 2. Abb.jpg

Now comes the matter of tracking the demonic crews and ships that were shadowing the beast during the whole incursion. After some time an other fleet of void ships responded to the hails of the Vengeance. 
Above the heart of the fight was the banishing of the whale back to Outer Darkness. This was accomplished by the sacrifice of the magus Zaruzu from Torath 8th level grey wizard. The whole event was witnessed by an Imperial Elven battle ship from a distance. But why? 

Now begins the clean up of the hordes of the Abyss and this is no easy feat at all. What does this adventure event hold for the Neo England crew and party? 

Background On The Battle For Tau Seti IV 
I was called in last minute to run a game of Fantastic Heroes and Witchery with an almost but not quite Spelljammer vibe. Fortunely I've had an adventure written up from a few months ago using my Accursed Atlantis setting written up using conversion notes I'd done using The Mythos Society Guide To New England by Clint Staples. One of his overflow monsters makes an excellent boss monster for a horde of Lovecraftian demons. The demon whale makes an easy fit into the background of other dimensional space pirates especially since I mixed in some of the elements from Space Pirate from Planet Comics. 
You can find a ton of Clint's bonus content right over HERE 


A bunch of material is straight out of the Fantastic Heroes and Witchery rpg itself with that great Law vs Chaos bit going on right in the backdrop of the game. This allows me to plug and play the elements that I happen to love right into the background.


Finally Revelry-in-Torth and  How to Game Master like a F$#@ing Boss 
by Venger Satanis gave me those last few elements I was lacking for tonight's game. All in all I pretty much pulled out what I needed for my players last minute. It wasn't a bad game but with seven players and getting called in on a Sunday night to DM took me by surprise!
Thankfully it all worked out in the end. Cheers until next time! 



Thursday, January 29, 2015

An Abridged Volume - A Call of Cthlhu or Old School Horror Adventure Encounter For Your Old School Campaigns

Recently a selection of volumes of  Magia Naturalis (in English, Natural Magic) twenty volumes came up for auction in an estate sale. These parituclar volumes were vary dangerous due to the annotations and notes written within them by a monster hunter and sorcerer. Sir Charles Baptist was an  amateur hunter and adventurer of renowned who had acquired these volumes from his old family mansion in the upper part of New York state. These volumes dated back before the forming of America itself, and the family's interactions with legendary creatures including the Mythos but these volumes also contained wards, counter spells and weird incantations dating back centuries. Some of them quite dangerous to the soul &  sanity of their caster.
More about 
Magia Naturalis can be found right over HERE
File:Henry M. Stanley, In darkest Africa or the q Wellcome L0027735.jpg

Henry Wallis was an naturalist and occultist of some repute who lusted after these volumes for years and had a friendship with Sir Charles who contracted a deadly jungle disease after a particularly harrowing experience in the bush of Africa.

Wallis managed to secure the volumes of 'white magic' and pre-Baconian science, one paritcular aspect of these volumes was the the tales of Wha Baccuum, a dark and dangerous primordial world in another dimension. This world of incredible beauty was only surpassed by the viciousness of its prehistoric inhabitants. Wallis managed to open a dimensional rift to this world and for his troubles the experience killed him. The rite was cast at a near by lake and a Chaousarou of dangerous aspect was summoned. The creature not unlike others of its kind quickly adapted to its environment and has begun to feed on locals and some live stock. It is quite clever in its feeding patterns and bares an almost uncanny malicious intelligence. 

The PC's are called in as 'experts' by the local police knowing that they are in far over their depth. The characters are well known as 'experts' in matters of the occult and such. Wallis's corpse has been found near the lake shore still dressed in his robes and surrounded by accutraments and instruments of the occult. A single volume of  Magia Naturalis lays near by covered in close cropped cryptic writings that the Baptist family used. There is a very uneasy feeling surrounding the area as if something dark and dangerous is watching. 
File:IsleRoyaleInlandLake.jpg
Photo by (WT-en) TVerBeek 
The police have Wallis's apartment coordinated off and the PC's can get first crack in. The apartment is a fairly standard 1920's flat and for a raging occultist's residence is fairly well kept accept for the kitchen table which is covered in volumes of  notes practically thousands of close worked handwriting similar to the type found within Magia Naturalis. The books themselves are scattered about as well, stuffed with hundreds of notes & scribblings. There is also a diary by Wallis written in archaic Dutch that has the cipher key written within it including his mad plans. 
Reading all of the ravings of this mad mind will cost 1d10 points of sanity as Wallis's mind breaks under the strain of  the occult concepts of  dimensional walls and insane passages to primival worlds. Places where the Elder Things still might hold complete sway over the passage of life and death. File:East stairwell between second and third floors - Dade Apartments, 403-405 North Miami Avenue, Miami, Miami-Dade County, FL HABS FL-526-11.tif

Wha Baccuum is such a world and a source of incredible magickal  power. Wallis thought that using the dark powers in charge of this world would make him like unto a god. 
The Chaousarou will have killed eight to ten people by the time the invesigators come across the rite to return the horror to its world. Eventually after the third new moon, the dimensional shift will hurl the monster back to its own space time but who knows how many people it will have killed by then. Gain 1d10 minor spells and rites as well as the correct spell to banish the Chaousarou back to its home world. 




STR 36
CON 30
SIZ 40
POW 15
DEX 8
Move 10 Swimming
HP 35
Damage Bonus: +4d6
Weapons:
Bite – 95%, 2d6 + Damage Bonus
Armor: 6 points
Skills: Watery Stealth 65%, Spot 55%, Listen 70%.
Sanity Loss: Lose 1d2/1d6 Sanity Points on seeing A Chaousarou.

Capsize – A Chaousarou can spend an attack action to capsize a rowboat, canoe or other small watercraft by rolling its SIZ or less on D100. If it succeeds, the boat is overturned.
Death Roll – A Chaousarou that scores a special hit with its

To learn more about the 
Chaousarou, visit Clint Staples blog right over HERE
Or pick up the Mythos Society Guide To New England for a ton more solid old school Call of Cthulhu information.
 Available right HERE

Note that this adventure encounter could easily be translated into a wide variety of horror retroclones with little issue.