Old Mars Campaign Setting , The White Star Rpg, & The Cities Without Number Kickstarter

 Over the years there was a ton of writing that I've done on our Old Mars campaign. And actually quite a few notebooks filled with crossover points with various Public Domain Pulp writers & other resources. Echohawk (fuck you buddy & your thieving blog) decided to take my session reports, random tables, ecologies, campaign notes, & whatnot then convert everything over to the Numenera rpg ?!  WTH? While I don't have a problem with Numenera per say. 

The Numenera rpg doesn't fit the Sword & Planet or more appropriately the Sword & Sorcery asthetic of the 'Old Mars' campaign. So we were using a three part OSR  combination Warrriors of the Red Planet, AS&SH (now the Hyperborea rpg), & the White Star Rpg. We'd switch out to Stars Without Numbers rpg later on or a combination of the two Rpg's as we needed. Magic Pig Media gave us the Space Amazons the precursor race to our Hyperborea rpg Amazon tribes. I've been friends with Charles Thorin for years. 

The Amazons were a major source of contenion among our player's PC's. As the two Amazon PC we had in our party were often having to act as go between between NPC's & the Sisters of the Aquarian Order.
Mars was a major hotspot for Lovecraftian horrors and the point where the Order had gotten into heated battles with serpent men. The serpent men tribes felt that they were the rightful inheritors of our campaign's Mars. 
And these pitched battles became an issue when the PC's ran across thousands of red Martian warriors that had been entombed in the unworld thousands of years ago. This campaign plot point comes from Edgar Rice Burroughs Llana of Gathol. 
The  Sisters of the Aquarian Order found the warriors in statis & took over the monestary where the warriors were stored in the tunnels beneath.
This became a major plot point when hordes of Green Martians took over their old haunts. As they had returned from space to their "homeland' after serving in the Stellar Legions for over a thousand years as per their compact with the Galactic empire. 
This isn't Mars ala ERB's Barsoom ( copyrighted & trademarked to the Edgar Rice Burroughs inc. estate) nope this a Mars out around the Tau Ceti system. This Mars had originally been settled by the Serpent People who used one of their 'collapsing wormhole gate systems' to colonize it. This Mars is dying because the air & atmosphere processing stations & systems are breaking down after thousands of years. The Atlantians had found the gateways & transported their genemodified 'red martians' to the Tau Ceti system. Then they brought in their Green Martian warriors and with the destruction of Atlantis. The Green Martians revolted & overran the whole of Old Mars. 
Flash forward a 100,000 years & Old Earth gets buggered. The Hyperboreans begin migrating to Hyperborea bringing their own slave races with them. The Green Plague takes them out. The Lovecraftian races been resettling Old Mars from Hyperborea. 
The Terrans & the Earthmen discover the wormhole gateways then begin mass migrating as refugees trying to escape the 'bugs'. They bring with them both 'dark magick' & Sorcery as the gods of Mars begin to return after the death of the Martian goddess Issus. 
This ushers in the 'infinite Mars' where the old gateways of probability & time begin to reappear across Mars. The Terrans & the Earthmen from these gateways are dimensional pirates. They sport strange alien cybernetics & speak differently. These are the raiders from Kevin Crawford's Cities Without Number Kickstarter. Which I backed! The cybernetic raiders from one universe are ready to take on the colonists of another while a greater threat looms in the background. 

OSR Commentary - Relics of the Akashics By Matthew Skail From DYS Games For The White Star Rpg

 "Over a thousand years ago, there was a great empire among the stars. Both bright and terrible, the Akashic Empire spread its tendrils through hundreds of worlds, crushing native resistance and using their psychic powers to enslave entire races. Led by a humanish race called the Vren."

"The Akashics believed in the existence of the Akashic Overmind, a force connecting all sentient species capable of thought. Unfortunately, this did not lead to a sense of community with their fellow species but instead it led to a righteous belief in the superiority of innately psionic races, themselves in particular. "

This blog post is going to pick up right from last night's Los Farport's entry here. 

This morning about four A.M. I was looking over the archives & making decisions about this Hyperborea rpg third edition campaign. Going over this thread on 'First Impressions of the Hyperborea rpg' here.  The author does make some interesting points & for the most part I sorta agree & on others not so much. In the past I've used 2nd edition AS&SH to run a Weird Tales style  Old Solar system campaign. 
And going over our notes there was a particular note on Relics of the Akashics By Matthew Skail for the White Star rpg but it could easily be used with the White Star Galaxy edition rpg as well. And doing further research began wondering if White Star's psionic system could be added on to the  Hyperborea rpg?! And please save the emails & notes screaming at me that it's not necessary in the slightest. Why is it not necessary?! Because psionics is there slotted sorta into the spells of Hyperborea rpg. So why even bother with Relics of the Akaschics then?! There are several reasons for this. One the Vren were mentioned way back in our Weird Tales style Old Solar system campaign. Players have found Vren artifacts in the past & they pawned them very quickly. 
Third the Vren's psionic ghosts  have had interactions before with player's PC's in other Hyperborea rpg games. DM Steve himself has used Relics from the Akashics because of the following; "Destroyed after a long and ferocious war, the Vren's creations still linger on many worlds or in the void of space. This book unlocks their secrets. Within its pages you will find:

8 New Deadly Weapons
4 New Potent Armors
10 Celestial Treasures, generic items (one of which has 11 sub-varieties)
1 New Creature
3 New Ships

Also included is an appendix on how to use the book without psionics or in fantasy games."

The players have been very paranoid about psionic artifacts showing up within our campaign which is reason enough for me to use them. Looking at Hyperborea itself there's enough evidence of space faring races in the 'official' adventures & material. But in Los Farport there are Vren psionic mystery cults in plain sight. No one really thinks anything of them. But the Askashic's legacy lives on & their influence on civilized society is pretty solid. 
But just how far do we want to take it?! That's going to depend upon the players coming up. 

Shut Down Cha'alt - Cha'lting Escalation Campaign Update!

 So over the weekend we took a quick look at the Cha'alt first edition hard back to see where the entries are for our current campaign.Why?! Because the Cha'alt trilogy is very expansive & there's a lot of questions that the players have come up with. 

The players at this point don't simply want to explore & clear the dungeons. They want a piece of the sleazy underworld action of Cha'alt for the Fall & Winter campaigns. So their looking to go back into the dungeons gather riches & grind then move on to the big boys of Cha'alt itself. 

We're playing with interstellar scum here within our White Star laden universe so it's not a huge leap to see these space dogs taking over key sections of Cha'alt as play goes on. The key here is 

Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows changes up a lot of the events in the Cha'alt setting itself. 

Mail Call From From Kortthalis Publishing - Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows Hardback

 So a couple of days ago, a pinkish package arrived on my doorstep and riled it's tentacles at the mailman.After wrestling it back down we made sure it could be opened. Say what you want but Venger does know how to package his rpg books. 

We've got a bit of a sorted history with Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows. Not because of any controversies. But because of the number of TPK's we've had when it comes to the PC's in our campaigns stumbling into traps, NPC's maws, the sexual organs of demon worms (don't ask), the botched summonings of various horrors, and the interactions with NPC's. 
And then there's the dungeons which have a reputation among our players as great places to score really dangerous magic items. And the demons that seem to snag the ocassional adventurer. 

Venger does package his materials right & then insulates his book's packaging. The  Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows Hardback has pretty much everything you need to start adventuring on Cha'alt right away.  Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows Hardback is the last in the trilogy & we're planning on using this with the White Star Rpg coming up. Why?! Because of the fact that many of the hard core Science Fantasy influences that we've been using are back door Star Trek & Star Wars parodies.  Cha'alt handles this quite nicely across the board. However know that  Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows follows in the Cha'alt & OSR shadows as done by Venger's fevered imagination. 

 Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows takes full advantage of Venger's passion for random tables, dangerous horrors, and non linear point crawls that can make or break a campaign depending upon the player's decisions. And often times it's best to go with the flow of the campaign. The players want to start with  the Cremza’amirikza’am megadungeon & this goes back to our first brushes with the campaign setting. 

The dungeon sleaze factor is here but it's far less pronounced then Alpha Blue. But my players won't let go the brushes we've had with that setting going back when ran  Gamma Turquoise: Santa Fe Starport which has a version it on our version of Cha'alt. 

Yes lots & lots of random table goodness for the players to deal with and then there's the fact that on our version of Cha'alt there's a portal back  The S'rulyan Vault II. The deeper levels of the Vault lead into the underbelly of another dungeon on Cha'alt. These are used by several of the cults of the Old Ones and this includes the one for this mad bastard. 

In several of our games we've managed to slip in the Cyclops PC race. The cyclops were promised the ability to see the future by a demonic worm of Cha'alt. That didn't come to pass as the demon worm only allows them to see the death of others and their own sometime in the future. They slew the worm & turned their backs upon their own esoteric past becoming instead a proud warrior race. Their dealings on Cha'alt have made them a fatalistic and dangerous race to cross. 

Cyclopian Mutant Race  

+1 on Strength, +2 on Constitution, -1 on Wisdom, +1 on Dexterity, 

Mutations - Anti Life Leech, Death Sight, Immunity to Radiation, 

Richard Moll as the Cyclopean mutant leader from Metalstorm The Destruction of Jared Syn August 19, 1983 an obvious influence on Venger's Cha'alt trilogy. 

Review & Commentary On Walking the Way: A Mysticism Sourcebook [Swords & Wizardry] By James M. Spahn For The White Star Galaxy Edition Rpg

 "Walking the Way: A Mysticism Sourcebook for White Star brings a plethora of new options to your OSR sci-fi campaign! As heroic Star Knights and exotic Alien Mystics fight against the agents of the Void and the evil Galactic Consortium, they find new options to add to their arsenal in the latest supplement for White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying and White Star: Galaxy Edition" 

Walking the Way: A Mysticism Sourcebook [Swords & Wizardry] By James M. Spahn is basically the entire sourcebook for the star knight PC class. Because of the fact that I've got the PC's encountering a particuarly nasty piece of work of ancient hertiage in the deserts of an abandoned city. We've got another player joining us soon.  So asside from our guest star player  Walking the Way: A Mysticism Sourcebook  goes deep into the Star Knight as a viable PC class. Ages ago this book came my way into my hard drive. And it's sat there but according the the intro; "Science fiction. It is, right down to its name, rooted in science. Cold, hard science. Yet so much of the great sci-fi I fell in love with as a child and continue to love to this day has a strong element of fantasy. Whether it’s mystical monks who know the mind-killing power of fear, farm boys that discovery they have a strange destiny as part of the essence that binds the galaxy together, or cigar-smoking hot-shot pilots who return from the dead as angelic vessels of the divine - magic, for lack of a better term, permeates pulp science fiction. Walking the Way is a source book for White Star that provides players and Referees with new options to help expand and further define those aspects of their own campaign world. All of the rules in this book are optional and should only be used with Referee approval. It is the author’s hope that the options in this book will help expand your game-play and use the metaphor of science fantasy to further explore what it means to be a finite being in an infinite universe, and have a helluva lot of fun along the way." 

So what we get is the following in sixty four pages: 

• Four brand new classes! Elusive Althar meld both Meditations and Gifts, while Augumented Waybreakers meld cybernetic enhancement with the powerful Meditations.
• New Gifts and Meditations to expand the power of your Mystic character classes!
• Half a dozen paths for Alien Mystics to customize their journey towards enlightenment!
• Complete rules for building and customizing the iconic weapon of the Star Knights: The Star Sword.
• New gear, weapons, and armor!
• New Advanced Technology, like the esoteric Spirit Stones!
• New Monsters, from the adorable Gorp to the dangerous Void Serpent!
• A completely new form of Mysticism: Technomancy!

We get introduced to the alien ALTHAR which are sort of a PC Elven race class. They are a solid servicable alternative. Next we get the Augmented Waybreaker PC class and these folks are cybernetically bent; "Augmented Waybreakers are practitioners of Mysticism who have turned their back on that path. Whether broken by the burden of their powers, driven to the edge of madness by strange insights, or for any other number of reasons Augmented Waybreakers have refused to embrace their inherent powers." 
We then jump to the Starfists a PC monk/starknight class which blends the best of Swords & Wizardry monks with the starknight class. Finally we jump into the technomancer and these folks are a combination of star knight & cybernetic mage. They have no illusions about 'the Way' per say and are completely practical. Their occult powers are both way driven & technological with an uneasy balance between the two. 
We dive into a chapter talking about appentices & mentors with the values between the two. This is also the chapter which dives into the star sword creation. And this is where we get into the star knight gems those bastions of knowledge. Star sword dueling rules with individual styles and dueling rules. And some really interesting star sword artifacts. Void knight rules and alien star knights all enclosed within new rules for other mediations. All of these mold into other quisi mystic technological artifacts, devices, and even starship modification. And finally we get some new alien monsters sensitive to 'the way'. And finally a technomancer mediation appendix. And this all falls under sixty four pages. But is it good?! The whole supplement feels not only necessary but well done. There is an index which helps (alot). And on the whole this is a solid book to add into the que of   The White Star Galaxy Edition Rpg .

Walking the Way: A Mysticism Sourcebook [Swords & Wizardry] By James M. Spahn For The White Star Galaxy Edition Rpg