The Red Room's Orbital Decay & The Cha'alt Triliogy - Gates & Keys Session Report and Campaign Update

 I find myself being roped into dealing with my Wretched New Flesh Post Cards from Avilidad players and Orbital Decay! The reason being is that one of our player's PC's mentioned and elaborated Cha'alt. And since our campaign takes place in the distant future of Avilidad. 

The gateway to Cha'alt is actually in the Oort cloud and that place is literally brimming with objects the size of mountains tumbling through space. It's also the domain of the MiGo that originally had thier colonies on Pluto. 
Mi Go also inheritted the gateway to Cha'alt and the PC's have in the the past had interactions with the Mi Go. 
The Cha'alt gate represents a modern day gold rush for Avilidad. Zonetec remains skeptical. Because of the fact that in the past demon clown worms have almost created issues with reality in the past! 
So now all cargos coming into Earth have to go through Zonetec inspectors. Why isn't known. The Mi Go haven't been spotted as thier enter and exiting the Beyond. Alien races have made contact with humanity but it's a relationship still in it's infancy. Indivduals however may have close friend

There's two deep Oort Cloud mining science facilities near the center of the cloud. And there's twenty personel on board. There used to be another but it went dark for unknown reasons.  Orbital Decay is it's own OSR animal. And a deadly one at that with new races, monsters, themes, random tables and more.  an offworlder high-tech facility called Elysium.is now extending it's tenticles deep into Cha'alt.

The human race has no idea of the danger that thier in from Cha'alt!  There's already a demon worm cult within Avilidad  and the PC's have tangled with it but not destoryed it! Little do they realize the fact that the cult are regular visitors to Cha'alt. 

The Sanity Erodes - Sine Nomine Publishing's Cities Without Number rpg & The Red Room's Orbital Decay -The Expert D&D Connection - The Caecilia

 Call it nostaglia or simply the fact that a friend of mine suggested that I go back to the Expert set of TSR Dungeons & Dragons for some monster inspiration. What I found however was something horrifying and I thought I'd share. 

We've been looking back through the B/X Dungeons & Dragons expert set today. Why?! Because there were a lot of monsters unique to this set. And we've been looking into these unique monsters for something a bit different and unexpected for our - Sine Nomine Publishing's Cities Without Number rpg & The Red Room's Orbital Decay campaign.  The idea here is that each time the Beyond touches our reality it leaves behind a bit of itself and corruption. And one monster that leaped out immediately is the Caecilia. Which according to the Expert set's stats go something like this; "Caecilia Armor Class: Hit Dice: Move: Attacks: Damage: 6 6* 60' (20') lbite 1-8 No. Appearing: Save As: Morale: Treasure Type: Alignment: 1-3 (1-3) Fighter: 3 9 B Neutral These giant gray wormlike creatures are about 30' long. They attack with their cavernous mouths and sharp teeth. An unadjusted "to hit" roll of 19 or 20 means that they have swallowed their prey whole. The victim will take 1-8 points of damage each round after that until either the victim or the caecilia is dead. Any attack from inside a caecilia may only be made with a dagger, and with a penalty of -4 on "to hit" rolls." 
And then I ran across Al's take from the Beyond The Black Gate blog from 2011 here; 
"Caecilia

AC 6[13]
HD 6
Atk Bite (1d8)
Special Swallow whole
Move 15(Crawl or Dig)
Save 10 (Fighter5)
No. Appearing 1d3
Morale 9
AL N
Treasure Type B
These 30' long, slimy, gray worms are voracious predators, often lurking just behind dungeon walls, floors, or ceilings (or spongy wilderness earth) and waiting for the vibrations of passing prey to bring them forth. Their toothy maws can swollow up anything horse-sized or smaller on a natural roll of 19-20. Swallowed victims are largely helply helpless and suffer 1d8 points of damage per round until dead, though they may attack with a small weapon such as a knife or dagger (at -4 to-hit). A faint scent, reminiscent of cinnamon and ozone, may linger in caecilia hunting grounds, warning savvy dungeoneers of their possible presence. The tooth of a Caecilia is rumored to enhance spells of an earthy nature." 

Now what's interesting about this is the fact that neither entry counterdicts the other. These could actually be merely different species or life stages of the same alien monsters from The Beyond. For our own Hudson River  City game the Caecilia are alien horrors that lurk around whenever a magus has been dallying to much with the Beyond. The Caecilia are corrupted lifelorms that have close ties to cults that use a form of unearthly Lovecraftian magic and they have ties to Bholes within our campaigns. The Caecilia are found wherever blood and magick have been spilt in the name of the Old Gods. 

The  Caecilia manifest whenever a gateway to the Beyond is found. They begin to grow and adapt to our reality very quickly. They hunger for the life and flesh of Earthly life. Any Earthly life that they can find is far game to these monsters. These horrors are fast multiplying branching off 1d6 worm spawn once they find a suitable food source. They are not only tolerated but actively summoned by wizards and occultists because of the fact that they actively sweat a gold like compound or  substance. They leave this behind along with a calcium like depoisit from thier feedings. This 'treasure' like substance is 99.9 % pure gold but is found in a matrice of human bone or animal calcuim as a waste product. 
The  Caecilia are also drawn to feed on psionic energies and so will seek out the flesh of psychics or shamans to feed upon.  This happens numerous times across the stars as the wizard or pychic opens the wrong doors. And instantly regrets it. 
In the Beyond there are often found  'Caecilia pits' places of thousands or millions of the monsters writhing together in obscene displays of inverted psycho sexual energies. The  'Caecilia pits' are the source of immense occult powers and are found in the wastelands of the side time Atomic War wastelands.  'Caecilia pits' beam occult power to the Lovecraftian gods & demons of inner reaches of the qlippoth.

Recently we had an encounter deep in the wastelands of  our Wretched Apocalypse game with a  'Caecilia pit' but it was merely a 10 mile across pit filled with tentacles. The players had no idea what it was after leaving the scene. Actually neither did I but now?! Yeah it was  a  'Caecilia pit' & there were rumors about Lovecraftian horrors after the players encountered an old mutant fortune teller in 

Apocalyptic Territories: Wasted Americana. 

The Sanity Erodes - - Sine Nomine Publishing's Cities Without Number rpg & The Red Room's Orbital Decay

 Over the weekend I got together with a fellow gamer Paul, who reminded me of the fact that we were due to play a Silent Legions Rpg  Phantasm campaign. Then our mutual friend Steve passed & that fell by the wayside. And over the weekend I found those campaign notes. What's interesting is that at the time I had taken the Phantasm gates of the Tall Man to lead into a whole cloth Stars Without Numbers sector. Different gates led to different time periods then the Tall Man sorta fades into the background.This blog post is going to links back up with this post here.  


 I agree with Martin Ralya's Silent Legions comments from the Rpg Geek site; "I like Silent Legions, but I wanted to like it more than I do. It has all of the hallmarks of a Sine Nomine book: clear writing, lots of tools for your sandbox, fun bits to play with.But there's less "faction move" stuff than I was hoping for, and considerably more adventure prep than I wanted -- I wanted zero session prep. Seeding the sandbox with adventures I have to write ahead of time is a dealbreaker.I wanted a Lovecraftian sandbox, and all the other Sine Nomine books I own delivered sandboxes, so it came as a surprise that this one is a sandbox full of plotted adventures. That's weak sauce."

"I guess the alternative is seeding it with Call of Cthulhu modules, but then I might as well just play Call of Cthulhu. Which would be shame, because I like the house system here, particularly for its deadly combat. I've played SWN, and it's a breeze in play; Silent Legions looks just as good."

Going over these campaign  notes I can see where Silent Legion hooks into Stars Without Numbers. Now with the Red Room's the Wretched New Flesh Postcards for Aviladad rpg on the scene I can really see this taking off. Especially if with a us of a combination of Wretched Darkness & the  Orbital Decay rpg setting book. as I stated last time, " Our own campaign is going to take place on the meanstreets of a cyberpunk backwater city. The megacorporations are starting to explore nearby alternative realities and dimensions. And the leap frogging in occult/high technologies are allowing humanity to gain contacts with outside forces that could  easily potentially wreck humanity. " 

Right so according to my notes the PC's encounter the undead of the Tall Man within our campaign city and then the time space gates. And accordingly they run into the back alleys of Avilidad via Fish Wives Games Cyber City Block 001 & finds Switchblade City 01: Randy's Pool Hall (Modern Generic).

The idea here was to start the pool hall & make the NPC  patrons a bit more cybernetic or what not with Stars Without Number. Now that  Cities Without Number rpg book is on the scene it's quite easy that we're going to bring things to a far more sinister direction. 
That being said I really love the monsters within the Wretched New Flesh Postcards for Aviladad rpg. 
So according to our notes there really are other forces at work within the city. The alien realms are starting to encroach upon this reality. 

Go down the wrong alley and you could end up not coming back at all. But this also leads into the fact of why I chose the pool hall as the central starting point for this campaign. 
One is the familarity of my own childhood having grown up around pool halls as a kid. And the sorts of scum that we find within a not typical Cyberpunk bio/cybernetic horror campaigns. 

Starting on a smaller scale allows the DM to scale the encounters to the PC's. This is after all an OSR game. Out of time and out of place means that the forces of outside are primed to exploit the PC's in many and possibly horrific ways. 

Cracks In The Plaster of Reality - Sine Nomine Publishing's Cities Without Number rpg & The Red Room's Orbital Decay

 So over the last couple of months I've been following the steady progress of writer/designer Kevin Crawford and Sine Nomine Publishing's progress on  the cyberpunk RPG Cities Without Number rpg book. He's been taking it through various incarnations & changes with little fanfare but a lot of fan or player input. But a recent post by Twitter buddy Redshift has me thinking that perhaps there's been a misstep on my part. Red Shift suggests using the Red Room's the Wretched New Flesh Postcards for Aviladad rpg combined with  the cyberpunk RPG Cities Without Number rpg book. As for myself I remain skeptical & instead with use a combination of Wretched Darkness & Orbital Decay rpg setting book.

'Why Orbital Decay?!' The whole reason is in the tag line on Orbital Decay;"Building upon the surreal and nightmarish world of Avalidad, Orbital Decay explores the depths of human ambition, desperation, and depravity as we venture beyond Earth’s atmosphere, establishing orbital stations and colonies on other planets within the solar system. This setting draws heavy inspiration from iconic films such as Alien, Aliens, Outland, Escape from New York, Stalker, Solaris, Event Horizon, and Pandorum, expertly weaving themes of isolation, claustrophobia, desperation, fear, and horror into the fabric of its narrative. As humanity reaches for the stars""
Now we've done a lot with the Invisible College rpg and the Red Room's the Wretched New Flesh Postcards for Aviladad rpg. And that's fine those world grinding occult conspiracies are going to come home to roost later on. Our own campaign is going to take place on the meanstreets of a cyberpunk backwater city. The megacorporations are starting to explore nearby alternative realities and dimensions. And the leap frogging in occult/high technologies are allowing humanity to gain contacts with outside forces that could  easily potentially wreck humanity. 

The vigilantes of Hawlett City are a part of this campaign acting as muscle against the forces of darkness and the supernatural. The real issue here comes from the occult realms that are invading Earth from the alien Hells from the outside. Ancient demons and Lovecraftian entities have been shut out of  humanities world eons ago. Now they've returned for better or worse and the warzones are heating up. 
Time is collapsing and even humanity's past or side time isn't safe. Adventurers from  Wretched Époque maybe be visiting the mean and alien streets of our campaigns. 

Weird aliens, strange gods and dark forces along with thier worshippers could be trading bullets in the dark alleys of our upcoming campaign. 
How is this a different campaign then say 2d6 Hostile rpg that we currently run. There are a number of ways and these include the fact that many of these rpg  concepts are going to come from folklore, the occult, and more. More Coming Up! 

OSR Review & Commentary On Red Room's Orbital Decay Rpg Supplement For The Wretched New Flesh Post Cards From Aviladad and The Rest of The Wretchedverse rpg Games

 "Building upon the surreal and nightmarish world of Avalidad, Orbital Decay explores the depths of human ambition, desperation, and depravity as we venture beyond Earth’s atmosphere, establishing orbital stations and colonies on other planets within the solar system. This setting draws heavy inspiration from iconic films such as Alien, Aliens, Outland, Escape from New York, Stalker, Solaris, Event Horizon, and Pandorum, expertly weaving themes of isolation, claustrophobia, desperation, fear, and horror into the fabric of its narrative. As humanity reaches for the stars"

Orbital Decay is one book that is absolutely essential book for the Wretched New Flesh Postcards for Aviladad rpg. And it's no wonder because Orbital Decay plugs deeply into the Eighties & Nineties Sci Fi and Sci Fantasy Horror films and books; "Orbital Decay - RELEASED (digital format at the Red Room Store and BGE, print on demand coming to Lulu in a couple of weeks)

Wretched New Flesh: Orbital Decay is a gritty industrial science-fiction setting that can be used as standalone, though it is primarily meant to be an expansion to the dark and twisted universe of Wretched New Flesh (160 pages)."  Is Orbital Decay any good? In a word oh yes! Why?! Because it crosses a line even more important then the Wretched Space Rpg. Let me explain. In  the Wretched New Flesh Post Cards from Aviladad rpg we're given this cutting scapel edge of the future or is an alternative Earth? And told about mankind's ascent into space with a host of horrors and Lovecraftian adventure plot points. And we see a great deal of that within 'The Wretched Space Rpg'. But 'The Wretched Space rpg implies that it's situations happen out there in the reaches of interstellar space. 
Orbital Decay brings that Lovecraftian promise home to roost and brings it right into your party's lap for better or worse. And knowing the fact that Orbital Decay plugs into the themes of Wretched New Flesh Postcards from Aviladad makes the themes of Orbital Decay work even better. And while it is set within the Wretched New Flesh Postcards universe Orbital Decay is it's own OSR animal. And a deadly one at that with new races, monsters, themes, random tables and more. 

Orbital Decay takes the themes of the Red Room Wretched universe & it does an excellent job of taking the themes of Wretched New Flesh and moving them into the realms of space. 

Want to salvage wrecked space craft? We've got you covered. Want to do a wretched bug hunt? We've got you covered. 

Orbital Decay does an excellent job of hitting the high points of both regular, Cronenberg, and Lovecraftian interstellar horror all in one nice and neat OSR tightly packed interstellar rpg package. Why do I say this because Orbital Decay pairs so well with the rest of the Wretchedverse rpg products and it slots nicely into the niche that the Red Room has created for itself over the last year or so. I hope to see more installments within the confines of Orbital Decay including new minions, alien races, etc. Pick Orbital Decay if you want to expand and entertain your Wretchedverse players with new PC o options, enhancements, aliens, foes, and more.