Mutation Solution II - Carcosa & Cha'alt World Campaign Session Report III - The Streets of Zothique & Unexpected Guests

 In a lost land, that only dreams have known,
Where flaming suns walk naked and alone;
Among horizons bright as molten brass,
And glowing heavens like furnaces of glass,
It rears with dome and tower manifold,
Rich as a dawn of amarant and gold,
Or gorgeous as the Phoenix, born of fire,
And soaring from an opalescent pyre
Sheer to the zenith. Like some anademe
Of Titan jewels turned to flame and dream
The city crowns the far horizon-light
The City in the Desert  (1922) 
by Clark Ashton Smith




Zothique is by far one of the most fun & most daunting settings to run a campaign. Especially if your players run afoul of a necromancer. There is one god of death in Zul-Bha-Sair & his name is Death personified Mordiggian. The whole thing began in earnest when the players were going into a local village market to get supplies, buy new equipment, & generally get a layout of the place. This was one of numerous villages in the shadow of the ruined city that surrounded the village.  It was two days ride into the larger inhabited city that held the largest populated urban areas. The technology of the place was early Roman empire & there were a few monks scattered about. 
The real draw here was the local alchemist/noble who had quite a small walled estate within the former city ruins. The PC's had demon blood aplenty to sell but it turns out after their trip to Hell to retrieve one of the PC's last session. 

But this is Zothique & there are demons a plenty so with few coins in their pocket, the alchemist mentions that a guest of his has a small job that will pay quite well. All the party has to do is deliver a load of chemicals & ointments to the temple of Nodens for a royal patron whose got a necromancer bodyguard. And when the party  met the necromancer there was instant dislike between Magus Cru &  the party's barbarian. The Baron D'Amber smoothed things over & gave the party a small amount of gold as a retainer. The could spend it as they wanted on weapons, supplies, etc. in the village market. The party decides to take the job & go shopping. A small begger was selling curios & the party's wizard buys a strange five pointed soap stone star with weird dot markings all over it. He is overcome with visions of a strange stone block city in the desert. 

The party runs straight into a rival set of adventurers & their lead by a wizardress from Glantri! She demands that they stop working for the Duke. For she is the only one capable of taking on the family's tasks! The Wizardress Tr'aci D'Amber is a cousin of the duke & only her group of adventurers have the Amber's best interests at heart. The Wizardress Tr'aci D'Amber & her group of mercenaries are from Mystara straight out of Glantri: Kingdom of Magic. 

The players ran into her during my Hundred Years War campaign & a few Lamentations of the Flame Princess game adventures on Carcosa  as a part of a foreign mercenary company. They hated her then & do so more now! A fight broke out & the party thrashed the rival adventurers. She & her party retreated. The party finished shopping & stopped into a local watering hole. They found through a series of role playing bits a local information broker. They wanted to know why Wizardress Tr'aci D'Amber & her group of mercenaries were nearby. The information broker let drop that she was there to find the tomb of the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis for Stephen D'Amber. 

The party got back to the alchemist's house just in time to see the beasts of burden being loaded up. And this is where we ended on tonight's game. 

Mutation Solution II - Carcosa & Cha'alt World Campaign Session Report I - A Detour Into Zothique & X2 Castle Amber

 He who has trod the shadows of Zothique

And looked upon the coal-red sun oblique,
Henceforth returns to no anterior land,
But haunts a later coast
Where cities crumble in the black sea-sand
And dead gods drink the brine.

He who has known the gardens of Zothique
Were bleed the fruits torn by the simorgh's beak,
Savors no fruit of greener hemispheres:
In arbors uttermost,
In sunset cycles of the sombering years,
He sips an amaranth wine.
Clark Ashton Smith Zothique

This session report update picks up right from yesterday's. The sound you can probably hear from here is me weeping behind the DM's screen. Just last night the players decided to spin me around a bit by taking on PC that was 'retired' back to Hell. We had been to Hell & back. Then Terry my player whose been taking on a Castles & Crusades knight wanted to know if it was alright if he could be a follower of Nodens?  Alright that doesn't sound bad?! Right?! Wrong! The group has decided they want to take a detour into Zothique before venturing onto Cha'alt. This means that their after artifacts, weapons, & equipment  one of our old games parties has left behind at the temple of Nodens on Zothique. 

Steve's version of Zothique based on Rodney Mathews fantastic artwork.
Used without permission no breech of trademark or copyright is intended.

What they don't know is that a gang of chaos muaraders dedicated to Rhan-Tegoth  was intent on stealing those artifacts. What the party doesn't know is that if they start making diplomatic moves towards that temple they are going to attract the eye of a very powerful patron. 

Rodney Matthews 'Who Disturbs The Tyrant'
Used without permission no breech of trademark or copyright is intended.

That particular temple is under the patronage of the arch wizard Stephen Amber  & things are going to go from bad to worse if the party doesn't watch its step. This isn't a forgiving patron of the arts here this is a patron of the dark arts to be sure. 

Stay tuned things are about to get much more interesting! 

Mutation Solution II - Carcosa & Cha'alt World Campaign Session Report I -Stand Alone After the Fall

 So last night the players & myself got together despite the threat of snow & bad roads. The way things went down not every player of mine was there on a Friday night. So they wanted a one shot gaming session with no holds barred. And they got it! Way back in August I got back into a Carcosa & Cha'alt workshop with some of my dungeon masters. Now for the past several days maybe a week we've been talking non stop about the Stormbringer rpg on this blog & you would swear that the players get jealous about the game.  Now bare in mind that nothing was prepared for this game ahead of time. We were expecting other players. Three of my regulars as a matter of fact. 

So what does this have to do with the Stormbringer rpg?! Quite a bit as we shall see. The players wanted a no hold barred powerful or divine game where the PC's would make a difference. So we started thinking about a PC  hit squad to take down the powers of Cha'alt. The OSR  system had to be flexible & they wanted to really put me in a bind by  get this  running Castles & Crusades Using Adventurer,Conqueror, King rpg as the base. Now being the crazy bastard that erm great dungeon master that I'm I agreed. 
They wanted several of the PC's to be veterans of Steve Miller's Immortal Wars   which has been an on going thing for years now in my campaigns.  Yes this means that Steve Miller's Neulow Games D20 Secrets of the Immortals has been  into the mix for this campaign! The player's wizard  recruited an astral guide hireling to guide them about their planar destinations. A price was agreed upon again this was all role played out. 

As a DM I had no problem with this, then one of the players threw me a real curve ball using the fact that she wanted to play a version of Lady Satan especially the last incarnation from 2004.  

Now the last time Lisa had played her character she retired her back to Hell. And so we were going to role play this out to the hilt! So the PC's had to go to the edge of the Dark Wood surrounding Hell where her crypt is located to recruit her. That entails any random encounters that were rolled up! The players readily agreeded. This isn't just any garden variety Hell either. This is Judges's Guild's Inferno & those random encounter tables can be lethal. This session could be over before it began. 

The next recruit was a hulking knight from the Wilderlands of High Fantasy & that was very interesting. There was a bit of a dust up because of a difference of opion but the whole affair went smoothly. And then since Mark wanted his wife to play an Amazonian  blade dancer we got one of those in the mix as well. 

Now how can you have a paladin in with a semi demonic creature?! Well that's because this isn't a paladin but a knight. There's a huge difference that many forget about. The other two player's PC's were fugitives from Torth. Who had escaped from slavery on Torth & were seeking the player's PC's help. Or is it simply a trap!? 

Then the players proceeded into the Dark Wood of Hell & here's where things got really tricky. Every other incarnation of Lady Satan were waiting for the PC's! And within the Dark Wood a pack of hell hounds was waiting to the party apart! If this wasn't played correctly things could have gone from bad to worse! 

The party's wizard managed several really solid rolls to talk their way outta of the situation & ended up taking on Satan as his patron! And he lost a bit of his soul in the bargain. The party ended up with their version of Lady Satan. But at a high cost. Then just to throw me a curve ball again, they wanted to journey to Cha'alt's city of A'agrybah! That meant that everything in my campaign note books was thrown out of the window. Why?! Because Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise moves everything up in the timeline! 

And then we had to end here because the snow started to get really nasty & the roads iced up. Everyone got home safe & sound after several phone calls, texts, etc. We pick in the big   Cha'alt's city of A'agrybah!