The Crimson Wave - The Crimson Pandect A Handbook of Eldritch Lore - Thoughts On , X1 The Isle of Dread, Points of Blood and Unleashed Sorcery

 

"Unlock the Secrets of Dark Sorcery...

"Open the Crimson Pandect to reveal the hidden arts of the arcane world and the grim obsessions that snare the minds of their adepts. This book is for both players and Labyrinth Lords alike, providing tools for weaving grim tales of blood and unleashed sorcery!"

"Use new classes, new spells, and new guidelines for magical research. plunder ancient troves of occult lore to fuel your arcane ascension. Use the new guide for sanctum construction and the tools for cult and cabal creation to fashion sorcerous towers and malevolent foes. While built for the Red Tide Campaign Setting and Sandbox Toolkit , the contents are all designed to be easily and swiftly transferred into your own old-school campaign world."

Wayback in 2012 Kevin Crawford wrote the Red Tide Campaign Setting and Sandbox Toolkit. And  we pick back up from the blog post found here. And this brings up magick within our version of the world of Red Tide. This world was awash in the energies magick. Energies that impacted & were twisted by the forces of the red tide itself. And this is reflected within The Crimson Pandect A Handbook of Eldritch Lore. 
Red Tide is campaign setting that is reflective of a near East Asian style campaign with bits of European & other Asian cultural influences. And this includes the magicks of  The Crimson Pandect . The Astromancy is solidly done & it relates to the arts of divination, fate, fortune, and the stars. These & the magicks of 'The High Path' which reflect the legacy of the Ninefold Celestial Empire a group of arcane engineers whose occult power have brought prosperity to their speciality class & thier empire. Red Tide is completely affected by the presence of the bleed through of the tide. Within our campaign the red tide is an effect of the breaking down of a Celestial engine. And this brings up the Kuan Amelatu the avengers of the unquiet dead. Death is the gateway to perfect enlightment and this class impacts the undead in very weird sorcerous ways. The Kuan Amelatu the perfect counter point to necromancers. 
The Makerite Theurgy Speakers of the Holy Law are the divine instruments of the Maker whose spells are potent & effective, capable of sensing impurities, and capable of blasting the unworthy with the holy force of the words of the Iron Prophet. And these stand in start contrast to the Adepts of the Mountain Way who are devotees of the natural world. 
All of the above are going to be great counterpoints the classic X1 Isle of Dread module. 

And we included X1 Isle of Dread being another sub realm near the Red Tide islands but tied into the plane of Elemental Water. The elemental plane of water being one of the power sources for the Red Tide's Celestial Engine. And one of the classes that understood the mechanisms of the Red Tide's Celestial Engine is 'The Nine Immortal Art' are alchemists who specialize in rites of purifying, transformation, etc. And these PC's & NPC's are perfect for dealing with the alien radiations of the battles from two extremely alien gods or aliens ala LoFP's Qelong adventure by Kennith Hite. 
The alien horrors are not even aware of the humans around them. And  LoFP's Qelong adventure by Kennith Hite brings home the importance of the schools of sorcery found within  The Crimson Pandect A Handbook of Eldritch Lore.  Because of the fact that the infrastructure of the magicks of  the Red Tide Ca/mpaign is going to be needed to deal with the disaster of Qelong 

But there's more to the The Crimson Pandect  then just this & we're just scratching the surface of this campaign. Next time The Crimson Pandect , Dark Albion, & Caravan & Sword! 

A World Bathed In A Red Tide - Thoughts on Red Tide, X1 The Isle of Dread, & More

 "For three hundred years, the last remnants of humanity have clung to the wild green jungles of the Sunset Isles. They have watched the red mist that consumed their world roil a hundred miles off the coast, waiting, a beast at bay. But now the crimson dreams are becoming stronger, and the wild Shou tribes of the west howl their hate at the human invaders. Who shall rise to save a world quenched in blood"''


It's been a long while since the spine of Red Tide: Campaign Sourcebook and Sandbox Toolkit'. But tonight a phone call has me wondering if there's time to dive back into a two year old campaign that's been sitting on the side lines. Ages ago Red Tide was one of our catch all campaigns where the lost & damned ended up from other OSR campaigns of ours. We had characters & PC's from Dark Albion, Hyperborea, & various other LoFP games end up here.  Even though Red Tide was created for the Labyrinth Lord Rpg. It was an easy shift to bring over the various OSR games. 
There were two big changes that we made to the Red Tide setting. First of all magick spells became rituals & two there were peace between various Shou tribes. This was a major sticking point with the PC's two years ago when we last played. 
And the setting of Red Tide played an important role in one of our Godbound games earlier in the year
The question that came up was simple. One is the Red Tide setting actually one of Godbound's Celestial Engine universes where said Celestial Engine is breaking down?! Are the red tides actually Celestial Engine energies leaking into the setting & causing many of the mutations & horrors?!

And we included X1 Isle of Dread being another sub realm near the Red Tide islands but tied into the plane of Elemental Water. The elemental plane of water being one of the power sources for the Red Tide's Celestial Engine. 

The real problem came from the fact that the leaking energies were a result of the battles from two extremely alien gods or aliens ala LoFP's Qelong adventure by Kennith Hite. 
And here's where things got very dangerous as one of the PC's got infected with the weird radiations from the artifact left on the battle field of Qelong. 

This infection rquired an extensive journey into the interior of the isle of Dread to find the correct healer to help our PC and then the whole game came to a stop. Due too scheduling conflicts & what not we never returned to this campaign. Now the players want to change that coming up! 

Using 'Level of the Lost' By Michael Curtis With Troll Lord Games Starship Warden rpg

 "Venture into forgotten territory! When a long-sealed section of the Warden is opened and a renowned explorer goes missing, new opportunities arise for adventure and danger. Rumor has it that one of the fabled Command Rings, potent artifacts of old that grants the wearer complete control over the drifting starship, lies waiting for the taking beyond the forbidding gate. Does your band of daring explorers have what it takes to overcome the threats of The Level of the Lost and claim the ring for themselves? This adventure contains new mutants, new artifacts, and new dangers for the original version of Metamorphosis Alpha." 

Michael Curtis is one of my favorite DCC rpg adventure writers. I don't know the man personally nor his politics, etc. But what I do know is the following he writes some kick ass adventures that I've used over the years. And this adventure has some awesome nods in various old school Science Fiction & Fantasy nods or tributes in Level of The Lost. 
Now because of the Metamorphis Alpha rpg Bundle of Holding I've been able to leap frog into Goodman Games version of MA.  And I've not been disappointed at all. Level of the Lost by Michael Curtis has some incredible adventure ideas, new artifacts, mutants, & dinosaurs! The adventure is a great but lethal in some of the encounters. This isn't always a combat heavy adventure as there is a lot of NPC action in 'Level of the Lost'. What I really like about this adventure are some of the concepts that are put forward in Level. 'Level of The Lost' feels like a mini campaign in true MA fashion. 

Could 'Level of the Lost' be used for the Troll Lords Starship Warden campaign?! In a word yes absolutely it could. And this adventure perhaps more then any other has all of the Amazing Adventures Pulp elements in place. 
Dinosaurs, lost world feel, lizardmen mutants, strange technologies, all of these hit the high marks of Troll Lords material. 

But would I set 'Level of The Lost' on the Warden?! Not necessarily. And this gets into a bit of quandary that has been plaguing me as a DM. 
We know from the timeline of the Warden from the original MA book that there were other ships from the Transplutonian shipyards. And this might be where the 'Level of the Lost' comes in. 

The PC's are actually aboard another of the exploration and colonization ships instead of the Warden. And this is where 'Level of the Lost' shines. The adventure could be used as bridge between MA and B/X Dungeons & Dragons as the level leads into X1 Isle of Dread By Dave Cook & Tom Moldvay.




Before the OSR crowd wants to roast me alive there are several points of interest here. 

1. The mutants of 'The Level of the Lost' fit the profile for the prehistoric animals found in X1 'The isle of Dread'. 
2. Some of the themes of 'Level of the Lost' can be carried over into X1.
3. This is a perfect crossover point for Castles & Crusades PC's or D&D PC's to join in the fray. 
4. The nastiness at the heart of X1 can be alien or mutant in nature.
5. X1 offers crossover potential  for the campaigns & a good point to introduce new mutant species. 

So is 'Level of the Lost' fantastic?! Yes, does it offer the DM quite a lot to think about?! Yes it does. 
The Metamorphis Alpha rpg Bundle of Holding  Is Available Right Over Here 

'The Godzilla vs Cthulhu' OSR Campaign Set Up Revised For Mutant Future

Tonight its been one of those nights where classic 50's, 60's,70's, & even the 90's giant  monster flicks have occupied my thoughts with the release of King Kong Vs Godzilla film material with the first look. There's a bit of a big reveal folks on the video below & I was throwing down with Dangerville folks. Major possible spoilers in the video for King Kong Vs Godzilla. As G fan its a great time to be waiting on the film. 

Its been one of those days where I find myself drifting back to thoughts about Ishihara Gōjin the incredible children's artist & illustrator from Japan. Going back to 2011 & an article by Cyriaque Lamar on Gizmodo the incredible artwork of Ishihara Gōjin came my way. This stuff is just great for a resource for an old school or OSR giant monster campaign! This inner Earth world might be the actual source of both the strange radiations & giant mutant monsters of the Mutant Future rpg! 


According to the article;  "Gōjin Ishihara's profoundly weird children's art. In 1969. a Japanese magazine published these exceedingly intense depictions of life at the center of our planet. Taking cues from Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Lost World, these drawings and diagrams are the strange remnants of some plesiosaur-filled fever dream."
These children's magazine artwork are like something that a nine year old would be dreaming up. These would be perfect fodder for a Gamma World or Mutant Future rpg campaign. 

This is one of the most normal art pieces that I've seen. But the second one in the article is like something straight out of the classic Journey to the Center of Earth Verne book on steroids! And has a spin on the classic 'giant mushrooms at the center of the Earth trope. 

There is so much going on here that it reminds me of the classic Eighties cartoon 'The  Inhumanoids!' The Evil That Lies Within' another creation from the mind of Flint Dille from Eighty Six a line of toys,comic books & a very dark cartoon. This property was balls to the walls nuts! 

This is  especially the second piece of artwork which references the magnetic anomalies pf the Earth's poles & center of the Earth as giant magnetic generator! Better hand onto that hand gun & your air tanks!  

things really start to heat up with the lava rivers & fiery monsters that is normal for the inner world! There is so much to unpack in this piece of artwork from the bone fields to the full on river rafting down the lava! 

We get into the fire kaiju. salamander style mutant  antagonist in the final art piece that references both the Verne book 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'  & the classic Edgar  Rice Burroughs 'Pellucidar' stories!These elementally immune mutant monster species  reminds me of several Dungeons & Dragons monsters that we've seen over the years especially the  tarrasque. Those eggs pictured are going to be very valuable. But watch out for that hatchling!

The next piece we get into the actual layout & locations of the inner Earth featured in the magazine article prime pieces for the enterprising dungeon master who wants to use these adventure locations! We get a bit of a layout for the inner Earth's diagram & possible physical locations. 

We get a Richer Shaver mystery style magnetic rail car system left over from the Ancients. This system seems incredibly dangerous to me & crosses the Earth at different points with the pictographs indicating a world spanning system. 

Finally we get one a spin off of the Mahar splinter colony with a mutant shoggoth slaves/servants. This is one of the most dangerous areas that PC's could find themselves in! So there is a such a great deal of material that Ishihara Gōjin packs into his art & material. 

So besides using Ishihara Gōjin's artwork as inspiration for an old school campaign there's lots of gaming inspiration & adventure influence that can be had here. Now besides the obvious Gamma World/Mutant Future campaign material here. What I would do is take Ishihara Gōjin's artwork & go that extra mile with it. I'd take AC9 'The Creature Catalog' & use that source of an Inner Earth campaign. 

Add in Big Jim's P.A.C.K. which we covered last we & your ready to go with an off beat and very well done campaign jump off point. Take this whole cloth campaign & simmer with X1 'Isle of Dread' & your ready to run a complete campaign! 

 Add in a planar gate way or two to Carcosa & you've got one of the sources of every mutant monster & Kaiju induced mutation on planet Earth for ages to come! But let's say you want even more of a Lovecraftian tie in?! Well if we take Call of Cthulhu's 'Secrets of Japan' then we get a complete break down of Godzilla even though he isn't called Godzilla. 

In fact this inner Earth sets up a complete Godzilla vs Cthulhu campaign setting from the ground up! We've got everything completely to explain every single Lovecraftian monster, mutant, and deviant from the ground up! This was a perfect set up from Famous Monsters of Filmland artwork by "Godzilla Vs. Cthulhu" artwork by Bob Eggleton! 



This is exactly where Goblinoid Games Realms of Crawling Chaos comes in very handy! The book literally can create scads of weird Lovecraftian relics & monsters at the drop of a hat! Really well done OSR book & perfect for just this sort of a campaign. 

Incidents At the Isle of Dread - The Seas of Mystery & Rise of The Cults of Tsathoggua

"Hundreds of miles from the mainland, surrounded by dangerous waters, lies an island known only as the Isle of Dread. Dark jungles and treacherous swamps await those who are brave enough to travel inland in search of the lost plateau, where the ruins of a once mighty civilization hold many treasures - and many secrets!"


So off the California coast wreathed in perpetual storms, fog, & weather phenomenon I've got X1: "The Isle of Dread" (1981), by David "Zeb" Cook and Tom Moldvay. The Isle is part of a chain of islands that connect to Venger Satanis's Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence.  These island chains  exist in on both Earth & Hyperborea simultaneously. Ships have been getting lost or destroyed for centuries. There's also a deadly connection with some of the elite cults that have been operating in the Hollywood hills. The Baleful Sorcerers of Tsathag'kha have been initiating & sacrificing the elite in rituals dedicated to  the Clark Ashton Smith Great Old One Tsathoggua.



So I've had this Godbound/Cha'alt campaign going for quite awhile. The cults of Tsathoggua have been making massive in roads into the hills of Hollywood. I dusted off Venger's Slaves of Tsathoggua adventure & there have been hints of something very powerful & supernaturally dangerous in  a cave on one of the purple islands. Here the The Baleful Sorcerers of Tsathag'kha have reign over an ancient village where a treasure is rumored to be guarded by incredibly deadly monsters. Only those blessed by Tsathoggua & part of the inner mysteries of the Old One may enter the caverns. So why use The Islands of Purple Haunted Putrescence? Its not only a great hex crawl, but it’s also a great little campaign source book. Part of the background that was hinted in last week's game is about  the primeval war between Earth's Atlanteans & the monstrous, mind-bending creatures known as kopru.
The Kopru are living weapons left over from the Deep Ones who were actually behind the extinction of the Atlanteans. This brings me to the fact that the church of Dagon is using the Isle of Dread to make a big push to return to Earth & awaken their brethren beneath the seas of Earth.

Jeffrey Talanian's Mystery At Port Greeley adventure  has this happening on Hyperborea. The adventure hints at the church of Dagon  about to engulf AS&SH! I've decided to make the fantastic adventure a part of my campaign by having my AS&SH find out about the link between the church & their plans for Earth! 



There are deep links between  the cults of Tsathoggua & the church of Dagon! Both see Earth as a prime opportunity & resource to be harvested. Those within the Black Pyramid of Cha'alt wait & watch with fetid eyes!
Two killer free resources that that I've used with this campaign for this leg are Threshold magazine issue #3 Sea of Dread & Issue #4 Sea of Dread. 


Between the maps, the information, the background, etc. within these two issues there's a ton of material to really help flesh out even more of the Isle of Dread & the seas that surround it. These can be incredibly useful for OSR games! 

Purpling The Seas of Dread - Prehistoric X1 'The Isle of Dread' By David Cook & Tom Moldvay Commentary

"Hundreds of miles from the mainland, surrounded by dangerous waters, lies an island known only as the Isle of Dread. Dark jungles and treacherous swamps await those who are brave enough to travel inland in search of the lost plateau, where the ruins of a once mighty civilization hold many treasures - and many secrets!"




If X1 The Isle of Dread by David Cook, & Tom Moldvay is one of the greatest prehistoric wilderness & exploratory modules then when it comes to my Cha'alt/Godbound campaign where does it fall in my versions of California,Nevada,& Arizonia. There are a couple of resources that I began to turn up in my research. One is 'The Dinosaurs of California's Lost World' article by Brian Switek  which is an excellent source of ideas for the preshistoric monsters on the island. The second article that I started looking into is the California current wiki article. The current view on the isle of dread is that its strongly connected with the Elmental Plane of Water via the endless seas.  This being the case the elemental plane of water connecting up with California's seas is gonna be disasterous!



The lack of clouds along the coast (and also along the Central Valley of California)
is due to an offshore wind blowing drier air from the land offshore.

Not only are there going to be hundreds of alien species introduced but the disruption of Earth's seas allows foreign vistors to enter Earth's planar boundaries. This is because of the placement of the Endless Sea.



artwork copyright & trade mark wizards of the coast.

See the free OSR Mystara resource the Seas of Dread for even more prehistoric action! 
Mystara & its various environs could merge & then vanish with no one being the wiser.
But somehow I doubt it given the nature of the isle of dread itself.



I've said it before that the isle of dread would be playing a major part within my campaign & given the fact that the slavers are operating with it. There's dinosaur & giant fish meat showing up within the fish markets of California & on many a dinner plate. But there's also far stranger cults showing up deeper in land. This is because of my scaling the encounters to deal with the player's expectations. And that's where the unholy trinity of Venger Satanis comes into play. The sea of worlds allows the  "The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence" to sneak in. 


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.

Both the island of dread & "The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence"  allow the players the perfect excuse to use a wide variety of OSR PC options & combined them into a party of adventurers without the need for complicated backstories.  
The player's could use Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu & Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea adventurers together trying to survive against the alien horrors of the islands. 


The Cha'alt wave has dragged in many additional planar elements into the mix of my campaign this includes  "The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence"  & X1 The Isle of Dread. 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  thrives on along with X1 The isle of Dread.
This also means that many of the domains that are featured in these modules are gonna be up for grabs! 

Rumbles of the OSR - X1 The Isle of Dread By David Cook & Tom Moldvay, & More OSR Campaign Madness

Most of my American friends have spent their day with their American families for Thanksgiving. And we've had a fantastic Thanksgiving but something has been at the back of my mind. I'm talking about the appearance of X1 Isle of Dread off the coast of California in my campaign. Let's get that pesky history of the X1 module outta of the way first;"X1: "The Isle of Dread" (1981), by David "Zeb" Cook and Tom Moldvay, was the first "expert" level adventure for Basic D&D. It was released in January 1981 - both as a standalone module and packaged with the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Rules (1981)."





So I've just spent an entire day eating metric ton of turkey & being thankful to God that I've made another year around this blessed ball of Earth with my family. But besides that I've spent the better part of two weeks rereading some of my favorite Edgar Rice Burroughs books the Pellucidar series: 

• At the Earth's Core (1914)
• Pellucidar (1915)
• Tanar of Pellucidar (1929)
• Tarzan at the Earth's Core (1929)
• Back to the Stone Age (1937)
• Land of Terror (1944)
• Savage Pellucidar (1963)
  
  I've been running my Cha'alt/Godbound campaign for a little while now but something has occurred to me. This campaign takes place during early stages  the time of Ragnarok when the Lovecraftian forces of darkness are trying to retake the surface world. 
  
  
  
  
  Dust-jacket illutration by J. Allen St. John for At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs
  
  This has been one of my campaign themes that's been running through several of my 90 day campaigns for years now. Is this the same Earth where the forces of  the Hyperborean Empire  retake the surface world and then go on to much later establish Hyperborea floating in the void around Saturn ala the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg ? 
  Well its very possible given the fact that AS&SH is a solid choice of a system to add to this OSR mix plus looking over Northwind Adventure's Black Friday sale on their adventures makes this a tempting choice.
  
  
  
  Now this isn't the first time I've used AS&SH to run within a Hollow Earth campaign & these were my plans to begin with. AS&SH was one of the systems that I've used in the past to run a couple of Sword & Sorcery adventure one shots with several of the empires within ERB style Hollow Earths. Not only that but L1 Dwellers of The Forbidden City by David Cook  worked very well with a Hollow Earth campaign.
  
  
  
  I'm thinking of reusing L1 for another of the islands that materialized just west of the isle of Dread. But what are these adventure locations significance within the context of the Hollow Earth or the uptick in strange & uncanny cults that sprung up around the California countryside?!
  What of the strange rumors of incredibly tall warriors stalking the countryside, reports from sea side tourist towns of strange murders by fish men, droves of tourists who have joined the legion of the kopru, & tales of strange men & women raising armies of the dead!