Comets, Wordlets, Appendix N Solar System Settings, & Free Science Fantasy Downloads - OSR Commentary

"Man's conquest of the interplanetary gulfs has been fraught with many tragedies. Vessel after vessel, like venturous motes, disappeared in the infinite — and had not returned. Inevitably, for the most part, the lost explorers have left no record of their fate. Their ships have flared as unknown meteors through the atmosphere of the further planets, to fall like shapeless metal cinders on a never-visited terrain; or have become the dead, frozen satellites of other worlds or moons. A few, perhaps, among the unreturning fliers, have succeeded in landing somewhere, and their crews have perished immediately, or survived for a little while amid the inconceivably hostile environment of a cosmos not designed for men.

In later years, with the progress of exploration, more than one of the early derelicts has been descried, following a solitary orbit; and the wrecks of others have been found on ultraterrene shores. Occasionally — not often — it has been possible to reconstruct the details of the lone, remote disaster. Sometimes, in a fused and twisted hull, a log or record has been preserved intact. Among others, there is the case of the Selenite, the first known rocket ship to dare the zone of the asteroids."

Master of the Asteroid

Clark Ashton Smith

The asteroid belt is home to the remains of several worlds including planet X & Y along with the ruins of its moons. Many ancient & alien civilizations once thrived there but now only dust, comets, & asteroids remain or is there more here?!

Cover of Wonder Stories, October 1932 Artwork is public domain
Download available right here.  

The inner worlds of my OSR  'Old Solar System' setting have been haunting with my weekend game of Troll Lords Castles & Crusades mixed with a healthy dose of Amazing Adventures. So I've been dusting off some of my Old Solar System notes about Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore, & many other Appendix N authors. What it brings to mind are mini campaign settings that I've used in the past for OSR game adventure nights. Lately I've been missing my 'Old Solar System' OSR setting & I've decided to go back to it.  "The Lake of the Gone-Forever" By Leigh Brackett (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1949) is an old favorite tale of mine which is freely available from the Internet Archive here. 

Since I can't seem to get a straight answer from Dungeon Master Steve's players I'm working on a set of mini campaign settings based around some of the ideas that filtered through  'Off On A Comet' By Jules Vernewhich is an old favorite novel of mine. I still loath & hate the Anti Semitic totally unnecessary part of the novel.  But the novel has some incredible ideas for a mini campaign setting including a miniature worldlet being the comet. That bit I think has more then a bit of merit & could be used as a part of a Lovecraftian Sword & Science fantasy backdrop for the asteroid belt for my 2100 Era Earth. 



A Comet by Jules Verne 1964 Ace D 245
Verne's book depicts a chunk of Europe being taken by the comet & a pre World War I style empire building in miniature happening with German, English,etc characters building countries on the banks of this comet worldlet. Besides giving a dungeon master a chance to use early 1900's adventurers in such a setting the book also indicates that there were prior civilizations on the comet that were marooned on its shores. And here's where things get interesting. 



Both C.L. Moore & Leigh Brackett also used comets, asteroids, & meteor style worldlets to preserve the remains of ancient civilizations. But long before them HP Lovecraft mentioned In The Shadow Out of Time that a split of the Great Race had been preserved out in the asteroid field in a inter system colony. Why are they out there & are they watching the miniature colony worlds that they created such as those from  "The Lake of the Gone-Forever" By Leigh Brackett (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1949

Віщун - http://vixis24m.deviantart.com/art/Great-Race-of-Yith-394630656


There are parts of a comet that are a remnant of Atlantis & Hyperborea. Parts & pieces that have  become a part of a comet as various cultures have been swept up to become a part of this comet worldlet. This includes some very alien cultures from across the scattered multiverse mixed in with a variety of human ones. In fact I'm thinking of miniature human cities perhaps something akin to some of H.G. Wells more advanced humanoid ones from When The Sleeper Wakes. 


The fact is that I'm thinking that one or more of these small jeweled asteroids might be the preserves of ancient Elves, Dwarves or other fantasy races. These races in turn might be sitting on some very dangerous  lesser known demons, gods, alien Lovecraftian entities that have been hinted about in various classic modules. Yes I'm speaking of WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun  written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1982. Set the module on a comet or asteroid world & you have an instantly incredibly weird & dangerous classic dungeon romp! 


In point of fact if the dungeon master wanted to have a campaign cross over point between different OSR or old school settings a comet or asteroid is the perfect adventure staging ground.
Case in point is crossing over Bruce Heard's World of Calidar  with say Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea? Well an asteroid is the perfect point as desperate bands of adventurers try to cope with a hostile & dangerous environment as well as their respective alien cultures! 



Under alien sky these bands of adventurers company may be the least of their worries. The magick of their sky & void ships may be fading fast & they'll have to survive many of the classic or OSR monsters that a dungeon master will dream up! 

Beyond The Barrier of Time - King Arthur, Venger Satanis's Cha'alt, & The Chaos & Blood of The Hundred Years War

In the desire of welded lips,
Of heart on prone tumultuous heart,
Abides no stronger thing than this
Dread love that keeps our lips apart.

Between us lies an ancient fear;
Before me, in thy troubled eyes,
A shadow flees as flees the nymph,
Tremulous with the faun's surprise.

Hard silence like a stifling hand
Withholds the word we fain would say;
Over us lies the dreamt caress
Transfixèd with a dear dismay.

When shall the passion of the faun
Resistless in my heart arise,
And take the warm and trembling nymph
That flees within thy startled eyes ?

The Barrier  (1923) 

by Clark Ashton Smith

There sometimes seems to be an rpg market place momentum for certain corners of the OSR gaming scene. I've been doing a lot of tossing around some very OSR & O5R ideas over the last couple of days. Having been out on the road with sewing machine repair work I've had little time to check in on a few events going around the OSR & Kickstarter. Venger Satanis's Cha'alt kickstarter has been on going for sometime now. Its a post apocalyptic cum fantasy table top adventure campaign setting book.  & yes I do think you should check it out & support it. Now while this is a gonzo setting how do you incorporate such a setting into a traditional Dungeons & Dragons game or a another OSR game such as Rpg Pundit Lion & Dragon 
Well, while Lion & Dragon takes place within the Dark Albion universe & during the Rose War. I've really plumped the depths of that conflict & over the years I've linked several universal events that tie back into the Rose War. One of these is the fact that the Hundred Years War proceeded it. You can think of the Hundred Years War as the prequel setting for the Rose War.



The Hundred Years War is one of the most dynamic periods of warfare in human history & one of the times when a very solid percentage of the Earth's population died, Since Albion happens in real time this same sequence happened here ; 

The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. Each side drew many allies into the war. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries.

Tensions between the crowns of France and England can be traced back to the origins of the English royal family itself, which was French (Norman, and later, Angevin) in origin. For this reason, English monarchs had historically held not only the English Crown, but also titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals to the kings of France. The status of the English King's French fiefs was a major source of conflict between the two monarchies throughout the Middle Ages. French monarchs systematically sought to check the growth of English power, stripping away lands as the opportunity arose, particularly whenever England was at war with Scotland, an ally of France. Over the centuries, English holdings in France had varied in size, at some points dwarfing even the French royal domain; by 1337, however, only Gascony was left to the English.

In 1316, a principle was established denying women succession to the French throne (later retroactively attributed to the ancient Salic law). In 1328, Charles IV of France died without sons or brothers. His closest male relative was his nephew Edward III of England, whose mother, Isabella of France, was sister of the deceased King. Isabella claimed the throne of France for her son, but the French rejected it, maintaining that Isabella could not transmit a right she did not possess. Furthermore, political sentiment favoured a Frenchman for the crown rather than a foreign prince. The throne passed instead to Philip, Count of Valois, a patrilineal cousin of Charles IV, who would become Philip VI of France, the first king of the House of Valois. The English had not expected their claim to meet with success, and did not press the matter when it was denied. However, disagreements between Philip and Edward induced the former to confiscate the latter's lands in France, and in turn prompted Edward III to reassert his claim to the French throne.

Several overwhelming English victories in the war—especially at Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt—raised the prospects of an ultimate English triumph, and convinced the English to continue pouring money and manpower into the war over many decades. However, the greater resources of the French monarchy prevented the English kings from ever completing the conquest of France. Starting in 1429, decisive French victories at Orléans, Patay, Formigny, and Castillon concluded the war in favour of the House of Valois, with England permanently losing most of its possessions on the continent." During the Rose War there were war, famine, drought, earthquakes, plagues, floods,&  tempests along with strange occult events that flowed across Europe like the hand of the Devil. The 1300 AD event  is a bit of climate event evidence that ties in with this. What if the weaponized occult weather related  1300 AD events were the last push of the forces of Chaotic Elves & Fairy gods trying to take back their world?

In Albion they did just that, the events of King Arthur's history were real & there were various powerful families of the Fey witches in Avalon. These families sought to bring the ancient Pagan gods back to dominance but all of the while played a bloody game of occult chess among themselves. The Le Feys, The Morgauses, etc were the names for a variety of powerful families that existed up through the Rose War. They wielded powerful magicks & occult forces in games of dominance, blood, & dust in the back corners of history. 


War, plague, & famine are the perfect cover for adventurers & mercenaries to cross from one world to another. There have always been weak points & doorways in the fabric of space time especially in certain sacred  areas of Mystara & Greyhawk. 



So what does this have to do with  Venger Satanis's Cha'alt kickstarter ? Everything as certain alien gods & dire forces of the setting take full advantage of the chaos of the Hundred Years War to snatch certain key individuals from Albion Greyhawk & even Mystara. The fog of war offers the dungeon master the perfect opportunity to put together. 

her a mixed party of old school & OSR adventurers by taking full advantage of the situation. Clark Ashton Smith's  Averoigne stories are based in a relatively mundane (for Smith) province in medieval France & so offer the perfect venue to put down such mercen erm adventurers into the middle of the events of history. We already know that there's been a clear cut connection between Greyhawk & the mythological legends of King Arthur. But the points of actual cross over are murky at best & possibly outright legend in some places. Is there a possible blood connection between Arthur's blood line & some of the gods of Greyhawk?
Some of the knightly orders of Greyhawk reveal some worldly parallels between Greyhawk & the Earth of Arthur's time.

 

So during the lead up of the Hundred Years war there were literally thousands of mercenary companies raiding & pillaging across Europe. This is the perfect opportunity to loot & pillage the countryside. But player's PC's could find themselves in far more dangerous realities then they were expecting with adventure right around the corner. The players are not going to be expecting the nasty surprises coming straight out of the annals of history! We've got more coming up explaining the deeper connections in Europe during the Hundred Years War including more on the Holy Grail & its deep connections to the misconceptions about its roll during the war! 

Campaign Catastrophic Curse Or A Deeper Look Into The Realm of the Dungeon Master With The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide & The Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper's Guide

When it comes to campaign & world building sometimes its time to fall back into the fundamental books & guidelines. The powerhouse books often inspire deeper looks into the process of a fictional table top universe. But first let's go over some of the situation with some boots on the ground.

Dungeon master Steve's lot of players can't seem to make a commitment to a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night OSR game at the moment. So I'm fading back to back up plan 'A' which is to concentrate on my own weekend game of OSR /Amazing Adventures! rpg hybrid campaign. To this end I unpacked my copy of the Troll Lord games Castle Keeper's Guide & my copy of the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. Now at first these two books would seem to be at odds for a dungeon master. But in actuality they both have the bare bones of their respective old school & OSR systems. The Castle & Crusades Castle Keeper's Guide has the bare bones of the Siege Engine & some very solid systems for campaign implication.



But let's face facts this book doesn't have the advise & wisdom of Gary Gygax even though its a perfectly decent book. There's simply something about the DMG that has just a bit more under the hood of it. The Castle Keeper's book is however designed with several subsystems in mind that are perfectly suited to old school Pulp adventure & Sword & Sorcery. Oddly enough Castles & Crusades was designed to work with AD&D which is fine.  The Castle Keeper's Guide contains : player races, variants on the standard character races, different approaches to spells, spellbooks, material components and holy symbols, mana points, vehicles, lodgings, and hirelings. There’s a chapter on world design, including discussion of such elements as climate, geography, weather, calendars, government, a slew  of alternative settings  to the usual high medieval cultural setting such as Greco-Roman, Iron Age, Renaissance, or even Meso-American or Stone Age (and a later section even discusses futuristic and horror settings).

And its these that I'm going to be concentrating on. Now I've talked about using the Amazing Adventures! rpg by Jason Vey for some time. But the thing to remember is that the AA! rpg is completely & utterly cross compatible with the Castles & Crusades system.  Now that being said I'm going to get back to the weekend campaign that I've been working on based on several Appendix N sources. The far future world of HG Wells When The Sleeper Wakes & the year 2100 when the campaign takes place.



The first issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly, dated Winter 1928.
 The cover art is by Frank R. Paul^[1] for H.G. Wells' story When the Sleeper Wakes.Artwork is public domain.

The far future  world of 2100 is a very dangerous place with a lots of influences coming from Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique . All of this dovetails into Wells The Time Machine &  William Hope Hodgson's The Nightland. All of this has to do with the the artificial space-time structure ruins that have already cropped up in several of my games. And what about the demi gods & adventurers etc? Well this is a job for mortal men & women of adventure!


Already several of the Morlock & Abhuman factional blocks have had contact with the PC's. There the minions of several wizard's minions  prowling the New York City mega state & a bunch of artifacts from the Museum of Time & History have gone missing! Now all of this I just randomly rolled up from  the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide &  Troll Lord games Castle Keeper's Guide

The wilderness of the world of 2100 is indeed looking very dangerous! Already there are several crystal eggs that have shown up in my weekend game!  Special thanks to Heretic Werks blog for ruining my player's PC s day!

Fire, Damnation, A Look At The Denizen's of Verekna Source Pack By Mike Nystul For Mayfair Games Demons Line For Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition

"...out of the mists rose a bloated, hovering eye with tentacle ganglia clutching dozens of knives with jagged blades. Floating like an airborne jellyfish, it gazed dead ahead with its single lidless orb and as it approached I saw myself reflected in the slick surface..."

TURN UP THE HEAT...

When it comes to bringing the fire there was nothing like the little add ons that you could buy back in the 90's for Mayfair's Demon line. These add ons such as Denizen's of Verekna were no frills but had the same stamp of quality that the rest of the Mayfair Role Aids line had. Denizen's of Verekna had about fifty pages of demonic goodness & weird old school horror to add in to give your AD&D paladins a stomach ache or two. 

Mike Nystul brings the focus onto the the Marshals, Governors and Generals of the Prince of Deception  of the Infernus. Back in the 90's this was some very dangerous demonic stuff to encounter in the dungeons & back alley streets of your urban fantasy setting. 

"DENIZENS OF VEREKNA contains a monster folio with more than 50 loose-leaf pages of new monsters from the demi-plane of Verekna including complete entries for the Marshals, Governors and Generals of the Prince of Deception and a summary of the various Thanes and Lieutenants who serve them.

In addition to a veritable rogues gallery of demon lords, DENIZENS OF VEREKNA features the Grey Grimoire, a compilation of special spells employed by the most powerful wizards of the Infernus. These magicks can be used in conjunction with all of the products in the DEMONS line, making infernal sorcery a force to reckon with and the creatures who use it more dangerous than ever before.

DENIZENS OF VEREKNA expands on the material presented in the DEMONS sourcepack but can also be used as a stand alone supplement for any campaign."

Back in the 90's Nystul was a busy guy during the 2nd golden age of rpgs before going on to churn out the iconic Whispering Vault rpg. Already we can see hints of the weirdness that this author brought to the table. For first edition AD&D these demonic bastards were a force to be reckoned with.By the time third edition & three point five Dungeons & Dragons arrived they were weak by comparison to other demonic horrors churning out in D20 land. But I've always had a soft spot for Denizen's of Verekna.  This pack came with some excellent hand outs for the player's PC's to find.
The infernal sorcery of Denizen's of Verekna is one of its perks. Collect all of the Demons source packs & you complete the spell book handout. There was some very entertaining & interesting ideas in the Demons line. 

If you can find Denizen's of Verekna at a decent price then its well worth picking up. The spells are solid, the demonic add on monsters are easily inserted into the mix, & the additional demonic fire power of the Infernus makes this pack a good buy. But find this pack cheaply as it comes up from time to time on the used rpg & Dungeons & Dragons market. I give this one a four out of five. 

Actual Session Report Part II - A Sword & Sorcery Hundred Years War, Dark Albion, & More Classic X2 Castle Amber By Tom Moldvay ( sort of)

"A desperate sorceress, a land wracked by war, & a very dangerous war open gateways better left closed. The mysterious Castle Amber, you find yourselves cut off form the world you know. The castle is fraught with peril. Members of the strange Amber family, some insane, some merely deadly, lurk around every corner. Somewhere in the castle is the key to your escape."


The players in last week's game was a follow up to one of the most dangerous session reports I've dungeon mastered . This is a follow up session report for last week's game session. The  tower of the sorceress Istarelle exists across time  & space leering its shadow into Avalon,  Averoigne during 1940 & 1337 at the start of the Hundred Years War, & even beyond. The PC's have been smuggled in during the occupation of 1940 as consultants & occult trouble shooters to the French resistance.  The players had made their way through the tower after encountered a number of Nazi group #12 soldiers who were running from something? What they encountered was the chaos mutated warriors of  the  Breton Ankou .

"This character is reported by Anatole Le Braz, a 19th-century writer and collector of legends. Here is what he wrote about the Ankou in his best-seller The Legend of Death:

The Ankou is the henchman of Death (oberour ar maro) and he is also known as the grave yard watcher, they said that he protects the graveyard and the souls around it for some unknown reason and he collects the lost souls on his land. The last dead of the year, in each parish, becomes the Ankou of his parish for all of the following year. When there has been, in a year, more deaths than usual, one says about the Ankou:

– War ma fé, heman zo eun Anko drouk. ("On my faith, this one is a nasty Ankou.")

"There are many tales involving Ankou, who appears as a man or skeleton wearing a cloak and wielding a scythe, and in some stories he is described as a shadow, often atop a cart for collecting the dead. He is said to wear a black robe with a large hat which conceals his face.^[1] According to some^[who?], he was the first child of Adam and Eve. Other versions have it that the Ankou is the first dead person of the year (though he is always depicted as adult, and male), charged with collecting the others' souls before he can go to the afterlife.^{[citation needed]} He is said to drive a large, black coach pulled by four black horses; accompanied by two ghostly figures on foot."

The characters dispatched any warriors they came across. The PC's hid as they heard the sound of tiny tinkling bells & the sound of a creaking old wagon wheels. Two strange death like ghostly figures grabbed two of the soldiers & yanked the soldier's souls from their bodies.
The PC's ran from the tower & straight into the woods surrounding the place right into Averoigne  in Albion. Averoigne is a  'region in France, heavily forested — located somewhere between Tours and Moulins; a "main highway" between those two cities goes through it (The End of the Story, Clark Ashton Smith)




The player's PC's got a chance to interview a few of the Nazi soldiers who had seen the  Breton Ankou. The freeing of the  Breton Ankou allows other chaos based horrors to grow bold enough to escape the confines of Fairyland. A band of chaos infected 3rd level human warriors trapped since Roman times is not out of the question. These infected might be the former chaos cult of  the  Breton Ankou. Trapped for all eternity to do the bidding of this demonic monster of death & destruction. Two resources that were key to  this game  are Dark Albion  & Dark Albion Cults of Chaos. The player's PC's sought the lychgates where the  Breton Ankon's tomb was in fairyland. Instead they found themselves facing the Castle Amber (or Château d'Amberville).


The PC's began to comb through the manor & there were some really choices to make. Within about 3 hours the PC's ran smack into an Avalon Inquisition crew & there was an exchange of arrows & some small gun fire.  The PC's are trying to reach the secret occult & laboratory of Stephen  d'Amberville. What will happen to them?! In the meantime here's the complete cycle of Clark Ashton Smith's  Averoigne

• Beast of Averoigne, The (1933)
• Colossus of Ylourgne, The (1933)
• Disinterment of Venus, The (1934)
• Enchantress of Sylaire, The (1941)
• End of the Story, The (1930)
• Holiness of Azédarc, The (1933)
• Maker of Gargoyles, The (1932)
• Mandrakes, The (1933)
• Mother of Toads (1934)
• Rendezvous in Averoigne, A (1931)
• Satyr, The (1931) [Variant Conclusion to "The Satyr"]

Will the player's characters survive?! 

OSR Commentary On C2 ""The Ghost Tower of Inverness" (1980), by Allen Hammack With A Bit of Clark Ashton Smith For Your Old School Campaigns

"A shadow from the past, the Ghost Tower of Inverness has loomed ever larger in the mind of the great Seer of Urnst. Now he has convinced the Duke that an expedition should be organized to go to the ancient keep and recover its greatest treasure - the fabled Soul Gem. This module was originally written for the Official ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Game Tournament at Wintercon VIII, held in Detroit in November of 1979. It is the second in TSR's COMPETITION SERIES - modules that were used in official tournaments. This module contains a challenging setting, a scoring system and characters specially prepared for this adventure. It may thus be used for competition among players (or groups of players) or as a non-scored adventure. Also included within are background information, referee's maps and notes, encounter descriptions for players, and a background scenario linked to the WORLD OF GREYHAWK Fantasy World Setting."

Nineteen Seventy Nine seems to have been  a banner year for modules & one that I love to refer back to is the ultimate in 'fun house dungeons'. Yes I'm talking about the infamous C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness competition module.  ""The Ghost Tower of Inverness" (1980), by Allen Hammack, was the second adventure in the competition (C-) series. It was published in 1980." I'm not sure what it is about this module but I've got a very large soft spot for it. 

This module has direct & deep connections to the campaign world of Greyhawk; 

"The backstory to C2 has some fairly important implications for the history and development of Greyhawk, due to the age of Castle Inverness:

Know you that in the elder days before the Invoked Devestation and the Rain of Colorless Fire, when the ancient peaks of the Abbor-Alz still thrust skyward sharp and majestic and the Flan tribesmen were but newcomers to the land, there existed between the Bright Desert and the mouth of the river Selintan a great fortress called Inverness . . .  Know you also that here was said to dwell the great wizard Galap-Dreidel at the height of his power and glory, and that he did lift the Castle Inverness from the very foundation of rock upon which it rested. [citation]" 

This information comes straight from the Greyhawk on line page & it has many connections across the board to  the Flanaess. But that's never stopped me from taking full advantage to draw in the ghost tower deeper into whatever campaign world  I'm currently running.  For me the tower is one which has many different aspects across the planes so there's a Ghost Tower on Mystara . The classic Modules and Adventures in Mystara article by Bouv  from the Vaults of Pandius site has some ideas on the towers placement. 

 For me it comes back to Clark Ashton Smith & Jack Vance's wizards. These are beings whose very works can define reality of their respective worlds. Now most folks would think that I'd reference the excellent  Xiccarph cycle of Clark Ashton Smith. No instead I want to focus on CAS's "The Dark Eidolon" . The tale of course  chronicles the life and death of the dread sorcerer Namirrha. Namirrha is the complete opposite of the wizard who constructed the ghost tower. But their are striking similarities. Both of these high level wizards are busy rearing edifices that defy their local time & space continuum's technological level & the mere laws of physics. The Nerd Redfined site has a very good overview & break down of Namirrha.
But this begs the question if there are such towers across the multiverse could they lay in wait for unwary heroes? Surely there are no such weird towers in say classic comic books?! Well actually the DC universe has one of its own that has rooms that look like they were designed by M.C. Escher. I'm speaking of course of DC's own sorcerer supreme Dr. Fate & his tower. 

Artwork used without permission but not as a trade mark or copyright challenge.

The tower of Fate appeared in More Fun Comics #58 (August, 1940) & has served as the focal point for some of the most important events in the DC comic book universe. The Ghost tower has  served in some of the most important PC's deaths over the years. Countless parties have ventured into its depths & yet few have survived its tricks & traps. The fact that its a competition module makes this all of the sweeter. Could it be that the real reason that the ghost tower hasn't been brought to heel like so many other dungeons is the fact that it serves another function? Could C2 tower actually be a playing board between the gods & various high level wizards? We know that the tower itself is from another age. But is this because its halls serve as the battle ground for the amusement of the gods & their opponents. If this is a fun house dungeon then for whom is it fun for? 

The  answer lies within its history & connections to some of the greatest disasters of Greyhawk's history.  Now of course the gods & wizards amuse themselves at the perils of mortals within the tower.


William Blake  Jacob's Ladder

I've seen C2 described as a 'killer dungeon' numerous times but I think that its part of its form & function. The adventure is described for PC's of levels five through seven. Confession time I've used it with much higher level PC 's & its just as lethal.
Is there a malevolent intelligence behind the the tower? Well yes in my campaigns the ghost tower has been run by any number of dimensional travelers who have served the tower. The form & function has been the same. The tower moves from place to place & kills off adventurers according to its ancient function that was created so many thousands of years ago. The magicks of the tower are as potent as the day it was created. I've used the ghost tower with lots of OSR retrclone systems especially Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Labyrinth Lord, AD&D first edition & my upcoming Amazing Adventures!/ Demi god campaign.


Because the legends of the ghost tower are so tied in with Greyhawk over the years, I've used this adventure to get PC's to Greyhawk if they've survived. The campaign world is so iconic that its not hard to get players into the Greyhawk mind set. I've also gathered PC's from across a wide range of TSR campaign classic settings such as Mystara, Blackmoor, Greyhawk & points beyond.
This really speaks to the adaptiveness of C2 ""The Ghost Tower of Inverness". There are lots of detractors out in the OSR for this module but still love it. Having this location in an old school or OSR campaign setting is guaranteed to spark interest & perhaps a lot of caution. 

Review & Commentary On Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5 Palace of the Dragon’s Princess By Mark Taormino & Dark Wizard Games

"Once upon a time, the lakeside Kingdom of Damoros was suffering from the death of its benevolent King. All hope now lay with the Princess who was set to marry the bravest knight in the land, and their union would restore the realm. However, on the wedding day, the evil Dragon Maelfesto attacked the castle by surprise and took control! The serpent drove everyone out and took the princess captive in the caverns below, wickedly enchanting the palace never to be seen again. Riches, honor and glory will be gained for those who save the fair maiden, defeat the beast and return alive from the Palace of the Dragon’s Princess!"



Its freezing quite literally out here at Casa De Fabiaschi & Mark Taormino from Dark Wizard Games contacted me last night with my review copy of Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5  Palace of the Dragon’s Princess. This module funded within one day on Kickstarter & its interesting to see the resulting adventure. Clocking in at forty four pages this module presents a very interesting twist or two on the usual tropes of a"rescue the princess" adventure  module. But be warned that this is a high level module designed for character levels 8-12 and can be played with the OSRIC system or easily adapted to AD&D, D&D 1e to 5e, etc.

The artwork & layout are top notch & easy on the eyes. The adventure plot fits the ins & outs of the quality of what we've seen from other Taormino adventures in the past. The whole thing plays very well with others if your looking to integrate the module into an existing campaign. Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5  Palace of the Dragon’s Princess has the look & feel of an 80's well designed gonzo adventure  fest. Inter locking adventure parts that fit into a colorfully deadly whole of max carnage & OSR adventure weirdness. 


But is Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5  Palace of the Dragon’s Princess good? Yes if you need a high level & deadly adventure with a plot & actual campaign impact with a twist or two. Encounters here are deadly & the module plays for keeps. The action is twisting, dangerous, & weird. This is a module set in a smaller yet important kingdom. Think Greyhawk with a big budget action sequence built into it & I mean this in a good way. Overall I liked what I read. This isn't a module to be taken lightly & the impact of its events will be felt for a long time to come within a campaign.



The encounters move along at a very quick clip & like many of the  Maximum Mayhem Dungeons tongue is firmly in cheek but its not out of alignment with the themes & tone of Palace of the Dragon’s Princess. Make no mistake this is high fantasy taking place within a Dungeons & Dragons world along with all that that implies. The creatures, monsters, races, etc. are all very well done but fit the mode typical of the module's adventure genre. While conventions are broken the ideas here are solidly  Taormino with everything twisting & churning in the world of Palace of the Dragon’s Princess.




The artwork is strong b/w with the cartography being up to the standards that Dark Wizards &  Maximum Mayhem have provided in the past. Could the Maximum Mayhem Dungeons modules that have been released in the past be used as an over arching campaign by the dungeon master? Yes because of two very important factors :
4 Pregenerated PC characters
40 Encounters within Palace of the Dragon’s Princess
All of these can be linked up to other Dark Wizards adventures such as Vault of The Dwarven King adventure  to form a heavily influenced campaign setting.



Artwork from Vault of The Dwarven King

Overall I really liked & was impressed with Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5  Palace of the Dragon’s Princess by  Mark Taormino & Dark Wizard Games. There are somethings to keep in mind about  Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5  Palace of the Dragon’s Princess . 
This is a campaign style module which means that the results are going to have very wide implications for an old school or OSR campaign. The monsters & encounters actually live up to their implications for PC's. The adventure is high level for reasons & that players should have at least three to five PC's on the back burner. The PC's are going to be a major influence on the campaign that this adventure takes place in. Connecting  Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5  Palace of the Dragon’s Princess with other OSR or old school modules isn't hard but the results after this module is completed are going to test the player's PC's later on. There's lots of interesting nods & Easter eggs within the module that the DM can exploit connect this module with other classics from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition or B/X era.
Is the  Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5  Palace of the Dragon’s Princess  module worth getting? Yes I think so because of the overall playablity, repeat adventure utility, quality & ideas contained within Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #5  Palace of the Dragon’s Princess. 

Snow, Appendix N With Clark Ashton Smith & Castanamir - OSR Commentary - C3 The Lost Island of Castanamir By Ken Rolston

"It is terribly cold. You swam for your life to this mysterious island, losing most of your provisions in the process, only to find it barren of all but grass. A biting wind from the north drives through your wet clothes, chilling you to the bone. Night is falling and promises even colder temperatures; you wish this place had even a bush to burn as firewood. Your stomach has just begun to complain about the lack of dinner, when one of your companions calls, and you rush o his side, hoping he's found a way to turn grass into a sandwich. Instead, he points to the ground in front of him. "Look there." 

Set in a shallow depression in the ground is a stone door. Your friend reaches down and gives a tug, and the door swings slowly open on creaking hinges, revealing a descending stair. The first thought that crosses your mind in whether it would be better to freeze to death up here in the wind or fall into the hands of Castanamir the Mad, the unpredictable. "

C3 The Lost Island of Castanamir is one of the competition modules by Ken Rolston. The module is a solid one that was at the time of its release very well put together. Originally this was one of the C series of competition modules & way ahead of its time.  "The Lost Island of Castanamir was written by Ken Rolston, with art by Jeff Easley, and was published by TSR in 1984 as a 32-page booklet with an outer folder"

What makes it one of the better competition modules? Well a factor is the exclusion of the point system according to its Drivethrurpg entry; "C3 marks a change from the earlier competition adventures. It doesn't have visual handouts, and its scoring is much more subjective - no longer including specific points for specific actions as C1 and C2 did.".  The other thing is the fact that this module plugs into the old school/ OSR gonzo nature of dungeon crawling; ""Lost Island" is a classic tournament dungeon crawl, full of wacky teleporters and other strangeness. It also includes science fantasy elements like robots (iron men) and refrigerators."  But don't think that this is simply a 'fun house' module there's a lot going on here that the DM can plug into his or her own campaign. 


With the  demi god/ super hero game campaign I've been asked to include this module's location  because its extra planar nature;

"In this scenario, the adventurers pass through magical portals into a series of interlinked chambers.^[2]

The characters are encouraged by a young scholarly mage to voyage into the Sea of Pastures, to explore a mysterious island connected with a number of recent shipwrecks and disappearances. The island is grassy and windblasted, but eventually the characters discover a stone door leading into a subterranean complex. There, they discover 18 rooms linked by secret passages and magical portals. Most of these rooms have been ransacked by a variety of other survivors, human and monstrous. These survivors are likewise trapped within the labyrinth and are either eking out a miserable existence there or else desperately searching for a means of escape.

Also within the building are a number of extraplanar creatures, collectively known as gingwatzim, who can shift between various forms: an energy form (glowing ball of light), an inanimate form (usually a magical weapon), and an animate form (an animal or monster). Eventually the characters may find the exit, and are once again deposited on the dreary islands to await rescue."

Wizards are always a risky factor for a campaign. One of the adventure campaign factors of both fantasy fiction & Dungeons & Dragons is the insanity of wizards. This is especially true of the high level ones! C3 The Lost Island of Castanamir by Ken Rolston bares this out. The fact is that the past of the island bares this out. In fact many elements here bare a striking resemblance to the "The Maze of Maal Dweb" by  Clark Ashton Smith. CAS's  Xiccarph cycle had a definite effect on Robert Kuntz's campaign & adventure work as well. 


So what does this have to do with C3 The Lost Island of Castanamir By Ken Rolston & high level campaigns? After all this is only a first level module for characters levels one through four? The key here is the review by Chris Hunter;
"Chris Hunter reviewed the module in Imagine magazine, giving it a mixed review.^[1] He wrote that, as a competition module, it is "so tough that not everyone survives" and thus when used with regular characters Hunter suggested the use of higher level characters.^[1] He described the module as disjointed and difficult to DM, as many encounters were not fully thought through by the designers. As this module introduces an "interesting class of creatures", it could also have major long-term consequences for a campaign.^[1] According to Hunter, C3 is "good buy" for those looking for a competition module.^[1] However, he did not recommend it for an ongoing campaign" 

So C3 could have long term consequences on a campaign hmm? I'm a sucker for competition modules & if we look a wee bit deeper into  the all powerful sorcerer Maal Dweb's works then we see that he's gone up against a wide variety of heroes, pulp heroes, etc.  This is especially true in CAS's Maze of the Enchanter;

" At length he came to a lampless, column-crowded portico; and, gliding silently as a jungle snake, he entered the mysterious house of Maal Dweb. A door stood open behind the dark pillars; and beyond the door he discerned the dim reaches of an empty hall.

Tiglari went in with redoubled caution, and began to follow the arrased wall. The place was full of unknown perfumes, languorous and somnolent: a subtle reek as of censers in hidden alcoves of love. He did not like the perfumes; and the silence troubled him more and more. It seemed to him that the darkness was thick with unheard breathings, was alive with invisible movements.

Slowly, like the opening of great yellow eyes, yellow, flames arose in lamps of copper along the hall. Tiglari hid himself behind an arras; and peering forth presently, he saw that the hall was still deserted. Finally he dared to resume his progress. All around him the rich hangings, broidered with purple men and blue women on a field of blood, appeared to stir with uneasy life in a wind he could not feel. But there was no sign of the presence of Maal Dweb or his metal servitors and human odalisques.

The doors on either side of the hall, with cunningly mated valves of ebony and ivory, were all closed. At the far end Tiglari saw a thin rift of light in a somber double arras. Parting the arras very slowly, he peered through into a huge brilliantly lit chamber that seemed to be the harem of Maal Dweb, peopled with all the girls that the enchanter had summoned to his dwelling. It seemed, in fact, that there were hundreds, leaning or lying on ornate couches, or standing in attitudes of languor or terror. Tiglari discerned in the throng the women of Ommu-Zain, whose flesh is whiter than desert salt; the slim girls of Uthmai, who are molded from breathing, palpitating jet; the queenly topaz girls of equatorial Xala; and the small women of Ilap, who have the tones of newly greening bronze. But among them all he could not find the lotus-like beauty of Athlé.

Much he marveled at the number of the women and the perfect stillness with which they maintained their various postures. They were like goddesses that slept in some enchanted hall of eternity. Tiglari, the intrepid hunter, was awed and frightened. These women — if indeed they were women and not mere statues — were surely the thralls of a death-like spell. Here, indeed, was proof of the sorcery of Maal Dweb."


So here we have an isolated location belonging to a former wizard or other worldly power just waiting outside of the campaign setting's location waiting to trap & perhaps destroy any character who comes into contact with its form & function. 

The lost island waiting for a group of intrepid adventurers is a long held tradition in the various Celtic mythologies & super hero comics from the Golden age to the modern era. 

C3 The Lost Island of Castanamir By Ken Rolston has a definitive place at my table coming up! We've got more adventure campaign commentary & classic adventure entries coming up.