Commentary Running The Outer Presence From Kort'thalis Publishing Using The Silent Legions Rpg System Rules By Kevin Crawford - Actual Play Event

"The world is broken in hidden ways. The truth is concealed for the sake of mortal minds. The unendurable reality that boils behind the stars is veiled by the pleasant blindness that human sanity requires. Yet every comforting shroud must fall in time, and for these investigators, that time is now."
So let's peek behind the shroud of Silent Legion today!

So like a couple of years ago the Silent Legions rpg  had its kickstarter. This OSR game by  Kevin Crawford was successfully funded then it was put on a shelf someplace along with a myriad of very positive reviews. For months now I've had the pdf sitting on the dark corners of my hard drive & its time to do something with it. So what does Silent Legions bring to the table? A number of things that might look familiar to Stars Without Number dungeon masters.

• Tools for creating eldritch gods, alien races, black sorcery, unique Lovecraftian magical artifacts, fantastic demi-planes of dream, and unspeakable cults of foulest evil. Make your players afraid of the dark again- give them an enemy that's a genuine mystery to them!

• Guides for the creation of horrific monsters, building them from basic templates elaborated by unique qualities and special flavors of horror. Use the example templates for a quick abomination or flesh them out to be a special nemesis for your players.

• Region creation tools for building your own sections of demon-haunted Earth, including sixty location tags to define the special torments of your land. These tags are largely compatible with the other tags found in Sine Nomine products such as Stars Without Number and Scarlet Heroes, so you can mix things up for even more dread chaos.

• Adventure templates for quickly producing an investigative adventure suitable for sandbox use. You can create "blank" templates out of raw plot elements and then drop them on top of your region; the blank spaces in the template interlock with the location tags to create an instant adventure no matter which location receives the template.

• Cult rules that adapt the popular Faction system from Stars Without Number for the dark machinations and secret feuding of the malevolent cults you create. Keep your world in a steady downward spiral whether or not the PCs are there!
  
  So mechanically how cross compatible is Silent Legions with other OSR systems? Well according to the author's comments on Drivethrurpg;"
  Silent Legions, Other Dust, Stars Without Number, and Spears of the Dawn all share the same system, albeit with a few genre tweaks for the individual games. Scarlet Heroes uses its own system built for one-on-one gaming, but even there, it remains basically compatible with the SWN series, trading the skill system for "traits" and using a slightly different system for saves."
  
  
  I did a quick review of the beta rules way back in 2014  after a few edits & some tweaks the game was out in the wild for sale by Kevin Crawford.  And that's all I've done with the game system. Sigh. The problem has been that players are used to Call of Cthulhu, Chill, Trail of Cthulhu, etc & don't seem to realize the strengths of the game system that make up Silent Legions as an rpg. Its far easier to get OSR or old school players into a game of Dungeons & Dragons then it is to get them into horror game but that's not all there is to Silent Legions. As an OSR  source book well that's where this is one of the strengths of the game. It actually works well to enhance other old school & retroclone systems and can be used as a fast replacement system for Call of Cthulhu. But what does this mean? Well it means that your Fiend Folio 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book just became a go to horror monster source book. 
  
  
  
  Now I've heard it argued that OD&D & AD&D 1st edition are horror games which to a certain extent is absolutely true depending upon the tone & take away of the campaign setting. But when you incorporate a family of berbalangs who are straight out  of Filipino myth into a modern or a Dark Ages fantasy game using the bits that Silent Legions brings to the table well now your onto a full  blown horror campaign. Several of the monster from the Fiend Folio are perfect fodder for the dream realms of Silent Legions ala HP Lovecraft's Dream Lands.
  
  Just the other week I ran a group of my regular D&D retroclone players through a modified version of The Outer Presence From  Kort'thalis Publishing using Silent Legions. The results were both horrific and very satisfyingly from a dungeon master's perspective. The by play went very well as the players dealt with Miskatonic University and quickly headed to Papua New Guinea set during the 1600's. The results were a TPK but things went off very well. The players were very happy but wanted a bit more meat to their PC's then simply the profession rules of the Outer Presence. Sometimes less is not more especially for experienced players.
  
  
  
  I'll be back with more commentary on Silent Legions as I get into the game a bit more but it looks like I'm going to be needing a hard copy of this game sooner then later. Well get more into some of the deeper aspects of Silent Legion next time.
  Until next time keep em rolling!

Time To Dust Off Ancient & Accursed Terra With The Adventurer,Conqueror, King, Rpg With A Twist

The black season is upon Ancient Terra once more the shadows grow long & the monsters hunger from the shadows!


Beyond the demon haunted  Borea Winds there are other worlds such as Thule, Atlantis, and many other  places where the settlers from Old Earth came from thousands of years ago. This is a world of insanity, intrigue, monster haunted woods, and dungeons vast as well as deep inhabited by monsters. It was here that the battles of Ragnarok were fought & the gods died.

This is a world of terrible secrets, horrid legacies, vast ruin haunted plains. Man hides in his walled city states guarded by the forces of the Terra current & ancient technologies he hardly understands anymore.

"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

HP Lovecraft 'The Call of Cthulhu'


Ancient & accursed Terra is a world in need of heroes as the seasons of blackness engulf this world.  Lo did the wars of the serpent men & the K’n-yan peoples turned the land into a blasted waste. Many peoples were made strange & frightening by the energies unleashed by these two powers. But those days are long past and only now are men emerging from the darkness and the long silence that followed in the wake of the sinking of Atlantis,Mu, & places whose names have passed into legend. But their survivals even now plot to retake this world from the darkness beyond the poles where the Elder Things and the Great race once seeded the interior world.Mankind sends adventurers of its races into the dark places to plunder ancient ruins, learn the secrets of those who were once masters and to take the relics, artifacts, and treasures they left behind. 

And even what they  left behind is still guarded by monsters and sometimes far stranger things. The survivors & dangerous inhabitants of the civilizations of those who came before wait & plot in dark places for your blood. Not gun, nor magic, nor even the bravest hero can keep these at bay.
And that's where you come in! Just beyond the fire light something howls for your blood is your sword hand or spell  ready for that monster?

So what's the deal here? Well I've gotten approved for a local game shop for a campaign down in my home town. Since I've been itching for the better part of a year to run Adventurer, Conqueror, King. This is the perfect opportunity to use the Astonishing ACK's material that I've been seeing for the better part of three years. Now I've just the time, the full setting as well as the venue to try this wonderful old school retro system with! This world will also be using parts of other OSR material including Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
Are you interested in joining in an exciting, challenging sword & sorcery world with deadly monsters, incredible magic, weird relics, ancient technologies, webs of intrigue where you just might make your fortunes & leave your mark on history!

Welcome to Ancient & Accursed Terra An Astonishing ACK's setting!
Coming Soon!

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. H. P. Lovecraft
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/h_p_lovecraft.html

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. H. P. Lovecraft
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/h_p_lovecraft.html

The Convent Of Saint Leona - Tonight's Lamentations Of The Flame Princess Actual Play Event

So tonight I had an entire adventure worked up for the Lamentations Of The Flame Princess rpg to go run over a friend's house to take a break from writing up stuff for the Fantastic Heroes and Witchery game campaign of mine. My buddy picks me up tonight but I got in the car without the majority of my books except my LoFP rule book. While I was panicking I resigned myself to my fate an thought about seeing a video that James Raggi did at a some point last year. F#$k You episode number #3 on You tube earlier in the day. One of the things in the video is Jame's opinion on the book 'Stealing Cthulhu' and how there isn't a single mention of Lovecraftian ghouls. So that was my rift and I went with it. 

  The PC's in tonight's game were veterans of Napoleon's campaign in Egypt,and this adventure concerns the French army being pushed out of Egypt by the British .The PC's were a mix of Fighters of fourth level and better with a wizard in their as well. The adventure consists of a hostel owned and operated by a group of nuns and the PC's figuring out that all is not well with the nuns. There is a plague sweeping the city and the PC's are caught within city limits and the nuns are offering kindness and a bed but not all is as it seems. People are going missing in the night. And the PC's are down and out veterans who have very little in the world. The adventure was humancentric as well. So there was very little set up time.

During the night one  of the PC's awakens in the inn/hostel to see a pair of yellow dangerous eyes flashing in the darkness. The PC followed the trail left in the dust by two strong and very dangerous creatures who dragged a man into a pit in the ground in the courtyard of the place.
There was very little light and the moon rolled over head as the clouds broke once in a while illuminated the courtyard.



The PC a fighter named Henry L'Court spotted a group of strange half starved beings and failing a wisdom  he assumed were beggars speaking with one of the nuns. There was something very inhuman about the nun. Something about her in the moonlight that made Henry pause shutter with horror. And then he saw the faces of the beggars. They passed the nun a bloody haunch of a package and he saw the tell tail signs of a person's arm and shoulder. He backed away very slowly and kept to the darkness going back to his room and to awaken the others. At this point the players faced a  dilemma of not having any weapons or equipment. The came up with a plan to check the room of the missing man having traced down the poor victim's whereabouts. The abode was well paid for and appointed. They found some spoils of war hidden within. Shot and pistol, a few swords, and a knife or two. They took the weapons and something more. The British officer had taken some other spoils as well. A preserved human head in a jar and the thing was 'alive'. This stopped the game in its tracks for a moment. ( The head was the preserved head of a wizard and had they taken to long things would have gone from bad to worse). The party put the thing back in its hidden panel within the trunk where they found it. They also found a pile of  strange coppery gold coins which they took.  And they left almost running into a trio of weird half ghoul bandits!



Then they heard voices in the hallway of the hostel. And they got their first glimpse of the inhuman things stalking through the hallways going from room to room. As they were checking on room the party bolted and hidden in the shadows. While hiding behind a tapestry the party discovered a hidden door. And a hidden stairwell leading down into the depths of the ancient stone pile. 

We had to end the game there because it is a work and school night for the players as well. To be continued this weekend! 

The Gardens Of La Tsing -The Man From K'n-yan - Actual Play Encounter For Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Part III

Continued from last time's game
Right over
HERE

The PC's were captured by the main complex's temple guardians who happened to be their own former comrades that had their flesh reworked into more pleasing shapes by the temple's demonic inhabitants.

These surreal horrors are the work of Post Mortem's Studios available right over
HERE
 The PC's were brought down into the depths of the finely worked stone past a few mind shattering shaggoths and other horrors.The PC's were not pleased at all with the horrors they witnessed on the way downward that they might have to face trying to escape the depths of this place of horror and depravity.

This shapeless horror is available right over
HERE
 The guards departed and left the PC's in a stone worked chamber covered with row after row of hyrogpyhis. Suddenly from two side entry ways came their escorts. A pair of nine foot tall mummies of a most particular aspect. Horrors from beyond the grave whose presence unnerved the PC's to know end. Their grasp was like iron and the weird preservatives gave the horrors an unnervingly juicy look.

This undead mummy is available right over
HERE

The PC's themselves thought that this was their death song as iron claws of incredible strength pressed into their flesh and their wizard made signs of caution. Still further into the pyramid were they lead past rows of other former priests and other worshipers of foul gods long forgotten on the surface of Hyperborea. But then they were lead to one of the former masters La Tsing.
Passed rows of imprisoned Great Race Of Yith intellectuals working at weird brass stands on the strange bound volumes of forbidden knowledge were the PC's lead. Until they came to a throne room.
The PC's were ushered  into the presence of something old and very dead lurking in the shadows of a throne. The entire party gasped as the lich priest of the pyramid revealed itself.
 Shi Re 'The Wicked One'  the lich priest from K'n-Yan who has dogged the PC's every step ever since they ruined his shrine in Underborea three months ago now faced them. Would they die or was their a worse fate worse then  await them?
Tune in next week and find out!


This vile villain of a lich is available right over
HERE

All artwork is used with permission and can be found at the Post Mortem studios store as part of the marvelous stock from Rpgnow. You can find more of this wonderful fantasy clip artwork right over HERE
Special thanks to  Bradley K. McDevitt for the opportunity to show my players exactly what they've been facing down these past couple of months. The monsters are trade marked and copyrighted to the artist and owner.  

The Gardens Of La Tsing -The Man From K'n-yan - Actual Play Encounter For Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea

The PC's hooked up with the rest of their  numbers and reinforcements after a couple of months ago's TPK which left only a few survivors. They were working as mercenary spies for a local warlord with ties to the royal families back in the main city state of Khromarium under the guise of trade and commerce. 

After penetrating deep into the wet and fetid jungles the PC's proceeded for seven days into the Hyperborean wilds. They had encounter with weird cannibal warriors and combat was quick as well as decisive. They weren't taking any chances.
After a grueling trek deep into the jungles, the party heard the unearthly music coming from the other side of the jungles.
The PC's stumbled upon an earthen tunnel/vent as they quickly and quietly made their way toward's the pyramid. Larcus The Quick Fingered opened the complicated locking mechanism and amid the hot winds that blew from underground the party decided to take the back door into the complex.
Jade works, cut crystal batteries, and stranger mechanisms greeted them. There were other things as well down below. The air was choked with the stench of burning jungle lotus. Its cloying smell waffled through the air as a phantom of death and harshness.
 After dealing with a vent slime that kept the jade tunnels clear of debris. The party came upon a stone worked antechamber filled with priests gathered around the glow of a Atlantian power battery. Its weird psychic - magical energies caused their very bones to glow with it's unholy power.
Upon an alter a man was bound and he was tortured as the light from Kyranos shown. The priests watched with hooded eyes and blank expressions as his screams filled the chamber.


Kyranos was high in the skies of Hyperborea and through a series of mirrors shone into the chamber lighting up the entire scene with colours never seen on Earth. The priests basked in its light and seemed renewed. That's when the party saw him. A slim and dusky individual clothed in jade and worked silvery finery, a priest like figure at whose side a strange worm like mechanism of singular workmanship coiled and moved with unholy grace.
The PC's cleric and wizard shivered, they've had dealings with eternal K'n-Yan
They had learned the tongues and rites of those unholy places and almost been sent to Carcosa for sacrifice and worse. Fortunately a strange alliance of time lost warriors and adventurers had come to their resauce. But the price was very high indeed as they still bore the silvery scar tissues across their backs and the strange glowing burns that the mines of Koth had caused. Only expensive magical healing had saved their lives.
A priest necromancer from Eternal K'n-yan was here in Tsing? This was unthinkable these ancient enemies were always at each other's throat.  Only the PC's knew the threat that a Tsing and K'n-Yan alliance would be to Hyperborea. 
This could spell doom for the surrounding villages as the unholy atomic horrors from K'n-yan erupted into the surrounding countryside even as undead shock troops swept across the countryside.
The PC's listened as  conversations in High  Xinaián and Atlantian outlined the coming campaign of horror and depravity for their patron's holdings. But this was only the beginning. 
 The PC's never heard the undead spiderlike things that were their former comrades slide upon the roof tiles above them nor did they have time to react as they were captured.
More to come! 

Comentary and Actual Play With The Free Old School Adventure - The Hall of the Family From Chubby Monster Games For The Astonishing Swordsmen And Sorcerers Rpg Systems

I've run this old school adventure before but last night my buddy Peter got back home after a long business trip out to California. He got together with friends and family and so wanted a game.. now. So with little preparation I pulled this adventure from the back archives of Drivethrurpg. This adventure is a challenge and well suited for the more populous regions of Hyperborea. 

Grab It Free
HERE

The Hall of the Family: A Short Delve...with a medusa!

This short adventure covers the sad story of a family brought to ruin due to a seer's tale and what became of their home after their fall. With Goblins, medusa, golems, satyrs and even minotaurs...ensure your players have a rolliking good time as you crush all their hopes. Download The Hall of the Family today and start adventuring tonight!

The adventure is presented in a system-less fashion using common themes and elements found in any fantasy game. It should be easy for any GM to work this into any campaign.

I  DM'ed this with little free gem before for this group and because it's a free adventure I've heard a few murmers that companies don't put their all into them. That's simply pure hog wash. Josh Mannon has a written a very tight little number here as the PC's found out. The maps are nicely put together and this adventure runs like clock work. 

I didn't get home till almost four am but the players wanted to finish this one once and for all. The game went very well. Finished it but I left a few hanging threads for future adventures. So we'll see where this one get's taken in the coming weeks! Adapting Hall of The Family To AS&SH. 

This adventure is easily adapted into AS&SH because many of the monsters, encounters, and old school sword and sorcery elements are already present within the game! The maps are standard for AS&SH use and the encounters are well balanced. There's enough here for a couple of short games or one very long encounter session such as the night I had! All in all a very nice little download! 

'The Beast From The Haunted Cave' Adapted For Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea And Your Old School Sword and Sorcery Campaigns

After a fatal run with the Snakeriders of the Aradondo(available right HERE ) in which a series of fatal dice rolls caused a total TKP. Two of my players went on vacation out to California and the others wanted a different setting then the Lizard Coast. That was the other night's AS&SH game set upon my post apocalyptic Mars setting and thanks to the Dungeon From A Distant Star was pretty damn cool. Details HERE 

This one require a bit of DYI but boy was it worth it. I turned down the Corman and turned up the Lovecraft.

Trailer For The Beast From The Haunted Cave 

The Beast From The Haunted Cave Movie 

The Beast From The Haunted Cave Adventure Set Up 

Tonight's game was inspired by the cold as well as  a very old and terrible Roger Corman movie. The Beast from the Haunted adapted to AS&SH worked surprisingly well. The adventure takes place deep in the heart of Viking territory and takes place around an abandon Atlantian  gold mine. There have been a series of disappearances of some of the locals and the Viking rangers are very unsure of  tracks that have been seen in the area. 

The mine has only recently been explored by a group of adventurers and their wizard who came across the Mi Go machinery that had been left behind. The beast was part of the original bio genesis guardians of the mine, the Atlantians would later take it over. The mi go mined certain rare earth elements, the gold was only part of a bi product left behind by the Fungus from Yuggoth. The Mi Go had made war with the Atlantian tribes in the area and the Atlantians took over operations after driving off the Mi Go. There were certain sections of the mine which were taboo. This was where the beasts slept in dreamless slumber awaiting the return of their Mi Go masters while alien machinery kept the guardians in a state of suspended animation. The Atlantian operations were wiped out during the Great Death plague that took these ancient tribes from the face of Hyperborea.
The Beasts were their creations part arachnid, part fungus, and created from the essence of certain demons from nameless alien hells.
Now an ancient nearby Viking  village is the target of one of these horrors that has been awakened by foolish adventurers.
 

Number Encountered : 1d2 
Alignment: Chaotic Evil 
Size :
Large: L 
Movement : 40 
Dexterity: 11 
Armor Class: 2 
Hit Dice: 10 
Number of attacks: 3 claw, claw, bite or special bite (see below)
Damage 1d6, 1d6, 2d6 
Saving throw: 12 
Morale: 9 
Experience: 2,500 
Treasure : Q,R 
Specials:

• 13 in 12 spell resistance Vs CA 12 spell casters. For every CA level less then 12, the chance in twenty increases by one (+1). 
• Surprises on a 3 in 6 chance 
• Immune to cold attacks but very vulnerable to fire attacks 
• Regenerates as a troll due to its partial fungal nature 
• Victims who receive a bite are webbed and infected with young. 
• Immune to any mind effecting spells and mind control spells as well because of the fungal nature of the beast's intelligence. 
•  The beast may choose to infect victims with a special bite that only does 1 to two points of damage but the victim must save vs. Death or be paralyzed. The victim will be taken to a nearby underground lair and infected with 1d10 eggs. 
• Anyone who escapes the beast may be stalked and sent telepathic images of horror and depravity of the beast's past victims.
• These beasts have terribly evil intelligence and may stalk as well as kill those who slay their kind. These horrors share a telepathic rapture and know what others of their kind know in a 12 kilometer radius.   

The so called Primordial beasts have been used by the Mi Go for millions of years as guardians for their operations upon Hyperborea and thousands of other worlds. They have the characteristics of many creatures but are actually horrors unique to themselves. They make their homes in wide variety of locations but often enjoy cold or inhospitable climates with nearby human settlements. The beasts enjoy feasts on human and near humanoid victims who stumble into their clutches.  They will strike a
These horrors have a bite which places the victim into a near death like state unless save vs. poison is rolled. The victim is given a strange poison that not only keeps them alive and suffering but protects them from the cold. The beasts produces a special webbing that can hold a man sized creature stationary and protected against extreme cold. The beasts feed on their charges and lay 1d10 eggs within the victims who are conscious when the young eat their way out of them. This does 1d4 points of damage per round as the worm like young burst forth from the victim after feeding upon the marrow of the bones of the poor wretches.
 The beasts often hunt down witnesses and other special victims that they single out. The creatures uses their inhuman senses to ceaselessly track their targets. They are able to project into the minds of their victims images of suffering prey and friends that they often take. Those who witness such sights will be at -2 on all rolls as the telepathic horror of these images takes it's toll on the sanity and mind of their charges. Only a save vs wands may lessen the impact of such horrors.
These horrors can live hundreds of years and amass a fortune in artifacts and gold from past victims. They know that rumors of such treasure bring adventurers and fool hardy explorers but these are not the only treasures to be had. 

Many alchemists will pay good gold for samples of the beast's flesh and sections of its webbing. These are made into potions of regeneration and protection from cold. There is a 10% chance of those who use such things taking on certain characteristics of the beast or even becoming one themselves. 

Trek Along The Lizard Coast - Dealing With The Snakeriders of the Aradondo In AS&SH - Actual Play.

Grab it right over
HERE

My regular Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of  Hyperborea game has been hiatus for a couple of weeks now due to my having the flu. Last night was the first night I got together with my regular players who are dealing with the heat, humidity, and general jungle nastiness of the Lizard Coast ( refer back to the AS&SH Referee's Guide page 206 for more details on the region). Aradondo is a small island off the coast of this region. It's even more dangerous then parts of the interior but it's really all relative to the natives who live there.
To recap we've been playing through the AS&SH version of Snake Riders From the mighty pen of Tim Kask.
 If your unfamiliar with Snake Riders here's the Drivethrurpg blurb :

 "Hidden a midst a jungle teaming with giant crocodiles, man-eating carnivorous apes, and frogs the size of ponies lies a forgotten temple that harbors the bane of mankind.  The skilled might reach this temple.  The exceptional might actual discover its secrets and prevent a great evil from emerging to plague all the inhabitants of this world. Adventure is calling... will you accept the charges?

Snakeriders of the Aradondo is a classic Old School dungeon from the twisted mind of fantasy legend Tim Kask.  Containing both an overland adventure and a dungeon crawl, this non-system specific adventure is guaranteed to provide multiple sessions of entertainment for 3 or more players of average to skilled experience." 

 I've got a crew of seven players dealing with the heat, and nasty conditions of the Aradondo Island. There are some tribes of Pictish cannibals which worship the Snake Riders as semi divine gods as well to spice things up. PC's have run across several small shrines in the region. Died at the hands of carnivorous apes and giant frogs. Replacement PC's have been escaped adventurers from the cannibals or the Snake Riders.
Thieves and barbarians have been the order of the day with this adventure and players have remarked that this mini campaign has a Conrad's Heart of Darkness vibe going on. Actually one of the sources of the adventure at least for me to add a bit more of a Howard vibe has been the "The Thing On The Roof" You can find that one right over HERE .


Using The  The Snakeriders of the Aradondo



There is a definite question of balance when using Snake Riders with AS&SH. The material is very well balance and easily converted using the AS&SH monsters, treasure, and encounters.  Anyone using this adventure should prep this one out before the session and really reread the encounters. Pepper the adventure with some seriously minor 'treasures' and artifacts from AS&SH as well. I don't mean sun swords and laser cross bows but bits of Atlantian metal, odd coins, and perhaps a few things that can do a parlor trick or two of old school magic.
 In addition add in cannbals as well. Think of the Hovitos from the first  Indiana Jones  movie as a template or perhaps the Tcho Tchos might be a bit more along the lines of the AS&SH feel.
The Snake Riders should have a wide array of minor artifacts and perhaps a relic or two from AS&SH. They're vicious and quite nasty.

More To come as the PC's have made contact with a friendly tribe and are moving long the route toward the next encounter! 

Using The Free OSR Dragon Foot Resource HS1 - The Village of Rashtan By Todd Hughes For Your Sword and Sorcery Campaign

Download it for free
Right Over
HERE 

Blurb:
The sleepy hamlet of Rashtan has experienced a boom, and has transformed into a bustling village overnight. This supplement is used as a setting in the HM module series, but can easily be used as a village in any campaign world.

A couple of days ago I was running my Ancient  and Accursed Terra campaign with some friends and I needed a village boom town. This module provided me with everything I needed for the modified Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea system boost.
Because this is an AD&D first edition based module the NPC's were a snap to convert to the system.
The adventure is  easily converted, add in a few NPC's like an Empire bureaucrat, some drifting adventurer scum, and a few nearby ruins with the right flavor. Your pretty much going to be set for play!
The setting is very European but with a few tweaks can be made to feel like a colony in the middle of a decaying empire.
 The whole thing ran like an outpost on the edge of an empire about to collapse but getting a much needed boast before being sent over the edge of oblivion.
One of the keys I found was to add a few foreign barbarians, a forester or two, and simply throw in a backdrop of weird but mostly useless artifacts that hint at 'strange and fabulous' treasures of eons ago.
 An assassination by a weird doppleganger (This monster is coming up soon) caused quite a stir and got the encounter rolling.
AS&SH plays well with this module, the system has a few twists and turns but mostly there is very little conversion lag in play while DMing this setting.
I had a very good time playing around with the setting, the NPC's, a few plot hooks while adapting this one to AS&SH.
 More coming up. 

Review and Actual Play Of Dragon's Foot Free AD&D 1st Edition Adventure - The Village With No Name

Get It Right Over
HERE

I got a chance to play in this AD&D/OSRIC style fifteen page adventure with some friends last night and this adventure was in back of the DM's screen.
Basically, The Village with No Name is an AD&D 1st Edition Adventure for a party of 1st-to-3rd level adventurers. It 

is the first installment in a multi-part series of adventures involving the main NPC in this module. is adventure can be played separately or as part of the larger series.

The adventure is by Robert James and is meant to easily be inserted into an existing campaign or setting. The adventure has that plug and play atmosphere common to many of the early TSR and AD&D efforts. 

 I was playing a fighter 3rd level last night and the adventure has both locations and NPC's galore.  Its a very well done effort. The place could easily appear in any old school AD&D campaign or converted with little effort into an OD&D style of game. The descriptions of the place really give it a lonely and some what desperate feel. 

Located along a remote road, miles from any 

settlement of consequence, is the Village with No 

Name. is village is not much more than a small 

collection of buildings—an inn, a tavern, a stable, a 

general store, a few houses and, for the more pious 

of travelers, a church—where weary travelers and 

distant settlers can rest and re-supply. The villagers 

tend towards neutral, and although the town once 

had an Elder (in reality, more of an elderly informal 

spiritual adviser), there is no organized or official 

government. In fact, the villagers have never bothered 

to name the village, instead referring to it simply as 

The Village or even the Village With No Name.

Rogues, bandits, thieves, and the average cut throat adventurer would feel right at home here. There are enough twists and turns to keep players on their toes. With very little work this adventure could be used with horror setting, a sword and sorcery game, or any old school adventuring group. The NPC's are well thought out, the adventure open ended enough to be used with any campaign and easily linked to an existing group of adventures with little ripples or disturbances at all. The author did a fine job with this one.
 As for me and Miles Quick hands my third level fighter? Well, let's simply say that'll roll up another character for next weekend.
Are you brave enough to answer this call? Along the road in a distant location is a village with no name but with citizens under siege by a gang of evil rogues, adventurers and rubes. Who will confront these men and their leaders? And what twist of fate awaits the PCs?

Miles Quick hands gets escorted out of the 'Village With No Name'.

Sunday Night PC Generation Workshop and Players Guide For Astonishing Swordsmen and Scorcerers Of Hyperborea

 Sunday night I got together with some friends and potential players I had made photocopies of the AS&SH character sheets and grabbed the Players book. The book is very,very, concisely laid out and incredibly easy to use. Time was rather short because most folks have to work today. The over all feel of the character creation is somewhat like the standard AD&D or OD&D fare but there are some interesting wrinkles. 

 The game is very humancentric and the character creation reflects this and its easy to why. Hyberborea is a world of cycles of creation and destruction with mankind cast into the ruins of the previous worlds.
Yet this isn't our world at all. I've got six possible commitments here for players and everyone seemed to really enjoy the vibe that echoed through the game. 

 The usual D&D tropes are there for character creation but these folks are characters who are going to shape the world around them! These folks are the heroes, rogues, and villains who can make or break Hyperborea. That also is another vibe that comes through in spades. The game seems to cater to the ideas of many of the fantasy movies, cartoons, and echoes of the pulps of yesteryear. But these are only echoes. What we are actually seeing Str, Dex, Con, Wis, Etc. all laid out very well. Even those who haven't played the game should have an easy time picking this one up.

 Because the book is laid out in sections, each with its own bit of the character creation process things move right along within about two hours of joking around running them through the melee process and bits of esoteric BS for their PC's. So all in all not bad as far as taking friends and players through. 

 I didn't hear the usual cries of " Where are the Elves, Dwarves, and Non humans".

 Instead,  I've been put under the hot light of, "What sort of campaign are you going to be running!" So now the burden falls to me to get a game off  the ground asap 

I've got some thoughts on a campaign idea that I'm going to need to get off the ground that I've got to snap into place. More on this coming up. The players guide is very well done, concisely laid out and gives players all kinds of options as well as drowning players in the world of Hyperborea.  

Tales of Gothic Transylvania - A Gothic Horror Campaign - Actual Play Part Four - In The Steps of The Vampyr

The PC's find themselves at a Romanian Inn and have been traveling across the countryside in pursue of the 'man from Lavanti'. 

 An old man enters  the room where the PC's are staying  and leaving a square packet on a nearby  table with "To be opened upon my death" written on it. One of the PC's  takes the package and walks outside finding shadows guiding him to an old castle where he sees several shadows dancing and wandering on their own.The PC also sees an elderly woman and encounters the village doctor.

The party find the PC and  leaves the castle and walks to a manor. Looking through one of the windows, PC sees the man who gave him the package earlier. This old man is suddenly murdered by gunshot. PC is let into the house by servants who rush to the aid of the fallen man but find it too late to save him. The servants have the party stay the night, where the Lord of the manor's youngest daughter, Giséle leads PC to the library where he learns that her sister, Léone is gravely ill. PC and Giséle then see Léone walking outside. They rush to her finding her lying unconscious with fresh bite wounds. They have her carried back up to the manor where PC remembered the parcel given to him. On opening the parcel, PCs  finds the book is about horrific demons called Vampyrs.
The PC's have realized that their in over their heads.
More coming up on Monday!
Random Carpathian Encounter chart 1d10

1. 1d6 brigands and thieves raiding the local villages for slaves and prey for their dark masters
2. A group of traveling nuns looking for a bit of charity. They're armed with pistols and are actually 1st level fighters. 
3. A traveling group of Rom looking to trade goods, herbs, and offering cures for some local diseases. 
4. A minor group of villagers taking their cows and goods to market in the next village. There is a 30% chance of them telling local legends. 
5. A group of small local warriors looking for a comrade whose fallen into the clutches of a vampire. Looking for adventurers to help them willing to pay 10 to 20 silver coins. 
6. A small cunning man willing to ply stories, charms, and some advice. Can cast most 1st level spells with little issue. 
7. A relic trader and  wizard with 1d6 pupils studying the mountain spirits & local small gods 
8. A hidden priest of the mountains calling down spirits from the high places. A second level clerical warrior of the Asra. 
9. A flock of harpies looking for easy victims and able to cast 2nd level wizard spells. 
10. A vampyr looking for his supper. Guess whose it!
    
    

The 1932 Movie 'The Vampyr' as Source Material 
 One of the PC's is named Allan Gray and since their traveling across Romania. 

The plot of this weeks adventure borrows very heavily from The Vampyr  which according to Wiki :

Vampyr (German: Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Grey, "Vampire: the Dream of Allan Grey"; German pronunciation: [vamˈpiːɐ̯]) is a 1932 French-German horror film directed byDanish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. The film was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul based on elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's collection of supernatural stories In a Glass Darkly.

You can see the whole movie here. 

 The Plot according to Wiki: 

On a late evening, Allan Gray arrives at an inn close to the village of Courtempierre where he rents a room to sleep. Gray is awakened suddenly by an old man, entering the room and leaving a square packet on Gray's table with "To be opened upon my death" written on it. Gray takes the package and walks outside finding shadows guiding him to an old castle where he sees several shadows dancing and wandering on their own. Gray also sees an elderly woman and encounters the village doctor. Gray leaves the castle and walks to a manor. Looking through one of the windows, Gray sees the man who gave him the package earlier. This old man is suddenly murdered by gunshot. Gray is let into the house by servants who rush to the aid of the fallen man but find it too late to save him. The servants have Gray stay the night, where the Lord of the manor's youngest daughter, Giséle leads Gray to the library where he learns that her sister, Léone is gravely ill. Gray and Giséle then see Léone walking outside. They rush to her finding her lying unconscious with fresh bite wounds. They have her carried back up to the manor where Gray remembers the parcel given to him. On opening the parcel, Gray finds the book is about horrific demons called Vampyrs.

After reading the book, Gray discovers Léone is a victim of a Vampyr and that the Vampyr also can have humans forced into her submission. The village doctor visits Léone at the manor, and Gray recognizes him as the old man he saw in the castle. The doctor tells Gray that a blood transfusion is needed and Gray offers his blood to save Léone. Exhausted from blood loss, Gray wakes sensing danger, and rushes to Léone, finding the doctor who has just dropped a poison vial from his hand. The doctor flees the manor, as Gray finds that Giséle has gone missing. Gray follows the doctor, finding himself in the castle where he has a vision of himself being buried alive. After waking from this vision, he succeeds in rescuing Giséle while the doctor is able to get away. The old servant of the manor finds Gray's Vampyr book and discovers the way to defeat a Vampyr is with an iron bar through their heart. The servant meets Allan Gray by Marguerite Chopin's grave behind the village Chapel. They open the grave and find the old woman lying there and hammer a large metal bar through her heart, killing her. The village doctor has found refuge in an old mill, but finds himself locked in a chamber where flour sacks are filled. The old servant arrives and activates the mill's machinery, making the Vampyr's associate drown in the flour that comes crashing from above. The curse of the Vampyr is lifted when Léone recovers. Giséle and Gray cross a foggy river outside by boat and find themselves in a brighter clearing.

The PCs have stumbled into a quick two night side adventure which follows the gothic trappings of the Vampyr and the movie is very much infused with the 'Gothic Horror tropes' it seemed a natural. 
More to come!