Antediluvia: The City-Repository of Xaccur (Overview)

(I haven't placed this anywhere on the map yet - I'll have to find a quite excellent place to stick it. This settlement keeps with the theme of books in the campaign being very important.)

    The small city of Xaccur is a city where knowledge is the only commodity and secrets or rare books can make a person rich. Every powerful figure in the city has a coveted and rare collection of scrolls, books, tomes, librams, codices, and tablets (and other, even more obscure items that store information in some way, including ancient or even future technology). They all employ teams of learned people and teams of vagabonds and thieves (and occasionally these folks are the same) to locate and acquire, by any means, items of rarity and worth. Secrets and intrigue are also quite valuable to any lord of the city, as well as new magic.

    Governmentally, Xaccur is a loose confederation of the most powerful people in the city, who usually govern by consensus, but all decisions are driven by each member's motivations and goals rather than fair governance. The city guard, sarcastically called Librarians by the common citizen, keep a form of order, but that order is often brutal and unjust, and enforcement tends to be at the whim of the head of the guard, or to further the ends of one of the leaders in the city. A position on the guard in Xaccur is a license to steal - and worse.

New Monster: Dirge Pirate

Dirge Pirate

Armor Class:  5

Hit Dice:  3+3***

Move:  120' (40')

Attacks:  1 sword

Damage:  1d8 

No. Appearing:  0 (5d6)

Save As:  F3

Morale:  8

Treasure Type:  H

Intelligence:  11

Alignment:  Chaotic

XP Value:  125

      Monster Type:  Undead (Very Rare).

    There are rumors along the eastern coast of Antediluvia of ghost ships whose crews ply the waters of the ocean to seek revenge on the living. Multiple tales tell of their origin and no one can be certain which of them is the true story. Pirates who operate out of the City of the Slave-Kings are especially fearful of attacks by these ghost ships, and often take holy men with them on their voyages to do whatever they can to defend against them.

    In fact, Dirge Pirates are not just rumor - they are quite real. They appear much as they did in life, depending on the historical period and culture from which they arose, but at night they're surrounded by a sickly green luminescence and are clearly unnatural.

    In combat, they have several abilities outside of combat they rely on, including the ability to summon rats. These rats are also ghostly, but statistically they are identical to giant rats. Dirge Pirates can summon 1d4 rats every 1d4 rounds.

    Just seeing a Dirge Pirate is terrifying, and when characters see a group of Dirge Pirates for the first time in a 24 hour period, a saving throw vs. Rod/Staff/Spell must be made successfully or the character is panicked with fear for 1d3 rounds, and can take no offensive actions. He can only flee or stand still.

    Being struck by a Dirge Pirate's weapon or unarmed strike carries a chance the victim contracts a horrible supernatural disease. A save vs. Death Ray/Poison must be attempted each time a living creature is struck, at a -2 penalty, and failure means the disease takes hold in 1d6 days. Once the disease has taken hold, the infected character will instantly know where the Dirge Pirate ship is located if it still exists and will attempt to find it and join the crew at all costs, using deceit and subterfuge in service of this goal. The character will claim he hears a haunting song on the wind that guides him. At the end of a 3-day period after disease onset the sick character will die if another saving throw is not made (no penalty on this second save), and if the character dies he will turn into a Dirge Pirate over the course of the next 3d6 hours.

    The ship of a group of Dirge Pirates appears as a lifeless derelict, barely seaworthy, floating on the ocean. Only when it is boarded will the crew begin to come to life, manifesting 1d3 rounds after a living character sets foot on deck. It is extremely rare for the crew to be manifested before the ship is boarded.

    Terrain:  Ocean, Coastal.

AI Generated Art

Antediluvia: Nathulmog, City of the Changed (Overview)

(For Antediluvia, if you've been reading, I am on a quest to create unique Vancian fantasy cultures, taking inspiration from all kinds of things I stumble across while reading. I want to capture that sense of wonder that came over me while reading Cugel's adventures. I hope I'm nailing it! This particular small city isn't placed on the map yet.)

    In Nathulmog, it is a law that each citizen be disguised in some way, whether by mask or magic. Their law is strict enough that no one should be seen in public in his or her true form, unless this true form is also passed off as a disguise, and each appearance is limited to but once per fortnight per disguise. Founded by a paranoid group of former criminals, who escaped their lives of immortality, Nathulmog was a place to begin anew. They were worried about their former comrades and commanders hunting them down to keep their trade secrets unknown, and so they subsequently built their society around the Law of Disguise.

    Nathulmog is ruled by a council called the Shifted Convocation, a group of five men or women, since the original settlers of Nathulmog were five in number. All are welcome to visit, live, work, or trade, but even visitors must wear a new mask each day they are in the city. Upon becoming a citizen, which requires an oath to obey the Law of Disguise, the Shifted Convocation confers upon the new denizen of the city the ability to alter his appearance three times per day, as per the spell disguise, featured in the Player's Guide to Alphatia in the Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia Gazetteer boxed set. A member of the Shifted Convocation will personally teach all new citizens how to use the spell (and the simplified way they teach it ensures success of learning, even with non-spellcasters, since they've become adept at using it exclusively to disguise themselves for centuries). A mask is still recommended since this spell can in fact be dispelled and the true appearance of the enchanted person revealed.

Antediluvia: The Mighty Men of Mo-ab (Overview)

(Today, in church, I was inspired by a line from Isaiah 40, which in the King James describes the "mighty men of Moab." I changed the spelling a bit to weird-fantasy it up a little, and used an idea I had prior about a community to write up. This particular settlement has not been placed on the map yet. I think I'll save it for a hex crawl.)

    Mo-ab is a town located deep in the wilderness, where all the inhabitants are eight to nine feet tall, but otherwise appear as any other human being. They use bronze more than any other metal, preferring its look and feel, and almost to a man their soldiers wear scale mail and wield hefty battle axes. Women do not serve as soldiers in this community, and instead take care of the homestead. If a male Mo-abite is not employed as a soldier, he will be a trader or a farmer.

    They worship the Nameless God, who is also worshipped in the city-state of Megiddo, even though they are not Megiddians. There is a legend the wise men of the town tell that suggests they do, however, have a common ancestor. This ancestor would be the Nephilim, a people born of human and angelic stock, who were also rumored to be giants.

Antediluvia: The City-State of Hagia Triadha, the City of Falling Coins (Basic Overview)

    On the coast of the land of Evech lies Hagia Triadha, a port at the mouth of a river that flows into the mountain range called the Eiglophian Spur.  The land of Evech is fairly peaceful, protected by those mountains almost completely from the rest of the Antediluvian world.  Hagia Triadha itself is one of the most egalitarian city-states in the known world, due to being a port city, and being governed by a council that votes by majority. All sorts of humans are encountered here, from cultures across the land, and it is a quite tolerant place with fair laws and adequate representation of the major religions of other cities. This all flows from Hagia Triadha's focus on trade. Most trade comes from the north, down the coast from the cities of the north like Uzuldaroum, Megiddo, Kanaan, and the City of the Slave-Kings. Some trade also enters the city along the coast to the south from the interior of Khapura and the Yezidee Tribelands. Along with commerce comes a melting pot culture, with innovations from all throughout Antediluvia being adopted here. 

    It could be an excellent base for a group of adventurers, with plenty of unexplored jungle around the city, the Eiglophian Spur being passable by traveling through them or to the north or west around them, and then on into even more unexplored country in Khapura or the nameless expanse to the north around Harmala Deep. The giant, miles-wide fissure in the continent called the Weird-crack lies to the west as well, and calls explorers to its depths to explore on a regular basis. It is rumored that the Weird-crack connects via miles of caverns and tunnels to the area underneath the Obsidian Throne and the Necropolis of Voor, as well as the areas below Taltun and The Spear, and continues far to the north where the mountains The Horn, Loshama, and the Mountain of the Spider dominate the landscape, forming a completely alternate world below the surface.

Antediluvia: Still More Books for the Campaign

As you may have guessed, these posts are more for me, logging ideas for the Antediluvia campaign I'm planning. As time goes on, more gameable items will appear. But if this sparks ideas for you, then it's had a great secondary effect.

More Books for the World of Antediluvia

The Book of Azathoth

Content: Signing your name inside this book in blood forfeits your soul in return for power.

Value: 10,000

The Book of Eibon

Content: Details of the life of the wizard Eibon, formulae for slaying otherworldly horrors.

Value: 5,000

The Book of Iod

Content: Contains details about the wizard Iod.

Value: 1,000

Alaeno Fragments

Content: Translations of some of the books of the alien Great Library of Alaeno.

Value: 5,000

Sathlathae

Content: A collection of formulae related to the ancient god Ubbo-Sathla.

Value: 3,000

Cult of Ghouls

Content: Black magic, the uses of the dead in sorcery.

Value: 7,000

Mysteries of the Worm

Content: Ancient sorcery from the Necropolis of Voor.

Value: 6,000

Dhol Chants

Content: Semi-mythical collection of eight chants attributed to the people of Leng.

Value: 2,000

The Eltdown Shards

Content: All that is known of these is that the 19th shard has instructions for summoning the Warden of Knowledge.

Value: 3,000

G'harne Fragments

Content: Shards of black obsidian that chronicle the history of the pre-human city of G'harne.

Value: 800

The King in Yellow

Content: A book about a supernatural figure in Carcosa linked to the Yellow Sign.

Value: 2,000

On the Sending Out of the Soul

Content: Astral projection.

Value: 700

Parchments of Pnom

Content: Detailed lineage of ancient gods.

Value: 500

The Rules of Ruin

Content: About a messiah of destruction.

Value: 400

Revelation of Gla'aki

Content: Written by a cult of undead worshippers, 11 volumes, about the worship of the forgotten god Gla'aki.

Value: 3,000

Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan

Content: Unkown, assumed to be secrets of ancient technology and sorcery.

Value: 10.000

Tarsioid Psalms

Content: Attributed to a pre-human primate-type people, otherwise unknown.

Value: 2,000

Testaments of Carnamagos

Content: Chronicles of great sorcerers of old, the history of demons, spells to call up, control, and dismiss otherworldly entities.

Value: 9,000

Compendium of Paroul

Content: Hidden on the third planet from the star Srendix and crafted from diplodocus hide, tells of old magic.

Value: 15,000

Antediluvia: More Books in the Campaign

Here are more books I've titled and lifted from other works ahead of time for discovery in the campaign, if needed.

The Korak Tome

Binding the Swarm

A Deal with Devils

Call of the Void

The All-Knowing Tome

Journal of Sindra

The Yillian Grimoire

Mnemotical Magic

The Howling

Alchemy of the Flesh

The Trials of the Forsaken

Killing the Unseen

The Tale of the Soul

An Endless Litany

A Treatise on Peculiar Mischief

Codex of the Anointed

Bargains of the Underworld

Lucid Dreaming: A Better Awakening

Covenants of Blood

The Rules of Death

Orders of the Underworld

Paradoxomicon

Pillars of the World

Dreams

The Journal of Zhelim Alasam

Convergence of the Seventeen Orbs

Three Steps to Godhood

Chimaeramancy

The One that Loves Inside the Walls

The Nefarious Codex

The Ballad of the Laughing King

Moving Stars

Compendium of Unreality

The Infinite Diary

Necrologicon

Interpretations of the Ancestors

Miscellanea Pyrologica

Manual of the Protection of Sacred Life

The Mirror of Smoke

The Umbral Tome

Book of the Gods

Black Book of the Skull

The Summonings of Chor-Tal

The Black Rituals of Koth-Serapi

The Seven Cryptical Books of H'san

Testament of Carnamagus

Parchments of Nom

Ghol Nigral

On the Sending Out of the Soul

Chronicle of Nath

Clay Cylinders of Kadethron

The Song of Yest

The Iron-Bound Book of Skelos

The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy

Book of Abramelin the Mage

The Five Books of Mystery

The Secret Doctrine

Seven Sermons to the Dead

The Emerald Tablet

The Occult Anatomy of Man

The Four Books of Segerus

Theory and Practice of the Philosopher's Stone

Cosmic Doctrine

Handbook of the Rituals of Lemuria

Grimoire of Rapid Learning by Magic

Eleven Lessons in the High Magical Arts

Buckland's Book for Spirit Communication

Chaos Magic for Liber Null

A Grimoire of Hidden Gods

Finding the Way to Carcosa

The Book of Sarnoch

The Seven Volumes of Kasar

Book of K'yog

The Nightbook

Ritualistic Practices of Bygone Cults

Scrolls of Gurath

Blood Rituals of Non Amya

Lamentations of Sheol

Chronicles of Thrang

Zhou Texts

The Unspeakable Cults

The Black Rites

Ars Magna

Book of Dzyan

Book of Hidden Things

Cabala of Saboth

Clavis Alchimiae

On the Eating of the Dead in the Tomb

Key of Wisdom

Marvells of Science

The Soul of Chaos

The Tablets of Nhing

As you can see I've lifted many from literature, so-called grimoires of our own world, and from works of fiction. Time is malleable with magic involved, and so is inter-dimensional travel, so why should they not show up in Antediluvia?

...more to come...

Antediluvia: The Role of Books in the Campaign

    In the Antediluvia campaign, books, codices, scrolls, information crystals, info-tech (yes, some alien technology has been found and copied in the campaign by various societies), as well as research, all play a vital part.  Information is power, as has been said. It is quite useful in a world as dangerous and with as many strange customs as the Earth of Antediluvia to have along a historian, amateur or otherwise, in an adventuring group. In fact, I'll be adapting classes from Sages and Specialists, part of the 2nd Edition DMGR series, to BECMI, for just this purpose.

    Players should always pay attention to books and information found, for often they will hold the key to surviving some event or place. Books should be rescued (whether bought or stolen) to line the walls of wizards' libraries, for their information will be vital in constructing new spell formulae. Bonuses may be derived from the proper subject material. All books found will be detailed with title, subject matter, and relative value, and counted as treasure worth XP in the campaign. Not all books are magical, but all books might inform magic - that's how the wizard or priest should think.

    Below is a list of magical books, occult works, and other interesting material (and many are derived from real world occult titles - assume they've been snatched out of time by wizards of contemporary Antediluvia to learn their knowledge). When encountered in the campaign, care will be taken to select appropriate or new spells to be encountered in magical works, or other benefits according to subject matter. A numerical value is assigned to each, which is their value in GP and also in XP. Note that I've lifted a lot of these from various sources, real or otherwise.

List of Books in Antediluvian Campaigns (by no means is this complete):

The Book of Soyga

Content: Incantations, astrology, demonology, and a genealogy of celestial beings.

Value: 1,000

The Picatrix

Content: Includes formulae to prevent someone from leaving a city, as well as other magical spells.

Value: 1,500

The Grand Grimoire

Content: How to enslave demons, necromantic rituals.

Value: 3,000

The Black Pull

Content:  Penned by a soldier nursed back to health inside an ancient pyramid after being the sole survivor of a battle. Instructions for making amulets and talismans to control demons, compel truth, and destroy enemies.

Value:  1,000

The Necromancer's Manual

Content:  Demonology and necromancy, illusions, mind-control, future sight. Includes methods to create a Mirror of Lilith, a device to see the future.

Value:  5,000

The Galdabrok

Content:  47 spells relying on the use of staves and talismans. Healing, protection, cures for ailments, catching thieves, winning legal battles, causing debilitating flatulence, and killing someone's animals.

Value: 8,000

Undeveloped titles:

The Amber Room

Witchmongers

Entropia

Golden Armor of Nilnamur

Solvents Versal and Universal

De Orbis Malifax

Perversions of the Mind

Thunder of the Gods

Seven Forbidden and Hidden Tomes of the Unknown

The Mysteries of True Form

On the Discovery of Changelings

Permutations of the Elements

Tome of Ignored Prophecies

The Way of All Flesh

History of Demons & Wizards

Practical Mortis

Monstrous Philosophies

Cursed Idols and Relics of the Deserts

The Book of Uncommon Law

Monstrous Races

Incredible Creatures and How to Kill Them

The Black Fleet

Blades of the West

Demigods of the Outer Planes

The Glass Citadel

Ministers of the Red

Stellar Alignments and Conjunctions

Dark Monologues

The Signature of All Things

Philosophy of a Natural Magic

Wisdom of the Ages

Hidden Treasures of the Ancients

Paradoxes of the Highest Science

The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Way of Power

Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment

The Age of Fire & Graves

A Dweller on Two Planets

Defining Chaos

The Entrance to the Temple of Wisdom

Ancient and Modern Initiation Rites

Cosmo-conception

Mutterings of a Mystic

Teachings of An Initiate

The Book of the Damned

History of Evil

Fragments of a Forgotten Faith

The Book of Giants

The Vampire, His Kith and Kin

The Book of Werewolves

The Book of Ceremonial Magic

The Writings of Elder Gandarsen

Dark Heart: Lore of Life

Under the Silver Moon

The Final Dawn

The Glorious Ooze

...more to come...

Antediluvia: The City-State of Megiddo, the Iron Wall of Spears (Overview)

    Located just north of where the River of the Nameless God and the Hoshama Watercourse meet, Megiddo stands shining. Its outer walls are constructed of tan stone flecked with gold and quartz, and they sparkle dramatically in the sunlight, even at a great distance. When citizens of Megiddo arrive home, they speak of the sparkling stone with relief as being the first sign of safety upon returning from the dangerous wilderness of Antediluvia.

    The city-state of Megiddo is run by the priesthood of the Nameless God, a benevolent deity that encourages kindness and fairness. This does not stop the priesthood from becoming occasionally corrupted by politics and power, but the devout priests that hold fast to the Nameless God's teachings are almost impossible to sway from an honest path. For this reason, Megiddo is looked upon as an excellent place to live, and the city has grown exponentially, and so has the settlement of immigrant people outside the city walls that are largely responsible for farming the land and herding animals that feed the populace. More people arrive weekly to live near the city, or in it. They are always welcomed with open arms as long as they are not afraid to work.

    The leader of the priesthood, and overall ruler of Megiddo, is called the Ecclesiast. He interprets the holy writings of the Nameless God, sets down laws to be followed by the populace, and has a team of priests to see to day-to-day business with a level of detail rivaling the strictest of bureaucracies. However, he is fair and just.  If he is found to be unfair or unjust, he can be replaced with a vote of no-confidence from the priesthood.  He works miracles, as do the other trained priests, and divine magic is a somewhat commonplace, but always amazing, sight within the city. The priests of the Nameless God are some of the only users of magic in the world of Antediluvia that aren't corrupted and twisted by their use of magic, since it comes from a benevolent source of power. Most other wizards and priests of Antediluvia traffic with dark powers rather than powers of light.

    Every seven days, all activity in and around the city ceases, and a day of rest is taken. This serves both to refresh workers and to give them a day to worship the Nameless God in peace. If someone chooses to work, they may be reprimanded or asked to come to the temple to worship, but nothing more severe than that will happen. There is a bit of social pressure to attend temple, but it's always couched in positivity and not ostracism. However, other faiths are not allowed in the city, and the worship of other gods is strictly forbidden. No temples to other gods exist here, and would be destroyed if they were built. If the priesthood finds out about the worship of another god in the city, they will take up arms against the offenders, and they will be driven from the city, and hunted in the wilderness until they are destroyed. One of the tenets of the Nameless God is that no other god shall be worshipped in Megiddo, and so offense runs deep when it happens. Dark gods are especially hated, and extra attention is paid to anyone rumored to belong to the cult of a dark god.

Antediluva: The Technocracy of Taltun, City of Sages and Libraries (Overview)

    At the center of the mountain range called the Spear, within its circle of peaks, lies a lone mountain, atop which is located Taltun, a technocracy run by sages, wizards, and engineers. The only access to the city is through the Fell Pass on the northeast side of the Spear, or along the river that flows through the north side of the mountains from Lake Kharad in the land of Khemish. A long stair, carved into the mountain itself, winds around and around the peak all the way to the top, right to the gates of the city.

    The Sages of Taltun rule the city and its environs by council and this council is called the Synod. The Synod rules by majority, and there are nine members, three each from the Sages, the Wizards, and the Engineers. They vote their conscience and not to defend their respective corners of government, but in the case of a three-way tie, they will consult with an other-planar entity, chosen randomly, and communed with via magic. They accept whatever the entity says as their final vote. This happens only rarely, and only in very contentious matters.

    The city and surrounding lands themselves are quite peaceful, appearing at first, upon approaching the mountain, as an agrarian society. Only occasionally, however, will a farmer be seen in the fields. What visitors will see in the fields, rather than humans, are golems, automatons, and constructs of every imaginable type and application. All the agriculture around the base of the mountain is entirely performed by these constructs, at every stage from planting to harvest to market. Once visitors have made it to the great stair circling up the mountain, they'll notice that almost all they counter will be automatons of some sort, on errands, delivering messages, and doing all sorts of other jobs. They'll notice great floating barges moving grain, and great harvesters taking off crops in the fields down below. Even the city gates are guarded by golems, and they comprise the city guard as well.

    Inside the city, humans have their choice of leisure activity, unless they're overseeing the golems and constructs, and there are quite a few people devoted to this effort. However, the nobility and land-owning citizens are free to do what they wish since all of their work except for intellectual pursuit and pleasure have been automated in some way. The Sages are free to research the universe, the Wizards are free to create new spells and new methods of making constructs, and the Engineers are free to create new technological wonders.

    Not all the constructs and machines in the city are magical, although many are. The Engineers are masters of forgotten ancient technology, and they guard its secrets very closely. Some of the technology is rumored to have been recovered from the Necropolis of Voor or encountered on other worlds, although the Engineers insist that is simply a rumor and that they have created all of their weird wonders on their own. Chief among their inventions is the transportation system that is used within the city, called Telebeams. They work simply by stepping onto a small platform, wherever a platform is located, and speaking the destination. After a flicker of light, the person using the Telebeam disappears and then appears at their destination, assuming the Telebeam is working. If it's not working at the destination, the user goes nowhere. This technology is a very closely guarded state secret of the Engineers, and not even the Wizards or Sages know exactly how it works.

    Any imaginable sort of construct, for any purpose, is able to be found or commissioned here. There is no limit to the wonders of Taltun. Adventurers can find ample employment by the different groups in the city to locate components, materials, or information, including items and artifacts. A Sage, Wizard, or Engineer in need is an easy way to line adventurers' pockets, but it is never without danger. The knowledge these rulers seek is almost always in a dangerous or unexplored location, long forgotten by all but those hunting it, and their reasons for seeking it are not always altruistic.

Antediluvia: The City-State of Ho-Olhed, City from Beyond the Stars (Overview)

    Just south of the Urud River and north of the mountains called The Scales of Ohtar, and at the western edge of the known world in the region of Imrur, lies the city-state of Ho-Olhed. It is a wild, strange place, with alien customs and a strange religion. The people of Ho-Olhed are light-skinned and light-haired, but their bodies are entirely covered in green tattoos that they begin to receive at the age of 12. The subject content of the tattoos is highly individual, but the custom is that by the age of 20 a citizen's body must be entirely covered, even the face, eyelids, and other unmentionable sensitive parts of the body. Olhedians wear only green in various shades, and it is illegal within the city, unless a visitor, to wear any other color. Green is the sacred color of the Olhedian god, Olo-gomi. Olo-gomi is not just a god, but the living ruler of the city.

    Olo-gomi's main concern is the spiritual purity of his worshippers. He teaches that spiritual impurity is contagious, much like a disease, and any contact with impure ideas or substances or the dead can taint the soul of a person. If someone is ritually unclean, and comes into contact with someone who is purified, that purification is null and void, and the previously clean person must be cleansed again. Only a blood sacrifice will wash away spiritual taint, done in the name of Olo-gomi. These are performed in the temple at the center of Ho-Olhed where Olo-gomi lives. The type of impurity determines what sort of sacrifice must be made, from animals as small as a pigeon to a human being for the gravest of sins. When a human must be sacrificed, criminals or war captives are used, since the ritual is said to purify both the unclean person and the sacrificial person at the same time (in this way criminals atone for their sins and enemy soldiers do something good for their captors). The sacrifice itself is usually done by burning the animal or person alive on a pyre, bound if necessary to prevent escape from the flames. Visitors must take utmost care in this city lest they run afoul of the long list of sacrifice-inducing sins. Ignorance is no defense where Olo-gomi is concerned.

Antediluvia: The City-State of Nilkka Senggu, the Green Wall (Overview)

    On the southern coast of tropical Nog, on the western side of the strait called The Pillar of Karthage, lies the city-state of Nilkka Senggu. The citizenry of the city are a docile lot, quite peaceful overall, but the reasons for that will be revealed below. The citizens are made up of two former tribes of the area, the Nilkkites and the Senggites. The Nilkkites are tall, nearing seven feet in height, with uniformly white hair and dark skin. They wear traditional dress consisting of robes tied at the waist with colored leather belts, and wear stylish hats that advertise their social positions. The Senggites are smaller, no more than five feet in height, with various hair colors from black to red to brown, and have a medium skin tone. They also have traditional dress, consisting of three principal colors - blue, purple, and orange. Leggings and tunics are worn in all colors, but their boots or footwear are always orange. They have also adopted the practice of the Nilkkites of wearing certain styles of hats to advertise their status. The two tribes are now one people, and no enmity is borne between them. 

    The strangest thing about Nilkka Senggu is the ruler of the city. The ruler is called the Metaphrast, and is chosen every eight years. The Metaphrast receives his orders from the true ruler of the the city-state, a huge black obelisk called the Testate. The Testate is intelligent, telepathic, and inscribed over its entire surface in an unknown language. It is constructed from a type of stone unknown to the world of Antediluvia, black in color, but with an iridescent finish that shimmers in the light. The Testate chooses for itself a speaker, the Metaphrast, and communicates through this person. Although it can speak aloud, it speaks in what is likely the same unknown language of the inscriptions that cover its surface. The Metaphrast is telepathically and empathically linked with the Testate, and he can innately understand what the obelisk intends, needs, and wants, and can articulate these thoughts to the citizenry.

    After serving eight years, the Metaphrast will die. The obelisk, in order to maintain the link to the speaker, drains the life force of the character. Over the eight years the Metaphrast serves, he will age at a highly accelerated rate, and by the end of this time, he will appear to be ancient and frail. As soon as a new Metaphrast is chosen and the link is severed from the old speaker, he dies, the obelisk no longer sustaining his life.

    Disobedience to the laws the Testate communicates carries various sorts of punishment. Not only does the police force of the city (called Inscriptors) enforce the law, but the Testate can, because its psionic senses are indescribably strong, tell if an act of disobedience is occurring within the city. Depending on the severity of the infraction, the Testate may or may not alert the Metaphrast and the Inscriptors.

    The obelisk itself is usually located in the city square, which lies in the center of Nilkka Senggu. It floats about a yard from the ground and is able to teleport with no chance of error to any location within the city walls, whenever it pleases, in an instant. Anyone that has tried to damage or attack the Testate has found themselves confronted with crushing psionic power, and are usually driven mad by contact with the mind of the obelisk. 

Antediluvia: Alignment

    Alignment in Antediluvia will be the standard Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic of BECMI. Why? It makes sense for this world. Before the world was destroyed in a flood, humanity as a whole was wicked. Good and evil don't matter as much in this particular world (yet), but law and chaos do. The cosmos is consistently in flux between order and disorder in this world, with the forces of law trying to civilize a wild planet, and the forces of chaos pushing back and desiring no change to the status quo. They aren't philosophies of life, per se, and there's no alignment languages since they're not binding philosophies and most of the time characters aren't acknowledging the world in this way, but the alignments do dictate what side of the fence a given character stands on and what ideas they'll defend. Most of the known world is ruled by chaos in this age, of course. These are not magical forces, but forces of the divine working behind the scenes, on other planes of existence, for control over its development and course.

The Tiny Appendix N of Antediluvia & a Rambling Thought-Post

There are a few works that have left their mark on my Antediluvia game world more than anything else. A lot of them are currently a part of AD&D 1E's Appendix N already, but they come into focus more sharply for me with this game world, and I've read them all recently (or re-read them, as the case may be with some). Even though some of the below are post-apocalyptic, they also apply in a waking, birthing world like Antediluvia.

Sterling Lanier's Hiero books

Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories (these are especially important)

Classical mythology (Antediluvia was built on the bricks of my old Hellenista campaign)

Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories

Robert E. Howard's Conan stories

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Venus and Mars stories, as well as his lost world stories

Jewish and Muslim folklore of pre-flood Earth, as well as the Bible's accounts

Various encyclopedias and dictionaries of angels and demons

    The current working idea behind Antediluvia is "what if I took the strange cultures Jack Vance liked to outline in Dying Earth, and constructed a sort of pre-Flood Earth with them, leaning into the whole humanity was extremely wicked angle?" And the geography doesn't have to match it at all - parallel world so to speak. I also borrowed the "points of light" idea - the world is mostly unsettled, with self-governing, almost Greek-like city-states, and no nations (yet), just regions that are named. Each city-state has a very distinct and alien culture, none of the likes of which exist today. I'm staying away from the typical "proto-medieval" default of D&D, except where weapons technology is concerned. Magic is Vancian in nature (right down to forcing spells into the mind, and their erasure after being cast). Vancian magic makes a lot more sense now, in the way that D&D manifests it, now that I've re-read half of the stories. However, magic is still going to be a rather dangerous practice (even as it was in Vance's novels with some wizards - they lose their conscience, it seems, in their pursuit of power). The world has two moons, which both happen to be inhabited, unbeknownst to the populace of the world, which is where E.R.B.'s works factor in. Add, then, the heroic tone of R.E.H.'s work, and voila, a mish-mash is born. Weird advanced science could play a role as well, with certain devices perhaps mimicking spells with their operation, or existing magic items.

    I'm having fun detailing the world. It's languished as a work in progress for a decade, with no active game going on within it, since I've never thought what I had i    s something that I'd like to run. But now, however, it's coming together. The kids are almost grown, I moved to Detroit, and began to buy all the products that I can get that I missed out on in my youth. It's a good time to be a DM, and I intend to be again. All the creativity spawned other campaign ideas, like: 

Dark Appalachia (Appalachia removed from Earth in the early 1900s)

Dungeonworld (where I take published dungeons and populate an otherwise barren world with them, making them the feature and not the bug)

Hunters of the Apocalypse (a post-apocalyptic Biblical and Supernatural crossover)

Weird Science & Sandals (where I lean into a classical Bronze Age world with weird science and advanced technology)

Gonzo Fantasy and SciFi (where any fantasy idea from any book and any supplement in the rules system I select is fair game to use, even if the DM doesn't own the book)

(There may be more to come.)

    For Dark Appalachia, Hunters of the Apocalypse and Antediluvia, I'm using BECMI, mostly as-is with Antediluvia, but for Dark Appalachia and it's historical-modern setting will require a few house rules. I may use 2nd Edition for the Weird Science & Sandals campaign, and that would mean OSRIC and 1E materials are in as well, since they're quite compatible, to expand the options classes-wise or elsewhere. 

    For the Gonzo Fantasy and SciFi campaign I believe I'll use d20/3E/3.5. I have a ton of works for that system, and with so many varied settings published for that chassis, and oodles of classes, it will make a super-fun anything goes atmosphere. I'll back-convert Pathfinder stuff as well. The power levels are close enough that I don't care which version of the system it comes from, and I'll use 3.5 to adjudicate. Most of the time, it's just the skills and some methods of resolution that are different. It would be mechanically easy to drop a d20 Modern character in beside a Traveller d20 character along with a straight 3.5 sorcerer and a Pathfinder 1E fighter. The feats are mostly self-contained and affect what the character can do without affecting others, and base attack bonuses and saves are largely worked out the same way. Any incompatibilities can be worked through on the fly. The idea for this came from reading Philip Jose Farmer's Dungeon series, where over five novels with multiple writers they develop a fantasy world where people find their way to these kind of planes-like worlds called the Dungeon, and are all from vastly different cultures and worlds and technology levels. It lit me right up.

    I apologize for the rambling. But you can see my brain is on fire with ideas right now. Now, back to writing.

Antediluva: The City-State of Uzuldaroum, the City of Black and White (Overview)

    In the north of the known world, on the edge of the northern plains of Nushirvan, is a city-state called Uzuldaroum.  It exists on a nearly lawless frontier, as none of the land north of the area has been explored, or at least no parties have reported back that have tried.  All the trade in the area flows from the south, since the north is a frozen waste, and therefore very few have traveled there. The entire population of the city is albino, with all the telltale signs and symptoms.

    The leader of this city-state is called the Profligate. He rules with an iron fist by decree, and no one has ever seen his face since he wears a featureless half-white, half-black (split vertically) iron mask in public, and is entirely covered by robes. He oppresses the people under his rule, exacting harsh taxes and harsher penalties. However, crime is nearly nonexistent due to this harsh rule, and thieves' guilds fear operating here. Even someone merely accused of a crime is gathered up by the city-state's guard and never seen again. Oddly, they have no jail or dungeon within the city. No one knows where prisoners are kept, or what is done to them.

    The people of Uzuldaroum are a strange lot, following odd traditions set forth by the Profligate. Only two colors are allowed for clothing, black and white. Exactly half the body must be covered by white, and the other half black. To violate this will invite a visit from the guard, and if the offender does not immediately fix his clothing, he is executed on the spot. The only currency that is exchanged, by order of the Profligate, are live fish. The larger the fish, the more it is worth. Money from outside the city must be exchanged at the gates for live fish if any visitor needs something from within (and before they'll be let in, they must wear half-black and half-white clothing). Spies are used extensively by the city guard to maintain order for the Profligate, and they are paid well (in fish) to report violations, even down to the ban on singing. 

    The only music allowed to be performed within the walls of Uzuldaroum must be played on a zither. Any melody can be chosen, but the zither must be used, and singing is outlawed under penalty of execution. Another more diabolical custom, which is followed each eve of the New Year in the city, is a time of complete anarchy. All crime is legal from midnight until dawn, and the city guard is given the night off and required not to enforce any laws. This leads to absolute pandemonium in the city as the populace runs wild, and the "celebration" is called Transgression. The only other major "holiday" within the city is held on the summer solstice, and involves the entire population staying inside their homes for 24 full hours, restricting themselves only to eating meals and reading the Profligate's book of laws called The Binding Book of Urging, which contains all the leader's strange laws. This holiday is known to citizens as Lecture.

Antediluvia: The City-State of Ong, the Great Mirage (Overview)

    Deep within the deserts of Irem and cradled by the mountains called The Horns of Kalam lies a city called Ong. This strange city is home to a people with emerald green skin, hair, and eyes.  Their ruler, the Weirdmonger of Ong, keeps their rites and traditions and makes their laws.  Even the buildings and streets here are green, with bricks carved of emerald or green jade.  Within the great halls of the center city, the people of Ong meet and debate philosophical, scientific, and occult topics.  Their histories say the people themselves murdered the god of the city, whose name is now forgotten, and have never again adopted a religion.

    The people of Ong are cannibals, but not aggressively.  Only when animals and crops are scarce will cannibalism become the way the people fend off starvation.  Ongites also have no need of sleep, simply resting for an hour each day.  It has the same effect of refreshing and energizing them as a 7 or 8 hour night of sleep would have for us.  The call to rest goes out each night at the strike of midnight, the city criers stationed atop the tallest buildings singing an ancient haunting paean to the same nameless god the Ongites are said to have murdered in prehistory.

Antediluvia: The Necropolis of Voor (Overview)

    No one truly knows the extent of the Necropolis of Voor.  It has never been fully delved.  It began as a mountaintop cemetery for the ancient and now extinct Voori people.  As their civilization grew they eventually colonized the sides of the mountain and surrounding hillsides with their dead.  When that space ran out, they began to hollow out the mountain itself, creating the Necropolis of Voor, and even moving their living royalty to the very top level of the complex.  They dug deep and discovered forgotten things in the depths below, in the places light never touched.

    The Voori found beings in the dark that taught them new sorceries and technology.  They were corrupted by their newfound power, turning to the worship of forgotten gods in the blackness beneath the mountain.  The beings they uncovered soon became their new masters, and the Voori, over time, degenerated to a primitive state over the course of ages.  While at first existing as slaves for these new masters, they gradually also became their food source, save for an exceptional handful of individuals given the curse of everlasting life in the form of undeath.

    All accounts of recent exploration into the Necropolis have fallen far short of success.  It is a dangerous, deadly place, and the undead rule its depths.  No one has survived to investigate the deepest reaches or to bring back any proof of the continued existence of the unnamed beings that became the rulers of the Voori.  However, the upper levels, near the top of the mountain, are thoroughly carved with hieroglyphics depicting these awful creatures.  They appear to be humanoid, but with various strange features.  

    Some scholars believe that the creatures depicted in these hieroglyphics are not the masters of which the legend speaks.  Instead, they believe them to be demonic servitors summoned by the magics the Voori learned.  No one can truly know.  The place is inimical to natural life and studying the almost endless walls of glyphs was the very last worry of all the adventurers who have attempted to plumb the mountain's depths.

    One group that has had some limited success in Voor are the Necromancers of Naat.  They're searching specifically for the ancient knowledge of the Voori people, and of any single group of explorers, they have discovered the most about the secrets of the Necropolis and its former denizens, owing not least to their considerably powerful sorcery and almost endless supply of their own walking dead retinues as protection.  However, they've had no success in gaining control of any areas of the mountain complex.  As soon as they find a foothold, the Necropolis seems to come alive with activity, and these "colonist" groups are usually never heard from again.

Campaign Sketch (Rough): Hunters of the Apocalypse

    I am constantly developing new campaign ideas, especially when it comes to the easily malleable BECMI rules.  I've decided to just start posting these, mainly to keep them organized for myself, and to share them with the few readers this blog actually sees.  This latest idea was born of the question:  How can I craft a supernatural hunting campaign setting without it being a mishmash of Palladium's Beyond the Supernatural, The X-Files television show, and Supernatural (one of my favorite shows of all time)?

    The easy answer is that I can't.  Beyond the Supernatural gets the credit as far as being one of the very first games to explore a supernatural and conspiracy-laden world, and it's going to have an obvious influence on me since I dearly love the game.  I don't want to just use the world within that game, however, since it's tied to the Megaversal System, and if I'm going to play BtS, I'll just play BtS.  Full stop.  The X-Files, Supernatural, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer will rear their well-respected heads from time to time also, since they covered just about every sort of paranormal/supernatural-hunting situation that can be dreamed up outside of Ghostbusters.

    So what can I really build here?

    Well, let's end the world, first of all.  The Apocalypse, presented within the book of Revelations in the Bible, has come to pass.  It was quite a bit more literal that many people had interpreted it.  The war between God and Satan happened just like the book foretold.  Many hunters tried to stop it from arriving to no avail.  The hunters that weren't immediately lined up on either side of the proverbial ball worked the middle ground to mitigate damage to the world when they could.  In the end, when the war was over, all the souls deemed worthy were taken to Heaven, and Hell was shattered, crushing the demonic forces and their allies.

    For some unknown reason, however, some humans, monsters, angels, and demons have been left behind.  No one is sure why, since it wasn't written this way, and God, being rather ineffable and inscrutable, isn't explaining it to them.  Returning with the Apocalypse had come miracles, as well as magic and psychic power, and the world is vastly different after the utter destruction of the war, with the weapons of the humans, angels, demons, and other minions creating a wasteland in their wake.  Humanity, what's left of it (and it's not much), is working on rebuilding the Earth with what they have to hand, and the fight against otherworldly forces continues, with skirmishes happening across the globe.  Making it worse, many of the relics of power brought with each army remain on the Earth, and can be found and utilized in the fights ahead.  Power unimaginable combined with a nuclear-magical wasteland environment, and plenty of strife for all.

    Are these survivors abandoned?  Were there no plans for them in the afterlife or the New Heaven?  With Heaven closed and Hell destroyed, is the Earth now Hell?  To what purpose was everyone that is still on Earth left?  These will be the overarching questions of the campaign itself, which may or may not be resolved.  They may well be unanswerable, but the characters will hear this question from both the angelic side and the demonic side, and often the humans caught in the middle.

The Tiny Appendix N of Dark Appalachia

    Anyone reading this that isn't accidentally stumbling on it is likely familiar with Appendix N in the rear of the first edition DMG.  This is a similar list of books that have helped to inspire this new campaign project. It's a short list and by no means complete, but these are the main culprits behind the idea.

Manly Wade Wellman: almost all of his weird fiction, especially Silver John works

DCC RPG Shudder Mountains setting

David Drake: Old Nathan

Mountain Monsters TV show

Orson Scott Card: Alvin Maker series

    That's it, that's the list. Manly Wade Wellman has had an outsized influence. I own 3 out of the 5 of the hardback selected works books released by Nightshade Press a couple decades ago that are now too expensive to acquire (at least for my budget).  I also own a few of the Silver John novels.  They're a massive influence not just for this campaign, but in my taste for fantastic fiction in general. Ever since I borrowed a copy of The Old Gods Waken from the Rodman Public Library in Alliance, OH, in my late teens, I've been hooked on Wellman's stories. 

    I'm sure once I start digging into the novels I have on my acquisition list by Alex Bledsoe, Maggie Stiefvater, and Jennifer Estep, more material might be absorbed into this list. I'm also curious to read Henry Kuttner's The Hogben Chronicles.  For some reason I just really enjoy the down-home atmosphere of Appalachian stories, probably because I grew up north of the area, in lower Northeast Ohio, but just a short trip to a place southern Ohio where the Appalachian country begins to take hold.

     If anyone has any other Appalachian Fantasy recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments. I'll be interested, I promise.

    I'm jumping in after the original post of this article to let you all know about a blog that will also provide some interesting ideas for my campaign. It's all about Appalachian Folk Magic!

https://littlechicagoconjure13.wordpress.com/

Campaign Sketch: Dark Appalachia

    What if the entirety of the area we call Appalachia was lifted out of its current position, and becomes an isolated demiplane?  How did this happen?  Why did this happen?  If this happens in the 1930s, do technological innovations of the modern day exist, or did other developments occur?

    These are the questions I'll be trying to answer as I start writing my Dark Appalachia campaign for BECMI.  Dark Appalachia has a defined border that disappears into impenetrable mists that no one ever returns from if they enter them.  The residents of the area do know that they were not always isolated, since historical references from before the 1930s exist in their libraries and newspaper archives.  Every expedition mounted to try to navigate through the mists at the edges of Dark Appalachia have never come back, even attempts to sail down the rivers, which flow into the mists and then also disappear.

    Magic became reality when the area was "lifted" from Earth, although it's understated and more formulaic than a typical fantasy world, and it's usually rather insidious.  Psychic ability also exists in all its forms, yet is rare.  Many monsters exist, including all the cryptids of Earth legend, and lair in the wilderness around settlements.

    As for religion, all the versions of Christianity that existed in the 1930s exist here, as well as some new denominations.  Nature worship returned and is now practiced in the hills, hollers, and mountains, and pagan gods (perhaps just powerful monsters?) occasionally walk the earth, hungry for worship and sacrifice.  The occult sciences are all functional, although no one is sure whose cosmology is real, since the situation Dark Appalachia finds itself in seems to exist outside the cosmos, and even with magic and psychic abilities the true nature of the cosmos cannot really be determined.  Satanic worship has also become quite widely practiced, owing largely to the occult sciences becoming reality, but is almost never practiced openly since it is still heavily frowned upon, and with good reason since the horrific stories and legends attributed to this religion seem to be truth in this land.  Any other philosophy or cult that existed in the 1930s or prior in the United States may also be found in Dark Appalachia.

    The practice of magic itself is generally the province of the witch, warlock, or evil creatures, although well-intentioned wise women and cunning-men heave learned some benign spells to protect themselves, their friends, and their communities.  However, even good magic can attract the unwanted attention of evil men and women of magic and fouler things besides.  The use of magical formulae and rituals seems to ripple outward, the energy spent or invoked seemingly sending a beacon out into the world, alerting the supernatural to its use, even when it is for benevolent purposes.  The more powerful the magic, the further away it can be sensed.  A simple charm performed for good luck may escape the notice of all but directly nearby entities and spellcasters, but a powerful summoning will be felt for miles.  For this reason, magicians often only use magic in hidden places or on warded or holy ground.

    The side of good in Dark Appalachia tries to keep the supernatural under control with the means at their disposal, to reduce the possibility of complete lawlessness and violence that would inevitably occur if creatures or magic were widespread.  The side of evil also tries to keep their efforts secret due the benefit of working in the dark, unseen by prying eyes.  Secrecy aids both good and evil, but for different reasons, and is truly a double-edged sword.  There are those who actively seek out supernatural and human evil and attempt to eradicate it, hunting it to the remotest hollers, in the darkest sewers, and deep in the loneliest wilderness.  These hard men and women are devoted to protecting humanity in Appalachia from annihilation and they are always at work to find out why their country is isolated, and perhaps discover a way to rejoin the humanity of Earth.  The most urgent work at hand, however, is to eradicate the inhuman creatures and evil sorcerers that are bent on working with the side of evil.

    More will come on this blog about this particular campaign as I begin to assemble it. I want to run it at a local game store and see who I can introduce to the BECMI rules, which are my favorite of all time, especially the iteration of them contained in the Rules Cyclopedia. I do have a copy of all five of the boxed sets (which I've assembled via PDF into a huge print omnibus so that I have all the rules that don't exist in the Cyclopedia!).  I think it will be interesting to see how someone reacts to this ruleset that's only been exposed to 5e, which is what's generally played at this particular store (they host learn-to-play events each week due to demand, which is awesome).