In case you missed the news, Dan Proctor has announced on his blog that we may be seeing Realms of Crawling Chaos within the next several days. Now that’s more exciting that an internet brawl over the future of S&W WhiteBox, innit?
Already my brain is beginning to spin up a short campaign concept wherein the heroes are cast from the Lovecraftian character races listed in the Table of Contents as glimpsed (1/1d3 SAN) in the Labyrinth Lord Society members-only sneak preview of RoCC. What’s that? You haven’t seen the preview? That must be because you’re not a member of the LLS. You should probably rectify that, naughty person.
Thanks for the reminded. I joined the Society after reading your post.
Care to offer some initial impressions of Crawling Chaos?
Well howdy, Paul! And welcome to StrangeStones! Nice to have you drop by, amigo. You want Impressions of RoCC? Ok, I can do that. 🙂
That’s about all I’ve got at this point. Not counting the cover, title page, and OGL it’s only a 6 page preview after all.
I’m drooling over this . . . now tell me, V.P., you never got the idea of mixing Lovecraft with BOL for some real Dark Fantasy gaming.
Oh, it’s drool-worthy, G-Man. Definitely drool-worthy. Dan really seems to have outdone himself this time.
Lovecraftian BoL, you say? Why, I would never do something like that. No sir!
But seriously, BoL screams out for some Lovecraft-style horrors mixed in to the action. Of course, since HPL and CAS and REH all cross-pollinated, it only makes sense. 🙂
Imagine this: Earth, millenia ago, one giant pangean continent covered with steaming jungles, ruined cities of black basalt, and enormous glaciers looming to the north. Humans, a Lesser Servitor Race, have only recently broken the bonds of their Elder Thing masters and huddle in the abandoned structures of the anicents, fighting to carve their own destiny amidst the various and sundry Eldritch Horrors that roam freely through the night. Their only weapons: courage, the newfound sciences of civilization taught to them by the mysterious fish-being Oannes, and (for some) dark sorcery.
Enemies include Serpent Men (whose own civilization is at its zenith), despotic Shoggoth Lords, maruading Mi-Go swooping down from the limitless void, and the Deep Ones, who have been interbreeding with families of ‘noble’ humans living in coastal settlements.
PC’s can choose boons/flaws including Tainted, which gives them access to magic power but also pesky conditions like protruding eyes, gill-slits, and greenish ichor for blood.
The setting also features a strange juxtaposition of technology–stone weapons and slings alongside Lightning Guns of the Old Ones, and Serpent Men alchemy.
Sort of like a pre-pre Hyboria, with human beings as a rising (struggling) power.
SOLD! That’s pretty much perfection right there, G-Man. And it makes a nice early birthday present for REH (about 20 minutes from now, Texas time) 🙂
Are you going to that Cross Plains festival they throw for the Old Master?
Probably not this year. I think we’re too broke to consider such things. But maybe fortune will have turned by June.
A further complication is that they schedule the damned thing right around the time of my wife’s birthday and, as much as she loves me, I wouldn’t feel right dragging her off to Cross Plains. Then again, she’s just geeky enough that if I propose it to her she might take me up on it 🙂
Are you going? Or have you gone in the past?
Never gone, and Tucson’s just too damn far away for me to justify taking the fam (who are by no measure as geeky as me).
When I was a kid growing up in Yuma, me and my buddy (whose dad had a whole room full of fantasy and sci-fi paperbacks, with REH prominent) used to fantasize about getting over to Cross Plains, somehow.
Yeah, I reckon that would be a fur piece to travel (as my grandmother used to say). I have no such excuse, given that it’s a mere 175 miles or so from Austin to Cross Plains. We’ll have to figure out some way to get you there one year, though, less geeky fam or no. It seems like something to catch at least once.