AlHazred

I've been rereading Lord Dunsany and Lovecraft online in my late-shift at work, and working up a gazetteer of locations mentioned for my own use. I've gotten through the Dunsany stories I'm going to include and am finishing Dream-Quest (which I saved for the end of my HPL rereads). I had a few issues deciding what Lord Dunsany stories to include, because he was a lot looser with boundaries on his stories than HPL or later authors, I ended up going with the following list of Dunsany works: “Time and the Gods,” from Time and the Gods (1906) “The Journey of the King,” from Time and the Gods (1906) “Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean,” from A Dreamer's Tales (1910) “Bethmoora,” from A Dreamer's Tales (1910) “Idle Days on the Yann,” from A Dreamer's Tales (1910) “The Hashish Man,” from A Dreamer's Tales (1910) [refers to “Bethmoora”] “Carcassonne,” from A Dreamer's Tales (1910) [this is not the real-world Carcassonne, but a dream version] “The Hoard of the Gibbelins,” from The Book of Wonder (1912) “The Injudicious Prayers of Pombo the Idolater,” from The Book of Wonder (1912) “Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men,” from The Book of Wonder (1912) “Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller,” from The Book of Wonder (1912) [refers to “Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men”] “How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles,” from The Book of Wonder (1912) [refers to “Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men”] “The Dream of King Karna-Vootra,” from Fifty-One Tales (1915) “How the Enemy Came to Thlunrana,” from Fifty-One Tales (1915) “The City on Mallington Moor,” from Tales of Wonder (1916) [no gazetteer info can be drawn from it] “The Bird of the Difficult Eye,” from Tales of Wonder (1916) “The Long Porter's Tale,” from Tales of Wonder (1916) “A Shop in Go-By Street,” from Tales of Three Hemispheres (1919) [sequel to “Idle Days on the Yann”] “The Avenger of Perdóndaris,” from Tales of Three Hemispheres (1919) [sequel to “A Shop in Go-By Street”] The HPL Dream-Cycle is a bit better defined: “The White Ship,” from The United Amateur v19 #2 (Nov 1919) “The Doom That Came to Sarnath,” from The Scot #44 (Jun 1920) “The Cats of Ulthar,” from Tryout v6 #11 (Nov 1920) “Nyarlathotep,” from The United Amateur v20 #4 (Nov 1920) “Polaris,” from The Philosopher v1 #1 (Dec 1920) “Ex Oblivione,” from The United Amateur v20 #8 (Mar 1921) “The Crawling Chaos,” from The United Co-operative v1 #3 (Apr 1921) “The Nameless City,” from The Wolverine #11 (Nov 1921) [references only] “Celephaïs,” from Rainbow v2 #2 (May 1922) “What the Moon Brings,” from National Amateur v45 #5 (May 1923) “The Green Meadow,” from The Vagrant #15 (Spr 1927) “The Hound,” from Weird Tales v3 #2 (Feb 1924) [references only] “Hypnos,” from National Amateur v45 #5 (May 1923) “The Outsider,” from Weird Tales v7 #4 (Apr 1926) “The Silver Key,” from Weird Tales v13 #1 (Jan 1929) “The Strange High House in the Mist,” from Weird Tales v18 #3 (Oct 1931) “The Dreams in the Witch House,” from Weird Tales v22 #1 (Jul 1933) [roughly connected] “The Other Gods,” from The Fantasy Fan v1 #3 (Nov 1933) “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” from Weird Tales v24 #1 (Jul 1934) [with E. Hoffmann Price] “The Quest of Iranon,” from Galleon v1 #5 (Jul/Aug 1935) At the Mountains of Madness, from Astounding Stories v16 #6/v17 #1/v17 #2 (Feb 1936/Mar 1936/Apr 1936) [references only] “The Night Ocean,” from The Californian v4 #3 (Win 1936) [feels very Kingsporty] “Azathoth,” from Leaves #2 (1938) “The Thing in the Moonlight,” from Bizarre v1 #1 (Jan 1941) The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, from Weird Tales v35 #9/v35 #10 (May 1941/Jul 1941) [references only] The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1943) Now I'm wondering who else to read for stuff to add to my Gazetteer. The works cited are all in the public domain (so what I have so far would be sharable), but I have Gary Myers books (though I haven't read them yet), and was thinking some of the locations in Italo Calvino's Le città invisibili would be a good fit. I've also found out about Kij Johnson's The Dream-Quest of Vellit Boe, which I will have to track down because it sounds great. Does anybody have any suggestions, either for Dream-Cycle stories I missed, or ideas about such a gazetteer in the first place? EDIT: I'm reluctantly removing “The Fall of Babbulkund.” It seems more like one of Dunsany's At the Edge of the World stories, not Over the Edge of the World in the Lands of Dream. Also, I added the full Lovecraft Dream-Cycle, since the Wikipedia entry is incomplete. “The Fall of Babbulkund,” from The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories (1908)

I wonder if the Saxons could so something relevant with Sleipnir or another of the magical Aesir horses...

You could appropriate one of the tumuli in the Forest Sauvage. My thinking on the undead is either "ghost kights" or faeries. I lean towards ghost knights, and using the whole thing as a metaphor for how Arthur is sweeping aside some traditions for something new, and the resistance against that. Although, going faeries gives the Hunt new meaning.

I have that at home. I'll give a mini-review once I have it in my hands. EDIT: Okay, so first off, "This adventure is primarily designed for use with D&D/AD&D. It can also be adapted very easily for use with other roleplaying systems, and notes on Chivalry & Sorcery, Pendragon, Ars Magica, RuneQuest and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay are given at the end of the adventure." It's fairly "Arthurian-esque," even more so than "Le Goût des Cendres" from Casus Belli #103. It's not bad, but it requires work. It takes place in the "Barony of Esca," where Lord Caradoc "has gradually carved a territory out of the wastes, but strange and unnatural prodigies still occur in Esca, albeit less frequently than in previous years. There are still adventures to be had..." This sounds like a good fit for the Forest Sauvage to me. There are several challenges which actually work better in Pendragon than D&D, although you have to do some editing. For example, there's a magic sword a character can claim; "The sword can only be taken by a true knight." In D&D and AD&D, there's some specifications how to determine that. For Pendragon, I'd make it a contest of Valorous rolls, to see who is "worthy." There are notes at the end for converting enemies to Pendragon stats. I like it, but I feel like there is a missed opportunity I'd make use of. I'll put it in the spoiler.

I would love to pick up the previous issues, and not just to fill in the blanks in my list of Pendragon articles. What's on there for Beaumains was gleaned from RPGGeek's entries.

I voted for "The 1920s", with "The 1930s" as a close runner up. It's such a great period for gaming, as a "time of great change."

The Avenger (the pulp character) had the firearm skill to "crease" an enemy; which is to say, he shot them in the head, but at an angle so that the bullet grazed the skull and knocked the foe unconscious instead of killing them.

Do you think the map would be useful for Pendragon RPG play? Also, I thought I recalled an article for this game in Dragon magazine #58 (February 1982), but it turns out I was thinking of the Knights of Camelot board game (1980) from TSR. I wonder how many Arthurian board games came out at that time?

The classic from Lords of Terror is the Gloomshark, worshipped by the Bluegloom cult.

I mean, you don't know that you're not immune to bullets until you try! Who's with me?!? Great... uh, you guys go first!

Eh, Boxers did it first! (I guess, I don't really know! But it sounded good, which is good enough for me!)

Colonial Era is too early to put in the Ghost Dance, but you could absolutely fabricate a secret society of Native Americans prior to Wovoka who had the same motivation: to use magical traditions to throw back colonial expansion and reclaim Native territories that had been overrun by invaders.

The quality (?) content I come to this thread for!

Or, in shrines with only an Ernalda statue present, she might be the Necklace of Enlivenment that Ernalda wears.

So far, of the foreign-language articles I've finally been able to read (thanks to friends with old-school collections and the wonders of Google Translate), there have been a few really outstanding scenarios. Everyone's table plays differently, so I'm not sure my ratings would help anybody, especially as I've not had a chance to run any of them yet. But of the magazine scenarios, I think the following are noteworthy: "Premières Armes... (First Weapons)" from Casus Belli #74. Solid starter scenario. [French] "La Dama Misteriosa (The Mysterious Lady)" from Nivel 9 #10. This one has a strong faerie element, and ties in to a major (but not crucial) character -- what a great way to have the PKs have a lasting campaign impact without totally derailing the GPC. [Spanish] "Winterballade (Winter Ballad)" from Der Trodox Ars Arcana #40. A winter-time scenario perfect for when only one of your players can make it to a session. [German] "The Adventure of the Reluctant Bride" from Ye Booke of Tentacles #2. A Shannon Appelcline scenario that I like because I can see it spun out any of a dozen ways, some of them wildly different from other similar scenarios. [English]

I'll also mention there's a few good handouts for "The Haunting" linked on the YSDC wiki page for the scenario.

See, and other gamers ask me why I don't talk about Pendragon stuff away from the gaming table... I'm always worried if I send them to the message boards, the first thing they'll see is a sentence like this one (fairly common in weird Arthurian and Arthur-adjacent literature, actually) and be scared off!

I wasn't actually fond of the Jakaleel Sorcery school; but I loved the idea that "Jakaleel" encompassed a variety of spirit societies with different foci and different approaches that might look superficially similar (i.e., all Spirit magic) but ideologically cover different approaches and utilize different Secrets of the Spirit Plane.

The Tradetalk cover is such that it has never occurred to me that it depicts Muriah until this thread, and I've owned both it and Borderlands since they came out.

In the description in the HQ scenarios, Kolat and Serdrodosa are called out as still having functioning magic, since they are "distinct" from Orlanth and Ernalda. I appreciated that as I had a Serdrodosa witch in my PC party, and I was looking forward to seeing what she did when she was no longer an outcast! Sadly, we didn't get that far.

GM: "Your divination has resulted in you drawing this rune from the cup." Player 1: "Uh... Do I recognize it?" GM: "Your character doesn't remember putting it in there." Player 1: "Uh..." Player 2: "Wait, isn't that the logo of a surfboard company?"

I was thinking about this, and the problem with several of the Religious Virtues sets is that some "Virtues" oppose Chivalric Traits. Chivalry requires Energetic, Generous, Forgiving, Just, Modest, Temperate, and Valorous. Paganism values Lustful, Energetic, Generous, Honest, and Proud. Proud and Modest oppose each other, and Energetic and Generous both Religious and Chivalric Traits. If we replace Lustful with Vengeful, then Forgiving and Vengeful oppose each other, giving Pagan knights two reasons not to be Chivalrous. And saying, "Well, my vision of a Pagan knight isn't very Chivalrous," misses the point -- there should be multiple ways a knight can be a Religious Pagan, it's not a single archetype for a single character type, in the same way you can have multiple kinds of Christian knights without all of them being Galahad. EDIT: Corrected below by @Morien -- I'd misremembered the Chivalric Traits.

Excellent! I understand it will be different, but I loved the flavor of the interrelated spirit societies in the HQ1 book. Very weird, excellent NPC color!

Frankly, while I liked a lot of stuff about Jakaleel in HQ1/2 (it made her weird, like she's supposed to be!), the sorcery school felt off.

Are Jakaleel's variations (sorcery school, etc.) from HeroQuest still canonical, or have they been eliminated?