Haunted Islands 2 pdf

This one is too long to post as a blog entry, the third part will be as long as this one (30 pages single spaced- less illustrations and maps and such).
Haunted Isles 2

Incence inadequately masking excrement

I've been busy.

Some of this is revised and reposted, most of it is new, however. This is the first 20% or so of my belated entry into Jack Shear's Tales of the grotesque and Dungeonesque contest. The name of the post comes from an area description in the latter part of the document (the part I'm still working on). It seemed apt.

Anyway, we decided to play this shit in my hybrid FTF/online game, and we start on Sunday. 

Apologies to Jack for blowing the deadline and completely missing the point of Gothic Fantsy, I'm sure.

Just in case you don't feel like reading this as a blog entry, here is teh current document as a .pdf.

Whatever there's like 50 pages (and growing) left of this thing to get done, so if anyone wants to be my proofreader or layout bitch, let me know; the work is hard, but I can offer you nothing in return. 

Nothing.

Haunted Isles:

Perched twixt reason and madness.

A Dark Fantasy Setting

1. Preliminaries

Books in use: Labyrinth Lord; Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque; LL Advanced Edition Companion.

All these books are online for free. Here are the links:

This is for the Labyrinth Lord core book and the Advanced Edition Companion. (together they are more or less like AD&D)

http://goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html

This is for the Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque pdf; it’s on scribed or something but you can download it from there as well as just look at it if you like.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwQATTvvXyh3OFE5aHllUjdXdnc/edit?pli=1

Character Generation:

Race:The Haunted Isles is, for the most part, a humans only setting. I’m somewhat flexible in this regard, however. We’ll just have to work something out as to what the fuck you’re character is doing there, that’s all.

Sequence:

Roll stats (4d6 drop the lowest)

Select a class (see below).

Roll on the character background table on page 20 of the Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque book.

Roll on the Dark Secrets table found on page 44 of the Tales of the grotesque and Dungeonesque book.

Character Classes:

We’re going to start at 4^th level unless you select a Keeper, in which case you’ll start at level 3.

All classes listed in the Advanced Edition Companion are available. Magic Users of any sort will, for the most part, operate in secrecy, but they are a viable PC choice nonetheless.

Two additional classes are also available:

Keeper of The Silence

Requirements INT 10, WIS 10

Prime Requisite: INT, WIS

Hit Dice 1d8 until 9^th level then +2 every level thereafter.

Level limit: none

Experience: As LL/BX Elf

Attacks Fighter

Saves: Magic User

Weapons Armor: Any

Keepers of the Silence (Keepers, henceforth) are a quasi military/police religious order within the Hidden Church of the Humble Way. Keepers move alone or in small groups across the land, rooting out impious activity and dispatching its perpetrators. In past centuries the authority of the Keepers was unquestioned, but as the Church’s power declines so too does that of the Keepers. As a result, while traveling in the hinterlands, today’s Keeper is as likely to encounter resentment and hostility as reverence and respect. In the past it was common for Keepers to work closely with secular authority, but in the modern era this relationship has devolved into jurisdictional squabbling.

Keepers gain spells at the same rate as the B/X elf. However, the practice of magic is something they do in secret, and most members of the general population are unaware that the Keepers are adept in the very sort of thing they work to stomp out. Any keeper exposed as a magic user will be disavowed and hunted down by the remaining Keepers.

The Necromancer

Necromancers wield magic they draw from the necrosphere, the ancient Earth’s spirit world, which is infused with the ghostly energy of eons of the dead.

Requirements INT 10, WIS 10

Prime Requisite: INT, WIS

Hit Dice 1d6 until 9^th level then +2 every level thereafter.

Level limit: none

Experience: As cleric

Attacks: Cleric

Saves: Cleric

Weapons Armor: Any

In order to work their magic Necromancer must have a focus made from the remains of a dead creature. Such object may include a skull, or a staff made of bones, soft tissue foci are rare but not unknown; however, such foci must be shielded from decay by embalming, mummification or some other method.

Blood Magic:  Once a day, a Necromancer may self-inflict a minor wound in order to gain an additional spell. This maybe done a maximum of three days in a row.

Turn undead as cleric

Potions: Necromancers of 6^th level and above may brew potions.

Spell List

First Level Necromancer Spells

Detect Chaos/law

Detect Magci

Cure Minor wound

Light/Dark

Protection from Chaos

Puridfy food and drink

Animal companion

Remove fear

Second Level Necromancer Spells

Bless curse

Hold person

Cure major wound

phantasmal force

Ghost Spear

Third level Necromancer spells

Cure/cause disease

Locate object

Remove curse

Wizard’s eye

Effigy of agony

Fourth level sorcer spells

Fly

Protection form Law chaos 10’ radius

Sticks to snakes wall of fire and Ice (Ghost Wall)

Create water

Fifth level Necromancer spells

Animate Dead Commune

Contact other plain control weather the wailing dread dispel chaos/law

Insect plague

Quest

Raise dead

Note: I may have fucked up some of the spell names. If you can’t find a spell under the name listed let me know.

2. Introduction

New Urveon:

New Urveon is a former colony of the Empire of Urveon. There has been no contact with the empire for over 500 years.

Haunted Isles:

The Old Islands comprise the bulk of New Urveon. The Haunted Isles, a more rustic and sparsely populated archipelago, resides a month’s sail to the west of the Old Islands and is the furthest outpost of New Urveon. Another island chain is said to exist even further to the west, the fabled World’s Edge Archipelago, but little is known about them, and most traditional entropic scholars maintain that the world ends at the Haunted Isles. Upstarts and scientists, of course, have other ideas.

Myth (?):

Long ago annoyed by the chatter of his worshipers, the Entropic Lord destroyed the world with a great deluge. The peoples of today’s world are descendents of the flood’s survivors.

Recorded History:

Although, with exception of a few human settlements, the Old Islands were largely uninhabited when first discovered some 600 years ago, evidence of a former occupation remained. Ancient tumbledown ruins lay inland, sunken structures were (and still are) seen along the coasts and even upon the floor the open ocean. The Haunted Isles were pocked with ruins as well, but completely abandoned.

Settlers from the Urveon Continent arrived en masse roughly 50 years after the islands were discovered, bringing their religion, (the Humble Church of the Hidden Way) and nascent industrial technology with them. The islands’ sparse human inhabitants either fled into the woodlands, or assimilated with the new masters of the islands. The latter process turned out to be surprisingly peaceful, perhaps due to the church’s perspective that all mortal beings are equally despicable in the eyes of the Entropic Lord and must be brought into the fold if his attention is to continue to be averted.

The year is now 4880 AD [After Deluge].

500 years have passed since the last contact with Urveon. No ships sent in that direction return. The law has prohibited such voyages since New Urveon declared sovereignty and crowned its own king, two centuries ago.

In conjunction with a popularly elected parliament the third monarch of the Blackwell dynasty, Queen Astra, currently rules the Commonwealth of New Urveon. She is 30 years of age and in the 10^th year of her reign.

Social Trends: Woman’s dress reform; temperance; worker’s rights; abolishment of indenture and child labor; religious indifference; and in the west there is talk of revolution and independence from the crown.

Industrialization has taken off in the last 50 years, leading to a wave of technological innovation.

Population: the total population of the Old Islands is ~ 1,000,000; a full 80% of the population lives in the industrial city/port of New Silence on the North Island. The population of the Haunted Isles is unknown, and although the countryside is very under populated, close to a million people are said to live in and around the great industrial city of Stoker; the vast and overwhelming majority of whom exist, no doubt, in conditions of crushing poverty and demeaning servitude.

Technology: Steam powered industry, steam cars, trains, (sporadic) telegraph, clipper and steam ships. Homemade merchandise remains in competition with industrial production of household and craft goods, but losing ground.

Climate: The Old Islands lie deep in the southern hemisphere, but are warmed by a jet stream type wind. Weather in the region is violent and unpredictable. The Old Islands tend towards cold and rainy during the winter months. The Haunted Isles are somewhat colder still and receives a good deal of snowfall during the long winter.

Religion:

The Humble Church Of the Hidden Way is the dominant religion across most of New Urveon. However, despite several programs and centuries of persecution, the Cult of Archelon, the Bearer, persists in the backcountry, especially in the west. Aside from these two organizations, several smaller cults exists and at least half the citizens of the Commonwealth acknowledge no god at all- a phenomenon as much a result of apathy and negligence as a widespread lack a belief. Apostasy, however, is indeed on the rise as “reason” and science attempt to define the world in non-supernatural terms.

The Humble Church of the Hidden Way:

The First Commandment: Thou shan’t make thyself known to the Entropic Lord.

The Humble Church of the Hidden Way does not worship the Entropic Lord. Instead it teaches the doctrine of spiritual stealth. The ultimate goal is to keep the Entropic Lord from paying attention to the world and its inhabitants, lest he bring about another flood or a like disaster.

Prayer is the ultimate blasphemy, as it is an attempt to engage in direct dialogue with the Entropic Lord; and the true name of the Entropic Lord is the Church’s greatest secret. Only the most depraved individuals would whisper it. Thus, the church has no priests or clerics. Monks, sworn to a lifetime of silence, fill out the lower ranks of the church and the miltant Keepers of the Silence enforce the Church’s will.

The top of the church hierarchy is comprised of a group anonymous of functionaries, known collectively as the Secret. Theoretically, the Secret is open to anyone who wishes to serve, but in reality membership is tightly controlled and brokered.

Amongst the laity, true believers spend at least two hours a day engaged in a meditative process known as purging in which they attempt to blank out their thoughts and suppress their personality in an effort to keep the world quiet and, once again, avoid the attention of the Entropic Lord.

Note-the Entropic Lord is indeed worshipped by some practitioners of witchcraft and served by a host of demons, undead and unspeakably foul entities from… outside. According to the theology of these beings, The Entropic Lord is sleeping and they must work to bring him round. The chaos these beings sew, the murder, destruction and practice of black magic are forms of prayer.

The Cult of Archelon, the Bearer

Archelon, the Great Turtle, bears the world through space upon his shell, or so say his followers.

The ancient cult of Archelon is a religion based upon worship, supplication and sorcery. Clerics of the Great Turtle perform powerful rituals, and have access to divine spells. However, they do little of either out in the open.

Worship of Archelon is, in all but the most remote areas, a secret affair. Temples to the god are hidden away on desolate atolls and in forest caves.

The priesthood of Archelon is essentially a secret society organized into cells. No priest knows more than two others.  

Players who wish to play a cleric will usually be associated with the Cult of Archelon.

3. The Haunted Isles:

Although it is a part of Commonwealth culture, and within its geographical sphere of control, the campaign area lies well to the west of the main island cluster, and according to some, at the very ends of the Earth.

Atlas:

The Asylum for the Criminally Insane at Point Gorngard:

A large, brooding structure overlooking Madman’s Beach, the Asylum houses roughly 200 inmates. In addition to fulfilling its original mandate, the facility has, over the last century, at the behest of the aristocracy, served as a clandestine prison of convenience. The Asylum is examined in greater detail in the next chapter.

Átemian:

The crumbling ruins of the once great monastery at Átemian illustrate the church’s failure in the West. One hundred and twenty-four years ago, with the entire local chapter of the Silent Brotherhood became infiltrated, turned and controlled by the cult of Archelon, a contingent of Witch Finders laid siege to the monastery. A short battle proceeded a long and arduous siege. Over a year later, the last monk died of starvation, afterwhich, the monestary spontaneously caught fire.  The blaze burned with infernal intensity; the monastery’s stonework shattered and exploded.

The fire burned for a month; it is said the spectral screams of the dead monks could be heard throughout. When the last of the smoke guttered and drifted away, the Witch Finders searched through the ruins. Finding nothing they packed up and went home, singling the end to the Humble Church’s strength on the west. The spirits of the traitorous monks, however, remained behind, trapped in the ruins of Átemian, doomed, restless and malignant

Bay of Beasts:

The Bay of Beasts provides habitat for a great many dangerous aquatic animals. This condition makes passage difficult and accounts for the dearth of settlements on the north shore of Hefód and the south shore of Lur. The bay is said to be veritably made of gold and other valuable commodities ranging from pearls to mermaids to majical cities beneath the waves.

Black Island:

The shepherds and woodmen of Lur hold a deep terror of Black Island.

 

A three hundred foot high pillar of glittering obsidian, marked all across its surface with deep-graven hieroglyphs of sinister aspect, resides at the center of bleak, scrub-covered Black Island. The full moon sets the pillar aglow; drawn from all over the islands creatures of darkness assemble at the base of the hellish spire. They cluster and dance and join together in dark, worshipful celebration.

    

The Derrick:

Half a day’s sail west of Stoker lies a permanent fog bank, called the Sentinel. The fog is said be the product of a curse and local mariners avoid it at all cost. 

The fog is produced by a mechanism designed and constructed by the Baron Doctor Moresby, aristocrat, scientist, fugitive and resurrectionist. Currently the Baron is engaged in the construction of an undead army powered by electricity. He has a submarine.

Brokedown Palace:

Abandon for over two centuries, the old Moresby Family Manor- or Brokedown Palace, as named by the locals, exists now as a sprawling, haunted and horror infested ruin.

Nordenede:

The island Nordende, famous location of the Asylum for the Criminally Insane at Gorngard, is also host to a forest and a steaming, geyser-pocked badland at its southern extreme.

Turtle Cove:

Turtle Cove is said to offer a safe place to come ashore on the southern coast of Lur. Some say that monsters and other fell things are driven away by the presence of the Ward: a giant image of a turtle- constructed entirely from human skulls.

The Pines:

The Pines, a temperate rain forest, eternally swathed in a cold spectral mist, girds central Lur. Little is known about the woodland’s interior. Few venture far beyond the woodmen’s settlements at the coastal fringes. Fear of both the old, dark magic associated with the place and the primeval creatures rumored to dwell within keeps the forest inviolate.

Isenordal:

The haunted and broken badland that is today’s Isenordál exists as the result of a magical battle fought between a band of witch-finders and a trio of Archelon’s priests thirty years past. Prior to the conflict, the region was a vast and ancient necropolis, known as the City of Bones. During the battle, hundreds of tombs opened, their doors and lids crumbled or flung wide by the sorcerous upheaval. In the days that followed, Suffused with the violent energies of battle-magic, the dead rose. Since that time, Isenordal has been considered a no man’s land.

Cape Talon:

A swath of prosperous farm country, linked to Crestwick in the south and Cliff House in the north by a network of good roads and a central rail line, Cape Talon serves, along with farmlands of Hefód, as the agricultural foundation of the archipelago’s economy.

Moonstone Isle:

Moonstone Isle takes it name from a circle of standing stones found on a windy hilltop near the center of the island’s scrub covered interior. A few scattered manorial estates, a sparsely populated fishing village of questionably prosperity and an abandoned silver mine represent the total of islands known assets.

The Lighthouse:

The Lighthouse functions, but can not be approached and isn’t always in the same place. It’s said to come to those at sea who need it.

According to local folklore, old Bill ‘Crabhand’ Duffy assumed the responsibilities of lighthouse caretaker, two hundred years past; he’s been on the job ever since, helping lost sailors find their way. 

Madman’s Beach:

Shallow, murky waters, jagged rock formations and unpredictable winds make the southern coast of Nordende dangerous place for ships. Broken hulks litter the sea floor and splintered wreckage juts up through the waves. Gent and sharks will swarm here with the slightest provocation.

The Sea Caves:

The Sea Caves provide a cold, but reliable refuge for the goblin pirates of the Dream Sea. Legend holds that the caverns and grottos are linked with the Underworld, and by extension the cities of the Great Empire of Night.

Gastmor:

An upland region, characterized by wild grasses, open woodland, bogs, mist, ubiquitous ruins and the bones of giants, Gastmor provides a home to several clans of sheep herders who think themselves free men and recognize no authority but their own. It’s a well known fact that all manner of immodesty and witchcraft flourish in such places. 

Crestwick:

Crestwick is a prosperous community sustained by a robust fishing fleet, agricultural shipping and light industry. Many believe Crestwick to be a hotbed of petty aristocratic intrigue; cult activity; organized crime and revolutionary sentiment.

Cliff House:

Prior to some rather unfortunate incidents involving the Baron Moresby, science experiments, grave robbery and mass homicide, the Moresby clan had ruled the island of Lur from the time of the initial settling of the islands. Seven years past, the Baron and his servants were driven from Lur by a mysterious band of individuals said to contain witch finders, peasants, constables and priests of Archelon.

Not long after, stewardship of Cliff House and governance of the island passed to the Count Gareth Helmsted, who remains Lord Governor of Lur at present. Although he is tasked by the Queen with governing the day to day affairs of Lur, has weightiest responsibility is keeping watch over and containing Isenordal. In fact, north of the badland, Helmsted’s governance of Lur exists only in name- and there’s many a Gastmor clansmen who’d be surprised to hear that much.

Vigilance Atoll:

A true wonder of science, the Royal Observatory sits atop the remarkably high Lookout Mountain on Vigilance Atoll, and is manned by a team of dedicated researchers from Salem University in Stoker. It is said by some that the late King Gilroy II charged the astronomers of Salem university to watch the skies in anticipation of a great and eldritch danger from beyond. The veracity of this rumor aside, nobody seems to know for what exactly it is that the astronomers search.

The Cursed Caves:

A series of caverns located within the confines of a rock formation situated at the border of the Pines and the Bramble. Folklore, as related by woodsmen, maintains that any who venture in to the cave will devolve into dumb beasts subject to ravenous and unwholesome appetites.

Stoker:

Founded in the opening decade of the settlement era, Stoker is actually nearly a century older than the larger eastern metropolis of New Silence. The city is the uncontested center of civilization in the archipelago. The Viscount Sirus Blackmarch runs his government from the imposing Castle Mistlock there; the steam car industry of the entire realm of New Urveon finds its home there, with three separate manufacturers and seven factories. Other industrial enterprises and trade guilds abound. Shops line the avenues. Tens of thousands of citizens and visitors from all over New Urveon team in the streets. Billowing smoke and clanging, grinding noise clog the air. Stoker bustles; Stoker works; Stoker plays; Stoker never slows down, never rests.

In Stoker, everything is available and nothing is free.

Character Classes:

We’re going to start at 4^th level unless you select a Keeper, in which case you’ll start at level 3.

All classes listed in the Advanced Edition Companion are available. Magic Users of any sort will, for the most part, operate in secrecy, but they are a viable PC choice nonetheless.

Two additional classes are also available:

Keeper of The Silence

Requirements INT 10, WIS 10

Prime Requisite: INT, WIS

Hit Dice 1d8 until 9^th level then +2 every level thereafter.

Level limit: none

Experience: As LL/BX Elf

Attacks Fighter

Saves: Magic User

Weapons Armor: Any

Keepers of the Silence (Keepers, henceforth) are a quasi military/police religious order within the Hidden Church of the Humble Way. Keepers move alone or in small groups across the land, rooting out impious activity and dispatching its perpetrators. In past centuries the authority of the Keepers was unquestioned, but as the Church’s power declines so too does that of the Keepers. As a result, while traveling in the hinterlands, today’s Keeper is as likely to encounter resentment and hostility as reverence and respect. In the past it was common for Keepers to work closely with secular authority, but in the modern era this relationship has devolved into jurisdictional squabbling.

Keepers gain spells at the same rate as the B/X elf. However, the practice of magic is something they do in secret, and most members of the general population are unaware that the Keepers are adept in the very sort of thing they work to stomp out. Any keeper exposed as a magic user will be disavowed and hunted down by the remaining Keepers.

The Necromancer

Necromancers wield magic they draw from the necrosphere, the ancient Earth’s spirit world, which is infused with the ghostly energy of eons of the dead.

Requirements INT 10, WIS 10

Prime Requisite: INT, WIS

Hit Dice 1d6 until 9^th level then +2 every level thereafter.

Level limit: none

Experience: As cleric

Attacks: Cleric

Saves: Cleric

Weapons Armor: Any

In order to work their magic Necromancer must have a focus made from the remains of a dead creature. Such object may include a skull, or a staff made of bones, soft tissue foci are rare but not unknown; however, such foci must be shielded from decay by embalming, mummification or some other method.

Blood Magic:  Once a day, a Necromancer may self-inflict a minor wound in order to gain an additional spell. This maybe done a maximum of three days in a row.

Turn undead as cleric

Potions: Necromancers of 6^th level and above may brew potions.

Spell List

First Level Necromancer Spells

Detect Chaos/law

Detect Magci

Cure Minor wound

Light/Dark

Protection from Chaos

Puridfy food and drink

Animal companion

Remove fear

Second Level Necromancer Spells

Bless curse

Hold person

Cure major wound

phantasmal force

Ghost Spear

Third level Necromancer spells

Cure/cause disease

Locate object

Remove curse

Wizard’s eye

Effigy of agony

Fourth level sorcer spells

Fly

Protection form Law chaos 10’ radius

Sticks to snakes wall of fire and Ice (Ghost Wall)

Create water

Fifth level Necromancer spells

Animate Dead Commune

Contact other plain control weather the wailing dread dispel chaos/law

Insect plague

Quest

Raise dead

The Old Islands Three: another version of the map.

Not set on names yet, and this is sloppy, so I'll likely do another version on hex paper. Larger version: here.

Tomorrow: area descriptions and critters (maybe).

The Old Islands 2- or watch as I continue to pull a setting out of my ass

The Old Isle:

Books in use: Labyrinth Lord; Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque; Realms of Crawling Chaos; LL Advanced Edition Companion

Some influences: Moby Dick, by Herman Melville; The Crucible by Arthur Miller; HPL fiction; Solomon Kane Stories by REH; The Monk by Mathew Lewis; Castle of Ontoranto by Harold Walpole; Dracula by Bram Stoker; Frankenstein by Mary Shelly; Gotham by Gaslight and Hellboy by Mike Mignolia; The Crooked Man by Mike Mignolia and Richard Corben; Corben horror comics;  Gangs of New York;  Sleepy Hollow;  the scientific revolutions of the 19^th century; the demise of the geocentric model of cosmology; the Torah;  the rise of the Creationist movement and the implied logic behind it.

Character Generation:  Select a race from RoCC; a class from the AEC; roll a background and a dark secret from Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque

Myth (?): Long ago, annoyed by the chatter of his worshipers, the Entropic Lord destroyed the world with a great deluge. The peoples of today’s world are descendent sof the flood’s survivors.

Recorded History:

Although, with exception of a few human settlements, the Old Isles were largely uninhabited when first discovered some 600 years ago, evidence of a former occupation remained. Ancient tumbledown ruins lay inland, sunken structures were and still are, seen along the coasts and even upon the floor the open ocean.

Settlers from the Urveon Continent arrived en mass roughly 50 years after the island was discovered, bringing their religion, (the Humble Church of the Hidden Way) and semi-industrial technology with them. The islands’ human inhabitants either fled into the woodlands, or assimilated with the new masters of the islands. The latter process turned out to be surprisingly seamless, perhaps due to the church’s perspective that all mortal beings are equally despicable in the eyes of the Entropic Lord and must be brought into the fold if his attention is to continue to be averted.

200 years have past since the last contact with Urveon. No ships sent in that direction return.

Industrialization has taken off in the last 50 years.

The year is now 4880 AD [After Deluge].

Population: the total population of the islands is ~1 million, a full 80% of the population lives in the industrial city/port of Stoker on the North Island (place holder name).  

Races (in order of population size): White apes; Sea Blood; Humans; Sub Humans (not an actual species, but the victims of a communicable curse).

Technology: early industrial, steam cars, trains, (sporadic) telegraph; clipper and steam ships. Cottage industry still in competition with industrial production from household and craft goods, but losing ground.

Religion:

The First Commandment: Thou shalt not make thouself known to the Entropic Lord.

The Humble Church of the Hidden Way does not worship the Entropic Lord. Instead it teaches the doctrine of spiritual stealth. The ultimate goal is to keep the Entropic Lord from paying attention to the world and its inhabitants, lest he bring about another flood or a like disaster. Clerics of the order actually cast spells in an effort to deplete the world of magical energy. Magic Users however violate the laws of space-time by bringing additional magic into creation when they cast spells and are thus despised as witches and the enemies of life.

Prayer is the ultimate blasphemy, as it is an attempt to engage in direct dialogue with the Entropic Lord; and the true name of the entropic lord is the Church’s greatest secret. Only the most depraved individuals would whisper it.

True believers spend at least two hours a day engaged in a meditative process known as purging in which they attempt to blank out their thoughts and suppress their personality in an effort to keep the world quiet and once again, avoid the attention of the Entropic Lord.

Apostasy is however on the rise as “reason” and science attempt to define the world in non supernatural terms within educated urban circles and secret pagan religions based upon faith and worship fester along the backstreets and in the countryside.

The outward manifestation of all this is almost identical to hard core Puritanism. Everybody wears black all the time too.

Society is a mix of Victorian Style formality (upper class);  early Industrial Revolution, urban despair/debauchery and decay; and rough and tumble frontier rusticism.

Weather: The Old Isle lie deep in the southern hemisphere, but are warmed by a jet stream type wind. The great ocean known as God’s Gulf is extremely turbulent and stormy. 

Next (before I go to bed even, a map)

The Old Islands: sometimes things get out of control

Earlier today I posted a slightly edited version of this on the RPG site:

I'm sitting here looking at Jack Shear'a [I]Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque[/I] and the LL supplement [I] Realms of Crawling Chaos[/I], trying to resit the urge to make a new setting that incorporates material from the two, but is chiefly inspired by the process of scientific advancement which took place during the 19th century in regards to archaeology, geology, paleontology and biology, coupled with a the dreary, ubiquitous and oppressive presence of a very dour and puritanical, but somehow well meaning, religion.

I want to start with a chain of islands, with one or two moderate sized ports and a scattering of small coastal and inland settlements, scattered across a cold northern sea, far away from the old country, but long settled.

Although I'd set aside this break for Metal Earth work (some of which I've already done). I couldn't leave this alone and I've wanted to throw together a setting for pick up games for quite some time. So I started this map...

Anyway it occurs to me that it might be kind of fun to chronicle the development of this thing over the next couple of days.  If i get the time, I'll post another version of the map and some particulars later tonight.

Xolox, Level one, Beneath the Maiden [MAP]

A spiral stair found within the structure known as the Maiden, leads down into the darkness, and into what was once the true abode of the space vampires. They lived, fed, worshiped their obscene martian gods and exercised their unholy science within these tunnels, leading some scholars to believe that the architecture of Under Xolos is a physical reflection of the aggression, paranoia, isolation and lust that are said to lie at the core of every vampire.

Once the vampires ruled Satan's Spine, but the waxing of the sun brought them down. Here though, at Xolos, isolated from even the wasteland by the lethal vapors of the Blacksmoke sea, one must wonder: what secrets, what treasures, what power might linger?

Larger version HERE.

Humans as a class, the Endless- reskinning the B/X elf

The Endless

Requirements: INT 9
Prime Requisite: STR and INTa
Hit Dice: 1d6
XP to second level: 4300





Before their empires crumbled, humans perfected the science of life extension. Although there are (or may be) a few remaining breeder populations, a major subset of the extant human population consists of ancient survivors of the forgotten past. And that past is truly forgotten, because, as it turns out, it is very difficult for humans to retain memories for more than a couple of hundred years. As a result, the Endless periodically enter a period known as the fugue, where they forget themselves and must begin anew. 

Although personal memories are often reduced to images or short, difficult to interpret mnemonic flashes, not everything is lost; in fact, some things are never wholly forgotten.  Endless never forget the basics of combat and magic use. They can wield any weapon and wear any armor, in addition to casting spells as a sorcerer. For the Endless, the process of level progression is more of a process of recollection than one of new skill acquisition.
Endless advance in combat as Adventurers and may select one advantage from the Adventurer list every three levels (beginning with level 3). [Adventurers will be covered in an upcoming post].

An Endless must have at least 13 in both prime requisites in order to get the +5% to experience. They must also have an INT of 16 and a STR of 13 to get the +10% bonus.
Endless have darkvision of 60 feet, and have keen eyes that allow them, when actively searching, to detect hidden and secret doors with a roll of 1-2 on 1d6. Because of their altered physiques, endless are completely unaffected by the paralysis ghouls and other undead can inflict.

Pretty sure I pinched at least a line or two directly from Labyrinth Lord's Elf class.