Colin Brodd's Blog, page 5

Catching Up . . .

Hello everyone,
     Well, I'm starting to catch up and work through the backlog that has been piling up this summer - I've been very busy devoting my time to my family rather than my work. I'm happy to say that we adopted my son Aidan on August 24th, which is an amazing feeling. Now that September is here, and the pieces are starting to fall together, I'm trying to reassemble my projects. 
     First up, this morning I posted my latest installment of "Appendix N Revisited" - "Lest Darkness Fall Revisited." This was originally scheduled for mid-July. I had intended "August Derleth Revisited" for August - hope to have that up in a week or so - and then a Lord Dunsany installment, probably "The King of Elfland's Daughter Revisited," for September. September may be a little late, but it's still on my radar. After that I think we're up to Philip José Farmer for October. 
     Meanwhile, I've also fallen behind on my installments for Tales from Midhgardhur on Channillo. I'm working on a piece right now; the working title is "Purity" (but it may need something better) - the return of Layla and Isidore! 
     All my other projects, including Asa Oathkeeper Among the Giants and The Tale of Ingjaldur the Mad are temporarily on the back burner until I can get caught up with these things!
Happy Reading! Skál!Colin Anders Brodd

Lest Darkness Fall Revisted - Appendix N Revisited, Part 7

Lest Darkness Fall Revisited Appendix N Revisited, Part 7


     Hello, and welcome to the seventh installment of my "Appendix N Revisited" project! As I mentioned previously, in the course of this project, I want to revisit the classics of fantasy fiction, weird fiction, and science fiction that made up "Appendix N" to the original Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax, both to explore their influence on my Hobby (RPGs) and my own writing and conception of fantasy fiction. The seventh installment focuses on L. Sprague de Camp and Lest Darkness Fall. If you have never read the book and wish to avoid spoilers, you should stop reading at this point, as I shall be discussing the book in some detail.

     L. Sprague de Camp (the L was for Lyon!), 1907-2000, was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He also had the distinction of being one of the few authors specifically mentioned more than once by Gary Gygax in Appendix N - for "Lest Darkness Fall, The Fallible Fiend, et al." and with Fletcher Pratt for the "'Harold Shea' series, Carnelian Cube" . . . since I will be addressing Fletcher Pratt for Blue Star separately, I thought I would pick one of de Camp's independent works for this installment of this project. And as a professional Classicist, I could not resist starting with Lest Darkness Fall, about a man stuck in the past (near the beginning of the Dark Ages in Europe) who determines that the best thing that he can do is prevent darkness from falling - prevent the worst of the Dark Ages - with the 20th century knowledge he has brought with him to the past.

     The Wikipedia article about de Camp points out that he was a materialist (like Padway!) "who wrote works examining society, history, technology, and myth" (I've read some of his nonfiction books on the history of technology). It also notes "a common theme in many of his works is a corrective impulse regarding similar previous works by other authors" - this certainly applies here! "Some, like Asimov, felt de Camp's conscientiousness about facts limited the scope of his stories: de Camp was reluctant to use technological or scientific concepts (e.g. hyperspace or faster-than-light travel)if he did not think them possible. This, his response to Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court was to write a similar time travel novel (Lest Darkness Fall) in which the method of time travel was rationalized and the hero's technical expertise both set at a believable level and constrained by the technological limitations of the age." So, in a sense, Lest Darkness Fall can be seen as a critique of the genre of sci-fi time travel into the past in which the time traveller is easily able to overawe the people of the past with their modern knowledge.
Ease of Availability     This is quite an easy book to find in paperback and Kindle format, but there does not seem to be an Audible audiobook available at this time.  Summary and Commentary - SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!     The first version of Lest Darkness Fall to see print did so in December 1939, and a later version was published in 1941. I start with this to give the reader some notion of the 20th century world in which de Camp was writing - on the eve of the Second World War, and rewritten during the war. When de Camp wrote disparagingly of Benito Mussolini, it was while Mussolini was an ongoing concern! The protagonist of the story is Martin Padway, a student of history and archaeology visiting Rome under Mussolini. His host, Professor Tancredi (named for the famous hero of the Crusades?), shares with him a theory of the nature of time. Time, he says, is like a tree. On occasion, he believes, when someone just seems to disappear off the face of the earth, they have somehow slipped down the trunk of the tree. Where they end up begins a new branch of the tree, completely separate from their original timeline (of course, otherwise all sorts of logical paradox problems arise). Tancredi further theorizes that history is tough four-dimensional web, but with weak points - focal points in history where backslippers in time would arrive - "places like Rome, where the world-lines of many famous events intersect."

     Conveniently, of course, soon after Professor Tancredi shares these thoughts with Martin Padway, this is exactly what happens. Tancredi drops Padway off at the Pantheon, where Padway takes refuge from a growing storm, and as thew "grand-daddy of all lightning flashes" struck nearby, "the pavement dropped out from under him like a trapdoor" - he hung in the midst of nothing, blinded by the flash. Then suddenly his feet hit the ground with an impact "about as strong as that resulting from a two-foot fall." Padway does not realize it, but he has slid back down the trunk of time and come to rest in late antique Rome, at the beginning of a new branch of history caused by his own presence.

     It is a common enough theme in Appendix N literature - the man outside of his own time and place, plucked from our world (well, in this case, now, the world of 1939 or so, a world now almost as alien in its own way!) and dropped into another. But instead of John Carter on Mars, or David Innes in Pellucidar, modern men making their way in alien worlds, Padway is in the past, in history, and cannot (like David Innes) hope to get help from his own world. Padway has only the contents of his own mind to sustain him, and no hope of anything else!

     Padway runs into the Pantheon for shelter from the storm, thinking it odd that the electric lights were not on. As he looks around, he sees that the modern trappings of Rome have disappeared and been replaced with ancient and primitive features. Listening to the chatter of the people around him, Padway realizes it is not Italian, nor is it Classical Latin, but some "late form of Vulgar Latin, rather more than halfway from the language of Cicero to that of Dante." A nice bit of attention to detail on the part of de Camp, who could expect in 1939 that any reasonably educated person reading his book would understand the references. I think it's a bit harder for modern readers to follow, sadly.

     Padway's first thought is to find a policeman, and tries out his ability to speak proto-Romance based on his knowledge of Latin and Italian. COULD this be done? Well, with fluency in Italian, and the kind of fluency in Latin expected of education before Sputnik made everything about STEM, yes, theoretically. When I traveled in Italy, I was able to make myself understood just based on my knowledge of Latin and the principles of linguistics (how words were likely to have changed into Italian, mostly). But for Padway, the very concept he's attempting - policeman - doesn't really translate; does he want an "agent of the municipal prefect"? He next tries to establish the date. Reckoning by Anno Domini (by the "Year of the Lord" - the number of years since the birth of the Christ) is not yet in fashion, but he learns it is 1288 Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City), which he is told is about "five hundred and something [years from the birth of the Christ]. Better ask a priest, stranger." (in fact, that would be the year 535 C.E. by out reckoning).

     Having roughly established where and when he is, with no way to return to the middle of the 20th century, Padway takes stock of his prospects for survival. He has little on him of practical value - no real technology from the future of use to him, no books, little hard currency. And really, what could he have that would change the world? My first Latin teacher, Mr. Hodge, played a little game with our class where would try to come up with one single thing to bring back and time to give to Julius Caesar (or whomever) and change the world. People came up with guns ("What happens when it runs out of bullets?"), radios ("To whom would he speak or listen?"), telephones (This before the age of smartphones or even ubiquitous cellphones - "Same problem - to whom would he speak? And without the network of telecom wires and cables?"), etc. Most students did not realize the problem. Mr. Hodge had thought when he gave the assignment that no student would come up with anything that would significantly change history. I changed his mind - my answer was "the stirrup" - replicable technology that would have introduced heavy cavalry - the armored medieval knight - at least five centuries early and could have changed the history of the whole planet! I was proud of that one! But anyway, Padway has nothing like that. He goes to a goldsmith/money-changer named Sextus Dentatus to try to convert the modern coins he has with him into Roman currency. He is offered a solidus for the whole lot. While he considers this, he is hailed in Gothic by a stranger who assumes from his outlandish garb that he must be a Goth.

     The stranger, Nevitta Gummud's son, convinces Dentatus to offer a better rate of exchange - 93 sesterces. Nevitta is there to get Dentatus to re-set a gem in a gold ring. He mentions that his house is under a curse, but when he describes the symptoms of this curse, Padway realizes that Nevitta is describing allergies, and suggests ways to alleviate the worst of the symptoms (have the dogs sleep outside, have the place swept well daily). Martin Padway, soon to be going by "Martinus," has realized that his 20th century knowledge can help him survive and perhaps even prosper in the past, if he is clever.

     Padway gets his new friend to recommend a lawyer (Valerius Mummius), a physician (Leo Vekkos), a banker (Thomasus the Syrian), and a place to stay (Nevitta helps him find a place and haggle to rent down from 7 to 5 sesterces). The next day, Padway goes to Thomasus the Syrian to try to procure a loan to start a business -perhaps making brandy? While there, he learns that the current ruler in Rome is Thiudahad, who murdered his co-ruler Queen Amalaswentha (an event in history of which Padway, as a historian, was aware, thus enabling him to orient himself somewhat in time). Again, the modern reader may be scratching his head, but it would not be unreasonable to assume that a historian of 1939 would know about such historical events that are now no longer taught much!

     Padway teaches Thomasus' clerks the use of Arabic numerals, and thus secures his loan at 10.5% interest. He hires a "dark, cocky little Sicilian named Hannibal Scipio" and they successfully distill some brandy, which impresses Thomasus. While out celebrating their production of brandy, a religious debate turns into a brawl, from which they are rescued by a Vandal named Fritharik Staifan's son. Padway hires out Fritharik as a guard a couple of weeks later. He also hires a serving-wench from Apulia named Julia.

     Once he is better-established in 6th century Rome, Padway finally gets around to doing some reading at a local library, including some works long-lost by the 20th century (how envious I am!). At the library he meets the patrician Cornelius Anicius and his daughter Dorothea, who appears to be intended as a love interest, though she does not reappear much.

      Padway and Thomasus visit the Baths of Diocletian, where Thomasus shares the latest news from Constantinople of a war between the Goths and the Byzantine Empire.

     Fritharik catches Hannibal Scipio stealing copper from the distillery and fires him. One senses that this will have ominous repercussions later . . .

     Soon thereafter, Padway begins to seriously contemplate the coming Dark Ages and whether or not he, one man, could change the course of history in order to somehow prevent the fall of civilization - "How to prevent darkness from falling?" Padway comes to the conclusion that he must build a printing press and become a printer. He soon discovers that creating a printing press from scratch is no easy task! None of the prerequisites, such as the paper, the ink, the type, and so forth yet exist! Nor are they easy to produce without the existing industries which make them!

     In the middle of February, Padway gets a visit from Nevitta, who notices that Padway is falling ill. He sends for his physician, Leo Vekkos, whose primitive medicine frightens Padway. Julia the housekeeper sends for her priest. Padway even has to chase away an astrologer!

     Sicily had fallen to the Byzantine general Belisarius in December. Now, in April of 536 C.E., Padway is ready to print his first book - an alphabet book, to help spread literacy. He also decides to begin a weekly newspaper - Tempora Romae ("The Times of Rome") - offered at 10 sesterces ("about the equivalent of fifty cents"). He enlists the city's scribes as journalists, but since there is no real concept of journalism as yet, he has to be careful of the gossip they keep turning in, particularly gossip about powerful nobles - Padway reminds himself that there is not yet any such thing as the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (which guarantees, among other things, freedom of speech and of the press).

     Padway soon realizes he cannot continue to publish on vellum - there are not enough animals to skin to meet the demand! - so he has a felter experiment with making rag paper. This is the sort of thing that an educated person at the time this book was written might reasonably be expected to come up with, though I suspect it would be a bit more challenging for the average person now!

      Over lunch with Fritharik and Ebenezer the Jew, Padway discovers that Thomasus the Syrian has sold the secrets of modern arithmetic for 150 solidi. Padway realizes that once he has loosed new technologies, they have a way of spreading without his knowledge or consent. Padway next tries to produce a clock, but finds this much harder than expected, even with his wristwatch for a model. He can't go to the Flaminian racetrack when Nevitta invites him because he's working on his newspaper, but agrees to visit Nevitta's farm in Campagna, where he discusses the future of the war against Belisarius with Nevitta's son Dagalaif.

     When Padway arrives back in Rome, he finds himself under arrest by order of the municipal prefect on charges of sorcery. Upon arrival at the jail, there is a debate about jurisdiction in a capital case involving a non-Gothic foreigner. He eventually finds that the complaint was sworn out against him by his prior employee, Hannibal Scipio. Padway is able to offer a bribe in the form of a promise to set up semaphore telecommunications, and a wedding announcement in his newspaper for the prefect's daughter.

     A semaphore telegraph sounds like exactly the sort of thing young D&D players were always trying to introduce to their medieval realms in the early 1980s. Primitive versions of existing tech, like the Professor on Gilligan's Island making cars out of coconuts - somewhat absurd, and only existing in the heads of characters because their players know about them and want them. But L. Sprague de Camp is being careful here, using technology that Padway would know about, be able to describe well enough to replicate, and is not absurd for its time and place - it's just that the Romans didn't think of it!

     Padway gets some Roman senators to invest in his semaphore signal towers, but makes sure that he has controlling interest in his corporation. He visits Florianus the Glazier to get lenses for the telescopes he'll need . . . and finds the man just can't deliver. So many things we would take for granted that Padway would be able to have made are impossible to obtain! Eventually, he gets some crude telescopes made by a glazier named Andronicus in Naples.

     Padway gets the Roman Telegraph Company under construction, but the Goths halt construction under suspicion that the project could be pro-Greek somehow! He needs to appeal to King Thiudahad. Padway journeys with Fritharik to Ravenna to seek an audience - requiring a bribe of 5 solidi and a bottle of brandy to get a timely one! Padway ends up bribing the king to get the project underway again!

     But upon returning to Rome, Padway finds that his lieutenant at the newspaper, George Menandros, printed some libel about the Pope! He tries to round up all the papers before they are distributed, but gets arrested by the Gothic authorities (again), and needs to bribe his way out of trouble (again).

     At this point, the first leg of the Telegraph Company is due to be completed in a week or so. Padway is coerced into a romantic liason with his housekeeper Julia, but when he breaks it off, he finds her priest, Father Narcissus, preaching against sorcery. "Padway feared a mob of religious enthusiasts more than anything on earth, no doubt because their mental processes were so utterly alien to his own." So Padway goes to the local bishop and reveals that he works hard to suppress scurrilous rumors about the clergy, and the bishop puts pressure on Father Narcissus to leave Padway alone.

     Padway bets Thomasus one solidus that Evermuth the Vandal will desert to the Imperialists. The first message received over the Telegraph is that Belisarius landed at Reggio and that Evermuth had gone over to him. But now King Thiudahad orders Padway to stop operating the Telegraph - word of Evermuth's desertion had been all over Rome within hours of it happening, which was very bad for morale! Through Thiudahad, Padway meets Cassiodorus, who likes him, though he is horrified by Padway's plans to print his newspaper in Vulgar Latin. He makes some inroads into polite society ("a couple of very dull dinners that began at four p.m. and lasted most of the night"), and accepts an invitation from Cornelius Anicius, bringing Fritharik with him. He overhears Cornelius preparing a speech (plagiarizing Sidonius). He comes close to a romantic engagement with Dorothea, but nothing comes of it. Later, Padway learns that Cornelius Anicius wants Padway to publish his poetry.

     In August of 536 C.E., Naples fell to Belisarius. A son of King Thiudahad names Thiudegiskel causes some trouble, trying to bully Padway, but he is chased off. Nevertheless, Padway decided to move his business to Florence, since as far as he could "remember his Procopius, Florence had not been besieged or sacked in Justinian's Gothic War" - but Padway is not half done with his preparations to move when soldiers come from the garrison to arrest him (again). He tries to bribe his way out of trouble again, but is unsuccessful this time - Thiudegiskel has accused him of colluding with the Greek Imperialists! Padway is put into a prison-camp at the north end of the city, between the Flaminian Way and the Tiber. After a few days, he hears about a moot called by the Goths to discuss the loss of Naples. He bets a patrician prisoner a solidus that "they depose Thiudahad and elect Wittigis king."

     Thomasus the Syrian is able to bribe his way in to visit Padway, and even bring him things needed for painting. Padway offers the captain of the guards, Hrotheigs, a portrait, and after that, he is allowed to paint landscapes from atop the camp's walls (under guard, of course). Soon after, Thiudegiskel is imprisoned in the same camp, since his father was deposed. Padway begins to consider the problem of whether or not he can truly change history, to prevent a long and devastating war in Italy. He gets Thomasus to smuggle in some sulphur and rope for him; he uses the sulfur to cause a distraction and the rope to escape over the wall.

     Padway goes to the home of Nevitta for help, and proposes to win the war for the Goths, thus changing history. Next, he goes to await Thiudahad on the Flaminian Way, hoping to catch the former king on his panicked flight to Ravenna. He warns Thiudahad that if he returns to Ravenna, he will be killed. The assassin sent to kill Thiudahad, Optaris, catches up with them and Padway is forced to fight him - he wins (more by accident than anything else).

     By September, Padway and Thiudahad are back in Rome. Using knowledge acquired in the future that Belisarius will come up the Latin Way in November, Padway plans for the defense of Rome. He is able to calculate where Belisarius' army will make camp near Fregellae, and has a large catapult ready with loads of sulfur paste to shoot into the Byzantine camp. His Goths have shields painted white for recognition. It seems well-planned, but Padway runs into problems of execution when his Gothic artillery crew decide it more honorable to charge into combat than wait for orders to fire the catapult again (a similar point is made repeatedly in Harry Harrisons' The Hammer and the Cross about the unsuitability of the ancient warrior ethos to modern military discipline, with soldiers - in Harrison, Vikings - unwilling to restrain themselves and follow orders when there is personal glory to be won!). The Gothic commander Liuderis is killed, leaving Padway in command of the Gothic forces.

     Padway captures Belisarius and tries to recruit him, but Belisarius will not forsake his oath - "the word of Belisarius is not to be questioned." He resolves to recruit Belisarius' secretary Procopius of Caesarea as a historian.

     Next, Padway and Thiudahad intercept the returning generals Asinar and Grippas, and turn their armies against Wittigis in Ravenna. They get into the city and head to St. Vitalis' church, where Wittigis intends to marry Mathaswentha, daughter of the mudered Queen Amalawentha, against her will. Padway is able to capture Wittigis and send him to Thomasus the Syrian as a prisoner.

     Padway thinks he is falling in love with Princess Mathaswentha, and she with him, but he discovers he does not truly love her when he begins to realize just how bloodthirsty she really is. He tries instead to arrange a match between her and Urias, Wittigis' nephew.

     Padway plans to extend the Telegraph, move the capital to Florence, and start a newspaper and school there. He wants to put Urias in charge of an academy for Gothic officers, and to introduce the crossbow and better armor.

     Trouble next comes in the form of Hlodovik, an envoy of the Franks, to whom Wittigis made certain promises as King that cannot be honored. Next, an envoy of the Bulgarian Huns - Boyar Karojan - they had an offer from Justinian to refrain from invading Byzantine territories, and the Huns wonder if they can get a better offer from Thiudahad. This envoy is sent away as well.

     Then General Sisigis on the Frankish frontier sends word of suspicious Frankish activity, and a letter from Thomasus that someone tried to assassinate Wittigis (apparently an old time secret agent of Thiudahad), and a letter is received from Justinian refusing peace with the Gothic kingdom - and releasing Belisarius from his vows. So Padway shuffles around military commands, sending Belisarius to face the Franks.

     Next, Padway tries to make gunpowder. The modern reader might be surprised that he did not attempt it earlier, but despite the ease with which this hurdle is cleared in popular culture (e.g. Bruce Campbell Vs. the Army of Darkness), the formula can be somewhat elusive if one does not already know how to make it. He a;so has trouble getting serviceable cannon from a brass foundry, but even once he has the cannon, he can't get the gunpowder formula quite right.

     Padway gives Urias his blessing to court Mathaswentha.

     Next, Padway gets word that Wittigis has somehow escaped detention, tried to kill Thiudahad, and was in turn killed by the guards. But Thiudahad is becoming increasingly unhinged, and is now generally recognized to have lost his mind. A new election is to be held at Florence, with Urias as a candidate after marrying Mathaswentha. Unfortunately, Thiudahad's son (and Padway's old nemesis) Thiudegiskel has a strong following among conservative Goths for the election - undermined a bit by having a child slave call him "atta" ("papa!") in public! So Urias is elected the new king.

     They then receive word of a new Imperial invasion coming up from Bruttium. While Urias organizes the defense of Italy, Padway resumes experiments with gunpowder. The war goes poorly at first, as Thiudegiskel joins the Imperial forces. But Padway issues an edict in Urias' name emancipating the serfs of Bruttium, Lucania, Calabria, Campania, and Samnium to fight against the Imperial forces. A second edict recalls Belisarius from Provence.

     By May of 537 C.E., Padway is at Benevento with his forces, bringing pikes to arm former serfs. He meets up with Dagalaif and learns that his old friend Nevitta died in battle. Padway tries to help with what techniques he can in the war against the Imperial forces. The arrival of Belisarius' reinforcements help to complete the victory.

     Dorothea is furious with Padway for the financial ruin of her family due to Padway's policies freeing the serfs - no romance for Padway!

     But Padway sees that his Telegraph, printing press, new postal system, etc. have become too well-rooted to be be destroyed by accident. He successfully turned a long, brutal, ruinous war into a short conflict, and changed the outcome. History had been changed. "Darkness would not fall."

     That's the rather unsatisfying ending de Camp gives this piece. The rather terse assertion that darkness - the Dark Ages - would fail to come about due to Padway's interference, at least in his branch of history.

     While one can see the influence of this kind of fiction on Gary Gygax, it is subtle and indirect. There is no module or campaign setting one can point to and say, "There! THAT was Gygax' homage to Lest Darkness Fall!" Time travel is not featured much in Old School modules. In fact, the only old module that addresses time travel well is CM6 Where Chaos Reigns, a great module I'd love to see revamped for a more modern audience - but it has little to do with Lest Darkness Fall. 



     There have been other attempts to use time travel in a FRPG setting (such as 2nd edition D&D's Chronomancer), but these were rather disappointing on the whole. It would be interesting to see someone attempt a OSR module inspired by Lest Darkness Fall. 

     I hope you enjoyed my thoughts about Lest Darkness Fall. Please join me again for future installments of Appendix N Revisited, on or around the Ides of each month! 
Until next time . . . Happy Reading! Skál!~ Colin Anders Brodd
Villa Picena, Phoenix, Arizona

Running a bit late - originally this post was scheduled for July, and I didn't get around to posting it until September! 
Next up for Appendix N Revisited: August Derleth (with H.P. Lovecraft)!

Report from the Road: The Chained Coffin at Crit Hit 2017!

      On Sunday, July 16th, 2017, at Crit Hit 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona (held at the Hilton Phoenix Airport), I ran DCC #83, "The Chained Coffin" as a Road Crew event for the Goodman Games World Tour 2017! Here's the report:
     I had six openings, and four players showed up. Two of them had played in my "Viking Crawl Classics" even the day before, and decided to switch from what they had originally planned to play DCC again (I took that as a very good sign). I had created pregenerated 5th level characters using Purple Sorcerer's generators. The players and their characters were:
* Jake: Azgelasgus, the First Father of Justicia (Cleric of Justicia)* Nick: Zorathus the Soothsayer (Wizard)* Fabian: Athelstane the Swindler (Thief)* Ryan: Iminix the Elder (Elf) and his demonic python familiar, Ilnarek.
SPOILER ALERT! If you have not read or played The Chained Coffin, and do not wish to see spoilers, you may want to stop reading at this point. I have tried to be vague about any details that would give away the secrets and puzzles of the adventure! Anyway . . . 
     Azgelasgus, the First Father of Justicia, had been drawn by dreams he believed sent by his goddess to a cave sealed by a boulder. He and his companions moved the boulder and entered the dead cave. They were attacked by undead Barrow Bones. Justicia's power to Turn Unholy sent the snake-man bones slithering away, while the party destroyed the ox-headed Bones. They found the eponymous Chained Coffin containing Zugun and were moved by Zugun's story (though a little distrustful at first - they almost decided to waste precious time by seeking out a temple of Justicia where they could verify Zugun's story, but in the end decided that Justicia would not have sent them on this mission if it were not true). 
     So the party headed to the settlement of Bent Pine at the edge of the Shudder Mountains. Realizing that the Shudfolk were superstitious folk, Azgelasgus did most of the talking, leaving the less savory members of the party (a thief, and elf, and a wizard!) to guard the Chained Coffin and keep it out of sight. Azgelasgus bought a horse and a travois to carry the Chained Coffin up into the Deep Hollows, as well as some basic supplies, and laid a Blessing on the trader that sold them supplies (he rolled really well for this blessing - the horse stables in Bent Pine are very prosperous now!). 
     The party traveled into the Deep Hollows. They found the gave of Japthon of the Fiddle, and urged by the fiddler's spirit, Zorathus the Soothsayer took the silver-stringed fiddle. He practiced with that fiddle on their trip through the Shudder Moutains, and got quite good at it, as far as the dice rolls were concerned. The player used his cell phone to play short clips of tunes for which his character was performing a "fiddle version," which was a very nice touch. 
     At the crossroads, the PCs ran into Ol' Blackcloak, who offered them all kinds of help, but neither Azgelasgus nor Zugun wanted the party to make any kind of deal with the old devil. They decided to forego his help, though some members of the party had occasion to wonder whether that was a mistake. Zorathus played his silver-stringed fiddle and drove Ol' Blackcloak away. 
      Zugun really did become a member of the party, too. They turned to him for what little advice he could offer about their mission, but also such things as discussing what herbs might be good for cooking around the campfire and such. I think some players found him a bit annoying, the way I played him, but he definitely came across as a real person with a genuine personality, not just "a voice from a box." 
     The party tried to decipher clues from a song they overheard in Bent Pine and rumors they had heard from some of the Shudfolk, and mostly by luck managed to get on a good track to lead them to their destination. I didn't help them - I didn't really care if they just wandered around lost in the Shudders, as long as they were having fun - but they actually got on a pretty direct path to where they needed to go, just by random chance! 
     They had some random encounters on the way, and the wackiness that DCC RPGmakes possible became clear when an encounter with a Giant Rattlesnake met with a Snake Charm spell and some characters ended up riding the Giant Rattlesnake as a mount for a while. They did come upon the cabin of the Sin Eater, who nearly convinced them all to disarm before he attacked them. Ultimately, Zorathus used the fiddle to Banish the Sin Eater. 
     In the end, they defeated the Bad Lick Beast, got over the Bad Lick Bridge, and encountered the puzzle lock. There was some clever use of some Patrons, Patron spells, and such to guess a solution to the puzzle without much damage to the party. So they reached the place before Boak's party and were waiting for him. 
     The climax was somewhat of an anti-climax, but no one seemed to mind much. Boak and Malucius showed up with their demons, and Boak began to transform into a champion of chaos. But a Spellburn and Luck maxed-out Emirikol's Entropic Maelstrom took out Boak and Malucius, dissolving them down to the molecular level, leaving the party with only a couple of demons to fight. Zorathus was forced to use the fiddle as a weapon to strike a demon, smashing the fiddle but achieving a Critical Hit! In the end, the heroes triumphed and Zugun went to his eternal reward, leaving the PCs to pry gemstones out of the battlefield by way of monetary reward. 
     Everybody had a great time. Two of the players had been in my game the day before, but this was basically the players' first exposure to DCC RPG, and it's always great when the game ends and I end up answering questions about how to get the DCC book, where to find the funky dice, etc. More converts made to the DCC madness! 

Report from the Road: Viking Crawl Classics at Crit Hit 2017!

      On Saturday, July 15th, 2017, at Crit Hit 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona (held at the Hilton Phoenix Airport), I ran a homebrewed "Viking Crawl Classics" adventure for a Road Crew event for the Goodman Games World Tour 2017! Here's the report:

     As many of my readers will already know, I've had a Viking-themed fantasy campaign setting called Midhgardhur that I've been toying with since about 2004 or so, and in which I started running a regular Pathfinder campaign in 2011 (and managed on Obsidian Portal as "Heroes of Midhgardhur"). This post in in an author's blog I maintain because I also write fantasy novels and short stories set in that world (shameless plug!). As soon as DCC came out, I wanted to adapt my setting to those rules, but I have not have not really had the time or opportunity to work much on it. So I decided to try it as a Road Crew event to playtest some ideas at the local Crit Hit convention.

     I had six openings, and four players showed up. I had created pregenerated 3rd level characters using Purple Sorcerer's generators, then added some tweaks of my own for the setting. The players and their characters were:

* Keith: Gudhrun the Gydhja of Freyja (Cleric of the Vanic goddess Freyja), who had been raised an herbalist
* Robert: Eitri the Alfur (Elf), who had started his career as an elven forester
* Fabian: Eldgrimur the Runecaster (Wizard), an armorer before he was initiated into the mysteries of the runes
* Ryan: Ragnhildur the Red Shieldmaiden (Warrior with berserker Mighty Deeds), a hunter before she became a warrior.

     The party started out in the small settlement of Luleastadhir, near the northernmost point in the bay called the Helsingjabotn, which was frozen over for the winter, preventing travel by longship. Due to a nearby outbreak of a plague called the Red Fever which resisted magical curing, Jarl Grundi asked for volunteers willing to cross the dangerous wilderness to the south and east on foot to reach the settlement of Vyborg, where the healers had a treatment for the Red Fever. The PCs agreed to go on the quest, of course.

     The players were very smart throughout most of the session. Only Keith had played DCC before, so it was a great opportunity to showcase some of the things that make DCC special. The players got some advice from the Jarl's advisor, a runecaster named Orm-Barri who had a tiny shoulder dragon familiar, but they decided to buy a local shepherd named Sorli some mead and ask about the wilderness they were to cross. They got some good intelligence on the road ahead this way. They stocked up on mead and provisions before they left, and Gudhrun spent the night in prayer before their departure.

     The morning of their departure, they sought an oracle from a local spaekona (seeress) named Sigga. I ran this like an extra Birth Augur for the duration of the adventure. The spaekona sat on a wooden platform and entered a trance to tell the group's fortune. I rolled 3d6 as if for an attribute, and came up with a number that would have given a +1 bonus. So she predicted good fortune for the party. I rolled on the Birth Augur table and came up with Charmed House, for Armor Class, so all the PCs got a +1 to AC for the duration of the adventure. I think it was clear to the players that it could as easily have been a prophecy of doom, a penalty to something rather than a bonus.

     Feeling emboldened by Sigga's prophecy of good fortune, the party set out across the wilderness. On the first day, they sighted campfires in the woods to the east of the shoreline they were following, and they decided to investigate. It turned out to be an encampment of Kvenir, a reindeer-herding nomadic people of the area. The party decided to try to deal with them peacefully, and so traded mead for hospitality and warnings about the road ahead. The Kvenir welcomed them to their camp, especially in exchange for mead!

      As the party continued along the coast, they began to see signs that there was something big and nasty nearby - animals with impossibly large bites taken out of them, but the bite marks looked human (there was a hunter and a forester among the professions of the PCs). They determined that a frost giant was hunting in this region. They tried to avoid the frost giant's territory, but it found them, emerging from the woods hurling boulders at them. It seemed to be insane, perhaps sick or an outcast from its tribe.

     The battle with the frost giant went surprisingly well. Eldgrimur got off a Reduce spell early on, shrinking the giant to half its size (still bigger than even the Vikings in this party, but much more manageable!). The frost giant did get off a critical hit on Eitri the Alfur, breaking his arm, but the heroes defeated the giant. Gydhja was able to heal the broken arm by invoking Freyja (the new players seemed pretty impressed by DCC's "lay on hands" mechanics, which account for things like healing broken limbs - also, Keith role-played his prayers to Freyja really well!).  

     Here, though, the party diverged from their mission a little bit. It occurred to them that the giant might have a lair and treasure nearby, so they tracked his trail into the forest for a while. This led them to some strange hills that they soon realized were haugar (ancient burial mounds)! At this point, the PCs decided that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to divert so far from their mission, and prepared to head back to the coast. Unfortunately, they were set upon by draugar (undead wights from the burial mounds).

     The battle against the draugar was fierce, especially since Gudhrun's attempt to "turn unholy" did not have much effect. Some of the undead seemed to have a paralytic touch, like ghouls, and fortunately Gudhrun was able to heal Eldgrimur the Runecaster when he became paralyzed (this took a couple of tries - there was some Disapproval, and Gydhja rolled a result that required her to remove her armor and clothing to become closer to the goddess. Some hilarity ensued as the cleric stripped out of her armor and clothing in the icy cold wilderness to heal the wizard!). The draugar seemed to be a pretty serious threat, so Eitri cast a patron spell, Warhorn of Elfland, to call upon the aid of his Patron, the Vanic god Freyur. Freyur sent a small army of minor landvaettir ("land-wights," nature spirits) to help the Pcs defeat the unnatural draugar, but it was clear that Eitri now owed service to Freyur in the future.

     Continuing on their journey towards Vyborg, the party entered a mountain pass that was said to occasionally be the lair of an isormur, an "icewyrm" (frost dragon). Unfortunately, they saw signs that there were more frost giants about as well (perhaps the tribe from which the mad giant they had faced earlier had been cast out). They climbed some cliffs to avoid the frost giants, narrowly escaped a seductive fey water spirit in a frozen lake, and got most of the way through the mountain pass before some failed Luck checks meant that they had attracted the attention of the ice wyrm, a linnorm-like creature. It came barreling out of a burrow in the ice to attack them, and it had a Frightful Presence that sent them running back into the mountain pass . . . towards the frost giants!

     Eitri the Alfur was able to call upon his Patron, Freyur, again (we were all joking afterwards that this party owes a year and a day's service to the Vanir for all this help) and used Spellburn to achieve the highest result on Invoke Patron! The PCs all became champions of Vanaheimur, like avatars of the Vanir, for their battle with the dragon! Ragnhildur the Red Shieldmaiden went berserk (prompting me to quote the movie Erik the Viking - "It's no use going berserk against a dragon!") The fight was pretty epic, and Ragnhildur was pretty badly wounded, but a combination of sorceries brought down the beast - a Paralysis prayer from Gudhrun immobilized the monster (Keith rolled really well and I rolled a 1 for the save!), another blast on the Warhorn of Elfland brought more landvaettir warriors to attack the beast, and Spellburn on a Flaming Hands from Eldgrimur the Runecaster finished it off! The party was overjoyed at having defeated a dragon . . . and then they heard the approach of several frost giants, who heard the commotion of the battle and wanted to investigate! 

     The party stood triumphant over the corpse of the dragon as the giants came into view, trying to look intimidating ("We just killed a frickin' dragon!") They said they wanted to intimidate the giants by calling out to them, so I called for a Personality roll, and it came up a natural 20! So I ruled that the attempted intimidation with the corpse of the dragon as a prop was enough to send the frost giants running for reinforcements. The party decided to claim trophies from the dragon to prove their claims (like, "I'm going to carve a new drinking horn from a horn or tooth of the dragon!") and they hurried down out of the mountains to get to Vyborg, where the king welcomed the dragonslayers to his hall and agreed to send healers back to Luleastadhir.

      The party decided that they would later go loot the dragon's lair, and take care of that tribe of frost giants, but it might have to wait until they had paid their debts to Freyur and the Vanir . . . so that would be another saga  . . .

      We ended the game at that point, but I always feel I've done my job well if they players start asking, "So wait, where can I get this core rulebook? How much does it cost? Are there any other books you'd recommend? What about that Steel and Fury supplement you had at the table?" I feel like I made some converts to DCC, which is always great. Keith was a big help with explaining the rules and talking up the game, too!

I Promise That I Am Still Alive (So Far . . .)

Hello everyone,



     I realize that it may appear, to those who follow me on my blogs and Facebook groups and such, as if I have fallen off the face of the Earth. I promise that I am indeed still alive. I have had a lot happen, including moving forward with the adoption of one of my foster sons (yay!) and a great weekend of gaming at Crit Hit 2017 (also yay!). Tomorrow (knock on wood) I should have a day to myself to catch up on writing and updating everything (e.g., I'm several days late already for the next installment of Appendix N Revisited - Lest Darkness Fall Revisited, I want to post Road Crew reports for some of the DCC games I ran at Crit Hit 2017, I just went over a week without being able to keep up with my Camp NaNoWriMo writing, etc., etc.). Updates are coming!

Happy Reading! Skál!
~ Colin Anders Brodd

Word Count Wednesday - The Trade, The Mad King, and The Giants!

Hello everyone,


     Once again it is Word Count Wednesday! So, I finished one project for Tales From Midhgardhur on Channillo - "The Trade" - which weighs in at about 6280 words. It was a piece I've had rattling around in my head for a while, and finally had to come out. It is scheduled to post on Channillo on Friday, 6/23/17. I also started another piece, "Luck of the Lytlingar," which doesn't really have a word count yet - it's still in the sketching/outlining stage. About time one of the "Little People" of Midhgardhur gets to be in a story! These would be my May and June installments, and then I'm working on July before Camp NaNoWriMo gets here!



     I now have enough of the Tales for a Volume II, except that I liked the way the first volume ended with a novella ("The Tale of Halfdanur the Black" - also available as a Kindle novella!), and I wanted to do that again. I wasn't sure I had another story like that right now, but it turns out that I do - I've started work on "The Tale of Ingjaldur the Mad", which currently weighs in at about 2180 words. I'm hoping to hit at least 20,000 before I'm done, though that may be overly ambitious. Midhgardhur's "Ingjaldur the Mad" is based on our world's pyromaniac king, Ingjaldr hinn illráði, and is usually cited in my world as the reason why the Sviar have no king. Incidentally, Ingjaldur has appeared in the "Tales" before, in the story "Ingjaldur's Crown", which also features Asa Oathkeeper. 

     Speaking of whom, I should remind you that I already announced my Camo NaNoWriMo project for this July - a sequel (at last!) to The Saga of Asa Oathkeeper! The tentative title is "Asa Oathkeeper Among The Giants," and will feature a journey to Jotunheimur - the World of Giants! This project has no word count until July - then, hopefully, watch the word count soar! (Hopefully better than a leaf on the wind!)

     Lastly, I am still working on the final (?) edit of Ormsbani . I had been getting some great feedback from the Armadillo Authors' Workshop, but then I ran into some car trouble and had to stop going for a bit. Last Thursday I resumed my attendance, but accidentally left my work at home, so no new feedback or edits! How sad! But I do intend to go tomorrow, and I've already packed my pages. So if all goes well I'll be there - if you're an author in the Phoenix, Arizona area, by all means come on down to the Armadillo Grill down on Camelback on Thursdays from 7 - 9 PM and join us! 

     I think that's it for tonight!

Happy Reading! Skál!
~ Colin Anders Brodd

Word Count Wednesday: The Trade, Ormsbani edits, and a Commitment Among The Giants

Hello everyone,



     Once again it is Word Count Wednesday! I just started on a new piece for Tales From Midhgardhur on Channillo entitled "The Trade." The current word count on that project is just under 2000 words.

    I have also committed to beginning work on a sequel to The Saga of Asa Oathkeeper for Camp NaNoWriMo in July. The working title is Asa Oathkeeper Among the Giants. Word count will remain at 0 until July 1st, when the NaNoWriMo madness will begin!

     I just finished integrating the last edits suggested by the Armadillo Authors' Workshop for the manuscript of Ormsbani . The editing of Ormbani is such a weird process - I cut huge, unnecessary chunks from the text, but then I add a paragraph here and there, and I think the balance often comes out about even. The current word count is 71,730. I haven't been able to attend the workshop for a few weeks due to major car trouble - and the final verdict is that my car would cost more to repair than the car itself is worth. But I'm hoping to get down there again tomorrow night. If you're an author in the Phoenix, Arizona area, feel free to join us at the Armadillo Grill down on Camelback. We're a friendly group!



     I'm also tinkering with a first draft of Tyrfingur , but that is in very early stages. It is still at a word count of 1730 or so.



     The latest installment of my "Appendix N Revisited" project posted yesterday, with a look at Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria by Lin Carter. Check it out!


     Don't forget to join me on the Ides of July for a look at L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall!



Happy Reading! Skál!
~ Colin Anders Brodd

Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria Revisited - Appendix N Revisited, Part 6

Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria Revisited Appendix N Revisited, Part 6


     Hello, and welcome to the sixth installment of my "Appendix N Revisited" project! As I mentioned previously, in the course of this project, I want to revisit the classics of fantasy fiction, weird fiction, and science fiction that made up "Appendix N" to the original Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax, both to explore their influence on my Hobby (RPGs) and my own writing and conception of fantasy fiction. The sixth installment focuses on Lin Carter and Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria. If you have never read the book and wish to avoid spoilers, you should stop reading at this point, as I shall be discussing the book in some detail.

     Linwood Vrooman Carter (1930-1988), a "posthumus collaborator" with Robert E. Howard (also of Appendix N) and Clark Ashton Smith (who was left off of Gygax's list for Appendix N, which has been considered inexplicable by many who are certain that Gygax read Smith and was influenced by his work), writer of pastiches of H.P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany (both also of Appendix N) - I encountered him for the first time as the author of the forward to a collection of Lovecraft stories. I was very young, maybe not even a teen yet, and I thought "Lin" was a woman's name (I was very surprised years later to find "Lin Carter" referenced as "he/him" in something!). Anyway, he often did, Gygax added a notation to the Appendix N entry for Lin Carter - "World's End" series. In such notations, Gygax did not always mean that the book or series referenced was the only one he read or thought had influence, it seems to me that it usually means that the particular notation was something he considered particularly memorable or noteworthy at the time he compiled the appendix. In this case, I do not yet own a copy of the "World's End" books, but they're on my wishlists. Instead, I decided to go with Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria, a basic sword-and-sorcery yarn.
Ease of Availability     I acquired the Kindle edition of Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria quite inexpensively, as well as a few more books in the series. There do not seem to be audiobook editions available at this time from Audible (though there are audiobooks for the World's End series, I note!).  Summary and Commentary - SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!     Lin Carter's Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria is a fairly generic sword-and-sorcery piece, almost a parody of the pulp genre. As such, it is actually less readable than I had hoped. The setting seems to be Earth of the unimaginably distant past, as it is in Howard's "Conan" stories, with references to the "Dawn Age" of the world and lost continents from the pulps, like Lemuria and Mu. I have since seen claims that it is meant to be an unimaginably far future, after some terrible apocalypse, but that theory does not seem to be supported by what Carter wrote in this book. Maybe the other books in the series that I have not yet read will shed more light on the origins of that theory. The book is dedicated to L. Sprague de Camp, who has the distinction of being mentioned twice in Appendix N.

     Each chapter of the book has a fanciful title, like "Red Swords in Thurdis" or "Dark Wings Over Chush," accompanied by an epigraph. The epigraph invariably comes from some fictional work, such as The War-Song of the Valkarthan Swordsmen or The Lemurian Chronicles. Quite a few of the epigraphs are from staves of Thongor's Saga, apparently an "in-world" piece of literature that tells roughly the same story that Carter's work tells in ours.

     Anyway, the protagonist of this book is Thongor of Valkarth, a man cut from much the same cloth as Howard's more familiar Conan - a barbarian, contemptuous of the scorn heaped upon him by soft, weak, "civilized" men. We meet him as he is about to start a tavern brawl with Jeled Malkh, an otar (a type of nobleman) under whom he had served as a mercenary, and who was now trying to cheat Thongor. Some purple prose later ("Steel rang against steel as the barbarian mercenary and the jewled scion of the noblest house in all of Thurdis fought"), and Thongor ends up killing his opponent before being knocked unconscious from behind.

     Thongor awakens in prison, surely facing execution, but remains Stoically calm in the fashion of the "easy come, easy go" manner of the sword-and-sorcery hero ("he simply shrugged, with the fatalistic philosophy of he North that wastes no time worrying over what cannot be helped"). He plans to escape, but an ally comes to help him break out - Aid Turmis, a "thin-blooded Thurdan" but a fighting man nonetheless, whom he first met in a similar prison in Zangabal across the Patangan Gulf, where there was apparently an incident with a sorcerer whose house they burned down. So we establish that Thongor is used to landing in prison for his escapades, Aid Turmis has brought him his great Valkarthan broadsword and a dark cloak, and leads him to an exit from the prison.

     Thongor had planned to steal a zamph (a kind of mount, later referred to as some type of reptile) and flee, but an alarm sounds and he realizes the stables will be guarded. Then he notices the Sark's (a title equivalent to "King") new "floater" - a flying boat of sorts, which the Sark's alchemist had constructed of urlium, the weightless metal. So of course, he decides to steal the floater instead. He easily defeats the guards and figures out the simple controls and takes off. He finds some supplies aboard (including a powerful, six-foot war bow of the sort used by the Blue Nomads). He flies through the night, navigating by the stars to the northwest. His course should take him over Patanga and later Kathool.

     He has reasons to avoid Patanga - the city is "dominated by the yellow-robed Druids who worshipped Yamath, God of Fire, by burning women alive on his red-hot altars of fiery bronze," and rumors said that the princess Sumia of Patanga was practically a prisoner in her own palace, since the Yellow Druid Vaspas Ptol had virtually taken over Patanga since the death of her father, the former Sark. Phal Thurid, the Sark of Thurdis, wanted to marry her in order to annex Patanga. No, this was all too complicated for Thongor, who wants to lead a simple, mercenary life. He wants to head to Kathool, "whose Sark needed warriors to protect his jungled borders from the savages of Chush." So Thongor sets the controls and falls asleep in the floater, expecting to wake up somewhere near Kathool.

      When Thongor wakes up, the endless jungles of Chush are below him. He realizes that the floater kept running until the springs wound down that powered the rotors, but then  the winds carried the floater far off course into Chush. He ends up in a battle with several monsters of Chush that see the floater as a possible meal - a grakk, the "lizard-hawk" of Chush (soon joined by another), and a dwark, the "jungle dragon," Thongor tried to pilot the floater away, but the grakks attack and the floater crashes into a tree and becomes wedged in its branches, and Thongor falls to the jungle floor. He starts to make his way through the jungle on foot, armed only with his broadsword, evading the blood-sucking slith vines, dragging the floater along by its rope. Then he realizes that the dwark is still stalking him.

     Despite his courage and prowess, Thongor knows he is no match for a dwark, so he tries to flee. He end up entangled in a vampiric slith vine, whose blossoms "emit a narcotic cloud of perfume that rendered its victims insensible" [an inspiration for some of the terrible plants of later RPGs, such as the Yellow Musk Creeper Vine in D&D?].




      Still trying to shake off the effects of this poison so he can make a final stand against the dwark, Thongor hears a voice saying, "Hold your breath, swordsman!" A tall, robed figure was standing there, holding a small steel chest. He hurled from it some blue powder at the dwark, which does not eat Thomgor. The man explains it is the "dust of the dream lotus . . . One grain will transport a man to the dreamworlds of fantastic pleasure within his own mind for many hours. The dragon has inhaled enough to render a fair-sized city unconscious." He introduces himself to Thongor as Sharajsha of Zaar, an enchanter.

     Thongor has heard of Zaar, "that weird city of magicians, far to the east" where the "Black Druids of Zaar were reputed to be devil-worshippers and devotees of the Dark Forces," as so keeps his broadsword handy. But Sharajsha invites Thongor back to his home for food, drink, and rest. Thongor reluctantly agrees. Like most sword-and-sorcery barbarians, he has no love or trust for sorcery, but he has heard of this wizard, Sharajsha the Great, called the Wizard of Lemuria by some, and could "not ever recall having heard anything dubious or evil concerning him," besides which Thongor had no fear of magic, even if he had no liking for it either. So Thongor accompanies Sharajsha back to his zamph, which will take them out of the jungles of Chush and to the wizard's home in the Mountains of Mommur. The wizard reveals that he saw Thongor's approach in his magical glass, and decided to rescue him, for "I have need of a warrior."

     Sharajsha's lair under the Mountains of Mommur is a series of vast, fantastic underground caverns filled with all manner of wonders. After Thongor bathes and has his wounds tended, he takes a long sleep, after which they feasted ("the wizard spread a fine table"), and the wizard listens to the tales of the barbarian's adventures. Thongor mentions his intent to seek service with the Sark of Kathool, or a similar city along the Gulf. Sharajsha shows him a map and offers to help repair the floater, perhaps in exchange for an offer of employment - "thus were they met at last, Thongor of Valkarth and Sharajsha of Zaar, and thus were the feet of the youthful warrior set on the first steps of that mighty road that would either lead him to the glory of a kingly throne, or to a black and terrible death."

     So, Thongor & Sharajsha retrieve the floater and bring it back to Sharajsha's underground lair, where the wizard begins repairs and Thongor explores the libraries and armories. When Thongor gets around to asking about his earlier statement that he had need of a warrior, the wizard says that he fears nothing less than "the destruction of the world."

     Sharajsha tells of the Dawn Age, and the Dragon Kings with their "cold, cunning intelligence: malign, clever, and inhuman." They evolved into the serpentmen who ruled elder Hyperborea. The Nineteen Gods created the First Men, starting with Phondath the Firstborn. The first city, Nemedis, was built on the shores of the ultimate east of Lemuria. The Dragon Kings invaded when the snows overwhelmed their realm at the pole, "and there was war . . ." In the Thousand-Year War, "the heroism of the First Kingdoms of Man stood against the overwhelming might and science of the Dragon Kings." Finally, the great leader of the First Men, Lord Thungarth, called upon the Father of the Gods, Gorm, who bestowed upon him the Sword of Nemedis, the Star Sword the gods had forged. Then the last heroes marched forth and drove back the Dragon Kings to the northern shores of Lemuria, when Thungarth fell and the Star Sword slaughtered the last of the Dragons.

      But Sharajsha reveals that Diombar the Singer (to whom some of the epigraphs at the beginnings of chapters are attributed) did not know the full story - that though the Dragon Kings fell, the Dragon wizards escaped to plot revenge upon the race of humans for millennia. "The Dragons plot a terrible vengeance that shall not only destroy mankind but wreck the very fabric of the cosmos." The Dragons seek to contact their dark gods, the Lords of Darkness that oppose the gods of men, the Lords of Light. When the Universe was created, they were exiled to the Chaos beyond, but the Lords of chaos plot to "re-enter space and time, to begin anew their stupendous conflict with the Gods of men." [The clash between Law and Chaos, between the powers the favor humanity and the forces which see humanity as insignificant, or even to destroy humanity, is very Appendix N!] The Dragons plot to open a portal through which the Lords of Chaos may enter space, which may be done when the stars are right - soon! 7007 years since Phondath the Firstborn was given life, "in just weeks we shall be into the hour of doom. The old year will pass - the Festival of the Year's End will come and go. It is within the first week of the the seven thousand and eighth year of man that the stars will be right for the Dragon Kings to reap their awful vengeance upon the world that drove them into exile."

     "Only one thing can destroy them and their monstrous plans" - "The same Sword that destroyed their power six thousand years ago. The Sword of Nemedis" - but it was said to have been broken in the Last Battle! Sharajsha knows how to reforge the Star Sword, but needs a warrior to wield it! Thongor agrees to be that warrior.

     After taking a week to repair the floater, Thongor and Sharajsha travel over Chush to Tsargol, the city of the Red Druids, where a "Star Stone" fell from the sky thousands of years ago. They seek to acquire a fragment of the Star Stone with which to forge a new blade. So they moor the floater to the top of the Scarlet Tower (where the Star Stone is kept) on a dark and cloudy night and Thongor climbs down into the tower to search for the stone.

     As he searches for the Star Stone, Thongor hears a strange slithering sound - it turns out to be a slorg, a woman-headed serpent of the Lemurian deserts [like a D&D naga, or a "lamia noble"]. Worse, he realizes that he can hear more of them coming. He begins to fight his way through them, beheading the monsters with his broadsword. He fights his way to a chamber where he finds the Star Stone - "a rough black mass of metal slag" - on an altar, and secures it to the cable to the floater. The Star Stone is lifted away, but more slorgs attack Thongor, and he if left to fight them as the floater drifts away . . .

"Naga" from the AD&D (1st edition) Monster Manual     Thongor awakens in a prison cell - the slorgs were apparently instructed to capture rather than kill intruders. Soldiers take him from his cell and bring him to the throne room of the Red Archdruid and the Sark (twin thrones for the two powers of the city, sacred and secular). They demand to know what Thongor has done with the sacred Star Stone, threatening tortures. Thongor decides it would be better to die in battle as his god, Father Gorm, would demand, rather than face a slow wasting death by torture, so he catches the guards off balance, gets hold of a spear, and charges the throne. He sends the Sark sprawling with a blow from his spear butt and the Red Archdruid vanishes as the guards try to retake Thongor. They succeed in recapturing him, and (as Thongor intended) the Sark condemns him to die in the arena for the humiliation he suffered (despite the wishes of the Archdruid that he be kept alive for questioning until the Star Stone is recovered).

     A much heavier guard is sent to take Thongor to the arena. There is another prisoner, the otar who previously led the guard, now punished for allowing Thongor to break free and threaten the Sark and Archdruid. His name is Karm Karvus, and he manages to earn Thongor's respect. As they are taken to the arena, the guard return Thongor's broadsword, for the Sark believes he will be more entertaining with his own weapon. They enter the arena facing the royal box where the Sark and Archdruid sit above a "grim iron gate made in the likeness of a horned human skull" - the "Gate of Death." The Sark gives the command to release the "Terror of the Arena" - a zamadar, "the most dreaded monster of all Lemuria" - a red-skinned, yellow-eyed creature of murderous rage, tremendous speed, a triple-row of foot-long fangs, and saliva of paralytic poison.

      Thongor and Karm Karvus fight the zamadar together, but quickly realize that their blades cannot pierce its leathery flesh. Thongor jumps onto its back to try to get at its eyes ("the only vulnerable portion of the beast's entire body"); he drives his broadsword through the zamadar's eyes and into its brain [a DCC RPG Mighty Deed of Arms if I ever heard one!], but it still takes a long time to die! Then Thongor says, "That is how a man fights, Sark of Tsargol. Now let us see how a man dies," and flings his broadsword, which transfixes the Sark's chest and causes him to stumble and fall from the box above to the sands of the arena below, almost at Thongor's feet. Thongor then retrieves his sword.

     Meanwhile, the Red Archdruid claims the Sark's fallen crown for himself. Just as his guards close in on Thongor and Karm Karvus, the floater descends on the arena, picking up the two warriors, and flies away!

     After introductions, Sharajsha reveals the next step - he has a fragment of the Star Stone, and he can forge a new blade for the Star Sword in the Eternal Fire in "the crypts below the High Altar of Yamath, Lord of Flame", in Patanga, the City of Fire. When the floater arrives over Patanga, Karm Karvus is left to guard the ship while Thongor and Sharajsha go to fulfill the quest. They make their way into the forbidden crypts below the city without incident, and Sharajsha begins working on the Star Sword. But a Yellow Druid and dome guards approach, forcing Thongor to defend the wizard while Sharajsha completes the task. Thongor fights well, but in the end both he and the wizard are knocked out by narcotic vapors and taken prisoner.

     Meanwhile, Sumia, the Sarkaja (or Princess, the terms being used interchangeably) of Patanga, is (as Thongor had been musing when he left Thurdis) imprisoned for resisting the advances of the Yellow Archdruid, Vaspas Ptol, who essentially took over the city when her father died. She is to be sacrificed this night, in the Festival of Year's End, to Yamath, the Dread Lord of the Fires. Thongor and Sharajsha are imprisoned with Sumia, still unconscious from the sleep vapors. When they awake, they discover that their manacles do not allow Thongor much movement, nor can Sharajsha use his magic with his hands so tightly bound.

     Guards come to take them to their sacrifice - "The flaming altars of Yamath await the three of you, the God's most honored guests. And the God is impatient." They are brought into the great Hall of the God, a gigantic circular room with a domed ceiling 200' above set with stained glass windows. On the far side of the room is the brazen idol of Yamath - 10x the height of a man, with a horned bald head and a great fanged mouth grinning beneath eyes in which fires have been lit [does this make anyone else think of the "Demon Idol" cover of the AD&D Player's Handbook, except without the gemstone eyes? You grognards know the one I mean!]


The altars were in the cupped hands of the idol of Yamath, which rested on his lap. The altars "were also of brass, hollow, and beneath them the furnaces raged. The victims would be chained nude upon these altars and roasted alive."

     As Thongor and his companions are marched to their certain death, he sees in the faces of the nobles of Patanga that they have no wish to see their Princess sacrificed, but they are unarmed, while the Yellow Druids carry swords, and "archers were ranged along the walls." At the base of the idol, the Yellow Archdruid Vaspas Ptol, dressed in jeweled robes of yellow velvet, halts them and offers Sumia a choice between accepting him embrace and ruling beside him, or "going to the fiery embrace of Yamath." She proudly refuses him, of course! So Vaspas Ptol prepares to sacrifice the three prisoners. They are bound upright to metal poles while the altars are being heated. Thongor begins to exert all of his massive strength against his bonds.

     They see that on the platform where the Yellow Archdruid stands lie Thongor's broadsword and the Sword of Nemedis, apparently intended to be hurled into the flames of Yamath as sacrifices as well. A Yellow Druid begins to strip the prisoners bare, starting with Sumia. Her gown is ripped away, and she stares ahead defiantly as he reaches out for her bare body. Just then, Thongor's titanic strength finally snaps the chains of the manacle holding him. He hurled the Druid who had stripped Sumia down onto an alter, where he fries!

     Thongor hurls the other priests off the platform, and uses the iron hilt of a Druid's dagger as a lever to snap Sumia's bonds and sets her to free Sharajsha, who then hurls magical bolts of lightning at their captors even as Thongor lays into them with a sword takes up from a fallen Druid! He gets to the platform where he retrieves his sword and the Star Sword, and turns to slay Vaspas Ptol, who leaps down to the floor below rather than face him. The stained glass windows above shatter, and the floater flies in to rescue them, piloted by Karm Karvus. The three climb aboard and the floater flies away to the northwest, seeking to reach the Mountain of Thunder before dawn . . . for the old year has ended, the new year has begun, and in just a few days the Dragon Kings would attempt to summon the Lords of Chaos!

     After the reunion of Karm Karvus with Thongor and Sharajsha, they introduce him to Sumia, rightful Sarkaja of the City of Fire. Sharajsha says that he completed the work of reforging the blade of the Star Sword before they were captured. They fill Sumia in on the situation with the Dragon Kings and she resolves to join them, since she is now an exile from her home city. They fly all day and night towards the Mountain of Thunder, and arrive late in the morning the next day. This is where the next step must be performed by Sharajsha alone - he will take the Star Sword to the peak and call down the primal powers of the elements in order to imbue the blade with them.

     While they wait for Sharajsha, Thongor spits, "Sorcery! Give me a good blade and a strong arm. That's all the sorcery one needs to fight an enemy!" [a pretty solid sword-and-sorcery barbarian attitude on the subject, and one which echoes that reported of those Vikings who scorned the aid of both Christ and pagan gods, preferring to rely on their own might and main]. Thongor watches the charming, civilized Karm Karvus conversing with Sumia, and feels a bit left out, as a rude barbarian who cannot converse with civilized princesses. Suddenly, though, Sumia screams! A grakk, a lizard-hawk like the ones that attacked him in Chush, is rushing to attack them! Thongor and Karm Karvus face the grakk together, saving Sumia, but they cannot defeat the grakk. Thongor sends Karm Karvus to get Sumia back to the floater while he hold off the grakk, but he is knocked out, snatched up, and carried off, leaving behind his broadsword!

     Thongor awakens in mid-air, still clutched in the claw of the grakk, unarmed and alone. The grakk drops him onto its nest on a high pinnacle of rock to feed its three offspring. He takes up a long white bone with a jagged edge as a weapon. He manages to slay the three grakklets, but is stranded atop a lofty pinnacle of rock with no way down, waiting for the mother grakk to return to the nest . . .

     Meanwhile, Sharajsha has returned from the peak of the Mountain of Thunder and the floater has set sail once more. Thongor's companions believe him dead, and "only hours remained before the moment of conjuration." They approach the Inner Sea of Neol-Shendis, and the Dragon Isles where they seek the Dragon Kings. The airship lands and the remaining heroes, hidden by the fog, "melted into the shadows under the walls of the black castle and vanished from sight" as they plan to infiltrate the stronghold of the Dragon Kings. The castle, in a nod to H.P. Lovecraft's sensibilities, is composed of cyclopean masonry whose "weird architecture of nightmare" seemed "designed according to the geometry of another world."

     Suddenly, "monstrous black forms loomed out of the mist toward them." They arm themselves, but to no avail - a "glittering black hand clamped down on Sharajsha's wrist with crushing force," and the "Star Sword fell in a dazzling arc from his nerveless grasp," falling down into the thundering waves. Sharajsha then tries to use his magic, but is knocked unconscious by "an uncanny force," and when Karm Karvus tries to fight, he too is incapacitated by magic. A black, taloned hand with seven fingers, covered in scales, closes on Sumia's shoulder. The Dragon Kings had detected their approach in the airship, and plan to offer their life-energy to the Lords of Chaos!

      Meanwhile, Thongor skins the grakklets in order to fashion a rope from their hides with which he might reach a ledge, from which he might make his way down from the heights - "it took him an hour to descend two hundred feet. But from there he would move more swiftly and surely, standing erect . . ." Reaching the bottom, Thongor follows a river towards the Inner Sea of Neol-Shendis, where lie the Dragon Isles. He has a run-in with some reptilian river-monster, and being unarmed, is forced to flee and take refuge in a cave. He follows the tunnels from the cave and emerges onto a rock not far from the Dragon Isles, out on the Inner Sea. He swims to the Dragon Isles, and finds the Sword of Nemedis in the surf by the shore! Thongor now assumes his companions must be dead, since they would not relinquish the Star Sword easily while alive!

     The prisoners, meanwhile, are contemplating their fate. Sharajsha has no access to his magic, for his sigils and talismans [like D&D spell components] were stripped from him by Sssaaa, the Arch-Priest of the Dragon Kings himself! Later, as the time for the ritual approaches, the Dragon Kings come to fetch Sharajsha, Karm Karvus, and Sumia to be sacrificed. They are led through the alien citadel to an inner courtyard where there are rings of nineteen-foot-tall black stone pillars surrounding a circular altar of ebony stone. The pillars are engraved with Dragon runes that Sharajsha shudders to read. A score of Dragon Kings bearing spheres of red light in their hands and strange helms of red metal on their heads await. The prisoners are affixed to this altar by manacles of the same red metal.

     The ritual reaches its climax as the stars turn red above, and reality itself seems to be rending apart. The carven hieroglyphics on the pillars glow, as do the manacles and helms of strange red metal. Sssaaa brings forth a sword of black metal with a pronged tip - the Sword of Sacrifice. Just as he is about to sacrifice Sumia to the Lords of Chaos . . . Thongor laughs behind him! Yes, Thongor is there, bearing the Star Sword. He points it at Sssaaa, and blasts of magical lightning arch from the Star Sword to the Sword of Sacrifice, then again to strike Sssaaa in his red metal helm, striking him down. Chaos ensues as the Dragon Kings try to flee, but the blasts from the Star Sword are shattering and toppling pillars onto them, annihilating them . . . The Dragon Kings are defeated!

     When it is all over, Thongor strikes off the manacles of his companions, and kisses Sumia at long last . . .

     In an epilogue, the companions have returned to Sharajsha's underground palace to celebrate. Thongor will take no reward for his service to Sharajsha, but the wizard gets him to take a personal gift - a gold arm-band that Sharajsha implies has special properties. Karm Karvus says he intends to follow wherever Thongor leads, and Sumia says the same. Thongor himself says he intends to return to Patanga to reclaim it from the Yellow Druids for Sumia . . . And so the story ends, but the series continues . . .

     Lin Carter's influences are plain, including (as mentioned above) H.P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Thongor is, as I said, almost a parody of a sword-and-sorcery barbarian, sometimes almost a painful one. This kind of character did much to inspire the original barbarian class(es), and explain the enduring popularity of that type even to this day. Tim Kask, the first editor of The Dragon (later Dragon Magazine), recently said in an interview that this was the kind of character from fiction that Gary Gygax seemed to most admire, and he assumed player would all want to play Conan-types, and couldn't imagine (in the beginning) anyone wanting to play a magic-user, since they were usually the villains of this sort of story. Even if the Thongor stories did not directly influence Gygax (and I'm betting he did read some of them), it is exactly the kind of story that thrilled and inspired him.

Babarian from the AD&D Unearthed Arcana book!

     Lin Carter's "Thongor of Lemuria" books have even inspired their very own Fantasy RPG, "Barbarians of Lemuria" by Simon Washbourne. While drawing obvious inspiration from D&D and other fantasy RPGs that preceded it, Washbourne's system is distinctly its own game, not simply a retro-clone of D&D. Certainly, the plot of this book alone sounds like it recounts several games in a lengthy RPG campaign!


     The trouble that Sharajsha goes through to re-forge the Star Sword is a reminder that in Old School RPGs, making magic items was never a matter of taking a few feats and spending some gold. You had the "quest for it" idea, in which the players would be forced to consider difficult tasks and acquiring rare items to make a "simple" magic item - these Old School sensibilities are represented well in the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, where rare ingredients are needed to brew potions, and a module (#85, The Making of the Ghost Ring) exemplifies the kind of work involved.


   
     I hope you enjoyed my thoughts about Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria. Please join me again for future installments of Appendix N Revisited, on or around the Ides of each month! 
Until next time . . . Happy Reading! Skál!~ Colin Anders Brodd
Villa Picena, Phoenix, Arizona
Ides of June, 2017
Next up for Appendix N Revisited: L. Sprague de Camp's  Lest Darkness Fall!

Word Count Wednesday - The Gaeludyr, Tyrfingur, and the return of the Oathkeeper

Hello everyone,


     Well, as you know if you've been following my blog, I've had a busy time lately - I went to Phoenix Comicon 2017 and on behalf of Crit Hit and the Goodman Games World Tour 2017 Road Crew, I ran some games. I also got the chance to play some D&D (3.5), which I have not played in about 6 years (since I left the great State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations), so that was fun. But writing took a bit of a back seat while I was at the Con.

     Except that my brain never really takes a day off from writing. Especially when I get to attend the Phoenix Comicon panels for Tor (which is a corporate representative every year, sadly, rather than authors) and Del Ray (which is always well-attended by authors, several of whom I enjoy). I got lots of great inspiration there, doodled down in my vade mecum and journal, and came home reinvigorated.

     So I sat down and finally finished hammering at "The Gaeludyr" (which is to be the latest in the Tales from Midhgardhur series on Channillo). I ran it past Tanya, who pointed me to a similar story by Ursula K. LeGuin with which I was not familiar. I can honestly say we ended up with similar stories independently, but anyway, my story is specific to my world and is part of a larger chain of stories yet to be told. I took a long time with this one because I feel that it's a bit tricky, and I'm still not satisfied that I have it perfectly the way I would like it, but I think it's close enough. I've scheduled it to post on Channillo on 6/5/17, barring any further revisions and editing on my part. Word Count: 2283 (It is a very compact story by design).

     Speaking of Tales and Channillo, don't forget that I am running a contest through 6/4/17 for a chance to win a free code for a 3-month Bronze membership to Channillo. All you have to do to enter is comment on my blog in a way that I can identify you between now and the end of the day on 6/4/17 - the winner will be announced on 6/5/17!

     I've started planning to keep myself disciplined with my writing through the normally chaotic summer months. In edition to getting Tales up to date and then keeping it so, and beginning to think about a second published volume of Tales, some of my projects include the following. I am still working on Tyrfingur, the tale of the accursed blade. I have recently formulated an outline for the long-awaited sequel to The Saga of Asa Oathkeeper . And I have an idea for writing author blog annotations for the existing Tales. So I am going to keep myself very busy writing this summer!



Happy Reading! Skál!
~ Colin Anders Brodd

Contest - Tales From Midhgardhur on Channillo

Hello everyone,


I'm having a contest!
     If you've ever wanted to follow "Tales from Midhgardhur" on Channillo but did not want to pay for a Channillo account without knowing what it's all about, this contest is for you! Just leave a comment on this blog between now and Sunday, June 4th, 2017 to be entered to win a code for a three month Bronze membership to Channillo.com! You must comment On Monday, June 5th, I'll post the name of the winner and arrange to give them the code! All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this blog under a name or handle I can use to identify you as a winner! (If you're wondering how the winner is to be selected, the answer is that I'm a gamer geek, so I'll probably roll a polyhedral die of some sort!).

Happy Reading! Skál! And Good Luck!
~ Colin Anders Brodd