Gygax 75 Challenge Sources

These of the sources for my Gygax 75 Challenge. Technically this post belongs to Week One. At first I wasn't going to post my sources, but I changed my mind. Future blog posts will have tons of spoilers in them anyway so I figured I might as well show my inspirations.

H. P. Lovecraft – Kingsport and Dream Cycle

• The Terrible Old Man
• The Festival
• The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
• The Silver Key
• The Strange High House in the Mist
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
• The Thing on the Doorstep

Notes: When I was first thinking about the dungeon I would need to build later on I thought of a mist shrouded city. The dungeon would be a mythic underworld connected to a land of dreams. This would explain the weirdness as one descended deeper into a place where dreams and nightmares gained a stronger foot hold on reality.

Alexandre Dumas

• The Three Musketeers (Movie and T.V series)
• The Count of Monte Cristo (Movie)

Notes: Watching the BBC Three Musketeers was what got me excited about this setting. I have not read the actual novels written by Dumas. But these are two of the many movies that I have seen that provide the basis of inspiration.

Clark Ashton Smith – Averoigne Cycle

• The End of the Story
• A Rendezvous in Averoigne
• The Maker of Gargoyles
• The Mandrakes
• The Beast of Averoigne
• The Holiness of Azedarac
• The Colossus of Ylourgne
• The Disinterment of Venus
• The Mother of Toads
• The Enchantress of Sylaire
• The Saytr

Notes: I wanted there to be weirdness beyond Lovecraft in the setting. Because of the French setting the Averoigne cycle seemed to be a perfect fit. 

Tom Moldvay –X2 Castle Amber

Notes: This is a classic D&D module. It also has ties to Clark Ashton Smith and Averoigne. I haven't actually read it but the little I have read about it reminds me of Maure Castle which I think is an amazing dungeon. I figure this should provide some old school inspiration when needed during the creative process. 

All For One – Regime Diabolique 2^nd edition 

Savage Worlds

Published 2019 by Triple Ace Games, Paul “Wiggy” Wade Williams

Notes: When I was thinking about swashbuckling musketeer action it occurred to me that savage worlds would probably be perfect for this type of roleplaying. A search lead me to discover this really cool pdf. It basically mashes the musketeers up with some fantasy and horror elements. This should provide a great source of stuff to adapt and use for this project. 

The Gold Coast of Averonne

This is Part 2 of a series of blog entires that attempts to complete the Gygax 75 Challenge based on the workbook published by Ray Otus from his Plundergrounds podcast. For more info on the challenge and to download his guide click HERE. For part one in this series click HERE.

My Campaign Journal—Week 2: The Surrounding Area

This weeks task revolved around creating the surrounding area for the campaign setting. Step one was to get a sheet of hexpaper and fill it with:

1. One settlement of significant size
2. Two other settlements
3. One major terrain feature
4. One mysterious site to explore
5. One main dungeon entrance

Just Say NO to Hexes

To start with I ditched the idea of the hex paper. Its old school, its written into the challenge. But I decided that I just didn't want to go that route. I see this challenge as more a set of guidelines than hard and fast rules. Maybe thats cheating. In the end I made a 20 x 20 square map in my Moleskin notebook. Each square is one mile.

Rough Draft of the Environs of Averonne in my Moleskin

The Gold Coast of Averonne

My surrounding area is known as the Gold Coast. I took inspiration from a few sources when creating it. Because my setting is based on Dumas and the Three Musketeers I Originally wanted to use a modified version of Paris and surrounding area as my starting area. But when I was thinking about what I wanted my main dungeon entrance to be like I thought of the The Count of Monte Cristo (Actually not apart of the Three Musketeers stories, but part of my inspiration material). In this story the main character Edmond Dantes is imprisoned on the Isle D’If of of Marseille, France. Further more another one of my inspirational sources are the Averoigne stories by Clark Ashton Smith. I decided in the end to combine elements of Paris, southern France and C. A. Smith’s Averoigne to create the Gold Coast.

Marcatia (settlement of significant size)

Marcatia is the home-base of the characters. It is also the gateway to the capital city of the Kingdom of Averrone via the river Rennes. As a major port city it has merchant ships that arrive from numerous ports of call all over the Gold Sea.

Dupont (One of two other settlements)

Dupont is a small farming village that is significant only in that it controls access to the Pont (bridge in french) the only way to cross the River Rennes via land for many miles around. 

Saint Albins (The second of two other settlements)

This is site is based on two sources. The first is real life Guerande inFrance and the second is C.A.Smith's short tale: The End of the Story. I wanted a small town that centred on an abby. It just feels like it has all sorts of adventuring possibilities.

The Ruined Chateau (One mysterious site to explore)

This mysterious site is based off of the ruins from the cursed chateau in the C.A.S the End of the Story. When I read the story as good as it was, it felt like a tease. I wanted to expand on this interesting location myself.

Major Terrain Features

The Ray’s guide states to create one major terrain feature covering at least three hexes. Because I was using a map of southern France and Averoigne as inspiration the terrain features came pretty easy and natural. They just felt like they belonged.

1. The River Rennes
2. The Candlefire Marsh (La Chandellemoor)
3. The Wolfwood (Bois de Loup)
4. Alpheus Mountains

Basilisk Island (Main dungeon entrance)

This is where the main dungeon is located. This will be the location of the dungeon I work on during Week 3. There were a few things that inspired this area. First of all I’ve long liked the idea of the players having to take a boat to get to a dungeon. So when I thought of the count of Monte Cristo I knew that this was the perfect time and place for this to happen.

Thoughts on Week 2

So far this has been a fun challenge. Oddly I have been able to finish most of the work for each step in a few days. This has lead me to sort of forget about the project since I don't want to skip ahead. I did do some of the extra credit steps but didn't really feel like they helped too much. For example, in week one I made a Pintrest board of images for inspiration. This week I created a random encounter table for my area, but in retrospect I don't really like it. I think I cheated in week one because I had been anticipating doing this challenge the week before and ideas had already started percolating in my mind, thus cutting out some of the actual work for week 1. That being said I think going forward on constructing the actual main dungeon will be time consuming and require dedicating the whole week to it.

Monsters of the Weird Apocalypse: Moon-Spawn

Moon Spawn

This is an entry in my Weird Apocalypse setting. For a better understanding of the setting see Part 1 and Part 2.

Thrjaxia's moon hangs low in the sky, an ever present fixture in the skies along with the multitude of Dross Rifts raining trash down on the planet. 

The moon is pock marked with craters and for all intents and purposes looks like any other moon despite how it hangs so unnaturally low in the sky. Despite that it looks like a moon, it is in fact a  space ship that has been disguised to look like a one. The ship itself is no longer capable of space travel and the reasons for the ship in disguising itself are now lost to time. The ship's AI called Dharjak has become a god-like entity to the former crew who have become mutated into the ghoulish Moon-Spawn.

Moon-Spawn often raid the surface of Thrjaxia for slaves and junk that they can use to effect the never ending repairs on the decrepit and labyrinth ship. The Moon-Spawn are universally feared on Thrjaxia for being enigmatic raiders. Yet they are not the worst threat to the people of the wasted world below. When the Dross Gates opened the ship was in orbit near the planet. A Dross Rift opened in the engineering section of the ship and the result was disastrous. A gate to a hellish dimension was opened mutating the crew into Moon-Spawn, bestial creatures of low cunning and effectively immortal unless subjected to violence. It also allowed something from the hellscape beyond, a demonic presence, to invade the ship. This demonic force, if it should escape the confines of its imprisonment on the ship would bring dire consequences to the planet below as a wave of demonic creatures would flood into the world. To contain the threat Dharjak has recruited the former crew to gather resources from below to maintain the matrix imprisoning this vile entity. 

Monsters of the Weird Apocalypse: Antoka

A tribe of Antoka and a Groat

This is an entry in my Weird Apocalypse setting. For a better understanding of the setting see Part 1 and Part 2.

The Antoka are a race of green-skinned, four-armed aliens. They are a tribal nomadic people, warring with each other as much as any other group that crosses them. They follow the herds of groats, equines that roam the heaps and have six legs and four eyes. Groats are used for food, and transport and no part of a slaughtered Groat goes to waste. If one can befriend a tribe, you have made a powerful ally indeed. The Antoka are one of the races that seem to find themselves exiled through the Dross Rifts to Thrjaxia on a regular basis. Why this is no one knows, not even them. It is believed that this may be because the Antoka homeworld must be close by. This claim is further bolstered by the fact that the Antoka worship the Bright Side of the moon claiming that it is the home of their deity. They say they know this is true because the same moon-devil spawn, demonic servants that hail from the moons dark-side, descend from the sky and raid their homeland too. They claim that the Dark side of the moon is the Hell which the damned suffer as slaves to the Dark Moon God.

Welcome To The Trash Jungle Baby, You're Gonna Die!

This is an entry in my Weird Apocalypse setting. For a better understanding of the setting see Part 1 and Part 2.

Arriving on Thrjaxia can be an adventure in itself. Most of the time people show up by falling through the Dross Rifts like in the opening scene from the movie Predators (2010), minus the alien and malfunctioning parachute:

Assuming you survive the fall, the next most likely scenario is something like Thors arrival on the planet Sakaar in Thor: Ragnarok (2017):

One of the stranger ways of arriving is similar to the scene in the Matrix (1999) when Neo is flushed from the Machine's power plant. In this case your character was probably involved in some sort of strange experimentation and then discarded. Maybe you're a lucky soul who escaped being turned into a liquid meal supplement. Maybe your captors released you for some other purpose...

It's also not uncommon for space ships to crash land on the planet as well. The planet is sort of like an intergalactic Bermuda Triangle. An example of the surreal type of crash landings that happen can be found in Planet of the Apes (1968):

No matter how you get here, you're pretty much screwed. Thrjaxia is in many ways a post apocalyptic version of Ravenloft. The arrival is weird and unexpected. The only difference is that there seems to be no way to ever leave. For some, trying to escape the planet becomes an unhealthy obsession. Others try and make the best of their lot on the strange waste world.

Monsters of the Weird Apocalypse: The Blatt

A typical adult Blatt specimin 

This is an entry in my Weird Apocalypse setting. For a better understanding of the setting see Part 1 and Part 2.

The Blatt are cockroach-like humanoids. They are bestial predators in the heaps, often attacking new arrivals shortly after their falling from the sky through the Dross Rifts. They speak in a strange clicking language that is impossible to replicate without the proper anatomy and understood by few if any people. They are extremely fecund and lay hundreds of eggs in warrens below the trash heaps. While the Blatt are extremely dangerous creatures they do have an upside, food. The Blatt produce and excrete a strange crystal like formation called Milk Crystals. These crystals are produced and excreted by the Blatt to feed their young, but if harvested can provide a meal for other scavengers and Heapers. Blatt milk crystals has all the vital nutrients a typical living creature requires to stay healthy, though it tastes bland and chalky. 

The Weird Apocalypse: The Dross Rifts

This is Part 2 of my Weird Apocalypse setting. You should read Part 1 found here first.

The Dross Rifts

The Dross Rifts, as they are now called continue to open and close randomly across the planet, though they tend to open in certain locations on the planet more frequently than others. No one to this day knows what made them, why they appeared and when or where they are going to open or close. No one has been able to leave the planet through them, and those that try are inevitably found again dead or worse after being spit out of a new rift elsewhere. Additionally, the ability to leave the planet via space or inter-dimensional travel (regardless of science, magic, psionic or other power sources) works either. No one can explain why this is, though it is speculated that the same force that caused the rifts to appear in the first place is probably responsible. For all intents and purposes the planet is now a prison.

The rifts bring all sorts of refuse to the planet. The destruction this caused the planet was incredible on both an ecological and a metaphysical level. Cities were crushed or drowned as massive amounts of debris of all sizes and substances fell from the sky. Entire ecological habitats were destroyed, wiping out hundreds of plant and animal life forms. Strange materials caused horrible deaths and mutations. The worst came when monstrous creatures fell from the rifts and began ravaging the lands. Over time other races of alien creatures, some humanoid, others so strange as to defy conventional categorization have arrived on Thrjaxia. Something about arriving through the rift causes memories to be erased or jumbled. Sometimes creatures that arrive are “Changed” though they themselves don’t really understand what that change is or might have been.  

Needless to say the the Bakkurra invasion ended that day. Hundreds of years later the descendants of the Thrjaxians and Bakkurra blame the other for the Event, and warlords on both sides keep the flames of animosity burning strong.

A party of scavengers scouting the trash heaps

One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Gold

The Dross Rifts continue to open and dump trash onto Thrjaxia. This has created a new economy. Junkers, scavengers and slavers search the sprawling landfill for valuable scrap and slaves. Scrap consists of metal and other items that can be fixed, reused, repurposed, or recycled. There are all sorts of scrap dealers that can be dealt with. Some more reputable than others. Inanimate garbage is not the only thing that falls from the sky. Often strange creatures and sentient beings arrive through the portals. Assuming they survive the fall, they are hunted and captured by slavers who then sell them in slave markets. Slaves end up filling whatever role the slave masters think suits them best. Most become common labourers and servants. Others become sex workers, gladiators or soldiers. Those rare few with special aptitudes work as specialists for the Warlords.