Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Pulp Era OSR Make Over For Advanced Dungeons & Dragons's Modue N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles

I was asked to do a Pulp era make over for N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles so let's dive right in.


" Terror by night! The village of Orlane is dying. Once a small and thriving community, Orlane has become a maze of locked doors and frightened faces. Strangers are shunned, trade has withered. Rumors flourish, growing wilder with each retelling. Terrified peasants flee their homes, abandoning their farms with no explanation. Others simply disappear. . ."

"No one seems to know the cause of the decay -- why are there no clues? Who skulks through the twisted shadows of the night? Who or what is behind the doom that has overtaken the village? It will take a brave and skillful band of adventurers to solve the dark riddle of Orlane!"
Along  the remote coast of Scotland an evil has taken over the quiet inhabitants of a remote village  for its own nefarious purposes. Coming from the world of Greyhawk a tribe of lizardmen has taken over a remote modern village. The sinister arcane powers behind the take over have been plot this for centuries & have now crossed over to a near by Prime Material plane. The idea here is that they're going to restart on another world. The lizardmen forces of N1 have a much more humanoid quality about them borrowed from Robert Howard's half human serpentmen hybrids. This version of N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles takes a good deal of its Lovecraftian thunder from Children of the Night by Robert E. Howard.

"Humans they were, of a sort, though I did not consider them so. They were short and stocky, with broad heads too large for their scrawny bodies. Their hair was snaky and stringy, their faces broad and square, with flat noses, hideously slanted eyes, a thin gash for a mouth, and pointed ears. They wore the skins of beasts, as did I, but these hides were but crudely dressed. They bore small bows and flint-tipped arrows, flint knives and cudgels. And they conversed in a speech as hideous as themselves, a hissing, reptilian speech that filled me with dread and loathing.
They are frequently described as snakes or having snake-like qualities. The Aryan legends say that the Children—none of the Aryans know what they call themselves—used to own the land in an ancient "outworn age" until they were hunted and driven underground by the Picts."
The PC's are under the influence of past lives or the arcane power of a wizard who has  faced these monsters down in the the western Flanaess. Modern or the science fantasy  technology isn't going to make too much difference here. The adventure will balance out with the inclusion of a showdown in a "traditional" dungeon at the end of the module.



The troglodyte are an excellent minion link up between the serpent men & the lizard men of N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles. The dimensional byways & doors used by the ancient serpent men make an excellent bridge gap between a traditional Greyhawk campaign & a more modern adventure.

A better question is once N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles ends do others in the vicinity bear the Lovecraftian taint of Children of the Night?
Are there descendant of the Children of the Night who have acted as agents for the cult and what of Robert E. Howard 's Bran Mak Morn and the cult of The Dark Man?

Have they been standing idly by as their world has been invaded by their ancient enemies? There are so many possibilities with the material found in N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God By Douglas Niles that a DM could use this module to flesh out a turn of the century campaign setting with little effort.

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