Thursday, January 19, 2017

From Hyperborea I Can See Oerth - Sword & Sorcery Greyhawk Being Run With The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers Of Hyperborea Rpg System

I'm never content to rest on my laurels, & last night I was zipping around the internet gathering up information about Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Once again I came across the review that Venger Satanis did for AS&SH on Rpg.net (I'm not a fan of rpg.net at all. That's a personal preference.),but I came across this bit,"Likewise, there are some really cool magic items and weapons, a few that have escaped from the science-fantasy milieu. We all know about Spheres of Annihilation… how about Spheres of Blackness or Girdles of Golden Serpents? Yes, there could be more than what's included, but this is a decent amount.
While the Hyperborea Gazetteer isn’t huge, this volume is may be the best part about AS&SH, where the uninitiated learns of the bloated and dying scarlet sun which never rises very far in the sky. It’s an icy realm surrounded by a Stygian abyss where Night Gaunts fly, Saturn is faintly visible, there’s a small moon associated with blood sacrifices, and curtains of red, green, and purple illumination in the sky signal the arrival of ultra-telluric beings" 
I suddenly started to remember a project that the Beyond The Black Gate's writer did, he took the  1983 campaign Greyhawk box set & turned it into a down & dirty Conan style campaign. Now mind you this was way back 2010
Now here's the thing, I didn't have access to Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea at the time, but now that I do this not only would work but it could be run as a sustained campaign setting using the materials & systems of AS&SH.

There are more then a few reasons why this would not only work but it could be used as a sustained game world over the long haul:
This means that suddenly Greyhawk's Temple of Elemental Evil could have a very sinister connection to the Ashen Worm of Hyperborea. The Rain of Colourless Fire might have a far more reaching cosmic effect then even previously thought. 


PC classes, sword & sorcery substance, campaign setting material such as population distribution, settlement populations (village, town, city); also, fortifications and population communications are discussed in the Greyhawk box set. Everything you need to run this is in the AS&SH box set and the Eighty three Greyhawk box. Everything to run this is right out of the AS&SH player's hand book from classes to starting equipment.



In Greyhawk many of the lands on the map are discussed. It is important to note that there are many towns, villages, stretches of land, rivers, islands, and so forth on the map that are left blank for the individual referee to develop. But there's going to a ton of substitution from the Referee's Guide for monsters, races etc. but having said that this idea could easily be done in spades.


 

So while I don't hold any claim on the idea of this style of Frankencampaign setting I think its one that I'm going to keep in my back pocket for the moment. This idea has merit and its something that I'm going to explore in the coming weeks. I think that this could work as a long term campaign!

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