Deep Carbon Observatory

 The alleged "Old School Revival" is something I missed; it happened while I was out of RPG for a while. However, I have started piecing together a collection of what I have seen more happily called DIY D&D - seemingly offbeat campaign and scenario items that have more imagination packed into them than hundreds of official or semi-official role playing products. Often the result of a labour of love, some of these contain fabulous ideas that can be incorporated into a setting that is flexible enough to take them, and Moorcock's multiverse is an obvious place. They don't have to be D&D of course - just something that oozes the need to be played.

I used the original version

Deep Carbon Observatory is one I have been itching to try for a while because it fits my expectations. I'm actually not all that bothered about how deadly something is, so much as how interesting it will be, and the ideas here are great. I changed the premise around a little bit and then let the players loose to see what would happen. Some of it I didn't use because either the players didn't encounter that part, or because I decided to keep some of the ideas for later insertion into the campaign.  I did, though, have a Grand Ultimate Plan in mind for how it would work in the players' current setting. 

Sir Blanque - swordsman and handsome, dashing noble half mer-person

Marion - stabby stabby dagger specialist; Nihrain who currently carries the Runestaff

Destiny - Menastrai sorceress covertly raised on Melnibone

Bomilcar - Weeping Waste nomad from a chieftain's family

The four adventurers are currently stranded 1,000 years in their own past. They have just used an Entropy Configuration on the Menastrai capital of Menerain by moving it to safety away from an encroaching Melnibonean army. The catastrophe resulting from such a large-scale dimensional shift has unleashed waters of tidal wave proportions, so creating what they know from their own past travels to be a region of Great Lakes in the middle of the continent of Menastree. The Melniboneans have been inundated, although of course many will survive due to sorcerous ability; the point is that from their perspective the city has been destroyed in some great nigromantic event, so they won't feel the need to go looking for it again. The players are now affecting history and geography!

In the meantime, the companions are being washed in a roughly northerly to northwesterly direction in their little boat, with Destiny using elementals of various kinds to keep them afloat and smooth their swift passage. Their plan is eventually to make their way to the last remaining Menastrai city of Amerain, the foundation for a city they know in their time as Anakheera.

Eventually the waters subside and the characters find themselves in a saturated wasteland resulting from the cataclysm, with the hills their destination in the distance. Looking at the surrounding devastation, Marion has a worried look on her face - "We did all this!". Bomilcar tries to reassure her: "We have to remember this is all ancient history to us. So we were effectively fated to cause these events." Sir Blanque joins in: "It would have been much worse if we hadn't intervened. What would the Melniboneans have done to the Menestrai? Worse, what would have become of us if we hadn't fulfilled the requirements of the timeline?" Destiny keeps her comments to herself; she is rather enjoying all these time loop shenanigans.

As the four friends steer their way through the morass, they have several surreal encounters:

  • From the direction of the hills lazily floats a large stone sarcophagus, somehow magically aloft on the waters. Sir Blanque asks the others not to interfere, and they do as he requests. "He can be a bit Lawful like this at times," thinks Destiny. Besides, they have had plenty of bad experiences opening sarcophagi in the past. Bomilcar: "Best leave the sleeping dead alone this time, eh?" They do, though, rescue two urchins clinging to the strange stone coffin.
  • A shrine has been blasted onto its side by the force of the floodwaters, although it still rests on its rocky outcropping. Again, in deference to Sir Blanque's reservations, they leave it well alone. They do have more pressing matters on their minds.
  • A newly-raised mudbank seems to be writhing off to one side. On somewhat closer inspection, around a dozen gigantic toads are manically feasting on what look like various carcasses revealed - or caused - by the floods. The group gives it all a wide berth.
  • Several treetops are poking out from underneath the floodwaters. A whole load of extremely well-fed carrion birds, bloated from overindulgence, causes the droopy branches to sag under their weight. At one point as the group passes in their little boat, a sleepy bird falls into the waters, and is promptly eaten by one of several circling crocodiles.
  • Further along, Bomilcar spots the body of a fisherman stuck between two large tree trunks; his head is even now still under the water. Something is wriggling in the unfeasibly large net he must have cast just prior to his demise. They leave that alone as well.
  • A huge log floats past, with several people seemingly frozen in the moment of looking through various holes inside the log. "Paralytic poison," says Destiny. "Maybe we won't go and have a look like they did, then," volunteers Marion. Bomilcar adds: "There are several types of nasty worm-things in the Wastes I come from; they like nesting in abandoned hollow trunks." Again, the players decide not to intervene. As noted on previous occasions, they can be very single-minded when they have a specific purpose in mind; it takes a lot to persuade them otherwise.
  • On what used to be a low hill, a ruined windmill is being swarmed by giant crabs. They are trying to get to the one window of the edifice, where a woman is desperately trying to fend them off with a large pole. The sounds of terrified children can be heard behind her. The characters use water elementals to drive off the crabs, and then row up to the hillock. Sir Blanque opens his magical demonic bag and passes mounds of food through to the grateful refugees. "This should keep you going until the floods subside and you can start looking for other survivors. Our boat is too small to take you all, but I suggest you go to the hills to the north - the higher ground there should be safer." Destiny resignedly sighs at his humanitarianism as he helps the two kids they found earlier through the window to join the others.
  • The waters are definitely receding as the group nears the hills. This time they find a large ridge that was obviously never affected by the inundation. On it is located a whole load of various types of farm animals that have taken refuge. They have been joined by several wolves, which don't look too hungry - yet. They have obviously been feeding from the bounty provided by the waves. Circling the ridge in the murky waters is something large and nasty, and again the characters use water elementals to drive it off. Whatever it was...
  • Next up is the remains of a local village, complete with tombstones poking out of the water from a low rise.
  • A huge mechanical construct of some kind, vaguely person-shaped, is trying methodically to build a dam in the middle of nowhere. "Must be followed pre-programmed orders," Sir Blanque muses, thoughtfully.
  • The branches of a tall oak tree are latticed with many bodies carried here by the flood. The tree is covered in ravens and other carrion feeders.
  • In the distance, an enormous bird drops some sort of huge crab-thing from high in the sky to smash its shell on an area of dry land; the Roc then lands to feed. 
This is the last thing the players encounter before they reach the hills themselves. They wisely give the great bird plenty of time to eat and then fly off lazily before they are ready to press forward on foot.

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