Chronicles of the Consortium

 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 l...

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 Menerain is the name of the ancient Menastrai capital, located in a region that is covered by great lakes in the time of the characters, 1,000 years in the future.  Destiny knows the history of this era as well as anybody, so is well aware that Menastree is destined to be conquered. And then the Dharzi will arrive. However, none of the historians seems to know the ultimate fate of Menerain. The characters make use of the river system leading towards the lake region, which is smaller than they remember from the future. It does look as though the waters are rising, though - perhaps their new canal through the mountains is beginning to feed water into this area.  There are a few hairy momen...

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 I've shamelessly stolen the title for this blog post from Iain at Caveadsum , because it's cool. The characters have been asked to help in the defence of a small Menastrai/human town from marauding Melnibonean forces, and each of them has been given command of a small group of local warriors, a mixture of humans and Menastrai: I put together a combination of my Cry Havoc battle mats to set this up over several small tables. The mats are 2D, and some of the details are obscured by the unit cards I employed to make running a larger combat more manageable, but I hope you can make out most of what is going on here. We are looking northwards in the first photo. The river comes from its source in the m...

  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 friends are now 1,000 years in their own past, having gone back in time to the period of the Melnibonean attacks on Menastree and the onset of the Great Dharzi War. They are currently located on the north-western side of the great mountain chain that separates Menastree from the rest of the continent that will become the Young Kingdoms, having freed a great tunneling basilisk thing that promptly celebrated by boring its way through the entire mountain chain. Which is how the great canal tunnel the characters found in their future came to be - in effect, they caused it to be constructed. While the basilisk, sacred to Grome, is off doing its thing with highly powerful ultrasonics, th...

 The characters are taught how to use Destiny's entropy Configuration b Zotaquaan of the Balance; it turns out that Sir Blanque has a particular affinity with the machinery. The group finds themselves standing in what they already know will become the site of the giant pyramid they will enter in 1,000 years' time as they begin their epic quest to find Zotaquaan in his guise as The Martek. Ouzzlingly, though there is no sign of the giant bowl that will collect the overspill from the elemental plane of water to create the river that will flow through the mountain range in to Menastree proper. The mountains are there, but nothing else, certainly nothing like the artificially created canal tunnel they remember from the future. While Zotaquaan gets himself ready to start his monumental building tasks, the characters all settle down for the night. Each of them has the same dream: a white crow flies towards a particular point n the cliff face and vanishes into it. When they wake up, t...

 Now that they have completed all six of the side-quests in the chapels of the crystal cathedral, the characters find themselves transported to the interior of an enormous building. Much exploration ensues, and they find an astonishing treasury together with a perhaps even more valuable library. And it's all in High Melnibonean. After a bit of time and a lot drooling over the possibilities this lot represents, Destiny realizes the group has found the wealth and lore of the Menastrai, so this place holds incalculable possibilities. Eventually they find themselves in a central chamber with a grand dais that holds a skeletal body - (The) Martek, one presumes. A bit of careful investigation shows that there are five depressions  set into the dais, one at the head, and two each at the feet and hands. They look exactly the right fit for the star gems, so they put them in place. A lattice of super-cool light springs between the gems and coalesces around the body. It is now a whole pe...