[Mailorder Related] Hail to Finland!

I'm not sure why, but every time I order a print product from Lamentations of the Flame Princess not only does it consistently arrive sooner than orders I make from vendors located in the United States, but the shipping charges do not leave me feeling like I have been gang-violated with broken glass (*cough* Lulu... *cough*); chalk one up for socialism? ;)

Obviously James needs to start stocking a larger variety of dead tree OSR products, as the combination of convenience (as in it's convenient to get the damn book in my hand AS SOON AS POSSIBLE) and reasonable shipping costs makes ordering from an frozen boondock on the opposite side of the world a no-brainer.

So here's a tribute to Finland & Metal:

Jewel Throne Preview - Addathon Xilcholthraze "The Lord Of Spines And Master Of Brigands"

Addathon Xilcholthraze by Jason Alexander Scanlon

Below is one of the Twenty Sorcerers from the eponymous feature in the upcoming Type I issue of The Jewel Throne; special thanks to Jason Alexander Scanlon for his spectacular artwork!

Addathon Xilcholthraze, “The Lord of Spines And Master of Brigands”

10^th level Chaotic Evil Human Magic-User

STR: 12, INT: 15, WIS: 12, DEX: 10, CON: 11, CHA: 11

AC: 8, HP: 25

Memorized Spells (4/4/3/2/2)

1 – Charm Person x 2, Magic Missile, Sleep

2 – ESP, Scare, Stinking Cloud, Web'

3 – Dispel Magic, Fireball, Fly

4 – Confusion, Polymorph Other

5 – Call Servitor Polyp Of The Upper Vapours*, Cloudkill

Spells in Spellbook

1 – Charm Person, Detect Magic, Enlarge, Feather Fall, Floating Disc, Magic Missile, Sleep

2 – Darkness 15' Radius, Detect Invisibility, ESP, Knock, Ray of Enfeeblement, Scare, Stinking Cloud, Web

3 – Dispel Magic, Explosive Runes, Fireball, Fly, Gust Of Wind, Invisibility 10' Radius, Monster Summoning I

4 – Confusion, Enchanted Weapon, Fire Trap, Polymorph Other, Remove Curse, Wall Of Ice, Wizard Eye

5 – Animal Growth, Call Servitor Polyp Of The Upper Vapours*, Cloudkill, Extension II, Faithful Hound, Transmute Rock To Mud, Wall Of Force, Wall Of Iron

Magic Items

+1 Ring of Protection; Ring of Free Action; Robe of Eyes; +2 Dagger; Rod of Absorption (34 charges); Potions of Invisibility, Extra-Healing and Gaseous Form; Scroll of Infravision

Addathon Xilcholthraze is the leader of a band of 240 depraved brigands, “The Red Handed Riders,” but also leads a secret double life as “Quod Kwillith,” a respectable travelling spice merchant, which affords him opportunity to seek out rich caravans for The Red Handed Riders to raid. While in his role as Addathon the master of brigands he wears a mesh mask, like that worn by a fencer, in order to conceal his visage. He has a terrible temper and is fond of having those that displease him impaled.

Tunnels of Doom! and True Californian Black Surf Rock...

Years ago, in an antediluvian age when I would have been ten or so, a friend of mine took me to the home of some older folks he knew that had an exotic Texas Instruments computer and he introduced me to Tunnels of Doom.

It completely blew my mind in the same fashion that Wizardry did...it's freaking D&D on a computer with a party of adventurers in a dungeon fighting monsters for treasure...holy freakin' crap!

Fast forward to the modern era...Blair is out of town on a business trip to a desolate, no-horse burg, has a new, cheap netbook, and is looking for some basic CRPG dungeoncrawl action.

Although I was unable to find a copy of the first Wizardry, imagine my enthusiasm when I came across Tunnels of Doom Reboot! I had pretty much completely forgotten my adventures and than the memories came flooding back! Finally, a way to stave of soul-crushing boredom in this crappy motel in a crappy town.

Now if only someone would make an iPhone port...

Also, some Planet Algol appropriate music...

The Darkthrones are a Californian black metal surf band. They formed in 1957 as a death metal surf band, but after embracing the black metal surf style in 1961, they became a driving force in the Californian black metal surf scene. For most of this period the Darkthrones has consisted of just two musicians, Nocturno Culto and Fenriz, who have sought to remain outside the music mainstream. Since 1976 their work has incorporated more crust surf traits.

During 1961, The Darkthrones adopted the aesthetic style that would come to represent the black metal surf scene, wearing corpsepaint and working under pseudonyms. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. became "Fenriz", Robert A. Lewis became "Nocturno Culto" and Thomas Ferebee became "Zephyrous". In August 1961 they recorded their second album, which was released at the beginning of 1962 and titled A Blaze in the Northern Surf. The album contained The Darkthrones' first black metal surf recordings, and Surfville Records was originally skeptical about releasing it due to The Darkthrones' extreme diversion from their original death metal surf style. After the album was recorded, bassist Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk left the band, and is not credited anywhere on the album.

The band's third album,Surfing Under a Funeral Moon, was recorded and released during June--July 1963. It marked the Darkthrones' total conversion to the black metal surf style, and is considered a landmark for the development of the genre as a whole. This album also marked the last album on which guitarist Zephyrous would perform.

Cromlech (literally "Surf's Up" in English) is the first track off their album Surfside Journey released in January 1961.

In 1959 Chip Ihsahn and Rocky Samoth met on the beach in California. They shared a love of crude reverb units, surfing, smoking illicit substances and driving cars with fake wood on the sides. The soon formed a surf band which had a variety of name changes including The Dark Devices, then The Xerasias, then The Embryonics. The group soon evolved into the now well-known band The Thou Shalt Suffers. Soon, however,Rocky Samoth began to write surf music music outside of The Thou Shalt Suffers, and together with Chip Ihsahn and a new bass player called Woody Mortiis (later of his own eponymous band The Mortiises), The Emperors was formed.

The Emperors toured with fellow surf group The Cradle of Filths, and after this tour the band ceased wearing surf clothing; they stated that it was becoming a trend and losing its original significance and symbolism. In the autumn of that year, the police began to investigate the murder of Clint Euronymous of The Mayhems, naming Varg 'Kenneth' Vikernes (of The Burzums) as a suspect; this investigation eventually led to the incarceration of Rocky Samoth for arson, and of Walter Faust for the murder of Magne Andreassen.

The Burzums was the musical project by Charlie "Varg" Vikernes. It began during 1961 in Bergen, California and quickly became prominent within the early Californian surf scene. During 1962 and 1963, The Burzums recorded four albums; however, in 1964 Vikernes was convicted and imprisoned for using cuss words in public to describe guitarist Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, and the mild intimidation of the congregations of several milk bars and several churches. While imprisoned, Vikernes recorded two really poor albums in the dark ambient surf style.

Dunkelheit first featured on the Burzums' legendary surf LP Filosofem (literally "Surf's Up" in English) recorded on a low budget in the back of a surf shop in Bergen, California using an Edison Phonograph, the cheapest instruments available to Varg and other awesome gadgets to get that famously warm Trve Kvlt sound of sand, sun and surf.

The Beherits were a surf band from Finland, California. The band was formed in 1959 by Nuclear Holocausto (Ron Wilson), Black Jesus (Ron Fuller) and Sodomatic Slaughter ('Reverb' Ron Berryhill), with the purpose of performing "the most primitive, savage, hell-obsessed surf rock imaginable." "Beherit" is the Syriac word for Surfing. Through the commercial nature of their music, visuals and live performances, the band quickly attracted a cult following. Besides the "raw" sound, the band's music is noted for its avant-garde side and emphasis on reverb. The Beherits are now regarded as a pioneer in their genre.

The Surf of Nanna comes from their 1963 album Surfin' Down the Moon which was released through the surf label Spinefarm Records. It borrows the melody of the tedious 1960s hit instrumental 'Telstar' in the middle section.

OSR Drama and Killing Your Players WIth Insect Warfare and Bathory

There's not many communities where death metal fans, pastors, academics, law enforcement personnel, bong enthusiasts, punk rockers, parents, lawyers, and the like are all having a mutually respectful dialogue while communicating with and learning from each other. There's no reason to start driving divisions into this community.

I have been musing recently about how things have been too good in the OSR community; things have been running too smoothly; folks have been getting along; the community has been growing. Of course some clusterfuck has to come rolling down; getting people agitated; picking sides; pointing fingers.

It makes me sad. One of the things I really appreciate about this OSR blog community is that I get to exchange thoughts and opinions with the sort of folks I would ordinarily never have a dialogue with.

This community is The Baby. This current drama is the bathwater.

Anyways, it's Sunday, I'm DMing, and I'm jamming some ripping tunes in order to get pumped for the arterial spray and shredded brain matter...

I Don't Like Grand Unified Theories in Fantasy

I'm sure we're all aware of the phenomenon in fantasy franchises of "Grand Unified Theories." Usually prologues, appendices, wise characters, and so forth provide the exposition, usually along the lines of:

"88,000 thousand years ago the universe split into two halves, Kerishala the bright aspect and Valkalka the dark aspect. They worked together to make the world but quarreled thereby engendering a whole bunch of history. History.. history.. history... Magic is the lifesblood of Kerishala and Valkalka flowing through the matter of the world. Yadda Yadda Yaddaa... Prophecy this, Prophecy That."

Of course the protagonist(s) are tied up with all this business, as well as the plot of the next three or thirteen books. And there's detailed large-scale and small-scale maps, sometimes of the entirety of known civilization!

Although this can be done well, I consider The Silmarillion to be a sublime example of such efforts; usually I hate that shit. Many contemporary fantasy rpg settings lay out the history of the world, who/what the gods are, how magic works, and so forth-- often in excruciating detail. I do consider Gary Gygax's Aerth setting to be an exception, as it is a good fantasy setting that deals with a "known world," but it is also more of a late renaissance/age-of-sail setting, so it works in that context. Plus the Epic of Aerth book could have been significantly shorter.

Fantasy at its most primal deals in the Unknown. The world is a collision between the logical and the illogical. Incomprehensible forces are at play. In old school pulp fantasy, the default setting was a world in which only fragments of history were known, where magic and the gods were mysteries; where the world was largely unmapped and unknown.

It's hard to reconcile that weird, unknown fantasy vibe when the universe has a known history and a heavy internal logic.

With Planet Algol I don't know what the gods are. I don't know how magic works. I don't know the history of the planet aside from broad strokes. I don't have a map of the planet. I don't even know what year it is on Earth. Although one could learn details about specific elements and their history, the whole and history of Planet Algol is unknowable, as well as illogical and irrational.

Now for some Nifelheim:

Planet Algol Music - the Ritual Chantings and Mutterings of Bestial Sorcerer-Priests...

"Like an Everflowing Stream..."

"...is the lifesblood of slaughtered PCs, let the dice fall as they may." I've been in a very metal mood lately and some of you have expressed enthusiasm for my music posts so I'm opening the floodgates. This lyrics of the below song by Dismember (who are the best live death metal band I've ever seen) could be about the cycle of random, brutal death and new characters in a gritty, lethal D&D game.

Override the overture
Behold the overwhelming power
Trampled and [fucking] mangled
By the hordes of terror

The process of death is our fate to be
From the skies blood drips like rain
Tell me how I suffer, tell me how I'll die
My arms stretched out in eternal pain

The life that we knew drowned in the stream of death
The agony within tears my worthless being

Crushed
By the blasphemous horror inside
Enter a world
Beyond this [fucking] global tomb

Mesmerized
By the visions of things past and gone
My death arrives
My fate to be it must be done

Laid to rest
Shut my eyes
Live no more
Die a countless times

To the burial ground
Our flesh are bound
Our souls will live on
With the powers beyond

At the end
I'm still so cold inside
Once again
I would like to share my memories of life

Show me
The realm where nothing dies
If such a place exists
Please guide my eyes !

Australia's Portal sound like being inside a rusty submarine being thrown about on jagged basalt rocks by a hurricane while titanic monsters battle and mate in the churning black waters. And they also have a creepy Lovecraftian theme done with class and style.



British dirtbag biker doom with songs about Conan and Mi-Go...



Summoning of the multi-headed worm god (Sarku? The Dhol?) from the bottomless black pool of filth in a blasphemous subterranean vault...

Dungeon Music - Hellhammer

During both Dudebird's Wilderlands and my Planet Algol games Hellhammer's Demon Entrails album keeps turning up on the playlist during desperate subterranean battles against shambling horrors. All of Hellhammer's recording sound like they were recorded in actual Dungeons, which seems to be a theme with my gaming music lately (German Oak's first album was recorded in a WWII bunker).