Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 1,557 Karma: 87
Re: Supplement V: CARCOSA to go on sale October 8. « Reply #45 on Oct 7, 2008, 9:32am »
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I will typically mail orders within 3 business days of receiving payment. The only possible exception will be if I am so deluged with orders that I run out of copies and have to print a bunch more. That would be a "problem" I would like to have.
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 1,557 Karma: 87
Re: Supplement V: CARCOSA to go on sale October 8. « Reply #46 on Oct 7, 2008, 9:53am »
"Magic Items" on Carcosa
None of the traditional D&D magic items are present on the planet of Carcosa. The campaign world is definitely science-fantasy rather than straight fantasy. Think of Blackmoor with its crashed starships, laser rifles, etc. alongside magic-users and monsters. Most of the items detailed in Supplement V: CARCOSA are of high-tech nature. Here's what you get:
12.5 pages devoted to sorcerous and high-tech items, as follows:
1 page describes the horrific effects of five of the varieties of the desert lotus
5.5 pages are devoted to Space Alien technology. The Space Aliens are humanoid in form and mentally similar to humans, so their technology is relatively easy for humans to figure out. Tables are given to randomly generate any of an insanely vast number of possible high-tech items (e. g., a selenium pulse rifle, an ultraviolet ray bazooka, etc.).
2.5 pages are devoted to the Random Robot Generator, a series of tables to roll-up zillions of different robots made by the Space Aliens. A note is also given for how to generate cyborgs (part robot, part organism).
2 pages are devoted to four sample artifacts of the Great Race, and 2 pages are devoted to seven sample artifacts of the Primordial Ones. These high-tech artifacts are very powerful, bizarre, and inhuman, being used by humans only with very great difficulty. The artifacts of the Great Race are primarily concerned with space, time, and mind. The artifacts of the Primordial Ones are primarily concerned with the biological sciences.
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,503 Karma: 57
Re: Supplement V: CARCOSA now on sale! « Reply #53 on Oct 8, 2008, 2:39pm »
Okay, I guess I'm kinda dim. I don't get how to place an order from the blog in the link above.
(I have to admit here that I've only ever used PayPal through the checkout procedure on ebay, so that may explain why I'm lost -- there's no big, groovy "pay now" button...)
Okay, I guess I'm kinda dim. I don't get how to place an order from the blog in the link above.
(I have to admit here that I've only ever used PayPal through the checkout procedure on ebay, so that may explain why I'm lost -- there's no big, groovy "pay now" button...)
Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 207 Karma: 18
Re: Supplement V: CARCOSA now on sale! « Reply #56 on Oct 10, 2008, 6:33pm »
So, the deities of the postal service (weird as they may be) have been kind to me, and I actually received my copy of Carcosa today. The physical product is excellent and fits right in with a whole mess of other D&D books, although the space for the "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" logo is conspicuously bare. Visually, the text is strikingly laid out in a way that makes you forget for a moment that you're not reading the original OD&D booklets.
In terms of content, the book has a number of standouts. Sorcery is really intriguing; the rituals have consistently exotic, flavorful names and many of them could probably spur multiple sessions' worth of adventure to cast once. Psionics are done delightfully simply, one of the better D&D takes on it to date, and taking up just a couple of pages. If you want OD&D psionics, you want to use Carcosa for them. The monsters are mostly OD&D transplants from the Cthulhu mythos, with some unique additions thrown in. But it's really neat in effect when you turn a couple pages further and get to the "Random Robot Generator" - definite fodder for the science fantasy twist put on things here. I haven't gotten the chance to give much of a look at the map key yet, although it seems to have interesting ideas scattered across the setting.
My first impression is that it's a big positive. I don't plan on playing in Carcosa at this point, but this is an excellent new OD&D book to mine for ideas. Great work, Geof, it's a class act and a hell of a self-produced product.
So, the deities of the postal service (weird as they may be) have been kind to me, and I actually received my copy of Carcosa today. The physical product is excellent and fits right in with a whole mess of other D&D books, although the space for the "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" logo is conspicuously bare. Visually, the text is strikingly laid out in a way that makes you forget for a moment that you're not reading the original OD&D booklets.
In terms of content, the book has a number of standouts. Sorcery is really intriguing; the rituals have consistently exotic, flavorful names and many of them could probably spur multiple sessions' worth of adventure to cast once. Psionics are done delightfully simply, one of the better D&D takes on it to date, and taking up just a couple of pages. If you want OD&D psionics, you want to use Carcosa for them. The monsters are mostly OD&D transplants from the Cthulhu mythos, with some unique additions thrown in. But it's really neat in effect when you turn a couple pages further and get to the "Random Robot Generator" - definite fodder for the science fantasy twist put on things here. I haven't gotten the chance to give much of a look at the map key yet, although it seems to have interesting ideas scattered across the setting.
My first impression is that it's a big positive. I don't plan on playing in Carcosa at this point, but this is an excellent new OD&D book to mine for ideas. Great work, Geof, it's a class act and a hell of a self-produced product.
Thank you very much for all your kind words! So you noticed, too, that no one put the words "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" in that empty space on the cover?
To put numbers on it: Of the 48 monsters in the book, 19 of them are OD&D versions of monsters from the Cthulhu Mythos of Lovecraft, Derleth, and CAS. The other 29 are of my own creation.
Once again, thank you for your post (which I somehow missed before today). I'm very happy that you like the book!
Thank you very much for all your kind words! So you noticed, too, that no one put the words "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" in that empty space on the cover?
To put numbers on it: Of the 48 monsters in the book, 19 of them are OD&D versions of monsters from the Cthulhu Mythos of Lovecraft, Derleth, and CAS. The other 29 are of my own creation.
Once again, thank you for your post (which I somehow missed before today). I'm very happy that you like the book!
Ah. To be clear, I wasn't sure whether the Cthulhoid monsters were derived from one or the other Cthulhu mythos sources or original -- I'll have to give them another pass.
On a closer reading, the rituals are really quite brutal, nasty things. I'd imagine that a game with sorcerers as PCs would spend quite a lot of time on finding components and sacrifices. If you've had rituals in game, I'd be interested in hearing more about them.
The alien stuff is a lot of fun, and I might borrow from it for a novelty level in my dungeon at some point. Still love the Random Robot Generator for its potential.
Clark Ashton Smith: Shub-Niggurath spawn of Shub-Niggurath Fetor of the Depths (Tsathoggua)
Robert E. Howard: Snake-Men (extinct on Carcosa)
Gary Gygax: Slime God (Juiblex)
F. W. Holiday's theory of the Loch Ness Monster: Lake Monsters
My own: Lurker amidst the Obsidian Ruins Deep Gibbering Madness Putrescent Stench It of the Fallen Pylons Crawling God Leprous Dweller Below Shambler of the Endless Night Inky Crawler Lurker of the Putrescent Pits Weird God Violet Mist God of the Primal Void Tentacled One Foul Putrescence Suckered Abomination Colorless Ooze Watery Death Desiccating Slime of the Silent Halls Squamous Worm of the Pit Amphibious Ones Diseased Guardians Green Ooze Pool Mummies Mummy Brains Giant Jungle Ants Space Aliens Species 23750 mutant dinosaurs
Rolling on the Random Robot Generator is a lot of fun. Check out the description of hex 2102 for a cyborg I created using both the Random Robot Generator and the tables for the spawn of Shub-Niggurath. My Random Robot Generator is better than it otherwise would have been thanks to a thread on these boards started by Zulgyan in which many people contributed ideas for robots in D&D. Kudos!
More often than not, some of the PCs in my campaign are sorcerers. The overall "arc", so to speak, of the campaign involves the party travelling to various dangerous and weird places on the planet of Carcosa in search of the proper components and sacrifices necessary to perform sorcerous rituals. Multiple sessions of game play can be and have been devoted to these travels (with, of course, all kinds of harrowing adventures along the way). Once everything is acquired, then the ritual is performed, and I've seldom seen players so ardent in their supplications to the dice gods when a ritual is performed. If that Cthulhoid entity isn't properly bound...
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