For those of you interested in my Dream-Quest project but who aren't patrons, here's another public post that you might want to read. As with all my public posts at Patreon, I'm soliciting comments and suggestions to guide me as I develop this game into something that might, one day, be more than just a collection of notes and ideas.
If you, as a player, are grateful to have this expanded list, your gratitude is certainly appreciated but keep in mind that it is a mixed blessing. Players must attempt to remember the list of creatures affected by charm person and hold person, for when it comes time to cast a spell, the DM must never allow them to consult their reference works except for the Players Handbook. On the other hand, the DM can use any reference source at his disposal (including articles like this one) to check for desired information.Now, there's nothing beyond the pale in what Gygax says here. In my experience, it was pretty much standard operating procedure amongst the groups with which I had contact. However, this is the first time I can recall its ever being stated outright as the Gospel of Gary. Again, I don't disagree with it, as it's identical to my own practice, but it is nonetheless interesting to see it stated so plainly.
I wanted to point out two small things in relation to recent posts:
The plot of "The Cats of Ulthar" is simple and deliberately has the structure and cadence of a folk tale. In the town of Ulthar, cats begin to vanish under mysterious circumstances, victims of a reclusive old couple notorious for their cruelty toward animals. Into this setting comes a caravan of strange wanderers, among them an orphan boy devoted to his beloved kitten. When the kitten disappears, the boy calls upon the gods in words no one can understand. That night, the cats of Ulthar gather together and descend upon the couple’s home. By morning, the cottage is silent and empty save for a few disturbing remains. From that day forward, the town passes a law forbidding the killing of cats.
Like much of Lovecraft’s early fiction, "The Cats of Ulthar" is written in a consciously archaic style, marked by inverted syntax and pseudo-antique diction. At this stage of his career, Lovecraft was still in the process of developing his literary voice and Dunsany’s influence is strongly felt. The story’s moralistic, almost didactic structure, culminating in the decree against harming cats, further aligns it with the traditions of myth and fairy tale. At the same time, it is suffused with the dreamlike atmosphere that Lovecraft favored during this period. This is one reason why it is typically grouped among the so-called “Dream Cycle” stories, even though, like "The Doom That Came to Sarnath," there is some suggestion that Ulthar exists (or once existed) in the “real world” rather than exclusively within the fantastical Dreamlands.
Thematically, the story is significant for several reasons. First and most obviously, it reflects Lovecraft’s lifelong affection for cats, a sentiment he expressed frequently in his letters and which surfaces elsewhere in his fiction, most notably in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, where cats play a crucial and even heroic role. More interesting, perhaps, is the way the story conceives of justice. Here, retribution is not the work of human laws or courts but of a higher, more mysterious order. The orphan boy’s prayer, the caravan’s enigmatic presence, and the cats’ nocturnal vengeance all suggest a universe in which moral balance is maintained, if not always through means we would recognize or understand. This vision stands in marked contrast to the cosmic indifference of Lovecraft’s later, more famous works. It hints at an earlier, more mythic conception of the universe, one that is mysterious and at times unsettling, but not entirely devoid of meaning or order.
Whether or not one accepts the idea of a unified Dream Cycle, "The Cats of Ulthar" is clearly part of a cluster of Dunsanian tales within Lovecraft’s canon. Ulthar itself recurs in later works, including "The Other Gods" and the aforementioned Dream-Quest, helping to establish the geography and texture of the Dreamlands. It also exemplifies the fairy tale-like qualities of these stories, where magic is subtle but ever-present, and where human (or feline) societies live according to strange but deeply meaningful laws. For readers familiar only with Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic horror, "The Cats of Ulthar" reveals a very different side of him, one that looks backward to myth and legend rather than forward to existential terror.
"Apostate! You were mine. Now, you are nothing. Change is the law and you would break it with your false eternity. For this, I cast you out."
"Do not mistake my hand for friendship. You are tools, no more. The cycle of Change endures. Pray you never draw my gaze again."
“Years I gave to Sárku, years hollowing myself of every weakness, every desire, even of life itself. I thought I was to become his vessel, his undying emperor. But no: all that time, I was shaping myself for another, greater patron. The One Other has chosen me not as sacrifice but as a partner. Together, we shall reign without end. The empire eternal. The dream perfected. Tsolyánu unchanging.”
Needless to say, this admission terrified the characters. They suspected that Dhich'uné had altered his original plans and now had some new scheme in mind. Yet they never once suspected that he might abandon Lord Sárku, the god to whom he had dedicated his life up to this point, and seek to join rather than control the One Other, with the pariah god as his eternal co-ruler over Tsolyánu. More than ever, they knew he had to be defeated.
As I briefly stated yesterday, my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign had its penultimate session yesterday – penultimate, not ultimate. The final session will, in fact, be next week, as we try to wrap up (to the extent that it's possible after more than ten and a half years of regular play) the remaining threads of the Tsolyáni succession crisis and incipient civil war. That's probably as good a point as any to end the campaign. After the heights of imperial power politics and the cosmic threat of a pariah god, I'm not certain there's anywhere for House of Worms to go but down. Better to end on a high note. Plus, the truth is, after more than a decade, we're all a little tired and could probably use a change of scenery, so to speak, even if I'm still unsure that the campaign begun in its wake could ever live up to this one.
The characters had, for several sessions, been working their way through the bowels of Avanthár, the seat of Tsolyáni power north of the capital city of Béy Sü. Avanthár is often called a "citadel" and it is, but it's also a very ancient military installation dating back to before the Time of Darkness. It's filled with millennia's worth of technological and magical defenses intended to impede anyone's attempts to infiltrate it. Consequently, the characters had their work cut out for them, as they contended with all manner of unexpected and deadly wards, traps, and obstacles. Fortunately, they'd been aided by Prince Táksuru, one of the contenders for the Petal Throne, who provided them with certain aids in their quest. Likewise, Kirktá had been gifted with several artifacts by Míru, a servant of the One Other posing as a priest of Belkhánu. Like the First Tlakotáni, he wanted to see the pariah god freed from captivity beneath Avanthár.
The characters knew that Prince Dhich'uné was already ahead of them, making his way to the prison of the One Other, in hopes of establishing a new pact with the god. How he intended to do this was uncertain, since, so far as they understood things, Dhich'uné needed to be emperor before he could offer his spirit-soul to the One Other in exchange for eternal rule over Tsolyánu. Clearly, he had some kind of back-up plan or alternative scheme, one that didn't require either his victory in the Kólumejàlim or the involvement of Kirktá, who had been trained in his youth for the purpose of aiding Dhich'uné in his goals – or so he said at any rate.
Moving expeditiously from the last room they had explored, they came across a set of sliding doors that looked as if they had been partially forced open. Strange black-green fungus covered part of the door and had begun to slowly spread into the one where the characters now were. Peering into the next room, Nebússa and Kirktá could see that it was a large, circular chamber. The fungus was everywhere within. Along the curve of one wall, there was an opening, like a door. A large "plug" made of the strange ceramic/metal material of the Ancients lay shattered on the ground. The plug was covered in strange symbols and was slowly breaking down. Under the effects of the seeing other planes spell, Kirktá saw a strange creature whose shape constantly shifted forms – one minute an insect, another a reptile, another a cephalopod, and so on – smashing up the bits of the plug.
Grujúng felt the time to act was now. He leapt into the room, weapon drawn. His appearance drew the attention of the creature, which flew/crawled/ran toward him, shifting between its various forms. He could not see it, however; its otherplanar nature made it largely invisible to normal sight. Nevertheless, as he felt its presence, he swung at it with his enchanted blade, striking it. For a moment, it phased into existence before disappearing again. Nebússa joined him, followed by his wife, Srüna. Soon, the other characters joined them. Nebússa, using the sword of the Ancients he acquired some time ago, likewise struck at the beast. Srüna, however, cast a spell of paralysis, which – surprisingly – worked, freezing the creature in place. The others then made short work of it. Upon its destruction, it faded away, as if it had never existed.
The penultimate session of the House of Worms campaign wrapped just minutes ago, with the defeat of Prince Dhich'uné within the bowels of Avanthár. Next week will see the campaign conclude after ten and a half years.
Perhaps it's simply a facet of my getting older that I can now look back on AD&D Second Edition with a lot more equanimity than I once did. Mind you, I've been traveling this particular road for some time now, but, lately, I've found myself thinking ever more fondly of 2e, which I know is heresy in certain old school circles. Earlier in this blog's existence, I accepted without question the received wisdom that Second Edition heralded AD&D's decline. After all, it was the edition that promoted railroad-y adventure design, unnecessary rules complexity, and an endless parade of splatbooks. There’s some truth to those criticisms, but, as is often the case, the reality is more complicated. As I mellow in my old age, I’ve been struck by just how many interesting, even innovative, things TSR attempted under the 2e banner, even if not all of them succeeded.
One of the best examples of this spirit of experimentation is the Historical Reference (HR) series, the so-called “green books” published between 1991 and 1994. These seven volumes attempted to show that AD&D 2e could serve as a kind of universal fantasy engine, capable of handling settings well outside the game’s usual mold. Importantly, they weren’t intended as dry exercises in historical simulation. Instead, they leaned into a blend of history, legend, and myth, presenting material grounded in real cultures but always leavened with enough fantastical elements to remain recognizably D&D.
The first entry, the Vikings Campaign Sourcebook (1991), written by 2e’s chief architect, David “Zeb” Cook, set the tone for what followed. Vikings had been part of D&D’s DNA from the beginning. Deities & Demigods included Odin, Thor, and Loki, while Gygax’s Appendix N highlighted Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword, a novel steeped in Norse myth and heroic fatalism. Cook was tapping into a deep well already familiar to most players and the Vikings Campaign Sourcebook offers Dungeon Masters and players alike a toolkit for adventures inspired by the Viking Age.
The book begins with a broad overview of Norse society (law, honor, family, and daily life) along with a timeline of major events between the years 800 and 1100. Cook wisely avoids the caricature of Vikings as nothing more than berserk raiders, instead presenting them also as explorers, traders, and settlers. This emphasis on cultural breadth is, in fact, one of the book’s strengths and I find I appreciate that aspect of it even more now than I did when I first read it.
Character options include modifications to the standard AD&D classes, along with two entirely new ones, the berserker and the runecaster. It’s an odd choice to present these as separate classes rather than kits, especially since The Complete Fighter’s Handbook (released a couple of years previously) had already popularized kits as the preferred method for customizing characters. Whether this was simply Cook experimenting with format or an editorial decision from TSR is unclear, but it does highlight how much the HR series was still finding its footing. Additional rules cover equipment, magic items, and monsters, many of the latter being existing AD&D creatures modified to fit Norse myth more closely.
One of the book’s most enjoyable sections is its gazetteer of the Viking world, which is simply medieval Europe as seen through the eyes of the Norse. This is accompanied by a full-color foldout map, a TSR flourish I’ve always appreciated. In fact, I find this gazetteer and map more immediately inspiring than some of the book’s rules material, though that says as much about my own tastes as it does about Cook’s writing.
It must be said, though, that the Vikings Campaign Sourcebook is not an in-depth exploration of Norse history or culture. It was never meant to be. At 96 pages, it can only sketch the outlines of the period, leaving the DM and players to fill in the gaps with their own research or imagination. In that sense, it succeeds more as a primer or springboard than as a comprehensive treatment of its subject.
Despite this, the book plays well to AD&D’s inherent strengths. Heroism, exploration, and myth were already central to the game’s ethos and Cook’s presentation provides just enough historical texture to make a Viking campaign feel distinctive without drowning it in pedantry. For all its limitations, the result is a supplement that feels genuinely usable at the table.
Re-reading it now, I’m struck by how emblematic it is of TSR’s adventurousness during the 2e era. This was the same period that produced not only the Complete Handbook series and the later Option books, but also settings as varied as Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and Al-Qadim. The HR series was part of this broader impulse to push beyond “generic fantasy” and explore what else AD&D could do. The Vikings Campaign Sourcebook may not have been perfect, but it was ambitious and I think that matters.
As I've noted before, Fall is without question my favorite season of the year. This has always been true, though I suspect that, when I was younger, the fact that my birthday is in October might have played a role in this. Nowadays, I find it’s more a consequence of the cooler weather – I’ve never been fond of heat and humidity, despite growing up in the Baltimore area – and the vibrant colors of the leaves. I look forward to seeing them start to turn in September. It’s one of Nature’s most beautiful displays, a yearly pageant that transforms even familiar streets and landscapes into places of wonder. The reds, oranges, and yellows mingle in shifting patterns and I often catch myself lingering on walks or staring out the window longer than I intend just to take it in.
Along with the colors comes the crispness of the air, the subtle smell of woodsmoke, and that hushed anticipation before the onset of Winter. Fall feels like both an ending and a beginning, a reminder of time’s passage, yet also of its cycles. It never fails to lift my spirits and sharpen my thoughts, which is why, year after year, it remains the season I cherish most.
The older I get, the more Fall takes on a new weight. The turning of the leaves is not just beautiful; it is also a reminder of impermanence. Those brilliant colors I love so much exist only because the trees are preparing for Winter’s barrenness. Their beauty is inseparable from their decline. That duality has become harder to ignore with each passing year, not because it depresses me, but because it feels increasingly familiar.
I notice my own changes. There are the small, physical reminders – a few more creaks in the body than there used to be – but also the larger ones, like the deaths of friends and family, the slow realization that there are fewer years ahead than behind. Like Fall itself, this is simultaneously melancholy and strangely reassuring. The season feels like a mirror of my inner life, a yearly confirmation that endings are natural, inevitable, and not without their own beauty.
I feel this most keenly in my roleplaying. The House of Worms campaign, which I once seriously imagined might go on forever, is now drawing to a close. Indeed, its end may come as early as this week. Characters who once lived vividly in weekly sessions will soon exist only in memory, stories recounted later or preserved in old notes. There’s a bittersweetness in realizing that even my longest-running campaign is subject to the same fate as all the others. But then, isn’t that part of what makes them precious?
If campaigns never ended, if characters never retired or died, would we hold their adventures in the same regard? I increasingly doubt it. It is precisely because they do end that we remember them with fondness. Their impermanence is what gives them weight. The knowledge that we only get so many sessions together makes each one feel more valuable.
The same is true of writing. Projects that once consumed me eventually reach their conclusion, whether by being finished, abandoned, or transformed into something else. For a long time, I resisted this reality. I held on to drafts and half-formed ideas as if they could be made immortal through sheer persistence. Letting go felt like failure. Now, though, I see it differently. Letting go is its own discipline and every ending clears space for something new. The cycle continues, just as surely as Fall gives way to Winter and then to Spring again.
What strikes me most is that endings, whether in life, roleplaying, or writing, are not failures. They are simply part of the pattern. Recognizing this has changed how I approach my creative work. I don't worry about whether a campaign will last or whether a project will ever be finished in some definitive sense. Instead, I try to enjoy the process, knowing that all things, however beloved, eventually end. Far from diminishing their value, this makes the time spent with them more meaningful.
There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more.
As I read it, "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" is a myth or legend coming down to us from the distant past, as Lovecraft implies immediately thereafter:
It is told that in the immemorial years when the world was young, before ever the men of Sarnath came to the land of Mnar, another city stood beside the lake; the grey stone city of Ib, which was old as the lake itself, and peopled with beings not pleasing to behold.
The story is filled with phrases like "when the world was young" that suggest to me at least that the reader isn't to understand the tale he tells as taking place in an imaginary or dream land but instead in the ancient and forgotten past of our own world, though, as we shall soon see, the matter is not cut and dried. Regardless, Lovecraft establishes that the beings of Ib were "in hue as green as the lake and the mists that rise above it" and "they had bulging eyes, pouting, flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice." One of the reasons I chose the cover above is because it features Gallardo's interpretation of what the beings of Ib looked like.
In time, men to the land of Mnar and founded the city of Sarnath. They marveled at the sight of the beings Ib.
But with their marvelling was mixed hate, for they thought it not meet that beings of such aspect should walk about the world of men at dusk. Nor did they like the strange sculptures upon the grey monoliths of Ib, for those sculptures were terrible with great antiquity. Why the beings and the sculptures lingered so late in the world, even until the coming of men, none can tell; unless it was because the land of Mnar is very still, and remote from most other lands both of waking and of dream.
The hatred of the men of Sarnath grew and, in time, resulted in a war in which all of the beings of Ib were slain and their "queer bodies [pushed] into the lake with long spears, because they did not wish to touch them." The men of Sarnath likewise toppled the monoliths of Ib and cast them into the lake. The only evidence of Ib the men kept was
the sea-green stone idol chiselled in the likeness of Bokrug, the water-lizard. This the young warriors took back with them to Sarnath as a symbol of conquest over the old gods and beings of Ib, and a sign of leadership in Mnar.
The men placed the idol in one of their own temples, but, on the following night,
a terrible thing must have happened, for weird lights were seen over the lake, and in the morning the people found the idol gone, and the high-priest Taran-Ish lying dead, as from some fear unspeakable. And before he died, Taran-Ish had scrawled upon the altar of chrysolite with coarse shaky strokes the sign of DOOM.
The story's titular doom does not come quickly and Lovecraft spends the remainder of the story describing the next thousand years of Sarnath's history, as it grows in power – and pride – within the land of Mnar, eventually becoming the capital of a mighty empire founded on hate and greed. Lovecraft presents these facts in a way that seemingly implies admiration of Sarnath and its glory, but it soon becomes clear that this is a mask for condemnation of its excesses and, by the end, Sarnath and its people pay the price for their past sins.
To call "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" a morality tale is probably simplistic. At the same time, Lovecraft is not at all subtle in his connecting the destruction of Ib with the later doom that befalls Sarnath. In any case, the story is luxuriously written, redolent with adjective-laden description that reminds a bit of Clark Ashton Smith, though utterly lacking in his black humor. Its almost Biblical rhythms and cadences practically demand that the story be read aloud. In the grand scheme of things, it's one of Lovecraft's minor works but it's nevertheless a successful one for which I have a strange affection.
I recently wrote about the origins of Grognardia. While doing so, I was reminded of the early days of not just this blog but many others from the early days of the Old School Renaissance, many of which no longer exist. One of the things I most enjoyed about those early days – and that I miss nowadays – are the conversations that were engendered. On almost every blog, hardly a post went by without some comments, often many. These comments were a big part of what made reading blogs so compelling to me. Readers were actively engaged with what was being written and that regularly led to unexpectedly thoughtful and insightful discussions.
Similarly, blogs engaged with one another. There was a lot of cross-pollination in those days – as well as spirited argument. One of the reasons I look back so fondly on those early days is that there really was a sense that the OSR was a genuine community. That's a word I don't use lightly and indeed usually get suspicious anytime some makes use of it, but, in this case, I think it's apt. Even though we didn't always agree with one on specifics and occasionally got sidetracked by ultimately pointless disagreements, there was still a sense that we were all pulling in a similar, if not necessarily, the same direction.
Since I returned to blogging a little over five years ago, I feel like Rip Van Winkle. Granted, I was away nearly eight years, twice the length of time I had been blogging before I stopped. A lot had happened in the meantime, most significantly the rise of all manner of other platforms for online discussion. They all, in various ways, seem to have played a role in taking the focus away from blogs. That community feeling I once had seems largely to have evaporated, or at least to have shifted elsewhere. The vibrant engagement and thoughtful discussion that I so loved seem to be gone.
I bring all this up, because, as you know, I'm now posting regularly on three different platforms: this one, Substack, and Patreon. Each one has its own merits and flaws; each one allows me to do something slightly different. However, what's lacking in all three of them is much engagement with readers. I frequently feel as if it's the same four or five people who have anything to say and, while I'm grateful for such feedback, it's a far cry from what used to be commonplace on even the smallest of blogs. Has the center of gravity just shifted elsewhere, to sites and platforms I don't use? Is that what's happened?
Blogger, to be frank, is old and creaky. The only reason I still use it is that Grognardia has been on Blogger for seventeen years and the thought of transferring it, in whole or in part, to another site fills me with dread. I'm approaching 5000 posts and 80,000 comments, not to mention untold numbers of links into the site from places Wikipedia. Trying to move Grognardia to a more modern blogging platform is more than I can imagine doing. The task would be monumental and probably not worth the effort in the end.
At the same time, my experience with Substack has laid bare just how awful Blogger is. I used to be able to look at Grognardia's stats through Blogger and get a good sense of how many people were reading what posts and where they were coming from. I could also see what other sites were linking to Grognardia. All of this helped me to better engage with readers here and elsewhere and contributed to that sense of being part of a larger conversation about topics of mutual interest. In the last few months, that's proven even more difficult, as the stats seem implausible, thanks to being overwhelmed by bots.
Substack is, in this regard, so much better. I know exactly how many people are reading my posts and who's sharing them and where. Plus, the software is so much more user friendly and attractive than Blogger. I still get very little in the way of comments on my posts, but at least I know that people are reading what I write, which is something. Part of me just wants to shift over to Substack entirely, but I'm too wedded to Grognardia as it currently exists to do that. Plus, I have no more faith that it'll still exist in five years than I do that Blogger will.
That leaves Patreon, whose primary virtue, if I'm being honest, is that I make a little money from my writing. Whether people read what I write is only a little clearer than on Blogger but I assume that, if people are willing to pay for it, they must be enjoying it. That's gratifying, of course, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I wished more fans of my work weren't patrons, but it's still nothing like what I remember from the height of the OSR during Grognardia's First Age. Sure, I'd love to have so many patrons I could make an actual living solely off blogging, but, barring that, I'd settle for a better sense that people enjoy what I'm doing and make use of it in some fashion. No writer wants to feel as if he's shouting into the void.
One of the first such supplements Steve Jackson Games released was GURPS Space (1988), co-written by William A. Barton and Steve Jackson himself. In hindsight, it feels like one of the pivotal books of the line, the one that established GURPS’s reputation as more than just a flexible rules engine. It showed how you could take a broad genre, in this case, science fiction, in all its wildly different incarnations, and provide the referee with the tools needed to create (or recreate) any SF setting he could imagine.
By the late ’80s, science fiction roleplaying was in a state of flux. Traveller (in both its classic form and the then-new MegaTraveller) was still the reigning champion of the genre, but its dominance was showing cracks. West End’s Star Wars had burst onto the scene in 1987 with cinematic flair and wide acclaim, while TSR’s Star Frontiers had quietly stalled, its last release appearing in 1985. Against this backdrop, GURPS Space (1988) offered something no other SF RPG of the period did. It didn’t compete on the basis of a single setting, canonical future history, or a familiar franchise license. Instead, it handed referees the raw materials with which to build their own universes, be they grounded hard SF colonies, two-fisted pulp romps, or baroque planetary romances in the tradition of Vance and Burroughs.
It was precisely this approach that first caught my attention. At the time, I hadn’t yet played or even read GURPS. I knew it only dimly through advertisements, probably in Challenge magazine. But when I finally encountered GURPS Space, I was enchanted. Here was a book that didn’t tell me what science fiction ought to be but instead gave me the tools to make it whatever I wanted. I bought a copy almost immediately, followed by GURPS itself, largely on the strength of this one supplement. This would have been around 1990 or ’91, just after the release of the second edition, which is why the cover you see above accompanies this post rather than the original 1988 cover.
I was not disappointed. The worldbuilding section alone struck me as one of the most useful pieces of RPG design of its era. It provided step-by-step procedures for generating star systems, planets, ecologies, and cultures that felt simultaneously playable and evocative. The alien-design rules were equally impressive, demonstrating how the flexible mechanics of GURPS could be harnessed to create a wide array of nonhuman beings, from the truly strange to the more familiar. Even the treatment of technology impressed me. By abstracting progress into “tech levels” (an idea borrowed and refined from Traveller), the book offered a simple but powerful shorthand for describing entire societies without resorting to endless lists of weapons and gadgets (though, in time, GURPS would provide those as well).
Of course, GURPS Space bore the characteristic style of the line: dry, methodical, almost textbook-like. GURPS Space was never going to win any rewards for its writing, nor did it offer the convenience of a ready-made universe. This is both a strength and a weakness. For referees seeking inspiration and tools, it was definitely a godsend. For players wanting a game they could pick up and play straight away, however, it could feel intimidating or even sterile. Of course, that was the point. GURPS Space wasn’t trying to compete with the likes of Star Wars. It was offering something entirely different: freedom.
Taken as a whole, GURPS Space is one of the most significant supplements in the history of the line. It established the idea of GURPS as the “toolkit RPG,” a system whose real strength lay not just in its rules but in the genre handbooks that supported them. In my own case, it was the book that convinced me GURPS supplements were worth buying even if I wasn’t actively playing the game (which, truth be told, was most of the time). I wasn’t alone in this. Many referees I knew freely admitted to pillaging GURPS books for ideas and procedures to import into their homebrew campaigns. I strongly suspect Steve Jackson Games realized this and leaned into it, tailoring its supplements to appeal as much to curious referees as to dedicated GURPS players.
Looking back, it’s easy to see why GURPS Space made such an impression. It is fundamentally optimistic about exploration and the potential of alien contact, yet flexible enough to support darker, more cynical futures. It treats science fiction not as a single genre but as a sprawling field of traditions, each with its own possibilities. Above all, it captures what Steve Jackson Games was attempting to do with GURPS, namely, provide tools rather than a finished product and trust the imagination of referees and players to supply the rest.
Here's another public post from my Patreon about the development of Dream-Quest. Because it's potentially a big change in my approach to the game, I thought it'd be worthwhile to share it more widely. I'm actively soliciting comments on what I've written here and whether or not it's a fruitful way forward. Whether you leave your comments over at Patreon or below, they will be much appreciated.
If you were reading Dragon magazine in the mid-1980s, advertisements for TSR's Marvel Super Heroes like this one were ubiquitous. The company worked very hard to get the word out about their new RPG and rightfully so. Though I was never (and still am not) much of a superhero guy, Jeff Grubb's design is so clever that I always had a blast playing MSH. That's no surprise: aside from (obviously) Dungeons & Dragons, Marvel Super Heroes is the only truly influential game TSR ever published and its impact on the hobby outlasted the game itself.
Heads-up: over the coming weeks and months, you'll be seeing a lot of posts about articles that appeared in the Ares Section of Dragon. To some extent, that's just a function of my own personal preference for science fiction over other genres. However, it's also a function of just how good so many of the articles that appeared in that section were or at least how strong my memory of reading them still is decades later.
A good – but also peculiar – example of what I'm talking about appeared in issue #89 (September 1984). The article in question is "Luna, The Empire and the Stars" by Niall C. Shapero. As its title suggests, it's another entry in the series detailing the state of Earth's Moon in various SF RPGs, such as Gamma World and Traveller. I was a big fan of these articles, all of which were intriguing in one way or another. This one was no different.
However, what did separate "Luna, The Empire and the Stars" from the others in the series is that it was about a science fiction roleplaying game that I had never read, let alone played – Other Suns. I knew of the game, of course. Its publisher, Fantasy Games Unlimited, ran regular advertisements for it in the pages of Dragon throughout 1983 and into 1984. Based on the fact that FGU had already published Space Opera, a kitchen sink SF RPG with a notoriously incomprehensible ruleset, I assumed that Other Suns would be more of the same.
While this assumption on my part would ultimately prove to be wildly incorrect, I plead that this article – by the game's designer no less! – played a huge role in leading me astray. "Luna, The Empire and the Stars" describes the future history of the Moon, starting with the establishment of Colony One near Copernicus Crater in in 51 AE (1996). The use of the Atomic Era dating system from H. Beam Piper's stories was the first of many things that gave me a false impression about Other Suns. Piper proposed an alternative dating system that used the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945 as its starting point. It's a little silly in some respects, but, from the perspective of a sci-fi author writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, it's somewhat understandable, given all the popular talk of "the Atomic Age" and the like.
Besides being wildly optimistic about the prospects of a manned lunar colony just a dozen years in the future of when the article was published, Shapero postulates many other equally implausible things, though, to be fair to him, he wasn't the only person to assume the Soviet Union would survive beyond the 20th century. The article likewise buys into speculations about the rise of Japan as a Great Power that were commonplace in the 1980s, especially in SF literature. However, in Shapero's vision, Japan's rise is quickly countered by the USA, forcing the Japanese to form an alliance with Communist China. Worsening relations between the Sino-Japanese alliance and America eventually lead to World War III, resulting in the deaths of two-thirds of Earth's population.
Fortunately, the American and Soviet lunar colonies are unaffected by the devastation and agree to work together to rebuild Earth in the aftermath of the war. Through their efforts, some semblance of normalcy returns to the planet, though life is still difficult. The newly-established world government is weak and corrupt, leading the military to launch a coup that eventually replaces it with a hereditary monarchy. The First Terran Empire is born. If you think this all sounds vaguely reminiscent of the CoDominium of Jerry Pournelle, you're not alone. That's what I thought too, when I first read the article and yet another reason why I assumed that Other Suns was a hard-edged military SF game.
Last week, I mentioned that there's no clear consensus on which of H.P. Lovecraft's stories belong to his Dream Cycle – or indeed whether there even is such a thing at all. For his part, HPL typically referred to these works as his "Dunsanian fantasies" or something similar, reflecting the powerful influence of Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany on his imagination when he wrote most of them. Lovecraft likewise never used the term "Dreamlands" in any of his published writing or private letters, though I don't personally think he would have objected to the coinage, given his admiration for Poe, whose famous poem "Dream-Land" (sometimes styled "Dreamland") surely echoes in the background.
As I revisit these tales, I’ve tried to approach them with fresh eyes, setting aside, so far as possible, the layers of commentary, interpretation, and fan speculation that have built up over the decades. Those perspectives have their value, but I believe it’s essential to start with what Lovecraft actually wrote, not simply with what others have written about it. That’s not always easy, of course, but I note it here both to frame what I hope to do in this and future posts and to remind myself to follow through on that commitment.
Of all H.P. Lovecraft’s early, Dunsanian works, "The White Ship" is among the most overtly dreamlike. First published in the November 1919 issue of The United Amateur and later reprinted in the March 1927 issue of Weird Tales, it's narrated by a lighthouse keeper named Basil Elton. The story recounts Elton's voyage aboard a mysterious vessel crewed by a silent bearded man clad in white. Almost from the start, the tale announces its allegorical, fable-like nature, as Elton steps away from the familiar world of his lighthouse and embarks on a journey through seas that lead to fantastical realms, each embodying some abstract or moral quality. For example, he visits the Land of Zar (of beautiful but fleeting wonders), Thalarion (city of endless delights, haunted by madness), and others, before attempting to reach “the Land of Hope,” Cathuria, which lies beyond the Basalt Pillars of the West. The ship founders during its attempt to reach this forbidden land and Elton awakens back at his post, the beacon light having failed and a wrecked vessel lying on the rocks below.
Read on its own, "The White Ship" presents itself as a straightforward moral parable in the manner of Lord Dunsany. Its sequence of exotic realms, each more allegorical than the last, recalls the mythic procession of The Gods of Pegāna or the ornate wonders of A Dreamer’s Tales. Lovecraft’s imagination here leans heavily on lush description and dream-logic, crafting a narrative that feels more like an allegory than an adventure. Yet the story is not simply a dream. The framing device, with Basil Elton awakening at his lighthouse to discover a shipwreck on the rocks below, suggests that the voyage may have had real consequences – or at least that its reality cannot be easily dismissed. That ambiguity is central to the story’s effect and it helps explain why later readers and commentators so readily considered it part of the Dream Cycle.
More importantly, "The White Ship" contains clear anticipations of the themes and techniques that would define Lovecraft’s those later tales. The notion of voyaging into unseen realms, of lands lying just beyond the horizon of imagination, and of the ceaseless longing for a beauty that can never be fully attained all point forward to The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Basil Elton, like Randolph Carter after him, is not merely a dreamer but a figure alienated from ordinary life, dissatisfied with its limits, and compelled toward something more. In this way, the story functions as a prototype that's less developed than Lovecraft’s mature dream literature, but unmistakably the seedbed from which it grew.
Within the larger body of Lovecraft’s work, "The White Ship" occupies a liminal position. It predates the full flowering of his Dunsanian/Dreamlands stories, but its imagery and themes resonate strongly with those later tales. The forbidden allure of Thalarion, for instance, parallels the dangerous temptations Carter faces in his quest, while the longing for Cathuria foreshadows Carter’s pursuit of Kadath. Even the story’s framing device – of waking to find the dream has ended in loss – mirrors the bittersweet conclusion of The Dream-Quest. For these reasons, while it is not often remembered, I feel as if "The White Ship" is essential for understanding the eventual evolution of Lovecraft's fantasies.
Perhaps it's a side effect of my immersion in Lovecraft's Dreamlands, but the other night I had a very vivid dream whose contents I remembered when I awoke. That's quite unusual for me. Though I do dream regularly, I rarely remember the details for long (and I don't keep a dream journal to write them down before they fade from my memory).
In this dream, I was with a group of my friends – real friends who looked like they do in real life – and we were, for some reason going to Michael Moorcock's home. When we got there, we let ourselves in and proceeded to a large room that appeared to be a dining room or maybe a meeting room. There was a large, long table with a lot of chairs around it.
My friends and I sat down at the table, each claiming a spot. I claimed one near the head of the table, putting down my books and other belongings in front of me in order to secure my place. I did this so that I could be close to Moorcock's seat when he finally arrived. Though my friends filled many of the other seats, there were also a lot of empty seats remaining at the table.
When Moorcock didn't show up immediately, I grew impatient and told my friends I'd go look for him. I then got up and began to explore the halls of his home. I came across a number of rooms, all of them filled with books and works of art that I spent time examining. Then, I heard the sound of a door opening and I rushed back out to a hallway, where I saw Michael Moorcock heading toward the dining/meeting room. He saw me, smiled, and told me to follow him, which I did.
When I got back to the dining/meeting room, I discovered that my seat had been taken by someone else, someone I didn't know. In fact, all the seats at the table were now full, the only empty seats remaining were located at the edges of the room. I was annoyed that my friends had not saved my spot and even more annoyed that my books and other belongings were nowhere to be seen. I scanned the room, hoping I could find them but did not.
I reluctantly sat down at the edge of the room in one of the empty chairs as Moorcock took his place at the head of the table. He looked at me, seemingly knowing that I was distressed. I said, "Mr Moorcock, can you help me? I have a problem." He smiled and said, "Please, call me Ernie." He then pulled out a drawstring bag. Opening it, he pulled out an old cellphone with lots of accessories and then asked those arrayed around him, "Who'd like to buy this? I'm asking $70 for it but I'm willing to negotiate." I became even more annoyed.
This is something I think about often when it comes to the pulp fantasy literature I've championed on this blog since its beginnings. For decades, critics and fans alike have strained to rationalize their enjoyment of the pulps. They talk about how Robert E. Howard tapped into archetypal myth or how Fritz Leiber’s stories critique modernity or how Edgar Rice Burroughs anticipated later trends in speculative fiction. In a great many cases, this is, in fact, true, but I can't help but feel like it misses the point.
The pulps – and the stories published in their pages – existed to entertain. That's it. They were meant to fill idle hours with adventure, color, and excitement. They’re not sacred texts or secret manifestos and that’s fine. In fact, that’s more than fine. It’s wonderful.
I first started reading the stories I term "pulp fantasy" sometime after I first discovered Dungeons & Dragons. I would have been just on the cusp of my teen years – 10 or 11 years-old. I didn’t come to those stories because I wanted mythological resonance or literary depth. I came to them because the covers promised daring escapes, sinister sorcery, and faraway places unlike anything in my everyday life. For the most part, those stories delivered on their promises. Conan’s Hyborian Age, Leiber’s Lankhmar, and Burroughs’s Barsoom all burned themselves into my imagination not because they taught me something profound about the human condition, but because they were fun, fast, and unapologetically larger than life.
There seems to be a peculiar pressure to make sure our amusements are "worthy" of our time. Movies, books, and even roleplaying games are expected to carry some moral, political, or psychological weight. If they don’t, we’re told they’re “just entertainment,” as though that were an insult. Despite that, I find great joy in admitting that sometimes, I just want to read about sword-swinging barbarians, evil wizards, and lost cities with no greater purpose than escape.
Escapism itself isn’t a flaw. It’s one of literature’s oldest and most valuable functions. People have always turned to stories to be transported elsewhere, to forget the mundane for a while, and to inhabit another world. There’s no shame in that. If anything, I’d argue it’s essential, especially in times when the “real world” feels oppressive, difficult, or even just dull.
Of course, pulp fantasy stories can contain deeper meanings if you want to find them. Almost anything can, if you look hard enough. However, the fact that you don’t need to, that you can simply enjoy the ride without demanding justification, is, I'd wager, part of what gives them enduring power. When I pick up a yellowed paperback of Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, I don’t feel guilty that I’m not wrestling with Dostoyevsky or Proust. I’m not reading them for enlightenment. I’m reading them because they’re fun.
I've released a draft of another character class for my Old School Essentials-based Lovecraftian fantasy roleplaying game, Dream-Quest – the Shadow, which is a thief analog unique to the Dreamlands.
In addition to the Shadow, I've also released drafts of the following classes:
