The Worlds of Clark Ashton Smith (Part I)

Among the more interesting aspects of Clark Ashton Smith’s literary output is the way many of his best-known stories fall into a series of loosely connected “cycles.” Each cycle is defined by a shared setting, one that all the stories belonging to it inhabit, even if those stories are separated by vast stretches of time or only lightly connected by recurring names, places, or legends. While these cycles share certain common elements – decadence, black magic, sardonic humor, and a pervasive sense of decline – each nevertheless possesses a character and atmosphere all its own. A story set in Hyperborea feels different from one set in Zothique or Averoigne, not merely in geography but also in tone, mood, and underlying assumptions about history, magic, and humanity’s place in the cosmos.

Since I plan to write about several of Clark Ashton Smith’s settings over the course of the coming month, it seems worthwhile to begin with a short series of introductory posts outlining these worlds for readers who may not yet be familiar with them. Each post will offer a brief overview of a particular setting, highlighting its distinctive features and thematic concerns. I’ll also include a selective bibliography of some of the key stories associated with each setting, many of which I’ve already examined in earlier Pulp Fantasy Library posts. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive or encyclopedic survey. Rather, I simply wish to establish a shared foundation, one that will make it easier to explore these settings in greater depth in later posts devoted to Smith’s most enduring and influential creations.

In this first installment, I’ll focus on two of Smith’s best-known settings – Averoigne and Hyperborea –with additional settings to follow in Parts II and III of the series.

Averoigne

Averoigne is a fictional region in southern France, with its own unique geography and history. It's a land of walled cities like Vyones (home to a grand cathedral and a scheming archbishop), winding rivers such as the Isoile, dense sinister forests, and ruined castles like Fausseflammes and Ylourgne. Set during the Middle Ages and early modern period, supernatural elements abound in the tales of Averoigne, like sorcery (often practiced covertly, even by clergy), vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and demonic intrusions. The Church holds sway but is frequently helpless or corrupt against these forces, which enables Smith to blend religious satire with elements of horror. The Averoigne stories often explore themes of lust, forbidden knowledge, and the clash between faith and paganism. 

The major stories in this cycle are:

• "The End of the Story" (1930): The earliest written story of Averoigne, it takes place in the 18th century. In it, a law student uncovers a forbidden tome at Périgon Abbey, leading to a romantic encounter with a lamia in a ruined chateau.
• "A Rendezvous in Averoigne" (1931): A troubadour and his lover stumble into a vampire-infested castle, blending romance with gothic horror.
• "The Maker of Gargoyles" (1932): A lustful stonemason's creations come alive to terrorize Vyones, serving as karmic punishment.
• "The Holiness of Azédarac" (1933): A bishop-sorcerer uses time magic to send a monk back to pagan times, where he finds love and questions his faith.
• "The Colossus of Ylourgne" (1933): A necromancer assembles a giant corpse to ravage the land, stopped by a heroic wizard in an epic tale of dark sorcery.
• "The Beast of Averoigne" (1933): An alien serpent creature arrives via comet, pitting science against religion as a sorcerer battles it.
• "Mother of Toads" (1938): A grotesque witch seduces a young man with potions, leading to horrific revenge.
• "The Enchantress of Sylaire" (1941): A dreamer enters a fairy realm, defeats a werewolf, and chooses eternal love over mortal life.

Hyperborea

Hyperborea is an ancient, lost land roughly where Greenland stands today, existing in a warm prehistoric era (possibly the Miocene or Pleistocene) before glaciers engulfed it. It's a jungle-clad realm of ebony mountains, opulent cities like Commoriom (abandoned due to dire prophecies) and Uzuldaroum, as well as northern locales like Mhu Thulan. Dinosaurs roam alongside mammoths and saber-tooths, while wizards, thieves, and elder gods like Tsathoggua dominate. The themes of cosmic indifference, ironic comeuppance, and the encroaching ice-doom of the land permeate the stories, often with black humor amid the horror. Smith's Hyperborean stories are the most sword-and-sorcery in content and tones of his work.

The key stories of this cycle are:

• "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" (1931): A pair of thieves raid a ruined temple, awakening a monstrous guardian in ironic horror.
• "The Door to Saturn" (1932): Sorcerer Eibon flees to an alien planet, encountering bizarre creatures in a comedic quest.
• "The Testament of Athammaus" (1932): An executioner fails to kill a regenerating criminal tied to ancient gods.
• "The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan" (1932): A greedy lender chases cursed gems into a monster's lair.
• "The Ice-Demon" (1933): Treasure hunters face a malevolent glacier in a tomb city.
• "The Seven Geases" (1934): A hunter endures escalating curses, bouncing through underworlds to a punchline end.
• "The Coming of the White Worm" (1941): A wizard confronts a deceptive iceberg-entity enslaving others.

Pulp Fantasy Library: A Rendezvous in Averoigne

First published in the April/May 1931 issue of Weird Tales, Clark Ashton Smith's "A Rendezvous in Averoigne" is probably one of the author's most widely reprinted -- and thus read -- stories. There are likely many specific reasons why this is so, but I suspect that they all boil down to a single one: accessibility. Unlike many of Smith's other efforts, even within the Averoigne cycle, this story of the troubadour Gérard de l'Automne and his lady-love Fleurette is extremely accessible to the casual reader. Its fairy tale medieval setting, its cast of characters, its antagonists, and indeed its general subject matter are all well within the bounds of mainstream fantasy or historical romance literature.

Consequently, a lot of Smith fans, who are drawn to him for evocations of the weird and extra-terrene, find "A Rendezvous in Averoigne" boring, or at least a lesser effort. Personally, I think that's a mistake as, despite its conventionality, it's one of Smith's best prose works, an opinion CAS himself shared in a 1930 letter to H.P. Lovecraft. It's easy to see why; Smith's descriptive passages are truly moving, such as this one setting the scene for the woodland tryst of Gérard and Fleurette:

The grass and tress had assumed the fresh enamel of a medieval May; the turf was figured with little blossoms of azure and white and yellow, like an ornate broidery; and there was a pebbly stream that murmured beside he way, as if the voices of undines were parleying deliciously beneath its waters. The sun-lulled air was laden with a wafture of youth and romance; and the longing the welled from the heart of Gérard seemed to mingle mystically with the balsams of the wood.

As you can see, Smith is still very much himself here, crafting passages of verbal beauty, but he also seems more restrained, toning down his penchant for archaisms and unduly exotic words without undermining his literary alchemy.

That aside, this is a Clark Ashton Smith story. The wood where Gérard and Fleurette agree to meet

possessed an ill-repute among the peasantry. Somewhere in in this wood, there was the ruinous and haunted Château des Faussesflammes; and, also, there was a double tomb within which the Sieur Hugh du Malinbois and his chatelaine, who were notorious for sorcery in their time, had lain unconsecrated for more than two hundred years. Of these and their phantoms, there were grisly tales; and there were stories of loupgarous and goblins, of fays and devils and vampires that infested Averoigne. But to these tales Gérard had given little heed, considering it improbable that such creatures could fare about in open daylight.

At first, it seems as if Gérard is correct, for, as he travels on his way to meet Fleurette, he instead finds a mysterious woman accosted by "three ruffians of exceptionally brutal and evil aspect." Entering the fray to defend, he discovers too that the ruffians are in fact an illusion and they, like the woman they were attacking, disappear as he gets close to them, leaving Gérard to feel that "there was something after all in the legends he had heard."

Confused by this turn of events and worried that he will miss his rendezvous with Fleurette, Gérard tries to return to his original path, but instead learns that he is lost in the wood, which was "a maze of bafflement and eeriness." Frightened and tired, he finds himself moving in circles, returning again and again to a tarn on whose shores he finds a many-turreted castle.

There was no sign of life about the castle; and no banners flew above its turrets or its donjon. But Gérard knew, as surely as if a voice had spoken aloud to warn him, that here was the fountain-head of the sorcery by which he had been beguiled.

It'll come as no surprise to anyone that Gérard eventually finds himself with no choice but to approach the castle and enter it, in the process learning the truth about his present circumstances and about the fate of Fleurette. What he finds there and how he deals with it form the bulk of "A Rendezvous in Averoigne," which is, I think, both an excellent tale in its own right but also an excellent reminder that not all weird tales need be dark or vicious, even if they deal with dark and vicious things.

It's an important reminder in my opinion, especially given the renewed interest in pulp fantasies in gaming circles. Much as I think this older tradition of fantasy has something unique to offer contemporary readers (and gamers), I think it'd be a mistake to see amoral grimness as that offering. Just as often there's happiness, even joy, and that's as much a part of the pulp fantasy heritage as anything else. We forget that at our peril.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Beast of Averoigne

First appearing in the May 1933 issue of Weird Tales, Clark Ashton Smith's "The Beast of Averoigne" is, in many ways, very similar to another CAS-penned Averoigne tale, "The Colossus of Ylourgne," which appeared immediately after it in June 1933. Both stories concern themselves with a "man of science" whose superior knowledge enables him to deal with a dark threat that the ignorant, religion-besotted inhabitants of 14th century France simply cannot. What sets "The Beast of Averoigne" apart from its successor is that it might be called a science fiction tale rather than a fantasy one, for the titular Beast is not some demon from Hell or a necromantic abomination but an alien invader.

The short story is divided into three parts, each one told from the perspective of a different character. This structure allows Smith to demonstrate his skill in characterization, as each part is colored strongly by the personality and worldview of its narrator. The end result is quite interesting and, while not wholly satisfying as a tale in and of itself, is nevertheless a delight to read. CAS does a superb job in conjuring up the inhabitants of medieval Averoigne and much of the story's tension stems from the fact that the reader likely has a clearer sense of what is going on than do some of its narrators, who simply cannot comprehend the truth of it all.

The first narrator is Brother Gérôme, "the humblest monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Périgon," who tells of the "a strange evil that is still rampant, still unquelled," which may have come to Earth from a red comet.

The horror stood erect, rising to the height of a tall man, and it moved with the swaying of a great serpent, and its members undulated as if they were boneless. The round black head, having no visible ears or hair, was thrust forward on a neck of snakish length. Two eyes, small and lidless, glowing hotly as coals from a wizard's brazier, were set low and near together in the noseless face above the serrate gleaming of bat-like teeth.

Brother Gérôme tells of the Beast's depredations and of efforts to stop them, particularly prayer, whose efficacy proves insufficient, as is revealed in the next narrator's tale, that of Théophile, abbot of Périgon, in his letter to his niece. Frightened by the Beast's increasing boldness, Théophile turns to ever more extreme rituals and mortifications of his flesh in the hope that they might drive away the alien creature and save the lives of his brother monks, many of whom have fallen victim to it.

And I know not where the horror will end; for exorcisms and the sprinkling of holy water at all doors and windows have failed to prevent the intrusion of the Beast; and God and Christ and all the holy Saints are deaf to our prayers.

The story concludes with narration by Luc le Chaudronnier, an alchemist and sorcerer to whom the authority, secular and religious, turn for help when faith proves insufficient:

"You, Messire le Chaudronnier," said the marshal, "are reputed to know the arcanic arts of sorcery, and the spells that summon or dismiss evil demons and other spirits. Therefore, in dealing with this devil, it may be that you shall succeed where all others have failed. Not willingly do we employ you in the matter, since it is not seemly for the church and the law to ally themselves with wizardry. But the need is desperate, lest the demon should take other victims. In return for your aid, we can promise you a goodly reward of gold and a guarantee of lifelong immunity from all inquisition and prosecution which your doing might otherwise invite.

Luc agrees to help them, using his superior knowledge, which his contemporaries deem magic, to deal with the Beast and the terror it has unleashed on the province of Averoigne. He concludes the tale of his involvement by stating

Indeed, it were well that none should believe the story: for thin is the veil betwixt man and the godless deep. The skies are haunted by that which it were madness to know; and strange abominations pass evermore between earth and moon and athwart the galaxies. Unnamable [sic] things have come to us in alien horror and will come again. And the evil of the stars is not as the evil of earth.

It's a terrific ending, one that calls to mind both Lovecraft and the concluding line of the 1951 film, The Thing from Another World. I'm a big fan of the classic "alien invaders" story and placing such a story within a medieval setting only heightens its effectiveness in my opinion. As regular readers know, I'm increasingly fond of including literally otherworldly beings in my fantasy games, a fondness that has only increased since re-reading this Smith short story. It's worth a read if you've ever toyed with the idea of adding extraterrestrials to your fantasy campaigns.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Mandrakes

Of Clark Ashton Smith's three main cycles of fiction – Zothique, Hyperborea, and Averoigne – I encountered Averoigne first, thanks to the Dungeons & Dragons module, Castle Amber. Consequently, I've retained a great affection for that "sorcery-ridden province" of pre-modern France, even though my estimation of Zothique has since eclipsed it. Averoigne is a place of sinful passions run amok, where pride, envy, wrath, and, above all, lust are given full vent, with frequently horrific results. 

"The Mandrakes," which first appeared in the February 1933 issue of Weird Tales, is a good illustration of prcisely what I mean. The short story tells the tale of a married couple, Gilles Grenier and his wife, Sabine. The pair came "into lower Averoigne from parts unknown or at least unverified" and soon established themselves in a little hut

close to those marshes through which the slackening waters of the river Isoile, after leaving the great fosest, had overflowed in sluggish, reed-clogged channels and sedge-hidden pools mantled with scum like witches' oils. It stood among osiers and alders on a low, mound-shaped elevation; and in front, toward the marshes, there was a loamy meadow-bottom where the short fat stems and tufted leaves of the mandrake grew in lush abundance, being more plentiful and of greater size than elsewhere through all that sorcery-ridden province. The fleshly, bifurcated roots of this plant, held by many to resemble the human body, were used by Gilles and Sabine in the brewing of love-philtres. Their potions, being compounded with much care and cunning, soon acquired a marvelous renown among the peasants and villagers, and were even in request among people of a loftier station, who came privily to the wizard's hut. They would rouse, people said, a kindly warmth in the coldest and most prudent bosom, would melt the armor of the most obdurate virtue. As a result, the demand for these sovereign magistrals became enormous.

Initially, the couple worry that their activities might attract unwelcome attention and, with it, charges of witchcraft. Instead, they find the opposite: they enjoy "a repute by no means ill or unsavory," even among the local clergy, "because of the number of honest marriages promoted by the philtres." 

Ironically, Gilles and Sabine themselves do not seem enjoy such a marriage.

It was rumored by visitors that [Sabine] had oftentimes been overheard in sharp dispute with her husband; and people soon made a jest of this, remarking that the philtres might well be put to a domestic use by those who purveyed them. But aside from such rumors and ribaldries, little was thought of the matter. 

Consequently, when, five years after their arrival in Averoigne, Sabine is no longer seen with her husband, the locals simply accept the explanation of Gilles, namely that " his spouse had departed on a long journey, to visit relatives in a remote province" even though "there had been no eye-witnesses of Sabine's departure." For his part, the sorcerer took to

living tranquilly with his books and cauldrons, and gathering the roots and herbs for his magical medicaments, was well enough pleased to have it taken for granted. He did not believe that Sabine would ever return; and his unbelief, it would seem, was far from irrational. He had killed her one evening in autumn, during a dispute of unbearable acrimony, slitting her soft, pale throat in self-defense with a knife which he had wrested from her fingers when she lifted it against him. Afterward he had buried her by the late rays of a gibbous moon beneath the mandrakes in the meadow-bottom, replacing the leafy sods with much care, so that there was no evidence of their having been disturbed other than by the digging of a few roots in the way of daily business.

Gilles, we soon learn, "was not sorry that he had killed Sabine," as "they had been ill-mated from the beginning" and "it was far pleasanter to be alone." 

The following spring, "there was much demand for his love-philtres among the smitten swains and lasses of the neighborhood" and so Gilles "went forth at midnight beneath the full May moon, to dig the newly grown roots from which he would brew his amatory enchantments." 

Smiling darkly beneath his beard, he began to cull the great, moon-pale plants which flourished on Sabine's grave, digging out the homunculus-like taproots very carefully with a curious trowel made from the femur of a witch.

Though he was well used to the weird and often vaguely human forms assumed by the mandrake, Gilles was somewhat surprized by the appearance of the first root. It seemed inordinately large, unnaturally white; and, eyeing it more closely, he saw that it bore the exact likeness of a woman's body and lower limbs, being cloven to the middle and clearly formed even to the ten toes! These were no arms, however, and the bosom ended in the large tuft of ovate leaves.

Gilles was more than startled by the fashion in which the root seemed to turn and writhe when he lifted it from the ground. He dropped it hastily, and the minikin limbs lay quivering on the grass. But, after a little reflection, he took the prodigy as a possible mark of Satanic favor, and continued his digging. To his amazement, the next root was formed in much the same manner as the first. A half-dozen more, which he proceeded to dig, were shaped in miniature mockery of a woman from breasts to heels; and amid the superstitious awe and wonder with which he regarded them, he became aware of their singularly intimate resemblance to Sabine.

When Gilles digs up another plant "with less than his usual care," he accidentally cuts into "one of the tiny ankles."

At the same instant, a shrill, reproachful cry, like the voice of Sabine herself in mingled pain and anger, seemed to pierce his ears with intolerable acuity, though the volume was strangely lessened, as if the voice had come from a distance. The cry ceased, and was not repeated. Gilles, sorely terrified, found himself staring at the trowel, on which there was a dark, blood-like stain. Trembling, he pulled out the severed root, and saw that it was dripping with a sanguine fluid.

With that, "The Mandrakes" becomes a story of revenge, as the murdered Sabine seemingly seeks satisfaction from beyond the grave. Smith handles this turn effectively in my opinion, as Gilles receives his much deserved comeuppance. "The Mandrakes" is brief and to the point, wasting no verbiage on extraneous details, focusing instead on the crime of Gilles Grenier and the supernatural retribution it brings about. It's an enjoyable little yarn that somewhat reminds me of Poe – a compliment I suspect Smith would have gladly accepted.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Satyr

H.P. Lovecraft's career as a writer was seriously hampered by the fact that he would regularly withhold publication of his stories unless they were printed without alteration. His friend and colleague, Clark Ashton Smith, whose 130th birthday is this coming Friday – Friday the 13th, appropriately enough – had no such qualms. He understood well that, if one were to make a living as a writer of pulp fiction, one had to be both prolific and willing to acquiesce to even the most whimsical of editorial alterations. Consequently, Smith saw a phenomenal number of his stories published during his lifetime. Weird Tales alone published fifty-three of his tales, more even than Robert E. Howard, another of HPL's friends who understood the compromises necessary to make money as a writer.

Smith's willingness to compromise extended not only to the content of his writing, but also to the markets to which he'd peddle his work. In the case of "The Satyr," one of the earliest stories in his Averoigne cycle, he made concessions to both. After repeated rejections from his usual publishers, who regarded it as "overly risqué," he sold it to La Paree Stories, a "spicy" pulp, whose pages were filled with erotic fiction and nude photography. Further, he changed the story's original ending to make it less ambiguous – a man's gotta eat, after all! The link above, sadly, goes to the version that appeared in the July 1931 issue of La Paree Stories; the original ending would not be restored until 2006.

As so many of Smith's tales do, "The Satyr" opens amusingly:

Raoul, Comte de la Frenaie, was by nature the most unsuspicious of husbands. His lack of suspicion, perhaps, was partly lack of imagination; and, for the rest, was doubtless due to the dulling of his observational faculties by the heavy wines of Averoigne. At any rate, he had never seen anything amiss in the friendship of his wife, Adele, with Olivier du Montoir, a young poet who might in time have rivalled Ronsard as one of the most brilliant luminaries of the Pleiade, if it had not been for an unforeseen but fatal circumstance. 

The references to Pierre de Ronsard and La Pléiade place the story in the mid-16th century, which is later than most of his Averoigne stories, whose time period is more clearly medieval. Count Raoul, despite his usual trusting nature, somehow begins to suspect that perhaps there is something untoward in the relationship of his wife and the handsome young poet who composes "melodious villanelles and graceful ballades ... in celebration of Adele's visible charms." 

it is hard to know just why M. le Comte became suddenly troubled concerning the integrity of his marital honour. Perhaps, in some interim of the hunting and drinking between which he divided nearly all his time, he had noticed that his wife was growing younger and fairer and was blooming as a woman never blooms except to the magical sunlight of love. Perhaps he had caught some glance of ardent or affectionate understanding between Adele and Olivier; or, perhaps, it was the influence of the premature spring, which had pierced the vinous muddlernent of his brain with an obscure stirring of forgotten thoughts and emotions, and thus had given him a flash of insight.

So, when he discovers that his wife and Olivier had recently left his chateau to go "for a promenade in the forest," he sets off after them – armed with his rapier.

Even ignorant of what her husband has planned, Countess Adele is worried. 

Adele and Olivier had wandered beyond the limits of their customary stroll, and were nearing a portion of the forest of Averoigne where the trees were older and taller than all others. Here, some of the huge oaks were said to date back to pagan days. Few people ever passed beneath them; and queer beliefs and legends concerning them had been prevalent among the local peasantry for ages. Things had been seen within these precincts, whose very existence was an affront to science and a blasphemy to religion; and evil influences were said to attend those who dared to intrude upon the sullen umbrage of the immemorial glades and thickets.

Olivier, however, is not concerned, claiming that Adele's worries are based on "stories to frighten babes and beldames." He reassures her, "There is enchantment here, but only the enchantment of beauty." The pair proceed deeper into the forest, until at last they come upon a beautiful clearing that possessed both "an air of antique wisdom" and "tranquil friendliness." "Was I not right?" Olivier queried. "Is there ought to fear in harmless trees and flowers?"

I doubt it will come as a surprise to anyone that Adele's fears are well grounded. Even as "the spell of their desire" is upon them and "everything beyond their own bodies, their own hearts" is "vaguer than a dream," they nevertheless become aware that they are being watched.

The apparition was incredible; and, for the space of a long breath, they could not believe they had really seen it. There were two horns in a matted mass of coarse, animal-like hair above the semi-human face with its obliquely slitted eyes and fang-revealing mouth and beard of wild-boar bristles. The face was old - incomputably old; and its lines and wrinkles were those of unreckoned years of lust; and its look was filled with the slow, unceasing increment of all the malignity and corruption and cruelty of elder ages. It was the face of Pan, as he glared from his, secret wood upon travellers taken unaware.

In both versions of the story, the leering vision serves as a catalyst for Adele to fling herself into the arms of Olivier and, at long last, they give into the unspoken ardor that they had long felt for one another. Later, their passion consummated, they lie together in the clearing, at which point Raoul finds them. In the published 1931 version, the Count prepares to impale both lovers with a thrust of his blade, but is prevented from doing so by the sudden appearance of the titular satyr, who grabs Adele and carries her off while laughing maniacally. In Smith's original version, Raoul succeeds in slaying the adulterers as he had planned. The satyr never appears in the flesh; instead, the count only hears his laughter.

Both endings have their merits. For myself, I prefer Smith's version, as there is some ambiguity as to whether or not the satyr exists at all or whether it might instead be a manifestation of Raoul's own bloodlust. In any case, "The Satyr," though a lesser work within the Smithian oeuvre, is a quite effective tale of horror and passion – fitting perhaps, given its title. 

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Enchantress of Sylaire

Robert E. Howard died in 1936 and H.P. Lovecraft followed him a year later. By some reports, Clark Ashton Smith was deeply -- and adversely -- affected by the deaths of his colleagues and frequent correspondents and he largely withdrew from the field of weird fiction. He made a few exceptions, one of the more memorable being 1941's The Enchantress of Sylaire, which, while not explicitly intended as such, proved to be the last tale of medieval Averoigne that he'd ever write.

Interestingly, The Enchantress of Sylaire represents something of a departure from previous Averoigne stories. Unlike the majority of its predecessors, it's notably lacking in cynicism. Indeed, it's a strangely positive, even optimistic fantasy that verges on fairy tale romance in both its content and presentation. It tells of an idealistic, love-besotted young man named Anselme, the object of whose current affections is a beautiful but empty-headed woman named Dorothée des Flèches, who does not share his feelings.

"Why, you big ninny! I could never marry you," declared the demoiselle Dorothée, only daughter of the Sieur des Flèches. Her lips pouted at Anselme like two ripe berries. Her voice was honey — but honey filled with bee-stings.

"You are not so ill-looking. And your manners are fair. But I wish I had a mirror that could show you to yourself for the fool that you really are."

"Why?" queried Anselme, hurt and puzzled.

"Because you are just an addle-headed dreamer, pouring over books like a monk. You care for nothing but silly old romances and legends. People say that you even write verses. It is lucky that you are at least the second son of the Comte du Framboisier — for you will never be anything more than that."

"But you loved me a little yesterday," said Anselme, bitterly. A woman finds nothing good in the man she has ceased to love.

"Dolt! Donkey!" cried Dorothée, tossing her blonde ringlets in pettish arrogance. "If you were not all that I have said, you would never remind me of yesterday. Go, idiot — and do not return."

Dejected, Anselme resolves to leave the world -- and women -- behind by becoming a hermit in the woods of Averoigne. A year into his new life, he spies a mysterious woman bathing in a forest pool. Though taken with her beautiful nakedness, he is not so distracted that he fails to notice "a huge wolf, appearing furtively as a shadow from the thicket" making its way toward her. Fearing more for the woman's safety than his own embarrassment at being a voyeur, Anselme reveals himself and cries out to her. Showing no signs of concern, the woman turns to answer him: "'There is nothing to fear,' she said, in a voice like the pouring of warm honey. 'One wolf, or two, will hardly attack me.'"

The woman dresses and introduces herself to Anselme as Sephora, an enchantress who dwells in a magical Otherworld known as Sylaire, reachable through an ancient collection of standing stones. She asks that Anselme accompany her there, to which he agrees and finds

the grass on which they lay was not the sparse and sun-dried grass of the moor, but was deep, verdant and filled with tiny vernal blossoms! Oaks and beeches, huger even than those of the familiar forest, loomed umbrageously on every hand with masses of new, golden-green leafage, where he had thought to see the open upland. Looking back, he saw that the gray, lichened slabs of the cromlech itself alone rearmed of that former landscape.

Even the sun had changed its position. It had hung at Anselme's left, still fairly low in the east, when he and Sephora had reached the moorland. But now, shining with amber rays through a rift in the forest, it had almost touched the horizon on his right.

The pair make their way to Sephora's tower, where she departs to rest. While she is asleep, Anselme takes the opportunity to explore Sylaire and again encounters the wolf he'd seen earlier. As it turns out, he is no wolf but rather a sorcerer cursed by Sephora to take the form of an animal -- or so he claims, as Anselme finds it hard to believe that the enchantress could ever be so cruel. The wolf-man, whose name is Malachie du Marais, says that he was once, like Anselme, a favorite of Sephora and became her lover but she grew tired of him and used dark magic to transform him into a wolf. Malachie further claims that Sephora is not a woman at all but a foul lamia and her servants are vampires; a bad end will come to Anselme if he does not flee Sylaire now and never return.

Anselme, of course, does not wish to believe Malachie's claims but the werewolf has nevertheless sowed the seeds of doubt in his mind. If Saphora's servants were not vampires who only appear at night, where were they? Likewise, Malachie claimed that, as a lamia, Saphora is afraid of mirrors, which reveal her true face to the world. If she is not the evil creature he claims, then why is that there are no mirrors anywhere in Saphora's home or among her possessions? And once Anselme returns to Sephora's home, her attitude toward Malachie has changed from her earlier nonchalance to genuine concern, saying that the werewolf is in fact a threat to her, as Anselme had suggested earlier -- a threat about which something must be done.

I won't spoil the ending of The Enchantress of Sylaire except to say that it's conclusion is at once quite different than those of most CAS tales and yet still very much in line with the worldview espoused in most of his fiction and poetry. Both Sephora and Malachie du Marais appears as NPCs in Tom Moldvay's Castle Amber, although Sylaire itself is portrayed not as a fey otherworld but merely as a location with the province of Averoigne.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The End of the Story

When I was writing my three-part series on the worlds of Clark Ashton Smith, I realized that I had somehow never written a Pulp Fantasy Library post about “The End of the Story,” the very first tale of the Averoigne cycle, appearing in the May 1930 issue of Weird Tales. In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. “The End of the Story” is frequently overlooked, probably because, unlike most other entries in the cycle, it is set not in the Middle Ages but in 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution. [Note: The text linked above gives the date as 1798, which I believe is simply a typographical error. —JDM]

Even so, I feel a little sheepish about this, as it's an excellent story, both within the Averoigne cycle and within Smith's larger body of work. It's also one of his earliest fiction works, written just a few years after "The Abominations of Yondo." Though still a relative amateur at prose, the story nevertheless presents a clear expression of Smith’s decadent sympathies and his esthetic rebellion against conventional morality. Consequently, it is less a horror story than a parable of temptation and the lingering bitterness that follows salvation.

The story is framed as a manuscript discovered after the mysterious disappearance of a young law student, Christophe Morand. The manuscript contains his confession, written at his father’s estate near Moulins in the province of Averoigne. What Morand recounts there is not a description of an ordeal escaped, but of a paradise glimpsed and lost.

Caught in a violent storm while riding through the forest, Christophe stumbles upon the abbey of Périgon, where he is warmly received by its abbot, Hilaire. The abbot is no ascetic but rather a cultivated Epicurean. He is well-fed, well-read, proud of his wine cellar, and even prouder of his astonishing library. The abbot’s library is a treasure trove of lost antiquities, holding lost fragments of Sappho, an unknown dialog of Plato, and many other unique literary and philosophical curiosities. 

Also present is a hidden volume that the abbot fears – an anonymous text written in archaic French, which he claims is cursed. Hilaire's warning is melodramatic, full of signs of the Cross and invocations of Satan. Unfortunately, it's precisely for this reason that Christophe is so tempted by it. Smith handles the temptation represented by the forbidden text beautifully. It is not lust, ambition, or even greed that drives Christophe, but pure esthetic curiosity. It is the scholar’s hunger for forbidden beauty.

When Christophe eventually does read the manuscript, he finds that it tells of Gérard de Venteillon, a medieval knight who, on the eve of his wedding, encounters a satyr in the forest. The creature whispers a secret so powerful that Gérard abandons his faith, his fiancée, and the world itself. He then follows a hidden path to the ruins of Château des Faussesflammes, presses a triangular stone, and descends into the earth, never to return.

The satyr says that

The power of Christ has prevailed like a black frost on all the woods, the fields, the rivers, the mountains, where abode in their felicity the glad, immortal goddesses and nymphs of yore. But still, in cryptic caverns of the earth, in places far underground, like the hell your priests have fabled, there dwells pagan loveliness, there cry the pagan ecstasies."

Though the words are those of a satyr, it seems clear to me that they're also the words of Smith himself, who had little use for formal religion of any kind, least of all medieval Christianity.

Later, from his window at the abbey, Christophe recognizes nearby ruins. Like Gérard before him, he feels irresistibly drawn to them. Ignoring every warning, he slips away, finds the triangular stone, and descends into the vaults beneath Faussesflammes. Instead of the horror he was promised, Christophe discovers a radiant pastoral world – a classical paradise of laurel groves, flowing rivers, marble palaces, satyrs, and nymphs. This is no hellscape but Arcadia restored, the world Christianity erased.

At the heart of this paradise waits Nycea. She is one of Smith’s most memorable creations: a lamia, an ancient vampire-serpent whom Christophe perceives only as a goddess of beauty. Their meeting is neither violent nor coercive. It is, in fact, strangely tender, luxurious, and, above all, intoxicating. Yet Christophe’s response goes beyond simple lust, just as his desire for the forbidden manuscript in the abbey was more than mere curiosity. Nycea represents recognition, the sense that he has always loved her without knowing it. Smith presents their union not as corruption but as fulfillment. The reader is meant to understand why Christophe would risk damnation for her.

It is at this point that Hilaire bursts in, brandishing holy water. Nycea flees, and the paradise Christophe has discovered collapses into dust. The vision vanishes, and he comes to his senses amid the rubble of the vaults beneath Faussesflammes. Hilaire explains that Nycea is an ancient demon who lures men to their doom, drains them, and devours them. The manuscript was her bait, her carefully laid trap. Gérard and countless others met their deaths this way, and Christophe, the abbot insists, is fortunate to have escaped the same fate.

Christophe feels no gratitude. He feels only rage. He does not believe he has been rescued; he believes he has been robbed.

Unheedful whether or not he had rescued me from dire physical and spiritual perils, I lamented the beautiful dream of which he had deprived me. The kisses of Nycea burned softly in my memory, and I knew that whatever she was, woman or demon or serpent, there was no one in all the world who could ever arouse in me the same love and the same delight.

The true end of the story comes when Christophe vows to return. He swears that he will seek out the ruins of Faussesflammes again and descend once more into the vaults below. He has chosen to risk death and damnation, because he cannot unsee paradise and cannot accept a world without it.

“The End of the Story” is among Smith’s finest tales. Though it differs in many respects from later Averoigne stories, I have always found it especially compelling. Those later entries lean more overtly into the grotesque, but this one is strangely moving and elegiac. It mourns not only the loss of one man’s vision of paradise but also the passing of an older, pagan world – a realm of beauty, sensuality, and wonder erased by the march of Christianity and history.

In the end, Smith does not ask us to decide whether Christophe is a fool or a tragic hero. Instead, he leaves us with something far more unsettling: the suggestion that some illusions are worth dying for and that paradise, once glimpsed, can never truly be forgotten.

REVIEW: Isle of the Unknown

I find Geoffrey McKinney's Isle of the Unknown an extremely frustrating book. Published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess and available either as a 128 page full-color hardcover book or as a PDF of the same, it's without a doubt one of the most nicely made RPG books I've seen in quite some time, old school or otherwise. By "nicely made," I mean both in terms of its purely physical qualities -- a sturdy cover and excellent binding -- as well as its appearance and organization. At the same time, I think Isle of the Unknown overuses color to the point of garishness at times. The book is so colorful and vibrant that, at first, one can't help but be awed by it. After a while, though, one's initial visual euphoria dissipates, and one begins to wonder how much of one's positive feelings for it are elicited by its substance and how much by its style.

I say that with some regret as this is a book I very much wanted to like without qualification. While nowhere in the text is Clark Ashton Smith's name mentioned, I recall that Isle of the Unknown began as an attempt by Geoffrey McKinney to produce a supplement that evoked Smith's weird tales, particularly those of Averoigne. CAS is a favorite author of mine, as I never tire of mentioning on this blog, and his Averoigne stories have long exercised a powerful hold over my imagination. Consequently, I was very keen to see an old school RPG book that drew on those pulp fantasies. Now, I knew from past experience with Carcosa (whose revised and expanded edition I'll be reviewing later this week) that McKinney's take on Smith would undoubtedly differ from my own, so I expected there to be parts of Isle of the Unknown that didn't sit well with me.

However, that's not quite what happened. Isle of the Unknown still clearly draws some inspiration from the Averoigne tales. The fact that its titular locale is described as having "societies, flora, and fauna ... [that] resemble those of the French territory of Auvergne circa A.D. 1311" is a dead giveaway. Beyond that, though, the CAS influence is thin in my opinion. For that reason, Isle of the Unknown simply comes across as weird, with nearly every one of its over 300 86-square mile hexes home to some oddity or monstrosity, almost all of which are lavishly illustrated in full color by Amos Orion Stearns or Jason Rainville. Of course, that's what you'd probably expect from a book like this. Isle of the Unknown is a gazetteer of 35,000-square mile island that can be dropped into any campaign and, if it didn't provide material of this sort, most readers would be disappointed. That every hex on the island is given an entry -- many of them quite extensive -- is a credit to McKinney and his imagination.

In books of this kind, the problem is most often that the hex descriptions are boringly mundane. Isle of the Unknown has the opposite problem: nearly every hex description includes a magical statue, a quirky spellcaster, or a teratological monster. This is by design, as the introduction to the referee states that "only the weird, fantastical, and magical is described herein." This decision is presented as a boon to the referee, who can thus more easily describe the mundane world based on the realities of his own campaign, but I find this an inadequate justification. It's on par with refraining from describing the "empty" rooms in a dungeon, because all that really matters are the rooms with monsters and treasure in them. Moreover, by describing only the weird, fantastical, and magical, Isle of the Unknown gives the impression of overusing them all. Rather than being spices to improve the flavor of the dish, they become the meal itself.

I find this most troubling with regards to the many monsters described in Isle of the Unknown. Forget Gygaxian naturalism, this is an island populated by over 100 unique monsters: a 14' tall bipedal pearlscale angelfish, limbless serpentine beavers, a 300 lb. koala with suction cups on its limbs, a four-legged pigeon the size of an apatosaurus, and more. Any one of these creatures would be strange enough and might well inspire curiosity but the effect is lost after pages upon pages of them -- and that's without commenting on the frankly ludicrous nature of some of these beasties. Yes, I know there are people who've managed to make good use of "silly" monsters and I also recognize that many hallowed mythological monsters, when looked at with fresh eyes, are pretty ridiculous themselves. But if D&D or Greco-Roman myth consisted only of 22' tall emaciated pandas or four-legged flying kangaroos, I think many of us would be forced to admit that something odd was going on.

Granted, "something odd" going on may be one of the points of Isle of the Unknown. I don't think it's a coincidence that Lamentations of the Flame Princess chose to publish this particular product, as it rather powerfully evinces Jim Raggi's longstanding dislike of "standard" monsters and monster races. There's certainly merit to Raggi's complaint; it's often useful to shake things up a bit by introducing totally bizarre and unexpected monsters from time to time. However, like color or spices, these, too, can be overused. In fact, I only think such monsters work against a backdrop of familiarity and even mundanity, two things that Isle of the Unknown eschews in its presentation, leaving us only with a passel of freaks devoid of any context to give them heft. Instead, they feel, well, random and not always in a good way.

Despite this, I still like Isle of the Unknown. If approached as a smörgåsbord of ideas, it's probably quite useful. I simply cannot imagine using it as a single setting, but I might drop a statue or a monster or an NPC from the book into another locale or adventure in order to introduce a note of inexplicable weirdness into it. What I would not do, though, is use the entirety of the Isle itself; it's simply too much. My feeling remains that fantasy, especially weird fantasy, works best when it can play off well-drawn mundanity and that it's just as much a failure of the imagination not to present that mundanity as it is to stick to haggard fantasy races and monsters without any thought. Frankly, that's what anything drawing inspiration from Clark Ashton Smith ought to do: present us first with a believably grounded "real world" and then, by bits, turn the expectations of that real world upside down. Isle of the Unknown only gives us half of that equation, which is why I find it a frustrating book.

Presentation: 8 out of 10
Creativity: 6 out of 10
Utility: 5 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for a collection of ideas to loot for your own adventures or you like really weird fantasy.
Don't Buy This If: You prefer your setting supplements a bit more "ready to use" or prefer your fantasy a bit more on the staid side of things.

Thoughts Occasioned by Castle Amber

This post is not, strictly speaking, a Retrospective, since I've already done one on Tom Moldvay's 1981 module, Castle Amber – two, actually, if you count the repost as well. Nevertheless, in honor of The Ensorcellment of January, I thought it more than appropriate to take another look at the only old school Dungeons & Dragons module to take explicit inspiration from the works of Clark Ashton Smith. While I'll endeavor not to repeat much of what I said in my original Retrospective, there will inevitably be a few points to which I'll return, though I hope I'll offer some additional insights to justify doing so.

Despite my repeatedly thinking otherwise, the name of Clark Ashton Smith does not appear anywhere in Appendix N to Gary Gygax's AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide nor does he appear in the expanded list of "favorite authors [and] inspirational sources" in his 1992 Mythus Magick bonus. On one level, it's a very odd omission, as Gygax was quite well read when it came to fantasy and science fiction literature – including lots of early pulp fantasy authors, like Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, both of whom he considered "among the most immediate influences" on his conception of the game he co-created. 

The fact that Gary Gygax, of all people, could seemingly have either not known or not cared about CAS suggests that, compared to many of his literary contemporaries, he has always been, if not necessarily obscure, something of an acquired taste. Speaking even as an avowed devotee of Smith, I can’t really blame anyone who finds his mellifluous prose, sardonic demeanor, and detached misanthropy a bit much, particularly when set beside the more muscular storytelling of Howard or the raw imaginative urgency of Lovecraft. Smith demands patience and a willingness to luxuriate in language for its own sake. His stories often feel less like adventures than like jeweled relics to be contemplated from a respectful distance.

Consequently, Smith’s fiction is not easily mined for gameable elements in the way Conan’s swordplay or Lovecraft’s Mythos can be. Howard offers clear models for heroic action and conflict. Lovecraft provides a cosmology of forbidden knowledge, cults, and monsters that can be lifted almost wholesale into play. Smith, by contrast, traffics in mood, decadence, and fatalism. His stories often lack conventional heroes, hinge on ironic or poetic reversals, and end not with triumph or revelation but with extinction, transformation, or bitter resignation. These qualities make his work harder to translate into D&D and that difficulty is probably at the root of why Gygax took little notice of him. Smith does not easily become a list of monsters, spells, or magic items.

Fortunately for me, Tom Moldvay did notice him. Although I’m still not absolutely certain that it was Castle Amber that first introduced me to Smith – it may well have been Call of Cthulhu, released the same year as module X2 – I can say with certainty that it was this adventure that solidified Smith’s hold over my imagination. Castle Amber suggested that roleplaying games could evoke not just action or terror, but a sense of dreamlike estrangement and baroque melancholy. It suggested that play could feel uncanny rather than merely dangerous, strange rather than merely challenging, and that those feelings could linger long after the dice were put away.

That lingering quality is a large part of why I still love Castle Amber four decades later. It is, above all else, unsettling. On the surface, it is just another dungeon for characters of levels 3 to 6, complete with monsters, traps, and treasure. Dig a little deeper, though, and the dungeon in question reveals itself as a kind of fun house, governed less by internal logic than by a warped, almost oneiric sensibility. Its 70 keyed locations feel less like rooms in a coherent structure and more like fragments of half-remembered stories stitched together by madness and decay.

One chamber hosts a boxing match against magical constructs; another contains the lair of spellcasting spiders imported from The Isle of Dread (itself another Moldvay creation); elsewhere, there is a kennel of hellhounds. None of these elements really belong together, at least not in a naturalistic way and that disjunction might be the point. The titular Castle Amber resists easy categorization. It feels wrong in a way that is difficult to articulate, as if it obeys a set of esthetic or even metaphysical rules that the players can sense but never fully grasp. Layered on top of this is the grotesque parade of the Amber family themselves – decadent, deranged, and occasionally tragic figures who are, unsurprisingly, closer to characters out of Smith’s own stories than to standard fantasy villains.

Castle Amber thus has a very strange vibe, one that I picked up on even as a twelve-year-old. It made me uneasy in a way that very few D&D modules ever have. How much of that vibe is intentional and how much of it is something I've been projecting onto it is difficult to say, especially after so many years of reading and playing it. I assume at least some of it must have been intentional, because Moldvay was adapting elements of Smith's Averoigne stories for use with D&D and those stories have a similar ambience. 

This brings to mind another question that has longed dogged me about this module: why was this particular module was ever released. Though not a close adaptation of the Averoigne tales, it's close enough that special thanks are given to CASiana Literary Enterprises, Inc. (the estate of Smith) "for use of the Averoigne stories as inspirational material." It's unclear whether TSR acquired or sought out a license from CASiana for use of the stories or not, but, even if it didn't do so formally, Castle Amber is an unusual early example of an RPG product published by TSR explicitly derived from a pre-existing intellectual property. 

Regardless, I count Castle Amber as one of my favorite adventure modules for any edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Not only did it play a role in making me a lifelong Clark Ashton Smith fan but it also forever affected my sensibilities when it comes to fantasy and fantasy adventures. It was, for example, one of the primary inspirations behind my own The Cursed Chateau (an adventure that I am, not coincidentally, in the process of revising for re-release). It's a weird, fun, disconcerting scenario and I think it still holds up today.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Colossus of Ylourgne

The illustration to the left isn't from the first appearance of Clark Ashton Smith's June 1933 short story, "The Colossus of Ylourgne," but from a Dutch anthology bearing the same name. I included it with this post because I liked the look of it and because, as I've noted previously, Smith stories so rarely received cover art in the issues of Weird Tales in which they were published; this story is no different. Interestingly, we know from extant letters that "The Colossus of Ylourgne" is one of two stories (along with "The Dark Eidolon") that Smith offered to Universal Studios for adaptation into movies when they contacted him in 1935 about obtaining film rights to some of his work. Alas, nothing ever came of it.

Set in late 13th century France, "The Colossus of Ylourgne" is one of the longest pieces Smith ever wrote. It's also one of his more straightforwardly "adventurous" tales, which isn't to say the story diverges much from his usual approach, since it still retains all the characteristics one would expect from its author, including mordant satire and luxurious language. Nevertheless, the story is one that could easily be turned into a D&D adventure -- and indeed was, in the form Tom Moldvay's Castle Amber, which includes characters and events taken directly from "The Colossus of Ylourgne."

Nathaire, a "thrice-infamous ... alchemist, astrologer and necromancer, with his ten devil-given pupils" suddenly and secretly departs from the town of Vyônes for reasons unknown, although it is commonly believed "that his departure had been prompted by a salutary fear of ecclesiastical thumbscrews and fagots." In point of fact, the dwarfish, deformed necromancer has bigger things in mind, as soon becomes apparent:

Nightly, for a period of two weeks, the cemeteries of Vyônes, and also those of other towns, of villages and hamlets, gave up a ghastly quota of their tenants. From brazen-bolted tombs, from common charnels, from shallow, unconsecrated trenches, from the marble-lidded vaults of churches and cathedrals, the weird exodus went without cessation.

Worse than this, if possible, there were newly ceremented corpses that leapt from their biers and catafalques, and disregarding the horrified watchers, ran with great bounds of automatic frenzy into the night, never to be seen again by those who lamented them.

Only one person in all of Averoigne, Gaspard du Nord, "himself a student of the proscribed sciences, who had been numbered for a year among the pupils of Nathaire but had chosen to withdraw quietly from the master's household after learning the enormities that would attend his further initiation," has any inkling of what is transpiring -- and what is necessary to stop it.

The resulting story, while lacking the blood and thunder approach of more conventional pulp fantasies, is nevertheless a gripping adventure tale. Gaspard du Nord is neither a Howardian stalwart nor a Lovecraftian antiquarian, but rather a peculiar mix of the two. He's a man of action and integrity who uses "science" -- in this case, forbidden magic -- to protect people who would otherwise revile and fear him as a servant of the Devil. There's an almost Western "necessary barbarian" quality to Gaspard's portrayal, although I'm not sure Smith intended such a reading, preferring instead to use him and his former master as opportunities to poke fun at the medieval Church and religious sensibilities generally.

"The Colossus of Ylourgne" is definitely one of Smith's most accessible works. Its narrative structure and content are more in line with those of lesser pulp fantasy works, which probably explains why it was so well received by the readers of Weird Tales. Yet Smith sacrifices very little of his distinctive voice in this tale. Indeed, one could reasonably argue that, because its structure is more conventional, it affords Smith a greater opportunity to demonstrate his unique gifts as a writer. Regardless, "The Colossus of Ylourgne" is a classic and perhaps the crowning achievement of his Averoigne stories. It's well worth reading by lovers of weird fantasy generally and gamers in particular.

The Clark Ashton Smith Game

As promised, here's the tale of my attempt, a few years ago, to create a RPG based on the worlds of Clark Ashton Smith, specifically Hyperborea, Averoigne, and Zothique.

Well before my return to old school gaming, I'd returned to the pulp fantasies I loved as a younger person. I started re-reading authors like Lovecraft, Howard, Leiber, and Smith, among others and began to immerse myself in the new studies of them and their works. It was this process that, ultimately, started me down the path to where I am today, but it would take several more "pushes" from other quarters before I'd make the full leap back to my gaming roots.

Anyway, in the course of my reading, I got the idea to write a RPG -- D20-based, of course, as that was the style at the time -- that could encompass the "big three" literary worlds of Clark Ashton Smith. I'd been in touch with a lot of Smith scholars and fans and had even made the acquaintance of Smith's stepson, William Dorman, who serves as director of CASiana Literary Enterprises. Since CASiana is Smith's literary executor, I wrote up a formal proposal to Dorman, laying out my plans for the game and connecting it to an earlier CASiana-sanctioned RPG project, Castle Amber. I also emphasized that, in a time of rising interest in Smith's works, a game based on his works might be another vehicle for making them more well known.

William Dorman granted me permission to go ahead with the project. I was ecstatic and set to work. I also contacted a well-known and respected D20 publisher, who were similar enthusiastic about the project and even tentatively lined up an editor who was also an avid admirer of CAS. As plans progressed, it looked like we'd be producing a large, hardcover book that included a simplified D20 variant for its core rules, with modifications for each of the three settings to better reflect their unique qualities. Had the game actually come to pass, I think it would have been excellent, in my biased opinion.

So why didn't it happen? Well, looking at least partially to Call of Cthulhu as a model of a well-done RPG based on a pulp fantasist, I figured it'd be nice to include select quotes from Smith stories to frame certain sections of the book, such as, for example, the gazetteers of Averoigne and Zothique. I even considered the inclusion of the full text of a single short story for each section, much in the way CoC includes "The Call of Cthulhu" nowadays. I wrote to Mr Dorman to make certain this was acceptable and received word from him that CASiana has an "understanding" with the publisher Arkham House. This understanding is such that, while CASiana may be Smith's literary executor, it makes no claim to holding the copyright to Smith's actual literary texts. Instead, Arkham House makes that claim and, if I wanted to include any text from Smith's stories, I'd need to contact Arkham House.

Naturally, I did. April Derleth, daughter of the company's founder, directed me to someone else, who acted as Arkham House's "literary agent" or some similar title. I can't recall the man's name, but I did get in touch with him. He and I exchange some letters and emails before eventually coming down to brass tacks about the cost of securing the rights to Smith's texts for an RPG. Needless to say, the cost involved was higher than I could justify given the likely return and so, unhappily, I reported this back to the interested publisher. There was brief talk of negotiating for a better deal, but, in the end, all concerned knew it'd hardly be worth it, as this would be a niche product.

I periodically thought of returning to the project, after I'd looked more into the copyright status of Smith's stories, many of which are likely in the public domain. I even contacted several Smith scholars to ask their advice and they all agreed that Arkham House's claims over Smith's texts, like those over Lovecraft's, are dubious at best and outright chicanery at worst. However, they all cautioned me against acting without permission from Arkham House unless I had the services of a good copyright lawyer, as Arkham has a history of legally bullying people who try to produce "unauthorized" editions of works they claim to own.

I didn't have a lawyer and, even if I had, I wasn't much interested in trying to fend off Arkham House and the project has never gotten anywhere. I doubt I have the permission to produce a CAS-inspired RPG anymore, as it's been years since I was last in touch with Mr Dorman and CASiana. I suppose I could produce a pastiche version of Smith's worlds but, honestly, that's an unsatisfying solution. Part of what motivated me to start this project was a desire to promote Smith's own works, not knock-offs of them. I wanted to get people to read his stories and appreciate his creations. But, alas, it seems as if CASiana, despite being his literary executor, claims no real control over his creations and thus can do little to help me advance that goal.

It's a shame, because the game would have been awesome.

Retrospective: Castle Amber

Released in 1981, Castle Amber is part of what I call Tom Moldvay's "Pulp Fantasy Trilogy," consisting of this module, The Isle of Dread, and The Lost City. I'm not sure that the term is original to me; I might have picked it up from the incomparable Philotomy Jurament. In any case, all three of these modules are homages to the pulp fantasy stories that inspired D&D, but Castle Amber is the only one that makes explicit reference to its inspiration, the Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton Smith.

I can't say for certain, but I think Castle Amber is what first introduced me to CAS. I knew of his name, of course, from having read, among other things, Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Moldvay's own Basic Rulebook recommends Smith as well, although more for his Xiccarph stories than anything else. After playing the module, I hunted down what little of Smith's writings as I could find in the local library. I wasn't very successful in my quest and it was years before I read a significant number of CAS stories.

But what makes me remember Castle Amber so fondly is that, even though I wasn't able to read most of Smith's literary corpus until much later, I still "knew" Smith through Moldvay's rather brilliant evocation of his spirit in this adventure. Most of the distinctive Smithian features are here: decadence, ennui, the macabre, black humor -- all stirred together in an unsettling stew. I won't deny that, as kid of 12, I found Castle Amber a tad disturbing. I wasn't scared of it so much as fascinated by it. There was something not quite right about the whole thing, something I couldn't then put my finger on and yet I loved it all the same.

Even now, it's hard to articulate precisely what it is that still fascinated me about Castle Amber. On a superficial level, it's just another "funhouse dungeon," filled with nonsensical and whimsical encounters, like the ogre who believes himself to be a human woman, the troll under the bridge in the indoor forest, and jester who polymorphs opponents into white apes, among others. But what I think sets Castle Amber apart from true funhouse dungeons is two things. First, there is a degree of internal consistency and unity to even the most whimsical encounters; that is, there is a method behind the madness. Second, and more importantly for me, there's very little outright malevolence in the place. There are many evil people inside Castle Amber -- most of the Amber family, for instance -- and their actions are objectively evil according to almost any moral compass and yet, somehow, they come across not so much as evil as bored. On some level, that strikes me as much worse than if they they behaved as they do because they actively wished ill upon their victims. Instead, they're just looking for something to do, something to alleviate their world weariness.

With its Erol Otus cover, Castle Amber has a phantasmagoric, fever-dream quality to it that still holds up after 27 years. The module is far from perfect -- there are a number of pointless D&D-isms that break the frame, for example -- but it remains a good example of an approach to fantasy gaming that has largely been lost, at least among gaming publishers nowadays. Module X2 combines literary allusion, hallucinatory imagery, and deadly whimsy to produce a challenge for all but the most clever players. Even better, it combines a dungeon -- Castle Amber itself -- with the mini-sandbox setting of Averoigne, thus making it a useful teaching tool for referees looking for advice on how to combine the two styles of old school play into a unified whole. And all in 26 pages! How many modern adventure modules can compare?

What is sad is the realization that, in retrospect, 1981 was probably the highwater mark for the old school. While I would argue that we still see a goodly stream of old school material in the two years that follow Castle Amber's publication, it was nevertheless a declining stream. The shift in how modules were designed was obvious by 1983-84 and there's been no turning back. I'm sorely tempted to crack out my copy of Castle Amber and play it again with my gaming group soon. Some of my most cherished gaming memories center around playing it with my friends nearly 30 years ago. Perhaps it's time to make some new memories.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Out of Space and Time

As others have noted, the writings of Clark Ashton Smith were not in fact included in Gygax's Appendix N. Indeed, as I recall, Gary never read a word of Smith until Rob Kuntz suggested he do so and this was after the publication of OD&D (Someone like Allan Grohe can correct me if I'm wrong about this). I personally find this odd, because, in my case, I discovered CAS at about the same time I discovered H.P. Lovecraft (1981 -- the year both Castle Amber and the first edition of Call of Cthulhu were released) and the two authors have always exerted equal amounts of influence over my adventures and campaigns.

Yet, for whatever reason, Smith seems to be the least well known of the Big Three of Weird Tales. It can't be because his writings weren't widely available. Arkham House, August Derleth's publishing house, which he founded in 1939 specifically to bring HPL's writings to a wider audience, produced a Smith anthology in 1942, before even a second volume of Lovecraft. Entitled Out of Space and Time, its contents were personally selected by Smith as his best and included some of his most famous short stories, most of which are set in his signature settings of Averoigne, Hyperborea, Poseidonis, and Zothique.

Averoigne and Zothique are by far and away my favorite of Smith's settings. Both have a decaying, decadent air to them that I find strangely attractive in their repulsiveness. Far moreso than Lovecraft, whose writings simply state that the history of the Earth is long, far longer than mere men can comprehend, Smith's writings allow us to feel that longevity. The result is not despair at mankind's insignificance in the cosmic scheme so much as a crushing sense of intellectual boredom, an overpowering ennui that reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun -- it's all been done before and probably better.

These are feelings I have in my darker moments and that certainly explains my fondness for Smith and the influence he's had over my worlds of the imagination. I often wonder what D&D might have been like had Gygax been more familiar with Smith's writings than he was. Along with the better known, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, I feel each of these authors offers a unique but complementary perspective on the broad genre of "pulp fantasy." There's plenty of both Howard and Lovecraft in D&D, but barely any Smith at all -- a pity.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Mother of Toads

"Mother of Toads," which first appeared in the July 1938 issue of Weird Tales is a short but very disturbing story by Clark Ashton Smith. Like most of the tale set in the fictitious French province of Averoigne, this one touches upon sexual themes but in a way that's far removed from the prurience and titillation that were hallmarks of the pulps. Here, Smith uses sex – and the regret it can engender – as the basis for revulsion, horror, and, ultimately, doom. 

The titular Mother of Toads is a witch called Mère Antoinette who dwells in the swamps not far from the village of Les Hiboux. Pale, obese, and possessing "eyes full-orbed and unblinking," she is also knowledgeable in the ways of potion making. It's for this reason that the villagers sometimes call upon Antoinette, including Pierre Baudin, the hapless apprentice of the apothecary Alain le Dindon. 

Pierre's master had sent him to obtain from Antoinette a "vial contain[ing] a philtre of curious potency." He'd done this many times before, but he hated it, for the old woman clearly harbored a lust for him and regularly propositioned him: "Stay awhile tonight, my pretty orphan. No one will miss you in the village." Pierre was repulsed by such amorousness and hoped to finish his business with Antoinette as quickly as possible.

The witch was more than twice his age, and her charms were too uncouth and unsavory to tempt him for an instant. Also, her repute was such as to have nullified the attractions of a younger and fairer sorceress. Her witchcraft had made her feared among the peasantry of that remote province, where belief in spells and philtres was still common. The people of Averoigne called her La Mère des Crapauds, Mother of Toads, a name given for more than one reason. Toads swarmed innumerably about her hut; they were said to be her familiars, and dark tales were told concerning their relationship to the sorceress, and the duties they performed at her bidding. Such tales were all the more readily believed because of those batrachian features that had always been remarked in her aspect.

During his latest visit, Antoinette offers Pierre "a goodly measure of red wine" that she has mulled specifically for him. The youth is suspicious.

"I'll drink it," said Pierre a little grudgingly. "That is, if it contains nothing of your own concoction."

"'Tis naught but sound wine, four seasons old, with spices of Arabia," the sorceress croaked ingratiatingly. "'Twill warm your stomach … and …"  She added something inaudible as Pierre accepted the cup.

Pierre drinks and declares that it is truly good wine but, having quaffed it quickly, he explains that he must be off to his master. Too late, he realizes the mistake he has made.

Even as he spoke, he felt in his stomach and veins the spreading warmth of the alcohol, of the spices … of something more ardent than these. It seemed that his voice was unreal and strange, falling as if from a height above him. The warmth grew, mounting within him like a golden flame fed by magic oils. His blood, a seething torrent, poured tumultuously and more tumultuously through his members. 

Smith is a master of subtlety and suggestion, making excellent use of innuendo to make his points. He is equally adept at bluntness, often in service of horror. In what follows next, he employs both approaches, describing the "philterous ardor" that overtakes Pierre's senses as he suddenly sees in Mère Antoinette – and her propositions – in a new and disturbing light.

She led him to her couch beside the hearth where a great cauldron boiled mysteriously, sending up its fumes in strange-twining coils that suggested vague and obscene figures. The couch was rude and bare. But the flesh of the sorceress was like deep, luxurious cushions …

"The Mother of Toads" is an unsettling tale, not solely for the events it depicts or the frightful luxuriance Smith deploys in describing them but more for the realization that inevitably dawns on Pierre, as he understands what has transpired. It's that psychological element that I think elevates the story and stays with the reader after the story reaches its tragic, inevitable conclusion.

REPOST: Retrospective: Castle Amber

(I feel a little dirty about reposting an old entry of mine, even if it is well over a year old. However, seeing as it's Clark Ashton Smith's birthday, it only seemed right to highlight module X2, Castle Amber, for today's retrospective. So far as I know, it's the only old school D&D module to base itself explicitly on any of Smith's tales.

This post has not been altered from its original appearance in October 2008, right down to my error of citing CAS as an author listed in Appendix N of the DMG, despite my being repeatedly reminded that he wasn't. Other than correcting that mistake, I wouldn't change much of what I wrote back then. If anything, my affection for Castle Amber has only increased since I first wrote this and I expect a retrospective written on it today would be even more effusive in its praise)

Released in 1981, Castle Amber is part of what I call Tom Moldvay's "Pulp Fantasy Trilogy," consisting of this module, The Isle of Dread, and The Lost City. I'm not sure that the term is original to me; I might have picked it up from the incomparable Philotomy Jurament. In any case, all three of these modules are homages to the pulp fantasy stories that inspired D&D, but Castle Amber is the only one that makes explicit reference to its inspiration, the Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton Smith.

I can't say for certain, but I think Castle Amber is what first introduced me to CAS. I knew of his name, of course, from having read, among other things, Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Moldvay's own Basic Rulebook recommends Smith as well, although more for his Xiccarph stories than anything else. After playing the module, I hunted down what little of Smith's writings as I could find in the local library. I wasn't very successful in my quest and it was years before I read a significant number of CAS stories.

But what makes me remember Castle Amber so fondly is that, even though I wasn't able to read most of Smith's literary corpus until much later, I still "knew" Smith through Moldvay's rather brilliant evocation of his spirit in this adventure. Most of the distinctive Smithian features are here: decadence, ennui, the macabre, black humor -- all stirred together in an unsettling stew. I won't deny that, as kid of 12, I found Castle Amber a tad disturbing. I wasn't scared of it so much as fascinated by it. There was something not quite right about the whole thing, something I couldn't then put my finger on and yet I loved it all the same.

Even now, it's hard to articulate precisely what it is that still fascinated me about Castle Amber. On a superficial level, it's just another "funhouse dungeon," filled with nonsensical and whimsical encounters, like the ogre who believes himself to be a human woman, the troll under the bridge in the indoor forest, and jester who polymorphs opponents into white apes, among others. But what I think sets Castle Amber apart from true funhouse dungeons is two things. First, there is a degree of internal consistency and unity to even the most whimsical encounters; that is, there is a method behind the madness. Second, and more importantly for me, there's very little outright malevolence in the place. There are many evil people inside Castle Amber -- most of the Amber family, for instance -- and their actions are objectively evil according to almost any moral compass and yet, somehow, they come across not so much as evil as bored. On some level, that strikes me as much worse than if they they behaved as they do because they actively wished ill upon their victims. Instead, they're just looking for something to do, something to alleviate their world weariness.

With its Erol Otus cover, Castle Amber has a phantasmagoric, fever-dream quality to it that still holds up after 27 years. The module is far from perfect -- there are a number of pointless D&D-isms that break the frame, for example -- but it remains a good example of an approach to fantasy gaming that has largely been lost, at least among gaming publishers nowadays. Module X2 combines literary allusion, hallucinatory imagery, and deadly whimsy to produce a challenge for all but the most clever players. Even better, it combines a dungeon -- Castle Amber itself -- with the mini-sandbox setting of Averoigne, thus making it a useful teaching tool for referees looking for advice on how to combine the two styles of old school play into a unified whole. And all in 26 pages! How many modern adventure modules can compare?

What is sad is the realization that, in retrospect, 1981 was probably the highwater mark for the old school. While I would argue that we still see a goodly stream of old school material in the two years that follow Castle Amber's publication, it was nevertheless a declining stream. The shift in how modules were designed was obvious by 1983-84 and there's been no turning back. I'm sorely tempted to crack out my copy of Castle Amber and play it again with my gaming group soon. Some of my most cherished gaming memories center around playing it with my friends nearly 30 years ago. Perhaps it's time to make some new memories.