Though Weird Tales was without question the premier magazine of the pulp era, it was hardly alone in exploring the strange and macabre. Among its would-be rivals was Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, edited by Harry Bates, a capable writer himself, best remembered for his 1940 story “Farewell to the Master,” which later inspired the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Strange Tales set out to challenge Weird Tales directly and earned a solid reputation for the high quality of its fiction and the caliber of its contributors, including such luminaries as Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard. Sadly, the magazine’s ambitions outpaced its fortunes. Its publisher went bankrupt after only seven issues, released between 1931 and 1933.

One of the most intriguing stories to appear in Strange Tales was Robert E. Howard’s “The Cairn on the Headland,” published in the magazine’s final issue in January 1933. The tale stands out not only for its content, which is an imaginative fusion of Norse mythology and Christian legend, but also for what it reveals about Howard’s own enduring fascination with that theme. As he often did, Howard wrote and rewrote versions of this story in his search for a suitable market. Unlike his friend H.P. Lovecraft, who generally shelved a piece once Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright rejected it, Howard was relentless in finding new outlets for his fiction. Yet the persistence with which he revisited this particular idea suggests he found something deeply compelling within it and I’m inclined to agree.

The story begin as “Spears of Clontarf,” a historical adventure centered on the Battle of Clontarf  (1014 AD) and featuring Turlogh Dubh O’Brien, one of Howard’s recurring Irish heroes. When he failed to sell it, REH recast the material as “The Grey God Passes,” introducing more overt fantasy and mythic elements to the same historical events. This, too, went unpublished in his lifetime. Finally, Howard returned once more to the subject, transforming it into a modern story of supernatural horror. In this final version of the idea, the Battle of Clontarf becomes a haunting memory intruding into the present, and Howard at last succeeded in finding a publisher. It's this version of the story I want to discuss today, as the final entry in this month's horror-themed Pulp Fantasy Library posts.

The protagonist of "The Cairn on the Headland" is James O’Brien, an Irish-American scholar devoted to medieval Irish history. Fluent in Gaelic and steeped in the great chronicles of his ancestral homeland, O’Brien embodies Howard’s ideal of the learned yet passionate antiquarian. His career, however, is blighted by Ortali, a strange blackmailer who holds false evidence linking O’Brien to a murder. Ortali believes O'Brien will one day unearth some great treasure through his researches and hopes to benefit from them, hence his extortion. Trapped, O'Brien has little choice but to work side by side with Ortali, even as his hatred for him grows.

During a visit to Dublin, the two men explore the titular cairn on a headland overlooking the city. The locals shun it, believing it cursed since the time of Clontarf, when the Irish under King Brian Boru threw off centuries of Viking domination. O’Brien is uncertain whether the cairn commemorates the victors or their foes, but he is certain it should not be disturbed. Ortali scoffs at his superstition, vowing to return at midnight and dig beneath the stones for treasure, mockingly wearing a sprig of holly, which the villagers say must never come near the place.

Later, O’Brien encounters a mysterious woman dressed in archaic clothing who introduces herself as Meve MacDonnal. She gives him the lost Cross of Saint Brandon [sic], insisting he will soon need it. Only later does O’Brien realize that Meve MacDonnal has been dead for centuries, her grave not far away. That night, in troubled sleep, he dreams – or is it remembers? – his former life as Red Cumal, an Irish warrior who fought at Clontarf. In this vision, Cumal helps defeat a one-eyed Viking chieftain who reveals himself as Odin in human form. Wounded by a spear marked with a cross, the god lies helpless, trapped in mortality. Cumal knows that holly must never touch Odin’s body and he and his comrades seal him beneath a cairn.

O’Brien awakens from his dream to find Ortali gone. He rushes to the headland and arrives just as the blackmailer uncovers the body buried within, unchanged after a thousand years. A sprig of holly falls from Ortali’s lapel and the corpse stirs. Odin reawakens, shedding human guise to become a towering, demonic spirit wreathed in auroral light. His first act is to destroy Ortali with a blast of lightning. O’Brien, remembering the cross he'd been given, raises it high. The relic shines with unearthly brilliance, banishing the pagan god in an act resembling an exorcism. At dawn, O’Brien stands alone among the shattered stones, free of both Ortali and Odin.

The story's fusion of Norse myth and Christian legend is unusual, though not entirely without precedent in Howard's writing, especially when one considers his many Solomon Kane yarns. The Battle of Clontarf becomes not just a struggle for Ireland’s freedom but also a cosmic contest between Light and Darkness, Christ and Odin. Howard’s Odin is no noble All-Father but instead a demon, an ancient power of frost and cruelty whose defeat marks the turning of an age. 

Such stark moral contrasts are typical of Howard, but in “The Cairn on the Headland,” they take on an unmistakably theological tone. The story reflects the medieval Christian reinterpretation of pagan gods as fallen angels. Howard’s Odin undergoes precisely this transformation, stripped of his majesty and recast as a malevolent spirit lingering on the edges of history. Yet, for all its moral gravity, the tale remains quintessentially Howardian. O’Brien, though a scholar by nature, is no passive intellectual. Confronted with a supernatural threat, he meets it head-on, triumphing not only over Odin himself but also over the lingering shadow of his own moral weakness and subjugation to Ortali’s blackmail.

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.

I've said before that I have very little direct experience with Palladium Books or its roleplaying games. With the exception of my old college roommate, I never knew anyone who played any of their games, despite the fact that there seem to be a huge number of them. Even so, I was aware of the existence of Palladium and its products through the advertisements that regularly appeared in the pages of Dragon. One that particularly fascinated me was The Valley of the Pharaohs, which first appeared in 1983. Recently, a friend of mine pointed out to me that the game was available as an inexpensive PDF from DriveThruRPG, so I grabbed a copy and finally had a chance to look at it after all these years. 

In its original form, The Valley of the Pharaohs was a boxed set, consisting of a rulebook, a colored map of Egypt, and about a dozen other maps and diagrams. The rulebook is only 64 pages – short by contemporary standards perhaps but very much in keeping with many RPGs of its time. Written by Matthew Balent, who worked on a number of other early Palladium products, it's designed for adventuring in the political, religious, and mythological world of New Kingdom Egypt. Unlike Palladium’s more well-known roleplaying games, with their kitchen sink approaches to setting design, The Valley of the Pharaohs focuses on a rather more grounded, historically-informed presentation of ancient Egypt, though it does allow for supernatural elements such as magic (or magick, as the book styles it), the intervention of gods, and a handful of fantastic monsters.

In The Valley of the Pharaohs characters are built around occupations appropriate to the ancient Egyptian setting, like scribes, priests, soldiers, merchants, artisans, and so on. Occupations are largely distinguished from one another by the skills they provide the character. The game places some emphasis on social standing (or caste), as ancient Egyptian society was hierarchical, like most pre-modern societies. Caste determines which occupations a character can enter, as well as providing a bonus to a particular attribute. In a certain sense, caste is a replacement for race, since there are no playable non-humans in The Valley of the Pharaohs. 

Combat is fairly straightforward and leans toward the lethal, in keeping with the idea that violence is not always the best option in a world where political maneuvering and religious influence are just as important as swordplay. Players are encouraged to use guile, diplomacy, and careful planning to navigate ancient Egyptian society, since there are strictures in place that against as stops against typical "adventuring" behavior. The order and stability of the New Kingdom is repeatedly emphasized, as are the potential problems that come with the characters acting without sanction in a way that could potentially upend that order. 

The game's commitment to presenting ancient Egypt as a real place rather than simply a backdrop for fantasy adventure is readily apparent. The Valley of the Pharaohs provides details on daily life, religion, politics, and the role of different social classes. The gods of Egypt are an active presence, but they do not overshadow human action, nor do the limited kinds of spells available to player characters. Reading the rulebook, I couldn't shake the feeling that Balent was actually more interested in writing a sourcebook about ancient Egypt than he was in making a roleplaying game set in that time and place. This dedication to historical authenticity is a strength, as is its attempt to make social and political dynamics just as important as combat. At the same time, I can't help but wonder if this is what it's potential audience would have wanted from a game like this.

There is little in the way of extended campaign guidance and the adventure hooks provided are limited to the point of being skeletal. This would almost certainly make it difficult for a referee unfamiliar with ancient Egypt to know where to begin. It's too bad, because Balent packed a lot of genuinely interesting details in this short volume, but most of it tends toward the encyclopedic rather than the practical. When combined with the fact that The Valley of the Pharaohs has given only a limited amount of attention to fantastical or supernatural topics, its utility strikes me as limited. Who is this game for and what would they do with it?

On the plus side, The Valley of the Pharaohs is amply illustrated throughout, both in the form of black and white line drawings throughout the rulebook and separate maps. I really like the artwork, as it depicts lots of mundane aspects of ancient Egypt, such as clothing and wigs, that are important to both players and referees in establishing the setting. The maps and diagrams are similarly well done and useful for gameplay, particularly when exploring tombs and temples. In many ways, these are among the most important parts of Valley of Pharaohs, since gamers often need good visual guides of settings that deviate from the tropes of vanilla fantasy. 

Quite often, the articles from Dragon magazine that I most remember are not those I ever made use of in my own games, but those that I didn't. There are probably many reasons why this is the case, but a big one is that, even in my youth, when I led a life relatively free of responsibility, I still had limited time. There were only so many games I could play at any given time and, inevitably, there'd be lots of ideas I'd have loved to make use of but didn't simply because I lacked the time to do so. To be fair, that's still a problem for me, even today. Consequently, these articles occupy by the same space as "the one that got away" does in the minds of fishermen – a might have been that continues to play on the imagination even years later.

That's certainly how I feel about "Thrills and Chills: Ice Age Adventures," which appeared in issue #68 (December 1982). Written by Arthur Collins, whom I consider one of the great unsung contributors to Dragon during the early to mid-1980s, this lengthy article offers ideas and rules modifications for playing AD&D during the Pleistocene era. Collins explains that he was inspired by Jean M. Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear, but, for me, the touchstone for Ice Age tales will always be Manly Wade Wellman's Hok the Mighty, which I first encountered in old copies of Fantastic my local library kept alongside issues of other SF and fantasy magazines.

For years, I'm not certain I could have explained exactly why I found the idea of Ice Age adventuring so compelling. Rereading the article in preparation for writing this post, though, I now think I understand it. For lack of a better word, the Ice Age is post-apocalyptic setting – not in the sense as it's usually meant, of course, but it's nevertheless a setting in which humanity (and other intelligent races) must struggle to survive in a very hostile world. Perhaps because I've never really lacked for anything in my life, I have a powerful fascination for settings in which characters have to worry about where their next meal is coming from or how they'll shelter themselves against merciless Mother Nature.

Collins spends a lot of time discussing the challenges of living during the Pleistocene, particularly when it comes to food. For example, he offers calculations on just how much game and grains a small tribe of Ice Age would need to gather during the course of a single year to stave off malnutrition. He even goes so far as to translate the meat into hit dice in order to quantify it in a way that makes sense within the context of AD&D. I have no idea how well his calculations would hold up to rigorous scrutiny, but they serve a very useful, practical purpose for referees and players alike, which is honestly what I want in an article like this. 

Collins also includes information on braving the weather of this period of history, though he doesn't go into quite as much detail as did David Axler in his "Weather in the World of Greyhawk." He devotes far more space to imagining what the standard AD&D races and monsters would be like in the Pleistocene world, which makes sense, I think. The key to articles like this is in providing enough new and variant rules to make the setting/time period feel distinct but not so many that employing them in play seems daunting. I feel Collins struck the right balance overall, though I do wish he'd take the opportunity to write a bit more about just what Ice Age adventures and campaigns might be like rather than just how they differ from more conventional AD&D play.

I'll conclude by saying that another aspect of this article that likely appealed to me as a young man was that it dared to stray even a little from the default faux medieval setting of Dungeons & Dragons (and indeed of fantasy more generally). While I was and remain a fan of using the Middle Ages as inspiration, I do find myself wishing gamers would occasionally try something else occasionally, whether based on a real world historical period or something completely imaginary. Fantasy need not be so cramped in its vision.

I'm a sucker for historical fantasy – or even just fantasy that's heavily inspired by a particular historical period, society, or culture. That's one of the reasons I so eagerly awaited the release of Oriental Adventures in 1985: I saw it as an opportunity for Dungeons & Dragons (or AD&D) to finally present monks and ninjas and samurai within a more suitable context than the riotous goulash in which the game has existed since its inception. In my experience, most (A)D&D players never cared about this as much as I did, even back in the day, but such concerns grew increasingly important to me, especially during my teen years.

Consequently, when TSR announced that it'd be giving the Oriental Adventures treatment to the myths, legends, and folklore of the Middle East, I was pretty excited. Though Bulfinch's Mythology didn't include a section on these tales, I was nevertheless quite familiar with the stories of A Thousand and One Nights, not to mention the charming films featuring Sinbad the Sailor I'd seen as a child. And course D&D had long included monsters like the djinn, efreet, ghoul, and roc, in addition to the flying carpet and ring of wishes, all of which have their origin in Middle Eastern mythology.

Entitled Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures, this 158-page softcover was written by Jeff Grubb with the assistance of Andria Hayday. Grubb was a powerhouse designer at TSR at this time, having previously created Marvel Super Heroes, shepherded the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set to publication, and conceived Spelljammer, among many other influential projects. He brings the same imagination and enthusiasm for Al-Qadim that he did for its predecessors, resulting in a book of which I remain very fond, despite certain shortcomings. 

In the book's introduction, Grubb acknowledges that Arabian Adventures takes inspirations from three different versions of Arabia. The first is the Arabia of history, whose people, culture, and history spread from the Atlantic Ocean to India as a result of the Islamic conquests starting in the 7th century. The second is the Arabia of myth and legend. Finally, there is the Arabia of Hollywood, like the aforementioned Sinbad movies. Of the three, the second and third are the most important to Al-Qadim, which is not intended to be historically or culturally accurate but is, echoing the foreword to OD&D, "strictly fantasy."

Like Oriental Adventures before it, Arabian Adventures is not a stand-alone game but rather a supplement to AD&D, then in its second edition. Its purpose is to provide new and alternative rules for use with 2e rather than being complete in itself. Thus, for example, we get a variety of new character kits, as well as new equipment, nonweapon proficiencies, and spells. All of these are intended to differentiate the inhabitants of Zakhara, the Land of Fate, from those coming from more Western European-inspired locales, just as OA had done for the peoples of Kara-Tur. Al-Qadim is decidedly not generic in its presentation, but instead places everything within a very specific cultural and social context derived from the three sources Grubb mentioned in his introduction.

By and large, the end result is excellent, better in some ways than Oriental Adventures in my opinion. The character kits – a concept that didn't exist at the time OA was published – do a very good job of tailoring AD&D's existing character classes for an Arabian-inspired setting. While most of them are interesting and flavorful, the ones I most liked were those that covered roles uncommon or unknown in other settings, like the barber, beggar-thief, and merchant-rogue. Likewise, the new spells and proficiencies went a long way toward making a Zakharan character feel distinct from his counterparts in other realms.

Where Al-Qadim falls down is its being branded with and tied to the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. This is not the fault of Grubb or Hayday, nor does it strongly weaken the quality of their work. In the early 1990s, TSR was very keen on tying all of its AD&D products to one or more of its existing settings. Since the Realms were TSR's "go-to" AD&D setting, the company plugged almost everything into it, including Zakhara (just as had previously been done with Kara-Tur). It's a pity, because I think Zakhara would have been much more interesting had it simply been its own thing, divorced from the rest of TSR's AD&D settings of the time.

One way that this impacts Arabian Adventures in a negative way is that we don't get any unique demihuman or nonhuman playable races. All the standard AD&D races, like dwarves, elves, and halflings, are present in Zakhara and, aside from the usual game mechanics associated with them (ability bonuses, special abilities, etc.), they're really little different from Zakharan humans, sharing the same customs, beliefs, and so on. There's nothing strictly wrong with this approach, but Oriental Adventures gave us several new nonhuman races to play and I think doing so went a long way toward making Kara-Tur feel distinct. I would have liked to have seen the same for Al-Qadim.

The other "flaw" in Al-Qadim is that it's pretty clearly meant to be an alternate Players Handbook. Unlike Oriental Adventures, there's not much in the way of referee material included in this book. There are no new monsters or magic items, for example, and while both those omissions would eventually be dealt with in follow-up products – several, in fact! – their lack in this book was something I felt pretty keenly at the time. I would have preferred something a bit more expansive in its content, but, as I said at the beginning of this post, Arabian Adventures isn't a stand-alone product and, given TSR's approach to publishing AD&D at the time, there was probably little to no chance it would have included such material when it could more profitably be sold in later releases.

All that said, I really like Al-Qadim and regret that, like so many other AD&D products with which TSR flooded the market in the '90s, I never got the chance to make much use of it. One of my friends was a big fan of the line and purchased a lot of the later material, including the Land of Fate boxed set. From what I could tell, all of the setting's support material was of a very high quality – imaginative and fun, with plenty of great ideas to aid the Dungeon Master in refereeing his very own version of A Thousand and One Nights. It's one Second Edition's better supplements and deserves more love than it generally gets.

A common early complaint about Dungeons & Dragons was that the game's three little brown books failed to provide much in the way of a cultural or social context for its "fantastic medieval wargames campaigns." Correcting this perceived shortcoming was part of the impetus behind the creation and publication of several early RPGs that appeared in OD&D's wake, most notably Empire of the Petal Throne, Chivalry & Sorcery, and even RuneQuest to some extent. All of these games (and others) place much greater emphasis on the ways that culture and society not only intersect with but can offer a justification for adventuring than Dungeons & Dragons did at the time or, in fact, has ever done. 

I was reminded of this when I started reading Wulfwald, Lee Reynoldson's superb roleplaying game set in a world inspired by the folklore and legends of pagan Anglo-Saxon England. I say "inspired by," because, as Reynoldson explains, "Wulfwald is not set on our Earth," but rather is set on "another world," where "the myth and magic that was superstition in Earth's history is a real, if rare, force." As a game, Wulfwald should be almost immediately familiar to anyone who's played D&D or one of its descendants – not merely in terms of its rules but also in terms of its play. All the usual activities you expect in Dungeons & Dragons, whether they be delving in the dark, fighting monsters, or looting treasure, are supported in Wulfwald, but are given a new and compelling context.

Before proceeding further, I'd like to elaborate briefly on Wulfwald's relationship with D&D and its rules. Wulfwald is not "complete" game in the sense of including all the rules you need to play yet another retro-clone of Dungeons & Dragons. Reynoldson assumes you already know what hit points, armor class, and saving throws are, for example. When these and other familiar concepts come up in the text, there's no explanation of them or how they work, except when Wulfwald offers a new take on them that deviates from the way anyone who's played D&D generally understands them. I don't see this as a problem, but it might be surprising or even off-putting to those used to the approach adopted by most other old school D&D-derived games. 

With that out of the way, let's move on to Wulfwald itself. The game comes in a thin, sturdy box, inside of which are five staplebound A5 booklets and a cloth(!) map depicting the land of Wulfwald, as drawn by the late, great Russ Nicholson. The booklets have a clean, simple layout that's easy on the eyes. The covers of each booklet features artwork by Katie Wakelin, while the interior art is done by Stefano Accordi. I like the cover art much better than the interior art, but all the illustrations evoke the dark, early medieval period in which the game is rooted. Nicholson's cartography, of course, is gorgeous and a joy simply to look at and wonder at its details.

The premise of Wulfwald is that all the characters are "wolfsheads," who are outsiders and outlaws who exist outside the law's protection. Their status means that anyone can harm or kill them without fear of retribution. To avoid this fate, the game assumes the characters have banded together in the service of a Thegn or warrior-lord and act as his service. In exchange for such service, the wolfsheads can expect gifts of beauty and value that reflect their newfound honor and status within the setting. This set-up is a clever way to recontextualize adventurers, making them simultaneously rough outsiders but also having a place, albeit an unusual one, in society. 

Unlike "normal" D&D, Wulfwald has only three levels, corresponding (more or less) to the veteran, hero, and superhero levels from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign. However, there is a rules appendix that provides for a greater number of levels for those referees and players who prefer them. Characters belong to one of four kindreds: Eorðwerod (Men), Ælfcynn (Elves), Dweorgas (Dwarves), and Réðealingas (Outlanders). Each kindred has three unique classes, each belonging to one of three archetypes: warrior, skirmisher, and wizard. For example, Men have the Scildmægden (warrior), Sperebróga (skirmisher), and Scinnlæca (wizard), while Elves have the Wuduheald (warrior), Scytta (skirmisher), and Gealdor Sangere (wizard). All classes have their own advancement tables, as well as unique results for criticals and fumbles. Warriors also have an ability called "heroic effort," an unusual feat of arms that can be employed once an adventure.

An aspect of Wulfwald that could, I imagine, discourage some potential buyers is its regular use of Old English, complete with odd letters like æ or ð. Speaking as an old Tékumel hand, I know that a lot of people don't like words that require the use of a pronunciation guide to say properly. I can only say that Old English, once you know the rules, isn't all that difficult to pronounce. Moreover, its use in Wulfwald goes a long way toward investing the setting with a distinct flavor. In many cases, the text does provide alternate, contemporary words to use instead of the Old English ones for those who find the others a bit too flavorful, but I much prefer the Old English ones. Your mileage may vary.

Flavor is a big part of what separates Wulfwald from "standard" D&D, even if it makes use of all the expected elements of the game, like magic, monsters, and treasure. I've already noted that each of the character classes is distinctive. The same holds for the systems of magic some of them use. Wulfwald includes four different systems, from runic fateweaving and spell singing to the Forbidden Path and wicce cræft. Likewise, magic items are all unique items, each with its own history and powers. Monsters, too, include a fair number of unique beings, like the draca (dragons) and eotenas (giants).

"Unique" is a word I've used a lot in this review and with good reason. What sets Wulfwald apart from many old school fantasy products is that it's very specific in not just its inspirations but also in the way it's chosen to make use of them. While I'm on record for saying there's nothing wrong with vanilla fantasy, there's also, in my opinion, a distinct pleasure that comes from roleplaying according to the culture, customs, and beliefs of a particular society, whether real or imaginary. That's why my House of Worms campaign has been so enjoyable: the players get to be, if only for a little while, people who inhabit another world with its own rules and ways of looking at things. This is something Wulfwald does very well, too.

The game's five books cover character generation, magic (including magic items and religion), the setting of Wulfwald (including a sample scenario and skirmish battles), monsters, NPCs, and more. Taken together, they provide enough for the referee to kick off a campaign while still leaving lots of room for individual creativity. Wulfwald isn't Tékumel or Glorantha; there isn't an encyclopedia's worth of information to digest. Rather, the game's five books do a good job of painting a compelling big picture with plenty of room to add detail here or a splash of color there. It strikes a nice balance between too much and too little. In short, it inspires, which is exactly what I want out of a product like this.

If you're looking for a well presented new setting for your favorite D&D-alike that draws on real world folklore and history in a fun way, I'd highly recommend yout take a look at Wulfwald. It's one of the best things I've bought this year.

A True Revelation of the Great Virginia Disastrum, 1633 (hereafter Disastrum) by Ezra Claverie may well be the definitive product for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I say "may," because my assessment depends heavily on just you want out of an LotFP product. If what you're hoping for is a clever and, in the best sense of the word, modular adventure scenario you can easily drop into an ongoing old school fantasy campaign, Disastrum is probably not for you. If, on the other hand, you're looking for looking for an imaginative and well-presented event-based scenario/hexcrawl set in 17th century Virginia, then Disastrum is exactly what you need.

Consisting of three clothbound A5-sized hardcover volumes, Disastrum gives an LotFP referee almost everything he – or should I say she, in keeping with the game line's style guide? – needs to run a lengthy and challenging scenario set in and around the Virginia Colony in the midst of an immense spatiotemporal accident caused by castaways from the Fifth Dimension. This accident has deformed both space and time, warping the landscape and its inhabitants, as well as creating portals to alternate times and realities. 

Anyone with prior experience of LotFP will immediately recognize a trio of familiar elements in Disastrum: a 17th century locale (Virginia in 1633), an incursion by nonhuman "aliens" (the Fifth Dimensional castaways), and the unnatural consequences of their presence (the Warp). Taken together, these elements are the foundation of many (though by no means all) of LotFP's best-known adventures, so much so that I think it's become something of a joke among LotFP fans: "Oh, no! Yet another invasion of historical Earth by beings from another dimension and whose very presence poisons our world and fills me with dread!" I bring this up, because, while true to some extent, these elements can nevertheless can still be used to great effect and so they are in Disastrum. 

Volume I is entitled Jamestown and Environs. At 96 pages, it provides useful information needed by the referee to begin the adventure, including an overview of the events that led to the Disastrum and a timeline of the Virginia Colony, from its founding in 1607 to 1633, when the scenario begins. What sets this volume apart from others of its kind is how practical it all is. For example, five pages are devoted reasons why the characters may have come to Virginia, each of which offers a different frame for subsequent events. There's also an overview of Jamestown, its buildings, and inhabitants, along with random tables for generating colonists, news/rumors, Scriptural citations, plantations, native villages, and more.

Random tables play an important role in Disastrum, as one might well expect, since a large part of the scenario involves traveling through the wilderness of Virginia. Volume I describes the terrain of the region, both natural and unnatural. The latter includes the Warp, where the effects of the Fifth Dimensional Incursion are strongest. For each region, there are keyed encounters, described in Volume II, as well as "omens and oddities" of various sorts – strange objects in the sky, objects falling from the sky, and "disastrumous hazards," which is to say, bizarre phenomena resulting from the Warp, such as gravity bubbles or time speeding up or slowing down. 

Volume II, Lo! New Lands, is the biggest of the three books at 192 tables, describing all twenty keyed encounters in Virginia and twelve alternate worlds or realities accessible through the Eye of the Warp. The keyed encounters vary in both length and strangeness. Some, like the Escapees' Camp, consisting of indentured servants and slaves who've used the Disastrum as an opportunity to flee their masters, are relative simple and normal. Others, like the Speaking Swamp or Factory Fungus, are given great detail and are exceedingly weird – products of five-dimensional beings attempting to interact with a three-dimensional world and only partially succeeding. All of the encounters are compelling, whether simply by presenting the players with an aspect of 17th century colonial life or by challenging their wits against a consequence of the Warp.

Descriptions of the twelve alternate realities, called "spacetimes," take up about half of Volume II. Like the keyed locations, they vary in length and strangeness, though all are fairly strange. For example, there is the Post-Ant Empire, a spacetime ruled by biomechanical ants that displaced the dinosaurs. There's also the City of the Crawling Blood, an alternate London overrun with a strange sickness and the Wilder Wilderness, an alternate Virginia populated with megafauna, among many more. All but one of these is a side trek, a place of interest and danger but without any larger significance to the scenario. However, the Corpse City of the Western Gate, located in 18th century China, is ground zero for the cosmic event whose repercussions are felt more than a century earlier and a hemisphere away in Virginia. It's here that the scenario climaxes, one way or the other, as the character contend with extradimensional beings whose activities have the potential to doom the Earth and everyone on it.

Volume III, Prodigies, Monsters, and Index, is 128 pages long and, as its title suggests, focuses on the strange and unusual effects of the Disastrum. Thus we get more than 60 new monsters, most of them unique (as Raggi intended). Many can be encountered in and around the Virginia Colony, but others are the inhabitants of the various spacetimes to which the characters may travel. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Volume III presents random tables to enable the referee to create his own "new people," the name used to describe the fabricated three-dimensional bodies of five-dimensional beings and whose appearances and properties are quite surprising. It's all wildly imaginative and, as I said above, practical. With these three volumes, the referee has nearly everything he needs to run a memorable and demanding weird fantasy adventure.

Disastrum is exceptionally well done. It's the Masks of Nyarlathotep of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, in that it takes all the usual ingredients of a LotFP adventure and sharpens and heightens them to such a high degree that, after playing this long, open-ended scenario, you'll feel as if you've done LotFP. There will undoubtedly be excellent LotFP adventures in the future, but Disastrum has, for me. crystallized the game's essence and unique take on fantasy in a way that will be hard to top. Thats not say it's perfect. The scenario has a lot of moving parts that put a lot of weight on the referee's shoulders, even with all the random tables and examples provided. In addition, the standard edition lacks the foldout hex maps included with the deluxe slipcase edition. The hex maps aren't absolutely necessary, but I imagine most referee's would find them useful. Likewise, all editions (with the exception of the PDF version) are pricey, which might be an impediment to some prospective purchasers.

In the end, none of these mild criticisms should be held against A True Relation of the Great Virginia Disastrum, 1633, which is as close to a definitive LotFP product as you're likely to get. It's imaginative, well-written, and well-made and, despite its length, I found myself reading it almost compulsively. The combination of a nicely realized historical setting and fantastically weird encounters and situations seemed, to me, to be a near-perfect fulfillment of what Lamentations of the Flame Princess has, in recent years, striven to be. It's truly excellent. My only regret is that I don't presently have a place in my gaming schedule to run this adventure. I hope others who buy and read it will be more fortunate than I.

Allow me to say once again, as I always do, that I am a huge fan of historical fantasy. From what I can tell, my fondness for it is unusual, both among RPG players and among RPG writers and broadly for the same reason: the perception that it's hard to get right – especially when there are legions of know-it-all armchair historians out there positively salivating at the possibility of uttering the dread incantation Ackchyually the moment they detect even the slightest deviation from the historical record. Consequently, I don't blame anyone who chooses to shy away from venturing anywhere near real world history in their RPG sessions or products.

Nevertheless, I remain deeply grateful to publishers like Lamentations of the Flame Princess and writers like Kelvin Green for their willingness to sate my peculiar tastes for fantastic adventures set in this world's historical past. Terror in the Streets – no, I won't be using the acronym – is a clever, well-presented and, above all, fun example of just how you can use real world history as a backdrop for a fantasy RPG adventure without either getting too bogged down in pointless minutiae or giving that history its proper due. It's not perfect by any means, but Terror in the Streets is very good.

Before proceeding to the meat of this review, I should add that there are, in fact, two different versions of Terror in the Street. The first (and the one I'm reviewing in this post) is a 96-page A5 hardcover book featuring a cover painting by Yannick Bouchard. The second version, entitled Big Terror in the Streets – no, just no – is a boxed set that features a lot of additional goodies, like a map of the city of Paris in 1630, player handouts, cardboard cut-outs, and a large yellow six-sided Unrest Die (for tracking the progress of civil unrest), in addition to an additional book, the 48-page Huguenauts and Other Distractions. Unfortunately, I don't believe Big Terror in the Streets is available in any form any longer, though there may still be copies of it floating around in secondary markets. That's a shame, since Huguenauts and Other Distractions has much to recommend it and indeed provides worthwhile fodder for anyone who continues to worry that historical fantasy is hard to get right. (If I find that the book is available, I'll do a review of it as well.)

Terror in the Streets is a murder mystery set in early 17th century Paris – "Jack the Ripper, but 250 years early," as the author describes it in his introduction. There's a serial killer of children loose in the city and it's up to the player characters to stop him. Just how and indeed why they might do so is an open question, one of many ways that Terror in the Streets might be called a "sandbox" adventure. Other than a timeline that dictates when and where the killer strikes (along with other key events), the course of the adventure is largely determined by the choices of the player characters, as they investigate, interact with NPCs, and deal with random encounters. 

This is, in my opinion, the only way to structure a murder mystery adventure without resorting to a more heavy-handed approach. Yes, this structure carries with it the risk that the characters might get lost in the weeds, wasting too much time on red herrings – of which there are quite a few in Terror in the Streets – and other irrelevant complications. However, the advantage of this more open-ended structure is that it's much more forgiving to the referee trying to keep track of all the moving parts that make up the scenario. Plus, the timeline, which exists independently of character actions, serves as a useful way to nudge their attention back toward more pressing matters. And there are even guidelines for what might happen if the characters fail to stop the killer, which is quite refreshing.

While the murder mystery scenario is a genuinely compelling one that nicely leverages multiple aspects of real world history, like the tensions between political and religious factions within Paris, it's not the only appealing thing about Terror in the Streets. Equally interesting in my opinion is its presentation of 17th century Paris – its districts, landmarks, taxi service companies, encounters, and, above all, unique NPCs – in effect a mini-gazetteer of the city. Taken together, these elements give the referee everything he needs to keep the characters engaged while in Paris, not just for this adventure but for others as well. It's nicely done and, reading through it, I found myself wishing that LotFP produced more material like this in the future.  

The only aspect of Terror in the Streets that might be considered a flaw is Green's humor-laden conversational style of writing. This is not a book whose author takes himself or the material too seriously. Consequently, there are asides, digressions, and meta-commentary scattered throughout, usually to good effect. Green is quite open about his inspirations and the shortcomings/limitations of the adventure, which is genuinely refreshing and indeed helpful. However, there are also occasional moments of goofiness and sly winks at the reader, like a mad wizard with wild hair and a beard named Alain de la Mare. These don't necessarily detract from the scenario, but I can easily some players and referees finding them off-putting, particularly those who prefer their historical fantasies straight. For myself, I found most of these elements amusing and felt they nicely demonstrated that there's no reason a historical scenario need be unduly solemn.

In the end, though, this is a small thing and Terror in the Streets is one of the best things Kelvin Green has written for LotFP to date. It's also one of the best historical fantasy adventures I've read in quite some time. Reading it, I was left with a small sense of disappointment that I am not refereeing a game where I could easily make use of it. Terror in the Streets is a well written, well presented scenario that is probably a lot of fun to play. I can think of no better compliment.

Roleplaying games set in the past of the real world, whether played straight or including an element of the fantastical, have always been hard sells. A big reason for this, I think, is that gamers, even well-read ones with access to the vast store of information that is the Internet, often lack for practical resources to support play in past ages. By "practical resources," I mean the kinds of things that RPGs with wholly imaginary settings include without a second thought, like appropriate equipment lists, details about law and order, information about society and culture – or maps.

When it comes to "pulp fantasy," few can compare to Robert E. Howard. Between the characters of Conan, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, and Solomon Kane, Howard more or less established the pattern that later writers would, to varying degrees of success, follow and that would, in the process, serve as a seedbed out of which Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy RPGs would spring. Nevertheless, it's important to remember that Howard was a truly industrious writer, penning more than four hundred stories (and even more poems) in a little over a decade of professional writing. While the stories of Conan and Kane understandably loom large today, as they did during REH's lifetime, he wrote many more, many of which ought to be of interest to fantasy fans and roleplayers alike.

Take, for example, "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," which appeared in the December 1937 issue of Weird Tales. Astute readers will immediately notice that this date is after Howard's death in June 1936. "Fire" is one of three stories sent to Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright by Isaac Howard, Robert's father. Wright immediately recognized the value in being able to present original REH yarns to a readership still reeling from his death the year before. He even went so far as to give "Fire" the cover illustration – a formerly common occurrence for Howard, whose stories were regularly among the most well regarded in the pages of the Unique Magazine. 

"The Fire of Asshurbanipal" doesn't take place in a mythical past or even centuries ago. While the precise date of its action is unclear, it's likely sometime in the first decades of the 20th century, based on a couple of offhand references to things like the Lee-Enfield repeating rifle. Ultimately, its precise date is unimportant, as all the story's events take place in and around Central Asia, or Turkestan, as Howard calls it. Two-fisted American adventurer Steve Clarney and his Afghan friend Yar Ali are on the trail of a fabulous red gem, the titular Fire of Asshurbanipal. The pair had learned from a dying Turk that the gem was located in "a silent dead city of black stone set in the drifting sands" and could be found "clutched in the bony fingers of a skeleton on an ancient throne." Later investigation reveals that the city in question was

the ancient City of Evil spoken of in the Necronomicon of the mad Alhazred – the city of the dead on which an ancient curse rested. And the gem was an ancient and accursed jewel belonging to a king of long ago whom the Grecians called Sardanapalus and the Semitic peoples Asshurbanipal.

Lost cities in the sand and cursed gems are a dime a dozen in pulp stories, you might say and you'd be correct. What sets this tale apart is its reference to Lovecraft's Necronomicon and its author. This isn't a mere throwaway line, a bit of fan service for devotees of HPL's evolving Cthulhu Mythos. No, it's an early indication that there's more going on in this story than a rollicking adventure after the fashion of H. Rider Haggard. More than that, it's an indication that we're going to read Robert E. Howard's take on the concepts and themes of Lovecraft, which, to my mind, is pretty exciting. Later in the story, when Clarney and Ali are exploring the buried city they were seeking, we get an idea of just what I mean by this.

"Allaho akbar!" They had traversed the greatb shadowy hall and at its further end they came upon a hideous black stone altar, behind which loomed an ancient god, bestial and horrific. Steve shrugged his shoulders as he recognized the monstrous aspect of the image – aye, that was Baal, on whose black altar in other ages many a screaming, writhing naked victim had offered up the quivering soul. The idol embodied in its utter, abysmal and sullen bestiality the whole soul of this demoniac city. Surely, thought Steve, the builders of Nineveh and Kara-Shehr were cast in another mold than the people of today. Their art and their culture were too ponderous, too grimly barren of the lighter aspects of humanity, to be wholly human. Their architecture was of the highest skill, yet of a massive, sullen and brutish nature beyond the ken of modern man.

Lovecraft's tales often feature musings about the alien nature of the otherworldly beings who built some structure upon the earth or were engaged in some activity. The elder things of "At the Mountains of Madness," are a good example of this, as are the Mi-go of "The Whisperer in Darkness." Rather than ape the approach of his friend and correspondent, Howard instead muses about how alien the men of the past seem from the perspective of today – their art, culture, and architecture are impressive, yet also "barren of the lighter aspects of humanity" to the point that they can't even be called "wholly human." It's an interesting approach, I think, and one that surely differs from that of Lovecraft. Even if one does not agree with Howard's take on the matter, I don't think there can be any question that he's attempting something genuinely different, which is commendable.

All that said, make no mistake: "The Fire of Asshurbanipal" remains a rousing pulp story, in which Howard's protagonists not only find an ancient city buried in the sand and the treasure it holds, but also face off against enemies both human and inhuman. In many ways, it reads like a rather fun Call of Cthulhu scenario set in Central Asia, but with plenty of uniquely Howardian touches that it doesn't come across as a mere pastiche of Lovecraft's own work. It's not as well known a story as it should be and I recommend seeking out.

Tanith Lee is one of those fantasy authors whose existence largely escaped my notice during my younger days. This is in spite of the fact that one of her short stories, "In the Balance," appeared in the third volume of the celebrated Swords Against Darkness series edited by Andrew J. Offutt – the only one included in Gary Gygax's Appendix N. I remember very well reading that volume, several of whose stories made a lasting impression upon me, yet, for the life of me, I can't recall Lee's own contribution. I find that particularly odd, because, if nothing else, Lee is an exceptional stylist; even if one does not like the tales she tells, there can be little doubt that she tells them with aplomb.

Later in life I corrected this lacuna in my literary education and read several collections of Lee's short stories, including one, published in 1982, entitled Cyrion. Cyrion is the name of the protagonist of all the included stories, including "A Hero at the Gates," first published in the pages of the Summer 1979 issue of Shayol, a science fiction and fantasy periodical about which I don't know a great deal. In any case, "A Hero at the Gates" takes place, like all of the adventures of Cyrion, in a fantasy version of the medieval Kingdom of Jerusalem (Heruzala) at the time of the Crusades. I say "fantasy version" primarily because sorcery and the supernatural are incontrovertibly real; in most other respects, the world Cyrion inhabits is simply the 12th century Levant with the names swapped out – "Remusans" for "Romans" and "Hesuf" instead of "Jesus," for example.

"A Hero at the Gates" begins with the arrival of Cyrion at a city in the midst of the desert in which he has been traveling, alone, for some time. 

Cyrion stood and regarded the city. He was tempted to believe it a desert too, one of those hulks of men's making, abandoned centuries ago as the sands of the waste crept to their threshold. Certainly, the city was old. Yet it had no aspect of neglect, none of the indefinable melancholy of the unlived-in house.

Before long, Cyrion recognizes that he is being watched by the inhabitants of this unnamed city.

What did they perceive? This: a young man, tall and deceptively slim, deceptively elegant, which elegance itself was something of a surprise, for he had been months traveling in the desert, on the caravan routes and the rare and sand-blown roads. He wore the loose dark clothing of a nomad, but with the generous hood thrust back to show he did not have a nomad's pigmentation. At his side was a sword sheathed in read leather. The sunlight struck a silver-gold burnish on the pommel of the sword that was also the color of his hair. His left hand was mailed in rings which apparently no bandit had been able to relieve him of. If the watchers of the city had remarked that Cyrion was as handsome of the Arch-Demon himself, they would not have been the first to do so. 

As descriptions of a character go, it's a good one and representative, I think, of Lee's luscious style. At any rate, Cyrion is soon met by a man with "a hard face, tanned but sallow, wings of black hair beneath a shaved crown, and a collar of swarthy gold set with gems." The man, who identifies himself as Prince Memled, explains that he and his subjects "await a savior. We await him in bondage … You, perhaps, are he." 

Cyrion, naturally, is skeptical but nevertheless asks Memled to explain what he wants from him. 

"We are in the thrall of a monster, a demon-beast. It dwells in the caverns beneath the city, but at night it roves at all. It demands the flesh of our men to eat; it drinks the blood of our women and our children. It is protected through ancient magic, by a pact made a hundred years before between the princes of the city (cursed be they!) and the hordes of the Fiend. None born of the city has power to slay the beast. Yet there is a prophecy. A stranger, a hero who ventures to our gates, will have the power."

Upon questioning, Memled admits to Cyrion that other would-be saviors have preceded him – "upward of a score," he explains – and they have all "met an early death." The prince tells him that no one will think ill of him should he refuse to undertake this enterprise. He also adds:

"I can reveal no more. It is a part of the foul sorcery that binds us. We may say nothing to aid you, do nothing to aid you. Only pray for you, if you should decide to pit your skill against the devil."

Despite this, Cyrion accepts Memled's offer to attempt to save his city, in exchange for coin. The prince readily agrees to this, saying, "We crave safety, not wealth. Our wealth has not protected us from horror and death."

I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn that things are not quite what they seem. Fortunately, Cyrion is exceedingly clever, a keen reader of others and an eye for small details. These traits all serve him well in a story that, ultimately, is less a traditional sword-and-sorcery yarn than a mystery. Indeed, Cyrion himself feels less like a Conan than a street-smart pulp detective. There's even a scene, toward the end of the story, where Cyrion explains how and why he was able to discern something that no one else seemingly could. It reminded me of similar scenes in Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories or those of his many imitators, which I rather suspect was the point.

In any event, "A Hero at the Gates" is a good read and a nice change of pace from more traditional pulp fantasy tales. I suspect anyone reading it will soon wish to read more and I heartily encourage that – if you can find them; like so much of Lee's oeuvre, they are currently out of print. 

My feelings about L. Sprague de Camp are complex, to put it mildly. A cultured and erudite man, as well as a talented writer, De Camp played a key role in promoting Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian during the 1950s and '60s. At the same time, I think it's fair to say that De Camp never really understood Conan or (especially) Howard and, in the process of promoting both, he canonized some of his misunderstandings to such an extent that they're still commonly accepted to this day (e.g. REH killed himself because he was a grief-stricken momma's boy). As an admirer of Howard's body of work and a student of his life and thought, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that De Camp's distortions didn't color my opinion of him. Yet, as I noted above, De Camp was a genuinely accomplished writer whose own works reveal considerable skill and imagination, not mention exercising influence over Gary Gygax's vision of Dungeons & Dragons.

King Vuar said: "Good my lord, my concubine Ilepro, whom I think you know, has  a desire that you alone can satisfy."

"Yes, Sire?" Jumping to a wrong conclusion, Derezong Taash goggled like a bullfrog in spring. For one thing, King Vuar was not at all noted for generosity in sharing his women, and for another thing, of the royal harem, Derezong had the least desire to share Ilepro.

The king said: "She wishes that jewel that forms the third eye of the goddess Tandyla. You know that temple in Lotor?"

"Yes, Sire." Although he retained his blandest smile, Derezong's heart sank to the vicinity of his knees. This was going to prove even less entertaining than intimacy with Ilepro.

King Vuar adds that he wishes Derezong to retrieve the jewel by stealth, since he has no desire for a war with the kingdom of Lotor. Reluctantly, the sorcerer sets off for Lotor, taking his over-eager apprentice Zhamel Seh with him – "Action! Excitement!" Zhamel exclaims, after being told of Derezong's mission, swishing the air with his sword. 

Once in Lotor, Derezong makes preparations to enter the temple of Tandyla surreptitiously and steal the jewel, along the way learning some details of the setting, such as the fact that, according to Derezong anyway, the goddess Tandyla "was a mere blind to cover dark rites concerning the demon Tr'lang, who in elder days had been a god in his own right." It's clear that De Camp took a stronger interest in the minutiae of the Pusadian Age than Howard ever did of his Hyborian Age, which, as a RPG referee, I find endearing.

Together, Derezong Taash and Zhamel Seh follow through with their plan, making their way to the temple unseen and, by means both magical and mundane, succeed in obtaining the jewel. They even fend off a pair of warriors tasked with guarding the statue of the goddess, much to the relief of Derezong, a short, pudgy old man who had worried about just such an occurrence. It's at this point that a new worry enters the mind of the sorcerer: the theft was too easy. The more he thinks about it, the more certain he is that something is badly amiss and that his entire mission to Lotor, including the stealing of the Eye of Tandyla, was a ruse of some sort, though he did not yet know to what end or who had orchestrated it.

"The Eye of Tandyla" is a delightful sword-and-sorcery romp, peopled by interesting and amusing characters and filled with equal parts derring-do and humor. Reading the story, I had no doubts as to why Gygax thought so highly of De Camp and numbered his works among those listed in Appendix N. Likewise, I think I gained better insight into just what De Camp had hoped Howard's tales of Conan could have been, however misguided that hope was. As I mentioned earlier, "The Eye of Tandyla" recalled something Clark Ashton Smith might have written in one of his lighter moods. It's a fast-paced, fun story with some interesting bits of world building and I enjoyed reading it greatly.

Though I had read Dragon for sometime beforehand, issue #68 (December 1982) was the first one I ever received as part of my subscription. As it turned out, I got two copies of every issue during that subscription owing to an error at TSR, which resulted in one copy being sent to me in Baltimore, Maryland and another being sent to me in Baltimore, Mississippi, but, since it's the zip code (which was correct on both copies) that matters when it comes to postal delivery, not the putative state, I wound up with two of every issue for twelve months.

What was cool about this state of affairs, beside the fact that I could give away copies to friends and look like Mr Magnanimity, was that I could also disassemble issues with impunity, adding particularly favored articles to my "Dungeon Master Binder," where I kept stuff like my maps, NPC write-ups, and critical hit charts (also from Dragon). Among the articles from issue #68 that I removed from my extra copy and carried around was "Thrills and Chills: Ice Age Adventures" by the underrated Arthur Collins. The article, which was lengthy, re-imagined your typical D&D fantasy setting as a prehistoric Ice Age one. For some reason, the idea of adventuring in a land of woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers really appealed to me at the time, though I never actually used the article in play.

I bring all of this up as an introduction to Manly Wade Wellman's short story, "Hok Visits the Land of Legends." First published in the April 1942 issue of Fantastic Adventures, it's part of the larger saga of Hok, a prehistoric man living during the Ice Age, whom the short story describes thus: "Hok the Mighty, strongest and wisest and bravest of the Flint Folk whose chief he was." The story begins just as Hok has decided to go alone to hunt the great mammoth Gragru.

On a cloudy gray day, not too cold, he spoke from his cave-door in the bluff above the huts. "I go on a lone hunt," he told the tribe. "It will be several days, perhaps, before I return. In my absence, Zhik is your chief." Then he gave his handsome wife Oloana a rib-buckling hug, and told young Ptao to grow in his absence. He departed along the river trail, heading south for mammoth country.

When, after a long search, Hok finds and engages Gragru in battle, he finds that the beast is hardier than he expected. Though wounded by his attacks, the mammoth flees and Hok pursues him, following the trail of his blood. After several more days of tracking, Hok comes upon the dying mammoth and prepares to kill him.

"Gragru, I am honored by this adventure," he wheezed. "Eating your heart will give me strength and wit and courage beyond all I have known. You will live again in me. Now, to make an end."

He kicked off the snowshoes, so as to run more swiftly at Gragru's sagging hindquarters. But, before he moved, Gragru acted on his own part. He stretched his trunk backward to the shaft in his wound.

Hok relaxed, smiling. "What, you would die of your own will? So be it! I yield you the honor of killing Gragru!"

 Not long thereafter, however, the ground crumbles beneath the mammoth carcass and it slides down into a strange valley.

The valley seemed to throb and steam. He made out rich leafage and tall tree-summits far below. One or two bright birds flitted in the mists. Hok grimaced.

"Summer must sleep through, the cold, like a cave-bear," he decided. "I will go down, and look for Gragru's body."

There were shoots and shrubs and hummocks for him to catch with hands and feet, or he would have gone sliding again. The deeper he journeyed, the warmer it became. Now and then he hacked a big slash on a larger tree, to keep his upward trail again. Those trees, he observed, were often summer trees, lusher and greener than any he had ever seen.

"Is this the Ancient Land of safe and easy life?" he mused.

This valley is, of course, inhabited, not only by creatures Hok calls "nightmares" (relict dinosaurs) but also a strange race of men. This is the Land of Legends mentioned in the story's title and where Hok's true adventure begins.

I have little doubt that the idea of a fantasy tale starring a prehistoric man seems strange to a lot of people, even uninteresting. The truth is that Wellman is a terrific writer, superb not only at creating compelling characters but at weaving history, folklore, and imagination into a delightful pulp adventure, just as he did with his stories of Silver John the Balladeer. Wellman isn't as widely known an author as he ought to be, though Gary Gygax lists him in Appendix N as having had an influence over AD&D and Karl Edward Wagner (creator of Kane) was also a great admirer of his work. His Hok stories have recently been collected into a single volume and are finally back in print. I'm very fond of them myself and think they're well worth investigating if you've never read them before.

When I was in college, I knew a guy who was really into comics -- DC comics in particular -- and he decided to bring a significant portion of his collection with him to keep in his dorm room. While certainly an odd decision, I didn't complain, as it afforded me the opportunity to read a lot of comics I'd never seen when they were released. Partly this was because I hadn't been all that interested in comics as a kid (with a few rare exceptions, mostly Marvel) and partly this was because the comics that seemed to be readily available in my neck of the woods were pretty straight forward superhero ones. Although I knew of the existence of comics like Savage Sword of Conan, I didn't regularly see copies of it at any of the drugstores where the neighborhood children bought their comics.

On the other hand, I'd never even heard of Arak, Son of Thunder when it debuted in September 1981. Amusingly, the comic was created by Roy Thomas (along with Ernesto Colón), creator of the aforementioned Savage Sword of Conan and there's a superficial similarity between the two comics. Both feature clever, muscular wanderers who have adventures in an ancient/medieval world. The similarities largely end there, though. Whereas Savage Sword is set in the fictitious prehistorical world of the Hyborian Age, Arak takes place in the real world of the late 8th and early 9th centuries. Admittedly, this "real" world is a legendary one, replete with magic, monsters, and Charlemagne's paladins, but it wasn't wholly imaginary in nature, even if it did play fast and loose with history in the interests of a good story.

Arak's "gimmick" was that its titular character was an American Indian (from a fictitious East Coast tribe) cast adrift in a canoe as a child -- by his father, the thunder god, He-No -- and then picked up and raised by Vikings. Though his real name was Bright-Sky-After-Storm, the Vikings renamed him Erik, which he mispronounced as Arak, giving rise to his nom de guerre. As recounted in the first issue of his comic, Arak spends his early life raiding with his adoptive people, becoming a great warrior, especially skilled with the axe and the bow. During a raid on a monastery, the Vikings find themselves attacked by a monstrous serpent sent by the sorceress Angelica of Albracca (who becomes the comic's primary antagonist). Arak slays the serpent by means of a hammer-shaped cross, leading one of the surviving monks to opine that Arak has a divine mission. Arak himself wonders what god it was, if any, who aided his victory and sets off to find his destiny.

From then on, Arak wanders, for a time settling in one place, but eventually moving on as he continues his personal quest to discover the truth about himself and his dimly-remembered past a continent away. For most of the early issues, Arak is in Frankland, as part of the court of Charlemagne, fighting side by side with his famous paladins against a variety of magical and mundane foes. Among the paladins was the female warrior Bradamante, whose daughter, Valda, is a powerful fighter in her own right, as well as the eventual love interest of Arak. In time, Arak moves on from Frankland and has adventures all across the Old World, meeting both historical personages and mythological monsters. It is my understanding that he eventually returned to North America to be reunited with the tribe of his birth before the comic ended its run in 1985.

Arak, Son of Thunder appealed to me back in college for the same reasons it does now: it's a fun take on historical fantasy with a twist. Certainly it's not very plausible historically but then neither are the tales of Conan. Still, I think Roy Thomas did a terrific job with the comic, presenting both a world and a protagonist worth reading about. It's also a good model for historical fantasy gaming, something I find myself pondering quite regularly. I have no idea how hard it is to find copies of the comic nowadays (I last saw them in the early '90s), but, if you ever come across them, they're worth a read.

When I was a child, one of my favorite stories was The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, which I knew from original 1898 novel (and whose opening lines I can still quote from memory to this day) and the 1953 movie I must have one Saturday afternoon while visiting my grandmother. To say that the book had a huge impact on my youthful imagination would be an understatement; for many years after first encountering it I had dreams -- or, perhaps more accurately, nightmares -- of alien invasions of Earth. This is probably what has fueled my lifelong interest in UFOs, extra-terrestrials, and ancient astronauts. And while I'm considerably more skeptical of such things today than I was then (which is to say I don't believe in them at all), I nevertheless retain a great fondness for Wells's masterpiece.

Consequently, when I recently learned of the existence of an unauthorized sequel to The War of the Worlds, also published in 1898, I was greatly intrigued. Called Edison's Conquest of Mars, the novel was written by Garrett P. Serviss, an American astronomer, and was initially serialized in the New York Evening Journal. It was later collected together and published as a whole in 1947 by Carcosa House. Since then it's been republished, often in abridged form, by several other publishers, but you can also read it online, since it's now in the public domain.

Like much late 19th century literature, Edison's Conquest of Mars is very long and given to extensive digressions that detract from one's enjoyment. Serviss's prose is baroque and oddly composed, but it's worth enduring because his ideas are interesting and, in retrospect, prescient, at least insofar as science fiction goes. Written in the first person, from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, Edison's Conquest of Mars begins by both revealing its connection to Wells's original and by immediately expanding on it, as any good sequel ought:

It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a connected form.

The Martians had nearly all perished, not through our puny efforts, but in consequence of disease, and the few survivors fled in one of their projectile cars, inflicting their cruelest blow in the act of departure.

From this, Serviss goes on to explain that the fleeing Martians had left behind "a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance" in Bergen County, New Jersey -- a device so powerful that it destroyed what remained of New York and the surrounding towns. The destruction not only slays tens of thousands of people, but causes seismic shocks in Britain and on the continent of Europe. In the aftermath of the Martian invasion and the destruction of New York,

Differences of race and religion were swallowed up in the universal sympathy which was felt for those who had suffered so terribly from an evil that was as unexpected as it was unimaginable in its enormity.

Fearing that the Martians might choose to return to Earth to deliver a death-blow against a weakened mankind, the greatest human minds begin a desperate race to understand the Martians' technology and harness it so that they might be repulsed should this inevitable second attack come. Though Lord Kelvin, Herr Roentgen, and others throw themselves into this great task, it is -- as one might expect, given the story's title -- Thomas Edison who succeeds and gives humanity the means to defend itself against the alien invaders from the Red Planet.

Edison's first invention after understanding the Martians' machinery is to build a "flying ship," which uses the "principle of electrical attraction and repulsion" to overcome gravity. A test flight to the Moon proves Edison's genius, a fact made all the more apparent by his invention of a "disintegrator" weapon. Now, the nations of Earth -- led by the United States, "whose leadership was never for a moment questioned abroad" -- meet in Washington to decide what to do with these great discoveries and how best to protect humanity from the Martian threat.

Though initially considering a defensive posture in dealing with the Martians, the assembled leaders of the world come to agree that a better option is an offensive one -- taking the wars to Mars rather than waiting for it to return to Earth. With each nation pledging men and materiel for this cosmic effort, Edison then sets about building a fleet of flying ships, armed with disintegrators, to send into the void of space. In addition, Edison invents spacesuits, an "aerial telegraph," and other marvels to assist in the coming war. The human fleet stops first at the Moon, which they discover was once inhabited but was now a dead world. They also discover gems, crystals, and other materials that might aid them in the construction of yet more devices to use against the Martians.

The story continues on at some length, describing both the wonders Earth men encounter and their preparations for war. As I said, Serviss is a windy writer, given to extensive digressions and his prose leaves much to be desired in terms of beauty. Yet, he throws out so many amazing ideas, from asteroid mining to Martian meddling in Earth's past, that it's hard not to be impressed by the man's imagination, especially when you consider he wrote this story in 1898, well before most of these things had become staples of science fiction literature. Edison's Conquest of Mars is, frankly, an amazing novel from a historical perspective, even if it's far from great literature.