Of Monsters and Men

I recently finished reading the Monster Blood Tattoo series by D. M. Cornish, and I probably never saw a story more appropriate to be used as a setting for OSR. Even if you didn't want to read the story itself, the books contain massive Explicarium and Appendices with enough information to run a game in that strange world. Really, I somewhat suspect the author from playing tabletops as he was writing this one...

The world where the trilogy takes place, the Half-Continent, is basically a Victorian Europe caught in a constant struggle between men and monsters. There is an actual metaphysical war between civilization that tames the land by cultivation and "threwd", a genius loci or monster-producing awareness of the wild nature. Humans build cities, each one a hole in the threwd and a bastion against monsters, protecting the surrounding farmland but rarely strong enough to push far against the wilds. Nature responds by sending monsters to fight humanity off.

A nicker.

And yes, there are monsters everywhere. Unless you are within the safe streets of a city, monsters will most likely prowl nearby. All villages are built with a protection of strong walls, all mansions are more like fortresses. Larger roads are patrolled by the military and travellers hire bodyguards. The farther away you go from a centre of civilization, the more common and dangerous the monsters will get. They crawl out from various swamps and muds "impregnated" by threwd, countless in numbers and an ever-looming threat over humanity. They come in every size and shape - goblinoid grinnlings; animal-headed glamgorns, huge umbergogs, aquatic kraulschwimmen, and more, ever stranger creatures. Every forest, river, mountain or marsh will have some, and they will come out at night, invading into the fields, pastures and orchards unless deterred. And should you forget to lock the doors and windows of your fortified house, they may very well eat you.

A glamgorn.

Yet monsters are not mindless killers. They are as intelligent as humans, and very much varied in their attitudes. Many despise humans for their conquest of the wilds, many like the taste of human flesh (or horse meat, monsters are said to love horse meat), but way more monsters would just like to be left at peace. Precious few are even benign, hoping to reconcile monsters and men. And they are also not just disorganized packs or solitary wanderers (quite some are, but not all). The wild lands are ruled over by urchin-lords, monster nobility so ancient and soaked with threwd they basically have psychic powers (there is no true magic, so psychic powers and alchemy is as close as you will get to supernatural). The deep seas then hide the dormant false-gods, gargantuan monsters of apocalyptic powers, inspiring cults (monstrous or human) that try to find ways of waking them so that their false-god can rule over the world.

The Vinegar Sea hides even stranger monsters.

For their part, the people of the Haacobin Empire (a collection of city-states where the story takes place) see monsters as pests to be eradicated, and threwd as a challenge to be overcome. Of course, there are the "heretical, monster-loving" kingdoms that the Empire wages war at, and which maybe live in relative harmony with monsters. But in the Empire, any sympathy to monsters is a capital offense, and even being accused of monster-love can get you exiled into the hostile countryside. And because of this philosophy of "the only good monster is a dead monster", of course there are various monster-slayers and adventurers - how convenient for tabletop gaming!

An undead, man-made monster.

Your usual murderhobo party will appreciate the organised quest-givers, as the number of monster-slayers and monsters to be slain had given raise to the so called "knaveries". A knavery is an administrative establishment where all the hireling slayers, professional killers and freelance murderers can get commission to work on government-declared monster-hunts or private contracts. Monster slaying is rather lucrative business - there are never enough soldiers to keep all the public roads in the country safe, merchants will gladly pay to have their precious cargo protected, and rich land owners or remote villages are always pestered by some troublesome monster. Many cities even offer prize money for every monster’s head you bring.

A monster-slayer.

Monster slaying is also a deadly business. As the average monsters has every physical advantage over humans (even the two feet tall boggles are said to be stronger than a grown man, to say nothing about claws, fangs or armoured skin), monster-slayers need some gimmick to level the playing field. Sure, there are flintlock firearms, but that alone is not enough when monsters may be large and tough enough to shrug off cannonballs. I already mentioned alchemy, though, which is powerful, widespread, diverse and oft-used.

A lahzar.

For starters, there is proofed clothing - clothes alchemically treated to reinforce them against both blade and claw. You can wear a frock coat instead of a chain mail, yet still get comparable protection, and with more expensive alchemical concoctions, better defensive abilities can be achieved. Thus using medieval setting is no longer required to maintain the idea of effective armour, and your players can let their fashion sense run wild as they search for the best-looking armoured embroidery. No one would be caught outside of a city without proofing. Even better, proofing solves the problem I have with firearms in many fantasy worlds - why didn't they quickly spread and made melee combat obsolete? But when everyone is walking around in bulletproof clothes, you can still reliably whack them with a pole-axe or a war hammer.

The Appendices contain explanations
of nearly everything, with pictures.
All of the pictures here actually come
from the books.

But I digressed a bit from actually slaying the monsters. For this, there are many concoctions, acids and monster-poisons - skolds are professional battle alchemists, hurling explosives, combustibles, or caustic and toxic chemicals. Other potions can enhance the abilities of normal humans - leers take drugs that help them to see in shadows or darkness and notice minor details, or use biologues (artificially grown living tools and machines) to track monsters by smell and find their hiding places. There are also the dangerous lahzars, given psychic powers by a combination of alchemy and surgery. And even the common monster-slayer can take advantage of envenomed blade or bullet, and when the job is done they will chug down one of the many restoratives (yes, there are healing potions, or something pretty close).

A leer wearing a smell-enhancing olfactologue.

Alchemy has great many uses, and just as many misuses. While lahzars skirt the line of legality, there are strictly illegal practises of mad alchemists who use human cadavers, butchered monsters and ancient chemistry to create gudgeons - undead made-monsters, Frankenstein-esque brutes and stitched beasts of war. Maybe your players would like the profit that comes from trafficking stolen human bodies and living monsters? Such dark trades can pay really well, as gudgeons are valued both as "super soldiers", and as opponents to  captured monsters in underground fights for the entertainment of the wealthy and aristocratic. On the other hand, monsters see gudgeons as the ultimate blasphemy and will try to destroy them on sight. Maybe the players can find an unexpected ally when hunting such a zombified abomination, or help monsters free their kin from a fighting pit? Either way, they will be hanged if discovered, as smugglers or as monster-lovers.

A single skold against a massive war-gudgeon.

All in all, the Half-Continent would make for an excellent adventuring location. The only thing missing in the books are some forgotten dungeons to explore, if you need those in your game.

I think I might try to adapt some of ideas for OSR...