Gods of the Forbidden North: Volume 1

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On the arctic frontier, at the border between the mountains and the wastes beyond, looms Castle Thar-Gannon. For centuries, the Skull God ruled his domain from his blackened throne. But twenty years have passed since the routing of his armies, and the castle lies abandoned with riches unclaimed. Yet, death still lurks in the shadows of the ruins. An ancient doom arises from the depths of this place...

Gods of the Forbidden North is a massive, three-volume mega-adventure series written for the Old-School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy tabletop role-playing game by Necrotic Gnome. It details a campaign setting, a wilderness hex-crawl, a sprawling underworld connecting to multiple entrances on the surface, and most importantly, an enormous megadungeon.

• Volume 1: The first book covers the arctic frontier's settlements, cultures, religions, and its vast wilderness regions. It includes 1 urban starter quest and 5 low-level dungeons.
• Volume 2: The second book details the underworld below the continent's surface, demihuman cultures, plutonian settlements, 4 mid-level dungeons, 1 urban investigation adventure, and 1 high-level dungeon.
• Volume 3: The third book explores the last undescribed hex on the wilderness map (hex 10.02) that contains the legendary Castle Thar-Gannon megadungeon, its upper and lower halls, 3 mysterious towers, and 3 vast dungeon levels. It also includes the Cyclopean City of Chaos, with 23 unique tower dungeons, plus the secret entrance into the Tesseract of Time.

The 480-page first volume is designed for a heroic party of 6-8 adventurers to begin at 1st level and reach a minimum of 5th level by the book's conclusion, although most parties will hit 8th level if all wilderness encounters are exhausted. Though the mega-adventure was originally designed as a sandbox campaign, it also supports episodic adventure path playstyles, as well.

Adventure Summary

The adventure begins with the heroes arriving by ship in Valkengard. They secretly possess a valuable artifact called the Eye of J’karaa, said to be a key into the inner vault of Morkaal’s Tomb. But the heroes are being pursued by a black magician named Zarcand. After the party arrives in the city and finds lodging in the Brick Mammoth Inn, they are lured into an ambush and must fight to save themselves, protect the Eye, and kill Zarcand. Then, the heroes decide if they should rescue a fellow passenger’s wife and son from the bowels of Valkengard’s underworld—a chance to further explore the new port city.

In “Morkaal’s Tomb,” the heroes finally locate and enter the infamous dungeon. Overcoming devious traps and powerful monsters, the party breaches the inner vault and discovers that the legendary Morkaal no longer sleeps within his sarcophagus, as they claim his ancient treasures.

As the party returns from their expedition to the tomb, a new enemy sends the Slavers of Shuun to attack the heroes in retribution for past actions. This leads the party to the “Bog-Ruins of Fort Ikenvar,” where the slavers are encamped. Defeating the brutal foreigners, the heroes learn that the Shuun feared something stalking the fort’s eastern island—and, if explored, the party faces a monstrosity from another reality: the Guzzler. They also behold the green, glowing, Inilgaan idol of a primeval entity that slumbers at the very edge of the cosmos.

Obtaining the Shuun’s notes about the region, the party gains several leads to other adventure sites, which they might tackle in any order as they please—the “Barrow of Eight,” an undead burial site of a cursed warrior king; the “Lost Temple of Ninchaga,” a ruined temple of the primitive Emeqist religion; and the “Watcher on the Water,” Vartoriak, a high, mysterious tower on misty Lake Helvarragh, wherein a deranged cult seeks entry into the tower’s impenetrable peak.

Throughout the entire wilderness, the heroes encounter dozens of potential quests and minor story arcs planted therein which may serve as exciting distractions from the module’s core storyline: getting hired by the evil Mazos the Kindly One to fetch items and explore nearby ruins; chasing open bounties on outlaws, gangs, and pirates; getting involved with (or opposing) the growing secret Enoruuk resistance; infiltrating the Fellowship of the Smiling Cloth in Valkengard; wiping out the Cult of the Magoth in their hidden Brass Temple; retrieving the two halves of a magic bone-sword and seeking a way to destroy it; resurrecting Sularuq the lost Tempest Bird; destroying the skeletal dragon, Brakkakhan, and the eight roving demons of the North—the Tarngrak.

Product Features

This trilogy is the only mega-adventure product on the market designed specifically for the Old-School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy ruleset out-of-the-box as written. It includes the following exciting features:

• 790,912 XP from monsters and treasure
• 235 quests & discoveries
• 141 new monsters
• 116 wilderness locations
• 43 magic items
• 26 hazards & conditions
• 25 starting rumors in the city of Valkengard
• 18 languages (4 decipherable and unutterable)
• 16 arctic wilderness terrain features with their own ecology and wandering monster tables
• 5 massive "kaiju"-like demons of the North (the Tarngrak)
• 5 mid-sized dungeons (for low-level parties)
• 5 new spells
• 4 random weather & air condition tables for summer, autumn, winter, and spring
• 3 religions (1 lawful religion, 1 neutral religion, and 1 chaos cult)
• 3 versions of the module's backstory: 1 long-form, 1 short-form, and 1 brief timeline
• 2 human cultures
• Valkengard, a frontier city with 6 districts and 44 fully detailed urban locations
• Simple rules to support an arctic setting including light hours, climate, temperature, weather, air conditions, and hypothermia
• Rules for diabolical infestation, oppression, and possession
• A full glossary of names
• A meticulously hyperlinked index
• A random wandering monster activity table
• A 1st level starter quest, "The Eye of J'karaa," which includes imbedded character creation to help new players ease into the campaign (similar to modern video games)
• Dozens of "behind-the-screen" design notes for the referee
• Greatly simplified encounter design rules for Old-School Essentials based on the 1991 Rules Cyclopedia's original encounter balance system
• End-of-chapter adventure rewards summaries listing XP totals gleaned from monsters and treasure, as well as treasure locations and all recoverable magic items
• Full color hex map of the arctic wilderness (with labeled and unlabeled versions)
• Black & white hex map of the arctic wilderness (with labeled and unlabeled versions)
• A character sheet for OSE: Advanced Fantasy, themed for the Forbidden North
• 199 zipped art files in PNG format (useful for handouts at the gaming table and VTT play)
• 37 zipped map files in labeled and unlabeled formats (useful for handouts at the gaming table and VTT play)