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2/21/2016 10:16 pm  #1


Dwimmermount in Hyperborea? [possible spoilers]

[Apologies to anyone who has already seen a similar thread over on the ACKS forum).

I was wondering if anyone has thought about, or attempted to place Dwimmermount from Autarch (ACKS) in Hyperborea?

The Eld / Elves in Dwimmermount would work really well as Hyperboreans, and the heavy emphasis on cosmology / the planets seems a good fit.  Also, the flavour of Hyperborea seems to me to be a better fit with the megadungeon itself than the rather generic medieval setting surrounding Dwimmermount in the original module.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Where would you place Dwimmermount?  And does anyone have any thoughts on reconciling the history/background of Dwimmermount with that of Hyperborea?  What would you suggest doing about the Dwarves?  

I have a few ideas which would involve rather significant changes to both settings which is of course totally fine, but was wondering if any of the resident Hyperborea experts had any thoughts on how compatible Dwimmermount is with Hyperborea as written?

 

 

2/22/2016 9:46 am  #2


Re: Dwimmermount in Hyperborea? [possible spoilers]

I don't know anything about Dwimmermount other than some of the posts I saw on James's blog years ago. I do recall that James was an avid CAS fan, so if some of that worked its way into his dungeon, perhaps it would work well. 


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2/22/2016 10:54 am  #3


Re: Dwimmermount in Hyperborea? [possible spoilers]

I haven't been able to bring myself to pull the trigger on Dwimmermount. I feel like I would be doing it more for completism than play right now. But definitely interested in hearing how you Hyperboreanize!

 

2/22/2016 1:18 pm  #4


Re: Dwimmermount in Hyperborea? [possible spoilers]

Hm, I've been running Dwimmermount for my group (albeit not with AS&SH but Kazamaták és Kompániák, a Hungarian B/X clone), and it would certainly not be hard to "Hyperboreanise" it; some its elements (especially those which we can't discuss without spoilers) definitely fit the aesthetics of AS&SH.

As for Dwimmermount's dwarves, I can see several options. You can tweak the encounters with dwarves and their areas so that they match their Hyperborean version. So they wouldn't be custodians of the dungeon, rather slaves finally free from their masters. Plus, you know, the maggot-y thing. Alternatively, you may want to reskin them as some of homunculi.

 

2/24/2016 6:11 am  #5


Re: Dwimmermount in Hyperborea? [possible spoilers]

@Ghul – Thanks Ghul, I am relatively late back into gaming and into the OSR, long after James stopped posting, so I haven't actually read much about James' design process of Dwimmermount.  If he cites CAS as an influence though it makes sense that there are threads of similar themes/influences which make it a good match for Hyperborea.  

@Handy - Thanks for the encouragement!  I will definitely share my thoughts about "Hyboreanising" Dwimmermount (and perhaps Dwimmermounting Hyperborea ;-) ) as they come.  I only picked up Dwimmermount a few months back, long after the controversy surrounding its publication.  For what its worth I think Alex and Tavis at Autarch did a fantastic job with it and while I have not doubt no module could possibly have met the expectations raised by the Grognardia years, I think it stands up very well on its own merits and is well worth a look.

 

     Thread Starter
 

2/24/2016 6:17 am  #6


Re: Dwimmermount in Hyperborea? [possible spoilers]

Re: Dwimmermount Dwarves, Maggotty Beginings & Hyperborean Automatons?

@Ynas - Strangely, I hadn't thought about changing the dwarves to their hyperborean equivalents but now that you mention it that might work - and their generation from foul maggots could be used as well.  Thanks!

For those unfamiliar with Dwimmermount (no spoilers here I don't think, this is all knowledge available to those playing dwarves) - PC Dwarves in Dwimmermount are all male and reproduce in a rather unusual way: they carve a "son" from rock who is nearly identical to themselves and adorn their "son" with jewels and precious metals, and something about this magical process brings the dwarf to life.  When dwarves die they revert to stone, and they are regarded by non-dwarves as being somewhat artificial - like automatons / golems.  This suggests to me 2 options thus far:

1.) As Ynas Midgard pointed out, the Hyperborean Dwarves, who grow from foul maggots, have a similarly unusual reproductive process and could be substituted in.  There is even a certain resonance between the Dwimmermount Dwarves imbuing their "sons" with life and the Hyperborean dwarves ability to forge magic items.  The tricky bit in terms of adventure conversion is the generally lawful stance of Dwimmermount Dwarves vs. the relatively Chaotic stance of Hyperborean Dwarves.

2.) Another option after looking again at the ASSH referee's book is to change the Dwimmermount Dwarves into sentient Automatons - in a somewhat similar vein to the Warforged from 3.x editions but "wierded up" - just like the automatons in ASSH these would likely be the remnant creations of Atlantean, Hyperborean or older and stranger cultures, and this ties in quite well with the way that Dwimmermount Dwarves are seen as somewhat artificial.  I actually quite like the idea of (rare) sentient automatons wondering around the barbaric, frigid, post-apocalyptic Hyperborea.
 
Does anyone have any thoughts on how they would “weird” up a “race” of automatons for Hyperborea, or perhaps some literarcy antecedants / sources?  

     Thread Starter
 

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