Sunday, April 5, 2015

Free Old School Sci Fi Download As Inspiration For Your Science Fiction or Fantasy Campaigns - Planet Of Dread By Murray Leinster

Planet Of Dread is one of those nice and quite interesting sci fi reads that pops up in yard sales and other used book venues from time to time. And it offers a great location for modification into an old school adventure location for any number of old school D&D style or science fantasy campaigns.



Planet of Dread by Murray Leister is one of those books that is simply perfect for modification into an old school science fantasy mini campaign. Capable of being used as a planet of peril or a mission for your space explorers this novel is also a little gem filled with giant insects, weird and dangerous encounters and lots of blank spaces on the map for modification by a DM.
Grab It Right Over
HERE

The book itself is public domain and perfect for use as a location for even a post apocalyptic location for a group of mutant adventurers to try and survive on planetary location of a former galactic empire. The plot goes something like this: "Planet of Dread," is an outer space horror story. It tells the tale of a spaceship with one too many passengers—a stowaway. The stowaway is given two choices: be sentenced to death, or be marooned on a nearby planet. He chooses to be marooned. His one problem is that the planet is crawling with millions of giant insect monstrosities.
Image result for Planet of Dread


So we've got space ships, groovy giant insects, and lots of random encounters in the works with this one. Add in your favorite D&D or AD&D style PC's and your pretty much set to go with a mini evenings entertainment for a party. You could stick in some random ruins and this would be a great location for a random time or space gate to open up into. This book offers a perfect location for a group of Carcosa adventurers, or Mutant Epoch, or even a gang of Mutant Epoch or Mutant Future adventurers to stumble upon. The planet in question also makes a really nice location for adventurers to be sent to locate, trap, and bring back monsters for some deranged wizard or super scientist. There could also be a time space gate opening up into say a high fantasy location which needs to be closed. PC's could 'accidentally' be sucked into the depths of the gate and hi jinks ensue. 
All in all this is a great location based adventure resource to pull from for your old school games, the novel is light,breezy, and a hoot to read for a Sunday afternoon. Most of the major game systems out there have giant insects of one stripe or another so many of the major inhabitants of the world's novel are covered. The planet also makes an excellent location for a failed space colony or as a stand in for your favorite crashed science fiction space ship. You can add in your favorite old school retroclone and pretty much used in any of your favorite old school venues. From Traveler to Mutant Epoch this is a really perfect old school adventure campaign point from which to pull from. Not a bad little free offering by one of the forgotten masters of science fiction. According to Wiki :
Murray Leinster (June 16, 1896 – June 8, 1975) was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He wrote and published more than 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays. You can read more right over HERE

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