Skip to main content

Tales from the Sanctum

Card Catalog

Welcome

The Sanctum Secorum podcast plumbs the depths of Appendix N as it applies to DCC RPG. Each show reviews one piece of Appendix N media — be it literature or film — and then discusses how to bring aspects of it to the table for your DCC game. We explore how the selected piece might already easily fit into particular modules and DCC settings, and we highlight one specific DCC module that really ties into the Appendix N material.

Enter the Sanctum Secorum… and be inspired.

Sanctum Secorum #52 – The Hounds of Skaith

This week, the Keepers of Mystery discuss a work by the Queen of Space Opera, Leigh Brackett, as they dive into The Hounds of Skaith.

In this second volume of Leigh Brackett’s exemplary trilogy The Book of Skaith, Eric John Stark, having expelled the Lords Protector from their northern Citadel and released his friend and mentor galactic ambassador Ashton, heads south to find the wise woman Gerrith, to foment rebellion, and –in spite of the Wandsmen and the Lords Protector’s wishes—to open the dying planet to star travel. Although he is outnumbered, he possesses one extraordinary advantage: he now holds mental mastery over the Hounds of Skaith, fierce mutant beasts that paralyze their enemies by the power of fear alone.

This show originally aired live on the Goodman Games twitch channel on May 23, 2023.

Read More

Sanctum Secorum #42 – Arena

Get the free Sanctum Secorum #42 Companion HERE!

Amid escalating conflict between Earth and mysterious alien Outsiders, massive armadas from both sides are set to meet in what looks to be an evenly matched battle. Bob Carson, the pilot of a small one-man scout ship blacks out while engaging with an Outsider counterpart. When he awakens, he finds himself naked in a small enclosed, circular area about 250 yards (230 m) across. In the distance is an Outsider, which Carson labels a “Roller” because its form is that of a red sphere about 1 yard in diameter with several dozen tentacles.

Carson hears a voice in his mind that identifies itself as an evolved intelligence that has decided to intervene because the upcoming war would utterly destroy one side and hurt the other so badly that it would not be able to one day advance into an evolved intelligence like itself. This Entity therefore chose one individual from each species to fight in single combat. The loser will doom its kind to instant extinction. Carson and his opponent discover through trial and error that there is an invisible barrier between them, and that only inanimate objects can cross it. Carson tries to communicate with the Roller, to see if a compromise is possible, but receives a mental message of unremitting hatred. The battle is joined.

Welcome to the Sanctum Secorum podcast. Tonight we look to the past while we discuss Fredric Brown’s classic story, Arena.

Read More

Sanctum Secorum #33 – The Powder of Hyperborea

Get the free Sanctum Secorum #33 Companion HERE!

Retired master-thief Satampra, Zerios of Uzuldaroum recounts an adventure from days gone by when he and his two companions (Vixeela and the dubious magician/alchemist Veezi Phenquor) endeavored to rob the temple of the moon god Leniqua, and steal away with the Thirty-Nine girdles of virginity by means of stealth, cunning, and a little bit of hyperborean chemistry. Originally published in the Saturn Science Fiction & Fantasy, it is the last of Clark’s Hyperborea cycle.

Welcome to the Sanctum Secorum podcast. Tonight we look at a work by Clark Ashton Smith, The Powder of Hyperborea and match it up with Edgar Johnson’s delightful Street Kids of Ur-Hadad.

Read More

Sanctum Secorum #16 – Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon

Get the free Sanctum Secorum #16 Companion here!

Episode #16 Covers“Harvey Selden goes down to Mars from an observation ship, and accepts an invitation to visit Firsa Mak’s house by his friend Bentham. He meets a martian woman, Lella, of a type he has not seen before. From there he is shanghaied into observing the Purple Priestess Mad Moon ritual and isn’t able to cope, but survives. The others want him to tell the Bureau, but he runs for Earth instead, into therapy. However, at the end a communique arrives from Lella, saying she is waiting for him at the next ritual.”

Welcome to the Sanctum Secorum podcast. In this episode we look at a work by the Queen of the Space Opera, Leigh Brackett. In addition, we have bonus content to bring to your DCC RPG table including a mini-adventure!

Read More

Sanctum Secorum #15 – Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth

Get the free Sanctum Secorum #15 Companion here!

Episode #15 Covers“Kamandi is the last survivor of the human outpost in the “Command D” bunker near what was once New York City. “Kamandi” is a corruption of “Command D”; it is unclear if Kamandi ever had any other name. Raised by his elderly grandfather, Kamandi has extensive knowledge of the pre-Disaster world, thanks to a library of microfilm and old videos, but he has spent most of his time inside the bunker, and is unaware of the state of the world outside. When his grandfather is killed by a wolf, Kamandi leaves the bunker in search of other human outposts.

He soon discovers that the only other intelligent humans left on Earth are Ben Boxer and his friends Steve and Renzi, a trio of mutants genetically engineered to survive in Earth A.D. He also makes a number of animal friends including Dr. Canus, the canine scientist of Great Caesar (leader of the Tiger Empire) and Caesar’s teenage son Tuftan. Later additions to the cast included the alien woman Pyra, the girl Spirit and the consulting detective Mylock Bloodstalker and his associate Doile. Even the most sympathetic animals however are nonplussed by Kamandi and Ben’s ability to speak.

Kamandi and his friends set out to explore the world of Earth A.D., in hopes of one day restoring humanity to sentience and civilization.”

Welcome to the Sanctum Secorum podcast. In this episode we get to unite the work of the immortal Jack Kirby with special guest Jim Wampler’s long awaited Mutant Crawl Classics!

In addition, we have bonus content to bring to your DCC game while you wait that shiny new MCC book…after the jump!

Read More

Sanctum Secorum #13 – Down to a Sunless Sea

Get the Sanctum Secorum #13 Companion here!

Episode #13 Covers     Brant’s life had been hard after the courts had sent him to the penal colony on Trivium Charontis on Mars. Since working his way to freedom, he had run guns to the High Clan princes, sold them liquor and forbidden tobacco, and peddled narcotics to the soft, timid Earthsider clerks. He had stolen, he had cheated at cards, he had killed a man more than once…
     Now, fleeing from justice across the ancient dust oceans of Mars he had no way of knowing that he was running toward the most fantastic adventure and man had ever lived – toward refuge more absolute that any man had ever dreamed of – by the banks of secret rivers, in caverns yet unmeasured by man, on the shore of a sea the sun had never seen!

 

 

 

Welcome to the Sanctum Secorum podcast. In this episode we cast our gaze skyward to the Mars of Lin Carter’s Down to a Sunless Sea and to Harley Stroh’s Peril on the Purple Planet.

In addition, we have bonus content to bring to your game: items, monsters, and so much more…after the jump.

Read More

Episode #06 – Eye of Cat

Get the Sanctum Secorum #06 Companion on DrivethruRPG

#06 CoversWilliam Blackhorse Singer is the Star Tracker — an expert in the pursuit and capture of exotic life forms. The last warrior of the Navajo people, he is a man out of time and place, adrift in an uncertain future. And now he must join forces with an enemy shapeshifter called Cat — the lone surviving member of an extinct alien race — to track down and eliminate a dangerous extraterrestrial assassin. For Singer, it is a costly collaboration. For once the killer is disposed of, the true hunt is to begin: a relentless and deadly chase across worlds and into the heart of ancient mysteries…with the hunter as prey.

 

Welcome to the Sanctum Secorum podcast. Tonight we look at Eye of Cat by Roger Zelazny and pair that up with the weird West world of Black Powder, Black Magic. In addition, we bring you some of the most dangerous creatures your players may ever face (and more) after the jump…


Read More