#averoigne

First is the story A Rendezvous in Averoigne. I decided to look up where that was located (the tone of the story makes it sound like a real place) and look what I found:

So we have a vampire story that is set in a place that is based on Auvergne, the region of France where Lestat actually comes from. Not only that but in the story the vampires live in an extremely old medival-style stone castle, similar to the home Lestat grew up in.

The second story is Shambleau. While this story is very different from the traditional vampire story, it introduces the idea that when a vampire feeds on you you feel intense pleasure. The descriptions are very sexual, which is the same way Louis describes being fed on by Lestat in Interview. Additionally, a character mentions being able to see into the memories of the vampire-like creature. Again, just the same as in the VC books. I've included an excerpt so ya'll can see:

(I highly recommend Shambleau for my horror readers out there. It's a science fiction vampire story. It's very original and is the first story I've read from the short story collection that actually scared me/ gave me an adrenaline rush. It's old, 1933, so you should be able to just Google it)

The Averoigne Legacy: Tribute Tales in the World of Clark Ashton Smith, edited by Edward Stasheff, Pickman’s Press, 2019. Cover art by Jervy Bonifacio, info: Facebok.

The lore of Averoigne didn’t end with Clark Ashton Smith. Over the decades other writers, fascinated by this “Lovecraft country” of medieval France, added their own contributions. For the first time collected together into one volume, you can read over two dozen poems and stories of Averoigne (including some never before published) by Mythos authors like D.J. Tyrer, Richard Tierney, Brian McNaughton, Michael Minnis, and James Chambers. Revisit Vyônes and Périgon, meet Luc le Chaudronnier and Azédarac once again, as tales of harpies and werewolves, ogres and giants, changelings and cockatrices await you.

Clark Ashton Smith isn’t mentioned in the Dungeon Masters Guide’s Appendix N. If that seems an oversight, that’s because it is: Gygax hadn’t read Smith’s work in 1979. Had he, Gygax would have discovered that Smith has more in common with fantasy than Lovecraft, is more philosophically varied than Howard and matches Leiber for bejeweled decadence. His prose, however, is dense, narcotic and waxes poetic, so perhaps it would have been a poor match in that regard.

Still, any one of Smith’s settings has much for D&D to draw on. There’s ancient Hyperborea, with its dinosaurs and its looming doom of the ice age, or Averoigne, a fictional region of medieval France full of black magic and werewolves and worse. This 1970 Ballantine paperback collects all the stories of Zothique, a future continent of our own earth, returned to a more primitive age and where the dead outnumber the living by a vast margin. There’s a story called “The Empire of the Necromancers,” for Pete’s sake. It doesn’t get much more D&D than that.

The only D&D publication I know of that directly references Smith’s stories is the X-Series module Castle Amber, set in Averoigne and full of hallucinatory set pieces. For people who have read Smith, it is easy to forget that he remains relatively unknown compared to his fellow pulp authors. Consider this my small attempt to encourage you to try Smith, the greatest fantasy author to not influence D&D.

Bizarre Bazaar Forever – Even More Planar Items!

Welcome back, weary traveler!  Please, as always, you are more than welcome to observe my inventory.  Should anything be particularly fascinating to you, signal me and I’d be happy to tell you more!  Of course, some of these artifacts are VERY dangerous and should be handled with care.  Fortunately for you, the GREAT Zam’dul is happy to provide assistance! Author’s Note: Making magic items from…