Castle Zagyg - The Upper Works (review)

Book 5: The Storerooms

Finally, we reach the first level of the dungeons (and there was much rejoicing!) The first level is described in 50 areas, 10 of which deal with the Old Guard Kobolds, the rest has a assortment of other monsters, tricks, traps and NPCs to amuse the DM and his or her players. Not everything is hostile, so the party may find useful help here.

Unfortunately, this only takes up half of the book. The remainder describes new monsters, magic items, a few NPCs and ends with a glossary of terms that brought back vivid memories of Keep on the Borderlands. Useful material, to be sure, but I really want more of the dungeons at this stage.

Notes and Comments

Well, that's the contents of Castle Zagyg: the Upper Works. So, what do I think of it? Honestly: Vaguely disappointed, and that's despite it being made up of some great material. The reason for my disappointment is quite obvious: when you get down to it, the Upper Works, much like Yggsburgh a couple of years ago, is just another delay distracting people from the actual dungeons of Castle Zagyg.

The material here is aimed at a group of 4-6 characters of levels 1-4 using the Castles and Crusades system, although players using AD&D or D&D Basic shouldn't have any trouble in using the encounters with only slight adjustments. 3rd and 4th edition DMs will need to do more conversion work. My own 4e campaign has been using material from The Mouths of Madness for the last few months. It's been working very well and the conversion hasn't been too onerous.

What works about the adventure is the way that Gary Gygax and his amanuensis, Jeffrey Talanian, have created an amazing adventuring environment with many groups of rival humanoids, living in places that every so often have incredible magical effects. This isn't a high fantasy adventure where everything is astonishing: instead the magical areas are uncommon enough to not lose their impact when discovered.

There is no overarching storyline in the adventure; the dungeon was designed for groups to adventure through it pretty much as they will rather than being constrained by other matters. However, with the rival groups that live about the surface, there exist many possibilities for a DM and his players to become involved in the humanoid politics of the castle.

The adventure does note that Castle Zagyg should be an evolving site, with new groups coming in to replace those that are slain, and the balance of power shifting depending on the actions of the players and possibly the whim of the DM. Although inexperienced DMs can run this adventure as a simple "kill-em-all" dungeon, a more experienced DM would be able to make this a much richer place.

I really like this boxed set and I recommend that anyone who enjoys the "old school" form of dungeon delving obtain it. I would have far rather that this set have ignored the upper precincts (leaving only books 1 & 5 and adding further dungeon levels); especially given that Jeffrey Talanian and Gygax Games have now parted ways. The future of the rest of the Castle Zagyg project is quite unclear at the present time, and I truly hope that The Upper Works is not left as a monument to what may have been.
 

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Quick note: I've posted the review in the Reviews section of EN World. It's been edited and reworked, so doesn't always correspond to how I said things here! :)

Cheers!
 

Thanks, Merric. So, the 'beef' I referred to earllier appears to be a single dungeon level of 50 encounters from the original Greyhawk dungeon. That's not much after all these years of waiting. With a different approach EGG could have published 10 dungeon levels or more of similar size in the time it took to write Yggsburgh and Upper Works.

I was thinking of getting this if it included a decent number of dungeon levels. For 1 level, and apparently no likelihood of any more now, no way. I got Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor this week instead - 20 dungeon levels, just like it says on the tin Edit: Although the editing on this product is so atrocious, it may not be a better deal. Level 1 is a complete shambles, map key bears no relation to room descriptions.
 
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Merric, thanks for the detailed review. How's the editing on Upper Works? I understand this has been a problem for past TL offerings.

Looks brilliant - largely due to Jeff Talanian's involvement. (Unlike the TL, I think he actually understands how to use the English language). Although I'm sure he wrote most of the text, it is also very Gygaxian in flavour.

Cheers!
 

Looks brilliant - largely due to Jeff Talanian's involvement. (Unlike the TL, I think he actually understands how to use the English language). Although I'm sure he wrote most of the text, it is also very Gygaxian in flavour.

Cheers!

That's good. Running old Basic modules recently I'm struck by how vastly superior old TSR's editing was. Admittedly Judges Guild did put out poorly edited stuff, but TSR scenarios seem to have been of consistently good quality. Much more thought went into their construction than the modern WotC ones I have.
 

In case any of you in the New England area are interested, I will be hosting a Game Day on Saturday, December 6th at which Gary Gygax's co-author Jeff Talanian will be running a marathon two-slot session of "Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works". The sign-up thread is on the General Discussion board as "New Hampshire Game Day".
 


That one dungeon level published every five years or so is not a release schedule that will allow the entire CZ dungeon to see the light of day? ;)
If that was the issue, I think they could have retained Jeff as a developer and sought another publisher.
 

If that was the issue, I think they could have retained Jeff as a developer and sought another publisher.

Well, they did seek another publisher. As for Jeff, we don't really know the whole story there.

It could be that they tried to retain him, but couldn't reach an agreement that worked for both parties.

Or it could be that they decided to pursue another developer who they though was better suited for the project (e.g., Rob Kuntz).

Or some of Gyagx's family with game design credits of their own (e.g., Ernie and Luke) may pick up the reigns.

While I don't dispute that Jeff Talanian did excellent work on the CZ line for TLG, I don't think that he is integral to future CZ projects.
 

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