Mark Hope
Adventurer
I ran this towards the end of a long-running 2e homebrew campaign (in which I cunningly renamed it Castle Blackstorm). The PCs needed to find a certain artifact that I had placed in the lair of Farcluun on level 5 of the Tower of Zagig (although I had renamed him something like Faraclanasthriex, which I found a bit more draconic and less like the defiler from the Dark Sun adventure Black Flames, who was also called Farcluun for some odd reason).
I had placed the ruins of the castle out in the middle of a sort of chaos-waste in my gameworld, so the PCs (a high level group of 12th-15th level characters) were very far from home. They entered through the Tower of Power and, after a few initial battles, established a base at P213, which they fortified and used to rest and recuperate. I spiced their travels through the level up with an encounter with a drow war party at P214, and added a small beholder hive to the deeper parts of the same level. The beholders were dealt with using a series of spells devised by a wiard in the party. Simply put, these spells summoned vast amounts of human waste products in varying amounts, unleashed animated sphincters against enemies and similar effects. The beholders were not expecting such tactics at all ("Orox, it isn't magical - I can't dispel it!" "Stop prattling Xanxam, and disintegrate faster!!" "Oh gods, it's in my mouth!!!") and the PCs were able to bypass them pretty swiftly.
They made their way down onto P300. I fleshed out the shrine at P305 to reflect long-lost deities of my gameworld, including a pair of deranged good-aligned liches (and threw in a battle with hordes of wererats to boot). Navigating through the use of divination spells, the PCs made their way to the sinkhole at P333. I had tweaked the map a bit to make the sinkhole connect with the caverns at P419, and the PCs headed through the passage connecting the Tower of Power to the Tower of Zagig (Z206). They battled their way through to the stairway in the unmarked room to the southwest of Z217 and Z218. Despite what the module claims, it seemed clear to me that this was the route down to the next level at Z328, and I made it so.
A highly cautious foray through level 3 of the Tower of Zagig ensued (I was most disappointed that the PCs didn't explore the huge underwater areas, but I guess that's how they survived to be level 15). They soon enough found the stairs at Z301 and headed down to Z401 (the map and the text matched here at least!). There was a hellish combat with the diamond golem, but the ever-paranoid (or ever-wise) PCs steered clear of the chamber that had held the imprisoned deities. They also luckily avoided going anywhere near the lich's area (which would have proved messy, especially after the battle with the golem). Instead they headed into the large cavern to the north and, in their battered state, were captured by the lizard kings. They soon rallied, however, and during an elaborate ritual sacrifice to the frog god, staged their escape. I had fleshed out the frog god, giving him stats and loads of extra eyes and stuff, and with his sacrifice ruined, he went on a froggy rampage, attacking PCs and terrified lizard kings alike. (I love the frog god in this module - not sure why, but it's a great touch).
The PCs found the small sinkhole at Z428 and used spells to blast it to a more navigable size. They proceeded down and dropped straight into Farcluun's cavern. Forewarned to their arrival (noisy, noisy!), the dragon was well prepared. He agreed to hand over the artifact (having no use for it himself), but only in return for a permanent magic item from each PC (ie. no potions or scrolls). Or, you know, he could just eat them. The PCs were furious, but he had them over a barrel, so they reluctantly complied.
They proceeded onwards, still needing instructions on how to operate the artifact. I had placed these as inscriptions on the pyramid at Z508 (and removed the other effects of the pyramid as given in the text). The PCs, battered and broken, finally reached this final destination and settled down to deciphering the inscriptions. They took plenty of time to do this, and then selected spells and prepared for some sweet revenge... Bristling with all manner of magical enhancements, they returned to Farcluun's lair and smeared him throughout the cavern in a brutal battle. A couple of swift teleport spells later, and they had left. Job done.
As a representation of Castle Greyhawk, I really wouldn't be able to judge this adventure, as my Greyhawk-fu is only moderately developed (although it's clearly superior to the previous version of the dungeon). As a large dungeon, it's great. It doesn't always make sense, but I like the atmosphere that this produces. I used it as a ruin in the heart of a chaos wasteland, with varying layers of habitation throughout it, and the module as written lends itself well to this end. When modified and adapted to my homebrew, it worked really well (but that's pretty much a truism for homebrew modification). It's certainly something that I would use again, campaign circumstances permitting. Someone mentioned it having a "moody" feel, and I'd agree with this. It also has a suprisingly "old-school" feel for a 2e product, and captures some of the sprawling dungeon feel that was present in some 1e adventures.
As for its cons? Well, the maps are evocative but a pain to read. No grid makes distances hard to judge and I was always forgetting what elevations the various colours represented. The text frequently didn't match the maps either, meaning that I needed to make a number of alterations (some to suit my own designs, others just to make sense of the layout). The descriptions are sparse in the extreme, so I'd imagine that it runs pretty poorly "out of the box" - customisation and extensive preparation is definitely needed. User-friendly it isn't. There's also no real suggested plots or backgrounds, beyond the most basic notes. This is a shame, as there are several factions, secrets and hidden lore scattered throughout the dungeon. The module could certainly have benefitted from these being summarised and detailed in a separate section, rather than the DM having to comb through the dense text to find them all. The stuff involving the Earth Stone, for example, is pretty major stuff, but is almost dropped into the text as an aside, rather than as the focal issue that it really is.
Overall though, I felt that it's feel and charm, combined with its solid usefullness and sheer profusion of material, outweigh its flaws. I'm sure that it wouldn't score so highly for me if I were a hardcore Hawker. But as a colourful megadungeon it hit the spot - provided that you don't mind doing some serious customisation to get it to work. An interesting comparison with Ruins of Undermountain, which has almost none of the flaws mentioned above, and yet requires almost as much work to knock into shape.
(I also played in this as a player, but oddly enough don't remember much about it, apart from running away from poison gas and fighting lots of mummies. Oh, and we ate one of the other PCs while camping in the upper levels of the Tower of Power. Well, he deserved it.)
I had placed the ruins of the castle out in the middle of a sort of chaos-waste in my gameworld, so the PCs (a high level group of 12th-15th level characters) were very far from home. They entered through the Tower of Power and, after a few initial battles, established a base at P213, which they fortified and used to rest and recuperate. I spiced their travels through the level up with an encounter with a drow war party at P214, and added a small beholder hive to the deeper parts of the same level. The beholders were dealt with using a series of spells devised by a wiard in the party. Simply put, these spells summoned vast amounts of human waste products in varying amounts, unleashed animated sphincters against enemies and similar effects. The beholders were not expecting such tactics at all ("Orox, it isn't magical - I can't dispel it!" "Stop prattling Xanxam, and disintegrate faster!!" "Oh gods, it's in my mouth!!!") and the PCs were able to bypass them pretty swiftly.
They made their way down onto P300. I fleshed out the shrine at P305 to reflect long-lost deities of my gameworld, including a pair of deranged good-aligned liches (and threw in a battle with hordes of wererats to boot). Navigating through the use of divination spells, the PCs made their way to the sinkhole at P333. I had tweaked the map a bit to make the sinkhole connect with the caverns at P419, and the PCs headed through the passage connecting the Tower of Power to the Tower of Zagig (Z206). They battled their way through to the stairway in the unmarked room to the southwest of Z217 and Z218. Despite what the module claims, it seemed clear to me that this was the route down to the next level at Z328, and I made it so.
A highly cautious foray through level 3 of the Tower of Zagig ensued (I was most disappointed that the PCs didn't explore the huge underwater areas, but I guess that's how they survived to be level 15). They soon enough found the stairs at Z301 and headed down to Z401 (the map and the text matched here at least!). There was a hellish combat with the diamond golem, but the ever-paranoid (or ever-wise) PCs steered clear of the chamber that had held the imprisoned deities. They also luckily avoided going anywhere near the lich's area (which would have proved messy, especially after the battle with the golem). Instead they headed into the large cavern to the north and, in their battered state, were captured by the lizard kings. They soon rallied, however, and during an elaborate ritual sacrifice to the frog god, staged their escape. I had fleshed out the frog god, giving him stats and loads of extra eyes and stuff, and with his sacrifice ruined, he went on a froggy rampage, attacking PCs and terrified lizard kings alike. (I love the frog god in this module - not sure why, but it's a great touch).
The PCs found the small sinkhole at Z428 and used spells to blast it to a more navigable size. They proceeded down and dropped straight into Farcluun's cavern. Forewarned to their arrival (noisy, noisy!), the dragon was well prepared. He agreed to hand over the artifact (having no use for it himself), but only in return for a permanent magic item from each PC (ie. no potions or scrolls). Or, you know, he could just eat them. The PCs were furious, but he had them over a barrel, so they reluctantly complied.
They proceeded onwards, still needing instructions on how to operate the artifact. I had placed these as inscriptions on the pyramid at Z508 (and removed the other effects of the pyramid as given in the text). The PCs, battered and broken, finally reached this final destination and settled down to deciphering the inscriptions. They took plenty of time to do this, and then selected spells and prepared for some sweet revenge... Bristling with all manner of magical enhancements, they returned to Farcluun's lair and smeared him throughout the cavern in a brutal battle. A couple of swift teleport spells later, and they had left. Job done.
As a representation of Castle Greyhawk, I really wouldn't be able to judge this adventure, as my Greyhawk-fu is only moderately developed (although it's clearly superior to the previous version of the dungeon). As a large dungeon, it's great. It doesn't always make sense, but I like the atmosphere that this produces. I used it as a ruin in the heart of a chaos wasteland, with varying layers of habitation throughout it, and the module as written lends itself well to this end. When modified and adapted to my homebrew, it worked really well (but that's pretty much a truism for homebrew modification). It's certainly something that I would use again, campaign circumstances permitting. Someone mentioned it having a "moody" feel, and I'd agree with this. It also has a suprisingly "old-school" feel for a 2e product, and captures some of the sprawling dungeon feel that was present in some 1e adventures.
As for its cons? Well, the maps are evocative but a pain to read. No grid makes distances hard to judge and I was always forgetting what elevations the various colours represented. The text frequently didn't match the maps either, meaning that I needed to make a number of alterations (some to suit my own designs, others just to make sense of the layout). The descriptions are sparse in the extreme, so I'd imagine that it runs pretty poorly "out of the box" - customisation and extensive preparation is definitely needed. User-friendly it isn't. There's also no real suggested plots or backgrounds, beyond the most basic notes. This is a shame, as there are several factions, secrets and hidden lore scattered throughout the dungeon. The module could certainly have benefitted from these being summarised and detailed in a separate section, rather than the DM having to comb through the dense text to find them all. The stuff involving the Earth Stone, for example, is pretty major stuff, but is almost dropped into the text as an aside, rather than as the focal issue that it really is.
Overall though, I felt that it's feel and charm, combined with its solid usefullness and sheer profusion of material, outweigh its flaws. I'm sure that it wouldn't score so highly for me if I were a hardcore Hawker. But as a colourful megadungeon it hit the spot - provided that you don't mind doing some serious customisation to get it to work. An interesting comparison with Ruins of Undermountain, which has almost none of the flaws mentioned above, and yet requires almost as much work to knock into shape.
(I also played in this as a player, but oddly enough don't remember much about it, apart from running away from poison gas and fighting lots of mummies. Oh, and we ate one of the other PCs while camping in the upper levels of the Tower of Power. Well, he deserved it.)
