Gygaxian Goodness

[MerricB]

Woohoo!

I am now the proud owner of The Hermit, The Hall of Many Panes, and, most importantly, Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. A package arrived from Troll Lord Games today.

I'm absolutely delighted. As some of you know, my current Friday campaign is a Castle Zagyg campaign using 4e rules. It's been a blast - I've been using the Yggsburgh supplement along with the Mouths of Madness adventure from the East Mark Gazetteer. Now I have more of the Castle, and my players are in for some fun times.

It's also sad - I'm never going to be able to tell Gary how much I've been enjoying the Castle.

At some point I hope to post a review of the Upper Works, but for now, here's what I got in the boxed set:

Book 1: The Mouths of Madness - 44 pages, revised from the earlier release, detailing the caves around the base of the "moat" around the castle.

Book 2: Ruins of the Castle Precincts - 48 pages, detailing the walls, towers, gatehouses and other buildings that stand on the surface over the dungeon.

Book 3: East Wall Towers - 20 pages, detailing the two massive towers that flank the ruined castle.

Book 4: Castle Fortress - 44 pages, detailing the actual fortress level itself.

Book 5: Store Rooms - 44 pages, detailing the first real dungeon level of the Castle, along with new monsters, magic and NPCs.

There is also a map and illustration booklet (36 pages) and two small poster maps of the ruins.

Of course, now I want the Trolls to release the next part of the adventure!

Cheers!

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Now I miss boxed adventures!
That's alot of crap for "Upper levels" I hope it's as fun as it sounds.

 

[Henry]

Reading that about the first level of the castle, cold chills just went up my spine...

 

[MerricB]

Three words: Old Guard Kobolds!

Cheers!

 

[PeelSeel2]

Awesome!! I can't wait to get my copy. I too am going to run it in 4e for my group. I have not looked this forward to running an adventure since Keep on the Borderlands and Horror on the Hill!!

 

[MerricB]

Interesting tidbits:

"Suffice to say that Castle Zagyg is now exactly how the Mad Archmage prefers it to be. His motive? Don't bother. How can one ascribe motive to one such as Zagyg? To associate this or any other component of Castle Zagyg with motive, plots within plots, convuluted histories, world-saving quests, or A to Z "expeditions" is anthetical to the spirit of the original adventures."

"In short, Castle Zagyg is in a constant state of flux... If the PCs spend the bulk of their time (perhaps 3 game weeks) dungeon delving, humanoids and/or monsters will undoubtedly move in to occupy a tower or other structure cleared out, and so on."

"The Ruins of the Castle Precincts are extensive. As such, there is no "railroad" device in place to force the PCs throguh some predetermined path. Indeed, such weak design is frowned upon by the authors of this work."

Cheers!

 

[Nikosandros]

Would it be worthwhile to get the East Mark Gazetteer in addition to the Upper Works?

 

[MerricB]

Would it be worthwhile to get the East Mark Gazetteer in addition to the Upper Works?

Not really that much point - everything in the East Mark Gazetteer is either in the Upper Works or the Yggsburgh book, with the exception of the newer style map of Yggsburgh.

Mind you, the formatting is different, so you might find it useful. I've got a review of the EMG in the reviews section here, btw.

Cheers!

 

[grodog]

I'll be posting my review of CZ:UW soon, Merric. I'm definitely interested in your thoughts on it, as well!

 

[Treebore]

I'll be posting my review of CZ:UW soon, Merric. I'm definitely interested in your thoughts on it, as well!

I have been hearing rumors of a review by a person with the on line name of Grodog for weeks now. One post on Necromancer Games' message board even indicated just a couple of more days. A couple of weeks ago.