D&D 5E Revising Castle Grayhawk for 5e

[Rob Kuntz]

I did enjoy the horizontal, jet-propelled piercers.

Ah! I see... Let me guess why. Just because you charmed one and affixed it to your neck? Just a joke, I've known Merric for years and have great respect for him as a designer and writer.

In all seriousness this product was an affront to Gary's and my own creation and was meant to be the beginning and end of it in a, then, inimical TSR's mind. One can ignore the outright animus which drove its creation, of course, and find anything "good" in it, just as one found some laughs from Bored of the Rings. But BotR was done out of respect for LotR, however; and this product was created for the opposite reason.

 

[MerricB]

Ah! I see... Let me guess why. Just because you charmed one and affixed it to your neck? Just a joke, I've known Merric for years and have great respect for him as a designer and writer.

In all seriousness this product was an affront to Gary's and my own creation and was meant to be the beginning and end of it in a, then, inimical TSR's mind. One can ignore the outright animus which drove its creation, of course, and find anything "good" in it, just as one found some laughs from Bored of the Rings. But BotR was done out of respect for LotR, however; and this product was created for the opposite reason.

Because that monster had the whimsical humour I enjoy. But the product as a whole is horrible. Piercers are silly - fun, but silly - and that one is just a little sillier.

It’s not a surprise that my Greyhawk games have used Dark Chateau and Castle Zagyg: the Upper Works as the start of more than one campaign while never revisiting this product.

More humour: during Dark Chateau, which describes a dwelling of Zagyg, one of the characters took a bedsheet and wrote it down on his character sheet as a “Toga of Zagyg”. He then forgot about it. A few months later, he looked at his equipment list again, saw the toga, and asked me to remind him what its powers were.

Cheers!

 

[Mort]

This module worked really well when I dropped it into Heroes Unlimited. I was already piling on absurdities (the characters were pursuing a trans-dimensional baddie, so I used it as an excuse for serious genre hopping).

One such moment: One of the levels has a magic mouth that turns on and goes "Welcome adventurers..." At which point one of the characters yelled "We're not adventurers, we're SUPERHEROES" and proceeds to blast the mouth (and the door) wide open.

The levels, being completely absurd, worked surprisingly well when leaned into like that.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Because that monster had the whimsical humour I enjoy. But the product as a whole is horrible. Piercers are silly - fun, but silly - and that one is just a little sillier.

It’s not a surprise that my Greyhawk games have used Dark Chateau and Castle Zagyg: the Upper Works as the start of more than one campaign while never revisiting this product.

More humour: during Dark Chateau, which describes a dwelling of Zagyg, one of the characters took a bedsheet and wrote it down on his character sheet as a “Toga of Zagyg”. He then forgot about it. A few months later, he looked at his equipment list again, saw the toga, and asked me to remind him what its powers were.

Cheers!

Cheers Merric! It's not like we didn't have whimsical humor. Heck. The first short story I wrote and published was a satire. The Joke Castle is in fact no joking matter. Water under the Troll Bridge, so to speak, but it does raise its acrid smell now and then. It's also a reminder that to date, even though I've pressed the issue since 1982, that our real Castle Greyhawk remains unpublished and then that leads to why, why, why and then that leads to, well,, you get the angle...

I had a lot of fun writing Dark Chateau and am pleased you had fun running it Time to create a new item, "Toga of Zagyg" for personal use. I'm considering as of yesterday "The Colonel's Play-Doh" from EGG's DF handle, this to be included in a special level I'm noodling for next GaryCon.

Keep designing and playing!