Running X2 Castle Amber

[MerricB]

I wrote a review of Castle Amber last week, then followed it up by running the adventure as part of my regular AD&D game on the weekend. Is that the wrong order to do it in?

I haven't written much about my AD&D campaign for the past few months. Basically, the campaign ran as (mostly) weekly for the first six months of 2012, and has now changed to a fortnightly game to allow me some breathing space and some other games (Fantasy Hero and Rifts) to have their places.

The overarching plot of the campaign is this: Odin has been captured, and the group are trying to find the seven keys to the Bifrost Portal to rescue him. I've got a major dungeon that has an Oracle in it that they return to from time to time to find the location of the next key, and their side-trips can take them to places like the Isle of Dread if I feel like it. Which I did. And they had fun, mostly.

Upon returning from the Isle of Dread they defended Baron Melchior's realm from an invasion of Frost Giants led by the great giant Fenrir. They also discovered how the Snow Barbarian overlords don't really support the Frost Barbarian barons, as Melchior's entreaties for aid were ignored and the players had to deal with the problems themselves. They eventually slew Fenrir, and have now returned to the Dungeon of the Oracle to find the location of further keys; one apparently is on the eleventh level of the dungeon. Oh, boy.

My intention this session was to take them down deeper into the dungeon, but although I have a really cool map drawn, I hadn't stocked it sufficiently to properly entertain them. Instead, I decided to replace the ruined keep that the dungeon is beneath with Castle Amber; it actually makes some sort of sense given the plot of Castle Amber.

So, who did we have going into Castle Amber?

Dave, a long-time role-player, playing a Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User of about 3rd/4th level.

Josh, who occasionally plays in my AD&D game, playing a Cleric 6.

Rich, who has been in more sessions than anyone else, playing a Thief 8.

Tait, youngest of the group, playing a Half-Orc Fighter 6

Jesse, one of the stalwarts of the group, playing a Magic-User 7.

They also have a Cleric 4 and a Fighter 4 as henchmen.

One might note that Castle Amber is written for 3rd-6th level characters and that this group has a slightly higher average. Well, yes, it does, but given how deadly the adventure reads, I don't think it will matter that much. If they start cake-walking over everything, I'll adjust some monster difficulties.

In any case, the group found themselves surrounded by a strange, deadly-looking grey fog as they reached the ruined keep, only to see itself rebuild itself into a great castle in front of them. They entered to discover it nicely furnished and inhabited. Their first encounter was with the boxing master, Jean Louis. Dave was very suspicious of the automatons he offered as boxing opponents, considering it very likely they were Flesh Golems (and thus, way too strong for the party to fight). Tait was eager for the challenge, and a large sum of gold was bet on his success; in the event, he was successful (particularly after Dave cast a Strength spell on him); the creatures weren't golems but another type of magical construct.

The group then found some rakasta (cat-people), who they conversed with rather than slew (hooray!). This was actually a fairly hard encounter to run, mainly because the adventure doesn't give any clues as to the personality or goals of the rakasta. I used them to inform them as to the party's whereabouts (Castle Amber), the madness of the Amber family, and that they weren't precisely in Greyhawk any more - as far as the Rakasta were concerned, it was 1782. Probably.

Following this, the party made their way into the great hall, and from there discovered an ogre magically tricked into believing it was Janette D'Amberville; they conversed with it a bit until it became utterly frustrated with its lack of command with the Common tongue and attacked them all. After it was defeated, they discovered Janette's body, and wondered at why the Ogre was pretending to be her.

Two secret doors were found in that room: one led to a room with two wraiths (which the group correctly fled from); the other to a lion-headed man, who was quite chaotic in nature and offered to cut their heads off. Declining the offer, the group left to explore elsewhere.

Elsewhere yielded intelligent, magic-using spiders that were fairly easily slain and their treasure taken, and a room with green slime flooring and a black-pudding roof that also held a treasure chest. Dave was very, very suspicious of the entire room, and made sure than no-one entered. Just as well!

The kitchen and the ghostly dining room were the next places visited. Observing places for the group to sit at the dining hall (in addition to place-cards naming the group), most of the group chose not to eat, with only Jesse and Tait partaking of the meal. As it turned out, it was a deadly experience for Tait's half-orc; upon eating the final dish he became a ghost like the other diners and condemned to an eternal fate in the castle; he disappeared upon the end of the meal. Jesse was able to resist that problem, although he was poisoned - his henchman cast slow poison on him, but it would only delay his fate for four hours! On the positive side, he gained a point of intelligence - to 17 - and now was a more effective magic-user.

Tait didn't quite understand that his character was gone. Luckily, he had his henchman, Gunther the Fighter, to play.

The group then entered the Indoor Forest, where they were attacked by killer trees, which they managed to overcome by the use of a potion of plant control they'd gained some adventures before and I'd quite forgotten about! That was a very nice moment, because otherwise they were in a fair deal of trouble. They next met a maiden and a unicorn, who gave them more information about the castle, but - most importantly - the unicorn was able to neutralise the poison in Jesse's system!

A giant amoeba attacked the group (well, Rich) and dealt a fair amount of damage when he attempted to retrieve a locked box from a fountain with gargoyles; they'd webbed the gargoyles, but it was the bottom of the pool that held the danger! Avoiding further trouble in the forest allowed them to reach the Amber's family chapel.

Jesse summoned a group of goblins and sent them in to investigate. They found that some of the statues on the wall could animate - some giving good rewards, but most giving curses and petrification. Two of the statues were slain, the others avoided - and the group needed a break. They returned to a safe place to rest, and discovered an amber forcefield appeared around them, allowing them to rest without being disturbed.

At this point we ended the session, after about three hours of play. I'm finding Castle Amber a mixture of fun and frustration to run, mostly as I expected. The basic logic behind the adventure (the Amber family is insane and cursed) explains a lot of the oddities of the adventure, and the party has picked up on some of that, although I don't think that all of them (especially Tait) is fully aware of how arbitrarily deadly and unfair this module can be.

My guess is that it'll take another two sessions to finish the adventure; we'll see how accurate that is!

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Ahhh, memories.

Castle Amber was the first adventure I heard "war stories" about. I then went and found it and ran it for my group back in 1982.

 

[MerricB]

We had six players for the second session of Castle Amber (and I’ve lost count of how many session we’ve had of the AD&D campaign in general; it’s over 30 now). The group was:

Dave, the C4/F4/M3
Tait, the henchman fighter 4 (as his main character died last session)
Shane, the Magic-User 5
Jesse, the Magic-User 7, with his Cleric 4 henchmen
Rich, the Thief 8
Reece, the Thief 6

This gives about 40 total levels for an adventure recommended for 6-10 characters, levels 3-6 and total 26-34 levels. We’re a little over the recommendation, but the lethality of this adventure is such that, especially after this session, I wonder how anyone could have survived it!

We resumed by investigating the chapel, where the group once again summoned monsters (giant rats appeared) to see if any of the statues would animate – none did this time. Instead, upon further investigation, they discovered sounds from beneath the paving stones: someone had been buried alive. That someone was Madeline Amber, who had been buried by her brother. There’s a bit of problematic editing here: the description of the chapel reveals that the floor is wood, but Madeline is beneath paving stones. Hmm.

Madeline had a long discussion with the group, although she was most confused by what had happened to her and where they were, but she was able to let them know a bit more about how they might break the curse. One thing is certain: I had to use a lot of my own inspiration for role-playing these characters and their motivations, for there was little aid in the actual module text.

Madeline described what lay to the north – the library, bedrooms, and meditation chambers – and the group accompanied her to the library, where she found her brother Charles who had buried her. She attacked, almost killing him, before Jesse cast a web spell that entrapped everyone in the room for 140 minutes – and, according to the spell description, would have an almost certain chance of suffocating the low-strength characters (like Dave) who had failed their saving throws! Oops.

Jesse applied a torch to the web to get everyone out (those trapped took 2d4 damage) and Madeline resumed her assault on Charles. Shane then used a Levitate spell to incapacitate her, and Charles fled to the chapel. The group tried to calm Madeline down, but had no success with that.

Investigating the other chambers, they came across Simon Amber, whose description makes little sense – he’s meant to attack the party, but he will use the quest spell on one? Sigh. I had him quest Jesse to find the tomb of Stephen Amber, and otherwise let the party go unharmed – Simon went to tend to Madeline. He’s also a 14th level cleric with spells like finger of death, so I didn’t really want a combat to continue.

Another chamber saw skeletons and a bone golem attack the party; the skeletons were easily turned by the two clerics, but the bone golem gave them some trouble before it was brought down – mainly by magic missiles. I should note that Jesse’s fourth level spell is one I’ve never seen used before: Rary’s Mnenomic Enhancer, which he uses normally to regain three magic missile spells. It’s actually a very, very good spell, we’ve discovered, far better than most of the rest of the fourth level list and it enhances his spellcasting significantly. The golem yielded to the group a second ornate Silver Key, which would be needed to leave the castle. (Madeline had let them know they’d need three).

A final chamber had some holes in the roof which Jesse prodded with his staff, but he withdrew it when he felt a membrane above, not willing to bring whatever was above down on their heads. A wise wizard!

With that, they’d explored most of the chapel, so they went south, back to the garden, though they passed by the choir loft on the way (full of statues that sung when the organ was played). More dangerous plant-life tried to eat Reece as they continued, so Jesse used another potion of plant control to get them by; Reece was unconscious for some two hours!

The group needed to pass under a dolmen dripping blood to reach the east wing of the chateau, which they did. The blood gave the weaker members of the group a blessing in the next room: the throne room. What was a weaker member? One that failed a saving throw versus Spells, which half the group did.

The throne room was a superbly deadly encounter: all these skeletons, fused into position as they were when some great catastrophe overtook the chamber. However, Catherine Amber had used magic jar to survive, and her soul was held within a gem on the jewelled sceptre on the throne. Reece retrieved the sceptre, and Catherine began her assault, taking over one of the party members.

Luckily, the group were able to restrain Catherine’s victim, until Catherine relinquished her hold and took over Shane. At this point, Dave realised what was going on – I was describing a flickering in one of the rubies on the sceptre – and after Shane made his saving throw against Catherine’s possession and she fled back to the gem, David destroyed the gem and the sorceress with it.

That encounter – with Catherine possessing such spells as death spell and invisible stalker – could have so easily turned into a TPK. The only spell she was able to cast was confusion, which led to Jesse and Rich standing and babbling for part of the encounter. I was extremely careful to not let the encounter overpower the group. (And this is a high-level group! What would a group of the recommended levels do?)

We ended the session with the party investigating the first two rooms to the south: a blue room, then a white room with a frost salamander. The salamander didn’t survive very long, although it took minimal damage from Jesse’s fireball spell, as he rolled really badly on his dice (about 10 damage!) and it made its saving throw. It was getting late, so the amber forcefield came up around the group, allowing them to heal and recover spells for the next session.

There are a lot of great and memorable encounters in this adventure, but there are also some arbitrarily deadly ones that I’m ameliorating somewhat when the fault lies with random chance rather than player choice.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Great stuff.

Catherine and her magic jar set a precedent in our games for evil wizards to use magic jar to cause much discord in a party before blasting everyone from the safety of a possessed fighter.

Much fun.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

Planning on running this epic level 4e, Eberrron. Set in the Mournland, Cyre ruling family. maps for Cyre and Avionge are very closely matched- very happy coincidence, that.

--Z

 

[mattcolville]

Awesome! Castle Amber was the very very first adventure I ever played through back in 1986.

 

[MerricB]

(I'm missing a session report here, due to illness; I may enter it later).

Due to various other events going on, only three players were able to participate in the final session of Castle Amber: Tait, playing his 5th level fighter, Callen, playing his 4th level dwarf fighter, and Shane, playing a 6th-level magic-user. (This is far, far weaker than the party that had gone through the rest of the adventure!)

The group had found the three keys that led through the Silver Gate to Averoigne, so we began with them entering that strange realm. At least it might have been a strange realm with a more awake DM at the helm, but the effects of my recent illness are lingering and I was quite exhausted when running the session. As a result, I didn’t instil the place with all the wonder that might have been possible. Of course, I was also having to deal with Shane and Tait, so that probably explains a lot of why I just went to the heart of the story without spending too much time on the extraneous details.

The group (in a fortunate random encounter) soon met Moriamis, a woman who accepted their offer to take them to a nearby inn. There, they learnt that she did know how to create a potion of time travel, one of the items they needed to break the curse and return home. She offered to make one for them if they’d embarrass the bishop, who was actually a black wizard.

Upon reaching Vyones, the capital of the land, the group discovered it was shortly to be attacked by a great colossus – the folk needed heroes to stop it! Luckily for the folk of Vyones, the players volunteered for the job, and were provided with five doses of a powder that, if thrown into the face of the colossus would dispel its animating magic. One problem – the colossus was 100 feet tall! This proved no problem for the group, as Shane cast fly and invisibility on Tait, who then flew up and disabled the colossus; the fall killing its creator, who was riding on its back.

I was impressed. Shane then used invisibility to sneak into the Bishop’s home, where he found a hidden chamber with articles of black magic. Alerting the authorities created the embarrassment that Moriamis had wanted, and so, upon their return to the inn, she gave them the potion of time travel they needed; the serpent-encircled mirror had also been their prize for slaying the colossus.

Two items down, two to go. The group travelled to Perigon, where they discovered the local lord had been attacked by a strange beast, which had disappeared into the room of the local Abbot. Upon confronting the Abbot, he changed into the Beast, and the group were forced to slay him. This allowed them to take the third of the items, the Ring of Eibon.

The fourth item proved to be in the enchanted realm of Sylaire, which the group found without much difficulty. The chatelaine of Sylaire, the enchantress Sephora, was more than happy to give the group the final item – the Sword of Sylaire – if they’d kill a werewolf ravaging the realm for her. This proved exceedingly easy (it had only four hit dice and died quickly), and the group were able to perform the ritual that led to the Tomb of Stephen Amber.

The Tomb had several guardians, notably a sleeping blue dragon that Tait foolishly awoke. Shane quickly cast fireball at it, and the reduction in hit points allowed the group to survive its electricity breath weapon (I play that a dragon’s breath weapon does damage equal to its current hit points). The further guardians were dealt with in turn: a flame salamander, a stone giant, a manticore, a mud golem and a five-headed hydra. Shane used fireball and magic missile a lot to make everything easier, and the group retreated to rest twice, taking advantage of the strange amber forcefield that rose when they did so.

Finally, they found Stephen Amber’s crypt, where they followed the instructions on his coffin’s lid and burnt the tapestry showing his death. This returned him to life and allowed him to break the curse. The group were returned to outside Castle Amber, which decayed into a ruin before their eyes, becoming the ruin they’d been exploring in the wilds of the Northlands for several months before. Stephen, alive and well, gave them various gifts, including restoring Tait’s original character to life (his half-orc; he’d been playing Gunther, the half-orc’s henchman), and giving all some magical items. Then Stephen teleported away to explore the realm he found himself in, and our play in Castle Amber came to an end.

 

[Treebore]

Nice! I have been prepping to run this myself, and reading over this has been a HUGE help! More anxious than ever to get to this!

 

[Magesmiley]

Nice! I have been prepping to run this myself, and reading over this has been a HUGE help! More anxious than ever to get to this!

Another good aid is picking up a copy of some of Clark Ashton Smith's works. Reading them gave me some insights into the characters featured in the Averoigne portion of the adventure.