31 October 2017

grodog's events for GaryCon X (March 2018)

No, I'm not dead.  
 
Just busy.
 
Which is why I've only now submitted my events for Gary Con X in March 2018:

Explore grodog's Castle Greyhawk levels. Choose from among: 
  1. Escape from Level 14 (6th-9th PCs)
  2. The strange and surreal Egg Chambers level (8th-12th PCs)
  3. Assault The Hidden Aerie of Pazzuzeus (10-14th PCs)
  4. Seek the Jacinth of Inestimable Beauty in Diamonds in the Rough (10th-14th PCs). 
Bring your graph paper, dice, and a healthy dose of paranoid courage! Pregen PCs provided.

I've submitted to run the events at these times:
  • Thursday 6pm-midnight
  • Friday 6pm-midnight
  • Saturday Noon-6pm

I'm going to try to play something on Saturday night, in addition to playing in Van Chane's Wednesday night Foolsgrave (if Jon Hershberger and I are done setting up the Black Blade Publishing booth in time!). I plan to play or DM in our traditional Sunday night games free-for-all as well.

I haven't decided on off-grid DMing, but am currently leaning toward:
- Call of Cthulhu "Grace Under Pressure"
- ASSH grodog's still-untitled Underborea adventure

I could end up running an off-grid game for Wednesday or Saturday nights if other options fall through, or as another option on Sunday night. We'll see....
 
Allan.

26 August 2017

Vote for Greyhawk in New Survey from Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast has a new survey up for D&D 5th Edition at http://sgiz.mobi/s3/36e018baf04e which asks several questions where fans can support their favorite settings, including the World of Greyhawk.

World of Greyhawk Folio, 1980 (image from The Acaeum)

Go vote for Greyhawk! :D

Allan.

10 August 2017

The Many Levels of Castle Greyhawk - Part 2



In part 1 of this article series, I examined the Castle Greyhawk::El Raja Key relationships reveled in Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key Archive, released last fall. 

In this article, I share an unpublished letter between Gary Gygax and Stephen Chenault of Troll Lord Games, concerning the initial development of the Castle Zagyg project.

Letter from EGG to Stephen Chenault, 14 January 2004


Afternoon Steve:)

Seems as if my email and yours is going to take up a considerable portion of this day, eh? If this goes on much longer I'll phone you +_+

> Thanks for this.  I thought that might be it but then
> looked at the color coded guide and confused myself.

Those colors were put in so as to lessen my own confusion...

> So to recap, does this look roughly online:
> Castle Zagyg
>
> Part I  Yggsburgh - City and surrounding area

Right, and you have the extent of this super-module set.

> Part II  Dark Chateau - Castle (?)

Well, I suppose a castle-like chateau, more of a cross between a mansion and a fortified dwelling with many outside areas and buildings according to Rob.

> Part III Upper Works - Castle Ruins

Correct.

> Part IV Beneath the Ground (first three levels)

Storerooms, Cellars, and Dungeon, plus one sublevel, the Arena.

> Part V  The Laboratories, Menagier, Museum (five levels)

The two side levels being the Catacombs and the Upper Crypts.

> Part VI The Deeps (six levels)

These being the Lairs and a side level, the Lower Crypts accessed only from the Upper Crypts above; the Labyrinth and a side level the Warrens that can be accessed from the Labyrinth, the Warrens accessing the Lower Crypts above and the Vaults below; and finally the Endless Rooms with a side level, the Grand Mausoleum, but no entry to the Vaults.

> Part VII The Caverns - grotto, maze (six levels)

Proper order is Maze, Grottos (small caves) and the sublevel Pools of Chaos*, Caves with the Burrows sublevel it connecting to the level below, and Caverns.

* I envision normal connections to the Burrows and Caverns, also transporter pools on level and to various other dungeon level locations on a one-way basis.

> Part VIII Zagig's Way - Lightless Lake, Inferno (three
> levels)

Again, proper order is the Lightless Lake, the Little Inferno, and then Zagyg's Zone (or some such name).

> I've added some working title names that aren't written
> in stone, obviously.

Sure:)

Cheers,
Gary



The Levels of The Original Castle Greyhawk (as seen through the lens of Castle Zagyg)



The text from EGG's letter clarifies the original, intended scope for the Castle Zagyg project, and the "Part" designations from Stephen's initial note align to Troll Lord Games' original release schedule for the Castle Zagyg product line (thankfully preserved by Joe Bloch on his Greyhawk Grognard blog), for which Castle Zagyg: The Upper Worksmerely served as the introductory product in a far-grander vision.  A vision that was never realized, unfortunately.

Breaking out the levels from their CZ book groupings yields the following list:
  1. The Storerooms
  2. The Cellars
  3. The Dungeon 
    1. The Arena (sub-level)
  4. The Laboratories
  5. The Menagerie
  6. The Museum 
    1. The Catacombs (sub-level)
    2. The Upper Crypts (sub-level)
  7. The Lairs 
    1. The Lower Crypts (side-level; accessible only from The Upper Crypts above, and The Warrens below)
  8. The Labyrinth
    1. The Warrens (side-level; accessible from the Labyrinth, while The Warrens also accesses The Lower Crypts above and The Vaults below)
  9. The Endless Rooms 
    1. The Grand Mausoleum (side-level; no access to The Vaults)
    2. The Vaults (side-/sub-level?; no access to The Endless Rooms or The Grand Mausoleum) 
  10. The Maze
  11. The Grottos 
    1. Pools of Chaos (sub-level; accessible to The Burrows and The Caverns, and with transporter pools within this level and to various other dungeon levels' locations on a one-way basis)
  12. The Caves 
    1. The Burrows (sub-level; also accessible to The Caverns below)
  13. The Caverns
  14. The Lightless Lake
  15. The Little Inferno
  16. Zagig's Zone

Next up:  slotting the above information into what we already know about Castle Greyhawk's levels.

Allan.

27 July 2017

The Many Levels of Castle Greyhawk - Part 1

Since 27 July is Gary Gygax's birthday, and has been heralded as Gary Gygax Day in the old-school gaming communities (or at least social media), it seemed an apt date to discuss one of my favorite AD&D subjects, Castle Greyhawk

In slides I prepared for the The History and Development of Castle Greyhawk Seminar that Paul Stormberg, Jeffrey Talanian, and I hosted at GaryCon V in 2013, I built upon the then-recent re-discovery of Gary's Europa article that detailed the Castle Greyhawk dungeon levels in order, as well as other Castle Greyhawk sources---some commonly known, others commonly overlooked. 

Further analysis and summaries about some of the levels and keys, encounters, and play summaries from Castle Greyhawk has been conducted at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse, Zenopus Archives, Dragonsfoot, Random Wizard (now gone, but thankfully still readable via the Internet Archive), Sean at Power Score (two separate links there, FYI), in Greyhawk Grognard's Greyhawk Lore collection, and by Michael Mornard via Paul at the Blog of Holding.  Other good analyses and anecdotes are out there, so if you have a favorite I've not referenced, please mention it in the comments.

Since then, three additional and noteworthy sources have recently come to light:
  • An unpublished letter between Gary Gygax and Steven Chenault, dating from during their early efforts to organize the Castle Zagyg project 
  • I recently organized the notes from my many letters and phone conversations with Rob Kuntz, dating from 1987 when we first met, up through the present-day; the notes fill three looseleaf binders thus far, and while organizing them, I flagged some discussions specifically relevant to Castle Greyhawk and ERK
I examine the first of these new sources in detail below (within the context of the Castles and their Dungeons), and will address the Castle Zagyg letter, and the analysis of my RJK notes in future posts.   

The El Raja Key::Castle Greyhawk Connections


In addition to providing excellent scans, historical introductions, and insights into 13 dungeon levels from ERK and 17 levels of the Expanded Greyhawk Castle, Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key Archive also included a dungeon level that was brand-new to me: the Expanded Castle Greyhawk Core Level 5 - Sealed Tomb Level.  While initially this might not sound like a big deal, I've had access to most of the contents of the ERK Archive for years, so seeing a new level for the first time was quite a treat for me personally!


I couldn't pass up this picture when driving past a local construction site the other day:  the pallets are labelled with "OldCastle36" and I thought the layered view was a nice analogy for stacked dungeon levels ;)

 


In addition, the Archive explicitly maps, for the first time, the relationships between the two castles' dungeon levels:
  • Mapping the relationships between Rob's original El Raja Key dungeon levels and their placement in the Expanded Castle Greyhawk yields:
    • ECG (Somewhere on) Level 2, Alternate 16 - LGGC-1 Bottle City (Black Blade, 2014)
    • ERK 02 → ECG Core level 2 - Invisible Maze Level
    • ERK 04 → ECG Core Level 3 - Gem Room & Crypts
    • ERK 05 → ECG West Level 5 - Gallery Level
    • ERK 06 → ECG Core Level 6 - Black Pudding Door Keeper Level
    • ERK 10 → ECG Core Level 7 - Tsojconth Level (Lost Caverns of Tsojconth, Metro Detroit Gamers 1976)
    • ERK 07 → ECG West Level 7 - Barracks Level
    • ERK 07.5 → ECG Core Level 7.5 - Black Reservoir (see also Gygax's 1975 short story from El Conquistador)
    • It sounds like the Orcky level was in the Expanded Castle too, but only the rough image is included in the Archive, not the completed map
  • These levels remained native to Castle El Raja Key, and were not incorporated into the Expanded Greyhawk Castle:
    • ERK Upper Works
    • ERK Level 01
    • ERK Level 03
    • ERK Level 05.5
    • ERK Level 08
    • ERK Level 09
    • ERK Level 11
  • The following additional levels were created new for the Expanded Castle Greyhawk, and were never part of the Original Castle or of Castle El Raja Key:
    • ECG East Level 3 Split - Garden & Giant's Pool Hall Level
    • Core Level 5 - Sealed Tomb Level
    • ECG East Level 8 - Machine Level; Rob wrote a wonderful introduction to this dungeon on his Lord of the Green Dragons blog
    • ECG Core Level 11 - Entrance to Oz
    • ECG Core Level 12 - Boreal Level
    • ECG Core Level 13 - Entrance to Asgard, Melnibone, and Dying Earth
    • ECG Core Level 14 - Orb, Sceptre, and Crown Level
    • ECG Core Level 18 - Dragon Level
    • ECG Core (Special) - The Living Room (Pied Piper Publishing, 2008)
  • The following extra-planar levels were known to be in the Original Castle (or at least accessed from it), and were never part of Castle El Raja Key; they may or may not have been placed in the Expanded Castle (unknown, at this time): 
    • Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass 
      • GC S8/X1  → GC1 Dungeonland EX1 Dungeonland (TSR) 
      • GC S8/X2 → GC2 Land Beyond the Magic Mirror EX2 Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (TSR) 
    • Asgard 
    • Barsoom level 
    • City of the Gods (presumably set in Blackmoor) 
    • Dirdir level 
    • Dying Earth  
    • Melniboné 
    • Nazi Germany (see "Sturmgeschutz and Sorcery" in SR#05, although this was more likely a one-off Chainmail game vs. a D&D game) 
    • Oz 
    • Skull Island/King Kong level (WG6 Isle of the Ape, TSR 1986) 
    • Starship Warden level (see Gygax's "Faceless Gods and Clockwork Monsters" in TD#17)
  • Other levels are known to exist, but their placement in the Original Castle vs. El Raja Key vs. the Expanded Castle vs. Castle Zagyg remains unknown outside of the original players, at this time:
    • Rob Kuntz's Greek level ("Horsing Around")
    • Teeth of Barkash Nor (originally designed as another extraplanar adventure by EGG and later developed by Bill Silvey and Scott Gregg)
    • The three levels from WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure (TSR, 1984)

More analysis and discussion will undoubtedly follow.  In the meanwhile, celebrate Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Rob Kuntz, Phil Barker, Jennell Jaquays, and their works today, this weekend, and into the future by rolling some dice, crushing some monsters for their treasure, and hearing the lamentations of your Dungeon Master! :D

Continued in The Many Levels of Castle Greyhawk - Part 2.




Allan.