Castle Greyhawk Four New Dungeon Level Maps Revealed

 CZ Act 1 "Alpha Preview" Map

TLG published a Castle Zagyg "Alpha Preview" to CZ1 backers on 2 April 2026, showing one-quarter of The Cellars, level 2 of Castle Zagyg:

Castle Zagyg Preview Map of
Level 2, The Cellars

Included along with the map were 12 pages of keyed encounters, all again labelled as an "Alpha Preview" so that we're ready for any and all typos and other errors in the text and map.  I may review the encounter keys later sometime---the map is all that caught my eye in the content thus far.  

Zach Howard of Zenopus Archives fame began a thread on 12 April 2026 to discuss the map and key details in Dragonsfoot's Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk forum:   Castle Greyhawk Dungeon Level 2 [possible spoilers].  Trent Smith (of Mystical Trash Heap fame, and his Storm Fetish Productions rules and adventure designs are brilliantly Gygaxian) and other DF members have begun delving into the analysis, including me.

CZ Act 2 Backerkit Launch Map

The new Backerkit Castle Zagyg campaign preview launched on 7 April 2026 and revealed the complete map for the second level of Castle Zagyg, its full title revealed as Level 2 The Deep Cellars:

Castle Zagyg Level 2 Map,  
The Deep Cellars

The lower-left portion of the map is same one from the CZ preview sent out to backers from the first campaign, but with further changes made.  

The other three maps are all new to me, and I don't recognize them from my Castle Greyhawk or El Raja Key research thus far.  I'll be doing some additional digging to see what (if anything) I find in my archives, but for the moment each of the other quadrants appear to be newly-revealed-to-the-public level maps, which is of course a wonderful thing!

CZ Act 2 Lower-Left Map

Here's a zoomed in version:

Zoomed-In Map Version of
Castle Zagyg Level 2 The Deep Cellars

Many differences exist between this map and the Alpha Preview version from earlier in the month, which I plan to review in depth alongside all three versions of the map.

Three versions, you ask?

TSR Version by Eric Shook

A much earlier version of same the lower-left corner of the CZ2 preview map was rendered by Eric Shook for the early 1980s Greyhawk revival at TSR, and was later sold at auction in the mid-2000s by Paul Stormberg of Legends of Role-Playing and The Collector's Trove fame:

Eric Shook's Castle Greyhawk rendering
from TSR c. 1982

This map was one of six different levels auctioned at that time, four others from Castle Greyhawk's dungeon levels.  The auction also included one of my favorite level designs of all time, which Shook designed for Steve Marsh's Starstrands planar project that was, alas, never published by TSR.  That map was quite radical for its time!:

Eric Shook's unpublished Starstrands map c. 1982,
original photo by Paul Stormberg

Side-by-Side Analysis - Added 16 April 2026

I've completed my initial comparison of the three maps, and here's an image of them together, with changes highlighted in yellow and green:

All 3 maps compared
by grodog

Changes Logged Across the Three Versions

At a high level, the changes made are most prominent working from the 1980s Shook version of the map (on the left side in the above picture) compared to the initial preview released on 2 April 2026, in the middle in the above picture.  The changes from the Alpha Preview version (middle) to the Backerkit launch image (right side) are more-minimal, and mostly involve changing doors back to secret doors, which in fact help to correct and realign the movement and flow of the map to be closer to the original 1980s map than the Alpha Preview version.

It is also worthwhile to note that the Shook Map wasn't completed:  some areas on it are drawn without any access points, and there are no secret doors shown on the map at all.  (Presumably those would have been added in the next step of revisions and updates to it).  So, some of the changes introduced in the later revisions to the map may have been present on the original, and simply not completed at the time of Shook's draftings.  

1980s Shook Map Changes

The changes from this map to the Alpha Preview version are significant and run across the entire level.  They include: 

• Changes to fit the level into its new configuration as part of a larger, combined level spanning four separate original levels of one sheet each
• modifying the corridors along the north and east edges of the sheet to be 20' wide---which is a change I like, since I'm a fan of large corridors in general!
• adding entry points due north of 295 on the top edge of the map, and in the NE corner of the 20' wide corridor, along with another door on the eastern wall just north of 284
• simplifying several corridors by straightening them out, in particular in the SE quadrant of the level, but also in the NW quadrant's corridor north of 2-100
• Moving some corridor intersections and/or chamber walls:
• the huge NE chamber accessed by the long, winding corridors is 10' narrower (288 in the later versions)
• the chamber immediately south is also narrower by 10' (287 in the later maps)
• Removing most of the stairwells and pits, and the ramps/slides:
• stairs gone in the later versions include those that flank 2-108, east of 293 in the top-center, west of 285, 
• ramps and/or slides at 2-101 and 289 are changed to stairwells; when first seeing this level, my speculation was that one of these was the slide to China at the bottom of Gary's original Castle Greyhawk
• Altering the flow of the loops Gary built that connect sub-sections of the level to each other, and simplifying access to previously-less-accessible areas:
• 285 now has 2 doors that enter it vs. just one 
• the 2nd B to the right of 294 has two doors entering, instead of just one on the N wall, and either a false door on the S wall or a one-way door (this is the only door drawn as such on the level, so it's hard to know which the symbol might represent; it's possible the western-wall door leading into the 2-101 slide in Shook's map may also be another partially-drawn one-way door, which may edge the symbol closer to that function vs. false door)
• the archway into 284 is opened up, which creates a second entry point into that room 
• the corridor west of 284 no longer intersects as a four-way east of 286, which squeezes out one of the rooms in the stacked room maze due south of 286; the "S" corridor leading to the removed pillar west of 285 also provided another route into 284 and 285, but in the later versions only one path leads to those keys now
• Simplifying corridor and room flourishes:
• removing the rounded niche in the N wall of 296
• squaring off the rounded edges of 2-105 and 2-106
• removing the pillar west of 285
• removing most of the "end cap" square pillars on long hallways like east of 2-105, west of 2-103, east of 2-101 (south of the added doors/secret doors)

Some new features were added in the Alpha Preview map too:

• A covered pit appears in the eastern corridor leading into 2-105
• A well is added at 2-102
• Pillars are added to 288 and 296
• A door is added to the 290 stairwell, which is also moved deeper into the corridor vs. Shook's original placement
  
  

Changes from Alpha Preview to BK Launch Map

The revisions to the later version of the map largely focus on secret doors, more-specifically changing standard doors into secret doors:

• The standard doors entering these key #s all became secret doors:  O by 295, 2-103, 2-105, 2-108, 285, the offset series of secret doors that lead into 288 from the east, 291
• The dead-end corridor/corner south of 292 was added, which provides another entry point into the SE sub-section of the level
• The inaccessible dead-end east of 2-108 is opened up on its eastern wall in the BK Launch map, with what looks like might be an archway

In general, these changes restore some of the difficulty in finding and accessing areas that had been made more open in the Alpha Preview map, by making the chambers harder to find, or less-accessible in terms of obviously-open paths leading to them (while still adding the secret doors as further possible entry points).  For example, in the Shook Map, 2-103 was only accessible from stairs down from its flanking chambers, which led to a seeming dead-end corridor, that seemed to have a trapdoor leading up into the center room.  

Continuing Review

I updated this post on 16 April 2026 with all of the text between this section and the Side-by-Side Analysis section above, along with the Starstrands map and comments.

More to come! :D

Allan.

The Rime of Descending Ascent - Why to Plumb the Depths of Castle Greyhawk's Dungeon Levels

In the original version of the Castle Greyhawk dungeons designed by Gary Gygax, he placed a set of runes that provided hidden guidance for the PCs in why they should delve deeper--- the raison d'etre in the call to adventure.  Tenser decrypted the runic clue using read magic---perhaps the first spell cast in play in OD&D.

I've been, alas, unable to refind the quotation I thought I had read many moons ago, and found merely summary phrases expressing the essence and meaning of those magic words, rather than their exact phrase: 

• Gary's Castle Greyhawk essays and stories---where I was sure that this quotation originated!---don't even mention the entrance runes in passing in "Founding Greyhawk" (in Dragon Annual #2: 1997), "To Forge a Fantasy World: Greyhawk's Creation" (in Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Jolly Roger Games, 2000), or "Penny for Your Thoughts" (in his "Up on a Soapbox" column in Dragon Magazine #302: December 2002), much less their actual text....
  
  
• Scott Casper's and Mike Bridges' brilliant Castle Greyhawk web comic does not allude to the runes, although it paints a wonderful picture of the opening entry into the castle dungeons!:
  
  
  

  

  Castle Greyhawk web comic Chapter 1 Page 21, 
  by Scott Casper and Mike Bridges

  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Castle Zagyg boxed set states that at the beginning of the stairway down to The Storerooms level, "The archway is graven with the words:  The Path to Adventure Begins Here, Seekers" (Castle Zagyg 2: The Upper Works, booklet 4 Castle Fortress, page 42).  Unfortunately, there is no mention of the runes requiring read magic to be read, nor of descending deeper to find richer rewards, as I recalled....
  
  
• Querying some other Greyhawk stalwarts yielded confirmation, but no specifics beyond Scott Gregg's memories from his long-ago discussions with Ernie Gygax:  "I will have to see if I can find the exact quote. It was a warning about the danger increasing the deeper you went, but the treasures get better.  It may have been deleted when I deleted my original boards."
  
  That was more-profitably followed-up later with a quote from Ernie: "Tenser was the first magic user ever in Greyhawk. No books or previous experience existed. The first spell I took was a Read Magic and I used it to read the glyphs above a stairway leading down (level 1 to 2). It told us (Rob, Terry and I) that as you descend into the depths of the Dungeon the encounters will be more difficult but the rewards far grander."
  
  Scott's original interviews with Ernie Gygax are almost definitely what I had been remembering and seeking, which was wonderful corroboration, but still left me without Gary's words.  

So, unable to find the original text, I've created my own version of that phrase, as a crazy poem penned by Zagig himself.  

Enjoy! :D

The Rime of Descending Ascent 

Explore!  Delve deeper, discover grander treasures:
     jewels and riches abound in droves,
     dweomers and artifacts---each allures!

Beware!:  As you descend, fiercer monsters guard lairs. 
     Traps confound and wound, maim and slay.
     Subtle tricks delude.  Enigmas befuddle!

Tempt fate!  Test your mettle!  Ill-gotten gains yield gold,
     Infinite apotheosis---
     or it all ends in an early demise....

                    --- presumably wrought by Zagig Yragerne and/or Zagyg the Mad Archmage

My text helps to highlight some of the focus of my dungeon level designs---traps and tricks, monsters and mysteries---and also ties back to the current campaign's lore about Zagyg and his testings.  

It also lays foundational hints and groundwork for exploration of some of the setting lore lurking behind Zagig's rise to demigodhood, which has always intrigued me.  These ideas crept into several abandoned level designs I themed around tests of the nine alignments, which I'm dusting some off to see what may be salvaged.  Perhaps some may find play at the table and/or in wend their way into the planar correspondences of alignments too.  We'll see....

Allan.

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.

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:

• Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key Archive, published in the fall of 2016

• 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.