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.

Renovating the Monastery - Recasting the Classic DMG Dungeon in Greyhawk - Part 1

Wichita Greyhawk Campaigning

I ran the unnamed sample monastery dungeon from the Dungeon Masters Guide for my eldest son's after-school AD&D group a few years ago, and I've repurposed it as one of the starting points for the new Wichita Greyhawk campaign that kicked off last month.  

I've compiled the bits and pieces about it that I've discussed over at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse forum and Scott Gregg's Doomsday Games forum:

1. Background
2. Maps - Wilderness Environs 
3. Maps - Dungeon Levels
4. Keys

I'm detailing #1 and #2 in this post, with more info to follow on the updated, revised, and expanded dungeon maps and keys later. 

Below I dig into plenty of spoilers for the sample dungeon, so if you are currently playing through it, you should stop reading now. 


*** SPOILERS  ***
*** 
***
*** SPOILERS ***
***
***
*** SPOILERS ***
***
***
*** SPOILERS ***
***
***
*** SPOILERS ***
***
***
*** SPOILERS ***
***
***
*** SPOILERS ***
***
***
*** SPOILERS ***

Background

 

I've decided to leverage my continued interest in the sects and cults of Wee Jas for my background to the DMG Monastery dungeon in the Wicihta campaign.  This necessitates some changes to the original sketchy background from the DMG:

• The slain abbot becomes an abbess
• The fire opal becomes a holy relic of Wee Jas, perhaps in part reflecting her vanity
• The lower level needs a new rationale from how I'd originally conceived it, and I'm thinking it may be tied to the Plane of Shadow now, but am still noodling on that:  perhaps the shadow influences are what, in part, lead to the near-total destruction of the monastery, and if so, it seems likely that the destruction was meted out by other, more-orthodox sects within her faith (this aligns well with my depiction of the relationship between the primary and heretical sects in my Castle Greyhawk level)

Some other changes are related to the broader picture of the historical record of Greyhawk, too:

• The fen that surrounds the monastery was caused by the subsistence of the ground due to the deleterious effects of the cult of Elemental Evil a decade ago
• The EE cult's origins will tie back more closely to Dyvers and Wild Coast (as hinted in T1), but the DMG Monastery will not be a significant part of that network as I've previously used it (it will however still have some ties to there, via the brigands)
• I think I'm going to insert an octych piece in the dungeon somewhere as well....

Wilderness Environs Maps

 

I've been sketching out the larger campaign environment on and off for awhile now, and spent some time over the past few weeks building it out further.

I began with the larger regional level for mapping out roads, smaller-sized settlements that don't appear on the Darlene Greyhawk map, etc.:

Kron Hills, Gnarley Forest, and Welkwood environs -
map by grodog

On the above map, each large hex is a single Darlene Greyhawk hex, so 30 miles each. The smaller hexes within each are 5 miles each. 

The hex with the DMG monastery dungeon is one hex north of Narwell, in hex # I4-93 on the Darlene map grid location system.  Then I use our single-hex sheets to drill down into each campaign hex; the single hex sheets have three layers of hexes, which break out like this in scale:

• Layer 1 = large campaign hex = 30 miles
• Layer 2 (6 medium hexes per large hex) = 5 miles
• Layer 3 (6 small hexes per medium hex) = 5/6 miles = 1466 2/3 yards/4400 feet

Greyhawk hex I4-93 -
detail map by grodog

I haven't started to color the above map yet, so it's probably a bit faint....  

Then I drill down to a detail view using the 5 mile hex as the large scale on the same hex sheet template:

• Layer 1 = 1 large campaign hex = 5 miles = 1 medium campaign hex (layer 2 above)
• Layer 2 (6 medium hexes per large hex) = 5/6 mile
• Layer 3 (6 small hexes per medium hex) = 244.4 yards = 733 1/3 feet

Detail within Greyhawk hex I4-93 -
map by grodog

The small hex that the monastery ruins are part of is now 244 yards across, and sited on a hilltop that measures about two full hexes in area (the smallest hexes), which feels about right for the complex size as I envision it.  

The small-scale (colored) hex map shows the subsided fen round the monastery hill (which I've not decided whether to color in part with forest or to leave "cleared"), and some other forested areas on higher-ground in its immediate vicinity.

Next up:  the ruins of the monastery site, as well as the dungeon levels and keys.

Allan.