A couple days ago I had a strangely-urgent request from a two (and a half) year-old to read the Erol
Otus-covered X2 Castle Amber (alternately titled now “The
Giant Crashes the Castle”). When you get such a request only a douche doesn't
comply and I duly read out the first three pages in High Children
Books Narrator Voice.
While chuckle-making in itself it did
give me an opportunity to reread that old favorite. I
distinctly remember Castle Amber being the module that I enjoyed
running over any other adventure TSR produced back then. Did it still merit top billing in my brain?
For sure I had no idea who Clark Ashton Smith was at the time (and it took me
a full 25 years later to get acquainted with and dig his writing),
but the Averoigne mini-setting folded up inside resonated with me in a way
other TSR setting whoha didn't at that time. Growing up as a history
fanatic, a France-like place circa 1100-1350 AD had a cultural
reference point that made it easier to picture mentally.
Further because of that resonance, the gothic horror/weird fantasy elements of Clark Ashton Smith (not that I could have put
my finger on it) just seemed sharper and more fantastic. That you
would have pagans roaming the woods for human sacrifices or a
blood-red comet that would induce an abbot to transform into
hazy-formed beast struck me as more fantastic and terrifying than
clearing a dungeon of humanoids in the Pomarj.
Restless soul that I am I put together a set of things I would do to hack,
spindle and otherwise mutilate the module to fit my own play style
and prejudices. In other words “gussing it up” a la Gus L's wonderful series of reviews and derailings of the old B-series modules.
Derailing
Current
me hates the railroady overarching conceit of the adventure that you
are trapped inside the castle. Even less particular early teen me got
bored with too many sessions trapped away from the main campaign area
and put in some handwavy, deus ex machina gates at the end of each
session.
Change
one would be to simply remove the lethal sorcerous mist that clings
around the chateau. What the adventure (dubiously) loses with the
dramatic tension of the players having to scramble to release the
curse on Stephen Amber (who is trapped inside his tomb) and escape
the chateau, it gains with expanding the choices for approaching it
as a site-based adventure.
Secondly, I wouldn't ditch freeing Stephen Amber as a potential framing quest--just replace the stick with a carrot. The trapped mage showers the
party with big ticket value jewelry and magic items anyway, perhaps
just have him appear as an apparition when the party finds the
“clues” scroll (hidden in three spots) or some other trigger and
promise the party cash on the drum for getting him out of his jam.
The clues themselves give a nice framing quest for exploring
Averoigne complete with some red herring so retain that.
(And
while you are at, now that the party can retreat and rest outside
like in a typical sandbox campaign, ditch that heavy-handed freebie
bit in which Stephan magically protects the party inside from all
harm when they rest.)
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Chokepoints, Sideloops and
Non-Linearity
At
first glance the design of the “dungeon” looked very linear and
dull to current me (you can see a copy of the map here). The adventure starts from a single point
the entrance to the West wing and has a single hallway with side
chambers.
Interestingly
though some closer spatial analysis (see above) reveals it to be a more
interesting space with slightly wider exploration choices (though one
still a little marred by the railroaded single entrance and funneled
exploration). Each wing (Moldvay suggests that each section is
designed for a single session's worth of exploration) is chokepointed
but all seem to have a few side-loops. The dungeon itself is
relatively small but is nicely non-linear with two entrances from
separate wings (the Chapel and East Wing) and two compact but
internally non-linear side-sections.
While
theoretically non-linear, the extreme lethality of stepping off the
single path in the central Indoor Forest creates too much funnel for
my taste. I would ratchet back or eliminate some of the thorn walls,
pits and encounters. Let the players wander right into that Wild Hunt
that breaks the hill open on there own.
Removing
the railroad above really heightens the non-linear approach by
eliminating the single entrance and instantly gives three
easily-approachable front entrances to the West Wing, Indoor Forest,
and East Wing (see the illustration) and numerous potential entrances
through the numerous large-paned windows (though I would add some
kind of challenge or obstacle to doing so like the windows being only
breakable or high of the ground as the stairs up to the porticos
suggest). Adding that front door entrance to the Indoor Forest gives
players even more options.
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Replace the Hex Map
The hex map of
Averoigne is functional and fine though it seems pointless to have it
be at such a large scale (12 whopping miles per hex giving long
travel periods between the sites). The hexes are superfluous anyway
as the sites are teased and the exploration presumed to be goal
oriented in searching for the four quest items to open the gate to
Stephen Amber's tomb (and thus less about meticulous 360 degree
exploration).
Tim Kirk's map (above) is
such a beauty I would just go ahead and swap it out for the module
map, maybe adding a simple pointcrawl diagram to keep track of the
players' positions.
Kingdom of
the Ghouls
One
of my favorite bits in the module is Room 56 which appears at first
glance to just be a boring old pit with some ghouls guarding it. The terse
room description reveals it to be in fact a vast labyrinth and
entrance to an entire land of ghouls (which naturally you had to
develop on your own). I continue to eat up those kinds of challenges.
Fitting
the faux-France angle here why not just take the fantastic sprawling
maps and setting décor of the actual Paris Catacombs. Further make
it an interactable place with interesting NPCs, hooks and internal
tensions by reskinning the Dead Nations from Planescape Torment
wholecloth.
Amp up the CAS
Rereading
the module got me to also reread a few choices stories from CAS's
Averoigne cycle. While Moldvay does a bang up job of adapting
elements from the stories to a game context, I certainly felt that
taking up his suggestion to expand the sites with unused elements
from the stories was a good and noble effort. There is some weird
fantasy gold missing such as the grotesque Mother of Toads in Les
Hiboux, the haunted castle Fausseflammes, vampire lair etc
that just cry out for someone with time on their hands to expand
(cough, cough not me).
What would your Castle Amber look like?
