Big Damn Archmage
Jeff Rients’s Big Damn Dungeons, about making maps of dungeons when they don’t fit on a single paper and don’t fit in two dimensions, reminded me that I’ve been wanting to link to the Greyhawk Grognard’s Castle of the Mad Archmage.
I’m doing so literally on the day that the Grognard has decided to move on from Greyhawk, so I don’t know what’s up for levels seven through thirteen. That still leaves us with five levels of mega-dungeon madness, so if you’re looking for something uniquely old-school to drop on your game, check it out. The Old-School Revolution has made some wonderful things available for Gods & Monsters players, and this is one of the best.
Don’t forget to grab the rest of the maps, too (and level 2). They’re included in the main PDF, but it’s nice to have standalones. Especially these beautiful non-repro retro blues. Note that level 1 doesn’t have a map, because level one is your adventure that the Castle is a dungeon for.
- Castle of the Mad Archmage: Joseph Bloch at Greyhawk Grognard
- “The module clocks in at around 180 pages, and a bit under 4 MB. My erstwhile cartographer, Joe Bardales, made new versions of all the maps (which helped a bit with the file size) and my indispensable proofreader, Steve Rubin, made the thing a million times more professional than my typo-laden manuscript would have otherwise been.”
- Yes, We Have Maps
- Maps for the Castle of the Mad Archmage: blue level 4 and colors level 2, 3, and 4.
- Big Damn Dungeons
- “How big can we make a dungeon and get away with it? I think the answer is a lot bigger than we usually work with. Upping the scale of the dungeon map obviously costs in the ability to graph fine detail, so just deciding that one square equals 30' isn't going to get the job done.”
- Returning to First Principles
- “I think the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting, although it has been a favorite of mine for years, has finally passed me by. I deal myself a hand where I choose between revisiting the oldest material published, studiously ignoring the new, and go on to create my own campaign material based on those earliest products. So why not just go back to what I’ve done before, and create a world of my own, out of whole cloth? I’ve plumbed the depths of Greyhawk as far as I’m inclined to do. I’m moving on to something new.”
More adventures
- The Adventure Guide’s Handbook
- Weave fantasy stories around characters that you and your friends create. As a Gods & Monsters Adventure Guide you will present a fantastic world to your players’ characters: all of its great cities, lost ruins, deep forests, and horrendous creatures.
- Kolchak: The Big Creep (a Daredevils adventure)
- Inspired by The Powers of Dr. Remoux, The Big Creep is a Daredevils adventure for The Night Stalker set in the autumn of 1976.
- Skin a module 3: Thracia to The Lost City
- The Judges Guild module Caverns of Thracia is one of the classics of the old-school. It’s also eminently reskinnable by changing the names of gods and expanding on some of the magic items hidden inside.
- Skin a Module 2: The Fell Pass becomes Mansio Solis
- Karl Merris’s The Fell Pass, from Dragon 32, became the border between dusty desert death and the lush green jungle of the new and magical world of the City.
- Three ways to skin a module 1: from Chagmat to Dowanthal Peak
- I’ve always been a fan of explicitly reskinning adventures; here is how I skinned Larry DiTillio’s Chagmat.
- 13 more pages with the topic adventures, and other related pages
More old school renaissance
- Nothing will be restrained from them, which they imagine to do
- Figuring out stuff from “the times before” is hard to do.
- North Texas RPG Con 2016
- NTRPG Con is a relatively small gaming-only convention focused on old-school games.
- Do not miss Petty Gods!
- This is a tome worthy of the gods—and that’s what it is. A tome of gods usable much as a tome of monsters, placing these petty gods—what Gods & Monsters would call spirit gods—around your sandbox’s map.
- Old School Cool
- Since I first made Gods & Monsters public over ten years ago, there’s been a groundswell of support for “old-school” D&D games. Since Gods & Monsters is compatible with adventures for original D&D and AD&D, it’s also compatible with adventures for most of these new games.
- Fight On! 7 is out (and I’m in)
- Fight On! issue 7 is out; look for a Gods and Monsters adventure inside.
- Three more pages with the topic old school renaissance, and other related pages
September 3 2009: the Grognard himself wrote in with “Just a quick note; Castle of the Mad Archmage is back on the front burner. Expect Level 7 sometime soon.” See more at Castle of the Mad Archmage Update.