Building the Sandbox: Castle Greyhawk and Surrounding Areas

In part 1 of this series, I defined the D&D cosmology and its many settings.  In part 2, I talked a bit about the core D&D world - the World of Greyhawk.  Now it's time to get into the meat of this thing, and define the elements that I need to fit together for what will be the initial campaign area.  The core  elements of the first D&D campaign were the City and Castle of Greyhawk, and that's where I intend the Ultimate Sandbox to begin if and when I get around to running it in earnest.

(I should note that I'm currently running the Ultimate Sandbox now, with my weekend games in the Tower of Zenopus dungeon from the Holmes Basic Set.  Ideally I'd have preferred to kick it off with a megadungeon campaign, but instead I'm planning to run a bunch of classic stand-alone modules and adventures, mostly because the whole thing was put together at very short notice.  Regardless, everything that happens in those games will count towards my Ultimate Sandbox Greyhawk continuity, and changes to the adventure sites will be carried forward in the future. Anyway, back to Greyhawk City and Castle.)

To set up the initial campaign area, I have to define the elements that I need to put together.  Unfortunately, the Greyhawk campaign, as it was run by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz, has never been put into print in any sort of playable fashion.  Bits and pieces of it are out there, but it's all very scattershot.  On top of that, part of what I want to do involves stitching everything together in terms of official D&D canon.  Much of what Gary and Rob did was later contradicted by TSR and Wizards of the Coast, so even if I had everything in front of me I'd have quite the job reconciling it all.

Difficulties aside, it seems to me that I need to define three major things to get the campaign in a playable state: the City of Greyhawk, Castle Greyhawk and the dungeons beneath, and the wilderness that encompasses them both.  I'll tackle each one by one.

The City of Greyhawk

This one is probably the easiest to deal with.  As I understand it, the city as designed by Gary started as a one-page affair, and was expanded to four pages later in the campaign, which was explained in-game as a result of the influx of gold coming from the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk.  This is pretty, handy as I can use it to explain any discrepancies between things from the original campaign and TSR's official publications.

Speaking of which, TSR released The City of Greyhawk in 1989 as a boxed set, and given the parameters of my project I'm pretty much locked into using it.  That's not necessarily a knock on the product, as I've never read it.  Maybe it's great, and captures exactly the pulp fantasy spirit that I'm looking for.  I like what I've seen just from skimming it, particularly this poster map.

An aerial view of TSR's City of Greyhawk

The temptation is there to use Yggsburgh, the city designed by Gary Gygax for his Castle Zagyg project, which would probably have a more authentic flavour. But to be honest I don't know how much of that product was actually Gary's work.  Besides, using Yggsburgh in place of the official TSR city would no doubt cause all sorts of continuity headaches that I don't need.  I suppose I could place it elsewhere in the map, but I've made enough work for myself already.

The only other source I can think of for lore about the city is Gary's Gord the Rogue series of novels.  I already have Night Arrant and Sea of Death, but I'd need to acquire the other five, which looks somewhat pricey.  I've been meaning to get them for a while though, as I've been wanting to revisit the series with a greater knowledge of their place in D&D history.

The Wilderness

The area around the city of Greyhawk is pretty well defined in the aforementioned City of Greyhawk boxed set, and as with the city it would be difficult to change it without doing a number to D&D continuity.  The map is shown below.

Map art by David S. LaForce (I think)

The only change I would make to the above would be to add a section that resembles the map from Outdoor Survival, which is referenced in the original D&D booklets.  I recently read this great PDF about what those booklets imply about the D&D setting, and that's how I want the Outdoor Survival region to play.  I'm imagining it as a region of land slightly east of Castle Greyhawk, that's been warped by the magical and dimensional forces leaking out of that place.  At the moment, I'm thinking of putting it somewhere in the lands between the Mistmarsh and the Cairn Hills on the map above, but I need to check the scales of both maps to see if that works.

Castle Greyhawk

Well, this is where things get really tricky.

The dungeons below Castle Greyhawk began as a solo effort designed by Gary Gygax, before being greatly expanded with help from Rob Kuntz.  Neither version of the castle has ever seen the light of day, although more than one attempt has been made to get it out there.  Castle Zagyg by Gary Gygax is one such abortive attempt, and there are also the dungeon levels included in Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key Archive.

In 1988, TSR took its own stab at releasing a version of the castle, with module WG7 Castle Greyhawk.  The results were... regrettable.  A few years later, in 1990, they had another stab at it, with WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins.  I've only skimmed this one, but it looks like a big improvement on WG7, and it's become the offical TSR version of the castle up to the present day.

The question is, how do I reconcile all of these elements?  It would certainly be difficult to make all of it work together as a single dungeon.  My initial idea, posted long, long ago, was to feature a sort of "time-travel chamber" in the dungeon, which would allow the PCs to switch back and forth between different versions of the castle.  I still think it's not a bad idea, but I'm not as enamoured with it as a solution as I was back then.  My current thinking is to just have two separate castles, and two distinct dungeons.

As I understand it, the official TSR version of the castle sits somewhat north and east of the city, across the Selintan River.  Reports about the original castle place it east of the city, which isn't entirely contradictory to the above.  Regardless, if I'm going to use Castle Zagyg and also include WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins, there would be a lot of trouble in integrating the two into a single location.  So I'm going to leave TSR's castle where they placed it, and give it a rename: Zagyg's Palace.  In TSR continuity Zagyg ruled over the City of Greyhawk for a time, and this is where he did it from.

As for Castle Greyhawk, I'm going to place that further east, next to the Ery River.  I'm thinking that perhaps Zagyg used it as his home base when he was still consolidating his power base, before he became the ruler of the city.  This might necessitate changing the maps in Castle Zagyg, in which the castle is up against the False Urt River, although I might just use Gary's name instead of the Ery.  We'll see.

That leaves WG7 Castle Greyhawk, which by the rules of my project I must include even though I'd really rather not.  Currently, my plan is to make the levels accessible via Zagyg's Palace, and to make them very, very difficult for players to discover.  Just because I have to include them doesn't mean I have to include them in a way that's easy to access.

The Dungeons of Castle Greyhawk

The above is all well and good, but eventually if I run this campaign I'll need to get down to the hard work of designing the dungeons.  I plan to use the following elements:

• Castle Zagyg Vol. 1: The Upper Works.  I forked out for this bad boy, so I'm definitely going to use it.  And it is the only published version of the castle that Gygax ever put his mark of approval on, even if a good chunk of the work was done by Jeff Talanian.  This will cover the ruined castle and the first dungeon level.
• The image of level 1 of the dungeon from Gygax's folder that's been floating around for quite some time.  I might keep this as an "alternate" level 1, perhaps accessible by means such as Rob Kuntz's Dark Chateau module and the Greyhawk city sewers.  I believe Gary's key for this map has been deciphered as well.

• The image of Gary's dungeon level 3 that also out there.

• This dungeon level, another of Gary's, which is labelled as the "Museum of the Gods".

• The many dungeon levels included in Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key Archive.  Unfortunately I still need to acquire this one, and with the Aussie dollarydoo at its current value that won't be happening soon.
• Joseph Bloch's Castle of the Mad Archmage.  Not long after the Castle Zagyg product line was discontinued after Gary passed away, Joseph Bloch took it upon himself to write a megadungeon that connected seamlessly with the levels already released.  This will probably form the spine of my version of the dungeon, with some heavy revisions.  My main concern with Bloch's dungeon (what I've read of it) is that it uses quite a bunch of monsters that go beyond the scope of early D&D.  I'd like to keep it confined to things from the AD&D Monster Manual, plus some monsters of my own devising.
• The modules that connect to the dungeons via portal: EX1 Dungeonland, EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror and WG6 Isle of the Ape.
• Later Rob Kuntz products that connect to the castle, such as The Living Room and The Bottle City.
• Some levels of my own design.
• On top of all that, Rob Kuntz has recently started posting about something he calls Castle Greyfalkun, which looks to be another release of levels from the castle, or possibly some newly designed material, I'm not entirely sure.  I'll keep an eye on it though.

Putting all of these together in any sort of coherent fashion is going to be a hell of a job.  I've got time though.  Hopefully my current classic modules campaign will run for a couple of years, and there's also my long-running-but-infrequent 3rd edition campaign, which I'd like to actually wrap up at some point.  It'll be a while before I'll need to use Castle Greyhawk.

All of the above gives me a pretty extensive reading list:

• The City of Greyhawk boxed set
• The Gord the Rogue novels (or perhaps just those relevant to Greyhawk and surroundings)
• WG7 Castle Greyhawk (ugh)
• WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins and maybe the 3rd edition adventure Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk
• Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works
• Castle of the Mad Archmage
• The Up on a Soapbox articles by Gary and Rob Kuntz that reminisce about the original campaign
• Various blogs and discussion threads from the original players that will help to fill in some of the details.

That's plenty to keep me occupied for the time being, but if I've forgotten any other possible sources I'd appreciate any Greyhawk experts out there letting me know.

Recaps & Roundups part 11: Europa 6-8

I had promised earlier to intersperse Gary Gygax's earlier D&D articles into this series where appropriate. This time around it's an article from Europa, a war-gaming fanzine created by Walter Luc Haas of Switzerland. This issue is cover-dated April 1975, so I've placed it after Supplement I: Greyhawk. This may not be strictly accurate. The article indicates that Greyhawk is upcoming, so at the very least the article was written before Greyhawk was published. Whether it was published before or after is a mystery. Any comic fan can tell you that cover dates and publication dates rarely match up, and I doubt that fanzines are any different. Anyway, it says April on the cover, so that's where I'm slotting it in lieu of more accurate information.

For those who want to check out this article (and the complete fanzine in which it saw publication) the link is here.

How to Set Up Your Dungeons & Dragons Campaign - And be Stuck Referring it Seven Days Per Week Until the Wee Hours of the Morning! by Gary Gygax

The first thing that should be noted is that this is part II of a series. According to Falconer in this thread, the other two parts are shorter and less interesting. The first covers the origins of the game, and the third covers the game's future, with the release of various supplements. I'd still like to see them, but it's nice to know that I'm not missing a great deal.

Gygax sets out everything that the referee should so to set up a D&D campaign. It's info that should have been included in the original rules, let's be honest.  He outlines five broad steps that must be taken:

1. Deciding on the overall setting of the campaign
2. Mapping the countryside of the immediate area
3. Mapping the dungeon where most adventures will take place
4. Mapping the nearest large town
5. Outlining the entire world, including other times and dimensions if required

Step 1 is simply figuring out what type of world the adventures will take place in. Gary gives a few examples, including Teutonic/Norse mythology, medieval European folklore (including King Arther and Holger the Dane), the Hyborian Age, Fritz Leiber's Nehwon, Indian mythology, and the lost continents of Mu or Atlantis.

For step 2, Gary recommends mapping the wildernes on hex paper, with a scale of 1 mile per hex.

Step 3 requires mapping the dungeon, and Gary recommends having a theme for each level. Some sample themes given are: a level with large open areas swarming with goblins; a level where the basic pattern of corridors seems to repeat endlessly; and one inhabited by nothing but fire-dwelling or fire-using monsters.

At this point, we get what is probably the most detailed description of "Old Greyhawk Castle" yet to see print. It's said to be 13 levels deep, and goes as follows:

• Level 1 was a simple maze of rooms and corridors (which Gary deemed to be interesting enough for those who had never played such a game before).
• Level 2 had two unusual features: a Nixie pool and a fountain of snakes.
• Level 3 features a torture chamber and many small cells and prison rooms.
• Level 4 was a level of crypts filled with undead.
• Level 5 was centered around a strange font of black fire, and was inhabited by gargoyles.
• Level 6 was a repeating maze with dozens of wild hogs in inconvenient spots, backed up by appropriate numbers of wereboars
• Level 7 was centered around a circular labyrinth and a street with masses of ogres.
• Levels 8 through 10 were caves and caverns, inhabited by trolls and giant insects. They also had a transporter nexus, guarded by an evil wizard with a number of tough associates.
• Level 11 was the home of the most powerful wizard in the dungeon, and his balrog servants. Martian White Apes populated the rest of the level. There was also a system of sub-passages underneath the corridors, which was filled with poisonous creatures with no treasure.
• Level 12 was filled with dragons.
• Level 13 (the bottom level) contained an inescapable slide which took the players "clear through to China", from which they would have to return via the wilderness.
• A series of slanting passages began on level 2 and led to the bottom level, but apparently the chance of stumbling downwards was greater starting from levels 7-8.
• Side levels include a barracks with warring clans of orcs, hobgoblins, and gnolls; a museum; a huge arena; a giant's home; and a garden of fungi.

Gygax has given some contradictory information about Castle Greyhawk over the years. No doubt some of that is due to the ever-evolving nature of the dungeon, but I'd chalk some of it up to memory and the passage of time. Given the vintage of this article, I'd expect everything here to be fresh in Gary's mind, and quite accurate.

Step 4 involves mapping the town and Gary says that the place should resemble something from the Conan or Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories. Strange towers, a thieves' quarter, and temples to horrible deities are given as features to include, as are factions such as the thieves' guild, a society of evil clerics, and a brotherhood of lawful men.

Step 5, outlining the world, is said to be something the referee doesn't need to tackle right away. Visiting other worlds is mentioned as a possibility, with the option of flying a magic carpet to the moon given as an example.

The rest of the article is given over to some brief tips on creating PCs, and a bit about how someone wanting to play a Gold Dragon should be handled. None of it's concrete enough to be of much interest to this project. Certainly it's not a patch on the solid gold Castle Greyhawk details given above.

On Castle Greyhawk and My Campaign

The initial plan for my Ultimate Sandbox campaign was to centre the whole thing around Castle Greyhawk, the original megadungeon from Gary Gygax’s campaign. I was going to use the Castle Zagyg supplements from Troll Lord Games for this, in conjunction with the stuff that Rob Kuntz has been putting out. But it seems less and less likely that Castle Zagyg will see the light of day beyond what has already been released. So what’s a DM to do when the vagaries of life and business get in the way of a good campaign? As usual, it’s time to put on my thinking cap. Or should that be my cap of thinking?

The first thing that springs to my mind is that the castle has had a number of incarnations over the years, both official and unofficial. Let’s take a look at them!

The Original Castle: This is the original dungeon designed by Gary that was used for the first year or so of his campaign. I think it was about 13 levels deep, with a similar number of sub-levels, and had a chute at the bottom that led to China. So far as I know, this baby hasn’t seen publication anywhere, though some of the sub-levels became TSR modules EX1, EX2 and WG6.

The Rob-Gary Castle: After Rob Kuntz became the first player to 'beat' Castle Greyhawk (by finding that chute to China) Gary brought him in as a co-DM. Castle Greyhawk and Rob’s El Raja Key dungeon were merged to become one gigantic sprawling megadungeon. Again, this dungeon was never published, although Rob Kuntz has released a number of products detailing small portions of it.

WG7 Castle Greyhawk: Now I’ve never read this one fully, but the brief skimming I’ve given it, in combination with the general scorn it receives in old-school circles, leads me to have a negative opinion. For those who don’t know, this is an out-and-out comedy module, with absolutely no basis in Gary’s campaign. Now Gary was not averse to humour and a good pun, but I can’t bring myself to consider this a proper incarnation of the castle.

WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins: This is a pretty solid bit of dungeon design, but it hardly qualifies as a megadungeon, nor as a design by Gary. Even so, it’s the official TSR/WotC version of the castle, so I’ll need to get it into my campaign somehow.

Castle Zagyg: This was the real deal, Gary’s version of the castle brought into print for the first time. Alas, he passed on before the project could be completed, but we did at least get the first set detailing the actual castle and the first dungeon level beneath it. As I understand it, this was sort of an amalgamation of the different versions of Castle Greyhawk that Gary had run over the years.

So the first question is, how do I incorporate all of these disparate versions of Castle Greyhawk into my campaign? The answer I came up with was inspired by the Castle Zagyg supplements, most notably Dark Chateau. In those products, the castle was surrounded by a strange mist that prevented PCs from entering the area, no doubt because it had yet to be published. It’s a pretty clunky bit of adventure design, but it lead me to the conclusion that Zagyg (the mad wizard who created the castle) would periodically seal off the area with his magic while he redesigned the castle. So Gary’s design was the original castle, then Zagyg redesigned it as the Gary-Rob merged version, then as the Castle Zagyg version, and finally as the official TSR version. You’ll note that the comedic version from WG7 was not included, but that’s not to say I’ve ditched it completely. I’ll probably use it as a cursed demi-plane within the castle, as I’ve seen suggested elsewhere.

But this leads me to another problem: I don’t want to get stuck with a crappier version of Castle Greyhawk once I make the switch to WGR1. To get around this, I envision that there will be a room or a machine or something that can be used to transport the PCs through time with regards to the castle. So if you still want to adventure in the Castle Zagyg version, you zip into this special room, pull the lever, and zam, you’re there. The time travel won’t affect anything outside the castle, but it’s a good way to keep all the versions in play (and to make the place even more sprawling and confusing.)

The first two versions of the castle, those from the original campaign, will probably never be made public, so I doubt I’ll ever use them in a game. These will both have been around in the nebulous pre-history of my campaign. I may design my own versions of them should I ever decide I want my PCs to be able to travel back in time to explore them.

As for the Castle Zagyg version of the castle, the one I had planned to centre my campaign around, that’s another problem entirely. I’ll definitely use what has been released by Troll Lord Games, that’s for sure. With no guarantee of more releases, though, I need an alternative. Luckily one has been provided, in the form of the Castle of the Mad Archmage. No, it’s not Gary’s work. But it’s better than anything I could come up with myself. It will be the basis of my campaign, and if more official Castle Zagyg releases do come out, I can just have Zagyg summon the mists for another redesign, and the Castle of the Mad Archmage goes into the time travel vault. Lovely!