Have we had the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk since 1978?

[geoffrey]

Have millions of rank-and-file A/D&Ders been exploring the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk since 1978?

An unspoken assumption is that Gary's home dungeon was full of all sorts of unimaginable coolness that, for the most part, has never been revealed to the world. This, of course, is a melancholy thought. So much lost...

But what if that isn't true? What if Gary took most of the best stuff from his home campaign's dungeon and put it into the 18 A/D&D modules he authored (or co-authored) and published in 1978-1985? And what if what we didn't get to see was the prosaic stuff that any 10-year-old can make-up with little or no thought (10 orcs guarding 200 gp)?

Perhaps this is a reason that Gary never published his home dungeon (not counting the first level in the Castle Zagyg boxed set): He already had! If you have played in any of the following modules, you have already had the privilege of exploring the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk. Perhaps.

B2: The Keep on the Borderlands
D1: Descent into the Depths of the Earth
D2: The Shrine of the Kuo-Toa
D3: Vault of the Drow
EX1: Dungeonland
EX2: The Land beyond the Magic Mirror
G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief
G2: The Glacial Rift of the Front Giant Jarl
G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King
Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits
S1: Tomb of Horrors
S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
T1: The Village of Hommlet
T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil
WG4: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
WG5: Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure
WG6: Isle of the Ape

The above theory is a happy thought. We have not missed the Holy Grail of dungeons! We have had it on our shelves for decades.

credit to Trent Foster: www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=14350

[Finarvyn]

An interesting concept, and I like where you are going with this. Certainly, those 18 modules would combine for a fantastic campaign even if not an uber dungeon.

Have you attempted in any way to look at contents of those modules and match them to accounts of the Greyhawk dungeon? Maybe grodog would be able to weigh in on this? Clearly, some of the modules have nothing to do with a dungeon, at least I can't recall anything in Isle of the Ape (for example) that matches up with a dungeon level.

[Zenopus]

I've also postulated before that you could make a pretty good approximation of the upper levels of Castle Greyhawk by taking the Keep on the Borderlands and distributing the lairs (of the Caves of Chaos and the area map) among a full-page dungeon labyrinth (or two).

knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=222253#p222253

One thought struck me on looking this over again: One could make a pretty good approximation of the first level of the CG dungeons simply by taking the contents of the Caves of Chaos and wilderness encounters from B2 and redistributing them in a dungeon similar to Gary's binder map. From Gary's OD&D Con games and Paul's Gary Con session reports, there's an impression of a great deal of humanoids/evil humans on the first level of the dungeon, inc kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, ogre(s), bandits. The kobolds from Cave A would become the Old Guard Kobolds. You'd get the gelatinous cube with treasure inside it, and the centipedes hiding under treasure, and poisonous spiders (from the B2 forest). You might miss out on some weird stuff that Gary would have in CG, like the "monk/conjurer", but the mad hermit could take his place.

...I was thinking of a rough approximation, but with more Gygaxian details, particularly with regard to dungeon dressing/treasures, than just using wandering monster tables (which could still be used too). The Caves of Chaos lairs would be distributed about on a sheet of graph paper, and then the rest of the area between completely filled in with rooms and corridors in a manner similar to Gary's binder map. Perhaps some of the more difficult lairs (Minotaur, Chapel of Chaos) could be placed on a lower dungeon level.

I was also thinking more of the play reports from Gary's OD&D Con games from his last decade, and Paul Stormberg's Gary Con VI game sessions, rather than the original games. And just the first level. I agree there were more evil humans in Gary's games than in the Caves, which was one reason I also suggested using the B2 wilderness encounters - for the bandits. I don't recall (though may be forgetting) any encounters with lawful/neutral potential "friendlies" in those play reports. Though the various prisoners could, in a way, serve in this role. Not too much weird stuff either on the first level. A transporter in Gary's map, and Paul's games had a very Gygaxian mysterious conjurer/monk and a chest with a riddle to open. A number of the Caves of Chaos have interesting low-level traps/tricks at the entrances to the lairs, which would provide for some dungeon traps, and more could be placed between the lairs.

I wonder how much Gary drew on his experience/ideas running the humanoid groups in the GC dungeons when he was writing up B2? Another similar detail is the presence two rival Orc tribes. He mentioned in one Q&A that there were two Orc tribes in the Greyhawk dungeons, and the Caves of Chaos also has two rival tribes.

Edit: Looked more into Gygax's use of Orc tribes over the years, posted here: knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=14297

[geoffrey]

Mar 22, 2021 15:44:58 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Clearly, some of the modules have nothing to do with a dungeon, at least I can't recall anything in Isle of the Ape (for example) that matches up with a dungeon level.

Check-out page 112 of the later printings of the AD&D DMG. Gary mentions his campaign including "the island of King Kong". I understand that it was a sub-level of sorts of his Greyhawk Castle dungeon (as were modules EX1 and EX2).

And S3 would be the Machine Level of Gary's great dungeon.

[grodog]

foster1941

Allan.

[Falconer]

Zach, you and I have also pointed out here that the two rival Orc tribes of Castle Greyhawk—the Grinning Skull and the Bloody Axe—also seem to have been lifted and inserted into B2 as caves B and C.

[simrion]

I hazard the TSR Greyhawk Castle module was simply a fabrication to pad the company bottom line. Any history/confirmation on that?

[tdenmark]

Mar 24, 2021 13:33:05 GMT -6 simrion said:

I hazard the TSR Greyhawk Castle module was simply a fabrication to pad the company bottom line. Any history/confirmation on that?

I have no other source to back it up, but when you read the module it sure seems to be the case.

[DungeonDevil]

The OP's original sentiment is lovely. If I weren't a cynical, burned-out, curb-stomped, post-adult I might have believed it. However, my inner eleven year-old, D&D-loving self embraces it with gusto, so I guess that's what matters most.

[Finarvyn]

Can you imagine that Gary could be laughing at us? All those years when fans were begging to get the "real" Greyhawk dungeon, but we would have had it all along? That really would have been a fun prank.

Now if only we could discover that Dave Arneson had published more Blackmoor material disguised as Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes modules.

[cometaryorbit]

That is a really cool thought!

[geoffrey]

Trent Foster made this observation:

They [the G series of modules] were the first AD&D modules published (at Origins '78, about a year after the Holmes Basic Set, 6 months after the Monster Manual, and month before the Players Handbook) but that's deceptive because they're the result of all the lessons learned from about 6 years of intensive play (and about 2 years of studying Judges Guild modules) and most of the later-published modules were actually written before them - S1, S3, and the dungeon portion of S4 had already been written and played (and, in the latter case, published) as tournament scenarios, and the material that formed the bulk of EX1 & 2, T1, WG5, and WG6 had also already been run as part of Gary's home campaign c. 1972-75. So, of all the Gygax (A)D&D modules, only B2, D1-3, the outdoor section of S4, WG4, and some polishing and expansion work on the others post-date the writing of the G series modules.

link: www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=85935&start=330

This lends weight to the notion that Gary's modules include much of the cool stuff that was in the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk.

It has also been brought to my attention that Lawrence Schick's S2: White Plume Mountain and Allen Hammack's C2: Ghost Tower of Inverness were distillations of the best parts of their authors' home dungeons. Perhaps this was a sort of modus operandi of TSR's modules back in the day.

[grodog]

Some of the descriptive names (vs. actual level names/titles) of the Castle Greyhawk levels mentioned as examples from OD&D and the Europa #6-8 article also align somewhat well with those from some of the published modules:

- OD&D Vol3: ""Greyhawk Castle", for example, has over a dozen levels in succession downwards, more than that number branching from these, and not less than two new levels under construction at any given time. These levels contain such things as a museum from another age, an underground lake, a series of caverns filled with giant fungi, a bowling alley for 20' high Giants, an arena of evil, crypts, and so on." --> sounds like D1's CAVERNS AND WARRENS OF THE TROGLODYTES to me

- Europa: "The eight through tenth levels were caves and caverns featuring Trolls, giant insects and a transporter nexus with an evil Wizard (with a number of tough associates) guarding it." --> also sounds like D1's CAVERNS AND WARRENS OF THE TROGLODYTES (which are coincidentally filled with trolls too

- Later sources for dungeon level names:

1. from Dragon Annual #2 (1997): The first version of Castle Greyhawk had dungeon levels enumerated "something like this" (according to Gygax): Barracks, Storerooms, Cells, Torture Chambers, Maze, Labyrinth, Catacombs, Crypts, Arena, "Invisible Monster" bottom level.
2. from Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2000): Ruins/Upper Works, Vaults, Dungeons, Lower Dungeons, Crypts, (and so forth), Catacombs, Labyrinth, Lesser Caves, Greater Cavers, Caverns, Maze = level 13 where Zagyg was manifest and where Robilar/Terik/Tenser sent to Cathay/etc.
3. from Up on a Soapbox Lesson #5 (January 2002): Dungeons, Catacombs, Crypts, Lesser Caves, Greater Caves, Lesser Caverns, Greater Caverns; the Labyrinth = level 6

I had intended to dig into this in part after doing my third (still in draft) Many Levels of Castle Greyhawk articles: grodog.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-many-levels-of-castle-greyhawk-part-1.html and grodog.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-many-levels-of-castle-greyhawk-part-2.html

Allan.

[grodog]

Apr 19, 2021 10:54:09 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Trent Foster made this observation:
This lends weight to the notion that Gary's modules include much of the cool stuff that was in the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk.

It has also been brought to my attention that Lawrence Schick's S2: White Plume Mountain and Allen Hammack's C2: Ghost Tower of Inverness were distillations of the best parts of their authors' home dungeons. Perhaps this was a sort of modus operandi of TSR's modules back in the day.

When tourney events were being run at early GenCon and Origins events in 1974-1975, they were running Castle Greyhawk, too. Kask's first experience of Castle Greyhawk (and perhaps Ward's?) was in The Machine Level, for example.

Allan.

[grodog]

Now that I think about it, though, I think that most of Gary's levels were designed on single sheets of paper, and it was Rob's that were the larger, 2+ sheet levels....

Allan.

[raymond]

I was thinking about this same topic a couple of days ago and didn't realize that someone was posting about it here until now.  I noticed that Castle Greyhawk is described in the story part of The Official AD&D Coloring Album.  The picture and text describes the entrance as a tower in ruin.  The tower from T1 would make a better fit in that case than the Keep in B2.  I found that S4's underground lake originally was a Kuntz level that went from his dungeon to Castle Greyhawk level 7.  The Kuntz version of the map is floating around the Internet right now.

If you use the B2 wilderness map, maybe it makes sense to have a long passageway between the tower (keep area) and the dungeon (Cave of Chaos area).  I've seen a reference to a long passageway in the coloring book and other sources.

The coloring book refers to a lich and S4 has demi-lich stats.  The coloring book has a wooden bridge across the water.  You could put one between areas 15 and 10.

Maybe S4's Lesser Caverns' area 6 connects with the passageway and Greater Caverns' area 3 connects with B2's area 51.  I'm just "riffing" here.

I see there are other Gygax maps for other levels available.  There seem to be two level 1's.  There is a hand-drawn map and a cleaned-up version of level one in the gh_seminar--history_of_castle_greyhawk--garycon_vi--2013b.pdf file.  These match part of the first level in the "Castle Zazyg - Vol 2 - The Upper Works - Bk 7 - Maps.pdf" file.  But there is also a Vaults map.  The seminar slide shows that level 1 was "a simple maze of rooms a corridors" as of 1975 but from a 2000 source it is labeled "Vaults."  There is a map of the Museum of the Gods for part of level 13 though there is no key.  It doesn't make much sense to me without a key.  This is supposed to be part of the original castle circa 1973.  Circa 1976, is the expanded castle with Kuntz so that Kuntz map of part of level 7 which was changed and became the map for S4 is available.  So is EX1, EX2, and WG6.  In 2000 someone shared pictures of two levels which are attributed to levels 1 and 3.  People have figured out a key for this level 1 (Vaults).

[cometaryorbit]

Hmm. It might be interesting to "patch it together" - use the level 1 map and reconstructed key, use the caves from B2 for the second and third levels (maybe excluding the goblins and kobolds, which are "first level" equivalent?) ...

...S3 as the Machine Level, S4 and (as grodog suggested) parts of D1 as the Caves/Caverns, then the WG5 levels...

...EX1, EX2, WG6 are all demiplane branches from Greyhawk Castle...

Something would need to fill in the difficulties between B2 and S3/S4 though - maybe take bits from T1-4?

[simrion]

Apr 28, 2021 17:18:47 GMT -6 raymond said:

The coloring book refers to a lich and S4 has demi-lich stats.  The coloring book has a wooden bridge across the water.  You could put one between areas 15 and 10.

well there IS a Lich in D1

[cometaryorbit]

May 2, 2021 5:07:20 GMT -6 simrion said:

well there IS a Lich in D1

Good point, a lot of D1 might be usable, not just the Caverns of the Troglodytes...