Gen Con IX Dungeons (1978)
by Bob Blake*
A D&D adventure in two parts, played as the D&D tournament at GenCon IX (1976).
Many of the earliest modules for AD&D first appeared as tournament adventures, such as "Tomb of Horrors" by Gary Gygax, originally run at Origins 1 in 1975. When TSR took over Gen Con in 1976, the modern D&D tournament was born, starting with this adventure by the Valparaiso Society's Bob Blake (later published as the Gen Con IX Dungeons). Bob subsequently designed "Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green" for Gen Con X in 1977 and went on to oversee many more tournaments for Gen Con. What makes the Gen Con IX and X dungeons particularly interesting is that they were run using the OD&D rules from the LBBs + Greyhawk, which also formed the basis for the Holmes manuscript. By Gen Con XII in 1979 the AD&D rules had been published and were adopted.
There are five printings of the Gen Con IX Dungeons, as detailed over at The Acaeum. The 1st printing (1976) is already designated as "2nd edition" on the cover, presumably due to differences from the original tournament version, and appears to have been comprised of two separate booklets, one each for the preliminary and final rounds of the tournament. The 2nd and 3rd printings combined the two rounds and each sported a new cover in dark red and dark green monochrome versions, respectively. This review is of the 4th printing (1978) the cover of which is depicted above. The 5th printing (1980) had a color cover by Kevin Siembieda, although the contents were apparently identical to the previous edition.
The five pregenerated characters included are 6-7th level in the first part of the adventure, and 8-10th in the second part (although with different ability scores).
Credits/contributors:
The designer is credited as Bob Blake, who also wrote modules RPGA3 "The Forgotten King" (1983) and RPGA4 "The Elixir of Life" (1983). RPGA5-8 rounded out the six-part Prophecy of Brie cycle, originally run as a four-round tournament at the Gen Con XVI convention in 1983. RPGA3-8 were eventually re-published by TSR as C4 "To Find a King" (1984) and C4 "Bane of Llewelyn" (1985). Blake later authored an Immortals Set module, IM2 "The Wrath of Olympus" (1987). Around the same time, he wrote Gary Gygax Presents Fantasy Master #1: Æsheba: Greek Africa (Bob Blake, Frank Mentzer, Jeff O'Hare, 1987) and Gary Gygax Presents Fantasy Master #2: Town of Baldemar (1987) which were published by New Infinities.
The cover art for the 4th printing, along with all of the interior illustrations, are by Judges Guilds' house artist Sheryl England.
Tournament/DM Rules:
It's specifically stated at the outset that a copy of the original D&D rules + Greyhawk are necessary to utilize the scenario, which makes the adventure particularly well-suited to an expanded Holmes campaign. By comparison, later Judges' Guild OD&D publications (such as "Caverns of Thracia" published in 1979) use stats from the AD&D Monster Manual. The Holmes Basic Set was released around the time of Gen Con X.
There are 2 pages of rules intended to standardize tournament play which are quite interesting. I discuss a few notable examples in a different thread. It appears that chances for surprise, monster actions, and saving throws were predetermined for the actual tournament, but were left out of the 2nd edition.
Overview:
In the DM's background, Baldemar Castle is named after Baldemar the Brave, a great warrior who settled down to rule the surrounding region. His magician-companion, Grsk Grimvader, was seduced by the dark side and slew him "in a most dreadful manner" taking over the castle and its dungeons (which sounds like a twisted version of the Rogahn and Zelligar story from B1...) The castle fell into disrepair, and no one has entered it since "the Night of Doom, when the skies over the castle were green with the werelight, and the shrieks and gibberings of countless demons struck terror into the hearts of the bravest".
In the first adventure, the PCs are tasked to retrieve a stolen magic item, the Staff of Albalon, for a wizard they have offended. The wizard polymorphed his apprentice into a blue dragon for the purposes of a wager with another magic-user, but the newly transformed apprentice decided to fly home and ransack his master's belongings. The polymorphed apprentice then fled to Baldemar Castle in order to escape the wrath of his master, and to offer servitude to Grsk in exchange for making his new form permanent. He was then charmed to guard the Staff of Albalon as well as part of Grsk's own hoard.
Whether or not the PCs are successful in their quest to retrieve the staff, they find no trace of the evil archmage in the castle's dungeons. It turns out that after he died while casting a powerful spell to protect his castle from looters, his body was removed from Baldemar Castle and brought to an evil temple, where he was transformed into a lich. In the second part of the adventure, the PCs are enjoined by a dying patriarch to recover a lawful crown for the Church, a holy artifact called the Helm of Valasdum, from this evil temple in the mountains, where it is guarded by the heartless lich, Grsk Grimvader.
Setting:
The module states that the adventure takes place in a world "roughly similar to Celtic mythos", a setting revisited in greater detail in Blake's later "Prophecy of Brie" cycle, although I didn't appreciate any particularly Celtic flavor. Baldemar Castle broods "about five miles southeast" of the village of Ravensrook, where the adventurers assemble in the Sword & Shield tavern. Inside the dungeons, there is reference to "the Curse of Dalmanil the Thrice-Damned" and in another room, there are murals depicting a dog-faced deity, "spouting flames and hurling fireballs into clumps of cowering, naked worshipers."
The background for the second part of the adventure offers a few more glimpses of the cosmology of this imagined world. The cleric pregen is a "War Priest of Jehu" and the fighter pregen swears by "the shriveled dugs of Frid". The "minions of Hazo" obtain Grsk's body and bring it to the Temple of Diklah "in the Mountains of Dearth, hard by the Fens of Elenath" where "Diklah herself" transforms Grsk into a lich, and a "slave of the Malmalii now he be, and may the Gorstii protect us from his wrath". The Helm of Valasdum is mentioned earlier as being necessary to hold "the Malmalii" in abeyance.
Part One: Baldemar Castle
A wizard you have offended has offered you an opportunity to redeem yourselves. You are to plumb the depths of the ruins of nearby Baldemar Castle to retrieve a staff that was stolen from him long ago.
The first part of the adventure begins on the 6th level of the dungeons beneath Baldemar Castle, although there is no reason why the DM couldn't devise levels 1 through 5 as well. The layout is pretty straightforward, with mostly square and rectangular rooms. There are various tricks and traps in addition to some fairly powerful opponents (an 8-headed hydra, 3 spectres in one room, and a balor in another). Even the predetermined wandering monsters are pretty nasty (including a phase spider and an umber hulk).
One of the rooms contains an Ant Lion, which I think was a new monster at the time, although stats are not included. Another room contains an elaborate puzzle involving floor tiles, which need to be traversed in a certain pattern or else an iron statue seated on a throne will sequentially animate with each misstep and ultimately attack, doing 2-20 points of damage per hit (my party magic-user simply cast fly and ferried each of his companions across the room when it became clear what was happening). The penultimate chamber contains a purple worm that the party is not intended to engage.
The blue dragon's layer is in a huge grotto, the floor of which is covered with sand (my group tried to sneak up on the dragon invisibly, but their footsteps in the sand gave them away). Strangely, there are some rules for attempting to ride the dragon (save vs. stone to avoid being unseated, although subject to claw attacks and a fall of 10-80 feet if unsuccessful). Unfortunately, there is no mention of the wizard's stolen treasure, the Staff of Albalon, or any of Grsk's hoard. I made the staff a staff of power, since my group will be attempting GDQ next and are slightly underpowered.
Part Two: The Temple of Diklah
A dying patriarch has enjoined you to undertake a quest to rescue a Lawful Crown from the grips of Chaos. Although he was unable to describe it, you have been given a fragment of parchment containing incomplete verses to help you. After a wilderness journey of several weeks, you have found the Temple you've been seeking at the head of a box canyon in a particularly desolate mountain range.
The parchment reads as follows:
The layout of the temple is fairly straightforward, culminating in the Hall of Grsk. There are some pretty tough opponents, including giants, black pudding, and even a purple worm (which the party is expected to fight this time). There are some fairly elaborate traps, and also a couple of really weird encounters (best described as - a living sheet of bubble gum?) Finally, there are some death without a saving throw situations, which never seem fair. I can't help but wonder if the premise were at least partly inspired by the Tomb of Horrors.
The final encounter is with a 18th level magic-user/lich, made even tougher by a magical defense by which the lich is rendered essentially invulnerable. Unless the party can figure out its one weakness (and there is a subtle clue in the prophecy) they're toast. Moreover, figuring out how to hurt the lich results in automatic damage to the character. My group figured out how to hurt the lich, but ended up fleeing with the crown without destroying him (their plan involved the purple worm and was clever although nevertheless flawed).
Strengths:
Some of the dungeon encounters can be pilfered for your own dungeon complexes. The final encounter constitutes an interesting and fairly challenging set piece.
Weaknesses:
Low production values. Unrelated, disjointed, encounters. A few sudden death, no saving throw situations.
Summary:
The 2-part "Gen Con IX Dungeons" is less polished than Blake's "Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green" - the following year's 3-part Gen Con X tournament adventure. The first part is a fairly representative, old-school, dungeon crawl culminating in a blue dragon's lair. The second part is a tougher, more interesting, streamlined crawl with a pretty challenging grand finale involving a powerful lich with some crafty special defenses.
Rating:
Part 1 - 5/10
Part 2 - 7/10
Overall score - 6/10 (of greater historical interest than for use as is)
Trivia:
Gen Con IX was held Aug 20-22, 1976 and featured special guest Fritz Leiber (advertised in The Dragon #2, with a lengthy description of the planned tournament appearing on pgs 10, 26)
Bob Blake wrote a brief article about how the tournament was designed in The Dragon #3 (pg 30) seemingly in response to some criticisms. A list of the 5 winners, one for each character class, was also included at the end of the article.
The names for the pregens used in part 2 were:
Talan, a fighter (10th level); Nosto, a magic-user (10th level); Damrosil, a cleric (10th level); Lehmnas, an elf-mage (9th level); and Fastrid, a dwarf fighter (8th level)
Damrosil is also the name of a river in the Prophecy of Brie cycle.
The equipment list on pg 16 includes a "lodestone (compass)" for 25 gp, which explains how mappers know which way is north while spelunking in a dungeon.
Frog God Games published a reboot of Castle Baldemar's Dungeon as part of their Saturday Night Special series (#2) with versions for both Pathfinder and Swords & Wizardry (2013). The adventure is for 4-6 PCs Levels 6-8 and includes a description of the Staff of Albalon. You can check out a review of it here.
previous threads on Dragonsfoot:
Town of Baldemar (June 21, 2008)
*originally posted on Dragonsfoot Reviews on October 6, 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment