Gygax’s real castle

Gygax’s real castle is the module 

 CASTLE ZAGYG

By Troll Lord Games for C&C. Castles and Crusades. 

Also the Maure Castle from Dungeon magazine, written by Rob. 

Via comments https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FMOKqg46GsM

Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kimgdom show on yt

 Man this show is maybe even better to see now than back in the day. Incredible footage. You feel bad for the animals, but this show reached so many people, it surely kept untold numbers of animals from going extinct. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1oEBmgdaU&t=1308s&pp=2AGcCpACAQ%3D%3D

On this one https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8dDBlsSU7Us&pp=0gcJCYcKAYcqIYzv

… at Time 19:30 is the double lasso trick I was using to move the gaint rats in DnD (OSE with Ryan).  I knew it’d work. :)

SlyFlourish's The Gloaming prep

 Since I'm doing Solodark, not 100% sure how much I want to see this, but here you go self:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWLUe7g1pn0

Yeah, just glanced at it... he has like a billion NPCs in that shattered tower. Not at all the way I'm doing it, seems like. And maybe I just need to watch the whole thing to see what he's up to, but I didn't imagine people living in this shattered tower with briars all over the area as if nobody had been there in ages. 

Solodark, here I come! Shadowdark solo mode. The Gloaming.

 Doing the Hex Crawl of The Gloaming, from Cursed Scroll 1 of Shadowdark. I like it, just started it tonight. 

And Rocket Punch Press is correct, I love the word "Gloaming". 

I BEGIN

First fight a giant spider, dice went my way. 

Then I nearly died, TPK style, to 6 wolves (2d6 wolves is beyond scary at level 1, I had to go to level 2 on my char.s I realized to get past 2 hexes on this dang map), but reached my first pre-defined point of interest:

102. SHATTERED TOWER

A crumbling keep in a clearing choked with thorns and nettles. A heavy trapdoor in the ruins leads down to an old cistern where a dark shape slithers beneath the putrid algae.

MY VERSION: So yeah... the Cistern is like the one I just posted, it has an upside head (why not). But where the upper parts are white stone, the parts touching the water are green to black with algae... stagnant water that hasn't seen fresh rain, only drippings from cracks in the areas above or to the side. 

Let's back up a sec. My 3 characters, Ranger, Wizard, Cleric, after approaching the clearing, clear of trees but choked with thorns and stinging nettles, they manage to sword chop a path through to the tower. It takes a minute, and while the ranger slashes, the other two watch their flanks. Nothing approaches from the woods... and the ranger Lamdir realizes that there are not even rabbit trails through the briars. It's like the place is cursed, mammals at least do not approach. The party presses on, sure that where there is trouble, there is also treasure. 

(I rolled a max safe roll on the check for the hex, so that'll color this creature, etc.)

They find the trapdoor. They smell the dank. Lighting a torch they peer downward. It appears to be a safe set of stone steps, not too smooth as to be slippery. But old. The shattered tower has partially crumbled, but down here everything seems intact. Intact, but not right. 

Do they see any movement? 1d20 on Shadowdark Oracle: 6 = No, not yet. 

They step down on the floor of the place, taking in the shadowy place... massive white stone columns holding up the floor above them. Their torchlight reflecting off of slimy pools here and there. But the cistern, yes there is the thing to catch their eye. And the water ripples... now they see the dark shape slithering beneath the water. No obvious footprints or trails along the floor. A water breathing creature or monster? How big is it? 

Rolling 1d6 = 4 = slightly above average. So person sized, but thinner and more serpentine. Does it have fins that poke above the water that they notice? Oracle: 19, Yes. 

They decide to approach closer, and believe they are looking at a giant fish or eel of some sort. Seemingly natural and completely water bound. Do they prod it with a pole? Oracle: 3, No. Do they see any glint of metal in the water anywhere near this creature? Oracle: 17, Yes. This is the treasure of the place, they are certain. But they need to either get it carefully, or risk the hunger of this giant eel-fish. And how does this thing persist down here with no apparent food? They recall the lack of rabbit trails... is this thing truly natural? 

DC12 INT check for Ranger and Wizard to determine the type of animal:

Ranger: 6+4(nature knowledge)+1 Int = 11

Wizard: 16+.. pass. It is a very large eel, apparently fresh water, though this isn't very "fresh" water. 

The ranger decides to feed it to distract it, while the others use a pole and lasso combo to try to grab the metal down in the water. If it is armor or something that a lasso can hold, it might just work. If it turns out to be coins, then they just fed a big eel and lost a day's rations. 

OK, the get some shiny gauntlets. Ranger wears them. Advantage rolls on Death saves, but cursed to take 50% extra on cold dmg attacks. +3 EXP.

Wizard gets a scroll of Detect Magic. Will try to Learn It. +1 EXP. LEARNED! Burned a luck token, ofcourse.

Inspiring D&D ideas - Cistern

 

Who Built The Basilica Cistern 

AI Art in Shadowdark is a Problem

 Well it is a problem... when I see the wonky finger. When I see the 9.6 legged giant spider. When I see the party in front of the giant spider facing the wall when the spider is clearly about to get them, when I see the spider staring off into space instead of down at its prey. When I see firecurls around the wizard's staircase. When I see a demon palm tree. It just really throws me OUT of the mood that the real art puts me in. 

This guy has some thoughts, I will read more:

https://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com/2025/03/a-case-study-in-ai-art-in-rpgs-and-why.html

Anyway, I hate to talk bad about this game. It does so many good things, and Dionne seems to be a very kind hearted and genuine person... I really like her. So sorry for the critique, but that AI art has to stop. Really. 

On a positive note, I am playing Solodark right now using Cursed Scroll 1, The Gloaming. It's fun, it's difficult. I'm using the hexcrawl with 3 characters, a ranger, wizard, cleric. I had to go to level 2 for each of the characters when I saw the difficulty of the random encounters. And I sure need to remember to do reaction rolls, holy moly, or they will never get past 2 encounters. 

Great module writers

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZCOyTQeOyc&t=1755s

Time 28:00

Kelsey Dionne talks w the d20play guys  

Gavin Norman w Neceotic Gnome.

DCC’s Stroh and Michael CUrtis (stonehell megadungeon).

Hanker and Fernail (Hank Erandernail?) at Runehammer games.. situation design more than dungeon design . 

Bob W Builder’s Zine for Shadowdark

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WYiPRHhFywY&t=1752s

Sounds awesome. See my comment on there. 

The Rakshasa. 

The time 28:45:00 bit about that hand drawing multi level dungeon map with sideways grid markers. 

Artist Ian Miller (spikey and uber details) and Weird Tales covers

 https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2021/11/10/jack-williamson-fifteen-years-gone

https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2021/11/11/the-art-of-ian-miller

Wild creepy: https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2021/10/19/joseph-clement-coll-a-century-gone

DCC Graphics I like

 DCC on a blog https://rottenpulp.blogspot.com/2013/02/dcc-magic-for-rest-of-us.html

Mojeek a web search not from the big few

 Might be good, need to research it:

https://www.mojeek.com/

Shadowdark - anti-mage concerns

The Question: Is offensive Magic too weak in Shadowdark (SD)?

 I need to do a full analysis (mathematical), but my initial worries are coming back. What follows is just the beginnings of an analysis, so take things with a grain of salt for now. 

My Basic Tenets on why magic spells should hit hard (harder than a melee martial type guy's avg attacks):

1. Limited spells per day. As a mage/magic-user/blaster, you have a limited number per day. You have to guess when preparing (SD fixes the guessing at least, thanks for that, but high chance for spells to fizzle). 
• Compare to a melee guy who might swing 10 times per fight and hit 5+ of those 10 times. 
• A Mage-caster type in the char level range of 3-5 during an average fight might cast 1 big spell, and if it misses, he might try another big or medium spell. If it hits, that could be his main contribution. In between those things he might be doing some very minimal ranged damage, at least in non-5e combat where there are no free high dmg Cantrips. 
2. Chance to fail. Often times in D&D or SD the chance for spells to fail is significant, so even more limits on "doing your thing" and doing it well. So when you do get off the full "hit" of your spell, it needs to be large and impactful. If you are doing average damage per round and not anything more, and with no option to do much more, then why pick a magic using class with all the costs and potential fizzles and failures? 
3. Tactical and coolness variation. If everybody just an avg. of 10 HP of dmg each round, it would sure be a boring game. 
4. Mages die easily/ glass cannons. Mages need to concentrate on defensive movement in order to deliver hard hitting offense. If they get out of position, it hurts them more than most (all other?) classes. 
5. The "Controller" thing that gets thrown around in 5e analysis. True, a mage sometimes is using his spells to break up the enemy and control the battlefield. Sleep/Web/Wall of Force (where is wall of fire, I missed it?) seem to be the ones in SD that at least sort of do that job. Wizards in SD aren't casting those every single battle, but they are critical spells. 

• Consider the flip side to what a magic caster is
• High HP, armor and shield options, 
• infinite attack chances with a melee or ranged weapon, 
• variety through gear. 
• Every roll of 20 is a crit (SD giving crit rolls to magic users is something). 
• Missing has no direct penalty (you don't run out of swords at least, might run out of missile weapons like arrows) other than to delay killing of a foe. 
• I'll give a funny example, which explains things clearly and annoyingly:
• I had a magic user type character in a Shadowdark game, was doing almost no dmg with my magic missile (which BTW, I had to use a luck token on to not lose the spell after the first failed attempt... first spell even in Shadowdark was a failure, how appropriate. You figure if it is a 25% chance to fail your first advantage spell roll, 25% of people playing SD have experienced this annoying failure. Or without advantage, a 45% chance to fail your level 1 spell at level 1 char... 45% failure is a lot. No wonder it's so common to give folks a luck token to start off.)
• 1 dmg (plus luck token wasted). 2 dmg. 1 dmg. Those were 3 rounds of trying to kill a monster with magic missile. 
• Switched to an Obsidian Dagger, thrown, hit for 6 damage. Killed a monster. Yeah, that's about right. It seems better to use the luck token on an Obsidian Dagger throw than a Magic Missile in SD, if you need to kill a monster ASAP at low level. 
• Not casting spells early in the session/dungeon is encouraged in Shadowdark to avoid losing spells... that makes the magic user caster types horde spells till a big fight. I hope you as a caster "know" when a big fight is occurring... pretty sure some DMs will not give a hint. While holding back has always been a mage thing in D&D, you normally get some magic options to use during the session. 
• This person thinks Fighters are the strongest class in SD.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crkkwY8XHKI
• That was before Pit Fighters, the new improved fighters, earned the "broken and OP" sticker, but how many are saying that: https://tabletop-thoughts.com/2024/02/15/shadowdark-desert-rider-pit-fighter-and-ras-godai-classes/
• quote: features of the Pit Fighter class seem to fit The Djurum campaign, but might be a little overpowered compared to the other Core Classes. Three of the features (Flourish, Last Stand, and Relentless) give the Pit Fighter hit points back or keep him fighting where others would have fallen. [Feels like a solo the world type class]. 
• Are Pit Fighters immortal? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCa99epPPYE
• One thing to consider is that new lower level spells that help with combat could possibly become a thing to boost caster types in combat. 
• DM/GM heavily dependent, but the DM can throw in extra scrolls and even higher than your normal level scrolls for your magic caster to try to use.
• Can be much more powerful than in other game systems.
• But the risk is higher b/c it is harder to pass the spellcheck at higher level spells with higher penalties/easier to die. 

Assuming monster hitpoints are about half (verify/compare) of what 5e is, and approx. the same HP as B/X... are the offensive magic spells good enough? 

FIREBALL in SD - OK at first then weak 

• Fireball in 5e is 8d6 without upcast. 
• Fireball in SD is 4d6, cannot upcast(?).  Might be similar to 5e. But probably roughly half the power of B/X at higher levels. 
• Fireball in B/X is 5d6 at level 5 (perhaps comparable to level 3 char in SD), and 20d6 at level 20 char (comparable to level 10 in SD). 

MAGIC MISSILE in SD - conclusion, maybe total junk?

• SD's MM does 1d4. At all levels. No +1, no nothing. 
• 5e at 3d4+3 at base level casting. So much better at level 1, decent/avg later. 
• B/X is 1d6+1 and increasing...  5th level char, I think it'd be 3d6+3. Seems kinda strong from level 3 and up. 

Arguments that SD's Dmg is lower across the board

• Spell Crits vs. Spell Backfires - So the argument might be that you can spell crit in SD. But the counter argument is that you can die from your own spell on a roll of 1 in SD. 
• Do melee characters do less dmg? 
• We see a range of melee weapons, mostly the same as D&D 5e including a SD Greatsword doing 1d12 (SD Greataxe does 1d10 I think instead of 5e's 1d12 , that feels more like anti-lawsuit differences). 
• And IF the SD AC is more like 5e where you hit much more frequently than B/X or 1e D&D, then I would say melee is very very roughly 75% of where it is in dmg output in 5e
• because SD doesn't use the STRength Modifier doing extra damage. 

Anti-Magic Sentiment is a common theme with the OSR new school old school folks

• SD has Spell backfires (like the DCC spell backfire detriment but without the spellburn to nuke things and without the cool magic tables that do crazy powerful things if you roll high and/or spellburn and/or luck... soo SD has probably almost all of the bad, almost none of the good.)
• There are way more martial or mostly martial character classes in SD. 
• SD has right now 8-9 or so Martial Classes (including Ranger + Knight of St. Ydris AKA a palandin, and the Warlock which is 90% melee). 
1. Fighter - 1d8 HP per level
2. Knight of St. Ydris  - 1d6 HP per level
3. Warlock - 1d6 HP per level
4. Ranger - 1d8 HP per level
5. Desert Rider (the Camel dude) - 1d8 HP per level
6. Pit fighter - 1d8 HP per level
7. Sea Wolf - 1d8 HP per level
8. Basilisk warrior - 1d8 HP per level
9. Thief/Ras-Godai maybe - 1d6 HP per level
• SD had 3 semi-offensive magic-caster classes so far, only one is mostly offensive... the Wizard. 
1. Wizard
1. Has 12 spells per spell level
2. witch 
1. Has 10 spells per spell level. 
3. seer -  - 1d6 HP per level - - leather armor (so much more support roles, much more like the Cleric)
1. Has only 4 spells per spell level
• The Necromancer class is coming, so maybe that will be another offensive caster. 
• SD Specialist/Mixed/Support Classes
• Thief
• Cleric
• Bard
• Ras-Godai (assassin with some powers, looks like a Ninja)

• Compare to D&D 5e's (this is hard b/c subclasses can change a lot)
• Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Monk(?), Rogue, Paladin, (Thief/Assassin?)
• Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock (true caster)

Devil's Advocate, here are people who say the Magic in Shadowdark sounds good:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/shadowdark/comments/1qwah4r/changes/
• Dude says his fav dnd 2e char was a multi class Cleric + Abjurer, wants to try SD's magic etc. 
• 
  

Atari style games online

 https://www.coolmathgames.com/0-missile-command?utm_content=CTA_You_Will_Also_Like#immersiveModal

Works well on phones. Missile Command, Asteroids.