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Introduction
Castle Zagyg, Vol. 1: Yggsburgh is the first in a series of seven sourcebooks that are intended to revive the (arguably) first fantasy role playing setting ever, and are written by the man himself, E. Gary Gygax. In order to avoid copyright problems (it’s sad in this day and age that someone who creates something as huge as Gygax did can lose all rights to it, but such is copyright law), the names have been changed to protect the “guilty”.
I don’t want to give anything away, but it rhymes with frayhawk.
That’s right, folks, now we get to see the classic setting done as Gygax wanted it done, for the first time since AD&D first edition, and given that he’s had 30 more years to develop, refine, and expand his concept, I was expecting a great deal. While I wasn’t entirely pleased, I also wasn’t at all disappointed.
As with most things that will be published by Troll Lord Games in the future, the book is designed for the Castles and Crusades fantasy role playing game, and if you’re unfamiliar with that, you’ve probably been living under a rock. You can find a review and system break down of that game here.
But enough of my yammering. Let’s get on to the review, shall we?
The Basics
Yggsburgh details the Free Town of Yggsburgh (one guess as to what that mirrors) and its immediate environs. “Immediate environs” encompasses roughly 1500 square miles of adventuring territory. That’s a lot of stuff packed into 255 pages. The book comes with a tear-out, foldable, dual-sided map of Yggsburgh’s environs on one side, and the Free Town on the other. The maps are nice, but not perfect (I’ll get to that below).
The book is broken up into three main parts, with nine appendices after. Part I deals with the Yggsburgh setting, history, and culture. It discusses the town’s background, history, relationships with the world at large, briefly covers different elite orders and town administration, crime and punishment, those sorts of things. Much of what is covered here is done in “overview” style, since a lot of the details are covered later, in the appendices. But the history is the most important part here, and is detailed and rich enough to satisfy most picky grognards out there. In fact, great attention is even given to the style of dress, mannerisms, heraldry, and style of wigs worn by the populace here. These are small details that may be an irritant to some casual gamers, but that veterans will appreciate as being all-too-often overlooked in campaign setting guides. Discussion of the tech level is also a concern here, and the technology of Yggsburgh is late medieval combined with ancient Rome. That is to say, there is no gunpowder yet, but there is running water and indoor plumbing.
Finally, important geographical features are given attention here, such as the Urt River and its twin, the False Urt, which have a nasty tendency to be mistaken for one another…possibly leading to many a headache for adventuring parties. Also discussed here are certain mysterious locales such as Hiddendale, a valley that even rangers who have visited before have a difficult time re-finding, and in which “there are strange things that slink through the valley at night…”
Part II covers important locales within the town. This section lists 93 businesses and important residences within the walls of Yggsburgh. Each of these residences are quite detailed, and many include full stat blocks for the people running or living at the place, or page references to where these stat blocks may be found in the appropriate appendix. There isn’t much to report on here; it’s your typical fare keyed city locations, but has a uniquely “old school” feel to it, with assumptions as to the type of group that will be running and a feeling of life that can only come from years of affection by its creator. For example, many NPC’s even have nicknames (Robert “Thief” Robins, who isn’t a thief at all, or Norbert “Slick” Slidell, for example), and the vast majority are given personalities, goals, and outlooks on life in general, even if in only a few sentences. It would take moments to expand any NPC from this book to the level of a fully-statted out character, if you need an extra for whatever reason.
It is also amazingly detailed and diverse. In this section we’re given complete write ups for the Thieves’ Guild and Assassins’ Guild, and their legitimate fronts, the Value Second Hand Market and the 12 Celestial Houses, respectively. We are also treated to the Beggars’ Brotherhood, who serve as the street eyes and ears of the Thieves’ Guild, and as something of a go-between for the Thieves and Assassins. The section covers everything from a country club for the elite (complete with suggestions on how the PC’s can integrate themselves into high society) to what amounts to a fighters’ guild, the Swordsman’s Brotherhood. There are occult shops, outdoor markets, temples (set to be customized to whatever gods your campaign uses), music halls, dining halls of various reputes…if you can think of it, there’s probably a write up here.
There is one area covered in Part II that is actually outside the city walls: the Outs Inn (named for the area in which it is located, the Outs, or the outskirts of town). This is “the” place for adventurers to stay when in the vicinity of Yggsburgh. It offers every service you can think of, and the varied and sundry NPC’s that frequent this place offer enough potential for intrigue and adventure that a CK could base an entire campaign out of this Inn alone. The write up, just for this Inn, is a full 8 pages in length, and the Inn itself forms a fairly vast complex. Fear not; there’s a full background and history that justifies when, why, and how this place got so huge. He doesn’t miss a trick, that EGG.
Part III details the Environs of Yggsburgh. This is the section that discusses those 1500 square miles surrounding the town, which is (perhaps strangely) situated in the southeast portion of the map, rather in the center as one might expect. What happens if the characters venture off further southeast, you ask? That’s up to the Castle Keeper of your individual game, but I’m told it’s intended to be set in TLG’s campaign setting of Erde, in the Outremere region. A subject for another review…which I hope to have (plug, plug) coming soon.
This section begins much like Part II, with breakdowns of several important communities in the outskirts of Yggsburgh. Each of these communities is as detailed as any of the encounter locations in Yggsburgh itself, and some more detailed. Together they paint a very rich tapestry for the surrounding area, which both feels complete and alive on first reading, and yet still leaves tons of room for independent development.
The section begins with a brief and general overview of Thorps and Villages, what constitutes each, and a table of average prices for common items such as ale, cider, meals, merchant’s items, blacksmith goods, etc, in these small communities. Where prices deviate from these averages, tables are presented for that particular village, thorp, or tavern. Also, as with the write ups for the Free Town proper, attention is given to important NPC’s here, with full stat blocks. Also given are stat blocks for the defenses and forces any individual villages or thorps can muster. CK’s will not be at a loss for stats at a moment’s notice in this book.
Following the section on Thorps and Villages, we have the Environs Encounter Areas. This section is an odd mix of larger communities, such as the Town of Garham, more Geographical features, such as the Unnamed Island, adventure hooks, and fleshed-out adventure scenarios, like the Mound Island dungeon complex, the Cursed Mine, and the Gnome Burrows.
That’s right…I said fully-fleshed out adventure scenarios. While more than a few of these are classic (though miniature) dungeon crawls, others are wilderness adventures such as saving villages from rampaging brigands, and attempting to establish a base in a haunted wood from which a safe road through can be engineered. Even better, every one of these adventures and adventure hooks are keyed to one, or in most cases several, of the geographic locales listed in Part I, allowing the CK to customize the travels of his party to his own campaign needs. While your beloved reviewer hasn’t read all of these adventure hooks and scenarios in detail, those I have read have all been of uniformly high quality.
Following part three we get to the Appendices.
Appendix A: Developing Yggsburgh gives the CK the tools to build upon the already full framework presented here. It includes floor plans for standard building types in Yggsburgh, discussions of general types of businesses to be found here, property values in the town and surrounding areas, and another brief discussion of Thorps and Villages. Upon reading through this section, I found it a useful resource not only for Yggsburgh, but for developing any medieval fantasy town or city.
Appendix B: is dedicated to Crime and Punishment, and includes a 2-page table with write ups for various types of crimes and their appropriate sentences. The table is both interesting and amusing in places. Treason, for example, carries a penance of hanging, then drawing and quartering. One giggles and wonders what difference it makes if your body is torn apart after you’ve been hung, but so be it. Also interesting is that kidnapping, necromancy, and rape all carry the exact same sentence (Branding and 15 years of penal servitude).
Appendices C and D represent those ever-popular holdouts from our old 1st ed. AD&D Days, Urban and Environs Random Encounters and Events Tables. These encounters are first determined by rolling a d% on the appropriate table, then consulting the entry for the result. Even if you’re not a fan of random encounters, these sections are great because each encounter entry includes more adventure hooks, which are easily built upon to generate an evening’s enjoyment. What’s that? Your players went off on an entirely different path than you’d planned for? Fear not. The game isn’t derailed. A quick roll on the random encounter tables will give you a whole new direction to take the session in.
Appendix E is a quick, page-and-a-half reference guide to local weather, seasons, and domestic animals. Mostly standard fare here.
Appendix F Magic Items and Spells, is an expansion of the appropriate sections in the Players Handbook and Monsters and Treasure. It includes more than three pages of new magic item write ups, from unique creations such as Armbands of the Ape, which increase the wearer’s strength and climbing ability, and the Baton of Surprising Results (roll randomly to see what it does on each use), to more obvious creations such as a Baton of Cold (which casts a Cone of Cold spell). New spells include Animate Rock, Protection from Slumber, and Unseen Scribe. Somewhat discouraging is that Alter Self, which was mentioned in, but (accidentally?) omitted from the PHB, is not added here to correct that oversight.
Appendix G details new monsters native to the Yggsburgh environs. These include staples such as the cave bat, Cyclops, dryad, and Gray dwarf, to giant versions of fish found in Bigfish Lake, to original creations such as Shadow Penumbrates (“semi-corporeal spirits of humans, demi-humans, or humanoids that have been drained of their life energy, yet retain a shadow of life”), Degenerate Pygmies (at last! A monster entry for in-breeders! No, I’m not kidding, either), and Demonic Wights. Some good stuff here.
Appendix H contains new and optional rules for Castles and Crusades. Included here are rules for Socio-economic class standing for Characters, Wear and Tear on weapons and armor, dual- and multi-classing, and a skills system for the game. The chapter closes out with a bit of optional advice for awarding bonus XP. I’ll discuss my favorite and least favorite rules additions below (in “The Good,” and “The Bad,” respectively, and operate on the assumption of some familiarity with C&C by the reader.
Appendix I details the ruling class and orders of battle for Yggsburgh. It is, quite literally, seven pages of stat blocks divided by locale and allegiance. While this may seem somewhat bland, it’s probably the most utilitarian addition to the game, as stats for a first-level fighter crossbowman, for example, can always come in useful. Even the more character-specific stat blocks, such as the 12th-level CE wizard Lord Uvoll, can be quickly modified to represent your archetypal evil sorcerer.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
In this section I’ll break down what I liked, and what problems I had with the work as a whole. Since I’ve done a lot of praise singing in the breakdown above, I won’t spend much time on the Good.
The Good
Detail: I’ve already discussed the detail in which the setting is covered above. This can’t be stressed enough; far too many campaign settings read either like dry history texts or like broad overviews. Zagyg has enough quirks and life to make it fun to read, and yet it concerns itself not only with an overview, but with minute details such as what color sash is in vogue for young men to wear in the streets. It paints a very clear and colorful picture of a classic campaign setting, revamped for the 21st Century.Adventure Hooks: I’ve never seen a campaign setting guide with so many adventure hooks and fully-fleshed out adventures. You could run an entire campaign with this book alone, and indeed, that seems to be the intent.
New Rules: Of the new rules, those I am most likely to use are the rules for wear and tear on armor, which provide “hit points” for suits of armor, based on its AC bonus. When these hit points reach zero, the AC bonus of the armor is reduced by one, and the hit points reset (based on the new AC). Eventually, the AC bonus of the armor reaches zero, at which point it’s useless. Rules are provided, as one would hope, for repairing damage to armor. The system is elegant, fast-playing, and adds a sense of equipment degradation through use that I like.
Room for development: Despite how richly detailed and fleshed out the setting already is, there is still tons of room for further development, as much of the area is still untamed (or simply un-detailed) wilderness. CK’s should be able to let their imaginations run wild with this book in hand.
Generic, yet fresh: It’s strange to say that a 30-year-old campaign setting comes off as fresh, but this really does, and it’s largely due to a combination of the factors I listed above. However, great pains have been taken to make Zagyg generic enough that it can be easily dropped into any campaign setting you wish. For example, where there are temples, they are listed as dedicated to “whatever seafaring or river deity your campaign uses,” rather than to, say, “Poseidon, lord of the seas.”
Ease of Conversion: There’s no reason why this work couldn’t convert to any standard d20/D&D 1, 2, 3.0, or 3.5 edition game on the fly, if you’re willing to convert by the seat of your pants. In fact, I suspect that DMs could use the stat blocks for bad guys as-is, and simply assume skill checks work off of an Attribute check, adding the NPC’s level + 5 to the roll for any skill that NPC would likely have. However, even for DM’s wishing more detailed conversions, such alterations should be very fast and painless, due to the SIEGE Engine’s roots in the d20 system.
Likewise, the SIEGE Engine is basic enough that conversions to Unisystem, HERO System, Savage Worlds, Fudge, GURPS, or whatever your system of choice may be should be fast and relatively painless. The bulk of the work, after all, is detailed setting information. This further increases the utility of the book as a campaign setting guide.
The Bad
Editing and typographical errors: Come on, you knew this was coming. TLG has been accused of having editing problems, just like every other small press company out there. Yggsburgh has more than a few. For example, appendices F and H are reversed in the Table of Contents. Also, the book states that stats for the Lord Mayor of Yggsburgh are included in Appendix I, but they aren’t there (in fact, they aren’t anywhere in the book). Also, in a few places the write-up for the Thieves’ Guild is listed as Encounter 51 or 53, when in fact it is Encounter 52. Finally, in the Geographic Features write ups, there is an entry under each one entitled “Adventures,” which would be better titled “Environs Encounter Area,” and one entitled “Zagyg Adventure Reference,” which would be better entitled “Environs Map and Character Reference.” These latter, however, are my own personal nitpicks.Assumption of familiarity: In certain places, Gygax writes as though talking to the people he’s been GMing for, for 30 years. He assumes more than a passing familiarity with the layout of the land when you go in, or at the very least assumes that you have the map in front of you at all times. This is difficult, given that the map at the back of the book is immense, so it requires a great deal of flipping back and forth to the smaller version on page 23. The same complaint applies when dealing with the city proper and its map on page 36.
Explanations and Writing Style: Gygax, as most of us know, has a reputation for using twenty-dollar words where twenty-cent ones would suffice. Zagyg is no exception. His descriptions in many places could be much clearer and more concise. More than once I found myself having to re-read passages, then consult and re-consult either the maps or the table of contents to understand what he was saying. Also, perhaps not surprisingly, the text reads in some places like it was culled from Gygax’s 30 years of notes (which it was). Sometimes sections start with, “They discover that…” which obviously refers to the PC’s, but which was probably a jotted note for Gygax’s adventure preps years ago and just didn’t get properly fixed. Another testament to this being covered in notes is redundancy in organization. There are no less than four different places where the makeup of a village and thorp is discussed, and while it fits properly in each section, a unified discussion in one place would’ve been much better. I can live with this, being of the understanding that it was in fact culled from decades of notes (I have an image of this dark wood-paneled office with an oak desk and quill pen, with loose-leaf binders stuffed in bookshelves all over the place. The curtains are forest green for some reason, if you care). I am willing to cut the author and publishers slack on this, because of what it is.
No index: The Table of Contents is extremely detailed in Yggsburgh, and that’s a good thing, because there is no index. Due to the detail of the ToC, the work doesn’t necessarily suffer for the lack of an index, but it could be greatly helped by the presence of one.
New Rules: Of the new rules, those I am least fond of are the skills system, which requires characters to spend experience points to gain skills, which in turn grant a +2 bonus per level of the skill to appropriate Attribute Checks. While this seems at first glance to be a fairly elegant solution, the XP cost for skills is, in my opinion, far too high to justify the benefits. Each rank in a skill costs that rank times 3,000 XP, if it is related to a prime attribute. If it’s not attached to any attribute, it’s the rank times 5,000 XP, and if a non-prime skill costs 8,000 XP per level of the skill. Worse, each level must be paid for in full, as characters may only advance one level at a time. This means to get three levels in a skill attached to a non-primary attribute, three expenditures of XP are necessary, totaling 48,000 experience points (8,000 for the first level, 16,000 for level 2, and 24,000 for level 3). This massive expenditure gleans a whopping +6 bonus to Attribute checks associated with that skill. For reference, 48,000 experience points puts a fighter halfway between 6th and 7th level. For those keeping track, that means you’re sacrificing roughly a level’s worth of experience in your class to gain a specialized +2 bonus.
The Ugly
There’s not a lot to gripe about in this section. The cover art by Rick Sardhina and the interior art by Peter Bradley, et. al, are fantastic, both stunning and evocative across the board. The layout is your basic, 2-column, Times-New-Roman, justified setup, with enough spaces left in the margins and between columns to make it easy to read without looking like they padded the blank space. Not flashy, but functional, and that’s the way I like my gaming books.Maps: I had a few problems with the environs map. First, it’s done on a hex grid, which just makes for an ugly looking map. A more artistic one, or one that utilized more traditional cartography one would’ve been appreciated. Worse, there is no scale of distance listed on the map. I had to divine from reading descriptions of areas in the Geographical Features section that each hex equals roughly one hex-mile.
The map of the Free Town of Yggsburgh, on the other hand, is very nice and detailed, though it, too, lacks a scale, and unfortunately, I was unable to divine the scale on this one, though I’m sure there are distances listed somewhere in the Town Area write-ups.
Nothing on Castle Zagyg itself: This supplement merely details the setting and environs of Yggsburgh. It even says specifically that if the party tries to approach Castle Zagyg itself, they will encounter a thick, heavy mist that is impossible to navigate and that “until the proper source material is available, there is nothing there to find except bare rock.” I hesitate to put this in The Bad, because frankly, it’s a cute flavor bit, and if Gygax in further works has an explanation for this, such as having the Castle simply emerge magically out of the fog after being missing for hundreds of years, it’ll be neatly vindicated in true cheesy classic style. For now, though, I think that having at least some starting information on the castle’s outer grounds could’ve been handy.
Adventuring Suggestions: In the foreword, the author suggests starting a group of characters at 3rd to 4th level to adventure in Yggsburgh, and then starting a whole new group to explore Castle Zagyg when the books detailing those ruins come out. I find it difficult to accept that any gaming group will be willing to lay down their 8th and 9th level characters to start all over again when the payoff for the setting (in terms of the castle itself) comes out.
