# Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk - got it!



## catsclaw227 (Aug 13, 2007)

I got my copy of EttRoG on Friday, and I must say that I really LOVE this book.  It's the best of the "Expedition..." series so far, and possible one of WOTC's best in a long time.

I like the way the book was organized, though it is a crossover between a delve format and a traditional format.  A nice mix. It leaves a lot of room for the DM to add sections of the Ruins, and the adventure is fairly open. 

But it was the style, the writing, the homage to the old feel of Greyhawk that really did it for me.

Because it was done by a lot of Paizo guys, it has the quality of an exceptional Dungeon adventure, and these guys really are Greyhawk experts.

Thumbs up guys!  I just wish I was able to get this one signed!


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## Agamon (Aug 13, 2007)

Cool.  I had kinda given up hope on the Expeditions as they seem to have gotten worse and worse with each release.  Being an old-skool Greyhawker, I'll have to check it out.


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## FATDRAGONGAMES (Aug 13, 2007)

I'm looking forward to picking this up at Gen Con.


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## kaomera (Aug 13, 2007)

You know they had me at "Greyhawk", but looking through a fiend's copy (even tho I only got a glance, really) I was really impressed with what I saw. I'm wanting a copy, a lot, I'm just left wondering how I can spin this style of adventure to my players... I don't even really like prolonged dungeon-crawling as a DM anymore, but I know I'm just gonna have to run it...


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## freyar (Aug 13, 2007)

kaomera said:
			
		

> You know they had me at "Greyhawk", but looking through a *fiend's* copy (even tho I only got a glance, really) I was really impressed with what I saw. I'm wanting a copy, a lot, I'm just left wondering how I can spin this style of adventure to my players... I don't even really like prolonged dungeon-crawling as a DM anymore, but I know I'm just gonna have to run it...




Was that a nalfeshnee that had it?  How much of your soul did you have to sell?  

(My bold above.  I know, I shouldn't pick on typos, but I just can't resist this one.  )


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## Dragonhelm (Aug 13, 2007)

Does this product tie into the old Greyhawk Ruins product?


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## Imruphel (Aug 13, 2007)

Are the maps complete?

I only ask because the Undermountain maps stopped short in quite a few places (arghhh... how I regret wasting my money on that product) and I'm hoping this one doesn't have that problem.


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## kaomera (Aug 13, 2007)

freyar said:
			
		

> Was that a nalfeshnee that had it?  How much of your soul did you have to sell?
> 
> (My bold above.  I know, I shouldn't pick on typos, but I just can't resist this one.  )



 Who says it was a typo!



			
				Imruphel said:
			
		

> Are the maps complete?



As I said before, I didn't really give it a complete lookthrough, but the maps I saw where complete and seemed good... Mind you, there where not maps of each and every level (that I saw) in their entirety. There's just too much ground to cover... But IMHO it looked good, mapwise.


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## Greg V (Aug 13, 2007)

I stopped at my FLGS on Friday (that's Fiendish Local Gaming Store, in case you were wondering) and they had the audacity to not sell me a copy.  They told me that they hadn't received it in yet, and swore that there were not copies stored in the back.  Of course, they are fiends so I have my doubts as to their veracity.

I really need this before Gen Con so I can collect some autographs, so I'm bringing in the heavy guns.  I'll be heading back again on Monday with a holy axiomatic Discover Card to see if they can resist my exalted might.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 13, 2007)

Questions:

1) How much takes place in the Free City?

2) Is this similar to EtUndermountain in that it's missions to locations within the ruins, or is it much more of a standard dungeon crawl?

3) What iconics appear in the adventure and what sort of role, generally, do they have?

4) Any new/new-to-this-edition crunch?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 13, 2007)

Hooray for double posts!


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## demiurge1138 (Aug 13, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Questions:
> 
> 1) How much takes place in the Free City?
> 
> ...




1) The Free City gets an entire chapter, and it's expected that the Green Dragon Inn is the home base of the adventurers throughout the module. Side-quests in the Free City occur throughout.

2) It is missions in locations in the ruins, but treats other layers of the dungeon as "wilderness", complete with random encounter tables and a few sample fleshed-out encounters and maps for terrain. An overview of all of the levels of Castle Greyhawk is given, though, with suggestions for what can be found there.

3) Mordenkainen and Robliar are both present in fairly ambiguous roles, and Iuz and Iggwilv are the main antagonists. The adventure also explains why Robilar has been acting "out of character" in Second Edition products, like "From the Ashes".

4) Stats for the aurumvorax and catobolgine demon, and a couple of new magic items.

Demiurge out.


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## DemonKing (Aug 13, 2007)

Imruphel said:
			
		

> Are the maps complete?
> 
> I only ask because the Undermountain maps stopped short in quite a few places (arghhh... how I regret wasting my money on that product) and I'm hoping this one doesn't have that problem.




Get ready for disappointment then...ala Undermountain there is a side cut-out map detailing the various dungeon levels beneath the three towers of Greyhawk ruins (which seem even *more* extensive than those in Undermountain, to me) - but only the ones players are expected to visit for the adventure are fully detailed.

Saying that it looks like a fun adventure where the dungeon adventuring (although extensive) will be broken up by considerable city-based exploration.

The whole thing is certainly drenched with Greyhawk lore though (in fact, it seems like almost anyone who's anyone gets a mention) and there is an opportunity to visit a couple of locations made famous in 1stEd Gary Gygax adventures towards the end of the quest.

There seems to be a good variety of encounters (most from the basic Monster Manual too, which probably evokes the 1st Ed. feel) and not too great a reliance on unusual source material (although I did see one prestige class from Dragon magazine).

BTW Some of the random encounter tables in the lower dungeon levels are not for the faint of heart. 1d4 Liches - ouch!

As far as the original 2nd Ed. Ruins of Greyhawk comparisons go, the basic layout of the towers and dungeon levels seems very similar, as do some of the more memorable dungeon features. Unfortunately I don't have my copy on hand so that's the best I can give you at the moment.

Fortunately it bears no resemblance at all to the 1st Ed. Castle Greyhawk adventure!


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 13, 2007)

Ooh, I've missed the aurumvorax. This sounds like a heck of a good book.

The approach to the dungeon sounds similar to the 3E Undermountain. I suspect the differing expectations will lead to very different reactions this time.


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## meomwt (Aug 13, 2007)

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> 3) Mordenkainen and Robliar are both present in fairly ambiguous roles, and Iuz and Iggwilv are the main antagonists. The adventure also explains why Robilar has been acting "out of character" in Second Edition products, like "From the Ashes".




Without too much of a spoiler, does this volume take Robilar out of The Bright Lands and pull him away from working with Rary?


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## catsclaw227 (Aug 13, 2007)

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> 2) It is missions in locations in the ruins, but treats other layers of the dungeon as "wilderness", complete with random encounter tables and a few sample fleshed-out encounters and maps for terrain. An overview of all of the levels of Castle Greyhawk is given, though, with suggestions for what can be found there.




This is a pretty spot on two sentence description of the way the ruins are set up. I am going to really go through it  --more than a skim -- tonight after work.


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## Shadeydm (Aug 13, 2007)

Deleted useless post.


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## RatPunk (Aug 13, 2007)

Greg V said:
			
		

> I stopped at my FLGS on Friday (that's Fiendish Local Gaming Store, in case you were wondering) and they had the audacity to not sell me a copy.  They told me that they hadn't received it in yet, and swore that there were not copies stored in the back.  Of course, they are fiends so I have my doubts as to their veracity.




Well, the actual street date of the book is tomorrow, so its a good possibility they weren't lying to you.


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## catsclaw227 (Aug 13, 2007)

RatPunk said:
			
		

> Well, the actual street date of the book is tomorrow, so its a good possibility they weren't lying to you.



That's what I thought. I wonder why buy.com shipped mine out (standard shipping) and got it to me by last Friday?

Usually they ship things out on release date -- generally Tuesdays.


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## TerraDave (Aug 13, 2007)

They finally have a decent preview:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070812a

But it would be great to hear more from those lucky few that have it.


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## green slime (Aug 13, 2007)

Arrgggghhhhhh!!!

My wallet is trying to resist!

I ask you to cease and desist with this campaign of torture against my monetary means!


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## grodog (Aug 13, 2007)

I ran around on Saturday trying to find a copy, but neither my FLGS nor the local big-box bookstores had it in stock yet (FLGS said on Monday/Tuesday).  I may order mine from Amazon and have it delivered to my GenCon hotel, since I also want to have it signed while there, but if they don't ship Atlas' GenCon history book until Thursday, too, then I'll likely miss it.  Hmph....


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## demiurge1138 (Aug 13, 2007)

meomwt said:
			
		

> Without too much of a spoiler, does this volume take Robilar out of The Bright Lands and pull him away from working with Rary?



Yes.

Demiurge out.


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## TerraDave (Aug 13, 2007)

From Monte Cooks blog



> Expedition to Castle Greyhawk: I got this over the weekend as a part of my WotC loot and couldn't put it down. I'm a sucker for this kind of super old school nostalgia, and this is pretty much exactly fits the bill. It's a nice blending of intricate story and dungeon exploration.


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## Razz (Aug 13, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Ooh, I've missed the aurumvorax. This sounds like a heck of a good book.




You know, WotC did the 3E stats to this creature long ago on their website: AURUMVORAX 

It's 3.0 stats, but it can easily be 3.5E modified.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 13, 2007)

Razz said:
			
		

> You know, WotC did the 3E stats to this creature long ago on their website: AURUMVORAX
> 
> It's 3.0 stats, but it can easily be 3.5E modified.



Yes, I know.

As has been mentioned on innumerable Gleemax/DI threads, some folks just want their stuff in hard copy form.


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## Lidgar (Aug 13, 2007)

I read about half of it in detail over the weekend and found it to be (so far) the best product WotC has put out since at least RHoD. Great production, and very good maps. Not a fan of Delve format, but they do a better job than some in detailing the chapters as a story so you do not have to refer to the actual encounter details to get the story and plot elements. The stat blocks contain some small errors, and I wished that they included a larger overview map that exactly shows the relationship between the City and the Castle instead of a verbal description (although it does include a City map with a description of each district - including details for side quests - which is awesome). I instead relied on my Dungeon Magazine Greyhawk maps to get a better idea of the surroundings outside of the City. As said previously, the amount of Greyhawk lore - old and new (including paizo's adventure paths) - that have been either strongly or incidentally tied in is astounding, and quite fun. On a side note, if you own the 2nd edition version (which had awful maps), you could use those for the "filler" levels to add more to the dungeon "wilderness". It also makes a great precursor to Maure Castle, as the characters should be 12th-13th when done and have had some interaction with a group that is also involved with that adventure...


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## Truth Seeker (Aug 13, 2007)

I will be buying that, at Gen Con.


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## Doug McCrae (Aug 13, 2007)

I was wanting to buy this and it looks interesting but it seems to have an awful lot of plot. I'd prefer more straight dungeon and less 'and then the Iggwilv simulacrum runs off and the PCs have to hunt her down'.


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## Raven Crowking (Aug 13, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> As has been mentioned on innumerable Gleemax/DI threads, some folks just want their stuff in hard copy form.




I believe you'll find the golden gorger in the Tomb of Horrors, where it is OGL to boot.

RC


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## Wolfspider (Aug 13, 2007)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I believe you'll find the golden gorger in the Tomb of Horrors, where it is OGL to boot.
> 
> RC




You mean "Tome of Horrors," right?  Is it in the first one?


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## Raven Crowking (Aug 13, 2007)

Wolfspider said:
			
		

> You mean "Tome of Horrors," right?  Is it in the first one?





D'oh!

Yes, that is what I mean.  And, while I don't have my Tome in front of me at the moment, I believe it is in #1.  

Now, when is that 3.5 print update coming out?   

RC


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## Greg V (Aug 13, 2007)

RatPunk said:
			
		

> Well, the actual street date of the book is tomorrow, so its a good possibility they weren't lying to you.





But...but...they're fiendish...and I...but...


I reject your refusal to believe this somehow involves a Lower Planes conspiracy against me.


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## kaomera (Aug 14, 2007)

You know, what I would sell my soul* for would be a poster-sized copy of the map of the City of Greyhawk (preferably sans notation). Even a good-sized version in the map previews (nudge-nudge, hint-hint) would be awesome...

(*provided it could pass the title search; fat lot of chance that...  )


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Aug 14, 2007)

If the dungeon design and Greyhawk lore are on par with the "Trasures of the Company of Seven" feature in Dragon #359, this will be an awesoe product.

I've already failed my saving throw to _resist purchase_.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 14, 2007)

It's going to take some conversion (more than even Undermountain), but I'm definitely getting this and converting it for Ptolus. If anyone cares, I'll post the conversion notes at Delver's Square.


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## theredrobedwizard (Aug 14, 2007)

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> 1)... aurumvorax ...




Glee!  Glee to the max, even.

-TRRW


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## Razz (Aug 14, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Yes, I know.
> 
> As has been mentioned on innumerable Gleemax/DI threads, some folks just want their stuff in hard copy form.




True. But even if it's free online? I, for one, am glad not many of their web articles made it into print. I'd hate to pay for something I just printed for free on their website. Defeats the purpose of posting it on their site for free.

Though, of course, there hasn't been any decent crunch in 3 years on their site and it won't be free anymore thanks to DI.


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## Wolfspider (Aug 14, 2007)

Razz said:
			
		

> True. But even if it's free online? I, for one, am glad not many of their web articles made it into print. I'd hate to pay for something I just printed for free on their website. Defeats the purpose of posting it on their site for free.
> 
> Though, of course, there hasn't been any decent crunch in 3 years on their site and it won't be free anymore thanks to DI.




I remember reading somewhere that there will still be free material available on the WotC website even after the DI begins.


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## Ron (Aug 14, 2007)

demiurge1138 said:
			
		

> [...] The adventure also explains why Robilar has been acting "out of character" in Second Edition products, like "From the Ashes".




Oh no, I hate retcons such as this. Kuntz might not liked the direction Robilar has taken in the late TSR years but it was not inconsistent.

As much as I like most of 3.x Greyhawk products, I kind of disapointed with the editorial choices. It seems that they are doing, in the best Marvel comics style, a return to the original setting by undoing all modifications introduced later. I think it is kind of boring to have a setting that refuses to change.


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## joshhg (Aug 14, 2007)

Oh, sounds nice. *Reads excerpts* If anyone has both this and Dungeon #150, could you compare the two traps?


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## Erik Mona (Aug 14, 2007)

Ron said:
			
		

> As much as I like most of 3.x Greyhawk products, I kind of disapointed with the editorial choices. It seems that they are doing, in the best Marvel comics style, a return to the original setting by undoing all modifications introduced later. I think it is kind of boring to have a setting that refuses to change.




With respect, I think that's bogus. The setting has changed plenty in thirty years. The Scarlet Brotherhood was completely exposed, almost all of the decent chaotic neutral nations were wiped out, almost all of the rulers have changed from the original iteration, and the campaign setting has more or less taken it in stride.

Robilar's betrayal of his best friend Mordenkainen _was_ out of character, and has never been adequately described. Rary's motives were given a minute's attention in a product farmed out to a random freelancer, and thus was born yet another pointless fault line in Greyhawk's fandom. There is no reason for past hackwork to intentionally piss off the people who created the campaign setting. It's bad business, for one.

I tried to add a spin to the Robilar plot that allowed the setting to reclaim one of its most important characters in a way that purges lame backstory and moves the setting forward at the same time.

To stick with your comics analogy, splitting Superman into red and blue electricity twins might be an interesting storyline for a while, but eventually you get him back into the costume that people are interested in and that stays true to the roots of the character.

--Erik


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## Mouseferatu (Aug 14, 2007)

Erik,

I haven't read more than about 40 pages into it, but so far, I'm really digging it. If the quality keeps up, this may supplant EtCR as my favorite "Expedition" book to date.

If I had one wish for the book, though, it would've been for a section in the intro that gave an overview of each of the "side quests" from beginning to end. I love the fact that each individual location entry has the related side quest info attached, but for a potential DM reading through it for the first time, it's a little hard to keep track of what some of them mean.

Any chance I could talk you (or James, or Jason) into proposing such an accessory to WotC as a web enhancement? 

(And yes, so far that's my _only_ real complaint, and I consider it a minor one. Kudos to all three of you.)


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## Lidgar (Aug 14, 2007)

Erik,
While we are at it...how constrained were you with the maps and space? It really seems like in some areas - the upper level of the War Tower being an example - where it looked like you guys really wanted to include more but had to go with a constrained map and verbal descriptions. I sometimes miss the days of poster maps - a royal treatment of the Ruins ala the original Undermountain (i.e., map only and no descriptions except for the areas as described) would have been almost too good (especially since the 2e version choked so badly in this regard - shade for elevations but no grid? Come on!). On the whole, this is some fantastic work however. You and the crew did Greyhawk, and D&D, one heck of a favor. Thanks!


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## James Jacobs (Aug 14, 2007)

The only thing that constrained us was the word count of the book. The folks at WotC basically told us how long the book was, gave us a rough draft outline, and then basically said, "Do what you want with this." So we pretty much knew how much room we had going in and wrote an adventure that filled that space. It was still tough, though. I would have LOVED to include many more levels... to basically start the adventure at 1st level and go up to 14th and where it ends as printed, but that not only would have made for a MUCH larger book... we wouldn't have had the time to write it in the first place.

And we did at first want to include a "Side Quest Tracker" of some sort in the book to help DMs keep track of everything, but that was one of those things we gave up on for lack of space. I do believe, though, that there may be a web enhancement along those lines already lined up, but it just hasn't been posted yet.


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## Mouseferatu (Aug 14, 2007)

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> And we did at first want to include a "Side Quest Tracker" of some sort in the book to help DMs keep track of everything, but that was one of those things we gave up on for lack of space. I do believe, though, that there may be a web enhancement along those lines already lined up, but it just hasn't been posted yet.




Excellent.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 14, 2007)

Razz said:
			
		

> But even if it's free online?



Web pages vanish. Hard drives crash. Writable CD-ROMs eventually fade into unreadable ones and zeros.

A well-preserved book, though, is forever.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 14, 2007)

Can anyone spoil what the other demiplanes included are, other than the Isle of the Ape? I'm guessing one is Dungeonland, but I can't think of what the third might be.

And how much of a write-up does each get?

I'm thinking Goodman Games' Forest of Lanterns might fit nicely in here as well.


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## Jason Bulmahn (Aug 14, 2007)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Erik,
> 
> I haven't read more than about 40 pages into it, but so far, I'm really digging it. If the quality keeps up, this may supplant EtCR as my favorite "Expedition" book to date.
> 
> ...




Although James beat me to it, there is indeed a web enhancement on the way for the Side Treks in this adventure. I had a blast putting them together (and adding a few new ones too).

To everybody else, I am really quite pleased at the great response this book is getting. It was really tough making a book that lived up to expectations in the limited amount of space we had to play with.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager


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## Mouseferatu (Aug 14, 2007)

IuztheEvil said:
			
		

> Although James beat me to it, there is indeed a web enhancement on the way for the Side Treks in this adventure. I had a blast putting them together (and adding a few new ones too).r




Looking forward to it. And I'm glad you guys thought to put such a thing together. 

You know, I could easily see further expansions on the levels of Castle Greyhawk serving as adventures in their own right, sort of like you guys did with expansions to Maure Castle. 

(And kudos again. There are very few modern modules on which I feel the burning urge to expand.  Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that...)


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## meomwt (Aug 14, 2007)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Robilar's betrayal of his best friend Mordenkainen _was_ out of character, and has never been adequately described. Rary's motives were given a minute's attention in a product farmed out to a random freelancer, and thus was born yet another pointless fault line in Greyhawk's fandom. There is no reason for past hackwork to intentionally piss off the people who created the campaign setting. It's bad business, for one.




Whilst I can understand your frustration with the way both Rary and Robilar were portrayed in the post-_Greyhawk Wars_ era, the defection of an arch-mage and a powerful warrior was a powerful way to illustrate the change in the game-world. Agreed, Rary's motives (the search for knowledge in the Bright Desert) are somewhat sketchy, and the location of the Scorpion Crown should be easy for him to discover, but it also provides a focus for changes in the dynamic around the Abbor-Alz/ Cairn Hills regions. 



			
				Erik Mona said:
			
		

> I tried to add a spin to the Robilar plot that allowed the setting to reclaim one of its most important characters in a way that purges lame backstory and moves the setting forward at the same time.




Its certainly a good thing to do, and piques my interest for certain (not that I wasn't going to buy this adventure, but still   ). The return of Robilar "to the fold" will definately stir things up and make Rary's plans in The Bright Desert more tenuous. 

Of course, as my Greyhawk campaigns are still immediately post-_From the Ashes_ (CY588 in my latest game), it might be a while for this plot to kick in...

Anyway, I'm looking forward to picking this one up when it makes it over the pond.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 14, 2007)

*moan*

... going into ... preview ... withdrawal ...


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## demiurge1138 (Aug 14, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Can anyone spoil what the other demiplanes included are, other than the Isle of the Ape? I'm guessing one is Dungeonland, but I can't think of what the third might be.
> 
> And how much of a write-up does each get?
> 
> I'm thinking Goodman Games' Forest of Lanterns might fit nicely in here as well.



Only two are truly demiplanes, although the Isle of the Ape has a "surprise" demiplane hidden inside it. The three featured planes are the Isle of the Ape (not nearly as bastardly as the original - PCs are still hot and diseased, but their equipment doesn't melt), Dungeonland, and Hollow's Heart, the layer of the Abyss belonging to Fraz'ub'uluu. 

The surprise demiplane is 



Spoiler



the Spheres of Thought, which is part of Zagyg's divine conciousness


.

Demiurge out.


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## Shemeska (Aug 14, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Can anyone spoil what the other demiplanes included are, other than the Isle of the Ape?




Just because I know they're Erik's favorite demiplanes of all time, I'm absolutely certain that he would have included the Demiplane of Inferior Construction Materials, the Demiplane of Flowers and Other Green Things, and IIRC a Demiplane of Silly and Unused Monsters.



*ducks and runs from Mona*


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## Erik Mona (Aug 14, 2007)

meomwt said:
			
		

> Whilst I can understand your frustration with the way both Rary and Robilar were portrayed in the post-_Greyhawk Wars_ era, the defection of an arch-mage and a powerful warrior was a powerful way to illustrate the change in the game-world. Agreed, Rary's motives (the search for knowledge in the Bright Desert) are somewhat sketchy, and the location of the Scorpion Crown should be easy for him to discover, but it also provides a focus for changes in the dynamic around the Abbor-Alz/ Cairn Hills regions.




Nothing that we did in this book invalidates anything in this paragraph at all.

FYI. 

--Erik


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## T. Foster (Aug 14, 2007)

So, here's the big question (at least for me): for someone who doesn't play 3E D&D (never has) and who hasn't been following and couldn't care less about Greyhawk "canon" from 1987 on (as far as I'm concerned Rary was a joke-name character created by Brian Blume who was only played in a handful of sessions and never did anything significant), but who's a big fan of the old Gygax-Kuntz Greyhawk and loves reading stories about folks in Lake Geneva plumbing the depths of this Castle back in the early 70s, is this book a worthwhile purchase? In other words, does the Castle as described in this module feel more like the stories from the 70s or like the (ultra-lame) 2E _Greyhawk Ruins_ (I realize that the 3-tower structure comes from the latter; I'm more concerned with what lies underneath that...)?


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## haakon1 (Aug 14, 2007)

Ron said:
			
		

> As much as I like most of 3.x Greyhawk products, I kind of disapointed with the editorial choices. It seems that they are doing, in the best Marvel comics style, a return to the original setting by undoing all modifications introduced later. I think it is kind of boring to have a setting that refuses to change.




Yes undoing FtA would be like having Han Solo shoot first again . . .


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## haakon1 (Aug 14, 2007)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> To stick with your comics analogy, splitting Superman into red and blue electricity twins might be an interesting storyline for a while, but eventually you get him back into the costume that people are interested in and that stays true to the roots of the character.




Greyhawk without 2nd edition randomizations is like Superman without the Wonder Twins as sidekicks.

To mix cartoons:

"Form of . . . an ice gazebo!"  -- Wonder Twin

"I waste it with my crossbow."  -- Erik Mona as a Knight of the Dinner Table, restoring all that is right and just in Greyhawk


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Aug 15, 2007)

I saw it at Barnes and Noble, I failed my Will save. It's in my hands and I've read it through twice now.


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## grodog (Aug 15, 2007)

I just picked mine up @ B&N too, and hope to read some on the plane tomorrow.  I still have to finish some pregen PCs, so I'm back to that


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## T. Foster (Aug 15, 2007)

grodog said:
			
		

> I just picked mine up @ B&N too, and hope to read some on the plane tomorrow.  I still have to finish some pregen PCs, so I'm back to that



 I'll expect a detailed and spoiler-laden review as soon as you're able to get to it, Allan


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## Lidgar (Aug 15, 2007)

James Jacobs said:
			
		

> The only thing that constrained us was the word count of the book. The folks at WotC basically told us how long the book was, gave us a rough draft outline, and then basically said, "Do what you want with this." So we pretty much knew how much room we had going in and wrote an adventure that filled that space. It was still tough, though. I would have LOVED to include many more levels... to basically start the adventure at 1st level and go up to 14th and where it ends as printed, but that not only would have made for a MUCH larger book... we wouldn't have had the time to write it in the first place.




Your desire to do more with it oozes from the pages. That not to say it isn't excellent as is; it is, as another poster said, the exact feel I got when reading the first installment of Maure Castle, only more so. I have been referencing the 2e edition while reading it and think the changes you made have been fantastic (although making an improvement to the "clown face adventure" would not have been a hugely difficult task). Reading it this way also allows some of the off-map areas to be "completed", while spurring the imagination of what may now lurk there based on the original inhabitants and the changes over the past 20 years. Thanks again!


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## Mortellan (Aug 15, 2007)

Excellent book. Insidious subplots. Good NPCs. A must buy. My only gripe is the linear storyline that dictates what order you explore the tower-dungeons in. I'm sure that will be a point of contention with my players and others out there.


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## grodog (Aug 15, 2007)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> I'll expect a detailed and spoiler-laden review as soon as you're able to get to it, Allan




I had hoped to have one done prior to the show, but I wasn't able to get the book early, and I'm leaving for the airport in 2 hours, during which I really should get at least a little sleep....


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## meomwt (Aug 15, 2007)

grodog said:
			
		

> I'm leaving for the airport in 2 hours, during which I really should get at least a little sleep....




Sleep is for tortoises!

Enjoy the show. And be sure to give us your thoughts on the module when you get a chance.


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## catsclaw227 (Aug 15, 2007)

Mortellan said:
			
		

> My only gripe is the linear storyline that dictates what order you explore the tower-dungeons in. I'm sure that will be a point of contention with my players and others out there.



I can see this, only I imagine that it won't be too hard to "direct" them down a path so that they acutally choose the correct tower-dungeon order.


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## Sunderstone (Aug 15, 2007)

A big hearty thank you to Erik, James, and Jason. 
I just picked it up today. After flipping through it for about 40 min so far, this is by far one of the best books to come out since 3E. I see some characters of old with Iggwilv (one of my old favorites) and Robilar mixed with newer NPC's like Tirra. 
If every book from WotC was this good, I would be broke by now. 

I hope WotC takes notice of what appears to be a well received book and allows the above authors to finally do a Greyhawk Campaign Setting HC. I can wish for this at least cant I?   


For me, the Paizo AP folks have already become my favorite writers/designers. Any future products coming from WotC with their names on it will get my attention and likely wind up purchased. You folks have managed to bring back the "old feel of D&D" back to my table. Thanks again.


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## heirodule (Aug 15, 2007)

Got mine yesterday.

Very cool. I like the encounter format, and am happy. I just wish I was at Gencon to get it autographed. I'll have to keep it pristine for Origins 2008 I guess

I like how all the environments are dynamic

Can anyone offer a justifcation for one of the "dynamic" environments in Encounter map 1-1?

(REALLY minor spoiler, feel free to read)



Spoiler



There is a, oh 20' wide apparently stone bridge, with two 15' wide balustrades on either side 

The texts says the bridge is stable to cross, but that *combat* on the bridge needs a DC 10 balance check or you fall into the gorge      

Um, even standing in the middle of the bridge with 25' between you and the edge, and a balustrade?


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## bento (Aug 15, 2007)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> A well-preserved book, though, is forever.



And books can get swiped from an unlocked car!


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 15, 2007)

bento said:
			
		

> And books can get swiped from an unlocked car!



I hope whoever steals it enjoys it, since it will still last longer than a PDF burned to a writable CD.


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## Shade (Aug 15, 2007)

Erik mentioned awhile back about trying to work some old monsters from Dragon called mapmakers into this book.  Did they make it in?


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## Vocenoctum (Aug 15, 2007)

Shade said:
			
		

> Erik mentioned awhile back about trying to work some old monsters from Dragon called mapmakers into this book.  Did they make it in?




I haven't gotten far, but don't see it. Certainly not a full writeup like Aurumvorax.


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## demiurge1138 (Aug 16, 2007)

Shade said:
			
		

> Erik mentioned awhile back about trying to work some old monsters from Dragon called mapmakers into this book.  Did they make it in?



In the Mage's Guild section of the adventure, there's a reference to mapmakers, but no actual stats.

Demiurge out.


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## Vocenoctum (Aug 16, 2007)

I got it today, read some during Laundry Duty.

It's fun so far, and something about it has more of an "old school" feel. Not as quantifiable perhaps as anything else, and just an opinion. (And not "old school" like Necromancers "old school", which I hated.)


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## Lidgar (Aug 16, 2007)

heirodule said:
			
		

> Got mine yesterday.
> 
> Can anyone offer a justifcation for one of the "dynamic" environments in Encounter map 1-1?
> 
> ...




Response below:


Spoiler



I noticed that too and decided I would ignore the Balance check unless they were fighting _on_ the balustrades. One could also assume that the balustrades were also pretty low; maybe a foot high, but it still makes no sense if you are near the middle of the bridge.


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## Erik Mona (Aug 16, 2007)

heirodule said:
			
		

> The texts says the bridge is stable to cross, but that *combat* on the bridge needs a DC 10 balance check or you fall into the gorge
> 
> Um, even standing in the middle of the bridge with 25' between you and the edge, and a balustrade?[/spoiler]




Yeah, I wrote the encounter and even I went "huh?" when I read that. I dimly recall adding a note like that if you were fighting on the raised edges of the bridge, but I want to check my turnover to see if I was really so dumb as to require Balance checks for fighting anywhere on the bridge. Given the width of the (huge) bridge, that'd be pretty stupid.

--Erik


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## catsclaw227 (Aug 16, 2007)

/threadjack

Erik - the 4e cat is out of the bag (screen-caps, wiz_o admin forums, etc).  Can you go into the big 4e thread and comment on Pathfinder, Gamemastery or Paizo?


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## Erik Mona (Aug 16, 2007)

I'm pretty confident that the original turnover called for Balance checks on the Balustrades only. When I got to that part I went "huh?", and I'm the guy who wrote the encounter.

I certainly wouldn't call for balance checks in the middle of the bridge.

--Erik


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## Erik Mona (Aug 16, 2007)

catsclaw227 said:
			
		

> /threadjack
> 
> Erik - the 4e cat is out of the bag (screen-caps, wiz_o admin forums, etc).  Can you go into the big 4e thread and comment on Pathfinder, Gamemastery or Paizo?




Not yet. I need to talk to a few people here at the show before I can say anything, let alone anything conclusive.

Stay tuned.

Back to Castle Greyhawk....

--Erik


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## catsclaw227 (Aug 16, 2007)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Back to Castle Greyhawk....
> 
> --Erik




And as the OP... I say THANK YOU!  I really love this book.


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## Nyarlathotep (Aug 16, 2007)

I got this and EtCR from Amazon a couple of days ago and just sat down to start reading it. First impressions are: I'm too old school and find the new Delve format hard to read. That said, I'm really impressed with the first chapter of the book. I like the opportunities for RP encounters, locations and side quests offered. Flipping through the book, I really liked seeing the guy who's name I forget from Age of Worms appear, nice tie in!

On the map of the city where would the arena from Belt of Champions be located? The big colliseum-like building with the letter C on top of it?

Kudos on a great product!


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## T. Foster (Aug 16, 2007)

Gave this a quick flip-through at Border's today. On the one hand it looks like the designers achieved pretty much exactly what they set out to do -- a big epic adventure set mostly in and around a version of Greyhawk Castle that incorporates tons of Greyhawk-lore while remaining true to "official Greyhawk canon." Alas, that's not what I would've wanted (essentially as complete and faithful a recreation as possible of the original 70s-era Castle and Dungeons, relying on printed legends, public knowledge (and perhaps some private knowledge from Rob Kuntz -- EGG himself, sadly, is probably hording his private knowledge since he's planning to publish his own remake/remodel version of the Castle)), and therefore I wasn't even tempted to actually buy the book. No hard feelings, I'm not going to denounce this book as teh crap!!1! or anything, and in fact it's pretty much exactly what I expected it to be -- I was just hoping to be pleasantly surprised...


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## RichGreen (Aug 16, 2007)

This books sounds great and it's out today in the UK! It must be mine!


Richard


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## TerraDave (Aug 17, 2007)

Something NOT 4thed related on the D&D website (if you can get to it)

A web enhancement: more side quests.


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## EricNoah (Aug 19, 2007)

I saw this in the store today and it was all I could do to resit picking it up.  I'll put it on some wishlist and maybe see it for a birthday or Christmas...


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## Alaric_Prympax (Aug 19, 2007)

EricNoah said:
			
		

> I saw this in the store today and it was all I could do to resit picking it up.  I'll put it on some wishlist and maybe see it for a birthday or Christmas...




I guess you made your will save then.  I on the other hand failed mine and am waiting for my order from Buy.com to arrive.  I got that and Necro's _City of Brass_, with no shipping cost the combination of the two products made it cheaper then anywhere else I could find them.


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## Pants (Aug 19, 2007)

Been reading through it lately, but man, this is easily the best of the Expedition series, bar none. I really like how old-schooly the module feels while still sticking with the 3e sensibilities. 

I really want to run this now.


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## Erik Mona (Aug 19, 2007)

T. Foster said:
			
		

> Gave this a quick flip-through at Border's today. On the one hand it looks like the designers achieved pretty much exactly what they set out to do -- a big epic adventure set mostly in and around a version of Greyhawk Castle that incorporates tons of Greyhawk-lore while remaining true to "official Greyhawk canon." Alas, that's not what I would've wanted (essentially as complete and faithful a recreation as possible of the original 70s-era Castle and Dungeons, relying on printed legends, public knowledge (and perhaps some private knowledge from Rob Kuntz -- EGG himself, sadly, is probably hording his private knowledge since he's planning to publish his own remake/remodel version of the Castle)), and therefore I wasn't even tempted to actually buy the book. No hard feelings, I'm not going to denounce this book as teh crap!!1! or anything, and in fact it's pretty much exactly what I expected it to be -- I was just hoping to be pleasantly surprised...




Actually, with a few exceptions like the "godtrap" the Isle of the Ape and Dungeonland (the latter two of which we adapted from existing material), the goal was to specifically avoid some of these "classic" levels, so that those who want to can use our framework and insert the "genuine" levels from Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax as needed. Why come to the three of us when you can get the real deal direct from the source?

--Erik


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## soulcatcher78 (Aug 19, 2007)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Actually, with a few exceptions like the "godtrap" the Isle of the Ape and Dungeonland (the latter two of which we adapted from existing material), the goal was to specifically avoid some of these "classic" levels, so that those who want to can use our framework and insert the "genuine" levels from Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax as needed. Why come to the three of us when you can get the real deal direct from the source?
> 
> --Erik




Thank you.  That was quite possibly the coolest thing I've read on a gaming forum recently and might have just pushed me into wanting to buy the book.

I'm just getting impatient waiting for Castle Zagyg to be released so this might just hold me over with the included material and maybe adding some things from EtUM to fill it up.


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## Jared Rascher (Aug 19, 2007)

As someone that is normally a Forgotten Realms fan, but who was a player in several long running Greyhawk games when I was a younger man  (including playing my character from 1st edition in Fate of Istus into 2nd edition), and one that remembers From the Ashes, I have to say that I was really impressed with this adventure, and I have to commend all the Paizonians involved in pulling off a Greyhawk fix similar to the wonderful fixes that people like Eric Boyd have pulled off for us Realms fans several times.


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## Agamon (Aug 19, 2007)

Going to grab this tomorrow.  Looks awesome.  Doubt I'll get a chance to play for quite a while, though.


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## kaomera (Aug 19, 2007)

Picked it up today... Awesomeness... Can't post more, gotta go cuddle... er, _read_ the damn thing!


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## T. Foster (Aug 19, 2007)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Actually, with a few exceptions like the "godtrap" the Isle of the Ape and Dungeonland (the latter two of which we adapted from existing material), the goal was to specifically avoid some of these "classic" levels, so that those who want to can use our framework and insert the "genuine" levels from Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax as needed. Why come to the three of us when you can get the real deal direct from the source?
> 
> --Erik



 Thanks for the explanation. It's cool to hear that you guys actually made a conscious effort to as much as possible not step on Gary and Rob's toes.


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## haakon1 (Aug 19, 2007)

I got it on Thursday . . . haven't had time to read much, but it looks very good.

Most of the adventures I buy I just read and reject from playing for one reason or another (the primary reason being that I don't play too often).  This I want to find a time and a way to play through . . .


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## howandwhy99 (Aug 19, 2007)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Actually, with a few exceptions like the "godtrap" the Isle of the Ape and Dungeonland (the latter two of which we adapted from existing material), the goal was to specifically avoid some of these "classic" levels, so that those who want to can use our framework and insert the "genuine" levels from Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax as needed. Why come to the three of us when you can get the real deal direct from the source?
> 
> --Erik



Another big thanks from me too.


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## Zald (Aug 20, 2007)

*Ruins of Castle Greyhawk ---> Expedition to...*

So here's the deal:  I have run the 2E Ruins a few times over the years, but never got to finish it with my players because of groups breaking up, etc.  Well, I'm finally in a very stable group, and planned to convert it to 3.5 to run.  Then I heard about Expedition, so I waited to see how it was.
Now that I have it, I really like it, but I'm not sure what to do.  I really want to run a wider range of levels, essentially making it a whole campaign.  I see two choices for combining the products:  As was mentioned, the 2E version can be used to flush out the new one.  The problem here is that I don't know if I can expand the character level range enough.  The other option is to use the new product as a conversion guide for the old one, but I'll have to drop almost anything related to the new plotline.
I haven't fully read through Expedition yet (nor re-read the old one again) so I know I have a lot of work to do yet.  I'm just wondering if anyone has an keen ideas about this.


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## haakon1 (Aug 21, 2007)

Zald, use other adventures as a lead in . . . 

You could follow the Age of Worms adventure path, altering it to lead another way, perhaps.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 21, 2007)

Zald, you could take Expedition to Undermountain, change a few names and use that as lower character level sections of the ruins.


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## grodog (Aug 21, 2007)

Zald:  you could also slot in levels from Maure Castle, EX1/EX2/WG6, the older GH Ruins product, RJK's recent Bottle City and Living Room adventures (from PPP---both originated in Castle Greyhawk), EGG's Castle Zagyg from TLG, and you could make up your own stuff, too.  And that's just touching on GH without pulling in FR or material from other settings (not counting the Fireplace levels from Undermount in Dungeon, the Undermountain box set, Rappan Athuk, etc., etc.).

You've got a LOT of options in building out Castle Greyhawk!


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## soulcatcher78 (Aug 22, 2007)

Just started reading it and I have to say, it sounds great so far.  I think I'll be giving it a C&C overhaul (since I don't have the time to learn/find a 3.5 group) for my upcoming campaign (in case Zagyg doesn't make it out in time, or incorporate the two together if it does since the first book should be lower level stuff anyway).  The maps are absolutely fantastic BTW, got them downloaded from WotC and ready to head off to the work printer so I can draw and make notes on them!

Checked out the free DL for the Pathfinder stuff and from what I read about it, it's looking fantastic as well.  To much good material and too little time to game...where're my winning lotto numbers?d


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## SoccerRef73 (Aug 22, 2007)

Greetings...

I own every D&D product that Wizards of the Coast has produced since the advent of 3rd Edition and in my opinion "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk" is the single best "official" adventure that has been released for the 3.0 / 3.5 line.  "Red Hand of Doom" was my favorite up until now, with "Bastion of Broken Souls" in first place before that, but this one tops them both and takes the prize.

I've pretty much decided that I do not like the new "Delve" format for adventure encounters very much, or at least I don't like the way it's generally been used.  I think it has a tendency to constrain encounter design in a number of very undesirable ways unless the author works very hard to overcome its limitations.  I also think it chews up way too much of the total page count to justify what benefits it does provide (and, to be fair, it is not entirely without merit, and certain types of encounters do work well with it).  Given a choice between the old (pre-Delve) format and the new Delve format I have yet to see a product from WotC that would cause me to choose the new format.

However, the authors of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk managed to make the new format as painless as possible while still including a ton of story and other types of encounters within the adventure text.  Calling out specific side quests was a nice addition to the overall Expedition adventure format.  The "railroading" elements that force (or at least expect) the PCs to explore the dungeon in a certain order were, I thought, handled with a very light touch that in the hands of a good GM should be completely invisible to the players.  The mixture of material on the Free City and the Castle's dungeons was just right.  

Even the use of the Delve format in this product mostly worked for me, because (thankfully) they didn't burn off 2/3 of the page count on the encounter layouts but rather left it up to the DM to fill in many of the obvious combats. They also featured larger, tactically interesting encounter areas and did some creative things with the stat blocks (such as making the three "proctors" different within the context of a single base creature).  The spread on pages 104-105 is a great example of how the new format can be used to create an encounter that is more than just "one room with monsters in it."  Page 106 shows that you can use the new format for something other than a straight-up fight.  (I'll bet a beer that Jason Bulmahn did that one, since it looks very much like an abbreviated version of a fun chase scene from the Greyhawk adventure "Mad God's Key" that appeared in Dungeon Magazine.) 

There were a couple of strange choices (such as the 20ft. square encounter area on page 79 in which the PCs are supposed to face a Large invisible foe with a base move of 40ft. ... huh?) but overall the battle areas were good-sized and interesting.  I think one of the biggest weaknesses in 3.5 adventure design is that so many of the "cool" monsters are Large-sized, and many of the PCs' best combat tactics require them to "get big" as well, but most of the battle maps do not take 10ft. square creatures into account, resulting in painfully cramped combat spaces.  Whether it is historically accurate or not, D&D combats seem to need to take place in large open areas or else they simply do not work very well. (There are obviously exceptions to this, but as a rule, I would favor larger combat zones over smaller ones.) For the most part, Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk seems to agree with this philosophy, and it provides suitably-large encounter areas to accommodate both the foes that are included and the player characters.

The way they treated the dungeon levels that did not get full write-ups as a "wilderness" (while still providing four non-trivial "random" adventure areas, complete with maps, suitable for customizing by the DM and doing so in an impressively small amount of space) was very clever.  I was rather skeptical of this when I first heard about it (before I got my copy of the book) but when you read it, it makes perfect sense.  Some of the layout decisions were simply inspired, such as page 56 (on which the map of the surface ruins of the Tower of War was merged with the text instead of bumping those few paragraphs and leaving white space in the upper right-hand corner of the map/page).  Maybe that only saved 250 words but it shows the lengths to which the team went in order to cram as much as possible into the book despite the nefarious page-count-devouring ways of the Delve format.  

Of all the Delve-using adventures that have come out in the last year this one felt like it had the most "adventure" and the least amount of space wasted by things that didn't really need to be done in the new format because they could have been left up to the DM to handle.  Even with that said, I'd probably have cut about five of the combats that used the new format and just mentioned them in the main text, thereby buying about 10 more pages for adventure material instead of combat material, but overall I can't complain about the balance they struck.

Without going into spoiler territory, I love the explanation of what happened to Lord Robilar (whose unexplained change of behavior has always bothered me... it never made sense that he would do the things he did, and especially not that he would go to work for Rary) as well as all of the other cross-references that they manged to sneak into the text (including a specific mention, by name, of the Age of Worms, heh).  Excellent use of classic NPCs (up to and including demigods) and every page oozes love and respect for the Greyhawk setting (which of course is precisely what one would expect from a team that includes Erik Mona).

The writing is really smooth.  It reads like one DM talking to another DM.  There are no jarring changes in tone that make it obvious who worked on which sections (as opposed to Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, which was not bad overall, but reads like it was written by someone with multiple personality disorder... or several authors who collaborated very little during the writing process).

Bottom line is that Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk is an A+ all the way.  The writing is great, the plot is great, the use of (and love for) the setting is great, the encounters are (mostly) great or at least good, the layout is great, and the maps are great.  Reading this is like a master class on how to design an engaging, lengthy, meaty adventure that has a concrete plot and tells a specific story, but still leaves a tremendous amount of room for the DM to get in there and customize things.  Someone who was expecting a definitive atlas of every nook and cranny of Castle Greyhawk might be disappointed, but I wasn't.  Forget the whole 3.5 / 4.0 argument -- this is an adventure that would be a blast in any edition of the game.  In 2nd Edition this would have been done as a boxed set and it would have been right up there with Night Below.  They could have released this (with 3.5 stats) on the day after the 4th Edition PH shipped and it would still have been a worthwhile investment to me.

Well done guys!

Talk to you later --

Sean
----
M. Sean Molley | sean [at] basementsoftware [dot] com


----------



## meomwt (Aug 22, 2007)

You really need to turn this post ^-^ into a review for the Reviews Section (with some obvious top-and-tail changes).


----------



## Vicar In A Tutu (Aug 22, 2007)

Excellent review! As of now, this adventure is a must-buy.


----------



## Nebulous (Aug 22, 2007)

Perhaps it is WAY to early to bring this up, but i did buy this (it should arrive today) and i'm very excited about seeing it. Anyway, i won't be able to run it for quite some time, like, by next summer maybe, and i'm wondering about 4th edition compatibility.  Is there any chance of a web-enhancement for these products that has 4th edition stats for every enemy, sort of like the download for Red Hand of Doom? (which was only 3e, but you know what i mean).


----------



## messy (Aug 22, 2007)

great thread! i ordered my copy almost exclusively because of what i've read here 

messy


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## HugeOgre (Aug 22, 2007)

I was heartened to read such positive reviews here too. I've picked up my copy and begun to read it. FWIW, I had to beat players away with a stick to get down to a manageable number I could run through the thing. 

I did notice however that Vayne is apparently back in the good graces of Iuz. Am I misremembering his defection after / during the fall of Admundfort that played out in the Living Greyhawk campaign, or did the authors write this before that event, or otherwise decide not to use LG content while developing this book?


----------



## billd91 (Aug 22, 2007)

This thread convinced me as well. I have it now and I'm suitably impressed.


----------



## demiurge1138 (Aug 22, 2007)

HugeOgre said:
			
		

> I did notice however that Vayne is apparently back in the good graces of Iuz. Am I misremembering his defection after / during the fall of Admundfort that played out in the Living Greyhawk campaign, or did the authors write this before that event, or otherwise decide not to use LG content while developing this book?




Well... let's just say that "working for" and "in the good graces of" are not synonymous...

Demiurge out.


----------



## Jason Bulmahn (Aug 22, 2007)

SoccerRef73 said:
			
		

> Even the use of the Delve format in this product mostly worked for me, because (thankfully) they didn't burn off 2/3 of the page count on the encounter layouts but rather left it up to the DM to fill in many of the obvious combats. They also featured larger, tactically interesting encounter areas and did some creative things with the stat blocks (such as making the three "proctors" different within the context of a single base creature).  The spread on pages 104-105 is a great example of how the new format can be used to create an encounter that is more than just "one room with monsters in it."  Page 106 shows that you can use the new format for something other than a straight-up fight.  (I'll bet a beer that Jason Bulmahn did that one, since it looks very much like an abbreviated version of a fun chase scene from the Greyhawk adventure "Mad God's Key" that appeared in Dungeon Magazine.)




Whistles quietly....

Thanks for the great review Sean. This book was a blast to write, and was unchanged from our original manuscript for the most part. 

As for the Vayne question, we did not use LG material as canon for this module (for the most part, I snuck in a few bits). The problem with LG material, of course, being that if you did not play the module in question, there was no way for the average Greyhawk fan to know about the lore contained therein. In the end, it was just easier all around for us to stick with published canon.

Jason Bulmahn
EttRoG Co-Author
GameMastery Brand Manager


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Aug 22, 2007)

IuztheEvil said:
			
		

> As for the Vayne question, we did not use LG material as canon for this module (for the most part, *I snuck in a few bits*). The problem with LG material, of course, being that if you did not play the module in question, there was no way for the average Greyhawk fan to know about the lore contained therein. In the end, it was just easier all around for us to stick with published canon.



Which few bits? I think I caught a bit in an reference about Iuz returning from some planar business. Any others?

I would have loved to help synchronize Vayne with some of LG developments around him. I know a ton of Greyhawk grognards grouse about not being able to know what has happened during LG's tenure. This could have been a nice way to throw them a bone. 


Eric Anondson
Shield Lands Plots


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## TerraDave (Aug 22, 2007)

So, about a year from now, there will be an ENworld project to convert this, right?

Actually reading this, I am really struck by the reaction to this compared to Undermountain. Both seemed to have a similar format and premise and yet...and yet it just isn't me ; ).


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## HugeOgre (Aug 22, 2007)

<hijack>

While I can understand the decision not use to use LG material, I think it represents to me the fear I have about the _real_ fate of the LG campaign. With so little of it assimilated into "official canon", and with no real access to the material as the campaign retires, will all the things we did over the last 8 years just disappear like someone's home campaign?   
</hijack>

For those of us who have campaigns that stayed consistent, is there another Boneheart to use here, or is that going to screw things up?


----------



## Alaric_Prympax (Aug 22, 2007)

Well my copy fianlly got here from Buy.com so I know what I'll be reading over the next couple of days.


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## Maldin (Aug 23, 2007)

kaomera said:
			
		

> You know, what I would sell my soul* for would be a poster-sized copy of the map of the City of Greyhawk (preferably sans notation). Even a good-sized version in the map previews (nudge-nudge, hint-hint) would be awesome...



Well, you don't have to sell your soul... just keep an eye on ebay and have some cash. ;-) The map of the City of Greyhawk in EtGR is a VERY precise redraw of my original design (down to every last shack, animal pen and tree) that was published as a 2 by 3 foot poster map for Living Greyhawk Journal #2 (with orders of magnitude more locations marked on). Sadly, its out of print now, but copies do surface for sale on ebay periodically.

You can also find a low res version of my map on my website with very thorough java pop-up location labels for all pre-Age of Worms published locations (still gotta do that one of these days) at http://melkot.com/locations/cogh/cogh.html where you can also find alot more background information on the City to help fill out any CoG campaign (such as an annotated list of 400+ NPCs, the never-before-published map of Greyhawk's undercity, and several detailed location descriptions). I'll be adding more in the coming months.

I haven't acquired my copy of EtGR yet (I will!), but from what you'all are saying, it sounds like Erik and James and Jason have outdone themselves, and set a new standard for RPG products.

I've known Erik a very long time, back when he was just one of the guys on Greytalk (13 years!), where he continues to drop by once in a while. I remember a while ago when he was saying that he'd burned out on a huge project (I think it was the Fiendish Codex I), and was most definitely going to quit working on freelance for a while. He was done. Exhausted. Spent.  Shortly after that he announced (very cryptically, because of NDAs) that he had just been offered "the project that I was born to write", and could not turn it down, diving headlong back into what he knew would certainly be months of exhaustion. Most of you now hold in your hands the fruits of that labor of true love. Reading through this thread, it sounds like Erik, James, and Jason truly hit a home run, and I can't wait to get my own copy.

Having known Erik all through his climb from online fan, to writer, editor and now publisher, I couldn't be more pleased to see all his hard work rewarded with such success and praise... and see him hit that outta-the-park home run on "the project that he had been born to write".

Bravo!

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com


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## Lidgar (Aug 23, 2007)

Anyone try running this yet? I'll be starting it this Friday (8/24) with a group of 8th level characters that just finished White Plume Mountain. Any preparation tips? I have an unlabeled map of the City for them (thanks Maldin!) as well as the poster maps from Dungeon. Also downloaded the sidequest cards from the WotC website and I have the 2e version of the module to fill in the off-map areas (versus treating it as wilderness - although I may do a mix of both to speed things along). Can anyone recommend any other sources or things I should look at? Thanks!

PS - I will try to post the results of our session when done.


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## SoccerRef73 (Aug 23, 2007)

Greetings...



			
				TerraDave said:
			
		

> Actually reading this, I am really struck by the reaction to this compared to Undermountain. Both seemed to have a similar format and premise and yet...and yet it just isn't me .




Well, I don't want this to derail the thread, but... since you brought it up...

In my opinion, Expedition to Undermountain fails in nearly every way that Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk succeeds. 

Considering the four names that are on the cover, it is obviously not a situation where the Undermountain authors did not know what they were talking about or did not know how to write a cool adventure.  It's hard to imagine a better line-up of Realms heavy-hitters to work on that book.  I can only assume that everybody who was involved with Expedition to Undermountain was also working on other, more important, things at the same time and they had to snatch whatever spare moments they could find in order to throw together their portions of this book with little or no time spent in development and editing.  Certainly it reads that way.

Even the layout feels like it was artificially stretched in order to fill the page count (there is a *ton* of wasted white space, for one thing).  I bet Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk has 10,000 more words in it than Expedition to Undermountain does.  And the Undermountain maps... well, the battle maps are mostly OK, but on the large maps... oh dear Lord, what were they thinking?  Those are some incredibly ugly (and, in many cases, completely useless) maps.

Interestingly, for all my railing about how much I dislike the Delve format, Undermountain doesn't really dedicate that much more of the page count to it than Greyhawk (about 100 pages vs. about 80).  And yet Greyhawk just uses the format so much better that you feel like most of those 80 pages are cool and interesting whereas many of Undermountain's combats are bland, boring, and (worst of all) repetitive.  (At least half of them have no business being laid out in a two-page spread because they are so simple ... they would have taken up maybe a couple of paragraphs each in the old, pre-Delve format.  And in many cases you are fighting essentially the same monsters, back-to-back-to-back.  Check out pages 166-173 for one of the worst offenders.  I mean, come on guys, I understand it's a lair, but those four combats are not worth burning 8 pages on!  Within those 8 pages, one of the same stat blocks appears 4 times, another appears twice, and we get an entire page wasted on the rules for grappling and drowning.  I'm sorry, but that is just not a good use of precious adventure space.)

I will grant that Undermountain (as a product) seems to have had a somewhat different design goal than Greyhawk (as a product) does. This should be taken into account when comparing the two works.

Undermountain is a series of essentially disconnected explorations -- separate forays into the dungeon, with no real overarching plot (the whole cataclysmic event that sets the entire adventure in motion isn't even defined although there is a hint that this might be fleshed out in a later sourcebook). You could dip in or dip out at practically any point in the book and it wouldn't matter much (although there are a few links between levels and ultimately the final area requires having been through most of the preceding areas to collect items and information).  From that standpoint, Undermountain has utility in a wider variety of campaigns because it requires less of a commitment.  I doubt most groups would play through it from start to finish (even with the DM inventing intermediate adventures, which is certainly easy and encouraged).

On the other hand, Greyhawk features a specific, highly detailed plot that unfolds basically from beginning to end over the course of the book, with the GM given a lot of opportunity to customize things and to add intermediate adventures.  However, you're pretty much expected to begin at the beginning (as it were) and work your way through to the conclusion.  You can go off on some side quests, but you're eventually coming back to the main plot.  I guess it *could* be used as filler for a different ongoing campaign, but it isn't really written that way.  It's written to be a campaign (or at least a campaign arc) unto itself.

So it's not entirely fair to judge the two books against one another on the basis of whether or not they succeed on a particular goal as it seems unlikely that they shared many goals from a design standpoint (other than "be fun" ... and playing D&D is almost always fun even if some adventures are better than others).

I happen to like epic plot-heavy campaign-style adventures and be less thrilled by collections of semi-random encounters that don't really have anything to tie them together other than the location and some vague objectives.  I don't mind "weird stuff is happening, so get in there and find out what's going on" as a plot hook.  However, when you actually get in there, I do prefer for there to be something actually going on, giving the players a sense that they have just stumbled onto a mystery that is much larger than anybody realized.  Undermountain doesn't really have that; Greyhawk does.  Others might prefer exactly the opposite because they like to be able to layer their own stories on top of the dungeon encounters.

I do think that Undermountain might be somewhat easier for a DM to use because it isn't such a huge commitment to bring it into your campaign.  Me, I really like adventures with a lot of plot because that is the type of game I like to run.  So I have to consider that I probably have some bias against Undermountain on that basis.  I have been running games for a really long time and Greyhawk is exactly the kind of product that appeals to me, whereas Undermountain (mostly) feels like a collection of the sort of random combat encounters I could have made up for myself on the spot when the PCs decided to go left instead of right.

I guess I would just say that when reading Undermountain, I didn't really feel like I was being inspired.  Reading Greyhawk, I did.  Your mileage may vary.  

Talk to you later --

Sean
----
M. Sean Molley | sean [at] basementsoftware [dot] com


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## HugeOgre (Aug 23, 2007)

Erik indicated that for the most part the classic levels (Im assuming he means from Greyhawk Ruins tsr 9292) were avoided, but in terms of the map where do they fall? There would SEEM visually to be some overlap in the levels, or that some of the new material would fall on levels that were previously detailed, but the maps dont look anything alike. Am I just not looking at it right?

Also, has anyone made a map like the one on page 43 that shows how these levels line up with the old ruins adventure?


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## grodog (Aug 23, 2007)

HugeOgre said:
			
		

> Also, has anyone made a map like the one on page 43 that shows how these levels line up with the old ruins adventure?




If WotC publishes the side-view map on their site, we use that as a basis, and then insert the other levels (originals from EGG/RJK's games, Castle Zagyg, WGR4, etc.) into the elevation, which would be nice to see as a unified view.

Anyone know if WotC plans to publish the maps from the adventure, or at least the elevation map?


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## TerraDave (Aug 23, 2007)

SoccerRef73 said:
			
		

> I guess I would just say that when reading Undermountain, I didn't really feel like I was being inspired.  Reading Greyhawk, I did.




That seems to be a nice summary.


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## HugeOgre (Aug 23, 2007)

grodog said:
			
		

> Anyone know if WotC plans to publish the maps from the adventure, or at least the elevation map?




Erm, like this?

You can find all the maps they published here.


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## grodog (Aug 23, 2007)

Thanks HugeOgre!---I rarely visit the WotC pages, didn't know if they'd done that or not


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## billd91 (Aug 23, 2007)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> Which few bits? I think I caught a bit in an reference about Iuz returning from some planar business. Any others?
> 
> I would have loved to help synchronize Vayne with some of LG developments around him. I know a ton of Greyhawk grognards grouse about not being able to know what has happened during LG's tenure. This could have been a nice way to throw them a bone.
> 
> ...




You know, I'd love to see a document come out of RPGA in which each Triad summarizes the adventures, plots, and over-all timelines of how their regions developed over the course of LG. Hell, I'd accept something relatively informal, a simple PDF, ANYTHING so that all of the stuff that came out of LG can be reviewed by those of us Greyhawk grognards who didn't have many opportunities to participate in LG play.
And since they would be summaries or reviews, I would think fair use would apply with respect to anybody's (authors', WotC's, RPGA's) copyrights.


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## HugeOgre (Aug 24, 2007)

I've all but decided that if I have to, Ill summarize the end of the LG campaign with a news story about what the campaign did over the 8 years it ran. 

Reporting news is, after all, fair use. lol

(and even if it isnt I dont want to ruin this fine thread with IP discussions)

and Ive already stripped the IP out of the adventures I wrote in preparation of posting them.


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## HugeOgre (Aug 24, 2007)

HugeOgre said:
			
		

> Erik indicated that for the most part the classic levels (Im assuming he means from Greyhawk Ruins tsr 9292) were avoided, but in terms of the map where do they fall? There would SEEM visually to be some overlap in the levels, or that some of the new material would fall on levels that were previously detailed, but the maps dont look anything alike. Am I just not looking at it right?
> 
> Also, has anyone made a map like the one on page 43 that shows how these levels line up with the old ruins adventure?




Having not gotten a quick answer on this I sat down and continued reading, and after looking at the maps in the original Greyhawk Ruins adventure I discovered that they did indeed use parts of the old dungeons. Level 4 Shatterstone is part of W500 and Level 6 The Arena is part of W700. One has some minor map changes, the other has a fairly significant alteration. I didnt get any further than that last night, but Im GUESSING the other towers follow similar suit.


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## Jason Bulmahn (Aug 24, 2007)

HugeOgre said:
			
		

> Having not gotten a quick answer on this I sat down and continued reading, and after looking at the maps in the original Greyhawk Ruins adventure I discovered that they did indeed use parts of the old dungeons. Level 4 Shatterstone is part of W500 and Level 6 The Arena is part of W700. One has some minor map changes, the other has a fairly significant alteration. I didnt get any further than that last night, but Im GUESSING the other towers follow similar suit.




Actually, they don't.. mostly. If you take a good look through Greyhawk Ruins, you will notice that some of the best maps were in the Tower of War. Those in the Tower of Magic and Tower of Zagig are mostly uninspired, repetative, and boring. So... when designing this book, we tried to use some of the maps that had interesting layouts, and reinvented those that did not.

Hope that helps...

Jason Bulmahn
EttRoG Co-Author
GameMastery Brand Manager


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## DM_Jeff (Aug 24, 2007)

I picked this up at GenCon, and it has been a great lunchtime read this week at work, and I still have plenty to go. While I am a student of the Forgotten Realms, not Greyhawk, I had hoped the politics and NPCs wouldn't get lost on me, to the contrary, I'm finding the backstory compelling and I do remember enough to make it all a worthwhile trip down memory lane. Easiest the "funnest" of the Expeditions to read. I look forward to running it!

In 3.5, of course, conversions be darned.


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## RichGreen (Sep 2, 2007)

*LOVED it!*

Hi,

I've just finished reading this lengthy campaign adventure this morning and it's gone straight to the top of my "must-run" pile. Erik Mona, James Jacobs and Jason Bulmahn have done a great job: the adventure contains action both in the City of Greyhawk and the legendary ruins beneath Castle Greyhawk itself and manages to feature many of the great movers and shakers of the setting, including Mordenkainen, Robilar and Iuz. As well as the main adventure plot, there are numerous side quests which connect NPCs in the city with items and characters in the dungeons. Several notorious areas of the castle ruins that we know appeared in Gygax's original campaign make memorable appearances and there are some very interesting new monster encounters. Really well done and very entertaining to read.

The only tricky thing for me is which group of players/characters to run it for. It's for 8th level PCs and needs to be set on Oerth to get the full benefit of all the Greyhawk lore inside. I think this might need to be a one-off campaign, a bit like Red Hand of Doom. I'll have to have a think...

Cheers


Richard


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## ivocaliban (Sep 2, 2007)

Let me preface this by saying that I don't buy many adventures. I've got around fifty WotC books on my shelf and the only adventure I purchased prior to _Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk_ was _The Standing Stone_ from 2001. (Well, alright, I did buy the issue of _Dungeon_ magazine featuring Maure Castle, but that's really it in the last decade.) Generally speaking, I just don't like running other people's adventures. 

So, I debated buying _Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk_ for weeks, starting long before it was released. On the surface the choice seemed simple enough: I don't like or buy pre-made adventures, so why should this one be any different? Well, I thought about this for a while and eventually I discovered three reasons:

1) Greyhawk - I picked up the _Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (LGG)_ in early 2001. While I started playing D&D back in the summer of '92, I'd never really explored the established campaign settings. My settings were homebrewed with bits of Mystara (from the maps in the back of the Rules Cyclopedia) and the Hollow World (the only setting material I ever purchased prior to 3.0e) thrown in for good measure. By the time 3.0e was announced I was no longer playing D&D, but I wanted to come back to the game. The new edition seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. 

That's when I discovered the _LGG_. The lovely hardcover _Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting_ had not yet reached the shelves and I was anxious to start playing again, but didn't have the time to create my own world. The _LGG_ seemed to be the pefect balance in that I had a great deal of freedom, but all the basic work was done for me. So, from the spring of 2001 until the summer of 2007 I ran a Greyhawk campaign. Sure, I purchased Forgotten Realms materials after they were released, but I just never felt the need to leave Greyhawk. I enjoyed it, my players enjoyed it...we had no desire to leave. 

So here comes _Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk_, the second (third, if you count the slimmed down version of the Gazetteer) 3.0/3.5e book released with "Greyhawk" on the cover. While I would have loved this book about three years ago (when the PC in my campaign was in the 8-13 level range), I felt a sense of...not quite obligation, not quite nostalgia...but certainly a mixture of both, to buy this book in support of a setting that had provided me with so much pleasure for so many years.

Even with the vast majority of the book being an adventure, there's still quite a lot of flavor here for the DM, not to mention the maps of The Free City of Greyhawk and so on. I'm not saying those who dislike adventures will get the most out of the book, but they will certainly find much of it useful in a Greyhawk campaign. What's more, because it is so much a part of Greyhawk I've found dozens of ways I can use the adventures in this book when generally I'm always seraching for ways to shoehorn pre-made adventures into my campaign if I bother to use them at all. This is a first for me. A large, level-spanning pre-written adventure, that doesn't feel forced or out of place in my campaign world.

2) The Writing - While I haven't read any of the other Expedition books, I can certainly say that the writing is what makes _Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk_ stand out as one of the best adventures I've ever read. Even if I never get the chance to run it, just having read it was entertainment enough for me to be happy with my purchase. There are few RPG supplements I can say this about, really. Perhaps the early _Legend of the Five Rings_ material comes to mind, but not much else.

You can sense the admiration for Greyhawk in reading this book and it's a fitting tribute to a setting that may soon live only in memory. It isn't treated as a chore or some perfunctory courtesy, but as a project of love and respect. For that, I thank Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs, and Erik Mona for finally giving the world of Greyhawk a 3.0/3.5e book worthy of the name. 

3) 4th Edition - Oddly enough, it was the announcement of 4th edition that made me finally decide to purchase _Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk_. It's been repeatedly pointed out that the book's release coincided almost exactly with the death knell of 3.0/3.5e (at least in terms of support from WotC). Some would say that this was in no way a coincidence. 

Whatever the truth of the matter, I'm sticking with 3.5e for years to come. Purchasing _Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk_ is my way of saying "thank you" to the authors for making it work so well and even "thank you" to WotC for allowing it happen at all. It's also my way of keeping Greyhawk alive, if only within my own tiny sphere of influence. It (along with next month's _Rules Compendium_, assuming it turns out to be worthwhile) will be my last WotC purchase for years to come. I'm pleased to no end that it turned out to be such a memorable one.

Long Live Greyhawk!


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## Thurbane (Sep 3, 2007)

My group are currently playing Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde.

We're considering taking the same characters into EttRoG after we finish, with a new DM. It'll be the first time we've had characters "camapaign hop", so it should be fun.


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## JoeGKushner (Sep 3, 2007)

I keep finding things to nitpick about over it.

The whole Rolibar thing smacks of "No More Mutants" or Superboy Prime punching time.

Some of the traps actually aren't listed as traps.

It talks about how we don't need stats for Iuz but provides summary information anyway.

We really didn't need to see Mordikean in the adventure. He serves no purpose. Any mage could've done. If this was a FR book and that was Elminster people would be up in arms about "forced plot" and "railroading".

There are a lot of things I like about it. There are some great encounters. I like the whole "side quest" bits. Art and layout are top notch. The writing, when it's not verging into Super Heroism, is great. (And the things I'm thinking of as Super Heroism are probably at home in a standard mid-high levle D&D campaign but just seem silly to me as a reader.)


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## DM_Jeff (Sep 12, 2007)

Thread Resurrection.

Anyway I finally finished this. What a great read. I'll echo the statements of the poster above who said they practically felt like they got their money's worth already just by reading it. Can't wait to actually run it.

It's very obvious the Paizo folks who wrote this for WotC really honed their skills doing Dungeon all those years and made what could have been just another dungeon crawl both exciting and interesting. The city ties with the side quests really works well, and the encounters are great to read, everythigng makes sense.

-DM Jeff


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## DM_Jeff (Sep 12, 2007)

Oh, and I have to ask all the Greyhawk history and trivia buff out there where some of these names come from. There's a log-in book in this adventure with names on it and I wanna track down who they might be. I doubt this is any spoiler, it's just a list of names Zagig kept and doesn't effect the adventure.

The name sion the book I know:

Robilar, Iggwilv, Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser, Riggby, Elluvia Maure.

Names I don't know:

Mellard-Plict, Erac, Thessalar, Eli Tomorast, Warnes Starcoat.

Who are they, anyone know? Eli Tomorast sounds familiar for some reason...

-DM Jeff


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## ivocaliban (Sep 12, 2007)

DM_Jeff said:
			
		

> Who are they, anyone know? Eli Tomorast sounds familiar for some reason...




Does _Dungeon_ #112 "Maure Castle" ring a bell? Eli Tomorast is on the cover and plays a major role in the giant-sized adventure therein. He was also mentioned in the "1d20 Villains" article in the final issue of _Dragon_ magazine (#359). And that's only in recent years. If you want the real story...


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## Lidgar (Sep 12, 2007)

Speaking of names - Sir Bluto Sans Pike (sp?) also makes an appearance. Wasn't he from White Plume Mountain?


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## Garnfellow (Sep 12, 2007)

Lidgar said:
			
		

> Speaking of names - Sir Bluto Sans Pike (sp?) also makes an appearance. Wasn't he from White Plume Mountain?




He sure was. And what a great way to bring him back.


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## Lidgar (Sep 13, 2007)

No kidding - especially since the party that is going through the Ruins right now just got done with 3.5v of WPM! It will be a great surprise - the original battle with Bluto and his lackeys was quite fun.


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## grodog (Sep 13, 2007)

Fans of Sir Bluto should also check out Erik Mona's two RPGA LG adventures in his Absolute Power series---"River of Blood" and "As He Lay Dying."  They're well-worth digging up if you can find them!


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## demiurge1138 (Sep 13, 2007)

DM_Jeff said:
			
		

> Oh, and I have to ask all the Greyhawk history and trivia buff out there where some of these names come from. There's a log-in book in this adventure with names on it and I wanna track down who they might be. I doubt this is any spoiler, it's just a list of names Zagig kept and doesn't effect the adventure.
> 
> The name sion the book I know:
> 
> ...




Erac's Cousin was a PC back in the Gygax days played by Ernie Gygax. He turned evil, freed Fraz-zub-uluu from Castle Greyhawk, lost his vorpal swords and (so it's rumored) became a Hierarch of the Horned Society.

Thesselar is Oerth's greatest transmuter, a lich who specializes in creating new monsters. He takes credit for the mimic, rust monster, owlbear and a suite of other beasties. He's the wizard of "A Wizard Did It". He's known for the thessalhydra and other thessalbeasties, which have multiple hydra-like heads in place of a single one. 



Spoiler



He's also an antagonist in "Into the Wormcrawl Fissure", the penultimate Age of Worms adventure


.

Warnes Starcoat is a member of the Circle of Eight. He was in "Isle of the Ape".

Demiurge out.


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## DM_Jeff (Sep 13, 2007)

I knew all these names came from somewhere and weren't just made up for fun. Thanks for posting folks!

-DM Jeff


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## airwalkrr (Sep 13, 2007)

Mellard-Plict was an Iuzite commander during the Greyhawk Wars. Not a very high profile character.

Eli Tomorast is the master of Maure Castle and a member of the Seekers. He is a powerful wizard who grafted? demon flesh to his skin to create claws that drain levels IIRC. He is the arch-villain of the Maure Castle campaign in Dungeon magazine.


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## Garnfellow (Sep 13, 2007)

Lidgar said:
			
		

> No kidding - especially since the party that is going through the Ruins right now just got done with 3.5v of WPM! It will be a great surprise - the original battle with Bluto and his lackeys was quite fun.




I had no memory of Sir Bluto from the first edition version, but the 3.5 version had a great hook in his stat block (I can't remember what it was, only that it made the NPC really come alive for the players). And his feint + sneak attack combo was nasty.


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## Lidgar (Sep 13, 2007)

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> And his feint + sneak attack combo was nasty.




That was great fun. The party eventually chased him down a 5-foot wide corridor (after taking out his lackeys), which played to his strengths quite nicely. They eventually took him down, but not before he put some serious hurt on them.

So now they are in the Tower of War, running around trying to find the stolen goods (and sword). Great fun so far, pretty good encounter design. About my only complaint so far is some of the rooms are a bit cramped (either in layout or with furniture), which can put some of the large creatures at a disadvantage in terms of mobility.


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## Davelozzi (Oct 4, 2007)

Having not seen this thread for a while, I tried to start a new thread about this adventure, but since the only post simply pointed back here I figured I'd just follow along and make my point here in this thread instead.

First of all, I agree with several of the above posters who commented on how well written the adventure is, an obvious labor of love from the Paizo boys (under WotC's umbrella this time around).  I normally dislike mega-dungeons, but I really enjoyed reading this one and I think that it would a lot of to run. The missions based nature combined with the urban interludes (well done, in my opinion) make this work better than most mega-dungeons I've seen (though Tomb of Abysthor looks pretty good to). .  

However I do have one fairly large concern about the adventure that I am surprised no one has commented on.  SPOILERS AHEAD 



Spoiler



My main problem with the adventure is the last section, in which the heroes begin to work against Iggwilv herself, after Iuz is captured again. Despite the designers assertion that a full powered Iggwilv is the bigger danger to Greyhawk, I can't imagine that my players would agree (nor do I). It seems to me like an evil demi-god resident on the continent who has already conquered a gigantic empire and is still ruling it (even if the size of said empire has diminished somwhat) offers a much more serious threat to the city and region than his admittedly powerful (but still human) witch who is best known in the Flannaes for (a)conquering a remote mountain country and (b) birthing said demi-god. If I was a hero in Greyhawk, I would be very hard pressed to purposely release Iuz again just to combat a simulacrum of his mother.

The thought occured to me that the adventure could be stopped at Iuz's capture, which I think offers a more satisfying affect on the campaign world. Unfortunately, since his capture is not player orchestrated or controlled, this would not be a satisfying end of the adventure for the PCs.



Anyone else feel similarly?  Any suggested re-workings?


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## Deuce Traveler (Oct 5, 2007)

I think you make an interesting case about Iggwilv but I think they were referring more to power level than anything else.  An epic level wizard could go anywhere in the world and quickly either stir up some serious trouble in civilized lands or curve up her own empire in un-civilized lands.

Other than that...(Spoiler) I would definitely allow the characters to at least get a few shots in on the weakened Iuz before he teleports out.  Maybe make him a CR 16 or so character and if the PCs get lucky he'll be wiped out.  Perhaps he has a clone, however, since that seems to be a twisted plot device in Greyhawk or maybe he'll be permanently destroyed so that another evil would take his place.  Of course his parents won't be very happy and the PCs would make themselves powerful enemies...


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## grodog (Oct 8, 2007)

airwalkrr said:
			
		

> Mellard-Plict was an Iuzite commander during the Greyhawk Wars. Not a very high profile character.




M-P is an interesting figure.  He appears in several early Dragons, and Gygax recycled the name in Saga of Old City, too:



> Mellard (Sir)[NPC]
> SOOC - 224-226,229,231,232,245
> 
> Mellard-Plict [M12][NPC]
> ...




In the Dragon 56 article, which is I think what airwalker's referring to, Mellard-Plict is a high-level MU:



			
				Gary Gygax in FTSS in Dragon 56 said:
			
		

> The host of luz’s northern marches came under the dual
> command of Lord Choldraf (14th-level cleric) and Mellard-Plict
> (12th-level magic-user). Between them they brought 2,000
> heavy cavalry, 1,000 light horse, and about 4,000 infantry, evenly
> ...




Erik Mona and I have been corresponding about trying to dig up another M-P story (a Gygax recounting of an adventure of this character into the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk) for several years, but he hasn't been able to dig it up, alas....


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## Wycen (Oct 12, 2007)

I love what I've read so far.  I just can't seem to find stats for Shyrath.  I think because she's mentioned as a side quest we are left to develop her ourselves, but then you get to her room and treasure is actually listed, so I'm guessing those are suggestions for what she might leave behind for some lucky or dastardly adventuring party.


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## ivocaliban (Oct 12, 2007)

Wycen said:
			
		

> I love what I've read so far.  I just can't seem to find stats for Shyrath.  I think because she's mentioned as a side quest we are left to develop her ourselves, but then you get to her room and treasure is actually listed, so I'm guessing those are suggestions for what she might leave behind for some lucky or dastardly adventuring party.




Try page 142.


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## Deuce Traveler (Oct 13, 2007)

grodog said:
			
		

> M-P is an interesting figure.  He appears in several early Dragons, and Gygax recycled the name in Saga of Old City, too:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




This is actually pretty interesting.  Keep us posted as I would like to see what surfaces, and I am sure others would too.  Have you asked Gary?


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## Wycen (Oct 13, 2007)

ivocaliban said:
			
		

> Try page 142.




I wish I had merely been blind and missed it.  Instead my book doesn't have a page 142.  Or the page before or after it.  I'm missing pages 129 to 144.


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## grodog (Oct 13, 2007)

Deuce Traveler said:
			
		

> This is actually pretty interesting.  Keep us posted as I would like to see what surfaces, and I am sure others would too.  Have you asked Gary?




I have, but not recently.  Unless someone else at WotC is able to turn up this Mellard-Plict story, I think Erik's our only option, since no one has any ideas about it except that it exists (i.e., no idea what publications to look for, no idea what year published in, etc.).


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## grodog (Oct 13, 2007)

Wycen said:
			
		

> I wish I had merely been blind and missed it.  Instead my book doesn't have a page 142.  Or the page before or after it.  I'm missing pages 129 to 144.




Ouch.  Now *that's* a pretty major printing screw up.  You should be able to replace the copy by returning it to your FLGS or to WotC, I would think.


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## Wycen (Oct 22, 2007)

grodog said:
			
		

> Ouch.  Now *that's* a pretty major printing screw up.  You should be able to replace the copy by returning it to your FLGS or to WotC, I would think.




Yes, I contacted Wotc customer service and if I ship it back to the returns department explaining what is wrong, they'll send me another copy.  I guess I'll have to foot the bill for shipping, but maybe I can call again and ask about that.


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