Using Engineering Dungeons & Engineering Castles for an Adventure Location Mixed With The Best of Dragon Volume 1

 

"The call to adventure does not limit itself to dungeons of earth and stone. The call to adventure just as often summons the seeker to plunder the halls of war and worship that are populated with looming towers and castles set in forbidden ancient heartwood glades lost in time. Not all are hidden -- some are welcoming bastions for the wayward traveler. Others are the holdings of creatures most foul. Still more bear foreboding edifices, casting a mocking shadow. Be they castle, ruin or manor, each beckons a promise of loot, a glimpse of chance, and a portent of fate"



It been a long time since we've done anything with our Castles & Crusades game but with DM Iris joining us things have been heating up. So now we're working on a few adventure locations & from the archives here I've pulled out two old favorites of mine for C&C. Engineering Dungeons & Engineering Castles, both of these go back a few years. But these C&C supplements are  perfect to use on creating a castle in the middle of a God forsaken wilderness with a monster infested dungeon works below ground. These books work really well with early Dragon magazine articles from the days of 'The Dragon' magazine. This is the part where we pulled out 'The Best of Dragon Vol.1' and specifically a James Ward article called Tombs & Crypts plus the article by Tony Watson on the 'Development of Towns in D&D'. 

Between the older resources & the two C&C supplements. We're going to be able to layout a mining boom town & garrison with castle that has gone to pot out in the middle of the wilderness. This is going to be the location for a cult coming up. Over all Engineering Dungeons & Engineering Castles, have just enough to give some solid resources for creating the weird adventure location for this coming Friday's game. More as it becomes available in upcoming blog posts! 

 
Five Reasons Why This Works

1. Castles & Crusades was designed & engineer to work with the older D&D material. 
2.  Engineering Dungeons & Engineering Castles are short & fast reads. These books are written to take advantage of a dungeon master not having a ton of time.
3. The wilderness is easily one of the most challenging aspects of OSR games & using Castles & Crusades can take full advantage of this. 
4. Other DM's often over look  Engineering Dungeons & Engineering Castles for their C&C games. The books are not that well known in OSR circles. 
5. The adventure location can be used as a central theme of a mini campaign something that both  Engineering Dungeons & Engineering Castles stress.