The Revenge Of The Rumps - Tegel Manor 1977 By Judge's Guild Campaign Notes

"Tegel Manor is an adventure involving Tegel Manor, a great manor-fortress belonging to the Rump family, whose only living member is Sir Runic the Rump, who has tried to sell the manor with no luck, and would reward anyone who could rid the manor of his corrupt, dead ancestors"


Well let's charge into today's entry. Like a bad dream Tegel Manor has reared its head in my world once again. Tegel Manor is a 1977 fantasy role-playing game adventure published by Judges Guild specifically written by  Bob Bledshaw.   "Mike Kardos reviewed Tegel Manor in The Space Gamer No. 53.^[1] Kardos commented that "With a little effort, Tegel Manor makes an enjoyable addition to any D&D campaign." All of the above information is from the Tegel Manor wiki entry. But doesn't begin to tell half of the story about this infamous haunted manor. 


Rest in peace Bob Bledsaw Sr. thank
 for all the wonderful toys my friend. 

My experiences with the Rumps & the manor began many years ago when I decided to run it from notes left to my uncle. I started with Disney's Haunted Mansion ride that had been burnt into my head as a kid. When I searching through Youtube I came across this fantastic documentary Disneyland Extinct Attractions Haunted Mansion History Directed and Edited By David Oneal & their Facebook group. 

Keep in mind that this my version of Tegel Manor & by pulling things from childhood the mansion takes on a life of its own. The nosoliga is very strong in players but this isn't just any haunted mansion. The mansion as well as  its valley are an interdimensional & planar adventure location cursed to travel from world to world. Pick up different adventurers & murdering others as its ghosts,ghouls, & demons have the time of their afterlife. Another old favorite is the 1986 film house which also inspired some of my antics in the manor.

The manor also crosses into many OSR settings ala the second House film from '87 and its powerful artifact. This is a homage to James Mishler an old friend of mine & one whose influence comes into play in other ways coming up. 

You see Tegel Manor has appeared in Gamma World, AS&SH's Hyperborea, Lamentations of the Flame Princess's dark Europe, & even Dark Albion. But these days there's more then a simple Mishler nod because back in the day, " Bledsaw and James Mishler formed a new company called Adventure Games Publishing". So for me using Ghosts – The Incorporeal Undead & his Vampires of the Olden Lands is merely poetic justice for the player's PC's.


But this is only the beginning for the players & the Rumps will have their vengeance! The graves burst with the funk of forty thousand years! Note that the copy right & trade marks of the respective films & copyright holders are their own. The role playing games mentioned in this blog entry are the property of their own trade mark & copyright holders. The ideas & material here in are trade marked & copy right to the author. This post is for entertainment purposes only. 

Retro Commentary On Judge's Guild's Tegel Manor By Bob Bledsaw Sr. For Your Old School Campaigns

There is gonzo & then there's Tengel Manor, this is Judge's Guild unnaturalism at its finest. Created in 1979 by Bob Bledsaw Sr. this is one of his finest creations for Judge's Guild. Revised in 1980 & then expanded in '89 this sprawling 240 page ghostly extravaganzas  is one of the best examples of fun house dungeons done right. The abode of the Rump family for generations, who all have the unfortunate tendency to have first names that begin with the letter 'R' as well. Tegel Manor is an adventure location that doesn't obey time, space, or physics as we know them. Its a haunted manor in every sense of the word with one of the best maps that was done for an old school adventure.



There is room after room of weirdness & gonzo adventure encounters with two hundred and forty rooms waiting to be dumped onto the PC's. This is one of the most dangerous of the old school adventure locations with the PC's thrust right into the action. In the past I've had players win the deed to the haunted mansion in a brothel at a card table. The random encounter tables with family are done around  a family tree style & offer some the charm & deadliness of Tegel Manor. I first encountered the manor in all of its splendor in '84, when my PC wizard darkened its halls with our party. The place leaves an impression especially dying in a pool of your own blood by a giant beetle  as a ghost laughs as you bleed out.
One of the big influences on this session of Tegel Manor was definitely the original  Ghost Busters, The Adams Family television show, & The Disney Haunted Mansion ride.

At first Tegel doesn't seem like an adventure that would be run with a sword & sorcery game. Looks are deceiving because dungeon masters have been running this beauty for decades with original Dungeons & Dragons & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The module has a following & a couple of years ago I got a chance to run through it with some friends as both a player & co DM. The manor was place in the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game world of Hyperborea near the capital. It worked out quite nicely with the PC's gaining the deed after the last of the Rump family was killed by a Clark Ashton Smith style assassin. The PC's were eager to take possession of the old family homestead. Things went South from there. There was something about the nostalgia factor that pulled in the players as much as the content.

Tegel Manor is however as much D&D DYI tool kit as it is an adventure & believe or not a perfect vehicle to do a Clark Aston Smith style adventure. This is an adventure location that has the potential to be used as a not only a straight up haunted house but as a dimensional cross over adventure. This aspect of Tegel is one which I've used numerous times to bring adventurers from one world over into another. This is most often a one way trip. There is no rhyme nor reason for some of the encounters but that's alright because Tegel has its own internal logic. You as the player just are not privy to it. The second time we ran Tegel Manor I was running a one shot with the first edition of Warriors of the Red Planet & AS&SH. During that time I was reading a lot of Ray Bradbury especially the Martian Chronicles, well we took ideas from Usher II and a few corpses of the "Moral Climate Monitors" were found here & there. Other then that the house continued on.


Tegel Manor is incredibly flexible & able to be adapted to any number of genres from pulp to across the board cartoon humor. The tone of the module is pure gonzo all of the way and it wallows in its own sense of the weird. Monsters are incredibly dangerous and with a sense of other worldly haunted fun about the whole affair. I really love Tegel Manor because with a bit of time & investment the DM can really keep his players guessing his next move. A very handy OSR book that I used with Tegel Manor is James Mishler's  Ghosts  The Incorporeal Undead. 

This book can be used to augment some of the ghosts  within the halls of the manor and flesh out some of the weirdness that happens there.


Ten Ways To Exploit Judge's Guild's Tegel Manor By Bob Bledsaw Sr.

1. Tegel Manor can act as the focal point for your old school adventures, a sort of location with a reputation in local mythology. A place where friends dare other world forces from beyond the pale. 
2. The manor has some really heavy other dimensional locations  & there has to be many powers 
3. There are several cursed items that can make the horror factor go up by a eleven. 
4. The adventure is flexible enough to appeal to a wide variety of both new school and old school veterans. 
5. Tegel Manor is gonzo enough to be used with Lamentations of the Flame Princess and yet appeal to other OSR gamers. 
6. The sword & sorcery factor is high enough to get away with many of the basic  tropes of Tegel with little to no problem.
7. Many of the traits of the classic Tegel manor are not well known among the OSR crowd allowing a DM to exploit this knowledge for a dangerous adventure. 
8. Because of its weird nature almost anything can and will happen. Go with the adventure flow because there's lots of room for DYI D&D. 
9. The Manor is going to take months to go through and the DM has plenty of levers to keep the players on their toes. 
10. Because Tegel is so weird what the PC's might be able to get away with many things they ordinarily can't. The manor in my experience has its own way of dealing with interlupers & trespassers.