Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure Mixed In With The Castles & Crusades Mythos Series

 When it comes to delving deeper into the mysteries of Monsters & Treasures from Troll Lord Games. There are several reasons why I find myself looking through the book tonight. One of which is the  huge number of elemental & Fey beings in this book. 

With a huge number of mythic & Pagan style religions outlined in C&C. It's easy to forget that the forgotten temples, shrines, and other places where the weird & dangerous have crossed over into this world are often the over looked dungeons or ruins. Castles & Crusades Mythos series dives right into this factor. This porion of the taboo or often over looked factor is something that's gotten played up in our various campaigns. 
The fact is that there are so many Fey and Fairy monsters within Monsters & Treasures that it's easy to see that these hold overs from other times are so easily exploitable by the DM looking to inject the mythological or old favorite into thier games. 

The Castles and Crusades Fey creatures are both familar and highly dangerous all at once. And this is something we see time and again in the Castles & Crusades Mythos Series. The gods & creatures of ancient Europe are seldom more then a few meters away from the mundane world. Because of the occult practices of ancients there are sites where the alien worlds of Dream and Fairyland cross the old world of Europe. 

And this is where the traditional 'world's most popular fantasy role playing game's monsters come in. These are the aliens and the interlopers into our world. 

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This is something made abundancely clear by The Codex Celtarum where the Celtic world of myth and legend cross over into the world of knights or adventurers. My point here is that there are plenty of points where the world of history and myth can easily cross paths. The ancient religion's shrines and left behind remains may have been co opted by alien monsters or worse for thier own benefits. 
And it's these places that provides an 'in' for the denezins of the occult and supernatural. These weak points are the perfect venues for the monsters of horror and nightmare to intrude into your games. These are the places where horror and the dark forces of the occult rage across points of Europe. After all the myths of the Russians,  Celts, the Romans, the Germans, and even the Slavs are full of creatures of myth and legend coming to reek havoc on the world of ancient Europe. And this picks up some of the vibes that we've got going within our 'Here Be Dragons' campaign at the moment. 
There are far more things going on below the surface of mythology and legends then at first it seems. I'm surprised at the number of old school and OSR players who don't bother to read legends and mythology. A fact that an enterprising DM can take full advantage of. 

Review & Overview Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure Book By Troll Lord Games For Castles & Crusdes Rpg

 A couple of days back I recieved my copy of Troll Lord Games Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure.  Monsters & Treasure is besides the memorial cover artwork there's a ton more Fairy & Fey races that have been included within the book. 

What it also includes are ton of new variations on the monsters of the classic Castles & Crusades rpg. The fact is yes this is a homage to classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. However Monsters & Treasure is definitely one of those books that stands on it's own strengths. The amount of detail & overview that theseentries provide is solidly done. For a dungeon master this is a great monster book to add to thier tool box of fiends, foes, and foils. There's a lot to take in here as the Trolls have expanded upon thier foundations from previous C&C monster books.

The monster profiles hit all of the old school high notes. The truth is that I've been lusting after this book to inflict these horrors on my players. Yes there are some OGL classics but with the recent Cowards of the Coast debacle Troll Lords is revising the C&C system. So time for me in my mind was of the essence to grab this treasure. For Siege Engine rpg systems this book is a must because it doesn's simply provide monsters and treasure. But it provides a plethora of options for the table top of Castles and Crusades adventures. 

Like I said there's lots of old favorites here, but with the sheer number & opportunity of treasure. Entries are balanced out with regards to the hordes and treasure types. For me as a DM there's a certain amount of amount of greed wanting to spring some of the 'treasures' onto my players. Again there's a certain feel to Castles & Crusades that comes through here as well. Castles & Crusades has always had it's own feel to it in the OSR scene. I'm not sorry that I grabbed Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure. 

The Trolls are excellent on thier customer service and work with thier clients. For me the book arrived on time & perfectly in it's packing & box. The tracking number arrived via email and everything went very smoothly. 

Back to the Wilderlands of High Fantasy - Hacking the Wilderlands With Castles & Crusades - Spies of Light Elf By Bryan Hinnen

 ""The Spies of Lightelf is the second booklet in our series of works titled "The Wilderness Project". Each booklet covers an area of wilderness in the Lands of the City States in great detail: any villages in the area have various establishments and prominent NPCs listed, history and way of life of the people briefly described, and a list of interesting events and encounters for passing adventurers....

This particular booklet contains maps of twenty-two five-mile hexes in the area of the Wood of the Gnomes, including the Gnomes' village of Lightelf and the village of Palewood, inhabited by Grey Elves." 

So we're going to pick back up from yesterday's blog post here & dive head long into the Wood of the Gnomes, including the Gnomes' village of Lightelf and the village of Palewood, inhabited by Grey Elves. Spies of Light Elf By Bryan Hinnen isn't so much of a module as it is an adventure tool kit to detail the area around the village of Lightelf itself. 

The Gnome village of Lightelf & the Gnomewoods in  our own City State of the Invincible Overlord's campaign was a strong hold of Fae elemental magic. Magicks that came from the Grey Elves. And our own campaign info on the Grey Elves came from the two sources the Advanced Dungeons & Dtagons first edition Monster Manual II & the Greyhawk rpg setting. According to the Greyhawk Wiki entry on Grey Elves; "Grey elves built the old elven cities which now stand abandoned or were given up to other races as they moved through. They are more given to intellect than other elves, but physically weaker. They practice the oldest elven arts, but hide from the eyes of younger, shorter lived races in their isolated settlements. Once inhabiting mountains, many Grey elves have now settled in meadows and forests.They are thinner than high elves, and have either silver hair and amber eyes or pale golden hair and violet eyes. The latter sort are generally called faeries^[1]. They wear complex gowns and flowing robes, favouring clothes the colour of pure driven snow, the noon day sun, silver and gold, with accessories of polished leather, and contrasting colours and jewels. Their cloaks are often deep blue or purple. For battle grey elves favour plate or chainmail, with winged helmets""
So the gnomes move into the lands of the Gnome Woods & take over the old Grey Elven works. They find the Elven elemental magical knowledge & practice it. For Castles & Crusades this comes from the Castles & Crusades Adventurers Spellbook

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The magi of the City State fear these elemental magics for a multiplicity of reasons. They enable the Gnome wood to be a 'free area' & there is still the unknown Grey Elves lurking at the edges of the wildness. A part of the Wilderlands but yet not a part of it!? This has lead to massive speculation that they may have their own reasons for passing their magicks onto the Gnomes. 
The Gnomes themselves are escapees from the Fae courta. So the gnomes' pass their knowledge onto the local Neolithic & Bronze age style people's magus or shamans to give the human tribes a fighting chance. The wilderness is rife with monsters just look at Spies of Light Elf's encounter tables. 

Make no mistake Spies of Light Elf continues the Wilderlands tradition of vast tracks of unexplored wilderness that adventurers can & will get themselves into trouble. There's 25 miles of wilderness surrounding the villages & wilds of Gnome Woods and it's right in the description; "' For Castles & Crusades using Spies of Light Elf requires the Castles & Crusades Monster & Treasure book as a must 

The real conflict within Spies of Light Elf By Bryan Hinnen is two fold. One is the Gnomes & Grey Elves vs the humans or the humans vs the wilderness. The latter being the real conflict as the Gnome Woods present actual Non human areas for the PC's to adventure within & perhaps come into 

conflict within. But this isn't  the only area where adventurerers can get into big trouble 

Review & Commentary On the Free Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book by Stephen Chenault , & Robert Doyel

"Upon the Edge of Battle Lie the Spoils of Glory
Upon wind-swept battlefields, they seek their glory. With weapons of steel,
stout shields, and sorcery, they drive ever onward, seeking the grandeur of conflict
with creatures of terrible wrath or beasts of legend. In all hours of every day,
they gird themselves for war and struggle, to drive those evil beings of foul
intent to doom and oblivion. But before glory can be obtained, before
fame and riches can be won by these heroes of renown, they must face and
overcome those that would oppose them. Only then do the beasts yield the fruit
of their lives: Ancient scrolls, magic swords, shields of wonder, potions, rings,
wands, and untold wealth in coins, gems, and jewels.


What Lies Herein
Contained within this book is a wealth of information for the
Castle Keeper: 205 monsters, advice on roleplaying monsters, handling
combat with monsters, creating monsters, 200 unique treasures, rules for
awarding treasures and creating magic items."



This is the one hundred & seventy eight page bestiary & treasures book.
The free digital copy of  Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book is one of the earlier incarnations.This is because the paid version has the glossy pages & expanded font to be easier on old eyes such as mine.

Just in case you weren't paying attention Troll Lords announced a free digital copy of  Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book.  But what's actually in the Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book? Well step right into the deep end & let's take a look into this bestiary & treasure book. Clocking in at one hundred & forty five  pages the Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book has everything that a dungeon master needs to set up the monster side of the C&C adventure. A good solid sampling of all of the classic monsters are here.




There isn't a single devil or demon in this book but that's fine. What's here is solid old school because  C&C Monsters & Treasure debuts a new look, with more interior art, expanded index and some rules clarifications.  This is a solid investment for those dungeon masters who were in for the earlier incarnations of the Castles & Crusades games. But is it worth the download? Yes in a word. The monsters are with cleaned up stat blocks & a very easy to digest whole cloth approach to the monster itself. This sort of attention to detail is visible throughout the  Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book.
But what really sets it apart is the next section with the magic items & how Castles & Crusades handles the subject.  The majority of the treasure section is dedicated to magic items & even how to create or destroy them. This isn't an oversight on the part of the authors but along with the  magic items, there are also sentient items and how to destroy them. Plus there is  a section about other rewards, like lands, titles, services and the like which is very important for domain style games!

For the Castles & Crusades dungeon master (I'm sorry but I'm never calling them Castle Keepers. Every game master for me is a dungeon master trade marks & copy rights be damned!) the Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book is an absolutely essential book & I'm glad to have this earlier incarnation of it. Why?! Two reasons for me it shows the evolution of the various incarnations of the C&C game. For the second reason its a bit more complex. This is a striped down version of the Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book which means that in a pinch it can be brought to the fore for adventure design. This unto itself is reason enough for me to have a copy. Do I think that Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book is worth the down load? Well its sitting on my hard drive. The Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book is a book that works for me at the table top level.