OSR Commentary Castles, Crusaders, & Deeper Clark Ashton Smith Zothique Dreams With X2 Castle Amber By Tom Moldvay

Last night I sat down with a group of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons players & it was an interesting walk through about their game campaigns. Their dungeon master is going on vacation & asked me to step in. Whoa.. I took a very large step back from this. I'm already engaged with an on going OSR  campaign which has been running for a very long while. So I'm putting the breaks on stepping in & taking on another commitment. Why?? Because I don't think that I can give my full attention to stepping into another friend's campaign.
In the meantime I've been rereading & going over my copies of Castles & Crusades books & materials for my on going weekly game. I already talked about doubling down on the OSR resources the other day. 



One of the books that I really like is the Castles & Crusades Arms & Armors book, this is a solid resource with some great weapons of the ancients in it. I started thinking about Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. So I started looking into expanding the free D20 Zothique booklet into a fully functioning campaign world. This was a process that I started about six or so months ago. There are a few isolated towns & villages that have had some contact with other  worlders. Various legends within the Zothique Pulp setting that hint at this. And in fact when Clark Ashton Smith describes his world setting its interesting from the Wiki entry; "Clark Ashton Smith himself described the Zothique cycle in a letter to L. Sprague de Camp, dated November 3, 1953:

Zothique, vaguely suggested by Theosophic theories about past and future continents, is the last inhabited continent of earth. The continents of our present cycle have sunken, perhaps several times. Some have remained submerged; others have re-risen, partially, and re-arranged themselves. Zothique, as I conceive it, comprises Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia, India, parts of northern and eastern Africa, and much of the Indonesian archipelago. A new Australia exists somewhere to the south. To the west, there are only a few known islands, such as Naat, in which the black cannibals survive. To the north, are immense unexplored deserts; to the east, an immense unvoyaged sea. The peoples are mainly of Aryan or Semitic descent; but there is a negro kingdom (Ilcar) in the north-west; and scattered blacks are found throughout the other countries, mainly in palace-harems. In the southern islands survive vestiges of Indonesian or Malayan races. The science and machinery of our present civilization have long been forgotten, together with our present religions. But many gods are worshipped; and sorcery and demonism prevail again as in ancient days. Oars and sails alone are used by mariners. There are no fire-arms—only the bows, arrows, swords, javelins, etc. of antiquity. The chief language spoken (of which I have provided examples in an unpublished drama) is based on Indo-European roots and is highly inflected, like Sanskrit, Greek and Latin.

Darrell Schweitzer suggests the idea of writing about a far future land may have come from William Hope Hodgson's novel The Night Land, noting that Smith was an admirer of Hodgson's work.^[2] However, this theory was conclusively disproven by Scott Conner’s "Dust and Atoms: The Influence of William Hope Hodgson on Clark Ashton Smith" in Sargasso#2 (2016), the scholarly journal devoted to Hodgson."

Zothique is not Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg' Hyperborea  but a separate time space continuum millions of years in a plane Prime's alternative future. This means that there are millions cultures that have come & gone to this Earth's dust. Basically this means that I can take the Castles & Crusades Mythos Bundle & use it too fill out the settings gaps as needed.
Take a look at this map of Zothique by Miihkali  its his own work, based on a map by Crates it gives an idea of the scale & just how far into Earth's future we're talking.

Map of Zothique by Miihkali  its his own work, based on a map by Crates 

Now Africa, all of Eurasia, have come to form the backbone of this world. Its old, fickle, demonic, & very dangerous. The type of place that will devour adventurers & its just the sort of a place that one might find explorers of the Unconquered Sun's Albion  trying to stake a claim to the deserts of Zothique. 

When the start of the Rose War begins it throws empire of Albion into full chaos. This is going to leave any explorers isolated & perhaps vulnerable. I've already written about the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville)'s interests on Zothique. But things get much more harry then that X2 Castle Amber  places several Mystara resources at the feet of the Amber family. Their roots run very deep indeed into the sands of Zothique as they do on Mystara.

The Castles & Crusades Keeper's Guide has several magical options built into it. Allowing the dungeon master to potray on the whole spectrum of wild & woolly Zothique magicks. This is especially true if the DM marries it with the Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg.



But why would the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) be so interested in Zothique? Two things immortality & possibly averting his on coming death curse that he can't seem to escape. He's angry, desperate, but not stupid or reckless. But where does all of this lead? We'll get into that next time. 

"To Save X2: "Castle Amber (Chateau d' Amberville)" by Tom Moldvay - Epic Campaign Plot

"Trapped in the mysterious Castle Amber, you find yourselves cut off form the world you know. The castle is fraught with peril. Members of the strange Amber family, some insane, some merely deadly, lurk around every corner. Somewhere in the castle is the key to your escape, but can you survive long enough to find it?"



X2 Castle Amber remains one of my all time favorite modules of all times & its history is a woven tapestry of old school awesomeness; "X2: "Castle Amber (Chateau d' Amberville)" (1981), by Tom Moldvay, is the second Expert level Basic D&D adventure. It was published in 1981." But over the years I've heard various bits & bobs of crap about using  in my current Cha'alt/Godbound campaign. Now I've gotten a mensure of crap the other day about using the  Adventurer,Conqueror,King rpg & not using Troll Lords Castles & Crusades instead. 
Well actually because I'm using Godbound as my OSR base or backbone system that means I can convert the OSR systems as needed. 
And this is something that is inherit within the Castle Keeper's Guide by Troll Lords. Both of these are very different OSR systems. 



So what does any of this have to do with X2 Castle Amber by Tom Moldvay? Well just about everything. Province of Averoigne by Clark Ashton Smith is one of the premeire realms he created in the small fictional French providence. The whole cycle comes down to this series of short stories:
Beast of Averoigne, The (1933)
Colossus of Ylourgne, The (1933)
Disinterment of Venus, The (1934)
Enchantress of Sylaire, The (1941)
End of the Story, The (1930)
Holiness of Azédarc, The (1933)
Maker of Gargoyles, The (1932)
Mandrakes, The (1933)
Mother of Toads (1934)
Rendezvous in Averoigne, A (1931)
Satyr, The (1931) [Variant Conclusion to "The Satyr"]

X2 Castle Amber by Tom Moldvay is literally the most Lovecraftian or Smithian module that's ever been created. Here we have a ton of H.P. Lovecraft references thrown into the mix of the module as Easter eggs. But these are more then that! These are adventure & campaign opportunities! The fact is that the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) is in fact a Ravenloft like lord & the castle along with its attendant grounds could show up just about anywhere. Yes in Godbound you play cosmically powered gods capable of wrecking an entire campaign! Well again not really.. You play PC's who have been granted some measure of cosmic & god like mythological power. But against the likes of  "Castle Amber (Chateau d' Amberville)" your PC's are gonna die. 



The castle plays by its own rules just as its owner Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) does. And he's an arch magician of the highest caliber & in fact capable of being one of the driving forces within his realm. But his realm always seemed to me straight outta of the demi plane of Ravenloft's play book. 

If the PC's are in California whist the Cha'alt wave has been lapping along the local reality. Could this draw Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) to plane shift his realm over & then the strain of the action causes him to die?!  There are six great castles already within California & the infliction of another might not be noticed whist the chaos of Cha'alt is already happening. With the death of the arch magician the PC's might end up having to save Castle Amber!

From the Adventurer,Conqeuror, King perspective the entire realm is up for grabs! But they might not know that the realm has the Ravenloft curse attached to it!


But there's whole other aspect to this campaign plot & this is where  Troll Lords Castles & Crusades excels with Cha'alt. There are literally dozens of wizards who are gonna be gunning to raid & loot the personal stash of the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) from Cha'alt. Heroes & PC's are going to be needed to not only save the castle but also to return the castle back to its home realm of Province of Averoigne! But there's also the fact that wizards from the realm of Glantri are also going to be on the attack. The wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) is like a saint to these mad wizards especially from the Dark Glantri version of Mystara conjured from the Vaults of Pandius website by Andrew Theisen! 

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OSR Commentary Castles, Crusaders, & Deeper Clark Ashton Smith Zothique Dreams With X2 Castle Amber By Tom Moldvay

Last night I sat down with a group of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons players & it was an interesting walk through about their game campaigns. Their dungeon master is going on vacation & asked me to step in. Whoa.. I took a very large step back from this. I'm already engaged with an on going OSR  campaign which has been running for a very long while. So I'm putting the breaks on stepping in & taking on another commitment. Why?? Because I don't think that I can give my full attention to stepping into another friend's campaign.
In the meantime I've been rereading & going over my copies of Castles & Crusades books & materials for my on going weekly game. I already talked about doubling down on the OSR resources the other day. 



One of the books that I really like is the Castles & Crusades Arms & Armors book, this is a solid resource with some great weapons of the ancients in it. I started thinking about Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. So I started looking into expanding the free D20 Zothique booklet into a fully functioning campaign world. This was a process that I started about six or so months ago. There are a few isolated towns & villages that have had some contact with other  worlders. Various legends within the Zothique Pulp setting that hint at this. And in fact when Clark Ashton Smith describes his world setting its interesting from the Wiki entry; "Clark Ashton Smith himself described the Zothique cycle in a letter to L. Sprague de Camp, dated November 3, 1953:

Zothique, vaguely suggested by Theosophic theories about past and future continents, is the last inhabited continent of earth. The continents of our present cycle have sunken, perhaps several times. Some have remained submerged; others have re-risen, partially, and re-arranged themselves. Zothique, as I conceive it, comprises Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia, India, parts of northern and eastern Africa, and much of the Indonesian archipelago. A new Australia exists somewhere to the south. To the west, there are only a few known islands, such as Naat, in which the black cannibals survive. To the north, are immense unexplored deserts; to the east, an immense unvoyaged sea. The peoples are mainly of Aryan or Semitic descent; but there is a negro kingdom (Ilcar) in the north-west; and scattered blacks are found throughout the other countries, mainly in palace-harems. In the southern islands survive vestiges of Indonesian or Malayan races. The science and machinery of our present civilization have long been forgotten, together with our present religions. But many gods are worshipped; and sorcery and demonism prevail again as in ancient days. Oars and sails alone are used by mariners. There are no fire-arms—only the bows, arrows, swords, javelins, etc. of antiquity. The chief language spoken (of which I have provided examples in an unpublished drama) is based on Indo-European roots and is highly inflected, like Sanskrit, Greek and Latin.

Darrell Schweitzer suggests the idea of writing about a far future land may have come from William Hope Hodgson's novel The Night Land, noting that Smith was an admirer of Hodgson's work.^[2] However, this theory was conclusively disproven by Scott Conner’s "Dust and Atoms: The Influence of William Hope Hodgson on Clark Ashton Smith" in Sargasso#2 (2016), the scholarly journal devoted to Hodgson."

Zothique is not Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg' Hyperborea  but a separate time space continuum millions of years in a plane Prime's alternative future. This means that there are millions cultures that have come & gone to this Earth's dust. Basically this means that I can take the Castles & Crusades Mythos Bundle & use it too fill out the settings gaps as needed.
Take a look at this map of Zothique by Miihkali  its his own work, based on a map by Crates it gives an idea of the scale & just how far into Earth's future we're talking.


Map of Zothique by Miihkali  its his own work, based on a map by Crates 

Now Africa, all of Eurasia, have come to form the backbone of this world. Its old, fickle, demonic, & very dangerous. The type of place that will devour adventurers & its just the sort of a place that one might find explorers of the Unconquered Sun's Albion  trying to stake a claim to the deserts of Zothique. 

When the start of the Rose War begins it throws empire of Albion into full chaos. This is going to leave any explorers isolated & perhaps vulnerable. I've already written about the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville)'s interests on Zothique. But things get much more harry then that X2 Castle Amber  places several Mystara resources at the feet of the Amber family. Their roots run very deep indeed into the sands of Zothique as they do on Mystara.


The Castles & Crusades Keeper's Guide has several magical options built into it. Allowing the dungeon master to potray on the whole spectrum of wild & woolly Zothique magicks. This is especially true if the DM marries it with the Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg.



But why would the wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) be so interested in Zothique? Two things immortality & possibly averting his on coming death curse that he can't seem to escape. He's angry, desperate, but not stupid or reckless. But where does all of this lead? We'll get into that next time. 

Sword & Sorcery Motives of Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) From X2 Castle Amber By Tom Moldvay

"Trapped in the mysterious Castle Amber, you find yourselves cut off form the world you know. The castle is fraught with peril. Members of the strange Amber family, some insane, some merely deadly, lurk around every corner. Somewhere in the castle is the key to your escape, but can you survive long enough to find it? 

This module contains referee notes, background information, maps, and exploration keys intended for use with the D&D Expert rules. Be sure to look for other D&D modules! 

For characters level 3-6."


So let's talk X2 Castle Amber by Tom Moldvay & Clark Ashton Smith to align this with several key things that have happened in my campaigns over the years especially Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.  So let's start dealing with the forty ton elephant in the room that nobody ever talks a bout.  The wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) is at the center of the module & his curse has been waffling through this module but what's he got to do with AS&SH? Quite a bit because he's another in a long line of deity level wizards that seem to pervade & parade through Clark Ashton Smith's Weird fiction. But I can already hear the rending of robes of old school players & dungeon masters. Yes, Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) was created by Tom Moldvay. But he was created in the mold of the all powerful sorcerer Maal Dweb of the CAS Xiccarph cycle of stories. You can read Flower-Women, The (1935) & Maze of Maal Dweb, The (1938) to get a scale of the sort of a wizard I'm speaking of. Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) has been made in the mold of the some of the morbid occult families of Edgar Allen Poe. He's very powerful with interests across the planes & we get a pretty good overview of his occult interests from X2. But what's it got to do with Hyperborea & CAS's Zothique? 

Just about everything in my OSR campaigns. X2 Castle Amber is described as a medium to high-level scenario which takes place in a castle surrounded by a strange gray mist according to wiki. But its that grey mist that gives a clue to what he's been doing. Many of Clark Ashton Smith's wizards are always concerned with the end of a cycle or age. The onset of the 'Stars Coming Right' & if they can achieve immortality (which seems to never seems to happen except by becoming the undead servant of a god but that's another blog entry).
The wizard-noble Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) is using his magics & psionics to peer deeply into other timelines, alternative worlds, & other prime planes. He's been playing a chess game with these places through agents with other wizards from other planes & dimensions. He +may be a rival or friend depending upon the circumstance of Jack Vance's Turjan. " Turjan is a wizard who lives in the castle of Miir, where he keeps the books which contain the 100 spells which remain in human knowledge. At the beginning of the book, Turjan travels to an otherworldly realm to study under the wizard Pandelume, who can teach Turjan the secret of creating artificial life, as well as spells and sciences which are lost to human knowledge. Turjan's adventures often bring him into conflict with other wizards."
The one thing that the Etienne d'Amberville should be watching out for is his own family. He's far too busy plotting, scheming, & vexing  the all powerful sorcerer Maal Dweb or building relations with another demon. Why?! Because the powers of chaos are moving rapidly.  He's been to Zothique & seen the ancient destruction of what's coming to the world. He's spoken with Yuckla, "the small and grotesque god of laughter" & dined with The Moon-God. Demons were summoned, rites were held, etc. But he's no closer to finding out 'if' & 'when' the world turns dark & the ground cracks with the sound of invading hordes from beyond the pale of the inner world.


Zothique is the far future world millions of years ahead & all of the stars have come right. But is it the far future of Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) world? Well I think that the Ambers control  a relatively mundane (for Smith) province in medieval France called Averoigne. The Ambers have been taking full advantage of the fact that their family mansion sits on one of the largest planar lay line points. X2 takes place in X2’s Old Averoigne on Mystara. Mystara has connections to AS&SH's Hyperborea through several focal points in various Mystaran artifacts.My guess is that during the events of Ragnarok that saw the Hyperboreans superseding humanity for a time. They had so sort of trade with Mystara or its skyships. But this didn't last as the Green Death led to their eventual almost extinction.
The Ambers have been the enemies of both the Le Fey royal witch queens & their sister line the Morgause. All of which blends right into the back end of CAS's Enchantress of Sylaire,  (1941). The question is are the witch covens of these two powerful families helping the Hyperboreans? Well I mentioned Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos yesterday & its easy to back port that book's witch & elven cults into both X2 & Hyperborea. 




Could the players be hired by  Stephen Amber (Etienne d'Amberville) to explore some Hyperborean dungeon even as he sees his own inevitable death sometime down the line? I can also see the PC's dealing with the high stakes of some of X2's other adventure elements. The module is a classic;"In an earlier review in issue No. 35 of White Dwarf magazine, reviewer Jim Bambra rated Castle Amber 6 out of 10. Bambra saw the adventure as "an attempt to bring randomness back into D&D."^[1] Bambra considered Castle Amber a chaotic adventure and did not recommend it for purchase, noting that it "depends a lot on chance, leaving little room for skill, and at times can be deadly." I totally agree with this assessment! More to come!