19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A FANTASTIC NEW SETTING BY THE MASTER!, January 3, 2006
This review is from: Castle Zagyg Volume One: Yggsburgh (Hardcover)
I'll never forget the first time I heard of Gary Gygax. It was over 25 years ago when I was in high school was listening to a local rock station that ran a talk show late in the night. Here was this guy talking about this crazy game with elves and wizards and dwarves and such and playing the role of a warrior or priest.... Having just taken an interest in fantasy literature by reading Lord of the Rings, whatever the heck he was talking about really intrigued me. I would soon begin a quarter century love affair with fantasy RPGs and it was all thanks to the father of the genre, Gary Gygax.
Troll Lord games is in the process of putting out several volumes that cover Gygax's legendary creation of Castle Zagyg over the course of the next few years designed for the Castles & Crusades role-playing game. The first of these volumes is Yggsburgh, and it is where the any campaign into Zagyg will begin. Yggsburgh is the town surrounding the castle and the book details the town and its environs in one of the richest fantasy settings that gamers have ever experienced.
The setting is designed for games of 4th to 6th level which can be easily adjusted up or down by the GM. The first section of the book explores the basics of Yggsburgh: Population, social classes, ruling bodies, system of law, military, etc...
Section two explores the actual town in more depth, providing detail on 93 different buildings and locations in the town including temples, inns & taverns, guild houses, and the residences of important citizens like the Mayor. I cannot talk enough about the vast amount of information here. The description of the Thieves Guild is over 6 pages long itself and comes with maps to the tunnels beneath the guild as well as encounters and adventure hooks. Jumpstart your campaign by having the party visit the River Rat Tavern, the seediest tavern in town, filled with colorful and dangerous patrons.
Section three is 90 pages long and fills out the environs around Yggsburgh: lakes, forests, hills, mountains, etc. Best of all there are some four dozen encounter areas that serve as mini-adventures for the party. There's the River King's Tomb on Mound Island, an 8 page adventure and The Cursed Mine in the Woodland Hills which is a lengthy 10 page adventure. A party can spend weeks exploring all of these areas before even getting to Castle Zagyg.
Appendices provide further detail on building styles, crime & punishment tables, encounter tables that include dozens of more urban adventure hooks, magic items and spells, monsters, and skills. There are several maps within the pages of the book as well as a full color, 24" x 30" fold out map done is a style very similar to the old World of Grey Hawk fantasy setting.
Ultimately what will make or break any campaign setting is if the world comes alive when you play it and Yggsburgh does just that. It's written to allow gamers freedom to adapt it to their own campaign, or, if they're lazy like me, to use it right off the shelf with little preparation needed. The book is well-written and edited and even though the information in its 256 pages is vast, it never becomes dull or clichéd.
Gygax is proving once again why fantasy RPG's begin with him!
Reviewed by Tim Janson
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome!, October 12, 2006
This review is from: Castle Zagyg Volume One: Yggsburgh (Hardcover)
I absolutely love this book. I am in my 30s and played D&D as a kid. Recenty, I discovered that some guys I work with used to play too, so I decided to DM and get a group together. I bought some of the new 3.5 D&D books and the Eberron setting. It's tough to put my finger on it, but something was just missing. It didn't feel the same as those classic games in high school. I stumbled across this excellent tome and instantly felt like a kid again. It has a very old school feel to it. I'm using it with D&D 3.5 rules and have no problem at all. I tend to loosely outline NPCs and then come up with their stats on the fly, so converting stats from C&C to D&D was absolutely no problem at all. After working with this book, I'm seriously considering checking out C&C as well!
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