Ruins of Castle Greyhawk
This module by Blake Mobley and Timothy B. Brown details the canon version of Castle Greyhawk. It breaks the ruins into three towers and details seperate dungeons beneath all three. A lot darker and more serious in tone than WG7 perhaps due to the backlash against the humorous tone of the latter. The module suffered greatly at the hands of TSR's editing department which only allowed so many pages (128) for the whole module including maps, and creature sheets. That left 1000+ rooms to be detailed in the module's 85 pages of room descriptions. The writing tends to be cramped and often jumbled. Key information was left out completely.

For example:
"W928: The six cells have only three prisoners: one nearly naked dark elf and two dwarves.
A drow (hp 7) and two derro (hp 15 each) are held here. A half-orc P7 (AC -3 field plate, shield +3, boots of striding and springing, hp 42; THAC0 16; Dmg 1d4+1 scythe; SA spells, failure 25%, spells/level 5/5/3/2) considers himself the leader of this level. To state this he wears a crown of jade (2,400gp). "
Mobley, Brown, p33

The full color gridless maps are another source of disappointment (unless you are fond of using a ruler during the game).

Also the various monster groupings at times didn't make sense. It often seemed like a thin excuse to drop in rarely used monsters. Even with the backstory of wizards controlling the various groups Meenlocks would not (IMHO) ally themselves with any non-meenlock.

Also a detailed description of how various NPC groups interacted with each other was sorely lacking: for example, how did the clerics of Boccob in the Tower of Power (level P100) interacted with the elves who claimed taxation rights on the tower of 1/3 magical items brought out of the tower. This becomes especially relevent when one considers that the Ring of Five's sold magic items in the Tower of Power. Did the buyer get taxed? Furthermore; how the blazes did the clerics live on level P100 considering so many monsters (like the Ettin in encounter P106) were running loose, not to mention adventurers looting the "ruins".

Again most of the WGR1 module's flaws are due to editing. The 30+ pages of maps and monsters (written monstrous compendium style of one type per page) cut too much important text out of the module. If released today with a map booklet, and web enhancements like the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, I'm sure it would fare much better.

Currently I'm working hard to convert it to 3rd Edition. I'm starting with the Tower of War level one. I've made some changes to the original module for purposes of fleshing it out and making the encounters more balanced (for example, the rot grub infested zombies worked better as Brown Mold infested zombies).

Without further ado the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk 3rd edition
Tower of War
Tower of Power:
Tower of Zagyg:

Return to Castle Greyahwk Notes and Conversions.
Return to 3rd Edition Index