REVIEW: Hyperborea

When I first read Astonishing Swords & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, two things about it greatly impressed me. Most significant was that this roleplaying game of "swords, sorcery, and weird fantasy" demonstrated an obvious love for the pulp fantasies of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith. Equally obvious was its love for Gygaxian AD&D. The latter should have come as no surprise, given designer Jeff Talanian's stint as Gygax's protégé and amanuensis for the uncompleted Castle Zagyg project. Still, both these qualities endeared AS&SH – an infelicitous acronym of there ever was one – to me. 

In the more than a decade since its initial release in 2012, the game has found a place for itself among fans of old school Dungeons & Dragons and its descendants, particularly among those, like myself, whose tastes tend toward the pulpy end of the fantasy spectrum. A second edition of the game was released in 2017 in the form of a single hardcover book. The new edition added some new material to the contents of its original boxed rulebooks, as well as new art and layout. Unfortunately, the second edition rulebook was over 600 pages in length and very unwieldy to use, either in play or as a reference volume. On the other hand, the many adventures published to support the new edition were both excellent and evocative of Weird Tales-inspired fantasy.

2022 saw the appearance of a third edition of the game, this time in the form of two, smaller hardcover volumes – a Player's Manual and a Referee's Manual, each around 300 pages long. In addition to their much more convenient size, these new volumes contain even more art than the two previous editions, as well as a cleaner layout and organization. The game also acquired a new title with this edition – Hyperborea. The combined effect of all these changes is, in my opinion, the best-looking and easiest-to-use edition of the game to date. 

As pleased and impressed as I am by the visual improvements of the third edition, its actual content is not significantly changed from second edition. Aside from combat, which is much simplified, most of the changes are quite small, small enough that I, as a casual player of the game over the last decade, had to dig around online to notice most of them. There are also new additions to the selections of monsters, spells, and magic items, not to mention playable human races. When combined with all aforementioned esthetic changes, I think this is more than sufficient justification for a new edition, but whether it's enough for any individual to replace their existing copy of second edition with it is for each person to decide himself. By design, none of the changes or additions make, say, adventures written with 3e in mind incompatible with previous ones, so there is no necessity in "upgrading."

Players of Gygaxian AD&D will immediately find Hyperborea familiar – six attributes, a plethora of classes and sub-classes (22 in all!), nine alignments, multiple lists of spells, etc. It's a big, baroque stew of often idiosyncratic but flavorful options, but it's never overwhelming. In large part that's because of Talanian's presentation of the material, but it helps, too, that Hyperborea is much more clearly a cohesive ruleset than a sometimes-contradictory hodgepodge built up over time, which only makes sense, given that Hyperborea came out decades after AD&D. Consequently, I consider Hyperborea the best modern restatement of AD&D. 

Of course, the real joy of Hyperborea is not its rules, however solid they are. Where it most stands out is setting. The titular Land Beyond the North Wind is a flat, hexagonal plane that was once a component of "Old Earth" and the source of many of its myths and legends. Inhabited by the peoples of many ancient cultures – Amazons, Atlanteans, Kelts, Kimmerians, Norse, Picts, and more – Hyperborea is a adventuresome, horror-tinged sandbox in which to set all manner of pulp fantasy adventures. If you read about it in story by REH, HPL, or CAS, you can easily set it in Hyperborea. The setting is sketched out with just enough detail that the referee isn't left entirely to his own devices, but neither is he hamstrung. Think of the original World of Greyhawk folio and you have a good idea of the level of detail I'm talking about.

If I have a complaint about Hyperborea compared to its predecessors, it's that the setting map is now presented in a softcover Atlas of Hyperborea, which is sold separately. Previous editions, including the second edition hardcover, included a very nice, fold-out map of the lost continent; the Atlas chops up that map into smaller (and much less usable, in my opinion) portions. It's a shame, because Glynn Seal's map of Hyperborea is lovely and deserves better.  

Hyperborea is a product of real passion and dedication, both to the legacy of Gary Gygax and to the imaginations of the greatest writers of Weird Tales. It's a good example of what can be accomplished by a designer with a singular vision and a dedication to seeing it realized. Certainly, Hyperborea is not a fantasy roleplaying for everyone. Its focus and authorial voice are distinctive, even a little out of step with what some may want. But if what you're looking for is a florid, flavorful take on pulp fantasy that nevertheless hews closely to the outlines of Gygaxian AD&D, you're in for a treat.

Upper Works Response

Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works writer and developer Jeff Talanian dropped me an email in response to my recent review. He was kind enough to give me permission to post it here for everyone to read. He writes:

Thank you for taking the time to review Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. I appreciate the time and effort you put into sharing your opinions with your usual articulate and thoughtful manner. I must bear full responsibility for most of your content-related criticisms, for I was provided much latitude in the design and development of Gary's famous work, for good or ill. I understood the expectations were high, and I accepted the responsibility knowing that my resources were limited and that Gary's health was in a severe decline; notwithstanding, I peppered him with emails throughout the process, seeking his advice in matters small and large. Essentially, James, I did what I feel was my best work at that time, given the circumstances. I am proud of the work, and I make no excuses for all the warts CZ:UW no doubt bears. Noting your criticisms (not all of which I agree with, of course!), those of Allan Grohe, and other gaming peers whom I respect, I hope to turn my design and development weakness into strengths so as to produce better adventures in the future. Again, thank you.

I would also like to thank Jeff for all the hard work he did in trying to do justice to this project, particularly given the circumstances under which he no doubt worked. Although I am less pleased with the end result than I had hoped I would be, I remain glad to have picked up The Upper Works. There's a lot of good contained within its pages and I'll certainly be swiping bits of it for my own megadungeon, which I mean to be a high compliment. In addition, I have no doubt that, without Jeff's tireless labor, we'd never have seen as much of Castle Zagyg as we did. We are all in his debt for that. I sincerely look forward to his future products, as I have every reason to expect great things from him.

REVIEW: Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works (Part III of III)

As I noted in Part II, I like Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. I believe it's a very fine product and well worth the money I spent on it. I also think it's a fitting capstone to Gary Gygax's life and career, even if it's a somewhat melancholy one. I say "melancholy," because TUW is a textbook example of opportunities missed and promises unfulfilled. While it is still, by any measure, a worthy product and a truly Gygaxian one, it could have been better than it was. There's a host of "could have beens" associated with this product and I'd like to talk about several of them to give a better context for my final review of TUW.

1. Timeliness: As we now know, TUW will be the last product of the Castle Zagyg line published by Troll Lord Games. That it was also, by most standards, also the first product in the line to attempt to make good on what most fans expected from it only makes this fact harder to accept. I understand that at least some of the delays in getting TUW to press were not TLG's fault. A combination of factors, no doubt including Gary's failing health, contributed to its tardiness. By the same token, had the projct been better managed from the start, with a realistic timetable and a fewer about-faces in terms of content and format, there's a chance we might have seen more than TUW in the four years since the project was first announced. A good portion of my dissatisfaction with TUW stems from the fact that, after all these years, it's all we've managed to see of the megadungeon I had hoped we'd have seen by now.

2. Appearance and Organization: Being an old schooler, I'm quite accustomed to amateurish products and indeed have a certain affection for them. At the same time, there are many companies out there that have managed to produce attractive and well organized materials without having the resources of Wizards of the Coast. TUW should have been treated like the prestige product that it clearly is. Its organization should have included at the very least an index and better cross-referencing and I don't think it's asking too much in expecting an overview of the entirety of the Castle and its levels. TUW is packed with information -- which is a good thing! -- but it's not particularly user friendly, especially compared to products like Rappan Athuk Reloaded or Castle Whiterock, both of which are larger and yet easier to use. Likewise, TUW's box is flimsy; mine is already splitting after very little use and its pasted-on cover is starting to peel and crack. All these complaints are minor in themselves and I'd have quite happily overlooked them, but, in aggregate, they contribute to the impression of a product made with less care than it ought to have been.

3. Historicity: I had hoped that Castle Zagyg would have taken an approach closer to Rob Kuntz's products, such as The Living Room and The Original Bottle City. In those products, Kuntz not only presented a reconstruction of material from his days as co-DM of the Greyhawk campaign, but also commentary on the origins of this material and how it was used, including reminiscences of events from those days. In some cases, this made the material very "modular," which is to say, disconnected from its original environment, but it also made the material far more useful for referees hoping to drop it into their existing campaigns. Furthermore, it made the material of terrific interest to people whose primary attraction to it is in gleaning insights into the early days of the hobby, not to mention details of one of the oldest fantasy campaigns in existence. Granted, there was never much chance that the Castle Zagyg line was going to adopt this approach. Anyone who'd read Yggsburgh could have seen that. Gary himself stated on numerous occasions that he didn't favor treating the Castle as a "historical" product. I think this was an error in judgment on his part, if only because I don't think historicity need get in the way of gameability. Indeed, I think a greater emphasis on historicity would have made the material of wider interest and greater gameability, particularly for old schoolers such as myself. Again, it's probably unfair to judge TUW too harshly because it didn't adhere to a model that its creator rejected, but I can't deny I held out hope that he might have changed his mind in the course of writing it.

4. Completeness: In itself, TUW contains everything it promises. It does detail all of the Upper Works of Castle Zagyg. Unfortunately, the Upper Works aren't where the Castle "lives." They're, at best, a tantalizing glimpse of what lies beneath them, a sideshow that briefly holds our attention before we move on to bigger and better things. Jim Ward notes that, in the original Greyhawk campaign, the Upper Works occupied very little of the players' attention, because the subterranean levels were far more lucrative and intriguing. I find it hard not to feel the same way. Were it not for the fact that the Upper Works are all that have been described, I rather suspect that most adventuring parties would imitate their Lake Geneva predecessors and delve deeper, lured on by the promise of sights more exciting than endless humanoid barracks and store rooms. To be fair, there is much more to the Upper Works than these things, but, taken as a whole, the feeling I come away with is that TUW describes only a handful of truly memorable encounters and a whole lot of filler intended to keep players busy until such time as the Real Dungeon is published. Alas, it never will be, at least not by TLG -- and that's deeply frustrating.

As you can see, my complaints are, in large part, extraneous to the actual product itself, having more to do with what I wish had been the case rather than what is. For me, TUW, like the entire Castle Zagyg line, is timid and mundane when it should have been daring and otherworldly. TLG and Gary clearly decided to "play it safe" in presenting the Castle and I can't shake the feeling that this approach was unwise. Had TUW (and Yggsburgh before it) treated us to lots of commentary, historical context, and vintage Gygaxian lunacy, I would likely have deemed the entire line a glorious failure cut short by the vagaries of licensing. As it is, what we have is a solid -- dare I say "workmanlike?" -- product with occasional moments of brilliance. TUW has a kind of watered-down, washed-out feel to it, as if it were a copy of a copy of a copy. You can still see the artistry of the original piece of art, but it's muted compared to what it must have looked like fresh from the brush of the Master. Instead of being grateful that the original was preserved, however badly damaged it was from the toll of years, I found myself thinking it far less impressive than the stories I had read of it from those who saw it in its glory.

My hope is that Gygax Games, now that it has reclaimed the license, will take a new tack in any future publication of materials relating to Castle Greyhawk. There are many valid approaches a company could take that would, I think, do justice to this most famous of megadungeons. My own preference is for an approach similar to that adopted by Rob Kuntz in his own work, with additional input from members of the old Greyhawk campaign, where possible. This approach would almost certainly run counter to the tastes of modern gamers, but then I don't think Castle Greyhawk was ever likely to appeal to modern tastes and it was a fool's errand to ever think it could. Perhaps the best approach is to treat Castle Greyhawk/Zagyg primarily as a document of historical interest rather than as a complete, ready-to-play "mega-adventure." Such an approach would be truest to the spirit of the Lake Geneva campaign back in the day and also the most realistic as a publishing project. Anything more would, I fear, reduce Gary's legacy to a mere brand -- which isn't to say it won't happen. Even TLG was heading in that direction, as they dubbed the line "Gary Gygax's Castle Zagyg."

As far removed as we are in time from the days of the Greyhawk campaign, it's well-nigh impossible to produce a definitive version of the Castle that fulfills 30+ years of hopes and dreams. It would be best, I think, not even to try to do so and it's here that TUW's reach exceeds its grasp. By aiming for a playable Gestalt approach to the megadungeon, it winds up being less than the sum of its parts, at least as far as I'm concerned. It's lacking both in the expansiveness necessary to make me overlook its disconnection from history and in historical depth to make me overlook its smallness. For some, these are probably not flaws and the middle of the road approach adopted in Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works hits a sweet spot that neither of my preferences would have done. I certainly recognize that my own tastes are idiosyncratic and far from widespread, even among old schoolers, most of whom seem to like this product far more than I do. Even I, for all my complaints and nitpicks, can't grade it too harshly. I remain unmoved from my repeated assertion that I am glad I own this and find much good in it, but I am equally unmoved from my belief that, as the final work from the pen of the Dungeon Master, it's disappointing on numerous levels. Gygax Games has one more chance to fulfill the promise this megadungeon holds. Let's see if they do so.

Final Score: 3½ out of 5 polearms

REVIEW: Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works (Part II of III)

As I noted in Part I, Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works consists of six staple-bound booklets and three glossy maps. I'd like to comment first on the physical qualities of these items before diving into a more detailed discussion of their contents. I think it's fair to say that TUW is by far the best looking and presented product Troll Lord Games has ever made. It's very clear to me that they quite correctly saw this boxed set as a prestige product and made every effort to avoid the past mistakes of earlier TLG offerings, many of which are legendary in their production missteps. That's not to say that TUW is entirely free of the gaffes I've come to expect from TLG -- there are typos, omissions, and other editorial infelicities to be found throughout, but none that I came across struck me as anything more than the kinds of errors one might reasonably expect from a product of this size and scope. Cory M. Coserta is listed as the editor for TUW and he deserves a debt of thanks for his work on it.

The five booklets containing the descriptions of the Upper Works all use the same workmanlike two-column layout that TLG seems to use for all its products. It's not pretty but it's quite serviceable, particularly given the density of the text itself, which uses a very small typeface. The text is broken up by black and white art drawn by TLG stalwart Peter Bradley and Jason Walton. Of the two, I found that Walton's work was by far more to my liking. There's a sameness to Bradley's pieces that reminds me a bit of Elmore's later work, whereas Walton's pieces have a "rougher" and slightly cartoonish look that somehow struck me as more appropriate to the subject matter. Ironically, Bradley's color work for the covers of the booklets were much more in a vein I like. Art, of course, is highly subjective, so I certainly won't hold my own opinions against TUW.

On the other hand, I will hold cartographic errors against TUW. Aside from lots of minor but inconvenient issues, such as inconsistent map symbols, there are a number of missing or misnumbered locations. Likewise, there are places where the maps contradict the text or where the maps were drawn in a way that I found difficult to follow. In a location-based product of this size, I would have hoped that greater care would have been taken to ensure that the maps were made as exactingly as possible and that their presentation would aid the referee in their use. The sense I get, though, is that this project was just a little too big for TLG's resources and, while they put forward a solid effort, it still wasn't quite as professional as TUW demanded.

Two more brief points before proceeding: TUW includes neither an overview of the entire Castle nor an index. In themselves, neither omission is ruinous, but their lack contributed to the "drip, drip" in the back of my brain, slowly wearing down my enthusiasm for this product. An index would certainly have made using TUW much easier and an overview of the entire Castle would have given some much needed context to the material we were given in the boxed set. Combined with the unnecessary contrivance of the "Curse of Fog & Frogs," this made me wonder exactly how much of Castle Zagyg had been completed at the time TUW was published.

1. Mouths of Madness: This is the first of the six booklets included with TUW. 44 pages in length, it details the wilderness surrounding Castle Zagyg, including the eponymous Mouths of Madness, a collection caves in which dwell several different types of humanoids and other monsters. If that sounds remarkably like the set-up for Keep on the Borderlands, I'm sure that's no accident. Despite the nostalgia this elicited, I found Book 1 to be one of the weakest bits of TUW, consisting mostly of repetitive humanoid encounters. There are a number of memorable bits -- the ogre's cottage, the gateway to Barsoom -- and several references to fabled locales (such as the Black Reservoir), but these were few and far between. I suppose it didn't help that TLG had already sold me this booklet in the previously-released Eastmark Gazetteer, but I can't say I found much here that excited my imagination or inspired me.

2. Ruins of the Castle Precincts: This 48-page booklet was much more to my liking, both because it deals directly with the Castle's grounds and because the encounters within it were varied and generally interesting. There is a goodly supply of tricks, traps, and diversions amongst its monster encounters, as well as snippets of Greyhawk lore (with the serial numbers filed off, of course). It's here that you catch glimpses of the whimsy and mercilessness that are Gygaxian trademarks. There's also a fitting -- if heavy-handed -- tribute to Gary himself in the form of a goblin cobbler that seems all the more poignant in the wake of his death.

3. East Wall Towers: At 20 pages, this is the shortest of the booklets, but it hits well above its weight category in terms of allusions to Greyhawk lore. Here we encounter the brothers of the Crimson Hand, as well as a shrine to a "celestial deity" that includes a number of nice twists and turns.

4. Castle Fortress: This 44-page booklet is another excellent one, detailing the ruins of Zagyg's old surface fortress. This area of the Castle contains a goodly mix of encounters, some of them quite memorable and challenging. According to the introduction, which includes quotes from Lake Geneva campaign regular (and Gamma World designer) Jim Ward, these ruins received very little exploration in the original campaign, as the subterranean levels had "more and bigger loot," to quote The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. Consequently, the material here is potentially quite new, in the sense that it has never before been even hinted at in earlier accounts of the Lake Geneva adventures. I found this booklet held my attention for quite some time, as I read and re-read it for details I might have missed. There's lots of inspiration to be found here.

5. Store Rooms: Another 44-page booklet, it's a mixed bag, with several interesting encounters and far too many rooms filled with humanoids barracks, armories, and storage chambers. It's probably unfair to have expected anything more from it, given its name, but I did feel a mite disappointed. I'm a fan of Gygaxian naturalism, as you know, but this section of TUW proved fairly dull because of it. The book concludes with many new magic items, monsters, and a fully-statted rival adventuring party, the latter being a very nice old school touch that I greatly appreciated.

Maps & Illustrations Booklet: 36 pages in length, 20 of them is devoted to maps of the Upper Works. I've already mentioned my feelings about them above. The remainder is a series of 33 illustrations (all by Jason Walton) that are presumably intended to be shown to players at appropriate times, after the fashion of the illustration booklets of TSR modules of old. I was very taken by many of these pieces, as they nicely highlight the whimsical and deadly nature of the Castle. Just looking through them is a terrific antidote for anyone who, like me, tends to look down on the unique pleasures of funhouse dungeons. In some ways, I found it the most inspirational portion of TUW.

Taken as a whole, TUW didn't shake that "drip, drip" feeling I noted earlier. Part of it was that my own expectations for this boxed set were unreasonably high. I had hoped that we'd actually get to see something of the fabled dungeons, not just the areas immediately above them. Clearly, that was never the plan and I can't hold TLG accountable for that. Gary Gygax likewise decided that, rather than attempt to recreate one of several versions of Castle Greyhawk from the past, he would instead create a new castle that was a distillation of all of them that was at the same time none of them -- a kind of Gestalt. This was certainly not my own preference, but, again, I can't blame TLG for this, since it should have been clear, after having read Yggsburgh, that the best I could hope for was an "impressionistic" approach to the Castle and its levels.

Even so, TUW felt "small" and I don't just mean in the sense of its expanse, although it certainly did seem far smaller in size than I'd have expected. Rather, it felt as if there was a great deal missing from it -- its "heart," if you will. What we got in this boxed set certainly had lots of Gygaxian flourishes to it. It was hard not to recognize the spirit of the Dungeon Master hovering above it. Yet, it also had many other hovering spirits and, while I can't quite put my finger on all of them, their presence at all made me feel that TUW wasn't as good as it could have -- should have -- been.

It's not as if there's not a lot to like here, because there is. I know I'll be swiping portions of it for use in my own Dwimmermount campaign. However, I was never moved to try to and run TUW straight out of the box. Indeed, I found TUW wanting compared even to the notes that loremeister Allan Grohe has assembled on his webpage. Certainly, TUW is more "complete" in the sense of containing more statted up encounters, treasures, and so forth, but there's a very real sense in which that attempt at completeness works against it. For one thing, TUW isn't complete; it's only one very small part of a much larger megadungeon that still hasn't seen publication yet. For another, it doesn't invite the kind of tinkering and personal modifications that, say, Rob Kuntz's Lake Geneva Castle & Campaign products do, which perhaps says more about my own expectations than it does about the weakness of TUW, but there it is.

In the end, I like Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. It's a worthy product and one I'm glad to own. But I don't love it; it didn't knock my socks off and I had hoped that it would. Again, maybe that's unfair, which is why the final part of this review will be a discussion of what I had hoped I would see and what that means not just for this product, but for any future publications of Gygax-derived material.

The Plot Thickens

I'm not a regular visitor to the Gygax Games website, in part because the recent announcements regarding the disposition of Gary's unfinished gaming projects left me ill at ease. From the looks of it, the whole thing smacked of a money grab on the part of Mrs Gygax, perhaps egged on by third parties who felt they could take better financial advantage of her late husband's legacy. Nevertheless, I paid a visit to the site yesterday and noticed that a Holiday Greeting, signed by Mrs Gygax, appeared on its front page. Reading through it, I noticed a number of interesting things that, while far from making everything plain, do cast a slightly different light on recent events.

After reminding everyone that it's been nine months since Gary died, Mrs Gygax adds that "I want you all to know, Gary and I discussed his wishes for his works prior to his passing and I am following the road map he left for me. Many of you are unaware how close we were, I was devoted to him." This is intriguing. Firstly, I think it's good to see Mrs Gygax laying claim to this message. Whether or not she actually wrote it, the fact remains that, by speaking directly to the point that what is happening is happening because her husband wanted it to be so, she helps to dispel rumors that she has no idea what is going on and is being manipulated by others. Gail Gygax is now a known quantity rather than some abstraction in the background. Secondly, her mention of a "road map" implies that she's acting on the wishes of Gary himself and it's vital she get people to believe this.

Now, I personally have no difficulty at all in believing that Gary, in the months leading up to his death last March, got all his affairs in order and discussed with his wife what he wanted to be done with his various properties and projects. I recall Gary's frequent allusions to his eventual demise on various message boards as early as the summer of 2007, if not before. I think it highly likely that he did in fact produce some kind of a "road map" for his wife to follow. What is unclear and probably always will be is the actual content of this road map and the extent to which Mrs Gygax is following what is laid out in it. By that I mean that I can believe Gary might have laid out what he wanted to see done with the Castle Zagyg project after his death, but I'm not certain that he specified, for example, that the license be revoked from Troll Lords and given to someone else. I'm not saying it's impossible (and I'll expand my thoughts on this shortly), but I'd like to see more evidence.

Mrs Gygax further explains her role: "To that end, after Gary passed, I asked Spencer Wright and Jon Creffield to help me. They have given freely of their time, we should all thank them. I am grateful for their help. They are not advising me what to do, but helping to maintain the integrity of the IP and continue its development." I've italicized the key bit there. Again, Mrs Gygax says the buck stops with her and, by implication, that it stops with the road map that Gary laid out before his death. She then concludes with these words:

Gary would want us all to be kind to each other during this time of transition and especially kind to each other during this holiday season. After all, that’s what his life was all about – creating environments for the enjoyment of others –

I plan to continue his mission.

That conclusion rings very true. I didn't know Gary Gygax personally -- we were, at best, infrequent email correspondents -- but I like to think I understood him. In recent years, he was a much more pacific and less cantankerous personality. He remained strong-willed, even opinionated, on many topics, but he was also much more giving and indeed forgiving than popular caricatures would have us believe. He had a keen sense of his role in the hobby and he was genuinely -- and regularly -- touched by the outpouring of affections he engendered. Consequently, toward the end, he seemed to me to be very interested in fostering fun and enjoyment and ensuring that it was those things that were his legacies.

What is now very clear to me is that Mrs Gygax has decided to step out from the shadows a bit and boldly state that what is happening now is happening in accordance to a plan she is following, a plan laid down by Gary before his death. I think it was important that she do this, but stating it does come with some risks, not least being the likelihood that many might not believe her. After all, while he was alive, Gary spoke highly of Troll Lords and, so far as anyone knows, never considered pulling the Castle Zagyg license out from under them, despite all the delays and missteps that were undoubtedly their fault and not his own. As I'll explain in my upcoming review of Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works, late as it was, the product shows many signs of having been rushed and less well produced than it ought to have been and surely Gary knew this would be the case. Yet, he continued to work with the Trolls without any public hint of displeasure or unhappiness. So why would Mrs Gygax now revoke the license when Gary never did so during his lifetime?

I have no answer to that question. I suppose it's possible that Gary was simply unwilling to pull the trigger on such a move because of his personal affection for the Trolls. On the other hand, why set up his wife to look like the bad guy after his death? Whatever else he was, Gary was no coward and I find it hard to imagine he'd planned to go to the grave without voicing his dissatisfaction like that. This is the part of the whole affair that still rankles me, not because I think it impossible that someone else might do a better job with Castle Zagyg -- depending on what approach is taken, it's quite possible, in my opinion -- but because it seems somehow "un-Gygaxian." As I say, I didn't know the man personally, so I could be wrong; I hope, though, that, if he had genuine problems with the Trolls, he'd have made them plain while still alive. Indeed, it's also possible that he did and it was because of this that he instructed his wife to pursue other avenues for the project after his death.

We may never know the truth, but there's now more evidence to sift through that might get us closer to it. I'll be paying careful attention to what happens next and will have some additional thoughts relating to this when I complete my own review of The Upper Works.

Castle Zagyg Review

Allan Grohe offers up a magisterial 15-page review of Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works here. I was planning on offering my own review, but, having now read Allan's work, I'm not sure there's any point. He's done a great job and hit a number of points I'd intended to make as well. Go read it for yourself.

The Fat Lady Sings

As many feared, the end is nigh for Castle Zagyg from Troll Lord Games.

Damn it.

This is Getting Annoying

Could someone please tell me how the heck I can snag a copy of Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works that doesn't involve having to pick up the phone to Arkansas and hope that someone at Troll Lords answers my call? Because the game was released at GenCon in early August and it's still not available through regular distribution channels so far as I know. No online game stores carry it; none of my local ones can get it. Even the TLG website continues to list it in their own catalog as "Available for Pre-Order."

I know people have gotten hold of the product. What did you do to get it? Was a phone call what it took? I have nothing against phone orders, but I have to say that, in this day and age, not being able to order easily online is rather inconvenient.

All is Not Well in Yggsburgh

Yesterday, Jeffrey Talanian, lead developer of the Castle Zagyg series produced by Troll Lord Games under license from Gygax Games (formerly Trigee Enterprises), announced the termination of his association with the project and with Gygax Games. In his announcement, Talanian explained that Gygax Games has a "new vision and new interpretation of Gary's legacy." Precisely what this means is unclear, since Gygax Games has not, as yet, come forth with any explanations or clarifications. Indeed, Gygax Games hasn't been forthcoming with any information on its plans since they shut down production of the Lejendary Adventure line at the end of August.

At this stage, what the future holds is simply speculation, of which there's a lot flying around various forums these days. All I know is that Jeff Talanian had been, over the last few years, Gary's chosen protegé. Through his efforts, the Castle Zagyg line had finally begun to make good on the promise it held, after many years of delays. By all accounts -- I still have yet to see a copy -- Castle Zagyg: Upper Works is a supremely good product, one that drips with Gygaxian goodness, thanks in no small part to Jeff Talanian's ability to channel the creativity and cleverness of the Dungeon Master. The idea that anyone could take his place and remain true to Gary's vision for the product line is simply ludicrous. I simply cannot fathom any "new vision" that would benefit from dropping the man whose close work with Gary over the last few years has brought us a product that's as close to the definitive version of Castle Greyhawk as any we'll ever see.

In any case, I'd urge anyone who's interested in Castle Zagyg to snap up any copies they can find now, because there's no telling what the future might hold. I hate to think that Gygax Games might do to it what they did to Lejendary Adventure, but I'm not willing to count on that. I fear that, once again, gamers will be denied seeing the Holy Grail of megadungeons.