Castle Amber (Château d' Amberville)

Expert #X2

by Tom Moldvay

Trapped in the mysterious Castle Amber. you find yourselves cut off from 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?

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, Gaming, Games, Fiction

28 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to re-read this because I’ve recently read, for the first time, several Clark Ashton Smith collections. Those collections reminded me a lot of this adventure, because many of the scenes, creatures, and things from Smith’s stories were taken unchanged (with permission) for this adventure.

This module is weird in a lot of ways. Besides invoking a lot of weird fantasy, it is just plain weird for a D&D adventure. Some of that weirdness is not good. It invokes the grey mist to keep adventurers from leaving its pocket dimension, before Ravenloft; it consists of one large adventure tied together by very separate simple quests. It would probably make a great 5E adventure.

The only specific call-out regarding inspiration is to Clark Ashton Smith, and once the characters get to the other dimension it is pretty much the CAS dimension. But there are clearly rooms patterned after Edgar Allan Poe (Buried Alive, the Little Ape); and likely patterned after H.P. Lovecraft (the Brain Collector, and possibly the Land of the Ghouls).

But only Clark Ashton Smith gets a mention, and the bibliography contains only his stories. Even stranger, the notes on the Amber family mention specifically that they are “not one of Clark Ashton Smith’s creations”. It does not explain why the Amber family so closely resembles Zelazny’s Amber family or let readers know they might want to read some Lovecraft; leaving Poe out I can understand, as most American readers would have been exposed to Poe during their education.

It’s a weird adventure, and I’m pretty sure I ran it once back in the day; I’m not sure we finished it. Its problems come from trying to do too much. Each room is basically a short story ripped from Smith, Poe, Lovecraft, or Zelazny, and it’s likely I’m missing some. It’s very scripted, in the sense that there really is only one solution to the adventure, and that solution must be found or the players will be trapped forever.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judges Guild has Tegel Manor, Role Aids has Beastmaker Mountain, and TSR has Castle Amber to capture the funhouse spirit of romping through a mad family's mansion. What sets Castle Amber apart is the extensive new monster list (brain collectors!), the ode to Clark Ashton Smith with adventuring in his vision of medieval France, and an actual ending. It is particularly instructive to compare with Beastmaker Mountain, because in Beastmaker you never find out exactly what happened in 'the tragedy', whereas here you not only learn what happened, but you also set things right. Another point to make about this module which can be viewed as pro or con is that some of the Amber family members who appear do not have a motivation defined, leaving it up to the DM to improvise.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first foray into D&D, it will always have a place in my heart. I still remember annoying my older brother and his friends as they explored the castle at the kitchen table while my parents were trying to watch Jeopardy in the next room. I was given command of a backpack guy with a bunch of 9s for stats. Sure I got stabbed in the stomach by some idiot in the drawing room, but my brother died first, so I feel like I won!

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

a bizarely good rendition of several Clark Ashton smith stories-short on combat (except a huge ending) and long on puzzle solving and clue investigating.

[Misty · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite old school D&D module.

[Ulrich Krieghund · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far my favorite adventure to run.

[Ross Kitson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The nostalgia is significant with this one, having owned it in the 80s and played it with both Expert rules and tweaked for AD&D.
In essence the characters are mysteriously trapped in an extra-dimensional mansion which is the home of the insane chaotic Amber family. They must then explore the areas of the place and try to work out how to escape through the lethal mists that surround the mansion. The solution is to appeal to the murdered head of the family, Prince Stephen D'Amberville, by locating his magic tomb and getting past its guardians. This is achieved by passing through the dungeon, activating a gate, and then collecting four items in the land of Averoigne.
It's a solid dungeon with a twist in the old style. The areas of the mansion are cool--two wings, a chapel, and a central domed garden. The NPCs are a mix of standard monsters, new creations (like the magen, lupin etc), and the Ambers who are all high level NPCs. They provide the real flavour to the place, with variable degrees of insanity, interaction, and challenge.
The dungeon is fairly standard and slightly non-sensical, with ecology in the whole place a handwave of 'its magic.' The wilderness section is great, and very distinctly flavoured, and based on some famous fantasy short stories from the Thirties I think (by Clark Ashton Smith from pulp magazines of the time). Averoigne is medieval France in style, with persecution of magic in a TV series Merlin way.
Re-reading as an adult it hasn't lost its character. Tom Moldvay, who wrote the BX sets that I owned, and also penned X1, B3, and B4 and many more, has a creative style and I think created modules with solid back stories in contrast to many of the time. It would have been better to have a little more of the story around Stephens murder, the relationships of the Amber family etc. Perhaps that's in the re-imagining by Goodman Games? It's certainly an adventure I'd consider running in 5e.
All over 4 to 4.5 stars as vintage DnD modules go.

[Brian Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having heard about this module for 35+ years I've finally read it cover and cover and it was... good, don't get me wrong, but a bit of a disappointment. I'd heard a lot over the years about the bizarre interactions with the NPCs, and while they're there, they are also disconnected into per room vignettes - there's little to no sense of the politics of the family or how their madnesses interact. I suppose I was hoping for something between the very early module design that this represented and the post Hickman Revolution high narrative games where your path through was more predetermined.

Ah well. Will all still be used in my current campaign, just with some tweaking.

[Pádraic]

This is bananas. An incredible series of encounters, with memorably deranged NPCs, weird unique monsters, varieties of non-combat challenges I guarantee your players haven't experienced before, and malicious traps and puzzles.

I could say more but frankly I don't want to spoil it, there's so much in here that would make your players go "...what?" Some of the old-school adventures are one-shot material, but this is a full short campaign right here. One of the best modules I've read in any edition.

[Mindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars = I liked it a lot. :)

This was basically an adventure to be played over many sessions without stopping and questioning why anything is the way it is otherwise you'll think about how little sense it makes after a few encounters. :)

It recommends up to 10 players level 3-6 each, though the enemies are much higher level than that in some places.

[Joe B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool idea, but the players were not into it because it didn’t take place in the “real” Known World that they and their characters cared about. So we attempted to play this multiple times, but never got through it. At least it inspired me to read the Amber novels by Roger Zelazny, though!

[John Sinclair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting adventure. Not entirely what I thought it was, in a good way.

[Matthew RC · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really cool adventure. I bet it would be fun to run as a player. There must be a mod to ADD5e.