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Basic #B9
Castle Caldwell and Beyond
Five exciting short adventures to make your Basic campaign come alive!
The Clearing of Castle Caldwell - A local merchant has recently purchased a small castle ... but when he tried to move in, he discovered that the castle was already inhabited!
Dungeons of Terror - A strange trapdoor in the floor of Castle Caldwell leads to a terrifying challenge!
The Abduction of Princess Sylvia - On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful princess has been kidnapped! Can you save her in time?
The Great Escape - Imprisoned in an enemy fortress, without armor or weapons, your situation seems hopeless. Yet there may be a way to freedom ...
The Sanctuary of Elwyn the Ardent - A mystical chime of great power has been stolen - but by whom? In the wrong hands, the chime can cause untold harm! But can you find and defeat this mysterious and powerful creature?
The Clearing of Castle Caldwell - A local merchant has recently purchased a small castle ... but when he tried to move in, he discovered that the castle was already inhabited!
Dungeons of Terror - A strange trapdoor in the floor of Castle Caldwell leads to a terrifying challenge!
The Abduction of Princess Sylvia - On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful princess has been kidnapped! Can you save her in time?
The Great Escape - Imprisoned in an enemy fortress, without armor or weapons, your situation seems hopeless. Yet there may be a way to freedom ...
The Sanctuary of Elwyn the Ardent - A mystical chime of great power has been stolen - but by whom? In the wrong hands, the chime can cause untold harm! But can you find and defeat this mysterious and powerful creature?
- GenresDungeons and Dragons
32 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 4, 2024
Lets clean a castle...and save a princess...and escape from a dungeon...and retrieve a stolen artifact!
This series of introductory adventures can easily fit in most campaigns (obviously the DM must change names and titles to be coherent with his/her world). They can also be used as one shot quests or conventions. This review has SPOILERS, so beware. If you are a player read no further.
Designed to challenge a group of 4 – 8 players of levels 1-3, they are adequate regarding dangers, rewards and interesting sets and background plots. You can adapt the stories so they are somewhat linked, although officially only the first two adventures are sequential.
“The Clearing of Castle Caldwell” – a merchant hires the adventurers to clean a castle he just bought. A small dungeon with some interesting challenges but the author doesn’t worked very hard to flesh it out; the merchants have no names, the cleric neither, all NPC’s are just numbers (I know that this module is from 1985 , but please consider that “The Enemy Within” campaign was first published in 1986! There is no excuse for this lack of consideration for the NPC’s), the castle is also too small for so many independent factions, etc. It's a fine story to introduce the rules but quite weak in the details.
“Dungeons of Terror” – There is a trapdoor in the castle that leads to an underground nightmare. Good challenges and foes, better than the first adventure.
“The Abduction of Princess Sylvia” – a dangerous mage and its gang kidnaps a princess before her wedding. The characters will track them down to their lair and fight through an interesting small dungeon through lizard man, goblins and illusions to battle the mage and save the princess.
“The Great Escape” – The adventurers are captured (you can use this adventure any time during the campaign when your mighty adventurers eventually get captured by some foe…than you just have to adapt it to the current situation), and unarmed they will have to trick the jailer, retrieve their equipment and eventually defeat the enemy leader.
“The Sanctuary of Elwyn the Ardent” – the best story of this lot; a fallen saint steals a magic bell and brings it to its lair. It’s a fine, although linear, dungeon with interesting traps, treasures and a deadly (but not exceedingly deadly) final fight. Magic weapons are required to fight some engagements, so remember to provide them to your players if they don’t have some.
All in all this is an interesting module which adequately introduces players to dungeon delving, exploring several different types of dungeons. More puzzles could be provided and the NPC’s should be much more three-dimensional. Good cover art (in the eighties style) by Clyde Caldwell and average internal line drawings depicting some emblematic events in the adventures.
This series of introductory adventures can easily fit in most campaigns (obviously the DM must change names and titles to be coherent with his/her world). They can also be used as one shot quests or conventions. This review has SPOILERS, so beware. If you are a player read no further.
Designed to challenge a group of 4 – 8 players of levels 1-3, they are adequate regarding dangers, rewards and interesting sets and background plots. You can adapt the stories so they are somewhat linked, although officially only the first two adventures are sequential.
“The Clearing of Castle Caldwell” – a merchant hires the adventurers to clean a castle he just bought. A small dungeon with some interesting challenges but the author doesn’t worked very hard to flesh it out; the merchants have no names, the cleric neither, all NPC’s are just numbers (I know that this module is from 1985 , but please consider that “The Enemy Within” campaign was first published in 1986! There is no excuse for this lack of consideration for the NPC’s), the castle is also too small for so many independent factions, etc. It's a fine story to introduce the rules but quite weak in the details.
“Dungeons of Terror” – There is a trapdoor in the castle that leads to an underground nightmare. Good challenges and foes, better than the first adventure.
“The Abduction of Princess Sylvia” – a dangerous mage and its gang kidnaps a princess before her wedding. The characters will track them down to their lair and fight through an interesting small dungeon through lizard man, goblins and illusions to battle the mage and save the princess.
“The Great Escape” – The adventurers are captured (you can use this adventure any time during the campaign when your mighty adventurers eventually get captured by some foe…than you just have to adapt it to the current situation), and unarmed they will have to trick the jailer, retrieve their equipment and eventually defeat the enemy leader.
“The Sanctuary of Elwyn the Ardent” – the best story of this lot; a fallen saint steals a magic bell and brings it to its lair. It’s a fine, although linear, dungeon with interesting traps, treasures and a deadly (but not exceedingly deadly) final fight. Magic weapons are required to fight some engagements, so remember to provide them to your players if they don’t have some.
All in all this is an interesting module which adequately introduces players to dungeon delving, exploring several different types of dungeons. More puzzles could be provided and the NPC’s should be much more three-dimensional. Good cover art (in the eighties style) by Clyde Caldwell and average internal line drawings depicting some emblematic events in the adventures.
December 10, 2023
When I first saw the cover for this adventure module decades ago, I was certainly intrigued. The excellent art of Clyde Caldwell (I wonder if the module's name was an homage to that cover art or if Caldwell was hired to paint the cover because of the castle's name) implied this would be a save the princess or maiden style of adventure and it "kinda" is.
This module is a series of adventures, only two of which are directly connected. I never ran these adventures, though I did play in them, and I remember not being that impressed and a little disappointed. After reading the entirety of the module I still feel the same way about it. The adventures are very basic. The dungeons are pretty bland and the first two fall victim to the cliche or some older dungeons just having a hodgepodge of random creatures living in an area waiting for the player characters to attack or interact with them. The princess rescue adventure is an adventure and (like the rest) would probably be okay for the plot of a Saturday morning cartoon (are those a thing anymore).
An okay product if you are looking for some run of the mill dungeon stomping to pass the time. There are some decent ideas in here, but all would require a bit of work to really make these shine.
This module is a series of adventures, only two of which are directly connected. I never ran these adventures, though I did play in them, and I remember not being that impressed and a little disappointed. After reading the entirety of the module I still feel the same way about it. The adventures are very basic. The dungeons are pretty bland and the first two fall victim to the cliche or some older dungeons just having a hodgepodge of random creatures living in an area waiting for the player characters to attack or interact with them. The princess rescue adventure is an adventure and (like the rest) would probably be okay for the plot of a Saturday morning cartoon (are those a thing anymore).
An okay product if you are looking for some run of the mill dungeon stomping to pass the time. There are some decent ideas in here, but all would require a bit of work to really make these shine.
May 28, 2023
Unlike most modules of the time, there are 5 adventures in this supplement, only 2 of which are directly connected. The 5 mini-modules provide greater levels of challenge, presumably to allow a party to progress through levels 1-3. It's not clear if the XP gains are enough to actually level the party up between adventures on their own, or if the party should be doing other things in between. In any case the adventures are pretty standard, although it uses the "door seals behind you and can't be opened by any means" trope twice. A reasonable effort and probably quite playable, if not very deep. The quality of the product is decent with few blatant errors, so it seems well edited. 3 out of 5 just because the adventures aren't that compelling on their own.
February 7, 2025
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January 2, 2025
This is the weakest module I have come across so far. I don't like the monster details on the covers and the maps in the text. The maps are uninteresting and the encounters a bit dull. I guess it would be ok as your first ever adventure. Otherwise I would skip it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews