CASTLE OLDSKULL – Oldskull Dungeon Encounters Book I is a role playing game supplement written and published by Kent David Kelly. The supplement is intended for use with Dungeons & Dragons-based games, particularly original and OSR variants, and is covered by the Open Game License. Some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
This is a 34 page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $1.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $0.99 during a sale. One page is the front cover, one and a half pages are the front matter and three and a half pages are About the Author and the Open Game License.
The Description is just over half a page and explains that this is a collection of 25 encounters and 25 treasures from the first level of the author’s Castle Oldskull dungeon. These have been designed using the 1977 bestiary, with stats compatible with the Basic, Expert and Advanced versions of D&D, and are stated to have been designed to highlight role-playing, cross-encounter and unusual interaction opportunities. They are also intended to add adventure hooks and give further details of the Castle Oldskull setting. They can be used to flesh out a blank map or as a way of generating random monster encounters.
25 Monster Lairs As Found Beneath Castle Oldskull is a d100 table with 25 results. Each encounter gives an overview of the creatures, how they will behave and their tactics, as well as some descriptions of the location they are found in if this plays a role in the encounter. Some of the encounters reference others, either specifically or by the use of related names. Not every encounter is necessarily a combat one.
25 Treasures Entries Corresponding to the Aforementioned Monster Lairs is another d100 table with 25 results, although five of these have no treasure. Each treasure is intended to match up with the same result in the previous encounter table. Although they could be used independently, if used with the preceding encounters, some of the encounters do reference the treasures in the description. Some of the treasures includes types of coin from the author’s campaign setting. One treasure references The Order of the Scarlet Tabard, a separate supplement. Mention is also made of The Book of Dungeon Traps, should a GM wish to add appropriate level traps to the encounter.
CASTLE OLDSKULL – Oldskull Dungeon Encounters Book I in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and a table of contents. Although it is comparatively short, bookmarks would have been appreciated. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a two column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a variety of illustrations, some colour and some black and white. Most of these are stock but a few are public domain. They have also been chosen to be appropriate to nearby text. Not all of the image types are complimentary though. Presentation is probably above average for the publisher.
In some ways, what this supplement appears to be is a good demonstration of how to use Monsters & Treasures Level 1. That supplement has a variety of random encounters, as well as treasures. These encounters, which may contain more than one type of creature, are intended to be fleshed out into interesting, and potentially fatal for gung-ho characters, encounters. This supplement shows just how such encounters can be fleshed out.
The other use is its intended one, as a source of encounters for a dungeon or random lairs. Should the encounters be used separately from each other, and in an alternate setting, some tweaking will need to be done to alter references to tribes and countries to ones that are more appropriate. Using it with more modern systems, such as D&D 3.x and derived systems such as Pathfinder, will require quite a bit more work, as the provided stats are for the far simpler original system. It will therefore work best with OSR variants. This is a generally interesting collection of encounters whose best use is perhaps as a companion book to Monsters & Treasures Level 1, but it can still be used to fill in empty dungeon rooms. CASTLE OLDSKULL – Oldskull Dungeon Encounters Book I can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply