Tabletop Review: Castle of the Silver Prince (HU7) by Anthony Huso - 9/10 - *********
Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination...
Headline Info
System: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D)
Levels: 2-12+
High Concept: A cruel king creates a magical castle and disappears. Players decide to loot it to make their fortune.
Type: Funhouse Dungeon / Kilodungeon
Genre: High Fantasy
Antagonists: Many and varied
Difficulty: High
Loot Amount: Medium
Preparation Needed: A lot
Read or Played: Read
Page Count: ~800 (~400 main book, ~250 appendices and compendium, ~150 tables and handouts)
Cost: $~75 (dependent on softcover or hardcover)
Purchased or Provided: Purchased
Introduction
What a beast for a first review.
Anthony Huso (aka The Blue Bard) is a relatively unknown figure in the OSR. He has now made seven high quality and high fantasy modules which range from the portal jumping Night Wolf Inn (HU1) to the gloriously magical City of Brass (HU2).
Castle of the Silver Prince (HU7) blows all of those out of the water in size and depth.
There are three books, which are:
Castle of the Silver Prince (Main)
Appendix & Compendium (A&C)
Tables & Handouts (T&H)
There is also an auxiliary map book, which suffers from the same problems that all PoD map books do. Fortunately, Huso offers the maps (and handouts) in pdf format here.
One of the issues with reviewing a module of this size is that it is impossible to summarise it in a useful way. There are about twelve different areas to the main “dungeon” and each one could have a good sized review. Therefore, I can only give the most cursory overview of the massive beast.
Review
Be warned that here be spoilers.
The Castle of the Silver Prince (called “Xie al Ahmerig” in universe) is a silver-plated fortress located in a wasteland between the countries of Woonsocket and Skellum. The countries are desperate to conquer it to retrieve the resources inside and take control the waste before the other side.
Overarching this mundane conflict is a brewing war between demons and dragons for the soul of the castle’s creator and self-made prisoner Thashyn Unoo.
By default, players take the role of a noble household called the Wickes and their retainers. The Wickes have fallen on hard times and, in order to regain their past glory, they are seeking to claim the castle and its riches for themselves. There are options for them to start on the side of either country, with benefits and negatives to each.
It is encouraged in the book for players to start out as the Wickes. It is certainly flavourful for players to begin as the Wickes but it is not intrinsic to the enjoyment of the module.
There are a good few pages of backstory (~15 pages) which include the various factions of interest. There are ~10 pages on the Castle’s surroundings, with potential wilderness encounters for those travelling to and from the Castle.
Then the Castle itself.
The Castle is a huge edifice with a strong illusory element.
It is a funhouse kilodungeon. Often, funhouse dungeons are derided as being nonsensical (because they are) but the reality warping illusions and imprisoned devils make the experience understandable.
The primary way that this manifests is the season mechanic. Every time the players visit, the seasons within the Castle shift, resulting in different challenges and treasures.
Some parts of the Castle require using items and puzzles for access. Some items may only be accessible in certain seasons, which lends a Metroidvania type of appeal to the exploration of the insides.
There are items that can be used to change seasons or to detect what season a particular item is located in, but they are relatively few and far between. I imagine Commune and similar spells will be used heavily by players throughout.
In terms of difficulty, there a high number of encounters that will likely end up in combat, around one per two rooms. The type and amount of combatants is changed by the season, with seasons later in the year having stronger and more numerous enemies.
The principal problems with the books are down to formatting.
The main book format is overly busy, and requires significant preparation to use at a table. There is no quick info of items or enemies on page, instead requiring you to flip through the A&H or T&H books to find the relevant piece.
The A&C book is not split into conceptual sections (Items, Monsters etc) but instead by letter of the alphabet. It is useful at the table, but strangely difficult to parse while trying to casually read the book.
Despite this, the A&C book has some brilliant items and enemies stored within. Huso has obviously put a lot of work into the items, including cursed artefacts where players are likely to use them even when they know the curse.
The T&H book has ~70 handouts for players, which are also available to be printed out from Huso’s blog above. Tangible items like this are brilliant, and finding the time to make them is a continuous problem.
Final Word
I love this module. I am not sure if I will be running it as written any time soon, but it is so pleasant to have something that is energetic and high fantasy instead of another piece of rehashed grimdork misery fiction.
Even if you are not planning to run the module, the A&C book has a lot of components that can be taken into other campaigns.
If you enjoyed the review and you have any particularly requests, please drop a comment below. There’s a lot of good out there (amongst the terrible) and most of it goes unnoticed and unsung.
If you would like to buy Castle of the Silver Prince, it is available here on Lulu.
