The Secret History of The Castle Automatic

When Sean McCoy proposed the Dungeon23 project, I couldn't help but join in. I wrote two dungeons--one for His Majesty the Worm and one for Under Hill, By Water. This effort eventually went on to become the 100+ room, Metroidvania-inspired dungeon...

The Castle Automatic

The premise of The Castle Automatic is that there is a mechanical castle with a self-contained sun, moon, and seasons. It was once ruled by a cruel giant emperor, but has since fallen into ruin and become haunted by vampires and wind-up golems who play-act a continual faction war. Players need to repair the engines of the castle in order to control the flow of time inside it and change the environment to solve puzzles and find treasure.

But I had been noodling on the basic idea for this dungeon for many years. It had taken root there when I was just a small child.

The True Origins of The Castle Automatic

There is an unfinished blogpost sitting in my drafts that I started I don't know how many years ago. I found it recently. Here is a screenshot of it, in its entirety.

At this point, The Castle Automatic was a gleam in my eye

To summarize the aborted post, there is a children's show that I lives half-formed in my memories called Eureka's Castle (1989-1991). It consisted of a bunch of muppets--a wizard, a dragon, a bat, etc.--who lived in a wind-up castle owned by a giant. Here's a link to the intro. Perhaps you remember it?

The show certainly wasn't a favorite of mine. I never had cable TV. I mostly watched it on doctor's office TVs or when I visited my aunt. But something about it stuck in my brain. When I was doing the work of writing one room a day, those memories came came spilling into my new dungeon.

To give you a preview of The Castle Automatic, I'll post some screenshots from the book of NPCs and dungeon features, then show you the puppets that inspired them. 

Taitale Allcraft

When you see who she represents, you'll say "Eureka!"

If the Castle Automatic is the Labyrinth of Crete, Taitale is Daedalus: a renowned inventor captured and forced to create her own prison. Since time has been broken inside the Castle, she remains trapped there still. Finding and rescuing her and bringing her into modern Underfolk society is one of the hooks for the module. 

She is, of course, inspired by the sorceress who lends the series the series her name. The hint in the text is that saying "Taitale!" is the dwarven equivalent to saying "Eureka!" -- a word to symbolize a sudden flash of insight.

Mr. Knack

Every dungeon of particular size should have a merchant in it to do business with the PCs. In the Castle Automatic, it's Mr. Knack. He appears on the three of the five Meatgrinders (there is a Meatgrinder for each level of the dungeon). In each area that he appears, he has a different bag of wares. 

A weird little fellow. My players hated him in playtesting (positive).

Something I think is cool is this haggling mechanic I snuck in for Mr. Knack: "The price listed is his starting cost. He will come down as much as 50% off of this cost. He will only entertain as many counter-offers as the haggler’s Wands score before he puts his foot down and insists on a final price." Often, rules for Worm are just rulings that I made during my sessions that seem to work.

Mr. Knack is inspired by a character from Eureka's Castle called...Mr. Knack. In fact, he's changed almost not at all from his original version. 

Wearing my inspiration on my sleeve with this guy.

Pimple the Vampiric Torturer

R.L. Stein was a writer on Eureka's Castle. You can see the resemblance between him and the bat, Batley.

The equivalent in the Castle Automatic is Pimple, one of the vampires that now haunt the ruin. He is the torturer and delights in making captured PCs spin his giant Wheel of Fortune, which gives them bizarre banes. 

Batley was terribly nearsighted. Pimple is, too, and takes disfavor on attacks because of it.

Something I think is cool is the Challenge page on the right. I have a ton of these throughout the module, all illustrated by Tiger Wizard. They are intended to be handouts for set piece battles that can occur through the dungeon. These pages delineate the different zones of a Challenge if a fight breaks out in a particular room and outlines special rules that make that fight fun and different. You can see Pimple looming up abstractly in the corner.

The Moat Twins, Bogge and Quaggmire

Another fairly direct inspiration, Eureka's Castle had a pair of aquatic monsters that lived in the moat. The Castle Automatic has these guy, too. Whereas the puppets liked peanut butter sandwiches, my moat monsters love riddles and puzzles. You can fight them, but you can also solve their riddles to get them to unlock underwater gates that normally the players couldn't access. Monsters should have lots of options for how to approach them.

The Devil, a Dragon

Eureka's Castle had a dragon--a childlike, lovable dragon named Magellan. I agree with R.L. Stein that every dungeon should have a dragon. But mine is more in line with Worm aesthetics: a dragon that is unknowable, deadly, a force of nature.

The residents of the Castle Automatic call the dragon that lives in the courtyard "The Devil" for her ferocity. 

The Devil uses special rules for the Meatgrinder in her region. Whenever the Devil major arcana is drawn, she appears!

The Devil is a type of dragon called a wyvern: a dragon of the elemental air. As opposed to the generic fire breath, she calls down lightning. When fighting her, there's a chance to be struck by lightning at the beginning of every round. 

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Anyway, I hope this all isn't too goofy of a way to say: please check out The Castle Automatic if you haven't already. Fingers crossed that the screenshots show that despite the whimsical origins the book has some cool ideas. The early-bird pricing at Exalted Funeral is going to expire very soon, so don't miss out.