+Kabuki Kaiser has hit it out of the park again with the latest release of Castle Gargantua. Castle Gargantua builds on some of the mechanical ideas of procedurally generated adventuring that were featured in Ruins of the Undercity and The MadMonks of Kwantoom, although neither of those are required to use this product to the fullest.

The book is written for Labyrinth Lord or Lamentations of the Flame Princess rules but is generic enough that it could be used as is, or easily converted, to any OSR rules system. I personally think this would make a terrific Dungeon Crawl Classics setting as well.

Where Castle Gargantua departs from the previous works is that this time the sourcebook is intended to be used by a standard group of players with a GM. Of course, as the author contends you could run this with a solo group with little in the way of conversion. All of the tools are presented to organically develop an adventure that has the ability to surprise both players and Judge alike!

The setting for these mechanics is the eponymous Castle Gargantua, a giant magical castle of unknown origins that changes for each group that dares venture through its corridors and chambers. There are some general themes that tie the whole structure together, including guardians, beginning entry points and the sometimes giant structure of the place. For instance, instead of the standard 10' square, a grid square is assumed to be 60', creating a rather large adventuring environment.

All parties begin able to enter through the giant front doors of the fortress, but from there, things can go anywhere. Each time the party enters a new room the GM throws all the dice and consults a very concise and tight table that gives him the type of room, exits, contents, ambience and specifics on monster, treasure and, of course, weirdness. There is a meta tracker called The Big Picture, that gives the GM an easy mechanic to tie a cluster of rooms together with various themes such as Stone, Blood, Lust and Wine.

As if this wasn't enough there are also random Gold areas that can be encountered. A Gold area differs from the rest of the dungeon because they are mini adventure/lair areas that are completely stocked and ready to go. In fact, these can easily be pulled out of the implied setting and run as mini-dungeons, or plopped down into your favorite megadungeon.

I am no art critic, but I know what I like. and I like the art in Castle Gargantua. The cover is by Jeremy Hart who also does some interiors along with David Bouchacourt de Puytorac. The illos are clean and very evocative of the dungeon themes where they are presented. The cartography for the Gold encounter areas is done by the unparalleled +Dyson Logos .

The only negative I could say about Castle Gargantua is that it looks like it could play a little over the top with the weirdness, and that may not be a fit for every group out there. On the other hand, Kabuki does give advice on how to tone down some of the more adult themes that can present themselves, and those same restraints could easily be applied to tone down the weird.

Full disclosure; I received a gratis .pdf copy of Castle Gargantua but ordered the premium color hardback on my own dime cuz it is that good!

I come to this review from a Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) perspective. One of the features of DCC is its zero level funnel, where peasants roll the dice of fate (i.e., adventure) to see who dies, and who emerges a lvl 1 hero. Seven at One Blow takes an alternative view of this feature, but devotes more attention to it. This is an entire gaming system (with DCC influences, hence a chapter called "The Funnel of Doom") and an adventure. What I like is that it cohesively stitches together many ideas I see bubble-up repeatedly thought the rpg community: zero-level peasants, emergent abilities, classless PCs, and "old school" play.

Characters are classless zero levels, with only race, occupation, traits, and personality initially determined (just 4 items). Ability scores are emergent, rolled as needed. Situational resolution is handled by a roll-under ability score mechanic, generally referring to half the ability score unless the player can convince the GM that she's "skilled," the the full score is used (excellent chance for character development) There are injuries (crits) and fumbles, and a luck mechanic. The book provides a guide of converting any OSR system to this paradigm. Characters don't "level" through experience. Instead they can choose additional abilities, even very minor (non-DCC) deterministic spells, "cantrips" and "orisons", as well as abilities called "gests." In other words, there is no "level 1." One just becomes a more experienced peasant =). There is a section with advice on designing adventures, with useful tips whether you run this system or not. There's an excellent chapter of example play; this emphasizes many "old school" practices and is worth a read. Finally, you get a hex crawl at the end, packed with tables of plenty usable, and inspirational material.

Although it's pitched as a "Survival Horror Comedy Hack," it doesn't have to be that. The system is general enough to be high fantasy, low fantasy, etc. It's more of an alternate take merging together particular mindsets of play.

This is an excellent value and well worth your time. Buy it!

It's in interesting idea, but I didn't care of the actual implementation. I wanted more ACTUAL maps. I doubt I'll use this.

There are games with a degree of old school comedy and a sort of dark fairy tale vibe to them; then there is the Seven At One Blow rpg. This game thrives on a dark comedic mess for an OSR retroclone system meaning that the system runs like a well oiled machine but it takes PC in very strange directions. This game takes every trope from D&D & turns it on its ear. This is a dark and very funny game on many levels. You play the ordinary guy whose thrust into a terrible and dark adventure, will you survive? This doesn't mean the game isn't fun by any means. This is a 'Pay What You Want' OSR retroclone gaming system. This game is perfect to play a pick up game as a beer and pretzels game on the weekend but its one that takes full advantage of those 80's comedies and 90's survival horror movies that plugs into the dark fairy tale aesthetic; "A survival horror comedy plug and play hack compatible with everything OSR, that you can play right off the bat.

SEVEN AT ONE BLOW is an OSR RPG hack in which the characters are always ordinary people cast into extraordinary situations. Because of this, the world is insanely cruel, and even the lowest monsters are creatures which seem to come straight from horror movies, possibly teenager action-horror movies. That would probably be the end of it if the characters weren't so lucky. They have this luck on their side, a perpetual beginner's luck that will help them escape the most desperate straits and let the situations explode into nonsensical hit and miss heroism." Try and imagine being in one of those classic fairy tale cartoons or movies. Now try to imagine that you as an ordinary person are trying to survive against the darkness of a D&D adventure with a twist. This is a dark comedy game with its heart and soul dedicated to having your PC's having a good time. They have several systems in the game such as luck, and other minor abilities that can aid you in surviving. The systems here are perfect for the sort of mucking about with things that are best left to adventurers and the like. Since they're not available well you and your lot will have to do. Everything is complete here from PC generation to fully realized to a setting sand box adventure straight out of the gate. This is a perfect game to get kids into an adventure campaign with some cartoon hijinks deep into world of high weirdness. This game excels at pre code cartoon weirdness and its fully compatible with other OSR games. Which means you could effectively run Tomb of Horrors with this game system with a little conversion. Here's what I love about Seven at One Blow, everything is right between the covers from PC set up to fully scored characters out the gate and it includes a great little sandbox adventure setting to boot. Also its compatible with Castle Gargantua for a whole campaign settings worth of adventures. What I really love about this game is that there wasn't a Kickstarter, endless internet commercials for it, or a ton of repeat OSR marketing. It has been simply published and its gloriously dark, fun, and works on so many levels. Want to play a game where your PC's are classic cartoon characters but cast in the roles of butcher, baker, and candle stick maker trying to survive against a witch, hag, vampire,etc. This is the game to use. The systems are well laid out, the play very intuitive, and the game design is sharp. Seven At One Blow comes just in time for the grim days of 2016 as a breath of funny and terrifying fresh air. Grab this one, I highly recommend it.

If I could've given this book 3.5 stars, I would've. I was intrigued by the idea of a large dungeon generated by tables. In real life I didn't enjoy it so much. It turns out that the things I enjoy most about traditional mega dungeons are the connectedness between encounters, integrated traps, and factions within the dungeon. Which you can't really get with a random dungeon. There are certainly some good ideas in here. I liked the idea that the players were essentially on a giant snakes and ladders board. I didn't like the pink zones (lust) as I have a young player in my group and would have to heavily adapt / put another theme in there to run this. Generally the encounters weren't quite as interesting as I'd hoped.

A review aimed at those who enjoy solo play:

I played a solo session of Castle Gargantua this morning. Unlike Kabuki Kaiser's previous releases specifically designed for solo play (Ruins of the Undercity and Mad Monks of Kwantoom), Gargantua is geared towards group play with a GM. That said, the procedurally generated method of creating the castle works beautifully for solo play. There is a bit of creative modification needed though for some sections of the castle that have prebuilt areas with static encounters.

Castle Gargantua is not a megadungeon in the classic sense of the word. The book eschews pages and pages of prebuilt maps and encounters in favor of generating the castle on the fly.

Gargantua uses a color coding system (blue/stone, pink/lust, red/blood, purple/wine and yellow/gold) to organize generated content into thematic "regions" of the castle. Players start in area 1 which is a blue "stone" section of the castle. Dice are rolled to generate a room or chamber and the players explore the area and then proceed to the next area. By default this is done 4 times and then the GM rolls a D6 to move the group along a chutes and ladders style board to a new region. The color coded board has "chutes" on it that further randomize exploration of the castle.

All of the color coded regions follow the same procedurally generated method except for yellow/gold, which is a series of pre-mapped rooms and pre-stocked encounters. This is the one area where you must get a bit creative for solo play as there are some secrets in these areas that are designed to be presented by a GM.

The dice generation system for the rest of the castle is very clever. You roll one each of a d4, d6, d8, d12 and d20 and each die corresponds to a result on a table. Each color coded region of the castle has its own table. This is a really neat method because in a single roll you generate all of the details about the room and what it contains.

Castle Gargantua is compatible with any number of OSR games (he suggests Labyrinth Lord or Lamentations of the Flame Princess). I used the ultra light Into the Odd playing two characters. It ended up being a deadly choice for me as I only explored one blue/stone section and a yellow/gold section before being slaughtered and eaten by cannibals :-)

I'm part way through a second solo play right now using two level 1 DCC characters.

All in all I think this is a really neat procedurally generated dungeon that lends itself to solo play as long as you're comfortable adjudicating results in a handful of areas. Given the way everything is randomly generated, you'll be exploring new weird areas even after multiple plays.

I should mention that some of the content is clearly aimed at adults so bear that in mind.

5 out of 5

This product produced a strong emotion in me.

I expected a dungeon, a MEGA dungeon.

What I got was 114 pages of half book sized print. 12 pages of full page color artwork of good quality but not of a subject/style of my likening 7 pages of forms 20 or so pages of random charts 7 pages of maps showing 39 encounter areas plus one full page color "map" of how the 'areas' (not mapped) connect together..... it says "Each square represents 4, 6, or 8 rooms and a few corridors."

I would suggest a normal book sized production (about 50-ish pages) Ideally make several versions, letter, halfbook, A4, & A5 formats. Honestly I think all RPGNow pdfs should come in all four of these sizes as just an industry standard to allow for printing worldwide in home and travel formats.

All in all IF the description had said "Assembly Required" I still May have purchased this. As a kit to build a dungeon this is good but as it was marketed as "a MEGA DUNGEON" this utterly FAILS to live up to that.

I don't mean to speak bad of this product my anger is in the utter failure to write-up this product for what it really is. I feel lied to.

There are mega dungeons, mega adventure locations, then there's Castle Gargantua a gigantic sprawling location with incredible campaign exploration potential straight out of the twisted fairy tales of the early days! This is one of those magical locations that sets up everything straight out of the the gate, I mean everything there are remours tables for each of the playable races about the castle, rooms, weird events, etc.. But what is the set up for the adventure location: "Whoever built Castle Gargantua is long gone. It could have been a mad wizard. He would have been called Gargantua and lived in a tower looming over the castle. Or it could have been a giant so tall that when his shadow was cast, people thought it was the night falling; a giant so primeval that he could barely be distinguished from nature itself, his feet like the trunks of sequoia trees—a primeval ur-giant from a time bygone. Since your players will roll for rumors known by their characters, they will come with their own version. Let them, just remember that whatever created this place, it's gone.Time has passed since its creator vanished and the castle has been plundered several times. There's nothing much left of its original riches and most of its legendary monsters have been dispatched by past heroes. An awful lot of adventurers and bandits still roam the castle halls, often butchering each other and shaping opposed factions where they’ve taken over. In many areas, these ruffians are the real threat. In other places, lingering Chaos magic has turned harmless critters, animals, and normally trivial monsters into gruesome gigantic creatures in proportion with the castle." This place is sprawling, massive, and incredibly complex as large as the Empire State building and the design here is tight. Basically this is a mega dungeon is the love child if David Lynch and The Brothers Grim had sex and Tim Burton was the nurse maid. Then raised the same adventure location and its made to be cross compatible with almost all OSR system, well not quite. It's made to be cross compatible with Labyrinth Lord, Labyrinth Lord Advanced, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess. And its made to be different each and every time because the burden to roll up the contents of the place are on sort of on the DM but this is in keeping with the DYI D&D aesthetic of the OSR authors. Lay out here is top notch, maps and cartography are by Dyson Logos, lots and lots of art throughout the adventure. Here's the thing this adventure goes with the early D&D and AD&D trope that no adventure location is going to be abandoned for long. I'm all for this bit of dungeon adventure ecology and this adventure takes that to its extremes. There are dozens of halls, rooms, treasures,etc. that have been passed around and over here. There are themes to room and complex weirdness waiting to twist PC's into knots and whatnot. There's lots that can happen to them. And the maps are concise enough to make it happen. Did I mention the gorgeous and more then slightly disturbing artwork? The entire adventure location gives a sense of helplessness and being caught in a trap that has been sprung. Castle Gargantua is the type of place that exists in some ancient fairy tale as a rumor or legend but the reality is that much more dangerous and nasty. This is one of those adventure locations that's going to change a party seriously they will not be the same after a trip to Castle Gargantua. Page after page of incredible description and weird rooms, this isn't a fun house dungeon its a weirdness sink with your PC's names on it. Its all here and waiting for the PC's. There is a story to this place and throughout the 114 pages of the place you can see bits and pieces of the castle's tale here and there just as all of the best tales of dungeons and mayhem. This isn't a place for the faint of heart.

This is a dungeon or adventure location as wilderness setting, something out of the sprawling tales of giants and they're left behind one incredible location! And this is one place that can take on all comers, your levels and skills don't count for anything when a giant sized curtain is falling on your PC's head! You get dust storms rolling across floors and terrifying wilderness encounters with all kinds of horrid monsters from myth and legend against a wilderness background of a giant's former playground. One really nice part to this one hundred and fourteen page book is the price point the pdf is five dollars! Is there anything that I don't actually like in this adventure? Not really it clicks all of the right buttons for a grand style dungeon romp through one of the most complex dungeons I've seen. The tone, horrid fairy tale feel gone wrong and more is perfect for a dark game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess or a huge sprawling game of Labyrinth Lord. Its all there waiting for your PC's and they're not going to know what hit them. Grab this one! Five out of five stars! Highly recommended!

Eric Fabiaschi Want to know more? Then check out the Swords and Stitchery blog

The materials in this bundle are great. Qelong and Red Tide are fantastic settings for games, and I can't wait to run them. Buy this bundle!

Thank you, Kabuki Kaiser, for putting together such an interesting themed bundle and making it both easy and pleasurable to donate to such a good cause - the people of Nepal need all the help we can give them right now.

[Note: purchased with my own money, not a Featured Reviewer freebie!]

Product reviews will follow shortly...

What do you need to know?

Ruins of the Undercity (RotU) is a random dungeon generator for playing a dungeon crawl without a GM. You can play solo or with a group. It is written with Labyrinth Lord (LL) in mind and is thus compatible with most D&D retroclones/OSR products of the Basic/Expert vein. RotU comes with an assumed setting of Cryptopolis, a city which has an arabian flair.

Deep beneath the streets of the City-State of Cryptopolis, sanctuary of the lich-thieves and abode of the Red Goddess, sewers and ancient ruins mingle together into a labyrinth of horrors and wonders. 1 The product is available as a PDF (aff) for $5 USD/4,08 € or as a print version from Lulu for $9.90 USD/7,34 €.

What is it about?

The game features some blurb about the city Cryptopolis, a rotten metropolis on desert sands with old ruins underneath. This is just a short section of one page and not a fully fleshed out setting. Nonetheless, it’s evocative and will get your creative juices running.

So, how does this adventure creator work?

First off, you need to create a party of adventurers with the rule set you prefer. As the book is written with references to Labyrinth Lord this would be an obvious choice. You can also use other systems but they might need some converting. For instance, the tables for monsters list the entries for LL. In my playtest I used the minimalist 1974 Style by Stan Shin with some houserules from Sine Nomine’s Scarlet Heroes (aff).

Next, the Average Level of your party is calculated. This mechanic helps scaling the challenge level accordingly. The formula was not explained that well, I had to read it several times to understand it. In my playtest I used two level 1 characters who would have had a very hard time if I hadn’t implemented the more heroic mechanisms of Scarlet Heroes. While it fits the old school thought it can be frustrating to have to fight against 13 kobolds or more with two starter characters.

Finally, you need to determine Routines. This is a worksheet which defines the default mode of your marching order, night watch or scouting order. It is a fall back to decide which character gets attacked/runs into a trap. I like that, it’s a clever idea.

The generator has two modes: city adventures and underworld adventures. In the city you can buy equipment, hire henchmen, sell loot and level up. This takes time and there is a 1 in 6 chance that a special event/encounter happens. The section about the city also contains equipment lists so you can see what’s available in Cryptopolis. I especially like the reaction tables for selling loot.

The real adventures lies in the dungeoncrawling part. You need some graph paper to roll up your dungeon. There are six starting areas available. The rest of the chapter is filled with explanations on how to roll up the areas and lots of tables. Some rules are hard to spot as they are sprinkled throughout the text. For instance, I first ignored some rules about exits because I overlooked them. To give you an impressions about the content, here is an excerpt of the tables available:

door type door location space behind the door illumination corridor type corridor features […] chamber room structure […] treasure type treasure container […] traps magic effects […] monster tables So you’re rolling a lot while playing this game. Some tables use a D20, some a D100. The monster encounters are scaled to your level with the Average Level value. As level 1 characters you mostly only have to deal with level 1 monsters although there can be a lot of them (10 kobolds in a 10″x10″ room with one exit!).

The game concludes with some vague advice on how to spin a campaign out of your dungeon crawl and an appendix with character quirks and background.

Look’n’Feel

The PDF weighs in at 73 pages total (includes cover and OGL). It is completely black & white except the cover. There are some sparse illustrations which look pretty nice. The tables are generally good to read. Unfortunately, the author chose one font called Gothic Hijinx to highlight some rules and references and this font is a) butt ugly b) very hard to read and c) doesn’t really fit a classic medieval fantasy/sword&sorcery dungeon crawl. The PDF has no electronic bookmarks which is a big drawback for this kind of product.

The Good

This is a fun dungeon romp. I really liked sketching out the dungeon as I go. It’s a very good solo game because you still have that sense of excitement as you don’t know what will come next. RotU is a very straight dungeon crawl and works very well within that constraint.

The Bad

You need to roll a lot. Some tables give fluff but after rolling the 100th time on the illumination table to get “no illumination” (70 % chance) I just gave up on rolling for that. Some tables are very repetitive or redundant. The promise of “an infinitive adventure generator with a twist” 2 is a bit misleading. RotU is not an universal adventure creator with lots of plots but a simple dungeon generator. The monster tables explicitly refer to LL monsters which either makes the use of LL as a rule set mandatory or a lot of flipping around in your prefered rule set to find the appropriate monster or the need for converting stuff on the fly. Seasoned old school players won’t have a problem with that. The Routines worksheet should be a separate download especially if you buy the print version.

The Ugly

As above mentioned, the font choice is pretty annoying to me. Furthermore, the product could be organized better. It mixes rules explanations and tables so you constantly need to turn pages. The PDF is not a good fit for that and it doesn’t have electronic bookmarks. It would have been better to separate rules explanations and tables so you’ll have the tables at one place. The scattered organization also makes it hard to find some rules.

The Verdict

I have mixed feelings about this product. On the one hand I had fun with drawing out the dungeon, fighting monsters and finding traps and treasures. On the other hand the tables were a bit monotonous which diminished the joy. The navigation of the PDF with no bookmarks and a disorganized content was a hassle. I still think I got my money’s worth for five bucks. However, RotU has some irritating flaws which doesn’t make it a must-buy.

This is a book that can be thought of in two ways as one a complete tool kit to run an incredible kick ass oriental adventure campaign & it contains everything your going to need run this for yourself as a solo player. And it does contain Ninjas as well. The book is jam packed with everything you need to generate a ton of lost pagodas, a ton of oriental monsters, new PC classes and right now its five dollars. Is this title worth it? Yes, and then some. Mad Monks is well written and perfect for the retroclone and traditional OD&D style gamer. The material is really a labor of love on the author's part and I'm happy to have taken a look at this one. So what's in it? Well according to the Drivethru Blurb: In a nutshell, Mad Monks of Kwantoom features a wondrous Asian setting with new character races and classes, crazy unique creatures inspired by matchbox pictures coming straight from ancient China, alternative petty magic items, tables for random dungeon generation and simple house rules for all of this to run smoothly. In addition, you'll find campaign rules to help you flesh your characters out and embed them in the setting, which they can change and mold according to their whims as they proceed to glory, prosperity and — who knows? — immortality.

This material will work easily as well for both Advanced and Basic D&D quite easily. The author manages to capture the look and feel of a Far Eastern setting with an equal mix of panash and style in equal measure. This is an expansive campaign tool box with lots and lots of bells and whistles to play with. The fact that's its a labor of love is really something that shines through and a lot of effort went into the setting and background. And all of this is at your finger tips in spades. The appendixes, background, monsters, dungeon elements add to this one with a twisted sense of a nod and wink to the DM to put this material to good use. The author knows the ins and outs of dungeon design and the workings of the Old School asthetic and how to use them to best effect. There isn't a sense of , 'You must use this material this way'. Instead we are given an expansive palatte of old school goodness to design everything you need for a variety of old school far Eastern adventures and an entire campaign setting which you can fill in and DYI to your heart's content. A very well done and fantastic product. This book needs far more attention and is really my go to source for all things Oriental in D&D lately. Do yourselves a favor & grab this one!

Un excellent supplément pour de l'OSR. Que ce soit pour se faire des parties en solitaire de pur hack'n slash, ou pour intégrer des donjons surprises dans une campagne, c'est un outil au poil !

C'est, selon moi, un complément idéal pour du Scarlet Heroes en solo.

This supplement is simply so easy to use, so great to play. Basically it is the dungeon generator from the DMG come to life. With a lot of extras that add to the enjoyment and make your dungeon crawl more elaborate and can even turn it into a real campaign. All without a DM or any preparation. So if you are in for a quick delve, alone or with friends, this is for you. True old school gaming at its best. i can't wait for the new oriental release from this guy!