Chateau D'Amberville?

[Irving the Meek]

Anyone remember this hoary old adventure from the days of the red and blue boxes of D&D? For some reason, it sticks in my memory as a very nice horror module; it had a reworking of the Fall of the House of Usher in it, as I remember, and aspects of it bore a very suspicious resemblence to the Mists. (If anyone ever wondered what the history of Ravenloft was before Strahd was...)

Anyways, I was wondering if any netziens here rememb it, if it was a good as my 14-year-old-self thought it was, and if anyone ever thought of importing and updating the thing for Ravenloft.

[Brandi]

Anyone remember this hoary old adventure from the days of the red and blue boxes of D&D?

I own a copy. Sadly, it is for the most part an arbitrary deathtrap in the vintage D&D tradition, and its attempts to adapt Clark Ashton Smith's stories to adventuring have probably caused some large subsidences on his grave-mound.

It can be mined for ideas though; I made a short GURPS adventure of it after a very heavy reworking.

[cure]

You are not the only one to see a connection to Ravenloft. Check out the review at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/093569 ... e&n=283155.

It certainly has the madness of Ravenloft and other elements too. There are mists and something of a family curse. A veritable domain is entered and its riddle must be solved to escape. But there is a desperate lack of restraint and gothic atmosphere. I would see it as vaguely parallel evolution rather than a forefather of Ravenloft.

[Jonathan Winters]

I will come off as very corny, but I've run this module two or three times in the last 15 years (oy!), and the players have always had a great time!

It has a very fond place in my heart .

Does it stand the test of time? Sort of.

You have to make some changes if you want to stay "realistic" and not use those "make a save or die" traps. But it can be very easily adapted to RL, I think.

The main change has to be when the PCs end up in Averoigne. It really needs fleshing out! Big time!

But it does have a lot of great ideas. It could be a small domain, you just have to decide if you want to save Étienne d'Ambreville at the end or not...

From memory. It's got Mists, a crazy family, curses, PCs stuck in a manor, etc.

If not for RL, maybe for more "generic" D&D. I still think it can be a lot of fun.

(Maybe I'm just getting old...)

Patrick

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Officially, the Chateau d'Ambreville is incorporated into the Mystara game-setting, not Ravenloft. The parallels are there, though; you could easily claim that IYC, the d'Ambreville family mansion was drawn into the Mists of Ravenloft during the hundred-odd years that it vanished from Glantri, rather than being trapped between dimensions by Etienne d'Ambreville's own contingent magics.

For more information on the "canon" fate of "Castle Amber" and how it fits into the backstory of the nation of Glantri, google "Vaults of Pandius" and check out the official Mystara website.