Café de Nuit

I obtained a slightly damaged copy of the new "Dungeon Master for Dummies" book for a steal on Ebay. It's the followup piece to last years "Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies". Bill Slavicsek & Rich Baker give their advice on DMing in the "Dummies" format. Flipping through it, I was immediately attracted to their Top 10 lists in the back. Of course, I6 Ravenloft made their top classic adventures list. Quoting from page 321, "Perhaps our favorite D&D adventure of all time, this scenario... takes the Dracula legend and gives it a D&D spin. With isometric maps that were ahead of their time, alternate plotlines, and an amazing amount of storytelling... this adventure inspired game designers and Dungeon Masters to take the art of adventure to the next level. It set the stage for gothic D&D and led to the creation of the Ravenloft campaign setting". They had further lists of their top Dungeon Magazine adventures (3E only) and top 3E adventures.

I haven't read much more yet, but something I have already found is yet another example of why professional editors & proofreaders should NOT rely on "SpellCheck" to do their proofreading for them: One of the listed best adventures is "Maure Castle" by Robert Kuntz & Gary Gygax from Dungeon #112. In the Index, both on page 371 under "adventures" and on page 378 in the "M" section, guess what "Maure" was replaced with?

You may have guessed it.... "Manure Castle".

Man, I haven't played Manure Castle in ages! Do they still have the rules for hiding your scent? What about the optional rules for encouraging pcs to use the bathroom? I tell you, though, I have never seen so many Otyughs in one place!


I thought the settup in the nearby town's "Impaction Ward" was hillarious, if a bit off color. Really drove home the idea of what can happen when adventurers never take time to use the chamber pot.

Sometimes spell-check is not your friend

Manure Castle? Sounds like FUN!

Oh, I don't know about that! I'm now finally playing the PC version of "The Temple of Excremental Evil", as I call it since I just experienced a Total Party Kill outside of Nulb. Some old crappy Sea Hag wiped me out! NOT FUN for me!