Howdy Castle Whiterock & rollers,

We're barrelling towards the end of Week #2 of the campaign and your support has us inching ever closer to our next stretch goal: more awesome poster maps of Castle Whiterock's dungeon depths. As always, we're grateful for your support and we suspect we'll blast through a few more stretch goals before all is said and done.

And while we wait to hear the sound of more stretch goals being broken, let's not forget that Castle Whiterock extends far beyond what you'll get in the boxed set. Numerous other creators are hanging out in the Castle Whiterock playground. Folks like Explore Dungeons who bring us The Carnivorous Cauldron. Whiterock is pretty strange normally, but if you think it needs more three-eyed goblins, psychic vegetation, and a cauldron with an appetite, why not swing on over to their Backerkit page and lend some support their way?

Now, let's hear from Julian Bernick, one of the DCC RPG writers responsible for bringing you this amazing boxed set. Take it away, Julian!

By Julian Bernick

 

I was thrilled to answer the call to work with Goodman Games on Castle Whiterock. I like crazy stuff and Castle Whiterock is over-the-top imaginative (perhaps my favorite being the pharaoh’s tomb that’s teleported into an entire dungeon level of its own!). I love how Whiterock feels at once both classic and full of wild ideas.

 

So, when I was asked to create content for Castle Whiterock, I started with my love for AD&D. Castle Whiterock feels like it could have dropped right into my old 1980s campaigns. It was fun to work on something that felt new and nostalgic at the same time—yet also updating those concepts to DCC RPG (and through the hard work and creativity of others, to 5E as well).

 

Accordingly, the process was fairly simple. But I also asked myself: what would be interesting to feature from those days of yore; items and magic that had a classic D&D bent but at the same time were under-represented in current DCC RPG lore. Because any of these artifacts, gods, patrons, or spells should be usable in any DCC RPG campaign, perhaps with a little re-skinning, or perhaps without.

 

For patrons, a drow patron was the DCC patron that I had always wanted from my AD&D days. I wrote Tororthun, a dark mistress to build whole thieves’ guilds and other secret societies around, and my own foray into the “dark elf” trope that’s been a mainstay of AD&D since some of Gary Gygax’s seminal adventures. Of course, the writeup for Pelltar, the arch-mage of the legendary Company of the Black Osprey, tested the idea that a powerful enough wizard (or elf!) adventurer could eventually become a patron. And Pelltar being present in Castle Whiterock for players to interact with via speak with the dead, invoke patron, patron bond and similar spells is a testament to what DCC RPG can be.

 

Also, I was able to contribute some spells! This was an interesting assignment as we had found that various “guards and wards” type spells of earlier editions were not fully present in DCC RPG, at least not as envisioned in the bounds of Castle Whiterock. So warded walls became our opportunity to establish a spell that should be very helpful to spellcasters who are building out their strongholds (power mad and paranoid spellcasters, you’re welcome!). Lastly—the wish spell. This was a dream come true! A chance to reformulate one of the most powerful Gygaxian spells into DCC RPG. (I originally proposed it as a seventh level spell, but the Supreme Council of Supernatural Patrons and Dark Deities rejected this proposal 5-2, sorry to say. So, its world-bending power remains only slightly out of reach at sixth level). Trying to put such a spell into the DCC RPG spell results table was very rewarding. 

 

All in all, a very fun project. I know that many judges and players are going to enjoy Castle Whiterock for the same reason I did: it marries a classic D&D ethos with everything new we’ve come to enjoy from Dungeon Crawl Classics. Now it’s your turn to make it your own and enjoy!