Ravenloft: Strahd's Comparison

See below for the module's analogue.

        

I enjoyed Ravenloft, but I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much if it had been my only exposure to the Ravenloft setting. In all Dungeons & Dragons computer games, there's a sense of being part of a larger, ongoing world, and the player's enjoyment of those games is heightened if he catches various allusions and references. I personally don't catch most of them, I hasten to add, but it happens a few times per game.

   

A player who comes to Ravenloft solely through the CRPG doesn't learn that much about Strahd or his world. It's mysterious, somehow disconnected from the rest of the universe by magic mists, inhabited by classic Slavic mythological archetypes. Strahd von Zarovich's origins, his title of Count, his position of lord of the land, and other elements are never explained. We learn that Strahd had a brother named Sergei. Though destined to be a priest, Sergei fell in love with a peasant woman named Tatyana. Strahd scoffed at the match, then fell in love with the woman himself when he met her. His transformation into a vampire may have had something to do with his love for the woman. He seems to have killed his brother, then made a move for Tatyana, who killed herself rather than submit to him.

        

This turns out to be the distillation of an entire novel.

      

We know that after these events, he ruled the land as a tyrant, opposed by a group of were-ravens and some cabal called the Ba'al Verzi. He was greatly reduced at least once, but not killed, but the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, which his subjects later sought so they could try to kill him again.

   

We know that Strahd wants to escape Ravenloft, that he has explored several methods of doing so. There are at least three: the portal in the western caves, although it disappeared after we tried to use it; Trimia's Catalogue, which we ultimately used; and some method that the burglar who started this whole quest learned from an ancient lich (probably Azalin, the Lord of Darkon, mentioned in a different letter). A mage's journal also refers to "lifting the curse of Alabain" and "finding the date of the Great Alignment of Southern Stars" as potential avenues out of here.

   

I think that about covers it, and so I go back to the original module looking for further answers.

        

Strahd's family?

      

Let's start with Barovia itself. My understanding was that it could be dropped into the fringes of any campaign setting. But it does have some of the characteristics of the land in the CRPG. Principally, there are gates on the Old Svalich Road, and the entire land is surrounded by a fog. "Once it is breathed, it infuses itself around a character's vital organs as a neutralized poison." PCs who try to leave choke to death unless they re-enter Barovia within 24 hours. The fog is generated by Strahd himself and only dissipates if he dies. Strahd has given the gypsies an antidote to the fog's effects, but the PCs in the module can never discover or possess it. The same potion appears in the game, of course, but its uses are more limited.

    

The module begins with the party outside Barovia, in a busy tavern. A gypsy arrives and hands them a letter, putatively from Burgomaster Kolyan Indrirovich, asking the party to come to Barovia and save the "love of his life," Ireena Kolyana, who has been "afflicted by an evil so deadly that even the good people of our town cannot protect her." A letter that the party can find on a dead villager on the road indicates that Ireena is Kolyan's adopted daughter and that she has been bitten by Strahd. The first letter turns out to be a forgery, written by Strahd to lure the PCs to Barovia, but the circumstances that it relates are accurate: Ireena is languishing from a vampire's bite. The PCs can meet the girl's adopted brother, Ismark, and both siblings can join the party. Ireena's origins are mysterious; her adoptive father found her in the woods.

          

The map is quite different. The Old Svalich Road goes east-west in the module; the church is to the northwest of town rather than the northeast; the cemetery is to the north of the church rather than the east, and it does not have explorable mausoleums; and while there are plenty of woods, none of them have caves. Castle Ravenloft is approached from the west rather than the south. There are rivers and bridges that the game doesn't have the graphics to depict. Barovia is the same dull, dispirited, half-abandoned place, with the same hapless subjects cowering in their homes. It is governed by a Burgomaster, although he's been dead for a week as the module begins. His estate is to the south of the village rather than the west.

     

If you rotate this map 90 degrees, you basically have the map used by the CRPG.

             

The Barovia of the module does have a store, called Bildrath's Mercantile, where everything costs 10 times its price outside of Barovia. The tavern is called Blood of the Vine, as it is in the CRPG, but the bartender's name is Arik rather than Bray. The church outside the town has not been rendered unholy by Strahd's invasion, and a priest named Donavich still tends it. There is no basement to explore.

 

One area in which the CRPG is faithful to the module is in the monsters the party encounters. Random encounters in the module deliver worg wolves, bats, zombies, ghouls, wights, wraiths, and vampires. But the party can also be attacked by villagers and gypsies, too. There is a gypsy camp on the way to the castle, where the PCs can meet Madam Eva and have their fortunes told.

   

Overall, the road, the church, the village of Barovia, and the gypsy camp have a few encounters, but their importance is minimized in the module. The party is meant to get to Castle Ravenloft as quickly as possible, and the majority of the game takes place there. They can find a carriage on the road, enter it, and automatically travel the rest of the way to the castle. Much as in the CRPG, they cross a bridge and travel through a portcullis. There is a small outdoor area that the players of the CRPG don't get to explore.

          

The module's depiction of a coach approaching Castle Ravenloft.

        

The castle layout is similar to the one in the game. Its levels are named the same (e.g., Larders of Ill Omen, Court of the Count). It has major and minor spires. Some of the specific rooms are recognizable, like the long Hall of Faith with its inert statues, the wine cellar with its casks, the chapel, and the dining hall—although they're not always in the same place. Some of its monsters are the same: wraiths, zombies, gargoyles, vampires, specters. The module castle also has mini red dragons, angry villagers, and rust monsters. There is no mention of doom guards or zombie golems.

    

The module of course has more interesting encounters than the CRPG, which was more limited by its engine and programming. Some things I would have loved to see in Strahd's Possession include an illusion of Strahd playing the pipe organ, traps that animate suits of armor (more to scare the party than actually attack), a coven of witches clustered around a cauldron, a torture room, and a couple of unique monsters and NPCs like Lief Lipsiege, Strahd's accountant, and a vampire named Helga who has chosen to be with Strahd but tries to convince the party otherwise.

     

The dungeon with its many crypts appears in the module, but the crypts are so much more interesting. Instead of just random treasures and zombie golems, they each have plaques with names and backstories for the various people interred there. One of them is Sergei's. Several of them are "wives" that Strahd has lured or kidnapped from Barovia over the centuries. One has a nightmare (the horse). The only thing I see from the list of interesting encounters and treasures that survived into the CRPG are a couple of crypts that teleport the PCs around the area.

         

The closest thing we get in the game to the many inscriptions in the module.

         

The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is given as one of the special treasures of the module—a powerful lawful good holy symbol once worn by the High Priest of Ravenloft. It doesn't shoot a beam of light as in the game; rather it generates the light of the sun for 1-10 rounds, damaging and potentially destroying any vampires in its radius. However, it can only be used once per week, not repeatedly amidst short cooldowns. Its origins are not mentioned; there are no were-ravens in the game; and it was not hidden in an oak. There is another artifact that can harm Strahd: an undead-killing Sunsword once owned by Sergei. Strahd had it destroyed, blade separated from hilt, but the blade disappeared and the hilt is in Castle Ravenloft. The PCs unknowingly have the blade and can reunite it with the hilt.

   

That leaves Strahd himself. His story in the module is told in his own diary. He  was once a holy warrior, but after years of war, he decided to settle down in the place his army happened to be at the time, the lands of Barovia. He sent for his family members, including his younger brother Sergei, though nothing is said of his brother being on the path to priesthood. He did fall into a love triangle with Sergei and Tatyana, but the diary does not say that Sergei was the one that introduced him to Tatyana. Strahd made a "pact with death" to become a vampire because he thought the reason Tatyana rejected him was that he was too old. Sergei's murder and Tatyana's dive from the castle walls are related as in the CRPG, but Tatyana's body was never found, and Strahd thinks she's somehow still alive: "I have even felt her within my grasp, but she escapes."

      

An image from the module was used for the portrait of Tatian in the CRPG. It is likely meant to be Tatyana in the portrait and Ireena standing next to it.

         

Strahd has four potential goals for luring the PCs to Ravenloft, chosen randomly by the dungeon master at the beginning of the module by dealing from a deck of cards.

   

• Strahd wants to leave Ravenloft and settle elsewhere by committing a little identity theft. He will try to polymorph one of the PCs into a vampire, then polymorph himself into the PC.

• Strahd is trying to make a magical "sphere of darkness" but lacks the final component. He believes incorrectly that the PCs have it.

• Strahd wants Ireena Kolyana to love him. He plans to charm the PCs into attacking her, then swoop in and save her.

• Strahd wants to destroy the Sunsword once and for all. He knows the PCs have the blade (which appears as a regular longsword while divorced from the hilt). The PCs don't know they have it. I don't know how this plays out if none of the PCs carries a regular longsword. Is the DM supposed to force them to take one? That's suspicious.

  

Strahd is supposed to attack the PCs repeatedly throughout the module, but he has several abilities that allow him to flee if necessary. He is always encountered in his own crypt, much like in the CRPG. He has a lot of spells at his disposal, not just "Fireball."

       

The module asks the DM to randomize Strahd's motivation and the locations of certain treasures by dealing cards.

        

The module ends when the PCs have destroyed Strahd. If Ireena Kolyana is with the party, they can get an ending in which the ghost of Sergei appears to beckon Ireena to join him in the afterlife. Ireena is revealed as Tatyana, or perhaps the reincarnation of Tatyana. She departs with Sergei, the mists disperse, and the sun comes beaming through.

   

If the module were the only Ravenloft property to exist other than the CRPG, we would probably have to conclude that the CRPG takes place before the module. The Burgomaster is still alive (although it could easily be a different Burgomaster). The party's recovery of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is a prelude to it being more accessible to the party in the module. Most importantly, the party does not kill Strahd in the CRPG, so he's still around for the module. The only things that I cannot reconcile are that a) the church has lost its sanctity in the CRPG but not the module, and b) there's a store open in Barovia in the module but not the CRPG.

     

The Ravenloft: Realm of Terror (1990) box turned Ravenloft from a module into an entire campaign setting.

       

But between the module and the CRPG, TSR released Ravenloft: Realm of Terror (1990) and published a novel called I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire (1993). These properties moved Ravenloft to the ethereal plane, in a special pocket dimension called the "Demiplane of Dread," of which Strahd is both ruler and prisoner. The geography is greatly expanded to include 34 lands and eight "islands of terror" separated from other parts of the land by mists; the Undead Forest in the CRPG is clearly one of these. These lands were slowly added to the Demiplane as additional prisons/domains for various dark powers, including Azalin the lich. There are gates from the various other campaign settings that can bring people here. The heroes of the original module canonically failed. There's an entry for 528 on the Barovian calendar: "Powerful heroes assault Castle Ravenloft and perish."

       

The maps of Barovia and Castle Ravenloft do not seem much changed from the original module, though. The book is over 200 pages, so I haven't read it all, but I don't see any mention of the Ba'al Verzi, Sasha, Pyoor Twohundredsummers, or any of the joinable NPCs in the game, although I understand there were additional books in the Realm of Terror box.

 

The game follows Realm of Terror in the different ways that people can leave Ravenloft. Portals open on particular calendar dates or phases of the moon or when particular quests are achieved. The DM is given some freedom here, and  it strikes me that Trimia's Catalogue aligns with the spirit of this flexibility.

         

The "mage's journal" in the game describes some of the ways to get out of the Demiplane.

         

Finally, I, Strahd explains why so many women keep appearing who look like Tatyana: it's part of the curse that the mysterious "dark powers" have inflicted upon Strahd as part of his imprisonment. He is doomed to keep meeting facsimiles of Tatyana over the centuries, all of them rejecting him or dying before he can possess them. Tatian is clearly meant to be one of these incarnations. I didn't keep her in the party, so I missed some unique dialogue. When the party (with Tatian) meets Vladislav (Strahd in disguise) in the caverns, he is momentarily taken aback, saying that he thought he recognized "an old flame." He keeps getting distracted by her throughout the rest of the dialogue. Then, from what I read online, if the party has Tatian when they go through the portal, she disappears along with Strahd. Then again, so does Irmgarde. Does every NPC who goes through the portal disappear?

      

Strahd is flustered by Tatian.

         

I, Strahd has a framing story in which a vampire hunter named Rudolph von Richten infiltrates Strahd's castle, finds his journal (which the party also finds), and reads it. Richten is also given as the author of the Strahd's Possession cluebook. Since Richten managed to make it all the way into Strahd's private study, it would make complete sense if he related his own adventures through each of the maps, but instead the hints and clues are given as a bunch of papers that Richten happened to find.

      

And that's what I can tell you about the relation between the CRPG and the existing Ravenloft media. Of course, there was a lot more to come for the setting, all the way into the current year, but none of that influenced Strahd's Possession, so we'll leave it here. When I come back in a few days, we'll wrap up this enjoyable title.

   

****

    

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Further reading:

• The original Ravenloft module (1983)  
• The Ravenloft: Realm of Terror box set (1990) 

11/06/2026 

Pagan: Ordeal Involving Conflagration

 

Just a normal day on Daemon's Crag.

        

The session begins with the Avatar standing on Daemon's Crag, a peninsula surrounded on all sides by the lava spewed by Mount Morgaelin. As usual, I begin exploring by rounding the circumference, but the only things I find are a welcome teleportation pad and a stone bridge leading to a large, locked double-door.

   

I then turn exploration inward to the small road network leading through a group of buildings. The first house I come to is labeled "ACOLYTE BANE." I am surprised to find it occupied by a woman.  She intuits that I'm a stranger to this island and asks my name, calling me "friend" in the process. Among the responses is an amusing one: "You are not my friend, lady." But as is this game's wont, choosing it, or any other option, just leads to the same result: Bane says that I need a name in the Elder Tongue and decides to call me "Daemion." Now I want to know what happens if you create a character named Daemion.

     

That does not look like a stable bridge.

      

The dialogue with Bane is long, but here are the highlights:

   

• Corodin was the first leader of the sorcerers, but he wasn't very good. He was overthrown by his acolyte, Maedron. This set a precedent for the Calling, a time of wizard's duel that allows masters to be overthrown. I'm sure that, somewhere, Anton Chekhov is smiling down at this dialogue. Later, Maedron created the Elder Tongue. 

• The Elder Tongue allows sorcerers to bind fire to objects like wands and rods.

• The sorcerers are led by a Master named Malchir. All other sorcerers are acolytes or disciples. Malchir is a "wily one" who prefers to keep to himself, making him disliked by some of his acolytes.

• Fire is the domain of the Lord of Flame, Pyros. Bane thinks he is the most powerful of the titans. He is bound to the sorcerers, which limits his power somewhat. If the titans were not bound in this way, they would be gods.

• All sorcerers have a Truename that differs from the name they use in conversation. Knowing a being's Truename allows a sorcerer to bind it to service. Something called the Tongue of Fire allows sorcerers to control Pyros.

• Daemons are the souls of people who have been killed by flame. They are mindless and filled with destructive rage, but they can be bound.

• Daemon's Crag was so named because the first demon appeared here, that of a young woman whose father threw her into the lava to save her from a bloodthirsty mob. She roared out of the lava as a daemon and scared the attackers away. 

• Morgaelin means "Dark Jewel" in the Elder Tongue. 

• Vardion is the First Acolyte. He is "more beast than man . . . a brutish, overbearing, pompous lout." 

     

Bane holds nothing back.

       

• The other acolytes are Gorgrand ("slow of wit") and Beren ("a man to be trusted").

• Bane thinks Vardion is preparing to overthrow Malchir and return the sorcerers to their traditional levels of power, which Bane thinks will lead to them being shunned by the rest of the island.

      

By the end of the conversation, Bane has decided to trust me. She asks me to gain Vardion's confidence and learn his Truename, which will allow Bane to spy on him and learn his true intentions. I say that I'll think on it, and I leave. 

   

Continuing on, I next come to the house occupied by First Acolyte Vardion. Again, I have options to be rude to him, which I take just for fun, and it leads to Vardion attacking me. He surrounds me in a ring of fire, then teleports outside of it and starts hurling spells at me. I can't escape the ring. But when the ring dies, I charge up to him and kill him. I figure that's probably irrecoverable and I need to reload, but the game removes any dilemma by crashing with the error: "Halting in file YAMM.C, line 131."

         

I push Vardion too far.

       

On a reload, I try again. Vardion is a bit difficult. He demands to know why I'm here and tells me that he's in charge. He otherwise mostly repeats what Bane told me, only more obnoxiously. When he asks how I can be so ignorant of the elements, I say frankly that I'm from another world. Not only does he believe me, but he also says that his own grandmother spoke of other worlds and may have in fact vanished to one. You'll recall that Vardion's grandmother, Mordra, is in the Chronicle of Pagan as the source of information about Britannia. She appears in Ultima VII as the healer in Skara Brae. I assumed she traveled there and back home again, but from Vardion's account she must have learned about Britannia (and told people about it) while she was still on Pagan, then somehow traveled there at the end of her life.

       

The Avatar practices for Ultima IX.

          

Although he briefly seemed to like me, Vardion returns to being a jerk in further conversation. One new bit of information he imparts is that the people of Tenebrae pay the sorcerers in food, clothing, and other sundries so that the sorcerers keep Pyros from destroying Tenebrae in a flood of ash and lava. When I accuse him of "extorting" the people of Tenebrae, he orders me from his house. 

   

Moving on, I meet:

  

• Daemos, Cardas, Tallon, Mentar, and Kothius, all disciples. They have the exact same dialogue, which mostly confirms what I already know. They live in single rooms and mutter to themselves when I'm not talking to them. 

       

A disciple talks to himself.

        

• The Hall of Sorcery is a large building with some wooden tables and a pentagram on the floor. A library in the rear is locked.

• A road ends at another pentagram, this one with gouts of flame at every point.

• Acolyte Gorgrond is pacing around his house. As Bane warned, he's a little thick. He takes easy offense to my questions. He worships Vardion and says he "has plans" for Bane. He says he's been here since he was a babe, and there's a hint that he might be Malchir's son. 

• Acolyte Beren is also in his house. He relates the story of the Guardian, the Destroyer, and the creation of the elemental titans as told in the Chronicle of Pagan. If the player has not already figured out from the story that the Guardian and the Destroyer were the same being, the Avatar has. When I say this to Beren, he refuses to believe it or hear any more about it.

    

I love to think that half the players at this point were saying, "Wait . . . what?!"

       

• Also, he's clearly in love with Bane. When I tell him I'm trying to find my way home, he insists that Bane can help.

• All of the sorcerer's houses have pentagrams in the middle of their floors, some with flames in the center, some dormant. 

• None of them have any dialogue options about stopping Hydros. But I'm not able to find Malchir. Maybe he's in the library or behind those other locked doors. 

       

And that's it. Lacking anything else to do, I return to Bane and agree to help. She says that I will become her disciple. She decides that "Daemion" is my Truename, and she gives her own as Sabriane. (I think I've told you before that "Sabrina" is just about my favorite woman's name, and that's a cute variant.) She gives me my first task: "Enter into the confidences of our illustrious First Acolyte and get from him his Truename." 

     

So does "Sabraelin" mean "Well of Jewels?"

     

It takes me a few tries to do this. Vardion doesn't respond well to rudeness, but he doesn't want a toady, either. Finally, when I reverse my earlier comment and tell him that his arrangement with Tenebrae is "shrewd," he suggests that I become his disciple. He also designates my Truename as Daemion and says that his own is Morduin. His first task for me is to get Bane's Truename. He warns me not to trust her friendly demeanor: "It is a ruse. She is power hungry and ambitious." He thinks that she plans to kill both him and Malchir.

    

You know what would really help sort this out? Some spell that makes people speak the truth. Naturally, it does nothing. I suppose this could be one of those situations in which the rude person turns out to be good and the nice person turns out to be evil (for some reason, I immediately think of the first episode of Scrubs), but in my experience, nice people are usually actually nice while rude jerks are usually actually jerks, so I go with my instinct. (I'm sure the lady's name has nothing to do with it.) I return to Bane/Sabriane and give her Vardion/Morduin's name. 

      

The game has some fun dialogue if you say that Vardion's Truename is "Sabriane."

      

Bane summons a daemon and orders it to go kill Vardion. It teleports away. Thuds and cries of pain ring in the distance. "I do so enjoy the cries of torment," the Guardian gloats. Whoops.

      

Yes, that was a daemon.

      

Malchir now apparates into Bane's pentagram and demands an explanation. "Vardion was planning to assassinate you," Bane reports to him. Malchir reams her for acting on "baseless suspicion" instead of consulting with him. "You have destroyed a valuable Acolyte." Bane asks to replace him as First Acolyte and says that she has a promising young disciple (me) who can replace her. Malchir agrees that I have great potential. "Teach him our ways," he commands, and disappears. 

    

Bane's method of "teaching" me is to give me a key to the library. She tells me to return when I'm ready for the test. (I'll have to try that with my students.) I have the option to rail at her for lying to me, but she just stubbornly defends her actions with a "dog-eat-dog world" philosophy.

      

"It's all part of life's rich pattern, Brenda, and you'd better @*$%*# get used to it."

       

I briefly reload and see what happens if I give Bane's Truename to Vardion. He does the same thing she did, gets the same lecture from Malchir, and gives me the same key. He says the same thing Bane says in response to my accusation of "You lied to me!"

   

The library has a lot of books. The Art of Flame by Maedron and On Sorcerous Ways by Corodin explain the basics of sorcery. If I understand it correctly, it involves the following steps:

   

1. Assemble black or red candles around a pentagram. Different spells require different combinations of candles placed at different points.
2. Put various reagents near the candles; the specific reagents depend on the spell.
3. Put a focus in the center of the pentagram. Focuses are metal disks, wands, rods, staves, and daemon skulls, all made of Blackrock. Different focuses hold different spells and different numbers of charges.
4. Light the candles.
5. Chant a mantra specific to the spell.

   

At this point, the sorcerer can use the focus as a magic item with a limited number of charges. In all my CRPG playing, it's possible that I've never encountered a more exhausting magic system. And the last thing I need is more items in my inventory. Is there any way I can win without it?

     

This is the last thing I need right now.

        

Other books in the library teach me the words, candles, candle positions, and reagents for "Extinguish," "Flame Bolt," "Flash," "Explosion," "Summon Daemon," "Banish Daemon," "Armor of Flames," "Endure Heat," "Ignite," and "Fire Shield." There are reagents everywhere: volcanic ash, brimstone, daemon bones, pumice, obsidian, and pig iron.

   

I can't really carry all this stuff, so I put my money bag and necromancy reagent bag in a chest in the library and hope they're still there when I get back. I put a handful of each reagent into the bag I normally use for mixing earth reagents, take five of each candle, grab a wand and rod from the shelves (I don't see a staff or disk), and head back to Bane.

   

Bane helps clarify the names of the points of the pentagram, which I spend an absurd amount of time trying to draw in PowerPoint before I realize I can just copy an image off the Internet. Anyway, here are the points:

   

        

There are some real-world influences on these names, but they're mostly nonsense. I mean, aphelion means the furthest point from the sun, but in the game, it's the farthest point from the volcano. Mesostel would seem to mean something like "middle of the pillars." Perivolcan would mean "around the volcano," not just closest to it. Pa and ze are being used as "right" and "left" here, or maybe "east" and "west" and have no real-world origins that I can tell. 

       

Instructions for "Flame Bolt."

        

Bane wants me to enchant an object, or multiple objects with "Flash," "Flame Bolt," and "Endure Heat." Just "Flash" alone requires me to:

   

• Put red candles at aphelion, perivolcan pa, perivolcan zee.
• Put black candles at the other two.
• Put pumice at aphelion and volcanic ash at mesostel pa and mesostel ze.
• Light the candles.
• Chant FLAM POR.

   

I run into a few vexing problems. First, the game intermittently won't let me drag away candles that are already on the pentagram. It won't let me drag them at all at first, so I assume they must be fixed in location and I'm doing something wrong. I'm in the middle of trying to look up a solution when it suddenly works.

    

The game's most persistently obnoxious problem.

       

Second, it's not clear to me at first from the spellbooks that they only give the locations of red candles. You have to assume that black candles go everywhere else. Third, it's not entirely clear to me whether the reagents go outside or inside nor where the Avatar has to stand. Finally, how do you proactively say words in this game? It turns out that you do it by double-clicking the pentagram itself. All of this takes a lot of bumbling around. At least candles never seem to burn out.

     

The Avatar sets things up for the "Flash" spell.

     

The result is a Wand of Flash, which is now all sparkly glowy. I had the impression that you could put multiple spells in one object, but I don't know how that works if the game insists on naming the object after the first spell. Anyway, I don't really try. Instead, I put a rod down for "Flame Bolt" and use a rod I found in Bane's house for "Endure Heat." 

   

After I make "Flame Bolt," the game will not let me pick up the rod no matter what I do, so I have to reload and start the entire thing over again. 

     

Again.

        

When I started playing the game, some commenters praised the originality of the magic system in superlative terms. I assume they must be talking about this. I really do appreciate the wondrous variety of the human species, but sometimes it's hard for me to believe that we evolved from the same monkeys.

      

I'm not sure your eyes are what matters.

      

When I'm done with the three spells, Bane tells me to visit Malchir in the Obsidian Fortress. I assume that's the place across the bridges with the locked doors. I optimistically head over there without restocking my reagents, hoping that the game won't require me to make any more sorcerer spells. It's not that crazy; I only had to cast about three necromancy spells to finish that little questline. 

   

The double doors open automatically as I approach and lead me into a small cave, where Malchir stands with daemons on both sides. "You will remain within this fortress until you have found my inner sanctum or you are dead," he says. He then casts a spell that turns the daemon statues into daemons, wishes me good luck, and teleports away.

      

I tried to avoid taking screenshots when the "mist" effect was active, but sometimes it couldn't be helped.

         

I deal with the daemons with Protector, pausing halfway through the battle to cast VAS MANI on myself (now that's a spell system; just double-click on a rune). I'm helped by the fact that the daemons start attacking each other halfway through the battle. I was probably supposed to cast "Banish Daemon."

   

The next room has another daemon, but he's non-hostile and says hello. When I speak to him, he congratulates me on my wisdom in not attacking and says I'm free to loot the place for spell reagents. When I ask him his name, he says it's Arcadion, which is a significant surprise. I'm glad no one spoiled it for me.

      

Arcadion asks where I'm from. Even if I'm trying to tell the truth, I don't know which of these to say.

        

Arcadion, you might recall, is the daemon that the Avatar bound to the Black Sword in the Forge of Virtue expansion to Ultima VII: The Black Gate (after freeing it from a mirror in which it had been imprisoned by the mage Erethian). The Avatar continued carrying the sword in Ultima VII, Part 2: Serpent Isle, losing it for a while, then reclaiming it, then having to free Arcadion to defeat the mad mage Lorthondo. The daemon fled after this encounter, never to be seen again in that game.

   

Here, I have options to remind him of these events, but he claims we've never met and he's never been bound to anyone, let alone someone named Erethian. By way of explanation, he suggests that the past I'm describing is still in his future: "Time does strange things to those who travel the worlds." That's all cute, but this daemon neither looks nor sounds anything like Arcadion. This is a classic Origin retcon: it initially intrigues you, but when you think about it, it doesn't really fit and is kind of dumb. See also: Mordra, daemons are really gargoyles (clearly not), the serpent that guarded Exodus's fortress was the Great Earth Serpent, the Avatar was the hero of the first three games, Shamino's whole deal. I'm sure there won't be anything like this in Ultima IX.

        

It never makes sense in sci-fi and fantasy when anyone accepts "Earth" as a proper name.

             

A platform in the center of the room has a pentagram and tables and chests with plenty of reagents, candles, and focuses. I go to save the game here and accidentally hit "Read Diary" instead of "Write Diary," and instead of saving over Game #2 reload from Bane's house after completing the second spell. I check the word count and decide I can stop here. 

       

There is a degree to which this is Ultima—exploring a new place, talking to a bunch of people, getting a lot of lore, running around doing errands. That's been the series' modus operandi since about Ultima IV, and when it works well, it's a strength. But at least earlier Ultimas coupled this type of exploration and info-dumping with some attempts at classic RPG character development, leveling, and inventory and wealth acquisition. These elements hit their peak in Ultima V and have been slowly degraded ever since, arriving here at a character who starts with no creation options except a name, hits peak attributes within a couple of hours, almost never has to buy anything, has no karma meter, and only fights when he feels like it.

      

Still, the story parts of the game aren't as bad as I'm making them out to be, and I think the problem is that the interface just spoils my mood for the entire game. I am so sick of holding down the right mouse button, of getting caught on dumb obstacles, of mincing along when I'm trying to run, of dashing heedless into lava when I'm trying to move carefully, of trying to double-click on NPCs who are moving, of not being able to pick up or move items for no reason, of tossing items into the blue yonder when I'm just trying to move them a few feet, of ESC bringing up the options menu instead of dismissing the active window, of NPCs kicking me out of dialogue because I'm taking notes for my blog, of jumping and missing, and, yes, of clicking on "Read" when I mean "Write" and vice versa. So no, I don't want to mess around with candles. For hours, I've been tempted to just watch Kikoskia play the rest of this damned thing and tell you I accidentally deleted the screenshots. I guess now that I said that, I can't actually do it.

   

Time stamp: 45 hours

    

****

   

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Next entry in this series

11/05/2026

Game 591: Mazes and Monsters (1982)

There's no game name, but the screen gets the important part.

           

Mazes and Monsters

United States

Micro Video Corp (developer and publisher)
Released 1982 for Interact Home Computer
Date Started: 12 August 2026

       

A short and simple game is fine. A long and complex game is also fine. A short and complex game is a bit weird, and rare, but I wouldn't exactly call it a problem.

   

The problem is when a game decides to be long and simple, when it reveals all its tricks within 20 squares of exploration and you still have 2,000 squares to go. Mazes and Monsters (which, if it does nothing else right, nails the title) is that kind of game. If it had no ending, just a vague goal to get stronger, this entry would be finished in 1,500 words and less than one hour. Because it has a winning condition, it will probably require 1,600 words and 60 hours. Of course, the manual sees this as a selling point: "Mazes and Monsters is a game you might well play forever."

       

A good reminder when you're considering investing 60 hours in a simple wireframe game.

        

If we give it a bit of a pass, it's first because it's from 1982, before developers really knew how to do anything, and because it's for a platform so niche I hadn't even heard about it until this year. The Interact Home Computer (also called the Interact Family Computer) was developed by Interact Electronic of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and hit shelves in June 1978. By June 1979, units were off the shelves and the company was bankrupt. Later, a French company bought it and marketed it as the Victor Lambda. In 16 years of blogging, no one has ever asked me when I'm going to play a game for the Interact computer.

    

Though short-lived, the company lasted long enough to inspire a spate of software from Micro Video Corp, also based in Ann Arbor, to include Mazes and Monsters and The Dragon's Dungeon (also 1982; I didn't think it was an RPG). These games are unlisted in any online database, so as usual we have El Explorador de RPG to thank for dragging them out of the pages of computer magazines of the era. Even then, Mazes and Monsters might have been lost given that the title screen in the existing dump has no name. The only online source to include the game lists it as Castle, likely because of the title screen image. Fortunately, El Explorador also dug up documentation from the era that confirms the title.

      

A decent set of attributes.

       

Mazes takes place in a dungeon of eight 16 x 16 levels with a castle on top—specifically, a "7th-century" castle, which isn't very helpful in a game that doesn't tell you the current year. The backstory is that the Sacred Orb has been stolen and hidden on the eighth level, and you've got to retrieve it. The player selects from a dwarf, elf, or human character and then rolls as many times as he wants for strength, dexterity, IQ, and vigor (3-20, affected by race) and initial hit points (2-12). He then enters the dungeon, which he explores with (F)orward, (L)eft, (R)ight, and (T)urn around commands.

      

The dungeon levels are randomly generated for each new session, which might include any number of characters. When one character dies, another takes his place, unless you reload completely and start a new game after the title. The random generation not only includes the wall/door configuration but the initial placement of monsters, who do not move, and the placement of traps, stairways, books, and treasures.

           

Exploring the dungeon.

      

There are 15 monster types, including thieves, warriors, wizards, gargoyles, ghosts, death, demons, vampires, and dragons. You can encounter any monster on any level of the dungeon; their difficulty is a combination of their inherent strength and the level you're on. Thieves, the easiest enemies, are worth 10 experience points x the current level while sphinxes are worth 250. A Level 4 wizard (20 x 4 = 80 XP) is about as hard as a Level 2 troll (40 x 2). Some monsters have special attacks and defenses. Thieves can steal, for instance, and mind flayers can drain IQ points.

      

The thief lives up to his name.

        

Against these monsters, the character has only the ability to fight, flee (if there's at least one empty space adjacent), and cast a small selection of spells. Once the option is chosen, the combat resolves automatically and instantly (rather than round-by-round), with the player informed of the results and how many hit points he lost. 

       

Options against a vampire.

        

Successful combat is rewarded with experience and gold, which itself is converted to experience when the character leaves the dungeon. Occasionally, you find a piece of inventory. The character starts naked but can find shields, swords, and armor. Every time he finds one after the first time, it adds a "+" to the item, up to +3. He can also find a variety of one-use magic items, like an amulet that destroys undead, a spear that slays mythical monsters, and a cube that destroys any monster. I should mention I've had no luck using these items; the game simply says "Cant!" every time I try.

       

A helpful item.

     

Books occasionally appear in random squares, each with a chance of raising an attribute, wiping away all hit points, banishing the player to a random part of the dungeon, or polymorphing him into a different race. 

   

The game's various conventions, including . . .

   

• The quest for an orb
• The types of items you can find
• The types of monsters, including "death"
• The assignment of monsters by class, including a "mythical" class 
• Some of the spells
• The appearance of magic books 
• The ability to convert gold to experience
• The use of SHIFT-F to move forward through doors

   

. . . betray it as a variant of the PLATO Game of Dungeons (1975). Author John Stout went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor around this time, and the university had a network of PLATO terminals. As usual, many of the elements of the original game were dumbed down for the microcomputer. While the Mazes does not feature the permadeath of its inspiration, it does limit saving to once per character level.

         

First row: death, demon, dragon, gargoyle, ghost. Second row: mind flayer, serpent, slime, sphinx, spider. Third row: thief, troll, vampire, warrior, wizard. 

       

The game starts quite hard as the character tries to make it to Level 1. It is very possible for the random dungeon generation to create a configuration that is simply impossible to overcome. For instance, one of my games started with a sphinx (the hardest enemy in the game, immune to Level 1 and 2 spells) practically adjacent to the stairway.

   

Once the character gets enough experience for Level 2, the game becomes a matter of caution, not advancing too quickly, and regularly retreating to the castle for healing, treasure conversion, and spell point restoration. As with The Game of Dungeons, this process gets more difficult and annoying once the character has explored downward a few levels, though there are spells to help. The manual recommends that the player not move to the next dungeon level until his character level is four times the dungeon level. That would mean waiting until you hit Level 8 on dungeon Level 1 (I know, I know, too many uses of "level") before heading down to dungeon Level 2 and then hitting character Level 12 before exploring dungeon Level 3.

        

Two more levels before I can leave Level 1.

      

Monsters are seeded in fixed locations and don't move, but when you've killed enough of them, the game repopulates the dungeon. In that manner, you can grind forever. 

   

The character types make a difference. Dwarves earn only 2 magic points per level, while humans earn 3 and elves earn 4. Dwarves roll higher strength and vigor and have a permanent "Light" spell cast, allowing them to see enemies in front of them and secret doors. Elves, in addition to getting the most magic, roll higher intelligence and have a permanent "Levitate" spell cast, allowing them to avoid trap doors. These trap doors, which dump the character down to the next level, are so horrible (unless you can return immediately, you almost always die) that I agree with El Explorador that the elf is the obvious way to go unless you want to keep casting "Levitate" every couple dozen turns. The extra magic that elves earn is also vital for the navigation spells you'll want to use liberally later in the game, including "Wall Pass," "Ceiling Pass," and "Floor Pass." The disadvantage is that elves are a bit weak in physical combat. Humans, sold in the manual as "balanced," are really just lame, lacking any special abilities.

       

A choice only the elf gets.

       

Overall, the game has 10 combat spells and 10 noncombat spells, all spread across three levels, each requiring a number of points equal to its level. They're all available to the character at the beginning of the game provided he has enough points. The spells mirror those in The Game of Dungeons (in which they were split between cleric and mage spells), including some of their strengths and weaknesses, some of which go back to The Dungeon (1975), the first CRPG. For instance, "Hold" is almost an instant-kill, but only for "flesh and blood" monsters like thieves and trolls. "Dispel" works on mythical creatures. If there are any tactics to the game, it's in the intelligent use of spell points, choosing the right one for the right situation, always saving enough to cast a "Ceiling Pass" if you have to get out of a place in a hurry. 

   

The game is a chore to map. 256 squares per level is not a lot to map, but the procedural generation doesn't allow for rooms—just corridors and doors—so it takes longer than it looks. The maps are useless past the immediate game. The nature of the procedural generation also does not allow "islands," so any entire level can be explored by simply following one wall. On the negative side, this can mean that it takes a long time to get from stairway to stairway unless you use "Wall Pass."

         

One level map.

         

I grant there's more to the game than I suggested when I started this entry, and there's a sense to which it appeals to an atavistic desire to fight monsters, get stronger, and fight harder monsters. But it's not enough to sustain an interest for the amount of time it would take to win, nor would that be good use of my blog time. Thus, while I'd like to rise to El Explorador's challenge ("The CRPG Addict is sure to win"), I'm not going to do this one legitimately.

   

There are actually a couple of good reasons to cheat. The first is that whatever I do, I cannot get saving to tape, and subsequent reloading from tape, to work. I can never get it to work, with any platform. I don't know what I'm always doing wrong. The second problem is that, for whatever reason, saying "N" to reading a book (which is a good idea, since it can really screw things up) always ends the game. Both of these problems could be overcome with save states, but the VInteract emulator that I started with doesn't support save states, so every game I played had permadeath. Even if I were willing to accept that, I can't keep the same emulator session running for dozens of hours of gameplay.

      

It's not like I have a choice.

        

I thus sucked up the few hours I invested with my first character, killed the emulator, and spent another few hours getting the game to work in MAME, which as much as I dislike it, at least has save states (although they're not "officially supported" for the Interact, as the emulator reminds me every time I save). The use of an emulator with save states changes the experience a lot less than you might imagine. Yes, I can take slightly more risks, exploring downward a little bit faster than when I had to be cautious, but the character's ability to succeed in battle against particular foes on particular levels is relatively deterministic. Since you rarely find treasure in spaces not occupied by monsters, doing "deep dives" is relatively fruitless—and even if it wasn't, the number of spell points limits how far you can go without losing your ability to return.

    

The game is quite serious about the 4 x the current level thing. I'm at character Level 8 as I type this, and I'm still getting my hit points wiped out by sphinxes on dungeon Level 2. I'm absolutely not equipped for dungeon Level 3. But it's also taken me absurdly long to get here, and the idea of getting to Level 32 before I can explore the bottom of the dungeon is absurd.

        

Some of the equipment I've amassed.

       

Once I hit (character) Level 9, which I'm on the cusp of, I'll have enough magic points to "Floor Pass" all the way down to (dungeon) Level 8. I thought I'd do that from strategic points, mapping as much as I can, maybe getting lucky and finding the Orb without having to kill a Level 8 sphinx in the same square. Of course, this will only work if I don't then have to return the Orb to the surface. Whatever I need to do to win, after I published the most recent Ravenloft entry, I was so sure I could figure it out in 2.5 days that I went all-in on wrapping up Mazes and Monsters. It didn't happen.

 

I did flirt with hex editing, just to be able to show the winning screen, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to interpret MAME's save state files. I wasted too much time trying to figure it out. So either someone with more expertise in this area needs to assist, or I'm just going to keep chipping away at it now and then while I'm watching Teaching Company videos or listening to audiobooks. 

     

I am still frequently amazed at how solidly even a no-frills RPG can deliver that familiar dopamine rush. There's nothing about this game that should excite me, and yet I've still enjoyed every level-up, and I practically cheered when, just as I was about to schedule this entry for publication, I found a lamp. A lamp is a permanent artifact that casts "Light" and thus lets the player see secret doors and the presence of enemies in adjacent squares. Such a simple thing in such a simple game, and yet it still satisfies the addiction.

      

A monster waits in the corridor ahead.

     

Author John Stout was 25 when Mazes and Monsters was published. A newsletter from Micro Video indicates that Stout "has had a hand in almost every new piece of software in our last two catalogs," which included a variety of games and utilities, including (probably) a text adventure called The Mysterious Mansion Adventure (1982; see Jason Dyer's coverage here). His more important contribution seems to be co-creating the Video Voice Speech Training System, a program to help deaf people speak aloud, which Micro Video marketed well into this century (its web page is still active). Stout went on to a career as a music composer, arranger, and software consultant. He died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 60. His obituary mentions that his compositions appeared in television shows, films, and games, but it doesn't name any of them, and I'm having trouble untangling him from a different John Stout (of Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five).

     

John Stout, from his 2017 obituary.

        

I wish I'd gotten to this game when I first passed through 1982, as I would have liked to ask Mr. Stout whether he just picked a relatively generic, alliterative name meant to evoke Dungeons & Dragons or whether he was deliberately trying to capitalize on Rona Jaffe's 1981 novel of the same name. (The novel became a movie in 1982, starring Tom Hanks in his first lead role, but the film didn't come out until December of that year.) If so, it's a nice middle finger to the ridiculous moral panic to which both the novel and film contributed.

         

Time Stamp: 7 hours 

      

****

   

Further reading:

   

• The Game of Dungeons (1975), which inspired this one.
• My "Index of Games Played by Lineage" has other games in this line. 
• El Explorador de RPG's coverage of the game.  

11/01/2026