Tag: Castle Greyhawk

Flight of Fiends: Isle of the Ape

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Who has not heard tale of the Mad Mage of Greyhawk? Across the Selintan, three leagues (not more) north of the Free City still stands the three-spired ruin of the great castle. Unfathomable dungeon depths and bewildering mazes the Mad One dug beneath its foundations to hide away his treasures and conceal his sorceries. Many fools searching for treasure and adventure find therein both in full and generous measure, but not so many survive to spend the coin or tell the tale. Forsooth, I count myself among the fools that have ventured into those hazardous depths. I can testify. Indeed, the tales you have heard hitherto tell not the half of it.

Beneath Castle Greyhawk

The mazes beneath the ruins of that place plunge many levels deep, almost, it would seem, to the heart of Oerth. They defy mapping, for as often as a man return, he finds not the same way through the dungeons twice. How many are the treacherous traps and hazards! How many the denizens that make their lairs in those dark places: goblinfok, horrid things, and a full bestiary of all the gods ever fashioned or imagined.

What is more, the whole of it is beset with Zagyg’s magic. He decorated with riddles and puzzles to test a man’s wits. One might come to a door that leads only to more empty stone chambers but find, on passing through the frame of it—Behold! He has stepped into some other place in the dungeon, or some other world altogether.

Not so long ago, a certain colleague of mine, skilled in arts arcane and not wholly unacquainted with peril, Tenser by name, ventured into those labyrinthine vaults with his fellows in pursuit of knowledge and rarities long thought lost. Great indeed was his astonishment when, amid the gems and magicks they bore out from the depths of Castle Greyhawk was found a small mace, a humble shepherd’s crook (so it seemed), albeit now shod with iron and set with gems in silver filagree. Perceiving the signs and tokens and sensing the potent virtue that abode within the wood, wonder turned to awe. No common relic of wizardry, but a holy instrument whose power sprang not of magecraft nor dweomer.

“No geegaw, that! It is a most charmed implement of clerical power, the Crook of Rao!” Tenser spake thus unto me and unto my colleagues when gathered for council. “Devils and demons of the lower worlds shudder at the mention. Fiends flee in terror at the sight! Grave will be our need of it if Iggwilv comes.”

In what manner the holy staff came to that cursed castle, none have fully learned; for relics, like kingdoms, pass by strange turns of fortune. From hand to grasping hand the holy Crook of Rao passed by concealment, barter, and theft, until, at the last, it came into the keeping of the mad mage of Greyhawk, and then to the hand of Tenser.

Continue reading “Flight of Fiends: Isle of the Ape” →

The Bride of Count Dahlvier

Mother of Witches: Part Seven

Fair Elena’s Betrothal

“The Flanaess is not wide enough to hide her from me!” Zagig Yragerne declared. He was wrong. He employed all means at his disposal—magical, abyssal, and otherwise—to locate his prodigal apprentice and avenge his wounded heart, but Natasha knew his methods and his means. She disguised herself cleverly, wrapped herself in scrying wards, and made her way through the wild ways until she came upon the dancing hut where she found Fair Elena feeding the scraps to the cackling geese.

“How is it that you have dared to come to this place again?” Elena demanded sharply. “Should our mother find you out, she will not deal gently with you this time.”

“I have come for your sake, my sister,” Natasha protested innocently. “My conscience pricks me, and shame goads at me. Was it not cruel and unkind of me to steal away Zagig’s heart as I did? Surely I was a jealous fool. But if you still want to be the old man’s wife, you only need to play it in the manner of the game we played with the Sultan’s son. You take my name and my face, and he will come to find you at once, I am sure. I promise you, after he has claimed you for his own, he will never let you go.”

Elena’s countenance darkened. “Oh cruel, cruel fate of Istus!” she sighed. “Too late you have come! Mother has pledged my hand to another of her disciples: a dweomer-master nobleman who dwells far off in the Northern Reaches. I am soon to go to him and to be wed to him.”

“Console your sorrowful heart sister,” Natasha said gently. “I shall go for you to the Northern Reaches and wed this dweomer-master of yours. He shall take me for you, just as Zagig will take you for me.”

Elena danced with delight among the cackling geese and laughed, “I know the reak well!” She threw arms around her sister and pulled her close in tight embrace. “Sweet sister. This kindness surpasses all others you have shown me. Please let’s not quarrel again over poopnoddies!” Continue reading “The Bride of Count Dahlvier” →

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter and the Master of Deception

Mother of Witches: Part Six

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter

(Spoiler alert for Iggwilv’s Legacy: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth)

It’s no laughing matter, but here’s how the spell works. You need some tiny tarts—two or three will do—and a long feather. Concentrate while uttering the incantation. Clutch the tarts in the one hand (gods know why) and wave the feather in the air. You know: “tickle-tickle.” As if you were tickling your target, much as a giddy child might employ the feather to tickle a playmate or as frisky young lovers sport with one another, the one teasing the other into laughter. The effect will be that the poor chap so bewitched finds everything and every matter about him hilariously funny. He loses himself in convulsive spasms of hideous laughter from which he scarce can recover to catch his breath. Some laugh until they pass unconscious. That’s the spell for which she is most famous, a “harmless prankster’s charm” which young apprentices all over the Flanaess are eager to transcribe into their books. They think it a mere joke, but it’s a wicked spell and no laughing matter. Tasha’s laughter can be deadly. While so incapacitated under the spell, the hapless and witless victim makes himself vulnerable to attack, for he can scarce find his legs, much less defend himself.

Daughter of Baba Yaga

Who was Tasha, and how did she become the blight of our world? The one of which we speak has acquired many names: Natasha, Hura, Tasha, Ychbilch, Louhi, and Iggwilv. Likewise, her fame has won her many titles including Witch Queen of Perenland, Dame of North Reach Farm, the Yatil Witch, Mother of the Old One, and Mother of Witches. The latter title rightfully belongs to Baba Yaga, her adoptive mother, but Iggwilv inherited it, which is to say, she stole it, along with the dangerous arcane treasures she looted from sealed vaults in the old crone’s infamous hut. Continue reading “Tasha’s Hideous Laughter and the Master of Deception” →