Cloudland (1984) is one of a handful of RPG adventures produced by Grenadier (other outings were for Traveller, Call of Cthulhu and Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes). This is ostensibly for D&D but essentially neutral — there attribute blocks are pretty generic, referring to D&D but not really being D&D (I don’t see any explanation in the text for what HTK is meant to be; that, along with hit dice, are the only attributes). It’s…interesting
The title refers to the castle that takes up the entirety of the book, though there is a wilderness region that, it is implied, is just as interesting and dangerous to explore. The castle was built over the spot where a primeval struggle between order and chaos left a magic stone and/or broken spear in its wake. A mage eventually took it over, who then pissed off enough elves that they came and did for him, imprisoning him in the stone. Now the aboveground castle is haunted by monsters and partially occupied by constantly skirmishing forces of elves and orcs. Below await more monsters and the mage’s loyal retainers. Weird that they stuck around.
The place is huge, five castle towers and five dungeon levels. The monster selection is all over the place and there are too many monsters (hewing, I think, a little close to the catalog of Grenadier minis, I should note). Many of them, particularly the mage’s retainers, seem to have been sitting around doing nothing for decades. There are glimmers of Jaquays-style rival factions, but if that was an intent, the book needed to be better organized to make that usable. Hilariously, should the players reach the stone where the mage is imprisoned, he begs them to release him, but the book says it is utterly impossible. Instead, anyone touching the stone gets zapped for damage, gets a bunch of XP for their trouble and then gets to ask the mage one question? Sort of an odd climax.
There is potential here, though. I like the layout of the space a lot and I think things could be arranged to create a tense, shared space between rival groups, a la Dark Tower. Cloudland Revisited, anyone?
