Citadel of Fire is a Judges Guild adventure written for original Dungeons and Dragons. It was published in 1980. Citadel of Fire was written by Marc Summerlott and Bob Bledsaw. It is 32 pages from cover to cover inclusive of maps and illustrations. The adventure includes six levels of tower and five levels of dungeon.
The adventure is written for higher level characters. No specific level range is mentioned but some of the encounters are quite high level.
A wizard built a dark tower to live in and study magic. Over time he made deals with goblins and others to populate his tower. He passed the tower on to his heirs which continue to rule the tower in conjunction with goblins that have dug deep dungeons beneath it. One such heir of the wizard still runs the tower today. The partnership with the goblin king also continues.
What I like about Citadel of Fire
It is an old school adventure. It is fairly short by Judges Guild standards at only 32 pages. The encounters areas are brief at about 3-4 lines on average. The background is also very short at about half a page. Brevity is always welcome as long as the necessary information is passed along.
The primary bad guy in this story is the newest wizard to take control of the tower. His location will be determined randomly (at any time) by the dungeon master using a series of tables. This is a unique idea that I have not seen in other adventures (including other Judges Guild ones).
Judges Guild adventures are known for their very simple illustrations. Usually they are in black and white other than the covers. Some of the illustrations are still quite good. Others not so much. The ones in this adventure are pretty good for the most part. Even some of the maps have illustrations of monsters integrated into them. It is kind of cool.
What I do not like about Citadel of Fire
For a high level adventure there are a whole lot of small encounters with goblins. Characters of levels high enough to challenge Liches and high level wizards are going to find little trouble at all destroying the goblins in this adventure. Those encounters make up many of the dungeon level encounters and are hardly challenging to characters of upper levels.
One thing that confuses me…..in several Judges Guild adventures…..is the idea that one can be cruising along fighting bad guys and then find…..a tavern…. or something along those lines in a dungeon room. This has always been a mystery to me. It makes no sense at all. Yet this adventure has such an encounter on page 20 in the lower levels of the dungeon. This is seriously inconsistent and does not belong. There is even a dentist office in one place in the dungeon. Of course….the dentist is a troll!
There is not a lot of variety in this adventure. The tower has mostly humans. Fighters and magic users. The dungeon has mostly goblins. Lots of them. There are other monsters of course. But not really that many when you boil it all down. Too many of the same thing tends to bore players. It tends to bore me too.
The level ranges in this adventure tend to be wide. One room might have four goblins. The next might have a Lich. There is little consistency here.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
If one is playing original Dungeons and Dragons Citadel of Fire might well fit into the campaign. I do not think I would recommend converting it to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and trying to run it with a group.
My biggest concern is the level range gap. For high level characters there are far too many rooms with creatures that will not challenge them at all. For low level characters there are plenty of easy encounters and then a few hard ones which would likely lead to a total party kill unless the party runs away. In some cases they probably will not escape.
Would I run Citadel of Fire with my own group?
No. I probably would not. There are other adventures which are more consistent and which have more appropriate level encounters for higher level characters.
If you enjoyed this article then you might enjoy these:
- Undead in Dungeons and Dragons
- Beholders in Dungeons and Dragons
- Mind Flayers in Dungeons and Dragons
- Intellect Devourers in Dungeons and Dragons
- Displacer Beasts in Dungeons and Dragons
