Goodman Games

Folks,

Citadel of Fire has been placed on the Goodman Games “Coming Soon” page with a tentative May release date! Check out the preview of the cover and some sample text here on this site.

This is a massively revamped version of the Judges Guild classic 1970’s version by Bob Bledsaw and Marc Summerlott. Aside from the expected 3.5 updating, there is a huge amount of new material in the updated release written by myself and Steve Edwards. There is fantastic art by William McAusland, an utterly stunning cover by Stefan Poag, the usual outstanding maps & layout from Rob Conley, all lovingly compiled and edited by Eostros Games (Greg and Kara Geilman) with the overarching direction and blessing of Bob Bledsaw, founder and owner of the Judges Guild.

The updated Goodman Games release of Citadel of Fire will contain the town of Aztlan (fully fleshed out from the initial tidbit I wrote for the Wilderlands of High Fantasy Boxed Set), an evil temple and (for lack of a better blurb) a witches’ coven, the notorious graveyard on the edge of Aztlan is brought to life, and the Citadel itself (along with the underground levels) are given a tremendous reworking to add excitement and challenge and to generally tighten it up. There’s a new climactic finale’ involving a new and powerful artifact, and all of this is absolutely tied into the Wilderlands of High Fantasy Boxed Set from Necromancer Games (Elphand Lands, Map # 1, etc.). In fact, there are loads of ‘plot threads’ and references in this adventure to help you sew further adventures to your Wilderlands (or other) campaign. To sum it up, there’s a lot more “Fire” to Citadel of Fire in the new version.

I’m very excited about this product, and very grateful to Goodman Games for developing and publishing it. I think you’re going to love it. We lost a lot of sleep writing this sucker, in great confidence that you all would lose a lot of sleep anxiously waiting between gaming sessions as you enjoy playing through it. So go check out the preview, and then go nag your local game shop to pre-order a bunch of copies!

Thanks,

Steve Stottrup (co-author, a.k.a. IvarBoneCrusher)

I should add that we just got copies in, and the book looks great!

Richard

Richard,

Fantastic news! I would love to put an 'appetizer' out there as soon as possible (I believe a preview selection has been submitted) so that people can get a feel for how rock solid this adventure is.

For anyone who has ever run a Judges Guild campaign, and for everyone who will ever run a Judges Guild campaign, the re-vamped Citadel of Fire is an absolute must have.

Thanks for the update,

SS

And no sooner did I wish for it...

http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/ ... review.pdf

No doubt this is hitting the game stores this weekend or early next week. Fantastic!

I bought Citadel of Fire and Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor in PDF format as part of Drive Thru RPG's BOGO sale. I was rather disappointed to see that Citadel of Fire does not have the EL's for any of the encounters listed in the heading as seems to be standard for adventures. ToFB does list all EL's so I don't understand why CoF doesn't.

The other thing I noticed was that CoF doesn't have any bookmarks. There are bookmarks in ToFB so I don't see why they haven't been added in for CoF.

While neither of these features stop me from running the adventure, it would be nice if they were added. Is there any chance of the PDF file being updated with these additions?

Olaf the Stout

Hmm, the Citadel PDF is supposed to have bookmarks. I'll look into that.

Thanks Joseph, I appreciate it. Is there any chance of the EL's being added in the titles of each area as is standard for adventures these days?

Olaf the Stout

Future JG adventures will include the ELs, and we'll update the Citadel of Fire PDF once we have a chance.

Thanks Joseph. I'm glad to see that good customer service isn't totally dead in the world today. Things like this will ensure that I remain a Goodman Games customer in the future.

Olaf the Stout

Joseph, I imagine that this is pretty low on your list of priorities, especially with the 4E announcement, but do you know when the Citadel of Fire PDF will be updated to include EL's?

Olaf the Stout

We'll start on it as soon as Dark Tower is done and off to press.

I know you guys have to focus on already announced projects, but since 4E is the looming 800 pound gorilla, let me say that I'd be thrilled to see 4E versions of your 3E Judges Guild modules, especially the legendary Dark Tower.

Let me say that I'd be thrilled to see 4E versions of your 3E Judges Guild modules

I mentioned this to the person currently working on Dark Tower, and I thnk he is presently more concerned about completing the 3.5e version and handing it off to Goodman Games than he is about 4e at this point in time.

As it has been said before, updated reprints of what has already been released as well as the release of new Judges Guild modules down the road all depend upon having the continued sales figures to support moving forward. From what I have seen this seems to be the working mind set here at our benevolant hosts.

Both of those points make perfect sense to me.

Tell you what, I promise to buy both the 3E and 4E versions when they hit stores, starting with the 3E.

Joe Kushner has posted a review of Citadel of Fire on EN World:

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=r ... id=3713180

Ah, well...back to work on getting Dark Tower ready for release...and then updating the .pdf's for CoF...

That's a pretty good review -- neither gushing nor overly critical. I'm not sure if it's convinced me to buy Citadel of Fire or not, but the module got a fair shake.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

Just wanted to let you goblin-slayers know that at long last I'm beginning to deliver the updates to the Eostros folks so that we can get a Citadel of Fire errata/update out. Entirely my fault for the delays: too many hours on my day job lately (actually, I'm spanning day to night these days). This update will include the much clamored-for EL ratings (and, again, I'm so old school that I'm still not sure I love them: there was a day when the party had to negotiate with demons and dragons even if they were only 4th/5th level. Can't swing first and think later! But the base has been clear on wanting this). We'll also correct errors and oversights.

What I want to know is: in less than a 1/2 hour I have been able to whip out about 10 plot threads which would serve as a lead in to this adventure. I'm hesitant to be overt about plot threads in an adventure with the breadth that Citadel of Fire has, because I feel that a deep read-through by the DM/GM will generate these kind of ideas by the dozens and I don't want to skew those with my ideas if I don't have to. But, if you would like a list of 10 ideas for kick-starting the adventure, let me know and I'll put it out.

And, finally, a special 'shout-out' to Treebore. Saw your comments in response to Joe Kushner's fair and balanced review of Citadel of Fire on EN World:

Your definitely right about it being text heavy, but I enjoyed the read so much it had me seriously contempalting chucking my current campaign out the window and pulling out my Wilderlands material.

Very good module to be sure. Especially for people who like the Judges Guild style.

Nearly brought a tear to my sleep-deprived and bloodshot eyes, man, because that is exactly the response I had hoped to illicit with the adventure. Citadel of Fire is a rich tapestry of setting and character. If you really read it and think about it, the ideas should just start flowing. And by default, you should start customizing it (in small ways or in huge modifications) to fit your vision once you've kicked those ideas around a tad. Thank you for the comments, Treebore!

Hope to hear about some Halloween-night adventures where pc's get the pumpkin guts scared out of them tangling with the nasties in Citadel of Fire. Lemme know how it's going.

Thanks,

SS

Its easy to say such things when you feel they are true. Thanks for putting the Citadel together. I'm still thinking about chucking my current campaign, and have been very intentionally leaving my copy of Citadel on the book shelf to let time, distance, and shielding keep me from doing so.

Now my twisted mind has been making me consider using it in my current campaign setting. One thing I liked about JG stuff is that it was fairly easy to use in any setting, so it isn't like I couldn't do it.

I suspect that its just an insidious plot by a secret part of my brain to get me to look at it again and give in to the temptation of tossing my two year old campaign aside.