I was looking up something in an old Dragon magazine the other day and stumbled across one of those things that really takes you back - an ad for the computer RPG "Temple of Apshai".
When I was a kid, for some reason I thought that game was just about the coolest thing around (something about the name and cover art, most likely); but I never played it, since I didn't have a computer - having a go at Zork in the school library was about as close as I've got.
Vintage computer RPGs are oddly one area of old school gaming inspiration that seems to be mostly overlooked. While later iterations in the genre were more reliant on graphics, the early ones were written by D&D players and followed the tropes pretty closely.
As it turns out, Temple of Apshai would make perfect fodder for a Holmes dungeon. There's a local village, near which is a seacoast with bluffs beneath which lie caves. In times past, cultists of Apshai arrived, but were driven from the village by the local priests of Geb the earth god. The Apshai cultists retreated south, but could go no further due to an impassable swamp. A stroke of luck revealed the entrance to a cave complex, which was found to run out to the sea. The cult of Apshai built a temple, and eventually expanded the cave complex into living quarters, fungus farms and mines - but eventually calamity struck, and after an earthquake the Temple of Apshai and the caves below were buried.
Why does all this work for Holmes? You have a village for a home base, and a buried cave complex (dungeon) that stretches out to sea caves - the perfect site to locate near Portown with its own sea caves. The manual for the game includes simple room writeups that can be easily stocked (B1 style), and a monster roster that tracks well with D&D. Pair it with the Monsters & Treasure Assortment supplement, and stocking is easy as pie.
Temple of Apshai box cover image:
http://www.lemon64.com/covers/full/t/temple_of_apshai.jpg
Temple of Apshai game manual, in PDF format:
https://openretro.org/file/7c68b152f5e392fe71bea30fc79f529013e50953
Temple of Apshai maps as well as background text (pulled from the manuals) by an Atari gamer:
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/183584-temple-of-apshai-trilogy-maps/#entry2320821
Best of all, the Temple of Apshai was known for stocking its dungeons with giant insects - perfect for the Holmesian trope of giant animal encounters (the spider and octopus of the Zenopus Dungeon). Also of note is a giant ant creature with a centaur-like body and manipulative arms - a perfect fit for the Formian insect folk in the AD&D Monster Manual II. That aside, for D&D use I'd probably replace the giant mosquitos with stirges.
Thx I'll look this over later. I used to play a sequel "Gateway to Apshai" on a C64 at my friend's house
ReplyDeleteI loved that game! I still have the disks for Commodore 64
ReplyDeleteMichael Morales: You had disks? Show off! ;)
ReplyDeleteI still have this game, box, cassette tapes and booklet! I drew out the first 7 dungeon levels, and it was a hella fun, but in a totally random, solo play kinda way. I doubt if I could cram my brain back into this type of style again. But it was very cool back then - even if I did have to wait 20 minutes for the cassettes to load. :P
Would be fun to play the actual game, just for the nostalgia hit - you can probably find in running in an emulator or ROM somewhere around the 'net. In the meantime though, perfect fodder for tabletop play - if you check out the room descriptions in the manual, they could have come straight out of an early TSR module like B1 or the G series.
ReplyDeleteFunnier still, just to prove that some concepts go all the way to the dawn of the gaming era.. the Apshai sequel "Sorcerer of Siva" (1981, details here http://archeogaming.blogspot.com/2012/07/sorcerer-of-siva-1981-i.html) was an upside-down dungeon - ie. a dungeon where you are thrown onto the bottom most level and then must fight your way back to the surface to escape.
ReplyDeletearcheogaming.blogspot.com - Sorcerer of Siva (1981), I
That was the Dunjonquest series of games. I may still have my copy of Hellfire Warrior around here somewhere. If you want to play Temple of Apshai, go to the Internet Archive: archive.org - The Temple of Apshai (1979) : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
ReplyDeleteIf you have trouble with the Apple ][ version I linked above (I did), check out the Atari 8-bit Temple of Apshai Trilogy: archive.org - Temple of Apshai Trilogy (1986)(U.S. Gold)(GB) : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
ReplyDeletePlayed this and Hellfire Warrior on my TRS80/Video Genie a long time ago...
ReplyDeleteI have Gateway to Apshai running on my Mac on a Colecovision Emulator called Mugrat
ReplyDelete