Castle Reinhold by Mort

 

This is one of those far-flung areas that's actually semi-difficult to find - due to the fact that it's buried way at the end of a long, winding path, and the fact that it's in the North-West mountains (in my opinion one of the least explored areas). That's part of why I went there (well that, and i'd had a tiny bit of prior expirance there).

When i arrived, it was through a "field of death" which presented a rich, and vibrant vision of slaughtered livestock and devastation. Next i walked through a village - only two rooms, but richly described none the less (though frankly i feel it could have been done a bit better, perhaps by adding a bit more "meat" to it). I then walked through two troops of "evil" soldiers, and into the castle keep.

This is where the area really took off - everything was richly described, from dark tunnels to the opulence of the palace proper. It gave the feeling of reading a book, as opposed to wandering around in an area. Several mobs were "well" eq'd - and a few (like the Abyss monster) were fully Eq'd to the gills, wearing enough equipment to fully equip a person, with everything except a container. The Equipment was also well-named, if the descriptions were a bit vauge - i'd have liked some of the gear to have "emotion" or "a history" to it, but descriptions were fairly lacking in that regard.

The mobs' themselves would be challanging for the prescribed level range, although few would be "hard" or "easy". There's no shocking anomalies amoung them mobs - everything is pretty much as would be expected, with the possible exception of Lord Reinhold himself being a non-caster. I'm not sure how the Xp would be, but i imagine it would be "fairly" good.

The only problems i had with this area were related to "logical" issues. For example, there's 4 main areas - the Castle, the Keep, the battlefeild, and the Caves. All of these are linked together via the caves - the only problem being the caves (and the river therein) don't really fit the "theme" or "feel" of the rest of the area. Also, there are several unusal "one-way" linkages where there's no logical reasoning behind it. All told the caves feel like a last minute addition or "recycled" bit of another area. I wonder if his original concept was to have the castle and keep and battlefeild be linked by the caves, with them being the "primary" way into the keep; certainly this would have been interesting, but i suppose it's impossible to say, now. I really have to reiterate, the caves wouldn't be so offensive but for the fact that they totally depart from the "original" theme of the area - while the castle and it's inhabitants are apparnetly somewhat elven in nature, with the attacking forces goblinish, the caves depart from this and feature several creatures; a black ameboa, harpy's by the six pack, lizard men, giant snakes - even a dragon. While there are creatures of an "odd" nature elsewhere in the area (most notably in the castle proper, with the "circles of power" area which features a wizard and several demons), there's no precidence for the cave.

Normaly the additon of a sub-area like the caves would totally trash an area in my eyes, for nothing is worse then "breaking the mood" so to speak. But this particular area I've made an exception for, for the reason that it has something I miss dearly - complexity without needlessness. For an example, there's a treasure room just off the caves, which has everything from silverware to a wyvern mount - and gold - laying around being guarded by a giant wyvern. There's a row of bedrooms with dressers, beds, and the like in them - with openable dressers. Mobs are well-eq'd (as i've mentioned), and vividly described with "pointless" details - that the chamber pot boy is dirty, that the guards appear to be wired up on some type of drug, that the wizard hates goblins. It really "fleshes out" the area, making it feel more like a real place, or a book then a simple area.

So, in the final examination, though it appears Mort was a bit rushed (or maybe careless?) when doing this area, he did put in the extra effort that makes it a worthy walk. Also you could "reasonably" fully EQ certain levels by just killing one or two mobs, making it a worthwhile "filler" stop. So, check it out, if ya can find it, and remember - keep exploring, cause ya never know what your gonna find (like, say, a level 0 waist-wear container thats +2 dex and +1 str...)