{"id":10174,"date":"2010-01-16T22:08:28","date_gmt":"2010-01-17T06:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/?p=10174"},"modified":"2010-01-17T21:51:08","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T05:51:08","slug":"klarkash-ton-and-castle-amber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/klarkash-ton-and-castle-amber\/","title":{"rendered":"Klarkash-Ton and Castle Amber<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Cimmerian<\/em> was not the only venue celebrating the nativity of \u00a0Clark Ashton Smith<\/a>\u00a0this\u00a0thirteenth of January just past.\u00a0Cool websites such as Grognardia<\/em> and Cinerati<\/em> marked the occasion as well. Their tributes differed somewhat from those proffered here in that they noted the influence of Clark Ashton Smith upon the history of fantasy role-playing games. Specifically, they both cited Tom Moldvay’s Castle Amber<\/em> gaming module as being what led them to Klarkash-Ton.<\/p>\n

What is particularly\u00a0striking about both tributes is that Castle Amber<\/em> remains the one, single, solitary example of an RPG product\u00a0that either blogger concerned\u00a0(or myself) knows about\u00a0which was largely\u00a0based upon the works of CAS. Yet, that module appears to have exerted an outsized influence over the years.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Speaking for myself, I discovered Smith’s fiction while still in high school, courtesy of Timescape’s The Last Incantation<\/em> (edited by Donald Sidney-Fryer). I was led to that collection by a reference to CAS\u00a0from Glenn Lord or L. Sprague de Camp. I’m not sure which. I didn’t encounter Moldvay’s module until my sophomore year of college, by which time I’d been gaming for over a year. A friend of mine owned a copy and praised it. Looking at the module\u00a0closely, I noticed the\u00a0short bibliography in the back citing\u00a0some of\u00a0the stories from CAS’ “Averoigne Cycle,”\u00a0a few\u00a0of which I hadn’t read at the time. When I pointed out the\u00a0literary provenance of Castle Amber<\/em> to my buddy, a new Clark Ashton Smith fan was born.<\/p>\n

James Maliszewski, proprietor of Grognardia<\/em>, actually\u00a0proclaimed his debt to Castle Amber<\/em> in a post from 2008<\/a>, but he kindly reposted\u00a0that\u00a0blog entry\u00a0for his readers last Wednesday. Moldvay’s module made a deep and lasting impression on Malizsewski and it led to his\u00a0profound admiration for CAS today.<\/p>\n

Cinerati<\/a> <\/em>is\u00a0a blog helmed by Christian Lindke, a gamer who was also brought to the altar of Klarkash-Ton by Castle Amber<\/em>. As he put it:<\/p>\n

I had purchased Castle Amber<\/em> believing it had some relation to the Amber stories of Roger Zelazny. I was wrong, but I have rarely been so glad to be incorrect. The Castle Amber<\/em> module is a celebration of the Weird Tale, combining narrative elements from Edgar Allan Poe, H P Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith. The Poe references were obvious to me, even though I was quite young when I first read the module, but the references to a wondrous place called Averoigne were entirely new to me. I had never heard of the “Beast of Averoigne,” (nor the Beast of G\u00e9vaudan for that matter) “The Colossus of Ylourgne,” or “The Holiness of Az\u00e9darac.” I likely never would have, but for the fact that Moldvay had a brief bibliography listing the stories that influenced Castle Amber<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The testimonials from both bloggers made me think. Looking back, on the rare occasions that I encountered someone who knew of Clark Ashton Smith, it usually turned out that they had encountered him by way of Castle Amber’s <\/em>bibliography. Truly, much like Gygax’s “Appendix N” (which didn’t mention CAS, incidentally), that list led many gamers to literary treasures from days of yore.<\/p>\n

The post that James Maliszewski\u00a0wrote in honor of this year’s CAS nativity<\/a> is very well done (I expected no less), it being mostly concerned with Smith’s impact on role-playing games. However, in my mind, he has yet to top his 2009 birthday tribute to Klarkash-Ton. From where I stand, it is one of the best short pieces devoted to the Enchanter of Auburn that has so far emanated from an Internet venue. Read it<\/a>\u00a0and judge for yourself.<\/p>\n

Maliszewski has stated his intention to write more about Clark Ashton Smith in 2010. I look forward to it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cimmerian was not the only venue celebrating the nativity of \u00a0Clark Ashton Smith\u00a0this\u00a0thirteenth of January just past.\u00a0Cool websites such as Grognardia and Cinerati marked the occasion as well. Their tributes differed somewhat from those proffered here in that they noted the influence of Clark Ashton Smith upon the history of fantasy role-playing games. Specifically, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clark-ashton-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10174"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10242,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174\/revisions\/10242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}