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One of the lesser gaming hubs of early RPGs was Rockville, Maryland. Little Soldier Games started in a game store there, and Phoenix Games in a book store around the corner. Details are obscure, because there are contradictory statements, but publishing transferred from one to the other in 1979. Supposedly Phoenix was part of Little Soldier, but the title page of Lost Abbey of Calthonwey says Little Soldier is a division of Phoenix. As far as I know, this is R. Norman Carter’s only published work, but cover artist Bob Charette would do work for FGU.

Phoenix Games’ first (of two) adventure module is very early, and needs to be appreciated as such, being contemporary with, say, TSR’s T1 The Village of Homlet. Physically, it’s a great presentation: a 24-page booklet with a full-color cover, and a four-page two-color insert with all the maps. The last is meant to be pulled out for separate reference of the GM. Instead of a proper blurb, the back cover has a full player-facing background story, which is repeated (really, the other way around) at the start of the module, followed by the GM’s version.

The module says it’s for for any fantasy RPG, and lists six of them: D&D, Chivalry & Sorcery, RuneQuest, Tunnels & Trolls, The Fantasy Trip, and Legacy, which certainly covers the majority, if not all, of the systems available in 1979 (I had to look up Legacy myself—there’s a reason you’ve never heard of it). But don’t be fooled, the book is full of circumlocutions of D&D ideas (“a scroll that when read, will heal wounds that are considered serious”), but not ideas from elsewhere. There is a guide to terms that they use instead of various D&D-isms, some of which you wouldn’t need today, but Phoenix was obviously erring on the side of caution for various game terms. A final introductory piece is rather interesting: Each room description has a number next to the name, and that is keyed to a general description of what the walls, floor, and ceiling are made out of. It’s a neat idea, but not the most convenient I think, with eight different numbers to memorize. I think keying a color code on the maps directly (so you can see where the construction types change) would make that a great idea on modern maps, though that would have been a challenge on a two-tone map.

The room key is eleven pages, and generally gives good descriptions. Some places are just “empty”, but of course are keyed for the general construction type. More typical are things like “Bell Tower: The floor is covered with droppings. The rafters are 5 stories above the floor. Although the bells are still there, the ropes have rotted away. Ten large bats lair in the tower. These can deal but 1 point of damage, and will die if struck at all.” Some places could use reorganizing and separating into paragraphs (Chamber of the Head of Novices starts with talking about the ghost of such—important!—and then transitions to talking about the room, with no easy-to-find break to know where to start reading for that part).

There are creatures scattered about, and given short stat listings. However, before the room key, are about two-dozen people given descriptions (this is a bit over four pages). This is great, but also the point at which there are problems. There’s generally a particular place they should be encountered, but this is not attached to their descriptions, and therefore will only come out of the room key. While there are factions, which are nicely outlined, and relationships between people discussed, there’s nothing like an idea of if people venturing into the abbey will encounter them together or separate. Again, the room key helps, but reading through the personalities as prep work doesn’t give you enough.

In 1979 adventures are already starting to reach past dungeon crawls, and this module is no different. The background sets up three different factions in the abbey, and a few other things going on (a ‘pre-human temple’ has been found, with nothing more than a hook for GM expansion), but…. Problem number one: Two hundred years ago, evil got into the abbey, and the Bright Goddess eventually took it out of the world, and it has just returned, to a slightly different location. In one place you find out that there’s a 24:1 time compression going on, so (accounting for time before this happened) maybe five years have passed inside for all this. There’s no discussion of recent events—no sense of what’s happened just recently between the two primary factions. How/when did they notice they’re back in the normal world? How often are they encountering/fighting each other? How many have just been killed? How are they keeping their numbers up? When characters encounter some of these people, how/will they try and talk them into taking their side? It’s mentioned that they’ve reached an impasse, but not how or what has caused it.

In all, it tries to rise beyond the pure dungeon-crawl beginnings of D&D adventures, and doesn’t quite make it. It is, very much, a place like most early adventures. It is a place where things presumably have been happening, but haven’t. On the other hand, there is a page about what may be going on if some adventurers leave, and then come back. But it’s general, and more about moving encounters around.

Still, it’s good enough for a look, which makes it a shame that this has no current path to being republished. I have no idea where the rights to Phoenix Games’ materials ended up, or where the original author is.