The Original Bottle City

Each print copy of Bottle City comes with a pass code for opening this PDF download.

The Original Bottle City Standard - 1st Ed. Compatible

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Bottle City is a site of high adventure, where strange magic interweaves with nine trapped gods, demigods, and demons who vie for its control -- but all are minikins, captive in the magical city in the bottle!

In 1974 Bottle City was one of the largest design projects Rob Kuntz undertook as the co-GM of the original Lake Geneva campaign. Found on the second level of the Castle, it stupefied such adventuring stalwarts as Bombadil (Jim Ward), Terik (Terry Kuntz), Erac (Ernie Gygax), Murlynd (Don Kaye), and others -- that is until they touched the bottle itself, and were drawn into the city, where the fun really began. . . .

Bottle City is a setting that will enthrall your players as they seek to escape the deadly place they have unintentionally entered; the adventure is designed to challenge PCs for levels 8-12. First-edition compatible using the OGL.

Extracted From the Special Author Forward to Bottle City, by Rob Kuntz

What was the Bottle City?

The Bottle City was, like the majority of original castle levels, a player's tactical challenge. The idea of "challenge" was then vested with the player, unlike many later reinterpretations that vest it with the character. As a co-GM of the campaign I got to know our players very well, what tricks and stratagems they'd use, and without seeming too conniving, I planned my own stratagems accordingly, lest they run over encounters, which is what they did for the most part in the earliest days of the campaign . . .

. . . Our best players knew to expect a hard challenge and a dangerous setting and were therefore more cautious, had tricks and strategies planned in advance, and proceeded more carefully through the adventuring steps, taking their time to think about accumulated information and rising situations. They organized the party as best as possible to act as a unit and tried to make plans for every possible situation. They were a pain, for sure, for this approach called for more planning and counter-strategies on our parts as GMs, lest they continue bulldozing through our "wonderful" creations . . .

. . . So, such creations as the Bottle City spring in part from ingenuity, in part from desperation, and in whole from wanting to have great fun. Though not meant as a publishable adventure, it served its purpose then to confound and to retest our best players, and even new ones . . .

. . . The Bottle City is a prime example of the earliest days of FRPG when rhyme and reason didn't matter, and when only spell- and sword-work, along with well-timed running-away, did. This is either what lead one to glory or to an, oftentimes, ignominious death at the hands of two challenging GMs.

The passageways of the Bottle City have been tread upon by the best players I judged then, but the challenge still remains.

Rob Kuntz, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Standard Edition of Bottle City features two quality 11" x 17" color sheet reproductions of the original fan-fold city map; a typed transcription of the manuscript pages; historical commentary; designer notes; a special introduction from Allan Grohe, series editor for The Lake Geneva Castle and Campaign? products; and cover illustrated by Eric Bergeron, all enclosed within a ziplock bag.