Castles & Crusades is a tabeltop roleplaying game created by Troll Lord Games and first published in 2004. It is based on a variant of the d20 system used by Dungeons & Dragons (its title, in fact, is a reference to Gary Gygax's Castle & Crusade Society), and is designed to replicate the playing style of earlier versions of D&D while employing the unified mechanics of d20.
Set in the world of Aihrde, players can create characters from a number of different races, including humans, elves, dwarves, and haflings. They can also choose from a number of classes, including barbarians, illusionists, rogues, and bards.
Gameplay is based heavily upon the "Siege Engine", an attribute-check system in which the player's attributes are divided into primary and secondary attributes, where primary attributes have a base target number (called a "challenge base" or CB) of 12 while secondary attributes have a CB of 18. Combat is based on performing checks against attributes; if the roll of the dice equals or exceeds the target's challenge class, an attack is successful.
This game contains examples of:
- Always Chaotic Evil: The demonic ungern exist pretty much to loot and destroy.
- City of Adventure: While the Castle Keeper is free to create a city, the game itself provides the Free City of Eskadia as a setting for adventures.
- Elves Versus Dwarves: According to the Player's Handbook, elves and dwarves don't get along very well, as dwarves find the elves to be shifty and untrusworthy, while the elves consider the dwarves to be backwards and irrational.
- Enemy Mine: The one place where elves and dwarves agree with each other is on their shared hatred of the goblinoid races.
- Game Master: In C&C, the GM is called the "Castle Keeper".
- God of Evil: Aihrde features a number of evil gods, including Imbrisius, the Mistress of Our Pain; Kekki, the Snake God; Ornduhl, the Red God; and Unklar, the Horned God.
- The Horde: The ungern are very much a horde, to the point that their surnames just indicate which legion they belong to. The goblinoid races, like goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs, also tend to form hordes for raiding.
- Humans Are Special: According to the handbook, humans are the most varied and adaptable of the races.
- Mermaid Problem: The game resolves the problem by giving mermaids mostly human legs and butts, except with scales and fishy-fins starting on the upper thighs.
- Mother Goddess: Hroth, the Earth Mother, is the local equivalent. Her followers worship her by pouring nutrients onto the roots of trees.
- No Social Skills: Half-orcs tend to be loners in civilized society, eschewing contact with other civilized races and usually taking work that requires minimal contact or communication with others.
- Our Gods Are Different: Aihrde has three levels of godhood - Val Eahrakun, the eternals who reign over all the other gods; Val Austerlich, the spirits who serve those gods; and Val Tulmiph, mortals who have through one means or another become immortal.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Orcs live for battle and hunting.
- Standard Fantasy Races: The playable races are dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings, half-orcs, and humans. NPC races include goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs.
