In the elder days, beyond the ancient forest of Regnad, the evil Sorcerer Kruglach built for himself a mighty fortress of stone. He retreated into this, to experiment with dark and terrible enchantments, and a fear fell upon the land.

The people were afflicted with plague and pestilence; animals and children vanished from their homes at dead of night; and the crops in the fields were ruined by the black fungus that spread in the polluted air from Kruglach’s towers.

After many dark years, Kruglach’s evil influence abruptly ceased, and the people joyfully assumed him dead. But now, centuries later, in the village of Arn Gate on the edge of the forest, the people are dying from an unknown sickness, their crops are wilting, and their children disappearing. The surrounding villages, in fear, have banded together and offered a reward to anyone who would venture beyond the forest to seek the fortress of Kruglach and put an end to his evil.

Attracted by the reward, but also curious, you have journeyed to Arn Gate…

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In the 80s there was the boom of the so-called "gamebooks", interactive books usually of the fantasy genre, in which the... reader was called to make choices and solve puzzles to reach the last page.

PROTEUS, a magazine released in the UK from 1984 to 1988, published a whole interactive adventure to play in each issue: they were naive dungeon explorations, treasure searches full of sense of bizarre, weird riddles and absurd monsters.

PROTEUS's adventures weren't masterpieces, but they were fun and damn difficult: there were often dozens of objects to necessarily find to complete the quest and defeat the final monster, and most of the time the decisive one was missing; furthermore, it was essential to draw maps ogf the dungeons in order not to get lost in the paragraphs, but these maps often... did not add up.

In short: a lot of fun for us kids of the analog era!

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The sordid ensemble of musicians called GNOLL is back with a new album in full dungeon-crawling style, with slightly different and surprising atmospheres than in the past, but always characterized by that arcane and sulphurous aura that fans of "Citadel of evil" or "Flight from the dark" love. Dusty synthesizers, scary theremin and old keyboards found in the trash create spooky atmospheres, full of sense of wonder and love for dungeon-exploration.

"The fortress of Kruglach" cassette includes an illustrated booklet of 28 pages that will accompany you track by track for a immersive listening!more

released October 31, 2021

This is the soundtrack of the omonymous adventure published in “PROTEUS” Magazine (U.K.) in year 1986.

Thank you to Mike Keward to allowed to use the PROTEUS illustrations.

Recorded by GNOLL in November 2020 - February 2021.