The Assassin’s Knot is the second adventure in Lenard Lakofka’s Lendore Isle series. It is also a mystery adventure: the Baron of Resternford has been assassinated, and the players need to find out who did it! This type of investigation was still new to D&D at this stage, so Lakofka had little in the way of previous examples to guide him. It should not be surprising to anyone … Continue reading Review of L2: The Assassin’s Knot
I reviewed 1983’s The Final Enemy immediately after reviewing 1982’s Pharaoh. The 1983 product looks like a much earlier product than the 1982 one. I rather suspect it’s because it was: there are 1981 dates on some of the illustrations. The Final Enemy is the third part of the series that began with The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and continued through Danger at Dunwater. Although Saltmarsh is highly regarded, it’s never … Continue reading Review of U3: The Final Enemy
The early days of adventures at TSR had provided us with a lot of converted tournament adventures; indeed, most of the classics from this era (Giants, Drow and Slavelords) are of this type. By 1982, we were getting adventures specifically written for the purpose of being run at home rather than at conventions. Tracy Hickman and his wife, Laura, had self-published two D&D adventures in … Continue reading Review of I3: Pharaoh
The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun is the first adventure module of the “WG” (World of Greyhawk) series. Unusually, it has the code of WG4! Others have discovered that the original bearers of WG1 though WG3 were Village of Hommlet, Temple of Elemental Evil , and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Tharizdun is a companion adventure to Tsojcanth. Its map shows the mountains to the east of … Continue reading AD&D Adventure Review: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
First published in 1982, Douglas Niles's Against the Cult of the Reptile God is the first of five "Novice" adventures written for AD&D over the next few years. Designed for 4-7 characters of levels 1-3, the adventure is written for novice DMs and players. It is set in the village of Orlane in the World of Greyhawk, and concerns a cult who are charming and enslaving … Continue reading N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God – AD&D Adventure Review
"Dungeons of Dread" is a compilation of the four S (Special) series adventures from the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was in its heyday. The individual adventures are considered to be classics, and I've reviewed each individually in the past; I'll provide links to those more detailed reviews below. All four adventures were placed in the World of Greyhawk, TSR's … Continue reading Dungeons of Dread – AD&D Adventure Compilation Review
U2: Danger at Dunwater is an ambitious adventure. The sequel to The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the players investigate the threat of the lizardmen revealed in the first module. It’s likely the characters invade their lair and slaying many of the lizardfolk, until they realise that their foes aren’t actually a threat after all! They were actually buying arms to help protect against a sahuagin … Continue reading Review of U2: Danger at Dunwater
The final module in the “Special” series, S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, was based on a tournament adventure run at the 1976 Wintercon V tournament. Gary Gygax significantly revised the module before its publication, as the “new” monsters in 1976 had been adopted into the canon of AD&D; and thus new monsters were required to maintain the freshness of the adventure. He also added … Continue reading Review of S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
Looking at I2: Tomb of the Lizard King after having spent quite a bit of time looking at the pre-1982 adventures, I can see a change coming over the AD&D adventure landscape. We’d got a hint of it with U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, but Tomb of the Lizard King is particularly noteworthy. It starts with three event-based encounters where the players meet the … Continue reading Review of I2: Tomb of the Lizard King
Dwellers of the Forbidden City is the adventure that introduced us to several classic D&D monsters: the yuan-ti, the aboleth, the mongrelmen, the bullywugs and the tasloi first see their adventure debut in this module. Any module that manages to have so many monsters that capture the imagination is going to be worth looking at, surely? However, Dwellers is not without its problems, and seems … Continue reading Review of I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City
