Moldvay Basic finally available in Print on Demand

Great news: The "B" of "B/X", the rulebook of the 1981 D&D Basic Set, commonly known as the Moldvay Basic, is finally available in print-on-demand (POD) from DrivethruRPG, 13 years after it originally appeared in PDF, and three years after its partner "X" (the Expert Set rulebook) POD was released. 

Find it here:

Moldvay Basic rulebook on DrivethruRPG

(all links to DrivethruRPG include my affiliate number)

The B/X ruleset has become extremely popular in recent years as the source of rules for the Old School Essentials retroclone, but now you can get an official reprint of the original. 

While this site is primarily devoted to the Holmes Basic set, I am also a big fan of the Moldvay Basic rulebook, which took Holmes' pioneering work as a base and developed it further. And I love the Sample Dungeon, The Haunted Keep, which I've written about here.

The module that was included in the Moldvay Basic Set, the 1981 revision of Gary Gygax's B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, is already available in POD, so together these products constitute the printed contents of the 1981 Basic Set (no dice and crayon, of course).

Find it here: 

B2 The Keep on the Borderlands on DrivethruRPG

While this is great news for availability of this particular rule set, the Holmes Basic rulebook frustratingly remains completely unavailable, either in PDF or print, for unknown reasons. The newly available Moldvay Basic POD means that they are still releasing/updating the available products, so this does give a bit of hope. Perhaps they are saving it for the 100th anniversary in 2077?

See also these previous posts on the Zenopus Archives related to Moldvay Basic:

Original Known World Campaign Documents (2022)

Chronology of D&D Sample Dungeons: The Haunted Keep by Tom Moldvay (1981) (2020)

M1 Blizzard Pass: Dungeon Design (2020)

Zargon Beckons (2015)

Ur-Known World (2015)

Expert Set rulebook: PDF notes (2013)

Ancient Treasures from the Cellars (D&D PDFs) (2013)

B/X Mud Brown and Pea Green Polyhedral Dice (2013)

The Return of the Sample Dungeon

Cover of the 2024 DMG featuring Warduke, Skylla and Venger

Out this week is the latest version of the Dungeon Master's Guide, and in addition to bringing back Greyhawk as a sample setting, it also features the return of the Sample Dungeon. In this case, I don't mean the Tower of Zenopus, which goes only by the title "Sample Dungeon" in the Holmes Basic rulebook, but rather the general concept: an example of an adventure for new DMs to both run and base their own designs on.

This was a common feature in the DM section of D&D rulebooks throughout the 1970s and 80s, with OD&D, AD&D 1E and every version of Basic including one, and the dungeons while brief were strongly remembered due to their evocative details and because they were often the first adventure for new players. And decades later, these memories and shared experiences would promote a sense of community among the fan base for each rule set.

The idea started with the original D&D rules in 1974, which included a "Sample Map of Underworld Level" in Vol 3. This dungeon level by Gary Gygax lacked any real theme other providing examples, mostly of tricks and traps that could be used in designing a level. For the first Basic Set in 1977, J. Eric Holmes overhauled the example, creating a coherent first level for beginners complete with a brief backstory to provide a hook for exploring it, and concluding by inviting the DM to create additional levels.

Two years later, in the AD&D 1E DMG, Gygax followed Holmes' example with another dungeon level with a strong story behind it, colloquially known as the Ruined Monastery or the Dungeon of the Fire Opal. Unlike the Zenopus dungeon, only a few rooms of this level were fully detailed, presumably so the DM could complete the keying of the map, along with designing the unshown second level. It also advanced the use of this as a teaching tool by including an integrated Example of Play; i.e., it's set in the described dungeon rooms.

The next two iterations of Basic D&D continued the tradition of including a short dungeon written by the editor. Moldvay Basic (1981) had Tom Moldvay's Haunted Keep, which more tightly integrated the exemplary level into the dungeon design concepts presented in the DM section. The accompanying Cook-Marsh Expert rules from the same year also provided a Sample Wilderness which mentioned that a town, Luln, was a base for exploring the Haunted Keep, although the town was only briefly described. 

In Mentzer Basic (1983), Frank Mentzer expanded the introductory material by adding a solo adventure teaching the basics of play in the Players book, which was followed by a starting group adventure, Castle Mistamere, in the DMs book. One idea common to each of the above was that the dungeon was not complete, giving the new DM a base on which to practice adding their own ideas. The Mentzer Expert rules included the same Sample Wilderness from the previous set, but revised to include a new "Home Town", Threshold, along with a series of eighteen briefly described (single paragraphs) adventures for the DM to use with this setting.

In 1989, however, there was a big change: the revised DMG for AD&D 2E had no sample dungeon at all. The 1991 Rules Cyclopedia similarly lacked an adventure, although the complementary "Black Box" Basic Set from this time did include one, Escape from Zanzer Tem's Dungeon.

The DMGs from 3E (2000) and 3.5E (2003) brought back the sample dungeon by including a revised version of the Ruined Monastery dungeon from the original DMG. These include an updated map, partial level description (first three areas only) and an integrated Example of Play, but the background from the original is severely curtailed.

The 4E D&D DMG (2008) included a sample town (Fallcrest) and setting (Nentir Value) with an integrated sample dungeon called "Kobold Hall", which with 5 encounter areas literally follows the 5 Room Dungeon design model. (Thanks to Karla Adder on Twitter for the heads up on this.)

Jumping ahead to 5E, while the 2014 DMG included material on generating random dungeons (Appendix A), and a number of sample maps (Appendix C), including an updated version of the Fire Opal dungeon map from the 1979 DMG, as with 2E it lacked a true introductory adventure. 

But now with the new DMG, the concept is back in full force and with new innovations. Rather than just a single dungeon level, there are five (!) short adventures, each for a different level of characters, and with the suggestion that they can be run sequentially, particularly the first three. There is also a mix of adventure settings: towns, wilderness, small dungeons that rely on the maps by Dyson Logos found in an appendix, nautical, and other planes. In addition, the first four adventures are given locations in Greyhawk that are found in the setting material and maps elsewhere in the book. 

In my next post, I will look a little closer at these adventures and their locations in Greyhawk.

The new DMG is available for order on Amazon

Early Greyhawk Lore in the 1973 D&D Draft

 

Cover of the 1973 draft, previously posted on Playing at the World,
and now included in MODD

The Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977 (hereafter MODD) has been out for a few months now; if you haven't picked up a copy yet, find it here. You can read more about the book and find a table of contents in my previous posts, which are linked down below.

The longest section of "new" material in the book is the long-awaited The First Draft of D&D, as it is termed in MODD, which sheds light on the early development of the game, now in its 50th year. This document is alternately known as either the 1973 Draft or Guidon D&D, based on the "Forward" [sic], which Gygax signs as an editor for Guidon Games, and with a date of 1 July 1973, months before the November date of the revised Forward in the published rules.

Beyond the rules themselves, the draft also contains some "lore" (as the kids call it) from Gygax's early Greyhawk campaign, which is the subject of this post. These tidbits provide some insight as to what had already rapidly developed in the campaign in the months since February of 1973, when Arneson first ran his game for Gygax and Kuntz.

The list sticks to direct mentions of the Greyhawk campaign, and includes page numbers from the draft itself and MODD for reference. The notes include whether the made it into the published rulebook in revised form, but some of it did not.

THE LAND OF THE GREAT KINGDOM

On page ii of the draft (page 87 of MODD), in the "Forward" [sic], Gygax writes:

"From the map of the "land" of the Great Kingdom" and its environs, Dave [Arneson], Dave located the wierd [sic] enclave of "Blackmoor", just below the terrible "Egg of Coot".

This material made it into the published book in slightly revised and expanded form, reading:

"From the map of the "land" of the "Great Kingdom" and environs -- the territory of the C & C Society -- Dave located a nice bog wherein to nest the wierd [sic] enclave of "Blackmoor", a spot between the '''Great Kingdom" and the fearsome "Egg of Coot".

This text refers to the "Great Kindgom" map(s) that I've written about previously. The description of Blackmoor's location was changed as published, but remains accurate as it is both "below" (south) the Egg of Coot, and also between it and the Great Kingdom.

In 1977, the published version was also included in Holmes Basic with slight revisions, as "Foreword from the Original Edition".

NON-REAL PLAYERS

On page 11 of the draft (page 101 of MODD), in the section "NON-REAL PLAYERS" (an unintentionally hilarious term which later became "NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS"):

"In the "Greyhawk Castle" campaign most players have 1-4 men (or elves or dwarves) and quite a few have orcs, ogres, etc". The monster-types, however, with the exception of orcs, cannot serve in the underworld, but they will man castles or lurk in dungeons built under players' own stronghold".

Many years later, Gygax recalled the use of orcs in theses early games, particularly by Rob Kuntz's character Robilar, in an Up On a Soapbox column called "The First Orc Hero" in Dragon (Oct 2003); see this thread.

This material was removed from this section in Vol 1 as published, although Vol 3 has a section titled "Men-At-Arms" that indicates that Chaotic characters may employ Orcs and provides costs for such. No specific reference to the Greyhawk campaign remains, however.

EXAMPLE OF A MULTI-LEVEL DUNGEON

On page 32 of the 1973 draft (page 126 of MODD), in the section on the "UNDERWORLD", subsection "Levels", Gygax provides an example of a dungeon by describing his own creation:

"Consider "Greyhawk Castle" for example: It has over ten levels down (as it is still being played exact information cannot be given), and on some levels are items like an underground lake, a bowling alley for 30' giants, and enormous caverns filled with weirdly shaped and colored fungi"

This text, in expanded form, made it into the published version, Vol 3, page 4, section the "UNDERWORLD":

""Greyhawk Castle", for example, has over a dozen levels in succession downwards, more than that number branching from these, and not less than two new levels under construction at any given time. These levels contain such things as a museum from another age, an underground lake, a series of caverns filled with giant fungi, a bowling alley for 20' high Giants, an arena of evil, crypts, and so on."

Thus, from 1973 to 1974, the descripton of the dungeon grew: 10 levels becomes 12, and the three named features become six. The bowling giants are changed from 30 feet to 20, possibly to match the tallest Giants in Vol 2, and the fungi in the caverns change from "weirdly shaped and colored" to "giant".

The three added features ("museum of another age", the "arena of evil", and "crypts") were possibly either created or discovered by players, and thus revealable, after the time of the 1973 draft. Note that the original text expressly states Gary's concern with revealing secrets to the players of an ongoing campaign.

EXAMPLE OF A CAMPAIGN WORLD

On page 34 of draft, in the section "UPPER WORLD", Gygax describes part of his campaign world:

"In the Greyhawk game the world is somewhat like the real one, and players who are incautious can get transported thousands of miles away. Then, adventuring across a parallel world's India they might meet living gods with eight arms, learn the "rope trick", how to walk over beds of glowing coals, and so on. The mythology of each land can supply the referee with a basis for their surroundings."

Gygax's use of Earth for portions of his campaign suggests why Gods, Demigods & Heroes (1976), and then Deities & Demigods (1980), leaned so heavily into real world mythology. This text also reveals the origin of the spell Rope Trick, which was introduced in the Greyhawk supplement (1975).

This text disappeared completely from the published book, but in 1975 in Alarums & Excursions #15, Gygax made a similar reveal with respect to Greyhawk:

"The game world is a parallel earth, but the continents are somewhat different. Most of our campaign activity takes place on what corresponds to North America, on the eastern half of the continent. The "Blackmoor" lands lie far up on the northeast coast. "Greyhawk" is in the central portion. There are a few other independently run campaigns located on this map. There are also some other dungeons related to the "Greyhawk" campaign located at some distance from the free city of Greyhawk. Players in our campaign may freely play in "Blackmoor", but to get there they must adventure cross country. With one or two other campaigns, we do not allow any cross-campaign play other than this, for these is too great a disparity of DMing. The territory within 500 or so miles of our main dungeon is mapped out at 5 miles to the hex. Territory within 50 miles of Greyhawk city is mapped more closely, and monster locations are indicated. The entire world is mapped out in rough form, with notes regarding typical encounters in given areas as well as particular special places, for hardy souls who wish to go forth to seek their fortunes."

This also shows that the existence of Arneson's Blackmoor in the Great Kingdom/Greyhawk, mentioned in the "Forward" (see above) was still in effect in Gygax's campaign world in 1975.

* * * * 

In summary, these references to Greyhawk in the first draft show that by July of 1973, the Greyhawk campaign had a central dungeon with over ten levels and a variety of unusual features, characters commonly employing multiple henchmen/hirelings including orcs and other monsters, and a campaign world leaning heavily on the real world for details of the broader world.

See also these earlier posts:

"The Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977": Out Today! 

"The Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977": Table of Contents

"The Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977": What Might the Precursors Be?

"How Dungeons & Dragons Started" (video about the book)

"The Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977": Everything we know about this upcoming WOTC book

Playing at the World revised edition out in July

Gygaxian Monster Paralysis: Permanent?

Letter from Gygax to an fan (1989)

A not uncommon question about the rules in Holmes Basic is: "How long does the paralysis inflicted by Carrion Crawlers, Gelatinous Cubes or Ghouls last?"

This is asked because, in the Holmes rulebook, an attack by each of these monsters inflicts paralysis unless a saving throw is made, but none of the respective entries indicate how long the victim remains immobilized. One might assume that it wears off at some point after an encounter is over, or one might turn to the Wand of Paralyzation, which in Holmes has a duration of 6 turns for a failed save. Other than that, there's no specific guidance.

The lack of durations reflects the OD&D source material that Holmes relied on when editing the manuscript for the Basic rulebook. Carrion Crawlers and Gelatinous Cubes were introduced in the Greyhawk supplement, but neither specifies any duration for the paralysis they inflict. Ghouls were introduced earlier, in Vol 2 (Monsters & Treasure), where it says, "As stated in CHAINMAIL for Wights, Ghouls paralize any normal figure they touch, excluding Elves" (page 9). In Chainmail, the entry for "Wights (and Ghouls)" does make clear that their paralysis lasts for "one complete turn" of that game (page 33, 2nd edition), and while it is clear that Holmes did consult those rules for some aspects of Basic (such as the Parrying rule), for whatever reason he did not include this information, and neither did Gygax when he revised the manuscript before publication.

If Gygax eventually recognized that the omission of durations for paralysis in OD&D and Holmes Basic was an oversight, he had an opportunity to correct that in the AD&D Monster Manual, which came out about 6 months after Holmes and revised most of the existing D&D monsters. But he did this for only one of the three, the Gelatinous Cube, which now paralyzes for 5-20 (5d4) rounds. Notably, this duration also corresponds to the revised duration for the Wand of Paralyzation given in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, published a few years later in 1979.

The Monster Manual still lacks durations for the Carrion Crawler and Ghoul as well as a number of new sources of paralysis: the breath weapon of Silver Dragons, the touch of Ghasts, the tentacles of the Giant Portuguese Man-O-War, and the secretions of the Slithering Tracker. 

Why the seeming reluctance to add durations for monster paralysis? Later TSR products varied quite a bit in attempting to fill in the "missing" durations (look below for a list), which suggested that it was simply an oversight that was only slowly corrected. But was there another reason?

A recently uncovered 1989 letter from Gygax to a fan in Ecuador, posted on FB (see the image up above), sheds some light on his original view of paralysis. Unexpectedly, Gygax writes: 

"Paralysis might be permanent. I finally gave in and said 5-20 minutes, but... I like it better as permanent until removed by something. You choose."

As an AD&D round corresponds to one minute, the 5-20 minutes noted here corresponds exactly to the 5-20 rounds that newly appears for the Gelatinous Cube in the Monster Manual, and for the wand in the Dungeon Masters Guide.

Thus, Gygax's comment surprisingly suggests that the reason he didn't include a duration for monster paralysis in early D&D products was because he viewed such paralysis as "permanent until removed by something"...! 

His "something" is vague and not further explained in the letter. One possibility would simply be the same thing that restores hit points in OD&D: a return to base for complete rest. Per OD&D Vol 3: "On the first day of complete rest no hit points will be regained, but every other day thereafter one hit point will be regained until the character is completely healed. This can take a long time" (page 35). Others include those given in later rulesets: the second iteration of the Basic rulebook (Moldvay Basic) in 1981 newly allowed for Cure Light Wounds or Healing Potions to remove paralysis, and for AD&D, Lenard Lakofka created a new 3rd level cleric spell, Remove Paralysis, that appeared in Dragon #58 (February 1982) and then was compiled in Unearthed Arcana in 1985. 

While "permanent" paralysis may seem harsh, if viewed in the context of a game also replete with "save or die" poisons, "save or permanent paralyzation" fits in as a permanent consequence that is not quite as bad as death.

* * * * *

As an addendum, with regard to Carrion Crawler & Ghoul paralysis, later TSR D&D products gave a variety of answers to this:

---In T1 The Village of Hommlet (1979) by Gygax, ghoul paralysis is given a duration of 3-12 (3d4) turns.

---In Dragon #37 (May 1980), the Sage Advice column written by Jean Wells answered the question, "How long does the paralysis caused by a carrion crawler, ghast or ghoul last?" with "I have always assumed it to be 24 hours. However, since the duration of the paralysis is not clearly defined in any of the books, I suggest that each DM decide the duration in his particular campaign" (page 12). I note that a duration of a full day is much closer to the "permanent until removed by something" suggested by Gygax than any of the other suggested durations listed here.

---In Dragon #39, a followup Sage Advice column clarifies the above: "According to Lawrence Schick, Vice-President for Production and Design at TSR Hobbies, the paralyzation caused by carrion crawlers is of the same duration as that caused by ghouls— 3-12 turns. Paralyzation caused by a ghast takes twice as long—6-24 turns—to wear off". This duration for ghouls is the same as given in T1.

---In Moldvay Basic (1981), the paralyzation of Carrion Crawlers, Gelatinous Cubes, Ghouls and new Thouls is standardized as a shorter 2-8 (2d4) turns.

---In Polyhedron #2 (Autumn 1981), in the Dispel Confusion column, Gary Gygax answered the question, "How long does (or should) paralysis caused by a carrion crawler last? And what, if any, are the effects of multiple hits by this creature?", with: 

"Paralysis from creatures lasts as long as paralysis from a wand: 5d4 (5-20) rounds (DMG page 136). Multiple hits from a carrion crawler (or any other paralyzing creature) forces multiple saving throws on the part of the victim; when any one is failed, the other hits have no further effect on the paralysis (damages still apply if given, such as by a ghoul or ghast)." 

This is the only published source that really matches Gygax's later letter in giving a generalized 5d4 rounds for paralysis. 

---In TSR's Monster Cards (1982), part of the AD&D line, Ghoul and Carrion Crawler paralysis are instead each given a duration of 2d6 turns. These cards include revised entries from the Monster Manual, so are often viewed as "official" revisions for AD&D.

---In the AD&D 2E Monstrous Manual (1989), we see a different duration for each monster: Carrion Crawler, 2d6 turns; Gelatinous Cube, 5d4 rounds; Ghoul, 1d6+2 rounds; and the Ghast, 1d6+4 rounds.

The Maze of Peril: Auction of Gygax's Manuscript Copy

Typescript draft for the Maze of Peril, along with a reply letter from Gygax

In the most recent round of auctions from the estate of Gary Gygax, I was pleasantly surprised to see an auction for a typed manuscript of Holmes' D&D novel The Maze of Peril, originally published in November 1986 by the venerable independent publisher Space & Time, which was founded by author Gordon Linzner in the 1960s.

In addition to the typescript itself, the auction included the mailing envelope from the publisher; a cover letter from the publisher; a copy of a reply letter from Gygax; and a copy of an introduction to the book written by Gygax. This last is the most surprising of all, as the published novel includes Gygax in the dedication ("To Gygax who invented the game") but does not include any sort of introduction, by Gygax or other author.

Together we can gather that the publisher sent the completed typescript to Gygax in March 1986 and requested an introduction to the book, which Gygax wrote and mailed back to the publisher soon after, but for unknown reasons this introduction was not included in the book when it was published in November of that year.

Looking in more detail at each item:

---Of typescript itself, the photos show the cover page, with the title of the book and author's name appearing as on the title page of published book, and with a Shiprock, New Mexico address. Shiprock is part of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, and according to the author bio accompanying Holmes' short story Martian Twilight (1991, Running Dinosaur Press), he and his wife (also a doctor) lived there for four years while they "worked for the Indian Health Service Hospitals". See this post for a letter to Space Gamer magazine that Holmes wrote during this time period.

The above photo shows a portion of one page of the text of the book, which is part of Chapter 1 (page 10 as published), and matches the text as published.

---The mailing envelope from Space and Time has a return address of 138 West 70th St, 4B in New York City, which is the same address from which I myself ordered a copy of Maze of Peril about 20 years ago. It addressed to Gygax at a PO Box 388 in Lake Geneva. Gygax had been ousted from TSR a little over 6 months previously. For more on this topic, see the article the Ambush at Sherdian Springs by Jon Peterson, or his book Game Wizards.

Written on the cover of the mailing envelope from Space & Time are the following handwritten notes in pencil: "Copy letter + 5 pp of intro. Origs. to Jani Anderson. File remainder under Holmes, J. Eric". Thus, it appears Gygax stored all of these papers in this envelope.

---The letter from Space & Time is mostly obscured in the photos, but it can be seen that it is dated March 15th, 1986.

---Gygax's return letter is dated March 21st, 1986, and uses a different address, "832 Geneva Street", the history of which is described on the Gygax Memorial Page. The letter is addressed to Jani Anderson, who was an editor at Space & Time.

This letter is visible in full, and the body reads:

Thanks for the note and copy of Eric's manuscript for the captioned. Naturally, I didn't read it for editorial work but for refreshing my memory. I believe the least time I saw it was about two years ago.

After I wrote the four numbered pages, I thought the whole was a bit too dry, so I added the "insert" paragraph. I envision that becoming the leading portion of the whole.

Having had a couple of books published, I am quite used to the indignities of editorial work. Feel free to do as you wish with the words. The presentation of the Registered Trade Marks of TSR, Inc. is, I believe, legally correct. Do be careful about that. I suggest you consult with a lawyer about usages beyond what I have written. Certainly, I can freely be shown as co-creator of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game, or creator of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game. Cover usage might require some acknolwedgement of ownership of the mark(s).

Please feel free to contact me if I may be of any further assistance.

This suggests Gygax previously saw a copy of the draft around 1984, when he was still at TSR. Holmes was working on the book as early as 1979, as it is mentioned by title in an L.A. Times newspaper article from that year, "Fantasy Life in a Game Without End".

One possibility is that concern over trademark usage kept the publisher from using Gygax's introduction, although I note that the book as published uses the D&D trademark on the back cover, and in Holmes' author bio. Another possibility is Gygax's legal tussle with TSR, which was still ongoing in the first half of 1986, per Jon Peterson's article cited above.

Efforts are currently underway to contact Space & Time to see if they have any records or memories as to why Gygax's introduction was not used.

Copies of the original printing of Maze of Peril are still available from Space & Time via Amazon. Find the link in the sidebar to this blog or by clicking here:

Maze of Peril original 1986 printing

See also:

Tales of Peril Book Club

Yggsburgh reprint now shipping

Yggsburgh front cover

Last month, I wrote about the reprint of Yggsburgh, the sandbox setting (256 pages...!) written Gary Gygax in 2005 for his Castle Zagyg project (aka Castle Greyhawk). Troll Lord Games recently announced via their mailing list that shipping of orders of the reprint is now in progress, and buyers are reporting that copies are appearing in their mailboxes; see for example the photos posted here and here.

From the photos, we can see that the reprint appears to be the same as the original, but per reports can be distinguished by the label "Second Printing" and 2023 copyright given inside.

As a reminder, you can order the hardcover from the TLG site for $65, which also includes an immediate download of the PDF, or you can buy the PDF alone from DrivethruRPG for $19.99:

Yggsburgh Print + PDF 

Yggsburgh PDF only

Gygax's Yggsburgh (2005) available once again

The front cover of Yggsburgh,
with an illustration by Jeffrey Catherine Jones

If you haven't heard, Gary Gygax's Yggsburgh sandbox campaign setting, originally released in 2005 and withdrawn from sales after he passed away in 2008, is once again available for purchase from Troll Lord Games, following an agreement with the Gygax estate. You can pre-order the hardcover from the TLG site for $65, which also includes an immediate download of the PDF, or you can buy the PDF alone from DrivethruRPG for $19.99:

Yggsburgh Print (pre-order) + PDF 

Yggsburgh PDF only

For those unfamiliar with it, Yggsburgh is a re-casting of Gygax's long-delayed City of Greyhawk project, intended as a setting for exploring the Castle Greyhawk dungeons, here re-christened Castle Zagyg.  

Back in May of 1980, shortly before the initial publication of the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, Gary Gygax discussed future releases for the setting in issue 37 of The Dragon, where in his regular column "From the Sorcerer's Scroll", under the title "Greyhawk: The Shape of the World", he estimated that "The City of Greyhawk might make a 1981 publication date, certainly 1982, and about the same time the series which will eventually represent the whole of the Dungeons of Castle Greyhawk will begin". Sadly, neither title ever appeared under Gygax's byline, and became the most infamous of TSR vaporware. 

Decades later, in the early 2000s, Gygax finally started a new project to publish this material, this time under the aegis of TLG's Castles & Crusades RPG. However, only Yggsburgh and the first portion of the Castle Zagyg, titled the Upper Works (2007), were finished and released before Gygax passed away, and the license to publish them was withdrawn.

Yggsburgh is a sprawling 256-page hardcover book, with cover art by the great Jeffrey Catherine Jones, repurposed from the 1972 Avon paperback edition of Nine Princes of Amber by Roger Zelazny. This was the first novel in the Amber series, which was included by Gygax in Appendix N in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide in 1979. Originally, the entire series of Castle Zagyg books was slated to feature covers with Jones' classic work from the 1970s.

The book itself is also accompanied by an 8-page hexmap, drafted by Darlene in a style similar to her original maps for the World of Greyhawk, which was tipped into the back cover in the 2005 publication. This depicts an area 50 hexes east-west and 34 hexes north-south, at 1 mile per hex, for a total area of 1,700 square miles:

Players Version of the Yggsburgh Hex Map by Darlene

Rather than just being a high-level gazetteer, Yggsburgh is a big sandbox, which I'd compare to Lenard Lakofka's AD&D module L1 The Secret of Bone Hill. There's a city with 93 described areas, including the famous Green Dragon Inn, and an area map with 48 described locations, and including a number of fully detailed small dungeons, which is often overlooked: 

• Thieves' Underground (13 rooms)
• River King's Tomb (19 rooms)
• The Cursed Mine (14 rooms)
• The Gnome Burrows (25 rooms)
• The Unholy Ringstones (25 encounter areas)

These could easily be extracted and run as one-shots or dropped in other settings. 

Castle Zagyg and Rob Kuntz's Dark Chateau (2005) are also two of the intended locations in the sandbox, so there is the potential for larger dungeons, although this does make the campaign setting incomplete on its own if you intend to use those.

I've had the original hardback for many years, and it's probably my favorite late-era Gygax product. While I haven't run anything from it yet, I will pick it up every now and then and read a bit. It's sort of a glorious sprawling mess like the original AD&D DMG, but in campaign setting form.

L3 Deep Dwarven Delve: 1979 draft

Lakofka's photo of the vintage typescript draft for L3

The late Lenard Lakofka is probably best remembered for his long-running, detailed-oriented column in Dragon magazine, Leomund's Tiny Hut (1979-1986), and for writing the classic AD&D modules L1 The Secret of Bone Hill (1981) and L2 The Assassin's Knot (1983). The former is innovative as a small sandbox, the latter as a murder mystery, and they were drawn from the adventures he ran in his home campaign set in the Lendore Isles, which were later incorporated by Gary Gygax into the World of Greyhawk (1980). 

No further L-coded modules appeared during the era of 1st Edition AD&D, and thus for many years that was it for the series, as far as gamers knew. However, after ownership of D&D passed from TSR to Wizards of Coast, they surprised us by publishing a third installment for the 25th anniversary of D&D. Specifically, the 1999 Silver Anniversary Collector's set included the module L3 Deep Dwarven Delve, touted on its cover as "the last 1st Edition AD&D adventure ever to be published!", because it "lain unseen and forgotten in the TSR design vault for twenty years". However, as Shannon Appelcline reports on the DriveThruRPG page for the product, this story may only be considered accurate if you expansively include Lakofka's home as part of "the TSR design vault":

"[Sean K. Reynolds of WOTC] said that all of TSR's copies of the adventure had been "lost or destroyed" over the years. The adventure (apparently) resurfaced only when Lakofka found a copy around his house and sent it to Roger E. Moore in 1997 ... [who] then passed the adventure on to Reynolds in 1998."

Furthermore, as Appelcline explains, even after the original was located, publishing it was not without snags:  

"[Wizards] thought [Delve] needed "depth and clarification" to bring it up to modern AD&D standards. Lakofka was happy to oblige and produced a new version of his adventure… which Wizards again lost. Lakofka says that he didn't hear about the loss until after "Delve" was published, by which time a number of Wizards developers had stepped in to do the required expansion for the adventure ... Lakofka says that "Delve" is about 80% comprised of material he'd turned in two decades earlier."

The reception to L3 was somewhat mixed. While most were grateful for another AD&D module, especially one that written during the original era, some were disappointed that it wasn't as innovative as Lakofka's earlier modules, being a rather linear dungeon crawl. And being a limited edition, copies became increasingly expensive over the years, although now you can get an inexpensive pdf or print-on-demand copy from DriveThruRPG. 

In the years after L3 was published, Lakofka became active in D&D circles again, eventually releasing more Lendore material through Dragonsfoot, including L4 Devilspawn and L5 The Kroten Campaign.

Another twenty years had passed when, in 2018, Lakofka once again located in his house a copy of the draft for L3, in a formatted typescript, and posted a photo of it (shown above) in a comment to a FB group, the Flanaess Geographical Society.

It's exciting to see this typescript draft, particularly because the cover is laid out in vintage TSR format. I don't recall ever seeing a draft of this type for any other TSR module. And with "FINAL CORRECTION COPY" written across the top, it suggests that at one point someone (Lakofka? a TSR editor?) considered it close to finished.

While his photo only shows the cover page and a small portion of one interior page, there are still interesting details to be gleaned: 

 

---The title is "The Deep Dwarven Delve", which became just "Deep Dwarven Delve" as published, although the interior text still refers to it by the original title in several places. 

---The cover has a copyright date is 1979 and uses the TSR Wizard Logo. Lakofka ran Deep Dwarven Delve at Gen Con 12 in August 1979, according to the program book, indicating that the adventure had taken shape by mid-1979. While the draft's 1979 date could just indicate when it was originally written, the Wizard Logo was phased out in 1980, and L1 employs TSR's next logo, the Face Logo. This suggests that this draft, which must have been prepared by an editor at TSR, actually does date to 1979 or 1980. 

---It refers to "one part of a four-part series", whereas the published version, which has different cover text, states that it was "[w]ritten as the concluding adventure of the "L" series". This suggests that Lakofka not only wrote this draft of L3 written in 1979, but also conceived that the series would include an L4 at the time. WOTC in the '90s omitted any mention of further unfinished work, possibly because they wanted to seem like they were bringing the L-series to a conclusion. 

---The reference to "three level maps" matches the published version, but the "aerial view of the mountain and surrounding areas", does not. Either this was never finished, lost, or omitted by WOTC. And this is a big omission, because there's no indication in L3 as to where exactly it is located on the memorable area maps found in L1 and L2. As Lakofka wrote on FB: "i looked at L3. there is no area map. i would not miss something that basic. But TSR did". 

---It also mentions "monster rosters", and the published module does, in fact, contain a section titled "Rosters" on pages 5-7, which has a list of monsters for each of the three levels of the dungeon. 

---It recommends characters of levels 2-6, with approximately 40 levels total, whereas the published module suggests 6-10 characters of levels 3-6, average 4, with about 35 total levels and no more than 45 (page 4). 

---The small portion of the interior page shown in the photo contains text that is close to the same material as published, with a few minor changes. The original reads:

NOTES FOR THE DUNGEON MASTER 

The Deep Dwarven Delve can be played at two levels; first as an orc stronghold (level one), and second as a hidden treasure store and place of great evil (levels two and three). The upper level of the Delve is filled with orcs, bugbears, ogres, trolls an a magic-user. They do not know of the.......................................first level of the Delve 

This was changed on page 4 of the published module to: 

PREPARING TO PLAY  

The Deep Dwarven Delve can be played as two linked adventures; first as a humanoid stronghold (Level One), and second as a hidden treasure store and place of great evil (Levels Two and Three). 

(the heading "NOTES FOR THE DM" was moved to page 3, after the Background)  

---The last sentence in the original paragraph exactly describes the composition of monsters found in the "First Level Roster" on page 5 as published. This suggests the types of monsters on the first level were not changed from draft to publication.

Lakofka later indicated he was preparing a comparison document between the two versions, but unfortunately ended up putting it aside when he moved, and never got back to it or shared what he had completed. He did, however, make the comment that "TSR decided to change the final encounter in the Delve (along with a few minor changes in other encounters)" (here on FB), which together with the details gathered from the draft cover page suggests that overall, the published version of L3 is not too dissimilar to what he original drafted in 1979.

In future posts, I will take a look at where L3 should be located on the L1 area map, and also what Lakofka intended for the original final encounter of L3.

Gary Con "Roll With Gary" Dice (2018)

 

In 2018, Gary Con released a limited edition set of dice with colors matching the set packaged with Holmes Basic. These "Roll With Gary" dice were designed by Luke Gygax and produced by Black Oak Workshop.

The shapes and colors match those of the original set, including a yellow d4, orange d6, green d8, blue d12 and white 20-sided die. On each die, the highest number is replaced with the "GC" logo. The 20-sider is labeled 0-9 twice, just like the 20-sider in the original set, except that each "0" is replaced with a "GC". 

Gary Con 2022: Days 3 and 4

 

The view from the window of the Legends of Wargaming hall on Sunday morning. That's not Lake Geneva, but rather a small lake on the grounds of the hotel.

This post covers the gaming highlights of my third and fourth days at Gary Con XIV, Saturday the 25th and Sunday the 26th (of March 2022). If you missed them, the reports for first two days can be found here and here. [I wrote most of this post shortly after those, but didn't finish it until early December 2022]

Saturday

On Saturday morning Demos of the OSR Grimoire continued running the OD&D tournament written by Dave Emigh for Winter War in 1977. On Thursday he had run the first round of the tournament, The Tower of Ullison, which I also played in and covered in my post about the first day of the con. The second round is titled The Sword of Hope, and like the first, was later published as a module by Judges Guild, and which Demos reviewed here on Dragonsfoot; unfortunately, the third round of the tournament was never published. 

I was the only returning player from the first round, but familiarity with it wasn't necessary for this round, and the new players took to the scenario with gusto. There were six pre-gens, and five players, so I ran two characters, a magic-user and a cleric. The first part of the dungeon, which is pictured above, looks quite ordinary, but includes an interesting design feature that makes for fun tournament play: while we quickly found an exit in the south part of the dungeon, we couldn't open it until we had backtracked through the rooms to find and solve several puzzles. Beyond it lay the conclusion of the scenario. 

In the afternoon I ate lunch while watching a screening of a rough cut of The Dreams in Gary's Basement, a forthcoming documentary about Gary Gygax, hosted by the director Pat Kilbane. I backed the kickstarter for this project, and enjoyed watching this cut, which included about 40 minutes of mostly finished footage followed by some shorter excerpts. A few highlights for me were seeing video footage of Gygax talking outside an early Gen Con; a photo of David Sutherland I hadn't seen before; and animations of Sutherland's Dragon from the cover of Holmes Basic (!) and of Trampier's Demon Idol from the cover of the PHB. Afterwards, Kilbane hosted a Q&A, where he explained that progress on the film has been slow because he has been doing the editing himself to make sure it's done properly within the available budget. Later in the hall, Larry from Follow Me and Die! introduced me to Pat, and we had a pleasant chat where I learned that he is a gamer who started with Holmes Basic and still plays and designs RPGs.

In the evening I ran my second game of the convention, a session of In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus, which I'd run previously at the most recent in-person Gary Con in 2019, and at other cons. By my count this was the sixth time running it. Surprisingly, I had two players return from 2019; apparently, in the intervening years they'd completely forgotten they had played it in before! The game was fun, and Demos was able to join in near the end to take over Murray after another player had to leave. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from this game; when I'm DMing I'm often too pre-occupied to remember to take any myself.

Rare image of the wizard Zenopus conversing with other wizards

Afterwards, we relaxed in one of the halls, chatting with Griff of the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary and blog, who took the above photo of me. Still later, I joined my friend Rich of the Circle of Dar Janix at the hotel bar where he was hanging out with the Troll Lords. 

Sunday

Douglas Waltman's large-scale reproduction of the Knights of Camelot board

I didn't register for any games on Sunday morning as my flight out from Milwaukee was midday, and it's a 45-minute drive to the airport. Instead, after eating breakfast I hung out in the Legends of Wargaming for a few hours, watching Demos play TSR's Knights of Camelot refereed by Douglas Waltman. For this game, Waltman constructed a jaw-dropping large-scale reproduction of the original board, over 7 feet long, including a painstaking recreation of the beautiful map work by Darlene, but in relief. Completing the upgrade was an tremendous set of painted Mirliton miniatures representing each of the knights that appear in the game. More photos that I took of the setup can be seen here on Twitter.

Line-up of Mirliton knights for Knights of Camelot.

Renaissance Books store front in the Milwaukeee airport

Finally, one of my post-Gary Con traditions is stopping in Renaissance Books, the used bookstore housed in the the Milwaukee airport, which is apparently the only used bookstore currently in an airport in the US. In the past I discovered that it has a great selection of vintage sci-fi & fantasy paperbacks, including a lot falling under the Appendix N umbrella, and this time I picked out two Robert E. Howard compilations published by Zebra in the 1970s, Worms of the Earth, which is a Bran Mak Morn compilation, and the Second Book of Robert E. Howard, a compilation of various stories. 

When I was paying for my books, the owner saw my Gary Con hat and mentioned that he had written for Dragon Magazine in the 1980s. He introduced himself as Michael Lowry, and specifically mentioned an article on gemstones; which turns out to be "The Many Facets of Gems" in issue #83. He also wrote The Tarot of Many Things for issue #77, a variant of the Deck of Many Things. I suggested that he should come to Gary Con in the future, but he indicated that his focus is on sci-fi conventions these days.

* * * * * 

That's it for my Gary Con 2022 write-up. Looking forward to 2023, and since I'm finishing up this report in December, I can report that I've already got my ticket for Gary Con 2023 and am planning on running two games, a re-run of Expedition to Skull Stack Crater (which I ran for the first time in 2022) and the new Forgotten Smugglers' Cave. 

[I wrote most of this article in April 2022, but didn't finish it until December 2022]

Gary Gygax Day 2022

Graphic by Jim Wampler

Happy Gary Gygax Day 2022!

As I don't have a new post ready, I'll highlight one I made a few months ago:

Gygax's "City on the Edge" Adventure: post-TSR Greyhawk development

See also these previous posts that I made for Gary Gygax Day:

2021: d20 Unexpectedly Intelligent Monsters in the Monster Manual (1977)

2020: First Adventures in Dungeoneering

2018: Gygax's Dungeon Delving Play Reports

2012: Obscure Art Friday: "Chainmail" by Gygax