More Memories S1-4 Realms of Horror by Gary Gygax, & Lawrence Schick For Your Old School Campaigns

Why is the release of  S1-4 Realms of Horror by Gary Gygax, &  Lawrence Schick significant by Wizbros erm Wizards of the Coast?! Well, now the wilds of the RPG market place are flooded with all kinds of OSR product.But one of the only places to get such a collector's item was from Ebay at horrid prices. Now at least the PDF is available for a collection of some of the classic modules of AD&D Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth... four modules that are already classics in the AD&D game system but these have been edited & altered into the 'Super module package'.

In Nineteen Eighty Eight everything changed for our little group of players under my uncle's dungeon mastering. Our PC's were facing down & dying like flies in Realm's of Horror's version of  S1 Tomb of Horrors. It was a savage & brutal lesson in death by  party dynamics to learn.


Couple this with plot of  S2 White Plume Mountain which we got deeply involved Your characters are trying to get back magical items stolen from their rightful owners and return them.  This is because this isn't your usual dungeon  traps and creatures are there as defenses for this stolen treasure! Our party died by the score back in '88 & '89. We learned not to take the game that seriously at all as well as not to get too attached to our PC's.
Then it was into the heart of S3 Expediation To The Barrier Peaks or at least S1-4 Realms of Horror version of it. My Uncle used the original module to pad out certain areas for full campaign play & more setting details.

Eventually we made it through to Realm of Horrors's version of  s4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. And this was a long slog through the monsters, treasures, etc. of these modules & the one thing I can tell you about these versions of the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons modules as a dungeon master & player is to set up a town or city that is reachable as a home base for the PC's! Seriously it was a pain in the ass to try & outwit at every turn the minions of Drelnza, the vampiric daughter of long-deceased archmage Iggwilv. She was behind the scenes the entire time. Everything and the plot of Realms of Horror falls directly on her shoulders. "The PC's must investigate rumors of a lost treasure that scores of adventurers have perished attempting to find.^[2] The treasure is a remnant of the wealth amassed by the archmage Iggwilv,^[2] former ruler of Perrenland, prior to her presumed death at the hands of the demon Graz'zt, whom she had "imprisoned and forced into servitude." "   Drelnza, the vampiric daughter of long-deceased archmage Iggwilv became a major enemy for our party of nine players over the course of a long three year stretch. To this day I loath her & her twisted family. My uncle would later before the end of the campaign tack onto T1 Temple of Elemental Evil. Why? Well I think that the Wiki entry for the The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth reveals his diabolical plan involving Realms of Horror;
"The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is a revised and expanded version of The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth, a tournament adventure that Gygax wrote for WinterCon V, a gaming conventionsponsored by the Metro Detroit Gamers (MDG) in 1976.^[4] It is based in part on one of Rob Kuntz's dungeon levels, as Kuntz helped Gygax revise the tournament version.^[5] This original version consisted of eight loose sheets, an outer folder, and a zip-locked bag; only several hundred copies were printed.^[4] In the May 1980 issue of Dragon, Gygax said "Rob Kuntz has the reworked Lost Caverns module which must be finalized" and that "We want to get it into print as soon as possible."^[6] Lawrence Schick later suggested that "there's evidence that Gary considered Tsojcanth part of a longer Greyhawk campaign, placing the adventure between T1–T4 The Temple of Elemental Evil and WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. (By this reckoning, The Village of Hommlet, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and Tsojcanth are thus the "lost" WG1 through WG3 modules.) So, Tsojcanth was published in the S series because it got completed out of order, but was too good to delay.""
My uncle was playing with the fate of the Greyhawk setting dangling us like mice before the  massive horror awaiting us as players in T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil.


Realms of Horror is like a short hand version of all of the classic AD&D modules of yore Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth all laid out in a very nicely edited style. But these are not modules for the faint of heart nor those who are too attached to your PC's. With that in mind even though these modules have been edited together they are at their heart & soul brutal & dangerous as Lawrence Schick describes  The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth in his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, described the adventure as "A monster-filled labyrinth in the classic mode: kill 'em, rob 'em, and leave." I also think that this best  describes Realms of Horror as well. 

Hyperborean Bait & Switch With Expediation to The Barrier Peaks (sort of ) & The Free OSR Resource Adventure From Faster Monkey Games 'Realm Of The Technomancer'

So what do you do if your dungeon mastering for a bunch of experienced D&D players who have seen all of the classic modules.But they expect you as the DM to pull out S3 Expedition to The Barrier Peaks to introduce that old school science fantasy sweetness into your campaign? This is especially true if your using pulp magazine weird fiction for your Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea hybrid game.

In fact I wouldn't use S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks just yet.  I'd save that adventure until the PC's  were in the levels of six or seventh  in AS&SH. The PC's are called in by the Duchy of Geoff to investigate a series of weird disappearances, so their going to be expecting S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.


Instead I'd go for Realm of The Technomancer a double bill rpg adventure that has that sweet dark fantasy aspect mixed with the post apocalyptic wasteland vibe. It combines them very well and it short, sweet, and plants the post apocalyptic seeds into the players minds. This isn't a bait & switch adventure, its a dimensional crossover with some pretty epic results.
"Something new has invaded an important underground complex... Will you be wizards and warriors gearing up to save the gnomes from strange humanoids, or mighty freaks of post-apocalyptic nature hired to drive out the alien troops of the mysterious Technomancer? REALM OF THE TECHNOMANCER offers dangers, rewards, new gear, and new monsters for post-apoc games like Mutant Future™ and old-school fantasy like Labyrinth Lord™ alike. Plus, the TECHNOMANCY appendix gives simple, vivid rules for what happens when technology and magic try to mix, and the results are often not pretty..."
The Realm of the Technomancer is free and has some great encounters in it, a nicely balanced adventure that adds a bit of that wasteland wildness with a bit of that old fashioned pulpy goodness.



But how do you bait & switch these two adventures, the answer is very simple;"The Grand Duchy of Geoff has recently been plagued by a rash of unusually weird and terrible disappearance  of an unknown sort." So this set's up the Grand Duchy of Geoff as the perfect spot for the down space craft in S3 much later on in the PC's adventuring careers.
The key to getting this to work is situate the Grand Duchy of Geoff as some out of the way shabby, backwater province of Hyperborea near some of the mountains without making it too important to the rest of  the royal life of the Hyperborean capital cities.  Realm of the Technomancer does three things and does them really well. It allows the DM to connect the world of Underborea to a Thundarr style Earth. It offers a dangerous threat of an unknown humanoid race (one of my all time favorites) & it makes the underworld very weird, very unpredictable, & all in one neat package of an adventure.


Jeff Sparks does a great job with this adventure and it can be used with a wide variety of retroclone & classic old Dungeons & Dragons systems. Even though its meant for Labyrinth Lord, Realm of the Technomancer can be used with lots of old school and modern clones. Did I happen to mention its free? The down side is that its not in print at the moment folks.


Realm of the Technomancer
Is Available Right Over Here

Expeidation To the Barrier Peaks Ending & A New High Caliber Beginning - Thursday Actual Play

It is now 7:30 & after only an hour there's been a final encounter! I've been running Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, the party is half dead due an encounter with a Mind Flayer. The PCs that are left are taking their loot & leaving! Now.. 8 players dead & only two have 

survived within one hour. The dice are cruel this evening.

The PC's gave a good account of themselves but the dice weren't in their favor tonight & I can honestly say that I'm very upset by this. There were other areas of the Warden that I prepared that will not be seen let alone the reactors. Sigh

I was just handed a copy of today's Waterbury Republican whose front paper reads " Severe Winter On the Way Are You Prepared!

They want a Snowpocalyptic adventure but they want it with modern or sci fi weapons. So it looks like mix of Mutant Future & Labyrinth Lord. Below is an inspiration for this campaign.

I'm resurrecting the 

High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventures 

You can read some of what was to my players some of the most creative stuff I've done & some of the ideas that I'd laid out with my good friend Bill from Green Skeleton gaming right over Here
 The players are bringing their "A" game to this one & I've a lot more resources to bring to bare on this front! So its a matter of let the games soon being!
 So in case your wondering about The Castle From Beyond Time & Higher Reality. Take a look at the castle
The games begin next week with a snowbound castle, a party of adventurers, & a new beginning.