OSR Commentary & Reskinning of D3 Vault of the Drow By Gary Gygax

 As a member of a bold party of adventurers, you and your associates have trekked far into what seems to be a whole underworld of subterranean tunnels -- arteries connecting endless caves and caverns which honeycomb the foundations of the lands beneath the sun. Your expedition has dogged the heels of the Dark Elves who caused great woe and then fled underground

This blog post fills in some of what we talked about the last blog entry. Here we finally get the full threat of the Drow & their works that we see in this Gary Gygax classic. Gygax's writing & flexiblity is on full throttle in this tournament style model.  And we get the full extent of the underworld of D3 Vault of The Drow here. And since we're pickup from last blog post these are Myrkálfar straight out of Norse mythology & legend twisted by super science of space gods eons ago. We see this in the Myrkálfar's god  Atlach-Nacha.  Reskinning the Drow means that Atlach-Nacha's cult is going to be front & center throughout the module. The Drow's manipulation of the surface's Lovecraftian races is going to be fully exposed. 

And the alien nature of the Drow whose relation back to the surface world's Arthur Machan's White People is going to pretty evident. The Myrkálfar's god  Atlach-Nacha whose been brain washing people from the upperworld for eons. Possibly turning them into more of the Myrkálfar for the purpose of eventual invasion of the surface world. 

And this invasion promise works in the Myrkálfar's favor as the fire giants rush to thier banner. Because of the fact that  they see the springing up of cults across the planet. This ties back into A.Merritt's 'Moon Pool' & the caches of alien technologies from 'The Metal Monster'. 

The fire giants have been enslaving the various giant factions over the centuries after the events of Ragnarok on Hyperborea. And now with the Deep One push because of the events of the first part of D1-2. Things heat up because all of this  connects in with events from The Mystery At Port Greely. Why?! Because the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons version of Earth & Hyperborea are ripe for exploitation by the powers that be. The events depicted in D1-2 Descent Into The Depths of the Earth mark the adventurers passage from one set of events in the chain into another if they survive the experience. 

 D3 Vault of the Drow By Gary Gygax presents the next evolution in this chain of events marking it up and into a possible resolution. This is only the beginning of what set's up a possible invasion for Hyperborea with a multi sided war. And we're going to look at how & why it would be solid campaign. 

OSR Commmentary & Reskinning Of D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth By Gary Gygax

 "The final confrontation with the giant, King Snurre, and the entry of mighty adventurers into the cavers under his stronghold discovered that Dark Elves, the Drow, had instigated the giant alliance and its warfare upon mankind and its allied races."

Another one of those classic modules by Gary Gygax that shows the genius and flexibility of the father of Dungeons & Dragons.. ""Shrine of the Kuo-Toa," the second adventure in this collection, was used as part of the D&D tournament at GenCon XI (1978)." What we're really dealing with is a solid exploration and tournament style adventure. Violence is not always the answer with Descent Into The Depths of Earth & mixing & matching campaign elements doesn't take away from this classic module in the least.


Let's begin by changing the Kuo-Toa to Deep Ones which gets in more in tune with the Clark Ashton Smith vibe & HP Lovecraft. There's a certain amount of the Hyperborean cycle within D1-2 with its foul verminous humanoids and Deep One style monsters. The inclusion of  D2: "Shrine of the Kuo-Toa" (1978) gives the whole affair a foulness that sometimes seems to overwhelm the whole affair of the adventure which reminds me of HP Lovecraft's Shadows over Innsmouth.  Originally the Drow were mysterious and merely a legend mentioned in the Monster Manual for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. Here in Descent into The Depths of the Earth their fully realized. I want them back to being weird, twisted, and completely dangerous beings of myth & legend. How can I accomplish this with my limited schedule? Well fortunately Gavin Norman has done the Complete Vivimancer.


Suddenly the Drow are far closer to the bio engineering terrorist nation of Cobra la and less of the fetish & leather crowd that players of later editions seem to love. Yeah that's much better and keeps things rolling along onto my  'Old Earth ' setting. So what exactly are the Drow now? These are Myrkálfar straight out of Norse mythology & legend twisted by super science of space gods eons ago. We see this in the Myrkálfar's god  Atlach-Nacha lair later on.

Artwork used without permission from here
Ropers, Umber Hulks, & many of the iconic monsters of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fit into alien and artificial breeding aspect laid out in this module. All of this ties back into the ideas of A.Merritt & Arthur Machen where the underworld is truly alien which is closer in keeping with the Underborea of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea then the Underdark of AD&D's later books. All of these are factions in the inner Earth's various underworld adventure locations. This ties back into A.Merritt's 'Moon Pool' & the caches of alien technologies from 'The Metal Monster'. 



All of this ties back in with the planet Cykranosh (or Saturn as we know it today) & with Tsathoggua. Whose machinations have been spinning for centuries leading the fire giants & Myrkálfar alliance. This leads into events happening on Hyperborea where the Deep Ones are beginning their push again for dominance of the land. This connects in with events from The Mystery At Port Greely!

Various caves, caverns, etc of the underworld have ruins & dimensional gate ways that lead off world across the planets & only the gods know where. The events depicted in D1-2 Descent Into The Depths of the Earth could be signaling that the stars are coming right as inhuman powers move the hands of the clock closer and closer.

Reading Is Fundamental - Beyond Appendix N & Gary Gygax's 'D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth'

In 2019 my wife grabbed me several books that I've been wanting beyond the usual authors found in Appendix N of the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide:
APPENDIX N: INSPIRATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL READING
Inspiration for all the fantasy work I have done stems directly from the love my father showed when I was a tad, for he spent many hours telling me stories he made up as he went along, tales of cloaked old men who could grant wishes, of magic rings and enchanted swords, or wicked sorcerors [sic] and dauntless swordsmen.
Then too, countless hundreds of comic books went down, and the long-gone EC ones certainly had their effect. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror movies were a big influence. In fact, all of us tend to get ample helpings of fantasy when we are very young from fairy tales such as those written by the Brothers Grimm and Andrew Lang. This often leads to reading books of mythology, paging through bestiaries, and consultation of compilations of the myths of various lands and peoples.
Upon such a base I built my interest in fantasy, being an avid reader of all science fiction and fantasy literature since 1950.
The following authors were of particular inspiration to me. In some cases I cite specific works, in others, I simply recommend all of their fantasy writing to you. From such sources, as well as any other imaginative writing or screenplay, you will be able to pluck kernels from which will grow the fruits of exciting campaigns. Good reading!

Anderson, Poul: THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS; THE HIGH CRUSADE; THE BROKEN SWORD
Bellairs, John: THE FACE IN THE FROST
Brackett, Leigh
Brown, Frederic
Burroughs, Edgar Rice: "Pellucidar" series; Mars series; Venus series
Carter, Lin: "World's End" series
de Camp, L. Sprague: LEST DARKNESS FALL; THE FALLIBLE FIEND; et al
de Camp & Pratt: "Harold Shea" series; THE CARNELIAN CUBE
Derleth, August
Dunsany, Lord
Farmer, P. J.: "The World of the Tiers" series; et al
Fox, Gardner: "Kothar" series; "Kyrik" series; et al
Howard, R. E.: "Conan" series
Lanier, Sterling: HIERO'S JOURNEY
Leiber, Fritz: "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series; et al
Lovecraft, H. P.
Merritt, A.: CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP; MOON POOL; DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE; et al
Moorcock, Michael: STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS; "Hawkmoon" series (esp. the first three books)
Norton, Andre
Offutt, Andrew J.: editor of SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS III
Pratt, Fletcher: BLUE STAR; et al
Saberhagen, Fred: CHANGELING EARTH; et al
St. Clair, Margaret: THE SHADOW PEOPLE; SIGN OF THE LABRYS
Tolkien, J. R. R.: THE HOBBIT; "Ring trilogy"
Vance, Jack: THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD; THE DYING EARTH; et al
Weinbaum, Stanley
Wellman, Manley Wade
Williamson, Jack
Zelazny, Roger: JACK OF SHADOWS; "Amber" series; et al

The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, R. E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, H. P. Lovecraft, and A. Merritt; but all of the above authors, as well as many not listed, certainly helped to shape the form of the game. For this reason, and for the hours of reading enjoyment, I heartily recommend the works of these fine authors to you.
- E. Gary Gygax, 1979, AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, p. 224
 This list was taken straight from the AD&D DMG from here 

Yes these are all fine authors but here's the facts. These authors are way too well known to players so over the years I've been hunting for a few that are not on this venerable list. And to that end I began with H.P. Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror In Literature. The break down for this essay according to Wiki ; "Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a long essay by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, surveying the topic of horror fiction. It was written between November 1925 and May 1927 and revised during 1933–1934. It was first published in 1927 in the one-issue magazine The Recluse.^[1] More recently, it was included in the collection Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (1965).

The authors that I'm going for are Robert E.Howard because he was a part of the Lovecraft circle, William Hope Hodgeson, & the works of Arthur Machen. But these volumes of forbidden & forgotten lore are not the only ones.


I'm in the process of hunting down  the works of Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, & more  M. R. James. While most folks would think that this is for a Call of Cthulhu rpg game campaign its not. This list is fundamental for my Cha'alt/Godbound campaign's next arch.Why?!  Because of the OSR rpg table top systems Goblinoid Games Realms of Crawling Chaos is essential. And that OSR material plugs into the back burner of this literature.
 

The alien devices, weird racial options,etc. are not simply indicative of H.P. Lovecraft but of the type of  Lovecraftian Dark Fantasy that's welling across the world in my current campaign. This is mostly due to my uncle's notes on his old Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign. He went that step beyond to ensure that his kids, & players knew more then a bit of classic literature. Gary Gygax's Appendix N is a stepping stone into the deeper pond of science fiction, pulp fantasy, & much more! But all of this reading goes back into the lore of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. The idea of the corruption the beyond being right below our collective feet while we all go about our daily lives. You can see this laid down in Gary Gygax's 'D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth'. 



 Gary Gygax's 'D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth' is about the players picking & choosing their battles to win the war rather then simply 'hacking & slashing' at the adventure campaign around them. They have to cut out the cancer at the heart of the adventure rather then simply go in. There is a far more subtle lesson that the dungeon master needs to learn with these modules. D1-2 is as much source book as it is adventure & we had really solid teachers & dungeon master's at my uncle's table. For now the quest continues! 

OSR Commentary - Rexamining D1-2 Descent Into The Depths of the Earth by Gary Gygax

"The final confrontation with the giant, King Snurre, and the entry of mighty adventurers into the cavers under his stronghold discovered that Dark Elves, the Drow, had instigated the giant alliance and its warfare upon mankind and its allied races."

D1-2 Descent  Into The Depths of the Earth by Gary Gygax is one of those modules that fascinates me & yet intimates the Hell out of me. The reason that D1-2 used to scare the Hell out of me is the modular nature of this adventure. D1-2 were part of 'the cycle of modules & adventures that made up the heart of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
"When combined with the G-series and Q module as the Queen of the Spiders, the D-series was voted the single greatest adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004.^[3] Reviewer Alan Kohler said, "The Underdark has become a classic place to set adventures... This is where it all got started."^[3] According to the editors, Vault of the Drow would have made the top five if it had been considered as a single module."
For many old school players these modules are Advanced Dungeons & Dragons but in fact their so much more then simply the building blocks of a famous & beloved brand.




The reason is the module's history & background as the wiki entry's intro states;

"Descent Into the Depths of the Earth^[2] is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game coded D1–2. It was written by Gary Gygax, and combines two previously published modules from 1978, the original Descent into the Depths of the Earth and Shrine of the Kuo-Toa. A sequel to the first two modules, Vault of the Drow, was also published in 1978. All of these D-series modules were produced for use with the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) rules.

The D-series itself is part of a larger overall campaign of adventures set in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The overall campaign begins with the three modules in the Against the Giants series, continues through the D-series, and concludes with module Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits. The latter segments of the campaign, including the D-series and module Q1, are set in a vast network of caverns and tunnels called the Underdark."
This modules starts out with characters from levels nine through fourteen & then ten through fourteen. In OSR terms this puts the PC at the end of their adventuring careers in most retroclones. Notice I said most but not all. D1-2 could in fact be the perfect template to create a mega dungeon adventure environment for PC's to explore & die in.  Much of D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth are the first time we really begin to see the alien environment of the Underdark. But with a bit of a push these adventure locations could become the Underworld.  The real stars in D1-2 are the Drow, the Kuo-Toa, & the Deep Gnomes or Svirfneblin.
I always felt reading through D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth that Ragnarok had already happened & any moment the PC's were going to stumbled upon a former battle field of the gods where there were the  dead & decaying demi gods stared out from walls or the caverns floors with empty eyes. The Grimlock tribes that serve the Drow are all that's left of the descendants of those who came before.

The various tribes of Drow are the remains of the Dark Elven nations straight out of Norse mythology that fought along side of Loki & the Ice Giants forces during  the events of Ragnarok. Hence why there are such close ties between the Drow & the giant races. The Greco Roman gods are gone allowing the Drow to have taken over vast tracks of the Underworld.
But are the Drow going to be satisfied with their holdings within the Underworld? Hell, no they want more. So they've allied themselves with a spider demon goddess & have taken on the mantle of the Underworld. 

But the void left behind by the death of the gods has allowed many races to slip into positions of power within the contemporary underworld realm of D1-2 allowing the monsters to flourish & prosper beyond the known limits. This is part of the charm of the older modules how modular they can be & how they can be customized to the requirements of the campaign that the players & the dungeon master have mapped out.

There's something so well rounded about the way that D1-2 Descent Into The Depths of the Earth By Gary Gygax handles itself that has contributed to making it such an iconic set of modules. Some of the reasons are as follows:

1. The PC's get their first real look at some of the factions of the Underdark & we get a Mind Flayer city. 
2. Almost all of the encounters are actually based on adventure location & hex crawling. 
3. There is the perfect mix of the outdoor underground megadungeon in action in real time. 
4. Everything is fresh & very alien. 
5. Because of its modular nature D1-2 can be played with OSR systems quite easily but man there is those PC levels to keep track of. 
6. OSRIC can do a decent job handling much of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons action in D1-2 Descent Into The Depths of the Earth. 
7. Monsters & monster race  encounters in D1-2 have motives & personalities to spare. These are creatures with agendas. 
8. There's something timeless about the classic TSR adventures allowing them to continue to be contemporary. 
9. The stakes in D1-2 are still very high and PC's should know that death lurks right around the corner/ 
10. There is the stamp of Gary Gygax throughout D1-2 Descent Into The Depths of the Earth & that continues to help to define the game & hobby of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

OSR Commmentary & Reskinning Of D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth By Gary Gygax

"The final confrontation with the giant, King Snurre, and the entry of mighty adventurers into the cavers under his stronghold discovered that Dark Elves, the Drow, had instigated the giant alliance and its warfare upon mankind and its allied races."

Another one of those classic modules by Gary Gygax that shows the genius and flexibility of the father of Dungeons & Dragons.. ""Shrine of the Kuo-Toa," the second adventure in this collection, was used as part of the D&D tournament at GenCon XI (1978)." What we're really dealing with is a solid exploration and tournament style adventure. Violence is not always the answer with Descent Into The Depths of Earth & mixing & matching campaign elements doesn't take away from this classic module in the least.


Let's begin by changing the Kuo-Toa to Deep Ones which gets in more in tune with the Clark Ashton Smith vibe & HP Lovecraft. There's a certain amount of the Hyperborean cycle within D1-2 with its foul verminous humanoids and Deep One style monsters. The inclusion of  D2: "Shrine of the Kuo-Toa" (1978) gives the whole affair a foulness that sometimes seems to overwhelm the whole affair of the adventure which reminds me of HP Lovecraft's Shadows over Innsmouth.  Originally the Drow were mysterious and merely a legend mentioned in the Monster Manual for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. Here in Descent into The Depths of the Earth their fully realized. I want them back to being weird, twisted, and completely dangerous beings of myth & legend. How can I accomplish this with my limited schedule? Well fortunately Gavin Norman has done the Complete Vivimancer.


Suddenly the Drow are far closer to the bio engineering terrorist nation of Cobra la and less of the fetish & leather crowd that players of later editions seem to love. Yeah that's much better and keeps things rolling along onto my  'Old Earth ' setting. So what exactly are the Drow now? These are Myrkálfar straight out of Norse mythology & legend twisted by super science of space gods eons ago. We see this in the Myrkálfar's god  Atlach-Nacha lair later on.

Artwork used without permission from here
Ropers, Umber Hulks, & many of the iconic monsters of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fit into alien and artificial breeding aspect laid out in this module. All of this ties back into the ideas of A.Merritt & Arthur Machen where the underworld is truly alien which is closer in keeping with the Underborea of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea then the Underdark of AD&D's later books. All of these are factions in the inner Earth's various underworld adventure locations. This ties back into A.Merritt's 'Moon Pool' & the caches of alien technologies from 'The Metal Monster'. 



All of this ties back in with the planet Cykranosh (or Saturn as we know it today) & with Tsathoggua. Whose machinations have been spinning for centuries leading the fire giants & Myrkálfar alliance. This leads into events happening on Hyperborea where the Deep Ones are beginning their push again for dominance of the land. This connects in with events from The Mystery At Port Greely!

Various caves, caverns, etc of the underworld have ruins & dimensional gate ways that lead off world across the planets & only the gods know where. The events depicted in D1-2 Descent Into The Depths of the Earth could be signaling that the stars are coming right as inhuman powers move the hands of the clock closer and closer.

Commentary Two Electric Boogloo - D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth For Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition

If the players have survived up to this point then they're going to be in for some really dangerous encounters coming up. Numerous Drow patrols, weird random encounters, strange sights, & lots of fighting.

If the party has survived D1 then its onto the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa which has some of the most overarching lite Lovecraftian horrors this side of a Deep One. I have special affinity for this module even though it takes the sum of Module D1 which had the Caverns and Warrens of the Troglodytes, and brings it up a notch.


Here the PC's are going to have to think & even though this is a slaughter fest in some places the players have to make alliances, deal with insane NPC's, & think their way through many of the challenges not to mention Blibdoolpoolp, the Sea Mother of the Kuo-Toa.As well as her's temple the center piece of this fish stew of old school weirdness.


The real key here is their alliance with the Deep Gnomes which are some of the most powerful allies the PC's can make & they need it. This  part of the adventure being one of the first appearances in the original  Shrine of the Kuo-Toa of the iconic Umber Hulk and other familiar iconic monsters of AD&D. For many the original Shrine of the Kuo-Toa is simply a hack & slash fest & in some respects it is. But its also one of the center pieces of D&D where the sum is greater then the parts in the combination of D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth.

There are several reasons why this adventure works on the levels that it does:

• The environment of the adventure's underworld is compelling & works to get the PC's involved in the action even as it tries to kill them. 
• This module opens up a secondary completely alien underground world to the PC's where they're actions have some but very little impact on the lives of the factions operating there. 
• There are lots of heavy hitter NPC's operating there & only a concerted effort on the PC's part is going to get some of the goals set forth in this adventure done. 
• Even though this is a 'hack & slash' adventure you've got to use your brains as a PC or you might miss opportunities.

There is something absolutely nasty & alien about the Kuo-Toa, maybe its the echoes of Lovecraft with the degenerate humans worshiping things that will feed on them without remorse aspect. But many players over the years have come to hate these beings with a passion. They're rites, god, & spawning temples are the stuff of nightmare for some people. I'm fine with that as a DM.


This is another module where the Drow and Kuo-toa trade with each other openly, but the Kuo-toa hate and fear the Drow; so the enemy of my enemy is my friend who might sacrifice me to their demon god. This is another module where the party walks the razor's edge of diplomacy in the form of a sword point. This is something that would later on be exploited much more extensively in second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Underdark. This where the Drow as well as the Underdark become a full blown campaign setting. That's where the Underdark & its dwellers lost their alien uniqueness in my opinion.


D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth is unique, dangerous, full of lots of weirdness & its a study in Gary Gygax's passion for balancing his adventure game elements with the full bravado that we'd come to see fully much later on. Here the sum is greater then the pieces of D1 & D2 so that the combination takes the adventure into a solid piece of AD&D high level tournament adventuring & old school dungeon crawling.