The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth ('76 Tournament Edition) by Bitchtits McGee
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Original SA postAsimo posted:
More importantly, I encourage folks who have similar sorts of fliers, posters, advertising, and all that from the 70's and 80's and even the 90's to scan them and put them up. Archival is important, and every bit of art and information posted helps to flesh out the history of the hobby.
"History of the hobby", you say... well, I'm not even gonna pretend this was ever remotely my own, but the mod I ran it by gave it the green light, so in the interest of archival:
"The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth" - Original 1976 Tournament Edition
Some of you may recognize that name from AD&D's salad days. Well, you're almost right. The Lost Caverns of Tsojc a nth (
) was released in 1982 as the fourth in TSR's "S"-series of AD&D adventure modules, which also includes such luminaries as
The Tomb of Horrors
(covered in this very thread by DAD LOST MY IPOD),
Expedition to Barrier Peaks
(
covered by
WTF D&D!?
a few years ago, a must-read if you haven't already), and
White Plume Mountain
(I'm sure it'll be your turn someday, just keep waiting by that phone). Like
Tomb
and
Expedition
,
Tsojcanth
was first written and designed by Gygax himself as a tournament module for a convention, in this case
the Metro Detroit Gamers'
"Wintercon V". The official TSR release was extensively rewritten, revised, and respelled for private campaign use; I don't have a copy on-hand I can use to compare the two versions, but it's a safe bet that the term "rough draft" could be applied.
Now that everybody's got some idea of what they're going to be looking at, let's get a look at it.
No printers or image editing back then, every page was typewritten and photocopied. I'm assuming for this one, the typewriting was done before the big detailed art piece was drawn on.
Credits up top, backstory down below. I do like the lore justification for the tournament set-up.
DM's notes. Sucks to be you, Weslocke.
The lower level. VIPs only.
The upper level. General admission.
Encounter notes for the upper level. A few small puzzles mixed in with the sort of "ha ha you die" moments you'd expect from this era, pretty standard stuff, except... CHINESE hill giants .
This doesn't get explained any further in, either, so your guess is as good as mine. Between the nationality and the oddly specific taps on the
boots of dancing
, I'm wondering if it wasn't some sort of in-joke.
First part of the encounter notes for the lower level. Less "save or you're screwed" than the upper level, offset by a larger number of things far more likely to kill you the old-fashioned way and an overarching puzzle you have to solve to win.
The rest of the lower level's encounter notes. The vampiress' stunning hotness is described in detail, of course. Also, the Chinese giants become even more Chinese and are stated to be less intelligent than a living, thrashing tube of water.
The talking faces from the entry hall, and that bloody "10 seconds to TPK" bridge.
Apparently, the Monster Manual wasn't published until the year after, so this is probably the first published appearance of an otyugh. Thrills, eh?
God damn, that water weird. It's even at a dead end for that little extra bit of fuck you.
Why would a flesh golem be healed by lightni-- ohh. Yeah, okay. Cute.
Nothing for the vampiress final boss? That seems like one hell of an oversight...
Another of those handy at-a-glance character attack tables. Still missing the vampiress, though. Am I missing something?
Our Heroes, Part One. "Location carried"... wow.
Our Heroes, Part Two. Back when you could still call them hobbits.
Our Heroes, Part Three. Huh, turns out it doesn't suck to be Weslocke. Not even a little bit.
THE END