The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth - your experiences?

Third thread of a series on the old classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules. It is interesting to see how everyone's experiences compared and differed.

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth



Did you Play or DM this adventure (or both, as some did)? What were your experiences? Did you complete it? What were the highlights for your group?

Quasqueton

yes.

the highlights involved the Blue Dragon

and the wandering band/troupe of dwarves.

tho, the big lesson learned by the players was that gnomes are not to be trifled with.

Even at the time I had problems with the dungeon ecology. Lots of wacky predators living close together, not enough prey. That being said, it had a lot of cool ideas in it.

I used the booklet of new monsters, but not the dungeon. I converted many of the monsters very successfully to RQ2

I played it something like ten years ago. Boy, that was a full week D&D marathon in the countryside, we barely paused for eating and bathing...

Hmmm ! Anyways, i played it in its second version, the one reedited in the "S1-4 Realms of Horror" reprint. I have a fond memory of the adventure, even if I do not remeber much.

I remember : battling the behir, and blasting it from a distance, then having it crashing against a wall when I canceled my passwall spell. How the paladin was killed by the genies, resurrected in a dubious way by the GM, then how we nearly killed him again thinking he was a doppelganger. The sexy vampire girl.

Also, when I read the original version MUCH later, I was disappointed to see that the Daoud Wondrous Lanthorn is NOT in the reprint.

Quasqueton said:

Third thread of a series on the old classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules. It is interesting to see how everyone's experiences compared and differed.

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

Did you Play or DM this adventure (or both, as some did)? What were your experiences? Did you complete it? What were the highlights for your group?

Quasqueton

Click to expand...

As a player, our group had one hell of time with this one. We were a fairly strong and capable party but that clay golem whupped us sooooooo good we had to return to civilization and pay out nearly our last cp to get healing. The trip back through the wilderness was was quite hair-raising what with the 7th level fighter and 6th level ranger down to around 12 hp or so for the entire trek!! We returned more prepared and eventually completed the adventure. Ah.......the good old days.

We lost so many characters in this one. My first character died to green mold ("what do you mean no one has a cure disease spell handy?!?"), and my second was overwhelmed by goblins. My third character made it to the end, but his con dropped from 18 to 13 due to frequent ressurections (this was 1e after all).

Three chars died against the bodak. Multiple stonings against the dracolisk. A total party wipe-out against the chasme was avoided by saved by a gate spell from a scroll. The DM gave the gating character a staff of resurrection and we used it throughout (thus the frequent resurrections).

The ranger went from 10th level to 4th after the vampire encounter, previously he had lost over half his hitpoints to the clay golem. Oh and the dao would have wiped the floor with us and the DM went easy on us.

Man it was brutal. And a lot of fun.

Brutal...that is what I remember of it.

I have been toying with the idea of using it as a "one off" adventure for my current group. Give them a bunch of pre-gen characters out of the back of the module and let them see what happens when I pull the "kiddie" gloves off.

If you want to run it right though, you should really link this one up with "WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun". That makes for quite the romp.

I GMed it a long time ago. My memory is a bit hazy but I can remember the following:

1) the PCs released the Marid (?) who then granted them a wish. The PCs wished for a map of the entire caverns. They were warned they had to word their wish very carefully, however. So they made their wish and a map appeared in the PC's hand but, unfortunately, after a couple of seconds, it was gone again!

2) the PCs were navigating the underground river in the boat but were caught by the sucking currents of the waterfall at its end. They had to throw ropes up to a bridge they were passing under to save themselves.

3) the PCs fought a deadly battle with the Dao. These crafty genies ended up casting Stone to Mud which managed to drown an NPC dwarf.

I remember it being a rough module- I distinctly recall the fight with the vampire; I seem to recall losing a couple levels there.

Hm, actually I think I also recall being thoroughly tricked by dao illusions, until our suspicions got the better of us and we attacked.