Name that Old School Dungeon

Staccat0 · Sep 30, 2018

My parents played D&D when I was a kid. Out of curiosit, I wanted to check out something they maybe played through.

I was born in 84 and I vaguely remember it, so that puts these games firmly in the mid-late 80s. No idea about the edition but that should give some clues.

So so here are the two things I remember:

1. A book whose cover was people seemingly having set up camp in a crypt of sorts, but green ooze or slime or acid is now dripping from the alcoves where they slept.

2. A dungeon where they found two pairs of magic boots. One was a plain looking set that ended up being boots of spider walking. Another fancy looking pair that ended up being cursed Boots of Dancing.

Now obviously they could have been playing any weird pidgin version of the game and #2 could be a home brew thing. I was just hoping someone who liked a mystery could help me figure any of this out.

PS My parents are old pot heads. Their memory is useless.

steeldragons · Sep 30, 2018

These are my two best guesses.

They are the only two I can think of that have green mold on the cover (though both on the back cover, not the front).

They are also both appropriate to the time period you are asking about. The first is from the Basic/BECM D&D, The Lost City.

The other is from Advanced D&D (AD&D), [the original and real game] 1st edition, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Tsojcanth has the added bonus of being the first module/introduction of "boots of spider-walking," though I believe they were, technically, "slippers" not "boots." The aesthetics thereof were completely up to you back in the day. So they could've been any kind of footware you envisioned for your PC. I am not sure off the top of my head, if boots of dancing were in there too...but it would not surprise me. Tsojcanth was imminently deadly and had a HUGE number of new monsters, magic items, even spells, built into the module materials.

Other than those, I can't think of any old school/80's modules that had green slime on their covers.

Deuce Traveler · Sep 30, 2018

It is probably going to be an AD&D adventure. I just popped open my old versions of BECMI, and the basic, expert, and companion edition books lack the Boots of Spider Climb (not walking) or Boots of Dancing. The Master edition mostly has only artifacts.

1st edition AD&D does have boots of dancing but it does not have boots of spider climb. Spider climb is an AD&D spell. 2nd edition AD&D came out in 1989 and mirrors 1st edition in magic items.

If I had to make a guess, the module would probably be based on AD&D and not D&D. That takes the B4 and S4 modules out of the running.

I can't find a cover that matches the description, so I wonder if it is one of the rare original covers of an older module, or whether it is a 3rd party adventure like from Judges Guild.

steeldragons · Sep 30, 2018

That could be correct...S4 is clearly an AD&D module, 1e. And it does, as I said, introduce the Slippers of Spider Climbing. They were probably "officially" put into the game in teh 1e Unearthed Arcana, but I'm not going to bother to look it up.

Here's the art, as it appears in the module, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Of which, incidentally, I also own a copy. So, yes, the slippers of spider climbing were in AD&D 1e and S4 is an AD&D 1e module.

2c6a580802c9d416f694fef314e5544a--climbing-slippers.jpg

Here's how it is captioned on someone's Pintrest page: "Slippers of Spider Climbing might be the greatest magical treasure a thief could have. (Jim Holloway from AD&D module The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, TSR"

TerraDave · Oct 3, 2018

It sounds like Tsojcanth.

I remember it well. (I guess I did not inhale enough).

Henry · Oct 4, 2018

I even heard a podcast mention Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth this week - however, they didn’t know the name, they just mentioned one of the encounters in it that screamed “S4” to me.

I really want to run that one again - maybe with a 5e party so that I could mitigate the deadliness a bit.

Staccat0 · Jul 13, 2019

steeldragons said:
These are my two best guesses.

They are the only two I can think of that have green mold on the cover (though both on the back cover, not the front).

They are also both appropriate to the time period you are asking about. The first is from the Basic/BECM D&D, The Lost City.

View attachment 101883 View attachment 101882

The other is from Advanced D&D (AD&D), [the original and real game] 1st edition, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Tsojcanth has the added bonus of being the first module/introduction of "boots of spider-walking," though I believe they were, technically, "slippers" not "boots." The aesthetics thereof were completely up to you back in the day. So they could've been any kind of footware you envisioned for your PC. I am not sure off the top of my head, if boots of dancing were in there too...but it would not surprise me. Tsojcanth was imminently deadly and had a HUGE number of new monsters, magic items, even spells, built into the module materials.

View attachment 101884 View attachment 101885

Other than those, I can't think of any old school/80's modules that had green slime on their covers.