D&D General D&D products that never were

Mercurius

Legend
In the thread I started on D&D Campaign settings, I briefly mentioned the never-published Nentir Vale Gazetteer, which gave me the thought for this thread - an inquiry out of curiosity.

The NVG never was, and I know I'm not alone in wishing it had been. But are there other D&D products that were mentioned, even advertised, but never made it to print? There must be, but I can't think of any.
 

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From memory the basic line of DnD had some additional gazetteers that never made it to print. I think I saw in a Dragon magazine the future line up, but they never came.
 



Not quite core official D&D products, but there was Shores of Night, a Drizzt novel written by someone other than Salvatore and got advertised by TSR, at a time when Salvatore and TSR were brawling about contracts, and TSR basically said 'fine, we own Drizzt, we don't need you, we'll get another writer'. But eventually the dispute was patched up, Salvatore started writing Drizzt again, and the book disappeared forever.

Semi-official D&D was the licenced Ravenloft material that Arthaus/White Wolf were putting out in the 2000s. There were 13 planned Gazetteers covering pretty much every Ravenloft domain imaginable, written in the first person with a single overarching storyline. But there was a blowup between publisher and creative team after 5 books, and the series was abandoned.

A couple of very early-stages drafts of modules that got abandoned after WotC bought up TSR were, as far as i know, informally completed by fan sites. I think the sequel to Ravenloft's Hour of the Knife, and a couple of Dark Sun modules featuring Dregoth, fell into this category. But these had never gotten to the point of TSR advertising them, so not sure i they count.

edit: @Zardnaar beat me to it!
 


Don't forgot the intended sequel to Oriental Adventures...

occidental adventures.png
 

Alright, found the jackpot of info on the following pages:

bx1.jpg


"BX1 (or SX1) Islandia Campaign. An unreleased module, based on previous modules by "The Companions", and authored by William John Wheeler and Peter L. Rice (the cover artist erred). TSR earmarked a stock # (9216) for it, and cooked up a pre-production cover (shown here; incidentally, it's the cover artwork from Dragon #86). Official mention of the module was made in the 1987 TSR Fall Catalog (where the scan came from; thanks to Curt Gould): a supermodule (128 pages), comprised of four sections entitled "The Curse of Hareth", "Plague of Terror", "Brotherhood of the Bolt", and "Street of Gems". It was scheduled to be released in December of 1987. TSR Worlds issue #1 newsletter describes the module's campaign world of Islandia (which was to be separated from the normal D&D world by "strange ocean currents") having an emphasis on "limiting power", with character levels maxing out at 10th level and magic items being hard to come by. Of course, this "maxing out" feature is contradicted by the cover scan, showing the module is for characters levels 10-14! This module was never produced. Author John Wheeler states: "The campaign, as written, WAS for low level characters. I believe the cover art was a hurry-up job, and it had no relationship to anything inside. Furthermore, the material I sold to TSR only included The Curse on Hareth, Plague of Terror (highly edited), and Brotherhood of the Bolt. It did NOT include Streets of Gems nor Gems for Death. Also, Sacrifices to the Orc Lords was never more than sketched out, though maps had been drawn and some adventure areas detailed. No plot line had been developed when The Companions folded." Contributor Tim Kindred, who was present during much of the design sessions of the modules, relates that in order to create a realistic geographic setting for the world, a topo map of the state of Maine was obtained, and flooded to a depth of 500 meters. What remained became Islandia. Module code BX1 should not be confused with B/X1, the code on the UK version of B10 Night's Dark Terror."

shadowlands.jpg


"WG7 Shadowlands. From the Summer 1986 Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog: "A high-level module set in the World of Greyhawk. Journey to the perilous Plane of Shadow to rescue Princess Esterilla and confront the master of the plane... where you find yourself an unexpected guest at a wedding where the guests include a lizardman, a catlord, and a mistress of illusion!". Assigned TSR stock #9184. Gary Gygax and Skip Williams were collaborating on the project, but it was shelved due to Gygax's lawsuit with TSR. Gygax has since stated that while Wizards of the Coast has given permission to have the module published, the fact that it will be produced "on spec" (no contract nor advance payment), makes it unlikely that he or Skip will be undertaking the project anytime soon. The original mention of it is in Dragon Magazine #37, page 10, where it's called "Shadowland". "

revolt.jpg


"G1-4 Revolt of the Giants. The 1986 TSR catalog lists this as an upcoming module, which obviously never came to fruition. From the catalog, this description: "Continuing the saga begun in T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil and A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords, this incredible supermodule takes the players to new heights of excitement... and danger! This adventure combines the famous 'G-series' adventures, now completely revised and expanded, plus never-before-seen adventures that feature all the different types of giants from the Monster Manual. A high-level adventure for character levels 12-15." The stock number assigned to it (9179) was eventually re-assigned to GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders. Anyone know the backstory behind its cancellation (or more specifically, why did TSR decide to have tie-in module G4 created in the first place, and then what made them change their minds)? "

"Wasp Nest: City State of Stoink. A module by Gary Gygax that was apparently on the verge of publication when Gygax had his falling-out with TSR management, and the project was yanked. The module was never published in any form."

ua2.jpg


"Unearthed Arcana II. Advertised in the 1986 TSR catalog, but obviously never published. Anyone know why, what product (if any) the info was eventually rolled into, or how far along into production this was? The stock number assigned to it (2020) was eventually re-assigned to Wilderness Survival Guide."

Also Robert Kunto had a City of Brass module in the works before the Gygax fiasco, there was q fi ished Greyhawk module that Wizards put out later, Ivid the Dying, and a ton of Mystarra stuff, including a Princes Ark box set and a bunch of canceled Gazateers.


 


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