Maze of Zayene on Loot, what are they?

darjr

I crit!
Loot! | Great Game. Great Price.

For all you collectors of awesomeness we have a great out of print deal from 1987. Maze of Zayene #1-4, Garden of the Plantmaster & City of Brass Promo Flyer (1st Printings). As an little bonus this includes a promotional flyer for the NEVER release “City of Brass” module! Written by Rob Kuntz one of the most memorable writers for TSR.
Full titles included:
Maze of Zayene Part 1 – Prisoners of the Maze
Maze of Zayene Part 2 – Dimensions of Flight
Maze of Zayene Part 3 – Tower Chaos
Maze of Zayene Part 4 – The Eight Kings
Garden of the Plantmaster (stand alone adventure)
All are in near mint to mint condition IN THE ORIGINAL SHRINKWRAP.


What are they? The description above isn't enough. Are they old school adventures? I might be telegraphing some old school ignorance but I've never heard of them.
 

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Here's a list

Basically they're modules. Necromancer Games printed a bunch of them for 3rd edition, and the ones that I got were good reads (interesting examples of design). HOWEVER, iirc, there was a dispute of some kind between the author and the Necromancer guys: the last module(s) were never printed, despite the whole "1-4" thing.

Maze #1: the PCs are stuck in a maze of traps, but Rogues are not allowed (ie: figure out the traps without disable device). The background of the story is they're supposed to go kill the King, but the court wizard zaps them into a magical trap-filled maze.

Maze #2: Still in the Maze, but now the PCs are inside a Demiplane-trap inside the maze where they have to solve the demiplane in order to leave them, and thus leave the maze. Maze inside the maze. Still no rogues. Theoretically this is part of maze #1, but they gave it its own book.

Maze #3: Oddly decided to print the prequel 3rd, the PCs are sent to kill the king (who's an evil clone imposter) by sneaking into his Tower/castle. The tower is detailed, along with a chart for keeping track of the movements of NPCs in the tower: whatever time of day the PCs show up, NPC X is in room Y. However, if you complete the adventure, the PCs are zapped into the start of Maze #1. What *really* doesn't make sense is that in this adventure YOU CAN PLAY A ROGUE!!! So... why can't you play one in the next two modules if you could in this one?!*

After that, the author and Necromancer Games didn't see eye-to-eye (this is a rumor, so don't quote me), and the last module didn't get published.

I don't know that the above deal is worth it, but it may be. It's 1e, though, so if you like d20, get d20.


*I'm not 100%, but maybe the original module came out before Thieves/trapfinders did in D&D? Or at least the idea of a rogue takes away from the fun of this somehow? Personally I can't imagine that a rogue can just poof away traps without a logical reason for it. it's not like they can get to all the gears and/or spells in all cases: if a door is bolted shut, and the doorframe is shaped so I can't lift the bolt with sliver of metal or a coathanger, I can't "disable the device". "you see three levers beneath a statue of a dragon's head" doesn't mean the PCs can meld through stone and take apart the mechanism of the dragon trap.

Oh well.
 

Grodog's Secret Archives of Rob Kuntz

The Zayene series was originally published by Rob Kuntz in 1986 for AD&D (1E or 2E I'm not sure). I believe the 3E publication suffers a bit from incomplete understanding of the difference between 3E and 1E/2E and probably showcases a clash of styles between 3E and Rob Kuntz/Old School ;-).

Necromancer Games have a dedicated subforum for the series here with errata and more...

Note that it is really set in Greyhawk in the Great Kingdom. (Zayene = Xaene, Ovar = Ivid ) Check out the free pdf of the unpublished Ivid the Undying here.
 
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These are 1E modules (with slight jargon and name changes to avoid legal problems). I have run the "Plantmaster" module, and own the "Maze" modules. Good adventures IMO.
 

These are all a bit rough around the edges, but I really like them, and I've always been missing the fourth adventure in hardcopy.

So I just ordered the whole set. This is an incredible price on some deliciously evil old modules.

--Erik
 

They're definitely evil. Some fascinating bits and pieces throughout, and the monster scaling works a lot better in old 1E form than in the 3E versions. The biggest difference to my mind between 1E and 3E (and 4E) is how AC scales, and it hurts adventures written in the old style. A couple of ogres isn't a great threat to a high-level party in AD&D, but the threat is still present - unlike the non-threat in 3E.

I personally really like #2 and #4.

Cheers!
 

These are all a bit rough around the edges, but I really like them, and I've always been missing the fourth adventure in hardcopy.

So I just ordered the whole set. This is an incredible price on some deliciously evil old modules.

--Erik

...I don't suppose you'd be interested in *running* those modules by PBP here on ENworld, would you?
 




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