The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth - your experiences?

[Beale Knight]

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

That brings back some memories! I DM'ed that as my old campaign was shifting into an entirerly new, high level, direction. I remember spending hours prepping that thing with ecology and minor tresure details, previewing it with a character's dream, and even photocoping the maps and cutting them up so I could help the players keep an accurate map. I handed over complete tunnel pieces ever so often, probably about every intersection.

As I recall there was one fighter who lost an arm to one of the giants, and another who was killed by trying to take on a baddie that resisted
non-magical damage by himself - using his mundane bow and arrows! He lived a few rounds simply by being very well concealed and generally quiet.

The survivors, and replacement characters, went on to complete the whole dungeon and get the lantern, which they put to wonderful use overthrowing the Hobgoblin nation that had come to dominate that part of the world.

My favorite quote came at the end. I had described all the fancy items in the room and done my best to set a mood of grandeur and worry, and it seemed to be working. Initiatives were rolled, actions were described well in character. Then I colorfully described how the vampire (? BBEG at the end) was using those magic slippers of spider climbing to run around on the walls. Said the fighter: "You mean like Spiderman?!"
So much for the mood, but they ended up winning without PC deaths.

 

[Sir Trent]

Ouch

You just had to mention this one... this module provided my group's first TPK... one of only two I ever experienced as a player. It was also my first attempt at playing a Cleric. There's a +1 Mace down in there somewhere, I'd appreciate it if someone picked it up for me, the next of kin might be interested.

 

[Faraer]

This is my favourite of all the World of Greyhawk modules and maybe my favourite module per se, but I've only run a small part of it. Just a wonderful package of encounters and situations, with a meaningful but concise history and context. If Gary had written half a dozen more S4s, Greyhawk and AD&D would be much the richer.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

My favourite 1e module, bar none.

It introduced dismissal, ensnarement, bar-lgura, dretch, chasme, pech, the behir, derro, the bodak, the marid, xeg-yi, Daoud's wondrous lanthorn, the prison of Zagyg, Fraz-Urb'luu, Kostchtchie and, of course, Graz'zt. I ran it twice, if memory seves. It is probably responsible for my interest in demons and their centrality to my campaign more than any other source.

And Drelnza. She was responsible for 2 party TPKs.

Yeah, the ecology was hokey. But this was 1e. We didn't care about that stuff back then.

 

[Lazybones]

Yeah, the monster book alone was worth the price of admission. My memories of this one are soured a bit since the group I was running through turned out to have their own copy of the module that two of the players were using as a crib sheet. Back in those days (jr. high/high school), you were kinda stuck in terms of the players you could find. I later ran them through WG4 and got to take some secret glee at their blunders when they stirred up the entire fortress against them.

 

[Samothdm]

I never got a chance to play or DM this adventure, but I received it as a gift as a kid (probably 6th or 7th grade, I think). One of the things I vividly remember reading about was a random monster encounter with a group of "tribesmen" who had a "Medicine Man" that was a 5th level Druid. That was the first time I started thinking of druids as something other than just "tree-huggers". It really opened my eyes as to how one can view the various class roles so that they don't become so restrictive.

Wasn't this also the module that introduced Valley Elves and half-demons (alu-demon and the cam-(something))? A few years later, I think most of the monsters in this module made it into Monster Manual II.

 

[billd91]

Wasn't this also the module that introduced Valley Elves and half-demons (alu-demon and the cam-(something))? A few years later, I think most of the monsters in this module made it into Monster Manual II.

I don't even think it was all that much later. I remember getting that edition of the Lost Caverns and the MMII coming out quite soon after.
We played it, me as DM. It was a fairly brutal quest. It didn't make much sense as far as dungeon ecologies go, but it really was a classic mid level dungeon crawl.
We enjoyed it so much that we hauled it along to play at the curling club where my parents just had to take me for their league night rather than leave me and the other players home alone. We got a lot of odd looks.

 

[Menexenus]

pronunciation

My DM is going to be running us through this very shortly (so I'm trying hard not to pay attention to any important details). However, I can't help taking this opportunity to ask a question that has been burning within me ever since I bought this module: How do you pronounce "Tsojcanth"?

For a while, I pronounced it pretty much as written: ts (like in "cats") o (like in omen) j (like in "jump") c (like in "can") anth (like in "anthem"). But that pronunciation was about as hard on the ear as it was on the tongue. Recently, I've taken to pronouncing the "j" like an "i" so that it would be pronounced more like "tsoi-canth". Since j's and i's come from the same root, I feel justified in taking this liberty. (Remember Indianna Jones chastising himself for failing to remember that there is no "J" in the ancient version of "Jehovah"?)

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone else pronounces it differently?

 

[Silver Moon]

Ah, that was a good one. My first D&D group ran it as their 20th module (having already gone through the B, A, G, and X modules) way back during the winter of 1983-1984. I played a macho tough-guy Viking fighter named Svein. He was quite a contrast to the clerics and thieves I had played up until that point.

We had a large well rounded party for that one (10 players) comprised of a female half-elf bard, a male human magic-user (with a thick Yiddish accent), a male elf fighter/thief, a female human fighter/thief (who died and the player then replaced her with a female human fighter), a male human monk (who also died), a female human magic-user, two male human rangers, a female human cleric, plus my male human fighter.

The most memorable thing about the caverns that I remember were the various monsters outside of the caverns. I believe some of these were supposed to be inside, but we missed them, so he tossed in a few of his favorites afterwards so that we would still get to experience them. It took us a little over four months of 5-6 hour weekly games to finish it.

 

[Maerdwyn]

I've run it a few times - once, long ago, without modification, resulting in a gleeful TPK (including some ugliness with the bodak). The most recent time, I heavily gutted it, making it fit in with my Celtic-based campaign.

Fun module of the unapologetic dungeon crawl variety