Tomb of Horrors
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| Tomb of Horrors | |
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| Code | S1 |
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| Rules Required | 1st Ed AD&D |
| Character Levels | 10-14 |
| Campaign Setting | Greyhawk |
| Authors | Gary Gygax |
| First Published | 1978 |
Tomb of Horrors is an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game adventure module, written by Gary Gygax in 1978. Numbered "S1," it was the original tournament dungeon used at the Origins 1 convention. This module was the first in the "S" (for "Special") series of modules. It was followed by S2: White Plume Mountain, the seminal S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and S4: Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. However the four modules had no connecting plot or theme. Tomb of Horrors is one of the most famous Dungeons & Dragons modules.[1]
The Tomb of Horrors is infamous among players of the game as a "killer dungeon," filled with all manner of extremely deadly traps and monsters that are capable of easily wiping out high-level parties of player characters. Indeed, some players consider Tomb of Horrors to be "unfair"; many of the traps within largely ignore game mechanics and story logic in their operation.
The plot of the original module, such as it was, was a simple dungeon crawl; the evil demi-lich Acererak was said to linger on in his ancient tomb in undead form, and the characters were to fight their way down through it to the demilich's inner sanctum to slay him once and for all.
Tomb of Horrors was ranked the 3rd greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004, on the 30th anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons game.
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[edit] Sequel
In 1998 a sequel was produced, Return to the Tomb of Horrors. This module expanded significantly upon the plot of the original; it revealed that the tomb of the first adventure was merely an antechamber to Acererak's true resting place, and the demilich "slain" in the first adventure was both decoy and key to proceeding further. The dust from the destroyed skull opened a way to the cursed city of Moil in a pocket universe of eternal darkness and ice, and beyond that to Acererak's fortress hovering at the edge of the Negative Material Plane itself.
Acererak is revealed to be near the completion of a multi-thousand-year project to achieve godhood, powered by souls consumed over the years. He now needed only three additional souls to complete the process, but they must be of exceptional purity and strength; to this end he constructed his tomb to serve as an ultimate challenge for heroes, hoping to winnow out all but the very best. He would then consume them when they reached the center of his fortress, where his own undead essence resided in his phylactery. If the player characters fail to defeat Acererak then they themselves would serve this role.
[edit] Updates
Wizards of the Coast released an updated version of the original module as a free download for Halloween 2005 [1]. It retains much of the original content, updated with content from the Dungeons and Dragons supplement book Libris Mortis. The update was designed using the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition rules.
See also: List of Dungeons & Dragons modules
[edit] Novelization
Tomb of Horrors was made into the novel The Tomb of Horrors by Keith Francis Strohm for the Greyhawk Classics series.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Against the Giants by Ru Emerson. skewedperspective.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-25.
[edit] References
- Gygax, Gary (1978). Tomb of Horrors. TSR.
- Gygax, Gary [1983] (2005) revised by Bruce Cordell Tomb of Horrors (Revised). Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on 2007-03-07.
- Erik Mona, James Jacobs, and the Dungeon Design Panel. "The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time", Dungeon #116, November 2004.
- Strohm, Keith Francis (2002). The Tomb of Horrors. Wizards of the Coast. UK ISBN 0-786-92702-X. US ISBN 0-786-92727-5.
