Edits on Memories of the Future are coming along quite nicely. It’s always a good sign when I’m having fun and enjoying myself, instead of gnashing my teeth and pacing around my office listing all the reasons I suck and should never pick up a pen again in my life. (It happens more frequently than I’d like.) I’m under a lot of pressure to get this and another incredibly overdue essay finished, but it’s a good pressure that feels more like excitement than dread.
Anyway, before I dive back into those projects, I wanted to share something I came across on Reddit earlier this week: The classic D&D module The Tomb of Horrors, updated to 3.5.
If you don’t instantly know what the Tomb of Horrors is, this probably won’t mean anything to you, but I’m going to try: it’s one of the hardest, most devilish, brutal, evil, nasty, deadly, TPK delivering modules ever designed.
It’s also a hell of a lot of fun.
A very brief history of the Tomb of Horrors, from Wikipedia:
Tomb of Horrors is a 1978 adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, written by Gary Gygax. It was originally written for and used at the 1975 Origins 1 convention. Numbered “S1,” the module was the first in the “S” (for “special series”) series of modules.
The module’s plot revolves around the tomb of the demi-lich Acererak. The players’ characters must battle their way past a variety of monsters and traps, with the ultimate goal of destroying Acererak. Tomb of Horrors is considered one of the greatest Dungeons & Dragons modules of all time, as well as one of the most difficult.
I wouldn’t read beyond that if you’re planning to play it, because there are spoilers. Oh, and if you are planning on playing it, I’d suggest having a nice long talk with your character, making sure that you guys are okay with each other, and that there isn’t anything left unsaid or unresolved, because there’s a very good chance you won’t be seeing each other again.
This is probably old news to a lot of you, because it was released in 2005, but it’s new to me, and I thought I’d share with one final caveat. Someone jokingly suggested that I use Tomb of Horrors to introduce a new player to D&D, and I responded with something like: “Ha. Ha. Ha. The idea is to leave him wanting to play D&D again. Starting a new player out with Tomb of Horrors is like introducing someone to Rock Band with Green Grass and High Tides.”
Also: Have I ever linked to the incredible Top 10 D&D Modules I Found in Storage This Weekend at Geekdad? Well, if I haven’t, I just did. (There are several posts in that series. You can find them all right here.)
