Customer Reviews

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons module S4)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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This is probably my favorite Gygax adventure of all time; he truly outdoes himself here with a deadly overland adventure through Greyhawk's mountains, and one of the deadliest cavern systems ever devised. The Arch-Maga Iggwilv was the most powerful sorceress of her age - she even imprisoned demon lords and made them bow to her bidding! And now, the realms of Perrenland, Ket, and Iuz have begun yet another series of deadly forays in search of her lost lair. Should the heroes (levels 6-10) discover the Caverns, they'll have a nightmarishly good time; the encounters are so difficult (especially the finale against Iggwilv's demonic daughter!) that I would recommend this for experienced players, levels 8-10 only. Besides all that, you get another 32-page booklet full of new spells, new monsters, and new magic! (This was the foundation for the Monster Manual II and Unearthed Arcana.) Highest recommendation.

I remember buying Lost Caverns in my teens and my initial reaction was...great Vampire Princess!! Needless to say the quality of this module goes a bit beyond that. It's a larger than normal adventure with some really nice and unusual encounters. An excellent module for anyone dying to role play a good solid adventure from the good old days.

This came out with 1st edition AD&D and was one of his better pieces. Gary Gygax, that is.

See, most of the modules were excuses for lots of hack and slash and then you get the booty. There were never any moral qualms, few opportunities for the monsters to outsmart you and even if things didn't make sense, that was okay.

But this module went further. It laid out an overland adventure in the mountains with lots of set encounters as well as wandering ones and you even got to visit a gnome community (I still use the maps to this day for other gnome areas).

It also had a great underground cavern system. Few light moments and chance to make allies with the monsters, a few who tried the fool the party and some that were just big brutes. And, as someone else mentioned, there was a new monster booklet (most of them aren't in 3E) as well as some great pictures.

This is a fine adventure for a DM who has a group that are evenly interested in hack and slash with some roleplaying and problem solving. The latter would be wasted on a hack and slash group but it could still be a lot of fun.

BTW, the other Gygax modules that fall into the top five are: VILLAGE OF HOMMLET, QUEEN OF THE SPIDERS, EXPEDITION TO THE BARRIER PEAKS, TOMB OF HORRORS and THE HIDDEN SHRINE OF TAMOACHAN.

All thinking adventures with combat. :)

Highly recommended!

I wrote a brief, uninformative review way back in 1999, not long after I first discovered Amazon. It's now 12 years later here in 2011, and I thought that I'd edit my original review of this module with even more hindsight to draw upon.

This is a classic AD&D module by Gygax. It features an overland journey through mountains that is, perhaps, as exciting as the main adventure, if not more so. This is my favorite part of the module. The adventurers have the chance of running afoul of everything from stone giants to hobgoblin armies. Gygax populates the mountains with bandit camps and blue dragon lairs, and a lonely gnome enclave staunchly survives amidst all this potential mayhem. This gnomish colony is both a potential base for the player characters, and a link to another adventure, WG4: Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. In fact, I would recommend that these two adventures be played together, as they create a minicampaign with surprisingly far-reaching potential.

The actual Lost Caverns feature a variety of encounters, including some of Gygax's trademark pocket dimensions. The challenges are often whimsical, but many more are dark and deadly. New (at the time it was written) monsters haunt the darkness. The art in this module is rather good. There is a second booklet that contains a number of new monsters, spells, and magic items, many of which are not featured in the adventure. This booklet contains the first glimpses of creatures like Valley Elves, gorgimeras, cooshee, and the demon lords Graz'zt and Fraz-Urb'luu.

Overall, this is an underrated module with a lot of potential. It's particularly customizable, especially the outdoor journey, and features quite an array of challenges for player characters. I'd recommend getting WG4 as a companion to it, but it's not necessary.

Classic Gygax 1st ed. dungeon crawl: illogical, unrealistic, extremely combat-heavy, and basically a lot of fun. Can almost be converted to D20 rules while you play.