So, I've been looking closely at 1st ed. AD&D lately to try to see if I can find out why this edition of the game has so much appeal to me—i.e., is it truly as good as I remember it, or am I unreasonably nostalic for the Old Days.
One thing I came across in the process is an unfinished piece I'd been writing for the WotC website which from internal evidence dates from sometime in 2001.
I'd done introductions for Julia Martin over on the web team, who were making available for the first time ever official e-publications of some long-out-of-print, near-forgotten modules: the original version of
B3. Palace of the Silver Princess; the EX-series of Gygax's
Alice in Wonderland parodies;
L2. The Assassin's Knot (a personal favorite), and I10. Ravenloft II: The House of Gryphon Hill. I'd been working on a fifth piece in the series which remained unfinished for one reason or another; I no longer remember if the series was cancelled or if it was because WotC and I parted company that summer (or both). In any case, I greatly enjoyed writing them, and from comments I've seen about them on the web I gather that a fair number of people enjoyed reading them, so thought I'd share this fragment of the unfinished piece.
U1. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
Some modules are
born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness trust upon them.
Such is the case
with the U-series—U1. The Sinister Secret
of Saltmarsh (1981), U2. Danger at
Dunwater (1982), and U3. The Final
Enemy (1983), all written by Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull. Certainly U1. Saltmarsh made little splash when it
first appeared twenty years ago,* far less than others released that same year.[Note 1] It was published, sold moderately
well—certainly enough to justify completing the series by publishing the 2nd
and 3rd modules in their turn—and then faded from view. It was never reprinted
in a compilation, unlike the Assassin series (A1–4), Hickman's Desert of Desolation (I3–5), Gygax &
Schick's S1–4, Gygax's original Giant series from the dawn of time (G1–3,
itself later incorporated into the giant-drow-underdark series GDQ1–7 by Gygax
& Sutherland), or the massive B1–9.
In Search of Adventure.[Note 2] Instead, it slipped into the oblivion that
overtook many another good module of that era as the old inevitably made way
for the new.
In the case of the
U-series, however, many years after they had slipped out of print interest in
these three adventures was revived when they came to be inshrined in the 'Greyhawk
Canon'. Interest in Greyhawk—Gygax's original fantasy world, predated only by
Arneson's Blackmoor as the original D&D dungeon—spiked after the GH product
line was cancelled in 1993 after years of mediocre sales.[Note 3] This cancellation galvanized
fans of the setting, who scanned every adventure closely for any details it
might add to their ever-growing database of the game-world, or any corners it
might fill in the none-too-crowded map. Collectors began to offer higher and
higher prices for out-of-print modules from the early & mid '80s—not just
rare items like the original printing of Lost
Tamaochan but those which harkened back to what could now be idealized as a
'golden age'.[Note 4] Chief among them were the generic AD&D
1st edition modules that, by default, were set somewhere in Greyhawk. Since the
U-series had been loosely set in Greyhawk (via a single sentence on page 3 of
U1 saying where to place it within the setting), it shared in the GH revival
and rose considerably in fans' estimation long after the fact.
Aside from the cachet they have enjoyed in recent years as
part of the classic 1st edition GH canon, do these modules have any other
qualities to recommend them—any qualities inherent in the adventures
themselves?
The answer is, yes
indeed, quite a lot. For one thing U1 was the first module to actually give the
layout of a haunted house. Prior to 1981 there had been dungeons and castles
aplenty, and exotic settings from an ice-cavern to a spider-ship sailing
through the Abyss, but no one had actually drawn a floorplan for a mansion.[Note5]
Second, the second
stage of the adventure shifts from the old mansion to a sailing ship, and here
again U1 broke new ground, giving deckplans for the first time—an immensely
useful and lootable part of the adventurer that got reused time and again in
homebrew adventures for years thereafter.
Third, U1 was one
of the first adventures that made a serious effort to play with its audience's
expectations. Certainly some earlier modules had contained surprises,
discoveries that revealed new dimensions as events unfolded (most notably the
revelation that a previously unknown race of elves known as drow were the moving force behind the
giants' depredations in the G1–3 series). But, by and large, before U1 any time
player characters heard about a mysterious haunted house (or tower, or castle,
or dungeon), it was a pretty sure bet that when they arrived there they'd find
it chock-full of undead—skeletons, zombies, wights, ghosts, whatever. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh changed
all that by being downright sneaky: not only was the 'haunted house' not
actually haunted,
—and there the text
breaks off, followed by two notations
14th cent. English touches.
The UK series (TSR UK)
the draft text ends
slightly differently:
The Sinister Secret of
Saltmarsh changed all that.[Note 6] DMs
everywhere now had
the associated notes
with this, also unfinished, reads
Note 6. B3,
published the same year . . .
The notes are as
follows
Note 1. Notable
among them being B2. Keep on the
Borderlands (the single best-selling rpg module ever), L1. The Secret of Bone Hill, X2.
Castle Amber (inspired by the works of Clark Ashton Smith), the launch of
the I-series, the reissue of the original Giant modules as G1–3. Against the Giants, the completion of the A-series (A2, A3,
A4), and the relaunch of D&D (3rd edition, by Moldvay and Cook, split for
the first time into two boxes—'Basic' and 'Expert').
Note 2. Actually
this last should properly have been entitled B2–9, since B1. In Search of the Unknown was omitted from the final compilation
due to a contract dispute, although the maps accompanying the adventure were inadvertently
included.
Note 3. Not
revived until five years later, with 1998's Return
of the Eight, although an on-line community remained active and vocal in
the interim. With the advent of Third Edition D&D in 2000, Greyhawk has
once again become the default background in which all generic D&D products
are set.
Note 4. Three of
these that were in greatest demand by the mid-'90s were the original I6. Ravenloft, T1–4. Temple of Elemental Evil, and the H-series (H1. Bloodstone Pass, H2. The Mines of Bloodstone, H3. The Bloodstone War, and H4. The Throne of Bloodstone).
Note 5. The
closest challenger I can find to this claim is Jim Ward's short adventure 'The
Mansion of Mad Professor Ludlow', published the preceding Halloween in the
October 1980 issue of Dragon
magazine, a very odd D&D adventure in which the PCs are modern-day boy
scouts exploring a mad scientist's lair. Judges Guild published House on Hangman's Hill by Jon Mattson
sometime in 1981, but I have been unable to find out whether it preceded or
followed The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
into print. Since other appeared at roughly the same time, it seems clear that
neither had any significant influence on the other.
This unfinished piece
was written in 2001;
hence the reference to U1's having been published
'twenty
years ago' would now more accurately read
'thirty-five years ago'. Similarly,
the reference in one
of the notes to Greyhawk's now once again being the
default
world setting should no longer be in the present tense.
As for where the half-finished piece wd have gone from here, it's clear that I intended to at least mention the English fishing village setting with its attempt at a bit of realism, with excise men rather than generic town guards. Unfortunately this is undercut by the local village being severely undeveloped. Given the amount of time the PCs are expected to be spending here, making it their home base while exploring the area, you'd think they'd have at least named some of the local notables, such as the one who hires the PCs to investigate the nearby haunted mansion, or another town notable who turns out to be in cahoots with the enemy. I also clearly meant to say something about TSR-UK, a semi-autonomous branch of TSR that probably seemed a good idea at the time but is remembered today primarily for the hapless FIEND FOLIO (1980). And I can't imagine I'd have failed to mention some of the interesting ideas that emerge in the second adventure in the series, where alliances can quickly shift when those assumed to be enemies turn out to be potential allies against a greater foe. The ancient leader of the lizard men is a memorable character, but the iconic moment comes when the characters, in the midst of a raid on what they think is the enemies' lair come across two toddlers who are essentially baby monsters: an alignment-defining moment that I think was designed to reign in hack-and-slashers.
In any case, such was my never-finished piece. I hope you enjoyed this brief visit to the past.
--John R.
current reading: 1st ed. PLAYER'S HANDBOOK
