The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

The introduction, with instructions that the Dungeon Master read it aloud to the players, outlines that there is a treasure in the Yatil Mountains south of the Greyhawk realm of Perrenland. The player characters must investigate rumors of a lost treasure that scores of adventurers have perished attempting to find. The players must first traverse a wilderness area with 20 numbered encounters before arriving at the caverns. The encounters have names such as "Border Patrol" (encounter 1) and "Hill Giants" (encounter 10). After the wilderness are two lettered encounters: the "Gnome Vale", which includes a map for their lair, and "The Craggy Dells", where humans and orcs are capturing hippogriffs to sell. Next, the player characters reach the caverns. They consist of the "Lesser Caverns" with 22 encounters, and the "Greater Caverns" with 20 encounters, each with its own map. The lesser caverns include encounters such as "Stinking Cave" (encounter 5) which contains four trolls and "Underground Lake" (encounter 14). The greater caverns include encounters such as "Uneven-Floored Cavern" (encounter 5) where the player characters face an umber hulk and "Canyon of Centaurs" (encounter 9). The 20th and final encounter is titled "The Inner Sphere". Here, a "woman sleeps on an alabaster slab." She is "armored from toe to neck in gold chased plate mail." The woman is actually Drelnza, a fighter/vampire and the daughter of Iggwilv. After defeating Drelnza, the players are rewarded with treasure, and the adventure ends. ==Publication history==

in 2007 at the GenCon game convention The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is a revised and expanded version of The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth, a tournament adventure that Gygax wrote for WinterCon V, a gaming convention sponsored by the Metro Detroit Gamers (MDG) in 1976. It is based in part on one of Rob Kuntz's dungeon levels, as Kuntz helped Gygax revise the tournament version. This original version consisted of eight loose sheets in an outer folder, with a zip-locked bag; only several hundred copies were printed. Lawrence Schick later suggested that "there's evidence that Gary considered Tsojcanth part of a longer Greyhawk campaign, placing the adventure between T1–T4 The Temple of Elemental Evil and WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. (By this reckoning, The Village of Hommlet, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and Tsojcanth are thus the "lost" WG1 through WG3 modules.) So, Tsojcanth was published in the S series because it got completed out of order, but was too good to delay." This version of the module was revised and expanded from the original, and included two 32-page books, with an outer folder. While in the middle of working on Temple of Elemental Evil, Gygax added a complete outdoor story arc to the original tournament story arc that leads to the caverns. The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth includes new spells, and many new monsters which were later featured in Monster Manual II. In 1987, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth was revised and included in TSR's "supermodule" Realms of Horror. In 2007, it was updated to v3.5 and included as one of three parts in ''Iggwilv's Legacy: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth'', an adventure available online from Wizards of the Coast. Both versions of the module included monsters that were later included other Dungeons & Dragons products. The monsters introduced in the original un-published version were updated for AD&D rules and included in the first edition Monster Manual. Monsters appearing in the published version included the demon princes Baphomet, Fraz-Urb'luu, Graz'zt, and Kostchtchie, who later appeared in the original Monster Manual II. The published module's cover features an illustration of a behir by Erol Otus. Lawrence Schick writes in the foreword that "S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth marked the end of the S series—and rightly so, because despite being based on a gilded-hole dungeon originally designed for a tournament in 1976, its updated version really belonged more to the '80s campaign-setting school of design than to the wild-and-woolly '70s. S1 through S3 were standalone modules that could be easily dropped into any DM's campaign, but Tsojcanth is firmly based in Gary's World of Greyhawk." A remastered version of the adventure was published in the anthology Quests from the Infinite Staircase for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition on July 16, 2024. ==Reception==

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth was favorably received by critics. Lawrence Schick, in his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, described the adventure as "A monster-filled labyrinth in the classic mode: kill 'em, rob 'em, and leave." Jim Bambra reviewed the adventure for White Dwarf. He gave it 9/10 overall, with 9/10 for presentation, rules, playability, enjoyment, skill, and complexity. Bambra noted that the module ended a long time off for Gary Gygax, and was "very tough" and that good play was stressed in the introduction. Sub par play quickly ended the story, but the rewards of powerful magic and the satisfaction of completing a difficult task made it worthwhile. He also noted that the adventure came with a 32-page booklet with 30 new monsters and a small amount of new magic. Not all the new creatures are featured in the plot, but they can be used by the DM in other adventures. Also, magical diagrams are given an in-depth treatment, including their creation and effectiveness. James Jacobs credits Gary Gygax's work on The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth for inspiration on Jacobs's work on the "Demonomicon of Iggwilv" column in Dragon magazine. ==References==