Retrospective: Hall of the Fire Giant King

Like its predecessors, Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, Hall of the Fire Giant King (AD&D module G3) casts the player characters in the role of elite agents tasked with stopping a wave of giant-led attacks against civilized lands. At first glance, G3 seems to follow the familiar pattern established by the earlier modules: a dangerous foray into the stronghold of a powerful giant chieftain, bristling with guards, traps, and treasure. However, Hall of the Fire Giant King subtly but significantly shifts the tone and scope of the series. In the volcanic fortress of King Snurre Ironbelly, the stakes begin to change. The fire giants are stronger, more disciplined, and clearly part of a larger, more organized force. Most crucially, they are not acting alone. Hidden deep within their halls are strange and powerful allies – the drow.

The appearance of the drow, mysterious and only briefly described here, marks a pivotal moment not just in the G-series but in the history of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons itself. This is their first true introduction into the game, beyond a cursory reference in the Monster Manual, and it opens the door to something far more expansive. In retrospect, the drow are the most significant legacy of this module and G3 is the seed from which they (and the subterranean realm from which they come) would grow. The drow would, of course, go on to take center stage in the celebrated D-series (Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and Vault of the Drow) and in Queen of the Demonweb Pits. While those later adventures are better known and more ambitious, it is here, in Hall of the Fire Giant King, that the broader arc first begins to unfold. Gary Gygax’s decision to place these enigmatic figures behind the scenes of the giants’ uprising was a masterstroke, one that quietly expanded the narrative scope of what a D&D adventure could be.

In terms of presentation, Hall of the Fire Giant King also reflects the transitional state of adventure design in 1978. Like its predecessors, it was originally created for tournament play, which explains both its high level of difficulty and its emphasis on tactical combat. There is little in the way of exposition or character development. The fire giants certainly have motivations, but Gygax rarely dwells on them. Instead, they exist primarily as obstacles to be overcome. Much of the module consists of populated chambers, heavily guarded halls, and defensible choke points, all spaces presented for intense, deadly conflict. Success demands planning, coordination, and no small amount of caution. This is adventure design in its raw, uncompromising form, rewarding player skill and punishing incaution.

Yet even within this sparse and utilitarian framework, there are hints of something more. Secret doors lead to hidden levels. Mysterious altars and magical portals suggest the influence of otherworldly forces. Cryptic symbols and strange alliances point to deeper mysteries. Gygax may not linger on these details, but their presence invites speculation and discovery, encouraging referees to build upon them. In this way, G3 foreshadows the more expansive and narrative-driven modules to come, not only the D-series, but later experiments in long-form storytelling such as Dragonlance in the 1980s and the “adventure path” format popularized by Dungeon magazine in the early 2000s. Hall of the Fire Giant King doesn't tell a story in that modern sense, but it gestures toward one and that gesture proved enormously influential.

From the vantage point of the present, G3 may seem narrower in scope or rougher in execution than the adventures it leads into. I actually think that's part of its importance. As both the climax of the "Against the Giants" trilogy and the prelude to the D-series, it bridges two different modes of adventure design: the brutal, self-contained dungeon crawl and the broader, interconnected campaign. Without Hall of the Fire Giant King, the drow might never have become one of the game’s signature antagonists. More broadly, the ambition and structure of later adventures might have taken a very different form without this model to follow.

In the end, I feel Hall of the Fire Giant King is best appreciated not just as the finale of the G-series but as a threshold. It marks a turning point where the possibilities of adventure design began to expand, where dungeon crawls started evolving into epics. With its hidden depths, emergent story, and quiet worldbuilding, Gygax showed that even a tournament module could hint at vast, subterranean empires and the demon-goddess who ruled them. Its influence is subtle but foundational and its legacy lives on in the continuity it helped establish across TSR’s early adventures and the ambitions it inspired in generations of designers to follow.

Polyhedron: Issue #30

With issue #30 of Polyhedron (July 1986), we reach the final issue I ever owned or read. My subscription ended that summer and, with my final year of high school approaching, I was so preoccupied with other matters that I elected not to continue reading. To be fair, I let my subscription to Dragon lapse around the same time, but I'd still pick up stray copies of the magazine to keep abreast of the latest news about D&D and other RPGs. Consequently, this will be last post in which I do a recap of Polyhedron's contents. I'll do a summation of my feelings about the RPGA newszine next week before moving on to a new regular feature the following week.

As has often been the case, this month's cover is drawn by Roger Raupp. It depicts the six characters from Christopher S. Jones's "Nienna & Friends," the first installment in "The New Rogues Gallery," which is "a continuing feature ... through which members may share their most interesting characters and NPCs." In truth, this is just an outgrowth of the "Encounters" column that began all the way back in issue #8, which had already morphed into something akin to this. In any case, "Nienna & Friends" presents write-ups (including AD&D stats) for the half-Drow fighter/magic-user Nienna, her human cleric mother, Rhodara Larith, and their protector, the Grey Elf magic-user Zered Camaron. Zered's son, Elerion, along with Nienna's evil Drow father, Tray-Dor, and his drider companion, Day-Ron, complete the group. In general, I like articles like this, if only because they give me some sense of what happens in other people's campaigns. I know "let me tell you about my character" is supposed to be cringeworthy, but I genuinely do enjoy this sort of thing (and occasionally indulge in it myself).

"In Search of the 12th Level Mage" by Roger E. Moore is a good article on the much-vexed question of demographics in Dungeons & Dragons. Moore takes a look at the population information provided in the revised World of Greyhawk boxed set and plugs it into the information found in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide regarding the makeup of NPC adventuring parties to arrive at a possible answer. His conclusion is that high level characters of any class are quite rare, especially so for magic-users, who number only about 200 out of every 1000 people (who are themselves only one-tenth of every 10,000 people). Of those 200, only 1 is 8th-level, meaning that the mage of the title would be a special NPC created and placed by the referee. Of course, the question of how many NPCs have classes/levels is itself an interesting one without a definitive answer. Even so, speculations like this are fun and an important part of worldbuilding in my opinion.

Brian Leikam's "In Defense of the Lowly Fighter" is, as its title suggests, a look at the fighter class in Dungeons & Dragons and how to make it more appealing to players. I wrote a post about this article three and a half years ago, so I won't say much more here. However, I largely agree with Leikam that fighters should be more common and better appreciated in D&D, especially nowadays, where the human fighter has more or less become synonymous with "boring." 

"Ravager" is the first part of an AD&D adventure by Jeff Grubb. Though it doesn't mention it anywhere, I assume this was a RPGA tournament scenario at some point, since most of the adventures that appear in Polyhedron began life that way. Its premise is that a bandit-king, the eponymous Ravager, has arisen and, thanks to ancient magic, has made himself effectively immortal. The goal of the characters is to raid a tomb in the Grey Desert that might contain information on how to reverse this magic and render the Ravager mortal again. The tomb is small and filled with traps, tricks, and puzzles, in addition to monsters. I expect it would be a challenge to navigate it successfully. Included with the adventure are six pregenerated PCs whose names could well be Asterix characters: Necromantix, Logistix, Goldbrix, etc.

"The Treasure Chest" returns in limited form, offering just back issues of Polyhedron and four RPGA adventures written by Frank Mentzer, like To the Aid of Falx. There's also a similarly abbreviated "Fletcher's Corner" by Michael Przytarski, in which he muses about crossbreeds among the various D&D races, another much-vexed topic in gaming circles. Przytarski offers no new insights or answers here. Slightly more useful is Jeffrey A, Martin's "Beware the New Golems," which offers up four new golem types: copper, oak, brass, and shadow. The last one is notable, because it's a golem that can only be made by illusionists, something you don't see very often in AD&D, where the illusionist was, in my opinion, and underused and under-appreciated class.

Preston Shah's "Little Miss Sure Shot" was unexpected. It's not just a Boot Hill article, but a history lesson as well, providing historical details and game information on using Annie Oakley in your games. I like articles of this sort, but then I'm also a fan of historical gaming, so I'm probably not a good gauge of how well received articles like this would have been received. "New and Old" by James M. Ward is a one-page preview of some aspects of the upcoming new (third) edition of Gamma World. He also reiterates the oft-repeated promise that TSR planned to do a new edition of Metamorphosis Alpha to tie into it as well. That didn't happen, of course, but I don't doubt that it was planned. 

"Dispel Confusion" is reduced to one page and tackles only AD&D questions, nearly all of which are highly technical in nature. With hindsight, this is one of those aspects of the TSR era of D&D that seems baffling. At the time, though, a fair number of gamers, myself included, really did care about "official" answers to rules questions. Finally, there's Errol Farstad's review of Timemaster, which he thought had "potential to be very enjoyable," even though it still had a few "rough spots." That's a fair assessment, I think.

And that's all folks – the end of my re-reads of Polyhedron. Next week, as I stated at the beginning of this post, I'll share some final thoughts about the more than 20 issues I read during my time as a subscriber. There's frankly a lot to say on the subject and I think it's deserving of its own post.

White Dwarf: Issue #69

Issue #69 of White Dwarf (September 1985) is one of which I have no memory whatsoever. As I mentioned last week, I'm now looking at issues published after I ceased my subscription to the magazine, so my recollections of them are generally hazy. In this particular instance, they're non-existent, so my reading in preparation for this post may well be the first time I've ever set eyes on the issue. The cover is another by Mark Bromley, featuring what would appear to be a dark elf (drow?) lashing a slave under his charge. 

Ian Livingstone's editorial focuses on the tenth anniversary of the Games Day convention. He notes not just the long queues to enter the event, but also the fact that its attendees now number in the thousands rather than the hundreds that first turned out for it in 1975. I have a vague memory that Games Workshop brought a version of Games Day to Baltimore sometime during the '80s, though I never attended it. I wonder how similar it might have been to the original in the UK.

The issue kicks off with "Rationale Behavior" by Peter Tamlyn. The article is actually an extended discussion of the concept of alignment within Dungeons & Dragons, including its limitations. Tamlyn then notes that GW's superhero game, Golden Heroes, includes a series of "campaign ratings" that measure a character's relationship with the in-game world, such as, for example, Public Status and Personal Status. These ratings, he contends, do a better job of describing a character than a simplistic alignment system. For that reason, Tamlyn puts forward an alternative to alignment that takes into account a character's religious attitudes, social status, public piety, and so on in order to give a fuller picture of his place in the fantasy setting. It's an intriguing idea and not without some advantages over alignment, though its use requires considerably more work on the part of both the referee and the player. Still, it was a thought-provoking article.

The second part of Peter Blanchard's "Beneath the Waves" appears, focusing this time on "developing civilizations." As with its predecessor, this article's purpose is to consider the ramifications of life underwater in a fantasy setting. Also like its predecessor, the second installment is well-done but much too brief. Blanchard wisely looks at many of the obvious considerations of the submarine environment, along with less apparent ones, like writing, working metal, construction, and even magic. Unfortunately, most of these topics get a couple of paragraphs at most – better than nothing but still barely scratching the surface of a huge topic. The article would have done well with more examples of how to employ its principles, I think.

"Open Box" starts off with short reviews of three different adventure modules for TSR's Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars (7 out of 10), Lone Wolves (6 out of 10), Cat's-Paw (6 out of 10). Interestingly, reviewer Marcus L. Rowland calls Cat's-Paw his favorite of the three and yet it does not receive the highest rating of the three, another indication that these scores were given not by the reviewer but by someone else on the White Dwarf staff. Also reviewed is Toon Strikes Again (8 out of 10) and the boardgame, Chill: Black Morn Manor (8 out of 10), two products with which I have no direct familiarity, though I remember being very intrigued by advertisements for the latter. Finally, there's a review for TSR's Conan Role-Playing Game. The reviewer, Peter Tamlyn, is generally impressed with the game (7 out of 10), but his enthusiasm is dampened by its many editing, proofreading, and typesetting errors. He hopes that there might be a second edition that corrects its many deficiencies..

Dave Langford continues to do his thing in "Critical Mass." At this stage, I find I most enjoy his reviews when he shares my own prejudices, hence why the only things I can remember about this month's installment is his skewering of both Barbara Hambly and Piers Anthony, two writers whose popularity has always baffled me. "Close Encounters" by Ian Marsh similarly held little interest for me. Marsh presents what he thinks RuneQuest really needs: an expansion of the game's strike rank system that takes into account weapon length ... 

The saga of "Thrud the Destroyer" concludes as it was destined to do so: with Thrud and his fellow mercenaries screwing things up for their peasant patrons. "The Travellers" includes more character write-ups, including game statistics, this time for the characters of Hayes and Gavin. "Gobbledigook" likewise reappears. "The Surrey Enigma" is a solid, if inconsequential, Call of Cthulhu adventure by Marcus L. Rowland (did he write everything in WD in the mid-80s?), in which the characters investigate unfounded rumors of witchcraft only to discover something much more sinister. I find it fascinating that the adventure takes the time to explain the old British, pre-decimal currency system to readers. Had its existence already been forgotten by 1985?

"Plague from the Past" by Richard Andrews is an AD&D adventure for 5th–7th level characters. The scenario is clever in a folkloric way that fantasy adventures frequently are not. The village in which it takes up is built atop the body of a long-dead giant and present-day actions are resulting in the giant's restoration to life. Good stuff! "Battle Stations" by J. Evans and E. Wilson presents an alternate – and more complex – damage system for use with Traveller's High Guard. To each his own, but I cannot say I see the appeal. Mind you, the older I get, the more convinced I am that simple, straightforward rules are usually best if your goal is to sustain a campaign long-term, so I am probably biased against articles of this sort.

"The Starlight Pact" by Peter Haines and David Smith is the latest installment of the venerable "Fiend Factory" column. Up till now, "Fiend Factory" showcased new monsters for use with Dungeons & Dragons. This month, the column instead presents five superheroes for use with Golden Heroes, each of which is inspired by a miniature figure produced by Citadel. The times they are indeed a-changin' at White Dwarf. "Shopping for Inspiration" by Joe Dever briefly offers up the names and addresses of stores that sell supplies of interest to miniatures painters, along with the usual tantalizing photos of some of the author's own handiwork. Finally, "Poison" by Graeme Davis presents yet another "new and easy-to-use" system for handling toxins in AD&D – once again, more complexity than I'd ever need, but your mileage may vary.

Arachnaphobia

Thanks, Tramp …

The Monster Manual was the first hardcover Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book I ever owned. I bought with money I'd received as a Christmas gift from my grandmother and ordered it through the Sears catalog – talk about a different world! I spent untold hours staring at the artwork of that fabled tome (and, no, not just this one), which is why, to this day, certain illustrations are seared in my memory. Among them is the full-page piece above, depicting what I always took to be a giant (as opposed to a huge or merely large) spider, as it prepares to leap upon a collection of largely unsuspecting adventurers – though the pointing finger at the far right suggests at least one of their number is paying attention to his surroundings.

I wish I could say precisely why, but I've always had a fear and loathing of spiders. Over the years, I've attempted to explain it, even justify it, but to little avail. I suppose it's possible that I watched something involving spiders as a young child that traumatized me. I know the scene toward the end of the 1958 movie, The Fly, where a human-headed fly is menaced by a spider – and cries out, in a squeaky voice, "Help me!" – did a number on me as a kid. I also know that the spiders in the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit creeped me out too, not least because they'd cocooned the hapless dwarves and would have eaten them if not for the intervention of Bilbo.

Whatever the reason, I don't like spiders and took some pleasure in the fact that Gary Gygax deemed the giant variety Chaotic Evil (perhaps a nod, in spite of himself, to Tolkien?). In similar fashion, spiders and spider-like creatures appear frequently in my games as antagonists, such as the demon lord Bael who played a role in my Dwimmermount campaign of old and the sinister Weavers of the Gaps, a race of demonic arachnids that appeared recently in my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign. Much as I dislike them, spiders make terrific enemies, which is no doubt why Gygax established a connection between them and the drow, for example. 

I think the key to any effective monster is that it's something you simultaneously fear, hate, and yet are weirdly fascinated by. Spiders are indeed fascinating and, even as I feel my skin crawling just thinking about them, there's no denying what remarkable animals spiders are. Their webs can be works of great complexity, even beauty in the right context, such as when covered with dew after a rainfall, but they're also snares for unwary insects and serve to remind us that spiders are predators of a very effective sort. Contemplating this brings to mind that scene from The Fly again and it still makes me uncomfortable. I know that many people admire spiders and that, in some cultures, they're considered wise and clever rather than frightening, but that's not me. They'll always be monsters in my book.

Retrospective: Shrine of the Kuo-Toa

I've always been fond of the kuo-toa, the titular antagonists of 1978's Shrine of the Kuo-Toa by Gary Gygax. I suspect my affection for them comes from the fact that H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" made a strong impression on me and I read it not long before first encountering this module. Thus, for me, the kuo-toa are inextricably bound up with HPL's deep ones. But, as is so often the case with Gygax's pastiches, he alters the original in ways that make it accessible and satisfying outside its original context. In short, with the kuo-toa, Gygax transformed the deep ones into more -- or, less, depending on one's point of view -- than avatars of Lovecraft's fear of miscegenation. Call the kuo-toa "deep ones lite," if you will, though I would argue that it is that lightness that makes them more suitable as opponents in your average D&D campaign than deep ones.

In some respects, module D2 is very similar to its predecessor, lacking in an explicit plot and filled with a lot of random tables for generating encounters with the denizens of the subterranean world as the PCs continue their quest to find the city of the drow. Where it differs is that Shrine of the Kuo-Toa describes in detail a single eponymous locale, which is intended to be the focus of play. Module D1 had the Caverns and Warrens of the Troglodytes, of course, and they certainly qualify as adventuring locales, but they lack the coherence of the Shrine in my opinion. Players remember the Caverns and Warrens as "just a bunch of caves" populated by a wide variety of monsters, whereas the Shrine is not only held by a single type of monster -- the kuo-toa -- but is clearly important to them, so important that they will mount an organized and determined defense of it against the PCs and their allies.

These allies are another important part of what differentiates modules D1 and D2. The deep gnomes (or svirfneblin) of D2 are presented as determined foes of the kuo-toa and thus potential aids to the player characters in their own efforts. Their motivation is primarily greed, as they've played out all the veins of gems that can be obtained easily and wish to gain more from the area of the Shrine, either by prospecting or, if possible, theft. The deep gnomes are potent enemies, some of whom can summon earth elementals to do their bidding, but they're also suspicious of outsiders. Convincing them to help the PCs is thus an important means of achieving success in this adventure, though it's worth noting that Gygax devotes very little verbiage to it.

The Shrine itself is terrific: a ziggurat-like structure filled with kuo-toa, including many clerical spellcasters (which only makes sense, as it's a religious location). It's here that we first catch glimpses of the awesomely-named Blibdoolpoolp, the Sea Mother of the kuo-toa. Again, Gygax displays his appreciation of the power of names. Blibdoolpoolp is not just a memorably absurd name; it's also one that sounds like it could be uttered by alien lips immersed in water. And the appearance of a nude statuesque woman with the head and claws of a lobster is an inspired way to portray this deity -- alluring and repellant at the same time. I'm not ashamed to admit that, as a kid, I found Blibdoolpoolp quite disturbing and, on some level, I still do.

Shrine of the Kuo-Toa isn't as good as Vault of the Drow, but it's still very good. It presents a well-realized locale that inspires as much as it describes. There can be little question why, like the drow, the kuo-toa are remembered as among the most interesting antagonists AD&D ever placed in the path of adventurers. I am frankly grateful that, more than three decades later, this module remains one of the only places where the kuo-toa are discussed at any length. Unlike the drow, there's still mystery associated with them and I'm sure that contributes greatly to my liking of D2, one of Gary Gygax's finest creations.

Retrospective: Descent into the Depths of the Earth

One of the most obvious ways that the hobby has changed from its early days can be seen in the concept of adventure modules. Nowadays, we're prone to expect large and detailed products, replete with maps, fully fleshed-out NPCs, and a coherent plot made up of "scenes" that lead toward some kind of clear climax. Back in 1978, when TSR released Gary Gygax's Descent into the Depths of the Earth, such expectations, if they existed at all, weren't the norm. Then, an adventure module generally provided a locale, whether a "dungeon" or a wilderness, and its inhabitants that the referee could flesh out in play. There may or may not be any broader context for this locale, but, regardless, the module's focus was on that locale and its inhabitants rather than on anything approaching dramatic coherence.

In the case of module D1, the immediate context is as a sequel to modules G1, G2, and G3 -- later compiled as G1-3, Against the Giants -- in which the player characters enter and sack the strongholds of three different giant leaders who have, for reasons unknown, been coordinating their attacks against human lands. The PCs discover that this coordination is at the behest of the drow, a nation of evil subterranean elves, who leave behind a map leading to their city. If the characters choose to use this map, Descent into the Depths of the Earth provides the referee with an underground "wilderness" map and some keyed locations, along with random encounter tables, to simulate their explorations.

Unlike the giants modules, where the PCs have been ordered, under pain of punishment, to investigate their titular locales, there is no such compulsion in module D1. The choice to move forward or not is entirely left up to the PCs, as is the course of their travels. For that reason, the referee needs to be prepared to make use of the many random encounter tables included to flesh out the underworld. There are several well described encounter areas in D1, but the vast majority of them are presented simply without much exposition -- once again demanding significant improvisation by the referee to use effectively. That's not a criticism as such, but, looking back on this module, I was surprised to see just how little information it straightforwardly includes.

When I was a younger man, I would have ranked Descent into the Depths of the Earth as one of my favorite AD&D adventures. I had a lot of fun using it in days of yore and there are a number of set pieces it includes, such as the lich Asberdies, who has cast over 600 magic mouths in his cavernous lair, that I still recall having a lot of fun with. Of course, back then, I readily accepted that a module couldn't really be used "out of the box" and that no self-respecting referee would expect such a thing in any case. It's a perspective that I've only, in the last few years, come to embrace again, believing that, sometimes, less is more.

That said, I'm not sure that, even given that, module D1 is one of Gygax's better works, certainly in comparison to, say,  Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, let alone Vault of the Drow, both of which retain the open-ended "sandboxy" feel of D1 while, at the same time, providing more structure on which the referee can hang his own creations. The whole module feels very much like an introduction to the subterranean wilderness of the drow, a kind of primer of what's to come. That might explain why it was later combined with module D2 in 1981. Together, I think they complement each other nicely, which is a topic I'll return to next week in my retrospective of D2.

What Edition for Drizzt?

Over at Cave of Chaos, I ran across a post pointing me to a video I might otherwise not have seen. It's part of a "Meet the Author" series from Northeastern University, this installment being devoted to R.A. Salvatore, whose claim to fame -- or infamy, depending on one's point of view -- is the creation of conflicted good guy drow, Drizzt Do'Urden.

Now, I expect a goodly percentage of the readers of this blog to loathe Drizzt and all that he represents and, honestly, I can't blame anyone who feels that way, because it's a feeling I share. But, after hearing his creator discuss, at 35:41 on this video, his preferences regarding roleplaying games and -- more importantly -- the reasons for his preferences, I can't deny that I feel a little warmer toward R.A. Salvatore than I ever expected I would.

A Partial Pictorial History of Elves in D&D

So, over at the Temple of Demogorgon, Brunomac makes fun of poor Indel, the unfortunate elf who starred in those silly D&D comic book ads from the early 80s. He even goes so far as to mock him as a "Keebler elf," which is fair enough, considering his attire.

Now, I'm not here to defend Indel's honor, as he pretty much defines "hapless." I do, however, want to point out that many gamers' conception of what an "elf" is has changed considerably over the years and that Indel, while pathetic, is very much in line with the earliest depictions of elves in Dungeons & Dragons. As I have argued before, Gygax's consistent assertion that Tolkien's influence on the game was minimal is borne out if you look at the way elves have been illustrated in the game prior to the late 1e era -- case in point being this fine fellow from Volume 1 of OD&D:


He doesn't much look like an elf to me either, but he's clearly labeled as such. I'm guessing he's AWOL from Santa's workshop or something, because I can't recall ever seeing an elf portrayed with a beard outside of that context.

Then there's this lovely lady from the AD&D Players Handbook. She's standing next to a human male and it's clear if you see the original illustration that early D&D elves were (largely) much shorter than Men. Take note of her costume, with its tasseled skirt.


This guy is also from the PHB and he looks like Spock robbed Merlin's closet. Interestingly, he's roughly the same height as a human being.


I still can't make up my mind if this guy is in fact an elf or not, although I am coming round to the notion that he is probably meant to be. He looks like Indel's long-lost brother and appears to be slightly less hapless.


These are elves from the Monster Manual. Their height is difficult to make out from this illustration, but I don't get the impression of their being very tall.


I've always been very fond of this piece by Dave Trampier, which shows wood elves. Take a look at their ears and general attire. They're definitely more in line with a "fairy tale" sensibility than anything Tolkien-esque.

It's possible this guy from the cover of module D1-2 isn't an elf, but I've long assumed he was, based on the clothing he's wearing. The only guys you ever see wearing hoods like that are archers or elves and he doesn't appear to be the former.

I think it's interesting to see how the portrayal of elves has changed over the years, since I think it strongly supports the notion that elves have changed in D&D from the early days. Speaking only for myself, I vividly recall that my friends and I just assumed that all elves were short little guys with funny hats and shoes for the first couple of years we played the game. I'd place the shift in our perceptions to somewhere around 1981 or thereabouts, maybe a little later.

Nowadays, I tend to use "elf" in a situation-dependent way. It's basically a word I use to describe any inherently magical not-quite-human race, whether they look like Ernie or Elric. In my Dwimmermount game, elves, especially the red-skinned Eld, are more like Melnibonéans than repairers of shoes, but, in a different campaign setting, who knows? I prefer a lot of malleability in what constitutes demihuman X or Y, as that approach gives me more freedom to do with them what I want.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Shadow People

When one looks at the list of authors Gary Gygax assembled in Appendix N, chances are good that most of the names at least are familiar, even if one hasn't read the particular stories associated with them. They're a veritable who's who of pre-1970s fantasy and science fiction, writers whose works formed the canon of these genres. A notable exception is Margaret St. Clair, one of only two women on the list -- the other being Leigh Brackett -- and one whose name was utterly unknown to me, never mind her novels.

When I was a younger man, I had no trouble getting hold of books by Howard or Merritt or Leiber, so I devoured those and promptly forgot about St. Clair and her 1969 novel The Shadow People. It wasn't until years later that I actually came across a copy of it in a used book store and picked it up on a whim. I dimly recalled the name and figured it might be worth reading if Gary considered it an inspiration on AD&D.

I'm glad I did so, because, whatever its shortcomings as a novel, it's one that (I think) gives some insight into the origin of everyone's favorite dark elves, the drow. The Shadow People is about human beings stumbling upon the dark fairy world that exist just behind the walls of certain places in the world, where twisted, emaciated elves lay in wait, plotting the downfall of the world above. Addicted to hallucinogenic fungi, their plots often go awry thanks to their penchant for treachery against their own kind, a trait that has probably saved humanity far more than outright heroics against the dark elves.

It's hard not to see the drow in St. Clair's dark elves, but perhaps I'm simply projecting them backward in time. After all, part of the drow's appeal is how archetypal they are. They draw so brilliantly on centuries of myths and legends about dark elves while having their own unique spin that they seem exactly as our subconscious would imagine them to be. St. Clair's dark elves have similar qualities, though they are a bit more explicitly mythical than are the drow, right down to their use of the hallucinogenic fungi to lure human beings into their own surreal kingdom.

I can certainly see why Gygax found the book so attractive. He had a great love for creepy fairy realms, something that reached its fullest flower in his post-D&D games, Mythus and Lejendary Adventure. The Shadow People is well written and enjoyable as a story in its own right, but I found it particularly useful for its presentation of another take on dark elves. I found myself with plenty of great ideas to swipe for my Dwimmermount campaign and I suspect I won't be the only referee mining St. Clair's novel in this way.

Yet More Drow

The irreplaceable Trent Foster has kindly scanned four images from the pastel-colored editions of the Giants-Drow modules, which I now post here:This is a nice Sutherland piece that shows the Drow and their pack lizards, something that doesn't get illustrated very often for some reason.

Here's another example of "white Drow" and the likely model for the Jeff Dee (?) illustration that appears in the later printings of the module.

This is a rare Dave Trampier illustration of the Drow, although they aren't recognizably dark elves in my opinion. Only the bucklers give them away.

This is a rather well-done DCS piece showing a collection of Drow warriors, using both hand crossbows and atlatls. I like it a great deal, since the blackness of the Drow's skin is made very clear here and it's quite unsettling.

On the subject of the "white Drow," I wonder if perhaps, early in their conception, the Drow were, like many subterranean creatures, assumed to be albino or at least very pale in their skin color. That would make sense and would be another connection to Elric. I know that when I re-imagined the Drow in the late 80s for my home campaign, I made them a race of ghostly, albino elves because I thought it "made more sense." I have no support for this theory, but I do wonder if there might not be some truth to it.

Another Early Drow

This is an image of one of the Slave Lords, drawn by Erol Otus, who seems, in retrospect, to have been responsible for many of the earliest Drow artwork. Her name is Edralve, which I think is rather telling, since it's clearly modeled on Eclavdra, the female Drow priestess who's the evil mastermind in the G-series of modules. To me, this similarity of name is a good indication that someone at TSR at least thought Eclavdra made for a good villain and wanted to clone her, much in the way that lots of unimaginative kids create characters or situations borrowed from movies or TV shows that they like. I used to think that Strahd von Zarovich of Ravenloft fame was the first significant "pet NPC" of D&D. Now I am starting to wonder if perhaps Eclavdra was the first.

Erol Otus Drow

This one is for Timeshadows, who reminded me of a particularly creepy Drow illustration from the pages of Dragon by Erol Otus.

Early Pictorial History of the Drow

Unlike many old school gamers, I am not ashamed to admit that I like the Drow -- but that's because I remember what they were before Drizzt and his imitators came along, turning the dark elves into a culture of angsty Elric wannabes. When I first encountered the Drow, I found the idea of evil elves to be a powerful one, perhaps because, though my superficial reading of Tolkien, I always associated elves with goodness and light. The notion of evil and subterranean elves is probably more consonant with folklore about fairy creatures than are Tolkien's creations, but, for whatever reason, it seemed literally perverse to me and so I found myself at once repulsed and fascinated by the Drow.

But that was a long time ago and the Drow have "evolved" over the years so as to be, in my opinion, quite different than the original Gygaxian conception of them. I thought it'd be interesting to take a look at the G, D, and Q modules and see how the Drow were illustrated in order to see what insights, if any, one might glean from the artwork.

This is the first time the Drow are illustrated, in module G3, by Dave Sutherland. What's interesting is that piece doesn't make it clear that the Drow have black skin, unlike the piece below.
This second piece shows the Drow armed with many of the race's archetypal accoutrements, including their magic bucklers and hand crossbows, which were the height of "cool" when I was a kid. Notice the helmet the Drow on the left is wearing. It reminds me a bit of the helm we often see Elric wearing in many illustrations of the doomed emperor of Melniboné, so perhaps the "corruption" started early.

Here's a fairly unimpressive Dave LaForce illustration of a female Drow. She definitely doesn't have the "dangerous and sexy" vibe that a lot of female Drow illustrations have nowadays.

This is the famous Bill Willingham piece I discussed previously.

There's a female Drow captive in the background of this piece. It's admittedly hard to see her, since she's upstaged by Blonde Sonja in the front.

Once again, we see some not-obviously dark-skinned Drow, this time demonstrating the use of the atlatl, another signature weapon of the dark elves.

Erol Otus gives us one of the iconic images of the Drow, complete with tentacle rod.

Here's another piece that I presume is of a Drow from context, but it's admittedly hard to tell from the illustration itself, as she doesn't have black skin.

Here's Belgos, the Drow vampire and his succubus girlfriend from Vault of the Drow. They're quite the pair, don't you think?

And here's a Drow, possibly Lolth herself, hanging out with a Type II and Type III demon. This is also the first appearance of the spiderweb bikini that would eventually become a standard element of female Drow illustrations. This last piece is by Erol Otus.

As you can see, there's a definite development in the way the Drow are portrayed, with the earliest illustrations lacking the "seductive" qualities you see in the later ones. Like all good villains, the Drow pretty quickly became objects of admiration by many gamers and you can see this in the way they are portrayed in artwork. I find that a pity, since it's now hard to use the Drow as I did in my youth, before most gamers had internalized the "dangerous but desirable" interpretation of the race. In retrospect, I suppose the only thing that's truly remarkable to me is that Drizzt is a male Drow. Looking at these illustrations, one would have expected the first good-aligned Drow to be female. Perhaps gamers aren't so predictable after all!

Retrospective: Queen of the Demonweb Pits

So far as I know, 1980's Queen of the Demonweb Pits is artist David C. Sutherland III's only published example of game/adventure design. It's also (again, so far as I know) the first official example of planar adventuring for Dungeons & Dragons. Both these facts are important when looking back on this module and its impact.

Dave Sutherland is known primarily for his illustrations, particularly during late OD&D and early AD&D. His artwork laid the foundation for many of the artists who followed by establishing the look of iconic monsters, such as demons, orcs, and mind flayers. As any reader of this blog knows by now, I am huge fan of Sutherland and, while I readily concede the technical flaws in a lot of his pieces, I also see a lot of joyful exuberance in them that contrasts powerfully with the more sterile perfection of later D&D art.

But apparently Sutherland had ambitions outside of illustration. He certainly wasn't the first artist hoping to try his hand at writing and, unlike many, Gary Gygax gave Sutherland a chance. (It's worth noting that Dave Trampier also wished to break into game design, writing a game of monster battles called Titan, eventually published by Avalon Hill after TSR expressed no interest in it) According to the preface to this module, Gygax had trouble coming up with a proper capstone to the Giants-Drow series of modules. All his ideas were too similar to ones he was considering for the Temple of Elemental Evil, so he rejected them. After Dave Sutherland showed him a twisting, intertwined dungeon he'd created based on the design of a placemat, Gygax suggested he write the module, using the dungeon as the home plane of Lolth, demon queen of spiders.

The end result was a very uneven module, equal parts gold and dross. The central premise of the module -- confronting Lolth on her home plane -- remains a powerful and attractive one. Likewise, the design of the Demonweb itself is extraordinarily clever. It is certainly one of the more unusual dungeon designs I encountered back in the day and, even now, I think it holds up pretty well. This is a good case for allowing individuals with artistic sensibilities to draw maps in my opinion, because the Demonweb seems like an idea that only an artist would conceive.

The module's encounters are quite a diverse lot, which I think is a good thing, overall. Oddly, very few of them seem to include either demons or drow, which you would expect to find on the Abyssal plane that's home to the demonic ruler of the dark elves. Instead, you get lots of chaotic and evil creatures -- dragons, trolls, lycanthropes, undead -- that don't quite "fit" with the assumed theme of the place. I remember as a kid finding the inhabitants of the Demonweb to be not quite what I was expecting, so I replaced many of them with demons and horrid spider-things and similar nasty stuff. Somehow, I didn't find a black dragon to be appropriately "Lolth-y," if you know what I mean.

Of course, there's something to be said for defying expectations. I've always been a fan of "pulling back the curtain" to show that the world as seen through the eyes of adventurers isn't the whole story. So, for example, Lolth's having a giant, steam-powered, mechanical spider ship never bothered me the way it bothered many people. To me, it's exactly the kind of bizarre turn that seems right when dealing with otherplanar beings, even demons (perhaps especially demons). There shouldn't be anything ordinary or predictable about their natures or behaviors. Similarly, I really liked the inclusion of gateways to other Prime Material Planes, including one cribbed from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. A key to portraying planar travel effectively is grandeur -- the sense that one's home world is just a tiny speck floating on a giant ocean and you've only just begun to plumb its unknown depths. Module Q1 actually does a decent job on this score and so set future planar adventures down the right path.

On the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of the module's many pages describing how differently spells and magic items operate in the Demonweb. This smacks of overkill to me. Don't misunderstand me: I see the logic behind it and I endorse it in principle. I simply found the specific implementation of it in Q1 to be more persnickety and detailed than suited me. Nothing slows down play than having to fumble through a module to see how a certain spell or item functions in the chaos of an Abyssal layer. Something along the lines of generalized guidelines would have served me better back in the day; goodness knows that's what I would do if I ran the module now.

One of the most praiseworthy things about Queen of the Demonweb Pits is that it's open-ended, allowing the referee to use it however he wishes. The presumption is that the PCs intend to confront -- and slay -- Lolth on her home plane, but the module supports more than just that one approach. It could be used as a springboard for plane-hopping to other layers of the Abyss, alternate Prime Material Planes, and similar dimensional jaunts. That alone endears it to me. I also appreciate that, while the battles will be unforgiving, it is possible to destroy Lolth forever. I find that refreshing, even if I know that the likelihood of its ever happening to be slim. I rather strongly favor the possibility of slaying demons, devils, even gods, in D&D so long as doing so represents a genuine challenge to the players' skill. Why include stats for them at all if they can't be defeated?

Q1 catches a lot more flak than it deserves, simply because it wasn't written by Gygax. Sutherland probably wasn't the greatest adventure designer, but he's far from the worst and, as I've shown, there's a lot to like here. I see it as a diamond in the rough rather than a jewel in the crown of the Golden Age. Sometimes, I prefer things a little rough around the edges; it gives me an excuse to roll up my sleeves and make it shine.

Excelsior!

This illustration is from the front page of the D1-2 module compilation and is drawn by Bill Willingham. Like most of Willingham's work, it's obviously influenced by comics art from the time. Indeed, if you look carefully at this piece, you'll see it's more than influenced by comics art. Regular readers of the Acaeum probably already know this one, but there are three mighty Marvel Easter eggs hidden within this picture, which are really obvious once you know they're there, but I admit I never noticed them for years.

Retrospective: Vault of the Drow

It might be an exaggeration to call Module D3, Vault of the Drow, the greatest D&D adventure of all time. It might even be an exaggeration to say that it's my favorite D&D module of all time. However, I think it could reasonably be argued that it's the greatest Gygaxian naturalist adventure of all time, for what it presents is a vast subterranean locale -- the Drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu -- brought to darkly beautiful life, from the various feuding dark elf noble houses to their monstrous servitors to their pitiful slaves. It's really an amazing piece of work -- even moreso when you consider that it was only 28 pages in length.

What a lot of gamers forget, assuming they ever actually played D3, is that there is absolutely no plot to the module, just as there was no plot to its precursors in the D series. The "plot" of the series, such as it is, mostly occurred in modules G1, G2, and G3, where the evil high priestess of the Elder Elemental God, Eclavdra, was attempting to organize the giants into a vast army with which to subjugate a portion of the surface world, in the process gaining power for herself and her house, Eilservs. Once that plan is defeated, though, all that remains for the PCs is vengeance and exploration of the depths of the earth. Eclavdra -- or her clone -- reappears in Vault of the Drow, but only as the leader of House Eilservs, not as "the big bad evil guy" of the module. No such personage exists in D3, as its 28 pages are devoted primarily to describing Erelhei-Cinlu, its inhabitants, and their activities.

There's a lot to love in this module, though I admit that its hard to erase from my memory the horrible ways in which the drow have been fetishized and bastardized in the years since. It's frankly a testament to Gygax's brilliant imagination that he made chaotic evil elves who (mostly) had a thing for spiders so alluring. And of course, in 1978, when this module was first published, the drow were new and exciting rather than clichéd and dull. I know I found the drow fascinating back in the day, even if I never quite shared the same level of interest that many did (the same goes for elves generally, so maybe I'm weird).

Erelhei-Cinlu itself is like a pulp fantasy come to life, illuminated by the soft purple glow of phosphorescent fungi and filled with buildings built on the presumption its inhabitants could naturally levitate, it's an alien place, where the PCs can't help but feel like fish out of water. Even more unsettling in my experience is that, unless the PCs are actively disturbing the peace of the city (or have ticked off someone of importance), they can wander about the place without being hunted down like dogs. True, it's a chaotic evil city and it's all too easy to wind up on the wrong side of inter-house disputes, but the drow are civilized and their city behaves according to rules, albeit twisted and evil ones.

The tiers and dungeons of Erelhei-Cinlu reek of debauchery and decadence, and the city‘s inhabitants are degenerate and effete. (Those with any promise and ability are brought out of the place to serve the fighting societies, merchant clans or noble houses. The rest are left to wallow in the sinkhole of absolute depravity which is Erelhei-Cinlu.) The most popular places in the city are the gambling dens, bordellos, taverns, drug saloons, and even less savory shops along the two main streets. The back streets and alleyways too boast of brothels, poison shops, bars, and torture parlors. Unspeakable things transpire where the evil and jaded creatures seek pleasure, pain, excitement, or arcane knowledge, and sometimes these seekers find they are victims. All visitors are warned that they enter the back streets of the city at their peril.

It's easy to see why the drow made such a profound impression on gamers. What Gygax has done here is present us with an entire evil city to use as our sandbox, pursuing whatever adventures we wished within or without its walls. It's a great example of location-based design and a reminder of what modules were like before the demands of convention play or obsession with "story" changed their nature forever.

When I get around to it, after all my various other projects are put to bed, I'd love to take a whack at designing something like Erelhei-Cinlu. If it's even a tenth as evocative and useful as what Gygax achieved, I'll be beside myself with joy.