Against the Slave Lords (A0-4)

ADVANCED
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS™

™

A-Series Classic Adventure Compilation

By David Cook, Allen Hammack,
Harold Johnson, Tom Moldvay,

Lawrence Schick, and Skip Williams

FOREWORD A0 TABLE OF CONTENTS

By Skip Williams A0: Danger at Darkshelf Quarry.............................. 5

My involvement with the classic A-series adventures goes further A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity ............................... 29
back than I care to think about. In the late 1970s, I was working
at TSR on the GEN CON Game Fair. At the time, the convention A2: Secret of the Slavers’ Stockade........................ 55
was going through growing pains as it moved from a gathering
for a few hundred diehards to a major event hosting thousands. A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords............ 97
To meet the growing (and near insatiable) demand for roleplaying
sessions at the show, the staff decided to expand the already popu- A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords................ 129
lar AD&D™ Open Tournament to accommodate larger teams and
to expand the tournament to a three-round elimination format. The AGAINST THE SLAVE LORDS™
initial round would be held over three days to allow more teams to A Series Classic Adventure Compilation
compete. Because roleplayers have a habit of talking (usually at Danger at Darkshelf Quarry—©2013 Wizards of the Coast LLC.
great length) about what happens during their adventures, the staff
also decided that multiple adventure scenarios for the initial rounds Slave Pits of the Undercity—©1980 TSR, Inc.
were necessary. From that time on, each year’s AD&D Open Tour- Secret of the Slavers’ Stockade—©1980 TSR, Inc.
nament demanded an adventure of epic length. Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords—©1981 TSR, Inc.
In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords—©1981 TSR, Inc.
The team of designers tasked with creating the AD&D Open sce-
narios for GEN CON XIII (in 1980) rose to the challenge, creating ©2013 Wizards of the Coast LLC.
four connected adventures that became classics. My first taste of This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America.
the series was Secret of the Slavers Stockade. Our group scaled the Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein
stockade walls and stole across the courtyard, immensely pleased is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
with ourselves until an ankheg ambushed us. Later in the year, hun- Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Manufactured by: Hasbro SA, Rue Emile-
dreds of gamers shared the thrills and perils of defeating (or being Boéchat 31, 2800 Delémont, CH. Represented by Hasbro Europe, 2 Roundwood
defeated by) the Slave Lords. Ave, Stockley Park, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB11 1AZ, UK.
Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, AD&D, Wizards
A little bit more than thirty years later, I received an email from of the Coast, all other Wizards of the Coast product names, and their respective
Chris Perkins describing plans to re-release the series and wonder- logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the USA and other coun-
ing if I might want to create a prequel adventure. It was an unusual tries. All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons,
challenge. The D&D game’s more recent iterations offer plenty of living or dead, is purely coincidental. All Wizards of the Coast characters and
tools for creating challenges for players. The 1st edition AD&D their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC. 
game had much less structure, but also offered adventure design- PRINTED IN THE USA
ers great freedom to handle unusual game situations in original Cover Art by: Nick Bartoletti
ways. I jumped at the chance. First Printing: March 2013
987654321
The original A-series designers were faced with the demands of the ISBN: 978-0-7869-6462-8
AD&D Open, and they wisely decided on a set of design guide- 620A4536000001 EN
lines (so many combats flavored with a few traps) to ensure that For customer service, contact:
all the competitors had a fair shot in the tournament. The task be- U.S., Canada, Asia Pacific, & Latin America: Wizards of the Coast LLC
fore me was somewhat different: Create a campaign-friendly in- P.O. Box 707,  Renton, WA 98057-0707
troductory adventure for the series. I decided to adhere (mostly) to +1-800-324-6496
the original tournament design guidelines, both as a tribute to the www.wizards.com/customerservice
original work and to help ensure that the new material fit with the U.K., Eire, & South Africa:
old. I also wanted to work in a few tributes to the World of Grey- Wizards of the Coast LLC, c/o Hasbro UK Ltd.
hawk™ and to the AD&D game in general. That effort brought forth P.O. Box 43, Newport, NP19 4YD, UK
the half-orc Brubgrok, the chief villain in the piece (the original Tel: +08457 12 55 99
Monster Manual ® says “orcs are fecund and create many cross- Email: [email protected]
breeds”), the temple in the quarry’s depths (guess which deity is All other countries: Wizards of the Coast p/a Hasbro Belgium NV/SA
represented there), and other tidbits I’ll leave for you to find. Industrialaan 1, 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium
Tel: +32.70.233.277
—Skip Williams, 2013 Email: [email protected]

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FOREWORD A1 FOREWORD A2

By David “Zeb” Cook By Harold Johnson

In the early days of TSR, we were still feeling things out, learning How did this happen? I was hired by TSR as the youngest employ-
what we could and couldn’t do. It was in a previous GEN CON ee. Now, somehow, I am the venerable old guard. I’m not old! I’m
Game Fair that we had heard murmurs that the AD&D tournament one of you! Like all gamers, I’m lost in that limbo of teenage fasci-
needed some work. We hadn’t realized until then how much the nation with games of all types. So where do I start?
tournament could be, should be, a showcase event. The players
who came to Wisconsin deserved a deliberately crafted experi- I once ran a game for the TSR design staff where I deprived them of
ence, something that could show TSR and AD&D in the best pos- their treasured items and set them in a minotaur’s maze to survive
sible way. with just their wits and anything they could scavenge therein. Imag-
ine my surprise when one Monday, Lawrence Schick announced
True, there had been tournament modules before, but we wanted we would be writing that year’s AD&D Open for the GEN CON
a great experience from beginning to end, with a story and char- Game Fair and that he had an idea for the final round, where the
acters that carried all the way through. The plan was not only to heroes would be stripped of their possessions and thrown in a dun-
create the tournaments but also to have the modules for sale on the geon. Hmmm . . . that sounded familiar to me.
convention floor the day after each round was completed. If play-
ers enjoyed their experience, it was important that they could take Our goal was to provide a model for a new type of adventure that
it home and share it with their friends. encouraged DMs to use strategy to challenge the players to think.
Up to this point, adventures presented monsters that attacked and
But that was only the start of the difficulty. Since the first round fought to the death. We wanted to show that even weak mon-
of the tournament had five sessions (starting Thursday and end- sters could be dangerous when played intelligently. Thus, we es-
ing Saturday morning), spoilers had always been a complaint. To tablished the following design goals:
be fair and challenging meant there needed to be multiple open-
ing rounds of equal difficulty. It wouldn’t do if the Friday morning 1. As the heroes rose in level, we would make the monsters weaker
round was harder than the Thursday afternoon round and both (orcs to goblins to kobolds).
were worse than the Saturday morning round. Players would com-
pare, so all things needed to be different but equal. How do differ- 2. Challenges would be created to test the ability of the players to
ent writers make sessions that were equally challenging? think and use teamwork.

After hashing as a group through setting, plots, and characters, 3. The DM should encourage the players to be creative and devel-
the solution was to create a template for each of the opening op their own solutions to the obstacles they faced; no longer would
rounds. The length of the tournament round determined the num- the DM’s solution be the only acceptable one!
ber of encounters players could be expected to complete—hence
the length of each dungeon. Sets of monsters were chosen that To provide adventures for each round, we divided the work into
were basically equal in overall challenge but different from scenar- four parts. For the sake of consistency and symmetry, we created a
io to scenario. Within each set we had main villains and their lack- list of the types of encounters each would include, then developed
eys, a showcase monster, and one brand-new monster to thwart tactics that made the monsters challenging. The level of damage
those who had memorized the Monster Manual. After that came and danger was such that one misplayed encounter could result
a set series of encounters: basic monster, basic monster with trap, in the death of a hero. Finally, to create a balanced outcome for
trick encounter, new monster, dilemma (a damage-dealing obsta- every team, pre-generated characters were provided, including a
cle that could be mitigated or avoided by clever players)—all lead- female dwarf complete with beard (finally answering the question,
ing up to the finale with the boss villains. Once the numbers and do dwarf women have beards?). I think that was Zeb’s creation.
types were set, it was just a matter of stringing everything together,
moving the players from set piece to set piece. The end result: nice, One parting note: My partner in crime on module A2 was Tom
linear, and hopefully balanced tournament rounds. Moldvay, sadly the first of us to shuffle off this mortal coil. Since a
published adventure is much bigger than a tournament, there was
Today it all sounds so simple, but back then, no one really knew a lot more that needed to be written. I spent most of my time de-
what they were getting into. signing on pads of paper. In my role as manager of editing, my
typing schedule was constantly interrupted and I fell behind sched-
—David “Zeb” Cook, 2013 ule. With the deadline looming, I needed help typing … and up
stepped Tom! His efforts were so good that it is difficult to discern
where my words stop and his words begin. Thanks, Tom! You are
greatly missed.

—Harold Johnson, 2013

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