S4 is one of the greats - a very challenging dungeon full of heavy hitting creatures. Admittedly, for the scope of this adventure, the dungeon is a bit small, but still a challenge for groups to work through. The hints at the story of Iggwilv and Drelzna are excellent for campaign and story building as well - the appendix contained many new creatures at that time. S4 is not only a great adventure, it has the pieces to turn the search for Iggwilv's horn into a small campaign - add the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun to round out the region!

I played this when I was a kid back in 1984, I think. The adventure is really good, and pretty deadly, plus our DM was very brutal so us getting to the end was a miracle. This is definitely worth a go.

I received the POD book today and am generally happy with the outcome. Two minor issues though: text on page 21 is clipped as it has been scanned too close to the edge and the scan of the Greater Caverns map appears faded and washed out making it more difficult to read compared to the scan of the Lesser Caverns map (which is perfectly readable).

Quite a slobber-knocker of an adventure! Not for the faint of heart.

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2020/11/classic-adventures-revisited-s4-lost.html

One of my all-time favorite adventures is S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

A solid two-level dungeon crawl, filled with new monsters, dangers, and the promise of great treasures. Additionally, there are rumors of an ancient witch/archmage and her battles with demons and even the threat that some of those demons are still around. There is plenty of wilderness area as well. A wide expanse with a gnome community nearby and a raging blue dragon.

With its "Booklet 2" filled with new spells, magic circles, and demons it made me think that a witch class with ritual magic could be something that would work for D&D.

There is so much great stuff in and around this adventure it is hard to know where to begin. So let's start with the adventure itself.

S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth The adventure, S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, was published back in 1982 by TSR. It was written by none other than Gary Gygax himself. It is listed as "S4" and was the last of the labeled "S series" or Special modules. This includes some of the most popular adventures ever written; S1 Tomb of Horrors, S2 White Plume Mountain, and S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

The adventure itself is comprised of two 32 page booklets. The first book is the adventure itself, which I will get into detail in a bit. The second booklet covers all sorts of new magic, monsters, and more.

Book 1: The Adventure

The adventure is of the classic sort; the rumor of treasure and a vague threat coming from an area of the map known as Iggwilv's Horn. The adventure is designed for characters level 6 to 10. I have found over the last 40 years that it can be adapted to a variety of levels, though higher levels are better. Though the original tournament adventure featured slightly lower levels. Likely due to the addition of the wilderness adventure.

The wilderness adventure is actually well put together and not the older crazy random monster encounters. The encounters make sense for the area. Among the encounters are the Hermit, and I could not help make this the same hermit from Keep on the Borderlands (also a Gygax creation) and the Blue Dragon. The Blue Dragon, in particular, became so much a hit the first time I ran this that in future runnings of this I changed the dragon to Korbundar from CM2 Death's Ride to have a reoccurring villain. A lot of adventure is packed into 12 pages.

The second part of the adventure covers the Lost Caverns themselves, which includes the Lesser and Greater caverns. This features a large variety of new monsters, some living here, some just wandering around. Even encounters such as "The Garden of One Thousand Earthly Delights" have a good (enough) reason to be there.

The final encounter is in the center of the Greater Caverns and it is not for Iggwilv's Treasure, but rather against Iggwilv's Treasure; the vampire Drelnza. She is a bit more powerful than your average vampire and she has magic to help her out. Eventually, she will succumb to heroes and the treasure will be found including the infamous Demonomicon of Iggwilv, Daoud's Wonderous Lanthorn, and the Prison of Zagig.

Book 2: Monsters and Magic

This second booklet, as I have mentioned, grabbed my attention as much as the first, if not more. Listed inside were new monsters, only some appeared in the adventure, including new demons and demon lords. There were the mysterious Xag-ya and Xeg-yi, the Derro and the awkwardly named (for the early 80s) Valley Elf. All these creatures would later be reprinted in the Monster Manual II for 1st Edition. This is fitting since the original tournament adventure introduced monsters that would become part of the first Monster Manual. There are some magic items including some wonderful artifacts mentioned above. Of these The Demonomicon of Iggwilv capture not just my imagination, but that of hundreds of others. The Demonomicon became a feature in Dragon Magazine and even a 4e book of the same name. Iggwilv went from a "long-dead archmage" to "The Mother of Witches" and the premiere demonologist in D&D. This little booklet also contains plenty of new spells.

This was classic AD&D at the end of it's 1st Golden Age.

The adventure is extremely playable and I have adapted it over the years for AD&D 2nd ed, D&D 3rd, and 5th Editions as well.

The POD book is pretty decent quality, overall, with a couple caveats.

First, the blue-printed map pages look faded, almost like the printer didn't have ~quite~ enough blue ink on board. Not a huge deal, since it is still perfectly readable, it's just less intense than the black printing.

Secondly, this is both booklets in a glued binding. I would prefer classic modules like this to be staple-bound. Not very POD, perhaps, but you have to strain the binding to read text close to a spread's middle. As a reprint, it has everything you need, it's just not nearly as convenient as the original format.

The adventure is great--I mean, there's a reason I ordered this reprint! I'm glad I did, AND I would buy another copy if it was offered in the OG format.

In total, worth the money. Expect a little fiddliness when reading it or using it at the table. Everything else, top notch.

In general, a good scan. Not great, but not horrible. One important thing to note is that page 6 of the 2nd booklet is in fact page 6 of the first booklet repeated a second time! Thus the proper page 6 of the second booklet is apparently missing. 4/5 stars.

OK module, not much else to say, got it, read it, never ran it. Fleshed out well, gaming group fell apart about the time I would have run this one. Would have liked the chance to run it though.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

I was somewhat hesitant about purchasing this item when I read the previous review of this product that "the quality of the scan is terrible." However, I found the quality to be very good and readable. There is minimal reverse side bleed-through on some of the scanned pages, but this is no different from any of the other excellent scans such as DMG, PHB, and other modules that I have purchased from RPGNow. None of the pages have been cut off or significantly tilted. The grayscale images are adequate and printable from my laser printer.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: It is a good reproduction of the module I used to own.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>