The Best Dungeons & Dragons Modules
As promised, here's my top-20 list of Dungeons and Dragons adventures. I don't like Dungeon Magazine's top-30 list, so I'm setting the record straight. And I can't tell you how much of a treat it's been to dust off the covers of these gold nuggets and relive the fun and horrors of my gaming years. This is powerful stuff and makes me wish I had time to take up the hobby again. I know there are role-players who follow this blog, including biblioblogger Chris Heard, so I encourage feedback in comments -- by all means submit your own lists of favorites.
(1) Tomb of Horrors. Gary Gygax, 1978. (For levels 10-14) The mother of all killer dungeons, and everyone loves her, even victims who insist otherwise. It gave DMs a license to be ridiculously unfair and players the okay to be masochistically thrilled by impossible challenges. You almost have to embrace the futility of going against the demi-lich -- provided you can reach that point, which is highly unlikely. Multi-layered traps and demonic snares are in play everywhere, and some of the rooms have acquired mythic status: The Forsaken Prison, The Chapel of Evil, The False Crypt, The Chamber of Hopelessness... I get chills thinking of them and the disturbing illustrations provided in the special booklet. No other dungeon has called forth the level of commentary that continues to this day, ranging from the outraged to the venomous to the heapingly sarcastic (my favorite is the cover parody carrying the label "For Advanced Sadists & Masochists"), but what's interesting is that the only reason Tomb of Horrors even exists is because players were complaining that the game was getting too easy. It's hard to imagine how D&D would have evolved if not for those complaints, but there's no question that Gygax is remembered for his response to them, this module, more than any other. When he died in 2008, it was even suggested as a tribute to start a fund for a mausoleum based on the tomb's layout, and I can't imagine a more appropriate honor. Rest now in thy glory, noble initiator; thy punishing work is established.
(2) The Lost City. Tom Moldvay, 1982. (For levels 1-3) A close second on my list, and I could almost award it the top slot for being a beginner's module. It's hard to come up with exciting low-level adventures, but The Lost City is so inspired that I never resented the fact that the city itself leaves much for the DM to develop; I bought into the pyramid so much that the rest flowed without thinking. The module in many ways epitomizes what the Golden Age of D&D had to offer: pulp fantasy at its purest, depicting an ancient underground civilization that's been corrupted by a Cthulhu-like deity monster. Three renegade factions adhere to the old gods, but they don't like each other, and are capable of using the players as pawns. The revolving passage on the third tier of the pyramid is one of my favorite dungeon features, and the personalities of the cult leaders, their costume attire and masks, are spot on, meshing perfectly with the decadent civilization aspect. The influence of Howard's Red Nails is often talked about, and the hallucinogenic drug-addicted devotees of Zargon are exactly the sorts Conan would find himself going against. I'll never forget my friend's reaction when his characters confronted the high priest beside the underground lake, and I had the fanatic cast an earthquake spell. (I think he thought I was as psychotic as the priest.) There is endless potential in The Lost City for follow-up adventures, and at one point I harbored ambitions to develop an entire series out of it.
(3) Castle Amber. Tom Moldvay, 1981. (For levels 3-6) Another Moldvay treasure, but in this one I was the player. The Amber family are a lot like a warped version of Tolkien's elves: "The Ambers live magically lengthened lives, but they have seen too much and are bored. They seek anything to relive this boredom." Equally amused by the success or deaths of anyone working against them (for "a good spectacle" is more important than victory or defeat), their chaotic indifference disturbs more than the evil of traditional foes. No other module on this list boasts so many colorful and psychotic characters: the librarian Charles who buried his sister Madeline alive; the soul of Princess Catherine waiting to possess someone; the evil priest Simon; Madam Camilla who is itching to tell fortunes. Also, no other module offers so much with such effortless economy. First, there's the castle itself, with two large wings, an indoor forest, and a chapel, and not a room is wasted; second comes a challenging dungeon with well planned surprises, ending at a magical gateway to -; third, the old home of the Ambers on an alternate prime material plane resembling medieval France, where the players must acquire four artifacts to return to - ; fourth, the tomb of Stephen Amber himself, where lies the means to break the curse of the castle. Moldvay hit a home run like he did with The Lost City, and I would probably call Castle Amber the most rewarding D&D adventure I ever experienced as a player.
(4) Return to the Tomb of Horrors. Bruce Cordell, 1998. (For levels 13-16) Possibly the only decent module produced in the late '90s, and better than decent, incredibly, a superior sequel to the original killer classic. But I'd feel guilty awarding it the top slot (even putting it in the top three) since it rides the success of what came before. Even Gary Gygax heaped praise on it; it's nothing like the other "Return to's" that plagued the Dark Age of D&D. It turns out that the original tomb prefaced a deeper threat, and the demi-lich skull was a decoy (an amusing insult to any characters who actually succeeded in killing the thing), for in fact Acerack constructed his tomb not so much to kill people but to challenge them -- to winnow out the very best for his purposes in becoming a god. Over the centuries he's been storing the souls of powerful (i.e. high level) characters in a special artifact, so that when he harvests enough of them, he can actually become the Negative Material Plane and invest it with his consciousness. The stakes are as high as they get, and the players are out to save the prime material worlds from disaster: they revisit the tomb and go to other nasty places before penetrating, finally, The Fortress of Conclusion -- a dungeon bordering the Negative Material Plane, with each room a death zone making the original tomb look tame, and the real Acerack waiting at the end. It's insane, pure insane, and gives lie to the recommended 4-8 characters between 13-16th level. 8-12 characters between 18-22nd level is more like it.
(5) The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga. Roger Moore, 1984; Lisa Smedman, 1995. (For levels 7-20) I'm sorry to say this, but any top-30, or top-20, or even top-10 list that doesn't include Baba Yaga is instantly disqualified -- which pretty much means every list out there. I don't know if it's because it was officially published in The Dark Age of D&D that it gets overlooked, but Roger Moore's original version came a decade earlier, in Dragon magazine #83. Both versions are excellent, and while I believe Moore's is superior, I can't fail to mention the wonderfully perverse trap from Smedman's in which players walk into their own intestines and can be digested by themselves. The hut is basically a TARDIS for fantasy instead of science-fiction, meaning that its interior is huge and dimensionally folded to allow seemingly impossible interconnections. There are 48 rooms, some as big as palace halls, built around a four-dimensional tesseract structure (think of eight cubes joined together along their faces), and a lot of twisted ingenuity went into populating them. The '95 version revolves around a dramatic plot of Baba Yaga in control of daylight and darkness on any world she visits in her quest for immortality, but I prefer the more primal backdrop in the '84 version, which simply involves the old crone terrorizing country-sides, kidnapping and eating people. I love the fact that Baba Yaga will never harm children, the weak, and low (1st)-level characters, not out of sympathy (she's evil to the core), but out of superstitious fear of being cursed for attacking the helpless. The Dancing Hut is punishing, ruthless, and one hell of a rollercoaster ride.
(6) Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Gary Gygax, 1980. (For levels 8-12) Robots and laser guns come to D&D. There are some who decry any injection of science fiction into fantasy, and I tend to be like that myself, but when done occasionally, and when the sci-fic elements are treated as completely alien, it can work. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks works wonders. I could go on about the mileage I got out of this module, especially as a player in taking over the crashed ship -- by acquiring the color-coded cards that key open restricted areas and give one authority over the robots. It's essentially about fantasy characters going wild with their fantasies of super technology, and the stunning visual aids help tremendously on this point. The uniquely designed blaster pistols, blaster rifles, laser pistols, laser rifles, needle guns, paralysis guns, various grenades, and powered armor are etched in my mind forever, and you pretty much need a lot of this stuff to have any hope in taking on the alien forces infesting the ship. Provided you can figure out how to use them: there are flow-charts determining this, and high intelligence scores are much advised to guard against shooting oneself. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks represents a clash of genres which should be emulated perhaps once a decade; when done right, the result kicks ass.
(7) The Keep on the Borderlands. Gary Gygax, 1979. (For levels 1-3) Pure classic, this is the module DMs and players cut their teeth on back in the Golden Age, when it came packaged in the introductory boxed set. Everyone played the Caves of Chaos, and there's something fundamentally "D&D'ish" about a castle on the edge of civilization providing a base to launch forays into a network of lairs populated by various humanoids -- orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, gnolls, bugbears, even an owl bear and ogre, and an evil priest with a pet medusa to boot. By later standards (the Silver Age and beyond), the Caves of Chaos appear rather artificial, in that there is no story behind the caves' inhabitants, no over-arching motivations behind the priest in the evil shrine... they're all just there, sitting in their rooms, as if obligingly awaiting D&D adventurers who want to fight them, take their treasure, and gain experience points. But these were the days when DMs didn't need a pre-packaged story to sell an adventure; they took the initiative to develop their own backstories and let them develop organically, by accommodating unpredictable players who could actually decide what they wanted to do without playing into some pre-determined arc. In this sense, the Caves of Chaos remain a quintessential example of why people played D&D: to go into dungeons, roll the dice, and let the chips fall where they may. 
(8) Beyond the Crystal Cave. Dave Browne, Tom Kirby & Graeme Morris, 1983. (For levels 4-7) Sinfully underrated, even unheard of in some circles. I can't believe it's not on more favorites lists, though I confess it feeds my particular Tolkien fetishisms. Porpherio's Garden is the closest thing TSR ever came to Lothlorien: an enchanted domain that never sees winter, where time passes 700 times more slowly on the inside, and where an attitude of hacking and slaying will get you swiftly killed. This module was a milestone for me in showing the full potentials of role-playing that leans on verbal skills and crafty intelligence. The plot centers around a pair of aristocratic lovers who apparently got lost in the garden, haven't been seen in years, and the players are hired to find them and get them out. The problem is that the lovers have drunk from a fountain that makes them want to stay forever, and nothing, short of using force or a wish, will persuade them to leave, forcing questions about the ethics of trying to finish the job. Druids will feel like they're in heaven, as they automatically gain a level in the garden, and will naturally bond with the resident wildlife (satyrs, centaurs, unicorns, etc.). Warriors are a bit useless, and mages will be frustrated to find that many of their spells (especially fire related) won't work. And since a day inside the garden translates to two years outside, time is of the essence... or the players will be returning to a much different world. Beyond the Crystal Cave teaches some serious humility and deserves more recognition than it gets.
(9) Ravenloft. Tracy and Laura Hickman, 1983. (For levels 5-7) The middle of '83 is when everything changed: inferior cover designs, railroady adventures, the inception of the dreaded Silver Age. But before ruining everything with Dragonlance, the Hickmans came up with this little terror, and as much as I hate to include them on a list of favorites, there's just no denying that Ravenloft is plain awesome. In the opinion of many, in fact, it's the #1 module of all time. It's Dracula in a D&D setting and saturated with gothic menace. The premise involves an isolated community under terror, and anyone who enters the vale cannot leave: once you breathe Barovia's enchanted atmosphere, your life depends on it, and killing the vampire Strahd is the only way to dispel the fog. The castle of Ravenloft itself is superb, infested with bats, wolves, and various undead in thrall to the vampire, and the teleport trap protecting Strahd's coffin is genius (exchanging someone who passes through the crypts for the undead body of a wight who then assumes the character's attire and possessions, while the poor fool goes inside the wight's coffin; to the other players, it simply looks like the character has turned into a wight). As with Stoker's classic, there's a tragic backdrop to the vampire's story, and if the players succeed in killing him, it's a true mercy. The module makes good use of "fortune" through the gypsies of Barovia, whose card readings result in different scenarios each time the module is used. The black-and-white visuals evoke the mood perfectly. Beyond doubt, Ravenloft is the best undead adventure ever made.
(10) Ochimo: The Spirit Warrior. Jeff Grubb, 1987. (For levels 5-7) When Gary Gygax put out Oriental Adventures in '85 I was ecstatic. Here was an Eastern version of D&D with samurai (warriors), wu-jen (mages), shukenja (clerics), and ninja (assassins), all set in an alternate world copying the geography of China and Japan. Ochimo takes place on an island between the two which is being terrorized by a ghost warrior (actually four of them) in thrall to the spirit of a renegade priest. Players have quite an ordeal on their plate, between an unpleasant sea voyage, attacks by ninjas who want them to fail in their mission, and natives who are prickly about outside interference. The nice thing is that the module accommodates various avenues the players could follow upon reaching the island. There are three coastal towns being terrorized, any or all of which can be investigated in whatever order before the players amass enough clues (or even encounter one of the four Ochimo's) to head inland and search for the hidden ruins of the Opawang ("Dead Spirit King"). Once there, things kick into high gear, and there's the nasty twist of having to kill the Opawang twice, the second time involving a trip to the Dead Lands. On whole the adventure offers everything: murky politics, a primitive island community, spirits working in a concerted effort to confuse and terrorize, a lethal dungeon, a dead no-man's land –- all situated in the context of shame-based cultures where honor is a matter of life and death.
(11) Vault of the Drow. Gary Gygax. 1978. (For levels 10-14) Some modules don't age well as you get older (White Plume Mountain being my best example), while others do the opposite, and for me Vault of the Drow has appreciated in value more than any module in the history of D&D. I never got proper use out of it for two reasons. First because it falls in the worst place possible in a long series, penultimately trailing five dungeon crawls, and by this point characters are burning to get to the Abyss to which Vault of the Drow serves as a mere doorstop. The second reason feeds into the first. This is an underground city, not a dungeon, and with enough care can be mostly sidestepped by those not interested in lingering. And that's a shame, because this is a realm to be milked and savored for all its worth. The descriptive writing on display is nothing less than brilliant, and DM's who know what they're doing can serve up an incredibly haunting world where factions of dark elves plot against each other, demons and undead walk the streets, and obscene sacrifices are offered to the goddess Lolth -- all under the purple glow of phosphorescent fungi and a bizarre "moon" of shimmering amethyst. There are torture parlors, bordellos, and drug saloons, but everything is ironically civilized and disturbingly beautiful. If I were running this today I'd use it as a stand-alone, possibly with Queen of the Demonweb Pits, but nothing else. It's a module I wish I'd known how to manage better, and appreciate better, in my gaming years. Now I get chills just reading it. In that sense, it's a lot like another classic...
(12) The Village of Hommlet. Gary Gygax, 1979. (For levels 1-3) At first blush this is just a village serving as a base for an expedition to an evil temple described in another module. But there's nothing "just" about anything by Gary Gygax, and I can understand why people like James Maliszewski and Joe Bloch rhapsodize about Hommlet to no end. Says Maliszewski: "There's something powerful about this perfect set-up for a new campaign. I share with Tolkien the conception of history as a 'long defeat' and The Village of Hommlet touches on that theme obliquely -- the notion that each generation must stare Evil in the face and bar the way of its advance, even if it's ultimately just a holding action, for Evil can never truly be defeated in this life." And Bloch thinks it's literally the best D&D module of all time. I love it too, though it's one of three on this list that I never got a chance to DM or play. There's something about a Gary Gygax module that's so richly subterranean even when focused on the mundane; Hommlet wouldn't carry a fifth of its effect had it been penned by anyone else. Few beginner's level modules have such enduring value (there are five on this list, and for my money, that's about all of them), and I wish I'd gotten around to actually using this one so I could have reaped the enjoyments first hand. It's certainly superior to what was supposed to be a mighty sequel, The Temple of Elemental Evil, which frankly left me cold.
(13) The Ghost Tower of Inverness. Allen Hammack, 1980. (For levels 5-7) If there's an award to be given for "most difficult and frustrating module that I enjoyed as a player", Ghost Tower of Inverness would win hands down. (Tomb of Horrors is in a class all by itself, and I never got to suffer through it as a player anyway.) It's a horror house of trapped puzzles and formidable beasts, with an emphasis on the former, and if you're not quick at solving them you haven't a chance. The warning at the start is quite apt: "the tower is designed for experienced players, and the mistake of equating experienced characters with experienced players should be avoided". Obviously I wasn't as experienced as I thought, because I was duly shafted, one of my characters killed, and obtuse enough that the DM had to offer some helpful steering at one point so I could at least have a chance. Considering my other hobbies at the time, I should have been able to do a lot better on the chess floor (where each player must move like a particular piece or take heavy damage), and given my intimate familiarity as a DM with the punishing surprises that come at the end of dungeons, you'd think I'd have taken a less cavalier attitude in the room of the soul-gem. But this was fun despite all frustrations, and I also thrilled to the premise of my characters being forced to retrieve the soul-gem to atone for crimes they didn't even commit.
(14) The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Harold Johnson & Jeff Leason, 1980. (For levels 5-7) The format copies Tomb of Horrors to a tee, as if the authors wanted to come up with the same kind of thing for lower level characters who at least stand a chance. Players stumble on an abandoned shrine in the middle of nowhere, loaded with traps, light on treasure, and with few but formidable monsters (including a vampire). It's a great dungeon that tests the players' mettle around every corner, in memorable rooms like The Chapel of the Feathered Servant (one player fights an imaginary foe while the others are forced by a winged serpent to solve a puzzle), the Hall of the Smoking Mirrors (look into them if you dare), and the Hidden Room of the Alter-Ego (a statue duplicates the looks of one of the players and comes to life while that player turns to stone). The visual aids are splendid, and again in the same design as those in Tomb of Horrors, though with clear Central & Southern American features that give a distinctly exotic vibe -- it even puts one in mind of an Indiana Jones adventure. A quintessential example of a module from the Golden Age: there's no pre-packaged story; the dungeon itself is the exclusive platform on which the players (and DM) can build their own story, and as such it can be inserted into almost any wilderness campaign; most importantly, every room counts and contains the unexpected.
(15) Aesirhamar. Roger Moore, 1984. (For levels 9-16) Did I have a blast with this one. Published in Dragon magazine #90, it takes place on the outer plane of Gladsheim, and has the Norse gods recruiting high level mortals to do their dirty work whilst Odin is MIA. The plot centers around a war hammer as deadly as Thor's Mjolnir, created by a couple of mischievous dwarves for a nasty-tempered giant bent on personal revenge, but I upped the ante by working this into an apocalyptic context. The hammer, if not destroyed or returned to the forces of good, would usher in Ragnarok, and Loki himself gets involved with the players. I don't think my friend appreciated the innovations -- and I know his mage thought twice about remaining a follower of Odin after this -- but it was roaring fun, and I believe the only outer plane adventure I ever ran that wasn't situated in evil regions like the Hells, Hades, or the Abyss. Moore supplemented his adventure with two additional articles about Gladsheim, one of which mapped out places like Asgard and Jotunheim, and detailed various things that were invaluable to running a scenario like this. Aesirhamar was a pure gift, for the Norse pantheon has always been my favorite, and the moral compass of its plane (chaotic neutral with good tendencies), is "the" alignment I have found most compelling. 
(16) The Isle of Dread. David Cook & Tom Moldvay, 1980. (For levels 3-7) Of all entries on this list, The Isle of Dread is an anomaly in the sense I hardly remember anything about it as a DM or player, only that it was endless fun. Rereading it today I can see why. Players basically sail off to a tropical island to go treasure hunting, and how things unfold depends entirely on where they choose to go exploring. There are King Kong homages, notably the village of Tanaroa, and plenty of prehistoric creatures, not to mention pirates waiting to pounce near the coast. The high point is a ruined temple controlled by amphibious mind-controlling creatures, much of it submerged -- and this is the part I remember most, especially the underwater corridor with the black pearl. The Isle of Dread is probably the least plot-driven adventure I can think of, a module that could only have been produced in the Golden Age, and that's quite a good thing. I don't recall ever running into the dragon turtle displayed on the front cover, and that's also a good thing: they're a bit beyond the combat reach of 3rd-7th level characters.
(17) The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Dave Browne & Don Turnbull, 1981. (For levels 1-3) The haunted house that's not haunted is a classic like The Keep on the Borderlands though you'd almost think it was for a different game. The text emphasizes over and again that it's a thinking players' module, and for beginner levels I suppose that's true, though to my mind a thinking players' module is more like Beyond the Crystal Cave or Death of an Arch-Mage. Granted the smoke and mirrors, there are enough encounters lurking around corners and behind doors for the battle ready, and players ultimately become policemen when they find out that smugglers, not ghosts, reside on the cliff. It's the build up to that realization that makes Saltmarsh so exciting. DM's can instill a lot of fear if they know what they're doing, and keep players believing the supernatural is at large with the blinking lights, ghastly shrieks, and nauseating carrion. On top of this, the assassin plant in the upstairs bedroom has loads of potential, and if used subtlely, can really sow confusion or even discord among the players. The second half of the adventure is more straightforward: the jig is up, the players board the smugglers' ship, and discover lizard men involved with the plot. Truthfully, I was disappointed with the sequel modules (Danger at Dunwater and The Final Enemy), but the end game against the smugglers on their own ship in Saltmarsh manages to exploit some effective claustrophobic tension. 
(18) Death of an Arch-Mage. Michael Selinker, 1986. (For levels 7-9) Some modules demand experienced players, and others demand experienced DM's; this is definitely one of the latter. A murder mystery from Dragon #111, and far superior to the well-known Assassin's Knot, it emphasizes suspense and detail every step of the way. Players are trapped in a house where they guested overnight and must solve the mystery of their host's death. The cast (the other guests) are a colorful bunch, including the head of the assassin's guild, a politician, a foreign mage, and all have murky agendas; nothing is as it seems. The beauty (but extreme difficulty for the DM) is that game time passes as real time, and a strict four-hour time table must be kept and checked against the plotline on which something specific happens in the house every 5-10 minutes between 8:00 AM-12:00 PM. More than any module I know of, Death of an Arch-Mage presents a paradox of abundance vs. conservation of detail which is summarized at the start: "The DM must have at his fingertips every detail the characters will never receive." Everything depends on which rooms the players investigate at what time, and when various clues are found. Meaning, of course, that there's no telling how things will play out. This is basically Clue for D&D, and with careful prep work it can be mightily rewarding, but I recommend it only for the most experienced DM's. 
(19) Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Gary Gygax. 1980. (For levels 10-14) Rated #1 on Dungeon's top-30 list, this is the module that gave us license to kill deities. There was a huge debate back in the day whether or not this should be permissible, but it was rather silly: gods are given statistics (armor class, hit points, etc.) implicitly for this possibility. It was a phantom menace anyway, because deities are so powerfully resourceful that (in the hands of a competent DM) they're effectively invincible. But I did run this for characters who succeeded against the odds in killing Lolth. Her low (for a deity) 66 hit points are what ultimately did her in, despite the near invincible shielding of a -10 armor class, her ability to heal herself three times/day, and the formidable traps, silence spells, animating statues, and mirror voids she has strategically placed in all the rooms she can flee to in her spider ship. About which, incidentally, I've always had mixed feelings. There's something too sci-fic about it, though of course one should thrill to unexpected weirdness in outer planes like the Abyss. Still, this would have placed much higher on my list if it had been given a more "abysmal" domain fitting the queen of spiders (labyrinthine caverns, heavy doses of webbing, more horror atmosphere, etc.), and against popular opinion sits below its brilliant prequel Vault of the Drow. But quibbling aside, this is an adrenaline rush which pits players against a demigoddess on her home ground. Succeed or fail, they'll sweat blood and tears every step of the way.
(20) Palace of the Silver Princess. Tom Moldvay & Jean Wells, 1981. (For levels 1-3) This one fondly plays off The Silmarillion's tale of Melian: a group of dwarves give a priceless jewel to a beautiful monarch, with calamitous results. Players are out to retrieve the gem or destroy it, depending on which version of the module is used, and this brings us to the infamous controversy. The green version (credited to both Moldvay and Wells) became the official one after the orange copies were instantly recalled and destroyed, ostensibly because of sloppy design, actually because of "risque" artwork. Only a tight-ass prude would have problems with this stuff, and you can read all about it here, which is both amusing and pathetic. With that business out of the way, I'm divided on which version is better overall. The orange version gets my vote for the premise: the gem is just a gem (though priceless) and the mysterious dragonrider is evil; his red dragon devastates the palace and surrounding lands with fire, and he succeeds in corrupting the princess; they are both now dead and their ghosts haunt the palace and guard the gem.
In the green version, the gem itself is evil, a magical artifact inflicting the countryside with a sickening blight, and the dragonrider is decent; his silver dragon, if rescued, is capable of destroying the gem with his frost breath; he and the princess are still alive and trapped inside the gem, which must be destroyed to free them and break the curse of blight. The former is the better scenario for its tragedy. I'm not sure why Moldvay saw the need to "improve" on Wells with the "evil must be vanquished" theme. Whatever happened to players being motivated for sheer adventure's sake, especially at the low levels when they're broke and treasure is all the incentive needed? In a context like this, the higher stakes bring the story down and even come across as cliche. On the other hand, the green version has the better fleshed out dungeon, and better design, with more fearsome creatures populating it. That's a way of saying that I would DM Palace by taking the best from both versions... and naturally make sure that players get to savor the hermaphroditic and sadomasochistic images of the orange. Really.
* The Blinding Claw of Torremor. Loren Rosson, 1984, 2005. (For levels 14-18) And here's a bonus cheat, by yours truly. To date I've not run this terrifying module, and I'm not sure I ever will; but I'm immensely proud of it. My original intent as a teen was to inflict players with the most frightening thing conceivable, and the scariest thing to me was The Exorcist. So I designed a village whose inhabitants had incurred the wrath of Pazuzu, and who was now exacting his revenge through possession and vile torment of its children. It was rough around the edges and showed my adolescence as a writer –- but it was damn scary, enough that I didn't want to run it. Much later in the '90s I polished it up a bit, but it wasn't until '05, when for various reasons I was heavily revisiting D&D, that I expanded on my village scenario with two additional parts. The village exorcism (at least two, preferably three, lawful good clerics are required for this adventure) leads to a nearby Church of Osiris which, strangely, sits on top of a buried temple of Pazuzu. (The Exorcist: The Beginning, '04, was horrible, but it did have a couple good ideas for gaming purposes.)
Shrewd players who discover the temple may also (if they're very shrewd) find the hidden gate to Pazuzu's domain: Torremor, the 503rd layer of the Abyss. Here they ascend the Lord's Rook and face the near impossible challenge of destroying The Blinding Claw, Pazuzu's throne that has astounding powers including that which allows him to plane shift at will, and thus easily terrorize victims on the Prime Material Plane. This last part of the adventure was especially fun to design, especially Lord's Rook (which I gave eight tiers), but it's merciless and devastating, and benevolent DM's may wish to stop the adventure at the end of part II. Pazuzu is as terrifying by D&D standards as he is in The Exorcist. Unlike other demons who constantly scheme and war against each other, Pazuzu's ambitions are more simple, but effectively more brutal: "Innocence, purity, and honesty are sweet enough nectars to harvest. Pazuzu seeks out the noble paladin, the laughing child, and the toiling honest peasant. They are his vineyard. He takes from them what makes them strong, and excretes cruelty back into their shells.
Corruption of the spirit is Pazuzu's finest addiction." When I read that description in Dragon Magazine (#329, March '05, p 60), I knew this played right into my original vision back in the '80s based on Friedkin's film. And players should have no illusions of destroying Pazuzu; exorcising him on the Prime Material Plane is one thing (and a task that stands a good chance of killing one or more characters, just as it killed two priests in the movie), but the son of a bitch has 364 hit points on his home plane, he can create locust swarms at will, call lightning storms, turn flesh to stone, dish out symbols of fear and death, cast blasphemy, and breathe acid fog; in close quarters, his sword of anarchic speed does mega-damage at 4 attacks/round; and of course he can plane shift at will (via his throne) if things go badly for him. Players will need more than enough prayers trying to destroy The Blinding Claw.So that's my pick list. I should, however, doff my cap to the following...
Honorable Mentions: The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb (a Tomb of Horrors style adventure from Dungeon Magazine, though not as impossible), White Plume Mountain (adored this as a kid, but it hasn't aged well for me), The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun (some parts of this are genuinely terrifying), Swords of the Daimyo (the first Oriental adventures module), and Dwellers of the Forbidden City (great setting involving snake priests, but somehow feels less than the sum of its parts).
Dishonorable Mentions: Dragonlance (the series that killed D&D's soul, by railroading players into pre-set storylines set in artificial worlds), The Temple of Elemental Evil (a very delayed and disappointing sequel to The Village of Hommlet).
posted by Loren Rosson III @ 9/21/2011
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