Kellri's 18 Module Challenge - Day 12: "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" by Rutgers University Gamers

Day 12 - A Module From My Youth:  "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" by Rutgers University Gamers

I'm kind of cheating again in today's entry, since "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" isn't a commonly-known or published module, but it's still near and dear to my heart, so I'm writing about it anyway!:

Origins IX 1985 convention program event listing for TotDQ

The actual event we played featured a slightly different description in the 1984 Northeaster 2 convention booklet:

Event - 19.  RUG Treasure of the Dragon Queen

A fortnight of silence is all that is left of your predecessors who set off across the river to find and secure the fabled treasure. Now you must complete the quest before the forces of darkness subjugating the region stumble across it. For God only knows what horrors would be unleashed on the world in their hands in this FRP event.

Why I Love "Treasure of the Dragon Queen"

"Treasure of the Dragon Queen" is my white whale:  my monomaniacal quest to find and recreate the perfect adventure from my youth!  

The original pre-registration event description appears at the top of the page, and the original background sheet (preserved with my brother Phil's pregen PC attached!) appears below:

If that adventure description doesn't get your blood roiling for adventure, then nothing will!  I have a lot more detail about "Treasures of the Dragon Queen" on my site, where I describe what I recall about the maps, the factions in the adventure, the environs where we adventured, etc.

The pregens PCs were higher-level characters, and were quite well-equipped!  I believe it was after attending this event that our players at home began to demand to purchase grappling hooks, and manufactured their own continual light gems (or coins, for the paupers in the parties ;) ).  

The pregen PC sheets themselves are also interesting:  they were blown-up photocopies of a filled-out 1978 DEL Enterprises Fantasy Role Playing Card, a generic PC sheet:

Turpin Masewelder, LG Human Male Cleric 9

DEL Enterprises 1978 Fantasy Role Playing Card

I will eventually get around to re-creating Treasure of the Dragon Queen based on my memories of it (but I'm still not giving up hope of finding a copy, either!).

Three Runners Up

• A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity by Dave Cook (TSR, 1980):  the first module I bought on my own, and the launching point for the Slavers series; I remember running this for my brothers and friends more than once, and doing so in both tournament and campaign modes (we always liked campaign mode better, since there was more treasure to be looted! ;) ).
• "Chagmat" by Larry DiTillio (TSR, July 1982 in Dragon Magazine #63):  this adventure was published in one of the first two issues of Dragon Magazine that I bought (the other was #58, and contained "In the Bag" by John Eric Holmes).  It featured the strange spidery title-creatures in a cavernous mountain dungeon spanning three levels (one of caverns, two of the upper and lower levels of the temple).  I remember playing the one-armed fighter NPC, and the forlorn inhabitants in the town of Byr, but I think that I changed the name of Little Boy Mountain to something more evilly-apt.  (Oddly, I also bought another spider-themed module at Northeaster #3 or #4, Mercury Games' Lair of the Spider Mother, and it seemed to me at the time that way too many adventures focused on spiders!)
• D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth by Gary Gygax (TSR, 1981):  I remember my friend Mike Barber running these adventures, and the epic battles we had, including with Asberides and oodles of trolls and troglodytes while drow sniped at us from the sidelines, and us screwing around in the Kuo-Toan Shrine, setting off alarms, and battling monitors and hoards of gogglers!  I also recall trying to recruit with group of svirneblin to join our crusade against the drow (I don't think we were successful, or they wanted more money than we would pay, or something), and negotiating passage across the Svartjet with Thoopshib and him attacking our PCs, and being ambushed by a large group of jermlaine (who seemed like they should have been far less effective against the G-D pregens than they were at the time ;) ). 

 

My other posts in Kellri's 18 Day Module Challenge:

1. Day 11: S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth by Gary Gygax
2. Day 10:  Return of the Eight by Roger E. Moore
3. Day 9: Pavis and Big Rubble by Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin, Oliver Dickinson, & Diverse Hands 
4. Day 8: Angmar, Land of the Witch King by Heike Kubasch 
5. Day 7: X2 Castle Amber by Tom Moldvay
6. Day 6: DMG Monastery Dungeon by Gary Gygax
7. Day 5: S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks by Gary Gygax
8. Day 4: "Deep Shit" by Jeff Barber
   
9. Day 3: A Fabled City of Brass by Anthony Huso
10. Day 2: Masks of Nyarlathotep by Larry DiTillio
11. Day 1: Empire of the Ghouls by Wolfgang Baur
12. Day 0: These are a Few of My Favorite Things...