Stormcrow over at the Tombs of Horror Blog, made a pretty interesting discovery the other day. When the original Origins I Tomb of Horrors was sold on eBay, the neat sum of $1526.01 was more than the blogger could afford. The packaged included 1 cover page, 1 map page, 1 character list, 9 pages on the tomb contents and 24 pages of drawings. Fortunately, Stormcrow began to examine the pictures distributed for the auction. They were blurry, but he made out the following:
 |
| Click on image to enlarge |
Talking to Stormcrow and Grodog about this, we have become fascinated with the references to Blackmoor and the Egg of Coot. Also, as Grodog pointed out, it is interesting that the Egg of Coot was replaced by Iuz in later versions, perhaps suggesting a link between the Egg and Iuz?
The Highest Hill in the Egg of Coot, most likely means the Highest Hill in the Realm of the Egg of Coot. This would probably be somewhere in the Trolltop Peaks or the Locust Hills. The island east of Blackmoor is also interesting. Could it be a reference to the Isle of Dragons? Possibly linking the Tomb to the City of Father Dragon?
-Havard
oooooH! Isle of Dragons! nice one Havard.
ReplyDeleteAre Perrenland, Duchy of Geoff and wild coast Greyhawk references?
So this is really cool. The first two locations are in Blackmoor. Upon reflection, it seems quite possible that Alan Lucien had Blackmoor in mind as the intended/default location when he created the draft that Gygax used to "write" the module.
ReplyDeleteBear in mind that both the original Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns were on the same world, so it was possible to reach all of these locales by mundane means (or a drive from Minnesota to Wisconsin).
ReplyDeleteQuite an interesting find.
ReplyDeleteNot being very well versed in the early history of AD&D modules, what is the history of this Alan Lucien fellow?
Are Perrenland, Duchy of Geoff and wild coast Greyhawk references?
ReplyDeleteCorrect. Those are from GH. Knew you would like the Isle of Dragons reference Dan :)
Alan Lucien?
DHBoggs mentioned some Alan Lucien.
ReplyDeleteSince the C&C maps are now being made public it's now apparent that the island "100 miles east" is Maritiz
ReplyDeleteYour comment got lost in the spam filter Dan, but thanks for sharing it. Yeah that makes sense. :)
ReplyDeleteThe locations in the Tomb of Horrors tourney version make much more sense when considered in relation to the original Great Kingdom map from the Castle & Crusade Society:
ReplyDeletehttps://scontent.fmci1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/10403945_10153926108674832_2930356309643522904_o.jpg
Thanks for pointing that out Grodog! Does the Wild Coast refer to the entire east coast or just the very south part?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure, Havard---my guess is that it's the entire southern coastline to the west of the Sea of Dust, but I don't know for sure. I'll see if I can ask anyone at NTX this week who may know :D .....allan
ReplyDelete