The Analog Dungeon Podcast

The second part of G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King is notable not for fire giants, though there are plenty. It’s notable as the first chance most parties will encounter the problem behind the problem… the mysterious (and brand new to 1978) Drow! Along the way they encounter the prototypical lava-powered smithy with a very tempting magical weapon, a collection of increasingly unpleasant prison and torture rooms, and Russell plays several rounds of everyone’s new favorite game: Do You Trust That NPC? Spoiler alert: Elves are out. Centaurs are in.

The flaming finale of the G-series starts off by immediately subverting expectations. Where the previous modules chose to hide their titular leaders near the end of the book, G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King puts you face-to-shin with the big man right out of the gate! And things don’t get any easier from there. As they roam the obsidian halls, Russell and Jeramy encounter a seemingly never ending supply of fire giants, some more exotic foes come to pay their respects to the fire king, and an infamously terrible dwarf that even Gary Gygax is on record as hating.

The adventure reaches its finale as Russell and Jeramy push into the ancient mausoleum beneath the monastery and finally confront the evil lurking at the heart of B5: Horror on the Hill. And by confront, we mean potentially adopt it out to two old ladies in lieu of payment for services rendered. But before that can happen, the boys have to survive a killer king, get the lowdown on two berserker roommates, try to recruit a gelatinous cube to join the party, join the kobold lava throw Olympics, and then actually survive an encounter with the south end of a north bound red dragon.

It’s into the evil… err… chaotic monastery in part 2 of B5: Horror on the Hill and Jeramy and Russell have a classic old school dungeon crawl on their hands, packed with goblinoids, secret doors, strange cults, and a magical fountain that lets you gamble with your ability scores. As they seek the hobgoblin king, they encounter some valuable allies, including a few very good boys and a stereotypical “dwarf imprisoned to work as a blacksmith” as well as a veritable boatload of gear and treasure. It’s almost as if the module is setting the party up for some kind of massive threat at the end…

Like every great adventure, B5: Horror on the Hill starts with an old man, a boat, and the specter of crippling financial ruin. In part one, Russell and Jeramy set sail from the oddly named and poorly developed Fort Guido for a wilderness jaunt featuring killer bees, flesh eating birds, and some suspiciously generous old ladies. Along the way they try to figure out whether the hill is actually a hill at all and marvel at the possible birth of the goodberry. All the while, more and more evidence piles up that the real issue with the hill isn’t the horrors on top of it… but whatever is making all that heat and steam bubble up from below.

With the rift in the rear view, Russell and Jeramy trade their explorers’ hats for gladiator helmets in the final part of G2: The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. Grugnur’s hall might look like a page right out of Architectural Digest with its cold color theming and meticulously styled trophy rooms, but behind the design panache lies a frozen murder factory unlike anything the vaunted G series has offered before. The guys tangle with a seemingly never-ending supply of giants (and boulders) enroute to face the lord and lady of the house who are locked, loaded, and ready to defend their secrets… or escape via emergency fast food playground slide, whatever works.

The frozen fun continues in part 2 as Russell and Jeramy dive deeper into the titular Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and they aren’t the only ones! A bevy of ogres and giants chill out while hoping to hang with the Jarl provide a rainbow coalition of bad guys as the boys push ever closer to the icy lair of the Jarl himself. But it turns out humanoids are the least of their worries, as death comes in many forms: heat hungry mold, icy puddings, an overgrown death centipede, and what very well may be the very first official dragon sighting in Dungeons & Dragons. That’s assuming the party sees the dragons before they’re lunch.

Zip up your parka and strap on your snowshoes because the giants are back and this time… they’re frozen. Russell and Jeramy continue the legendary G series with G2: Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl! Gary Gygax’s 1978 frozen fortress crawl has everything you’d expect from a deadly winter wonderland: frost giants, yetis, winter wolves, and enough icy environmental hazards to make summitting Everest naked seem relaxing. Along the way, they discover that every problem in the frozen north can be solved with a really big rock and, sometimes, the actual treasure really is the friends you made along the way… mostly because the wizard just accidentally destroyed the real treasure with a fireball.

It’s a rare part 4 finale of B4: The Lost City , and the reason is clear. You see, the pyramid is just the beginning as Russell and Jeramy officially enter Cynidicea, a whole city filled with freaks and a weirdly large number of people pretending to be freaks. Not only is there an entire city to explore, but a whole damn mega-dungeon that leads right into the jaws of Zargon, a basically unkillable eldritch horror who is far from too zooted to TPK you AND all your friends. And here you thought this was a beginner module.

If you ever think your job is lame, just be thankful that you don’t have to be buried with all your coworkers like the poor subjects of King Alexander. Also… why are there so many animal people in B4: The Lost City? Russell and Jeramy investigate in part three! While we’re asking questions, here’s another one: how the hell are we supposed to get all of this loot out of here? It’s almost like the author of this module wants to keep your players here forever…

The mystery of what exactly happened to Cynidicea is officially solved in part two of B4: The Lost City, and we have good news! The eldritch horror-turn-cult figure responsible for the downfall of this particular civilization is just Zargon, the coolest dude ever, who’s vibin’ on a higher frequency and providing top quality za to his couchlocked disciples. Then the boys meet the other two factions opposing the high lord : the magically limited magi of Usamigaras and the warrior maidens of Madarua, who are just waiting to lay the smack down on your candy ass.

Tom Moldvay’s 1982 sun-bleached fever dream of a dungeon starts with Russell and Jeramy lost in the desert and ends… well… maybe never! In part one of B4: The Lost City, the boys discuss the merits of survival in D&D while trying desperately to avoid eye contact with a bevy of masked weirdos trying to build them coffins and offer them sips from the honey pot. Finally, they meet the first of the old god worshipping factions who have just one question to ask: Double-double or eternal darkness, eh?

In the final episode of Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Russell and Jeramy come face-to-shin with Chief Nosnra and 8 metric tons of his best buddies, liquored up and looking for a fight. Then they venture down into the lower level of the steading where clues to the mystery at the heart of the G series await, along with a literal army of orcs, a weird temple looking to drive you crazy, and the true horror of the module: carrion crawler coitus.

It's the party of the year and crashing it is at the top of the to-do list as Russell and Jeramy take on the title locale in part 2 of Steading of the Hill Giant Chief! Napping guards, giant rugrats, mountains of treasure, and a great hall packed to the rafters with way, WAY too many enemies present a unique challenge: face the full wrath of Gygax head on or sneak around like little sneaky sneakers and see what devious plots they can cook up?

Gary Gygax called it one of his favorite creations. Stephen Colbert has declared his love for it. Wizards of the Coast has called it the greatest D&D adventure of all time. And did we mention it's the first module TSR ever wrote and released? Russell and Jeramy tackle G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, the granddaddy of them all, to see if it (and its author) can live up to the incredible hype and, if so, what makes this adventure so freakin' great?

It’s the finale of B3: Palace of the Silver Princess and we have the ruby in hand… but this castle still has teeth! After an art gallery of doors and a teacup named Spotify , Russell and Jeramy finally come to the most infamous room in the book and, perhaps, all of D&D history: the illusion-wielding Decapus, a monster so powerful it critically hit the module itself. Just when it feels like the Palace is out of curveballs to throw, it hits you with a surprise climax no one saw coming: a BBEG who’s willing to make a deal.

Holy tonal shift Batman! Part 3 of Palace of the Silver Princess goes from poetry fragments and hat pins to Uncle Travis’ Murder Emporium faster than you can say weapon-tailed marmoset . Russell and Jeramy then head to the tower to meet its weird, alignment-obsessed alien(?) guards and the infamous three-headed, multigender Ubues, which turn out to be more wacky than salacious. It all leads up to the climactic discovery of that colossal, fortune-making ruby from the beginning of the module… which turns out to be less “dragons hoard” and more “impulse buy”.

It’s time to kick in the gate and get real weird as Russell and Jeramy charge headlong into the titular Palace of the Silver Princess! The guys accomplish a bit of a speed run, lucking into empty chamber after empty chamber, fall face first into a Rube Goldbergian pit trap, attend an impromptu gender reveal, and find the first clues as to the final resting place of the colossal ruby called My Lady’s Heart.

Deemed “too SPICY for 1980”, Russell and Jeramy dig into B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, one of the most infamous D&D modules of all time. So why did TSR print thousands of copies only to try to dump them all in the Lake Geneva landfill the next day? It’s a behind-the-scenes story with so many twists and turns it makes Real Housewives of Beverly Hills look like the Beverly Hillbillies. In their first 4 part epic, the guys tackle the controversy head on, en route to a dungeon truly unlike anything you’ve seen before.

If Russell and Jeramy thought the hard part was getting to The Forest Oracle , in part three the module takes great pains to remind them that it still has a lot of weird left in the tank. The hard won cure for the curse in hand, they head back toward The Downs, dealing with a band of bougie bugbears and the world’s cuddliest yeti only to discover the module’s climactic “twist.” Saving The Downs for REAL requires one final detour that kinda, sorta renders most of the adventure pointless. WHOOPS!