The Lost City provides both story-based adventures and a sand-box setting. It includes foreshadowing, humour, opportunities for pitting competing factions within The Lost City, kooky NPCs, a Big Bad End Guy, tricks and traps, and hooks for additional adventures.
B4, The Lost City, along with B1, In Search Of The Unknown, and B2, Keep On The Borderlands, are excellent examples of good adventure design.
I've come across several people recently that have said they aren't big Holloway fans. I have always found his work very compelling and he was one of my favorite 1e era artists. I really liked his mix of humor and verisimilitude. Thanks for the art show case.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Roger Raupp's work. Great clean style. Always got a kick out of his renderings of sneaky up to no good halflings.
ReplyDeleteAlthough not fantastic art work, and in many ways child-like, it still conjures up all the right feelings and atmosphere of those early days of D&D. Indeed, some of the latter AD&D rules books used photographs of folks dressed as (insert fantasy character here), and had it touched up in Photoshop, or whatever, in order to make it look like a life-like illustration/painting - which I loathed and detested, as I felt it totally detracted from what D&D was about: the imagination, and as such, sketches and paintings served perfectly well in keeping with folks' mental imagery.
ReplyDeleteLong live the black & white/colour illustrations of old - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Great post topic, btw :)
The scorch mark on the other side of the door, that is so stolen. I will find a way to utilize that.
ReplyDeleteNice gallery; it's fun to see them all lined up that way. The dwarf with the axe seems to be in at least four pics.
ReplyDeleteThe mind-flayer-esque compass rose is by Stephen Sullivan ("SDS").
The back cover is by Harry Quinn, who also did several front covers from that time period - I2 Tomb of the Lizard King, O1 The Gem & The Staff, and X4 Master of the Desert Nomads.
I've read that the setting for this module was inspired by the Conan story Xuthal of the Dusk (aka The Slithering Shadow). I read the story recently and agree.
ReplyDeleteI always attributed the inspiration for B4 The Lost City to the Conan story, Red Nails, insofar as having disparate factions warring within the ruins of a forgotten city.
ReplyDeleteI think this was first separate purchase after the Moldvay Basic Box. I know it is my personal favorite module of all time.
ReplyDeleteGreat artwork, and one of my favorite adventures!
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