Aerie 1: Slave Pits of the Undercity (1e)
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It is time to put a stop to the marauders! For years the coastal towns have been burned and looted by the forces of evil. You and your fellow adventurers have been recruited to root out and destroy the source of these raids. But beware¸ hundreds of good men and women have been taken by the slavers and have never been seen or heard from again!
This modules was originally used for the official ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Tournament at GenCon XIII and is the first of four in a series of related tournament modules from TSR.
This module contains a challenging scenario¸ the tournament scoring system plus nine pre-rolled¸ playtested tournament characters. Also included are large scale referees maps¸ notes¸ and background information. A1 is a complete adventure in itself¸ but it is also a companion to A2 (Secret of the Slavers Stockade)¸ A3 (Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords)¸ and A4 (In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords). Be sure to look for other exciting adventure modules from the Game Wizards at TSR.
A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity: It is time to put a stop to the marauders! For years the coastal towns have been burned and looted by the forces of evil. You and your fellow adventurers have been recruited to root out and destroy the source of these raids-as hundreds of good men and women have been taken by the slavers and have never been seen or heard from again!
Note: If you are looking for a print version of this book there is a collected version of the series available here:
A0-A4: Against the Slave Lords (1e)
Product History
A1: "Slave Pits of the Under City" (1980)¸ by David "Zeb" Cook is the first of the "A" Slave Lords adventures. It was published in October 1980.
About the Module Code. Why "A"? Lawrence Schick explains that "S" for Slave Lords was taken (by the "Special" adventures)¸ as was "T" for Tournament (by the "Temple" adventures). So instead they picked "A" for "Aerie of the Slave Lords"... which also ensured the these modules would always be listed first.
About the Artwork. Jeff Dee drew some of the covers and interiors for the "A" Slave Lords series. Though his originals were long ago destroyed¸ he's run kickstarters in recent years to recreate much of his original artwork.
Origins (I): A Controversial Tourney. At Gen Con XII (1979)¸ TSR was busy running "Doomkeep"¸ the Second Official AD&D Masters Tournament¸ which was reprinted in Dragon #34 (February 1980). Robin Hostetter won that. Meanwhile¸ Len Lakofka was running "Deep Dwarven Delve"¸ which wouldn't be published for two decades¸ but was finally released on D&D's 25th anniversary as L3: "Deep Dwarven Delve" (1999).
Oh¸ and there was an AD&D Tournament too¸ the first AD&D Open¸ and therefore the father of the D&D Championship Series that ran through 2013. It was an impressive event¸ supporting 324 players. But¸ no one talks about that particular AD&D tournament much. That's probably because the tournament¸ run by an outside party¸ was pummeled by heavy criticism at the time. The main problems seems to be that it was too high level to support easy tournament play. It even involved a battle against Orcus!
Given the first Open's problems¸ TSR came to the conclusion that the tournament hadn't been "up to par" so they decided to write the AD&D Open Tournament for Gen Con XIII (1980) themselves.
Origins (II): A Team Tournament. TSR's 1980 Open Tournament was planned as a three-round tournament. It was also planned as "the largest single AD&D tournament yet staged"¸ supporting over 800 players. This required that play be spread out over multiple days¸ which caused a problem: early players of the tournament's firs