The Tomb of Horrors: Deadliest D&D Dungeon Ever? | D&D Walkthroughs

in the far reaches of the world under a lost and lonely hill lies the sinister tomb of Horrors this labyrinth in crypt is filled with terrible traps strange and ferocious monsters rich in magical treasures and some are within rest the evil deme latch hello and welcome to DM it all a new show where we talk about D&D and other tabletop gaming books the idea behind the show is that Dungeons & Dragons it's already kind of a niche hobby and most people who do play it haven't read every book because that might be literally impossible it's decade's worth of material so we'll be exploring these old books to learn some history and maybe gain some inspiration our topic for today is an adventure called Tomb of Horrors and even though we just said the premise of the show's to discuss obscure books the tomb of Horrors is actually a well known book by the D&D community but even if people might know the name they might not know why it's so infamous so what is the actual plot for this adventure well as the pitch suggests it's about a tomb filled with treasures a tomb owned by a demi lich so if you know D&D or modern fantasy you might know that the lich is a spooky scary skeleton mage but you might not know what a demi lich is and a demi-wedge might not be what you expect but that's the only bit of real entry to the plot what's a demi lich otherwise the whole dungeon is just a murder hobo scenario the party just wants to read this guy's tomb for treasure and experience points the fact that he's an evil lich is kind of a technicality probably so the party doesn't feel too bad for taking its stuff the book is famous for two reasons that are very connected one it was written by Gary Gygax one of the co-creators of dungeons dragons and two it's known as the hardest dungeon in D&D history the tomb became so famous among D&D players that it got reprints and sequels in almost every edition of D&D it even got some pop-culture permeation through the book ready player one that book essentially uses the tomb for 80s nostalgia but the module itself dates back even further in D&D history the tomb was created for the original edition of dungeons of dragons from 1974 GOG acts and his gaming table had been playtesting the D&D rules for a while and they were looking for a new type of challenge and that's what this dungeon is Gygax intros this book by pitching it as a thinking man's dungeon he says people who like hacking and slashing will probably not be happy with it basically this is meant to be a slow and methodical dungeon focus more on traps than fighting it was something different and the whole point is to subvert what players would expect to see in a dungeon the tomb once first shown to the public in 1975 during the origins one wargaming convention that was only a year after D&D was first publicly released and it helped cement the old-school table dynamic because of dungeons like this one players developed an adversarial relationship with the dungeon masters the DM was the end and he had to kill the players meanwhile the players had to find ways to break the DMS campaign so if I ever seemed like some dungeons or DMS wanted to kill your character it's because they actually did before we start this dungeon for real we want to give a spoiler warning we're not going to cover every room of this dungeon and we're not going to give all the details but we are going to give away a lot of big twists and turns if you're a player just looking for an adventure recommendation you can jump ahead to the time shown here for our final thoughts anyway now we enter spoiler territory and probably death territory to start off it doesn't matter how the party hears about the tomb or who they are all that matters is that they are dumb enough to seek it out then they will find out under a low flat Hill with large rock formations if the party looks at the hill from above they'll see an array of objects that look like a skull at least it looks like a skull according to the book jack-o'-lantern seems to be more accurate does to even find the entrance to the tomb the party has to start digging through the sand that's blocking it which is a good warning sign for anyone expecting a fast-paced action-packed adventure the book recommends the players use a ten-foot pole to break up the sand probably because a ten-foot pole is a good idea in general characters poking everything with a pole became a cliche back in the old days mostly because of dungeons like this one this was way back before modern D&D and before we had fancy doohickeys we now take for granted things like the passive perception checks and reflex saving throws here you usually had a 1 in 6 chance to notice a trap before it killed you and that was only if you were actively looking for poking the traps with the pole has a foreign 6 chance of revealing them which still isn't perfect but an old-school D&D you took what you could get it's also important where the party starts taking two because there are two fake entrances both of these entrances feature a long corridor with doors at the end if the player opens these doors they'll find nothing but blank walls behind them the party bear get used to this feeling of disappointment because the fake doors are a trademark of this dungeon they are scattered throughout the tomb and a lot of them have traps waiting upon them like bees do the trap in the first fake entrance causes the ceiling to collapse on the part the trap in the other entrance will make the walls close in to trap or crush the party it depends on how fast they are if the party survives these two fake entrances learn the most important lesson in this dungeon never open any obvious doors always look for the secret doors the only exception is a door later on that looks like a fake door but actually as a secret door behind it and yes that actually does happen the actual entrance to this tomb is a long hallway with mosaic decorations on the wall these decorations depict perfectly normal stuff like a library and open field a wizard's workroom a torture chamber and pig people and dog people - again totally normal stuff on the floor of this corridor is a long and winding path of red tile also on the floor are many many spike pit traps poisoned spike pit traps in fact if that already seems like overkill to you then you should also know that poison back then was an insta-kill effect players do get a saving throw to resist the poison and thank God for that especially because there are very few traps in this dungeon they're generous enough to offer that save or die is the best you can expect in this tomb and no the red tiles on the ground have nothing to do with these pit traps it doesn't matter if the party avoids the tiles or walks on them they'll trigger the traps regardless these are the instances where the player lives or die by their use of the ten-foot pole if the party survives long enough to reach the end of the hallway they'll see this face if you know the tomb of you'll probably know this face you might not know what it does but you might have seen it pop up in random references to this dungeon or several times in this video it's basically the logo for the Tomb of Horrors but back then no one knew anything about it all they saw was a goofy green devil face with a giant gaping mouth and all they could see inside was perfect blackness some people stuck their hands into this mouth to feel around and others tried crawling inside that's when these players learned that this giant mouth leads directly into a sphere of annihilation you can probably guess what a sphere of annihilation actually does based on the name it's a section of the universe where reality just stops existing and anything that touches it also stops existing forever no afterlife no chance of resurrection nada to the left of the devil face is an archway filled with thick magical mist the stones on the archway will light up with different colors as the party approaches touching the stones in the right order will cause the mist to disappear then the party can use this archway to teleport deeper into the tomb this is not the only misty archway in the dungeon but it is the only one that's actually solvable a common trope with this adventure is lulling players into a false sense of security and then changing the rules on them for example there are other green Devils in the dungeon but they teleport characters instead of annihilating them nothing in the tomb of Horrors has the same effect twice that is true for the archway as well the other archway is in this dungeon teleport the party back to the entrance but only the party not their gear all non-organic matter gets sent to the deme Lich's treasure chamber weapons and clothes included we should note that this dungeon was meant for level 10 characters so that would be 10 levels for the treasure that the party had just donated to the zoom that also means you're naked so it's going to be even harder to get that treasure back we should also note that one of our toys also gender swaps the characters for no apparent reason the Demi Lich has a sense of humor I guess so going through misty archways is a bad habit to pick up but the party doesn't seem to have many other options in the first hallway so how is the party really supposed to make progress well the best way to do that is just to stare at the floor literally staring at the floor long enough will reveal the red tiles to be runes with a hidden message did we already mention that this is a very slow and methodical dungeon anyways these runes spell out a message from the deme Lich of dis tomb his name is Asura rack and he leaves messages like this one to mock the party I know shocker of the year the owner of this tomb is a massive troll but the messages he leaves and the entrance are actually very important this is basically the hint section for the entire adventure each line refers to a different puzzle or trap in the dungeon if the party is smart they'll write this down for later reference the ax tormentor mentioned in the first line is painted on the mosaic wall the party will have to chip away at the plaster to reveal a secret door behind it the tormentor himself is cage monster the Asura AK apparently used to torture his prisoners it's kind of pointless to even mention this thing because nothing from the mosaic art shows up in this dungeon you might think it's for realism purposes it would be stupid to bury creatures alive in an underground tomb except there's a creature in the very next area here the party gets attacked by mutant forearmed gargoyle wearing a ten gem necklace it's not really clear why this creature is here or why he's looking so glamorous well at least not on a practical level on a puzzle design level it's kind of well-done later on the party will find a four-armed gargoyle statue that looks similar to this living gargoyle the statue smashes any gems the player gives it so at first this puzzle might just seem like a dick way for the DM to rob players of their treasure but if the party remembers the living gargoyles necklace and hand over all ten gems the statue will reveal a gem of true scene crusing let's the party see through illusions and secret doors so getting this is basically mandatory after the gargoyle fight the player will reach another long mosaic hallway the art on these walls depict figures holding different colors spheres eventually the party should realize that some of these spheres are illusions these illusions cover up crawl ways to other areas like a nearby secret treasure room well calling it a treasure room is kind of inaccurate it has three chests in it but only one of them has treasure and all three of them have traps the party is supposed to find a crawl way behind the black mosaic sphere to progress well to have a chance to progress the crawl way behind the black sphere is a dead end but it has a secret door inside of it the odds of finding it are 1 in 6 so it's more likely that the party will be wandering in circles for a while that might seem like a BS dungeon design but you're assuming that the party is actually supposed to finish this dungeon Hey one piece of evidence to show that this is not the case is the next secret door it is located at the bottom of a spiked pit trap another poisoned spiked pit trap you know the thing your party was avoiding until now to be fair this is actually the fortuitous fall mentioned in a sewer axe message but the party better hope they're clever enough to make this connection you see the only visible area past the spike pit is hallway built on a counterweight beam basically the floor here is kind of like a seesaw the further the player goes down the corridor the more it starts to tilt in the direction they're walking eventually the floor will tilt so much that that party will slide down the hallway then they will learn that there's a magma pit waiting for them at the other end but if the party can find the secret door at the bottom of the spike pit trap poison spike pit trap they will be rewarded by having some more secret doors and having to deal with more of this BS the next secret door is hidden in a room filled with fear gas that makes characters flee in terror but after all that comes the real reward because the party will discover a simmer axcrypt that's right the party will be in the final area a serac will rise from his gold couch in the middle of a rotting room to challenge the party a silver glowing mace is located in this room and it is the key to defeating him three hits with it and a serac withers away to nothing then the room will begin to shake and the party must flee before the room collapses if the party gets out in time the DM is recommended to close the book and say hope it wasn't too hard of a Tundra good the inside joke is that this whole boss fight was a fake everything this quote-unquote a sim Iraq was just a zombie dressed up to look like a lich you see the realest Iraq knows what doofy adventurers would expect in a boss fight and set up this little stage show around those ideas if the party accepts this ending the DM is supposed to let them to make it extra funny this is the fight depicted on the cover of the module spoilers demolicious don't look like this even the cover is trying to psych the party out if the party is too clever to fall for this ruse they will spot another secret door near the fake crypt this one basically needs the gem of true scene to notice and magic to unlock if you remember even the fake a server at fight was hidden behind a secret door the path forward and even dead ends are getting harder to find the party will eventually enter a rotted room decorated with tapestries these tapestries are actually green slime in disguise which is way less silly than it sounds well it's still a silly premise but green slime is one of the scarier D&D mod it's an instant death trap that turns anything it touches into green slime anything including characters its death isn't the right turn for it because slime characters can't even be resurrected the good news is that green slime can't move so the party is safe if they don't walk into it the bad news is that the party will have to walk into it because it's blocking the doors to the next area from there the party you have to find another secret door what a surprise or risk walking down multiple dead ends one of these dead ends is a cavern full of idiot gasps and by idiot gasps we mean it actually lowers a character is intelligence dead they literally become an idiot until they leave the tomb the creator of this idiot gasps is a siren from Greek mythology except sirens in old deity don't try to lure sailors to their deaths and are generally quite nice this siren is a prisoner of The Sitter Iraq and the party can actually recruit her to join them that is if they don't get too greedy trying to grab any of the treasured near the siren causes her to disappear it doesn't mention her again after this point so we assume she must be dead her blood is now on the party's hands the other major dead end in this area is a hallway that fills with sleeping gas a Sarah act likes his gas traps apparently and there is no way to resist this effect the party will fall asleep and then the juggernaut will enter the hallway to steamroll over the party that's actually what he does a juggernaut is a giant steamroller this thing just flattens the party into pancakes as they sleep the juggernaut isn't even a monster with stats or anything the party can fight the only thing the players can do is hope they get away in time but to make progress the party will have to find the pillared throne room here the party will see a crown and scepter sitting on the throne the scepter will serve as the key for the next few areas the party just needs to make sure that they're using the correct end of the scepter because it has a silver side on one end and a gold side on the other using the wrong end at the wrong time can lead to some pretty bad effects including you guessed it insta death and now there is no obvious way to tell which end is the correct end it's worth pointing out that the party is back then we're usually bigger and we're expected to have higher limbs which are basically mercenaries the best way to handle this scepter is probably to have the hirelings test out and said but hirelings are still human beings the party should be extra careful pushing them into too many dangerous positions because in a dungeon like this they might get a mutiny on their hands but maybe the player can win back their mercenaries by offering them some of the treasure that's right next door because the sura rex treasure room is up ahead here the player will find a coffin with a silver axe name on it and thus interacts with a corpse inside of it you see this dungeon subverts the player expectations so much that there is no actual final boss fight that is totally what's going on now the party can just take all the gold coins and leave hooray but if the party pays their henchman with this treasure they better prepare for another mutiny because this is yet another fake finale to the dungeon all the gold here is just painted over copper and the realest arakh still lurks deeper within the tomb the party and their goons will have to push one of the giant statues in this room to reveal the actual final area there the party will discover that the final treasure room is actually empty and the party has wasted their time with this dungeon but of course this isn't actually empty and you just have to applaud the sheer number of fake endings to this adventure even the actual ending is technically a fake ending if you count the sequel return to two befores to find the real final area the party will have to put a key into the center of the floor then the actual treasure room will rise up and finally reveal the good stuff but not only will the party find lots of gold they will also find a skull covered in priceless gems if the party is foolish enough to touch the skull it will come to life and steal the soul of the strongest party member you see this skull is actually a zurich and this is what demi Lich's look like demi lich isn't a status it actually means a list that is literally Demi Demi Lich's are so beyond the living form that their skull is actually all that remains of their body the soul of the Lich has left to explore other Plains at this point and only comes back when people hassle its tomb the skull actually does disengage from combat after it steals the soul but at this point it doesn't really matter if the party is worth a damn they'll keep fighting just to free their friend they'll need powerful weapons and spells to even deal any damage to the skull and Asura can insta kill a party member as a regular action the odds are not in the party's favor people defend this boss fight though is the venture once again going against players expectations they claim that the party isn't supposed to touch the skull and that they're just supposed to steal the treasure around it which kind of makes sense except players signed on to fight a demi lich some of them might be role-playing paladins devout clerics or even just generally noble warriors who want to stamp out this evil being they're not going to settle for robbing his house and leaving him alone even if the players are just murder hobos who only care about the treasure the skull has expensive gems all over it so it's almost guaranteed the party will touch the skull that makes this probably the most unfair trap in this entire dungeon but it's kind of appropriate to have the final boss be the ultimate BS trap so the tomb of 4 is one of the greatest dungeons of all time well yes if you look at it in the right context it is the greatest dungeon for a particular niche while Gygax did make this dungeon for a home group campaign that's not the way the public was introduced to it the tomb of Horus was not only one of the first D&D modules it was also one of the first tournament modules conventions like origins one used to feature actual D&D tournaments with prizes for people who finish them the official dungeon masters at these events had to kill off as many players as possible so only the best of the best could win in this tournament legacy is written all over this dungeon both in his trapped design and general philosophy but this probably isn't a good addition to a long-term campaign home games are fun because they are something players get invested in but tournament modules encourage the opposite attitude players have these competitions literally bring stacks of disposable character sheets they knew their characters were going to die because the whole point was for their characters to die if you run this dungeon in the same competition style this dungeon can lead to an enjoyable one-shot adventure otherwise your players will probably feel cheated after losing a character they worked hard on but how is the tomb of Horrors as a competition well if you're interested in traps and puzzles this book is basically made for you it is a slow dungeon though and it can be obscure at times but it probably seems more cryptic on paper than it might be in practice if your party comes in with a cautious and careful attitude that will get them half of the way there is a hundred percent possible for the party to make it to the end but victory is not guaranteed and your party needs to know that but one final question to ask is whether or not this book is worth running in newer editions and the answer to that is that the tomb of Horrors can really be used in any system the point of this dungeon is to challenge the players not the characters this was before rules outside of combat were really established so most of this experience is talking things over with your DM the simple mechanics in the simple premise helped this dungeons popularity since you don't need to know D&D to know why this module spooked people but if you're curious about whether the official fifth edition version is any good the answer there's no fifth edition characters already way more durable than this module expects players to be but that conversion nerfs the actual dungeon to most of the incident traps are easier to avoid and often aren't incident traps anymore you're probably better off with the original version and converting it yourself at least if you want the authentic tomb of experience it kind of defeats the point of the deathtrap dungeon when the transfer make very little death thank you all for watching the first episode of DM at all let us know your thoughts down in the comments is the tomb a good challenge or is it an unfair meat-grinder how many of you tried to beat the tomb and what horror stories do you have if you haven't tried the tomb would you consider it also feel free to suggest other DMT books or topics for us to do in the next video and while you're at it please leave us a like and subscribe if you're feeling generous see you all next session [Music] you

Channel: DM It All

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Keywords: Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, tabletop, pen and paper, roleplaying, d20, dice, module, adventure, D&D, Acererak, Ready Player One, fantasy, D&Dcember, Adventure Zone, Critical Role, Dice Camera Action, Video Essay, ProJared, Spoony

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Length: 23min 22sec (1402 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 06 2018