Greyhawk: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures

The third section of OD&D Supplement I: Greyhawk is only five pages in length, and mostly concerns "The Underworld" of dungeon exploration.

Additions to the "Tricks and Traps" section in OD&D vol. 3 include:

Giant bubbles which float about in the corridors and rooms of the dungeons.  The slightest touch will explode them, causing from 1 to 10 dice of damage depending on the level they are on.  These bubbles might (1 in 6) contain a gem.

Precursors to the AD&D 1e "Gas Spore" perhaps?

Vegetation which holds (grass is fine for this), entwines (vines or brambles), moves, flails branches (shrubs and trees), shouts warnings, hurls missiles (fruit, nuts, thorns), or emits perfumes which cause death, forgetfulness, sleep or the like (flowers or fruits).

Possible inspiration for "Grab Grass" (module X2), "Strangle Vine" (module X9), "Whip Weed" (originally appearing in White Dwarf #9 (Oct/Nov 1978) as the Whipper), "Killer Tree" (module X2), "Archer Bush" (module B3), or "Amber Lotus Flower" (module X2)?

Furniture which is animated to trip, confine, and smother (rugs and carpets) or move about and hug and kick (stools, chairs, divans) or blinds and throws down (tapestries and wall hangings).  (Ours is known as the "Living Room").

In 2007, Rob Kuntz, co-DM of the original "Greyhawk" campaign, released "The Living Room" as a mini-module.  You can read James Maliszewski's review, here.

"The Living Room" by Rob Kuntz (Pied Piper Publishing, 2007).  Cover illustration by Jim Holloway.

Finally, there is reference to a literary source of inspiration:

A great bas-relief face which if looked upon will either bestow some worthwhile knowledge or increase to the beholder or else cause him to save versus magic or else be turned into a wart on its face or something similar (see A. Merritt's FACE IN THE ABYSS for a good example).

Cover to 1st edition of "The Face in the Abyss" by A. Merritt (1931), downloadable at archive.org, here

Scott Gregg shared some information provided by Ernie Gygax about the great bas-relief face in the original Greyhawk campaign in a post on the Doomsday message boards, in March, 2004:

Back in the Greyhawk dungeons, Erac's Cousin and the fighter Ayelerach came upon a beautiful face that cried golden tears.  The face told the adventurers the tale of his imprisonment and the heroic deeds required to release him.  The adventurers agreed to recover The Urn of Moon Dust from a group of werebears.  Erac’s Cousin and Ayelerach successfully recovered the urn, and to complete the quest, they sprinkled the moon dust on the weeping visage.  The face was actually the demon prince of deception, Fraz-Urb'luu, who had been imprisoned by the mad arch-mage Zagyg centuries earlier. The completion of the quest resulted in his release.  When he came to his proper form the adventurers attacked the fiend to try to undo their foolishness.  The enraged demon fought back fiercely.  In desperation Erac's Cousin used a gate spell from a scroll he had and managed to gate in the god Zeus, but to their shock and horror, the god chose to ignore their plea for help.  The demon then whisked himself and the adventurers back to his own plane where strange forces there drained the magic from all the items Ayelerach and Erac's Cousin were carrying, including Erac's Cousin's prized Vorpal Blades.  Fraz-Urb'luu quickly subdued the stranded adventurers and they suffered unspeakable tortures at his hands before they eventually managed to escape.

Ernie played "Erac's Cousin", and Mark Ratner played the fighter "Ayelerach".  Gary Gygax provides further details regarding this adventure in his article "Cut to the Quick: Two is Too Many" published in Dragon #320 (June, 2004)

It's often stated that the Greyhawk supplement didn't include much information on the original "Greyhawk" campaign, but I suspect many of the "Tricks and Traps" listed may have originally been used in the dungeons beneath Greyhawk Castle.


Monstrous Tricks and Combination Monsters:

Here, we get another glimpse of the original Greyhawk Castle dungeon:

Monsters which are in endless supply due to a magical point of origin.  "Greyhawk" had a fountain on its second level which issued endless numbers of snakes.

This fountain is also mentioned in an article by Gygax in the fanzine Europa 6-8 (April, 1975), in which he provides an overview of the 13 levels of the original Greyhawk Castle dungeon.


Monster Level Tables:

The wandering monster tables are expanded, increasing to 12 rows for dungeon levels 1-3, and 20 rows for dungeon levels 4-6.*

*James Ward provided an expanded version of the table for level 4 in the article "The Wandering Monster", published in The Dragon #15 (June, 1978).  This included number appearing, spells for spell-casters, hit points, and stats for giant beetles, giant scorpions, and carnivorous apes (differing from the stats published in the AD&D 1e Monster Manual)