A while back I found online a picture of the "missing" L3 - Deep Dwarven Delve module that was included with the 1999 TSR Silver Anniversary box. The illustration was made by Wayne Reynolds, and it features three adventurers fighting a naga, and the fighter looks suspiciously close to Pathfinder's iconic fighter, Valeros, don't you think?
Not at all, bar that he's a human fighter, he looks more like the Dungeon paladin, and even then thats tenuous.
Thanks for the new pic though, always trying to find more Wayne Reynolds!
Now that you mention it, yes, he does look more like Dungeon's paladin.
Man, WAR draws the best action-oriented illustrations! :-)
Here, here! :D
And he's gotten way better!
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From http://www.delversdungeon.dragonsfoot.org/Reviews/tsr_silver_anniversary_co llector.htm:
I'll get L3 out of the way first by saying simply this: anyone who's done a little bit of research about the version of Deep Dwarven Delve included in the TSR Silver Anniversary Boxed Set knows that the "module" is an insult to its author. When TSR went trolling for some new hook to get old gamers to purchase the set with, they contacted Len Lakofka after his notes for Deep Dwarven Delve were found at TSR's Lake Geneva offices. He corresponded with TSR authors, cleaned up his notes, went through a lengthy editing and Q&A process for the module, mailed it back to TSR who promptly lost the manuscript in its entirety. That's right. A genuine First Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons adventure penned by the author who brought us L1 The Secret of Bone Hill and L2 The Assassins' Knot was lost by that pack of bungling incompetents at TSR.
Rather than start anew, TSR simply threw together the few notes they didn't manage to lose, and issued them with horribly substandard maps and bindings. The module at a glance appears like an AD&D 1st Edition product - but even a cursory inspection shows the falsehood. The cover of the module is stapled on, for starters. The back outside plate of the module is blank - no artwork, no TSR product list, nothing. The interior font, while adhering to Century Gothic, is oversized; additionally the margins and spacing are all wrong. Furthermore, the artwork inside is obviously an attempt to recapture the feel of David A. Trampier, D.C. Sutherland III, David S. Laforce et. al., but it comes off as a poor imitation. All of that is of course secondary to the fact that the content itself is incorrect but it adds insult to injury. An ingratiating editorial from Peter Adkinson in the "History of TSR" booklet gushes about how the module is the same but different and is designed not to evoke memories of old modules played but to be a new experience and I couldn't even be bothered to waste more time reading his thinly veiled excuse for letting the mistake that L3 became occur. I can only hope that Len Lakofka got due recompense for the work he did, whether Wizards of the Coast or TSR used it or not.
Mortika continues to teach me.
Hey, CM, do you know the author? What happened to his copy of the adventure?
A while back I found online a picture of the "missing" L3 - Deep Dwarven Delve module that was included with the 1999 TSR Silver Anniversary box. The illustration was made by Wayne Reynolds, and it features three adventurers fighting a naga, and the fighter looks suspiciously close to Pathfinder's iconic fighter, Valeros, don't you think?
Does that female wizard have very pale blonde hair?
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I don't; I only met Len once, in passing, a very long time ago. And I was merely quoting something I found instructive, if obviously biased, on the Web.
It seems odd to me that a professional like Len would have sent back his manuscript in the late 90's without making a copy. Either electronic or hard copy. That's just College Student 101.
Thanks, looks like he's being interviewed over on Grognardia.
A friend of mine has the PDF for this and the Wayne Reynolds artwork (he did all the interior Illustrations) inside is pretty cool too. ( A Dwarf Zombie, the three heroes fighting some sort of scorpion tailed troll, the heroes fighting an armored behemoth of some sort, a dwarf cleric with hammer, and a B&W version of the cover).
Don't know how the adventure is, have to see if I can borrow it.