Tomb of Horrors is an adventure module written by Gary Gygax for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role-playing game. It was originally written for and used at the 1975 Origins 1 convention. Gygax designed the adventure both to challenge the skill of expert players in his own campaign and to test players who boasted of having mighty player characters able to best any challenge. The module, coded S1, was the first in the S-series, or special series of modules. Several versions of the adventure have been published, the first in 1978, and the most recent, for the fifth edition of D&D, in 2017 as one of the included adventures in Tales from the Yawning Portal. The module also served as the basis for a novel published in 2002. The module has influenced later Dungeons & Dragons products, and was followed by three other (unrelated) modules in the S-series: S2 White Plume Mountain, S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
Plot summary
Tomb of Horrors takes place in the World of Greyhawk, a D&D campaign setting. In Tomb of Horrors, the player characters encounter many perilous tricks and traps while trying to get into the crypt of a wizard. As the scenario begins, the players are told that the evil wizard Acererak is said to linger in his ancient tomb in undead form. Originally a powerful lich, he has (unbeknownst to the players) become a demi-lich, a more powerful form of undead that has transcended the need for any physical body apart from its skull. Player characters must survive the deadly traps in the tomb and fight their way into the demi-lich's elaborately concealed inner sanctum to destroy him.
The module is divided into thirty-three encounters, beginning with two false entrances to the tomb, and ending with "The Crypt of Acererak the Demi-Lich". Example encounters are the "Huge Pit Filled with 200 Spikes" (section 20), or encounter 22, "The Cavern of Gold and Silver Mists": "The mists are silvery and shot through with delicate streamers of golden color. Vision extends only 6'. There is a dim aura of good if detected for. Those who step into the mist must save versus poison or become idiots until they can breathe the clean air above ground under the warm sun." The module ends with the destruction of Acererak without any postscript.
Publication history
thumb|right|alt=A man in his late sixties. He has a beard, glasses, and is wearing a Hawaiian shirt.|Author [[Gary Gygax in 2007 at the GenCon game convention]]
Tomb of Horrors was written by Gary Gygax for official D&D tournament play at the 1975 Origins 1 convention. Gygax developed the adventure from an idea by Alan Lucien, one of his original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) playtesters, "and I admit to chuckling evilly as I did so." Gygax designed the Tomb of Horrors modules for two related purposes. First, Gygax explains, "There were several very expert players in my campaign, and this was meant as yet another challenge to their skill—and the persistence of their theretofore-invincible characters. Specifically, I had in mind foiling Rob Kuntz's PC , Robilar, and Ernie Gygax's PC, Tenser." Second, so that he was "ready for those fans [players] who boasted of having mighty PCs able to best any challenge offered by the AD&D game."
Tomb of Horrors was revised in late 1977 to be published as a module for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The module included a twenty-page book, a twelve-page book, and an outer folder; the original printing featured a two-color cover. Tomb of Horrors was republished in 1981 as a 32-page booklet with identical text but a new, full-color cover. and was included as part of the Realms of Horror abridged compilation produced in 1987.
In 1998, the module was reprinted as part of the Return to the Tomb of Horrors module—a substantial expansion and sequel to the original adventure, written for 2nd Edition AD&D rules. Wizards of the Coast released an updated version of the original module as a free download for Halloween 2005, retaining much of the original content; the updated content is from the Dungeons & Dragons supplement book Libris Mortis. This updated version was designed for use with the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition rules. Tomb of Horrors was also adapted into a novel of the same name by Keith Francis Strohm for the Greyhawk Classics series published by Wizards of the Coast in 2002.
In July 2010, Wizards of the Coast released two adventures bearing the Tomb of Horrors name. One is a hardcover super-adventure written by Ari Marmell and Scott Fitzgerald Gray, which builds on and expands the legend of the original Tomb using the canon of Return to the Tomb of Horrors as a starting point. The second Tomb of Horrors is a conversion and update of the original module for 4th Edition rules, written by Scott Fitzgerald Gray and released to members of the RPGA as part of the DM Rewards program.
All four modules of the S-series were included as part of the Dungeons of Dread hardcover adventure collection, released on March 19, 2013. Lawrence Schick wrote in the foreword: "The dungeon of the demi-lich Acererak was, for Gary, a kind of thought experiment: If an undead sorcerer really wanted to keep his tomb from being plundered by greedy adventurers, how would he do it? The answer, of course, was to defend the crypt with tricks and traps designed not to challenge the intruders but to kill them dead. And furthermore, to do it in ways so horrific that all but the most determined party would give up and leave well enough alone."
In April 2013, Wizards published Tomb of Horrors in Dungeon Adventures issue 213. This version was revised to use the upcoming D&D Next rules, later renamed 5th Edition.
In 2017, Wizards re-released Tomb of Horrors updated to 5th Edition rules as part of the Tales from the Yawning Portal collection. The game design and the background of the third part of the Tomb of Annihilation campaign is based on the Tomb of Horrors.
2018 special edition of the book Art and Arcana contained a bonus pamphlet of the "original 1975 tournament module" previously unpublished.
As part of Extra Life 2019, Wizards of the Coast released Infernal Machine Rebuild, a time-hopping adventure that allows characters to travel back to the Tomb of Horrors during its construction.