RPG Retro Review: Tower of Zenopus

Let's go back to 1977 and take a look at the sample dungeon champion of the world, 'The Tower of Zenopus' from the Holmes Basic Set of Dungeons and Dragons.
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[@paulprecour3636]

Ah yes, 1978. The year that graph paper started disappearing at an alarming rate from the Science/Math storage closets in High Schools across the Country for some mysterious and unforeseen reason.

[@denofearthundertheeverlast5138]

Spoken like a true Rogue with a lock pick set.

[@captcorajus]

My affinity for the magic of graph paper began with this dungeon. The 2nd level of Zenopus's lair was the very first dungeon I ever self created.

[@brooksrownd2275]

I used to visit Nelson's Office Supply at the mall regularly to purchase large format and extra-fine ruled graph papers.

[@WMTPromoter]

Truth be told I still use graph paper to this day to write down notes. Guess I got used to it! -_-

[@RPGmodsFan]

LOL, Guilty as charged. :-)

[@Argonova]

This was the box set that introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons as a child. It's been over 20+ years since I even glanced at this module, but I still remember all of the rooms as you describe them!

[@captcorajus]

It was a charming starter Dungeon. Its a real shame that TSR/ WOTC drifted away from it.

[@DerekLippold]

I love this format where you go through the adventure describing what happens and different ways you’d run it

[@torenatkinson5708]

11:35 - finally ran this for my group. In room F I had the petrified sailors all facing the direction of the secret door, which instigated the PCs to search there, successfully. It was night, so the room was empty. They went to the snake room, where the elf put the snake to sleep and the paladin performed coup de grace - but he yelled when he did it, and so when they went up to the kitchen level of the thaumaturge tower, he and the charmed veteran were waiting, and stuck the paladin in the face. The trap door was shut and they parleyed. To be continued next session

[@RPGmodsFan]

Love your miniatures setup of the Tower of Zenopus. This Adventure was also the first Dungeon I ever DM'ed. :-)

[@captcorajus]

Thanks. This was my first DMing experience as well. I got this after Moldvey Basic came out by mistake actually. I liked the cover art better, and it said 'D&D' Basic set on it, so, i thought it was the same. lol. The good part was that none of my friends had that boxed set, and i could run the dungeon in the back which I loved. I know I've started a new campaign with this adventure at least a half a dozen times, and its always gone off very well.

[@trollson66]

The Holmes blue book was my first D&D. Took it on a week long geography high school trip (the week Pope JP2 was shot), and played the dungeon with friends, and bemused onlookers (the "girls" - mostly Susans). The highlight was the party befriending wandering Gnomes, but then physically throwing them into rooms to find out what lay beyond. We didn't know what we were doing, or how to play "properly" - but it was incredible fun, memorable, and had the girls in hysterics.

[@richmcgee434]

"...mostly Susans" That was a dang popular name in that generation wasn't it? Seemed like they were everywhere back in high school and college.

[@dr.winstonsmith]

The time before smartphones and social media. The scene you describe could probably never happen today with the onlookers of yore being consumed today by their screens. Glad I grew up back in the day.

[@torenatkinson5708]

6:24 the entrance/stairs 7:22 goblins in room A (working for the thaumaturgist?) 8:10 giant spider in room J ... plus small mimic! 9:40 sarcophagus room with rat tunnels, skeletons, floating dagger 10:20 coffins and ghouls in room P 10:50 Room B - skeletons in the niches 11:15 Gloomy Room G - with giant rats 11:25 F a thaumaturgist has charmed a fighter + petrified victims 12:06 Spiral staircase leads up to trap door plus giant snake! An angry ape is further up 12:47 D the nexus... a demon statue pointing to the characters...a puzzle 13:20 H - a river runs through it 13:30 L a giant crab 13:45 I - a sundial and a bronze mask "I'll answer questions, one no more, I'll not speak til it be four" 15:07 a series of caves ...pirates and smugglers. Lamunda the Lovely, a potential ally. Plus a giant octopus

[@captcorajus]

Oh wow! very nice, thank you!

[@WMTPromoter]

My first DnD session I encountered was one I sat in on was in 1979: White Plume Mountain. My first book I read shortly after was the Greyhawk supplement (published in 1975). Shortly after I was able to get my hands on my first work - the famous blue box basic set. In it was the Tower of Zenopus - meaning my first module I read from a semi-DM perspective was this one. My first adventure I went through? What else? B1 - In Search of the Unknown. (I still remember Quasqueton fondly after all these years.) So this is a treat to revisit. ^^

[@demcrusher7086]

You have all the best toys cap!!

[@andrewhaldenby4949]

Going to run this for a player new to rpgs next week

[@swirvinbirds1971]

A new upload by Seth and the Captain tonight.... Watching the Captain 1st. 😎

[@captcorajus]

Oo, cool, I'm running over to Seth's channel! lol

[@stephenclements6158]

I just ran my group through an adaptation of this, and it proved a serious challenge. The way I played up the spider from NPC descriptions and flavor text of the room had them TERRIFIED of the thing. All told, they probably spent a full hour strategizing about how to fight the thing, and in the end it got away through an air tunnel I put in the roof. In the tombs, I put the ancient skeletons of lizard people and cat people that definitely added an impenetrable mystery that my players enjoyed as they tried to divine why these different people were buried together and what civilization they came from. In an empty room near the wizard's statue room, I placed a mirrored trap chamber where if a PC entered, the door would slam shut and the sound of cicadas would herald the arrival of Zargon! The monster would grab the PC and pull them through the mirror to a volcanic hellscape and there flay them until they hit 1 HP, and then drop them back into the room, where the party (if they had been trying to save their friend in the locked room) would have 1 last chance to rescue the tortured soul before Zargon could claim them forever!

[@tomknapp6194]

This was my first introduction to Dnd. It didn't come with dice, but numbered chits that needed to be cut up and put in a cup. To get a random number, we would blindly pick one out. I hated that so much and felt so relieve when we got our first set of dice.

[@namelessjedi2242]

I didn’t start with the Holmes Basic set but I have come to appreciate the sample dungeon. It’s truly the best little dungeon map published. So much variety all within a few pages. Great layout too.

[@SirMillz]

I ran through this as a solo play without a DM. I always roll for wandering monsters and treasure on the rooms labeled E and for wandering monsters in unlabeled corridors.

[@russellharrell2747]

So many wizards have names beginning with Z or X, it might be a tradition to change ones’ name on becoming an apprentice.

[@briancool7557]

And then there was...Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python's Holy Grail

[@danielramsey6141]

Holy Crap! Your on a roll with these videos man :)

[@captcorajus]

I'm trying! :)

[@danielramsey6141]

@@captcorajus Yes you are sir. And we Thank you for that :)

[@mlfetlesjdrenbref1306]

Bravo Cap! Awesome stuff as usual. Thanks you for the fine work you are doing and keep'em coming.

[@keithdonohue4631]

Amazing! Another great video. I'm running The Ghosts of Saltmarsh, right now, and I can't wait for my players to venture outside of town and follow my clues to that mysterious ruined tower...

[@captcorajus]

Yeah, I thought that was awesome that they included that. Post back and let me know how it goes!!

[@roberttreble2690]

This has been one of your best video you have done to date. Very enjoyable!

[@captcorajus]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@TheMadRRConductor]

Hey I just saw the guy from the zenopus archives, he's finally got his 5e conversion for this now available on DMs guild.

[@captcorajus]

Yep, I got it. :)

[@toddrohrer8680]

Thanks for making this video it was my first adventure and I have meny great memories of it

[@edwardspaghetti473]

Awesome man! Love the Hirst Arts pictures with this one!

[@charlesbaker7866]

Really good stuff, thank you for making these awesome videos!

[@richmcgee434]

I could recognize the map from the thumbnail. Man, that's nostalgic.

[@Johnny_Nitro]

Love the vid Cap. Still waiting for that Dragonlance review. 👍

[@captcorajus]

lol, that's going to be awhile. But definitely happening. :)

[@AgoodITguy]

Thanks a lot, im preparing to run this dungeon in my homebrew

[@Jeremy_Fisher]

Really interesting stuff. Thanks Cap'n!

[@rickeymariu1]

I really love videos like this.

[@yvindheilo229]

Another one? Thanks a lot Captain!

[@worldbigfootcentral3933]

100th like! Love your channel, but i'm older than dirt. Not that brown dirt mind you, but the deep rich dirt thats the color of coffee grounds. In fact, there are a lot of hills that weren't around when i was a sprout, and a bunch of buildings that aren't around anymore. More people though. It's a lot easier to envision that long viewpoint of elves and dragons now though, lol. Keep up the great work!

[@captcorajus]

lol, great comment, made me chuckle. Thank you for the 100th like!!

[@toddpickens]

I don't have the original tower of this module is in, but thanks to your video channel and Zach Howard's efforts, I'm preparing to run this as the third adventure and first real dungeon crawl in an ongoing campaign. One of the things I've been looking for is what was the original suggested reason that the players are going to explore the tower and dungeon below?

[@raknai]

Interesting how we can see elements that later would be translated to videogames.

[@gommechops]

Yup, definitely lots of potential here to thread into my campaign. Might even link those pirates up to those in Saltmarsh.

[@captcorajus]

Interesting, the tower of Zenopus Ruins are in the 5E version of Saltmarsh.

[@gommechops]

@@captcorajus Oh that is funny, I tried running the original saltmarsh for my players a while back and it just failed to take off. So I have been keeping an eye out for another route in, this just seemed to have possibilities for that. It would be a slightly different reason for the party to get involved, but on the plus side it is a different groups of adventurers and half the players are new too.

[@veng3r663]

I never even heard of THIS old module before...

[@johnharrison2086]

Great review! Will there be one for the group adventure dungeon in the 1983 Red Box Set?

[@paulprecour3636]

Damn, how I do miss the magic of the 'Blue Box'. Mine didn't come with dice, just cardstock chits you had to cut out and shuffle upside down on the table.

[@WMTPromoter]

Ayup - I remember that. And it did work to be fair, but I preferred the dice method, of course. Fortunately my friends down the street had an extra set of dice for me. XD

[@captcorajus]

@@WMTPromoter Yes, I still have my boxed set, the chits remain, uncut. :)

[@manofaction1807]

Back in the day when D6- D 8 HP's were what you got. No more, no less...

[@darcyw156]

Dammit, every time you review something I want to run my players through it. The list is getting very long now. Thanks for the video, and keep it up!

[@jefffeller1446]

Hey Captain! Big fan of your show!! It’s a very well done series and I thank you for sharing your talents. I just started revisiting these old adventures myself, and sometimes I think I don’t always understand the logistics of some of these dungeons. So I thought I’d ask an expert like yourself a question I had about this Zenopus mini-module.... since the S1 room is at ground level and has an exit to the street, couldn’t characters just enter from there? And if so, how could there be anything remaining in those rooms if people have been looting the place from such an easy entrance? I’m sure I’m missing something but I’d love to hear your take on that.

[@captcorajus]

Ah, yes. This old chestnut. This is handily explained at the Zenopus Archives website maintained by the great Zach Howard, but let me summarize here for you (As briefly as I'm able. lol) What's not entirely clear is the S tower is NOT Zenopus's tower. This is new construction and the private residence of the Thurmaturgist encountered initially in room F. Theoretically, one could absolutely enter the Dungeon through S1, though as the initial entrance this seems unlikely because the PCs would not know of its existence. Later on, after the possibilities with the Thurmaturgist are exhausted, Entry to the lower dungeons from this point is not only possible but highly likely. In my own games, the PCs claimed the Magic-User's residence as theirs after his demise at their hands, using it as a base of operations for further excursions into the lower levels of the Dungeon. The example dungeon does not answer what happened to Zenopus, or what caused his demise, and that is left entirely to the imagination of the DM. The map sections to the north dead ends to the north past the rat tunnels and to the west... and most certainly there's a secret passage there that leads to the lower levels of the dungeon... where one might find: the ruins of a pre human city... maybe eldar things, or some other Lovecraftian style race, catacombs of undead, and of course Zenopus's lost experimental laboratories where the final fate of the mad wizard might be uncovered. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Game on!

[@jefffeller1446]

Thank you so much for your elaborate reply sir! I appreciate that you took my question seriously and your input and suggestions are awesome! I think my favorite thing about your videos is how you encourage DMs to embellish these modules and make them your own. Watching your channel always makes me want to play. Looking forward to more from the Captain!!

[@LailokenScathach]

Okay, how many of you shouted out "Green Flame" at 03:28? Be honest.

[@fried2styles]

Love this dungeon from long ago, but I never liked the pirates bit -- seemed out of character for fantasy. Replaced it with a giant fungus forest like on the cover of B1! LOL

[@captcorajus]

That's cool. Make it your own! But... but.. I love pirates tho... lol

[@donaldflowers8180]

Still loving your retro reviews man. Do you think you will be doing a review on Eberron? Especially with the release of the 5E campaign setting book?

[@captcorajus]

hard to say. I've never actually played in an Eberron game or run one either, though I love the mix of pulp and fantasy with it. So, I certainly am interested in it. MY schedule right now is just reviewing old TSR releases and CURRENT old school material. I haven't done a 5E review in a while, and those are popular as well, so.. as soon as i can manage to get to it,.. we'll see. :)

[@buckveazey3369]

Watching your yawning portal review and see that you're an old military man army here. Keep your head on a swivel my friend

[@tomtom7955]

whats the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery? why would 1 town have both? i noticed them on the town map...

[@s0niKu]

I never quite understood why the adventurers would enter the dungeon through the stairs down into the labyrinth when there's apparently a very good door in the tower sitting right there by the town - apparently reduced to rubble in the backstory but clearly still standing! An incredibly odd detail.

[@captcorajus]

Its a bit confusing at first, but that door is not part of Zenopus's tower. That 'tower door' is part of the Thaumaturgist's private residence in town. which is also a small tower. So.. no one would know about it until they explore the dungeon. Hope that clears it up for you.

[@s0niKu]

@@captcorajus It does, although it certainly doesn't seem to be spelled out explicitly in the book. I can't see any such explanation in my copy, but it's as good an explanation as any!

[@captcorajus]

@@s0niKu It doesn't explicitly say it in the text, which is why a lot of people get confused on that point. You're not the first person to be confused by that, and its actually a topic of discussion on Zenopus Archives. But when you realize that with the 'tower' S, S1, S2, the 'Magician' the text is referring to is the Thaumatergist from room F, it suddenly makes complete sense.

[@fried2styles]

I always thought the same thing! LOL if so, the scenario should have the PCs meet the Thaumaturgist sometime BEFORE the encounter, so it can be a surprise.

[@tomyoung8563]

lol I remember that one!

[@michaelreynolds5145]

couldn't find the blue map on the paratime site

[@captcorajus]

paratime.ca/images/fantasy/zenopus-dungeon-b.jpg

[@michaelreynolds5145]

@@captcorajus thanks so much! love your videos

[@willmistretta]

Just out of curiosity, how long do you find the typical full delve of this dungeon takes a group?

[@captcorajus]

Usually two sessions of about 4 t o 5 hours in length.

[@willmistretta]

@@captcorajus Good to know! Thanks!

[@cb-nz]

4:26 Green Dragon in, Hobbiton, Matmata? Check... I see what you did there Cap :-)

[@captcorajus]

Yes, you got it! :) Good eye!

[@davidwright7193]

I thought the green dragon was at bywater not hobbiton...

[@captcorajus]

@@davidwright7193 Well, the Green Dragon Inn for Holmes's dungeon was at Portown. However, the Green Dragon Inn was also in Hobbiton. :) The set from Lord of the Rings in New Zealand is now a movie tour, and that's the picture I used in my video. :)

[@davidwright7193]

captcorajus The boozer in hobbiton is the Ivy Bush as frequented by the Gaffer (chapter 1) the Green Dragon is at bywater a fair stagger on a dark night from hobbiton which is why it attracts a younger crowd (and the miller who we must assume lives at bywater) (chapter 2). The Golden Perch is at Stock.

[@captcorajus]

@@davidwright7193 That may be true, but I was refering to the movie set in New Zealand which has it in Hobbiton, which is where the picture in the video comes from. :)

[@majore2276]

Not sure how to contact you so forgive the public comment: Would you consider doing a review of Advanced Labyrinth Lord?

[@captcorajus]

Already have. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jnewoWqMpd1qmrM

[@majore2276]

@@captcorajus Awesome! Now get some sleep. Unless you live on the other side of the planet it was O'dark thirty when you responded. :)

[@raymondlugo9960]

I check for new content every day I love the blog so much. It's how I found this video.

[@marcusmcgill5306]

Pirates? Oh ya!

[@charlieb308]

Why would an ape be in...