Did I mention that I love B1 In Search of the Unknown for lots of reasons. Firstly there’s the iconic entrance, you have to walk along a straight corridor with three pairs of alcoves. The second pair has a magic mouth that warns of the dangers ahead to spook the players just a little. After that they arrive at a junction where the last party of adventurers met their inglorious fate. Stepping over the corpses the players then advance into the dungeon proper. In terms of foreshadowing this is pretty good stuff.

Next there is the lack of monster and treasure stats, this meant that I used B1 with the same group more than once, a great feature when you’re a skint kid! As our understanding of the game changed the types of threat could be changed and Quasqueton never seemed to get stale. The last time I ran it there was an organised orc tribe led by a wizard populating the place. This made for a much more interesting game with experienced players.

The Room of Pools stuck with me ever since I first read it, not an original idea but a first for D&D, it is a great reason for the party to return to that room and adds a change of pace from all that monster bashing.

The garden room was a great idea too and all the more so because of the cover art. I had a garden room in every dungeon I wrote for a looooong time afterwards.

So B1 In Search of the Unknown is great, even after 30 years!