19th Level

The D&D Basic Set had a spell known as "Floating Disk". It created a magical platform that would follow you around. Obviously its purpose was to provide a way to carry loot out of the dungeon - though you have to pity the poor magic-user who had that as his only spell. Congratulations, you studied magic for all those years to become a pack horse for a barbarian warrior! When I purchased the AD&D Players Handbook  thinks changed. The Floating Disk spell was changed. Now it was "Tenser's Floating Disk". And this wasn't the only named spell - you got all sorts of spells from the wizard Bigby to allow the creation of grasping hands, crushing hands, clenched fists, etc. There were spell immunity spells from Serten. It gave a glimpse of a game that was played by real people. Reading articles from The Best of Dragon Vol. 1  (which I encountered at a Brooklyn bookstore where I also purchased The Fellowship of the Ring ) I got more glimpses of Gary Gygax...

Earlier I examined some of TSR's earlier adventures which features what were essentially miniature campaign settings. They all had home bases for the adventurers, a wilderness, a decently sized dungeon, etc. Dwellers of the Forbidden City  shares some commonality with those but is also its own beast. A friend in my first D&D group lent me his copy of Dwellers of the Forbidden City.  There was one thing that grabbed my attention immediately. The map. It was a gorgeous map, portraying the titular Forbidden City in all of its glory. Moreover, unlike previous D&D adventures, this map was a 3D drawing. The Forbidden City itself lay at the bottom of a rift. Even without reading a single line of text one's imagination could not help but be stirred. To the best of my knowledge this was the first isometric map to appear in a D&D adventure - it might be the first such map to appear at all. As can be seen by the low-quality image to the right, the Forbidden City lay...