Return to the Wind Walker's Passages...

One of my favourite concept 1E modules of all time is UK6 "All that Glitters..." (or should that be "glisters" perhaps) written by Jim Bambra is a product of the short-lived UK branch of TSR  founded in 1980 that produced the often polarising Fiend Folio. It's a rare module, yet to be updated to 5E by the team at Classic Modules Revisited, and I've only managed to find one significant review to date.

Structurally the module is divided into 4 main sections:

• The Indicara Jungle
• The Wind Walker's Passages
• The Ash Mire
• The Temple of Aumata-Perion

Although originally considered setting-agnostic, in later years it's been adopted by Greyhawk enthusiasts and the Canonfire! forum whole-heartedly into the World of Greyhawk, specifically placing the Ash Mire in the southeastern reaches of the fabled Sea of Dust west of the Hellfurnaces range and fitting the Indicara jungle into the Amedio wilderness.

This is significant as it to me it links the module to the ancient Suloise civilization and it's degenerate slave inheritors, the dwur-rohoi or derro, the albino pygmies of Gygax's later Sea of Death novel.

In many ways, the adventure is a literal railroad in both plot and physical design, but somehow still manages to evoke a sense of novelty and high concept for me regardless. Although the Ash Mire is a unique environment and something I'd like to expand on, it's really the 2nd section, the Wind Walker's Passages, that most fascinates me about this module and it's the potential untold story behind the building of the tunnels themselves that have inspired me to rework the adventure in the style of the later edition Return to the... modules.

A significant amount of this blog will, therefore, be devoted to reworking this classic under the working title "All that Glisters..." aka "Return to the Wind Walker's Passages".

Note: to ease the workload of calculating stat blocks and concentrate on the concepts, I'll be designing this primarily using OSR "Old School Renaissance" rules such as Labyrinth Lord and/or OSRIC / Adventures Dark & Deep only when necessary. Although I intend to utilise more modern sensibilities at times and may make some comments for later systems this is intentional - in part to help keep to the original "feel", but mainly to avoid sinking time I don't have into lengthy calculations for PFRPG, and recognising I'm not particularly interested in learning the new 5E ruleset.