There’s a not so subtle homage to King Kong, where the natives worship a giant ape to whom they sacrifice victims. More dinosaurs and now dragons too (a green one on the main island, a red one on a volcanic island to the north). There are more villages, more natives, more potential for cross-cultural clashes. It was always an excellent module - like Keep on the Borderlands, it came with the boxed-set rules, and everyone played it - but the new encounter areas round it off to near perfection. The least of the six modules gets the second-best reincarnation, landing what I consider to be the quintessential wilderness sandbox. The Isle of Dread, by Chris Doyle and Tim Wadzinski, 2018. Gods only know the use I’d have gotten from this had I known of it when writing my Stranger Things novel, and for comparisons between the module and my novel, see here. The additional levels of the pyramid (6-10) are also mapped out and given detailed encounter areas.

But in the reincarnated version there’s not a stone left uncovered: the temple of Zargon, the strongholds of the old cults, the catacombs, the Isle of Death, the goblin caves (which put the Caves of Chaos to shame), the Eye of Zargon, and much more are fleshed out, and the result is an incredibly inspired sandbox where DMs can set up shop and run campaigns in the city for months upon months. Not that we resented that at all back in the day we loved the art of world-building. The original module mapped the underworld but left all of it to the DM’s development. Not only is this the best module of the six - and for that matter, the best module of all time (except for the untouchable Tomb of Horrors which doesn’t really count) - it is hands down the best reincarnation effort so far. The Lost City, by Chris Doyle and Tim Wadzinski, 2020.

The keep on the borderlands toee