Aeryn’s Archives: Tomb of the Blind God

I’m in a reflective mood, so let’s look back at my twenty-plus-year writing career and talk about one of my favorite projects. This is another D&D adventure, and while I wrote a fair number of those while I was working in the gaming industry, only one gave me the opportunity to meet an absolute legend of Dungeons & Dragons. So, yeah, let’s go back to a time when I was known as Aeryn “Blackdirge” Rudel (it’s a long story) and talk about Tomb of the Blind God and that time I got to meet and work with (in a small way) the great Erol Otus.

Back in the dim, misty past of 2009, while I was working for Goodman Games as a staff writer and editor, I was handed a truly awesome assignment. I was tasked with writing one of the special convention adventures that Goodman produced on the regular (and still do as far as I know). This was to be the first 4E D&D compatible convention special, and to say I was excited for the opportunity is a massive understatement. You see, not only was I getting to write a cool adventure that a ton of folks would play at conventions, that adventure would also get two awesome covers. One by the extremely talented illustrator Ben Wootten and another, special edition cover by the man, the myth, the legend, Erol freakin’ Otus. You can see the two covers above. They are, of course, hugely different in style, but I love ’em both. If you don’t know who Erol Otus is, Google it, and you’ll see his work gracing the covers and interiors of dozens of classic D&D books and adventures, like The Fiend Folio, Deities & Demigods, The D&D Basic Set, and many more.

Anyway, since I’ve always been a horror writer at heart, I knew the adventure would be inspired by my love of all things creepy and macabre, and the title popped into my head long before the plot of the adventure was even the barest hint of an idea. Tomb of the Blind God had a real old-school feel to it, which I thought was perfect for the cover treatment the adventure would receive. The adventure itself features a grell (floating tentacle monster) and it’s grimlock servants (think morlocks from The Time Machine) who are trying to wake an elder deity, the titular blind god, from it’s eons-long slumber and, as it would happen, only a band of doughty adventurers stand in their way. Clearly, the adventure draws on a lot of Lovecraftian themes, but it’s primary gimmick is darkness, or more specifically, blindness. The tomb forces the PCs to essentially fight in the dark, nullifying their light sources while enhancing the “eyeless sight” of their enemies. Yeah, kind of a dick move, but fun to write and a blast to play. 🙂

When the adventure was released, most conventions received the Ben Wootten cover, but two specific conventions, KublaCon and DunDraCon, received the special Erol Otus edition. Even better, since both conventions were in California, and not far from where I was living at the time, I was sent to run the adventure at DunDraCon (it might have been KublaCon, but my memory is a little fuzzy). Even, uh, more better, was that Erol Otus and I would sign copies of the adventure at the Goodman Games booth at the convention. Now, I have ZERO illusions that anyone that showed up at the booth for our signatures was even remotely interested in mine, but I don’t care, I got to spend an hour or so talking with Erol Otus about the early days of D&D and working at TSR and all that jazz. It remains one of my fondest memories from my time as game designer. (I also scored a couple of signed copies of the adventure for myself.)

One other thing of note, Tomb of the Blind God, along with the the D&D Dark Sun gameday adventure The Lost Cistern of Aravek, remain the only two things I’ve written that have any kind of collector value. I’ve seen Tomb of the Blind God with the Erol Otus cover go for a couple hundred bucks on Ebay, you know, because it’s such an awesome adventure, not because it’s a limited edition special signed by a D&D legend. 😉

Since the adventure was a convention special for a system that’s not well-supported, Tomb of the Blind God is essentially out of print. That said, you can still find print copies with the Ben Wootten cover at tons of online retailers for under twenty bucks. The Erol Otus cover is out there, too, though its considerably more expensive, especially if it’s been signed by Erol.

My sincere apologies to Goodman Games if I’ve misremembered any of the details here, but I think I got most of it, uh, mostly right.