Anyway, day 11 and our final lair:
This lair is the largest lair, and occupies the entire west section of the map, but only connects to one other - the Gnolls at J - which it almost entwines. It also abut the Hobgoblins (F), and enfolds parts of The Shunned Lair (G) and the Minotaur (I), which makes it (like J) more tricky to spot as a separate lair on the map.
Note that the entrance here, like with the Gnolls and the Bugbears, has a passage directly infront of it - but at a lower level. I think this shows that Gary put a reasonable amount of thought into drawing this map to make it consistent. I'd love to see the original to see how much it was changed by whoever drew the published version (uncredited).
I'd like to fix the wideness of the large corridor when it goes narrower when it's a diagonal - I've done this for other diagonal corridors on the map. This is a common problem on maps drawn on squared paper - but all you need is to make them 50% wider and it works. This needs planning as it would encroach upon the lair of the Minotaur.
On this map in particular I think that the simple traditional "S" for a secret door is much clearer and thus suitable for play than the version on Dyson's map. Similarly I've just drawn boulders filling the corridor which is simple but I think effective.
I've omitted the shape on the west wall in the Shrine - to me it confused the map and it's just supposed to indicate that the wall is made of a special stone. Like the original I've not drawn in the pews on the south wall - in general furniture is omitted - but this means the resultant offset of the shrine remains unexplained.
I have drawn the screen hiding the secret door in #59 though, and I think this is a mistake and I'll remove it.
I think the lair would have benefited from a hidden connection to another lair, but a less contentious change is to give it a more portentous opening. The text describes the "worn path through the copse of obscenely twisted and oddly bloated trees" but this is not marked on the map. I should add some notes to the map for the entrance marking the sense of lurking evil, deathly still corridor, faint groaning, shrill piping, and the black/red stonework. I like the various different types of cavern entrances illustrated in The Forbidden Caverns of Archaia, and might upgrade the entrance to something like the elaborate carved Archway illustrated there on page 41.
My players got the sense of foreboding and knew to be careful here so handled the Wight (oil + flaming torch) and Medusa (using a mirror) well. The Medusa encounter has a bad rep - but note that she has a vial with which she will bargain (in bad faith) to turn people from stone to flesh - so uncautious & unlucky adventurers have a way out. The amulets of protection from turning on the other hand do seem to me to be a poor feature - it's similar to how he filled the Tomb of Horrors with "secret doors only detectable by magic" - like he regretted allowing things in the rules. For a starter adventure he should have confidence in the rules and just presented the undead as is - so I think I would limit the amulets to the undead guard patrol (to make them more special), and I'd make it clearer that there is one group of guards which as a DM you could track. For example, they could patrol the corridor slowly starting at a random position in a random direction.
As I've said before I prefer oddities on a map to have a reason, and there are two odd 10' square alcoves on the map. I'd turn this into a way of improving the otherwise potentially inexplicable gelatinous cube at #63 (where did it come from?). I'd say it it would be lying in wait at one of the two alcoves at random, and when it sensed movement (the players) it would move randomly to (roll d6):
1. outside #64
2. bottom of stairs
3. outside #60
4. outside #62
5. outside #63
6. simply moves to the other alcove
After an hour it would simply return to the other alcove.
Thus we come to the end of the last lair. Tomorrow I'll give the combined Caves of Chaos map.
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