1975.7: The Inner Temple of the Golden Skeleton (Ian Livingstone)

Today's dungeon was never published at the time, nor did it have a widespread audience, so that means it doesn't truly belong in my list - but it does deserve highlighting for it is pivotal in the history of D&D. Thanks go to Kelvin Green for drawing my attention to it! The Inner Temple of the Golden Skeleton is a dungeon from 1975 by Sir Ian Livingstone. At this point no dungeons had ever been published (only sample extracts) - so the blue colouring is just a co-incidence - and the map+key was only written for Ian's own usage (so don't read too much into the lack of detail or roughly drawn map). It's importance is that it was one of the very first dungeons developed outside of the USA, with very little opportunity for it to be influenced by American dungeons, and it has a distinctly different feel to its state-side contemparies, though much about it remains a mystery:

Apologies for going quiet on the blogging front - in my investigations into the complete timeline of 1970s scenarios I uncovered a couple of sequels to dungeons in the list that date from the late 70s but were unpublished at the time, and I've been extremely busy working with their authors on getting these into a readable form for distribution. This should begin as soon as next weekend!

UPDATE - Since I wrote this blog entry, Ian Livingstone & Steve Jackon's book on the early years of Games Workshop Dice Men - The Origin Story of Games Workshop has been published which includes a high resolution image of the majority of the above map. This has allowed me to verify my reading of the blurred text, which turned out to be correct. I've updated the text below as a consequence. It also refers to a second early dungeon of Ian that he still has the map for - Sanctum of the Sixth Province. 

Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson started Games Workshop together in 1975 as a mail order company for boardgames with a newsletter, the precursor to White Dwarf, called Owl & Weasel. In issue 5 they mentioned having seen a new game being played at City University Games Club, called Dungeons & Dragons (see Tim Brannon's posts on The Other Side covering all the issues of Owl & Weasel). According to a talk of Ian's on YouTube, Gary Gygax was given a copy of Owl & Weasel, he sent them a copy of the game, and they signed an exclusive 3 year distribution deal for Europe.

In the next issue (#6, July '75) they are offering the game for sale, and Steve Jackson writes "The Workshop has now had a chance to play the game and, quite honestly are obsessed with the thing."  He gives an example of play, with Ian Livingstone as the DM, for "The Caverns of Truenor". Ian says that the map above was his first ever dungeon, apparently it originally comes from this archived interview which says he still keeps it on his desk.; I don't know for sure whether it indeed predates CoT or not (or even if CoT was a real dungeon) but we can make clear connections between the two. In the play description for CoT the DM is quoted as saying "On the corners of the walls opposite, you can see 2 signs. One is in the Universal Tongue and reads 'Beware Nixies' with an arrow pointing up the passage on the left. The other is in a strange language."

This is a big clue that CoT is indeed the same author and the same vintage as the map: marked on the map in the corridors are 1X up to 9X which are keyed at the bottom with very similar messages. Kelvin says he "would love to see a readable -- and playable! -- version." Well, I can just about read the key for the dungeon, but it is still highly mysterious. What are the cards and letters? What are the underlined numbers and letters in circles?

To start with, we need to decipher the key - I'm unsure of two words, which I've coloured red:

The Key

Room 1 tape between walls, golden scissors. If cut, cutter lose use of cutting arm. Wooden box, 20 Gold, letter, card, stone finger, 2.

Room 2 Rust monster, bottle containing (O) (M) 4 cards, 2 letters, 3 Gems, Half note

Room 3 Four silver boxes marked A, B, C, D + note on wall. 2 cards & 2 letters per box, 5.

Room 4 Room of Question, if wrong ¼ size

Room 5 Box containing necklace of strangulation, 1. 200 Gold, 4 cards, 1 letter – Goblins. 

Room 6 Illusion room – naked girl + chest of gold. When entered, girl -> Vampire. Cushion on bed – 20 Gems, 4 cards, 200 Silver, map, 8.

Room 7 Blinding light – switch on end wall – Silver ball (solid), 2 cards, 2 letters behind switch.

Room 8 Orcs playing darts, billiards, drink SLEERT (T), 300 Gold, Bowl of growth potion, useless wand.

Room 9 Casino, C&A, dice, blackjack run by evil priest who never loses. Two players will fight each other 1 will win some gold, 4 cards, 4.

Room 10 Tables, chairs, pottery “attacks”. Unmoving vase – ½ note, 4 cards, 4 letters, 200 Gold, (V).

Room 11 Statue of Giant – comes alive if chest touched – 3 cards, (Q), 4 letters (finger missing).

Room 12 Palmist “Zena”, high charges.

Room 13 Arm with +2 sword – (K) in wall, 5 cards, 7.

Room 14 Wishing well. Treasure must be thrown in, roll dice. If 5,6 thrown – giant snake emerges.

Room 15 Stone table, flask on, open – 3 skeletons – 3.

Room 16 Old man, painter- high charges, 50% lies, 10^th level EP.

Room 17 Boatman

Room 18 Nixies – (C), (D)

Room 19 Mad Hatter – 500GP, (G), (P), (W), 4 letters, 4 cards

Room 20 Pawnbroker

Room 21 Giants underwater, 500GP

Room 22 Mummy & Werewolf – book of exalted deeds, 6 cards

Room 23 Blink dogs – pit – (E), (L), 2000 Silver

Room 24 Dragon – 500GPs (F), (B) box in stomach

Room 25 Q of H Card on floor – picked up comes to life – (X), (J) on her

Room 26 Picture gallery – deathray (R) (N).

Room 27 G Skeleton -> 5000GPs 6 Rules to obey -> dead – Under GS (A), (H), (I), (S), (U)

Further, two words are written on the map: “MUD” and “ARMS” which simply indicate a muddy corridor (a trap?) and a room of (presumably) weapons and armour (or arms to grab you?)

Notes: #9 - C&A is Crown & Anchor (a dice game). #25 - Q of H by context is clearly Queen of Hearts, #16 is an old man who answers questions for money - a common concept in early dungeons - but I don't know what "10th level EP" means. Nor can I interpet what SLEERT means in room 8. 

Interpreting the key

The key is extremely terse as it was meant only for the author, but is generally understandable. For example, room 1 clearly means "A piece of tape is hangs across the room, its ends attached to opposite walls. A pair of golden scissors lie on the floor. If someone uses the scissors to cut the tape then they lose the use of their cutting arm. There is also a Wooden Box, which contains 20GP, one letter, one card, and a stone finger.".

The key is still fairly mysterious however - what are all these letters, cards etc. - but it makes more sense when you summarize the contents in a table:

Room No.	Notes	Cards	Letters	A-Z	#s
1		1	1		2
2	½	4	2	(O), (M)
3	On wall	8	8		5
4
5		4	1		1
6		4			8
7		2	2
8				(T)
9		4			4
10	½	4	4	(V)
11		3	4	(Q)
12
13		5		(K)	7
14
15					3
16
17
18				(C), (D)
19		4	4	(G), (P), (W)
20
21
22		6
23				(E), (L)
24				(F), (B)
25		Queen of Hearts		(X), (J)
26				(R), (N)
27				(A), (H), (I), (S), (U)

Here it is clear that the letters (A)-(X) all appear once. Whatever they represent, it's small enough to fit in a bottle.

The underlined numbers are 1 through 8. #6 is not in a room, but is the entrance (marked 1X)- which suggests that the solution is that they are random teleport locations - roll a dice to see where you end up, with a roll of 6 means you're back at the entrance.

There are exactly 26 "letters" scattered throughout the rooms, so these are clearly letters of the alphabet, though what significance is unclear, or whether they're related to the letters in circles. Again, they are small enough to fit in a bottle.

There are 49 "cards" plus the Queen of Hearts. They're clearly playing cards, but I don't know why 2 cards are missing - but note 2 letters were also missing.

The text "half note" in room 2 matches up with another ½ note entry in room 10 which must be the other half of the note. These may be related in some way to the note on the wall in room 3.

Further note there are three sets of stairs leading down, and two filled in squares which are likely pit traps. One presumes that the wishing well grants the wish if you don't roll a 5 or a 6.

Messages on the Wall

The messages on the wall are reasonably clear both to read and in their meaning, and add detail to some room descriptions :

1X = 6 - a teleport location

2X = SHOPS <-  -> ROOMS TO LET - shops refers to #20 the pawnbroker, and #1-#8 are the rooms to let.

3X = TEA & BUNS THIS WAY - this clarifies #19 is a Mad Hatter's tea party.

4X = GIANT’S POOL - #21 is the Giant's Pool with a Giant-sized diving board (the Giants are hiding under the water awaiting anyone foolish enough to misread the signs and dive in).

5X = ANYTHING BOUGHT AND SOLD - again refers to the pawnbroker

6X = ZENA, PALMIST AND CARD READER - room 12. It seems likely that the cards she reads are the ones you find around the dungeon.

7X = HEART’S CASINO - this gives a name to the casino in room 9

8X = THIS WAY TO INNER TEMPLE - the Inner Temple must describe room 27 (shaped like a temple, with lots of treasure), so G Skeleton must be Gold Skeleton.

9X = HEARTS ARE TRUMPS - There's a Heart's Casino, and the Queen of Hearts card is special, but I don't know if this message has special significance.

So there, that's what I can determine from the key. If anyone spots any errors or has further insight, please leave a comment.