C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
This article or section is about something oldschool - and awesome. Make sure your rose-tinted glasses are on nice and tight, and prepare for a lovely walk down nostalgia lane. |
The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is the first in the C series, for Competition or maybe Convention. Harold Johnson and Jeff Leason composed this in 1979, for fifth-to-seventh level AD&D players at the Origins Expo, as "Lost Tamoachan: The Hidden Shrine of Lubaatum". TSR republished it in 1980 with that "C1" code and simplifying the name.
The party explores a jungle, with a step-pyramid in it. We're looking at central-Mesoamerican-influenced Maya ruins: like Yax Mutal / "Tikal" after Spear Thrower Owl took it over, or maybe postclassic Chichen Itza. It got lots of traps showing much influence from old-school treasure-hunting pulp. Note: all this, before Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981.
C1 got a second update in that Raiders year which firmly placed this as a Greyhawk affair, in the Amedio. The people who built all this are the Olmans. This version has been deemed a classic, despite (what reviewers dinged as) a counterintuitive sorting of chambers.
It was then updated a THIRD time for the Savage Tide adventure path. "The Sea Wyvern's Wake", Dungeon #141 (December 2006). And once more, 2017, in 5e Tales from the Yawning Portal.