Last week, I ended with S1: Tomb of Horrors. This week, we Return to the Tomb of Horrors. This a campaign box set released at the tail end of AD&D 2E in 1998, and it is one of several products at the time that revisited classic D&D modules.

Despite my reservations about the original Tomb of Horror, Bruce Cordell works some magic to improve greatly on the original. In the last two decades, a city of evil has grown up around the tomb, seeking to aid the lich Acererak in his schemes. The first half of the campaign does great work building up the fearsome legend of the tomb while also giving PCs a good reason to explore it.

When they get up the nerve, you’re expected to run the original module (included in the box). There’s a new secret to be revealed: the Tomb is false. It is actually a gateway to the Negative Energy Plane, where the still active Acererak resides. The players must travel to his Fortress of Conclusion if they want to stop his millennia-long plan to become a god.

Return is still very hard. Characters are going to die. Probably a lot of them. Still, where S1 feels cheap and death is as much a result of mischance as it is foolhardiness, Return seems more fair, thanks to lots of clues. Its new puzzles are difficult, but there are actual solutions to them. The box is a challenge, not a meat grinder.

Like its predecessor, Return has an illustration book, which is just as good, if maybe a little better than the original. They feel helpful, rather than an extension of the traps, but I could be wrong as I’ve not run this – players always surprise you. I’m a big fan of the one-two punch of Arnie Swekel and (the late) Glen Angus here. The illustrations for the campaign book are pretty great, depicting a large adventuring group gradually getting whittled down page by page to just three characters at the end.