B3 Palace of the Silver Princess is a 32-page adventure module for Basic Dungeons & Dragons released in 1981. It contains a single adventure laid out in a format suitable for use in a convention, and includes game maps on the unattached outside cover. It is an introductory module for characters of level 1 to 3.
B3 was notable for a controversy in which the original version was almost immediately withdrawn from sale, thought to be due to quality issues and controversial art, including a caricature of Gary Gygax. It was subsequently re-issued with major edits.
Official synopsis[]
Orange cover[]
Years ago the valley was green, and animals ran free through golden fields of grain. The princess Argenta ruled over this peaceful land and the people were secure and happy. Then one day a warrior riding a red dragon appeared in the skies over the princess' castle and almost overnight the tiny kingdom fell into ruin. Now only ruins and rumors remain, and what legends there are tell of a fabulous ruby still buried somewhere within the Palace of the Silver Princess. This module is for use with the D&D Basic rules and is specially designed for beginning players and DMs. Contained within are maps of the palace and its dungeons, background information, and rumors and legends as well as many new monsters.
Green cover[]
Not long ago, the valley was green and animals ran free through golden fields of grain. The Princess Argenta ruled over this peaceful land and the people were secure and happy. Then one day, a warrior riding a white dragon appeared in the skies over the castle, and almost overnight the tiny kingdom fell into ruin. Now only ruins and rumors remain, and what legends there are tell of a fabulous treasure still buried somewhere within the Palace of the Silver Princess. This module is for use with the D&D Basic Set and is specifically designed for beginning players and DMs. Contained within are maps of the palace and its dungeons, background information, new monsters and a special preliminary adventure for novice DMs and players alike.
Plot[]
Background[]
The plot of "Palace of the Silver Princess" revolves around a country frozen in time by a strange red light. The only seemingly unaffected location and the apparent source of the glow is the royal palace. The adventurers must restore the flow of time and save the country.
Development and release[]
Development[]
The book was written by Jean Wells, with revisions in later printings by Tom Moldvay. Art was provided by Jim Holloway, David S. LaForce, Harry Quinn, Jim Roslof, Laura Roslof, Stephen D. Sullivan, Bill Willingham, and Erol Otus.
Jean Wells was hired by TSR in 1979, partly to diversify the design team to better support a growing number of female D&D players. However, Wells lacked experience in writing games rules, and TSR failed to provide sufficient mentoring or training in this field, such that much of her first year at TSR was spent on administrative tasks.[1]
Wells was eventually asked to make an introductory module suitable for teaching new players.[2] In that regard, she was most evidently inspired by introductory module B1 In Search of the Unknown (1979), with the inclusion of blank rooms which the DM is expected to fill in themselves. Later D&D adventure modules would generally not take this approach.[3] Wells expected that DMs would expand on the dungeon map presented, and included detail about the area surrounding the palace to give the dungeon context in the world.[2]
Although she was advised to use primarily existing D&D monsters for the module, Wells created several of her own invention, including the archer bushes, baric, bubbles, decapus, diger, giant marble snake, giant marmoset monkey, jupiter blood sucker, poltergeist, protectors, purple moss, and the three-headed ubue. The ubue was inspired by Wells' friend Steve, who often performed a skit where would pretend to be a three-headed creature.[2]
The character of the Silver Princess was based on Wells' character in the Society for Creative Anachronism.[4]
Internal feedback[]
Employees internally expressed concern over the module's quality. Bill Willingham believed the module was clearly a presentation of the author's private fantasies, and nicknamed the module "Phallus of the Silver Princess". He called it unprintable, and badly written. Kevin Hendryx, felt it was full of "subliminal, Freudian-level erotica". Several contributors asked to have their name removed from the credits.[4]
Creative head Lawrence Schick expressed the employees' concerns to management, but put down by an executive whose wife played mahjong with Wells. Wells was also a good friend of Gary Gygax, who instructed the designers not to interfere with Wells' creative control of her project. Top-level executives did not review the product prior to release, as this was not standard practice at TSR.[4]
Release[]
Palace of the Silver Princess was released by TSR in 1981. The original release had an orange cover, and credited to Jean Wells alone. It was notable as the first TSR module written by a female designer, although TSR would go on to publish Laura Hickman's B7 Rahasia (B7) (1984), the original version of which had previously been published by a third party in 1979.[3]
An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 copies were printed.[4]
Recall[]
The orange cover release was was recalled almost immediately; by various accounts, on the day of the product's official release, or a few days after after the staff received their preview copies. A senior TSR executive, upon reading his copy, immediately issued a recall of the product, owing to objections by management over content. TSR went so far as to retrieve staff copies from employees. Only a few copies survived, making the book extremely rare.[3]
TSR executive Will Niebling berated Wells and her editor, Ed Sollers, for including what he described as "S&M" content into an entry-level module which would have been aimed at a younger audience. Niebling may have been referring to a combat encounter with a creature known as the decapus, which used illusion to create the scene of a bound woman with torn clothes being attacked by men. Wells originally created the encounter with the intent of creating a lure for heroic characters, which the decapus would readily attack for food. The scene, depicted in artwork, had been approved by Ed Sollers and his superior, Harold Johnson, who was ultimately responsible for signing off on the product.[2]
Another possible objection was over a piece of art of the ubue, drawn by Erol Otus. The ubues were three-headed characters, who in Otus' depictions had heads of mixed genders. The heads also featured caricatures of TSR employees, and alluded to recent employee terminations, which may have been taken negatively by upper management.[4] Kevin Hendryx, a TSR employee at the time, believed this was the primary cause, although the other art would also been exacerbated the issue, as management was very concerned about brand image at the time.[2] Another factor was the beginning of the Dungeons & Dragons controversies, such as the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert in 1979, as well as a marketing strategy to bring in more young players, which led TSR to avoid publishing material with an adult tone.[5]
TSR editor Evan Robinson blamed Gary Gygax for ordering the recall. However, in 2007, Gygax blamed Kevin Blume, and criticized TSR's decision to withdraw the product.[6] Frank Mentzer concurred with Gygax's recollection, stating that it was Kevin Blume who ordered the recall.[7]
The recalled copies were buried in a landfill site at Lake Geneva, with TSR handyman Dan Matheson, a large and imposing person, personally overseeing the disposal to ensure that they were destroyed. Several employees, realizing that the module was about to become very rare, secretly kept their own copies. By 1984, copies of the orange-cover B4 would be worth $300, and more recently a copy signed by Jean Wells sold for $5,860.[4]
According to then TSR employee Jonathan Coke, a single box of 72 copies was saved from the trash. The Acaeum estimates that fewer than 100 copies of the first printing exist, making the orange-cover B3 the rarest TSR module other than unique products.[7] On May 13, 2023, a copy of the orange cover owned by TSR employee Mike Gray sold on eBay for $12,850 US;[8] on July 18, 2023, a shrink-wrapped copy sold for $13,255 US.[9]
Re-release[]
TSR released a new version of Palace of the Silver Princess, heavily revised by Tom Moldvay, who was credited as co-author. The new release used a green cover,[3] but retained the same ISBN and product code.
Major changes were made to the writing, plot, and flow of the adventure module. The map and details of the are surrounding the dungeon were removed. The empty dungeon rooms, intended as a way to teach DMs dungeon creation as they had in B1, were removed. Most of Wells' original monsters were removed; the only ones retained in a modified form were the archer bushes, the decapus (which appeared on the cover), and the jupiter blood suckers (changed to vampire roses).
Several pieces of art were removed or edited. Credits were removed for artists Jeff Dee, Erol Otus, and Jean Wells, and some but not all illustrations by those artists were removed. The encounters which they illustrated were also removed. Among the deleted art was The Illusion of the Decapus, depicting a bound woman; Erol Otus' art of the three-headed ubues (and the ubues themselves); and two pieces which could be misconstrued to have phallic imagery.[7] Some new art was added, with credits added for Jim Holloway and Harley Quinn.
Later releases[]
In 2002, Wizards of the Coast released a PDF of the orange cover module on its website for free.[3] It remained available until around August 2011.
On January 22, 2013, the green cover version was re-released in digital format. It is currently available on DriveThruRPG and Dungeon Masters Guild for $4.99.
Reception and influence[]
Critical reception[]
In White Dwarf issue 35, reviewer Jim Bambra gave Palace of the Silver Princess an excellent review, giving it a rare 10/10 to which the reviewer added that "this should replace B2 (the Keep on the Borderlands) in the D&D Basic Set".
In 2008, James Maliszewski described Moldvay's green version as "a largely nonsensical module", and the orange version as "a little too much like B1 In Search of the Unknown (1979)."[10]
As of 2023, Palace of the Silver Princess reached the rank of Mithral seller on DriveThruRPG.
Influence on other works[]
The Palace of the Silver Princess appeared in the Spellfire collectable card game.
External links[]
- Palace of the Silver Princess on DriveThruRPG
- Palace of the Silver Princess on Dungeon Masters Guild
- Palace of the Silver Princess. To The End of the Galaxy, 2015.
- The Secret History of the Racy Module That Almost Ruined D&D. Wired, 2018.
- Interview: Jean Wells (Part II). Grognardia, 2010.
- Retrospective: Palace of the Silver Princess. Grognardia, 2008-11-12.
- Comparison of the orange and green versions. Old School FRP.
- Palace of the Silver Princess tag. Old School FRP.
References[]
- ↑ The Story of Palace of the Silver Princess, the Adventure so Scandalous That the Print Run Went to a Landfill. DMDavid, 2023.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Interview: Jean Wells (Part II). Grognardia, 2010.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 B3. Palace of the Silver Princess. Wizards.com, 2002-01-21.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 The Secret History of the Racy Module That Almost Ruined D&D. Wired, 2018.
- ↑ D&D’s Biggest Controversies Ranked—10. TSR Trashes the Entire Print Run of the Palace of the Silver Princess Adventure. DMDavid, 2023.
- ↑ Q&A with Gary Gygax, page 414. ENWorld, Oct 16, 2007.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 B3, The Acaeum.
- ↑ MIKE GRAYS TSR D&D RECALLED ORANGE COVER B3 PALACE OF THE SILVER PRINCESS - 9044. eBay.
- ↑ MIKE GRAYS SEALED TSR D&D RECALLED ORANGE COVER B3 PALACE OF THE SILVER PRINCESS. eBay.
- ↑ Retrospective: Palace of the Silver Princess. Grognardia, 2008-11-12.