Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
The cover of the module features medieval warriors battling an eight armed monster.
Cover with art by Erol Otus
CodeS3
TSR product code9033
Rules requiredAdvanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition
Character levels8–12
Campaign settingGreyhawk
AuthorsGary Gygax
First published1980 (1976)
Linked modules
S1 S2 S3 S4

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is a 1980 adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game written by Gary Gygax. While Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is typically a fantasy game, the adventure includes elements of science fiction, and thus belongs to the science fantasy genre.[1] It takes place on a downed spaceship; the ship's crew has died of an unspecified disease, but functioning robots and strange creatures still inhabit the ship. The player characters fight monsters and robots, and gather the futuristic weapons and colored access cards that are necessary for advancing the story.

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was first played at the Origins II convention in 1976, where it was used to introduce Dungeons & Dragons players to the science fiction game Metamorphosis Alpha. In 1980, TSR published the adventure, updated for first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The adventure was not updated for later rules systems, but a Wizards.com article did provide a conversion to Future Tech. It included a separate booklet of illustrations, in both color and black and white. The adventure is an old-time favorite of many Dungeons & Dragons fans, including Stephen Colbert.[2] It was ranked the fifth-best Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004, and received positive reviews from White Dwarf and The Space Gamer magazines. The other adventures in the S series include S1 Tomb of Horrors, S2 White Plume Mountain, and S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Dicing with Dragons was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Rausch, Allen (2004-08-17). "Stephen Colbert on D&D". GameSpy.