Dungeon Master Kit #1 - Palace of the Vampire Queen (1st Printing, No Folder)

Not all trades are created equal. The pile of material you see in the first picture is a stellar example of the kind of thing that will make any cataloger cringe. A half-foot tall stack of incomplete Judge’s Guild maps, booklets and accessories. Low value, very messy, it was destined to ruin some poor cataloger's day.

Fanning through it to get a quick survey of what was inside though, something caught our eye. Something that was very out of place. A pale gold sheet that reads with one of the most infamous titles in the history of the Dungeons and Dragon’s game: The Palace of the Vampire Queen. Suddenly, this was not an agonizing drudge through the mud, but a heart-pounding treasure hunt for a priceless artifact!

After a thorough sift through the pile (several times, just to be sure), we managed to shake out more than anyone would have expected, what looked like a (nearly) complete copy of the 1st printing of the Palace of the Vampire Queen. It seemed too good to be true…

…so we assumed that it was, of course.

Armed with magnifying glasses, reference material, and decades of experience, we descended upon the apparent gem to scrutinize its authenticity to the best of our ability, and in the end, the more we poked at it, the more we referenced and cross referenced, we came to a solid conclusion:

It was exactly what it appeared to be.

The copy is 22 pages, one short of the typical assortment. We were unable, despite our best efforts, to locate the copyright page in the pile (we went through the heap piece by piece, so it’s probably been lost to time, sad to say). This sheet was typically adhered to the black folio, which is also absent, so it stands to reason it would be missing in this case.

In our extensive review, we found no trace of potential photocopier streaking, nor any sign of duplication. The tiny dots that make up the printed gridlines of the maps are clean and perfect in a way that would have been ruined by a photocopier. This helped us verify not only its legitimacy, but the printing. The map gridlines are offset with crystal clean dots, making this a first printing of this auspicious module, sans cover, rather than the second printing, which never had a cover, but had fuzzy dots in the grid overlay.

The papers show their age with some brown spotting, as well as the occasional tiny rip. There is also some light staining along the bottom edge of the pages and some larger creases throughout. All told, what we were able to retrieve is in great condition for how it was stored. In totality the pages we have can be considered VG.

A timeless treasure at a heavy discount from the normal valuation!