Welcome to item 500 on our list! It’s a pretty rare one, as it wasn’t very popular, but it has the distinction of also not mentioning its author on the cover… it’s particularly ironic since the author is a woman in a module about a woman hero, but which for some reason (a mistake? thinking a woman writer on the cover would put off buyers?) has a kind of hidden credit. Not the best look TSR.

What’s pretty visible on the cover is Caldwell’s illustration of the titular hero in her now famous chainmail bikini. I’m sure Caldwell was just devastated at having to draw scantily clad Red Sonja both here and in the inside illustrations (we’ll get more of those next post).

As a module it was pretty unsuccessful, much as the previous Conan the Barbarian ones were. TSR was more interested in selling their own IP than relying on others’ work and so this wasn’t the most promoted or accessible title that you could get. This has, therefore, become a kind of precious rarity if you find one lying around. Red Sonja was at this time being published as comics for Marvel, where the character had been created by writers Roy Thomas and illustrator Barry Windsor-Smith as a pastiche of  Robert Howard characters. Storywise, the module is a tale as old as time: Sonja goes to a burial ground, shenanigans ensue!