D&D's Pharoah adventure was made by the same people that made Strahd and Dragonlance

Two things about Pharaoh. One, I'll never be able to spell the word "pharaoh" on the first try. Two, the existence of this Dungeons & Dragons adventure fascinates me as a cultural relic. Pharaoh was written by married D&D power couple Tracy and Laura Hickman. The Hickmans wrote the adventure Ravenloft. And Ravenloft is home to the most beloved of Big Bad Evil Guys: Strahd. Count Strahd von Zarovich, if you're nasty.

Pharaoh was the Hickmans' foot in the door at  D&D headquarters. With its lonely antagonist cursed to wander the Desert of Desolation indefinitely, it's hard to not see Pharaoh as the literal progenitor to the lonely antagonist cursed to wander a castle of desolation indefinitely—Strahd. Likewise, Pharaoh's pyramid is a place designed for insidious traps and monsters, just as Strahd's castle would become.

Not only that, but creating discrete headers and popouts for sections of the adventure—"tricky trap"—was quickly adapted into other D&D adventures going forward. Technological advancements don't always come in the form of 3D tabletop battle maps and digital minis. Sometimes tech advancements are something as simple as readability and playability. 

Pharaoh is one of six old school adventures that've been hand-selected to appear in Quests From the Infinite Staircase adventure anthology. All of the adventures therein have been revamped from 1st Edition to 5th Edition D&D.

This video also talks about something called the Tears of Athas. Now, if you're a fan of the Dark Sun campaign setting, then the word "Athas" is setting off alarm bells. That's the name of the planet that Dark Sun takes place in. I'm quietly freaking out just thinking about it, even if they're ignoring the fact that they just said the word "Athas."

Now, if you turn on YouTube's closed captions, YouTube takes a stab at it and types "athys." Whether it's Athas or athys—or some third spelling of the word—we won't know until I buy the book or Wizards of the Coast makes the book available to me for assessment. Ahem. Wizards of the Coast. Makes the book available. To me. Assessment.

(Too many folks in the tabletop roleplaying industry like to call that a "review." But review always sounds disingenuous to me. Especially when you haven't played through the adventure and you're just skimming pages. I mean, we typically review video games here at Gaming Nexus. None of our writers would skim the instruction manual and then write a review of that game without actually playing the game. So. There's my two gold pieces on that.)

Quests From the Infinite Staircase is out now on D&D Beyond, in both digital and hardcover formats. Folks are traipsing up and down those stairs as we speak, on the road to level 13 if they complete them all.