Secret of Bone Hill

The Secret of Bone Hill

The cover of The Secret of Bone Hill, with art by Jeff Dee. The artwork depicts a female mage casting lightning at an animated skeleton.
Code	L1
TSR Product Code	9045
Rules required	Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition
Character levels	2 - 4
Campaign setting	Greyhawk
Authors	Lenard (Len) Lakofka
First published	1981
Linked modules
L1 L2 L3

The Secret of Bone Hill is an adventure module written by Lenard Lakofka for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and published by TSR in 1981. It is designed for novice and intermediate players with characters of levels 2-4. The module received mixed reviews from critics.

The module is described as a low-level scenario that involves evil creatures prowling the unexplored reaches of Bone Hill. The campaign setting and scenario featured in the book detail a complete town in the Lendore Isles, along with nearby monster lairs. The player characters adventure in and around the fishing port of Restenford. The module is more of a mini-setting than an adventure, offering several adventure locations, and may require a Dungeon Master to expand it using the World of Greyhawk milieu. The module expands upon the basic types of undead creatures found.

The Secret of Bone Hill was written by Len Lakofka and published by TSR in 1981 as a thirty two page booklet with an outer folder, and a cover illustration by Bill Willingham. This adventure is continued in L2: The Assassin's Knot, and L3: Deep Dwarven Delve.

The module was reviewed in issue No. 16 of Different Worlds magazine, which complained that TSR had abandoned its tradition of using maps as color art "in favor of pretty pictures irrelevant to the text". The reviewer, Anders Swenson, disliked the randomness of the module's encounters, arguing that it was unrealistic for so many monster nests to be found within a day's march of a hardy military garrison. His real problem with the adventure, however, was that he believed that too many encounters were compressed into too small of an area. "What deals and pacts have been made to permit the villagers, the clerics, the gnolls and wolves, and the inhabitants of Bone Hill to live in such harmony?"