Iron Skeletons of Grusyin

Adapted from Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica (1543), pg 163

     Most of Gygax's monster creations are well-known from being compiled in the various AD&D hardcover beastiaries. There are, however, a few "lost" Gygaxian monsters that appeared only in one or another obscure product. Such as the Aurotyugh, a relative of the Otyugh that mimics a pile of gold and is described only in the sample encounters in Dungeon Geomorphs: Set Two - Caves & Caverns (1976). Or the Iron Skeletons of Grusyin, found only in the AD&D-lite board game in the 1979 AD&D Coloring Album. Below is an adaptation of these skeletons for Holmes Basic (or OD&D).

Iron Skeleton

Move: 120 feet/turn

Hit Dice: 1

Armor Class: 0

Treasure Type: F

Alignment: neutral

Attacks: 1

Damage: 1-8

     Wrought iron skeletons first forged by the mad wizard Grusyin in the distant past. Certain sorcerers have re-discovered the difficult process of creation and use them as guards, sometimes in false crypts hiding treasure. Occasionally one "bone" of the skeleton is a key to open a lock to the treasure. They appear as grey but otherwise ordinary skeletons wielding a weapon or tool of iron.
     Being minor golems they are not turned by clerics, but like the undead they are unaffected by sleep or charm spells. The low armor class reflects the difficulty in damaging the metal bones. 

(Notes: In the Coloring Album game the Skeletons can take only 1 "Hit" but are the most difficult monster to hit, beyond even the Xorn, which has an AC of -2 in AD&D. No monster in Holmes has an AC below 2, so I placed the AC at 0. In Holmes Basic skeletons only have 1/2 HD and AC8, so the iron skeletons are much tougher. For AD&D, you might use an AC of -3, and possibly a higher HD).

Adventures in the Dungeon

Adventures in the Dungeon is a mini-boardgame by Gary Gygax included in the 1979 Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album (published by Troubadour Press in conjunction with TSR; art by Greg Irons). The game uses the board shown above, which is found in the center of the coloring book. As I wrote previously, the map on this board is re-drawn from the Sample Dungeon map in the Blue Book.

The game is for 1-4 players who control the following four characters:

(This table integrates info found on pages 4 and 6 of the album. Click on the table for a clearer view.)

The party enters the dungeon at spot marked Start (the same entrance as in the Holmes Sample Dungeon). The goal of the party is to recover the Holy Talisman of St. Cuthbert. Combat uses 2d6 for both the character and monster attacks, much like DUNGEON!, except that a successful strike causes damage (a "hit"). Each character or monster can take a specified number of hits, which should be tracked during the game. Thus, the game is sort of part way between DUNGEON! and D&D.

(This list summarizes info found on pages 8-16 of the album)

There's also a scoring system which gives the characters 25 points for each surviving character; this is pretty much meaningless except that it denotes whether the victory is Pyrrhic (25), Costly (50), Resounding (75) or Triumphant (100).

And last we have the monsters. They are described room-by-room on pages 22-30, one paragraph per room. There's little information other than the monster stats and abilities, except for "Area 13: The Crypts: There are four coffins here, each containing one of the Iron Skeletons of Grusyin (a mad Wizard of the Past Age)".  For quick reference I turned the descriptions into a stat table: