AD&D/OSRIC campaign - this is why he plays

Awhile ago, my players stumbled onto a treasure map in the form of a letter, indicating a great treasure was in a particular place. It took a little while, but my players finally returned to attempting to find the location.. and what they found totally thrilled one of my players who plays a cleric of Tangorin. (Tangorin is based off of the god Tangadorin from the old JG "Unknown Gods" supplement.)

I've had this place set up for awhile, but without a real story behind aside from a cryptic entry in my hex map notes. This is the best part of "just in time" DM'ing and sandbox creation. Here's a location, now plug a story around it. You've got cockatrices, a treasure map and a temple to a forgotten god nearby. The story practically wrote itself and the result on my treasure generation just fit to a T. Taichara's Little Treasures finished it off, as I got this result from her table: "A cultic text: furled hundred-page scroll of golden parchment, inked in black and crimson and mounted on crystal rods."

And thus the players now had a meaningful purpose to the treasure map and since it was near a recently discovered sacred site for my player's god...

Long ago, when Tangorin's Tower of Light was erected, his most highest and fervent of priests (who had just about bankrupted himself in erecting this strange edifice that most called "folly" as it was stone/metal but mostly of glass) journeyed with a few faithful to fill the tower with the treasures of Tangorin as well as his most holy words, enscribed on golden parchment, with crystal rod ends. Unfortunately, this unknown priest never made it to the tower and it remained empty (some said haunted) until it was long forgotten after the Doom. Forgotten... until someone stumbled onto a treasure map, had a vision and then quested to rediscover the holy text.

Jorann's player was almost beside himself when the chest from the cockatrice lair was opened and gave up all claims to other treasure  in exchange for the magic mace and text of Tangorin. (which was about the equivalent of about 4,750 gold pieces. It was a huge haul, representing the wealth of this dude. Imagine a lonely guy, not quite like a cult leader, but definitely on the fringe, investing all his wealth into this tower, then journeying with the last of his belongings... anyway, you get the idea. Sad ending. Cha-ching for the players.)

You'll see her when she kills you.

It was a fun game, full of divebombing cockatrices (my first time using Aerial combat rules), five of the six players wanting to strangle the last one due to some unscripted combat, the "Mighty Mazlor" being smacked on the back of the head by his religion for overlooking a Chaotic act (the Light wouldn't give him his forgotten spell for a couple of days... alignment post coming later this week!), death-from-above large spiders, and a half-crazed woman commando who is on a mission to rid the world of all orcs, one severed head at a time.

It was one of those games. Totally awesome!