About Face: New Direction for Basic Campaign

I think I've been approaching all this from the wrong angle. I keep trying to take what I've made in one edition and re-make it in another, hoping that "this time" something will click and the whole will come together. Well, since I've alienated most of my gaming friends, I've had few people to work this out with. I think I need some fresh faces and new perspectives.

That being said, I'm looking to use the Basic D&D rules from 1980 in order to write a new campaign. True to form, though, I'm NOT making something whole-cloth but instead taking a concept I was working towards and making it the forefront of the adventure. And so we come to the Fortress of the Goblin King. The Goblin King has been an enigmatic figure in my Thuin campaign for a long time now. Ever since the beginning I wanted to use an NPC that "broke the rules" and was very difficult to eliminate. This figure wore demonic plate mail that concealed his identity, commanded legions of goblinoids from a mountain stronghold, and had command over powerful magic and potent enchanted creatures. In essence, I wanted him to be like a Sauron or Darth Vader figure - someone the party is never really meant to face directly but could be used to frighten the beejeezus out of them at appropriate moments. I think I got that reaction when I unveiled the Goblin King for the first time to the party when a teleport incident and a geas spell forced them to grab a lich's periapt from the depths of his abode. Luckily the party realized they were in over their heads when they appeared in the throne room and there sat the Goblin King surrounded by giant burning corpses, hefty bugbear guards, and leering gargoyles.

So the Goblin King makes my close villain in the campaign backdrop, someone to be dealt with in the long run but put off for many levels until Name Level is achieved. Once the party deals with the Goblin King's forces and eliminates him as a threat he can either escape to another place or continue to plague the characters in an undead form. Either way it makes for classic Sword & Sorcery goodness.

Gygax had his Castle Greyhawk dominated by the eccentric demi-god Zagyg, Kuntz had his Maure Castle dominated by the eccentric Suel Maure family, and Greenwood had Undermountain with its eccentric Halaster Greycloak. This will be MY version of the classic dungeon (and it's mostly mapped out already!). I just need to finish a few things on the conversion side and then present it to whomever will play.