Wednesday 29 January 2020

White Plume Mountain Funhouse Dungeon



White Plume Mountain Funhouse Dungeon

This and Ghost tower are both extremely short gonzo funhouses. We are assured wizards could make this crazy stuff up but not with rules given but a few wishes a day would help. I've seldom made mad wizard dungeons this crazy and maybe I should. ASE1-3 my favourite OSR-ish thing Is also a funhouse dungeon and fitted my planet Psychon quite well. I'm going to continue to do my thing of running old modules into Psychon adventures and I could literally just ad some control panels here and maybe cyborg or mutate a few inhabitants. But really not much. This literally is the best funhouse dungeon. Even the rotating stripe patterned tunnel with lube leading to an ambush is as on genre as you can get.

Mad wizards justify anything. The artefacts you loot here for the patron are too cool for NPCs. Id say having those weapons are part of a prophecy that warns the world making everybody give party attention and dread some apocalypse. The patron will send assassins and adventurers. Some cults will pursue them. Kings will be unhappy. Taking these Items will be a huge burden. Say the black sword will destroy the universe when it's true owner gets in back. Have party find book illustrating the heroes with weapons destroying civilisation. Perhaps they get to kill a king on a battlefield and cause a domino effect of chaos. Could be big fun. Having party rivals they met in a pub go in first and not return and have them inside the dungeon. Having a character has a personal grudge against sir Bluto might be good drama too. The ancient evil wizard is pretty flexible and could easily be a demon or a god or a self aware complex.

The classic area map is great and implies an interesting adventure. That Dragthoa guy is possibly less of a setup but might be a good powerful lair to raid later. One of the newer maps even has a Tolkien style and fans have redrawn the dungeon map too. The above classic recreation shows off some of the interesting features and the sideways maps are good too. Its quite video gamish level of puzzle solving game with plenty of combat and interesting environments. the reverse ziggurat room is amazing. The weird magic river is very strange i guess wizard liked kayaking. Maybe more dungeons should have features requiring wishes or hobbies. I mean if your immortal and cast wish you can make some crazy stuff especially if you are a nerd wizard or a lich with thousands of years.

I will probably give this a go and won't change much really. If the characters want to be the centrepoint of a continent wide war killing tens of thousands let them keep those awesome items. Sounds cool to me.

Has great art of era illustrating some of the crazier rooms which is good. The npcs with personality are fine and easy to run. The layout is interesting and not on all one plane and the puzzles are not really too awful but can avoid fights which is ok. It is slim but has lots of content and art and is pretty inspiring. Later adventures where you explore ruins of this place as a spin off was kind sad to look in what was once a cool dungeon room. Perhaps some more trashed magic rooms destroyed already should be a thing. The poem and history are quite fun too. I wonder what happened to the evil gnomes mentioned as wizards minions. A gnome stronghold or secret maintenance sub level might be cool. Perhaps the induction section Nix and Nox take you too could be added to the map. I get impression wizard might still be alive or sleeping or busy..

Would make a good vol to do as one of those hardcovers.

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