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Post by Scott on Jul 4, 2007 10:13:17 GMT -5
Has anybody ever detailed the Indoctrination Center, or an expanded dungeon? I had a party go through this adventure some time ago. They barely survived the battle with Quesnef, and were limping out of the dungeon when Nix and Nox came marching down the corridor. The party really had no chance of winning a fight with two efreet at this point. One party member had a wand of fear. The party won initiative on the first round, the party used the wand, and both efreet failed their save. They had retrieved all of the weapons, and didn't bother with following up on Keraptis or the rest of the dungeon that must be around somewhere. I had thought at the time a follow up adventure with Keraptis, his gnomes, and the Indoctrination Center would be called for. I've been talking to the players recently about starting up this campaign again. I want to run the GDQ series, but I want to run something less 'epic' first as a warm up since they haven'y played these characters for a while, plus a little more experience before tackling the GDQ series wouldn't hurt. So, Keraptis may be luring these players back to White Plume Mountain, and I was looking for ideas for an expanded adventure, since I thought the Return to.. was crap.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jul 4, 2007 20:11:57 GMT -5
White Plume Mountain is essentially a madman's funhouse, and I've always looked at Keraptis as a lot like the Marvel Comics supervillain Arcade. Who would spend all this time and energy making all of these rotating tubes, friction-free surfaces, and inverted ziggurat-shaped aquarium/zoos? It's clearly insane. And all for the purpose of stealing -- and then hiding -- and then providing riddles for -- items of great worth, to test some band of adventurers.
If your players are the same ones who defeated Keraptis' obstacle course before, maybe he wants to lure them back because they're the only ones -- or one of very few parties -- who have ever overcome his tricks and traps. For that reason, maybe he wants to indoctrinate (charm) them and force them to help him construct an even grander and more bizarre maze... He might be super-powerful, but maybe they can use his insanity somehow to outsmart him, or at least get away from him. That's along the lines of the sequel I'd always imagined, but never developed the details of.
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Post by geneweigel on Jul 5, 2007 1:11:33 GMT -5
Theres several strands in there.
1300 years and the absence of Keraptis probably means this adventure was the tip of a big iceberg (in this case a big "lava berg") which keeps going down, down, down...
Theres all that crap on the picture map (probably fluff added by Otus).
Theres the reference to him taking everything for the taxes and before his fall 1/3 of newborn children. Why 1/3? Was everything else that was taxed also 1/3 and the number just emphasised for children? Was this something to do with 3 powerful weapons? What was the demonic possessions, sudden madness and sightings of demons and apparitions about? And again why 3? Hmmm...because the S2 module is only 1/3 of the entirety of the whole dungeon?
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Post by grodog on Jul 14, 2007 21:09:22 GMT -5
I'd forgotten about the indocrination center, Scott, and will add it to my "Lost Levels" listing @ www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_lost_dungeons.html next time I manage to update my site. I've thought about the design in the past, but I'm pretty sure I never got further than thinking about it.....
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Post by Scott on Jul 4, 2007 10:17:10 GMT -5
"The wealthy collectors have promised to grant them whatever they desire, if it is within their power to do so" What kind of rewards have you granted to your players for retrieving the weapons, or what do you think an appropriate award would be?
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Post by GRWelsh on Jul 4, 2007 19:57:31 GMT -5
Granting them "whatever they desire, if it is in their power to do so" sounds like hyperbole, to me. I'd have the wealthy collectors ask each player character what they want, upon successful completion of the quest, and throw it back on the players. The PCs should be able to ask for, and receive, enough gold to at least train up a level, plus get substantially more to enjoy it. If the players are honest enough to resist the temptation of keeping these magic weapons, and they would ask for a magic item, I think they would be deserving of something appropriate to their class and level... so if a fighter asked for a magic sword, maybe give him a Flametongue or something like that. Obviously, its not going to be an item better than one of these weapons, but it still might be something of decent quality (maybe put a gp value cap on what the collectors have, or are willing to gift away...). A clever player might ask for something really expensive, like a lake-worthy galley or cog... You never know what players might ask for, that's the fun of it.
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Post by Scott on Jul 10, 2008 13:44:45 GMT -5
I was DMing White Plume Mountain last night. The party made it to the lair of the vampire Ctenmiir. After several rounds of standing just outside of the doorway trying to dispel the darkness, the vampire lunged out. I gave him an increased chance to surprise, but he didn’t. It’s a 5’ wide hallway, so there was one fighter in front of the door. The fighter got his first attack and hit for about 10 points of damage. The vampire swung, and missed. Maylin, my cousin’s magic-user character cast a magic missile; he gets five missiles. He rolled five ‘4’s for 25 points of damage. The fighter then took his second attack and killed Ctenmiir. I couldn’t believe it, one of the scariest encounters in the dungeon, and they dispatched him in a single round. Oh well, there’s still Qesnef.
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Post by amalric on Jul 10, 2008 16:03:07 GMT -5
LOL! Ahhh, the best-laid plans of mice and DMs... I'd confiscate that d4 before the next session, if I were you.
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Post by Scott on Jul 10, 2008 16:06:22 GMT -5
He rolled five separate d4s, and they were all mine.
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Post by sirclarence on Jul 10, 2008 16:19:25 GMT -5
LOL Rule # 1: Never hand out your dice to the players. It's true! I did just that a while ago because one of my players forgot to bring her dice along and she only had incredibly good rolls that night. Next time she asked whether she could use my dice again, but no way!
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Post by Scott on Jul 10, 2008 16:23:16 GMT -5
I have a few off-limits d20s, but I've never been stingy with the other dice.
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Post by sirclarence on Jul 10, 2008 16:24:38 GMT -5
You might reconsider now...
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Post by Scott on Sept 3, 2018 12:49:53 GMT -5
I'm going to set up White Plume Mountain for my 'in person' group, since they're in the neighborhood and in the right level range. This adventure was basically Lawrence Schick's résumé, not written to be published, just a sample of his style. You'd think the explains the funhouse aspect of it, but that was not uncommon at the time. I like the writing. Sir Bluto and Qesnef are some of my favorites characters. The giant crab, the chain disks, they're some of the most iconic encounters in the game. Looking forward to running it.
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Post by davegibsongreyhawkdm on Sept 3, 2018 15:40:19 GMT -5
I'm going to set up White Plume Mountain for my 'in person' group, since they're in the neighborhood and in the right level range. This adventure was basically Lawrence Schick's résumé, not written to be published, just a sample of his style. You'd think the explains the funhouse aspect of it, but that was not uncommon at the time. I like the writing. Sir Bluto and Qesnef are some of my favorites characters. The giant crab, the chain disks, they're some of the most iconic encounters in the game. Looking forward to running it. When I bought this module and first read it through, Sir Bluto made me think of Popeye...
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 4, 2018 8:20:49 GMT -5
This was one of those adventures that was appealing because it was easily glibly inserted and it was already involved. Just grabbing a 5th to 10th level character to play for the first time was unlikely so people were already in it to win it. Comparing it to the ready-to-go 5th to 7th of contemporary C1 THE GHOST TOWER OF INVERNESS (1980) it seemed more appealing because of the promise of the street talk of Elric-like weapons in a trove. Everyone and their brother had these weapons to the point where it was like if you played it was a "what was the point of smoking a used butt even if you ran out of smokes?" mentality. Meanwhile, B2 just kept repopulating and Ghost Tower and White Plume were one shots that had finite goals that were reusable only on new people.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 4, 2018 10:10:27 GMT -5
White Plume Mountain has a level of silliness that would almost certainly make people much more critical of it if it came out today. Numbered golems? Monsters just waiting in rooms like scare house employees? An Indoctrination Center? And what is the point of it all? What is Keraptis' goal, to run a sort of magical game show? It reminds me of the scene in the labyrinth from TIME BANDITS ("And here they are -- the winners of the most fabulous object in the world!"). In spite of all of the silliness, White Plume Mountain has a straightforward sense of fun that is appealing. The puzzles and spatial imagination make it especially memorable.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 4, 2018 11:54:33 GMT -5
Its like they would have to explain so much with a background of how it came into existence explaining magical nonsense. Its good for background for the circumstance but you don't stop a STAR WARS film to explain that all the Jedi philosophy was total crap... er, wait, maybe you do... As for the naming of Keraptis, it is some kind of an analogy of "Schick" obviously (I figured S-K to K-S; surname "Schick" meaning "skillful" -> Translate to "apt". K-Lawrence-Apt-S ->K-Lawr-Apt-S -> K-awr-apt-s -> Keraptis)so he's doing a Gygax -> Zagyg in a way. (Does this mean Nosnra is actually Lord of Castle Black-a-moor?
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Post by Scott on Oct 7, 2018 11:08:52 GMT -5
We started White Plume Mountain last night, and the funhouse vibe was in full effect. The players were even comparing it to a local funhouse (Noah’s Ark) when the came upon the spiral painted, spinnning, circular passage. The party got Wave. The giant crab was less fearsome than I remember. One BBG with no spells or range weapons isn’t much of a challenge for a fighter heavy party.
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Post by grodog on Oct 7, 2018 15:08:35 GMT -5
I'm going to set up White Plume Mountain for my 'in person' group, since they're in the neighborhood and in the right level range. This adventure was basically Lawrence Schick's résumé, not written to be published, just a sample of his style. You'd think the explains the funhouse aspect of it, but that was not uncommon at the time. I like the writing. Sir Bluto and Qesnef are some of my favorites characters. The giant crab, the chain disks, they're some of the most iconic encounters in the game. Looking forward to running it. If you're looking to build some materials off of WPM, Sir Bluto reappears as a minor figure in Erik Mona's "Absolute Power" series of Living Greyhawk adventures---he's one of the figures involved in the "River of Blood" module, which leads into "As He Lay Dying" (which is, IIRC, as far as Erik got with the series). Dragotha, of course, has several fun options to play with, too: the RPGA module (freely downloadable from the WotC site for several years, not sure if it's still there now), a version in Dragon Magazine in the 2e era, and the version that appears in the Paizohawk "Age of Worms" adventure path. Dragotha, as well as the other figures mentioned on the Otus map, was also detailed the late 2e/Greyhawk 98 _Return to WPM_ too. Allan.
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Post by Scott on Oct 7, 2018 16:51:00 GMT -5
I'm really hoping the party retrieves the weapons and moves on. I'd like to run another adventure involving Keraptis, but when they're higher level.
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