Publisher: Wizards of the CoastWhite Plume Mountain, and nbsp;the new revised adventure by Andy Collins, Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel, and James Wyatt, recasts the three famous weapons and nbsp;Blackrazor, Wave, and nbsp;and and nbsp;Whelm and nbsp;as and nbsp;legacy weapons and nbsp;and presents Lawrence Schick's entire dungeon fully revised and updated for and nbsp;D and amp;D and nbsp;V.3.5.
So if you've been looking for a classic adventure that you can use with the newest rules, download this web enhancement now and introduce your PCs to the wizard Keraptis and his minions!
Product History
and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; (2005), by Lawrence Schick and amp; updated by Andy Collins, Gwendolyn F.M Kestrel, and James Wyatt, is a 3.5e iteration of the classic AD and amp;D dungeon. It was published as part of Wizards' online Adventure Archive on December 7, 2005.
Origins. In 1978, Gary Gygax decided to create a Design Department within TSR, and so began advertising job positions. One of the applicants was Lawrence Schick, a recent graduate of Kent State University. After he was asked to submit an AD and amp;D adventure as a sample of his work he cobbled together his and quot;best ideas and quot; from five years of dungeon design and wrote and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot;. Not only was Schick hired, soon becoming the Head of the expanding department, but and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; was also scheduled by Gygax for publication.
Sources. The sword Blackrazor, one of the three named weapons in White Plume Mountain, is an obvious rip-off of Elric's black blade, Stormbringer. Schick says he and quot;would not have put it into the scenario if [he] ever thought it might be published. and quot;
Continuing the Special Adventures. and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; followed S1: and quot;Tomb of Horrors and quot; (1978) as the second and quot;Special and quot; adventure and mdash; which seems to mainly mean one-off adventures for AD and amp;D, not connected as part of a campaign like the G, D, and T adventures that had preceded it.
and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; is notable for being the first AD and amp;D adventure not authored by Gary Gygax and mdash; and nbsp;though it was preceded by Mike Carr's B1: and quot;In Search of the Unknown and quot; (1978) for the Basic D and amp;D game. The trend of other authors writing for D and amp;D would really take off in 1980.
Like all of TSR's early D and amp;D adventures, the first edition of and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; was printed with a monochrome (orannge) cover. It was updated with a full-color cover with an orange border (1980) just a year later; at the same time the book was expanded from 12 to 16 pages, mainly thanks to the addition of more illustrations.
Continuing the Adventures Archive. By late 2005, TSR's free 3e adventure archive was nearing its end, but that year also contained two of their most notable adventures, 3e revamps of classics and quot;Tomb of Horrors and quot; (2005) and and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot;.
The 3.5e version of and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; is based closely on the original, with the design adjusted in some areas for balance and better polish. The three named weapons have also been statted up with the Weapons of Legacy (2005) system.
Wizards supplemented this adventure with a web enhancement, and quot;Outside the Mountain is just as Dangerous as Inside and quot; (2006). It updates material from Return to White Plume Mountain (1999), including the fourth weapon, Frostrazor.
Adventure Tropes. White Plume Mountain is an interesting contrast. On the one hand it's one of the earliest quest dungeons: players go into the Mountain searching for three magic weapons. The dungeon is very tightly organized around that quest. On the other hand, and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; was TSR's first and quot;fun house and quot; dungeon. This was doubtless a result of the piecemeal way that Schick constructed the dungeon. The result doesn't feel like an organic whole and certainly doesn't contain any and quot;Gygaxian naturalism and quot;. Instead, it's a random assortment of monsters, puzzles, and traps. Just as and quot;Tomb of Horrors and quot; popularized the idea that D and amp;D dungeons could be and quot;killers and quot;, and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; in turn debuted the idea of fun house dungeons as professional releases (though GMs all over the country had surely been cobbling them together for half a decade).
Exploring Greyhawk. Like and quot;Tomb of Horror and quot; before it, and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; is only very lightly set in Greyhawk. The beautiful full-page map on page three, showing the Great Swamp, White Plume Mountain, and Castle Mukos didn't match up with anything else at the time, though the text of the adventure clearly places White Plume Mountain in the Shield Lands, near the Great Rift. The background in the module was also entirely self-contained at the time.
Years later, Return to White Plume Mountain (1998) would much more fully connect up Schick's famous module with Gygax's world.
NPCs of Note. The central NPC of and quot;White Plume Mountain and quot; is dungeon creator Keraptis and mdash; except the 1,300-year-old wizard is never actually seen.
Instead, it's probably the undead dragon Dragotha who's best remembered from this adventure. This primordial dracolich only shows up on the map of the local area as a possible adventure seed. He finally got a full writeup a decade later in the and quot;Lords and amp; Legends and quot; column of Dragon #134 (June 1988).
Both NPCs got much better usage in Return to White Plume Mountain, while Dragotha also starred in the and quot;Age of Worms and quot; adventure path in Dungeon #124 (July 2005) to Dungeon #135 (June 2006).
About the Creators. Though originally written by Schick, three different authors contributed to the 3.5e revision of White Plume Mountain. Kestrel updated the Whelm section of the dungeon, Wyatt worked on Wave's region, and Collins got to revamp the ever-popular Blackrazor area.
About the Product Historian
The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of and nbsp;Designers and amp; Dragons and nbsp;- a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.