At the end of Part I, the players were asked to choose from among the three scenarios in part II they’d prefer to do first. It’s also the one requiring the most extensive planning and written up in the most detail. After working on it on and off for about a week, I stayed up past 3 AM one night trying to get it finished. I got most of the way there, but somehow after a long and bleary-eyed work day, by the next evening I somehow had myself believing I’d finished it and was ready to print everything and start playing.
When game night came, I started noticing what I hadn’t completed. The list of books still has some blank areas and partial descriptions. I completely neglected to create the apprentice mage NPCs and their summoned fire elemental (which didn’t matter, because the players solved the room’s puzzle and didn’t need to fight it). I also forgot to create the animated armor suits who were part of the final encounter, so I had to improvise on the fly and use weakened, sword-damage versions of the gargoyles I’d created for the first floor. It all worked out okay in the end.
The tower layout I used for this adventure is the one I mentioned purchasing in a previous post, and the puzzles are somewhat based on the layout of that tower.
As players leave the bazaar to head for the Spire, Tunaan tells them, “I know not what dwells in that tower, but it’s been said that the wisest can climb to its peak without a battle.”
Walking through woods on way to tower, a goblin (little humanoid creature like a small brown orc”) charges at the party, runs right through them, keeps going.
Vinny: “Hey! I bet this is a random encounter!”
BB: “A what?”
Vinny: “A random encounter. My little brother plays some of these games, and sometimes the person running it will throw in little extra scenes just to stir things up. I bet that little guy was running from something, and pretty soon we’re going to find out what it is!”
<2 blink dogs appear & attack>
At the Tower
The only signs of the buildings that used to surround the tower are a few crumbling stone foundations and some rotting scraps of wood.
Ground Floor
Two gargoyles are perched above the unoccupied throne where past masters of the tower would once greet visiting dignitaries. As the characters enter, they will come to life and each will fly to one of the stairways to block it as they demand, “speak the passphrase to enter”.
(Tell players to think back on everything the sage said about this place, no matter how minor. Password is “tuition is paid” or something close, which they’ll hopefully get if they remember the story about his grandfather.)
Without password, they’ll have to fight the gargoyles.
1st Floor
Initially the spiral stairs up from here do not appear to exist. They’ll appear after the statue puzzle is solved.
Characters are greeted with a voice that says “Proceed only in peace.”
Different colored statues of warriors around the room are all holding their hands out as if grasping weapons, but there are no weapons in the room. Characters must insert weapons into the hands of all 5 statues for stairs to appear; taking any weapon away will make the stairs vanish. (In other words, 5 weapons have to be left behind to progress.)
Statues from L to R are blue, brown, gold, green, red, corresponding to chests & orb in lvl 4. Track which weapon goes in which statue.
2nd Floor
It’s not clear what this room was originally used for, but someone has been sleeping here lately.
Northern chest contains:
- 2 quality robes (4gp total)
- Pouch of rare giant spider silk (25 gp)
- 70gp in pouch
Southern chest contains:
- Assorted gems worth 100gp
- 2 2-hit healing potions
- 2 8-power power potions
On the easternmost parapet of the balcony outside is silver spyglass worth 30gp.
There’s also a fancy jeweled goblet on the floor by the bed, worth 80gp, and what appears to be a shopping list for magical components such as bat guano, copper wire, and 2 chicken hearts (medium). Scrawled at the bottom of the list is a reminder: “Don’t forget to close door on the way out!”
The stairs up have a door, which is open. However, when characters walk through it, they will be teleported outside to the front door of the tower. Closing the door and walking into it will allow them to pass through to the next level.
3rd Floor
This room appears to be a small library. There are two flesh golems (what appear to be be large human-like things made of an assortment of body parts – cousins to Frankenstein’s monster) who are pacing slowly around the room and appear to take no notice of the players. One wears a tunic with a crude picture of horse’s head painted on it; the other a tunic which seems to bear the faded logo of some old local band.
There are two small lecterns in the room, empty of books but with an indistinct light shining down on them from an unknown source above.
Stairs up are missing until puzzle is solved or golems are killed. Golems will shush anyone who makes noise within 2” of them; on the 3rd shush at any one person the shusher will shake its head and point to the door, and the shushee will be teleported down to the tower entrance.
There are 42 books in the room of various sizes. Characters won’t be able to read the languages in most of them (though some covers are enchanted for readability), but can guess at the contents from symbols and illustrations in some of them. Putting any book open on either lectern will play a scene from the book starting at the open page as a 3d illusion (with audio) in the air above it.
The trick to getting past the golems without a fight is to put the one about horses on one podium and the bardic magic one on the other; golems will stop pacing and become engrossed in the shows above the lecterns.
If any players try to leave with more than 3 books as loot, a voice will call out “Patrons may borrow up to three items at a time. Please choose fewer items.” Then all books carried by the perpetrators will vanish from their inventory and reappear on the shelves.
If players want to, they can try to pick out what books to take as loot. They’ll have to guess at the values from the descriptions to try to take out the most valuable ones.
Each character can check 1 book/round. If they’ve figured out they’re looking for a specific volume, they can roll a luck check to find it; otherwise they need to say a number.
| Book | Value (gp) | Notes |
| 1 | 5 | Lots of prose but no pictures. Gold inlay on cover. (Shows what looks like a Shakespearian drama on lectern) |
| 2 | 0 | Columns of items and numbers. (On lectern: a bored, sleeping accountant) |
| 3 | 1 | Dictionary or thesaurus, from the indicatory structural framework |
| 4 | 2 | Hard to tell – no pictures, but from wear on the cover it’s been well used. |
| 5 | 8 | Pictures of people in robes and pointy hats riding horses. Sort of a “remedial equestrian skills for mages” volume. |
| 6 | 1 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover. |
| 7 | 110 | Very, very, old and fragile, but still readable – a treatise on dispelling demons |
| 8 | 0 | Controversial theory that the world was created by a group of gods from the sky who see it as nothing more than a game they can introduce unwilling pawns into for their amusement. |
| 9 | 25 | Theory and practice of elemental summoning. Lectern: A scene very similar to the one they’ll find on the 5th floor |
| 10 | 4 | Page after page of meticulously hand-drawn cat memes. |
| 11 | 1 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover. (Lectern: A carpenter building a lectern) |
| 12 | 1 | Biography of the inventor of the spell, “Summon mushroom” |
| 13 | 8 | Golem construction manual – lightly blood stained on the pages in the flesh golem section |
| 14 | 4 | Creative new uses for the “Magic Mouth” spell |
| 15 | 2 | Either an herb and spice cookbook or a poison-making manual, hard to tell. |
| 16 | 0 | Old Winter Solstice catalog from Spears and Rayspells (Great layaway deals on Bags of Holding!) |
| 17 | 0 | Crumbles to dust when picked up |
| 18 | 10 | Prose and diagrams interspersed with what are clearly musical notations – a study of Bardic magic? |
| 19 | 1 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover. (Lectern: A giantess dancing through a field of beanstalks) |
| 20 | 1 | (Has a spell on the cover to make it readable in any language) “How does all this stuff fit in my little robe pocket, anyway? – An introduction for low-level mages” |
| 21 | 250 | The thinnest book here and the only one with a soft cover, it appears to be some sort of catalog of fauna and species in the region, with illustrations accompanied by what look like nearly organized statistics. Oddly enough, on the first page is written ‘Good luck with the wizard school – Gary G’ |
| 22 | 1 | (Magic cover) “The Scrod Delusion: Stop Worshipping Fish, You Idiots” |
| 23 | 1 | (Magic cover) |
| 24 | 1 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover. (Lectern: A wizard lecturing) |
| 25 | 0 | Crumbles to dust when picked up, un-crumbles when put down. |
| 26 | 1 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover. (Lectern: Cleric with a moon-shaped helmet nodding his head in disapproval) |
| 27 | 1 | Bugbear Care for Dummies |
| 28 | 4 | (Magic cover) “Shit’s about to get real: Creating evil doppleganers of your enemies from their waste products.” |
| 29 | 7 | |
| 30 | 0 | Clearly a collector’s item, but its value was ruined by somebody drawing little hearts and unicorns in the margins. |
| 31 | 50 | Clearly a dull lecture on economics in a culture where magic impacts the laws of supply and demand, but made into a valuable collector’s item by the drawings of hearts and unicorns in the margins. |
| 32 | 4 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover, but has an old issue of Playgoblin hidden inside. (Lectern: Female goblin languishing ludely on a lectern) (Value is for the magazine, not the book) |
| 33 | 25 | An Elvish history book? Pictures of pointy-eared people sailing ships and fighting monsters |
| 34 | 6 | It has a little starburst pattern in the corner of the cover with some writing inside, similar to how a book from our world might advertise ‘Collector’s Edition!’ or ‘Newly Revised!’ Lectern: Pictures of potions with writing by them. |
| 35 | 2 | (Magic cover) “The Unauthorized Autobiography of Alakablam the Mad Wizard OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE THE PIXIES ARE COMING FOR ME FEAR THE PIXIES AND THEIR TINY LITTLE WOODEN SWORDS OH NO AAAAARGH.” |
| 36 | 1 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover. (Lectern: A “do / do not” video about Fireball safety) |
| 37 | 1 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover. (Lectern: Lecturing wizard casting illusions of mathematical structures to illustrate his points) |
| 38 | 1 | (Magic cover, looks to have not been read) “The Dweomer Decimation System: Organizing Your Mystical Library by Subject While Remembering Which Books Will Fight Each Other if They Get Too Close Together” |
| 39 | 12 | Lecture on general magical theory |
| 40 | 1 | (Magic cover) MSAT Study Guide (Magical Standard Aptitude Test) |
| 41 | 1 | Who knows? No pictures, standard cover. (Lectern: Wizard who appears by his mannerisms to be performing a stand-up comic routine) |
| 42 | 5 | Seems like some kind of storybook about mice? |
4th Floor
Stairs up are missing until puzzle solved.
Top chests from L to R are red & green; bottom are gold (the one with a cross pattern) and brown. Players can touch the crystal ball in center but if they try to move it or damage it, it will become intangible and resist manipulation. (Note: Maps were printed in black & white on a laser printer – actual colors weren’t visible so I assigned them arbitrarily!)
Opening any chest will cause a beam to fire from the ball that knocks everyone near the chest into the wall and causes the chest to close back up. Even if players drag a chest elsewhere (downstairs, outside, etc.) beam will still reach them, then chest will close & teleport back to its starting position.
Ball will shoot up to 3 simultaneous beams, so the trick is to open all 4 at once; the last one opened (roll d4 the first time to see which one; once characters have figured it out, they can choose) will remain open after the beams are fired. Inside each chest is a +1 to hit, +1 damage version of the weapon left in the corresponding color statue from the 2nd level. When all are opened, the ball will glow brightly for a moment and then a new version of the weapon from the blue statue below will appear. This weapon will also be +1/+1, but with an additional power. If sharp, it’s “vorpal” – 3 points of armor piercing. If blunt, it’s “of flamestrike”, meaning it does an additional d6-1 fire damage on hits.
After someone takes the final weapon, the door will appear.
5th Floor
Stairs up are missing when players enter.
Three apprentice mages – each on one of the glowing circles around the outer ring pictured – have summoned a fire elemental but failed to successfully control it, so they’re locked in a struggle to keep it from breaking out of the force field they’ve woven around the center ring. Discarded sticks of colored chalk lie around them
Apprentices will not attack unless attacked – they just want to get out of there. Elemental will break free and attack if anyone attacks him, or if any of the wizards’ concentration is broken from being attacked. Stairs will appear when either all foes are defeated/fled or the elemental has been banished.
If characters did not find elemental book below or don’t think of it, one apprentice will say “I told them we should have brought the instructions with us!” On a sequence of pages in the book are sketches of the symbols drawn on the floor here, and anyone passing an IN check will notice the mages forgot to draw two triangles: one has its corners formed in red from the glowing circles they’re standing in, the other in blue from the smaller runes between them. (Have someone draw them on the map)
When drawing is complete, mages will be able to dismiss the elemental, then will flee the room so fast they leave behind their pouches. Three pouches contain 12, 16, and 23 gp respectively. The first also holds an Official Junior Wizard’s Adventure Club Secret Decoder Ring (200gp), which when worn will allow characters to read the books down below if they want to. The second also contains a bag of licorice (1gp), and the third has a common rock with crude face painted onto it (0 gp).
6th Floor
No more riddle solving… fight! Mage Bombardier is accompanied by four animated suits of armor (blue light leaking out from between the joints) carrying swords. (One has an elven breastplate, which is lightweight enough to offer plate protection without a movement penalty.) Armor suits go down when Bomby does.
When an armor suit is defeated it will immediately start to rust away, except for the elven breastplate. Inside each armor suit is a glowing gem worth 80 gp.
The key is simply in one of Bomby’s pockets, along with a scroll (4gp) for a spell called, for some reason, Conjure Didgeridoo.
How it played out
Players were able to make it to the top without combat. The puzzle that took them the longest by far was the closed door on the bedroom level; they came very close to the answer several times, but kept retreating to trying to figure out whether carrying/wearing/drinking some combination of the items found in the room would let them get through. They got it eventually, though.
On returning to town, they sold their loot and bought longbows for Vinny and BusyBody to replace their short bows, and a heavy breastplate upgrade for BB.
Next up: Part II, part 2: The Crypts of Aobos