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Dungeon Crawl Classics #3The Mysterious Tower

by Joseph GoodmanAN ADVENTURE FOR CHARACTER LEVELS 3-5

Credits

Writer: Joseph GoodmanFront Cover Artist: Erol OtusBack Cover Artist: Brad McDevittInterior Artists: Brad McDevitt, Mark ParsonsCartographer: Jeremy SimmonsProofreader: Ken HartGraphic Designer: Joseph Goodman (with all duerespect to the early-80’s modules that inspired it)P l a y t e s t e r s : Garrick A n d r u s , Stephen Burt, BryonDahlgren, Alan Fishman, Michael Goodman, StephenPellicer

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Game Master’s Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Background Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Mysterious Tower Map Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Abandoned Keep, Level 0: Ruins . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Abandoned Keep, Level -1: Tombs . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Abandoned Keep, Level -2: Caverns . . . . . . . . . .14Abandoned Keep, Level -3: Wizard’s Dungeon . .17The Wizard’s Tower, Levels –3 through 1 . . . . . . .21

Appendix 1: Players’ Handouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

If you like this adventure, be sure to look for the rest ofthe Dungeon Crawl Classics series at your local gamestore.

Log on to www.goodman-games.com for freebies,news, special offers, and more.

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IntroductionRemember the good old days, when adventures wereunderground, NPCs were there to be killed, and thefinale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20thlevel? Those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classicsdon’t waste your time with long-winded speeches, weirdcampaign settings, or NPCs who aren’t meant to bekilled. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeoncrawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear,and the secret doors you know are there somewhere.

The Mysterious Tower is designed for four to six playersof 3rd through 5th level. We recommend 18-22 totalcharacter levels between the party members. While thecharacters can be of any basic character class, a goodmix of character classes is helpful. A rogue, strong war-rior type, and good-aligned cleric are all extremely valu-able in this adventure, and a wizard will get the mostuse out of the treasure. See the “Scaling Information”section for ways to tailor this adventure your group’sunique style of play.

Adventure SummaryWhile adventuring in new lands, the characters repeat-edly hear tales of a strange wizard’s tower protected byan impenetrable force field. Even though the tower sitsamidst the ruins of a keep destroyed long ago, the toweritself is perfectly preserved. The force field that sur-rounds it has kept it from harm for generations.Travelers who have ventured close report that the ghostof the wizard still haunts the tower, but it is trappedbehind the force field. Unable to escape, it taunts thosewho come near, lamenting its eternal imprisonment.The wizard’s name is lost to time, but it is said he wasskilled in the art of force magic, and his tower still holdsthe trove of wondrous magic he accumulated during hislifetime. As the characters continue their overland trav-el, they come within sight of the mysterious tower andare tempted by its riches.

The first half of this adventure features lots of combatagainst fairly unintelligent beasts (owlbears, giant bee-tles, otyughs, etc.), as well as a few battles with somefairly strategic undead. The middle section of the adven-ture focuses on traps, since the lowest level of ruins isguarded by the old wizard’s many defenses. The finalpart of the adventure is exploration of the tower itself,which involves examination of curious magic, a puzzle-type encounter heavy on role-playing, and finally a dra-matic battle against a reluctant genie who guards thewizard’s treasure.

This adventure is light on treasure until the very end.The players may feel like they’re getting no reward formost of the adventure, but once they find the wizard’svast fortune in the final room, they’ll be happy. Most of

the magic items are curious artifacts in the wizard’stower. If you’d prefer, you can substitute more tradition-al (and more usable) weapons, armor, or items.

By the end of this adventure, the characters will havefree rein over a powerful tower that can provide a baseof operations for future adventures. However, they’llprobably be nervous about staying there too long, lestthey end up trapped like the last owner!

Game Master’s SectionEncounter Table

To help the GM prepare, we have included a quick ref-erence table showing all encounters at a glance. Loc –the location number keyed to the map for the encounter.Pg – the module page number that the encounter canbe found on. Type – this indicates if the encounter is atrap (T), puzzle (P), or combat (C). Encounter – the keymonsters, traps, or NPCs that can be found in theencounter. EL – the encounter level.

Loc Pg Type Encounter EL1 5 C 3 giant bombardier 5

beetles2 5 C Ghost 33 6 C Assassin vine 35 6 C Giant stag beetle 49 8 C Otyugh 412 9 C Sleeping owlbear 213 9 C 2 owlbears 614 10 C Owlbear and 2 young 419 11 C 4 animated coffins 7

10 skeletons22 12 T Scything blade trap 123 13 C Wight 324 15 C 3 shriekers 5

2 violet funguses25 15 C Ankheg 326 16 C Gelatinous cube 327 17 T Force field acid trap 529 18 T Poison gas trap 330 19 T Pit traps (x6) 431 20 T, C Fire trap 6

3 rust monsters34 22 P, C Quasit 335 24 C 2 earth elementals 536 25 C Djinni 6

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Scaling InformationThe Mysterious Tower is designed for 4-6 characters of3rd-5th levels, but it can be easily modified for parties ofdifferent sizes or levels, as follows:

Weaker parties (3 or fewer characters, or lower than3rd level): Remove one or two bombardier beetles fromarea 1. Replace the owlbears in areas 12, 13, and 14with bugbears. Reduce the number of skeletons in area19 to 5 and the number of animated coffins to 2. Entirelyremove the funguses from area 24, and make the firetrap in area 31 a spear trap (spear launches from thewall when chest is disturbed; Atk +12 ranged (1d8/x3,spear); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20). Finally,make the djinni in area 36 so paranoid about losing anygold that he won’t use his whirlwind ability lest it sendgold flying out of the room.

Stronger parties (7 or more characters, or higherthan 5th level): Make the swarm in area 5 a dangerousbat swarm per the MM. Double the number of owlbearsin areas 12, 13, and 14, and make them all awake. Addthe risk of contracting a disease to those who searcharea 15. Make the area 19 animated coffins construct-ed of finely wrought iron (hardness 10 instead of 5), andadd more skeletons to area 20. Replace the scythingblade trap at 22 with a ceiling pendulum (Atk +15 melee(1d12+8/x3, greataxe); Search DC 15; Disable DeviceDC 27). Add more ankhegs to area 25, make the acid in27 more caustic (1d8 or 1d10 damage per round), and,finally, put something really nasty in area 35 instead ofthe earth elementals (perhaps another demon).

Getting the Players InvolvedThis adventure relies on characters finding a reason tocome across a mysterious location. Once they’ve foundit, the simple urge to explore should coax them into theadventure. The hook, therefore, is getting them to comeacross the tower in the first place. The following anglescan be used to get the players involved in the plot:

• The easiest method is to simply have the charac-ters see the tower on the horizon during their over-land travels.

• While staying at a tavern on an extended journey,the characters hear tell of the tower not far away. Itis within a day’s journey and has been there forgenerations, avoided by locals because it is consid-ered a haunted area.

• While on another adventure, the characters comeacross a spell book formerly owned by a mageinterested in force magic. In one section hedescribes a number of attempts to formulate a per-manent forcecage spell, and makes reference tothe location of the mysterious tower and the secrets

that must lie within it.

• In a settlement near the tower, a local farmer’s sonhas gone missing. His path is easy enough to track,but the adventurers are brought in because thelocals fear he may have ventured close to the towerand been killed by the ghost.

Background StoryLong, long ago, there was a wizard whose name is nowlost to time. He had a profitable career as an adventur-er and eventually decided to retire to pursue his magi-cal studies. For his whole life he had been intrigued byforce magic, so it was in that direction that he focusedhis studies.

The wizard was not a vain man and had no particularlove of power, so he built his tower far from civilizedlands. There was an old ruined keep in the border terri-tories that had been unoccupied for three generations,and happened to lie in a region where there were nomajor settlements. He chose to build his tower there.

The wizard’s tower was made of gleaming white marble,and stood out in stark contrast to the ruins around it. Atthat time, the ruins were fairly recent, having resultedfrom a minor war some 60 years prior that swept thearea of civilized occupants. The wizard was aware thatwandering monsters – and wandering adventurers –would always remain a threat, so he made entrance tohis tower quite difficult. He explored the ruins thorough-ly and hid the entrance to his tower underground,behind a secret door that itself was in a secret roombuilt by the long-gone owners of the keep. Past that heinstalled a series of traps that he could bypass with thecorrect command word, but which were otherwise quitedeadly. He also installed a backup procedure by leavingbehind a set of “spare keys” to his keep, should he everneed them, but they were hidden and protected byskeletons in an ancient tomb that the keep’s buildershad inadvertently excavated. He told no one aboutthem, so no one would think to look for them.

All in all, the tower was extremely well protected. Thesimple fact that there were no ground-level entrances(or even any windows) deterred most wandering mon-sters. The wizard was aware of a few adventurers andmarauding orcs who tried to get in, because he wouldfind their bodies impaled on his spike traps or dissolvedin his acid trap when he left every few months to getsupplies. But no one ever made it into the tower itself.

Still, the wizard was irked that invaders had made it asfar as they had. As befitted his research, he wanted theultimate protection: an impassable, permanent forcewall that was simply unbreachable. It would blockmagic, teleportation, and physical attacks. In short, hewould be utterly secure.

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