White Plume Mountain

White Plume Mountain is set in the World of Greyhawk, a campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. The module is a dungeon crawl, and retrieve the weapons from Keraptis' lair. The adventure is divided into 27 encounters across a 16-page module. Encounters are varied and each presents its own challenges. Encounter seven necessitates characters jumping from platform to platform above a sea of hot mud whilst evading erupting geysers; this in turn leads to encounter eight and a room of permanent darkness where a vampire guards Whelm. Encounter 17 occurs in a giant but fragile bubble located above a boiling lake, with the players needing to defeat a giant crab and retrieve Wave without damaging the bubble. Encounter 26 involves negotiating a magical ziggurat populated by various monsters (including sea lions, giant crayfish, giant scorpions, and manticores) before encounter 28, a battle against an ogre mage who possesses Blackrazor. A final challenge on departing is an encounter with two to four efreet if the characters have succeeded in taking two or three of the magical weapons. ==Publication history==

(pictured in 2016). The original White Plume Mountain adventure was written by Lawrence Schick, and was published by TSR in 1979. It features interior art by Erol Otus and David C. Sutherland III, calligraphy by Darlene Pekul, and a front cover by Sutherland. The module includes a 12-page booklet and an outer folder which featured a two-color cover in the original printing; the module was expanded to 16 pages and rereleased with a full-color cover by Jeff Dee in 1981. The adventure was included as part of the Realms of Horror abridged compilation produced in 1987. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons game in 1999, a reprinting of the original adventure was made available in the ''Dungeons & Dragons Silver Anniversary Collector's Edition boxed set, with slight modifications to make it distinguishable from the original (for collecting purposes). Wizards of the Coast also released a sequel to the adventure in 1999, Return to White Plume Mountain'', as part of the TSR 25th Anniversary series of publications. The events in the sequel are assumed to take place 20 years following those in the original. It was made into a novel of the same name by Paul Kidd for the Greyhawk Classics series. Schick wrote the module while applying for a job with TSR. He took what he felt were the best parts from his previously created dungeons and put them together to create White Plume Mountain. After looking at it, TSR hired him and published the module without making any changes. Looking back in an interview, Schick said that he was "a little embarrassed to this day by Blackrazor, inasmuch as it's such a blatant rip-off of Elric's Stormbringer; I would not have put it into the scenario if I ever thought it might be published." Schick later admitted that it was gratifying to have his adventure published as-is, "but also a little embarrassing, since the adventure was really just a sampler of clever ideas that were never fully fleshed out. Its central conceit, a 'funhouse' dungeon full of tricky obstacles designed to challenge adventurers for the amusement of a mad wizard, was already a cliché even at that date." All four modules of the S-series were included as part of the Dungeons of Dread hardcover adventure collection, released on March 19, 2013. In the foreword, Schick wrote that "unlike Tomb of Horrors, the challenges in White Plume Mountain were designed to make players think, work together as a party, and ultimately win through and feel successful. Players liked that." In 2017, Wizards re-released White Plume Mountain updated to 5th Edition rules as part of the Tales from the Yawning Portal collection. ==Reception==

White Plume Mountain was well received by critics. Dungeon Master for Dummies lists White Plume Mountain as one of the ten best classic adventures, referring to it as a "classic dungeon crawl." Kirby T. Griffis reviewed the adventure in The Space Gamer #37. Griffis found the background interesting, namely Keraptis having stolen the magical weapons from prominent dealers, and the player having been hired to get them back, with only a cryptic poem to help. He found the module well organized and its content more believable than most, and despite its shortness he stated, "This on the whole is a very good module. There are no real flaws." Jim Bambra reviewed White Plume Mountain for the British magazine White Dwarf, and rated it favorably at 8/10 overall. He gave playability, enjoyment, and skill ratings of 9/10, and a complexity rating of 7/10. He noted that the adventure focuses on problem solving, with "many interesting problems for players to overcome". Ken Denmead of Wired says that White Plume Mountain is his favorite adventure, if not necessarily the best. For him, it was the "amusement park of dungeons". He describes the story arc, where the adventurers are hired to retrieve three magic items, as similar to the A-Team or The Equalizer: "You've been hired to help when no one else has been able." He felt that while the sword Blackrazor was a "blatant ripoff of Elric", it was "still way cool". Denmead commented on several of the adventure's encounters. He felt the cavern with boiling mud, hanging disks, and geysers, was "just cruel". Concerning the permanently dark room that houses a vampire, he commented on the ease with which one player's character can easily hit that of another in the gloom. He describes the room where a giant crab guards the trident Wave as "basically a bubble inside a tank of boiling water", noting the crab knows not to pierce the walls and asks, "Are you that smart?" Also, if the players end the adventure with the magic weapons, they need to "bribe" their Dungeon Master to allow them to keep the items. ==In video games==

Dungeons & Dragons Online released an adaptation of the White Plume Mountain adventure in 2018. It includes many of the original encounters, challenges, and monsters from the original module. The rewards for defeating this dungeon include the three sentient weapons, Blackrazor, Whelm, and Wave, though the last is depicted as a quarterstaff, as the game doesn't include tridents.. ==References==