White Plume Mountain - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

White Plume Mountain is set in the World of Greyhawk, a campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. The earliest known inhabitant of the volcano known as White Plume Mountain is the druid Aegwareth. Aegwareth is later slain by the evil wizard Keraptis, who took over the mountain with his gnomish servitors. The premise of White Plume Mountain is that thirteen hundred years ago, Keraptis descended into the volcanic mountain with a company of gnomes, and disappeared. The adventure is a dungeon crawl, and hinges on Keraptis' theft of three powerful magical weapons: a trident named Wave, a war hammer named Whelm, and a sword named Blackrazor, all of which have their own intelligence and were first introduced in this adventure. The weapons' former owners each received a copy of a taunting poem, instructing them that the weapons are in White Plume Mountain. The characters' goal is to enter into the Wizard's Mouth, a fissure in the side of the active volcano, to rescue the magical weapons from Keraptis' lair.

The adventure's 16 pages are divided into 27 encounters. The player's characters begin in a cave at the base of White Plume Mountain. In the first numbered encounter, the characters find a spiral staircase in the cave which leads to a "mangy, bedraggled" gynosphinx. Encounter seven involves a large cave with a floor of boiling mud. Circular wooden platforms are suspended from the ceiling, and the characters must jump from platform to platform while dodging geysers of hot mud. In the eighth encounter, the characters confront a vampire who is guarding the magical war hammer Whelm in a room of permanent darkness.

In encounter 17, a corridor leads the characters to a boiling lake. According to the adventure, "The corridor from the dungeon continues out into the lake under a rubbery magical forcefield that keeps out the waters by forming a sort of elastic skin of super-tension." The watery tunnel opens into a watery dome, where the characters must defeat a giant crab in order to collect the magical trident Wave. Encounter 22 involves a frictionless room with spikes, and in encounter 23, the characters kayak on a stream suspended in mid air. In the 26th encounter, the characters must fight various creatures in a magical ziggurat where each level is guarded by a different monster including sea lions, giant crayfish, giant scorpions, and manticores. In the last encounter, an ogre mage must be defeated in order to win the magical sword Blackrazor. An end note recommends that the Dungeon Master add an encounter with two efreet if the characters have succeeded in taking two or three of the magic weapons.