White Plume Mountain
The construction of the mad mage Keraptis, who laired nearby and who challenged any brave enough to try and retrieve them.
Purpose / Function
The dungeon in the volcano was constructed as a challenge to anyone who thought themselves able to best Keraptis' genius.
History
Well over a millennium ago, the wizard Keraptis rose to power in the valleys of the northern mountains, bringing the local warlords under his thumb with gruesome threats - threats that were fulfilled just often enough to keep the leaders in line.
Under Keraptis' overlordship, the influx of rapacious monsters and raids from the wild mountains decreased markedly, dwindled, and then almost stopped. Seeing this, the populace did not put up much resistance to paying the wizard's heavy taxes and tithes, especially when word circulated of what happened to those who balked. Any nobles who resisted disappeared in the night, and were promptly replaced by the next in line of succession, who was usually more tractable than their predecessor.
Gradually, as dissension was stilled, the taxes and levies became even more burdensome, until eventually the wizard was taking a great piece of everything that was grown, made, or sold in the valleys, including the newborn young of livestock.
Around this time, the warlord Iuz was beginning his rise to power. Numerous reports arose in the land concerning sudden madness, demonic possessions, and sightings of apparitions and undead. Furthermore, monstrous incursions into the settled lands began to increase as raiding parties of humanoids assaulted villages, and evil and fantastic monsters appeared from nowhere to prey upon the harried peasants.
At the height of this unrest, Keraptis' tax collectors came forth with word of a new levy: one-third of all newborn children were henceforth to be turned over to the wizard.
That edict turned out to be the tipping point. As one, the people rose up to overwhelm the wizard's lackeys and marched on his keep, where, led by a powerful and good cleric and his ranger acolytes, they destroyed Keraptis' final guardians.
The great wizard barely managed to escape, accompanied only by his personal bodyguard of deranged fanatics. Keraptis fled to the cities of the south and west, but everywhere he went, his reputation preceded him, and he was unable to stay anywhere for long.
Once again moving north, he came to the shores of the Lake of Unknown Depths, and heard tales about the haunted White Plume Mountain. After investigating further, he found the refuge he was looking for in the tangled maze of volcanic tunnels beneath the cone.
Keraptis and his followers vanished into the shadow of the Plume, and humankind heard no more of the evil wizard.
That is, until millennia later, when the hand of Keraptis once again began to interfere in the affairs of the world. In a single night, three legendary weapons, Wave, Whelm, and Blackrazor disappeared from their vaults, replaced only by a ransom note:
Search ye far or search ye near
You'll find no trace of the three
Unless you follow my instructions clear
For the weapons abide with me.
North past forest, farm and furrow,
You must go to the feathered mound
Then down away from the sun you'll burrow
Forget life, forget light, forget sound.
To rescue Wave, you must do battle
With the Beast in the Boiling Bubble
Crost cavern vast, where chain-links rattle,
Lies Whelm, past water-spouts double
Blackrazor yet remains to be won
Underneath inverted ziggurat.
That garnered, think not that you're done,
For now you'll find you are caught
I care not, former owners brave
What heroes you seek to hire.
Though mighty, I'll make each one my slave
Or send him to the fire.
The notes were signed with Keraptis' symbol.
Decades later, many adventurers have tried their luck in the tunnels of White Plume Mountain, but none have emerged again.
Type
Dungeon
Related Report (Primary Locations)