Azac's Mountain of Madness

A little history ....

From 1983 to 1986 I wrote a six-level dungeon adventure for Tunnels and Trolls called The Tomb of Vashai (which I still have). In that last year I was living in California, publishing a fanzine called Demon Issue, and was in regular contact with Ken St Andre, contributing a variety of very bad drawings to his TnT fanzine, as well as others such as Tori Bergquist's The Sorcerer's Scrolls and Mike Jarrell's Chronicles of Chaos.

I wrote a sequel to the Tomb, completed in 1988, called The Mountain of Madness, with Vashai updated to be called Azac. By now Demon Issue had changed name to Pandemonium and it was eventually taken over by Matthew de Monti. He published Azac's Mountain of Madness in 1989, as a stand-alone GM adventure.

Sometime around 2010, maybe a little later, I learned that a number of my T&T publications were being re-packaged and republished by an outfit called Outlaw Press, an apt name as these were pirate editions, produced without my knowledge, permission, or any remuneration. This included Azac's Mountain of Madness, Goblin Waters, and all three issues of my T&T fanzine, Raven, including taking a number of solo adventures from there written by the likes of my brother Murray Ewing (Soul-search), Matthew Wilson (The Six Trees of Ainugren), as well my own The Black Isle.

The Outlaw version of Azac's Mountain of Madness misses out rooms 13-19 from level 2. As it's a copy of the Pandemonium edition, I presume that had them missing too (I no longer have my copy to check). So here I present the missing rooms ...

Missing rooms 13-19 (download PDF)

13) This small room contains a number of shelves crowded with old stoneware pots and jugs, most are empty except for cobwebs and dust, while others contain a few drops of dirty water (no effect if drunk). Characters can search more thoroughly and if a 2LSR on LK is made a small box of 4 iron shuriken (throwing stars, 1D6 damage) can be discovered. The door to room 14 has some kind of painting on it that has faded to almost nothing - any closer examination will reveal it looks a bit like two goblins wrestling in loin cloths.

14) This room contains about 30 barrels, all sealed up. Characters can break them open with an axe or some other heavy weapon, but if they do they will release a long build-up of gas from the fermented liquid inside (who knows what it originally was), which will explode out. The character who opened the barrel will take 1D6 damage, while any characters immediately near the opener will take 1D6-1 damage - only head or face armour can count as protection. If the damage rolled is a 6, and they have no specific eye protection, then that character has blurry vision that won’t clear until they go up to level 3 - the GM can decide how this might affect combat and saving rolls, but it should do so in some way (eg. a modifier based on dice throw, a fixed amount, or based on adds, etc).

15) The walls of this room are very high, a good 20’, and all along the top are a series of ceramic vents pushing hot air into the room - it’s incredibly warm, but not overly hot. There is obvious dried blood splattered all over the east wall, but the room is otherwise empty. Blocking the vents has no real effect, except the room may start to cool.

16) This room contains an old wooden bed upon which lies a human skeleton in rags. It has a gold tooth (worth 1 gp) and clutches a very rusty sword that will crumble if used. If characters search under the bed they will find a yellowed chamber pot that doesn’t smell very nice, old and cracked, and a pouch containing 10 sp.

17) The walls of this room, which is noticeably cold (the characters breath can be seen), are made from large granite stones, cemented together. Chained to the south wall is a very angry looking minotaur, pulling at his chains and snorting. The sight of the characters makes him go wild and he will thrash and roar, but he can’t escape or get away from the wall. He will eventually calm down, but still be angry. The Minotaur has an MR of 100 but cannot fight back if slain as it’s chained up. If the PCs return through this room and the Minotaur has been released (room 18) then he will attack; if the PCs offer him meat (from room 19) he will: boar or venison - not attack, but eat the frozen meat, giving the characters time to get away; mutton - roll 1D6, 1-3 he ignores it and attacks the characters, 4-6 he eats the meat; chicken - he ignores it and attacks the characters. If he eats the meat but the characters stay, when he’s finished he’ll attack them.

18) This semi-circular cold room has a large lever in the centre of the floor. It’s very stiff and will require a 2LSR on STR to successfully pull all the way across. If that is done then there will be a loud echoing clunk, but nothing else will appear to have happened. In fact it has, unsurprisingly, unlocked the catches in the wall that hold the minotaur - who doesn’t yet realise he can now move away from the wall. If the characters return through room 17 the Minotaur will go berserk, and will now be free to fight the characters, unless it can be mollified by what’s in room 19.

19) The door to the room is slightly stuck at first but can be barged open with a simple 1LSR on STR. The room is a freezer, the walls made of stone blocks, and it is very cold - the PCs won’t be able to stay in here for too long before taking some cold damage (eg. after 3 or 4 turns 1D6 every subsequent turn). The room is full of frozen meat - boar, venison, mutton and chicken. Some can be taken (it’s heavy). For the characters it will take almost a full day before it thaws, unless artificially thawed by flame or magic. It can be fed to the minotaur - see room 17 for details.

illustration: Garen Ewing 2018