[3.5] Help Me Design A Tower Full Of Crazy

[Drakevarg]

Dungeon is in quotes up there because what I'm working on isn't a Dungeon. It's a tower that's made out of crazy. Eh. Changing the title anyway.

In the setting that I'm working on, wizards are limited by the fact that casting arcane magic basicly causes the universe to turn around and punch you in the groin occassionally. The more powerful you get, the more powerful the backlash gets, until inevitably the wizard either goes insane or is outright consumed by the backlash.

The tower in question was an attempt by the main religious faction, the Templars, to protect bystanders from rampant wizardry by building a tower waaaay out in the boonies and sticking all the wizards in it. Unfortunately all that magic in the same spot just made it worse. All the wizards are now long since insane, dead, or worse. The tower itself has been warped into a monument to insanity, and various creepy-crawlies swarm its halls.

My question to you is, what can you think of to stick in here? So far I've got a library full of books that want to kill you, and a large scrying pool where the water wants to kill you and what's left of the seer wants you to Go Mad From The Revelation (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoMadFromTheRevelation). Other than that it's mostly just really confusing hallways.

This tower is intended to be entered by Level 1 characters, but since I'm a killer DM I'd prefer it to be set so that any given encounter is a genuinely dangerous one that could potentially kill at least one member of the party. That's just how I roll. None of that "chosen ones" tripe.

The tower's about 10 stories tall (plus catacombs of unknown depth. PCs won't be going there) and a potential Big Bad will be found on the roof. Due to the theme of the tower, the two source books I own don't really fit so we'll be sticking to Core. Elementals, Outsiders with elemental subtypes, and Abberations will be most of the monsters, plus a few here and there with specific thematic origins, possibly including ones I'll have to homebrew. (IE, the Pagebound Soul in my sig.)

I can probably come up with my own stuff with enough time (it'd be alot easier if the party wasn't so damned squishy), but having a public forum to bounce ideas off of is always nice.

[retaliation08]

You need to go to your local movie/videogame rental store, go to the video game section, find your platform and rent dragon age origins. If u dont have a console you can get it for pc (which is better anyway) but you prolly wont be able to rent a pc game. reason for all of this: tower of magi, run by the circle of magi, who are tamed by the templars... it is right up (whats seems to be) your alley.

[Zovc]

I remember seeing somewhere rules for a plane of chaos, perhaps those could prove useful for a portion of that tower?

Alienists could be flavorful and cool. They're in the Complete Arcane, I think (If not, Complete Mage).

[Icewraith]

Alchemy lab plus tower-wide zone that casts animate objects 1/round isn't something I'd want to fight, due to the hordes of tiny animated flasks of acid and whatnot that would be possible, never mind larger objects like rugs, tables, and door animating and beating the crap out of the party.

Also, make use of the tunnel swallow spell from Spell Compendium. The party clears a tunnel full of magical traps. At the end of the tunnel there is a tunnel swallow effect that moves them back to the beginning of the tunnel, and then the traps reset.

[Drakevarg]

You need to go to your local movie/videogame rental store, go to the video game section, find your platform and rent dragon age origins. If u dont have a console you can get it for pc (which is better anyway) but you prolly wont be able to rent a pc game. reason for all of this: tower of magi, run by the circle of magi, who are tamed by the templars... it is right up (whats seems to be) your alley.

Ahahahaha... you think I have money! That's rich. No, but I wish I did. Trust me, Dragon Age: Origins is at the top of my to-get list of videogames. It's just that with no source of income, that list doesn't move all that often.

Though I suppose I could watch Silent Hill, but that's more sex-themed crazy than magic-themed crazy. Hm... *glances at movie shelf* ...I seem to be lacking in mentally scarring movies. I blame my budget. Playing God of War II might work, though.

EDIT: Double-ninja'd. For most of the comments; remember, I only have Core here. For the other bits - randomly animating objects seems like a pretty standard stop that I'll be using quite a bit throughout. I'll also take a gander at the chaos-aligned planes in the DMG.

[Coidzor]

Pseudo-natural architecture is always fun.

Maybe some illegal templates, but be clear with the players about what you're doing. Like, undead, rotting statuary with tentacles, for example.

Hmm... Some illegal template fun can be had still.

Don't think you have pseudo-natural with core or SRD though. :/ Q&D might be to describe 'em as all kerfluffled and with 1d6 tentacles, 1d3 actually capable of threatening as a natural attack.

[Drakevarg]

No undead. In this campaign undead are under the dominion of the God of Death, whom like all dieties want nothing to do with wizards.

On the other hand, pissed-off statues might be nice, assuming I can think of a way to make them without spamming animate object again. Doubt these guys could take on a golem without dying in two rounds.

Undoubtedly the place will be swarming with Riftspawn (see Cost of Magic in my sig), but the options are yet again limited by the squishiness of my players.

[Coidzor]

^: If you hate how squishy they are, why are you running them through at level 1?


On the other hand, pissed-off statues might be nice, assuming I can think of a way to make them without spamming animate object again. Doubt these guys could take on a golem without dying in two rounds.

Well, there's always treating them as humanoids with construct qualities... and tentacles... Probably some homebrew around of animated statues or some such.

[Drakevarg]

Well, there's always treating them as humanoids with construct qualities... and tentacles... Probably some homebrew around of animated statues or some such.

I've homebrewed two creatures for this place as it is, why stop there? (Not that I'm sure that my other homebrews won't instantly reduce the party to a fine paste either...)