Solo adventure- escaping the mind

[Asleferund]

Hey! Rebooting a campaign after some time off. Last thing the characters did 1.5 years ago was open a phylactery in order to destroy it. There was a powerful curse upon it and all of the characters have had terrible things happen as a result.

The Lore Bard in the group was cursed with being trapped in his own mind. He has been wandering the world for 3 years. Every strum of his instrument sounds dissonant and every word spoke to him sounds hostile and foreign except for one monk woman who feeds him. It has driven his barely conscious mind absolutely mad. The only escape is to solve a series of puzzles within his own mind and escape.

I was thinking of something akin to an escape chamber scenario. Does anyone have any cool suggestions I can use for inspiration.

[KorvinStarmast]

Hey! Rebooting a campaign after some time off. Last thing the characters did 1.5 years ago was open a phylactery in order to destroy it. There was a powerful curse upon it and all of the characters have had terrible things happen as a result.

The Lore Bard in the group was cursed with being trapped in his own mind. He has been wandering the world for 3 years. Every strum of his instrument sounds dissonant and every word spoke to him sounds hostile and foreign except for one monk woman who feeds him. It has driven his barely conscious mind absolutely mad. The only escape is to solve a series of puzzles within his own mind and escape.

I was thinking of something akin to an escape chamber scenario. Does anyone have any cool suggestions I can use for inspiration.
House of Four Doors, by the Moody Blues, as a theme.
Lyrics here. (https://genius.com/The-moody-blues-house-of-four-doors-part-1-lyrics)

[Asleferund]

I like it.

[Skrum]

I'm personally a fan of time-loops, so maybe go with a short, overwhelming encounter that he needs to figure out how to beat? For example, maybe he begins in a prison, but his cell door is unlocked. He begins to wander the halls, but the place is unnervingly empty - no guards, just random people in a few cells that are all out of their mind in various ways. Babbling, singing, interacting with things that aren't there.

Soon though he meets the Warden. The Warden is a powerful, evil creature that gives some dialogue but then attacks, and quickly kills him....and he comes to in his cell for it all to start again.

I'd have to think about it longer for how he'd get out of this place (get passed the Warden), but something like this appeals to me because it ends up being waaaay less work for the DM lol. Instead of making a huge complicated maze with a bunch of traps, puzzles, whatever you had in mind, it's just one puzzle that the player will probably have to go through a few times before they figure it out. There's a lot you can do too with the other prisoners to keep things interesting.

Since he's a bard, maybe he needs to figure out how to inspire the other prisoners to help him? Idk.

[Catullus64]

Find and read a good summary (or, if you're feeling bold, the actual text, which is notoriously dense) of GWF Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, specifically the famous idea of the Lord-and-Bondsman dialectic. It's a semi-mythical account of how human consciousness comes to recognize and become aware of itself. Making a D&D-allegory version of the dialectic (or simply borrowing some of its themes and ideas) could be a great way to play out a character's struggle to reassert control over his own mind.

If you don't feel like doing that much reading, here's how it would work in gameplay terms:

1. While in his state of madness, the character is set upon by a mysterious figure, who is terrifying and seemingly hostile. The two do combat; you should set up the creature's statistics such that defeat for the Bard is very likely. The adversary agrees to spare the Bard's life if he will become his slave, and perform tasks for him. If the Bard refuses, he is killed; his mind breaks and his self is annihilated.

2. While enslaved, the Bard is made to perform a series of grim and insane tasks in which he has to use his particular skills and abilities. These could be skill challenges, combat encounters, or social roleplay (all play well to a Bard).

3. In the process of performing these tasks for his new master, the Bard interacts with the world around him and strengthens his understanding; he gains a level or some other boon as a clear marker of this.

4. The other figure now realizes that he is dependent upon the labor of the Bard; he openly laments this fact, and despises the Bard. He attacks again, but this time he is the weaker, and the Bard triumphs. As the figure lies defeated, the Bard can at last recognize his own features in his adversary. Through his enslavement to his own madness, he has been strengthened and overcome that same madness. That does not mean he is free of it, but he is now lucid, self-aware; he can distinguish the effects of his madness from the world around him, and strive to make peace with it.