I’d love to review this funny little fantasy novel, but truth be told I did not finish it. I actually got into it for less than fifty pages. It was a little too whimsical to me, and constant silliness is ok for awhile, but not for 300 pages.
But there is a fantastic dungeon idea to be gleaned from within the pages of this book. Basically, it takes place in an evil wizard’s castle. In his career the wizard has had many enemies, and he had vanquished them all. But rather than kill his foes, he preferred to trap them in different forms and lock them up in his dungeons. So this multitude of rival wizards, knights, and adventurers off all kinds exist as monsters, phantoms, and even inanimate objects such as walls, paintings, and suits of armor. One unlucky victim even exists as a mechanical pulley unit that drags meat for the monsters from larders deeper in the dungeon.
The wizards’ slave, who actually is a young female kobold, runs around cleaning and feeding and generally doing upkeep on the castle and environs.
The D&D roots of the story are clear, and so it would be natural to take ideas from it for games. This sort of mega-dungeon, populated entirely by purpose rather than some sort of Gygaxian Naturalism would practically write itself once you got working on it. First, have some small parts of the dungeon complex be polymorphed victims, such as corridors, walls, and bridges. Even entire rooms could have once been a living being. Maybe the castle itself. Let them talk a bit, and either hamper or help adventurers with info. Have some victims be magical statues or mirrors that do helpful or harmful affects on those that dare to deal with them. And of course stock the dungeon with typical monster fare, but each and every one of these monsters was once a person, and they still have their original intelligence and can often still talk. Maybe some want to hurt the party to please the wizard and maybe get a reprieve from their curse; or maybe they will help if the party promises to kill the wizard, therefore relieving them of their predicament (of course, even if the wizard dies they still might be there).
Even some treasure items could be former foes of the wizard, such as talking jewelry, or intelligent swords and armor. And of course, don’t forget to have a helper/apprentice who runs around taking care of the place.
And perhaps the wizard has a massive spell cast on the castle itself, so that if anyone dies within it’s walls while opposing him, they automatically reincarnate in a different form rather than perish. Just another victim in the castle, rooting for the party to stop the foul sorcerer.
Awesome stuff, and probably the first time I got really good ideas from a book I could not finish.
