Friday Fantasy: Altar of Madness

Altar of Madness is not a scenario per se. It is definitely not an adventure. It is definitely a book for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It is definitely a place that the Player Characters are likely to visit again and again and it can be placed almost anyway in the known multiverse. So, what it is, is a single room. A large room, but a single room. A single large encounter that the Game Master can add to any dungeon. Given what it is though, it really works as an addition to a large dungeon. So good for a megadungeon. Or actually two megadungeons. This is because the room can move and as they explore a megadungeon, the Player Characters find might the entrance to this room on more than one dungeon level and later on, they might find the entrance in another altogether. So far, so many generalities. Which is entirely the fault of the encounter, because Altar of Madness has no plot, no beginning, middle, or end, and so none of that can be reviewed. Which leaves the description of what is a very detailed room to review and that is going to be difficult to review without giving away any spoilers because there is a great deal to spoil in Altar of Madness.

Altar of Madness is the final resting place of the mythical First Wizard and the good news is that it has been found. Who or what the First Wizard was is not known, but what is known is that he was interred with a splendid variety of magical treasures ripe for the taking. To which the blurb for Altar of Madness adds, “You are so, so fucked.” Which is entirely accurate, because what Altar of Madness actually is a deathtrap dungeon, or rather a deathtrap room. A room filled with features that are going to entice the players to have their characters investigate and search and play around with and have things go wrong, oh so wrong, that their characters are going to walk away changed. Changed. Cursed. Poisoned. Maddened. Scarred. Aware. Altered. Infested. Bleeding. Incensed. Undead. Armoured. Prescient. Bejewelled. Blinded and blinding. Unlucky. Colourblind. Deviated. All of these are entirely possible conditions that a Player Character can suffer in Altar of Madness. Essentially, this is a tomb with not so much traps as items and objects and spaces which if the Player Characters interact with them, they are going to suffer. This is one giant ‘screw you’ for the players and their characters if their curiosity and greed get the better of them—and it will because there are good magical items to be found—and touch things.

The Altar of Madness is a room one hundred feet in diameter and twenty feet high, with a five foot wide ledge running round the edge. Steps lead down to a bowl of thick phosphorescent mist out of which rises in the centre of the room is fountain topped with demonic skulls and filled with an oily black liquid. A ten foot high diameter hangs over the fountain. Spaced around the room is a statue of a naked woman holding aloft an actual bolt of lightning and a chain hangs straight up from the floor to a hole in space. To the left, there is writing in an unknown language on the wall, whilst to the right, there is a mural of a star-filled sky. In alcoves dotted around the room is an altar carved with human faces, a skeleton dressed in fine clothes lying on a couch, two sarcophagi in separate alcoves, and an eyeball floating in a jar, sitting on a table. There is more, but this is what is visible from the door.

All of this can be interacted with and all of it is described in a very great detail. As are the effects of what happens when the Player Characters do, those effects being rolled on the tables that are associated with each piece of furniture or dressing in the room. Some of the features in the room are connected, primarily through the treasures that they hide, but most are not. The result is that actually many of the features are more installations, almost pieces of art that are designed to screw with the Player Characters. They do not feel out of place as such, but they could be used in a dungeon of the Game Master’s design without any real issue.

This being a design for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, it should be no surprise that the content is intended for mature players. That said, some of the descriptions of what the Player Characters could do and what the consequences are, is prurient, if not distasteful, concerning as it does the molestation of a highly anatomically accurate statue and a pliant woman. To be clear, the author is not encouraging or condoning such actions, but rather explaining the consequences if a player has his character undertake such actions. The first reaction is to wonder quite who you are roleplaying with if a player does think of these actions and voices them, and then the Game Master allows it. The second reaction is to wonder if that content should have been in the book at all, to which the answer is no. Of course, the Game Master can ignore such content if she wants and not allow for the possibility of the players suggesting such ideas, but still… No.

Physically, Altar of Madness is well done. It has an arcane look to it with just the sigil on its front cover and no title or blurb. Inside the book is in black and white and full of dense text. This encounter does need a careful study to understand how each item in the room works.

Altar of Madness is an amazingly inventive exercise in ‘screw the characters, screw the players’ in deathtrap dungeon design. A comical circus of consequences for the overly curious.

—oOo—

Lamentations of the Flame Princess will be at UK Games Expo which takes place from Friday, 29th to Sunday 31st of May.