D&D 5E Icewind Dale Preview: The Panopticon

A tidbit from the upcoming book from Chris Perkins -- "The Panopticon of Revel’s End, where the Lords’ Alliance keeps its most dangerous criminals. More info on this maximum security prison can be found in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden."

 

[Derren]

Now will they use an actual panopticum design or just use the name?
Also with the ressources of the Lords Alliance, wouldnt the Imprisonment spell be a better way to imprison someone? Although it might be intended for the prisoners to eventually die of old age which the spell would prevent.

 

[Hutchimus Prime]

Is this place the characters from the last D&D Live event were imprisoned?

 

[Nebulous]

Love it

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Panopticon is on Gallifrey, and also at Ravel's End.

This supports my hypothesis that Ravel Puzzlewell is the Doctor.

 

[Gradine]

Everybody is talking doctor who and I'm like "ooh, someone's into Jeremy Bentham"

Personally I've just hoping this gets more D&D players reading Foucault.

 

[Gadget]

I must say that they've taken the artwork up a notch compared to the more recent past of exotic PCs with oversized weapons doing a "Charlies Angels" pose. I like it. A lot.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Now will they use an actual panopticum design or just use the name?
Also with the ressources of the Lords Alliance, wouldnt the Imprisonment spell be a better way to imprison someone? Although it might be intended for the prisoners to eventually die of old age which the spell would prevent.

The illustration sure doesn't look like a panopticon design, does it? But I suppose we need to wait for the plans to be sure.

 

[Eltab]

I've been wanting to do a Frozen North / Vikings campaign, featuring Arauthator's lair from Tiamat and the Frost Giants from Storm King's Thunder. This looks like another toy to fit into the plot.

 

[JustinCase]

I'm buying the book only for this location! (not really...)

Using it as a mix of Shutter Island meets Arkham Asylum and Umbrela Corp. Training Ground, where Mindflayer used the isolated facility to use as a giant refrigerator full of food. Now the imprisoned patients roam the corridor like mad zombies, some of them infected by Illithid tadpoles.

You are part of a whaling expedition in the north. You boat is shipwrecked in a nearby island. You find refuge in a abandoned mine that seemed to be recently converted as a safe place by group that seem to have disappeared suddenly. Exploring deeper, you realize that the group that recently occupied the mine was from Revel's End, the nearby asylum for mentality and arcane insane. What's stranger is that the group seem to have went deeper and deeper in the mine, and there's not trace of them coming back. The only chance of escaping the frozen hellscape is to find a potential embarkation to sail to Revel's End and ask the keepers for help. Surely the warden of the prison will be pleased to give you assistance, right?

At the end of the world, who can make the difference between the insane prisoner and the ones crazed by the eldritch parasites devouring their brain?

Inspiration:
Shutter Island
Resident Evil 0
The Suffering
Silent Hill
Penumbra
The Thing
Chtulhu Mythos

Indeed right?

I, personally, will be pushing it further on the survival psycho-horror theme.

Probably have the High Warden and his goons, maybe with a bunch of prisoner bootlickers and a few unwilling prisoners be the central evil of the place. My idea is that a group of prisoner escaped and found refuge in a lost mine on a nearby island. They explored the mine and had to survive eating strange translucent spiders and larvae that came from the depth (Penumbra). When food started to dwindle, they went a few at the time deeper in the mines, where they found an old, decaying Elder Brain. They started worshipping him, as they were already quite mad. A few days later, the search party composed of the warden and his crew found the escapees and their new god. They killed the escapees, and the Warden ''bonded'' with the creature, seeing/feeling the power of the over-mind. He decided the brain and himself should be one, but instead of offering himself for cerebromorphosis, being a pure spirit of selfishness and pride, he instead ate and forced his crew and his favorite ''pets'' and victims to feed on the elder brain, so that they could use the eldritch all-seeing power to exert a perfect control on the prison (the ultimate Panopticon, if you will). Naturally, the process warped much of them, transforming them in eldritch horrors which quickly freed all the insane prisoners to use the prison as a big hunting ground/slaughter party.

During the campaign, the Warden and his goons will be able to read the mind of the characters, projecting maddening illusions based on their envy, guilt and darkest secret. One of the power of the Warden will be to mutate humanoid to reflect their ''crime/sins''.

I'll probably use the stat for Belashyrra from Eberron for the Warden, make good use of intellect devourer, gibering mouther, the Core Spawns from Wildemount and nothics.

I also at least make one use of a mute, large, unrelenting cultist of Baphomet that tracks the party in ''his maze'', to make a nod to the classics such as Leatherface, Mike Myers and Pyramid Head.

I'd bet this is exactly the storyline we will get.

And I would not be disappointed. At all!

 

[wicked cool]

Would be really cool to see cameos from obscure villians like Warduke, Kelek, etc. Villians that never actually died