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."

 

[pnewman]

Sort of Faerun's version of the UN prison at the Hague (which is part of a larger Dutch prison), but not as nice?

 

[Burnside]

I love the art in this book.

 

[Helldritch]

This has me raise an eye brow from curiosity. Prisoner 237....

 

[Davinshe]

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

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

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

 

[Weiley31]

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

The idea that a Maximum Security Prison for the Lord's Alliance, taken over by Mindflayers, and using it to infiltrate the Realms via tadpole infected slaves sounds like a delicious idea!

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The idea that a Maximum Security Prison for the Lord's Alliance, taken over by Mindflayers, and using it to infiltrate the Realms via tadpole infected slaves sounds like a delicious idea!

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.

 

[Coroc]

Strikes me as having a 'Beyond the Wall' (or rather at the wall) Game of Thrones vibe...

It reminds a bit of GoTs wall, true that.

 

[Coroc]

Basalt column straightened/reinforced/sculpted by magic? Weird natural occurrence enhanced with masonry? One way or another, I like it.

I hope the ship has a reinforced hull however...

I wonder if the rock ramp behind the tower is part of the building (since there also is a tunnel drilled into it (left of the tower base). It would make sense to me, otherwise you could access the tower top via the ramp eventually.

 

[Demetrios1453]

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

I actually thought of both, to be honest.

Although Time Lord ceremonial robes wouldn't look out of place at all being worn by a potential mind flayer inhabitants (as others are hypothesizing on this thread).