Editing S2: White Plume Mountain (section)

==Novelization==
[[Paul Kidd]] wrote a [[Greyhawk Classics]] novel adaptation of the module in 1999, featuring the characters of the Justicar, Cinders, Polt, and Escalla the fairie. Which will be recurring in future Kidd-GC stories.

Distinguishes itself from a lot of the other licensed novel adaptations through creativity (a party composed of a ranger, a flayed-but-living hellhound skin, a fairy wizard, and a bizarrely-indestructible teamster is at least a creative spin on the usual elf-human-halfling-dwarf fighter-rogue-mage-cleric du jour), good scene-setting writing, and the clever idea of making it a ''sequel'' to the original module, where the dungeon of Keraptis has fallen into disrepair and the villains are trying to renovate it.  It also has a decent sense of humor (mocking some of the weirder or most obvious potential problems with the original module, and the main character escapes [[Mary Sue| the usual label given to an edgy badass in black armor who chose his own name]] by dint of a writer who isn't so in love with him that he's unwilling to make him the butt of many jokes), and, while not perhaps ''tightly'' plotted, it at least manages to work all the subplots together such that none of the side adventures feel like diversions or wastes of time with nothing to do with the main quest.

It also expands on the motivations of Keraptis, not only inventing an unusual and distinctive appearance for the wizard (white on one side and black on the other, like that one ''Star Trek'' alien in the episode about racism), but giving him a motivation for his silly dungeon where the challenges are meant to only get the strongest, most clever adventurers to the end, so they can be absorbed into him and become part of him through a magical process the main villain is keen on poaching for himself.  It also establishes Keraptis is long dead at the start of the story, further making it infuriating that the module proper cheats the players out of a proper boss fight.

Downsides include Escalla, who is about 50/50 on endearing and annoying, a potential ten-little-Indians subplot that is totally squandered on a group that's almost entirely there to die, like Security teams in ''Star Trek'', and taking ''more than half the novel'' to even start travelling to the titular dungeon.  

Also, an interesting [[erinyes]] sub-villain, after spending most of the novel being a fairly competent and intimidating threat, throws it all away in the sub-climax by, in order, using [[Blackrazor]] during her boss fight when it had been a plot point for most of the novel that she couldn't with a bizarre and flimsy excuse, doing the anime character thing where you run around someone in a circle while spawning doppelgangers (through magic rather than super-speed), and then literally shouting "I'll get you Justicar!  And your little dog too!"

Kidd's book is also, for better or worse, very much a creature of ''[[From the Ashes]]'' Greyhawk, where the cataclysmic war with Iuz has filled the countryside with desperate refugees and the frontier with dead villages and roving monsters and bandits.  The worst excesses of that setting are not front and center: by 1999, Wizards had wrested command of the sinking TSR ship, and already had Erik Mona and [[Sean Reynolds]] working on the "Living Greyhawk" project to clean up [[Carl Sargent]]'s [[grimderp]]. As a result in Kidd's officially-licenced novel, the highest authorities are generally competent and reasonable. But, the authorities are, still, dealing with an underbelly of corruption and vice. The main character and all the major players were touched by the conflict and are either motivated by it or taking advantage of the chaos left in its wake.  

Perhaps this difference in tone is best exemplified by the character of Polt, the loud-mouthed happy-go-lucky teamster who keeps on complaining that the Justicar is insufficiently "heroic" (read: acting like a classic ''D&D'' adventurer), has a weak will for both magic and liquor, and is very much a comic relief figure; yet he never gets killed off (indeed, his improbable survival through situations that ''should'' have offed him becomes a running gag right up until the end where he kills an evil wizard's disciple with a shove attack) and many of his ideas actually turn out to have some merit to them, like spiking dungeon doors open so they can't shut and seal the team inside, or bringing along the 10 foot pole everyone mocks until they desperately need it.

Saw a sequel in the novelization of ''[[Drow_Trilogy|Descent Into the Depths]]''.

[[Category:Modules]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Greyhawk]]