The “Revenge of the Marauders” Dark Sun adventure in Dungeon 183 culminates in entering the Ritual Tower on the crawling citadel called Slither. The players are to enter the tower from the top and work their way down to where a primordial artifact called the blood jewel is found. I decided the moment I saw the adventure that it would be a disservice to the players not to build the tower for those encounters.

This was a difficult one to plan out in my head. After some thinking, I figured it was best to ensure that each level was able to be used with minis and that I could slowly remove the levels to show the progress of the group into the tower. In the case where the party splits up between the levels I would just keep the levels in place. Here’s the conclusion of my efforts:

This is the tower without the brown wrapping paper cover which I used to hide each level until the players reached it. That way, when they first see the tower they actually see a solid column and not each level all at once. Here it is wrapped up:

The only thing I actually purchased for this was the 12 inch diameter cake stands. I chose the white side rather than the brown side to draw the level so there was more contrast of the lines as well as any detailing I was going to do. The levels themselves are laid on cut skewers that I put through old wrapping paper tubes. I’m holding the whole thing together with rubber bands on level 2 and 3 which hold the tubes in the level grooves. Let’s take a look at each level.

Tower Top

Quite a simple design here. I’ll be adding the statues found here later with minis at the game, but otherwise a straight forward tower top with walls and drawn on difficult terrain (bone heaps). The stair case is a simple 2 inch cardboard medallion. I had originally made tubes piercing the levels with stairs to indicate a staircase but I thought such an obstruction would reduce visibility of the levels in some cases. I considered moving from one level to the next using the staircases as taking up a single move action if the character was adjacent to the stairs.

Test Subjects

There’s a bit more detail on this level than found on the tower top. You can see the teleportation circle, the beds (with different animal skin blankets – my own touch) and the pit that drops down to the next level. I created the pit to match the depth to the next level in the adventure description to accommodate characters that might fail into it and find themselves in the next level but may want to climb back up.

Lich’s Lab

After falling through the pit the players find themselves in difficult terrain bone heaps in the Lich’s lab. Here too I will add minis to represent the statues found on this level. I added some tables with drawn-on mystical equipment. I was thinking to make them 3D, but for ease of movement for the minis I kept them 2D. I also detailed the necrotic circle (yet another cardboard medallion like the teleportation and staircase circles). Here’s a close up:

It says in the draconic script: “Death brings power.”

Vault

The lowest and last level of the tower, the vault houses the blood jewel. I’ve really pleased how the cardboard spiral looked after drawing the stencil by hand, creating the cut-out from it, then matching the grid lines to the level itself. And to give this moment a final detail I added a representation of the blood jewel itself:

Conclusion

I enjoyed building this and learned a few lessons in crafting these things in the process. It showed me that a creative set can really bring the players into the adventure. If you would like to see some pictures of it in play, you can see them and read the actions of the party here: 1, 2, and 3.