Amazing how adding a single good prep question can really help an adventure! This is minor something that I actually made up at the table in play to start (based on a map in Le Guin’s Earthsea book Tombs of Atuan) but I keep coming back to refine…players seem to like it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7cav44145d9a3U2NjFWR0ptWjg/view?usp=sharing
Oh, here it is! Neat. So are the “guardians” you mention the big monsters listed, though, or what?
When I hear Atuan I think of the Earthsea books, but this seems different. What’s the inspiration?
Preston Cooper Yes.
Gerard Snow I just made the first version up based on the map from the Tombs of Atuan I had in my notebook on the fly at the table. I referenced the author’s bio in the names otherwise the inspirations were most likely Harry Potter movies (painted room) and the Monty Python and the Holy Grail film (minstrels). Other than that the wendigo was most likely from the first season of the television series Supernatural, the banshee just basic celtic myth and “zenopus” comes from the Holmes Blue Box D&D set of the 1970s (my first!). I also just also like jellies, puddings and shoggoths as monsters and that comes from a youth well spent watching Harryhausen monster films. The magical blades are now pure Tolkien and I’ve forgotten who first came up with the wonderful “navigate a maze” move.