Bergummo’s Tower

By Scott_M
First Era Adventures
OSRIC
Levels 1-3

In a lonely glade stands the abandoned tower of a once-legendary wizard. They say he kept great wealth and magical wonders hidden inside, but he vanished long ago and with him went the secret location of his treasure. Is there something to these rumors, or is the tower merely the sad legacy of a dead wizard?

This nineteen page adventure uses about twelve pages to describe about 35 locations in a small wizards tower and the dungeon underneath. Hidden depth without extreme obtuseness, it follows up on classic hiding place and delivers on both Ruins vibe and Magical Wonder vibe. 

I’m gonna botch some, right up front, and then tell you about the things this does right, which is quite a bit. This needed a very hard pass in editing to trim the text. It’s not really engaging in any of the classic bloated text issues, it just needs a real hard pass to get the focus tightened up and perhaps just a tad more in the way of formatting to help focus the DM in on the important bits. I think the text is probably just a tad too conversational, which combines a bit with a need to work on the evocative writing.  The evocative bit gets a pass, it’s hard, I know, but it also needs to be there. Here is “Kitchen”, for example: “Between a pair of open windows on the NE wall stands a battered iron stove with a toppled pipe. Next to it is an empty coal box. A pile of debris and smashed furniture clutters the SE corner. More kobold tracks enter and exit the room. [Para Break] The debris includes the remains of pantry shelves, a butcher’s block, and a shattered porcelain basin. Concealed under the pile is a trapdoor in the floor which opens into an enclosed stairway down to the cellar (T12).” Focusing just on the writing, this isn’t terrible but the sentence structure is a bit passive in places. “Between a pair” , and almost certainly irrelevant. It needs a few more adjectives tossed in and a bit of the padding tossed out. It’s decent, but I always want to see magnificence. \

There’s also this mania present, that is seen from time to time with certain designers, with dimensions. “Throughout this adventure, measurements are described in terms of feet (‘) and inches (“); dimensions in terms of length (l), width (w), height (h), depth (d), diameter (dm), and radius (r); and cardinal directions in terms of North (N), South (S), East (E), and West (W). Map grid scale = (5’sq) in the tower and (10’sq) in the dungeon.” Dude has some unresolved trauma, obviously, the same way I do with Castle Greyhawk. 

Ok, done bitching I guess. 

The vibe here is really old abandoned wizards tower. Like, three stories high. Walls crumbling, Holes in the roof. Getting close to “mostly ruins.” And those tower levels really bring that vibe. Vines growing about. Weakened floors if you cross over the middle of them, treacherous stairways. Dust. A giant spider lurking. A couple of centipedes. It has that classic ruined gatehouse vibe going on, with debris and vermin. And then, if you pay the fuck attention, it transforms. You might gain entrance to the dungeon level. Which is a full on Colored Mists.archways/magical effects everywhere place, complete with illusory wizard welcoming you. Congrats, you made it to the ACTUAL adventure! All of that hard work and cleverness up top in the ruins paid off and now you can really dig in to the twenty rooms in the dungeon. 

I’m really up on the classic elements, especially up top. Holes in the walls and roof, vines up the side of the tower for alternate entry points. The center of the floor being weak so you better walk along the edges. A chimney, with giant centipede up it if you go poking around for treasure (which there is.) Old moldy ragged falling apart carpet, waterlogged. With a key hidden under it. And the vines up the side? Poisin fucking ivy.  Whens the last fucking time you saw poison ivy in an adventure?! I fucking love it. You are embedded in the mundane rather than exoticism, at least in the tower ruin. The whole of the encounters, the challenges, work to create this awesomeness of a grounded vibe.

Are you paying the fuck attention? Cause upstairs, in all the dust, is one spot in the floor WITHOUT dust, that contains an invisible cabinet. Downstairs, in the kitchen, that pile of debris? Did you move it? Cause there’s a trapdoor under it to the basement. And if you find the trapdoor, and the invisible cabinet, and some other shit, then, in the basement, you can find the entrance to the dungeon.

And we have a full on wizard illusion in the entryway that is all “Welcome Adventurers!” He’s hidden his great treasures here … and it’s a puzzle/challenge dungeon. Not my favorite genre. But, as there things go, not terribly done. 

“Surrounding the central column but concealed by dust and found only by sweeping the area clear, is a pattern of 16 wedge-shaped stones (10’dm).“ You did sweep the dust in the room, right? To find the concealed holes on the floor? No? This isn’t Knutz bad, as far as the hidden depth shit goes, but it’s also very clearly for people paying attention. The puzzle rooms can get long, think a page or so, and there are decent number of them in the twenty. There are clues in the dungeon in one place that lead to solutions elsewhere. Obtuse clues. “Anyone viewing the tapestry for more than 1 round sees the scene animate: The wizard and his mount race alongside two more horses that enter the frame (3 horses total). This is a clue to the button code in D7 (Summer = #3).” 

But the magical effects here are wondrous also. In that same room, a gallery, there’s a picture of a knight and green dragon battle “The viewer sees the figures animate in battle, but when the dragon rears back and unleashes its breath weapon, an actual cloud of chlorine gas fills a (20’dm) area in front of the painting. Anyone in the area must save vs. Breath or die. If all affected creatures make successful saves, the cloud transforms into a shower of 500 gp instead.” That’s fun! It FEELS like magic. The puzzles are tough. The place is deadly. But it doesn’t feel unfair or gimpy, just unusual in 2026. . 

I’m going to leave you with this room description. You tell me what’s interesting.”Smashed furniture, dirt, and leaves pile up against the walls. Between the open windows on the SE wall stands a mildewed stone fireplace, long cold. The floor is filthy, though a moldy, rotten rug covers the middle. Pieces of a wooden chandelier dangle limply from the rafters.” I’ll wait, lah lah lah. Tradoor under the debris. Centipedes up the chimney, along with a treasure. Key under the rug. That’s a decent amount of interactivity in one room.

Classic ruins, classic dungeon. Decent enough room descriptions with great interactivity. Hard as fuck, from a “are you paying attention to findthe hidden shit” standpoint. Could use tightened up, a lot, and maybe a few more adjectives sprinkled in. 

This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview is ten pages and shows you the upper rooms and several dungeon rooms. More than enough to get a chance two see the two vibes, the hidden depth, and what the puzzles can be like in the dungeon. Great preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/553734/bergummo-s-tower?1892600