Prison Mountain Dungeon

Secure cells & a martial arts-proof turtle-shell chamber keeps your realm’s prisoners safely at bay in this prison battlemap … until the PCs show up!

The original “Asian prison” prompt seemed a bit tricky. In the end, I resolved to re-watch Kung Fu Panda 1. I think the inspiration — and use case — is obvious.

Thoughts

• Let’s say the prisoner that inevitably breaks free of the main vault can summon/create illusionary clones of himself who have all of his old agility & stunts — so they can tightrope the chains, leap the gaps, and climb walls — but the prisoner himself is so focused on protecting himself that he moves like the iron turtle he was locked in. Slow-motion tower defense!
• Failing that, I’d say give the battle a time limit. He regains power over 5-ish rounds and makes a break for it the instant he has a chance.
• If you’re looking to run a prison break-in, there’s a plethora of entry options. Wall-climbing & window-cutting, secret optional tunnel entrances, garderobes (ew), and the narrow archery windows could be an entrance if you can figure out how to fold yourself thin as paper. Should work for a prison escape, too!
• Throw it on the same mountain as the Iron Gate or the Monk Monasteries, maybe. Or just say it’s up on a hill, if mountains aren’t nearby!

Contents

• Standard: All gloom & no bloom locked in the grim prospects of a pre-industrial prison. Let’s just say they didn’t expect the prisoners to last very long … and let’s not look up what British debtor’s prisons were like, for that matter.
• Red Alert: Chekhov’s Gun states that when a place contains a big obvious plot device, it’s obviously gonna go off. Or maybe it’s just a prison riot, that works too.
• Ruined: This place has been crumbling so long that all the wood rotted. I wonder what someone would be crawling through the bones of a prison for. Maybe there’s something locked in the copper shell.
• Space/Astral: Grape-flavored space jam for your weird Spelljammer games. Do other people still play Spelljammer? If someone reads this & plays Spelljammer, I am begging you to email me & tell me so.
• Blueprints: For handing out to PCs. I chopped out the optional tunnels so you can keep them a surprise, or not use them if you don’t want!
• Day/Night Variants: Wherever applicable!