Banewarrens

The Banewarrens are the dungeons honeycombing the lower part of the Spire at Ptolus. They feature in Monte Cook's d20-system (i.e, 3e Dungeons & Dragons) adventure of that name, WW16111. They're the reason Ptolus even exists.

The Exposition

Ptolus is on the world Praemal, a prison-planet for eeevil like the world of Midnight and, more to the point, the Land in Stephen R Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series. As such, should something Bad get in Praemal or form in here, the locals cannot fling the dead cat into some other plane's yard. Destroying the Bad would, if Bad enough, let loose Bad energies which might just spread Bad around, to infect something else.

Thus, Donaldson's concept of the "bane" entered here: it's something Bad that you haven't the time and will to flush down whatever toilet passes for Mount Doom here. It's magical nuclear-waste.

One enterprising paladin named Danar figured, derrrp, let's sweep all this Bad under a thick magical rug and lock it up with magical wards. And let's do this under my own castle, Mosul Pearl. Danar convinced enough idiots that the Banewarrens were born. The Earth herself cried out in pain (metaphorically) and tried to eject all this crap (literally), but Danar's wards were too good so it all rose up in an unnatural spire. The banes meanwhile were seeping their maleficent energies throughout the cavern-network in a "banemight". Danar's wards did pretty well at keeping this in, too... until it started trickling into Planes Man Was Not Meant To Know. Danar was seduced by these forces and became a bane himself, Eslathagos Malkith; his castle got renamed "Jabel Shammar" like the badlands of Saudi Arabia. (Why all the Arabic? Monte probably just thought it sounded cool.)

There was a war - which Malkith né Danar lost, some various other stuff happened, and now it's the present day and the wards are failing.

The Plot

The story starts when some Banemight gets loose and turns certain local citizens into X-Men mutants a la Chronicle (a fine movie, go see it). The party then enters some of the tamer Banewarrens and can find some of the banes, which they really shouldn't keep for themselves. These banes aren't the worst - they're on the edge of the system, because Danar himself at the time was musing that those particular banes might be destructible without adding to what he could already tell was going Banemight. But they're bad enough. Normally that would be the end of it: the party gets a taste of the Awful, and understands that it's all best left under lock and key.

But in the meantime other factions get interested: demon-touched House Vladaam who'd love to have the banes for themselves, the Inverted Pyramid who research magic, the Church of Lothian who want all this to go away, and the Pactlords of the Quaan who KILL ALL HUMANS. So the players' party need to explore the ruins before anyone undeserving gets there first.

Yadda yadda yadda, events keep drawing the party and other factions further into the Warrens, they find more banes, with many callbacks to other Malhavoc products in the Eldritch Might line. Leading up to a sequel, which ended up in the Ptolus hardcover. All very Temple of Elemental Evil.

Reception

The module sold. Lots of people played it; there was a whole forum on Malhavoc's site dedicated to it. It's agreed as a classic, one of the best modules in the 3e / d20 line up there with Necromancer's Rappan Athuk. Because it sold, Monte expanded the lore of the city into what's the Ptolus tome today.