You Should DM White Plume Mountain

One of the seven adventures featured in Tales from the Yawning Portal is the classic AD&D module called White Plume Mountain. First, a little historical context for this perennial favorite.The origins of the module are the stuff of dreams for many dungeon masters. It was written by Lawrence Shick in 1979 and published the same year by TSR (the original company which published D&D before it's acquisition by Wizards of the Coast). It contained what Lawrence thought was the very best of his previous encounters that he had designed for his home games.Every room was stuffed with some devious trap or puzzle that had caused his players to stop and think the longest (or had claimed the most lives). But his intent wasn't just to create a brutal dungeon - it was a job application. TSR looked over his "application" and promptly decided to hire Lawrence and publish the module without any alterations. And thus White Plume Mountain was given to the multiverse of D&D.The hook to get players into this dungeon is simple. The mountain is the lair of an ancient evil wizard known as Keraptis. No one has heard from this guy in a thousand years when suddenly 3 magical items of incredible power (called Wave, Whelm, and Blackrazor) have been stolen from the magical treasure trove of some important lords/kings/nobles/important guys. The players are sent to get them back.I had the great joy of running this game in 5th edition, using the Tales of the Yawning Portal version which is still nearly identical to that original 1979 module, except for the 5th edition statistics for creatures and items. The challenge of the mountain was taken up by three adventurers, each of them questing after a magic item the evil wizard Keraptis had stolen from important cities across Faerun.As written, the adventure recommends characters of level 8 but seeing as the party was 3 and not the typical 4, I had them start at level 9 to pick up the slack. There was the human Aurora: an Assassin for a crime lord of Westgate to do the sneaking and stabbing of course. She was joined by the dwarf Barakor Lightsword, first Captain of the Guard at Mithral Hall. And finally the party was rounded out by the wizard Theodoric Aldrich, a guild mage and member of the nobility in Waterdeep.