Maybe I’m lured by the “Gulch” in the title, but I somehow see a sword&revolver setting for this, like the Dark Tower series.
Something about riding that damn Gulch towards the tower and one-shooting the first shadow before entering makes quite a nice picture.
The tower itself is brilliant in its out-of-bounds madness. I like the ups and downs in danger level (which the players wouldn’t know).
I love myself a nice wizard’s tower and this one is very nice. (It got two wizard’s!)
I'm with you on that; I had the hardest time getting myself away from a weird west setting.
I decided to forgo the weird west because none of the authors or books listed in Appendix N (at least, the original one) were westerns (weird or otherwise). Howard wrote one, but he was specifically listed for his Conan books, and I did not want to veer too far from the list. Maybe I should have taken more liberty with the theme, but I was trying to stay true to the spirit of the jam. I decided a Conan-style mad dash to save someone (or someones) would have to suffice.
I'm glad the strangeness of the tower came through. Merely playing with the sizes and (relative) positions of the floors almost seemed like a cop out, but I think in some ways the understatedness of it makes it work better than it otherwise would. Releasing a trapped wizard to help fight a necromancer is also a direct nod to Howard's work.
