Do you remember my old Deadly Dungeons posts? Each entry in the series described a tricky dungeon room for the players to unravel. They were meant to ready to drop into most any dungeon, and novel enough to challenge even a seasoned adventurer. They were the sorts of puzzles that didn’t have a single solution, but rather gave the referee a sense of their workings so the could best interpret the results of their players pokings and proddings.
If that sounds interesting to you, the old posts are still available on the site. Or, if you’d like to read the updated and refined versions of all the original 28 rooms, as well as 12 entirely new rooms, I’ve got a book for you to buy:
In addition to my writing and cartography, the book contains dozens of pieces of new interior art by my sister Roni Whelan, layout by Moreven B., and an absolutely gorgeous cover by Ian Hagen. For real, look at this thing. It’s way too good for me:
I’d love to have Ian make covers for more of my books in the future, but I’m fairly certain that once this cover gets out there I’ll never be able to afford him again. He’s going to be buried under new commissions. This dude’s talent needs to be recognized.
As is my wont, I created a bunch of goofy image edits to help promote the book on social media. Here’s a gallery of them if you’re a fan of hacky GIMPwork:
Good dungeons have nigh-incoherent architecture. They exist to challenge players, which is the exact opposite design goal to just about any structure that exists in real life. This is why dungeons with realistic layouts are usually as dull as a -2 dagger. It’s also why most attempts to explain why a dungeon exists are embarrassing to endure.
None the less, giving a dungeon some reason to exist is incredibly useful for informing its development. There’s a few classic explanations that try to lend an understandable intent to the incoherent architecture: catacombs, temples, mad wizards, etc. All are tried-and-true ideas that do the job well enough, but sometimes it’s fun to reinvent the wheel.
The dungeon predates the world. Its shape correlates to mysteries of creation beyond the scope of an adventurer to even think about. It floated in space for eons before drifting into a gathering ball of dust that became our world.
A space ship which crashed here in ages long past. The auto-repair function was severely damaged, resulting in the difficult-to-navigate interior.
The dungeon has not actually been built yet. The structure of it moves backwards through time. It was destroyed long ago, and in the future someone will build it. Examining the architecture may reveal some clues about what is to come.
Built by a species of architect ant, which is compelled to create dungeons.
When the goblin wars ended, the two races came to terms. The races of men could have the surface, but only if they built a home for goblinkind beneath the earth.
The dungeon was built in an earlier age by a religion which still exists. It is a sacred site, but because many of its secrets have been lost to time, it is dangerous to explore.
The dungeon is alive. It builds itself. It reacts.
The dungeon is a board game for gods. They got bored with it when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, and have forgotten where they left it.
Built as a kind of rat’s maze, by a powerful cosmic entity. This is not hidden. Everybody knows that when you enter this dungeon, you’re being watched and tested. People go in anyway because the “cheese” is legitimately bounteous treasures.
Built by dinosaurs, who foresaw their death and the dominance of disgusting ape creatures. They built it and placed their greatest treasures within it to tempt as many of us as possible to our deaths.
Built by a guild of engineers and architects, as a showcase of their many and varied skills.
Eroded into existence by spiteful river spirits.
The biggest, most elaborate sex dungeon of all time. Built by the ruler of a sexocracy.
Was a facility for containing creatures and objects with dangerous abilities and unknown purpose. There was a breakout long ago, so many of these things have long since escaped into the world, and may even be widely known and considered normal today. (Perhaps nobody got cancer, pregnancy was easy, and human lifespan was triple what it is now). Some of the safeguards are still here and dangerous, some of the anomalies are still here and dangerous. Some of them are still contained, and the world is better for it. Dungeon should list some stuff that used to be better before the breakout.
Conquered locals were forced to build a palace for their new distant ruler. They intentionally built it to be dangerous and confusing for their oppressors.
An active temple for the god of foolhardy death. Attempting to plunder the temple is an act of religious devotion. At least, that’s what the priests say. Everyone else figures it’s just an elaborate form of human sacrifice. Sure, a few might make it out with fabulous wealth, but far more will perish in the attempt.
Built in ancient times by a jealous nation. They built this labyrinth in hopes it would be listed as one of the wonders of the world.
A subterranean civilization, digging up, did not realize eventually the earth would end and give way into the terrifying sky. Believing they had discovered hell, they created the most complicated maze of passages and rooms they could, to prevent the creatures from this terrible place from finding their way down into the wholesome lands below.
A time capsule, created to commemorate the 1,000th year of a city’s founding. It is meant to showcase their culture and civilization. And to play a few pranks on the naughty futuremen.
Some folks believe in craftsmanship. It doesn’t matter if nobody will ever see a thing, you still make it as beautiful and intricate as you can. Even if all you’re making is a sewer system, you do something to make that sewer system stand out. If not to people, then to god, who sees everything.
The structure of the dungeon is incredibly precise shape. A sort of ‘magic circle,” (though it is not a circle) used in an ancient summoning to create the moon.
A prince ordered the dungeon built long ago as a trial to test the valor of his potential suitors.
The holy temple of maturity. Before a girl of this tribe can be considered a woman, she must present a plan for a new corridor or room, and build it with her own two hands. She may be instructed, but never aided.
An alien algorithm meant for creating video games got ahold of some nanobots, sent them to our world, and built a dungeon for real.
Knowing they would be conquered when the campaigning season began, a whole civilization dedicated themselves to building this dungeon as a way of preventing their conquerors from ever finding their treasure. They sold their souls for magics. The whole treasures of their people are visible from the very first room, but are behind and impenetrable wall of death.
A structure built to trap a god, while still showing that god proper respect.
The dungeon itself is a kind of computer, and those who attempt to navigate it advance its computations through their actions. Once enough people have attempted to plunder it, the problem will be solved. It’s unclear what happens then.
There is a creature which gestates in dungeons, the way a bird gestates in an egg. The parent created this place to foster their child.
Once, men were at peace with a strange race, with strange needs. They built an embassy here, to better maintain relations. Eventually, though, peace broke down, and the two races parted ways. Only the embassy is left, as hostile to human life as it was necessary to theirs.
I did not intend to do another one of these. Certainly I didn’t intend to make another one quite so soon after the last one. But then I was re-reading the “One More Idea Method” for a Blogs on Tape episode. It got me to thinking “Hey, why haven’t I ever done this? I should totally do this.”
Then I thought, “Well, if I’m going to make a dungeon for a blog post, I may as well make it another test of my 20 Architectural Features idea.” And now, here we are, with a dungeon shaped like a wiener dog because I asked Moreven what the dungeon should be shaped like, and of course she said ‘like a wiener dog.’
Aside from “The rooms, when mapped together, form an interesting shape,” I also rolled “Dungeon has a perilous entrance,” and “Has suffered a layout-altering cataclysm.” This was the result:
I am not an artist.
To key the rooms, I’m going to go through them one by one and write down the first thing that comes to my mind. Then, I’m going to go back to the start and go through them again, adding ‘one more idea’ to each. Then again, and maybe again, and maybe again, until I feel like some kind of satisfyingly interesting result has been achieved.
The result will be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness mess. Hopefully putting each pass in its own color will help clarify things.
1. Sewer entrance, perilous. Really long. Eventually connects to some far off city that doesn’t even know when their sewer system was built. The sewers are a labyrinth. Most folk have no idea what’s down there, and why would anybody look? Full of disease. and terrible creatures. There’s one passage, though, which extends out for miles in one direction for no real reason. Eventually leads here. It’s the only way in or out, and would require several hours to pass through. These tunnels used to connect to catacombs, before they were repurposed as sewers.
2. Dogmen. Wienerdogmen, obviously. Refined, gentlemanly, friendly towards visitors, but Territorial. Refer to themselves as “Gentledogs.” Gentledogs are crowded in here, sleeping in heaps. A little too cramped now that area 5 has been given over to the refugees. Civility is breaking down. People are getting rude.
3. More important Dogmen. Equitable council of governors, trying to solve the most pressing problem of the day. There is not enough space for the refugees. Some want to venture down “the passage of filth,” to search for a safe new home for them. Others want to go into the underdark in force to retake the refugee’s home. Still others believe they should simply cast off everything in the Hall of Relics, and use that space to give their friends a new home. Everyone grumbles that the Gentledog Wizard in Area 13 needs to hurry it up. Walls have statues of great Dogmen carved into them. Behind the ear of the founder is a switch that opens the secret door.
4. Precious secrets of the Dogmen. Not anything sinister. The Gentledogs have no dark secrets. The crypt & writings of an evil wizard, which the Gentledog’s ancestors swore to protect from discovery. It was always feared that if her body was found (which does not decompose), it would be a rallying point for a new movement of evil. All the Gentledogs know it is here. None of them will reveal the information to anyone. All will die to protect it. It is their most sacred trust. Correspondingly, the books offer some crazy insights into wizardry, and the corpse is legitimately potent as a political rallying point.
5. Not-dogmen. Refugees the gentledogs have taken in from the Underdark. Pale skinned humanoids which secrete a thick gooey slime from their pores, and have a second set of ears where their eyes should be. Used to live in a network of caves at the base of the sinkhole, and served as the Gentledog’s main allies and trading partners before they were driven from their homes by Drow, which carried off most of their people as slaves, and set up a garrison at the bottom of the crevice. Can communicate with slime based creatures, and befriend them easily. The Drow want to use them for this ability.
6. Really fancy kitchen. Gentledogs are gourmets of great refinement. Because of the extra mouths to feed, and the greater difficulty gathering food, the master chefs have had to stretch everything they have for as far as they can. This is putting a strain on everyone. A group of chefs is planning to defy the commands of the ruling council, and sneak down into the crevice to harvest food. Their craft is worth the risk.
7. Sinkhole into the underdark. It’s where the dogmen get food. Gentledogs can comfortably leap the Northern hallway gap, and so there is no bridge there. 9 is supposed to be off limits, so there’s no bridge there unless you climb all the way down into the underdark, and back up into area 10. Descends about 1000′ The creation of the Sinkhole is regarded as an event of religious significance, since prior to that the Gentledogs had to forage in the filth tunnels for food.
8. Food storage. The Gentledogs have discovered marvelous foods in the Underdark, which have never been brought to the surface before. They would be highly valuable as treasure, particularly if you could establish an open trade. Gentledog sense of smell is refined enough that they will know if you have some of their food, no matter how well it is hidden. Stores are getting low.
9. “Time Out.” A Gentledog who got into a fight with a refugee. Got really anxious about his normal sleeping spot being used by someone else. Bit the slime person. Is ashamed of how he acted, but still agitated about hot having his normal sleeping spot. “Time Out” works on the honor system, because Gentledogs are so honorable. He can leave as soon as he believes he is ready to rejoin the community. Given his agitation, he may wish to join on to the party as a hireling to spend some time away from his people and clear his head.
10. Safest descent into the crevice. Serves as an armory + guardhouse to arm those going down, and protect the gentledogs from anything coming up. Also, there’s a basket on a line between this area, and the hallway to the north, for easy transport of food. A drow spy was just captured. The spy is a male suicide bomber. A priestess has promised that Lolth will allow him to be reborn as a woman if he paves the way to victory. He will not act until he believes his death will be maximally effective.
11. Religious area. Gentledogs worship ‘The Hand that Giveth,’ and their main dictum is that the hand will come to them many times in their lives, in the guise of generous people, and they must never bite the hand. Preacher has recently begun to speak of an opposed entity, “The Hand that Taketh.” He says it is acting through the drow. There is no theological precedent for belief in this second entity. There is already some speculative, polite murmurings among the most dispossessed of the Gentledogs that The Slimeskins are agents of this “Hand that Taketh.”
12. Hall of Artifacts. Like how dogs bury bones, except the dogs are intelligent. There are items here from the surface which the Gentledogs don’t understand, and items from the underdark which they don’t understand. Also probably some bones. From the surface there are books, a compass, an astrolabe, a telescope, and a significant quantity of gold. From the underdark there are paintings that can only be appreciated with infravision, a stuffed Hook Horror, and some torture equipment. One of these paintings is important to the Drow, which is why they’ve come here. If they just asked for it, the Gentledogs would give it to them, but they can’t conceive of such a level of civility.
13. Something bad happening under the dog-men’s nose because they are too trusting. Not anything to do with the refugees. That’d turn this whole thing into kind of an ugly looking allegory. Going back to their founding, the Gentledogs have an unbroken line of goodly wizardry. The cleverest child of each generation is made an apprentice. This Gentledog, however, read the forbidden secrets of the evil wizard in Area 4. She told everyone she needed this space (further cramping the living conditions elsewhere). They agreed, because she promised she could use it to create an extradimensional space, giving everyone plenty of room to spread out. What she is actually doing is opening portals to the various lower planes, and making faustian bargain upon faustian bargain, in an attempt to put her soul in deadlock between multiple infernal powers. She reaps all the benefits, while the Banes of Gre’Thor and the Wraithlords of the Blightlands keep one another busy arguing over who gets to reap her.
14. Library of Scents. Jars and cabinets with stuff in them: rags, liquids, bits of nature, etc. When smelled by a Gentledog, these convey a huge amount of information. Like reading a book with your nose. One of these describes a hidden chamber in the city which is led to from the sewers. The gentledogs have no idea what it refers to, since they’ve never seen the city. Nobody BUT the gentledogs could possibly interpret what the scent means, though. The secret chamber has portals to different parts of the world in it.
I ought to follow up on my own posts more often than I do. I have this nagging insecurity that once I put something out there, I need to move on. It’s an obsession with novelty that really isn’t helpful. Some ideas deserve to be revisited, and developed further.
A couple months back, I sketched out a list of twenty architectural features that would make dungeons more memorable. Part of the goal there was to solve the blank page problem, to give myself a better starting place for a dungeon than “Well, I guess it needs an entrance…” To help me make dungeons that are interesting not just for what’s in them, but also interesting for how the floorplan is laid out.
It seems like a natural progression here is to put theory into practice, and make a dang dungeon using those principals. So, I’ve rolled 3d20 on the list, and tried to incorporate a river, a mix of natural and crafted spaces, and an area that can be seen but not easily accessed into a single dungeon. The resulting map is uglier even than I intended for it to be, (I’m no Gus L.), but I think it will serve.
I originally intended for this post to include 3 such dungeons, but it’s a ding-dang long process sketching out a dungeon even as rudimentary as this one and making it presentable. So you’ll take one dungeon and you’ll like it! >:(
This dungeon is built into the lowest plateau of a strange, stepped mountain, far to the north where the summers are short and the people are hard. It was constructed just a few years ago by the folk of the nearby village, though they do not remember doing so. One day, they simply dropped everything, took up their tools, and wandered en masse towards the plateau to set themselves to work.
Eight years passed in hard labor. Those children too young to work died of neglect as their parents mindlessly chiseled stone, stopping only to mechanically eat and sleep. Then the construction was complete, and everyone woke up knowing that time had passed, but recalling nothing of those eight years. Not a one of them dared enter the structure they had made.
They returned to their homes and their lives, insomuch as they could. They try not to think too hard about the mysterious structure they built just a few miles distant. But on cloudy nights, when there are no moon or stars in the sky, it’s impossible not to notice the processions of ghostly red lights moving sometimes towards that place, and sometimes away from it.
The entry chamber is 4 stories tall, with a massive featureless statue standing between two winding stairways. If any living thing tries to leave, the statue will come to life and prevent them from doing so. Just placing its arm across the passage would be enough to stop anyone not equipped with picks and explosives and hours of free time in which to work.
Not far from the entrance is a room bisected by bars of milky white metal. On the near side are carpets on which a person could kneel in worship. On the far side is a throne, in which rests a withered corpse.
This is the Dread Lich, which once blighted a distant land no local will have ever heard of. When its phylactery was destroyed, it retreated here, half a world away from those who sought its destruction. Here it will rest and recuperate until all who remember it are long dead. Then, it will return to take vengeance on their descendants.
The white metal bars are sufficient to absorb any magic, and will shift to deflect any attack, directed beyond them. The Dread Lich has only one existence now, and has no wish to risk destruction needlessly.
In the south are the pens. There are people here, children really, between 12 and 19 years old. They are runaways from families in the area, though none of them wanted to be. They could hear themselves say what they said to their families, they watched themselves flee as if from a distance, but could not control their bodies until they had run all the way here, and locked themselves into these pens.
The floors are a cold red stone, which drains their vitality. Gradually they will grow sick. When they die, the stone will absorb even their bones.
At the center of the dungeon is a curious sort of crater, open to the sky above, with sheer cliffs rising on every side. A river pours in from the higher plataeus, creating a verdant little microbiome here, with small populations of animals not seen in the surrounding region. This area could serve as an alternate entrance or exit, if the players have sufficient climbing gear or skill.
Leading off from here is a small series of natural caverns, where a dragon has taken up residence. It believes it has done so of its own free will, abandoning a horde of gold to satisfy its desires for a colder climate. Why a reptilian creature would have such desires is anybody’s guess…
In the northernmost part of the dungeon, stairs lead down to an underground lake, which glows red with a swirling horde of spectral minds that have no proper place in this world.
A few weeks back, I wrote up an idea that I called Flux Space, which is basically a method for randomizing segments of a dungeon. It helps dungeons to feel more like vast environments, and makes it a little easier to organize your notes.
In the thread about Flux Space on google+, Aaron Griffin asked me if I would post an example. So that’s what I’m doing. The Cozy Catacombs are a small example–just 3 locations and 3 fluxes arranged in a triangle. It’s pretty much the bare minimum size for something like this, but I think it gets across the idea pretty well, and there’s enough here for at least one or two game sessions if you want to try it out.
The Cozy Catacombs
The city of Sarip is old. Its been inhabited since pre-history, and through the millennia has always lent authority to whomever lived there. Empires, religions, and societies may pass, but Sarip remains. The Immortal City.
Beneath Sarip is a sprawling network of catacombs. Countless generations of bones are stacked along the walls so thick the stonework isn’t visible between them. The catacombs themselves have been out of use for hundreds of years now, at least officially. They’re a popular retreat for anyone not welcome in the city above, with plenty of space to live and work rent free, so long as you don’t get lost.
Area 1: Entrance
1. At the bottom of the stairs is a bronze plaque mounted on a plinth. It’s a recent addition, put up by city officials, warning people to stay out of the catacombs, lest they become lost.
The floor is littered with empty booze bottles and scraps of trash.
2. A small group of homeless folks have set up a camp here, around an old fountain they use as a urinal. One of them has scurvy, and will soon die from it.
3. A group of fresh corpses. They’ve been flayed, and their bones taken. From the scattered equipment, it looks like they weren’t homeless. Probably here hoping to plunder some treasure. Bloody, boney footprints trail off to the south, towards Flux B.
4. A larger group of homeless folks, cooking a stolen chicken on a spit. There are some children running around and playing loudly. Among the group is a well dressed young man, about 20 years of age. He seems to be having fun, slumming it down here, seeing how the other half live.
5. A group of 7 teenage girls. They’ve all got dirty faces, and kitchen knives. They’re arguing about how they should divide the 6 silver coins they found.
Area 2: Necrotic Praxeum
1. Long benches are arranged next to one another in this room, with rows of zombies standing on either side, polishing old bones to a pristine white sheen. Other zombies with carts move up and down between the tables, handing out dirty bones, and taking the clean ones.
2. A few shelves, and a collection of tomes detailing the history and practice of necromancy. The librarian is a wizened old man named Bu’zaldu. It’s not clear whether he’s undead, or just very very old. He teases the students here with cryptic hints, and there’s a rumor that if you can prove which one he is, he’ll teach you a spell even the headmistress doesn’t know.
3. 12 beds, stacked 3 high, where students are allowed to rest between lessons. There’s very little downtime here, and even less privacy.
4. A well stocked alchemical laboratory, with jars all along the walls containing a variety of exotic items. In the middle of the room is a student who has fallen asleep in their chair, next to a solution that is slowly dribbling into a vial. It’s just about full now. If thrown, this concoction will explode, dealing 3d6 damage, and instantly transforming anyone killed by it into a zombie under the command of the thrower.
5. Most of the students are congregated here. There are piles of polished bones in front of each student, while the school’s headmistress walks around the room, describing the proper method of raising a skeleton from the dead. Students work in pairs to raise each one, which the Headmistress then comes over to inspect. If she approves of it, she’ll congratulate the students, give them some pointers on refining their technique, and give the skeleton some task to perform. If she does not approve, she’ll berate the students, and send their skeleton walking down the path of shame (into Flux C.
She only approves of roughly 1 in every 5 skeletons.
6. The office and living space of the head mistress. Skulls and gargoyles are everywhere you look. There’s a bed, a desk, and a rack for punishing students who perform poorly. On the desk is a stack of wax-sealed letters, tied with a ribbon, waiting to be delivered. If opened, they all contain a list of students who are doing poorly, as well as a brief description of each one’s qualities. The letters are addressed to various peoples: inquisitors, slavers, and a cyclops named “Gorkk Manmuncher.” The implication of each letter is clear: I don’t really want these kids anymore, so I’ll happily part with them for a good price.
Area 3: Skeleton Vanguard
1. An old chapel, with a statue of St Stephen. The pews have been stacked into a circle, which serves as an impromptu fence for a group of skeletons. The skeletons wander around without any apparent purpose, bumping in to one another, falling down, and losing body parts. Whoever raised these obviously did a terrible job of it.
2. Havord, the leader of the skeleton vanguard, is conferring with five of his most intelligent comrades. They’re looking over crude maps they’ve been able to make of the dungeon, and arguing about where they should expand to.The two Flux spaces would be difficult to defend. But Area 1 would expose them to detection from the outside world, and Area 2 would cut off their supply of incoming skeletons. It’s a serious problem, and the argument is getting heated.
Havord himself has a skull 4 times larger than a normal human skull. He is otherwise a normal skeleton.
3. A classroom where a trio of intelligent skeletons try to teach some of the dumb reject skeletons how to think, and perform simple tasks. The program is effective, but frustrating. The curriculum is similar to what you might see in a kindergarden class, but with a lot more discussion of killing the living.
4. A storage room where the skeleton vanguard keeps their weapons, and a bunch of animated skeletons folded into boxes because there’s not enough room for them to move about more comfortably.
5. A 24 hour skeleton dance party. The best way to unwind for off duty skellos.
6. The floor of the room has been dug up in several places, and a frail weave of twigs placed across the opening to 15′ pits. The trap is painfully obvious to anyone with any intellect, but apparently it’s sufficient to trap dumb, wandering skeletons. Even now, scraping sounds carry from several of the pits, where dumb bags o’ bones are trying to claw their ways out.
Flux A.
Description: Small gargoyles and other statues punctuate the stonework. Every so often, when you look away, the bones here rearrange themselves.
Size: 3
1. 2d4 students from the Necrotic Praxeum. They’re either on their way to, or returning from, a supply run in the city above.
2. A door made of pink flesh. A supernatural darkness obscures the room beyond, refusing to allow any light to penetrate. The room beyond can only be navigated by touch. It is soft and fleshy, with a slimy mucus seeping in through the floor and walls. The room is deep, but does not seem to contain anything interesting. Each turn, there is a 1-in-4 chance that 2d20 goblins will come flooding out of this room, and out into the catacombs beyond. If the room is harmed, this flood may be prevented for a few days. If it is harmed severely, the room may be killed, and the goblins will cease to be born from it.
3. The Goblin Market, where all manner of oddities are for sale. There’s jars full of eyeballs, armors, buttplugs, and a whole shop dedicated to selling various styles of 10′ poles. (That last one is having a blowout sale. They’re overstocked). No violence is allowed at the Goblin Market.
4. 2d6 + 4 goblins, which have just finished killing a group of three human adventurers. The goblins are in the midst of organizing the adventurer’s equipment, and slicing off meat from the adventurer’s bodies.
5. A randomly determined member of the party trips. They flail their hands, and grab on to a leg bone that’s sticking out from the wall of the catacombs. Unexpectedly, it turns down, as though it were a lever, and a secret door swings open. Beyond is a room with a plinth in it, and a skeleton wearing golden armor.
The armor is incredibly valuable, but whomever takes it from this place is cursed. Any building they sleep in has a 1-in-6 chance of catching fire in the night.
6. A map to a Vampire’s lair is sketched onto the wall. Next to it are the words “PLEASE KILL ME.”
Flux B.
Description: A green ooze seeps from between the stacked bones, dribbling onto the floor and disappearing into the cracks. Many of the rooms contain abandoned camps. Apparently this area was once more heavily settled by homeless people, which have since left for whatever reason.
Size: 4
1. 2d6 + 5 highly capable troops of the Skeletal Vanguard. One of them is working on a map of the area, while the others are holding weapons at the ready to kill any meat-people they bump into.
2. A little shop, built into an alcove in the wall. It has a bar, some stools, and a sign which reads Durza’s Drugporium! Durza herself is a squat, fat old woman. She’s coy about how she survives down here, and she sells the best drugs you’re ever likely to get your hands on, at cut rate prices.
3. A fountain swarming with fairies, all of whom are men. They’ll offer to cure anyone who is injured, only revealing after the fact that they require blowjobs in return. And you’ve gotta swallow, ‘cuz that’s the part that will heal your wounds. To add insult to injury, their vaunted curative abilities amount to a single hit point of restoration.
4. A finely ornamented Victorian parlor, with all the fashionable amenities. There’s a fire going in the fireplace, fresh biscuits on a tray, and several comfortable looking lounge chairs arranged in a conversation circle. The chairs are alive, and will attempt to eat anyone who sits in them.
6. A very obvious lever, built into the floor. There’s writing on the handle which reads “Pull for treasure!” If pulled, nothing happens.
Flux C.
Description: Apparently there’s an underground river running nearby, because there are fountains everywhere, pumping cool clean water, despite the fact that none of this has been maintained in centuries.
Size: 3
1. 1d4 skeletons who are wandering away from the Necrotic Praxeum. They’re dumb, and clumsy, but do have basic life-destroying instincts, and will try to attack any living creatures they encounter.
2. 2d6 + 6 soldiers of the Skeleton Vanguard. One is mapping, while the rest seek out dumb skeletons to recruit, and fleshlings to kill.
3. If the players found and pulled the lever in Flux B.6, they will a door here, with a plaque on it that reads: “Congratulations, lever puller!” Within is a chest containing two bags, each olding 500 silver pieces each. If its been more than a day since the players pulled the lever, the chest may already have been looted. If the players haven’t pulled the lever at all, there won’t be any door. They’ll just have the vague sense that they’re missing out on something cool.
4. A forge, with a bellows and an anvil. The air his hot, and rings with the blows of hammer against metal. Weapons of war are being forged here by…snakes. Snakes, holding hammers in their mouths, and slithering around with buckets of water on their backs. Thousands of them are here, working together. If the players bother them, they will scatter into little holes in the wall, and wait for the players to leave.
5.Garrison Renuar, a 325 year old Vampire, sitting on the edge of his coffin with his head in his hands. Garrison wants to die. Life is dull, and he doesn’t really like killing people. However, the vampire which birthed him is still alive, and he is incapable of killing himself of his own free will without permission from his ‘parent.’ He will beg anyone who meets him to try and kill him, but is obligated to fight his best to stay alive.
6. A nearby fungus growing into the corpse of a wizard has been mutating out of control for awhile now. Recently (as in, last week), it began to produce a race of mushroom people: squat, 2′ high mushrooms with eyes, mouths, and feet. These new creatures don’t really know what to do with themselves. They haven’t developed a language or a society yet, though they are intelligent enough to do so. For now, they’re just following their fungus instincts, but those aren’t really taking advantage of their new mobility and intellect.
It might be found in any dungeon. A thick white mist, singed with blue, and so cold it leaves dew on your skin. It rests in every room and corridor like gentle water–rising into little tidal riots anytime a door swings open. The changing level of the floor causes its depth to vary between your knee and your chest.
If you’re short enough to breathe the stuff, it acts as a mild hallucinogen. You’ll see colorful specters of the dead around you, watching with silent, stoic hatred. At least you tell yourself they’re hallucinations. They aren’t, though. Not really.
In some dungeons, things move beneath the mist. Creatures like Goblins, Kobolds, Halflings, Gremlins, and other various diminutive subspecies. The haunting specters are a small price to pay for this perfect advantage against the hated tallfolk. Anything on the short and nasty side gets a 4-in-6 chance to surprise when walking through the dungeon mist. When fighting, short creatures have concealment.
There is a current to the mist. An undertow you may never realize is moving you if you’re not careful. While walking through corridors, you won’t notice it. Nor will you notice it when examining an object within the environment. It’s so subtle that you’ll just naturally shift your feet to compensate, keeping the object of your focus within view. If, however, you find yourself distracted. If you stop to have a conversation, or engage in combat, then the mist will move you slowly. The referee should move the party about 10′ per round / conversational exchange. The current is clever enough to avoid closed doors, and to slip its victims through small or distinct spaces with great subtlety.
Periodically, a massive wave of mist will rise and flow unchecked through the corridors of the dungeon. The best way to represent this is to add this wave to the encounter table.
Characters might be granted a single round of movement to attempt to dive for safety, or possibly just a save versus Breath to grab onto some nearby object. Otherwise, they will be picked up and tumbled along with the wave, until you are cast off from it in some completely different part of the dungeon. The new location should be determined by whatever the referee finds most amusing, and the mist is under no obligation to release each character in the same place.
Being carried off by the mist will also affect a character’s mind for a time, causing them to suffer a brief madness:
When you close your eyes, instead of blackness, you see another world. You’re standing over the rotting corpse of a murdered child. The body is in a little hut on the edge of a forest village, lit only by candlelight. If you keep your eyes closed you can look around this world, and if you move you will see yourself moving through this world (though your body is still bounded by whatever environment you’re actually present in).
You have been clapped in irons. None of your companions can see your restraints, they might insist that you’re imagining it, but your companions are wrong. If your restraints were fake, you would be able to move your hands more then a foot apart from each other. You’d be able to take strides that covered more than a few inches at a time. Your companions must be the ones who are crazy!
You hear the overwhelming sound of dozens of wailing babies. It drowns out any other sounds you might want to hear (or not want to hear, as the case may be).
Suddenly everything becomes clear. Fragments of conversation connected to brief moments of wakefulness half-remembered after you laid down to sleep last night. Your companions stayed up late to meet in secret. Specifically intending to exclude you and only you while they shared a delicious cake. Your favorite kind of cake! They laughed about it too. About what a fool you were, and how happy they were that you would not have any of the cake. Well…you’ll show them! YOU’LL SHOW THEM!
You are a cat. You have cat concerns, and cat thoughts, and will pursue cat pursuits.
Apparently while ya’ll were trapped in that stupid mist, all of your friends decided to put on scary masks. You do not like them. They are scary. You should tell your friends to take them off. If they refuse, well god damn it, you should just pull the damn things off.
(Your friends are not actually wearing masks)
(You just don’t like their faces.)
(I wrote this entire thing while drunk.)
(I should probably wait to post it so I can edit it while I’m sober, but I’m not gonna do that.)
There are two rooms, empty, with identical features. They share a ~3’ thick common wall. The only entrance to either room is on the wall opposite the common wall. Ideally, there should be no obvious path from one to the other. After players find the first room, they should need to pass through several unrelated areas before they can reach the second one.
The common wall between the two rooms has a slit in it. It’s 1’ long horizontally, and 2” wide vertically. Big enough for an arrow to fit into perhaps, but not an arm or a spear. The slit goes all the way through to the adjacent room.
When characters look through the slot, there appears to be a chest sitting in the center of the other room. However, when they reach that room, they’ll find it just as empty as the first room was. But if they look through the slot from this room, they’ll see that the same chest now appears to be in the opposite room. If there are players in both rooms, they’ll both see the chest in the room opposite the one they are in, but will not be able to find it in their own room.
Spells such as “True Seeing” or “Detect Magic” will reveal nothing, because there’s absolutely nothing magical about any of this. The chest is a sophisticated, but completely mundane, optical illusion. In the center of the slit between the two rooms is a tiny card with a chest painted onto both sides of it. If the card is fished out and examined, the ‘lid’ opens like an envelope. Inside is a 2” x 3.5” white card. In bold printed letters it reads “This card is proof that the task has been completed.”
If the card is given to anyone who has assigned a task to the players, that person will accept it as incontrovertible proof that the task was completed. No amount of logic will ever convince this person that the players failed. Their brain will fold over on itself to find ever more ridiculous explanations for evidence to the contrary, and they will go completely insane rather than believe the task remains incomplete. Further, anyone they show the card to will similarly agree that it incontrovertible.
If the king points to his adviser standing 5’ away and says “I want you to bring me my adviser’s head on a plate,” and the players instead hand the king this card, the king will say “Excellent! My adviser’s head on a plate! Exactly what I wanted. Here’s the reward I promised you.” All the while, the adviser is still standing 5’ away shaking in fear. If this is pointed out to the king, he’ll assume he’s seeing his adviser’s twin brother, or his adviser’s ghost. He may be annoyed that he now needs to hire a ghost hunter, but that’s not really the PC’s fault, now is it?
The card only works once. If the players endeavor to steal the it back, then whomever they give it to next will still view it as proof of whatever first task it was used for. So if the players were to give it to a farmer who needed his lost child rescued from orcs, he would be horrified when the players handed him the royal adviser’s head on a platter.
Of late, I’ve been trying to work on creative tricks and traps which don’t rely quite so much on magic. Which isn’t to say I don’t like magic. A look back through previous deadly dungeons posts will show just how much I love the idea of insane wizards making fucked up nonsense because they don’t have anything better to do with their immense power. But I feel as though I’ve relied too heavily on magic as a crutch in my game design, so I’m trying to push myself to create interesting challenges which could be crafted by thieves, or primitive peoples.
This door will probably make the most sense if it is in a windswept, possibly sandy location. Somewhere that wood would be stripped without being damaged to the point of being structurally unsound.
This is a wooden double door. It is clearly dilapidated, the wood has deep grooves in it and splinters easily, but is still quite sturdy. Each of the two doors has horizontal metal handles. On each door, above the handles, are two vertical strips which are clearly discolored from the rest of the door. It’s obvious something was once there but is not any longer.
A cursory examination of the handles will reveal that there is blue paint on the parts of it which are protected from the weather. Closely examining the discolored vertical lines on the door will also reveal small flecks of blue paint there. They are small enough that a person would need good light to see them, and cannot be rushed.
If pulled, the handles do not open the door. In fact, they are not even connected to the door. They are instead fitted to small panels in the wood. These panels are well crafted enough that only a successful search roll will find them. Once removed, the panels release small gas canisters which instantly blast anyone standing within 5ft of the door, requiring them to make a save versus poison. Fortunately, this gas is very old and should have been replaced long ago. On a failed poison save, roll 1d6 to determine the effect:
Death.
A permanent 1d6 reduction of a random stat (roll 1d6).
A permanent reduction of 1 to a random stat (roll 1d6).
The character becomes violently ill, and becomes completely incapacitated for 2 weeks. After this time, no ill effects are suffered.
The character spends 10 minutes being violently ill. The noise, and the smell, attract a nearby monster.
The victim’s body actually reacts well to the aged poison, and they heal 1d6 damage.
If the characters instead turn the handles before pulling them–so that the horizontal handle is instead vertical, the panels will lock in place. This will allow characters to open the doors safely. The fact that the handles can turn is not immediately obvious, as the pivoting point has become jammed with debris. But once the characters decide to make an effort to turn the handle, it can be done with only minor difficulty.
If it isn’t clear, this is a vertical map. Also it is not to scale.
The first thing the players are liable to notice in this room is the crank. It’s large, with a bit of rope wrapped around it. The end of the rope disappears into a hole in the floor. If the players choose to look around, they’ll discover a fairly obvious trap door. It’s much too small for a human, or even a halfling, to fit through, and there is no easy means of opening it. (Though a bit of prying will yield results).
If the players are able to screw up their courage to fiddle with the mysterious crank, and turn it, it will pull more rope out of the ground. Simultaneously, a ladder will begin to rise from beneath the trap door. The ladder is made of wood, and wobbles a little, but will not break unless put through undue stress.
The crank can be turned until the top rung of the ladder reaches a height of 200 ft–just high enough for it to be equal with a small alcove high on the wall which leads to other areas of the dungeon.
Unfortunately, while this alcove is normally open, turning the crank below causes a heavy sliding door to descend from the ceiling. This door has no handholds, and is flush with the walls around it. Players on the top rung of the ladder will find no purchase for a grappling hook. And lifting the 300lb door while standing on the top rung of the ladder would be a feat of exceptional difficulty.
The door and the ladder move relative to one another, so that the door is not completely open until the ladder is all of the way down, and it is not all the way closed until the ladder is extended to it’s maximum height. The door, however, is only 6ft tall. So when the ladder is at half-height (100ft), the door will only be open 3ft; when the ladder is at three-quarters height (150ft), the door will only be open 1.5ft; etc.
I’m curious to experiment with this room. It clearly works best as a low level challenge, since high level characters will have access to spells and ability which will make overcoming this room child’s play. However, I honestly can’t think of a good way for 1st or 2nd level characters to overcome this challenge.
There are two entrances to this room, but the players are extremely unlikely to find the alternate entrance. It is usually obscured from view and out-of-the-way, intended to be found only by those it ensnares. It is much more likely that players will find the entrance to the termination chamber–a place this room’s designers enjoyed frequenting themselves to drink beer and laugh at the undead who fell into their trap.
In the center of the main room is a large pillar of green gelatin, with several dead bodies deteriorating within it. The stench of it fills the room with an acrid smell, like burning plastic. This pillar is completely and infallibly fatal to all undead creatures. Even a creature who can normally escape mundane destruction cannot escape the doom of the pillar. For example, if a lich were destroyed here, their phylactery (wherever it might be) would burst into flames.
Spaced around the pillar are four magically animated ropes, ending in lassos. They are attracted to movement, and will pounce like coiled snakes on anything which moves within the room. Those who are targeted must make a save v. palatalization, or be tangled by the lasso. Once tangled, the character must make a strength check each round to avoid being drawn 10′ closer to the pillar. The ropes have 15hp, are magically hardened, and self-repairing. They can only be damaged by slashing or cutting weapons (piercing or bludgeoning weapons are ineffective). The ropes ignore 2 points of damage from any attack, and heal 1d4 hp each round–even if completely severed. It is unlikely to come up, but the ropes are also partially ethereal, allowing them to tangle incorporeal creatures.
To the side of the room, a ramp leads down to a small secondary chamber with railings along the walls perpendicular to the ramp. (On my map, these are the north and south walls). Embedded in one wall is a skull carved from a massive ruby, with a strange black liquid flowing over its surface in defiance of gravity. Living creatures who stand in the presence of this object immediately become ill, and must make a saving throw versus poison or vomit on the spot. It is a powerful talisman of negative energy, and provides an irresistible draw to any undead creature which passes within 100 miles. Opposite this talisman is an iron door, standing open, leading out into a cave.
The floor of this room is a very sensitive pressure plate. Whenever it detects any weight, the iron door will close automatically, and seal itself until the room no longer detects weight. Once closed, the wall opposite the ramp will begin to move, forcing whatever is in the room to move out onto the ramp, and within range of the lassos.
The various devices and traps in these rooms are likely to give players a clear impression that the pillar of gelatin is deadly. However, this is only true if you’re an undead creature! For the living, the pillar produces mostly positive (if unpredictable) effects. Roll 2d6 for any living player who ends up inside the pillar:
2. The next time your character would die, they are instead returned to full health, with any of their ailments removed.
3. You, and every ally within 100ft of you, gain a +2 bonus to saving throws.
4. The next time you would be level drained by an undead creature, you instead gain one level. This only works once.
5. Undead of 5 HD or less will always cower before you.
6. Your maximum hit points is permanently increased by 10 + your current level.
7. Any undead creature you touch (with your flesh, not your weapons) takes 1d8 damage. This damage is applied if undead deal damage to you with their hands / mouths / other body parts.
8. You become entirely immune to disease.
9. 8 hours of sleep will always be enough to completely restore your HP. It will not heal other ailments.
10. By giving an undead creature a hard stare, you force it to make a save versus magic at a -4 penalty, or cower before you.
11. You begin to age in reverse. You will regress back to 15 years of age (one year at a time), then switch back to normal aging again. There are no negative physical or mental effects of the age regression.
12. Undead creatures who touch you must make a save versus magic or be destroyed. You still take damage as normal, but suffer no ill effects from the creature’s powers or abilities. Note that there is no effect if you touch the undead. They must touch you of their own volition.
An unfortunate side effect of the gelatin is that it produces cancerous tumors in living subjects. Fortunately, these tumors grow very slowly, and will take 100 years to kill someone. Each subsequent use of the pillar after the first, however, divides the number of years by 4. (25 on second use, 6.25 years on third use, 1.5 years for the third use, and so on). It is left to the GM’s imagination what toll the cancer should take on the player.
