This is Part 2. Here is Part 1.
Concept 1: Entering the Dungeon
Descending the stairs into B1, the party reach rooms that are dark, crowded, flooded, and don't have any apparent ways out. Then after solving some simple training puzzle (for more complicated puzzles later), they open a door and enter B1.
It's a crumbling stone bridge across a huge gap. The real floor is 20' below you. No visible walls, the sound of water lapping below, stale seaweed stink.
Approaching the bridge and the undead archer across the bridge will audibly (and slowly) draw his bowstring, giving the party time to react.
Charging across the crumbling bridge will break it and send the whole crumbling thing into the dark water below.
There's also a safe way down like stairs, but players will probably look at the bridge before they take the stairs down a second time.
If they want to kill the skeleton archer on the far side, they'll have to find to approach from the other side, or do some tricky climbing.
Sketch 1
Sketch 2
I'm not sure what shape the big room takes, but it can be a hub room for the Area 1. (I've decided that this is the public-facing side of the temple grounds.
Area 1 Hub Room
Other ways to enter the dungeon are the elevator and the sealed door, back in the Mouth of Mormo dungeon. The elevator goes to the crypts. The sealed door goes to the cloister/monastery portion on the far side of the juggernaut.
Concept 2: The Juggernaut
Crushed bones on the floor, scrape marks on the wall, and ceilings higher than your torchlight illuminates. The wall is covered with a repetitive motif: warped men and women, all uniquely deformed, carry offerings towards Area 6 (Inner Sanctum).
Of in the darkness, a pair of eyes flares to life 12' above the ground. Something huge begins grinding its way towards you. Slow and first, but rapidly gaining speed. Sparks flash where metal wheels scrape against the walls, illuminating a huge, rigid shape.
Up close, the thing is a stone-and-iron juggernaut, topped with an elephant skull, bound to the machine by silver wires. A pair of red flames dance in its skull, focused on you with homicidal intensity.
Originally, the area 2 hub was going to be a flooded crossroads that the players would cross on a rowboat or something, and the monster (that is trapped in this zone) was going to be a blob or water weird, but after mulling it over, the juggernaut sounds more fun, and more accessible.
I know that this was supposed to be a water dungeon, but I'm rethinking the flooded rooms bit. It's something new (yay) and it offers a new challenge (yay) but flooded rooms actually seem to reduce player options (boo) compared to dry rooms. (This dungeon was also supposed to have the gimmick of water levels that changed with the tide, but I might take that out, too.)
Mechanically, the juggernaut behaves kinda like those big crushy-stabby spike chariots in Elden Ring dungeons. Although the juggernaut is rudely sentient, not mindless. (My toxic trait is that I don't think that anything in a dungeon should be truly mindless.)
Cross-shaped areas won't work anymore, we need a new shape for Area 2. I have a few ideas but I'm thinking about making it triangular, with an opening on each corner and in the middle of each side, for a total of 6.
W goes to Area 6 (Inner Sanctum).
E goes to Area 4 (Crypts)
The two N exits go to the remainder of Area 2 (Cloister/Monastery)
The two S exits go to Area 1 (flooded statue hub)
The reason that some of them are doubled up is because the juggernaut likes to park itself in corners, so it can watch two directions at once.
Area 2 - Built around a square cloister. Rotating statue puzzle is in the center (rotate the statue to unlock whatever blue door it is currently pointing at). Scriptoriums, weird cultic induction rooms, and evidence that the abbot was up to some weird shit.
Area 6 - Inner Cloister. Put all the high weirdness stuff here. This is the conceptual climax. Contains Eolalia the Forgotten (the lady of sand).
Area 3 - The Reef Beneath. I'm moving away from cursed reef and more towards weird goddess of prophecy and mutation. This area is going to be changed to a little town in the sea cave. A few buildings on a rocky shore, with a bridge to area 5.
The Sea Cave contains a family of dolphins--some of the most evil creatures known to man. (Sharks are beloved because they are simple beasts, but dolphins are all allied to the merfolk, and they delight in the murder of men. They are intelligent enough to know their own magic. They taught themselves to laugh like humans do in order to taunt us. The only thing they prefer above murder is rape.)
The dolphins will family tackle people off the bridge, knock them in the water, and then a pair of dolphins will grab your arms and drag you down to the bottom of the save. They can also squirt water to put out your torch. (They can echolocate just fine in the dark.)
Area 5 - Ralupon the Red is here. He believes that you are here because he summoned you.
Factions and NPCs
Ralupon the Red (Manamanian enchanter).
Metal rings sewn into his hair. A thin black veil covers his eyes while a huge pair of eyes looks out from a painted wooden “hat” that stands tall upon his forehead. He is either a wizard, or very superstitious. He carries a staff. A small eyebat hangs upside down from one of his ears. (Eyebats intercept the first spell cast at their wizard. If they are lucky, they can reflect it.)
Currently a nest of giant starfish + an evil wizard. They are human hypnotists, enchanters, and illusionists. They are closely aligned with the Empire of Dathroya, the largest nation of the merfolk. Most claim that they are their secret vassals. (This is true.)
He believes that he summoned the party here by burning weird stuff in a fire for a couple of days, at the advice of his master. (“That curiosity in your heart? The greed in your belly? I put that there.”)
If befriended, he can pay you, or teach you enchantment. You’ll need to travel to Manamar to study under a master and get your spellbook, though. (Seek out Shaymish.) Shaymish isn’t a person, it’s a river. The spirit of that river can teach you enchanting.
He is the son of Razubek the Bey, the guy who originally assaulted this place and killed the cult.
Ralupon is back to finish what his father started. He wants to claim the Chalice of Immortality from the Inner Cloister. He will tell you that strong enchantments prevent him from entering the dungeon. (False, but contains elements of truth.) Offers to geas you to help with your resolve. Will attempt a suggestion if he thinks he can get away with it. (This isn't evil. It's not even rude. It's practical. Still intends to pay you when you're done.)
When the party meets him, he'll be sitting on a crown of thorns (Giant starfish, stats as ogre) but there is no puppeteer tentacle up his butt. The giant starfish actually serves him. If combat breaks out, two more giant starfish burst from where they were burrowed, nearby. The stars serve him--or maybe he serves the mind stars.
Friendly guy, but the enchanters of Manamar grow up in an environment where love potions are considered completely normal facts of life. Everyone enchants everyone all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Because of this, most of his normal behavior (enchanting people) would be considered evil by most civilized people.
He smiles and wishes you well, and he genuinely means it, but he'll never shake your hand. (Too risky.) Nor will he ever let you within 10' of him.
Makes a good stew though.
Eolalia the Forgotten
Lives in the Inner Sanctum, wants you to kill Ralupon, destroy the merfolk ghouls that still linger her, and restore the wards. Will reward you with the chalice of immortality (very reluctantly) and teach you how to be a cleric of Idola. Long term, she also wants you to find the surviving members of the Idolan cult and convince them to make her human again.
Lives in the inner sanctum, which is completely covered with words. Eolalia is immortal but her mind is not, and she forgets things constantly. Because of this, she needs to write her entire history--literally everything she knows--along the walls and floors of the inner sanctum.
At first she wrote on the walls with blood (back when she still had blood) and then scratches. But now her body is too crumbly to scratch the walls any more, and so she now writes on the floor with sand. Every square inch of the floor in here is covered in minute sand writing. A stray footstep would erase parts of her childhood that she would never recover.
Keeper of the Chalice of Immortality. She is made of sand and can have a very normal conversation with you if you allow her enough time to read things off the walls and floor.
She is made of sand. As long as she is touching sand, she will instantly regenerate. (All of the rooms in the inner sanctum are covered in sand.)
The Mannikin
A paperclip maximizer demon thing.
Completely and utterly evil, but also completely focused on maximizing the number of clean and beautiful sets of clothing available for the Abbot to wear. Cannot leave the a certain area (the cloister?)
Mother Narshay
One of the fully sentient undead, and one of the two leaders of the crypt.
Wants you to kill all of the remaining merfolk ghouls (she'll know when you're done) and leave the crypts the fuck alone.
Seriously, why do people keep coming into the crypts? Its for the dead, not the living.
Salakhan Latsu
Huge, mad, evil ghast. Distended, elongated, and twisted into a new shape that is better for grasping and swallowing than his living body ever was.
Leader of the mer-ghouls. Currently trapped between two portcullises in the BAD HALLWAY. (This will be the first- or second-most difficult combat in the dungeon. It'll be telegraphed well--the players can open this useful shortcut at their own discretion.)
(Digression: why the fuck are lacedons just regular dudes? They should be undead merfolk ffs.)
Cloakers
I forgot they were here. Led by Mwoheth.
Goblin Merchants
Hatchi Matchi and his "sons". The goblin king commanded them to open up shop here for 7 years. He had a good business tip. (False. Hatchi Matchi was sent here because he's annoying as fuck and everyone hated him.)
Grandmaster Grunky
Living frog statue that sells maps.
Some Secret Doors
Obvious Door, Hidden Switch
1.
A round stone in the wall with a pair of holes in it, about 8 inches deep. About the right size and height for two dudes to stick their peepees in.
One room over is a metal thing shaped like TT.
This is a handle meant to be inserted into the two holes and rotated. (You can achieve the same thing with three spears, if needed.)
2.
Evolved version of the previous switch. Now the pair of holes is in the bottom of a pool of water. You'll have to try a little harder to get leverage.
3.
Next to the sealed door is a doorknob inside a blood-soaked hand mutilation machine. Reach inside, turn the blood-slick knob, and your hand is painfully removed.
Door is opened by pulling the chandelier.
4.
All of the bricks on the wall are covered with random words. Print this out and give it to your players.
Except some of them aren’t nonsense words, and can be pressed to spell out “PRAISE IDOLA MOTHER OF WISDOM”, a phrase that is seen elsewhere in the dungeon. Wrong piles = poison gas or something.
All of the correct tiles are directly above one another. Once all of them are depressed, you hear a mechanism click inside the wall, something shifts at the top of the wall. Not clearly visible, but the depressed tiles form a perfect ladder up to the trap door in the ceiling.
5.
An inscription reads “The key to this door cannot be seen, though all can feel it. It cannot be held, although all have it except for the dead. From your mouth produce the answer.”
The answer is “breath” or “wind”. Blow into the hole (a little narrower than your finger) to open the door.
(Eh, this is a fiddly puzzle–put something non-essential behind it.)
6.
This is one of the rooms hidden behind the rotating statue puzzle. To open the secret door, you need to actually close the entrance door to this room by splitting the party, having half of the party rotate the statue out of alignment. This reveals the switch on the backside of the door that you opened to enter this room.
Once the secret door is opened, it stays opened, and the party can rejoin and go through the secret passage.
The secret passage holds some monsters to fight, of course.
7.
Maybe combine this with #2?
Flooded room with switch underwater. When flipped, all of the water flushes everyone into the next room and into a pit trap.
8.
A bunch of tiles covered with random objects.
A door has a symbol of an egg. Press all symbols that hatch from an egg. (Rooster, Snake, Fish, Frog).
Another door depicts a knight. Press all the symbols that are weapons (Shield, sword, bow). The incorrect answers: Crown, Whale, Shepherd’s Crook, Jug of Water, Cottage.
(Rating 2/5 stars. Kinda fiddly. Too escape roomy, not OSR puzzly enough.)
Secret Door, Secret Switch
Secret/secret doors should only be used in non-essential cases. They make good shortcuts to areas that can be reached in other ways. This lets skilled players access other areas earlier (like the Inner Sanctum), allows them to go around monsters they don't want to fight, and lets them sneak up behind monsters that they do want to fight.
1.
One of the giant statues is holding a treasure chest. Find a giant key, unlock the chest, and you can crawl through it into a new area (or maybe it just contains treasure).
(Might make for a fun, simple AHA! moment when the party finds a giant stone key.)
2.
Fountain pipe comes out of the wall, and water spurts from a fish head. Examining it reveals that the pipe connected to the fish head is pretty big. Knock the fish head off and start crawling.
(For exploration completionists.)
3.
Behind a mirror. No clues for this one--you just gotta smash it.
(For exploration completionists, and vandals.)
4.
The bottom of a pit trap. The floor and 3 walls are covered in spikes. The fourth wall is hollow. One of the wall spikes can be rotated to open the door.
(Maybe too easy? It's tough to tell. Players walk past this kind of stuff all the time.)
