This list of random things was so excellently put together that I looked at it and was FUCKING INSPIRED to turn it into a dungeon of random things.
Originally, I wanted to crowdsource it, but then I realized (a) there probably aren't enough people reading my blog and (b) I really wanted to see if I could do it.
So, here is THE HOUSE OF HOURS, a.k.a. SCRAP CASTLE
Upside
down castle, in the bottom of a gulch, the upside-down castle is
surrounded by a moat of fire. Most of the windows and doorways are
choked with dirt (refills if you dig it out).
Bowl
of brains. In the center of this room sits a giant bowl (lip is 7'
off the ground). Inside sleep 11 old men with oversized heads,
clutching each other for warmth. They each have a jewelled torc
welded around their neck that cannot be removed without cutting off
their heads. Nothing will rouse them except damage. When angered,
they will all attack at once. They are flying, psychic brains that
still have their living human bodies attached (which are completely
unneccesary). However, they are not used to being flying, psychic
brains and their psychic blasts sometimes only cause nosebleeds,
incontinence, etc (instead of exploding your head.)
Rogue
Glacier. This locked room is an oversized jail cell. A winding
passageway allows for passage through the prisoner, the rogue
glacier. The glacier picks pockets as a level 10 rogue. Stolen
items are sometimes visible in his icy body.
Oversized
key. Huge bronze key on a red pillow. Weighs 100 pounds. Hookah
nearby, filled with yellow water and eels. Unlocks the tortoise in
room 45.
Crude
desperate map. In this room, a party of adventurers has been turned
inside out. One of the corpses still clutches a crude map that is
covered in a honeycomb of lines and angles. Desperate script says,
“There is no way out of this infernal jungle! I've dulled my sword
from chopping and my brain from mapping!”. (This is in reference
to the mock jungle in room 68.)
Candles.
14 candles and 1 obsidian pyramid are arranged around a convex
mirror (6' across) on the ground. These candles will never burn down
while they are in these positions. One unlit candle sits in the
middle of the mirror. Distant organ music fills the air. This room
is a portal room (see Note #3) and placing an obsidian pyramid or a
lily in the center of the mirror will open a portal to room #61 or
#89 respectively. The full complement of candles around the mirror
is 16, and any mirror less than that causes the mirror to cloud
further, with a risk to travelers if there are ever less than 12
candles. Each candle removed from the circle causes the organ music
to become worse and worse. Room #61 has a crocodile savant in it
that may enter this room and attack if the portal is ever opened.
The
candles have a magic ability: if a lit candle flame is blown in the
direction of an unlit torch, candle, or campfire, the candle will
extinguish and the torch will light. Inversely, inhaling sharply
over an unlit wick in the direction of a torch will extinguish the
torch and light the candle.
Shark's
teeth. This room appears to be a natural history museum. A
tyrannosaurus skeleton dominates the room, and several dioramas show
naked, primitive humanoids chasing down dinosaurs wearing
headdresses and tearing out their throats with their teeth, as if if
the proto-humans were raptors or wolves. A glass case holds 21
different types of stones, of which 5 are fat gemstones. Smashing
the glass case will sound an alarm (roll for encounter) but the lock
can also be picked. 1d6 rounds after the party enters the room, 3
fossilized shark skeletons will descend on wires and attack like
ghastly marionettes, while the “puppeteers” hide in the gloom.
Cutting the wires also neutralizes the sharks.
Wooden
sword. A wooden coffin holds a set of wooden bones, recognizable as
a dwarf. When disturbed, it will attack as a skeleton (with slashing
claws), but one that is vulnerable to fire and slashing weapons
(instead of blunt ones). In a steel scabbard, the wooden dwarf
skeleton has a wooden sword (as fragile as ordinary wood). If
translated, dwarven runes on it read “This is a sword”.
Ghosts.
8 sullen ghosts occupy this room, playing board games for all
eternity. The board games are all missing pieces, but the ghosts
have all forgotten the rules anyway. One of the board games is
actually a treasure map that shows the path to the King's Grave in
room 8 (the bottom of the board says “Snakes and Ghouls”). The
ghosts are unfriendly. They will attack if anyone messes with their
board games, but they will mellow out if anyone brings them the game
piece from Room 97.
One
of the ghosts the ghost of one of the PCs. Although the PC-ghost
has forgotten nearly everything, it can tell the party that it has
been here for thousands of years. Amid shrugs, it will mumble
something about time travel. It also knows the details of one
random room, where it died. Any PC who dies in the upside-down
castle will also become a ghost, trapped in this room forever.
People
who die in this dungeon cannot be resurrected unless the other
ghosts agree to let the departing spirit go. They will not do this
unless the party is on their good side, such as if they have
returned the game piece from Room 97.
Frozen
lake. This room has a frozen floor. In the center of the room,
broken ice indicates that something has fallen through. A rusty
bronze golem paces around on the room's floor, 20' beneath the ice
level. Heavy characters (full plate, encumbered) risk falling
through the ice.
Old
Coins. A pile of coins sits in the middle of this room. They
aren't cursed, guarded, or trapped or anything, but they were minted
by a pre-human dynasty of snakemen. Tapestries of solemn snakemen
viziers line the walls. A tin spoon in buried in among the coins.
String.
This appears to be a dining room full of furniture and food. String
is tightly wound around everything in this room, and every cubic
foot in this room has as least 3 high-tension strings spanning it
from different angles. The food (including a turkey, goblets of
wine, etc) is suspended above the table by the strings, like an art
student's senior project. Passage through the room is extremely
difficult (Dex checks) because it requires navigating the crazy
tangle of strings.
If
the strings are cut, the food above the table will crash down,
splattering gravy on the nice upholstery, spilling wine, and
sending plates crashing to the floor. (cut 3 strings to clear the
room, roll for random encounters). If the party wants to weave
through the room, a small hoard of powdery thief-mice will come out
of the wall. The mice will steal d100 coins and a knick-knack
(shiny button, potion) from each player while they are too
entangled to swing a sword, and then disappear back into the wall.
The
silverware is silver, but the real prize is an egg cup in the exact
center of the table, which contains (surprisingly heavy) chicken
egg which contains ambrosia of the gods. It can be sold or eaten,
in which case it raises a random stat by 1 point.
Cup
of wine. A procession of petrified butlers marches forever towards
the dinner in room 12. The lead butler's silver platter holds a
single cup of wine (which is exquisitely delicious). The stone
butlers all wear uniforms and hold silver platters, but extracting
these will usually require breaking off some stone fingers and
limbs. If restored to flesh, the butlers are all werewolves
obsessed with wine and lambs.
Manta
rays. Sagacious manta rays observe you through the walls of this
underwater tunnel, which eventually leads to the shore of an indoor
lake. The “beach” is entirely composed of huge, cyclopean cubes
of lead. The telepathic manta rays are sages, and can be persuaded
to identify stuff or ferry passengers across the lake. (They don't
know much about the dungeon, but are experts on plankton, kelp, and
algebra.) Their prices are steep if you pay in gold, but they are
eager to taste new and interesting foods. An island in the middle
of the lake is filled with upside-down trees. In the center of it
is a mail box (actually a retarded MIMIC, a.k.a. CIMIM).
Barbed
leather. This empty suit of magical barbed leather armor sits in a
crystal display case. It was made from a rose elemental, and the
thorns are nearly 2” long. Another display case holds a shark
fossil, suspended by strings. Another display case is packed floor
to ceiling with skulls. If the display case containing the suit of
armor is opened or disturbed, the armor will animate, leap out, and
run away. If it escapes the room (and it probably will) add it to
the wandering monster table. If encountered, it will only run away.
If cornered, it will fight (it has a whip and a scimitar). As a
magic armor it has two powers. First, things attacking it with
natural weapons are damaged by the razor-sharp barbs. Second, it
can shoot soothing pollen out of its sleeves, which calms insects
automatically and other animals if they fail a saving throw. This
calming effect is extremely short lived, but the suit of armor can
produce huge amounts of pollen every day.
Clock
tower. Everything in this room is made of paper. A column of
sunlight pierces the papery arches of the ceiling, 100' above. In
the center of this room is a huge clock tower with what appears to
be a gargoyle who has just lept off it, now frozen in time. The
hands of the clock are clearly made from black iron and gold, and
there is a visible doorway on the landing behind the clock face.
Approaching the clock tower causes time to pass slower. If you
stand in the doorway and watch someone approach, you'll notice they
move slower and slower as they approach it, so that they will never
arrive (think Zeno's arrow). Additionally, approaching the tower
also causes you to age, so that you will always die of old age 1
foot away from the clock tower. A party of humans walking towards
the tower will likely age 1d6 years in the few seconds before they
realize what has happened, and 1d6 hours will have passed outside of
the room. This powerful effect can be skirted by creeping along the
walls (paper-covered bricks) of the room. This enchantment can only
be dispelled by destroying the face of the clock tower.
Arrows
and fireballs shot at the clock face will never reach it (not in
your lifetimes). Light and light spells will not be noticeably
affected by the time effect, and will reach the clock tower
normally. (The concave mirror in Room 39 would actually be perfect
for this task, and will be able to ignite the tower and burn it
down in only a couple of minutes). Spells that travel to their
destination are useless (magic missile, fireball, BUT lightning
bolt works fine) while spells that conjure things at a certain
location work fine (like summoning an acid ooze on top of the tower
would work.)
Once
the tower is destroyed, the time gargoyle will be unfrozen in time
and attack. The gargoyle is made from smoky glass and has garnets
for eyes. It attacks with claws and a breath attack (hot sand).
If anyone rolls a natural 1 to save against the breath attack they
are sent back in time. You may find them again in room 51, but
they'll be 1d20 years older.
The
clock tower has a metal framework. At the top, the clock hands can
be salvaged (4' and 3' long, black iron and gold, heavy but very
valuable). The doorway leads to room 17.
-
Melted
Sand Dunes. The top half of this room is clearly the top half of a
giant hourglass with obsidian walls (20' across, hole is 3' wide).
The hole in the sloping floor leads to a huge room filled with
melted sand dunes. The sand-dune room is entirely located in a
steeply sloping cave. The top-most part of the room connects to the
half-hourglass room. Walking through the melted sand dunes, players
may disturb pebbles, which will slide down the steep glass slope.
It
takes 4 hours to walk down the glassy, smooth room, or 5 hours to
walk up it. If you slide down (on your cloak or something), the
bottom can be reached in 15 minutes. 6 carnivorous desert penguins
nest in a smooth-walled burrow halfway down the slope. They are
hungry and faster than greased lightning when they slide down on
their bellies.
Misshapen
faces. A stone cherub spits water into a fountain in the center of
this room. The walls of this room are covered with 57 waxy, lumpy
faces. The faces are warm to the touch. If the faces are removed
and placed atop your own face, it will be absorbed and your face
will permanently assume the likeness of the mask. Roll 2d6 to
determine your new Charisma. 5% of the faces are sentient and
hungry, and if touched, they will attempt to bite (+5 to hit, 1d6
damage) and then swallow on the next round (automatic unless allies
make opposed strength checks).
Owls.
Two cloaked strangers (Striga and Tyaton) shuffle around this room,
bulky and tall. They wear silver owl masks over their faces (they
are actually giant owls). All around the room are dozens of pictures
of owls drawn in black pen, and dozens of live owls roost quietly in
cages. They are carefully measuring owls, believing (correctly) that
new spells may be researched by analyzing the different ratios of
owl physiognomy. They are level 5 magic-users and care for nothing
except owls and magic. They wield spells of hungry precision and
silent knives. Their jeweler's monocle is actually the eye of
Belkernap in room 37, although it looks mineral in composition.
Lists.
In this room there are 12 wooden plugs set into the floor, like
wooden manhole covers 3' wide. Beneath each plug is a small chamber
containing a small, muddy modron who is endlessly repeating a random
list. (Go here and click twice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists).
One of the modrons is actually reciting a list of all of the rooms
in this dungeon (“. . . 20. Lists. 21. Whispering Poison. . .”).
You can hear them muttering if you put your ear against the wood.
One of the modrons wears a gold-and-titanium circlet (completely
square). One of the modrons is actually berserk, chaotic, and will
explode 1d6 rounds after being removed from his muddy prison. If
the modrons are somehow restored to their full mental capacities
(this is what modrons do when they are traumatized), they will aid
the party. Otherwise, all the modrons will do is sit there and
mutter.
Whispering
poison. A withered mummy hangs from a crucifix in this room. The
mummy is not undead, it's just a normal mummy. The rest of the room
is filled with implements of torture and a small coal furnace with a
stack of fuel beside it. Vials and glassware are arranged in front
of the furnace, filled with cloudy water. Inside the mummy's veins
is a deadly sentient poison. Anyone approaching the mummy will hear
the poison whispering to them. The poison wants to be extracted
from the mummy's veins and then used to kill more creatures. The
poison's name is Cyrano. The poison can give you directions for
extracting him (it involves a dagger and an empty vial). He's only
a few milliliters, but he is deadly. He can crawl around (1' /min)
but prefers to sit on a knife where he can be delivered to veins
easier. In exchange for your help killing things, he can cast
Detect Poison at will. He may even be able to teach a wizard a
unique poison spell or two.
Implausible
pits. This room is filled with 6 visible pits. The pits are
actually 3' to the left of where they appear to be (90% chance of
falling in one while walking through the room unless gimmick is
figured out). The pits are 5' deep, but falling in one causes
damage as if you had fallen from a much greater height. In the
bottom of one is the SWORD OF THE NORTH. In another pit is a
voracious undead unicorn head. In another pit is a treasure chest
filled with bees. The lock is awesome, but the door itself if only
wax—you can scratch it with your fingernail.
Firetraps.
This long room appears to be a bazaar, with rugs laid out, canvas
overhangs, and empty fruit stalls. The walls are painted with
flowers. All open flames in this room will spawn hostile imps that
last for 1d6 rounds after their original torch is extinguished. A
single bee-drone (see room 24) keeps guard here. If panicked, he
will light the bonfire and retreat to the main door of the
Honeycomb, guarded by a pair of drones.
Bee
people. Here is the secret hive of the bee people, built vertically
and dripping with honey. Art Noveau chimneys connect levels and
gilded lilies proffer nauseatingly sweet nectar. The men are hulking
brutes (use umber hulks) while the females are graceful things with
wasp-like waists who are experts in alchemy, poisons, and
explosives. They also have a bunch of interesting insect-themed
treasure, tribute from some confused cultists, one time.
http://rachelghoulgamestuff.blogspot.com/2013/12/osr-christmas-list-item-1-treasures-of.html.
They are misandriists, and only trust females. Men will be asked
to sit on the floor outside the room while the females discuss
business. (beesness)
There are 4
males, 7 females, and 22 sexless drones (as orcs). Friendly larva
(with children's faces) will crawl over and ask for candy (in
children's voices. The bee people are unfriendly but not hostile.
They may allow you to pass through for a tribute and a vow of
peace. What they desire more than anything are the lilies from
room #89 and the destruction of the ghouls (see room 69). If the
party seems intent on achieving these goals, they bee people will
send Buzz Buzz (a jolly, stupid male) with you. They *might* also
be persuaded to part with some poisons, acids, or explosives.
Caligula is
queen of the bee people, but her vizier Merlane speaks for her.
Her favorite daughter is Lophia, an assassin. Her jealous daughter
is Yanivel, a jeweler.
Hungry
Streets. This section appears to be a 4-way crossroads in a country
town, complete with lamp posts and cobblestones. A frightened horse
darts back and forth through these streets, searching for a way out
but too scared to leave the light cast by the lamps. Unless the
party runs straight through, they will be swallowed by the giant
mouths that form in the cobblestone. Being swallowed does a little
damage, but then it ejects you into the sewers beneath, which lead
to rooms XX and YY. Poisoning the water in the sewers will cause
the streets to vomit you up. Digging through the cobblestones isn't
an option unless you have explosives or manage to kill the street
first (60 HP, 10 HD).
Wind
machine. At the far end of this hallway, four giant dragonfly
engines flap their wings and create a powerful wind that prevents
passage. Passing up this hallway is only possible with climbing
gear (treat it like a 100' climb with equivalent fall damage, except
sideways).
Dark
engine. In this room is a strange device. It's about 10' long and
looks like a cross between a piccolo and a Harley-Davidson. It's
all flanges and oiled black leather. It's a vehicle, and can be
ridden by up to 3 people. It flies at double the speed of a human,
but it requires large quantities of blood to operate. Every full
moon it will come alive and hunger for flesh. It creeps around on
eight legs of leather and steel, gliding through halls like an angel
of death, and rapidly dissecting victims with it's lovingly
articulated mouthparts, trapping their soul in the small chamber
above its carburator.
Very
old people. 7 very old people sit in 7 rocking chairs, watching a
storm that only they can see. They are sitting on a porch
overlooking nothing but fog. A starry sky is visible far beyond the
fog. They claim to the descendants of the king, waiting for his
return. Their brains are full of little worms, but they can be
persuaded to peer into the storm for you (treat as a Commune spell).
Talking to any of them also ages you 1d6 years, however. If you
kill one, you must save or take their place in a rocking chair.
Destroying a rocking chair will cause the other rocking chairs to
grow spider legs and horrible crushing jaws, and attack you. If the
frog in room 38 is killed, the fog will dissipate and the path to
the stars will be lost.
Ill
stars. Passing through the fog you will find yourself among the
stars. Up this high, you can see an aerial view of a couple of
nearby areas of the dungeon, including the manta's lake and island.
While among the stars, your body appears to be a constellation.
There is a 1-in-6 chance while you are up here of being attacked by
disgruntled astronomers, yelling at you to cease your pointless
wandering. From here, you can see the storm that the old people are
looking at (and it is TERRIFYING), return to the rocking chairs, or
fly to the moon (Room 39). Anyone leaving the room must save or
contract space sickness (1 chills, 2 vertigo, 3 bleeding from the
ears, 4 periods of weightlessless, 5 hair loss, 6 gamma ray vomit).
Slime
Princess. This room is locked, but has a large door knocker. A
mailbox outside the room reads “30”. In this room, Orange
Princess and Slime Princess take turns peering through the telescope
at the moon (Room 39). Scattered around the room are a bunch of
books (mostly geography and engineering subjects, but a few
adventure and romance novels, 1d4 level 1d4 spells). Here is where
Slime Princess (1 HD ooze) and Orange Princess (4 HD elf) hang out
all the time. Slime Princess is a semi-anthropomorphic slime who
totally wants to go on adventures. Orange Princess is a large-nosed
young woman with orange clothes and hair. She just wants Slime
Princess to be safe, and only wants to practice fencing (she carries
a foil). Slime Princess will want to join the party. Whenever she
kills something with more HD than her, she grows 1 HD and has an
X-in-20 chance of turning into a mindless ooze, where X is equal to
her new HD. This oozy rampage lasts until she eats someone or until
something else calms her.
Other
things in this room: orrery, orange bed, cauldron with pillows
(Slime Princess' bed), 30' tall bookcase, hollow globe (containing
300 gp), nice hardwood floor, magic teapot (never runs out of tea),
4 bonsai trees.
Anyone
falling asleep here will f
Child
gangs. These corridors are the home of 9 unruly children who form a
rough gang. Their leader is Redbeard (he's 9 and has no beard). He
has LIFTING GLOVES, which give him a strength of 18, but only when
used to pick things up. These nose-picking urchins will attempt to
sell you newspapers at exorbitant prices and pick your pockets.
They all carry concealed shivs and adore the princesses in room 30.
They live in a tree-house.
Vomiting
statues. This room has 8 statues in it, each on a pedestal. All of
them can be rotated except the blacksmith statue. All of the
statues are wearing clothes which indicates their profession. (1)
The blacksmith statue is continually vomiting fire and cannot be
turned, blocking easy passage through the center of the room. (2)
The mermaid statue can be rotated, and vomits water when her tail is
lifted (can be used to temporarily extinguish the fire-vomiting
statue. (3) The king statue will vomit 234 gold coins if one gold
coin is thrown down his throat. (4) The assassin statue will vomit a
poisonous gas if he is touched. (5) The locksmith will vomit 85
keys if touched (all useless, the key to the door is in his pocket.)
(6) The engineer statue will vomit lightning if touched, which can
be extra deadly if the floor is covered with water. (7) The cook
statue will vomit perfectly edible spaghetti when touched (only
works 6 times). (8) The mother-with-baby statue will vomit milk if
touched and the baby will vomit a healing potion if fed milk (only
works once). The door on the far wall is locked (key in locksmith's
pocket).
Bored
angels. A church. Rows of pews. Hymnals in the back of every
seat. A collection box near the entrance. Entering the church you
will be able to hear, faintly, a pair of angels talking idly about
the happenings within the dungeon, and especially within this room.
They are impossible to communicate with, although they can watch
your actions and will speculate loudly on your performance and
motivations. Stealing from the poorbox will get you slapped with a
plague or attacked by locusts. Donations earn you nothing, but they
will take notice of burnt offering on the ash-covered altar.
Boiling
water. Room full of boiling water. A small metal boat with metal
paddel offers transport through the blistering steam, but you risk
being burned on the hot metal.
Boar.
Big, pissed off, razor tusks. Fucking harpoons stick out of its
side. Takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. Keeps
fighting 1 round even after it's dead. Stomach full of human bones
and jewelry (2 armbands, 9 belt buckles, 1 circlet, 1 medallion of
an upside-down tree). It has built itself a veritable nest out of
crumpled armor.
Tiny
wings. Yammerhein the Wizard, beloved of Ysera, meditates here
inside the Crystal Egg of Zola. He wears a cloak of poisonous
hummingbirds and his prehensile beard is actually a fragment of a
living air elemental. He will respond to disturbances with
compulsion spells. Fetch him [1 - a candle (room 6), 2 - the wine
(room 13), 3 - baby larva of the bee people (room 24), 4 - bezoar
from the creature in room 54, 5 – hat from one the ghouls (room
69), 6 – pig's tail (room 82).]
Bag
of soot. Belkernap the Thinjohn broods here, audibly lamenting the
loss of his eye (stolen by an owl) while he squats over a low,
greasy fire. He scissors his long hands in the smoke. His
haversack appears to contain a pile of soot, but is actually 7 soot
imps. Talking tot he party, he will lament the loss of his eye,
lick his crocodile lips, and offer healing for a steep fee. Instead
of healing, he will cast a shrinking spell and dump his sack on the
floor. The soot imps will rouse themselves and attack, causing
confusion and disease with their tiny mouse teeth. Belkernap hopes
to kill them and take their treasure, and maybe see if he can use
one of their eyes. Unless, of course, the party has his eye.
Shallow
pools. A broad, flat room with 6 shallow (2”) pools. A vast
croaking is heard, as an injured fog frog lies here, dying from the
CRAWLING DAGGER in its guts. If the frog is healed, it will cough
up the dagger, 3847 silver coins, a mithril helmet in the shape of a
frog, and four young lads in togas who are eager to help, despite
their sharp teeth and inability to comprehend language. If the frog
is attacked, it is a terrifying opponent (being the size of a barn).
Killing it removes the fog from this room and room 28 (making
travel to the moon and stars impossible). If presented with a dried
frog from room 50, the fog frog will recoil as if turned. On its
back, 45 eggs contain fog frog tadpoles. They can be harvested and
sold for a nice sum, but the tadpoles will watch you the entire time
with sad, accusing eyes. If not healed, the frog will die by
tomorrow, and ghouls from room 69 will soon arrive to harvest its
corpse.
Drinking
from the pools has the following effects. [1 – As remove curse, 2
– Exhalations of fog, becoming tremendous if you stay in one
place for more than 15 minutes, 3 – speak the language of frogs,
4 – shrink to 90% of your height, 5 – reverse gender (once
only), 6 – save or paralysis for 2d6 hours as you hallucinate
mollusks with voices of loved ones.]
There
is also a ladder here. If it is climbed up while there is fog, it
will lead to the moon (room 39). If it is climbed while there is
no fog, it will lead to a red, wet trapdoor (room 40).
The
moon. A small grove on the surface of the moon, the only part of the
surface with an atmosphere (although PCs will immediately be struck
by how thin the atmosphere is here, it's like a mountaintop). A
trapdoor in the moon opens down into the fog frog's room (38).
Giant, crystalline ferns grow one inch every millennium. They
shatter into razor-shards unless handled with the utmost care. Red,
pulpy polyps grow here in straight lines. Strange moonfolk lurk
among the crystalline growths, resembling giant cow skulls with four
legs on the bottom and two arms on the sides. They attack with two
punches (minor damage) and a tongue whip (vorpal on crit, be sure to
tell players this somehow).
The
moonfolk resent the PCs for the vast amounts of oxygen they consume
(an absolutely shocking amount, from their perspective. The normal
respiration from 6 humans could absolutely destroy their tiny
ecosystem in a matter of minutes, dooming them and their fragile
ecosystem.) They will communicate this telepathically (“Cease
your gaseous conversion immediately! You bring doom to our
children!”) If the party insists on breathing, the moonfolk will
attack.
In
the center of this clearing is their “farmhouse”, sort of like
three increasingly-smaller domes stacked on top of each other. The
bottom dome contains a 300'-long moongoat, which lies placidly
coiled like a serpent. It's 760 teats provide the moonfolk with
nutrition. It is harmless, and very difficult to rouse aside from
mealtimes. Up the ladder, the second floor contains bizarre
versions of farm equipment, including sawblades plows and
double-ended scythes. On the top floor is a book detailing their
flight from a distant and unknown oppressor, a diary of their
day-to-day life, the phosphorescent paint they use to celebrate
birthdays, and their entire wealth: 6 huge bolts of moonsilk, spun
from the moonfolks' own glassy marrows.
Very
new blood. In this small attic, an immortal man throws himself
against the ragged nails that stud the wall. He is covered in
cobwebs and his own blood. In fact, all parts of the walls are
covered with sharp blades. His name is Blofeld, and he has been
trying to kill himself for over four hundred years (his estimate).
He built this room to end his life, and is afraid to leave it, since
he is terrified of becoming trapped somewhere or worse—being
buried alive. He offers the party his scimitar (currently stabbed
through his heart) if they can kill him, but he will attack them out
of frustration if they seem like they are going to refuse his very
honest plea for death. He fights as a level 6 fighter with 20 HP,
who regenerates fully each round. The scimitar is the SWORD OF THE
NORTH, and will always point north is balanced on its side. He once
owned the machine in #37, and will warn people of it's moon-hunger
if he thinks it will help convince people to kill him.
Hollow
trees. Grove of 9 dead trees. In the center of the grove is a
scarcrow. The branches hold stick men and creepy bird skull
figures. Each tree has different things inside of them, and can be
bashed open easily. [1 – three dead crows, pile of acorn meal, 2
– porcelain torso with an opal-studded, red vest, 3 – dead crow
and a spellbook containing sleep, alarm, and paralyze
undead), 4 – empty, 5 – glass gargoyle head with garnet
eyes, 6 – six crows and a dreamcatcher that grants restful sleep,
7 – three crows and silk flag with hydra motif summons breezes
when affixed to a ship's mast, 8 – two dead crows each wearing a
beaded necklace, 9 – one crow, two knitting needles, and a voodoo
doll for Lord Ebola (in #69). If the scarecrow is destroyed or his
medallion taken, the dead crows will become undead crows and attack.
The crows take an eyeball on a critical. At the end of the combat,
whoever killed the most crows suffers their curse: -2 to hit and
save.
The
scarecrow's medallion is filthy, but if the mud is scraped off, it
is revealed to be metal corn cob with kernals made from yellow
jasper, tourmaline, citrine, tastefully mismatched. If worn, it
grants the wearer +2 vs fear, and all birds (even undead ones) will
not attack the wearer (although they will attack her companions).
Barking
men. Four Broad-shouldered, bow-legged bulldog men are hunting on
the moors. Their three “dogs” are fierce-eyed men who run on
all fours, and whose fingers have grown thick and horned from
twisting the necks of deers. The bulldog men are hunting ducks
(extinct) and cats (who have all fled to #54) but they will be
overjoyed to hunt the PCs instead. They will unleash the hounds
(stats as wolves) and bite their pipes as their take aim with their
longbows. Treasure: longbows, canary-feather arrows, calf socks,
garters, shooting breeks (waterproof pants), tweed waistcoats,
supple hunting boots.
Needles.
At the bottom of this well is a small chamber, flooded up to 3'
deep. Several bone needle men lurk just beneath the murky water.
They will rattle their heads and attack with the edgeless sharp that
they carry within each of their claws. Their skulls contain an
eldritch gas (if inhaled, makes your next exhalation deep-voiced, as
command spell) and several needles that are prized by
necromancers. A crawlspace set into the wall leads to #44.
Crone's
eyes. A single, harried old woman sits on the floor of this small
room. The wet carpet around her is sprouting dozens of
brown-shouldered mushrooms. Jars behind her contain embalmed
fetuses and the vital dusts of three ancient scholars (can be used
to resurrect or confer with ancient people: a necromancer, a tax
collector, and a surveyor). Shelves dug into the dirt walls contain
21 glass eyes.
Tabitha,
the crone, grew greedy in her gathering and has now become
possessed by her collection of enchanted glass eyes. The glass
eyes now control her, body and soul, and fight for occupation of
her eye sockets. She spends her days obeying the eyes, constantly
switching them in and out of her eyeless sockets, while each eye
reads books, looks at pictures in bestiaries, or leers and lurid
drawings. She has a crystal ball in front of her but rarely uses
it. Tabitha herself is blind, and hasn't seen anything in years.
Her glass eyes whirl independently in each socket, wet and wild.
If
approached by the party, she will try to gather the party in her
tiny room by promising to tell their fortune. In the tiny,
low-ceilinged room they cannot fight effectively, and she hopes
that if the eyes posses more subjects they'll leave her alone.
Treat the eyes as a 3 HD creature with 23 HP that takes ½ damage
from slashing sources and never more than 1 damage from piercing.
Each HP lost = one eye destroyed. Creatures that they drop to 0 HP
are not killed, but rather have both of their eyes replaced and
their consciousness overwhelmed. They fight as a swarm, and can
attack everyone in an area. If defeated, 1d3 eyes will survive
with mere cracks, and if worn in an eye socket, will function as
well as normal eyes. They also allow you to see invisible
creatures, but if used to do boring things (studying, standing
watch) the eye will fall asleep, going black.
Tabitha
will cower throughout the fight, and if freed will be extremely
grateful and extremely eager to be rid of them. She can tell
fortunes and divinations in her crystal ball, and will happily give
the party the gold coins she keeps beneath her rug if the party
will leave and never return.
-
Bronze
Tortoise. The bulldog men live in this ramshackle house. They've
trapped an enormous bronze tortoise in a pit nearby, and spend their
days trying to open the top of its shell (which is locked with the
key from #4. Hammers and crowbars lean up against the wall. Inside
the tortoise's pillowy interior is the PESTLE OF GORE.
A
great drill. A peach tree. An elephant's foot umbrella stand with
3 steel umbrellas. 50 empty barrels. Dozen's of yellow flags in
the area mark out the outline of a giant body. Gas tank with a
straight razor laid on top. 10' of this vast machine are above the
ground, and another 10' extend below ground. The machine is flawed.
If it is turned on (requires adding at least 1 HP worth of blood)
the whole thing will become violently energetic and tunnel into the
ground, ripping free of it's bracing, stabilizing cables, and
collapsing the dog-men's giant barn-shack. The drill will burrow
through the stomach of a buried giant, who will raise his head and
arm above ground even as he dies. He will make a swing at a single
person before he dies, and hot tar will rain down, damaging everyone
in the area who doesn't have cover (such as with a steel umbrella.
It will burrow straight through the giant's stomach (#47), but the
tar in that room will be dangerously hot until the giant has been
dead for 6 hours.
Tar.
If the giant has been dead for at least 6 hours, the tar is cool and
relatively safe. Otherwise, it is dangerously hot. Two
sphincter-doors lead to #77 and #78. They open when tickled.
Half
a mouse. Tiny people have died fighting mice, all chewed in half.
The tiny people aren't more than 2” tall and look to have suffered
all sorts of injuries and deprivations. Dead mice are scattered all
around them, some of them chopped in half. If their gear is ever
restored to full, it will include (See #95) a set of scale mail made
from extremely light ceramic and covered in blue cloth, a wand of
dispel polymorph (12 charges), a potion of lightning resistance, and
a potion of hide from undead.
Gut
strung harp. A bunch of monsters are playing instruments here. A
fishman is playing a tuba. A goblin is playing on drums. A rakshasa
is playing a piano and also singing. A satyr is playing a violin.
A carrion crawler plays on a gut-strung harp. The players are sweaty
and disheveled. If the players do anything that disrupts their
playing, they'll all begin shouting, “You've ruined it! You've
ruined everything!” while weeping angry tears. Then they'll
attack. The tuba can launch attack squids (contains 1 in the
chamber, 6 in the clip). The piano has extendable hammers when
pressed (88 hammers). The violin lacerates the fuck out of people
when it breaks a string (4 strings). And the drums just straight up
explode (3 drums). The harp has no powers but the carrion crawler
will still totally try to eat you. The instruments retain their
abilities afterwards.
If
you go through their pockets while they are playing, they'll give
you stink-eye, but will not attack. The pockets contain twine, a spare violin string, a tiny jar of rosin, and a few platinum coins.
-
Dried
frogs. In this room, there is a display of a 60' anaconda skeleton
in the center of the room, as well as a impression-fossil of a
coelocanth, an impression-fossil of an archeopteryx, and a row of
six oryx heads. One of the walls has a display case full of dried
frogs (no glass). Also a display case of butterflies. 1D6 rounds
after the party enters the room, the dried frogs will peel
themselves off the wall and whirl themselves at you like nunchucks.
There are 10 frogs, 1 HP each. If they damage you, they soak up the
spilled blood and swell up into giant killer frogs.
Types
of frogs (d6): 1 – poison arrow frog (poison), 2 – surinam toad
(1d6 babies in his back), 3 – flying frog, 4 – ugly frog (gives
warts), 5 – supertonguefrog, 6 – actually just a crocodile.
As
soon as the frogs attack, the archaeopteryx fossil will start
laughing. If it take it off the wall, it will squawk angrily, but
what can it do? It's just negative space. It can be trained to
say words like a parrot.
As
soon as the frogs draw blood and turn into giant frogs, the
anaconda skeleton will come to life and help you by eating the
frogs. If it swallows a frog, it will re-dehydrate it and all of
the anaconda's bones will sweat a bunch of blood onto the floor.
Re-dehydrated frogs are loot, and you can put them in your
inventory, throw them like ninja stars, and have them turn into
giant asshole frogs if blood ever touches them. The anaconda
skeleton is on your side, but if you fuck with it, it will not
hesitate to chomp on your faces. It's also the only thing in this
room that's undead (everything else is alive).
The
oryx heads on the wall will offer commentary on the fight. They
are stupid and insulting. You can bribe them with vegetable food,
but they will just choke on it and gag hilariously (since their
throat dead-ends in a wooden plaque) and probably die (because that
makes sense). The oryx don't know anything useful anyway. They'll
try to bite you if you fuck with them, but they are semi-harmless.
After
combat is over, the butterflies will clap their wings together and
it sounds just like thunderous applause. Roll for a random
encounter.
The
ceolocanth is too old for this shit will do nothing but roll his
eyes.
Angry
mob. They're standing around a mud-filled town square, preparing to
burn a stray cat (from #54) at the stake for being a witch. They
are surly lumpenproles with bad teeth and hunchbacks and you should
probably just kill them all. They also have a few cages beside them
containing a sad owl (a witch!) and a ghoul servitor from #69
(another witch!) If anyone was sent back in time by the gargoyle in
room 16, you'll find them here, 1d20 years older, bearded and weird
by their long years of imprisonment.
Strange
Lights. This room appears to have lights and sound coming from it,
as if it were a cheerful dinner party, but when you open the door
you will only see a dust covered table and a bunch of skeletons
sitting at it. Like a reverse refrigerator. There's a nice silver
candelabra here, though, with an owl theme. If the party messes
with the room, and then closes the door behind them, they voices
will resume where they left off, but with the changes incorporated.
If
the party steals the candelabra: “Hey, where did the candelabra
go? That was a wedding present!”
If
the party steals a skull off one of the skeletons: “AAAAAGH
OMIGOD OMIGOD WHERE DID FRANCIS' HEAD GO! OMIGOD SHE'S GETTING
BLOOD ALL OVER THE CARPET! SOMEONE HELP HER! BRING A TOWEL!”
Tradition.
If this door is pushed open, spears will thrust down through the 9'
in front of the door. Inside this small room is a 20' pit trap with
a single skeleton at the bottom (disguised as a corpse) and a Mimic.
Inside the mimic is a collapsible 10' pole (compresses down to 2')
and a bucket of neverending lard.
Strays.
A bunch of stray cats gather here, including a small jaguar. They
are fed milk and fish by the widows in #55, who also utilize their
bodies when they die. However, the real protector is a flying ooze
that will rush over if it ever hears the cats hissing or yowling in
fear. The cats are feral and will not allow themselves to be petted
or picked up.
Widows.
Old ladies with billygoat beards and black fingernails, spinning
cats into cat-skin cloaks. Put them on and you turn into a cat.
The only catch is that you need someone with thumbs to get you out
of it (there are buttons). Stay in it for more than a day and you
lose your mind. Three cats = one cloak. The old ladies will trade
but they can't fight back, since they are just old ladies. They will
warn you not to mess with the cats because the jaguar will kill you
(they know something is protecting the cats, but they don't know
about the flying ooze).
Razor
Webs. Invisible webs criss-cross this hallway, each made of an
infinitely sharp filament. Walking into them is heavy damage.
Running into them is save or die. You can navigate them by swinging
a probe to determine where the filaments are, but you will fuck up a
10' pole into unusability. Adamantine weapons can cut the invisible
webs, and smoke/fog can make them visible. These webs were made by
tiny spiders, each the size of the head of a pin. The spiders are
crawling around everywhere, but are so tiny it's hard to notice
them.
Directions.
On a dias in this room, a pair of bee men are half-asleep, sitting
on a T-shaped metal perch (like parrots). They will wake when the
door is opened and speak in unison, “Greetings, Traveller! Behind
us are two doors. This door leads to great treasures, but this one
leads to terrible ruin.” They gesture at opposite doors. This
appears to be another version of the “one always tells the truth
and the other always lies”.
In
truth, they are both liars. Both doors lead to small rooms with a
door in the back. When the door is messed with, the floor will
collapse into a spiked pit that also contains the remains of two
shattered gargoyles, one black and one white. Then a metal
portcullis will slam shut, trapping the party. The two bee men
will demand treasure in order to release the party (their T-shaped
perch is actually the portcullis winch). Whether or not they are
given treasure, they will eventually walk away laughing, and then
release the monsters from their hole in the wall. One monster is a
rust monster and the other is a rot monster.
The
black gargoyle is actually still alive, although it is missing a
leg and most of its face. It will beg for help, although it can
only tell lies, and so may be a bit confusing.
If
the party can't figure out a way to get out of the pit, someone
will wander past and offer to release them in exchange for a favor.
d4 [1 – Yammerhein from #36, 2 – Lophia from #24, 3 – a
random ghoul from #69, 4 – the slothocephalus from #85.]
The
Tanner. In this room, a ogrish tanner is scraping the osteoderms off
an ankylosaur hide. They litter the ground like peanut shells. He
will make and sell leather armor, and will buy hides and leather
armor for generous prices. He will tell you the story of the barbed
leather in #25, but believes it to be lost forever. The barrels on
the wall are filled with caustic lye, and if he is threatened, he
will call his hides to his aid. The most dangerous hides by far
are the four bull hides, which have goring horns and crushing grip.
Snakes.
Just a pit full of snakes, writhing and partying. Many of them are
venomous.
Snail
shell. In this room is an invisible flail snail, with only the
shell visible. In its stomach are hundreds of huge flowers. If the
snail is killed, flowers will once again grow to cover the Moor.
Obsidian
mirror. In the center of this room is a circular, convex mirror of
obsidian (6' across) with 15 small (3”) obsidian pyramids arranged
around it. This is a portal room (see Note #3) and links to rooms
#6 and #89 if a candle or a lily is placed in the center of it
(taken from those rooms). Every obsidian pyramid removed from
around the periphery makes the mirror more opaque (with mishap
chances beginning if there are less than 12 pyramids here) and also
causes more of a stink-rot smell to fill the room. The obsidian
pyramids have electrum filigree and intricate carvings, and are
worth 20g each. A crocodile savant lurks in this room, cloaking it
in darkness.
Bitter
seeds. Three naked, bestial children (2 HD) squat on the ground
here, scrounging for the bitter seeds that fall from the tree. They
will tell you that the seeds are “bitter, bitter but sweet in
memory” and barter for them (gold coins are worthless to them) if
you want them. Only they can find the bitter seeds among the
tangled roots of the tree, and if you kill them you will get no
seeds.
If
you eat one of the seeds it will be bitter, bitter but you will
fucking like the taste of it. One of the children will say,
“that's because it's your heart” and you look down and holy
shit you actually are eating your heart and it's all bloody and raw
in your chest. It's just a copy of your heart, though, so you
still have a perfectly good one in your chest (probably). After
you take a bite, your Wisdom permanently goes up to 1 point and
your Charisma permanently goes down by one, as you become both
wiser and more cynical. You can eat up to 3 of these things with
the same effect each time, but if you eat all 3 bitter seeds your
alignment shifts one step away from Good.
Bone
chair. All the furniture in this room is made of bones. Bone
couch, bone chandelier, bone scroll racks (3 scrolls are actually
just femurs with spells carved on them), bone chalices filled with
holy water. The real treasure in this room, though is the Bone
Chair that sits at the head of the table, which is carved and
covered with wrought silver and a few tasteful black tassels. You
can look this room without any immediate consequence BUT if you do
some angry skeletons will be added to the random encounters table.
The skeletons will be genteel noble skeletons with sabers who will
twizzle mustaches that they no longer have. The angry genteel
skeletons will demand that you return their property or they will
order their slaves (2d12 other skeletons with sabers that look
identical to their masters) to kill you.
Scraps
of a dress. Down this hallway, you will pass a torn dress (blue
cotton, white bow at the collar), then a pair of women's riding
boots, then undergarments (at this point the players will have a
minor, ignorable urge to take off their clothes and go further down
the hallway), then what looks like a wig, then a torn skin, then a
long streak of blood (at this point, players must save or charge
down the hallway towards their inevitable conclusion), then long
strips of flesh, then bones scattered across 50' of hallway, and
then finally a glorious wall of light and speed and rushing sound.
A subway river into golden eternity. Anyone reaching this point
will be automatically overcome and will rush forward. Falling under
the spell of the hallway causes you to run forward, while all your
clothes and gear fall off. If you are not stopped, you will shed
your flesh and bones and your soul will rush triumphantly into that
grand consensus.
Titan
Arch. A gigantic archway, 70' wide and 100' tall. A titanic
three-toed sloth hangs from it, wearing a giant collar made from
gold and red enamel. Her nametag says “My name is Flossy. Please
don't wake me up.” Luckily, it is just about damn near impossible
to wake the sleeping sloth. You'd have to stick a lance through her
eyelid or something. The real danger comes from the lichen-men that
live in Flossy's fur (as vegepygmies). The clasp is by the nametag,
so you'll probably have to stand on Flossy's belly to undo it.
White
Coral. Huge, ghostly, as if dredged up from the bottom of the sea.
Looming eight feet high. It is full of jeweled crabs, valuable but
very shy.
Mud.
Lots of it. A sail-less mast sticks out of this mud, but there is
not ship beneath it. Four ropes are tied across the beam, as if for
a noose, but they are are torn and half-missing. If the flag (41)
is tied to the mast, a breeze will blow through the room.
Mockery
Jungle. This is a mock jungle of mockery. Trees sprout up from all
directions, made from wire and poorly-painted paste. A sign reads,
“This is a jungle.” Paper leaves are nailed to splintery wood,
and badly taxidermied animals are arranged haphazardly among the
corrugated ferns. Painted rocks are tied to some of the branches,
standing in for fruit. The only living creatures here are the
monkeys, who leap overhead while throwing insults at anyone else.
If captured, the monkeys will only offer more verbal abuse (“Bugger
off”, “Get lost”, and “Suck an egg” seem to be favorites).
The only random encounter you with find here is the dreaded
MOCKTOPUS (which takes 2x damage from the wooden sword).
Paths
and intersections sprout up, sometimes with footprints leading one
way or another, but these are meaningless. Wandering is useless
and will only get you lost forever. Mapping is better, and will
return you to the door you entered from. But only getting
lost—intentionally--will get you through this conceptual maze and
to the far side of the “room”. Alternatively, the wooden sword
from Room 8 can clear the jungle—each swing will cause huge
swaths of fake jungle to crumple into garbage and dozens of monkeys
to die screaming.
Plague
House. In this mansion live a number of gentlemen ghouls, each one
working on perfecting a specific disease. The ghouls collect the
corpses of everything that dies in this dungeon, fight for the
biggest parts, and eat the parts that they don't use for research.
Their skeletal servitors (undead spiders that occupy skulls like
hermit crabs) keep the house tidy and also scuttle around the
dungeon looking for fresh meat. They also scour the dungeon for
corpses. The ghouls all believe (correctly) that killing all the
living things in the dungeon will cause the whole thing to slide
into the afterlife and stop all this silly “dreamland” nonsense.
Aside from the normal ghoul powers, each one can breathe a cone of
their favorite disease.
-
Lady
Anthrax loiters in the boudoir, lounging on a couch, chatting with
the (non-verbal but animate) remains of her past lovers. She is a
bit worried about Malaria, who used to be so much fun. Her plague
cauldron simmers in the fireplace. She wears a bishop's mitre.
Lady
Malaria is busy replanting orchids in the hothouse amid a cloud of
mosquitos. Zombie ducks swim across her plague pond. She is
furious at Lord Cholera's sabotage of her work. She wears a wimple.
Lord
Cholera sits in the dining room, gnawing bones and writing terrible
poetry. He is looking for someone to read it to, now that Ebola
has begun acting so strangely. With a talon-like toenail, stirs
the frothy mixture in his plague tureen. He wears a top hat.
Lord
Ebola paces across his bedroom. The other ghouls are plotting
against him, waiting for him to leave his plague chamberpot
unattended. Thousands of pages of paper document the imagined
treachery of the other ghouls, and describe his plan to eat Lady
Anthax. He wears a tricorn hat.
The
ghouls are most likely to see the party as a source of meet. If
the party kills several groups of servitors, the ghouls will likely
venture out to take care of it themselves. Unless the party can
prove their usefulness (shouldn't be hard) the ghouls will be very
hostile. They're quite deadly, and most of them have some
spell-casting ability.
What
the ghouls want: (1) Meat. They'll pay 100g per HD of corpse
brought in. (2) the destruction of the bee people in room 24.
What
the ghouls can offer: Cures from diseases. Lady Malaria is
actually a cleric, and can remove curses. They're also willing to
send servitors to aid the party (they can always make more). They
also know more about the history of this place than anyone else,
and can tell you about the Dreaming Prince. They're also
refreshingly honest about their intentions, “Keep bringing us
meat and we won't eat you.”
The
End. In this room, there's a bunch of sarcophagi, with one more
elaborate sarcophagus on a dais in the center of the room. And
inside the sarcophagus is a lich. And when they open the
sarcophagus, just start storytelling (as the DM) about how they
fought the lich and got his treasure and then left the dungeon and
spent the treasure and and then moved into a pastoral community and
all lived there happily as friends. One is a blacksmith and adopts
an orphan, one marries an elf, one starts a small school of magic
for precocious youngsters, and they all grow old and happy together.
Everyone gets a happy ending.
Just
keep blathering your story until someone expresses their doubts.
Then, that person is back in the dungeon, covered in blood and
injuries and aches while the rest of the party stands there
drooling and smiling. If the players let you blather on so long
that you start running out of happy endings for everyone, roll for
a random encounter and give it surprise on everyone.
But
when they wake up, they really are in a real room with a bunch of
sarcophagi. The central sarcophagus really does contain a lich.
The lich will probably attack the party and TPK them (because, hey,
liches don't need much provocation) but he will also offer to
return people to their happy endings, put them in stasis, and then
store them inside the smaller sarcophagi. (“Why do you adventure
for? Everything life can offer, I can already give you here, in
sleep.”) The smaller sarcophagi contain really, really old
people, smiling peacefully and breathing so slowly you can barely
tell. They crumble into dust when touched, but the lich can turn
them all into ghasts with a crook of his finger.
The
lich's name is Tanaraeva. The irony of dreaming inside a dream has
not escaped him.
-
Withered
plains. The ground is wrinkled like an old woman's face. In the
center of this place is Tortagon, a false clay golem. He looks like
a normal clay golem but on the inside he is full of blood and guts
and stuff. He is resting a distance away from the Krakentree, his
eternal foe. He wields the WOODEN AXE (wooden haft, wooden blade,
can heal itself if planted, though you will need to prune it
afterwards)
Silver
Road. This road is covered with silver-coated bricks, with many
sections missing. In the middle of the road are two fools with no
names, awaiting the return of their master and fighting over who
gets to sit on the rock (which is only big enough for one of them).
They want more comfortable shoes, since theirs are almost all worn
down. Creatures wandering off the roads will walk into the mist,
which will gradually make them more and more transparent while the
mist grows denser and more vital.
Red
Sign. A tavern for vampires, called the Red Sign. Empty 90% of the
time. 10% of the time it is filled with neurasthenic vampires who
will assume that everyone there is also a vampire. Pub games:
darts, lawn bowling, Devil-among-the-Tailors, Toad-in-the-Hole.
They are languid but will drop all pretense of civility if they see
fresh blood. Most of the bottles behind the counter are poisonous,
and they all bear strange names (“clarion wasp”, “midnight
agony”, “screwtape liquor”, “teratoheme”, etc). Beneath
the bartender's floor mat is a trapdoor leading to the basement,
where several headless creatures are chained to the wall, providing
fresh blood on tap. They were labels that display their vintage
(“Iron Dwarf, Male, 1861”, “Cimmerian, Male, 1994”,
“Atlantian, Female, 1287”, “Brynthic, Female, 2002”).
Black
Rainbow. A black hole sun unshines down on this bleak vista,
creating a rainbow in negative space. If you follow it to its very
end you will encounter a golden pot containing cursed lead coins
(each one counts as a lodestone), but you will be attacked by undead
leprechauns on the way there.
Stormclouds.
This is the storm that all elderly people in the dungeon can see.
Lighting strikes foretell tragedy (and random encounters, see Note
1). Flying through the storm are huge ravens with the heads of old
men. They have fierce eyes and terrible claws, and will attack
young PCs while ignoring the older ones. In the center of this
storm is a small tower made of mirror-polished metal that is struck
by lightning every 1d6 rounds, which electrocutes the whole exterior
(and interior walls), but not the floors. The front door is locked
(most lock picks are conductive) with the key from #76. The bottom
floor contains four rusty suits of armor all lying in poster beds.
One of the suits of armor has STORM GAUNTLETS, which, in addition to
having sweet spiked knuckles, also allow you to redirect lightning.
The upper story is the roost of the horrible old raven-men, and
resembles a cross between a bird cage and a reading room, with the
floor carpeted with pages from some obscure text. (Excerpt: “. .
. but business is business, and to a robber whose soul is in his
profession, there is a lure and a challenge about a very old and
very feeble man who has no account at the bank, and who pays for his
few necessities at the village store with Spanish gold and silver
minted two centuries ago. Messrs. Ricci, Czanek, and Silva selected
the night of April 11th for their call. . .”) Under a pile of
seed husks is a small lockbox containing a bunch of gold and a few
illegible deeds which entitle the bearer to quite a bit of farmland
in some distant part of the world.
Chain.
In this room, you can see the giant's ass and legs, emerging out of
the wall. He's actually on his knees, so the sphincter is about
about 15' off the ground. The room is strung with chains and hooks,
hanging from the rafters and coiled in the corners. The room
contains the alchemical equipment for turning shit into gold, as
well as numerous texts on the alchemy of transmuting bodily
substances into metals (black bile into cold iron, cerebrospinal
fluid into adamantine, etc). In the center of the room are a young
man and woman, discussing the ideal amount of aqua regia to add to
the dephlogistication reaction. They don't appear to have any arms
nor legs, but the stools that they sit on have four brass lion legs,
like a bathtub. (The stools are magical, and can commanded to move
by sitting on them and giving them commands. They walk slow.)
In
truth, the two young people are both chain devils, and can control
any chain within 100' as a simple extension of their will. If
threatened, they will use the hooked chains to lift their bodies
(chains can never cause them damage) 20' in the air while attacking
with the other chains along the walls. Their names are Chessen and
Moira.
The
chain devils use a small oven to reduce imps, crocodiles, and
street children to their elemental essences. The small oven is
made from mirror-polished metal (exactly like the tower in #75) as
is the key to the oven's door. The small oven door only
locks/unlocks from the inside, and the key cannot be removed unless
the door is locked. The only (obvious) way to get the key out of
the oven is for someone to climb inside, lock themselves inside,
and then pass the key up the chimney. The door is currently ajar.
Heart.
Here is beats the vast and bloody heart of the giant. A feral
orphan girls squats atop it, gnawing on stolen bread. She is fierce
and toothsome, but also 4' 11” and a level 1 thief. The giant
calls her “Threnody, my daughter” but he is wrong. She is just
a parasite.
If
the heart here is stabbed a bunch, the giant will die. It'll
probably take several turns while the giant bellows, “Aaagh! You
pain me! Caution, I urge you!” which then turn to cries of
horrible agony.
Flies.
You are in the giant's ass. Flesh walls and fecal floors. If the
giant is alive, there will be a giant tapeworm here (reaction roll).
If the giant is dead, there will be clouds of flies here. If the
giant has been dead for at least 6 hours, heaps of maggots will be
devouring the villi walls of this place, growing fat and tumbling
onto the ground as they gorge themselves. If the giant has been
dead for at least 24 hours, there will be 1d6 giant, saw-mouthed,
carnivorous razorflies, plus another 1d6 for every 24 hours beyond
that (up to 3d6).
Bakers.
In this bakery lives the Baker, a thinly veiled metaphor for a
benevolent Judeo-Christian god. He is known by no other name. He
has adopted all sorts of outcasts from different parts of the
dungeon, and his three apprentices are (1) a bee princess who knows
of the royal rivalry in room #24, (2) a talking pig who once heard a
story about a lucky whistle (untrue, see #92), (3) and a ghost who
somehow escaped from room #9 and went looking for the missing game
piece before getting lost. The bakery has a front room that is a
store, and a bigger back room that is a bakery floor.
The
Baker is wise, benevolent, and sort of a dick. He's also a lich,
although he is warm and cheerful and smells like delicious bread.
His phylactery is buried beneath the big, central oven. He will
sell you potion-bread (a.k.a. bunny-bread, looks and hops like a
bunny and heals 1d6+1 hp if eaten) and knows recipes for all sorts
of other types of magic bread. If you steal from him you will
never be able to find his bakery again. He can make the following
things out of bread: (1) shoes, (2) doors, (3) loyal hounds, (4)
books, (5) sling stones, (6) hats, (7) spouse lures, (8) armor. At
any give time he will have 1d3 of these bread-items displayed in
his windowsill, along with other novelty bread that look like
giraffes and fish and stuff. (Some of this animal bread is
actually animate and totally wants you to eat it.)
The
entire back wall of the bakery floor is occupied by the face of the
giant, whose huge arms also protrude into the room. The giant's
name is Randy and he wears a giant chef's hat. He is sort of a
benevolent simpleton who is terribly afraid of offending someone.
He uses his big strong arms to help out the bakers in return for
some bread. There is currently an aromatic cherry pie set out in
front of him—the bakers hope that the smell will coax Randy's
runaway “daughter” Threnody back into the bakery (see #77).
Randy has had a terrible tummy-ache recently, and fears that
Threnody is angry at him for offending her, and has been abusing
his guts in retaliation (actually a tapeworm, see #78).
If
the giant is killed, the Baker will know exactly who did it, and
his shop will be a place of gloom and thinly veiled hostility.
King's
Grave. Here is a graveyard with two mausoleums, a big one and a
smaller one. The most interesting thing is the huge, baroque
mausoleum in the center of it covered in sneering gargoyle faces.
The lintel names the occupant: “Mutarion, King of the People, who
almost loved his son enough”. Written on the door is a riddle:
“Alive without breath; as cold as death; never thirsty, always
starved; clad in mail never carved.” If the right answer is given
('Numahk'), the door will slide open to reveal King Mutarion's
crypt. If the wrong answer is given, the gargoyle faces will burst
into laughter, the door to the smaller mausoleum will explode open,
and Sir Numahk will attack. The inside of the King's Mausoleum is
just an empty square of dirt. If the dirt is dug up, you will find
the rotted coffin of King Mutarion. The king is just dry bones
covered in mold (poisonous spore clouds if disturbed) but the rotted
coffin has golden paneling and the king still carries a jeweled
scepter (Mace +1, treat your charisma as +2 if wielded, worth a
fortune) and a pseudo-Faberge egg that can be commanded to turn into
a clockwork chick (fragile, obedient, worth a fortune). If his
skull is examined, it will whisper, “Please help my son” a
single time, but is otherwise a completely mundane skull.
The
smaller mausoleum is covered in fish heads, and the lintel reads,
“Sir Numakh, the King's Champion, who buried one king and
imprisoned another”. If Numakh's mausoleum is opened or if the
wrong answer is given to the riddle on the big mausoleum, Numakh
(now a ghoul) will explode out of his tomb and attack. He rides a
flying barracuda golem, made from brass, pearl, and shark teeth.
He wears an set of armor made from leviathan leather (scale armor
+1, grants water-breathing) and wields a glaive (+1, cursed, cannot
discard, wielder can never sleep unless 90% submerged in water).
In his mausoleum is a bathtub where he rests his moldy body (fine
porcelain and golden feet), small gold-plated table filled with
empty wine bottles, and a chandalier overhead (decent quality
brass, 88 crystal pendants worth a good sum.)
16
graves with random graves. All filled with dry bones and ragged
remnants of servants (butler vests, maid dresses) except for:
1,4,5,11,13,15 contain ghouls, if one is disturbed, they all will
rise. 3 copper icon of a sword, 6 three-hundred gold coins, 10
wedding ring, 14 amber-paneled drinking stein showing scenes of
hunting, 16 cursed boots of dancing with silver buckles.
Golem's
script. The walls of this room are covered with cuniform script
carefully pressed into 4 clay panels. They are written in an ancient
script, but if translated, stuff will happen. After each panel is
translated (comprehended) an random item in a random player's
inventory will disappear and be reincorporated in the lump that is
growing in the center of the room. After each panel has been read,
the object self-assembling in the center of the room will be
completely assembled, incorporating pieces of whatever items were
used to construct it. Once all four panels are read, the golem in
the center of the room will be fully assembled. It's final size and
abilities depend on the items sacrificed to construct it.
Regardless, the golem will be sentient and can cast passwall
and invisible servant once per day each. The golem contains
the mind of Malik, the former vizier and artificer. He will be all
in favor of seeking out the sleeping Prince and killing him.
The
panels are a letter addressed to the reader. It asks that it not
be read until the environment has stabilized. It tells about the
illness that befell the Prince, and the weird extrusions into the
world around the castle. When things got really weird (bull-dog
men), Malik wrote himself into these panels and waited for this
whole mess to blow over.
-
Pig's
tail. A farmhouse with an absurdly tall silo. Intelligent, talking
pigs crowd around the farmhouse, eating slop and discussing social
methods of government. They are kept by the Pot-bellied Wizard, who
lives in the silo-tower. These are magical pigs, and the
Pot-bellied Wizard has been keeping them, breeding them, and
harvesting their tails, which normally allow the pigs to fly. The
Pot-bellied Wizard has been harvesting pigs' tails and using them to
build his own super-tail, which is long and huge and made of fractal
pig tails (it's pig tails all the way down). This super-tail gives
him super powers, including flight, the power to make people's guts
attack them (requires punching yourself in the stomach to stop them
from trying to throttle your heart), and the power to make people
instantly obese (only lasts a few hours, though).
The
Pot-bellied wizard is huge (7' tall) and has a tremendous belly
within which different colors swirl. A small spigot allows him to
tap his belly for 1d8 random potions (different colors = switch to
a new vial). Despite his fat-baby face, he is utterly evil and
seeks to bring wrack and ruin to all living things, and someday
become a lich himself. He will attempt to destroy the party
indirectly (by sending them down a certain hallway #64) or directly
(by blasting them with acidic lightning bolts or his other weird
wizard powers (see above).
His
tower also contains some spell books, a cauldron containing a baby
alligator blowing bubbles (actually a baby Godzilla/Tarrasque), a
chest of gold coins that will all flee in different directions if
someone other than the wizard opens it while yelling for help and
potentially disappearing over the horizon, and a saddle that will
turn ANYTHING into a horse that it is strapped on to.
His
intelligent pigs have been duped into cooperating with his mad
schemes after the Pot-bellied wizard dazzled them with discussion
about political systems and then baffled them with bullshit. The
pigs believe that they are a Parliament, and the wizard is the
Vice-President of the Republic. While “impeaching” the wizard
is impossible (it requires a unanimous vote from the parliament),
the pigs might be amenable to other ideas (communism, anarchy) and
the PCs could perhaps foment a religion that ends with a bunch of
pigs eating a wizard.
Tin
Crown. In this room, there is a hole in the ground that is basically
a well with a winch and a pulley and a rope and a bucket. Except
the rope is actually a chain and the bucket is actually a steel box.
The steel box is about 3' x 3' x 4' and looks sort of like a tiny
coffin. Cries for help can be heard inside. If the (locked) coffin
is opened, a desperate skeleton pops out, holding a Tin Crown. The
skeleton will attempt to place the crown on the head of whichever PC
looks dumbest (“You saved me! Let me thank you with my only
treasure! It will protect you against poison!”) but if the person
resists, the skeleton will try to forcibly smash it on their brow.
Once
the crown is placed, the skeleton will regrow her flesh (she is a
level 4 thief named Olma) and the person wearing the crown will
instantly shed everything except their skeleton, be sucked into the
metal coffin (it relocks), and hurled down the well. Olma will
then explain that there is no point in killing her now, and explain
how the tin crown works.
The
skeleton wearing the crown will be sucked back into the coffin as
soon as they try to leave the room. The only way to get rid of the
cursed crown is to put it on someone else's head, and pass the
curse on to them. Once you have gotten rid of the curse, you can
never again be recursed by it (no tag-backs).
If
the tin crown is ever transmuted into lead (the bee people in #24
and the chain devils in #76 are both accomplished alchemists and
can make an oil that will do exactly this) the curse will be lifted
and the crown will become a magic item that will allow you turn
into a skeleton at will, or for a skeleton to regrow their flesh,
but only as long as they wear the lead crown.
Echo.
In this cavernous room you will hear echoes of all the encounters
they've had since entering the dungeon. See Note #2.
Knapped
Flint. A tribe of pygmies lives in the branches of a huge tree.
They dart among the branches, hunting birds with flint spears and
worshiping their guardian Slothocephalus (sort of a brontosaurus
with a symbiotic sloth on its head—stompy feet and scythe claws).
The pygmies are (relatively) friendly, but eating their fruit will
cause the eater to shrink until they are the size of the pygmies
themselves. The bird meat is delicious, but they are especially
eager to taste owl. They through nightly ceremonies where they
dance around a fire, dancing, drinking, banging on drums, while the
slothocephalus nods along to the bead, clapping its hands.
Spices.
In this quaint (locked) house lives a grandmotherly mindflayer.
That's an exaggeration, but she is old and no longer wants to fight.
In her SPOTLESS kitchen a pygmy from #85 stands perfectly rigid,
like a zombie. He is alive, but has been partially lobotomized. His
skull has been neatly sawed around the equator (so neat that it
isn't visible from across the room) and can be easily lifted off to
reveal his half-eaten brain. The pygmy holds a tray containing a
long-handled dessert spoon, a jar of nutmeg, and a crumpled cloth
napkin.
The
rest of the kitchen contains a sink, a washbasin, a mahogany table
with a neat stack of mag-johng tiles, some nice mid-western style
chairs with cornflower blue cushions, and a stuffed parrot on a
stand. An impressive spice rack above the sink contains an array
of spices (saffron, mustard, black pepper, aril, cinnamon, cassia,
cloves, turmeric, ginger, galingale, chili, curry, paprika,
fenugreek, anise, basil, cilantro, coriander, cardomom, dill,
fennel, garlic, hyssop, juniper, lavender, licorice, oregano,
parsley, rosemary, sage, vanilla, and watercress). These are large
amounts, and some of these spices are fairly rare, so the whole
collection as a whole would be worth 1000g. If any spices are
sprinkled atop the pygmy's brain, the pygmy will whisper the name
of the spice, except for cinnamon which makes him scream
uncontrollably and throw shit on the floor. If more than 3 spices
are added to his brain, he will start frothing at the mouth.
There's
also a living room with a small library (all of the books are about
domestic bullshit). If you look closely, the pillows on the couch
are softly breathing. These are living pillows, and they are
harmless (and made of fluffy meat, very light). Upstairs, you can
hear the lady of the house walking around.
Squid
Beak. The house's owner is named Iolan, and she is a narrow-hipped
old bird of a mind flayer. She is senile, and thinks that the PCs
are there to bring her some more delicious pygmies and will call
them all by the names of her friends, now long dead (“Maliquesh”,
“Ithaquar”, “Elder Brain”). She keeps a bunch of gold coins
under her mattress, and has a pearl-covered wedding dress in the
closet, but those are her only treasures (except for the spice rack
downstairs in #86). If the players ever do something completely
aggressive, she will have a moment of clarity and attack them, but
otherwise is quite harmless. If she is ever killed a mind flayer
tadpole will pop out of her head and start shrieking and tearing
around the room (same stats as a vorpal rabbit, except higher AC due
to quickness) while it bites out PCs throats.
Cage
Door. A bunch of cages in this room, filled with signs of violence.
A cage door lies by itself in the middle of this room, surrounded
by a pool of blood. A dead man in a white gown lies here with a
golden key (loot) jammed into each of his eyes. Another dead man,
lies crumpled in a corner, missing his clothing and his shoes. His
face has been torn off as if by a great claw. Bloody notebooks pile
on the desk, many have been torn in half. They all say the same
thing: “Well, there is one thing we could try. It's a new
procedure. Well, there is one thing we could try. It's a new
procedure. . . . ad infinitum”.
Lilies.
Portal from 61. In this grass-covered room, a ring of 16 lilies
grow in a circle around a convex mirror 6' across. Fireflies flit
through the air. This is a portal room (see Note #3), and if a
candle (from #6 or #90) or obsidian pyramid (from #61) is ever
placed in the center of the mirror, a portal will be opened to room
#6 or #61, respectively. If there are less than 16 lilies here, the
mirror will begin to grow cloudy and and the fireflies will begin to
die. If there are less than 12 lilies, there is a chance for a
mishap (again, see Note #3). Room #61 has a crocodile savant in it
that may enter this room and attack if the portal is ever opened.
Coal.
These narrow tunnels appear to be the remains of a coal mine.
Visible fire dancing along veins in the rock, where it has been
burning for the last century. Soot sprites hide behind drills and
shovels and picks, seeking mischief. One of them has a magic candle
from room #6, and will use it to extinguish the party's torches.
This is bad, since grues will quickly leach out of the coal seams
once there is no light.
Spider
Milk. An abyss, spanned by huge spiderwebs. A trio of
spider-gauchos lounge here, sitting on mushroom stools and drinking
tequila containing an undead worm (still wriggling!). They smoke
cigars and carry sabers, and of course, the tequila is highly
flammable. They are course fellows but not unfriendly. If the
party wants passage across the abyss, they'll sell a ride for a
modest fee.
Less
obvious are their mounts, huge black and brown spiders that cling
to the ceiling. If violence breaks out, the spiders will rush to
the aid of their riders. The spider-gauchos use their mounts to
herd their caterpillars across the spiderweb plain.
If
the party takes up the guachos offer to ride across the web, the
guachos will offer them some fermented spider milk, which they have
been carrying beneath their seats, letting the heat and the
pounding from their bouncing saddles keep it from clotting. They
will offer some to the most rugged-looking PC, but will not drink
any themselves. It is not fully fermented, and tastes foul, but if
a PC drinks it, they will first tease, then congratulate them on
being a good sport, and then warn the PC against blowing the bog
whistle in room #92, since that will summon the castle-giant that
holds the sleeping Prince, and the giant likes to smash things.
Bog
Whistle. Blowing the whistle is a bad idea. It summons the Bog
Giant, which is the climactic fight in this dungeon.
He
arrives in an iron carriage, long and tubular, pulled by two sturdy
looking horses covered in spiked barding. The Bog Giant steps out
(he's 10x larger than the carriage he rode in on), picks up the
carriage, and uses it as a flail, with the horses as the spiked
heads. The horses don't mind being whipped around, and will
actually try to kick and bite as they go whirling past.
The
Bog Giant is here to smash things. It has no higher purpose. If
defeated, the bog giant will sit down heavily, groan out, “Lord
Prince, you haaaaave . . . guests.” and then sink into the bog as
he turns into peat. He will leave behind the Inner Asylum, the
original building.
Rooms
93-104 take place inside the Inner Asylum, which is a slightly
enlarged version of the normal asylum. While you are in the Inner
Asylum you will find that they have been reduced in age and stature
to that of a child (about 6-10 years old, for humans). Your stats
don't change. Instead, all of the adults in the Inner Asylum have
been upsized, so treat them as if they have the size of ogres
(which they do, from the PC's perspective) and most of the items in
the inner asylum as likewise sized up. All of your equipment turns
into toy equipment (with the exact same functionalities) except for
the wooden sword from #8, which will function like a longsword +3
that can shoot laser beams while in this area.
Rooms
93-104 are effectively in a pocket dimension, with only one way in
and out (the front door). Although the rooms has windows looking
out into a sunny moor, none of the windows open. Breaking a
window will reveal only a wall of black dirt, which will fall into
the room, possibly crushing the person near the window, and
destroying the rooms only light source. Holes in the wall function
the same way.
-
Finger
nails. A colossal room, with wood paneled walls. The first thing
you'll see is the receptionist. Nothing of her can be seen except
for her two hands, huge (adult-sized) and well-cared for. Her
fingernails have been painted red, and she files them down
constantly and expertly, touching them up and reapplying the paint.
On
the desk she has a paperweight: an obsidian pyramid, 6” tall
(although to the receptionist, it would be 3” tall).
Remember
that you are child-sized in an adult world, and all you can see of
the receptionist is her giant fucking hands.
She'll
tell you that if you don't have an appointment, you'll have to sit
in the Waiting Room (#94) until the doctor can see you.
If
you do sit and wait, the doctor will call for you in 14 months.
This isn't that bad of a deal. Time will pass as normal on the
outside world, but you will not hunger or thirst. You'll still
age, but you'll be safe as long as you don't look under Mrs.
Macay's chair. This might be a good time to study a book or grow a
beard or something.
If
you decide to force your way past her, she will attack while
shouting about protocol, and will reveal herself to be nothing more than a pair of giant, manicured hands. She will slap and crush, and her shiny red nails will tear at you without mercy.
Penny
Dreadful. Woman sits here in a blue dress with a white bow at the
collar, reading some sort of dreadfully banal novella. A picture on
the wall shows a red-painted tavern amid a dusty plain. Another
painting on the opposite wall depicts a scenic lightning storm over
a red desert. The woman's name is Alena Macay, and she is reading a
book.
If
you ask her what she is reading, she will want to read you an
excerpt from her book, titled “A String of Pearls”. The
excerpt is thus, (and tell the players to interrupt you when
they've heard enough): “A marvelous creature, the hippopotamus is
known to hunt it's prey by stealth, sliding along it's armored
underbelly and entangling ambulatory victuals with a pair of
prehensile tongues, which are quickly torn to shreds by the
revolving planes of its head, and then regrow. The indigenous
savages of the monsoon bog have devised a very clever method of
hunting the hippo: they remove their skin by degrees and make a
kite of it and use this device to scare the hippo into
pseudosaccharine backwaters, where it wallows itself to death among
the congealed brine of those brackish angles . . . Isn't that
fascinating?”
If
asked, she will tell the party that her daughter is here, visiting
the doctor about a headache. She should be out any minute now.
