Tower in the Wasteland v2

I recently asked my patrons what posts deserved a sequel and Tower in the Wasteland was one of the first replies.  So here's an updated version of that dungeon.  It's 12 pages now, so roughly twice the size it was before.

Patrons: thanks for all of your support.  I hope to fulfill more of your suggestions in the coming weeks.

--->>>TOWER IN THE WASTELAND V2<<<---

I'm still trying to choose productivity over polish.  (I promise you that these will be the ugliest maps you've ever seen.)

UPDATE: Here's a robo-summary!

This file appears to be a Dungeons and Dragons module titled "Tower in the Wasteland" by Arnold K. The module details a location called the Tower, a seemingly impossible-to-enter metal structure jutting out of an ice field. The module guides the Dungeon Master through the Tower's various levels, encounters, and inhabitants.

• Levels: The Tower's interior is described as a vertical shaft with a nest, an artillery room, hallways, a bridge, an armory, a mess hall, a kitchen, a cavern, and galleries. Each area has unique challenges and potential treasures.

• Encounters: The module details encounters with a Peryton (a winged creature with a human shadow), an Abichor Ghoul (a bloated, flying corpse), the daemon Pestilence, a Killing Machine, and a Crippled Angel. Each encounter presents different combat challenges and moral dilemmas.

• Special Features: The module includes rules for "Dead Soldiers" and their ranks (Captain, Sargent, Lieutenant, General), providing stats and abilities for these undead enemies. It also introduces unique elements like abichor (a spiritual toxin), a Final Weapon, and magical items like metal rings that suppress flight.

• Themes: The module explores themes of death, war, and the consequences of conflict. The presence of undead soldiers, the daemon Pestilence, and the Killing Machine create a sense of despair and horror.

Overall, "Tower in the Wasteland" offers a challenging and thought-provoking dungeon-crawling experience with a focus on dark fantasy elements and moral choices.

Lair of the Lamb: Final

EDIT: PDF updated on 24Apr2020.

EDIT: Ben was kind enough to supply some excellent maps for those of you using Roll20 (or similar). https://imgur.com/a/AzBagSq

So here's a 51 page PDF that contains:

• An abbreviated version of the GLOG as I currently run it.
• A full-size dungeon and level 0 funnel.

click the skull

It's not a complete version of the GLOG.  You'll probably need GLOG: Wizards to fill in all the blanks, but you're smart enough to put all that together.

First, a lot of the credit for this goes to my patrons.  I've asked them what type of content they would like to see, and a majority of the responses revolved around either (a) compiling my GLOG in a single place, and (b) a finished dungeon.

Thank you so much for all the support.  And also thank you a little bit for yelling at me.  It all helps.

The third group, who answered (c) more Centerra lore, will have to be satisfied with the updated map at the end of this post that shows the location of Lon Barago, where this adventure takes place.

Second, this is not the end of this document.  I'm working with some friends and artists to create a deluxe version of the Lair of the Lamb.  It will be a proper PDF, with proper layout.  It will be available in printed format (somehow).  It might get Kickstarted.  Who knows?  Literally anything can happen in 2020.  

Third, this might look like a free adventure, but it is not free.  The cost of downloading this PDF is that you must let me know how it goes when you run it at your table.  I'm especially interested in: 

• What path people take through the dungeon?
• How many secrets did they find?
• Is the Lamb too threatening?  Not threatening enough?  Did they kill it?
• Were the ghouls killed, avoided, or befriended?  Did you have enough guidance to roleplay the ghouls well?
• How much pressure was there for light sources?
• How much pressure was there for ropes and weapons?

Happy crawling!

click to embiggen

  

Some Maps

drawn by chocolatedessert

 

 

 

 

Lair of the Lamb

I've been reading Conan again, and his mighty thews have inspired me to write up an old dungeon.  Basically, you were locked in a dungeon as a sacrifice to Something Terrible and now you've got to escape.  Get it

>HERE<

It's meant to be an introductory dungeon, suitable for newer players.  It's a level 0 funnel, so its not very friendly, but I think it teaches all the lessons that dungeoncrawling has to teach, and it teaches it in only 21 rooms.

One of my favorite things about funnels is that you can have awesome, lethal elements right next to the more mundane ones.  Or put another way, it's the only time you'll see a cabbage farmer hit a godling with a brick.

Since you start as a naked level 0 peasant, you don't have any items, much less any abilities.  So writing this has been an interesting study in minimalism for me.  They can't bring any torches into the dungeon, so how many torches should I stock the place with?  Where should I put them?  It has some of the same calculus as a survival horror game, I think.

A lot of the lethality is theatric.  If the Lamb stops and eats every one of its kills, the party can easily escape it, with only a single loss each time.  That will never incur a TPK.  It is still disruptive, though, and hopefully a little bit horrific.

I'm pretty proud with how many people there are to talk to in those 21 rooms.  One friendly, one antagonistic, one greedy, and one hungry.  The greedy one is a merchant on the surface, who will sell you items at a high markup, passing them through a tiny crack in the ground.  I don't think I've seen that one in a dungeon before.

There's also the pools from B1, because I liked those pools.  Only four mysterious liquids, though, which I think is a more reasonable number.

There's also breadcrumbs for characters to become a cleric or warlock after leaving the dungeon.

I'm worried that the environment might be a little too claustrophobic and confining, but we'll see.  There's only one loop in the dungeon (although there will be more once it links up with part 2.

The items may also need some rebalancing, but again, we'll see.

This is also a big departure from my usual approach, where I don't write up a PDF until I've playtested something 3+ times.  I've only run this dungeon once, a long time ago, and in a very different form.

I still intend to revise it though, so if YOU run this dungeon, let me know how it goes.  (Consider it to be payment for an otherwise free PDF.)

The Hand of Dominion

I wrote an adventure.

I'm not going to playtest it, or edit it into infinity.  Whenever I do those things, I end up never posting it.

So.

I'm just going to post it.

>HERE<

It's a linear 7-room dungeon magic sword in the last room.  Whoever has the sword is the rightful ruler of the world (supposedly).  But more immediately, everyone who sees the sword wants to (a) claim it, or (b) serve the wielder, if the first option isn't possible.

Of course, that means that the real adventure starts when you leave the dungeon.

I'm honestly super curious about how different parties will react to getting the sword.

Funfact: most of this dungeon is pacifistic.  It will try hard not to kill you.

The Rugmaker's Den

Also by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

Every Sunday, I play D&D with some of the best people on the face of the earth.

I've recently begun encouraging them to try their own hand at DMing, and have mostly been blown away by their enthusiasm and panache.  Cameran, John, Vic: good work, guys.

Anyway, John decided to run a dungeon called The Rugmaker's Den.  It lasted us about two sessions, and I got to graft a morphic tentacle onto my vat-spawn.  Then John TYPED THE WHOLE THING UP, AND GAVE IT TO ME AS A PDF!  Now you can download it.  The only caveat is that you aren't allowed to post comments telling me how much better it is than my dungeons.

Download it

>> HERE <<

"This dungeon is hopefully the first of many such ones that I will write, and combines my love of the horror genre with the incredible dickishness that can come along with shapeshifters. Much of the story for this one was inspired by Stephen King's IT, and the game Prototype. None of this would have happened though, if I weren't introduced to D&D by Arnold. His love of the game, creative stories, and an eagerness to bring in new players has been an absolute inspiration. I look forward to seeing what sort of awesome adventures this game takes me on, as both a player, and a new DM." - John Uhrig, Dungeonmaster

The Meal of Oshregaal

I wrote a 17 page PDF about a dungeon.

First things first:

Patreon supporters, thank you for putting money in my tip jar.  That was the kick in the pants I needed to start typing up my dungeons and striving for some degree of professionalism in them.  So, this dungeon was really only possible because you paid me to do it.  I hope you enjoy this dungeon.

Second things second:

I think this is one of the best things I've ever written.

I've been working on this dungeon for like, 10 days, and I've realized that I'm never going to be 100% happy with it.  It's a little too dense with insanity.  There's probably too much treasure.  But that's okay.  I can revise it later if I want.  It's only a PDF.

Download it by clicking HERE

I intend to write another PDF each month, so this is hopefully just the first of many.

If you use this PDF and like it, consider buying me a beer by supporting me on Patreon.

Running Through Yoblintown While Caked In Feces

This is Wallow, a.k.a. Yoblintown.  It sits in the belly of a caldera, while an open sky peeks in over the 10,000' vertical feet of stone.  All of the city's filth and wealth trickles down the spiral streets, which are build like open gutters, so that the city's wealthiest can hoard the sludge and garbage that they value.

I added the scum farms--plenty of human slaves there.

The Goblin Library

In order to promote literacy, I wrote a couple of pdfs.  They're books of monsters.

Both books have been slightly updated to versions 1.1.  It's mostly styling bullshit that no one will ever notice, but I added a few paragraphs to the Book of Tigers and the Book of Mice got three new (minor) pieces of art.  So now you can see what a popkin looks like.  Yay!

Here are the downloads:

Link to files on Google Drive

Taming the Mouse

We're all such fools.

If you take a step back and look at all of human history, we've been mostly wrong about mostly everything most of the time.  At least, a lot of the natural science stuff.  The best authorities used the best available methods and still came up false.  And I firmly believe in atoms and the Bernoulli effect and the tectonic plates, but what if I'm wrong.

It's an infantile train of thought but it is good for cultivating unconventional trains.

Anyway, there once was a time when people thought that mice grew out of riverbanks.  They knew mice had babies like other animals had babies, but mice totally just popped out of the mud ever summer as a secondary way of making mice.  How else can you explain how come there's no mice in April and fucking gazillions of them in May?

And while this sounds stupid nowadays (lol at pharaoh) it was the best explanation available at the time.  And there's certainly no reason why this erroneous delicacy can't be the god-given truth in a fantasy setting.

So here's a book of mice.  Low HD monsters (usually 1 HD) that are formed through mundane magic.  That's not an oxymoron.  The processes that generate mice in a riverside are as mysterious and as logical as plate tectonics.

You can download it here.