You get one paragraph of background and one to start the party: you found a treasure map wrapped around a metal rod. Sages point you to a wilderness location.
More than enough for a one shot. More than enough to integrate in to an ongoing campaign. Magnificent in both its brevity and usefulness. And wanderers! Broken up by sections of the dungeon, the table is short, efficient, and a great example of incorporating action in to the encounter.
Goblins nervously fishing or on an errand for [NPC. Trogs searching for an escape path. This is not a mindless and boring table copied from the DMG but abstracted encounters in their own right. Just enough detail to get the DMs head working without boring them or making it hard to grasp the encounter immediately.
They are perfect. Speaking of perfection, let me talk about the map. It has multiple entrances. It makes great use of color. It has little annotations on it to help their DM understand what is going on. There is enough conventional cartography present to make the map immediately accessible to a DM and yet it does not let itself be bound to a corner by being forced to follow convention mindlessly. It presents a GREAT adventuring environment loops, terrain, features while still understanding that its purpose is to be an aid for the DM.
I fucking love it,. Speaking of loops and ambushes … Room three has some bodies in it. Room four has some eel-men, prepared to ambush a group. And they can run through room 3, or a nearby hallway, to get behind the party. A dynamic fucking environment in a dungeon?!?!?! Holy Cow, these people must understand dungeons! That one little section has so much representative of good design. Other areas of the dungeon have deep scar marks on the floor oh shit!
It both builds tension and provides hints for the with-it player. The dungeon does this to great effect over and over again. Oh, and eel-men, you got that right? It is both magnificently descriptive and magnificently vague at the same time. Enough description to get your juices. What the hell is that?
FIsh man? Meh, a little vague. I know what they look like! I fucking love it. Two long-unused fire rings. The first two sentences. IE: more information. It communicates immediate information to the DM and then expands upon it … but in a terse and easily understood manner.
You know immediately what it looks like just from that. The description tells us it has a smashed open door, broken 4-poster bed, musty clothes. Great tricks, traps and encounters. Not the arbitrary bullshit of other dungeons but well thought out encounters that are still easy to understand and run. You can always resort to stabbing someone, but by adding a social element the encounter becomes so much richer. An asshole monster extorting the party should do that, in spades. Offsets and white space are used to great effect.
I could go on and on. IF I had a complaint it would be that some of the ahalanhum rooms at the end get a little longer.
Sacks grouping of empty crockery. All the mundane trade items. Zirrind an elf waits invisibly, using the peephole when hearing noise outside. Currently allied with, but not loyal Plans to abscond with valuable loot from a future merchant victim. Co 8; Ch 11; XP Gear: Banded armor, long sword, hand axe, pointing If it does not investigate, it aura, protection from evil, sleep, invisibility, wizard readies for combat in its lair, and cannot be surprised.
Small finger-shaped gold key. Goblin sleeping pallets in the west. Speaks common. Each liquid takes 3 hours to thaw, and must save vs Special: In addition to the usual hydra capabilities, magical cold, or lose its efficacy. Its 8-ton bulk requires a bend bars roll to open, and again every turn to hold it open, otherwise it pulls itself closed. Opening it requires an open doors roll, adding 1 to aftEr a haRd fall, knock On the wall.
Any success noisily shatters the door. The verse offers two clues on the location of the vault: A Opening this false door triggers a locking mechanism on Anyone moving about stirs up clouds of ash, likely the door into 15, preventing it from opening for 24 hours. Tracking reveals weeks-old small footprints, plus larger footprints made months ago. Pushing a small stone in the southwest corner, 7 ft above the floor, opens the secret door, which grinds downward into the floor.
It closes automatically after 1 turn. She can replace any one shadowy while inside, each creature she tricks into becoming reflection with her own visage, that can speak and cast undead reduces the required time by 7 years. Currently spells through the mirror. Leaving the bed eliminates all progress made, so she If anyone attacks the mirror or approaches within 5 ft, the eventually seeks revenge against anyone forcing her mirror conjures a hostile shadow next to the attacker and out.
It can do this once per hour. Emanates cold and evokes dread. Remove curse, dispel evil, and dispel amity only until she is in position to destroy them, magic vs 6th level effect eliminate the fear. A bed-sized box of unbreakable clear-crystal sits the Gear: Sceptre baneful rod, 7 charges, see sidebar , middle of this room, with a pair of intertwined glyphs atop spell book. Slowly Memorized spells at 6th level : 1st: magic missile x2, swirling silvery mist fills the box, shrouding a female form protection from good, unseen servant; within the Necromantess , hands positioned below her 2nd: darkness 15 ft radius, mirror image, breasts, holding a scepter, with a thick tome beside her.
The glyphs act as variant glyphs of warding cast at 16th Innate abilities at 12th level : charm person x3; level, each draining an experience level. Spell Book: Contains all her memorized spells, plus comprehend languages, detect magic, enlarge, identify, read magic, shield, audible glamour, forget, scare, wizard lock, monster summoning I, tongues. By spending 1 charge on a hit, the target suffers a random bane, no save allowed.
Roll 1d Broken jars litter the square, with no handle. Eight intact glass vessels remain: Three large 5 gallon Set into the floor at the center of this room is a long iron carboys filled with syrupy liquid for use in 27 , an alembic plate with 8 vertical levers protruding from it.
The levers all stand straight up, except for H, which slants 20 degrees toward the north. When pulled, a lever locks into position at 20 degrees, and ceiling.
In the center of the chamber stands a 10 ft with a clicking sound. This rapidly opens the door to the diameter circular dais, with three steps leading up to the correspondingly lettered alcove, as a muffled rumbling top, where hundreds of tiny holes perforate a man-shaped sound comes from the ceiling, releasing an undead depression, with hinged iron shackles at the wrist, ankle, creature from the alcove see below.
In the northeast, a glass carboy Once a lever locks into the north position, it cannot move 5 gallon filled with syrupy fluid rests on the floor, until all other levers are pulled northward. When all levers connected to a long metal pipe that extends into the have been pulled north, they all unlock. If a lever is ceiling. In the northwest, a long metal lever with a subsequently moved to the south, the chain and the squeeze-handle protrudes from the floor.
The runes—which include several variations of death, When all of the doors are closed, the levers snap back to undeath, water, and transformation—form an animate fully upright positions. Until the water wheels at area 60 are un- Alcoves A through H: jammed, the apparatus does not function. An undead creature is shackled to an iron chain When functional, an operator may place a live subject extending outward from a small square aperture at the into the depression, attach a carboy filled with specially back of each alcove.
Each chain terminates just short of prepared undead fluid the syrupy liquid to the pipe, and the lever plate. Then a metal implement descends from the A. The box holds a thrice-blasting ring see sidebar.
Zombie — see above; hp 11; XP Ghast — see above; hp 12; XP Ghast — see above; hp 17; XP Zombie — now destroyed, body in area Speaking the phrase 10 ft square door made of solid, black iron.
Locked, with casts a 6-die fireball and causes one of the stones to turn keyhole on the north side. Easily opened from the south black. When the last stone is expended, the ring turns to side by turning a large metal latch. Patches of mildew on the floor and walls. Broken-open Destroyed zombie in southeast, shackled to chain leading wall section in northwest leads to a cylindrical passage to area H.
Hidden in nest: Bat-shaped silver diadem gp , ornamental platinum short sword Cylindrical hallway, 5 ft diameter, with many brick-sized Hieracosphinx activity roll 1d6 : 1 sleeping in its nest; 2 out protrusions evenly spaced all over.
It likes to sneak up on groups investigating the chimes in 50 lbs at the midpoint of the trapped section see map area Tracking vertical shaft without brick-shaped protrusions that dead reveals lion prints, plus areas where blood has darkened ends in a stone ceiling. A stone lever at head height on the dirt long ago. Smells of rot and mildew emanate from the west wall deactivates the trap in area 36 for 2 turns. Occasional metallic chiming noises come from the north passage.
Not obvious from below, the ceiling is the bottom of the trap door in area Floor steeply drops down 8 ft toward the northeast, making the water 10 ft deep between here and area Air flows through narrow upward shafts 80 ft to the outside at the north end of the cavern, which Two transparent eel-men either attack now, or follow for 6 occasionally sounds the chimes the hieracosphinx hung to turns seeking an opportunistic attack, depending on the attract potential prey.
The The crudely Entering the hallway triggers its repulsion blast. Five the water 10 ft deep from there up to the near end of the large, lidded terracotta urns stand in the north, containing: slope. Two targets per round, preferring coming down the slope without slowing. ETCHED HALLWAY A large grinding stone and pestle rest near the entrance, North wall relief of laborers transporting bodies wrapped in followed by a row of five lidless crystal sarcophagi, fabric eastward, and barrels and crates westward, surrounded by treasures: overseen by stately man in the center, holding a coffer.
Four gp and sp in stacked coinage. They try to capture intruders for sacrifice to the pseudopod, but on a Sandmen isolate themselves in this tomb, and loathe neutral or better reaction roll, they leave other obvious visitors. They expel sleeping intruders into the water, ideally worshippers alone. It stretches here from the ur- ameboid at area 67, and cannot reach beyond the south Debris has collected at the east end of the deeper section.
Fishing net draped over four long, creaky, 20 ft high vaulted ceiling carved to look like a sea bed, nailed-shut crates in the west; each contains six long with sea life and gaping oysters, 12 of which hold an swords in oilskin. Four other oyster carvings obviously lack pearls, having been Soot drawings on walls depict many eel-men fighting a removed. Numerous gouges and nicks in the walls. Noise here alerts the troglodytes in area Noise draws the eel-men from area Broken Charisma treated as 3 when dealing with water- furniture piled nearby.
Better XP 42; new monster. Remove curse only works if cast by an adherent of a water deity. These troglodytes have been trapped in this region for several months without easy access to food, unable to 1: Lid runes are Death above Water.
Valve fills the break through the eel-men areas. Although usually hostile container with magic gel via cracks; any toward humans, they may temporarily ally in order to occupant must save vs death or dissolve. The gel escape. Formerly members of the group at area 64, they drains, and some fluid emits from the tap; this is a believe terrible magic has trapped their master.
As above, but emits a potion of air breathing if victim was an air breather. A stone trap door with bronze handles sits closed in the southwest corner, with 30 ft of rope tied to one handle; it opens onto area The eye blasts up to three purple magic missiles each round, at creatures within sight, but no more than one missile per creature.
Each missile uses one of its 15 remaining charges. Touching the water delivers a hallway floors, trigger the trap. The 20 ft deep pit has spikes; fallen victims land on 1d spikes 1d4 1 Sacrificing 5 Operate damage each.
The trap snaps closed and resets after 2 2 Fluids 6 Sarcophagi rounds. Successful listening detects a faint whirring noise coming When extracted, the glass disc no longer shocks, but still from beyond it. Pressing a panel at the top of the door delivers a mental message on touch: All the words, in opens it, by sliding downward. The door closes after 1 turn. With the secret door open, the popping, crackling, and snapping noises from 56 become immediately apparent.
The west This false door is closed and locked. Opening it reveals a statue encloses a wight; the east encloses pp and a symbol of repulsion, hurling everything into the wall directly clay flask containing a potion of heroism. It yields slightly to strong pressure, and has a dry, rough texture. Dense darkness at the top of the chamber twists downward like a funnel cloud, while pulsing radiance at This Tenebrous Seal is a multi-planar barrier that encloses the bottom rises upward in a conical helix, coming area 58, extending into all adjoining planar spaces, together in a flaring nexus surrounded by ashes floating in completely blocking off access to that room, including all the charged air.
The hourglass-shaped dual whirlwind physical, sensory, psionic, and magical etherealness, writhes, crackles, and arcs with energy, nearly filling the scrying, teleportation, summoning, etc. Failure means unrelated to their original conception, the prime rods either no more movement that round for sufficiently recognize their ability to affect the seal, and empathically anchored creatures , or getting pulled inside the whirlwind encourage their use here.
Creatures moving through both halves in one round must save for each! The seal is powered by the presence of the Gyre. The central confluence Matching ottoman gp, 3 ft diameter. Side table holding a foot-tall crystal goblet gp. Creative use of spells and equipment can alter or protect Thick steel easel, supporting a tome the size of a against the Gyre.
Surrounding the carpet, 4 crystal globes flicker dimly with illustration of gyre reddish-purple light, each bobbing gently above a 12 ft tall, square basalt column. The globes are actually held aloft by four permanently invisible kullule demons— guardians of the Whispering Tome and the Tenebrous Vault, bound for more years to destroy anyone removing or damaging contents of the vault.
They likely annoy and vex anyone merely browsing, out of sheer perversity and demonic malice. The carpet covers a similarly sized thaumaturgic circle, formed from shallow furrows in the vault floor, inlaid with black cold iron and semi-precious stone fragments gp total.
Special: These kullule are permanently invisible. Crystal Globe: Each demon can hurl its held orb, which bursts on impact, releasing plasma lightning in a 5 ft radius 3d4 damage, save vs spells for half. Three mithril clasps hold closed water wheels at 60, after which it resumes normal height. WATER WHEELS Its 66 beaten and smoothed mithril pages contain rows Upright cylinders of stone, 8 ft high, toothed to turn with of glowing runes that can only be deciphered by water flow, and inscribed with dozens of water runes.
Removing the debris magic-user spells. As long as no weight rests on the floor, pushing the stone opens 1 charm person 12 death spell the secret panel, revealing a shallow cavity containing a 2 feather fall 13 geas silver Water rune holy symbol 50 gp and an empty glass vial.
Built as part of the back wall, a three-chamber vanish at the end of the turn, to start another cycle. A dry, lime-encrusted changes made including deaths are undone. A crippled water elemental comprises much of the water here.
Its sentient form cycles repeatedly through the clepsydra, magically producing the time loop in the The elemental enjoys this home, has no Due to the time loop, the plane between the two sides of intention of stopping, and defends its clepsydra with the archway distorts the view to the other side, to appear deadly force. A temporary Glass-steel window offers a distorted view see 63 of the adjacent room. Chest 2: gp, sp, cp, rolled painting of One fallen troglodyte lays near two eel-men corpses, all in an ancient queen gp.
The boat and tree are a blossoming quffa see sidebar. Troglodytes rush obvious intruders. A basket-shaped reed boat sealed with bitumen, big The Ogre Mage can use his spells every cycle through the enough to carry six people, with a small loquat tree time loop! Encountered: 1 occasionally stretching pseudopods hundreds of feet, Size: Large upward and upstream, for feeding and sensation.
Move: 90 ft 30 ft Currently one such pseudopod stretches from here to area Armor Class: 8 47, unless already forced to withdraw. Hit Dice: 20 4 Attacks: 1 Noise, light, and waterborne stimuli from the precipice Damage: 3d8 1d6 entice the ur-ameboid, which projects 1d3 additional Special Attacks: See below pseudopods to examine—and possibly consume—the Special Defenses: See below source.
Magic Resistance: Standard Lair Probability: Nil On a positive reaction roll, it waits one round for someone Intelligence: Average to present an offering to the pseudopods.
They dissolve organic matter with acidic secretions, by lurching their massive forms atop prey.
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