Menace of the Mer-Mongrels [Mini-Dungeon]

Here's a quickie dungeon for you, featuring mer-mongrels (essentially aquatic orcs), just in case you need something dark, wet and dangerous for your game.

Overview

This is underground and near the sea. Sea water flows down the entrance corridor. Everything is slimy and the water is about 2 feet deep (so gnomes and halflings might need floaties) throughout.

There are clumps of phosphorescent sea weed here and there, giving a dim glow to the caverns - so dim as to be useless, but enough to create weird, wavering patterns on walls.

Mer-Mongrels

HD 1, AC 13, ATK Claws (1d4) or weapon (1d6) or barbed net (1d3 + entangled), MV 20' (Swim 40')

Room Descriptions

1. Corridor is broken here by a waterfall - water leaking in from the ceiling. Just on the other side of the waterfall there is an aquatic assassin vine attached to the ceiling. Just beneath the waterfall, to the extreme left of the corridor, is a pit that leads to the corridor just to the right of [1] on the map (the one that leads to area [14]). That corridor is completely submerged until area [14].

2. Two lacedons are chained to the walls here. The mer-mongrels have a winch in [11] that shortens the chains, but otherwise the lacedons can wander throughout the room.

3. Water swirls around the walls, ceiling and floor of this tunnel, creating a vortex of confusion. Save vs. confusion or become dizzy (-1 to hit, AC and save) for 1 hour.

4. Three mer-mongrel guards are in this room playing a gambling game that involves plunging half a coconut into the water and seeing which player gets splashed. Each has a shagreen pouch holding 1d10 gp. One mer-mongrel has a barbed net, the other two have tridents. All three have daggers.

5. A small natural chimney in this room leads to the surface. The air is fresher here.

6. This is a supply room, containing bits of flesh wrapped in seaweed and stuffed into cubby holes, floating bottles of wine, floating boxes of candles and an odd assortment of tridents and daggers (1d6 of each).

7. Two mer-mongrel acolytes dwell in this room. They have silvery bodies, and each can cast one 1st level anti-cleric spell (chosen by GM). They are armed with footman's maces with heads shaped like octopi with opal eyes (worth 35 gp each). A curtain of barbed chains blocks the passage to [9].

8. The high priest of the mer-mongrels (3 HD) dwells here. He can cast two 1st level anti-cleric spells and one 2nd level anti-cleric spell, and wields a mace like his acolytes (but with pearl eyes, worth 150 gp). The room is also occupied by three white fish who roam around randomly, but who can be commanded by the high priest to swim in a circle, creating either a magic scrying pool or a magic whirlpool (per a water elemental). A sunken iron chest holds 250 sp, 50 gp, a gold bracer (65 gp) and a potion of healing in an old rum bottle.

9. Mongo, the living clam god (a giant clam) dwells in this chamber, the temple of the mer-mongrels. The clam rests in the alcove in the far portion of the cave, and a coral altar has been set before the clam. A young man in rough shape is chained to the altar as a sacrifice. The altar juts about 1 foot above the water, and there are many candle stumps and a few burning candles on the altar. Right before the altar there is a submerged pit (save vs. falling - no damage from fall, but 5% chance of drowning do to an accidental inhalation of water).

10/11/13. Each of these chambers is inhabited by 1d6 mer-mongrel males armed with daggers and blowpipes from which they shoot poisoned sea urchin darts (save vs. poison or slowed for 3 rounds). Each chamber has a small stone chest containing 1d4 x 50 sp and 1d6 x 100 cp. One of the mer-mongrels has a small topaz (30 gp) hidden under his loin cloth.

12. Several sea urchins are kept in this alcove. The water here is envenomed by their presence (save vs. poison or 1d6 damage).

14. This spawning chamber is home to five female mer-mongrels. They are armed as the males, but also carry two nets. There are three young in the room, and they will fight to the death to defend them (and send them fleeing into [16] at the first sight of trouble. A stone chest here holds 200 gp and three bottles of fine wine. The chest is trapped with a sea urchin spine (save vs. poison or 1d6 damage).

15. I forgot to put this number on the map!

16. This is the lair of Yort, the chief of the mer-mongrels. He is a erudite man (he trained in the humanities at a sea elf university) who returned to his tribe when his father was slain by adventurers. Yort carries a +1 trident that can make the water boil in a straight line up to 20 feet long (1d10 fire damage, save for half damage) three times per day. He also has a silver dagger and a chest containing 500 gp, 1,200 sp, a small sapphire (200 gp) and a bottle of giant octopus ink. Yort will offer to pay adventurers off if they leave he and his people alone, but if a child is harmed will pursue them to the ends of the earth to exact bloody revenge.

Beneath the Dungeon of the Apes [Map]

The upcoming NOD 23 will have the continuation (and finale) of the Dungeon of the Apes adventure in NOD 22. I thought folks might appreciate a map preview, even if they didn't plan on playing the Dungeon of the Apes. This one features acidic water, teleporters, wish goo and an atomic bomb. Enjoy!

An (Un-) Common Dungeon

A little experiment tonight - I'm going to work up the skeleton of an adventure using the "random file" function at Wikimedia Commons. Now, you can't do anything with some of these random files, so I'm going to take every single one in turn, but I'll do my best with most of them to fit them into the scheme of the thing.

STEP ONE - LOCATION
Every good dungeon needs an entrance. My first image is actually a cheat - I'm using the picture of the day, the Temple of the God Wind in a Mayan ruin.

There's the entrance to our adventure site - a ruined temple. Even though "God Wind" sounds like it has something to do with divine flatulence, we'll assume we're talking about a wind deity. Let's work out some wandering monsters:

1. Wind Priests - half-naked blokes with censors of poisoned gas (sleep gas; they're immune) and light maces

2. Small Air Elemental

3. Fusillade of poisoned darts (save vs. paralysis)

4. Giant Constrictor (wandered into the place from the jungle)

5. Pirates (exploring the ruin; their ship is anchored off the coast)

6. Albino Apes (just because they have a place in any ruined temple)

STEP TWO - THE BIG BAD GUY
Since I'm thinking more in terms of a short adventure than a mega-dungeon, it's nice to have some monster or NPC sitting on top of the food chain. Not only is he/she/it the ultimate challenge of the place, knowing their identity in advance let's you weave their presence throughout the place.

My random file - Barack Obama. I'd love to expand on this, but I like to keep politics out of this site, so I'll try again. The next file is EZ Tondo - some sort of German store I suppose. The image doesn't help, but how about an exiled Teutonic Knight who dabbled in black magic and has now taken up residence in the bowels of this pagan temple, adopting the identity of Tondo, Son of the God Wind, and cowing the locals into serving him.

Tondo will be a 4th level fighter and 6th level anti-cleric (dual-classing, dontcha know), and always accompanied by four of the aforementioned wind priests (2 HD each).

STEP THREE - THE MACGUFFIN
Now we need a reason for the adventurers to delve in the place, beyond simple loot. I get "Cathagenian ruins in Tunisia", which brings Hannibal to mind, of course, and elephants, and thus a figurine of wondrous power, a pretty spiffy relic to delve for.

STEP FOUR - THE FIRST GREAT CHALLENGE
 Just within the entrance, we need some wondrous challenge to whet the players' appetites. I randomly get an image of an altar in a church. Our first great challenge, then, is a trapped altar dedicated to the God Wind. Maybe it looks like a pipe organ. You have to play the proper tune to open the doors into the dungeon, with each mistake summoning a monster or bolt of lightning or gust of razor-wind - something like that. The notes are secreted within a bas-relief of a gaggle of sylphs with open mouths, as though singing or shrieking, the mouths being at different heights and thus corresponding to musical notes. No, the ancient Mayans did not use this sort of musical notation, but since the players probably are not ancient Mayans, the concept works for them.

STEP FIVE - GUARDIAN OF THE FIRST LEVEL
We need a good (or evil) guardian of the first level - a monster or trap who keeps people from getting to the lower level, where the MacGuffin and Big Bad Guy are hiding. I get this ...

Honestly, I have no idea. But it does give me some inspiration - I'm picturing a person grabbed by legs and arms and pulled in a most inconvenient way. But how?

Perhaps a well lined with hundreds of manacles embedded in the walls. The way to descend would be to either climb down a rope or climb down using the manacles as hand- and footholds. Naturally, the things are animated, and at some point attempt to clamp down on people's wrists and ankles (Reflex save to avoid). Maybe they then pull the person, or maybe they just hold them while some winged goblins fly up from the darkness and attack. Either way, it would make for an interesting and challenging combat.

STEP SIX - THE BIG MYSTERY

We need a mystery on the lower level to keep the player's guessing. I now get the image of a statue holding a sword and a torch or oil lamp of some kind. This we'll place in a circular room at the meeting of four passages. The passages lead to outer portions of the lower level - your basic rooms with monsters and traps and scant treasure. By lighting the statue's lamp, though, and rotating it so that the light falls on bare walls in the rotunda, it also reveals extra-dimensional passages to four sub-levels, each dangerous. Once one walks through one of these openings, they see a wall behind them, so escaping from the sub-levels will be one of the challenges of the dungeon. One of the sub-levels hides a tiger's eye gemstone that, when affixed to one of the the statue's eye sockets (the empty one), animates it. It retains its perch and fights like a devil, but if defeated, the pedestal it stands on fades away, revealing a spiral stair that leads to the inner sanctum of Tondo.

So, six images gives us the framework for a (hopefully) entertaining dungeon. We would now need to draw up the levels and sub-levels and stock the chambers with monsters, traps and treasure. Remember, random isn't just good in a game, it's also good for creating a game - random inspirations to set your little grey cells to firing and creating things even you could never have known were lurking in you campaign world.

The Caves of Llosh [Pars Fortuna]

The Caves of Llosh is a multi-part dungeon for the Pars Fortuna rules, for characters level 1-3 that I decided to publish here, piece by piece. I'm going to start doing the same for Space Princess and the Catacombs of Old Mars soon ... let's see how it goes.

[No Map Yet ... Been busy but wanted to get this ball rolling, and the intro area is pretty straight-forward]
--

Well beyond the city of Viacrux and the Pyroxist Mountains, past the steading of the cyclopeans and to the west of the Titan's Door, lie the Caves of Llosh, one of the many entrances to the infamous Spire that lies at the center of creation and, they say, offers one a chance to rewrite that creation if only they can climb to its pinnacle.

The caverns are accessed via a small cave in the base of a mountain shrouded in spiny ygoraa bushes that drip their maddening sap when the moon is full. The upper reaches of the mountain are stark and on the rocky ledges perch beady-eyed hraeths (giant ravens), who often attack adventurers making their way to and from the caves (3 in 6 chance, 5 in 6 if laden with treasure).

HRAETH (1d8): HD 1; AC 15; ATK 1d4 (talons); Move 3 (Fly 18); Save 17; CL/XP 1/15; Special: None.

1-1. The entry cave measures about 50 feet wide and 70 feet long, and the ground and ceiling both angle downwards from the entry. The floor and walls have been worn smooth by dozens of adventurers who have dared the caves, and bits of graffiti are to be found chiseled into the walls, including a large admonishment to "Never Bite an Oort" and a plea to "Bow to The Dam".

There are three exits from the cavern. One is a sinkhole with glistening walls (not wet, just a characteristic of the rock). The sinkhole has an opening about 15 feet in diameter - a sort of cone - with several iron spikes driven into the rim, and usually (2 in 6) a rope tied to at least one. About 20 feet down, the air becomes foul and difficult to breath (save or suffer -1 penalty to attack and save for 2 hour; or simply cover mouth and nose with a thick cloth), and about 40 feet down you might come across additional spikes driven into the walls, where people made a perch for themselves and tied off additional ropes. In all, the sinkhole is 80 feet deep and leads to chamber 3-1.

The next exit is a rather large cave mouth at the back of cave 1-1. The air in the mouth of this cave is quite chilly, and one can even see crystals of frost on the ground leading into it. This cave leads into a tunnel about 40 feet long, that winds back and forth gently and descends at a 15-degree angle to chamber 1-2. The tunnel is guarded by four cavern crawlers with mottled, white skin that allows them to blend in with the frosty tunnel (surprise on 1-2 on 1d6).

CAVERN CRAWLER (4): HD 1d4 (4, 2, 2, 2 hp); AC 12; ATK suffocate (drop); Move 12; Save 18; CL/XP 1/15; Special: Suffocate (see monster description).

The final exit is hidden by an illusion, making it look like part of the east wall. It is a stone portal, large enough to be carved by bo'al, and bearing the tell-tale signs of their aesthetic (i.e. boring, angular, sturdy, etc.). Beyond the illusion (not the work of bo'al, but of a party of caledjula who long ago met their demise within the caves) there is a hallway about 10 feet long and an iron door (locked, trapped with an acid spray that deals 1d6 damage and has a 13% chance of ruining a thief's lock pick). Beyond the iron door there is a spiral stair that leads down about 30 feet to chamber 2-1. This engineering feat was a result of a party of bo'al being guided by a prophetic dream, and breaching the second level of the dungeon from a pathway its inhabitants never quite expected.