Greengiant
2009-01-24, 10:24 PM
I propose bringing all the DM's together and posting your most successful, most emotional impacting, and basically your best works here. Just a note though, expect for the other DM's to take any ideas you post here and use them themselves, so post at your own risk. Also, comments and questions are welcome.
Here's mine.
A zombie uprising from an abandoned graveyard is threatening the local town. The players go to the graveyard, and remove the threat. This is when it gets interesting, investigating the graveyard, they find in the middle of it, a very large stone statue with a granite pedestal 10x10x10. Something hints at a secret door, in my story, marks in the snow make it easy to find.
They enter (of course), and find a large dungeon. The rooms are filled with undead and destruction. Any layout for the first level is fine, so long as it has a big room, with slits in one of the walls at eye height, and a hallway on that side. The rest of the dungeon is inconsequential except for a stairway. In the big room there is a bed, a chair, a refuse chute, and scratches/writing on the wall in draconic, a sort of diary.
The message says, "400 years I have been imprisoned, but I shall be free."
On the floor of that room is a blood splatter, and a trail of blood leading to another door, and then in the corner by that door, a discarded body. The party, after seeing this, will go down to a second level, where the air is much hotter, and drier. The stairs go down 40 feet. On the second level they eventually come to a huge door, 20x20, made of iron. Unlocked, but barred by a wooden beam on the other side. The beam can be lifted by finding a secret panel in the wall, and tapping on it, and the panel will open, revealing a lever that opens the door.
The room is hexagonal, with a hexagonal pit in the center, 20x20. The pit goes down almost endlessly, and it looks like there is lava at the bottom. A typical bottomless pit. This room's stone walls are worked differently than the walls upstairs, and if any methods are put in place that can do so, they would find out that it is much older than the rooms upstairs, and never originally had a staircase leading to it.
At one end of the pit there is a huge crystal stone pillar 5x5. Guarding it is a couple of drow necromancers. Touching the crystal causes the player to be gated to another plane.
With no crystal behind them, or any way to get back, the players are trapped here. This plane is one with intense volcanic activity, and the stench of sulfur permeates the air. A nearby volcano is about to erupt. An obvious trail of humanoid feet with claws points out the obvious direction to go. Following this trail leads to a cave in the volcano. In the cave, a fair distance in, is a gigantic cruciform, and on that cruciform, a dragon. The dragon is still alive, but trapped there (stole the idea from a book I'm reading). In front of this cruciform is the being that made the tracks, a half-dragon. He will reveal the plot, and then try to destroy the players, and will eventually fail, or maybe escape, if you want to expand on the story.
The half-dragon was imprisoned there by an order of lawful good paladins. His father is the dragon, a deity, albeit a low-leveled deity, and he was trying to free him, after escaping from where he was imprisoned by the order in that dungeon.
Insert any more fluff you need, and fill the dungeon with baddies, and maybe the plane with baddies, and serve.
Here's mine.
A zombie uprising from an abandoned graveyard is threatening the local town. The players go to the graveyard, and remove the threat. This is when it gets interesting, investigating the graveyard, they find in the middle of it, a very large stone statue with a granite pedestal 10x10x10. Something hints at a secret door, in my story, marks in the snow make it easy to find.
They enter (of course), and find a large dungeon. The rooms are filled with undead and destruction. Any layout for the first level is fine, so long as it has a big room, with slits in one of the walls at eye height, and a hallway on that side. The rest of the dungeon is inconsequential except for a stairway. In the big room there is a bed, a chair, a refuse chute, and scratches/writing on the wall in draconic, a sort of diary.
The message says, "400 years I have been imprisoned, but I shall be free."
On the floor of that room is a blood splatter, and a trail of blood leading to another door, and then in the corner by that door, a discarded body. The party, after seeing this, will go down to a second level, where the air is much hotter, and drier. The stairs go down 40 feet. On the second level they eventually come to a huge door, 20x20, made of iron. Unlocked, but barred by a wooden beam on the other side. The beam can be lifted by finding a secret panel in the wall, and tapping on it, and the panel will open, revealing a lever that opens the door.
The room is hexagonal, with a hexagonal pit in the center, 20x20. The pit goes down almost endlessly, and it looks like there is lava at the bottom. A typical bottomless pit. This room's stone walls are worked differently than the walls upstairs, and if any methods are put in place that can do so, they would find out that it is much older than the rooms upstairs, and never originally had a staircase leading to it.
At one end of the pit there is a huge crystal stone pillar 5x5. Guarding it is a couple of drow necromancers. Touching the crystal causes the player to be gated to another plane.
With no crystal behind them, or any way to get back, the players are trapped here. This plane is one with intense volcanic activity, and the stench of sulfur permeates the air. A nearby volcano is about to erupt. An obvious trail of humanoid feet with claws points out the obvious direction to go. Following this trail leads to a cave in the volcano. In the cave, a fair distance in, is a gigantic cruciform, and on that cruciform, a dragon. The dragon is still alive, but trapped there (stole the idea from a book I'm reading). In front of this cruciform is the being that made the tracks, a half-dragon. He will reveal the plot, and then try to destroy the players, and will eventually fail, or maybe escape, if you want to expand on the story.
The half-dragon was imprisoned there by an order of lawful good paladins. His father is the dragon, a deity, albeit a low-leveled deity, and he was trying to free him, after escaping from where he was imprisoned by the order in that dungeon.
Insert any more fluff you need, and fill the dungeon with baddies, and maybe the plane with baddies, and serve.