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Another_Poet
2009-11-07, 04:19 PM
Edit: If you're seeing this thread for the first time, no more suggestions are needed - the session is over. Session summary is below ( post # 11 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7279894&postcount=11) )for those who want to read it.

Hi everyone.

I'm looking for ideas & suggestions on a giant-themed dungeon for four ECL 7 characters in a 3.5/Pathfinder one-shot game.

I'm thinking that the entire dungeon is under the body of a slain giant, who turned to stone - they may run into his hands, belt, gear etc as they explore the tunnels and realise it's not a normal mountain.

Fiends (led by a Rakshasa) wish to get something the giant had, and of course awakening the giant itself is a possible consequence of exploring the dungeon.

Game time is in 3 hours. (Yep, this is how I roll.) I'm currently rolling random wandering monsters and tweaking them into actual encounters. Suggestions on interesting rooms, tricks, traps, and even encounters are much appreciated.

ap

The Glyphstone
2009-11-07, 04:29 PM
Unless the party is all Pixies or Halflings, it'd be kinda awkward...Giants don't normally get that size. Maybe an Elder Titan?

Nero24200
2009-11-07, 04:39 PM
My first thought is where the dungeon entrance? I think of a few places that might be...unpleasent.

Another_Poet
2009-11-07, 04:39 PM
Unless the party is all Pixies or Halflings, it'd be kinda awkward...Giants don't normally get that size. Maybe an Elder Titan?

roflmao... actually, and I'm not kidding, the party is all halflings with one pixie.

:D :D :D

Seriously. (But they might get a dwarf as well.)

But yeah, I know the giant that made the mountain is bigger than any MM giant.

Still, looking to put some cool rooms & corridors under his belly for the pint-sized heroes to explore.

edit: They're not in the giant, they're under him - the entrance is just a normal cave made by a river.

Starbuck_II
2009-11-07, 04:52 PM
Well, every dungeon needs a cleaner so an Otyugh (CR still 4), pair or a cluster in one section makes sense.

Maybe this room was used as a refuge area, a garbage area basically.
Maybe the Giant's bag of tricks (Gray version) was thrown out amonst the refuge by some adventurers when it looked like a worthless bag.

Spot Check DC 18 maybe to notice it?

Cieyrin
2009-11-07, 04:56 PM
You could have kobolds mining the corpse for its riches, as petrified uber-giant must have uncommon resources to it. Maybe have them using Earth Elementals and Thoqqua to mine as well.

Fax Celestis
2009-11-07, 04:59 PM
Why not have the giant be Dalmoth from MM-V?

Another_Poet
2009-11-07, 05:41 PM
Thanks for the great ideas so far guys.

I am definitely using some of them - thoqquas for the win!

Also, wish I had MMV :smallfrown: (I have 1 & 2)

Kol Korran
2009-11-08, 03:08 AM
expanding on the idea of a gian't bag of tricks:
the part could find a large chamber, where there is a huge bag. from it, every lets say 1d3+1 rounds pops a ball that turns into some kind of a dire animal! these guys disappear after lests say 5-6 rounds. the party needs to either somehow close the bag or move through the room to another location (the animals follow and then vanish.
as to neutrelizing the bage this could be done in several ways, some ideas may be:
- pulling on the giant string to close it (2 succesfull strength checks?)
- tearing the thick leather of the bag (decide hit points and hardness)
- maybe there is a verse wrtitten in giant on the bag that can close it? but it's half faded so intelligence/ spot checks are needed?
- disable device (with a high DC, but another try allowed)

other silly ideas: giant elemental ticks! (got petrified withthe giant, but survived the process in some way)

or giant tape worm! (decrease the power of a purple worm)

or maybe the ghost of someone the giant devoured? requesting to have it's remains taken out of it's bowels? (and here you put the giant worm)

Xorn! because i like them.!

and something a bit simpler- how about a small community of stone giants, who consider this a holy site? they don't have to fight the party but maybe interact with them, or ask them for help? (maybe one of their kind is possesed by the ghost, who tries to get into the bowels of the giant. but this body is too big, so it is mostly frustrated. it may attacke the characters at first, out of rage (nice combat), but the party should realise it's not quite ok, and then maybe they offer their help?

hope this helped,
Kol.

AslanCross
2009-11-08, 03:21 AM
I think it would be cool if the dungeon were actually the petrified innards of the giant. Over time, the giant's magical elemental nature transformed its insides into a rough approximation of a dungeon. Marks of certain rooms being the heart or the lungs or whatever would still be apparent.

Since you have MM2, put in a series of winding tunnels with pools of slime infested by Wystes for the intestines. :smallbiggrin:

Another_Poet
2009-11-09, 01:47 AM
Here is what became of the session...

((Note that it is Part II of a "filler" game between campaigns. It's an all-halfling team (mostly) in "the Shire." Wink wink. In Part I, they rescued the local chocolatier who had run afoul of frog people and been chained up to be eaten by a demon. As a filler game I had a selection of pregen characters to choose from. Sadly the party passed on using the Sprite as one of their character's, instead opting for the Dwarf. I was sad as I reallly liked the Sprite.))


HALFLINGSES!
Saturday's cast included a repeat performance from the cunning beguiler Surly and his XXL monk Pumlin. Plus, he was joined by his fellow arcanist, the lightning sorcerer D'argo Thinwhistle. The two made fast friends - sort of - with an armour-laden Dwarf by the name of Gregor. Toting a warhammer, a waraxe, and a backup waraxe, Gregor was a new arrival to the Shire and had come on the rumour of a fountain of youth. The halflings had never heard of such nonsense, but offered to show him the maybe-kinda-possibly magic spring that had recently been broken open at the Gianscarn [the place where the demon had been defeated].

The story began about a week after the rescue of chocolatier Toogwhistle. By this time, the story had gotten out that there was a new waterfall and lake at the Gianscarn, and tales of the chocolatier's rescue had become widely circulated. With their natural curiosity, halflings from all over the Shire had set up a sort of fairgrounds at the base of the Gianscarn. There they went on tours of the room where Toogwhistle was held captive, swam in the newly formed (and possibly magicked) lake, ate extravagant amounts of food and gawked at the frog people who came to sell their mysterious salve.

Rose, the ranger who had been so instrumental in rescuing Toogwhistle, had even summoned up a stag and was giving deer rides to children for fun and profit.

Carrying some 150 pounds of food and ale, the group quickly found out that Toogwhistle had stopped giving tours of the cave. People heard strange voices in there, and lately they've even felt mild earthquake tremors around the mountain. After another meal they decided to enter.

The group pushed past the entrance cave, where they could still hear the demon's voice moaning in their heads. Following the stream into the mountain, they stumbled upon a filthy sprite who seemed to have just woken up in the mud. The sprite shook off the dirt and proceeded to eat more than its weight in food from the halflings' primary ration hamper. Seeking to guard the secondary ration hamper and the kegpack, they asked it where it came from and what it was doing there - only to find that it had severe amnesia. It wanted more food and they suggested it try the fair. But when it asked directions, Surly pointed deeper into the cave and said, "That way!" Away flew the sprite.

Deeper in, the troupe found a circle of standing stones. One of the stones had been demolished and was mostly missing. With a little sleuthing, they determined that a single piece of the stone had been dropped by the Ettin when it was killed last week - suggesting perhaps that the Ettin had originally been bound in the stone, and that the other stones might similarly contain giants or other creatures.

They didn't get to rest on their laurels before they woke a sleeping goblin and found themselves beset. Goblins are not intelligent humanoids - more like apes as far as their intellect, but tremendously strong and fast, with an appetite for flesh. The mages opened up with their best spells but Gregor stepped forward to take the brunt of the attack. In short order, they had a stack of dead goblins and one goblin prisoner. The thing seemed to understand less Common than a typical parrot, but they at least found out which way its nest was. There were only two ways forward - scale a cliff to reach the top of a waterfall (and the goblin nest up above) or manoeuvre down a deep pit into an underground lake. Allowing the goblin to go free and try to climb up the waterfall, they retrieved their oh-so-conveniently-nearby boat and lowered it 150' into the pit to the lake below.

The climb down was less successful. As they shimmied down the rope poor Gregor was blasted with cold by a wicked fungus growing on the rocks. He fell some 100' into dark water and lived to tell the tale, a brave dwarf indeed. As he climbed onto the boat wet and winded, D'argo destroyed the fungus with magic and the halflings joined their half-drowned companion.

They had two routes before them. Heading west, they found a monument. With some effort they managed to translate the story of the titan Ziusudra who stopped a great flood that would have destroyed the world. Beyond the monument a grand staircase of dwarven design led down to a massive round plaza. The plaza was dominated by a three-headed and many-armed statue of a protector deity, fierce in appearance. Surly managed to speak with the statue, which informed him in confidence that they could take what they wanted from the surrounding tombs but that the most sacred thing there had already been corrupted. The statue seemed unconcerned with what was happening elsewhere in the mountain or on the surface, being only assigned to protect something deeper below the bedrock.

The halflings were no slouches in accepting the statue's offer. Unveiling three hidden tombs, they amassed a curio of urns made of rare metals, including one of beaten mithral. They also found a magic vestment containing many strange objects in its pockets (including two boats, a window, and a pair of live war mastiffs). They managed to disturb the graves of a human, a dwarf and a giant (only the skull had fit into the tomb) but encountered no negative consequences.

Leaving their haul for later retrieval, they went back to their boat and tried the other, eastern passage. After slaughtering a few otyugh's living in a mushroom pit they came upon a far more curious sight.

Ahead of them a bald duergar with a recently pulverised leg was struggling toward a vertical shaft. The shaft extended into both floor and ceiling, with a rope hanging down. The duergar had apparently spotted them and was trying to dispose of a large number of dark glass orbs by rolling them into the pit before the companions could reach him. [They later found out these orbs are used to summon earth elementals.]

Grigor approached and spoke with the duergar in Dwarven. He seemed willing to say anything to stall Gregor long enough to dispose of all the orbs. He succeeded, but they did manage to take a strange bell-shaped weapon off of him. They splinted and bandaged the duergar's leg, which he claimed had been injured in a mining accident. After interrogating him they let him try to make his way onto the rope and down the vertical shaft. Once the duergar was out of sight Surly simply cut the rope. They heard the deep dwarf scream so long that his voice went out of range; if the shaft has a bottom, it is tremendously far below.

Surly also took up the mantle of scout and flew up the rope to see what was at the top. There was light up above, but not natural daylight. The way to the light was mostly blocked by an earth elemental in mud form who explained he was bound by the duergar and was posted to guard the shaft. Surly convinced him that he and his friends were allies of the duergar; after all, they had bandaged and splinted the wounded one's leg. That, plus a bit of food from the hamper bought the elemental's silence, but they didn't dare try to push past it.

They backtracked a long way, all the way to the top of the very first pit they'd gone down. Out of breath but not out of curiosity, they managed a very difficult climb to the top of the waterfall. There the cave forked; they followed the stream. Finally, they found the source of the trouble.

In a great cavern, duergar were lifting thoqquas - burrowing worms made of magma, essentially - to an upper cave to assist with mining operations. The cave was scattered with strange, hollow tube-shaped rock formations. What's more, entire walls of rock were being knocked down and falling to the cavern and pool of water below. A few duergar guards waited with several earth elementals and a pair of thoqqua who had not been winched up yet. These the halflings and dwarf managed to take by surprise, and with excellent use of mind-controlling magics the team prevailed. No sooner did they dispatch the group on the cavern floor than the duergar from up above rode down on a magic platform. Pumlin laid three of them down and D'argo's lightning claimed three more. A lone remaining duergar raised his bell-shaped weapon and unleashed a 20' plume of Greek fire, which would be his last action in the mortal world.

Riding the platform up the group found what the duergar were after. They seemed to be breaking open the stone wall that the spring water was coming from. Whatever the titan had stopped from flooding the world, the duergar seemed to want - but for now at least it is still locked behind a partly-broken stone wall.

Looking around, Surly had a chilling thought: all those tube-shaped rocks, up here in this upper cavern, looked an awful lot like intestines when one guts an animal.

The party realised that the duergar were literally mining out the petrified remains of the giant who had stopped the flood... and that they themselves were in the middle of the titan's viscera.

TO BE CONTINUED! Stay tuned for more halfling adventures. Same Shire time, same Shire station, next time with 400% more Insatiable Sprite!! (I hope!)

Kol Korran
2009-11-09, 08:32 AM
nice story, thanks for telling. waiting to see what happens next...

Another_Poet
2009-11-09, 06:07 PM
Thanks. It could be a while before we do a continuation. Then again it could be this coming weekend - it all depends on how long before I can get the whole group together and back into our regular campaign.

If we do go on, expect some beautiful Secret of Mana ripoffs. Consider the Gianscarn to be Gaia's Navel.... so that deity statue is guarding the Earth Palace :smallwink: