Melamoto
2010-02-14, 10:19 AM
This thread is here to collect homebrew for the Epic Dungeon project (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139272), whether previous work that would fit in or original content made just for the project.
For those who don't want to read through the whole thread, I'll put in the basic details here.
The dungeon itself:
A Hellhold Asunder
Ages ago, several archmages from various lands joined council to decide how to rid the world of The Hellhold, a colossal ancient living fortress full of dark and terrible things not of this world. Since it held such great evil, it was decided that none should dare brave the castle for fear of unleashing its evil upon the land. After long years of study and debate, they decided the best thing to do was banish the space it occupied from this world. So the circle of archmages crafted a mighty spell to tear a whole in this world around the castle and let if “fall” through. The mages gathered around the mountain upon which the castle rested and began the rites of the spell, but before they could finish, the castle reacted. No one knows what happened, but the spell only half worked. The castle still stands to this day lost somewhere in the wilderness, but only half the castle is actually there. It stands sheared in two with the other half just gone.
The half still in our world is dead, a carcass or skeleton dried up and withering away. Its dark spells and powers are gone, and nothing but parasites and scavengers inhabit it now. (Bandits, cultists, goblinoids, terrestrial monsters, roosting aerial creatures, maybe a dragon or three)
Somewhere within the castle is a hidden portal to the ghost world where the lost half of the castle now lives. In the ghost world (a demi-plane not much larger than that half of the castle) the castle is alive and strong, still containing many of the horrible things it did in ages past. It is starting to fray apart at the ends however, with different parts of the castle inhabiting the ethereal plane, the shadow plane, the negative energy plane, the far realm, or various lower planes. The castle now rests in a comatose slumber, dreaming of coming back to the prime and unleash its power in revenge.
One night, an eerie wall of mist comes down from the ghost world through the castle and down the mountain into the surrounding lands. From this mist comes some of the dark and terrible things from the ghost world portion of the castle (a group of skeletal knights riding skeletal horses, a flight of fiends, a poisonous madness upon the wind, etc.). Inside the mist, the world is warped and the stars are different. The mist only comes down at night and disappears when the sun rises, and it doesn’t come down every night, but the intervals get shorter over time until the mist is there every night, and the mist extends farther every time. Every day the land around the castle begins to look more and more like a hellscape. Once the mist comes every night, the intervening days are dark, the sun starts to look dim and red, fiery storm clouds roll out from a crack in the sky and pour acidic rain, leaving poisonous fogs afterwards, and beings not of this world being to prowl the land.
Every time the mist comes and goes, it leaves death and destruction in its wake, with slaughtered creatures, blighted wilderness, malignant curses, and other stranger things. Each night the mist brings something different and changes the land in different ways. One night, what was once a calm and beautiful sylvan forest is now a dark and haunted jungle of poisonous fungus and shrieking things, and the next night looks completely unchanged except all the beings living in the forest have gone insane with rage and begin killing each other and anyone else traveling through (just speculation, this is open to ideas obviously).
Something needs to be done.
The Campaign
The campaign beings with the pcs staying in a town somewhat near the castle. After a short simple (but possibly related) adventure in town, the town leader(s) come to the pcs and hire them to venture up to the castle and deal with the goblins/bandits/cultists/raiding dragon or retrieve the stolen goods/kidnapped heir/whatever.
During this adventure they get their first brush with the castle. They see that it is a long dead ruin now inhabited by creatures and beings that have moved in. They encounter a cult that knows of the castles past and seeks to bring back its evil, but probably don’t fully realize what the castle was/is. During this first adventure, or any following connected adventure, either they by accident open the hidden portal and unleash the mist, or the cult finds it and completes their rite, doing so.
After this, the next time they return to town, a (mysterious prophet) approaches them and cryptically warns them of what is to come. After this, the castle may begin to be inhabited by some of the things that inhabit the ghost world portion, or this may not happen until the mists occur every night, but either way, they need to master this worlds half of the castle, then breach the other side and deal with that half, preferably before the mists come every night and worlds begin to merge (which is bad, but in a so far undecided way).
Further on, the town the pcs started in may get destroyed or swallowed up by the mist/merging hellscape and they may need to move their base back to a bigger city closer to civilization. Time is of the essence however, so they should spend as little time as possible without the castle. As to why the pcs are the only ones dealing with the castle, they might not be (so possible alliances or recruitment of new pcs), but most people are going to be dealing with what the mist does/brings and the following hellscape and anything that comes with it. Perhaps evil all over the land/continent/world rises up as the castle gets closer to coming back, leaving the rest of the world plenty of problems to deal with. Perhaps the council of archmages became liches to guard over the castle to make sure it never comes back (again, just ideas).
The castle itself is huge. It has perhaps a dozen floors, several different towers and connecting walls, and it extends down into the mountain in a proper dungeon. It may have several sub-structures around the mountain, perhaps connected by tunnels. There may be a floating portion of the castle, or several floating towers, or something similar. The dungeon may connect with an ancient dwarven mine, or the underdark, or both.
The castle is sheared in two, meaning that at the shear the castle may be open to the elements (imagine if half a tall building collapsed). Some parts of it may have collapsed, leaving big piles of rubble and maybe some of the lower floors have buried because of it. Perhaps the cult or other inhabitants have added superficial fortifications to the ruins, maybe blocking off the open parts of the shear or adding fort-style wooden walls around the bailey, it’s all possible.
The castle was once a living thing with much great evil, so it should have “organs” – for example, a now non-functional great crystal heart, waiting to be revived. Maybe the heart has some evil power, maybe reviving it accomplishes some goal (like opening up new parts of the castle).
The ghost world portion, and the prime portion once the castle re-merges, will be “alive” (but not “awake”), and can react to what the pcs do, meaning it might close off some areas, call security, etc., and will be much more powerful in this regard if it ever fully awakens.
What the castle is, what inhabits it, and what its ultimate goals are is up for debate. Mainly, the pcs want to keep the castle from re-merging, re-awakening, and kill it (or its controllers, whatever).
The basic rules for creating material:
During this stage, all those with their heads brimming full of ideas (Who just haven’t been able to contain them so far) can finally submit their monsters, puzzles, NPCs, and other ideas. When posting an idea, you must give a title in bold that is not likely to conflict with other titles. In addition to the title, you must also add a bold label that categorizes the idea under either Monster, Puzzle, NPC, or Other. Any miscellaneous challenges, such as the Zero Gravity Battles idea below, are considered puzzles. There must be enough detail in any given idea so that it if a number of people were to recreate it, the results would all be almost exactly the same. You can post vague ideas if you like, but you cannot include a title, and all credit will go to whoever posts a fully detailed version of your idea. Finally, at the end of the idea, you must place a single (Bolded) number that signifies the level at which the challenge takes place. And please, the dungeon is A Hellhold Asunder, try to make the ideas fit in with it. For example if someone submits an idea that involves celestial protectors that doesn’t have a damn good reason why, I will make them pay in blood.
Some examples of bad moves would be:
A Room of Wonder - Puzzle: This is too ambiguously named.The Starred Rod - Item: This is not in any of the given categories.Zero Gravity Battles - Puzzle
Zero Gravity environments are fun, but sometimes they have to be more than just a long puzzle. So what if a battle was added in the middle? The room would have a zero gravity field around it, and the doors would lock when the players all entered. Then, air elementals would come out and start attacking the players while they tried to figure out how to escape! They would have to deal with a lot of air elementals while still trying to get free from the puzzle, leading to a frantic battle/puzzle combo.
11: This is too ambiguously made. The full solution to the puzzle, number of air elementals, type of air elemental, and all the traps (Including the zero gravity field) should have been given detail. A room size would also have been useful, as well as the method of the door locking.The Duke's Servant - NPC
A servant of the local duke who has gotten lost and needs help collecting an artifact that was rumoured to exist in the castle: This does not work; the castle has not been there for long, and nobody has any idea what is in there.
A good example would be:
The Grue - Puzzle
Many dark creatures have inhabited the castle over a long period of time, and some of the most evil and devious of these are the Grue. They hang back in the darkness, waiting for prey. They are shadow creatures that cannot live outside of anything short of pitch blackness, but are incredibly dangerous to those who are within their reach. They have taken hold of a long corridor, and have placed a trap with which they may fight their enemies without limit.
The corridor is 60'x10', and has doors at both ends. The trap is operated by Grue observing the corridor through a tiny slit in the ceiling, which may be spotted with a DC 30 spot check. When (As far as the Grue are aware) all players are inside the room, the trap is activated. Both doors close and lock and all the candles in the room go out. A spell of darkness takes over, extinguishing all non-permanent light sources and suppressing permanent ones after 1 round. Any new light sources are extinguished at the same rate, unless they would otherwise end sooner. Light sources may penetrate the darkness no further than 10', no matter how much light they would normally emit.
The grue arrive at any given square in the room 1d2+1 rounds after all light has been lost in that square. If any light is shone on the square, the grue flee, and do not return to that square until 1d2+1 rounds after the light has gone. While the grue are in a square near the players, or will shortly be arriving in their squares, the players hear scratching, grunting, and the occasional bout of horrible high pitched laughter. The Grue are always treated as having the highest initiative, and deal 10d6 damage (No save) to anyone who occupies a Grue occupied space at the beginning of the Grue's turn. Most AoE spells have no effect on the grue, unless they create light, in which case all effected squares are treated as having been lit up.
The corridor may only be escaped either by unlocking one of the doors (DC 20), by breaking the doors down (They are Good Wooden doors (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm#doors)), or otherwise finding a way past the doors. The Grue will not leave the corridor unless there is a clear dark path, and the darkness spell only effects the area inside of the corridor. After it seems apparent the players are gone, the grue retreat and release the trap (Turning the lights back on).
5
You can look up the current listed ideas on the Obsidian Portal page (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/epic-dungeon-in-the-playground).
For those who don't want to read through the whole thread, I'll put in the basic details here.
The dungeon itself:
A Hellhold Asunder
Ages ago, several archmages from various lands joined council to decide how to rid the world of The Hellhold, a colossal ancient living fortress full of dark and terrible things not of this world. Since it held such great evil, it was decided that none should dare brave the castle for fear of unleashing its evil upon the land. After long years of study and debate, they decided the best thing to do was banish the space it occupied from this world. So the circle of archmages crafted a mighty spell to tear a whole in this world around the castle and let if “fall” through. The mages gathered around the mountain upon which the castle rested and began the rites of the spell, but before they could finish, the castle reacted. No one knows what happened, but the spell only half worked. The castle still stands to this day lost somewhere in the wilderness, but only half the castle is actually there. It stands sheared in two with the other half just gone.
The half still in our world is dead, a carcass or skeleton dried up and withering away. Its dark spells and powers are gone, and nothing but parasites and scavengers inhabit it now. (Bandits, cultists, goblinoids, terrestrial monsters, roosting aerial creatures, maybe a dragon or three)
Somewhere within the castle is a hidden portal to the ghost world where the lost half of the castle now lives. In the ghost world (a demi-plane not much larger than that half of the castle) the castle is alive and strong, still containing many of the horrible things it did in ages past. It is starting to fray apart at the ends however, with different parts of the castle inhabiting the ethereal plane, the shadow plane, the negative energy plane, the far realm, or various lower planes. The castle now rests in a comatose slumber, dreaming of coming back to the prime and unleash its power in revenge.
One night, an eerie wall of mist comes down from the ghost world through the castle and down the mountain into the surrounding lands. From this mist comes some of the dark and terrible things from the ghost world portion of the castle (a group of skeletal knights riding skeletal horses, a flight of fiends, a poisonous madness upon the wind, etc.). Inside the mist, the world is warped and the stars are different. The mist only comes down at night and disappears when the sun rises, and it doesn’t come down every night, but the intervals get shorter over time until the mist is there every night, and the mist extends farther every time. Every day the land around the castle begins to look more and more like a hellscape. Once the mist comes every night, the intervening days are dark, the sun starts to look dim and red, fiery storm clouds roll out from a crack in the sky and pour acidic rain, leaving poisonous fogs afterwards, and beings not of this world being to prowl the land.
Every time the mist comes and goes, it leaves death and destruction in its wake, with slaughtered creatures, blighted wilderness, malignant curses, and other stranger things. Each night the mist brings something different and changes the land in different ways. One night, what was once a calm and beautiful sylvan forest is now a dark and haunted jungle of poisonous fungus and shrieking things, and the next night looks completely unchanged except all the beings living in the forest have gone insane with rage and begin killing each other and anyone else traveling through (just speculation, this is open to ideas obviously).
Something needs to be done.
The Campaign
The campaign beings with the pcs staying in a town somewhat near the castle. After a short simple (but possibly related) adventure in town, the town leader(s) come to the pcs and hire them to venture up to the castle and deal with the goblins/bandits/cultists/raiding dragon or retrieve the stolen goods/kidnapped heir/whatever.
During this adventure they get their first brush with the castle. They see that it is a long dead ruin now inhabited by creatures and beings that have moved in. They encounter a cult that knows of the castles past and seeks to bring back its evil, but probably don’t fully realize what the castle was/is. During this first adventure, or any following connected adventure, either they by accident open the hidden portal and unleash the mist, or the cult finds it and completes their rite, doing so.
After this, the next time they return to town, a (mysterious prophet) approaches them and cryptically warns them of what is to come. After this, the castle may begin to be inhabited by some of the things that inhabit the ghost world portion, or this may not happen until the mists occur every night, but either way, they need to master this worlds half of the castle, then breach the other side and deal with that half, preferably before the mists come every night and worlds begin to merge (which is bad, but in a so far undecided way).
Further on, the town the pcs started in may get destroyed or swallowed up by the mist/merging hellscape and they may need to move their base back to a bigger city closer to civilization. Time is of the essence however, so they should spend as little time as possible without the castle. As to why the pcs are the only ones dealing with the castle, they might not be (so possible alliances or recruitment of new pcs), but most people are going to be dealing with what the mist does/brings and the following hellscape and anything that comes with it. Perhaps evil all over the land/continent/world rises up as the castle gets closer to coming back, leaving the rest of the world plenty of problems to deal with. Perhaps the council of archmages became liches to guard over the castle to make sure it never comes back (again, just ideas).
The castle itself is huge. It has perhaps a dozen floors, several different towers and connecting walls, and it extends down into the mountain in a proper dungeon. It may have several sub-structures around the mountain, perhaps connected by tunnels. There may be a floating portion of the castle, or several floating towers, or something similar. The dungeon may connect with an ancient dwarven mine, or the underdark, or both.
The castle is sheared in two, meaning that at the shear the castle may be open to the elements (imagine if half a tall building collapsed). Some parts of it may have collapsed, leaving big piles of rubble and maybe some of the lower floors have buried because of it. Perhaps the cult or other inhabitants have added superficial fortifications to the ruins, maybe blocking off the open parts of the shear or adding fort-style wooden walls around the bailey, it’s all possible.
The castle was once a living thing with much great evil, so it should have “organs” – for example, a now non-functional great crystal heart, waiting to be revived. Maybe the heart has some evil power, maybe reviving it accomplishes some goal (like opening up new parts of the castle).
The ghost world portion, and the prime portion once the castle re-merges, will be “alive” (but not “awake”), and can react to what the pcs do, meaning it might close off some areas, call security, etc., and will be much more powerful in this regard if it ever fully awakens.
What the castle is, what inhabits it, and what its ultimate goals are is up for debate. Mainly, the pcs want to keep the castle from re-merging, re-awakening, and kill it (or its controllers, whatever).
The basic rules for creating material:
During this stage, all those with their heads brimming full of ideas (Who just haven’t been able to contain them so far) can finally submit their monsters, puzzles, NPCs, and other ideas. When posting an idea, you must give a title in bold that is not likely to conflict with other titles. In addition to the title, you must also add a bold label that categorizes the idea under either Monster, Puzzle, NPC, or Other. Any miscellaneous challenges, such as the Zero Gravity Battles idea below, are considered puzzles. There must be enough detail in any given idea so that it if a number of people were to recreate it, the results would all be almost exactly the same. You can post vague ideas if you like, but you cannot include a title, and all credit will go to whoever posts a fully detailed version of your idea. Finally, at the end of the idea, you must place a single (Bolded) number that signifies the level at which the challenge takes place. And please, the dungeon is A Hellhold Asunder, try to make the ideas fit in with it. For example if someone submits an idea that involves celestial protectors that doesn’t have a damn good reason why, I will make them pay in blood.
Some examples of bad moves would be:
A Room of Wonder - Puzzle: This is too ambiguously named.The Starred Rod - Item: This is not in any of the given categories.Zero Gravity Battles - Puzzle
Zero Gravity environments are fun, but sometimes they have to be more than just a long puzzle. So what if a battle was added in the middle? The room would have a zero gravity field around it, and the doors would lock when the players all entered. Then, air elementals would come out and start attacking the players while they tried to figure out how to escape! They would have to deal with a lot of air elementals while still trying to get free from the puzzle, leading to a frantic battle/puzzle combo.
11: This is too ambiguously made. The full solution to the puzzle, number of air elementals, type of air elemental, and all the traps (Including the zero gravity field) should have been given detail. A room size would also have been useful, as well as the method of the door locking.The Duke's Servant - NPC
A servant of the local duke who has gotten lost and needs help collecting an artifact that was rumoured to exist in the castle: This does not work; the castle has not been there for long, and nobody has any idea what is in there.
A good example would be:
The Grue - Puzzle
Many dark creatures have inhabited the castle over a long period of time, and some of the most evil and devious of these are the Grue. They hang back in the darkness, waiting for prey. They are shadow creatures that cannot live outside of anything short of pitch blackness, but are incredibly dangerous to those who are within their reach. They have taken hold of a long corridor, and have placed a trap with which they may fight their enemies without limit.
The corridor is 60'x10', and has doors at both ends. The trap is operated by Grue observing the corridor through a tiny slit in the ceiling, which may be spotted with a DC 30 spot check. When (As far as the Grue are aware) all players are inside the room, the trap is activated. Both doors close and lock and all the candles in the room go out. A spell of darkness takes over, extinguishing all non-permanent light sources and suppressing permanent ones after 1 round. Any new light sources are extinguished at the same rate, unless they would otherwise end sooner. Light sources may penetrate the darkness no further than 10', no matter how much light they would normally emit.
The grue arrive at any given square in the room 1d2+1 rounds after all light has been lost in that square. If any light is shone on the square, the grue flee, and do not return to that square until 1d2+1 rounds after the light has gone. While the grue are in a square near the players, or will shortly be arriving in their squares, the players hear scratching, grunting, and the occasional bout of horrible high pitched laughter. The Grue are always treated as having the highest initiative, and deal 10d6 damage (No save) to anyone who occupies a Grue occupied space at the beginning of the Grue's turn. Most AoE spells have no effect on the grue, unless they create light, in which case all effected squares are treated as having been lit up.
The corridor may only be escaped either by unlocking one of the doors (DC 20), by breaking the doors down (They are Good Wooden doors (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/dungeons.htm#doors)), or otherwise finding a way past the doors. The Grue will not leave the corridor unless there is a clear dark path, and the darkness spell only effects the area inside of the corridor. After it seems apparent the players are gone, the grue retreat and release the trap (Turning the lights back on).
5
You can look up the current listed ideas on the Obsidian Portal page (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/epic-dungeon-in-the-playground).