Help a new DM design a dungeon with undead theme

[FlyingScanian]

Well, it's soon to be my turn at DMing for our group (which will be my first time doing so, I can add), so I've begun sketching on a suitable adventure. Fairly basic, a simple fetch quest (though hopefully not to boring), to let me get a hang of things.

It seemed like such a good idea to place the "wanted item" (probably some book on magic theory), in a ruined castle/dungeon (exact classification pending), and then have a necromancer as the final boss. However, I've run into a few problems.

1) Monsters: I want it to be mainly undead monsters, presumably somewhat under the controll of said necromancer. Skeletons sound suitable, can be both archers and meleers... and then I realized that skeletons are based on the base creature's natural HD... So I could use both some variation on monsters (undead that are more than skeletons), as well as variation among the skeletons themselves. So far, it seems to be mostly humans and dwarves, with some additional bugbears (since a group of bugbears will provide a nice surprise first encounter, as well as later warning signs for traps and skellies).

2) I've yet to design a pure spellcaster, so I could certainly use a bit of help (or more) for designing a necromancer-type. My main idea would be wizard with focus in Necromancy (ban evocation and enchantment, perhaps?), but I have no idea as to suitable spells (I would here go for about equal parts buffing undead and dealing damage/battlefield control on his own). A smaller version of this, as an apprentice, would also be welcome (thus giving me a chance to practice the spellcaster against my players).

The players will most likely be level 6 or 7 when they face down the main guy, so I guess a necromancer level 7 (or 8, if they get far enough), backed up by additional skellies and "some kind of brute" (any suggestions?)

Of course, any fitting "crazy ideas" and traps that I could incorporate are fully welcome.

[Yora]

You'll want to challenge the players, but don't whipe out the party. So I'd say use spells that are annoying and slow the PCs down, but are unlikely to kill them. Even though a 7th level wizard can cast enervation, you should probably avoid that. Bestow Curse and Ray of Exhaustion are better candidates in that department.

Important for arcane spellcasters without tonnes of magical protection is to stay the hell away from any pointy metal in the PCs posession. As a necromancer, he shouldn't have any trouble to get some skeletons and zombies to throw themselves before him to keep the PCs at bay while he can cast spells from a safe distance away.

Regarding dungeon design, I would set up the dungeon in a way that does not require the PCs to kill each and every creature in the whole dungeon before they can enter the final chamber where they find the necromancer who didn't notice any intruders in his lair until that point. It's done a lot, but is also silly and doing something else will make the whole thing much more memorable.
When the PCs get their hands on them, he's pretty much dead. Whatever he does has to ensure that this doesn't happen. So at first set up some skeleton guards which the PCs destroy and then have them set of some alarm mechanism that notifies the necromancer of intruders. Or the noise from combat might be enough to alert them. Realizing he's under attack, he doesn't lock himself in his room and hopes the PCs go away or are miraculously killed by his skeletons, but instead starts to do something to get rid of them. Tricking them to walk into traps and ambushes would be one thing, preferedly without them being able to attack him at the same time. His primary motivation is not to kill them or guard a room, but to stay alive. Everything else is of secondary importance.

Instead of relying entirely on skeletons, you could also add a pair of advanced ghouls or shadows or something like that. Except for skeletons and zombies, most undead are actually quite cunning and often sneaky and instead of waiting in the middle of a room until someone comes through the door to kill them, they could prepare some ambushes of their own as well.

[Undercroft]

the odd pitfall trap here and there with a couple zombies at the bottom can be fun too. Do you have access to Libris Mortis or is it just core rulebooks (PHB, DMG, MM1)?

[edit]
Hmm, maybe apply the vampire template onto your boss. It also justifies spreading a couple vampire spawn about the dungeon too (perhaps as mini boss-fights with a vampire spawn leading some skeletons?). Plus vampires have gaseous form so you have a method of retreating if you want it as a recurring villain (or have an easy to find coffin if recurring villain is a no go)

[Canarr]

It's also never a bad idea to sort of "take a walk" through your dungeon once you've drawn the rooms (or looted a suitable map somewhere online). Imagine yourself as the necromancer (who, initially, isn't dead, right?) and think about what you'd like to have in your home if you were forced to live there with only one apprentice and a lot of dead bodies for company. A bathtub, and some way to heat it - which means, a lot of firewood, which someone (skeletons) has to gather. Does he like to read? Play boardgames? Does he do strange, forbidden experiments (like, use bones looted from the castle cemetery to build himself a bone golem or something similar)?

Motive is also important; what gets a man to live out in the wilderness, surrounded only by Undead? Did he flee civilization because they wanted to punish him for his horrible experiments, or does he actually *like* not having any immediate neighbors? Is he a loner, and thus unfriendly to any intruders, or would he appreciate company? Where does he get food and water? Is it delivered to him by someone, or does he periodically go and pick it up? Does he have other creatures living nearby (from a human village at the foot of the mountains to a tribe of goblins in the next caves over) and how do they react to him?

Next to motive comes alignment; is he Evil? Yes, many necromancers are (it's practically tradition), but some might not be. Neutral necromancers, looking to defeat death, or simply curious, might also be possible. It would also indicate how he is likely to treat others around him, and how his relationships to others are.

Now, you don't have to divulge all that information to your players; chances are, a lot of it won't see any use (and can thus be recycled for the next adventure...). But it's always a good thing to be prepared, and to have thought outside of the box (dungeon) in advance, just in case the players *do* try to hit up the next village for information, or try to hire some goblins as extra muscle, or...

As for actual traps or so: remember that Undead don't need to breathe. Trapped areas might be partially submerged in water (with skeletons lurking below...) or have some sort of poisonous mould growing on the walls.

[fferritt]

if you are cheap like me you get rather bored of looking at the same couple undead humans and such. you can either spend a bunch of time applying the skeleton template or cheat like i do.

a skeleton becomes a swirling tornado of bones with a skull glaring from the center.

or this skeleton has a large metal blade grafted to its arm

don't bother changing the stats much at all. type of damage is all i normaly do and only if it is applicable.

it adds a flavor to your monsters without adding any grunt DM paper work (which sucks).

now that i write this i seem to recall a book somewhere covering it. something about orc stats applied to some kind of plant monster. maybe a stole it from there. doesn't matter, either way it still works.

[Adam...?]

1) Monsters: I want it to be mainly undead monsters, presumably somewhat under the controll of said necromancer. Skeletons sound suitable, can be both archers and meleers... and then I realized that skeletons are based on the base creature's natural HD... So I could use both some variation on monsters (undead that are more than skeletons), as well as variation among the skeletons themselves. So far, it seems to be mostly humans and dwarves, with some additional bugbears (since a group of bugbears will provide a nice surprise first encounter, as well as later warning signs for traps and skellies).
While I love the idea of skeletons as basic undead minions, I've come to realize that they're really not great for "variation." Whether it's a skeletal human, dwarf, bugbear, or dragon, it's still really just moving around and hitting things with natural attacks. Effectively, they're just the same monsters with different numbers.

So when I ran an undead themed dungeon, I also had the PCs trying to reclaim a unique book on magic theory. Then I decided that the book contained the life's work of the relatively insane neutral necromancer living there, and it detailed the process to create "advanced" skeletons. Advanced skellies were fun to play with, because I let them keep some of the base creature's special attacks, class hit dice, and class abilities. So now medium size skeletons can become a slightly more level-appropriate threat by adding some fighter levels or something. That great-axe wielding skeletal minotaur can lay down some extra hurt on the charge. The skeletal tyrannosaurus gets to try to swallow the PCs whole (which, predictably, results in the player tumbling through the rib cage and down onto the ground. Who wants to roll to avoid falling damage?).

You kinda have to play fast and loose with the rules, and make a lot of arbitrary judgment calls, but making up a menagerie of skeletal monsters was some of the most fun DM prep work I've ever done.

[JaronK]

A nasty trick for any necromancer is to use the Black Sand spell to kill enemies and turn them into permanent Black Sand. The stuff just sits on the ground doing 1d6 negative energy damage to anyone who walks over it. As such, important rooms and choke points should be full of the stuff, healing his minions and harming his enemies. That might make the battlefields themselves more interesting.

On a similar note, many undead are immune to cold, so it would make sense for the Necromancer to have freezing areas, chilled with Blue Ice (don't put too much out, it's expensive) at the borders and then with an interior of Rimefire Ice and Stygian Ice. The former does 1 point of cold damage to anyone touching it, while the latter does 1d6 cold damage and forces people who take that damage to make a DC 12 Will save or take 2 points of Wisdom damage... and if they die of this (they take con damage when their Wis is gone) they turn into Wraiths, which would be a good source of undead for the Necromancer anyway (he might have a freezing pit where he stores such creatures, throwing in new bodies when he wants more of them). Cold itself has related penalties, see the DMG or Frostburn for more on that. And there are many cold themed undead critters that can be thrown in there. Be aware that these materials are costly, so use them sparingly or have some way to make sure the players don't just gather them up and sell them for massive profit. Still, it makes the dungeon feel more real and less like a random pointless maze.

A nasty trap that necromancers can easily make is just a simple pit trap with water in it, with a Ghoul Glyph spell cast on the wall of the trap low enough that it won't trigger until someone falls in. It's a no save paralysis effect, so it can easily drown someone on their own... but with someone else to dive in and save them, it might just be a fun and scary trap to throw a the players. Perhaps the Necromancer could also throw some uncontrolled undead in said pit, such as an aquatic thingy, since he doesn't need to control it once it's in place.

Somewhere in the books (I forget where... MMIII maybe?) is an undead bard template that gives a critter some interesting powers but gives a -10 to Move Silently due to the sound of any air going past its carved flutelike bones. Having that creepily coming towards you could be all kinds of interesting.

JaronK

[McSmack]

I was designing an undead dungeon recently. It was a town in a lush forest that had disappeared overnight into a large sinkhole. Several of the buildings survived the collapse in various states of ruin. Some of the trees surrounding the village had managed to keep some of their roots in the edge of the pit. Over the years these trees grew out over the pit and formed a sort of roof that covers the sinkhole. A young necromancer discovered the town while searching for a book believed to be in the possession of a traveling wizard who died in the collapse. Upon finding the town, the necromancer took possession of the area raising the dead from the ruins and setting up a base of operations.

This could make a slightly different and memorable lair for your adventure.
Here's some ideas to spice up the monsters.
Have the skeletons covered in thorny vines, with roses growing in their empty eye sockets and whatnot.
Undead animals. Zombie bears and squirrels are spooky. Karnathi Skeletons from ECS are a bit more beefy and might work pretty well, especially with some class levels. Morgh's are pretty cool. There's also a tomb spider mummy thing from MMVI(?) that might work as well - they explode in a spider swarm when they die. Magic of Eberron had an abberation that was undead on one half and alive on the other with a strip of flesh down the middle that was constantly rotting and healing itself.

If the party is level 6 or 7 there's plenty of variety of undead they can take out.

[Kogak]

1) Monsters: I want it to be mainly undead monsters, presumably somewhat under the controll of said necromancer. Skeletons sound suitable, can be both archers and meleers... and then I realized that skeletons are based on the base creature's natural HD... So I could use both some variation on monsters (undead that are more than skeletons), as well as variation among the skeletons themselves. So far, it seems to be mostly humans and dwarves, with some additional bugbears (since a group of bugbears will provide a nice surprise first encounter, as well as later warning signs for traps and skellies).


I find a somewhat nasty little trick usually keeps people off guard and (subsequently paranoid). Give your big-bad necromancer some of the corpse-crafter feats (Libris Mortis). Specifically, Corpse Crafter (+4 str and +2 HP per HD to all undead created by the caster) and Destruction Retribution (1d6 negative energy when killed, + 1d6/2 HD; reflex 15 for half, 10 ft. radius). Would this be fair on all of the undead (even piddly little skeletons are suddenly something to be avoided if in large numbers)? Not really, but it will give that rogue an edge he normally lacks when fighting undead.

To make the whole "living dead" thing a secret for just a little longer, have your necromancer hiding out in an old Formian lair (Monster Manual, not sure which page off hand). Skeletal critters are not really recognizable when they have an exoskeleton, I'm willing to bet. If you want to get particularly nasty, have your man get his hands on some "Awaken Undead" so your newfound exo-skeletal undead regain all of their EX abilities (Hive Mind in this instance). It'd take some tweaking (Fomians for example typically need a queen with a CR 17 to keep hive mind), but it will definitely make your stalwart adventurers pause. Toss in a few zombie bugs (indistinguishable courtesy of the exoskeleton thing) and they'll be really confused.

Intelligent undead might be working for the necromancer as a matter of previous agreement. Wights for instance might have taken up residence since they can see a safe place from which to hunt. Ghouls are a good addition to any undead group because a good necromancer (True Necromancers make for good versatility in bad guys even if everyone hate them for PCs :smallwink: ) should be able to command them. It never hurts to toss in the living apprentice from time to time. Even total nut-cases have followers (Nerul comes to mind).

[AslanCross]

There are a number of really cool and unsettling undead outside of Libris mortis:

MMIII
-Boneclaw (Large claw attacker with reach out to 20 feet thanks to extending spearing claws)
-Bonedrinker (Vampiric bugbear that can dissolve bones with its bite)

MMIV
-Necrosis Carnex (lump of flesh charged with negative energy that can heal other undead)
-Plague Walker (suicide bomber zombie)

There are many more, but these are my favorites.

[ericgrau]

Rather than plopping down a bunch of rooms and monsters to fill these rooms, I like the style of putting yourself into the necromancer's shoes and asking how you'd build the dungeon if you were him. The first thing that comes to mind with undead are don't eat, don't sleep, don't breathe, and live forever. I'd make a lot traps with things like poison gas and I'd station undead in secret compartments inside of vaults and "safe" rooms with some kind of time lapse trigger to spring onto unsuspecting PCs. Etc.

At the same time the necromancer needs a way to get through his own dungeon which means there are hidden bypass levers that the PCs might find, provided that they search the wall where they're located 15' away while possibly fighting zombies. This and other things likewise open up opportunities for the PCs. Besides the bypass levers the necromancer can't afford to make the walls and doors out of adamantine, and he can't make rooms so dangerous that he might die going through them. This could give clever PCs more opportunities

Thus the dungeon is more interesting than pure hack and slash, though trigger trap, remove poison and hack undead might also work with greater difficulty. In line with the "no adamantine doors" statement you don't want to make any special challenges that can't be bypassed through brute force or other unusual means that you didn't expect. PCs can't read your mind and will often only give blank stares of frustration if you make such challenges.

[fferritt]

i love putting crappy little skeletons around the dungeon with spell stitching on them (libris mortis?)

turns crappy guys into neat little bombs. or if you spell stitch some greater undead they get...well greater than before.

had a lich in our party who spell stitched himself once.

[hamishspence]

Somewhere in the books (I forget where... MMIII maybe?) is an undead bard template that gives a critter some interesting powers but gives a -10 to Move Silently due to the sound of any air going past its carved flutelike bones. Having that creepily coming towards you could be all kinds of interesting.

JaronK

The book is Ghostwalk, and the template is Bonesinger.

[McQ]

I've always wanted to make a lair with undead that have somehow retained their intelligence and are fairly good. I think I saw something in the Book of Exalted Deeds once to have good undead.

Something from a Tim Burton movie. That a local wizard went mad attempting to revive a dead loved one and affected a whole town. This is also making me think of the Forsaken and those things from Fallout 2. If you had intelligence and were going through that, some may not handle it well and might become evil. Maybe thinking it was their fate, maybe by their treatment from others.

I always wanted to make a game where zombies/undead were present and it was only a matter of time before the mindless brain eating would overtake the intelligence of the character. It bordered a bit along the premise of Humanity from Vampire. But essentially the more 'evil' you could do, the more negative energy, thus the undead aspect would grasp you further. There was also going to be something about words. That a magical commodity/component were simple words. And though you could speak, having a past life memories are scarce, and remembering particular words become difficult. Not to mention because you're deteriorating.