Drowned City (ideas)

[bokodasu]

So, say you've got the ruins of a city that is 100' underwater due to the presence of a huge dam made of magical ice.

What would you put in it? (Traps, tricks, cool stuff?) What are some ways to destroy the dam (keeping in mind that it's magical, so a well-placed fireball probably won't do it), and what would happen if a huge dam made of magical ice were suddenly smashed?

(System is 3.5 if you need specifics, but really I'm looking more for general ideas about what would happen to/what you'd find in a city drowned in that way.)

Also, if anyone knows of any cool underwater ruins art, please share!

[dsmiles]

Release the KRAKEN! :smallbiggrin:

[Yora]

Who build the city and who build the dam?

[Asheram]

Reminds of the old "Lupin the Third, Castle of Cagliostro" episode.

Hm. Well, two reasons to why a city would be sunk like that.
1. It was intentional from the city dwellers.
2. It was a hostile action.

[Grail]

City

I wouldn't be putting any traps in it. Afterall, it was a city.

I would populate the city with water-based creatures afterall (duh), :smallwink:, and I've always liked the Sahuagin.

Saying that though, it sounds like this is a cursed city, and I'd be having it be populated entirely with undead. The water could be bone-chillingly cold, colder than it should be, even accounting for the magical dam of ice. No plant life, no animal life should survive in the water around the city. Skeletons, Wraiths and Ghosts - the former inhabitants of the city. I'd have no meaty undead like zombies, wights or ghouls (unless the city was recently submerged).

If it was recently submerged, or if you wanted to go further into the curse concept, you could have plenty of drowned zombies, and lacedon ghouls.

As for art, a quick google search should suffice - lots of art there of underwater ruins that is both real world and fantasty genre art, such as:

http://www-cache.daz3d.com/sections/galleries/artwork/121/19905.jpg

Dam

I would see the Dam as a symptom of the curse, not the curse itself.

Perhaps the High Priest of the city offended a god, committed blasphemy or turned his back on his faith? Perhaps the city as a whole did it, and the High Priest merely led them into doom?

What if, in the ruined High Temple, where a Dread Wraith Priest still performs sacrilegious and blasphemous rituals to a false idol, rests the bones of a saint that has been desecrated. To destroy the dam, the bones must be retrieved and laid to rest in consecrated ground?

[Kol Korran]

hhhmmm, no concrete thought, just various ideas:

- general inhabitants could be various water/ cold elemental creatures- mephits, elementals, themselves, and so on.

- around the city in all kind of places the party encounter various "current ghosts"- a sort of a presence that can partially shape the water, or to a lesser extent- even the stone of the ruins (or statues and such) they are curious about the visiting characters, perhaps even trying to converse with them? possible complications could be a dead language, only partial words/ syllables, and of course- unknown (at least partially) topics of conversation. this may require quite a bit of creativity on the side of PCs.

- some of these current ghosts may be beneficial, some like trickery, and some might be angry (creating various hazardous conditions such as freezing/ boiling the water, or instant traps- causing a roof to cave in and so on). finding who the party can trust might be problematic.

- as Grail said, i get the feeling of a cursed city. but instead of undead i'm thinking perhaps some sort of lesser aberrations? or perhaps just one big one? i've always been a fan of gibbering mouthers- perhaps advance one of them to a huge or gargantuan size, and allow it to split upon impact, creating smaller mouthers? a mass of flesh, eyes and teeth swimming through the water, splitting and knitting together, gibbering and bemoaning in an old tongue of the curse they suffered...

yeah, i like mouthers. :smallbiggrin:

- perhaps the place has a secret- tunnels that lead to down below, deeper, deeper, colder all the way, up to unnatural cold. the tunnels are twisting, shifting, some leading back and so on. the party needs to figure out a way to navigate the puzzling tunnels. and they need to hurry, for as time passes they feel themselves slowly loosing themselves (perhaps wis damage/ drain), becoming fainter, losing substance, become like the current ghosts.

what lies below i do not know. i leave that to you. (though some version of an Aboleth might be fun i think, perhaps one with templates?)

as to the ice wall: it might be toppled through solving the mystery, or perhaps through some well placed prayer? or... don't know. i imagine the city will become exposed, but the curse on the city is lifted, and the city resumes part of it's past appearance. (though the dead stay dead). it might be that some place that was kept locked by the pressure of water (by some sort of either mundane or magical mechanism) is now open for the party to explore?

hope this helps, and not TOO cliche.
Kol.

[begooler]

No one in the neighboring settlements knows why the townspeople built a dam that flooded and destroyed their own town. All they know is its been like that as long as they can remember.

Long ago, (before anyone can remember) there was a small but successful city known for making (insert magical item desirable to PC's.) Unbeknownst to the townspeople, an aboleth resided in their city's lake. Over time, the creature is able to dominate some wizards and engineers who build the dam, flooding the city, turning it into aboleth town.
This magical wall of ice has to be maintained, and the now mayor aboleth has kept mages under its domination for the purpose of doing just that. Killing the mages or the aboleth that dominates them will destroy the dam, though maybe not immediately.

[bokodasu]

I love all these ideas so far. I do know why the city is drowned, but I don't want to put in too many details in case my players are trolling this forum. "Cursed city" is close enough - it was punishment from some gods, anyway, who installed the ice dam. (Not only creating this drowned city, but a huge desert out of the grasslands to the southeast. They were clearly... displeased.)

I'm especially liking the cold undead idea - I do want the players to have the option of either fixing the thing under the water or destroying the dam first, so I don't want all my encouters to be nullified by which path they choose. Amphibious kraken, hmm... :smallbiggrin:

Also hmmm... they'll be coming off a monthlong trek through the desert, so a sudden enormous wall of magical ice followed by a freezing underwater adventure does make for a nice contrast. Maybe I won't let them break the dam first after all...

[Feralventas]

So, say you've got the ruins of a city that is 100' underwater due to the presence of a huge dam made of magical ice.

What would you put in it? (Traps, tricks, cool stuff?) What are some ways to destroy the dam (keeping in mind that it's magical, so a well-placed fireball probably won't do it), and what would happen if a huge dam made of magical ice were suddenly smashed?

(System is 3.5 if you need specifics, but really I'm looking more for general ideas about what would happen to/what you'd find in a city drowned in that way.)

Also, if anyone knows of any cool underwater ruins art, please share!

Well, a magical ice barrier makes me think that perhaps a few creatures from Frostburn would perhaps be bound to guard the thing and keep it from being destroyed in the first place. Elementals or fey spirits or the like. Destroying a dam via simple Fire to melt it might work, but as you've said, it's magical nature makes me think a more physical method would work well.

Pass-wall would put a hole in the thing pretty easily, and once the water starts rushing past at those pressures the dam would need to start making fortitude saves (as a magical item mind you) to avoid complete collapse as you might for a Sunder or Disintegrate effect. Sonic spells damage like Shout or Resounding Thunder might do the deed as well, though even in small scale, the Clap of Thunder reserve feat could cause a small fracture with persistance, and then you run into the crack-> flow of water -> more pressure-> breaking dam.

If the damn recently flooded the city, I'd suggest you take a look at the Drowned from Monster Manual 3. Seems like it would fit thematically. If it's been a long while since it flooded, perhaps some aquatic elves (Or if you want to be evil, Malenti Sahuagin) have taken up residence and are very territorial about their carefully crafted home.

Also, refluffed sea-weed Assassin Vines. If your party strays too close to the lake's silt-bed.

[Asheram]

"Gather round, children... Gather round." The old man began as he always did his stories, by calling the children closer and reaching down into the sand, gathering up the countless shards of ancient earth and letting them flow through his fingers.

"Tonight, I will be telling about The Pass." He continued and turned his face towards the Chi'rak, the spine of mountains which marked the end of the desert and solemly reflected upon the blue light which shone from between two great peaks of stone.

"Once, a very long time ago, this desert which we call home was as green as little Kathiras eyes here." The man gestured towards the young girl sitting next to him, his great granddaughter and pride. "This was a fertile land and the crops grown here was known far and wide. The source of it all was the Chi'rak Mel, the sapphire of the gods, a great river which ran through these lands and blessed us with good fortune."

"The king, Azchati the fool, he ruled from his castle which were built in the pass between the great mountains, a place of unimaginable wealth and beauty. Bards used to tell tales that the city was as if taken from Elysium itself and should be called the city of gods. Alas, fool Azchati started to believe in the tales and proclaimed himself a God, casting out the clergy from the different religions and demanded to be worshiped..." The old man interrupted himself with a coughing fit, his palms firmly placed on the ground as his body jerked with each dry cough.

"...Yes... Worshiped. Azchati challenged the gods and was punished for it, we were all punished for it... The gods erected a wall of shimmering blue ice where the river would have spilled out into what soon became a desert. They made the water amass, flowing out over the streets of the city and drowned every man, woman and child who hadn't spoken up against Azchati when he threw out the gods servants from his once great city."

"And so ended the great kingdom we had, the sapphire of the gods was sealed inside The Pass and we who had left the city were locked out."

"Now, if you dare tread close to that place, as I once did in my youth, you will see terrible and strange beings swimming through the streets. The city isn't dead I tell you, I've seen the skeletons of the visitors who weren't as careful as I and I've seen the true ruler of fool Azchatis city, that massive beast which..." Once again the old man trembled as a coughing fit came upon him and after what seemed like forever the old man finally calmed down and forced a smile upon his lips.

"...but that will be a tale for another time. You go to your tents now and have a good rest, tomorrow is another day and another trial for us cast-out from our own kingdom."


((It's a thursday night and I felt like telling a story. :smalltongue: Sorry for any grammatical errors and I use the classic excuse that english isn't my native tongue.))

[Rorrik]

The first thing I envision when you say drowned city is the Water Temple for Zelda: Ocarina of time.

Since its been flooded due to a damn, most of it should be intact because there was no fast rushing through the city. In fact, being flooded due to a damn, most of the inhabitants should have had time to get out, unless torrential rain accompanied the creation of the damn and the river they were built on passed its bounds in a matter of hours. It would have to be rain like would pass the river's bounds even without the damn for them to not be prepared for it.

As far as breaking the damn, if I were a player and preferred exploring a dry city to a drowned one, my first recourse would be to use move earth to create a canal or tunnel through which to drain off the water.

[Tvtyrant]

I guess it depends on how long it has been there. If its been a while, you could have the mud suck up the lower floors and basements of most buildings, so it looks like the city is slowly sinking as well as being underwater. A dam usually implies freshwater, so it probably shouldn't be marine. Bass and other freshwater animals, with some sort of predator to make journeying through it uncomfortable.

You could even have a school of very large predators which force the players to stay inside the buildings most of the time, and they have to swim quickly out of one building and into the next to keep from getting attacked. This makes the city more like a water-dungeon.

[TheCountAlucard]

damn, damn, damn damn damn...No "n." It's just "dam."

[begooler]

Consider another settlement (or just a habitat for wild creatures, fey etc) that will be flooded if the dam is destroyed. These creatures could be additional enemies and also provide a moral and ethical conundrum, depending on the nature of the characters.

[Rorrik]

No "n." It's just "dam."

Wow, such a silly mistake. Either way, I'd dig around the damn dam.

[DaMullet]

No "n." It's just "dam."

If it's been put there by a vengeful god, it's both.

[Grail]

2 fish were swimming along the river really fast, trying to outdo each other. Suddenly, one fish slammed into a massive wall of ice. The other fish grimaced and exclaimed "Damn!".

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Jay R]

So, say you've got the ruins of a city that is 100' underwater due to the presence of a huge dam made of magical ice.

What would you put in it? (Traps, tricks, cool stuff?) What are some ways to destroy the dam (keeping in mind that it's magical, so a well-placed fireball probably won't do it), and what would happen if a huge dam made of magical ice were suddenly smashed?)

Step one in destroying it is Dispel Magic, obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn't mess with the dam. Just dig a channel around it.


(System is 3.5 if you need specifics, but really I'm looking more for general ideas about what would happen to/what you'd find in a city drowned in that way.)

A fire elemental trapped in a bottle. He would be destroyed if he escaped. That's why the city was flooded.

Fish that have developed in what was once an alchemists' lab. They have any power you want to give them.

A staff that has been slowly rotting away. As soon as somebody touches it, it will Final Strike.

A vault has very likely rusted solid, and cannot be easily opened.