Half-Buried Pyramid

[LordErebus12]

So, i'm designing a pyramid for a slightly homebrewed 3.5 game set on Athas (Dark Sun Campaign Setting). The pyramid has been buried in the sands for centuries until a powerful sandstorm begins in the region, clearing away some of the sand covering it. The party will stumble across it as the storm picks up and enter it in hopes of finding shelter from what will be certain death.

I've never been skilled with traps, but its important that it has some. I figure 3 floors with 23 rooms. The creatures are between CR 2-5, with a few powerful mummies that can be higher CR. What I need is some help assembling it all. I have a rough draft of the layout of the place and need help filling it up.

Could someone help me out?

[John Longarrow]

For traps in a pyramid, think of what would last as long as your location was burried. Also think where would traps be located.

Examples:
1) Covered Pit trap. Until the floor gives out, no one knows its there.
2) Fake Door. If you try to open it, something else is set off (pit trap, falling slab to lock party in, ceiling above door collapese)
3) At intersections, if you go the wrong way (or only way if you were 'supposed' to take the secret door) it slants down to a dead end. Once you get to the bottom (T's, but either side only is 15' deep) sand is released from the top of the corridor to bury party.
4) Tracks down the middle of both walls in a corridor. They go up to the roof at the end. If you set it off, a roller comes down to trample everything in the corridor.
5) Undead behind secret door. Doors automatically open if you step on the wrong spot.

[Gildedragon]

Choking dust traps; if disturbed the fine dust on the floor stirs up acting as an inhaled poison

Arrow traps (some of them already triggered by obviously (un) dead ersatz explorers)

Brown mold

Poison, everywhere, all over

Quintessence preserved critters, triggering the trap releases the Qamd thus the critter

Treasure at the bottom of a Q filled pool, looks like water

Acid pool disguised to look like drinkable water

Pool full of stuff that gives poisonous fumes (see: poison it is all poison)

Unhallowed ground

Bestow curse traps

Trapped loot (grab that scepter, get jabbed by poison needle)

Reverse locks

Undead critters

Poison undead critters

Oozes

Drowning by sand traps

[BWR]

Lesser undead of various sorts. Zombies, skeletons, etc. perhaps a few crawling claws or wights. Maybe a lesser construct of some sort.
Make sure most of them are dressed up as mummies, because you don't bury just any old worker shabbiily dressed in such a tomb. Something like a lesser stone or clay golem, set to watch over the deceased.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The Draconomicon has the CR 1/2 Hoard Scarab and the CR 5 Hoard Scarab Swarm. They're exactly what they sound like.

[LordErebus12]

Got the giant map of the first level.

http://i.imgur.com/rw7mzqN.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rw7mzqN.jpg

this will allow us to work on it, room by room.

[John Longarrow]

LordErebus12,

Your pyramid is very... OPEN... inside. I figured you would have a lot of small, twisting passageways that keep the party from moving around like they want.

I don't think this will feel so much like fighting in an ancient pyramid as going into the Luxor hotel in Vegas. Course that does give me an idea.... Hordes and hordes of zombie slot players.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

LordErebus12,

Your pyramid is very... OPEN... inside. I figured you would have a lot of small, twisting passageways that keep the party from moving around like they want.

I don't think this will feel so much like fighting in an ancient pyramid as going into the Luxor hotel in Vegas. Course that does give me an idea.... Hordes and hordes of zombie slot players.

I'm going to agree with this, mostly because a pyramid is a gigantic pile of heavy stones that need to be supported. The Grand Gallery in the Pyramid of Giza is only half as wide at the ceiling as it is at the floor, and the ceiling is constructed of the densest stones they had available to lend it the strength to support the rest of the pyramid that's stacked atop it. A pyramid could not have open rooms with thin walls like you've planned, the top would have collapsed in on it within a few decades of its construction. I would give it a few large rooms, many small rooms, make every passageway between the rooms have at least one 90-degree turn, and make all the walls between rooms and passageways at least 10 ft. thick.

[LordErebus12]

I'm going to agree with this, mostly because a pyramid is a gigantic pile of heavy stones that need to be supported. The Grand Gallery in the Pyramid of Giza is only half as wide at the ceiling as it is at the floor, and the ceiling is constructed of the densest stones they had available to lend it the strength to support the rest of the pyramid that's stacked atop it. A pyramid could not have open rooms with thin walls like you've planned, the top would have collapsed in on it within a few decades of its construction. I would give it a few large rooms, many small rooms, make every passageway between the rooms have at least one 90-degree turn, and make all the walls between rooms and passageways at least 10 ft. thick.

well, I can understand that, although it will cause problems with the design. Any ideas?

As to the walls needing to be thicker... the program I used does not have walls thicker than what I've used. Also, the white/blank spaces inside the structure is solid stone, not open places.

There will be breaks in the structure and collapsed sections, but I have nothing set up yet. The floorplan can change a bit, too. This is merely the first draft from pencil to digital.

[BWR]

Pyramid was built with magic.
Problem solved.

What was the purpose of the pyramid?
Tomb? Temple? fancy house?

[Gildedragon]

LordErebus12,

Your pyramid is very... OPEN... inside. I figured you would have a lot of small, twisting passageways that keep the party from moving around like they want.

I don't think this will feel so much like fighting in an ancient pyramid as going into the Luxor hotel in Vegas. Course that does give me an idea.... Hordes and hordes of zombie slot players.

Traps of Hypnotic Pattern and Suggestion: Pull the lever (that triggers that trap again)

[LordErebus12]

Pyramid was built with magic.
Problem solved.

What was the purpose of the pyramid?
Tomb? Temple? fancy house?

Lol, well I dont want to go that far. Magic could have been used, but I'd gather it would only be utilized in certain rooms and only to strengthen the supports. The pyramid is supposed to be very open in areas, but naturally with empty rooms (as the current map shows) it looks funny.

The idea is still rough... The pyramid is the tomb of a long dead sorcerer-queen. She lost her kingdom to another nearby sorcerer-king after a near-catastrophic slave revolt weakened her influence among her subjects. She was captured in the final battle against the armies of that other SK and later sacrificed to fuel a powerful defiling spell. The sorcerer-king who did it to her made his peace with the kingdom by allowing her full burial rites.

[LordErebus12]

Second Draft. A bit more filled out, some ideas all around.

http://i.imgur.com/l9IFlOe.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/l9IFlOe.jpg

Decided on having three floors, with fewer and fewer rooms as we go up. There will also be openings that pass all the way through to the roof, which can open to let air and light into the central courtyard on the bottom level. They remain closed until activated, keeping the sands that were on top from falling inside.

[John Longarrow]

I'm not saying open spaces is bad, it just doesn't fit well with most peoples picture of what you expect inside a pyramid.

For a tomb, I'd also have a lot of twisting passages, galleries, and obsticals before you get to the nice, big, open crypt area. I'd also either put the crypt at the bottom or top of the pyramid.
Bonus points if they have to go through a bunch of winding passages to get to the sealed doors, get inside, and discover the crypt itself is on its own demi-plane. This way it can be at the top but still HUGE and OPEN.

[LordErebus12]

I'm not saying open spaces is bad, it just doesn't fit well with most peoples picture of what you expect inside a pyramid.

For a tomb, I'd also have a lot of twisting passages, galleries, and obsticals before you get to the nice, big, open crypt area. I'd also either put the crypt at the bottom or top of the pyramid.
Bonus points if they have to go through a bunch of winding passages to get to the sealed doors, get inside, and discover the crypt itself is on its own demi-plane. This way it can be at the top but still HUGE and OPEN.

neat idea, but I'm not gonna go with that planar route. I think demiplanes fit better in settings other than Dark Sun.