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View Full Version : DM Help Adventuring in a tomb leading over to a sewer



JenBurdoo
2015-07-26, 11:35 PM
I'm planning out the next couple sessions of a rules-lite DnD-style campaign. The party is currently bringing a message to a new Queen, who will (hopefully) get them to work for her (they have screwed up in the past, which may enable her to threaten them into compliance). Due to player interests so far (most of them want to kill things), I'm looking at a dungeon-style campaign, with different maps and sets of obstacles and lacing them together with an overarching plot. Here's what I'm thinking. Be aware that I'm a new DM and the players are even newer (and teenagers), and this is a library program so that I'm unlikely to continue having the same players every time (have managed to keep five for three sessions so far) -- I need ways for players to join and drop out, and I'm also having drop-ins run occasional NPCs.

- The Royal tomb, in which each successive king is buried, is trapped and filled with constructs to keep the bodies and artifacts safe until it's time to bury the next king and crown his successor -- at which point a party of disposable convicts or volunteer guards is formed to go back through and clean up the place so the funerary procession can get in, bury the king, and collect the coronation-only regalia. That time has arrived, and the party has been hired to deal with it. However, the last king died mysteriously, and the instructions are no longer reliable for more than one reason...

The party consists of:

- Two human magic-users (one a healer-priestess, one a mage with tragic secret backstory and elemental powers)
- Two thieves (one human, one human-cursed-to-have-a-lion's-head-and-nature)
- One elven scout/ambassador/archer
- One half-orc "knight" with armor, a big sword and throwing knives

So, effectively, two rogues, one wizard, one cleric, one fighter and one ranger. Thoughts on challenges for each in a "tomb"-style dungeon crawl? I'm thinking plenty of traps and locked doors for the rogues, an elemental construct or two for the wizard, a more robotic construct (or doors to bash down) for the fighter, plenty of injuries for the cleric to heal, and I'm not sure about the elf -- some sort of long-distance challenge that would either require shooting or athleticism to find a way across seems like an idea.

I'm thinking goblins might have snuck in and set up a functioning society down there in the generation since the previous king was buried and trapped-in. Perhaps they are aquatic goblins, and at the end of the tomb there is a broken wall and deep pool leading to the city sewer, which can be the next week's dungeon.

Traps and monsters to include:

- The front door, which has a password the players are given but if they fail to give it will shock them with lightning
- a pit trap (already open, containing dead goblins -- athletics/rope use/climbing/magic checks to get by)
- Two stone guardsmen who demand a password -- what the players have turns out to be incorrect and they must fight their way through, hopefully without destroying the guardsmen who will need to be "reset" later.
- Assorted vermin (dire rats, bugs, etc)
- A trap from Knights of the Dinner Table that involved grabbing a jewel in a hole without getting your hand chopped off by the blade trap inside -- that one might be cruel unless I can find plenty of clues or ways to warn the players not to go for it, and THEN I can let them have it if they ignore the warnings.
- The ghost of the first king who has been through this procedure countless times -- his job is to test the party's loyalty or honor with a riddle of some sort before letting them take certain royal artifacts back to the surface. (Perhaps, "Tell me the truth about why you are here", which might be hard for the more chaotic characters to answer)

Clues to both the goblins and the plot against the throne might include:

- Dessicated bodies of goblins in a pit trap (they die quickly away from water)
- Bones and goblin weapons scattered around a couple of constructs (this may also tip the party off that the constructs will wake and attack, though this should be in their instructions -- which are tampered with so that the passwords to get by the constructs don't work)
- One of the old tombs has been broken into; the ghost of the first king is not in his tomb as he should, instead is wandering around the tomb and will warn the party of further traps and the goblin lair, provided he is satisfied with their answers to his own questions.
- The ghost of the most recent king is also wandering around moaning and looking for revenge, kinda like Hamlet's dad
- Any lone captured goblins have a blue tinge to their green skin, webbed toes, are festooned with waterskins, and cry for water - a hint that the party can either cut off the goblins from their pool to make them surrender, or force them into it to get rid of them easier.
- The goblins are armed with magic weapons and equipment looted from the tomb that the party was supposed to retrieve for use at the coronation They dive into the pool to escape -- if the party follows it will find itself in the sewers, which contain giant alligators and chimerical creatures grown accidentally by the wizard's guild, which is not following environmental standards when it disposes of used potions. I'm not sure whether the leaders should fight harder (thus enabling the party to capture the magic items they came for) or if they should flee with the items, forcing the party to go after them and delay gratification.

Any thoughts are welcome. I feel ready, but have three days to worry and rewrite.

Geddy2112
2015-07-26, 11:54 PM
Sounds like you have it pretty together. Depending on your cleric, I would maybe throw in some more undead to fight. The fighter and wizard(and rest of the party) can still have fun fighting them, but the cleric will feel really useful if your system has divine energy damaging undead.

And maybe a gelatinous cube. Every ttRPG player needs to know the gelatinous cube!:smallsmile:

JenBurdoo
2015-07-28, 02:05 AM
The players are too new to have absorbed the classic tropes of the DnD-style classes and races, and I haven't emphasized the anti-undead element of religion in the milieu. There will be possibly two ghosts, and I'll tell the priestess that she can try to banish them. Or commune with them, too, I suppose. The person who designed the character (not the current player) thought of her as a healer/conciliator sort of person, not as a magical warrior with a mace (though she did end up with one and got to bash a few orc skulls in during the first session).

I'm definitely thinking of the gelatinous cube, possibly with another KODT reference to one stuck in a pit trap, baiting the players with the equipment and treasure of its previous victims. Might not use it this dungeon, though. The next maybe, which will be set in a sewer.

JenBurdoo
2015-08-29, 12:17 AM
Campaign collapsed due to successive illnesses and trips of members. Starting again next Wednesday with new characters (but we haven't built them yet -- I will recommend the mage/fighter/thief/healer standard but won't force it). Since I'm running it as an official library program, I'm looking at options to help players drop in and out as necessary. Right now, I'm planning to start where we left off, with the players as an impromptu royal spec-ops unit -- Some characters (knights, mages) will be employed directly by the queen, others (mercenaries, rogues) would be coerced. Same dungeon -- the catch being that I don't want them to end up absconding with the royal items. Given that there are two ways out, one of which is covered by the guards, and the other is completely underwater, I'm probably OK, especially if any employed PCs play their alignments.

NRSASD
2015-08-29, 12:59 AM
I really like the work you've put into it! I'd suggest making the leaders (or at least most of them) fight to the bitter end because they legitimately believe they can win with their magical equipment. Also, it's more rewarding for novice adventurers to have a good fight and claim the spoils then risk losing it to slippery thugs. Once the leaders are down, the rest of the band can collapse and flee, possibly to resurface as the next adventure. There were goblins in the halls of our kings?! And you let them escape?!?! Why aren't you down there hunting down the last of them RIGHT NOW!?!

P.S. Wait, this is an official program sponsored by your library?!

JenBurdoo
2015-08-29, 02:20 AM
Did I mention...?

https://www.facebook.com/youmediamiami/photos/a.633090533398266.1073741889.340711155969540/998649126842403/?type=1&theater

Technically, it's not sponsored, per se, (discounting my own librarian's pay, we're using my own books and dice) but it is on the official calendar, and we'll try to vlog it too.

Most important thing I've learned about working with teens so far is that they're easily distracted, which means a straight campaign will have an uphill climb. I'm also considering making them roll up civilian characters, then drafting them into the army, since if someone doesn't show up another member of the thousands-strong unit can just take over. But I'm hoping "The Queen's Own Troubleshooters" ("Find trouble and shoot it") will work just as well.