Castlevania Encounter/Dungeon Ideas!

[Godric]

So, I've decided to run a Castlevania style "fight through Dracula's castle and kick his ass" campaign. I have the general dungeon layout/campaign progression set out (gardens to tallest tower), BUT I was wondering if any of you guys out there would have any ideas?

Don't worry about what I might already have thought of, even if it's a similar idea, it probably won't be the same :) Any and all ideas will help!

[Comet]

Zombies. More than you can count.

Annoying jump checks.

A clock tower.

Fleamen. They do miniscule damage, but you can't hit them even if you want to.

Epic loot hidden inside candles.

Cerberus & Death.

I'm kind of in a hurry, so these are just some thoughts. I might get back to this when I have some more ideas.

[Assassin89]

What about those annoying Medusa heads, who interfere with the jump checks, and temporarily turn the target to stone?

[KillianHawkeye]

Question: What system/edition? D&D 3.5?


Let's see....

(awesomely) bad voice acting
creepy boat dude
spikes (or other traps)
a gladiatorial arena/colloseum
a curse
evil priests/cultists
demons
werewolves
fishmen
zombies/skeletons that come back to life
giant bats
a spooky cathedral w/ big stained-glass windows
a library
ghost swarms
big armored dudes w/ giant swords & axes
flying medusa heads
doppleganger or mirror of opposition (one for each party member)
teleporters?
freaky flesh golems
some kinda big hairy beast
...
...
make them do it all again, only this time everything's upside down??

[woodenbandman]

This just reminded me of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy :D

I wanna play that so badly right now.

[Madapplejack]

A cursed NPC, just so you can have him say "What a horrible night to have a curse!"

[Garian]

This just reminded me of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy :D

I wanna play that so badly right now.

I have such fond memory's of that game.
It was the first game a fell in love with, that was most likely not a good think.

[Frosty]

Make sure to give each character unique special abilities as they level up oe special equipment with unique abilities so that they can finally explore a different part of the castle, Metroid/Symphony of the Night style!

Also, turn the castle upside down sometime.

[Godric]

Hmmm...special powers and abilities, you say? Go on.

(I've never played SOTN)

I am planning on having some giant, runed and locked stone doors to wings of the castle, requiring items from bosses or switches, etc.

[Salt_Crow]

One word: CLOCKTOWER.

Maybe an abducted lady or two... a Holy Avenger whip etc.

Well you could always look into Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for some nice ideas and wonderful maps. In addition you get the horror that is Strahd. Not a bad deal at all ;)

[Kletian999]

Frankenstein (monster) and Igor (Elite fleaman)! The horrible duo of the first game!.

Legion, aka Big ball of Dead People- a minion spawning monstrosity that shoots lasers when bloodied.

Dragonskull flame shooter traps.

Delicious food found in breaking unlikely rocks.

You need to jump and hit Dracula in the face to damage him until he transforms.

The Open Grave book has a ton of great Vampire Ideas, including Mist and Wolf forms.

[Xenogears]

First off. Clock Towers with annoyingly hard jump checks are a must.
Second of all. Must have hidden rooms behind breakable walls that inexplicably contain a freshly cooked chicken.
Whips! Whips! and More Whips!
Have the players harvest the enemies hearts in order to power a select few magical items they possess.

[Godric]

bump bump bump!

Let's see the creativityyyyy

[KillianHawkeye]

(I've never played SOTN)

First, go and correct this unfortunate circumstance.

We'll wait.

[Kurald Galain]

It needs lots of bloody hearts all over the place, of course. For some reason, when you throw these at people, they turn into shuriken, axes, or holy water.

(edit) Also, google up the song 'Travel Demon' and play it in the background, because it is completely awesome!

[Zaq]

Also, google up the song 'Travel Demon' and play it in the background, because it is completely awesome!

SSH (the seriously awesome dude who is responsible for Travel Demon) also has a few other Castlevania songs out there, including an excellent version of the perennial favorite Bloody Tears and a respectable rendition of Wicked Child (At least I'm 90% sure that's the name, been a while). Of course, most of SSH's work is highly enjoyable, particularly (but not exclusively!) if you're familiar with the original. (The actually original works are great as well... Midnight Shooter, for instance, is an excellent example of how to take a single simple theme and turn it into an entire song, only doing it right. But my tangent light is blinking.)

If you go for some of the later material (speaking now about Castlevania rather than about SSH), it could be fun to include a merchant in the castle whose room is perpetually free of monsters, yet who has no idea why he's in the castle or where his wares come from. He just exists to sell. You can have him in a single place, or you can have him (always the same guy, with no explanation) pop up in varying places all around the castle.

Be sure to have a teleport-damping effect in the castle. Too many classic Castlevania obstacles would be far, far too simple to just dim door past, and there goes all your hard work. Drac himself, of course, is an exception to this rule. Make sure he has multiple forms, and whatever you do, his first form has to consist of him teleporting a short distance and shooting three fireballs. This is a necessity.

What ECL is the party? There are plenty of monsters who would make a good stand-in for Death, but you should make sure he's of an appropriate CR, especially because he's traditionally alone.

Whatever happens, I'd like to request that you tell us all about how it goes!

[Comet]

A cursed NPC, just so you can have him say "What a horrible night to have a curse!"

This. Caught me completely off-guard. Congratulations on making me laugh like a fool.

Great suggestions everyone. Tho I'm pretty sure no-one has mentioned the classic brigde-over-a-lake level yet. With those annoying fishmen jumping at you and having to jump from platform to platform while the bridge is breaking apart.
Those levels used to annoy me to no end.

Edit: And for extra Rondo of Blood awesomeness, allow the players to make tumble checks to perform awesome backflips.

[Kurald Galain]

SSH (the seriously awesome dude who is responsible for Travel Demon) also has a few other Castlevania songs out there, including an excellent version of the perennial favorite Bloody Tears and a respectable rendition of Wicked Child (At least I'm 90% sure that's the name, been a while).

Do you have a few links for us please?

[Zaq]

Do you have a few links for us please?

I'm afraid I don't remember exactly where the SSH songs now happily sitting on my computer came from originally, since the SSH main page doesn't seem to have a lot of them. A quick Google search gave me this, which, while not very good, at least has Bloody Tears. I'm sure some more google digging could unearth some better sources (for instance, ones which allow you to actually download the music in question rather than just stream it). I wish I remembered where I originally got these songs, but I'm afraid I can't help you. Sorry.

If you're new to SSH, though, this is (or perhaps was?) the old source, though it's missing quite a lot. If nothing else, it does have Travel Demon and a good handful of other non-Castlevania goodies (I highly recommend The Watchdog of Hell, Fighting of the Spirit, Venus Fire, and Midnight Shooter, though it's almost all awesome).

[Xuincherguixe]

I've kind of had some thoughts about some castlevania inspired things in D&D too...

But yeah, I would say it would not be totally unreasonable to play up the general unnaturalness. Do weird things with space. And possibly time. Extra dimensions are always good too, such as an upside down castle, or mirror image thing.

Taking a queue from prey... how about localized gravity? You might be on the floor, and the werewolf could be running along the wall. Or is it on the wall and you're on the floor? Everything gets very relative then...

The castle itself could be a monster. A figure like Dracula isn't strictly necessary. Though if you were to have some sort of final boss monster that wasn't physically the castle... it could have a manifestation of itself within itself. Or, the castle is itself an expression of the BBEG.

Still, it'd be great if all the sudden tentacles come out of the walls, and when they touch an adventurer suddenly gravity changes for them and they see thousands of teeth where there used to be walls. The other players would of course not see this.


I would also say, you could stand to have a sympathetic villain. Pure evil of course, but with some sort of traumatic past event that drove them towards becoming an unnatural abomination.


Also, feel free to fill the dungeons with various monstrous ground dwelling invertebrates. Centipedes, worms, insects, spiders and such.