Monday, November 12, 2018

5 Room Adventure Practice

  1.  The Foyer
    1. This Room Houses a basin of dark, foul water. A pair of gaunt caryatid golems will leap down to destroy those who try to pass them without ablutions from the basin, which will mute contact with good deities and add hunger/withering effects to spells cast through arcane means. The owners of this tomb worshiped the Queen of Neverending Night. Wisps of  sharp cobwebs cover the statues, walls, and basin
  2. The Antechamber
    1. Crystalline spiders have shrouded the whole of the tomb henceforward with shimmery, vorpal webbing. Moving too fast or e.g. combat in this room will require Dex saves or damage to the PC. Breaking/shattering of the webs attracts crystalline spiders. There is a mosaic of nobles committing foul and obscene rites, sacrificing peasants, nightgaunts look on and above all the leering face of the QoNN
  3. False Tomb 1
    1. Easy to enter - the lock is painted red, cheap, and trapped with a poison needle that causes 2d6 damage (save for highest of the pair rolled only). A dais and sarcophagus - A gaunt noblewoman carved in alabaster is the lid. Inside, the remains of a handmaiden have been dressed in silks and festooned with brass gewgaws and a handful of cheap glass spread around the inside. A false map leads to certain death some leagues away. Everything is covered in contact poison that will cause itching and boils. Disturbing the lid brings shimmering spiders immediately
  4. False Tomb 2
    1. Somewhat harder to enter. The entrance from room 2 is hidden in the mosaic (the navel of a rapacious noblewoman is the trigger for the mechanism by which the door slides away). Inside, another sarcophagus. A nobleman, carved in alabaster, veins of iron artfully selected to appear as blood. Disturbing the lid causes a Coffer Corpse to leap up immediately, as the FF monster but he wields a poisoned great axe of evil and ancient design. If turned he will take his place in the sarcophagus and bide his time, rising up again when the turning's duration ends or the turner leaves the room. No treasure within the sarcophagus, but another map leading to a far-away (ludicrously large and totally imaginary) fortune. Pressing the eye sockets of the visage of the same nobleman on the side of the sarcophagus will cause the whole dais to slide, groaning, to the side revealing the cobwebbed entrance to room 5
  5. Real Tomb
    1. Egg sacs and webs of ethereal crystalline spiders hang here and there. Demons summoned by the owner of the tomb to guard it. Some long dead petty noble, a follower of the Ancient Queen of Night whose aim is to blot out the sun, give protection to corruption and to hide the misdeeds of the wealthy and evil. This room is a minor chapel to her, resting on a plinth is the real body of the dead man/woman. the body is covered in webs and the 1d8 large phase spiders do not permit approach. Fire will destroy the webs in the room, anger the spiders, and probably destroy the valuable tapestries, spellbooks (summoning phase spider (as monster but 1 level lower);darkness;silence;brew poison;brew aphrodisiac;petty divination) and 1d4 scrolls of evil clerical magic spells (level 2 or thereabouts). Vials of poison (brewed from phase spider venom) and aphrodisiacs/performance enhancers.
      The petty noble is half-living, perhaps a pseudolich, and fed upon the blood and fluids its pet spiders harvest from the local peoples. It will awaken and cast darkness, silence, and web immediately if any of the contents of the room are disturbed, and d12 large, hard-to-hit, and vengeful spider-demons will flood the room to feast and share their prey with their master.
The entrance to the tomb is in a subcellar of some wealthy dilletante's house in town. Plastered over. Most likely the owner is his/her ancestor. Her ownership of the home has caused the awakening of the spiders, who now traverse the neighborhood and feast and prey upon the poor and downtrodden populace. Children and night-walkers disappear. The new owner of the home is not well liked owing to lavish parties and questionable philosophies, but he/she is not fully aware of the cult of the Queen of Night but will gladly join should the PCs bring the matter to his/her attention. In fact, if they survive and do not destroy the spellbooks, scrolls, and other valuables, or otherwise hinder the revival of the cult, this area will become a bastion of the worship of the NightQueen and her demonic minions

The locals have suspicions. Perhaps a child is stolen when the PCs arrive. A fault in construction near the manorhouse of the noble provides access to the Foyer/Antechamber (exiting from the thing without first undertaking the ablutions will activate the caryatids, of course! and put the PCs in the winecellar of an irritable wealthy senator, councilperson, or somesuch). A hedgewizard scries the presence of spider-things flickering around the neighborhood.  A fabvorite doxy, barmaid, or tankard-boy at the local tavern is whisked away into the night right before a PC's eyes during carousing.

Pretty standard fare, I guess

1 comment:

  1. This looks pretty deadly, Noah! I can envision a whole conga-line of 0-level DCC characters getting dropped by one hazard after another.

    The "vorpal spider webs" make me think of the movie "Cube". Imagine the aghast look of horror on the players' faces when the first character to walk into the room suddenly just falls into geometric pieces where the webs sliced through them! And then the spiders come...

    ReplyDelete

Buy 'The Hounds' - Click Here