Inside the gullet of a beast of collosal proportions, A demi-plane created by the spells create demi-plane, small planet, (ice)Caves.
Depending on level of the adventurers and resources a valley might be 'enclosed' as can a variety of other places, once they can teleport few things actually will be 'enclosed'
A thick tangle of plants, like a hedge or deep jungle with some paths and clearings.
a loose archipelago of solid clouds with tunnels inside
a tangle of streets in a multi-tiered city.
a deep canyon with sheer sides. Above the protection of the canyon walls, fierce sandstorms make travel impossible.
a coral reef or cenote
deep swamp with a permanent lingering fog
An abandoned city on an island.
A temple or monastery complex.
A petrified forest.
The Hallelujah Mountains from Avatar.
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A dream.
Have the party fall through a hole... cave in or visit a defunct cave.
When they land they find themselves in a great hall full of laughing people eating and drinking. A party with beautiful people, rousing music, and delicious smelling treats. As the party looks around people great them and are friendly, asking them to dance or to sit for a drink. If asked where they are or how to leave the people simply ignore the question or turn the question to fashion or art.
All of a sudden a disheveled man burst in and starts throwing things around and causing a scene. When he sees the party he looks shocked and angry. He shouts "You should not be here". He attacks the party and after is quite the adversary. When he is close to defeat he runs away seemingly immune to any attempt to stop him. When the party follows they leave to find themselves in a fantastical Garden/town/forest/whatever... the man leads them farther and farther and seems to cause increasingly dangerous things to attack them.
The whole time he shouts that the party should not be here. If the party tries to return to the party they are confused to find that the terrain has changed and they are seemingly lost. The enemies they fight all die and can be looted. All except for the man. If ever defeated he dissipates and returns soon after to attack again.
Finally the party tracks him down to his stronghold. A decrepit hold all but empty of furnishings and falling in. He states that he must help you leave this place and before he can explain a great screech is heard.... the man looks at you and says" If you ever wish to leave this place you will fight this. I will help if I can. Prepare yourselves.
A creature (your pick) descends upon the party and the man and after it is defeated the party awakens to find itself still at the bottom of a hole... vines wrapped around them... spores in the air, and what seems to be hundreds of corpses picked clean by similar vines that seem to have grown into its victims. In reality the party had fallen victim to a plant that fed from living flesh while its spores caused them to have a group fantasy of the perfect place. And it was all except for the strange man. It seems the beast was there to stop the party or the man from escape.
Near the party is one man still alive, though at the brink of death. He is the man that first attacked your party. All the loot they collected can be found on the corpses (so your party doesn't feel jipped) Your choice whether the man is "To far gone" to recover with the parties help.
A little encounter I plan on building for my party... I haven't fleshed it out fully.
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A chain of islands, atolls, sandbars, and coral formations with a form of surf/atmosphere that makes air or water-travel impossible or too hazardous. Combine this with some of the above mentioned ideas of vegetation mazes, an abandoned, partially flooded ruins of a city and odd tiered ruins in a valley and you can simulate a "megadungeon" without ever leaving the surface.
A classic dungeon is, after all, just a flowchart with stone walls. Change the walls.
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I need suggestions for places that aren't actual dungeons, but can function well for dungeon crawls. Which means that they're enclosed, but also big enough for an entire adventure (likely one-shot or side-quest).
I wrote a great adventure once about a 'floating reef', a mass of broken and partially submerged ships overgrown by giant kelp. It was caught in the jetstream and moved in a leisurely circle through shipping lanes - sailors gave it a wide berth because of the common superstition that dead sailors populated the wreckage, but in truth a group of sahuagin were using it as a mobile base to attack merchant vessels. The PC's were sent there by a merchant who had reason to believe that an old tribute fleet which had been lost to a storm had ended up among the wreckage.
It was a great adventure with open sky above, open water below, indoor and outdoor encounters and the players were unable to wear metal armors and the like due to the possibility of drowning.
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A demi-plane that is just one giant mansion.
The World Serpent Inn's back rooms.
A series of rooms on multiple continents/planes, connected by teleportation gates.
Inside any compartmentalized building or group of buildings: a zoo, a museum, a funeral home.
Currently I'm working on 2 scenes. One is a standard underground dungeon but with the twist that the adventure scenes are mites getting revenge on people who picked on them at a sideshow. Sort of an underground carnival.
The second starts at a gypsy camp, among their caravans. From there a trail leads through a thick, haunted forest at night. Winding through the wood the party realises from the scenes they encounter that they're walking through a fey revel and at the "end of the dungeon" they come upon a forlarren witch and her ensorcelled werewolf consort.
I need suggestions for places that aren't actual dungeons, but can function well for dungeon crawls. Which means that they're enclosed, but also big enough for an entire adventure (likely one-shot or side-quest).I wrote a great adventure once about a 'floating reef', a mass of broken and partially submerged ships overgrown by giant kelp. It was caught in the jetstream and moved in a leisurely circle through shipping lanes - sailors gave it a wide berth because of the common superstition that dead sailors populated the wreckage, but in truth a group of sahuagin were using it as a mobile base to attack merchant vessels. The PC's were sent there by a merchant who had reason to believe that an old tribute fleet which had been lost to a storm had ended up among the wreckage.
It was a great adventure with open sky above, open water below, indoor and outdoor encounters and the players were unable to wear metal armors and the like due to the possibility of drowning.
You wouldn't happen to still have that? Iv'e got a group of PC's who just got a ship and that idea sounds AWESOME!
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You wouldn't happen to still have that? Iv'e got a group of PC's who just got a ship and that idea sounds AWESOME!I need suggestions for places that aren't actual dungeons, but can function well for dungeon crawls. Which means that they're enclosed, but also big enough for an entire adventure (likely one-shot or side-quest).I wrote a great adventure once about a 'floating reef', a mass of broken and partially submerged ships overgrown by giant kelp. It was caught in the jetstream and moved in a leisurely circle through shipping lanes - sailors gave it a wide berth because of the common superstition that dead sailors populated the wreckage, but in truth a group of sahuagin were using it as a mobile base to attack merchant vessels. The PC's were sent there by a merchant who had reason to believe that an old tribute fleet which had been lost to a storm had ended up among the wreckage.
It was a great adventure with open sky above, open water below, indoor and outdoor encounters and the players were unable to wear metal armors and the like due to the possibility of drowning.
Actually no, it was one of several adventures I sold Dungeon magazine back when I was in high-school many years ago, and there have been too many moves/computer crashes for any of it to remain. Wouldn't be hard for you to recreate, I'm sure - the biggest challenge was the maps and managing sloped decks, submerged and partially submerged chambers, etc. Pathfinder has some great resources along those lines, much better than I ever had then.
The set-up was a merchant hiring them to investigate the wreck - the ship he hired to bring them out to it refused to get within a mile of it, so they had to row out to it, and once there they had to climb through the kelp, swim at times as the wreckage created little lagoons and so on. I played up the undead sailors thing big time on the lead in though there were actually none on the ships. I had the Sahuagin arrive well after the characters, once they had explored a little bit, fought off a sea-troll and a few sea critters.
Actually, in my personal campaign, I had their ship attacked by sahuagin while they were exploring, then had the sahuagin return to the floating reef to discover the characters there... it was the kick-off to a major underwater campaign (the only one I ever did), highlighted by a timely rescue from some sea elves.
I always enjoyed creating new environments for my characters without getting too far 'out there', i.e. demi-planes (not that I have a problem with them, we just tend to play more of a 'low magic' theme).
- A series of rooms and portals. Puzzles are traditional here.
- A maze, as per the spell with same name.
- A three-dimensional tangled web or net, suspended somewhere in space.
- A county - the players won't think of a road map as a dungeon, but you'll know it is... ;)
I need suggestions for places that aren't actual dungeons, but can function well for dungeon crawls. Which means that they're enclosed, but also big enough for an entire adventure (likely one-shot or side-quest).
Crashed spaceships, like Numeria; Mad Scientist/Alchemist lab.
In my steampunk game, over the last month or so; I've used a scrapyard, abandoned warehouses and a section of the sewer system.
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Magical art gallery. Rooms are actually paintings, scuptures, ect that are enchanted.
I like alchemist labs!
Lots of fun hazards and terrain features.
Cauldrons of fire, acid, boiling oil, potions of healing/enlarge/reduce.
Tables to jump on/turn over as cover/hide under.
Shelves full of alchemical items, poisons, potions, jars of eyeballs, etc.
Slick spills of chemicals, acidic pits, bizzare difficult terrain, hallucinagenic mushrooms, oubliettes filled with failed crossbred specimens, etc. etc.
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I, once upon a time, took it upon myself to draw and map out a mansion. Five stories tall, two wings, a basement, a seperate stables, all surrounded by a wall. The entire estate was perched on a cliff where it brooded over the eternal sea. It was on the outskirts of a major city.
Well, the party was hired to take a package there, but the place was deserted of all human life. Non-human life and undead, it had in abundance. They battled their way through the gate-keeper golem, defeated the skeletal warhorses in the stables, slaughtered the gnoll ranger/druid groundskeepers and fought their way inside.
At this point, I screwed up. I showed them the map. THIRTY MINUTES LATER, they were still oohing and aahing and planning how THIS was going to be their new base of operations. Finally we get back to the game, and every time I described something else, it was 'oh, this room is so mine.'
They cleared the main floor, and then the two sleeping floors above. They crawled through the attics and climbed up to the observatory tower. Then the fought their way down to the ground floor--and when he saw that the place had a chapel, the cleric finally voiced his opinion.
"Yep. This place is ours, gents."
Then came the basement crawl and they found the secret door into the summoning chamber--complete with a Glazberu. Tough fight, but they prevailed. And then spent all their hard-won gold to fix up the place and cleanse/restore it. They didn't want to leave it.
So, getting frustated at DMing a game of Housecleaning and Hospitality, I had the local authorities present the real holder of the deed and evicted them. Oh, they were pissed! To this day, they gripe about how the Duke stole their manor and how they are going to get revenge.
It was just a classic dungeon crawl, but in a different form--and my players just ate it up.
Master Arminas
The inside of a god's giant puzzle box.
Reenact the movie 'The Thing' by John Carpenter. And then have the player go into the space ship.
The pc's are in a labyrinthine maze. The walls and floor are spongy and coated in slime. Every so often electrical pulses flow along "veins" in the surfaces. Finally they find a way out and realize... THEY WERE INSIDE A GIANT BRAIN!
Beached whale corpse, or some other huge sea creature, that has been converted into a horrific fleshfort by a necromancer/aberrant parasite/demon.
The insides of a gigantic construct/colossus that is currently on the move.
Aspidochelone (council of thieves 3, bestiary)
Imagine the party investigating an island that mysteriously appeared some way off the shore...
I'm gonna go City of the Gods and Expedition to Barrier Peaks, explore a giant piece of space wreckage and get some nice tech items in the process. These could obviously be used in Golarion in Numeria. Or go for Machine Cyst, a underground factory pumping out constructs ran by a mysterious 'overseer' who can be what ever you want! Crazy wizard from outerspace? Great! Godseed long forgotten? Sure! A spaceships repair function gone wrong? I did it, Sorry everyone it wont hurt much!Dont let conventional dungeon tropes get to you, go for the odd and obscene style of dungeons. As stated above the preserved carcass of a giant creature would be nice, treasure could be priceless artifacts or technology and even organic poisons! If its set in a wastelandish setting go with darkland wandering, discover ancient ruins and even strange aberrant ones.
With whalebone, you could have the dungeon as the treasure. Ivory!!!
If it isn't ivory thought... f*** it and say it is!!
Winchester Mystery House
Really strange old mansion- diagonal stairs, doors that go nowhere, supposedly haunted by all the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles.
Insane creature's minds can also make for fun adventures. I once made an adventure that took place inside the mind of an insane beholder.
A zombie besieged town, ala Resident Evil. Bonus points if you use bodaks instead of zombies...
A very large pagoda, complete with wood and paper shutter doors.
A gloomy necropolis, with streets paved with old gravestones instead of normal cobblestones. Instead of normal buildings there are mausoleums.
A mist-laden bog, complete with quicksand and sinkholes.
A maze of bureaucracy and red tape (wandering the byzantine halls of your local office of records trying to secure an Adventurer's Charter, all the while trying to avoid scams, torn apart by exasperated line-dwellers, and the occasional beating by a paper golem for not filling everything out in triplicate).
Miniaturize yourself and go inside somebody's body to cleanse them of some unnatural disease (demon germs for the win!)
A zoo of the strange, where most of the weird critters have gotten free.
An evil circus, complete with a dark and imposing big top.
A library where each book has a clue or a trap.
For extra realism, write rules for about 6000 different books, 3000 simply contain a cryptic clue, and 3000 have rules for magical traps, are explosive runes or symbol spells.
A very large pagoda, complete with wood and paper shutter doors.
I did the Chinese Imperial Palace once...well, scaled down a bit. The plans were metric and I converted the meters as feet. Good thing, as that place is HUGE!!!
Then I made all the paper into 'flypaper'!
Then I infested the whole with zombie goblin ninjas.
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you could take a page from the comic "knights of the dinner table" where they put one bag of holding in another and it created a portal to a dimension where all the stuff that goes missing from bags of holding and connects all the bags of holding in exsistence but it is one giant world it is a great sandbox to create monsters and items and allows you to cop out if they try to take anything out of that world it dissapears because the item's magic cannot be sustained by the magic of the normal world. And it lets you create really anything you want and you can simply drop them into the top of a tower and have them fight their way down and it can lead to a whole adventure.
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In our 3.5 homebrew setting, we had a legendary chateau (complete with garden and basements) that appeared on the material plane once every decade.
For two weeks or so, it stayed inert, protected from intrusion by magical veils better than those of Golarion's Skywatch observatory, then it allowed entry for another week or so before vanishing again.
Everyone who dared to could enter the compound through the main gates, but to leave it again you needed one magical key per person. These could be found anywhere in the compound, some just hidden in a kitchen drawer, most of course guarded by typical dungeon means (hordes of monsters, traps, puzzles), along with heaps of treasure.
If you managed to reach the front door with a key held in your hand during the active week, you were a hero, could keep all the treasure you found and even got awarded a piece of land by the local king.
But if you failed, or died inside, you disappeared together with the rest of the chateau, and you surely didn't come back a decade later...
It was a prestigeous event, with a whole fair of aspiring adventurs, curious onlookers and talismongers all around the compound, including small tournaments for those who wanted to test their mettle in the inert phase, before deciding wether to go for real, and Bards writing poems and ballads about those who survived.
So of course, with multiple groups of adventurers strolling around inside, when the deadline came closer, you could have some serious battle royale going on for the keys...
Way, way, WAY back in the ancient days of 1e, my family had and loved playing Intellevision (our first video game system). Well, I was GM'ing my very first game and needed some inspiration. What I ended up with was a series of portals and challenges for my older brothers.
You start out in a dungeon, looking for a dragon and all his wealth (Intellevision game called D&D). Just before the dragon you find a room with a series of portals built into mirrors; in order to find the items needed to beat the beast, you had to collect them from these other worlds. In one you were instantly transformed into a driver of a great magical carriage w/no horses to pull it (racing game); in another you fought rebels in a terrible storm to save the burgeoning land (Utopia); in a third you were part of a sport to put a round ball through a hoop (Basketball) and so on.
After completing all six challenges you assembled these "legendary items" - a basketball, a helmet, a machine gun, a giant ketchup bottle a floating disk and a trenchcoat and together they would destroy the dragon. The ball was a distraction, which got it moving at which point you lay down a patch of ketchup so he slips and falls, meanwhile you mount up on the floating disk to fly about, taking pock-shots with the machine gun while wearing the coat and helmet for protection (armor and fire resistance).
Since that very early incarnation I've pulled this mechanic often; sending pc's through the Tron challenges, a series of horror movies, board games, updated video games and more. Its a simple but elegant solution to the stale dungeon and the things that come back w/the pc's don't even need to make sense (a basketball?), it just has to be fun!
A large desert, with only a handful of paths to various oasis and places not overwhelmed with sand dunes that lead threw rocky desert canyons, caves, dried rivers and eventually to some oasis with the final goal in it. Think the Crystal Desert from Guild Wars.
Another is a small town, perhaps with a large canyon separating it from the outside world? Maybe its haunted and the ghosts keep people from leaving until they set the ghosts free? (Alla Silent Hill style? I've actually done this sort of dungeon)
A large mansion or small town filled with alchemists engaged in strange science and research and for whom their creations have begun running loose?
How about a trench system similar to WWI?
Filled with rats, corpses, and all manner of destroyed and abandoned weapons, equipment, and even furniture. Sticking your head up out of the trench brings sudden deadly attacks.
In the distance deep booms echo and you can hear all manner of small arms, heavy machine guns, and artillery. Occasionally a shell explodes nearby. The air is think with flies, and clouds of nauseating gas come wafting with the breeze and settle into low areas. Gaunt soldiers in strange uniforms fill the trenches armed with guns, grenades, and even flamethrowers. Several large tracked vehicles are in the area, although most have been destroyed by shells or broken down.
If you don't want to do the whole time travel thing, there are various ways to get similar effects without modern technology. Archers, Symbols of death/sickness/stunning, etc. Could all force troops from out in the open. Just beware of various counter measures (e.g. protection from arrows spell) that could negate the threat.
I remember a couple books from when I was a kid, both were about lairs in trees.
In one they showed this beautiful illustration of a series of elegant twining branch bridges, lit by lanterns that were actuall pixie homes (the pixies lived inside and their light shone out through their windows), the inhabitant elves made wonderful houses out of specially grown vines, branches, leaves and flowers. It was really cool to me as a young guy.
Then there was the trolls that lived INSIDE a gigantic tree. The thing had a massive troll face and appeared to be eating from a giant spoon (the drawbridge). Inside were a variety of chambers like an underground pool and spring, a grand dining hall under the eaves of the upper boughs. That one was just bizarre and some of the images still haunt me. Especially since they perpetuated their race by kidnapping naughty children in sacks, dumping them in the lair, and transforming them into new trolls.
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How about a trench system similar to WWI?
In or near the Mana Wastes. A leftover from the wars between Nex and Geb.
These tight, cramped trenches have a permanent horizontal wind wall effect serving as their "ceiling", and for good reason. The entire stretch of land containing the bulk of these trenches is covered in an equally permanent and oversized cloudkill.
Mind your heads gents.
1) Built into and absorbing much of a forest, a skyscraper hive of giant killer bees. Dripping with honey goodness but also protected by, in additional to the standard bees, huge bee guardians with scythe limbs, ankhegs tunneled in the soil and ettercaps in buildings or barns around the hive.
My players are now on low hp.
2) Tunnel networks that have been built into and under, the doors of gods. Think termites, but made by adventurers/cleric pilgrims. When they emerge, gigantic dust mites attack those traversing the marble wastes between the doors. Also, players must keep their camps nondescript and not light fires when they rest, or the typhoon-broom will sweep them.
What about a vertical dungeon? A series of cliff face aeries and nests, maybe a cave or 2, but the whole thing is part of a steep ascent and the ultimate goal (gold/monster/enlightenment or whatever) is at the top. I guess this would have to be a mid to low-level game though since fly and teleport sort of ruin the whole concept.
Amid the floating wreckage of a ship at sea. Not quite shipwrecked on an island yet but rather having to cobble together resources to float on a makeshift raft to GET to the island. I could see encounters with sahuagin and sharks, LOTS of skill challenges and the different "dungeon rooms" being these experiences. Once you start losing people's attention at the table... LAND HO!
A giant's kitchen. I don't just mean PF giant, I mean like Fairy Tale giant. The rooms could be the oven, the cupboards, the pantry...
Riding on horseless cloud chariots you're chasing down a particular villain in a fleet of dirigibles. You don't know which one they're on so you need to get into one, get some info, then hop from one to the next somehow.
A MASSIVE bee hive. Even better... a MASSIVE bee hive hairdo.
The inner-workings of a clock tower. This is a classic one with lots of steam and gears and noise; lots of environmental effects that make things difficult. And if those gremlins get away with busting the tower the gods will be angered.
Moving through pools of moonlight somehow allowed through a portal into the darklands. Each area thus illuminated has some kind of fey rune which must be collected and returned to the material plane to in turn close a portal to the first world.
Inside a piece of music.
How about a trench system similar to WWI?
In or near the Mana Wastes. A leftover from the wars between Nex and Geb.
These tight, cramped trenches have a permanent horizontal wind wall effect serving as their "ceiling", and for good reason. The entire stretch of land containing the bulk of these trenches is covered in an equally permanent and oversized cloudkill.
Mind your heads gents.
I love the possibilities i n this. Especially if you find a way to brave the cloudkill you could try a short jump in and out of the trench system.
Or use telekinesis to throw enemies out the top.Im filing this one to develop later.
I love the possibilities i n this. Especially if you find a way to brave the cloudkill you could try a short jump in and out of the trench system.
Or use telekinesis to throw enemies out the top.
From cloudkill:
"Holding one's breath doesn't help, but creatures immune to poison are unaffected by the spell."From Delay Poison:
"The subject becomes temporarily immune to poison. "
Now immunity from the undead and evil outsiders swarming the area? That is more complicated...
I find the options for a WWI setting to be really interesting. If anyone has done anything like this, or would like to start a thread to discuss it, I would be very interested.
PS Here is a great documentary series that I have been enjoying about WWI:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4E581216667E3224&feature=plcp
I love the possibilities i n this. Especially if you find a way to brave the cloudkill you could try a short jump in and out of the trench system.
Or use telekinesis to throw enemies out the top.From cloudkill:
"Holding one's breath doesn't help, but creatures immune to poison are unaffected by the spell."From Delay Poison:
"The subject becomes temporarily immune to poison. "Now immunity from the undead and evil outsiders swarming the area? That is more complicated...
I find the options for a WWI setting to be really interesting. If anyone has done anything like this, or would like to start a thread to discuss it, I would be very interested.
PS Here is a great documentary series that I have been enjoying about WWI:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4E581216667E3224&feature=plcp
Delay Poison...Protection from Evil. RUNNNNNN!!!
The one I'd be worried about is the construct slinger gattling gun firing extended bursts of Magic Stone sling bullets. Oh, and the barbed wire. And Grenades. And tanks. And crazed horses in the trenches. And trenchfoot. And acid rain.
Wow; no wonder Tolkein nearly lost his mind and created a fantasy world into which to retreat and ultimately slay his own demons. I would've just stayed home; adventures make one late for dinner.
BOOYAH! WW1 AND Tolkein drop, all in the same thread... NAILED IT!
Ask and Ye Shall Recieve;
TRENCH WARFARE: A MAGIC WARZONE