| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Imagine a large, wooded hollow surrounded on three sides by steep, rugged hillsides. Throughout this hollow are nine entrances into a region of a mega-dungeon in my homebrew. The name of the region is the Lower Warrens.
I don't have a clue what's on the other side of these entrances.
Originally I'd planned this as an homage to the Caves of Chaos. After a while though I just got bored with it. Not only has this idea been done before (in the module and elsewhere) but it also just kind of lacked flavor for me.
I'm looking for help designing several small dungeons, lairs or points of interest. What I've told the players so far is that the Lower Warrens is an area of rough-hewn tunnels and natural caves from which several petty tyrants have carved lairs over the years. I don't want this to just be nine separate dungeons.
The one I've already come up with is the Howling Step: a rough-hewn archway framed by leering faces carved in relief. Wind constantly ebbs and flows through the macabre decorations making it sound as if the arcade is howling. Beyond this is a large open cave leading off from which is a main tunnel with flagstone floors. The region beyond the Step is known to have several chambers controlled by a gang of goblins and their shaman master Vylrogg. He is a known worshipper of Lamashtu and the main entry cave is often the site of a grisly sacrifice.
From this I've decided that there is a collection of 10 rooms amid 2 levels off the main tunnel held by these goblins. There's a lot more dungeon to design so please, any ideas/suggestions you can offer would be appreciated.
You'll have to zoom in but the Lower Warrens is on the upper right hand side of the map I've linked to above. I suppose it would be handy to give more details. The whole megadungeon was a castle-defended town belonging to a popular paladin/sorcerer. The paladin had dragon's blood and held sway with good dragons; he even worshipped Apsu. He was laid low by an ancient blue dragon and a massive horde of kobolds. The blue dragon was imprisoned in the eye of a storm; as a result weird weather racks the coastal ruins.
The Lower Warrens
After much political tumult in the land, about 300 years ago a powerful paladin/sorcerer and worshipper of the dragon-god Apsu named Sir Ivar Flamenwing sited a castle atop the ruins. He pacified much evil that had dwealt there for centuries and cleansed the region. Finally there was peace.
While other things happened around the paladin's holdings, the area known as the Lower Warrens became a quarry. Stone was fractured from the cliffs and dropped into the gully below, there to be cut and shaped into the blocks which built the defenses of the town. For years the quarry provided ample resources. The aberrant threats had been dealt with by the paladin who had planned to then open the caverns below for his draconic kin to use as they saw fit.
When the kobold horde fell upon Flamenwing Castle the paladin had all underground access to the Lower Warrens sealed. The kobolds infested the dank caves by day and laid siege to the defenses above. When the final battle destroyed both the paladin and his nemesis Balathunda, the ancient Blue Dragon and patron of the kobolds, the remnants of the tribe were broken. While many swarmed over the ruins for plunder some remained in the Lower Warrens. Their presence in the caves re-awakened the aberrant energies there.
The lawful kobolds were horrified by the crawling chaos below. Those who could fled the tunnels in droves while many were caught by the aberrations. These mindless monsters raged for a time before returning to the black depths of the earth. Those kobolds who escaped vowed never to return and left the caves and the hollow outside to the wilds.
As creatures and travelers in the wilds, such as goblins and beasts, began infesting the hollow many took shelter in the caves. Doing battle with the aberrations below but fueled by the power of the Wilding these new inhabitants cleared the upper reaches near the surface. They carved into the living rock shaping some of the caves into lairs, making it habitable. The older kobold dwellings were found and expanded. As the rock shifted, collapsed, and rose again the Lower Warrens underwent many changes.
When the Wilding finally ended 20 years ago travelers came upon the ruins of Flamenwing; some explored down, along the gully floor of the Lower Warrens. These fools were driven out by the remaining creatures of the Warrens. Over the past 2 decades only a few expeditions have been led here by the righteous or the adventurous. However mortalkind has a presence in the Lower Warrens.
Petty tyrants, bandit lords and crazed zealots have all been drawn to the Lower Warrens over the past 20 years. Without the Wilding to fuel their power the creatures who've dominated the area have dwindled, leaving many of the upper levels empty. The darker elements of mortalkind have then filled in the gaps though their residence is often transient. Still many have brought powerful magics to bear in the tunnels of the Lower Warrens and carved out even more lairs amid the stone.
So, if anybody made it through these walls of text, congrats. You now know a little of the megadungeon and the lore of the Lower Warrens. Hopefully this might fuel some imagination.
Right off the bat I'm thinking there might be a nihilist cult of Rovagug meeting here to sacrifice to the Rough Beast in order to bring about destruction. Just as easily I could put one of the entrances in the bole of a tree and have some evil fey, left behind from the Wilding, using the place as a testing ground for twisted arcane rites.
If anyone's got suggestions for me, I'm all ears.
Bumping for hope
|
Ok, going to try this again..
You have some cool pieces here but I think if you work on tying then together a little better you will create the snowball which will avalanche into more and more ideas on how to set up and populate these dungeons.
So what I am getting from your "pieces" is an Evil is drawn to Evil feeling. Not commonly used in RPGs but it does occur in some books and movies. A good example and easily accessible is the Shining (movie, not book) where some subtle indications are given about the area where the Overlook Hotel is built and how that region was already "bad" before the building was even built. That is what you have here.
So lets look at what you have in place. Once you brainstorm these things by organizing some thoughts, new ideas will start hitting you from left and right.
- Nodes of Aberrant Radiation: Why are these here, were they left here by a God, are they a dead Gods remains, planar incursion from another realm, an ancient weapon or power supply from another age, etc? Is this radiation expanding, is it sentient? Is there a master plan?
- Eldritch Horrors: Drawn to the nodes, leftover race that mutated/evolved/devolved from their own power source, advance force for planar invasion, or simple Evil drawn to an Evil power that is not their own? Pick one, pick two. What is the current status of these Elder Horrors? What is their sphere of influence - single crazy guy, a local cult, cultist in nearby towns/city(s).
- Human from thousands of years ago: Who were they? Were the refugees from another culture (heretics), time or plane. Were they advanced by these powers and evolved/devolved. Why did they arrive? Were they called, was there an omen or prophecy that drew them here from another land. What was their plan? Did they succeed or leave it incomplete. What is their status - dead and gone, ghosts, went/sent to another plane and are watching, did they evolve and join their Eldritch masters? Are some left as guardians? Do some of their decedents live on in nearby communities? Is their taint in the bloodline?
- Quarry and Aberrant Radiation - funny side trek/notes: So this (effectively) radioactive Eldritch material was used to build structures? Lol, you could even have a side quest of a local haunted keep used exclusively used material deep from within this quarry, where the actual building itself is a monster/source of terror. That would be an unconventional haunted house module. One where there is no "real" ghost and the way to purge it is just to level the damn place (finding that out in the end of course)!
- Sir Ivar Flamewing - Was he influenced or manipulated by the area and force he conquered? Did it send him dreams or did it send dreams to a force that could attack it (the Kobold) so they could finally be free? What happened to him? Is he a ghost, some form of undead or just plain dead? Maybe a hasty (and hidden) tomb was built by some of the defenders after the keep fell and was in chaos.
- The Kobolds - were they drawn by something to attack? Most were killed or fled, what happened to those few who remained? Were they corrupted and turned into another servitor race for the evil energy there or did the ones who survived actually create an order to block a portal (and are now LN) from anything or anyone coming out or going in?
- The Wilding: could this have been the 1st worlds attempt at a counter invasion/block against the aberrant radiation and the horrors of the deep? That Wilding used whatever was handy in the natural world to wage a war of sorts on this invasive force (that the 1st world felt was unnatural and did not belong here)? Are there Druids who live here or nearby because of this phenomenon? Is their an order that was created and set nearby to watch these ruins (and they may have even forgotten why). Did the dark, aberrant energy finally win and mutate some of the creatures changed by the Wilding?
- Besides your petty tyrants, bandit lords and crazed zealots has this place drawn anyone else? Murderers and men of worst intent? Maybe a breakaway elven clan that really hates humans, to the point of considering it their goal to cleanse humanity from the planet?
The more questions you can answer on these entries the easier it will be to lay out these ruins in a way that will be both intuitive and logical, even if an outsider (PC) can't make sense of it right away because they are only seeing the pieces or wreckage.
The Rovagug plot can work, it's simple - but I say you go for broke. Go beyond that.
Depending on how you roll with this you can background and score the ruins as such:
Above ground
- Quarry: Large open sky Dungeon area, overgrown with plant defenders and buildings that are not easily accessible due to the mutated vegetation.
- Flamewing Castle and dungeons: not much to add here unless Flamewing went corrupt (or started to), maybe a journal of sorts describing the threat he didn't really beat. A hasty "defenders" level (never breached by invaders).
- Altar sites/Bases for your local crazies/cultist or druid defenders.
Down Below
- Ancient Human ruins: altars, temples, crypts/mausoleums, conduit/summoning chambers for the Things Below, armories, training areas. Was there an area somewhere below where they actually harnessed the power of the aberrant energy for their arcane or divine rituals and workings?
- Goblin Warrens: These would be a mix of Flamewings buildings (compromised) and some of the ancient human dwellings damaged by all the magic/Wilding and years of Goblin habitation and tampering. Feral savage, trap obsessed albino goblins. Or not.
- Deepest Levels: This is where it begins to end. They get here and they are in a world of hurt. The topmost level is where your ancient humans started to build and get closer to their "Gods". Then a breach level where the ancient horrors used to hold court. Then deeper still - to the nodes? What happens when the go down there? What are the creatures closest to the heart of hell?
I have no idea, this isn't my module.
And BTW, never bump for hope - you won't find it here...
@ Aux: thank you for your input it is very helpful. I hadn't put that much thought into the ancient history of the place because frankly I don't suspect my players will care. However after reading through your questions I think I will revisit the details so as to generate ideas; a form of data mining meets brainstorming.
To answer one question though the direction I'd taken was that Sir Ivar sealed off the nodes deep in the earth using divine and arcane powers as well as sturdy engineering. The weird energies were contained but the evil wasn't; that's what drew the blue dragon and her kobolds. But I decided to go strictly by the book and say that most kobolds are Lawful in alignment. Once the dust settled and they realized what had drawn in their mistress Balathunda they were repulsed and fled the Lower Warrens, deeming it Verboten even to them.
Another thought
The rest became Skum, devolved into Chokers or worse. They have survived down in the deeps for eons numbly rehearsing ancient rites now meaningless and were sealed away by the paladin.
Now I could spin yarns of all the things that have happened here all day. But this doesn't get me any closer to the dungeons to put behind the nine entrances. I like your idea of lone killers or madmen. I'll also consider a cult in town, a sort of Lovecraftian idea; people that are completely normal and even helpful who in secret meet in basements and attics to plan grisly horrors to appease the dark "gods" in the depths.
I don't want the Warrens to be all about aberrations though. There are a lot of different monsters there. Some of these creatures reside there with no knowledge whatsoever of the horrors in the depths. These things lair near the surface entrances and use the place just as a convenience. There's a wooded hollow outside and easy access to a major trade route just 15 miles from the Warrens.
Still the deeper you go the more inevitable it is that you begin to see the effects of the weird, warping energies below. The temperature drops, the stone is scarred, the water has a chemical taste to it. There are portals here and there; rips into the Prime Material to serve as beachheads for either the Shadow Plane or the Far Shore. Still the paladin's bulwarks hold, so far. The worst of these horrors and energies are contained below though some have emerged from the depths.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Coming from a background where back in the day Gamma World was my core game (over AD&D) I HAD to design ruins intelligently and coherently.
So a good exercise is to lay out what areas had what and when. Your lower warrens do not need just be populated by a single theme of say, aberrations. But we still need to understand why these structures were built.
So spinning yarns is good - you just need to work on your structure and this in fact does put you closer to what what you put behind your nine dungeons.
Did the ancient humans breed creatures as thralls using this energy? Did they breed sacrifices?
- Dungeon filled with storage pens for experiments, and an area where creatures were exposed to Eldritch energy. You would also need guard rooms, storage area, area for live food, etc.
Now...keep in mind, I didn't say that this area is still populated by low-level aberrant creatures. This area could have been partially destroyed, re-committed later by more recent Goblin inhabitants (maybe one who found some relevant magic items or is using its power on a pack of dire rats he controls), maybe it was heavily re-committed by Sir Ivar, but his crew missed a secret area or two? When you design around this you have a foundation to work from. It could be a good low to high level dungeon (based on how you populate it)
-
In other words, use logic and consistency when designing this stuff. The players may not know (ruins are just ruins), but perceptive ones will look at the different stonework design on different levels and say:
"This looks more modern, like the dragon-paladin built this area - see that sigil there?"
or
"This area is very ancient, considerably older than the other parts of the dungeon we've seen already - be on your guard, we may need to leave here very fast!".
So those two are:
Basic ways the players can see your design intent and logic in layout.
Serve as a warning as they peel back the layers and get deeper (and into greater danger).
Your ancient ruins are going to need:
The Deep levels/Node levels
Dwellings for where the ancient humans lived
Church or Temple level/ritual areas
Storage level
Armor/Vault areas
Breeding areas
Live food storage or sacrifice storage
Non-standard/weird purpose level - where the node power was weaponized and used to destroy enemy communities from afar, a maze to hide experimental mistakes, or any other weird thing you can think of.
Defense areas/secured areas in between access points of levels
-
More modern ruins:
Standard above ground castle ruins
Ruined Quarry and buildings (open sky dungeon)
Chapel or Church (above ground building with it's own sub level)
Lower levels for each above ground building
Living quarters
Storage
Armory
Prison
Arcane testing
Seal/Ward gates level and guard living complex (watched 24/7 - how much sleeping area is needed for something like that and food storage? Also need a small altar or shrine for these guys to go an worship at without leaving the level).
Then you hit all areas with natural effects, the Wilding, effects of re-commitment due to new inhabitants, monsters, etc.
How to source dungeons:
How?
The Church was leveled over a few hundred years ago and the lower levels are now all that are left (a hole in the ground). So you can have chambers where the monks lived, trained, small altar, storage - oh yeah, we forgot that some goblin dirtbags moved in a 100 years ago and despoiled much and changed stuff in those levels and yes - since this was a military base they decided on adding another lower level or two - to store more warriors, develop their weapons of war and traps, goblin crypts for their leaders, temple, area for their worgs, etc.
Too bad they missed the secret doors on level 1 and 3 (The Abbot was always paranoid and concerned that their would one day be a sustained siege, these are emergency armories, fallback points, altar, hiding area, etc).
Players are not stupid and will pick up on the clues based off of structural and treasure features (good align religious objects in what amounts to a goblin lair? Sealed off despoiled shrines of Good, etc).
All from a dungeon that is a hole in the ground.
-
Addressing some of your recent notes:
Skum - water or lake level. You have one of your level seeds right there.
Shadow plane vs. Far Realm cold war or proxy war? Both are bad and weird - they do not necessarily work together. A war/conflict level where the energies or influences (via effects or creatures) meet.
-
So when I would design an Ancient facility in Gamma World, I would first decide:
What was the function of the facility: Commercial, scientific, military defense facility, production, etc
Then I decided who the makers were: Corporate interest, military, government or private
Scoring: what was there? What kind of robots, what kind of gear/weapons? What was the specific function of the facility - that way I can design levels, rooms and areas that make sense to me (remember, in GW, the descendants do not remember or know ancient purpose).
History: what has changed, has their been a fire or a power supply meltdown? Are the robots crazy or dormant or are some still left following their own routine. Does anyone control the facility, what is the physical state of the facility
Using these guidelines I can make any kind of base, dungeon or ruin.
If you know your various inhabitants (past and present) you will know what they needed and design around that.
Dot. So. Many. Cool. Things.
EDIT: Soooooooooo liiiiiiiiiitlllllllle tiiiiiiiiiiime.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Aux: I hear you. To your points here's what I had envisioned
2. The Shadow Plane and the Far Shore followed the wierd energies and began waging a secret war in the earth. Neither side won. Both sustained such devastating losses they retreated to their respective "corners" of the cosmos allowing surface life to move forward.
3. A couple thousand years ago humans settled across a band of hills beneath which a big source of these Warp Stones were located. This is the beginning of Flamenwing. These humans were early iron-age hunter gatherers. As they combed the caves in the hills they came upon the slumbering aberrations and the dead portals to the Shadow. Needless to say, they didn't fare well.
4. Their presence awoke the aberrations. Some were coerced through the portals into the Shadow; others returned to the surface followed by the horrors. In the end the humans fell to worshipping these creatures. At first they just tossed sacrifices into a pit between the hills and hid. The more sophisticated aliens in the depths though began to capitalize on their new servants inviting mortals down into their cavernous realm. This was the beginning of the end.
5. The aberrant overlords gave great power to their devout. They then implanted in them the suggestion to draw others down into the dark. Guided by their overlords these sub-humans used their new-found powers to build a city in the earth. Some portions of the city were purely for the worship of the overlords; others were defenses against the Shadow; still others were to house the converts from the surface. Bizarre experiments were performed to make better and more powerful thralls; docility and strength replaced will and the desire for sunshine.
6. Over time the surface settlement first fought and then crumbled. Those who could fled to other lands while the rest went below. During this time the Shadow beings were not silent. They also used their few remaining portals to claim mortals for their burgeoning slave race; the Kayal. The secret war ignited again in earnest and for hundreds of years remained largely below ground.
7. Other things happened on the surface, involving dragons and empires. I won't detail them here because they're not pertinent to this place.
8. A few hundred years ago the creatures here began to plague the surface once more drawing the ire of dragons and mortals alike. Sir Ivar was dispatched to assess this threat and what he reported was a city of horrors. This blight below ground was marked for destruction and the long-lived paladin waged war here for forty years before his legions finally ended thousands of years of evil. He made a pact with the righteous dragons to remain here as the sentinel against any return of either faction. The dragons for their part used fell magics both arcane and divine to help seal away all traces of the Warp Stones while the paladin collapsed or destroyed much of the lower realms. From the rubble and stone drawn from the very pit where mortals and aberrations had first met the paladin's masons and engineers built a grand castle of stone and brass (Sir Ivar had Brass Dragon's blood).
9. As the settlement of Flamenwing Castle arose eventually some of the mortals here discovered the remains of the lower levels. They came to use some of these places for their own reasons. Sir Ivar, confident that the Dragon Seals would hold allowed peaceful annexation of these few tunnels and chambers. Eventually these were expanded into halls grand enough for dragons. In fact Sir Ivar himself began laying out plans to create grand lairs for metalic dragons so that the righteous wyrms might live among mortals in a great city.
10. During this time great halls were built and tall, vaulted chambers. These were lined with brass and the finest marble. Chapels to the dragons were made along with schools for the arcane arts. The paladin expanded his defenses here and built secondary forges, barracks, weapon stores and more.
11. Then came Balathunda. When she learned that the undercity was once more accessible she lusted for the power sealed below by her more righteous cousins. First Balathunda tried many schemes to coerce the paladin to let her in but he rebuffed her every scheme. Then she attempted to enter these halls through the Shadow Plane but was thwarted by eldritch power. The ancient dragon then decided what she couldn't have by guile or stealth she'd take by force. Balathunda and her kobolds sieged Flamenwing Castle; I've already detailed what happened from that.
12. After the dust cleared the Dragon Seals were wekened, but not gone. With the kobolds digging from above and the lesser aberrations clawing up from below, eventualy the caves of the Lower Warrens became a bloody battleground. The kbolds, demoralized by the loss of their mistress and horrified by the crawling chaos from below fled the tunnels to inhabit first the surface ruins and later the refurbished dragon halls of the paladin.
13. The Lower Warrens then were left to the wilds (as detailed above). these areas then would have not only more modern constructions by goblinoids and mortals, there are more ancient constructions still remaining from the cyclopean city of eons past. The deepest levels of this area of Flamenwing then are the site of alien experimens gone wrong; slave thrall pits and bizarre halls of their masters; grand chapels to the aberrant overlords.
What do you think?
|
|
Sounds great - to jump back to your original premise (nine entrances) and the problem with the Caves of Chaos - how would you mitigate access to these openings while maintaining a modicum of game balance?
Will all the entrances have low or lowish encounter design, getting harder as the players make their decent or will some entrances be flat out harder than others?
Do they all 9 need to connect to the Warrens or could you have a topside Dungeon (like my leveled Church sample) that has maybe 3 levels made by the recent human/dragon defenders with another two levels below of Goblin Warrens and end there? Or can they connect on a parallel level - goblin warrens 2 (last level under the Church) has a pass underground that leads to the 1st level of the Thrall labs - which is several levels already deep in the earth?
Another planning note: If the seals are mostly intact that would mean little bleed over from the influnce Far Realm side (lower to middle dungeon levels) to the influnce of the Wilding side (middle to upper levels). So there would be a pretty dramatic break in feel and theme at the Seal levels.
Good notes and good outline Hoover.
Here’s the next homework assignment – and you’ve done some of this already actually.
You have a timeline – so while you are spinning this yarn what buildings are rising and falling?
Let’s start from the beginning and detail the the levels as you go back in time and start the film.
- Are they cyclopean caverns with a giant crater in the middle, or was the original meteorite never fully uncovered and was mined into via tunnels? Does part of this area exist on another plane? Or multiple planes (Far Realm and Plane of Twilight/Shadow): This is probably your deepest level.
- The Abodes and Halls of the Eldritch Horrors. Giant caverns or worked halls? Does each horror have its own wing and temple complex? Is there a massive pit (built above the meteorite level) were people were massacred in large numbers and thrown in? Was mortal life ever even on this level?
Something like that – you can use each epoch and era as a guideline and craft the buildings and dungeon levels from the bottom up (assuming layers are built over).
There would be several other Ancient Human levels: labs, breeding pits, temple levels for the lower priesthood to worship (since most were not worthy to go to the lower levels), living quarters, training grounds/Studies (Martial and Arcane), library levels or sections, crypts for the devout and so on.
As you are writing this expanded loose outline for the levels you can create NPCs (past and more recent, hell –some may even be alive, undead, in stasis, waiting on a parallel plane....)
You can make the NPCs first and then design the levels around them or you can make the levels and then come up with major NPC(s) tasked to manage or control the level.
|
|
Next up - Big events!
What in-game historical events helped to shape the dungeon into it's current condition?
Using some of your examples as seed:
When the early primitive humans first built their temples and then waged war on their neighbors was there eventually an attack that did them in? The sacking of Rome if you will.
Was a level collapsed in the battle, was an area affected by magic from the attackers or defenders that still lingers till this day? Alteration magic, necromantic magic...something else. What Weapons were used in this titanic war? Did any survive (construct Juggernauts, weaponized undead)
Getting a good grasp on history will help when shaping and laying out the megadungeon. So if at one time there were two dragons fighting underground on the temple level what happened to most of that level? Is there a gigantic area of rubble on the middle of the map dividing that dungeon level into 4 corner quadrants?
Are there giant chasms in the caverns below that once spanned stone bridges that have long since collapsed? Maybe a complex area across the chasm has barely been touched from one age to the next (depending on when it collapsed of course) due to the fact that it is very hard to get to.
What big event happened at the close of era I (ancient humans) or era II (Dragon Hero) or more recently era III (the dregs and leftovers, the age of stirring shadows)? Each is punched and marked by a transition: Attack, magical event, disaster - each one of these events changing some or all of the area around the dungeon.
Dungeon events are like significant historical events, we mark things as before and after and they have profound affect on the way life moves from that event going forward. Use them.
Whoa. Just...whoa. I need to take this all in. I also obviously have a lot of writing to do. I'd imagined this whole time that the nine entrances were all just cave openings for the Lower Warrens this whole time but something you said stuck with me. One of the entrances might be a ruined church or something.
Originally I'd pictured the Lower Warrens as the slum of Flamenwing. The prime real estate was around the castle and most of the fancy folk of the town that once stood here would've been on or alongside one of the defensive hills. The Warrens then is a triangular gully hemmed in on all sides by steep rugged hills or sheer strata. Now at the time of the last human habitation this made the area suitable for little else than a quarry and I figured why would anyone live or build down there?
But then something else you said sparked a thought: "empty dragon lairs." If I'm prepared to say that there was a level of the Lower Warrens that, for a time during Sir Ivar's reign, was occupied by the dragons putting the seals in place, then these creatures may easily have needed mortal agents. These mortal agents then may have constructed buildings, built into the side of the cliff walls or whatever, that they could use not only to easily transition into the Dragon levels but to make living down in the Warrens more civil.
Here I've been thinking of entrances like cavernous fissures when instead there may be ruined buildings. Just off the top of my head I can imagine a masonic hall where stone hauled from the wall would have been cut and shaped; perhaps a foundry where ore from said rock might have been extracted; turrets built into the cliffs as defensive platforms and perhaps some kind of grand meeting hall where Sir Ivar or other notables would've interacted with the righteous dragons. I could imagine said hall having a great gaping hole in the floor so that dragons could rise up from below, enter the hall and parlay with the paladin.
Ok so obviously I've gotta get some outlines together. I'll get cracking and meet you back here when I'm done.
Another thing: I have a building on the heights overlooking the Lower Warrens. This is the Tower of Brass. The tower stands dead in the center of one of the hills framing the wooded hollow of the Lower Warrens.
When I'd conceived of this tower I was essentially picturing the tower from the Master of the Fallen Fortress module, right down to that adventure's plot. Monsters have been trapped in the tower but they came up into the tower from below meaning that there's for sure levels beneath the tower in the hill. These would definitely connect with the Warrens.
Oh and Aux, thanks buddy!
Ok, so, I've decided to design by KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) on these levels. I have a LOT of detail in the campaign documents but here's the short short version:
In a time before time irradiated debris from the Far Shore tore into the material. The impact ripped great fissures in the earth and the shattered fragments of the meteors embedded in the chasm walls. The siren call of the weird energies these Warp Stones emit has called through the darkness attracting all manner of horror from the darkest depths of the planes ever since.
The first were the aberrations and the scions of these things that should not be dwealt in the chasms for eons feeding off the radiation of the stones. Then came the Tenebrood of the Plane of Shadow and a secret war raged. now both factions lay dead and dreaming in the eternal night of the Chasms; their sentience still begs for thralls to carry out their apocalyptic visions.
This level then is literally just great gaping pits in the bedrock into untold depths. Once these ancients carved and constructed here; great alien cysts and towers of unknown purpose. Think the Dead City of R'yleh mingling with arcane chambers housing defunct portals. Possible plot hook - someone might want to get them all back up and running again
These first alien powers fought in the earth for eons before they sensed man's presence in the hills above. Both factions summoned hordes to their bidding through shadows and nightmares. These mortals became sub-human, transformed by the weird radiations of their overlords' realms. They mingled and mated with their gods; new races were spawned and countless horrors were unleashed on all sides.
But these were still mortal creatures with some faint traces of sentience. They built homes for themselves amid the stone and these expanded into constructions of massive scale and twisted purpose. The tunnels and halls seemed to bleed one into the next like the innards of some titanic thing with no parceling out to one faction or another. Wherever a new creature could it settled and labored for its particular patron.
This level, still several hundred feet below the sunlit world, is now known as the Cyclopean Labyrinth. Within these insane halls the last of the horrors dwell and they span miles; the length and breadth of Flamenwing Castle. Vast sections of the Labyrinth were long ago shattered by the invading legions of the paladin and his draconic allies. Finally it was here that dozens of Dragon Seals were placed to contain the combined consciousness of the Plane of Shadow and the Far Shore. These beings may have been physically slain but their minds still wander the Chasms, dreaming.
The Cyclopean Labyrinth then is just that; a labyrinth. The sub-humans, monsters, aberrations and other thralls of the ancient overlords built places of profane worship, chambers for experimentation, created chemical warfare here, and built multi-tiered towers and warrens for their survival. Many of these were torn down and ruined but still others have remained untouched even today. Worse yet, as the Dragon Seals have weakened more creatures from the levels above have been drawn down into these lightless depths to establish their own dominions all the while slowly going mad and becoming thralls of the denizens of the Chasms.
When Sir Ivar Flamenwing came to these ancient hills of madness he smote much of the evil below ending his campaigns with legendary battles in the Chasms. With the Dragon Seals in place hundreds of feet from the surface down to the remaining levels of the Cyclopean Labyrinth were made safe and clean of the taint that had cursed them for eons.
Among his legions were a strong contingent of dwarves. The canny smiths and masons mined the upper reaches and outer cliffs of the Lower Warrens for stone while in the space between the mines and the Labyrinth they carved out immense halls to mirror the grandeur of the ancient dwarven heims of the Bonefrost Mountains. Sir Ivar encouraged these halls commissioning them to span every square foot once infected by the Cyclopean Labyrinth so that these dwarven halls too would cover the whole of his holdings on the surface.
Scattered in other regions, beneath Castle Flamenwing, the outer towers and the town they protected these halls housed righteous dragons and those who served them. However in the area known today as the Lower Warrens these halls were known by the vanguard who inhabited them: The Shieldsworn.
Men, dwarves and others who together formed a legion bound by oath to patrol the lower reaches of Flamenwing and hold at bay the horrors of the Cyclopean Labyrinth. It was impossible to properly combat these horrors in the depths en masse and of course collapsing the whole of the Labyrinth would mean abandoning the site for all time. Instead these brave legions traversed the dungeons and, at times even themselves descended into the Cyclopean Labyrinth in small units to drive back the darkness there.
This took no small measure of divine and arcane power. As such the Shieldsworn built into their central complex chapels to their gods, libraries and laboratories for arcane study and crafting, and of course armories and vaults to serve their mortal needs. There was also a great hall for communing with dragons and their lord Sir Ivar. Finally their dangerous duty took many lives before the first kobold ever descended here; the dwarves built crypts and tombs for their honored dead in the traditions of their ancient nobles.
The Shieldsworn level is immense and connects nearly every other area of the ruins above to one another. This is by design; this undercity though hundreds of feet below the surface was a secondary means of connecting all the resources, men and defenses of the citadel. Their construction is gothic and towering, a combination of human and dwarven aesthetics. In the area of the Lower Warrens many of the obvious chambers have been overwhelmed by invading creatures who have either occupied or outright re-created lairs for themselves in these places. Some of the vaults and tombs of the Shieldsworn however are still concealed behind cunning secret doors and fell traps.
Those dwarves not inducted into the Shieldsworn formed ranks of engineers and smiths dwelling in the upper hills of the Lower Warrens. At the time known as Flamenwing Quarry the place was used for the cutting of stone, mining of ore and extraction of mineral wealth from hundreds of caves lining the undercroft of the hills at the site. In the Warrens there were buildings built in and on the hills as well as in the pit below. These included foundries, masonic halls, forges and ovens. There were living quarters for the laborers and defensive turrets and towers as well.
The mines themselves were proper dwarven construction; vaulted and braced with open chambers for the work and venting out into the pits below. It was here at the quarry that the kobolds of Balathunda gained their first foothold on the citadel and consequently when the siege finally ended with the death of Sir Ivar and the imprisonment of the Cobalt Queen the last remaining kobolds still held the mines.
Over time these regions were scoured and abandoned by the draconic horde. They made their way down to the Shieldsworn levels, explored the Dragon Halls beyond and, when they found the crawling chaos of the Cyclopean Labyrinth seeping into the upper halls they fled repulsed by the madness of these horrors. The Shieldsworn level was sealed off from the outer halls for a time meaning that the aberrant and otherworldly things clambered up and out through the mines into the pit of the quarry and beyond into the wilds.
This area has long since been considered one of the most cursed and misunderstood regions of Flamenwing. Eventually though the Wilding bolstered the feral and fey-tainted creatures of the world driving them into the Lower Warrens to re-discover these ancient ruins anew. The invaders then slew many of the horrors they found lurking in the sagging tunnels and carved out new homes and lairs for themselves. Ruins were re-purposed, mines re-opened and underhalls refurbished.
Today this level is a combination of dwarven mines, rough-hewn tunnels and ancient caves as of yet untouched by the tools and magics of mortals. The Upper Reaches are the entry levels into the Lower Warrens and nine obvious pathways can be found through cavernous fissures, ruined structures or in the gnarled roots of the wild
What do you think? Is this detailed enough and does it answer some of the questions you had? I know; next I have to really drill down and generate the detail of the history I've been hinting at this whole time.
|
|
Sounds excellent. Good expansion on existing concepts.
This is good stuff - I actually get a few side items (dungeon features/side histories) here.
I can see animated weapons, maybe an evil weapon that has part of his soul left in it or even an amalgam of his weapons, armor and other creations that came together to form a very tough and self-aware golem.
Could also be a ghost here (his) or maybe the ghosts of those he murdered in secret - other dwarves who supposedly died in a mining accident or left the region but in fact were killed by him).
So how many levels do you want for this mega-dungeon Hoover? You have the 4 periods down, how many levels do you envision for each era?
Se we need some idea about how many levels you want to tackle - and as you expand the history and background even more you may find that you will need to put in more levels to make this complete and right as a project.
So more detail - specific levels
and then from you surface area map need expanding and tie-in to the warrens/9 entrances or their own sub-levels detailed:
- Castle
- Fangkiss Cathedral
- Order of the Dragon Shield
- Tower of Brass (you gave some details about this)
- Dragonsmaw (is this the access point for the wyrms to the areas designated below, a specific lair?)
- Scritedra
- Undertakers Hall and Barrow of Graves
- Drannoscheim
- The Lower Warrens (is this marked on the map to denote the 9 entrances or direct access to? Or where the are in relation to everything else?)
outlaying areas:
- Curdled Bog
- Labyrinthwood
- Icwyl Sea/Coastal Area/Cliffs
All of the surface ruin areas tie into the warrens at the level of the Dragon Halls. Dragonsmaw was in fact the previous entry point to this level for the dragons here, but it is now the central home of the kobolds who infest this megadungeon. There is also an actual Young Red Dragon living here.
The Order of the Dragon Shield and Drannoscheim are both places for PCs to re-supply if they need immediate assistance. The major city is only a day away, but in a pinch these can be used.
Begun only a few years ago as fringe cults began venerating dragons once more, this holy order of the Eternal Dragon Apsu venerates the memory of Sir Ivar as a saint or demigod. They are still a small organization but growing. They began as like-minded zealots who often made pilgrimages to the ruins to defeat evil and attempt to redeem the place once more. On one of these sojurns they encountered brass-scaled kobolds who led them to a secret tomb in the inner courtyard of the castle.
When the paladin had fallen in death from the clouds his impact created a new cavern which these kobolds had fled to when their deformity marked them as outcasts. The dragon-kin lived their in secret for days not realizing that the corpse of the paladin was burrowed deep in the barrow. When at last they found it Sir Ivar was perfectly preserved, as if merely sleeping; his holy shield was propped in such a way where it was the central support of the entire cave.
When the Order learned all of this they immediately pledged mutual support to this new, fledgling band of kobolds. Together they cleansed the area of evil, built up the tomb and eventually removed the shield to a place of honor while the paladin's body was entombed with proper reverence. The order has only reported all of this verbally; few outsiders have seen the shield or these odd, righteous kobolds and none have ever actually seen the tomb.
Despite this the Order of the Dragon Shield has now firmly established itself as a force in the lands around Flamenwing. They have built a base of operations many levels deep and extending into the Dragon Halls below. They actively combat the kobolds and other monsters here while seeking out all of the lore and artifacts they can of the paladin and his family. The Order also maintains a couple monasteries in the surrounding countryside for potential converts and supplicants.
These zealots are benevolent but secretive. They do not actively seek to support cavalier bands of adventurers who plunder the ruins but, if contacted for aid will sell it to them. Some non-worshippers do become field agents of the Order. These men and women are forced through a test of their skills in the Order's headquarters in the ruins and then made to take an oath to which they are bound by divine magic.
Drannosch Ironmourn is a hard dwarf. As the mercenary captain of the Ironmourn Company he wandered for decades taking every job he could. He cares little for good and evil; he lives by the Law of the Deal and this law is both binding and final. He is disciplined and focused and expects his company to be the same.
Roughly 20 years ago he was contracted by the kobolds of Flamenwing Castle to serve with them in a campaign bringing down dwarven stronholds in the distant mountains as well as human villagaes in the foothills. They were raiding for mithril and the secrets of its forging. The mercenary cared little for the evil of the campaign but negotiated as payment a home. He envisioned a life where he could stop wandering the land and instead build a heim like the halls of the ancient kings, where wealth and power would come to him rather than endlessly chasing it.
Drannoscheim was born out of this accord. A series of vermin-infested caves which the kobolds saw as undesirable on the southern heights near the sea, the dwarven mercenaries cleared them and razed a few nearby ruins for stone and material. It has taken time, effort and much sacrifice, but from these humble outcrops a settlement has emerged.
Drannoscheim today is a place of commerce. The lowest level connects to the southernmost reaches of the Dragon Halls. Here, in the Neverdawn Market kobolds, goblins and other sentient creatures can barter and deal. For a price whole warbands are conducted safely up and out of Drannoscheim to be free to menace the surface world right under the noses of the Order of the Dragon Shield. Similarly however adventurers often come to the hall of the Ironmourn Company to pay for passage down into the dungeons below.
The company and a few permanent residents here qualify this place as a proper settlement like a village. There are fields kept on the heights by some of the company for grazing and crops; there is a spellcaster and the former medic of the company keeps a chapel to his dwarven patron; there are smithys and crafters with workshops built into the vertical town. Down near the market there are even taverns and an inn.
There is only the Law of the Deal here. This law rules Drannoscheim. If payment can be met or an accord can be made then all are welcome; break this accord and the justice of Captain Ironmourn and his company will be swift and merciless.
But as for the rest of Flamenwing for now I want to just focus on the Warrens so as not to get overwhelmed. For the Lower Warrens I was thinking the Upper Reaches would have the nine entrances and that each of these would have between 1-5 levels. These areas may intersect one another or stand alone; they should definitely have connections though to the Brass Tower and the Order of the Dragon Shield even if these connections are hidden.
Descending to the Shieldsworn level it was originally 4 levels with one 4-story hall. I could imagine portions of those 4 levels being expanded into sub-levels here and there as well. The main levels would be around 50-60 rooms each with sub-levels being small, like 10-12. Some of these would be empty or still sealed (like the encounter above - BRILLIANT!) while others might be connected to factions on this same level or levels above, like a goblin chieftan or a barghest that send up warbands into the Upper Reaches once in a while to expand territory.
The Cyclopean Labyrinth level is a true nightmare. 5 levels, maze-like and really frightening. There are nooks and crannies, whole rooms or complexes built among the halls here but most permanent residents are horrors. Some few "boss" type creatures exist on this level but for now I'm not going to worry about developing this since I don't anticipate the PCs getting there. Of course, now that I've said that they will bee-line there but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.
The Chasms are more like a myth or a legend. No one's seen them in four centuries and lived to talk of it. They are the unknowable depths in the heart of the earth.
That reminds me: if I'm mapping and charting all of this, do you think the lore I've come up with should be readily available with knowledge checks? I've got 4 PCs in my game; 4 of them have Knowledge: Dungeoneering and 2 of them also have Knowledge: History. Now they're only level 2 pulling average rolls between 16-18 but if they put their heads together, use Aid Another and the Guidance spell they could conceivably take 10 and still get a 25 without talking to a single NPC. Should they then have a lot of this info before they ever set foot in the Warrens?
For that matter should I have maps for the players? I'd thought I'd just generate general landmarks like unique chambers in the Warrens that adventurers chart by but why WOULDN'T there be maps of at least the upper reaches. One of these landmarks is going to be an underground lake amid the Upper Reaches called Frostfang.
So that finally brings me right back to the Upper Reaches and the nine entrances to the Lower Warrens. One of the ones that's stuck in my head this whole time I've nick-named "The Aerie"; hundreds of years ago it was the largest of the turret towers on the quarry walls overlooking the hollow below. Now after years of terrible storms, the Wilding and worse there's just crumbling portions of the balcony and an interior door leading into the highest point of the Warrens. There's also a partial wall and the balcony is inside the canopy of the trees here giving it good cover. The Aerie then is frequently used by flying monsters as a perch and the dungeons just inside which were once defensive martial chambers are now inhabited by wandering creatures from the mine levels below.
|
|
To your questions:
Knowledge -
I think if the lore was chronicled somewhere then it should be accessible to the players via a Knowledge check. Some information - primordial eldritch creatures, etc - if not properly documented may be unknown or unknown to those on the surface (where historical info is found when they are actually already in the dungeon – much like a journal found in a horror movie.)
Of course there are different ways knowledge is passed down during the years. Even if the degenerate humans who worshipped these creatures didn't keep good records (or if they did, most would still be there locked away and not in circulation around the world) their enemies or victims of their predations may have.
The POV and presentation all changes if the writer had a different occupational background or agenda for recording the information – a Priest who chronicles the horrors and focuses on keeping them at bay is going to focus on the monsters: weaknesses, weapons to be used against, etc, while a wizard who respects these creatures may seek a way to harness their powers, or he may just be a historian who was trying to gather the history of the crater.
I would look at breaking up your info into two categories:
General info: What people may have learned or know about the region/warrens, etc. Some access points, threats, groups, hazards – mostly surface/low level dungeon stuff, but very vague on specifics.
Privileged Knowledge: This is when your players get a roll while talking to an old adventurer who went there (you can also RP that part out and disseminate the info based on interaction checks vs. knowledge checks, give the Cha character a chance to shine) and survived the horrors. Access points (secret entrances, alternate safer entrances), specific hazards ("don't tie your ropes there; the rocks on that cliff will get cut them to pieces....that's how Werner fell") or other small notes.
Privileged Knowledge is a class of knowledge that the players do not get unless they have a specific source: survivor interview, old tome, record, etc. The knowledge and period it covers will of course vary based on the age of the source, but it will be specific vs. general knowledge checks. If they don't find that source, you don't reveal the knowledge
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Maps –
If this area has living inhabitants who trade and still survive – maps of the surface area (and hazards) would be a must. How accurately they list things (wrong info, omitted info/entrances) is up to how reliable you want the source to be. You can make a safe bet that the Order of the Dragon Shield is going to have some incredibly detailed maps – where are the access points to the warrens, which ones are the most dangerous and need an extra eye to watch, other natural or man-made hazards that you have to chart and note on a area that is a large decaying ruin.
Which brings me to a side point of concern:
So I can see the ODS having some of the best maps, but also making fake maps and putting out some disinformation to keep people away. Not sure how you want to handle that one. Even if the PC join the Order, the group hierarchy would probably say the lower levels are forbidden to them.
Unless of course something is stirring below and they need help stopping it. Then maybe they would weigh out the risk of sending people down if the threat already is activated.
Other map sources: goblins, kobolds, other adventurers (failed or successful), dwarves with a claim to Flamewing (prior to Ironmourn’s arrival).
Some map sources could be old and list information that is outdated (sort of). A map that shows the area pre-habitation or during early habitation may be more useful for higher level play since it concerns the layout (as changed as it is) of the deeper levels. Stone tablets, magic books, visions in a dream – any source actually, long as it's old.
The amount of how "civilized" the region is serves as a direct corollary to the amount of map available and to their accuracy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nine Entrances to the Lower Warrens -
The Aerie sounds cool, might be kind hard for a lower level group of PCs since flying encounters are usually harder encounters.
You should list the 9 entrances and the level of “threat” they may present to PCs trying to access them.
So far we have the:
Aerie - Low to mid level, depending of the flyers – may be hard to access (climbing)
Brass Tower – Specialized Watchtower
Order of the Dragon Shield Complex – Knights, Monks (human), Brass Kobolds (Brass Dragon bloodline)?
Drannoscheim - The funhouse approach, pay to get in to the dungeon: I see these types of access to have the least amount of risk and also reward since this way probably has the most traffic.
Dragonsmaw – Kobold/Dragon lair. What terms are they on with the other groups in the area? Would they even let adventurers dig in other parts if they heard about them? How come the Red hasn’t razed the Dwarf hold or the ODS complex?
The Howling Step – Lamashtu Worshipping Goblins + Master.
That's 6 entrances. What are the other 3 - I know there are some sites listed without detail, not sure if that was where you were planning to place them?
Also, for each entry way there should be a list of details/complications:
Example -
Again the easiest and safest way to the Warrens is the Drannoscheim entrance - this should have a fee (tough for low level players) and should really have very little treasure/threat and be least rewarding experience for the PCs. Until the delve deeper.
Is there a tax when the players come back up from below? Are they required to give the Drannoscheim first dips on offers to buy treasure brought up from below? What about thieving scum who reside in Drannoscheim? Any hang around to rip-off, swindle or even murder returning adventurers (in or after they leave the Drannoscheim)?
The above would be some starting notes on accessing the Warrens via Drannoscheim.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Howling Step is probably the easiest currently for any creature (PC or otherwise) to access. It is at ground level and is little more than an exploited cave entrance built up and around during the time of the Wilding. This area is currently a goblin lair, probably with access to other goblin areas so low to mid level threat.
Drannoscheim doesn't actually get you to the Warrens; it gets you deeper, down to the Dragon Halls. This settlement should be used to make the early mid levels (levels 3-6) easy to get in and out before major transport magic becomes a thing.
The Tower of Brass is literally based on a module meant for 1st level players so I would peg this as a great starting adventure. It doesn't have the easiest access to the Warrens (you have to clear some rubble per the module) but if players methodically cleared every room of the tower they could easily secure it as their own base of operations to work down from.
Dragonsmaw is also meant for upper tier players. It was the access point for dragons and their minions to head right down to the Dragon Halls and like Drannoscheim still leads to that level. Also this is the vault of the Kobold overking and contains at least one young red dragon.
The Order of the Dragon Shield I've detailed to the players already and they have no interest as of yet. This is probably a good thing since I haven't worked through all the contradictions of this group as you've pointed out above.
The Aerie could be fun. I'm thinking there could be the remnants of an exterior staircase halfway up the rock face so accessing it might take some climbing but is possible. As for the flying creatures I've already established a young wyvern in the area; the Aerie would be an interesting lair. Once inside if the PCs could defeat such a tough monster there should be considerable reward. Also the remoteness of the locale could provide added security for future delves.
This actually leaves 5 access points left to detail. The Lower Warrens at one time were a mine right? What about a mineshaft with the appropriate dwarven feel still tainted by the aberrations but also stalked by creatures that stalked in during the Wilding (ogres and a hag maybe)? Let's see; what else did they use the Warrens for?
The Gullet: a lower section of mines expanded by aberrant creatures and monsters into a maze-like environ reminiscent of the Cyclopean Labyrinth. Maybe with ties to that level?
Tula's Door: an area that once was a section of quarry tunnels has been re-purposed by a sadistic demon cult. The bones of a ruined hall frame the entry point; a sturdy door in the base of a rock wall. The area is named for another paladin, Tula Goldenlock led a failed expedition into the sub-level and none returned; the hirelings she left on the escarpment overlooking the Warrens could hear her screams even though the door was closed.
Hellfire's Gate: there was a foundry here: half outside, half underground. The ovens and crucibles were used to not only smelt ore but also to heat living quarters above. Now the place is infested with...evil. (spoiler: I have no idea what to put here, it just sounded cool in my head)
Bloodwillow Bole: when the wilding hit the area not everything entered the caverns of the Lower Warrens through the rock walls. A great, old willow had a deep bole in the trunk and a cavernous chamber buried in the roots. A band of mites utilizing the vermin they controlled burrowed down, under that tree to enter the caves below, leaving behind a Small-sized complex just below the old tree.
Anything else we can think of?
|
|
A mine access would be fun, I do like the fact that for the most part - each of your access points have a unique feel to them.
Instead of (or in addition to) the Ogres and Hag (assuming the leader) you could have the mine be haunted by fey creatures. And when I'm talking fey I mean little evil bastards. They could work for the hag, who keeps them up their as a first line of defense against goblins, kobolds and other interlopers (maintaining the haunting feel with their antics). Maybe the Hag is in the mine because she is looking for some secret that the Dwarves had, or possibly drawn from all the powers that have convened on this area (think about it - you have three: Eldritch/Mythos/Far-Realm, Shadowlands and Fey/Wilding) and is trying to figure out how to harness that power for herself.
So some ideas (again, just suggestions)
Haunted Mine/Evil Fey list:
- Quickling Rogue
- An Evil Brownie
- Gremlins (jenkin)
- Spring-Heeled Jack
I would only consider Fey creatures with the ability to affect things (prestidigitation) to help supply that "haunted mine" effect and those who can do this undetected. Also some creatures with high mobility for good hit and run tactics.
You could also the Fey Creature template (in B3 or online) to make some non-standard fey creatures (turn those ogres into fey or even add it onto the hag).
As far as the Hags go, the Annis hag is a great brawler hag and works well with the Ogres.
If you want to go really weird (and it would also go some ways to explain why the hag and her ogres are not laying waste to the surrounding "camps") is to make part of the mine flooded – the Hag is a Green Hag (lives in or near water) and she has contacted a tribe of Deepearth Freshwater Merrows. That would make their forays into the outlying lands a bit limited (due to the amphibious nature or the water ogres) and make it utmost that their existence be hidden until she can mitigate the drawback so as to reap maximum potential for long distance raids.
(Variant Ogre Leader option)
Or if you want to use another creature that is like a hag, but has been underused in the history of D&D (AD&D) you could instead sub in a Lamia (normally Arid, but…hey, who cares – it’s a cool creature) or if you want it to be a bit harder, a Lamia Matriarch who uh…..takes her ogre thralls as mates.
A serpentine Half Ogre kin, a unique monstrosity: a scaled ogre with enhanced features and abilities can be her perfect son, leader to the other ogres, clan champion and her mate.
------------------------------------------------------------
On the issue of the Order of the Dragon Shield
I think this can be mitigated to a degree if the players who approach this group are good guys. If you take the Indiana Jones approach, the ODS crew – sensing that there are other groups bigger than themselves (Drannoscheim, Kobolds in Dragonmaw) operating in theater may feel a sense of urgency of having their own group of good guys delve the ruins (and offer to aid them) in a race to stop the mercantile residents of Drannoscheim from releasing an ancient horror by accident or from someone in the Kobold camp releasing an ancient horror on purpose (or on accident – people often think they can handle power they can’t manage).
They are outnumbered and outgunned vs. foes driven by greed, or just the pursuit of power and items (which may be important to the ODS).
So the ODS group can even sponsor good adventures (not rabble or shifty CN type groups) into going down with the following possible directives:
- Report other groups activities (how far, were are they going, what are they looking for)
- Religious objects of importance to their order need to be turned over (for pay in gold or items)
- Report what is going on in the warrens. What is the state of things with the seals in other parts of the dungeon?
They can provide a safe entrance/exit place, offer healing (for a price) some minor items and a place to stay – rest, research, recruit. They can give the PCs legit maps (limiting the scope of map coverage based on their skill/competence of the PCs and how successful they think the group will be).
- Spy mission on Drannoscheim
So the ODS now needs good adventurers since there is way too much at stake and too many other operators in the area.
Of course if the players are evil or in the act of agitating evil or putting the seals at risk then then become the enemies of the Order.
------------------------------------------------------------
Some suggestions
Please stop me if you think I'm going to far with this stuff, mutate it or ignore it as much as you see fit
I like Tula's Door – for something extra weird:
Extra fun: Tula isn't dead, just trapped in the deepest part of that warped place in some kind of vortex – can someone free her? Think Little Girl Lost from the original Twilight Zone episode (it's ok to rip-off really good content). She could impart some great knowledge or give them an important key that she has been holding for all the years she has been trapped. If using a reputation system, this would most definitely garner them some points.
------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe the doorway/furnace was the genesis is an ancient dwarven curse (or Ghost) who created this weak gate to utilize that planes power (for good reasons) and now needs to be righted or the Ghost needs to be laid to rest to get it closed?
The Lawful elementals can aid the party as best as they can, while a more sinister elemental group/race may try to stop them. Cross Planar Warfare!
This could end as a nice "feel good" scenario (if unconventional) if the PCs actually help the good creatures with this problem and close the door for good. Maybe a unique flaming weapon can be given as a reward?
------------------------------------------------------------
Aerie - I like where you are going with the this – pretty much how I pictured it (even the creature: Wyverns are classic). Also serves as a good terrain challenge (for Rogues/Rangers).
The Gullet sounds like a good run and opportunity introducing the Eldritch affected creatures (low level). What sort of beasties did you have in mind?
- Phycomid (bio-weapon)
- Tendriculos (fits with all the warping energy – attack dog, battle champion)
- Basidiriond
- Yellow Musk Creepers and Zombies
- Assassin Vine
- Violet Fungus
Some good low to mid level fights in there, throw in a few oversized bugs, some mite traps and it could be a very memorable dungeon
------------------------------------------------------------
Possible entrances or dungeons here?
- Fangkiss Cathedral
- Scritedra
- Undertakers Hall and Barrow of Graves
Are you going to detail these areas?
- Curdled Bog
- Labyrinthwood
- Icwyl Sea/Coastal Area/Cliffs
Keep it coming.....
Edit:I will also try to throw in an idea for an entry point, you have some good ones already covered so let my brain work on this one for a bit. Will post later on.
Fangkiss - I'd originally planned my lamia cult here. I may have to adjust if I steal your excellent mine ideas. It is a ruined cathedral that used to venerate dragons and connects to the Dragon Halls. It also adjoins a flooded crypt area below Castle Flamenwing.
Scritedra - one of many kobold outposts in the Dragon Halls adjoining Dragonmaw. This particular one is run by a sadistic kobold arcanist torturer who is using the skins of his victims to create mundane velum. He's also using unique skins (such as from outsiders or powerful individuals) for items of power. He's working on finding a skin powerful enough to enhance a spell to dispell the Imprisonment spell cast on Balathunda. FYI - the ancient blue is trapped in the eye of a storm which eternally rages, rolling out to sea and then back over the ruins every so often leading to unpredictable weather, frequent storms and flooding wherever I need it to happen.
Barrow of Graves - I'd envisioned this as a "boot hill" for adventurers. Formerly the old graveyard of the town of Castle Flamenwing and now used by the PCs and other explorers. If I decide to keep this idea I'll maybe tie it to a unique fey in my homebrew called Gravesworn Piskies or maybe a divine entity. I may however just have it be a haunted graveyard.
Undertaker's Hall - an undead dungeon wholy seperate from the main regions of Flamenwing. Sort of a "Lost Levels" bonus feature that the PCs can explore and expand.
The Curdled Bog - once a meadow and lake that was corrupted by all the otherworldly energies flying around here this area is now home to monstrous vermin. This is where mites gather their pets and there are hive levels burrowed down, beneath the bogs. Of course there may also be some key to the dungeon buried here as well...
Labyrinthwood - Before the Wilding these were scattered woodlots and hunting grounds kept by the paladin and his vassals. There were a couple small settlements under the paladin's control here and a defensive tower that connected both above ground and via the Dragon Halls to the main citadel. As the Wilding came on the fey flocked first to this region before making their way deeper into the ruins. They pruned and guided the returning woodlands creating a grand maze; winding faerie circles, mounds, and stone reclaimed from the buildings of the settlements as well as the ruins to accompany boulders and outcrops already present in the land. The fey power wielded here was so great that even after the Wilding ended the woods were still greatly enchanted.
Now the forest towers over the landscape. Mortals who enter here go mad; not like the madness that tears apart the minds of fools who dare to plumb the depths of the ruins. Instead these are faerie weirds that manifest in unending euphoria or soulless apathy. The fey here prey upon the emotions of those who visit here. However the tower at the heart of the Labyrinthwood is said to be a portal to the First World. The fey, as agents of the primal and the natural, abhor the horrors of the nearby ruins but are too capricious to be moved to action. If only there were heroes brave enough to endure the arduous journey to the tower and there to beseech the very immortals who control the faerie courts, there might one day be a final solution.
|
|
Now the forest towers over the landscape. Mortals who enter here go mad; not like the madness that tears apart the minds of fools who dare to plumb the depths of the ruins. Instead these are faerie weirds that manifest in unending euphoria or soulless apathy. The fey here prey upon the emotions of those who visit here. However the tower at the heart of the Labyrinthwood is said to be a portal to the First World. The fey, as agents of the primal and the natural, abhor the horrors of the nearby ruins but are too capricious to be moved to action. If only there were heroes brave enough to endure the arduous journey to the tower and there to beseech the very immortals who control the faerie courts, there might one day be a final solution
I think an interesting take on this would be a "lost outpost" approach.
Let me run this by you:Imagine the fey were a leftover security force of sorts that came through from the time of the Wilding - similar to what the ODS have become? They were given orders to stand watch against the evil of the Warrens but with the march of time and by the nature of their own magic they are now in a sort of dreamland stupor? Maybe a chronicle of their listed tasks and duties returned to the current leader of the fey can stir them into action?
Unfortunately that record has been secured and secreted away by other forces....
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I might have another warren entrance for you...not right on the map, but not too far away.
The Icwyl Monolith - A small island in the Icwyl Sea, visible from the towers of Fangkiss Castle, devoid of life and featureless besides a squat man-made(?) building called the Stone House. Basically a moderate sized, windswept monolith jutting out of the water - with a large set of metal(?) doors and rough hewn stairs that round up either side that lead up to the flattened top.
An area were the Ancient worshippers would sail out to on moonless nights, bearing torches and sacrifices. Out to the island to perform rituals and offerings to their gods below and to challenge the gods above.
At the top of the Stone House are several sacrificial pits, one of them with a passage that leads to the "Run".
The "Run" is an opening in one of the smaller pits that leads down to the Warrens below. Those who challenged the eldritch gods in authority were given the option of a painful death at the hands of the worshippers, or the option to take the "Run" down below....for a slower and more horrific death. Only the bravest enemies of the Ancient worshippers were given this option - often enemy tribal warriors who came to this area to fight the Eldritch evil, and were captured.
As to the black metal doors at the base of the Stone House, those haven’t been opened in millennia – considering their size, most would sleep more comfortably if never were to open again.
Wow that is really awesome A-bomb! Thanks for the Stone House. I really like the Lovecraftian tie in.
I might make something similar though, only bending more towards the Shadow. What if there was a structure into which bright light just never made it? Inside no matter what it's always considered at least Dim Light conditions. Inside this locale are permanent dimension door type portals into the Warrens that can also conduct to the Plane of Shadow as well.
This site would be less divine/profane and more arcane in nature. Arcanists would have used this to enter into bargains with the darkness or scions therein. These could be Faustian pacts or more like faerie tale accords, I don't know which. But this would introduce Fetchlings, Dark Slayers and others like that to the game.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh, and @ the rest of the interwebz: if you're popping in and read through the thread a little, throw out your suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em.
|
|
Well, from the theme side of things you are going to have to establish:
- Far-Realm/Lovecraftian Feel (have a few levels and features for this, so this is a solid theme)
---
- Realm of Shadow Feel: Only the last post has made some "solid" reference to putting in a level that will convey this vibe. I know you have made some reference to Dark Folk (great race to put into use btw) Some issues with this:
A) Since players only get what you convey via description and running the mod you run the risk of "its just a very dark/evil area" vs. getting across the Shadow plane feel
B) Since it is "dark" it may just end up being associated with your existing Far-Realm/Lovecraftian feel. We would need a way to show that these are two distinct themes and as far as forces go, they are not allies but are opposed
A Shadow control section of the mega-dungeon would be welcomed and be a requirement if you are trying to illustrate an old or current conflict.
---
- Realm of Fey/Wilding: Some of this is covered, introducing Fey involved and having Fey-touched areas (with lingering effects) is probably a good way to convey this theme.
And yes to the rest of you out there - this is a collaborative effort, I'm just one guy trying to help another DM out. I didn't intend this to be the Mark Hoover/Auxmaulous show.
Contributions from other around here would be helpful and appreciated.
Aux: I see what you mean that too many "themes" might conflict and cause confusion. Best to stick w/one or two then.
Far Realm/Lovecraftian: well established in this megadungeon with specific levels dedicated to it.
Fey/Wilding: setting specific theme that infuses every area of my homebrew world, Karnoss, in which this megadungeon is set.
There's obviously a fair bit to do with Dragons, but I'm trying to keep that out of the Warrens as best I can.
|
|
You can probably keep the Shadow Realm theme - it just needs some developing.
The workable aspect about integrating the SR into this module is there is a possibility for players to have (somewhat) peaceful interactions with some CN Shadow Realm denizens. So instead of full levels and physical cues of SR influence (like you would do with the Wilding or Far Realm influences on environment) you can have the Shadow Realm thing verbally communicated and explained to the PCs by NPCs from that realm. I still like the Shadow Dungeon level and area.
In some respects if you plan on having the Far Realm faction/angle be a slowly stirring evil awakening from slumber/making a move to break free, the Shadow Realm may serve as a ally for the PCs. The PCs may want to side with some of the non-evil, CN agents of the Shadow Realm - sort of a Devils deal to keep a greater evil at bay.
Of course nothing is that easy - the CE denizens would want to wage war against the mortal and Far Realms so that would be an added complication.
It comes down to how much work you want to do on this whole project. You would need a level or two controlled or influence by the Shadow Realm, various factions within that realm (CN vs CE) and then decide if it's another community (of sorts) where the players will interact with the NPCs or will it be another lair to clear out on par with evil kobold or goblins.
You have a lot on your plate - mega-dungeons that make sense and are well written require a tremendous amount of detail and back story to keep the players invested vs. a series of rooms on a giant map.
I think you are sitting on a (haunted) gold mine here Hoover - don't compromise an idea because you might not be able to make it work right this moment. You can put it on the back burner for now and see if you can overlay parts of it later after you flesh out the core.
I wouldn't worry too much about the Dragon theme: right now there is one active dragon and some dragon associated cults/groups, some dragon history, but neither of those aspects actually affect the "feel" of the overall ruins. I mean there is a large Dwarven aspect (historically) also; I just see these as excellent ways to mark the physical changes and aesthetics of the dungeon. A Dragon "feel" would be active dragons playing chess - that may have been the case in the past, but it's direct influence on the current state of the dungeon is minimal.
On Aesthetics:
- The upper human ruins/Dragon Hero levels (some parts fey touched)
- Dwarven Levels and Grand Halls (some parts fey touched)
- The Empty Dragon Lairs (still probably a grand Dwarven feel)
- Cavern Areas (Goblin)
- Cavern Areas (Kobold)
- Degenerate Human caves (Aberrant, mixed of ancient stonework and craftsmanship and some areas are Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Hills Have Eyes degenerate feel)
- Deep Nodes/Domain of the Eldridge ones (Grand and Hideous)
Each one can have an aesthetic, which is considerably more superficial than feel or theme. I hope I'm making sense on this.
And as I mentioned in an earlier post: These changing areas are excellent ways to tell the PCs that something is up, even if you do not have an NPC in their party to convey that info.
In some respects if you plan on having the Far Realm faction/angle be a slowly stirring evil awakening from slumber/making a move to break free, the Shadow Realm may serve as a ally for the PCs. The PCs may want to side with some of the non-evil, CN agents of the Shadow Realm - sort of a Devils deal to keep a greater evil at bay.
What if the ODS already MADE that deal?
Consider - the ODS forms up 5 years ago and has remained a shadowy organization ever since. Maybe not even all the members of the Order even know that their superiors made the deal.
So most of the ODS is in "the dark" on the influence inside their own organization. They recruit adventurers, like you mentioned above, only when they've determined the recruits are good and so forth. But NO ONE is allowed below the Dragon Seals. Why? Because THAT'S what the SR masters want; to control the energies trapped down there.
So a subplot might be (if the characters end up working with the ODS) uncovering the corruption at the top. But once they uncover the corruption they're faced with a choice; keep working with the shadows to serve a greater good or destroy the shadow connections to the dungeon and in return undo whatever work they've done to stem the tide of the Far Realm.
|
|
And you thought all of this was just "spinning yarns".
That is an excellent idea (why didn't I think of that)!
You just developed:
- ODS motivation/agenda
- ODS NPCs involved at different levels (not the specific NPCs, just the seeds)
- Shadow Realm motivation/agenda/"why is this in the module?" part
- Shadow Realm NPCs (again, as seed ideas; now you need to id the face of the SR liaison to ODS, who his boss is, some duplicitous bastards in that group and some genuine CN characters who could be on the same page as the ODS and PCs)
- You have a storytelling tool. Now the history of the ODS, SR and FR all can be told through various agents, npcs, records, POVs, etc. You get to reveal your story in parts and pieces and it feels organic instead of forced.
This work has been very helpful to me, it's good DM practice on brainstorming, fixes, looking at solutions to problems and just a good way to stoke creativity. Thanks for letting me contribute on this.
Ok so I'm going to borrow your Stone House but I think I'm going to locate it inland. Unfortunately for me I've already detailed to my players that there's no easy way out to sea along this coast due to geography and frequent "Dragon Squalls" - tempests spawned by the eternal storm in which Balathunda the ancient blue dragon was imprisoned.
So moving the Stone House inland I'm thinking I could locate it in the woods south of the Tower of Brass, west of Drannoscheim. Other than that I'm just going to steal it, lock stock and barrel.
Next up: I'm going to try to tackle each of the entrances and detail them. Here's the short version of the first one
This section of the Lower Warrens is actually the youngest. Originally nothing more than a fissure beneath an overhang where stone had previously been quarried, the entrance was widened and framed during the time of the Wilding. Being that the passage is at ground level it was easy for goblins entering the area to access.
The entrance gets its name from the fact that in gouging open the passage a natural air vent was pierced causing air to constantly rush up from below. The goblins, enjoying the sound, framed the whistling cracks with ghoulish faces, their mouths open in different ways to alter the pitch of the wail. Finally the opening was fixed with a swinging portcullis; sturdy enough to keep out intruders but open enough for the sound to fill the tunnel beyond.
The goblins who carved this place found narrow, natural caves barely more than crawlspaces in the rock. They squeezed in, put their tools to work and began cutting down, into larger chambers below. The result were dozens of rough-hewn tunnels and chambers used by the goblins as a base from which to stage raids further into the Warrens.
This initial construction happened nearly a century ago. The Howling step has expanded much since then.
The tunnels eventually pushed up and out to intersect a neighboring zone referred to as the Gullet. Each of these intersections quickly became compromised by the aberrant hordes and were closed off with doors so that the goblins could return to the Gullet at their leisure.
The Howling Step continued to descend into natural caverns below, reaching eventually to the vast underground aquifer known locally as the Frostfang Lake. The many of these caves presented mineral wealth and soon the goblins found their vaults under siege from other sentient creatures throughout the Warrens. Some of these creatures gained footholds in the Step and carved out their own small lairs from the caves.
Today the Howling Step is a hodge-podge no longer controlled by any one faction. It is typified by primitive architecture rough-hewn among natural stone. Prominent among the denizens here are goblins, aberrations and underground dwelling fey, though other individual threats may also exist.
|
|
The Howling Step sounds like it could be a good lair for some classic AD&D/D&D monsters (Caves of Chaos)
- Goblins
- Bandits
- Few Bugbears
- An Owlbear
- An Ogre
- Stirges
- Some big animals and vermin (Fire Beetles, Giant Tick, Giant Lizard, Giant Spiders, etc)
- Cursed area: Wandering undead (Skeletons, Zombie a Shadow or Ghoul?)
on the weird side (FR,SR or Fey)
- Chokers
- Cloaker
- Mites
- Executioners Hood
Anything you can think of really - sounds like a good dungeon bash.
Yeah, that's kind of the theme there. I figure 3 levels, forty "encounter areas" a level, with some intersection to both the Gullet and Bloodwillow Bole.
Its a hodge-podge which makes sense because it's at ground level and the most easily accessible of the entrances. This is a classic dungeon hack area.
I should mention at this point; the first major goal of the PCs is find a sub-level at the edge of Frostfang Lake known as Blackhorn's Vault. The party has been hired to descend to the lake, find the vault, and map it for a Pathfinder-esque group known as the Archivist's Guild.
All of the "entrances" have some means of reaching the lake, so it really doesn't matter which way they go. It's just a matter of what they decide they want to endure along the way. Another nice thing is they have no time limit so they may have sub-plots and distractions along the way.
The Frostfang is at the bottom-most level of Tier 3: The Upper Reaches. I want to have enough of this fleshed out so that, when the inevitable "Knowledge check to determine the best path to the lake" comes up I know what to tell the players.
Dotting for interest...
Looks like I'm late to the party. Cool stuff nonetheless.
'Findel
Noooo! Don't just Dot! Laurefindel, you are the genius behind one of the best 5-race gameworlds ever conceived on these boards. If you have interest, you must have ideas; share please.
a bit busy at work right now. This deserve a good morning or evening of thinking and thinkering.
|
|
I have an idea for another entrance to the Warrens (if you are still looking) -
Centuries ago this cave complex that was home to a group of degenerate pirates who used it as base of operations to launch raids in and along the Icwyl Sea coast. Their era of operation and peak of power was some time after the age of the Ancient Humans but prior to the rise of the Dragon Hero.
This group of debased and bloodthirsty pirates and raiders was led by Molvar the Seawolf; a disgraced aristocrat kicked out of his ancestral land for practicing the dark arts. He and his crew were drawn to the evil of the Warrens, worshipping the dark powers and paying tribute, even if ignorant to what was hidden deep in below in the nodes: Their acts of murder, wanton destruction and spread of misery was their way of paying homage to powers that they did not know resided there.
Their predations were cut short by a collaborative attack by their victims, the main cave complex that leads out into the Icwly becoming partially collapsed in the battle to wipe out this vermin, making the entrance much smaller and hard to detect. During the course of the attack, Molvar attempted to launch a counter offensive and was able to get his flagship out, only to have his namesake (the Seawolf) sunk - with all hands being lost. With the use of such severe magic, the Seawolf cove never looked or functioned the same and would be hard to recognize and detect in the time of the players age.
------------------
This complex of partially flooded caves and pirate den would also tie into Frostfang lake via one of it's drain offs flowing through this cave and out to the Icwyl.
Type of encounters:
- Low-level undead: Skeletons, Skeletal Champion, Lacedon Ghouls. All part of the crew of the Seawolf or Molvar’s crew who were trapped inside the complex during the attack. Some could even be in sealed off caves - caverns that were collapsed during the original attack that devastated the pirate complex.
- A Were-shark (or group of) that has taken this as a base to raid local coastal communities.
- Giant Crab
- A tribe of Skum (could be tied into the larger Aboleth/Eldritch horror theme)
- Assassin Vine Seaweed
- Giant Fish/Aquatic creatures (Devil Fish, Giant Gar, Sharks/Shark Variants (Cave Shark), etc)
This entrance would be a little harder than your standard low-level fare due to the environmental and terrain issues (swimming or deep cold water in some spots), plus access would be limited due to tidal flows - so once inside they may be trapped for some time.
A sister encounter would also be the actual wreckage of the Seawolf which is sunk some ways out in the Icwyl. Again, with the Dragon Squalls this may be something that is hard to implement as a play option, though if the players find a journal with a record of a powerful magic item on the Seawolf and can figure out where it was sunk it might be worth their while to deal with the Dragon Squalls. I think the Squalls could be used to good effect - plus an appearance by an Imprisoned Balathunda (who may have some limited powers on her immediate area) could be quite memorable for a higher level group.
Molvar the Seawolf would also play into the fact that the Warrens does attract maniacs, murderers and would be tyrants. This could be detailed in journals of his crew, records, etc.
The theme for this will be haunted pirate caves (Pirates of the Caribbean: the ride, not the movie) with some Goonies thrown in for good measure.
Of course if the pirate aesthetic does not fit you could just make them sea marauders without the trappings (parrots and peg legs).
Again, it is more or less tied to an aesthetic and people have wildly varying tastes when it comes down to this kind of stuff.
Let me know what you think.
Wow, that's really good A to the X! I like the almost comical juxtaposition against the dark horror of the Lower Warrens. I went with the "Stone House" idea as the 9th entrance, locating it out in the Curdled Bog but I've already hinted that there may be more than nine entry points. This one may have been hidden to the general public all this time since travel by sea through the area is so difficult.
More than likely they'd find this place based on hints and intel from other areas. I would definitely have runoff from the Frostfang heading out to sea through Seawolf Cove and implement monsters from the Cove around the Frostfang as a result.
Another thought I had was to set up another organization, made up largely of Fetchlings, who act as transporters to and from the Warrens. The Dragon Seals keep the scions of the Shadow Plane from full scale invasion like they want, but individual Fetchlings or other planar travelers can jaunt to the Material. For a fee then these beings can take small groups into known spots in the Warrens. Of course, how the PCs get back out is up to them. Conversely it might be cool to have a Fetchling Transporter on retainer so that when you're really jammed up you find/make a patch of deep shadow and call in the rescue squad to pull you out.
I figure if I'm going to have some faction of the Shadow working with the ODS why not expand that operation? The ultimate motivation of the Shadow is power, not divinity; they don't care about some zealous worship of a fallen mortal. So in that respect the Shadow would help anyone who can then help them expand their goal.
I also began thinking - what would the final, endgame goal be? Well, to get the Warp Stones of course. But then I started thinking about something you said upthread. What if irradiated stone was used to build with? Well, a paladin with Detect Magic and Detect Evil as at will powers overseeing a mining/quarry operation would've kept massive blocks of irradiated material from the general public, but what about smaller amounts?
What if there were agents within the paladin's organization who were corrupted by the powers they were intended to guard against? Or sub-humans/pirates/denizens of the post-paladin era crafted with hazardous material?
The aberrations would be drawn to these things like moths to flame, however some of them might have since been cleansed and be powerful magic items. The dark masters of the Shadow would be similarly interested in harnessing these items. Part of the endgame them might be finding some irradiated item of great power to sunder one of the Dragon Seals once and for all.
Of course the kobolds, for all their evil, don't want that to happen. They are afraid of the crawling chaos below so they actively work to re-bolster the flagging Dragon Seals. Of course they're also working on freeing Balathunda who in turn just wants to get her claws on the Warp Stones for herself.
What about these ideas?
|
|
I'm glad you like Seawolf Cove Hoover. It is a bit lighter in general tone but can be played up to be darker (if you like).
Another thought I had was to set up another organization, made up largely of Fetchlings, who act as transporters to and from the Warrens. The Dragon Seals keep the scions of the Shadow Plane from full scale invasion like they want, but individual Fetchlings or other planar travelers can jaunt to the Material. For a fee then these beings can take small groups into known spots in the Warrens. Of course, how the PCs get back out is up to them. Conversely it might be cool to have a Fetchling Transporter on retainer so that when you're really jammed up you find/make a patch of deep shadow and call in the rescue squad to pull you out.
- They always need to stay a little weird and mysterious. Motivations, desires and habits being a bit off. Once the PCs get too comfortable with them as a race (and know all their details, limitations, etc) they stop being scary and strange. I'm an oldschool ref, so I don't like to use weird or fantastical races too often, when I do I like to keep them weird, alien and different as a constant and never let familiarity set in.
- Being stuck on one side of the seals can create some major problems. Besides inducing shakes and possible cardiac arrest in the PCs, how are they going to get back without breaking the seals. I would think that the ODS would be leery of letting that practice go on since it would force anyone on the other side to punch their way out, just to get back to the upper warrens.
------------------------------------------
I also began thinking - what would the final, endgame goal be? Well, to get the Warp Stones of course.
As to endgames you actually have a few:
- Aspects of the Shadow Realm (not all the denizens) want to harness the power of their enemies (Far Realm). A Shadow/Far Realm amalgamation and merging could be disastrous to the prime material plane!
- Releasing Balathunda (her motive and the motive of her followers). This can be simple plots to undo her prison, to full on worship of her in an effort to give her divine power so she can rain down death.
- Far Realm pierces the veil and launches it's invasion anew. This can be pushed by the Eldritch creatures themselves, or by proxy: surviving cult in the nodes, an aberrant creature leader(a exceptional one of the bunch), cultist outside (local villages to cities), cultist who have infiltrated the other power groups (Kobolds, ODS). Ancient Human Cult (we need a name for these people): Maybe some undead version of the old priesthood still exists deep below? A ghostly cleric, a lich druid, a vampire warlord and old captain of the guard who lacks the magical know-how to free his master (but wants recruits to try).
At it's base, the final endgame isn't the Warp-stones per se, but the horrors associated with it. I think those things are going to start break through those seals, and being unbeatable the PCs may have to go in as those things are coming out, and find a way to destroy those stones once and for all. In true Lovecraftian fashion, the monsters are not directly beatable - but they can take away the source of their power and their anchor onto the PCs world.
----------------------------------------------
The Warp-stone mini-quests are a great way to: show the danger of these rocks and draw PCs into a module/mission/campaign mode into what amounts to a mega dungeon.
They can work as a source of pre-9 warrens adventure: imagine a haunted lighthouse built up the coast (level 1 mod) that was built mostly using this stuff. After the players get the notes and decide that the only way to stop the horror at the lighthouse is to send it to the Icwyl, they may want to investigate the Quarry and source of this stone that is toxic and dangerous to mortal life.
All your suggestions could work as good tie-ins and draws to the area and reinforce the fact that this place is bad and nothing good could come of it (which is another theme). I think the fact that it could corrupt some of the ODS is an excellent idea - and goes to show that evil cannot be taken lightly nor can this area really be put to good use (like so many have tried).
As I said above - the Shadow Realms end game can in fact turn this into a very heated conflict. With some aspects just wanting to break the seals to get at the source of power it may take the PCs to work with others from the SR to stop this plot (and take out a few bad guys in the process).
The Kobolds may change their tune on the Seals if someone in their ranks thinks that a solution to freeing their Dragon Queen lies below. Balathunda becomes your "Cthulhu lies dreaming" - if she has ties to her servants or if some of those psychos start to actually worship her they may receive visions. They may change their agenda when one of their shamans (a heretic at first) starts pushing to break the seals. That they must find a way to break the seals and free their Mistress.
Hell, the some of the smarter Kobolds may want to hire the PCs to kill the heretic and his small (but growing) circle of little lizard men.
-------------------------------------------
Sorry for the delay in response - I was working on rules for a game of my own design (working on combat rules primarily).
No worries about the delay Awesome A. This message is to all of the interwebz - if you're lurking in this thread make a suggestion. Aux and I aren't having a private dialogue here. He has his own game to run and I'm not married to every idea here which is why they're suggestions. To that point I've still gotta flesh out the Gullet, the Aeries, Tula's Door, Bloodwillow Bole, Hellfire's Gate, and the Tower of Brass. The ODS is more people than place and I think I've got a good handle on their organization and the Stone House is still kind of a wild card.
That all being said Maulous Amongus, thank you for your continued suggestions they've been extremely helpful. I like the idea of side quests for Warp Stone affected stuff. The PCs are still second level; their current mission into the warrens is to make it to Frostfang and from there find a previously hidden vault (a sub-level) and map it. There's no time limit or anything so they may have side quests offered along the way as they delve and return to town or whatever. Then after that objective is achieved it will be nice to get them out of the dungeon for a while and one of these side quests could do it.
I can't get through all the complex text.
I'm just going to post a dungeon entrance, and if you can't use it, maybe someone who is drawn in by the topic title can. There are various warning signs mentioning an invisible owlbear. At the cave entrance there is a broken chain. A bandit boss spared no expense to buy the invisible owlbear and chain it up in front of the obvious entrance. There is a secret door about thirty feet to the left. The owlbear managed to break the chain and eat the bandit. After the party deals with the beast that still lairs there, they find a large cavern with a nest made from the ruins of the bandit's furnishings. Every ten feet of the walls of the cavern has a secret door leading to a secret passageway. The paranoid bandit loved secret passageways. A few of them lead to you dungeon. The rest lead to secret doors in mountainsides. The bulk of the bandit's treasure in in cache points in the secret passageways.
Love what I've read ! Hate to post and stall momentum on what you two have gotten into so far; it's all so detailed and amazing.
I did have a bit written up for you, but the message boards (in all their profound divinity and wisdom) decided it should not exist. But I'll post a quick recap:
Dungeon section Idea: The Soulforge
In a section of the Lower warrens, where the powerful magic of the seals has been weakened over time from the persistence of darker forces, the lies an area of armories and foundries devoted originally to churning out new tools and weapons for the dwarves and their allies above. However, due to the potent combination of evil and magic in the area, a section of these factories have been put back into use, churning out new tools and weapons of a different caliber: the Soulforged.
Formed into the shape and size of the previous warren-denizens, these un-godly abominations are living mimics of humanity - living and breathing, but in constant physical and mental anguish; the pain of their constant suffering causing them to psychotically lash out on any other living thing they come across, a hatred born from the jealousy of other creatures' painless existence.
The creation of these creatures is mysterious and arcane, but one thing is certain: they all spawn from a certain section of the foundries, where the forges still blaze with unknown power and purpose.
---
Otherwise, as stated above, keep it up! I see this as a great piece, and love how professionally detailed it's been.
Also, as an aside, @ Mark Hoover: you've always had fantastic posts when it comes to inspiring my inner-DM. A personal thank you to you!
|
|
Sindakka -
I think this is great. It plays up into many of the tropes I've been suggesting (this is a bad place, nothing good can come of it) and also gives more weight to the power (and threat) of the Warp-stones.
Plus a living foundry sounds like a very fun dungeon to smash through - I could see any group being besieged by intelligent (and malignant) replicants being a terrifying event.
|
|
I can't get through all the complex text.
I'm just going to post a dungeon entrance, and if you can't use it, maybe someone who is drawn in by the topic title can. There are various warning signs mentioning an invisible owlbear. At the cave entrance there is a broken chain. A bandit boss spared no expense to buy the invisible owlbear and chain it up in front of the obvious entrance. There is a secret door about thirty feet to the left. The owlbear managed to break the chain and eat the bandit. After the party deals with the beast that still lairs there, they find a large cavern with a nest made from the ruins of the bandit's furnishings. Every ten feet of the walls of the cavern has a secret door leading to a secret passageway. The paranoid bandit loved secret passageways. A few of them lead to you dungeon. The rest lead to secret doors in mountainsides. The bulk of the bandit's treasure in in cache points in the secret passageways.
This sounds like it could be an interesting and unique mini-encounter.
Would also be a good add to the local rumors table. Party attacked by invisible beast, one of the members of an adventuring party being devoured (and parts disappearing as it happens) while the rest flees in abject horror.
Defiantly a weird and unique encounter!
@Gigi: an invisible owlbear could be just the sort of light hearted romp my players want the more they delve into the Warrens. I like the energy on this one and the sheer potential for mindless combat. Also the dozens of secret doors thing would be fun; I think I'd have a couple of them just open into brick walls.
@Sindy: also a very compelling bit of nasty. I've been struggling with the foundry areas of the Lower Warrens. Aux has some good ideas with fire elementals but I didn't know if it went to the heart of the place. The Soulforged scratches the itch I didn't know I had about the area. I'll figure out a template to add or maybe just add some interestingly templated undead; maybe both!
These are both great suggestions. I've noticed in the past that for some reasons "adventure idea" threads on these boards don't usually go very far and I think that's a shame. I think there's a lot of creativity here and you've all really helped me a lot!
As always if there are more suggestions out there, pile 'em on!
So an interesting side quest/start to a Flamenwing campaign sprang to mind when considering the "building with tainted materials" schtick.
Each year a festival is held in Szelenvar to mark the founding of the town. This year's fun is overshadowed by a peculiar malady affecting the minds of many townsfolk. Many in town have had nightmares; an unexplainable dread has gripped hunters and trappers heading into the Sable Wood near the old ruins; of the three expectant mothers who recently gave birth all three died in labor as did their children.
Now the mayor's wife has been revealed to be with child and set to deliver any day. Mayor Vanek is beside himself with fear and has dispatched the sheriff into the land to find able adventurers willing to break the faerie curse which must be afflicting the town.
Much of the stone that built Szelen's keep was tainted rock quarried in the Warrens. The weird radiation of that cursed place seeped into the lord, his family and many of the original townsfolk causing madness and aberration. This was buried and erased by the Wilding until a cult of Lamashtu moved into Szelenvar to restart a twisted breeding program begun by Lord Szelen decades ago.
Now a group, posing as midwives and adepts of Pharasma fronts for the cult and has located themselves in a cave amid the old ruins. The forest does in fact contain fey influences but their power and number has waned since the end of the Wilding. As such these creatures are powerless to stop the coming horde.
The cult has barely scratched the surface though. The twisted remnants of Old Szelenvar have been fully transformed into aberrations and dug out tunnels deep underground to survive. Here the cult has encountered some of them and taken them as successes in the name of Lamashtu. The cult has stolen three deformed children and intend to collect the fourth at which point they will conduct a rite to draw the contagion of the stone out and infect the entire town.
The encounter areas are the old ruins and Lamashtu cult cave; the buried remnants of Szelen's keep inside the earth and overgrowth heaped on it during the Wilding; and finally the underground tunnels of the aberrant creatures. In each area the PCs should uncover clues that indicate the old lord's evil schemes, as well as the original source of the stone. Finally the fey would love nothing more than a final solution to the problem of the irradiated stone buried here - such a solution might come in the form of a divine or arcane magical ritual, a massive, cleansing fire, or perhaps some kind of final doomsday device created by the original townsfolk but never enacted.
As grandiose as all this sounds I'd design it for use between 1st - 4th level. This would basically get the characters to Szelenvar, have them encounter some monsters and weird NPCs, go on a couple local quests to gather info about the cult and the original settlement, and finally go after the group in pursuit of some kind of final solution.
|
|
This is a great scenario Hoover! Dark as all, with some Omen aspects thrown in - I do see some DM/running problems.
If...I may?
Excellent mod - some questions and issues/concerns I’d like to raise.
Question: How did the midwives cover up the abductions of the babies (since they were still born, what was used as proof if a father asked to look upon his child?)
Problem: You have 3 deformed babies. Monstrous babies - I can go there (I often have) - I just want to make sure you can go there and you have a heroic option, or if not - something that at least will give the players an out that doesn't leave them miserable. It sounds like your group is mature enough, but you might need to work out an endgame on this one. If you already did I would love to hear it.
On the issue of fey, you could have some red herring events ...Fey start acting up (because of the cultist activity) so it's naturally assumed that they are responsible (+ the history of the Wilding). A hasty response of fighting the fey just makes things worse for everyone.
There could be some good RP opportunities as the PCs try to convince the stirring fey not to wipe out ALL the people in the area near Old Szelenvar.
More Questions: Does this group have any tie-ins or knowledge of the Lower Warrens? Obviously they have some knowledge of what Szelen was up to, is this just a forward base of operations and they are really getting ready (or are already in position) at the ruins of Flamewing?
- Does this group pose a threat to the ODS, Kobolds, Drannoscheim, etc? Do they have agents present? Are they agents by proxy (Lamashtu tie in with Eldritch horrors) or are you keeping the Lamashtu angle separate from the Eldritch one?
- Are these the closest thing to agents/cultist that the Eldritch horrors have in their back pocket, or did you still plan on having that work out as a separate cult? Even if they are not their cultist, I can see these powers using like-minded groups to get the same results: Freedom.
------------------------------------------------
I think if by the end you can present the Warp-stone angle as being the source, and they pick up the A-B-C clues...once they get to/know more about the Lower Warrens their heads will explode.
Depending on how they play their characters you may have just discovered all the impetus needed for them to dungeon crawl. They hook themselves - no railroad, no carrot...they see (if they understand) the threat and hopefully they will try to put an end to it.
Edit: Oh yeah, I had an idea for a templated creature for Sindakka's Soulforged. Once I get a chance I will post it over here.
You raise some excellent and valuable questions Draconic One. Before we go any further I should mention: my players are between mid thirties to mid forties. I wouldn't spring any of this on anyone under 18 (I'm a dad and all) unless I had really compelling evidence of the players' maturity level.
Also yeah, the baby angle is as dark as I've gotten in a while. Just that little bit of this has the potential to be... disturbing on a number of levels so if anyone is reading this thread for ideas, be aware and be respectful of your players.
That being said
I had thought to make the "Cult of Lamashtu" either witches or have at least one witch be a part of it. A little Bluff here, some illusion/enchantment magic there, and bam - baby disappears, at least for a few minutes until the midwife can exit to "prepare the child" for burial. They ARE supposed to be Pharasmin after all. Since they've got a few months to prepare they are able to prep something baby-like to go into the ground or otherwise sub in for the child they stole.
I like where your heads' at with the fey. Since the module would be a low-level start to the campaign I didn't figure for anything individually more powerful than say a pixie (CR 4) but with several handfuls of them stalking the woods they could REALLY tear things up before the PCs calm them down. Of course, then that leaves the door open for the faeries to clue in the PCs to what really happened to old lord Szelen.
As for tie-ins to the Lower Warrens or the power groups there, I HAD thought of just making this a stand-alone adventure with the only tie being the stone. But then, there is the "3 clue rule" to consider. Perhaps I can put an agent of the ODS in Szelenvar trying to investigate on the sly and then have the cult of Lamashtu in coordination with the goblin Lamashtans in the Howling Step area. Maybe the midwife cell is operating independently of those goblins but they're aware of one another or maybe there's a larger cult conspiracy spreading through the land, I don't know.
When I'd first conceived of the Szelenvar thing, I just thought "maybe I start with a mini-megadungeon?" The idea popped into my head a while ago and I back-burnered it to begin working on the Lower Warrens. At the time, looking back over my notes, it was a light-hearted romp.
The original notes suggest no cult, no aberrations. There was a conflict between the fey and the old lord and during the Wilding the fey finally got the upper hand and buried the guy's keep. The town survived the Wilding though with minimal damage and loss of life, so that now it's become something of a novelty and a place for adventurers to visit (giving the town the Defensive quality from the Settlement area of the PFSRD - this boosts Economy while penalizing Society meaning money is easily made there but its harder to make inroads with Diplomacy to do anything other than gather information)
Anyway, the original idea of Szelenvar was simply to have the PCs start off in the town and be some of the lucky few to overcome folks' initial defensiveness there by doing something heroic. I'd physically start the first session with the PCs fighting a monster threatening a kid or near a building as it explodes or something. Then, with a newfound respect from the townsfolk they'd tell the party about the creepy old ruins, send them out on a couple missions and the party would get a chance to lay the lord and his family to rest ending the threat of the ruins once and for all.
Yay except, there's no tie in to Flamenwing, the Lower Warrens or any of the rest of the campaign and once the party saves the day at Szelenvar, they're sort of done even though they're finally heroes. "Well, thanks for saving us all. Have fun never seeing this town again for the rest of the campaign..." or whatever.
I haven't actually used any of the stuff in this thread on my players yet, so maybe I'll scale back the darkness, I don't know. But I'm very grateful for all the help so far in helping me not only find inroads to the Lower Warrens but also connections between the different points of my campaign. Even though its just a sandbox/megadungeon, it's nice to have some running plots going through the whole thing so it's not JUST a dungeon crawl.
I was thinking of a doppelganger coffer corpse that digs itself out and terrifies intruders in the graveyard.