Lightless Depths is awesome but doesn't provide much direction when the PCs get to Golismorga. They're kind of expected to wander around until Rakis-Ka leads them to the Tear/Ziggurat or the DM decides they've wandered enough and throws them a bone.
In their wanderings, my PCs wanted to interact with/explore the buildings, which isn't really covered. I decided the buildings should all be sentient, irritated, and capable of rejecting intruders.
I ended up with:
A cilia-covered fleshy dome with tentacles of foundations, which, if touched, wrap around the offender and fill his mind with horrifying images of the Far Realm (insanity, Will DC 30 negates). Whether or not the save succeeds, thereafter the PC casts no shadow.
A towering polyp which invaginates and extends tongues to defend itself, or tries to invaginate and consume any PC attempting to climb it (Grp +50, 6d6 crushing damage and 1d6 Wis damage per round).
A vast auditorium of fleshy concentric toothed sphincters, the smallest of which can converse in aboleth and which leads to the labyrinthine undercity. Travel to this area is a nigh-infinite drop (as space is infinitely warped down here) and requires a Will save every round (DC 30) to prevent insanity. If the save succeeds, the PC is unconscious for that round.
Has anyone else had to think of ways to punish PCs who think, "Hey let's mess with the hideous alien nightmare buildings?"
Be careful with how aggressive you make the buildings. Remember, Golismorga was originally built and used underwater, so it was planned in three dimensions. Street analogues are now probably in open air, since there's no reason the aboleth would force themselves to stick to the bottom muck when they have all sorts of space on the walls, ceiling, and center of the cavern to work with. Granted, many of them probably lived on the bottom because they liked the muck, but whatever passes for commercial and industrial districts were probably higher up in the cavern. The PCs will likely have to climb over buildings just to get from point A to a patch of destruction where the buildings were destroyed, and then climb over more buildings to get from there to point B. Flight spells only last so long.
Certainly, though, a few aggressive buildings would reinforce the alien nature of the place. Perhaps a building slurps up a PC, deposits them in a nutrient bath, and simply keeps them there until they die of old age, as those that know how to make the building give up captives are long gone. Perhaps a building starts rebuilding a wall just after the party passes through the gap.
Well yes, I'm not talking buildings that are outwardly homicidal to anything that touches it, just when people climb/attack/molest them.
I got the impression from the map that there was plenty of room to walk around without having to go over/through any buildings.
You are evil and I love your sick mind.
~Qualidar~
