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THE CLEAVES
COMMUNITY DEVELOPED MEGADUNGEON
Welcome to ‘The Cleaves’ – a Mega-dungeon under development by the Paizo Message-boards Community. This is an ever expanding Mega-dungeon that can only get bigger and you are welcome to join in.
THE INCIDENT AT CLEAVESBRIDGE
Done with exploring the community of West Cleave, Jarmo led his companion toward the structure at the edge of the Ravine. The old man sitting on the chair on the stoop of a small stone building smiled as the companions drew close.
“A thousand gold coins,” The price took Jarmo by surprise. “A thousand gold coin if you are looking to cross.” Jarmo scoffed at the suggestion.
“A Thousand Coin Toll to cross an invisible bridge...how Outrageous!” Patis the Swordswoman was in agreement with her companion and ignored the toll, throwing a few silvers at the bridge-keeper’s feet before heading toward the step to the invisible bridge.
“I don’t know what the villagers told you but it’s not an invisible bridge.” Patis halted in the step that would have taken her to her death. She backed away from the edge as the wind attempted to push her forward.
“I create the bridge. That’s why you pay a thousand gold pieces in toll.” Jarmo hurriedly reassessed the man in front of him. He had just as much admitted to being a Wizard.
“All right.” Jarmo smiled and untied two sacks of gold coins from his person and dropped them at the wizard’s feet. Pretty much his share of the coins they had picked up working for this community just went in bridge toll.
The Wizard smiled and opened a portal at the edge of the ravine.
“Across you go!” Jarmo entered the Gray portal before him – vanishing from view. Patis was still irritated by the old man’s tricks – she followed Jarmo up the stone steps.
That didn’t look right.
“Stop!” Patis ignored the Gatekeeper. Kraeg of Cleaves-bridge leaped forward grabbing at the Woman to pull her back from this unexpected doom. She was surprisingly quick – her hand dragged the wizard forward through the portal before her. Kraeg found himself – not on the stone of the far edge of the ravine - but on the stone floor of a dark chamber lit by Jarmo with his now glowing sword - his sword pointed at the Wizard. Kraeg was surprised by the fact that Jarmo was covered in blood and sweat. Some dissected beast lay in a corner of the chamber.
“What’s the matter wizard? Did you expect me to die in your little trap?” He turned the tip of his sword toward the wizard.
“Spell went wrong. You stepped through the portal a few seconds before me. Your companion is right behind me.” A long while later Patis stepped through.
“And that Wizard is what you get for touching...” she was distracted instantly by the fact that both Jarmo and the Gate keeper were standing well away from her point of entry. The wizard should have been sprawled on the ground before the community of East Cleave. Patis drew her sword and pointed it at the Wizard.
Jarmo stroked the stone of the wall, feeling its seeming perfection. It was almost perfectly smooth and cut from an unfamiliar stone.
“What is that?”Patis examined the corpse of the creature that Jarmo had somehow enjoyed the time to eliminate on arrival. She had never seen anything like it. It looked like a huge ugly deformed dog with scale-mail for hide.
“Where are we?” Kraeg looked nervously about. Where was he? A spell and the chamber illuminated with magic light.
Jarmo looked around the chamber. The chamber was a twenty feet deep pit and the only entrance was one way. He moved into the centre of the pit. The room above his view was perhaps forty feet in diameter and was entirely steps of stone. The Audience was now revealed to be a cloaked figure. From its skeletal hand a magic missile lanced out at the ceiling from which was suspended a great gong causing it to sound. Another hound in scale barding spilled into the fight pit. It was hungry for Jarmo and his companions.
DM BRIEFING: When a Dimension Door goes wrong it directs the traveller into an inter-dimensional Mega-Dungeon named ‘The Cleaves’ by the first to discover it and live to escape. More importantly it is accessible from anywhere in the world.
EXPLORING THE CLEAVES
While a mishap with Dimension door will dump you into this Mega-Dungeon, it is also possible to deliberately visit the Cleaves by not selecting a destination for your dimension door. This means that any one capable of casting the 4th level spell can provide access to the Cleaves.
The Cleaves
The Mega-dungeon has a hundred randomly positioned rooms unrelated to the position of the rest of the Mega-dungeon, a hundred random beasts and a hundred random guarded treasures hidden in its maze of shifting corridors. When an unexpected traveller arrives it is within one of these hundred random rooms.
Entering a Room in the Cleaves
When entering a new room, select one room card from the room card pile, and check the manual for the chances of a Monster, Trap, and Treasure. As each is deemed present, select from their card piles and add them to the room.
And there you have a Room in the Cleaves Mega-dungeon. As Dungeon Master, you simply add it to your perceived reality of this dungeon.
JOINING IN THE DEVELOPMENT WORK
Now we have an idea as to how the dungeon will work and be accessible to DM and PCs alike, we need to develop our four card initial decks.
The Four Initial Card Decks
• 100 Random Rooms
• 100 Monstrous Encounters
• 100 Unusual Treasures
• 100 Unexpected Traps
The Fifth Card Deck
• 100 Special Discoveries
So as a contributor we each need to provide one of each of the above items for each card deck to help build our Community Mega-dungeon. I call these the initial decks because they can be expanded on forever.
Let us begin...
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CONTRIBUTE IN THESE LINKS
100 Random Rooms
100 Monstrous Encounters
100 Unusual Treasures
100 Unexpected Traps
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Stocking a Room
To stock a room:
1. Select a card from the Room Stack.
2. Roll 1d6:
1-2 Empty [Roll 1d6 to determine Treasure (Treasure=1; 2-6=No Treasure)]
3 Draw a Trap Card from the 100 Unexpected Traps [Roll 1d6 to determine Treasure (Treasure=1-2; 3-6=No Treasure)]
4-5 Draw a Monster Card from the 100 Monstrous Encounters [Roll 1d6 to Determine Treasure (Treasure=1-3; 4-6=No Treasure)]
6 Draw a Special Card from the 100 Special Discoveries [No Treasure]
3. If a Treasure is Present...Draw a Treasure Card from the 100 Treasures Card Deck
Interesting...
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THE CLEAVES
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
Building a Network of Rooms
To get the right feel of interconnectivity we will not be going for the 1d6=#Doors in a Room as this will require an increase in the size of the room sufficiently large to provide something other than a line of sight nexus.
The Ratio we want will give us a lot of dead ends in rooms.
1=14/24 | 2=1/24 | 3=4/24 | 4=3/24 | 5=2/24
Here you will notice that there are never 6 doors to a room.
Stairs to another Level
Similarly we are going to keep the numbers of Stairs to a minimum. This will restrict movement between levels. The problem with stairs is that they will be the flow path for any and all traffic coming from another level. In the case that level of Dungeon equates to a greater encounter level, the monsters sneaking into the easier part of the dungeon will do so via these stairs.
Chance of Stairs = 1/27
Dungeon Level vs. Encounter Level
So the concept of dungeon level=Degree of difficulty is an unrealistic one. Logically monsters will be evenly spread and the weaker creatures will function at the fringe of their area. Likewise even weaker creatures will function at the fringe of those creatures.
Then what does a Dungeon level shift equate to? A much watched access point and/or a source of food.
Secret Corridor
This isn’t just a corridor with secret doors at each end. This is a path that isn’t obvious. It could be diving into the pit of sewage to slip through a hole in the wall or using handholds in a 20 foot wall to climb through an air vent...
Like Stairs we want to keep this a low possibility; But not as low as the possibility of stairs.
Chance of Secret Corridor = 2/27
Assembling a Mesh
We can build a network of interconnected rooms that will make up our dungeon...
I like it, an awesome idea. Especially as a community project, count me in.
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We used to run adventures through the World Serpent Inn, and this is reminding me of it. I made a bunch of 8 inch by 8 inch tiles with two to four entrance/exits on each. We would just randomly pick rooms or corridors from the tiles and make a random dungeon sprawl. Most rooms were 20 to 30 feet wide and/or long, but there were a few "folded" room tiles that had upto 8 entrances and exits and were up to 70 feet wide and long.
Most entrances were 10 feet wide, and corridors were typically 10 feet long, and all were centered, so we could just lay out the dungeon as we played.
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An entire thread ghosting?
EDIT: And what's more, a thread I'd never been in, much less posted in.
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Still Ghosting!
It probably will continue that way until it's DECKS builds up and becomes an archive of useful stuff.
Dungeon Level = Encounter Level
The idea of Dungeon Level = Encounter Level is a flawed one. The big monsters need to be able to exit and if the only way in is through the weaker level dungeons then it might just as well decide to settle on the top floor and feed on the weak creatures it has trapped below like an ant eater working a termite mound.
The Feeding Pit: An Exit from the Bottom
So what you need is a way for the monsters to exit when they want. This is going to be like a huge pit. Every lairing monster might exit in that pit and fly off- however because the bigest monster is hungry it will nest on the edge of the pit and feed - even the Pit will be a centre for use by the biggest critter. The smallest - having some survival instinct will want to exit elsewhere.
Smaller orbits at the fringes of the bigger
Big critters have big reach and they will attack anything in their nest...So smaller weaker critters will live at the fringe of that reach. Even smaller creatures will live at the fringe of the reach of the small. So you design a megadungeon for this by dropping beads of various size into the same area and see what fits at the edges of the larger beads.
Everyone has their own ant nest
More realistic to disperse your population. The Ruin of Bob's Temple leads down into the Undead controlled labyrinths in this part of the Megadungeon. These crypts seem an almost vertical shaft of coffins all the way down to the deepest crypts. Instead of one staircase leading down to the next level - there will be one tunnel linking horizontally into the Caves of the Gelatinous Spawn a few miles away from the Temple and its crypt. This is how Caves of Chaos worked.
The Main Entrance is a Common Entrance
If there is a common path by which everyone has access to and from the dungeon where they lair - it will be the Main Entrance. From Bob the Butcher and his band of thugs to The Dralush Spawning looking for corpses to infest with eggs.
The Twilight Gate: A Door Sealed long ago
There can just as well be some ancient gate overlooking the Mountain Village of Budgiesmuggler that opens once every millennia from sunset to sunrise the next day. An Adventure Path with a timeframe means every second must be counted by the DM during the Adventure. That nigh immortal Lich (or other) within will likely be aware of any timing sequence for the outer Doors if it has been measuring the time between when they open.
They will be ready to make use of the Doors. The more powerful hordes may be positioned very close to the outer Gates so the Undead Hordes can escape during their window of opportunity. If the foe is trapped within - he/she may need to wait in hope that the PCs can delve sufficiently deep to make the release.
Known Entry points will have a powerful Foe nearby making use of it or guarding it.
Alternatives to the Front Door
This will have low priority guards - the Occupants of the Megadungeon may even be unaware of it's existance.
1. The First Emperor's Burrial Chamber
It is rumored the First Emperor's Burial Chamber is somewhere on the Mountain. While this may be no more than a simple isolated set of chambers with no connection to the Mega-dungeon - it may also be a secret way in - that plaster artwork at the back of the treasure vault looks thin and crumbly.
2. The Sinkhole
Recently opened due to geological changes - the sink hole has been discovered by a few small critters and they are making use of it to access the surrounding countryside. The Sinkhole leads into caves and caverns recently opened and infested with low power critters seeking refuge from more dangerous foes.
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The Oubliette of Madness: An Intermittent Planar dungeon
Basically you can walk fifty feet down a corridor and move from level x in the campaign dungeon - through a section of dungeon that exists on a plane and turn left through where your dungeon should be already and be and find yourself on level y of the dungeon without even noticing the transition. In the end it isn’t about increasingly powerful foes. It’s about a continuous loss of resources until the PCs are forced to fight Kobolds for the only good climbing rope. It’s about wearing the PCs down until they are weaker.
Ecosystems
If you do want accuracy and consistency with the setting you will probably have to consider something like a food supply. Something must eat the bugs.
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The Oubliette of Madness: An Intermittent Planar dungeon
Basically you can walk fifty feet down a corridor and move from level x in the campaign dungeon - through a section of dungeon that exists on a plane and turn left through where your dungeon should be already and be and find yourself on level y of the dungeon without even noticing the transition. In the end it isn’t about increasingly powerful foes. It’s about a continuous loss of resources until the PCs are forced to fight Kobolds for the only good climbing rope. It’s about wearing the PCs down until they are weaker.
Ecosystems
If you do want accuracy and consistency with the setting you will probably have to consider something like a food supply. Something must eat the bugs.
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How do we get across to the other side?
Sure it can be harder and more dangerous the deeper you go. And you don’t necessarily need to equate that with more dangerous monsters. Geologically it will be less explored and maintained. Those who make it to the Rope Bridge on level 10 would best find something that is a lot more dangerous than a walk through the local park at night.
Subsidence
- Subsidence increases to near 100% once your tunnel is wider than the thickness of rock from ceiling to next floor up.
- Disintegrate automatically stresses strata to 100% fail.
If we take twelve levels and apply the rules of subsidence to them where they overlap each other - then we can probably draw in a sink hole or several that go down to various levels of the Dungeon. That might give a reason for living monsters from the surface that far down without too much of an ecosystem.
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The Cleaves - One way in and No way out
I still believe that a Mega-dungeon that can be accessed from anywhere in the world by accident is precisely what we are looking for in terms of a Mega-dungeon. That way the PCs will be robbed of what they have soon after they are trapped. Their goods are being sold off in the Market of our 'Safe zone settlement' and they must adventure to recover what they need to survive.
If our Dungeon has a Safe Zone - the Markets (Maybe we should call it Pippa's Slave Markets - for those in the know) are not necessarily it. While it might be a centre where they can retreat from the dangers of the rest of the Mega-dungeon - they have to pay to get in. Resources are scarce. The population is so diverse - there are dimension door travellers from lands no one has heard of.
I love this idea. I have given my own meager contributions in hopes that they are accepted. Also, this dungeon premise reminds somewhat of "The Tangle Box", by Terry Brooks. It might also give you some ideas. And if not, you at least have started into one of the best authors ever.
Some of the Threads have reached 20 entries...we are comming along.I hope my contributions are helping :)
I would REALLY like to see more people putting some stuff into this, I would very much love to see this completed and run it for my players!
I'll second that. Heck, I'd like to run the gauntlant myself.
Adding this post mostly so people will see it again. I don't know why this whole thing isn't already attracting every homebrewer on the boards. It is simply to great to pass up. Think of being able to say, "I helped make this, you know?" as your group travels through this dungeon. If I had any more decent ideas, I'd have them up. Please don't let this project die.
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Adding this post mostly so people will see it again. I don't know why this whole thing isn't already attracting every homebrewer on the boards. It is simply to great to pass up. Think of being able to say, "I helped make this, you know?" as your group travels through this dungeon. If I had any more decent ideas, I'd have them up. Please don't let this project die.
And I for one am glad to have your contributions... :)
Huzza! 27 Rooms and counting...
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How do you feel it is going? the 100 ROOMS Card Deck is slightly more than 1/3 of the way filled. Other DECKS of various degrees.
THE ULTIMATE PRIZE TO BE DISCOVERED IN THE CLEAVES
Godhood for the PC/NPC who can discover the secret of the Cleaves and assemble the Ironfont which is a huge Font made from Iron Rods of Various lengths and a pair of Iron bands used to hold it together.
He wo drinks from the Font (and it will only work for one) will become a God.
How do I roll these?
The Ratio we want will give us a lot of dead ends in rooms.
1=14/24 | 2=1/24 | 3=4/24 | 4=3/24 | 5=2/24
Here you will notice that there are never 6 doors to a room.
Chance of Stairs = 1/27
Chance of Secret Corridor = 2/27
and...
• Disintegrate automatically stresses strata to 100% fail.
You've got a fricken Beholder imprisoned here!
Maybe just drilling a circular hole in the wall might not cause a collapse.
Also, the Beholder comes from a 3.5 world, so he's not an Oogler.
Fans of the 4th wall (I see you!) will want to have their Legal Devils hunt him/it.
Note that the bottom of the rift should also be a horrible garbage pit.
I'm planning on putting loser town on a large ledge near the bottom. Maybe on the shell of the sleeping Tarrasque(Only an epic spell will wake it up).
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How do I roll these?
The Ratio we want will give us a lot of dead ends in rooms.
1=14/24 | 2=1/24 | 3=4/24 | 4=3/24 | 5=2/24
Here you will notice that there are never 6 doors to a room.
Chance of Stairs = 1/27
Chance of Secret Corridor = 2/27
and...
• Disintegrate automatically stresses strata to 100% fail.
You've got a fricken Beholder imprisoned here!
Maybe just drilling a circular hole in the wall might not cause a collapse.
Also, the Beholder comes from a 3.5 world, so he's not an Oogler.
Fans of the 4th wall (I see you!) will want to have their Legal Devils hunt him/it.
Note that the bottom of the rift should also be a horrible garbage pit.
I'm planning on putting loser town on a large ledge near the bottom. Maybe on the shell of the sleeping Tarrasque(Only an epic spell will wake it up).
THE LOCATION OF THE CLEAVES
The Cleaves is not located at/down the face of A Ravine separating West and East Cleaves - that is merely a starting point for the Adventurers who happen to name it in the story Fiction. The Megadungeon known as the Cleaves is actually interdimensional in nature - It is between the entry and exit of a failed dimension Door - And thus accesible from anywhere in the Campaign World via failed Dimension Door (Sucessful Dimension Door requires you have a Destination in Mind - THE CLEAVES is where you go when you dont).
THE ROLL YOUR OWN DUNGEON MESH RULE
More of a guideline up for discussion as we develop the Mega Dungeon.
1=14/24 | 2=1/24 | 3=4/24 | 4=3/24 | 5=2/24
Here you will notice that there are never 6 doors to a room.
These are merely the odds of a number of exits per room. MS Excel will allow you to random generate a bunch of numbers quickly to determin the number of exits to a given room. This will provide you with what you desire.
If you wish to roll dice then (2d8+1d10)-2 gets you a range of 1-24.
THE LIMITS OF THE CLEAVES
The Cleaves has no Limit. It is Interdimensional. Walking down a corridor and around a corner could just as easily take you from level fifty on this side of the dungeon to level three yesterday. It will be up to the Creators of the Dungeon to add what they desire for the 100 Rooms Card Deck and then draw a regular Dungeon around that collection of ideas if they so desire. It will be designed so that a DM can assemble their own version of Reality from what will be available collectivly.
Comments?
As always, a big supporter of the idea. I've got a couple of gamers new to PF coming tonight, and I fully intend to see if they have any interesting ideas to add to these threads. Also, I don't get why people post without reading the thread. It seems to happen all the time and it only causes duplicate posts explaing things to them.
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As always, a big supporter of the idea. I've got a couple of gamers new to PF coming tonight, and I fully intend to see if they have any interesting ideas to add to these threads. Also, I don't get why people post without reading the thread. It seems to happen all the time and it only causes duplicate posts explaing things to them.
It doesnt matter. We create...its OK to take the time to point out stuff to the New Recruits to our insidious cult of Devil worship. :)
As always, a big supporter of the idea. I've got a couple of gamers new to PF coming tonight, and I fully intend to see if they have any interesting ideas to add to these threads. Also, I don't get why people post without reading the thread. It seems to happen all the time and it only causes duplicate posts explaing things to them.It doesnt matter. We create...its OK to take the time to point out stuff to the New Recruits to our insidious cult of Devil worship. :)
Oh God, you sound like my entire family. And its even worse for them that I'm also a Free Mason.
I'm sorry if I got confused by the dual concepts of having to cross the rift to get to the exits home or it being a lot of rooms floating in hyperspace(Great idea for any metagamers trying to get out by busting through a wall) because both ideas were represented. Now I'm of a mind that each GM should make a different choice so as to challenge players who have online access. Maybe the rift is all that is left of a prime material plane, or it is a tasty lie like the cake.
Likewise, the riddle of the face has at least 2 answers.
In the water hole it sounds like Koa-Toa behavior but it could be Sahuagin or even Deep Ones. I would like both ends to lead to The Well Room, but that's only when I'm GMing.
Not discouraging someone who wants to contribute is the prime directive here, so I don't mind the game designing ghosts presented by a 4th waller.
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I'm sorry if I got confused by the dual concepts of having to cross the rift to get to the exits home or it being a lot of rooms floating in hyperspace(Great idea for any metagamers trying to get out by busting through a wall) because both ideas were represented. Now I'm of a mind that each GM should make a different choice so as to challenge players who have online access. Maybe the rift is all that is left of a prime material plane, or it is a tasty lie like the cake.
Likewise, the riddle of the face has at least 2 answers.
In the water hole it sounds like Koa-Toa behavior but it could be Sahuagin or even Deep Ones. I would like both ends to lead to The Well Room, but that's only when I'm GMing.
Not discouraging someone who wants to contribute is the prime directive here, so I don't mind the game designing ghosts presented by a 4th waller.
Perhaps not so much Hyperspace as Interspace?
Its good to have feedback. Feel free to comment on anything you think is missing. We have rooms, traps, treasures, Monsters, special discoveries.
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Oh God, you sound like my entire family. And its even worse for them that I'm also a Free Mason.As always, a big supporter of the idea. I've got a couple of gamers new to PF coming tonight, and I fully intend to see if they have any interesting ideas to add to these threads. Also, I don't get why people post without reading the thread. It seems to happen all the time and it only causes duplicate posts explaing things to them.It doesnt matter. We create...its OK to take the time to point out stuff to the New Recruits to our insidious cult of Devil worship. :)
THe cult responsible for the Whitechaple murders...eeek!! ;)
Jack the Ripper? His debate belongs in General Discussion.
The Psyco, possessed or undead, killer belongs in the monster lists.
100 Unusual Treasures is now two pages. Huzzah!