| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Calling all GMs: I've a dungeon coming up and the BBEG was imprisoned for trying to be the Fairest of them all. I'm thinking of putting this phrase somewhere in the dungeon - scrawled on the walls, gouged in the floor, etc.
What would you expect to see in a dungeon such as this? The campaign's overall theme is a dark fairy tale. Right off the bat I thought of skin stealers, maybe a room full of mirrors and featureless-faced girls. What else could you envision?
They first encounter the BBEG while he is standing in front of a mirror doing the Buffalo Stance.
What're you, 'bout a size 14?
No but seriously...a room full of mirrors, check. The BBEG in question is trapped inside a "mirror prison" in the Shadow plane and is a disgruntled fey eldest.
I'm looking for other ideas in a dark, creepy dungeon setting. Elements I have in the game so far are fairy tales (Grimm style), the plane of Shadow, and witches. The players have asked for a megadungeon/more action, so I'm looking to combine them here.
Dolls. Whether living or not, they have a creepiness factor that works.
Perhaps the screaming visages of those that were less fair, trapped in the shards of glass from broken mirrors?
Mirrors that portray the party in various horrific states of decay, carnage, injury, as preludes to what is about to happen? As if a warning or hint?
A mirror maze portion of the dungeon?
Faceless mannequin creatures, ala the Coryphees from Malifaux or the Silent Hill nurses?
|
Seperate the party! And then do creepy stuff! There is nothing scarier that being seperated from the party... Except maybe a Wendigo *Shudder*.
Maybe use Telekinesis to drag a party member off through a door and when they chase after him have one of them fall through a trap door. Then have some big scary critter just appear out of the shadows and work a way to make another character disappear. Once you have them all seperated you can then apply the proper level of horror. FTR this is a PitA to track on playmats unless you have multiples.
I had fun watching them be paranoid as hell and they had fun making it through there mostly intact. ( I played with the insanity stuff a little)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Have the party encounter doppelgangers of themselves, only better looking, oppositely aligned and a bit more powerful.
Yes, these are what I was thinking. I'd need some cells for the "beauty contestants", some kind of viewing area, and a place where their charms might have been removed.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Think the 360 degree viewing room from "What Not to Wear", for cells.
Yeah, I watch "What Not to Wear".
I watch it while doing push-ups and wrestling lions at the same time on top of a speeding monster truck, so shut up.
Wyrmholez/Lamontius - I don't know that my action-wanting players will put up with serious horror like this. Yes it soundds awesome and it's what I want, but I just ran a horror/fairy tale over the last couple sessions where one PC had to confront a twisted form of his own father: the immersion just wasn't there and what should have been a soul-jarring scene turned into comic relief.
I'm shooting for more of a creepy grindhouse kind of feel. Separating the party is a very cool idea but not realistic for these players/game environment (public gaming store). I may still use the dopplegangers though.
Think the 360 degree viewing room from "What Not to Wear", for cells.Yeah, I watch "What Not to Wear".
I watch it while doing push-ups and wrestling lions at the same time on top of a speeding monster truck, so shut up.
That's ok L :) I do the same things when watching Say Yes to the Dress marathons...
Ok, so I have a surface ruin/5- room dungeon for this adventure. This will be as follows:
1. The party enters and is attacked by some evil fey; post encounter they notice the mutilated body of a young girl by a nearby fountain.
2. Drawing near to the girl they get to do some CSI work; their presence then draws the attention of more victims (Silent Hill Nurse clones). They can choose to fight their way through the horde, or they can very easily flee through the entry into the only other area open to them; the ground floor of a nearby tower.
3. Once in the tower the party finds themselves in a room full of shattered mirrors with the words "Fairest of them ALL" scrawled on the walls - in blood, gouged in with mirror shards, etc. They are now subject to a 3 stage haunt which makes them afraid, then swirls the mirror fragments to inflict minor wounds and bleed, and finaly delivers dopplegangers of themselves to fight.
4. Going up from the tower isn't really an option and there's nothing more on the ground floor to explore, so the party descends into a labyrinth of mirrors laying out horrible death scenes and evil fey laughing at them. Navigating this finally gets them to the leader - a fey sorceress attended by a court of skin-stealers masquerading as the victims.
5. the reveal brings the party face-to-face with the real enemy; a mirror into the Shadow where evil queen Mabbe berates them. If they remain in her presence too long they'll take Wis damage and have to keep making Will saves on top of that. They need to either destroy her mirror (freeing her) or run.
You could have a room where Mabbe was trying to create a new "perfect" skin for herself by skinning the most beautiful women she could find and sewing them together. The twisted skin suits could get animated by the tortured souls of the victims and attack, or you could put a haunt in there. Or both, really. Maybe make the haunt spawn in a ghostly figure who tries to skin living creatures in the area. Make it do touch attacks against various targets to deal some Cha damage and HP damage. If it gets enough hits, it could make a suit for itself and animate as a new monster that must be killed to stop the haunt.
have a mirror artifact that has powerful divination and can cast a permanent alter self spell. the mirror locates the fairest, grants the form to BBEG, who then proceeds to hunt down said fairest and kills them. lather rinse repeat over a couple decades until someone locks the BBEG up. just some thoughts.
BBEG should be a hag that steals other peoples' beauty to sustain herself through the centuries. She either physically regresses to a younger state when she consumes beauty, or uses glamer to mask her grotesque appearance. She could have an ability similar to a revenant's "Self Loathing".
Statues with smashed faces might fit the theme, you could make sort of stone golems out of them. Made a room with heads of beatitfull women on the wall (like a trophe room). A makeup table with the products she used on them like a virgenblood facial masks, or a scrub of grinded babybones.
OMG this is awesome!
Ok, so in the campaign I've established that Mabbe is trapped in a prison and is looking for a way out. I'll go the buffalo bill route: one of the ways she can get out and "stretch her legs" is in a skin suit. B/cause she's who she is it can't just be any old rag; it has to be the Fairest of them All.
Enter: the megadungeon.
20 years ago one of Mabbe's apprentices, a hag who herself had built a coven, seduced a lord and had the coven take over the manor. Next, while the coven's powers distracted the townsfolk, she had a horde of undead and other nasties begin expanding the crypts and undercroft of the manor into a proper dungeon. The final phase of the plan was to fake her own death and go "underground."
Once secure down there the hag began escaping, every so often, to steal women and bring them back here. Over time necromantic, shadow and fey magic all converged here, creating the megadungeon you see here today.
Essentially the place is a gigantic factory and showroom for Mabbe. Girls are brought in, skinned, and then the suits prepared for the queen. In the final phase she tries them on, goes about her business, and returns. These mortal husks can't contain the fey Queen for long, such is her power, so that she must return to her prison - she's not FULLY out yet.
But there's one vessel out there...the true Fairest of them All. That specimen can contain Mabbe for a mortal lifetime. So all the horror of this place is building to the inevitable point where she can simply walk out the front door.
So you've got the surface ruins, where the horror begins. Then its into the nightmare of the undertunnels, where the party encounters the true horror of the place. I don't think I'll make one of the party members the Fairest; instead I'll give that honor to one PC's sister who has been trapped in the First World for 2 decades.
And the makeup idea, the mannequins...they remind me of the Poison Ivy and Clayface characters from the Batman: the Animated Series back in the day. Perhaps a clay golem with a variety of melee attacks and grappling effects based on one of the girls escaping, smashing into the queen's makeup, and becoming this thing. Perhaps the statues are nothing more than living girls, petrified and waiting for use like some kind of meat locker or pantry? Of course Poison Ivy turned her vics into trees, but that might still work.
And ironically the sub-plot of stealing beauty to sustain herself was a side quest the party passed up. Shara Mooncrazed, a wererat adept 4 was actually doing the stealing for a time, passing on the beauty to Mabbe's hag apprentice for JUST that reason...
Kidnapped pretty girls with their faces slashed and burnt...
|
I made up a mirror-based dungeon level once that made use of a lot interconnected ponds of water. The reflective surface of the water was mostly symbolic of the level's theme, but it also served as a clue for how to escape and made a good hiding place for the monsters that lived on that level. In this case, those monsters were Blood Maidens, a race of bloodsucking water nymphs with beautiful bodies but disfigured, lamprey-like faces they hid behind their long, luxurious hair. In my version of the story, these Blood Maidens were fey victims of an evil queen who was jealous of their looks and cursed them to become monsters.
Sounds like something like this could be useful as a lower-level to your queen's lair. Blood Maidens are in Sword and Sorcery's Creature Collection II from 3.0/3.5 so, if you can't get a copy, you could always try using one or more Broken Soul Nymphs.
Aberant creatures everywhere as a punishment to the imprisoned and to act as guards. After you clear the dungeon the big bad can thank the pcs for freeing him, maybe even act as the damsel in distress and the clues throughout let on to the fact that the big bad is just that..
Would you mind if I stole all of this? XD
No, not at all. If it ends up winning adventureaweek.com's adventure writing contest though, all I ask is that you throw us all an honorary mention, maybe a free hat or something. :)
I love the Silent Hill feel of this adventure. If I end up running it, I'll be sure to give you guys credit. Obviously I'd make it my own, but the inspiration would have been this thread (which rocks by the way).
Never heard of "adventureaweek". Can you provide a link to your write up, in the case that you submit it?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So the people who have been skinned, come back as faceless ghosts? Cool.
How about a revenant that hides his horifically skinned head with a pyramid shaped helm?
G squared, how droll. I was thinking of having a bathroom filled with barbed chains instead.
Here is the contest of which I spoke.
Ok, so my players aren't into the horror thing too much. That being said, I think I'm still going to try and work this stuff in. Here's the toned down stuff I've got so far:
Dark Folk: I'm using Dark Creepers, Slayers and Stalkers. I'm also going to custom build a fourth known as Whisperers. There will be some other stuff too (see below):
Mabbe was trapped in the Shadow Plane. On that plane she seduced some natives to do her bidding. They got to this plane and established this dungeon as a base of operations, to find a vessel for their "queen".
Stalkers: Mabbe's chosen. These guys are at the top of the heap and direct the others
Whisperers: the Queen's eyes and lips (oracles)
Slayers: arcane mad scientists constantly experimenting on ways to create vessels or enhance them
Creepers: minions and lackeys
Ghouls: faceless undead that failed the tests of the whisperers and were given over to the Slayers for experimentation. Their disease deals both Con and Cha damage instead of Con and Dex
Skin Stealers: fey minions of the Queen who help the slayers develop vessels
Skin Kites, Alchemical Oozes, Darkmantles, flesh golems and other such creatures: the cast off result of the Slayers' experimentation.
The idea is that Mabbe is hunting for the perfect vessel for her to wear. Every so often she's able to stretch her legs in an exceptionally charismatic skin, but it always wears out too quickly.
I'll have set pieces in the dungeon around these ideas. Some off the top will be mirrored viewing areas, torture/flesh removal chambers, Fleshcrafting-style labs, and perhaps a ballroom where the court can carry on for their Queen.
The best way to ruin a good horror game...all the monsters are killable.
In advanced, one party killed several Shoggoths and Wind weirds.
On another topic, I've been designing a Land of the Dead. The living can come and go with the proper cubic gate, but any of the dead(I call them prepetitioners) who return to the land of the living by any means become undead.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2on3c&page=2?Your-Best-Insomnia-A-Place-for -Ideas-While
See my bottom post Here.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ok, so this place is a megadungeon right? Well, every good megadungeon needs a good backstory right? Well, all the party knows right now is that the surface ruins were once a manor; the lord of said manor was seduced by a coven into building a dungeon and then the actual surface level was consumed by battle and fire. Well, that's only a piece of the puzzle. Here's the full backstory I've been working from:
One such oath taker was a petty baron; a small man with grand ambition trapped in the shadow of Governor Halyeketh. To this man was born a daughter and in exchange for her he was entrusted with a mirror which could never know light of any kind. First he kept it in his keep, but in every chamber some errant beam of sunlight or flicker of firelight illuminated the glass and so it would not show him his desire. Then he took it down, into the bowels of the keep, but his servants made their way to it daily to clean it by torchlight. Finally he found a secret cave, accessible only to him after he’d had the entry bricked up and forgotten years before.
There, in the dank depths beneath the earth, the mirror glowed with its own pallid gloom. A beautiful face would appear to the baron and give him counsel, seducing him with honeyed words. He learned many secrets of dark power and used these upon his servants who became monsters by his hands. These pitiful creatures descended into the dark and began to labor there for their master, toiling in the depths constructing great halls to honor both the baron and his consort.
In time his newfound power fueled his ambition and his lust for power. He ventured out against the forces of the governor and fought eight battles; after each he would come back and lay with his mortal wife, then seek solace in his true passions in the bowels of the earth. In total he had eight sons after his victories. These mewling children annoyed the baron and so he had them all killed, one after the next. He was so assured of a ninth and final victory to claim the power of the region for himself that he laid with his wife before he left for the field.
The baron was afield all season with war. It seemed that each time he felt victory in his grasp some malady would befall the battle and muddle his success with calamity. All the while his pregnant wife paced the halls of the keep, praying for her husband to fall in battle. It was then that the darkness called for her.
The woman in the mirror was none other than Mabbe herself and she knew that the child the baron’s wife bore would be the key to her escape from her sister’s prison. So she drew the wife to her mirror just as the child was ready to come into the world. However the expectant mother sensed the malice in the presence that drew her into her husband’s private chambers, so she summoned up a young boy from the kitchens and asked that he accompany her with him. The lad did as she commanded, but with him he brought a pot which he’d scoured for three days to a fine polish on the inside. Into this the baron’s wife cast a handful of embers and she begged the young kitchen hand not to pry off the lid until she commanded it.
Finally the voice guiding her steps led the pregnant woman down, through the undercroft of the keep and into the bowels of the earth where the monsters dwealt. These creatures pushed and jeered and led her to the mirror where the first of the pains began. At the same moment her husband met the governor in a final skirmish, their blades locking in melee. The poor woman labored in the inky blackness of an underground chamber at the pleasure of Mad Queen Mabbe while her husband fought a futile battle doomed to failure. At the moment that the child finally emerged the baron was run through by Governor Halyeketh and died bleeding in an autumn rain.
The Mad Queen was so overjoyed with her success that she paid no heed to the mother of the newborn girl. The baron’s wife then snatched the child from the monstrous midwives and bade the kitchen boy pry off the lid of the pot. The weakened woman breathed into the embers which immediately flared into brilliance; in the heart of the gleaming pot the dazzling light filled the black hall. Mabbe and her minions howled in pain and the woman had the embers cast to the floor where their light would fade. In the confusion she hurled her own daughter into the boy’s pot, still warm from the blaze moments ago, and issued a final order: to take up one of the embers on the lid of the pot and use its light to guide him back the way they’d come.
The boy did as he was told and upon reaching the section of the undercroft where the wall had once stood he turned and waited. His mistress never arrived. He fled to the upper chambers of the keep but over the hills he could see the last fragments of the governor’s army making for the place to end the baron’s line once and for all. The lad then dashed to the stable, mounted a horse and fled, into the wilds of the forest.
The baron’s daughter, the last remaining link to Mabbe’s Mirror, was known simply as Damaythanosc; The Fairest. In time she grew and knew the kitchen boy as her father. Damaythanosc then had a son whom she named Viktor; upon being knighted he pledged himself to avenging the destruction of his true family and took the surname Al Damayth.
So begins the tale of the first knight of Staghorn Reach. In 883 AK Viktor Al Damayth joined the knights of the Second Crusade. Together they made war on Governor Uulegev and finally ended the Karnossov rule over the region known commonly as Bloodthorn Hollow. He then retook his grandfather’s castle. But the monsters who had crafted the lower halls had survived, as had the Shadow and the evil of Queen Mabbe. Sir Damayth made his way down, into the labyrinth, and fought grimly through the shadowed halls to find the mirror. Legend tells that he smashed the thing into hundreds of shards and then returned to the surface, sealing up every entrance to the lower halls he could find.
The keep was rebuilt, with a hall and in time a full manor beside. A small portion of the undercroft was consecrated to the Mother of Souls to protect the dead from the corruption of the Shadow. However the place was ever haunted by the dark powers housed in the earth below it. Denizens of the manor were given over to madness or terrible disease; curses inflicted themselves randomly on members of the bloodline; servants of the house often simply disappeared in the night.
The original nature of the evil was all but forgotten over the passing of generations. In time the evil seemed to fade, the malady becoming an infrequent nuisance. The house of Damayth assumed they’d merely outlived whatever horror had been visited upon them. But then came Morrigu, Migwyllv and the Ghostwood Coven. Mabbe had turned her attentions away from direct vengeance to reach out for new minions to enact new and nefarious schemes.
Those creatures left to dwell half in and half out of the Shadow, scores of feet below the surface, built a vast dwelling for themselves. It is not that Hilvik Damayth, the twisted pawn of the Ghostwood Coven, set his servants to crafting new under-tunnels, but rather that he went about uncovering the upper sections left behind by the Mad Queen and her minions.
Some clarity:
- Karnoss is the name of my homebrew and Bloodthorn Hollow is the region the party is in.
- Staghorn Reach is the party's home town.
- Lord Vinosc Damayth is the party's current patron; Hilvik Damayth was his father.
So , what do you think and now that I know the backstory and general stuff I want to put there, what other kinds of set pieces do you think the place needs?
So here's a twist to expand the dungeon over multiple levels or sublevels into more megadungeon territory: entertainments.
Mabbe used to be fey princess. She's also a self-obsessed narcisist with sociopathic tendencies. This is a woman BORN to party!
So following that logic, as long as her minions can secure these vessels for her to walk around in, she'll want to enjoy herself on her "day trips". Whole levels of the dungeon then will be devoted to her sick entertainments, or perhaps sublevels. Here's just a few that leapt to mind
- underground forest
- formal ballrooms and fine salons
- whole sections devoted to just allowing the Queen view herself
- mortal hunts
- a colliseum area
- sweatshops where slaves labor for her gowns and costumes
- a menagerie
What else would fit?
So I'm going to start from the ground down:
Surface Ruins
This place used to be a sprawling manor; passing through a crumbling outer wall overgrown by wild growth the party passes among tangled gardens. The main path leads them up a hill through a weed-choked courtyard to the entry hall overshadowed by the looming battery tower; a fork of this path meanders off into a small timberland scattered across the grounds which once was an orchard along the shallow side of the hills here; a third heads down to a brackish pond in the shadow of the ruined great hall arranged along the steepest ridge of the rise.
The main path
The players pass into the most exposed area of the approach, watched by the Gray Man (CN Fetchling wizard 7) and his minion aberrations (chokers). In order to enter here they'll have to run a gauntlet, get through the main door and then deal with the Gray Man himself. Fortunately for them the arcanist doesn't really care to murder them; he is always looking for intelligent minions willing to venture deeper into the Lower Halls for the trinkets and wonders they can unearth.
The great hall
Descending to the pool triggers a random encounter unless care is taken. Then the PCs must make 3 DC 15 Climb checks to pull themselves up through one of the broken gothic windows with soaring arches. Goblins have the hall and dais, as well as the 3-story round tower above so the party will immediately need to deal with a faction outpost which is innately hostile. The goblins here led by a lesser barghest named Lockjaw looking to fill its gullet and expand its powers. Fortunately for the party Lockjaw has access to the kitchens below the hall and uses them as a larder and prison to fatten his victims before consumption.
The orchard entry
This confounding wood is haunted by the fey; immediately upon choosing this path the party begins seeing faerie rings, tree-limb trellaces and other such signs of their presence. This iniitiates a skill challenge involving Perception, Diplomacy, Knowledge: Nature and modest (DC 12) Will saves; 4 successes before 3 fails means that the party has proceeded up the path with the proper deference to the creatures here and prompts a roleplay encounter with the Lady of the Wood (Dryad sorceress); ohterwise the party must fight their way through the wilds against a CR 2 challenge. This whole thing might also be roleplayed. The Lady worries that the party isn't ready for the challenges ahead and sets a trial for them - they are to venture deeper into the wood and slay a small cadre of mites and their vermin infesting her lovely gardens; this might also be a punishment for triggering an encounter along the path. Once these pests are dealt with the party is given a token of the Lady allowing them passage into the undercroft beyond.
What else would fit?
Mortal captives, not just aberrant-fey slaves. She needs to be desired and appreciated by those not bound to her. Her servants will grovel before her and say, or do, anything (out of fear). Fear of what she might do if they displease her.
The Queen is smart enough to realize this, and so their flattery falls short. She needs more.
Mortals, whose word she can trust, is what she desires. So, her servants escape through the cracks, to the surface above, and by cover of night, steal away a select few mortals, bringing them back, into the dark depths of Mabbe's prison.
There they are given gowns, and jewelry, and more. They are shuffled into the otherworldly ballrooms, full of alien creatures, both beautiful and terrifying, where the Queen awaits.
They are her most precious toys.
The Lady worries that the party isn't ready for the challenges ahead and sets a trial for them - they are to venture deeper into the wood and slay a small cadre of mites and their vermin infesting her lovely gardens; this might also be a punishment for triggering an encounter along the path. Once these pests are dealt with the party is given a token of the Lady allowing them passage into the undercroft beyond.
This should be handled very delicately, otherwise the characters might feel patronized by the Lady of the Forest. Their players might also question the merit of the encounter, suspecting that this "side quest" was designed solely to prolong the adventure, which they might feel distracts them from their goal. That's when you're likely to lose their interest. It's sort of like "filler" episodes for television and anime.
Isn't an entire megadungeon "filler?" In other words, if the party is making their first few delves, such that they still need to approach the place on foot and choose one of these entry paths, wouldn't they be low enough level that their quests to the dungeon are limited in scope?
Anyway I do see your point of the players feeling patronized rather than feeling they've made a valuable ally. I'll take your advice and handle with care.
I love your thinking about the mortal "toys". It fits very well with a lot of the fluff I've been writing. Basic sum up - Mabbe competed against her sisters for Fairest of them All and thus control of a fey realm; she lost when a mortal judged her both on looks and character. She didn't take the loss well, hence the prison.
So now she hates everyone, but most of all fey and mortals. It fits then that some mortals she captures to "play with", others to wear, and others still just simply as a resource for her subjects.
I also like the visual it conjures up; a sort of alice in wonderland meets pan's labyrinth or legend. Some poor girl is led (or compulsed) to one of the secret entrances to the place, tumbles down the rabbit hole so to speak, and when she comes to she's wearing a beautiful gown, standing in a tiny room with a tea set before her, while through the keyhole of a miniscule door she spies a wierd darkened chamber with a burning hearth and a monstrously gaunt figure holding it's own eyes in it's hands.
Plus it helps set up a thriving slave trade. Think about it - Mabbe's been in this hole for 2 centuries and in that time 1. no mass crusade has flushed her out and 2. no swarm of evil has bubbled up from below. No, the dungeon's villains have operated with some secrecy for over a century to keep their queen happy. Enter...the fetchling.
There must be agents in the town...fetchlings in disguise. Right off the top of my head I'm thinking of an orphanage, but they might also have a small mission, perhaps a caravan. The operation wouldn't be massive so as not to attract attention, and I want them fairly autonomous so that if say the orphanage is uncovered but has no ties to the caravan, said caravan might go right on stealing people and sending them to Dammenterem.
Even better...what if people willingly hand over their loved ones. Either setups like "if you don't give us your son, your crops will fail" or things like "if you DO give us your son, we'll give you these magic beans..."
I love the idea of the fetchling-boogymen. Also, "Pan's Labyrinth" is one of my all time favorite movies. I searched and searched before I was able to find a copy. It's one of my few, most prized possessions.
So the 2nd level of the dungeon is tenatively labeled the Undercroft and represents the vaulted undercroft below the battery, the hall and other areas of the ruins above. These are all connected by a labyrinth of halls, corridors and chambers.
This was the very first area Mabbe's Mirror was taken to. The first Lord of the noble house kept the mirror in the undercroft and did what the lady in it said; he had the labyrinth constructed using laborers she sent from the Shadow (dark creepers) and the much of this layer begins to display the Queen's opulent and wicked sensibilities. It was on this level where the lord's wife died afer giving birth to the child who would become Damaythanosc.
To that point I think a few sections of the labyrinth are haunted by a woman's ghost as well as some actual Haunts that play out the elements of the story; this will help inform the party of the place's history (if they enter these areas) and will challenge them physically. They can roleplay with her or wait til they're more powerful and try to destroy her. The Weeping Mother as she's called hunts for her daughter and begs for proof that she survived. The only way to do this is to bring her the pot from the kitchens on the Surface Ruins level.
Other factions with a toe hold on this level are more goblins infesting an area beneath the hall and dais they refer to as the Playpen (where they like to torture animals and the occasional humanoid with fire); a small horde of dark creepers rallying around a dark slayer named Olinopv - he has a modest lab complex where he tinkers with magical baubles his thieves bring him; the shrine to Hylene: a small cult compound worshipping a blasphemous necromancer/saint of Urgathoa. Hylene supposedly was called down here to understand some great truth of undeath and lost her mind in the process. The cult however has taken control of some bizarre creations she left behind (referred to as Hylene's Revelations) and read passages from her "scripture" (a journal the necromancer left behind detailing her descent into madness). They have designs on amassing enough power through ritualized sacrifices to take control of the haunted regions of the Undercroft.
There will also be a sublevel accessible here, known as the Lair of the Swarmlord. This is a leftover from another dungeon I ran a couple years ago but never got to this particular option there. Basically beneath the battery is an old prison with a few cells where the original manor occupants might've kept poachers and such. The mites above collaborated with a blight druid to burrow down here a decade ago and essentially when their compact was complete sealed him in to die. Instead he mutated into a living swarm whose component parts infest the walls, floor and a few outlying caves that serve as a back door to access the surface. When the druid died and was reborn in this form he retained a portion of his sentience; he realizes that some property sustains his unnatural life but in his ignorance and arrogance he claims himself an ascended being. He is served by a collection of vermin and any vermin encountered in the Undercroft are proabably his agents. The mites above have made a pact of mutual survival with him and every so often either bring him vermin from the surface to perpetuate his "flock" or take one of his enhaced pests with them to harass the other fey. His lair is roughly 20-30 feet below ground; access to this sublevel is through a secret door through the abandoned prison or down a narrow dropshaft 30 feet into the backdoor caves.
Thoughts or critiques?
Could one of the adventurers or NPCs be an illegitimate air?
Well right now I'm just focused on getting the first few levels of the megadungeon fleshed out...but sure GG, that's entirely possible.
My plan is to amass ideas and flesh them out for what's happening in the first 3 layers of the dungeon at the moment the players walk into town. I'll start high level like I have in this thread and then start drilling down to NPCs and stat blocks. Finally, after these are in place I'll make some kind of chart as a visual for myself of how the different plot points on these levels interconnect w/each other, the town and ultimately the PCs.
For example there's an obviious one that leaps out at me from the beginning: The Orchard Entry - The Lady of the Wood - Trial of the Mites - The Swarmlord. If I wanted to get the party headed down that path then after they meet w/young Lord Damayth in town he asks them, instead of keeping an eye out for undead to head into the grounds since the fey there have been harassing the town.
So the party arrives, they interact w/the Lady in some way and they're set upon the mites. The mites will have 3 clues suggesting the sub-level of the Swarmlord: there is a set of apocryphal scrolls which serve as the thing's manifesto (in the text there's a hint at the prison below the battery); there's a big horde of vermin guarding the secret entry to the "back door" and some of the vermin the mites employ will have wierd, heretical symbols grown right into their carapaces or markings that match up with marks on the scrolls.
Finally they might attempt to just descend right to the Swarmlord (tough but not impossible) or they might look into these scrolls and gather the resources for an all out assault (giving the Swarmlord time to prepare if its logical that it might suspect some kind of attack). The confrontation goes down, they either defeat it or die trying, and then (if alive) drag themselves back to the surface. If they pull this off then on top of treasure and admiration in the town they'd be able to add the Lady of the Wood as a full-time contact and she might have some other boons and gifts she'd bestow on her "knights".
Did something like this long ago, though no where near as juicy as this is shaping up. I had everything just ...off... things like a miss-tuned Harpsichord, fantastically beautiful porcelain mannikins that had chips and broken fingers, dry-rotted silk curtains and other things. My theme was: 'Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder' and there was one at the very end.
I will probably not get the shock value for most of the detail included. My players are not deeply immersed in the game world and I can't blame them; we play in a corner of a games store brightly lit by store lighting and multiple plate glass windows. Also 2 of the players just wanted a lot more action in the game so this place to them will be a giant wack-a-mole game.
Still for the other 2 players in the game who genuinely enjoy story and plot I really want the dungeon to be "alive". I don't need an immersive experience of gothic horror where the players go home feeling hollow and dead inside, but I would like to evoke some real pathos. I've made hundreds of generic, "kick-in-the-door" style dungeons over the past 30 years. This time around I'd like to build something more.
I've checked out Rappan Athuk. I still haven't pulled the trigger on picking it up though. I've also surfed a lot of people's blogs, advice columns and such trying to really pinpoint that spark that brings a place alive.
One thing I've noted in a lot of good megagungeons is contrast. Not a major jolt of it but the idea that something not alltogether evil dwells in the place. To that end I've created a sub-level I'm calling the Fungal Garden.
It is accessed through the second level and is a food source for some who dwell there. Essentially it is a crack in the wall, widened by seepage and a little elbow grease, which then leads into some natural caverns. These chambers are damp, cool and a few of them are lanced by errant sunbeams through holes high above. This has over time created a thick growth of various fungi.
A portion of these are kept by vegepygmies who are then challenged by raiders from the megadungeon as well as numerous aberrant creatures here. But the key to this place is Ghall; an intelligent Thawn.
Ghall is an oracle. Thawns are rampant in the megadungeon, with different types of these things created by different forces in the place. Ghall himself was created by the displeasure of a demon. But somehow he not only developed a character and intellect completely alien to the dungeon and his own kind but managed to survive and escape to this place.
Ghall just wants to be left alone. He sits in solace in the darker parts of the Fungal Garden, contemplating his own hideousness and wondering why he is. Every so often however he goes back; back into the madhouse that spawned him. He's driven by the voices of his mysteries, driven not to end the place but at least spare the innocent from the worst of it's horrors. He of course has contracted a fungal condition on top of his already terrifying deformities, making Ghall a very unlikely hero. However should the party make it to the 2nd level of the megadungeon and be in need of aid, perhaps there will be a loamy scent in the air or a pile of decaying fungi that will mark the presence of this guardian.
This, from Ozma of Oz:
"This head with the auburn hair and hazel eyes is quite attractive. I must wear it more often than I have done of late, although it may not be the best of my collection."
"You have company, Your Highness," announced the maid, bowing low.
"Who is it?" asked Langwidere, yawning.
"Dorothy Gale of Kansas, Mr. Tiktok and Billina," answered the maid.
"What a queer lot of names!" murmured the Princess, beginning to be a little interested. "What are they like? Is Dorothy Gale of Kansas pretty?"
"She might be called so," the maid replied.
"And is Mr. Tiktok attractive?" continued the Princess.
"That I cannot say, Your Highness. But he seems very bright. Will Your Gracious Highness see them?"
"Oh, I may as well, Nanda. But I am tired admiring this head, and if my visitor has any claim to beauty I must take care that she does not surpass me. So I will go to my cabinet and change to No. 17, which I think is my best appearance. Don't you?"
"Your No. 17 is exceedingly beautiful," answered Nanda, with another bow.
Again the Princess yawned. Then she said:
"Help me to rise."
So the maid assisted her to gain her feet, although Langwidere was the stronger of the two; and then the Princess slowly walked across the silver floor to her cabinet, leaning heavily at every step upon Nanda's arm.
Now I must explain to you that the Princess Langwidere had thirty heads--as many as there are days in the month. But of course she could only wear one of them at a time, because she had but one neck. These heads were kept in what she called her "cabinet," which was a beautiful dressing-room that lay just between Langwidere's sleeping-chamber and the mirrored sitting-room. Each head was in a separate cupboard lined with velvet. The cupboards ran all around the sides of the dressing-room, and had elaborately carved doors with gold numbers on the outside and jeweled-framed mirrors on the inside of them.
When the Princess got out of her crystal bed in the morning she went to her cabinet, opened one of the velvet-lined cupboards, and took the head it contained from its golden shelf. Then, by the aid of the mirror inside the open door, she put on the head--as neat and straight as could be--and afterward called her maids to robe her for the day. She always wore a simple white costume, that suited all the heads. For, being able to change her face whenever she liked, the Princess had no interest in wearing a variety of gowns, as have other ladies who are compelled to wear the same face constantly.
Of course the thirty heads were in great variety, no two formed alike but all being of exceeding loveliness. There were heads with golden hair, brown hair, rich auburn hair and black hair; but none with gray hair. The heads had eyes of blue, of gray, of hazel, of brown and of black; but there were no red eyes among them, and all were bright and handsome. The noses were Grecian, Roman, retrousse and Oriental, representing all types of beauty; and the mouths were of assorted sizes and shapes, displaying pearly teeth when the heads smiled. As for dimples, they appeared in cheeks and chins, wherever they might be most charming, and one or two heads had freckles upon the faces to contrast the better with the brilliancy of their complexions.
One key unlocked all the velvet cupboards containing these treasures--a curious key carved from a single blood-red ruby--and this was fastened to a strong but slender chain which the Princess wore around her left wrist.
When Nanda had supported Langwidere to a position in front of cupboard No. 17, the Princess unlocked the door with her ruby key and after handing head No. 9, which she had been wearing, to the maid, she took No. 17 from its shelf and fitted it to her neck. It had black hair and dark eyes and a lovely pearl-and-white complexion, and when Langwidere wore it she knew she was remarkably beautiful in appearance.
There was only one trouble with No. 17; the temper that went with it (and which was hidden somewhere under the glossy black hair) was fiery, harsh and haughty in the extreme, and it often led the Princess to do unpleasant things which she regretted when she came to wear her other heads.
But she did not remember this today, and went to meet her guests in the drawing-room with a feeling of certainty that she would surprise them with her beauty.
You could have it where the mirrors slowly remove Charisma from female team members, turning them into blank, featureless, vaguely feminine creatures. The mirrors also might serve to enchant men into slavish devotion. Or, if the mirrors are broken, shards can fly around and end up in their eyes, causing the men to slowly become emotionless except towards your villain.
@ Indy: wow, that is awesome! To borrow from the story my gal Mabbe tries on only the fairest of the fair like most women wear lovely frocks, but maybe she takes on the faintest hint of the personality of the lady she wears. This might explain her violent mood swings and thus her moniker as "Mad Queen Mabbe".
I have a lot of mirror traps in this dungeon, or traps with reflective surfaces. Also something the party hasn't picked up on yet: their main contact is a guy named Lord Vinosc Damayth and they meet with him in his manor house. He's an agorophobe and has no mirrors, reflective surfaces or painted pictures in his house. He also requires that those people entering his home leave such objects such as weapons, shiny armor, etc. in a special darkened chamber in the hall.
Bottom line: if my players don't hate mirrors by the time this campaign is over, I haven't done my job.
@ Indy: wow, that is awesome! To borrow from the story my gal Mabbe tries on only the fairest of the fair like most women wear lovely frocks, but maybe she takes on the faintest hint of the personality of the lady she wears. This might explain her violent mood swings and thus her moniker as "Mad Queen Mabbe".
I have a lot of mirror traps in this dungeon, or traps with reflective surfaces. Also something the party hasn't picked up on yet: their main contact is a guy named Lord Vinosc Damayth and they meet with him in his manor house. He's an agorophobe and has no mirrors, reflective surfaces or painted pictures in his house. He also requires that those people entering his home leave such objects such as weapons, shiny armor, etc. in a special darkened chamber in the hall.
Bottom line: if my players don't hate mirrors by the time this campaign is over, I haven't done my job.
I'm glad you liked. I thought this scene could work very well for Mabbe in her own quarters or similar. It's a bit too bad that she eventually burns out the skin, since it would add a nice bit of creepiness to have the old suits still be around in showcases...
Have you considered whether or not the hag or others are involved in any sort of breeding program - that is, getting the most handsome men and beautiful women together so that they can get the perfect vessel? If they do you could turn this into a Snow White story by Mabbe taking and killing Snow's mother (the second most fair) and wearing it, marrying her father (her face alters the features of the other face), and trying to kill Snow White so she can wear her skin.
Of course, with this idea, the fairer the skin, the longer she can wear it, which might not work out for what you want.
AHA! You've hit on a central theme that kicked off this whole concept in the first place I-beam! At character creation one player said she's 1 of 8...in a family of her mother plus 7 aunts and uncles. She expounded saying her family is ridiculously fertile. She also put a promiscuous witch type in her background.
Now this particular player has noted that, even though her charisma is a mere 14 (still pretty good but not captain america) she still wanted her PC to be really pretty and have a lot of boyfriends. She has a cousin who is an NPC; also exceptionally pretty. How can it be that this one family produces so many handsome/pretty people who seem perpetually fertile?
Backstory: the hag came to town with her witch apprentice 2 generations ago. The witch was very pretty and got the attention of many lords in town (there are 8 noble families in total). The hag, masquerading as her witch apprentice, went around and got busy til she found the one that had the best genes. She produced a daughter (changeling). This changeling has been secretly posing as human for decades and is the pretty PC's mother.
As time has gone on Mabbe has grown interested in the project and sent out several other agents to other places in the region to perform similar experiments with mixed results. The fey got wind of it and have tried to put a stop to it - enter another PC's family who secretly worked with the fey to steal children and hide them from Mabbe's clutches, though the player only knows that his father worked with the fey until the dad's first kid, a girl, was then taken by the fey as well.
So getting back to the skins: maybe the "fairest" of these skins DO in fact survive while other inferiors are used up and become husks/monsters/waste whatever. That might help explain how some of the mirrors contain girls silently screaming: they are the ones who are fairest and therefore they can't ever leave this place.
Plus I like the imagery: they spy a girl trapped in a mirror, then they see the same girl in the next chamber, dancing. She disappears and later in the dungeon the party finds her skin, hanging in a wardrobe like a frock.
Lastly I like this idea b/cause my game isn't strictly horror; my players have asked in other situations if they can save people instead of just avenge them. So if some of the girls are trapped here but might yet be saved, maybe the party can find a way.
Oh, and back to the PC whose sister was taken by the fey: unbeknownst to him she has returned and is actively hunting the fey for her "imprisonment". Of course Mabbe is actively hunting for her for one of her vessels, so this should be fun...
Have some marvelous pigments. Paint a door on a mirror. Open the door.
Alternately, these one chamber mirrors of entrapment should have a command word.
The Sad Tale of House Damayth
Some serious Knowledge: Local or Gather Information rolls will reveal the following information about the nobles of House Damayth:
After Sir Viktor Damayth settled into his newly reclaimed holdings he sought a bride. By all accounts she was one of the most beautiful villagers and though many wagged their tongues at his decision to marry a commoner the two were obviously very much in love. Her name was Lilliana and she was a fine and healthy lady.
Soon after their wedding Lilliana became pregnant. She had a daughter they named Vanya; a comely little girl of easy temperment. Soon after little Vanya turned one she disappeared. They tried several mor times producing 3 sons: Erik, Ivan and Yanosc. Then finally Viktor and Lilliana were blessed with Adelphine and they thought their prayers were answered.
Within weeks Viktor found himself plagued by terrible dreams. Often he awoke finding himself having wandered in his sleep to his daughter's crib. He grew pale and his men thought him ill. Then as luck would have it skirmishes erupted amid the hinterlands of their lands and Sir Damayth was called to battle. When he returned his sons were in the care of his servants in their cottage in town; his wife had supposedly fallen from the battlements under rennovation and little Adelphine had disappeared as well.
Determined to find the source of the curse Viktor made his way into the Undercroft. It was then that he found the lair of Mabbe's Mirror, fought his way to it and shattered the thing. He then retreated to the keep and continued rebuilding, raising his boys as best he could.
This was not the end of the story, but rather the beginning.
Tracing the family's lineage PCs notice something interesting: it does not branch, as a tree, but rather continues straight to modern time. This is not to suggest inbreeding; in point of fact MANY of the Damayth men have followed the example of Sir Viktor and married women of common descent. However where they have children they only seem to have boys; girls die or disappear at young ages.
Those boys who do leave the family estate seem cursed with sterility or terrible misfortune and never manage to produce a line of their own. As a result many have gone on to service to the family's patron deity, Pharasma.
Digging even deeper still reveals the darkest secret of House Damayth: not every girl of their line is lost to the Shadow. Some few have been secreted away by servants of the family. These girls are purposely forgotten; their parents may have no knowledge or contact with them as this will visit the curse upon them. These daughters become extremely fair in their own right but nearly all have either become or produced oracles with the Clouded Vision curse; the Shadow taints the line even when far removed from it's clutches.
Meanwhile over the years the lower halls were completely sealed over. Wards and powerful magics were woven to contain the evil below. The lords Damayth maintained a vigilant watch over their lands and the burgeoning town of Staghorn Reach, working with the Erastilin to found a militia called the Thornwalkers and training the most elite among these militia members with almost supernatural powers of movement and skill to enable them to find and destroy any creatures who may escape through newly-crafted paths out of the under-tunnels.
Yet these same lords of the house and their staff often reported hearing the cries of little girls in empty chambers; poltergeists were prevalent in the kitchens, hurling pots and utensils before smashing open the door leading to the barn and outside storage; but the worst by far were the mirrors.
The male members of the household could be found gazing at something, seemingly beyond their own reflection, for up to hours at a time, foregoing sleep or food. When roused they would remember nothing of the stupor, save a general longing for solitude and darkness. Meanwhile the wives, maids and other females grew hateful of the devices claiming they distorted their own reflections making them appear haggard and ugly. Over the generations the Damayth line became phobic of mirrors and had them removed from the house.
Then they began having similar issues with all reflective surfaces. Silver services were allowed to tarnish; they took to drinking from clay vessels which they covered with a cloth; armaments were crafted of cold iron for its black and dull appearance.
But then came Hilvik Dmayth. With his birth 49 years ago seemingly the curses on the house seemed to dull. He was an only child; his mother was seemingly the last tragedy to befall the nobles until recently. But his father must have sensed the recession of the tension for on his fifth birthday young Hilvik snuck into the family gallery and somehow managed to unwrap the Damayth Honor Sword; a greatsword of fantastic, silvered steel that never seems to age. No calamity befell the toddler or his beleagured father, so the device was placed over the mantle in the hall for the first time in nearly half a decade.
There were no more poltergeists, no more ghostly cries. Hilvik's father chose not to remarry but was apparently very fond of more than a few scullery maids; what came of this none now know. Mirrors were returned to the hall and Hilvik was seen as some kind of hero, bordering on sainthood.
It is common knowledge in Staghorn Reach that Hilvik Damayth, upon inheriting the estate, continued the traditions of patrolling the hinterlands of the town with the Thornwalkers and on one such venture made the acquaintance of a young woman who turned out to be the witch, Morrigu. She ensorceled him and apparently held him in thrall, using his influence to further the machinazations of her mistress, the hag Migwyllv. "Auntie Mig" then over time became a scourge of the children in town; she'd lure them out across the Ghostwood Bogs. The boys she'd consume or otherwise destroy but no traces of the girls were ever found. In the end the two of them existed in the town for 15 years, until Mig's daughter was of age and came to live at Dammenterem to work in the kitchens.
This trio formed the Ghostwood Coven and together they nearly destroyed Staghorn Reach. The details of the campaign against the coven are detailed eslewhere; these are the compiled lore and knowledge of House Damayth.
Hilvik, before his descent into corruption and evil, took a wife named Ullavynn and had a pair of sons; Vinosc and Reynault. Reynault became afflicted with a disease that even the Erastilin could not cure and so was sent to Arabellyn where he remained in a Pharasmin sanitarium until he recently escaped. Vinosc however was raised at Dammenterem until the age of 10, when the coven was at last revealed and their final battle destroyed the manor.
Vinosc then has returned to the old ways of his family; he remains unmarried, lives as a recluse in the new Dammenterem Hall on the eastern outskirts of his family's expansive lands and he has never returned to his boyhood home. He also allows no mirrors or reflective surfaces in his home, ever.
So... this is all the fluff needed to setup the dungeon and the first 2 levels (the Surface Ruins and the Undercroft). Next I need to come up with level 3: The First Ballroom
After that I need to look back over the factions and decide what presence (if any) they might have in Staghorn Reach and how to intermingle them in the party's downtime so as to plant hooks and such.