Hello world, it's been a while. I am embarking on my first attempt at making a big dungeon that has a multi-stage history to it, and I'd like your help to come up with design ideas.
HISTORY:
Long ago, this dungeon was created to isolate the Magical Fire MacGuffin from the rest of the world. In my world, this MacGuffin is the source of elemental Fire in the world as well as the source of some fire-related abilities such as a Phoenix's rebirth and the cleansing power of fire to purify. At the time of creation, it had its own seals and traps and probably some fire-related creatures or constructs as guardians. Some time ago, its location was discovered and in the intervening time various groups died trying to loot the place. This has led to lots of corpses and loose loot, and perhaps some damage to the dungeon layout from adventurers and exposure to the elements. Recently, the villain successfully accessed the Magical Fire MacGuffin and corrupted it. This has caused problems throughout the world in general and here specifically it has caused many of the slain looters to rise as undead. Now, the party must fight through the remaining original guardians as well as the souls of prior adventurers in order to reach the Magical Fire MacGuffin and cleanse it.
CREATURES:
CR ½ Bloody Skeleton, Bestiary 1 pg. 251
CR ½ Burning Skeleton, Bestiary 1 pg. 251
CR 3 Allip, Bestiary 3 pg. 12
CR 3 Shadow, Bestiary 1 pg. 245
CR 3 Wight, Bestiary 1 pg. 276
CR 5 Gearghost, Bestiary 4 pg. 123
CR 5 Unrisen, Bestiary 6 pg. 268
CR 5 Wraith, Bestiary 1 pg. 281
CR 6 Roiling Oil, Bestiary 5 pg. 210
CR 7 Psychic Stalker, Occult Bestiary pg. 45
CR 7 Spectre, Bestiary 1 pg. 256
CR 8 Greater Shadow, Bestiary 1 pg. 245
CR 9 Geist, Bestiary 4 pg. 124
CR 10 Pale Stranger, Bestiary 3 pg. 114
CR 12 Shining Child, Bestiary 2 pg. 245
After reading the history and viewing my creatures thus far, you'll note a problem: I've only included things that have recently come to dwell in the place — the undead risen from those who died trying to loot the dungeon, and a few other creatures drawn to the place because of its association with fire. I'm looking for things that might have been original guardians, either in their original form or corrupted/reanimated now that the Magical Fire MacGuffin has been corrupted.
So, my first question is who created the dungeon and put the Magical Fire MacGuffin in it? A dungeon created by a god or gods has an automatic list to pull from: the gods servitors. If it was by a race than undead or somehow preserved members of that race are a good choice. Constructs are also a good option for any kind of "guard the thing" scenario.
Another question is what do you expect the overall level of this place to be? Are you making something in the vein of older dungeons where the deeper you go the deadlier things get? Because looking at your current list, CR 1/2 to CR 12 is a pretty big jump. Are you trying to assemble a list of monsters before determining how tough you want the place to be?
One other thing to consider is a lot of monsters can be modified to fit in a dungeon that has a Magical Fire MacGuffin with templates. Any cool monster can be affected with the Fiery Creature template if you want to stay first party, or the Fire Creature, Flame-Spawned Creature, or Element-Infused templates if you wanted to branch out to third party sources.
THUNDER_Jeffro wrote: So, my first question is who created the dungeon and put the Magical Fire MacGuffin in it? A dungeon created by a god or gods has an automatic list to pull from: the gods servitors. If it was by a race than undead or somehow preserved members of that race are a good choice. Constructs are also a good option for any kind of "guard the thing" scenario. The dungeon was probably built by gods in the long ago, or at least elder beings of some kind like dragons or the like. I'll admit this is something I've not yet fleshed out. I had considered including a Monadic Deva as one of the guardians toward the end of the dungeon, but removed it from the list because it seemed out of place for it to be there — and still alive after the villain got past it. Can you corrupt/undead an angel?
Quote: Another question is what do you expect the overall level of this place to be? Are you making something in the vein of older dungeons where the deeper you go the deadlier things get? Because looking at your current list, CR 1/2 to CR 12 is a pretty big jump. Are you trying to assemble a list of monsters before determining how tough you want the place to be? For the most part, the higher-CR things are meant to be solo encounters while most encounters will be multiple-creature affairs. The lower-CR monsters are intended to be combined with traps or other creatures to create encounter areas with backstory. As an example of the former, I intend for one CR 7 encounter to be a Roiling Oil and 4 Burning Skeletons — the remains of a prior party which died to the Roiling Oil some time in the past. I have also thought to show off the presence of prior adventurers by applying the CR ½ templates to some humanoids or monstrous humanoids that have racial hit dice; e.g., a group of 4 Bloody Skeleton Bugbears makes a CR 6 encounter, which could be combined with something CR 3 for a CR 7 encounter or with something else CR 6 for a CR 8 encounter.
I did originally start out with just looking for things that looked thematic and making a list, and as the result of that process I'm now thinking of shooting for an APL 8–10 party.
Quote: One other thing to consider is a lot of monsters can be modified to fit in a dungeon that has a Magical Fire MacGuffin with templates. Any cool monster can be affected with the Fiery Creature template if you want to stay first party, or the Fire Creature, Flame-Spawned Creature, or Element-Infused templates if you wanted to branch out to third party sources. I'll be sticking to first-party Paizo stuff, but I'll definitely give the Fiery Creature template a look.
A lesser phoenix
Fire golem
Fire Elementals- there was a variation from 3.5 called fire snakes I'm fond of. Wisps also add some more tactics to these fights
Angels/Archons- there are a few with fire thematics. Possibly make them devils now that they have been corrupted
Saints- holy spirits. Incorpreal blaster build theologian clerics that use flame strike
A sanctuary effect for good or fire subtype creatures
Flumphs
Large AOE fire traps triggered with detect evil. Problematic due to the newer residents(or that one guy in the party). Also note they do detect those with evil thoughts at the moment
Aeons- there are some pretty fun dualities you could represent here
Holy oil- preferably in an area with one of the aforementioned fire traps
Dragon- one of the LG varieties could have agreed to serve as a protector. To tone down CR perhaps a decendant who took up the oath
Order of Paladins- most easily placed at the entrance
Dwarven Clan
Literally any immortal good aligned being
@Dastis I could see immortal beings like Angels or Archons having the excuse that they only showed up once they realized something was wrong but were not strong enough to clear the dungeon by themselves. Alternately, like you said, I could have demons or devils to represent fallen angels who were original guardians now corrupted.
An order of paladins sounds neat, but they as well as any other living guardian would need to either be transformed with a template or have a good reason for why they somehow survived the villain getting into the dungeon and corrupting the MacGuffin. Any thoughts toward that end?
the macguffin is a cryatalized mote of the elemental plane of fire, so it manifests fire elementals, naturally.
anything with the fire subtype: fire giants, red dragons, pyrohydra, lava child, cinder wolf, fire lizard, efreet, salamanders, fire mephits, azer...
djdust wrote: the macguffin is a cryatalized mote of the elemental plane of fire, so it manifests fire elementals, naturally. Cannot possibly thank you enough for putting into words the impression I was trying to convey with this. :)
Dastis wrote: A lesser phoenix
Dragon- one of the LG varieties could have agreed to serve as a protector. To tone down CR perhaps a decendant who took up the oath
what if a gold dragon originally served as guardian, but in the course of history, a red was attracted to the power of the macguffin, killed the gold and took up residence. now, due to the corruption, you now have a living red and an undead (skeletal, zombie?) gold.
What is the manner by which Villain the Wizard gained access to the Fire MacGuffin to corrupt it? Did the Villain actually enter the Dungeon, defeat the traps and guardians, or did the Villain just find some magical way to influence the Fire MacGuffin from afar: astrally project, influence it through his crystal ball, something.
If it is the latter, then the Dungeon is a classic sort of vault/tomb full of undead and magically-charged traps and fierce guardians. If the former, then the original Dungeon has already been defeated, and this is the Sequel Dungeon. What did Villain the Wizard do when he defeated the Dungeon? Did he take up residence there, so the Dungeon is now the Wizard's citadel? Did he take the Fire MacGuffin with him? Does the party know that? How do the Dungeon Guardians feel about being beaten by this Wizard? Do you think they would side with the party defeat the Wizard so they can get the Fire back? Did Villain the Wizard actually defeat the Dungeon only to taint the MacGuffin and then leave it there? Did he reset the traps? Did he replace those traps with some of his own?
Scott Wilhelm wrote: What is the manner by which Villain the Wizard gained access to the Fire MacGuffin to corrupt it? Did the Villain actually enter the Dungeon, defeat the traps and guardians, or did the Villain just find some magical way to influence the Fire MacGuffin from afar: astrally project, influence it through his crystal ball, something.
If it is the latter, then the Dungeon is a classic sort of vault/tomb full of undead and magically-charged traps and fierce guardians. If the former, then the original Dungeon has already been defeated, and this is the Sequel Dungeon. What did Villain the Wizard do when he defeated the Dungeon? Did he take up residence there, so the Dungeon is now the Wizard's citadel? Did he take the Fire MacGuffin with him? Does the party know that? How do the Dungeon Guardians feel about being beaten by this Wizard? Do you think they would side with the party defeat the Wizard so they can get the Fire back? Did Villain the Wizard actually defeat the Dungeon only to taint the MacGuffin and then leave it there? Did he reset the traps? Did he replace those traps with some of his own?
First of all, thank you for these questions! Thinking through the answers is really helpful!
I think the Villain physically went there because he needed to do something to corrupt the MacGuffin he could not do from afar. Being the patient wizard or lich that he is, Villain did remote scrying to find the place and while I'm at it let's say he's the reason previous adventuring parties were able to find the place and die there: he wanted information he couldn't get remotely for whatever reason, before going there himself. Upon defeating the dungeon, Villain did something to corrupt the MacGuffin and then left because he is not strong enough to destroy or remove it.
My major behind-the-scenes cosmic plot device for the entire campaign is that the Killing Frost of Ghulurak (a thing from 3.5 DMG 2) is beginning and corrupting the Heart of Flame is done to aid the process of bringing about snowmageddon. I was thinking the gearghosts could reset the traps, so there's no need for Villain the Wizard to have done so. But any still-intact guardians would likely be furious over what Villain has done, especially those that are themselves directly good-aligned or fire-attuned. As someone above eloquently put it, the MacGuffin which I have named the Heart of Flame is a crystallized mote of the Elemental Plane of Fire, responsible for empowering Fire on the Material Plane (or at least this particular world) and with its corruption such effects as purification, rebirth, and perhaps even things like magical healing will not function or will function in diminished capacity.
I think it might be neat to have that Gold Dragon Skeleton, suggested above, not be deep in the dungeon but right outside prowling around its rotting carcass. An adult only yields a CR 8 encounter if my application of the Skeleton template is right, and it would convey to the party just how powerful Villain is.
<Lurch> "You rang?" </Lurch>
Flashblade wrote: I think it might be neat to have that Gold Dragon Skeleton, suggested above, not be deep in the dungeon but right outside prowling around its rotting carcass. An adult only yields a CR 8 encounter if my application of the Skeleton template is right, and it would convey to the party just how powerful Villain is. "Rotting carcass" doesn't quite seem to match what you were saying before
Flashblade wrote: Long ago, this dungeon was created to isolate the Magical Fire MacGuffin from the rest of the world. In my world, this MacGuffin is the source of elemental Fire in the world as well as the source of some fire-related abilities such as a Phoenix's rebirth and the cleansing power of fire to purify. At the time of creation If the dungeon is actually the dead body of a dragon, and part of the creation story of your world, than the body wouldn't normally look like your typical rotting carcass. It might not even look like a skeleton anymore. You might not even realize that you were looking at a the remains of a creature's body.
This suggests an overall shape of the dungeon to me. What was once the bones of the World Dragon became known as the Dragonspine Mountains, and the Heart of Flame is the shrivelled nodule of the Heart (or maybe some other part) of the World Dragon. Inhabitants of the mountain range are thematic to the systems of the Dragon's body. "Magical Fire McGuffin" sounds like a very whimsical name. Are you keeping this whimsical theme? Do other body parts of the Dragon exist still? Is there a clan of Dwarves mining a vein of Adamantine that used to be the Dragon's Teeth? Will the party succumb to the charms of the succubi that live in the Cloaca Pass? Did the World Dragon have gallstones? Are there rivers flowing out of the Dragonspine Mountains made from the Blood, Tears, and Piss of the World Dragon?
Does this suggest a motivation of the Lich? The Lich, who in life was called Villain the Wizard, spent his life, and even longer, trying to Animate the World Dragon to begin a campaign of world, maybe even cosmic domination, or maybe he just wants to see what that will look like. Maybe his plan will/won't/was never going to succeed. The motivations of Undead monsters don't have to make any sense at all, or at least not anymore.
I'm thinking of the Norse creation myth where all of creation is made from the remains of Ymir, the World Giant. The World of Men, Midgard, is what used to be the belly of the Giant. Dwarves evolved from Ymir's intestinal worms. Other creatures spontaneously generated from Ymir's armpit. Also, I'm thinking about the Ancient Greek myths about Atlas, the Sky Titan who held the Sky up on his shoulders. One day, Atlas declared he had had enough. He was going to just shrug the sky off his shoulders and let the world be crushed. But he picked the wrong man to tell that too: Perseus. Perseus had just finished slaying Medusa, and when he heard Atlas's threat, Perseus pulled Medusa's head out of the bag--yoink!--and turned Atlas to stone. The Atlas Mountains, the Rock of Gibralter, and other rock formations at the mouth of the Mediterenean Sea, including the Clashing Rocks, are the petrified remains of Atlas the Sky Titan, still holding up the sky on his stone shoulders.
if an efreet was originally involved in the protection of the Heart of Flame, there could now be a Ghul or Div could be there in their place.
|
