#dungeon23: The End!

 

Anastasios Gionis

22: History Section

• (!) The shambling, starved, eyeless horror.

23: Occult Section

• (!) Every book is sealed with a poison glyph on a ribbon of paper.

• Any occult book you need, is here.

24: Astronomy Section

• (!) Leering stone gargoyle in the door. It’s open mouth expels poison gas when the door is opened.

25: Reshelving Area

• (!) An army of sacrifice mummies, silent undead servants in porcelain masks and coloured ribbons, shuffle endlessly, redistributing small piles of research materials and marching up and down the walls. When disturbed, they all stop and turn as one.

• Vastly high and wide hall lined with desks, lit by a skylights and chandeliers.

26: Spiral Hall

• The corridor twists until it is upside down.

• (?) Gravity moves with the ribbon of hall.

27: Inverted Stair

• (?) Descends upward to the crown.

28: Crown: Hangar

• A room open to the elements on one side. The world seems far, far above.

• Within: a 10’ sphere of metal, dripping ice, hovering motionlessly just above the floor.

• (?) Touching the sphere causes it to open a ramp entrance. Within: a seat for one pilot, surrounded by tiny needles. Sit to be impaled by the needles and whisked away to somewhere else…

29: Crown: Map Room

• A vast map of the continent, carved in relief on a circular table.

30: Crown: Caskets

• 3 sarcophagi with lids in the shape of dead emperors, sealed with something waxy.

• (!) Each sarcophagus contains a bespoke biological warfare agent.

• (?) Also a lot of gold.

31: Crown: Diamond Garden

• A spherical room filled with planters holding dead trees. The walls are milkily transparent.

• (!) Standing perfectly still: the spectre of the emperor-thing, wearing a bristling crown of thunderbolts, and holding skysever, the sword that can cut the heavens. Gravity is dependant on his orientation.

  • Mien: Rasping, monosyllabic.

  • Wants: Silence.

  • Needs: Nothing.

  • Fears: Nothing.

Level 12, Imperial Archive, Week 3

 

15: Face of Assignment

• Stern marble face with jewels for eyes watches the hall. Scorch marks on the marble.

• (!) The face fires disintegration rays at anyone whose face it doesn’t recognise.

• Fist-sized jewels worth 500 coins each. 

16: Living Collage

• Human forms piled together and frozen in place behind some grey, waxy, plastic substance. You could have sworn you saw a limb twitch.

• (?) Barrier is impervious to most weapons.

17: Spout

• A funnel of jutting stone slabs, rising 100’.

18: Army

• (!) 100 undead soldiers, silent and still, in silver armour.

• An echoing hall supported by pillars in the shape of nude titans.

19: Death Masks

• Hundreds of painted clay death masks line the hall.

• (??) 2d6 are actually gold, worth 100 coins each.

20: Ceiling Pool

• Fish swim in a pool on the ceiling, fed by water from the reverse hall (a 60’ drop).

21: Rotating Room

• A single entrance/exit. A golden globe held by cherubs in the centre.

• (?) Twist the globe to rotate the room in 90 degree increments.

Level 12, Imperial Archive, Week 2

From NaissanceE.

 

8: Librarian’s Bureau

• Lair of the Librarian, many-limbed, eldritch, levitating mummy within flowing robes.

  • Mien: whispering, severe

  • Wants: new books & specimens; return of stolen materials

  • Needs: order, silence

  • Fears: the Emperor

  • Knows: the location of any object within the archive (index is in the holographer on its desk)

Sublevel: Xerocrux

• The xerocrux is a cylindrical chamber within an outer room wrapped around it; four hallways lead into the outer room.

• (!) Gravity within the xerocux flows perpendicularly, in the direction of the crux (i.e. each hall does ‘down’). The chamber itself has no gravity.

9: Xerocrux: South Hall

• (!) ‘Bottom’ of the hall is a pool of clear liquid (acid).

• Lined with shelves of archival papers.

10: Xerocrux: West Hall

• (!?) ‘Bottom’ of the hall is a forest of long pyramidal obelisks of obsidian, inscribed with commemorative inscriptions. These are razor-sharp and function exactly like deadly blades.

• Lined with shelves of oddities; locks of hair, pinned insects, seeds, tissue samples in glass.

11: Xerocrux: North Hall

• (!) Midway down the hall is webbed with golden filaments of cutting light.

• Bottom of the hall is the adamant doors of the crux chamber.

• Lined with shelves of records on clay tablets.

12: Xerocrux: East Hall

• (!?) ‘Bottom’ of the hall is a forest of long pyramidal obelisks of obsidian, inscribed with commemorative inscriptions. These are razor-sharp and function exactly like deadly blades.

• Lined with shelves of records on holographic lead glyph tablets.

13: Xerocrux: Chamber

• A cylindrical bookcase.

• (??) The rarest books and treasures are here. Imperial seal; genealogical records; the dynastic sword, Sunburst, adamant blade in golden scabbard; the Librarian’s spellbook.

14: Secret Staircase

• Marble nymph proffering a golden apple.

• (??) Twist the apple to open the secret door to the spiral stair down to the Emperor’s solar on level 10.

Level 12: Imperial Archive, Week 1

M. C. Escher, naturally.

The universal store of knowledge. The emperor is vanished somewhere within.

There are no wandering monsters; just cold, altitude sickness, and guardians in their lairs.

1: Ziggurat Stair

• Ascends from the Temple of Industry to the silver star doors of the archive. Turns at right angles, ascending hundreds of feet in a kinked spiral.

2: Knights of the Chain

• (!) Twin knights, undead within golden armour and lion masks, armed with great flails. None shall pass.

• A vastly high, echoing hall of white marble.

3: Balcony

• The sun is black; the world is on fire.

4: Courtyard

• A marble god pours water; the fountain runs over, and trickles into the neighbouring halls.

5: Reverse Hall

• (!) Gravity is reversed in his 60’ room.

• Water from the courtyard trickles upward to the ceiling.

6: Gravity Cube Stacks

• Rows of bookshelves. The walls and ceiling have their own rows of shelves, anchored to each plane. Stairs ascend from the ceiling to the reverse stair corridor. 

• (?) Each surface of this room has its own gravity. The very centre has none.

• (!) Lair of the ink demons, hiding with books.

• (??) If you need a book, it might be here.

7: Reverse Stair Corridor

• (!?) Reverse gravity; stair connects to the ceiling of the Gravity Cube Stacks and the Reverse Hall.

Level 11: Temple of Industry, Weeks 3 & 4

15: Thermopanoplia

• 1d6 armoured, insulated heat suits.

• (?) Suits are very uncomfortable to wear for prolonged periods.

16: Pistons

• (!) 2 moving piston arms gyrate across the room, threatening to rush anyone who tries to cross (unless the turbine was stopped somehow).

17: Clockwork

• (!) Whirling gears to crush and mangle.

• (?) …Unless the turbine was stopped.

18: Transformers

• Static hum, smell of ozone.

• (!) Poorly insulated electrical components.

19: Vigilator Assembly

• Robot cranes; grinding machinery; automaton limbs; sparking cables.

20: Timepiece: Vigilator’s Door

• Heavy metal door engraved with arcane patterns.

• (?) Unlocked.

21: Timepiece: Heart Antechamber Door

• Heavy metal door engraved with arcane patterns.

• (?) Unlocked.

22: Timepiece: Main Door

• Heavy metal door engraved with arcane patterns.

• (?) Locked and electrified.

23: Timepiece: Clockwork Shrine

• The great timekeeper, a bronze titan with a clock face with lifelike hands. Offerings of jewels, hair and teeth about his feet.

• (?) 3d6 jewels with 100 coins each.

• (?) The clock face not only keeps the time, but determines the time, so long as the machinery keeps running. Each attempt to force the hands has a chance of irreparably breaking the mechanism, however.

24: Fungus Farm

• Bizarre wood fungus growing from a pile of roots and branches from desert shrubs.

• (?) Fungus is inedible without cooking, and is tainted by the poisoned water.

25: Bee Wizard

• Giant bee with an opalescent, crimson carapace etched with bizarre runes.

  • Mien: clicks and clacks and frustrated gestures. Communicates via a brass box speech translator.

  • Wants: a cure for their people’s illness.

  • Needs: a safe home for their band. They came here as refugees.

  • Fears: the disease and the robots.

  • Knows: their people are infected by some disease that makes them erratic and sometimes dangerous. Something dangerous lives within the blocked-off area.

26: Mud Well

• Overflow from the waste pipes is captured here. Bees use it as their source of water.

• (??!) Water appears clean, but eventually causes ego death and direct experience of the dragon’s dead mind.

27: Bee Lair

• Peaceful giant bees with carapaces in various brilliant colours.

• (?) Some seem catatonic. All ignore attempts to communicate.

28: Bee Bully Lair

• (!) The most far-gone bees, erratic and violent.

29: Hive Tunnels

• Winding like a termite mound.

30: Ventilation Shafts

• Tall pits like waterless wells, raised to the sky.

Level 11: Temple of Industry, Week 2

From Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei

 

8: Canal, Waste Channels

• Metal pipes that project over the back side of the ziggurat to expel waste. A long way down.

• Strange fungi grow in the pipes.

9: Canal, Coolant Channels

• Filled with crimson, phosphorescent water.

• (!) Immersion sickens over time. Drinking sickens rapidly.

• (?) Water is heated by the Heart, which drives the turbine blades that drive the machinery in the Automat and charge the alcoves. Hot water expands into the blades, flowing in a circular motion.

10: Canal, Turbine Blades

• (!) Being thrown into the spinning blades is unlikely to end well.

• (?) Venting the canals stops the flow.

11: Canal, Heart Exchange

• (!) Here, where the canal wraps around the heart chamber, the water/air is dangerously hot.

• (?) Before the spiral: a metal door to the heart antechamber, which can be opened if the canal has been drained.

12: Canal, Water Spout

• (?) Brass wheel above the canal opens the spout, flooding the canal. It takes several hours to fill.

13: Heart Antechamber

• (!) The round heart chamber radiates waves of intense heat.

• Visible through the adamant wall of the heart chamber: the blazing heart of a dragon.

• (!?) The metal door to the chamber is too hot to touch.

14: Heart Chamber

• (!) To enter without protection is fiery death.

Level 11: Temple of Industry, Week 1

Craig Mullins. I always did like Marathon.

 

1: Ziggurat Stair

• Golden lion doors bar the way down to the palace.

2:  Freight Elevator

• Sliding brass doors hide a dingy lift.

• (?) No power – doors can be pried open, manual crank on the wall slowly lowers or raises the perforated metal platform. Goes down to the freight elevator in the Ziggurat Plaza (level 8) and the green room in the Fortress of Doors (level 5).

3: Vigilator Ultimus

• (!) Vigilator Ultimus, an armoured war machine with death ray and energy sword.

  • Mien: imperious, inflexible

  • Wants: extermination of the intruder bees

  • Needs: new catalysts (human sacrifices) for the machine heart

  • Fears: intruders entering the machine heart (will not allow passage)

  • Knows: the layout of the level; the bees’ sickness.

4: Blockage

• Passage is blocked by a waxy, dried mud-like substance.

• (??) Like an insect’s nest.

• (?) Soft enough to be dug through, with some effort.

5: Construct Alcoves

• (!) Lair of 2d6 vigilators, villeins, and velocipedes.

6: Canal, Ladder

• Ladder descends 5’.

7: Canal, Lock

• Huge metal door with a wheel in the middle.

• (?) Opening the door without purging the canal results in a flood of toxic effluvia pouring out. Even cranking the wheel a bit will result in a rapid leak.

Level 10: Palace of the Blood Queen, Week 4

Bastien Lecouffe Deharme

 

22: Ziggurat Stair

(past)

• (!) Two Iron Maidens at the top of the stair. Passphrase: onyx.
• (?) Golden lion doors to level 11.

23: Chamberlain’s Roost

(past)

• Lair of the chamberlain. Opulent rooms and vast black hardwood desk.
• (!) The Chamberlain, stuffed layers of silk and fur, gold chains, rings over white gloves, brass keyring on his belt, luxuriant ringlets and beard framing a mask of comedy. Hovers above the ground.
  • Mien: the cat that got the cream. Followed by a gaggle of interjecting sycophants.
  • Wants: amusement
  • Needs: to gather the keys. Do you have a stray key?
  • Fears: the Empress, and no other.
  • Knows: everything, including the passphrases.
  • treasure: jewellery worth 200 coins, keys to the palace rooms & vault.

(present)

• Still the chamberlain’s lair, but ruined. The chamberlain is alone, undead.

24: Throneroom

(past)

• The Empress holds court, surrounded by masked courtiers and trestles laden with food and wine. The emperor’s throne lies empty. The Eldest Princess, Mira, is chained to one wall, dead, her blood pooled in a trough at her feet.
• (!) The Empress Aurelienne, blood queen of the ziggurat.
  • Mien: a cat playing with its food
  • Wants: flattery, and to humiliate
  • Needs: blood
  • Fears: treason, her daughters
  • Knows: surprisingly little. Passphrase to her rooms. Doesn’t know (yet) that Mira wasn’t the one who stole her giant black diamond, the Storm Adamant.

(present)

• Stone and ashes. The dais is empty.

25: Her Rooms: Foyer

(past/present)

• (!) An Iron Maiden, encased in steel plates pinned to her body with rivets. Blocks all unauthorised guests. Passphrase ‘chrysanthemum’.

26: Her Rooms: Closet

(past/present)

• (!) Locked, with needle poison trap.
• A truly vast collection of expensive clothes.
• (??) d100 coins worth item each time you dig through.

28: Her Rooms: Bedroom

(past/present)

• Pristine four-poster with furs and silks. Heavy desk with writing paraphernalia.
• (?) Portrait of a family: Emperor Titus, Empress Aurelienne, Princesses Mira and Erhua, and sickly little Prince Ambrose.

27: Her Rooms: Bath

(past)

• 6 young women hang from meathooks, bleeding into Her gilt marble bath.

(present)

• (!) Lair of the blood queen, undead and insane. She sleeps in the bath and wears the Storm Adamant (unless someone stole it in the past?).

28: His Rooms: Foyer

(past/present)

• (!) An Iron Maiden. Passphrase: amethyst.
• On display: two exquisite suits of armour, gilt and shining, one formal and one for the field, plus His gun and sword.

29: His Rooms: Solar

(past/present)

• Vast hardwood bureau. Shelves lined with books of every kind. Luxurious carpet.
• (?) Inside the desk: papers, seals, His lion signet ring.
• (??) A thin, door-shaped seam on the one section of wall without book-cases.
• (??) Secret switch under the desk opens the door to the secret room.
• (??) If you want a particular book, there’s a good chance it’s here.

30: His Rooms: Bedroom

(past/present)

• Opulent and immaculate.
• (??) Under the mattress: The Storm Adamant, a thumb-sized black diamond set in a gold pendant. The wearer can turn into smoke at will.

31: His Rooms: Secret Room

• Bare stone room with a spiral stair ascending to Level 12: Archive.
• (?) Brass switch on the wall to open/close the secret door.

Level 10: Palace of the Blood Queen, Week 3

'Enothar'

 

15: Guard Room

(past)

• (!) 12 guards in crimson livery and shining cuirasses and helmets, armed with rifles and swords.

(present)

• (!) The guards remain, undead in rotten livery.

16: Larder

(past)

• Peons in smooth masks and loincloths sit shackled in rows.

(present)

• Empty brick room with iron rings for shackles.

17: Chamber of Her Beauty

(past/present)

• Portraits, in all shapes and sizes, of one person: the Empress.

18: Rooms of the Eldest Princess

(past/present)

• Hardwood four-poster, silk covers, the works.
• Signs of a struggle.
• (??) Under the mattress: wooden case with scissors, needle, thread, and potions of enlarge and reduce.

19: Balcony

(past)

• Intense, drunken conversations beneath the blood moon.

(present)

• A view of the city. Ziggurat plaza lies a good 100’ down.

20: Servant’s Rooms

(past/present)

• Mostly deserted hall lined with garrets & cubicles of the help.

21: Dollhouse

(past)

• A grand dollhouse in the form of a palace, roughly similar to this one.
• (?) The roof can be lifted.
• (??) The dolls are alive; 6 miniature lords and ladies.
  • Want: to escape and be returned to normal size.
  • Fear: torment at the hands of visitors, especially the Eldest.
  • Know: the Eldest has the potions.

(present)

• Six tiny skeletons in dolls’ clothing inside the house.

Level 10: Palace of the Blood Queen, Week 2

Ivan Belikov

 

I'm back!

8: Hall of Leaves

(present)

• Riot of overgrown shrubs, flowered and thorned

• (!) Thorn trap. Trees saw at exposed limbs.

(past)

• Perfumed garden, lovers' trysts in shady alcoves 

9: Serving Hall

(present)

• Collapsing sideboards.

• (?) Broken dumb waiter chute leads way down to the kitchens in the  fortress of doors.

(past)

• Harried servants rush hither and yon.

10: Amusement Arcade

(present)

• Manacles in a wheel of pine. A skeleton on the ground, alongside rusted hatchets.

(past)

• (!) 3 drunken aristos throwing axes at a tarred & feathered person in tied to a spinning wheel. Participation is compulsory.

• (?) The victim is Nil, a clerk, guilty of trying to smuggle victims out of the spa. he knows the layout of the palace.

11: Dressing Room

(past/present)

• Statues of nude nymphs and satyrs, some serving as furniture, one proferring a golden pomegranate. Wall panel frescos showing people in various states of deshabille and playful poses, sometimes amorous. Changing screen of polished bronze.

• (??) The fruit is fixed fast, but can be twisted to switch the wall panels to mirrors. One panel opens to reveal a secret passage.

12: Imperial Box

(past/present)

• Luxurious couches and table, marble balustrade, overlooking the Courtroom on level 5.

13: Imperial Stair

(past/present)

• Descending spiral of marble stairs.

• (?) Connects to the imperial stair tower on level 8.

14: Rooms of the Youngest Princess

(past/present)

• Hardwood four-poster, silk covers, the works.

• (??) Under her mattress: the diary or Erhua. Inside cover holds two little brass keys, 1 for the imperial stair tower and 1 for the spa.

  • (?) Diary of a teenage narcissist with a thirst for blood. Finishes: Mama is up to something. I’ll keep these little keys as insurance.

Level 10: Palace of the Blood Queen, Week 1

Sebastian Kowoll

 

1: Ziggurat Stair

• (?) Rises into ornamental gardens before the gates; descends into the Temple of All Gods 3.

2: Palace Grounds

• Dead grass and spiny bushes, raked with old scorch marks. Two colossal bronze statues with smiling faces, covered in verdigris, flank the palace doors, themselves shaped like outstretched hands in relief.

• (!) The statues are imperial war automata. They use their death rays against anything approaching the palace, from any direction.

• (?) The doors are heavy but unlocked.

3: Foyer

• Marble statues, tall mirrors, chaises longues

• (?) dresser with silver plate & candlesticks

4: Passage of Ages

• Dancing mementos mori in relief. Chequered marble tiles; clean and polished to the East, dusty, cracked, and invaded by weeds to the West.

• (!?) Leaving from the East takes you into the past version of the palace (the sky and time of day are different here). Leaving from the West returns you to the present.

5: Great Hall

(present)

• Floored with tiled hardwood and dragonbone. Glittering chandeliers high above. Sideboards against the East wall. Wind whispering through 4 empty hearths.

• (?) Sideboard has silver plate worth 1000gp (5 slots).

(past)

• Aristocratic revellers in masks. Musicians, drink, scurrying servants.

• (!) Being here without looking the part will draw unwanted attention.

6: Hall of Mirrors

(present)

• Lit by high windows. Lined with full-length mirrors, cracked and dusty. An empty pond with old fishbones.

• (!) The blood queen can appear, see, and pass through intact mirrors, though she has no reflection.

• (??) One of the panels is a secret door; it moves when pushed.

(past)

• Sounds of revelry from beyond.

7: Cloakroom

(present)

• Moth-eaten garments and dusty carnival masks hang on racks.

(past)

• A servant in a mask of comedy keeps watch.

Level 9: Temple of All Gods, Week 4

Marcus Luotero

 

 

I'm back! A few days late due to life getting in the way, but I made it. Hard to believe there are only three months left in the year.

This level turned into less of a funhouse and more of a weird amalgam of paths and themes -- a sublevel made of sublevels. I'm OK with that, though I feel it needs more monsters and traps. Next month will be much more thematically coherent, with a nice little gimmick, as well.

22: Forgotten Colossi

• Dusty stone colossi holding lanterns and reliquaries, under a hazy red sky, ankle-deep in sand .

• (?) Beyond the portico: sandy desert, as far as you can see.

23: Shrine of Rain: Frozen Courtyard

• Portico pillars piled with snow. The wind howls; an alien sun leaks bleakly through.

• (??) flickering fire within the sanctuary.

24: Shrine of Rain: Tomb of Tears

• A frozen waterfall against the wall. Shaggy demons with icy antlers huddle around flickering braziers.

• (!?) Lair of the Congregation of Tears, silently mourning their dead god.

  • Mien: rumbling, depressed

  • Wants: some kind of hope or purpose

  • Needs: fuel to keep their braziers lit

  • Fears: the dark

  • Knows: a little about the other temples

• (?) A dwindling pile of charcoal in the storeroom.

25: Shaft of Portals

• A cylindrical room with portals at many different levels, each about 30’ up or down from the next. The floor and ceiling are shrouded in darkness.

• (?) There is no floor – it leads 120’ down into into the Shrine of the Dark: Pit.

• (?) There is no ceiling – it leads 60’ up into the midden chute on level 10: the Palace.

26: Maze

• (!??) The halls here are superimposed on the map, passing ‘through’ one another as they move in impossible directions.

• (!) Shadow demons stalk these halls, waiting for easy prey they can snatch away.

27: Temple of the New: Facade

• An ancient and monumental facade of white marble and columns. Completely free of any ornamentation.

28: Temple of the New: Renegade Magician

• A dusty room with books and personal effects piled about.

• (!) Lair of the Emperor’s renegade high priest, now a cantankerous lich, Qargan.

  • Mien: Hmm? I’m busy. Oh, wait, visitors!

  • Wants: to kill the emperor & his cult, and claim the secrets of the archive for his new god.

  • Needs: followers for the New God, so that it will begin to manifest. He isn’t very good at recruitment, and something happened to his old congregation.

  • Fears: the Avatar of Empire.

  • Knows: all about the palace (as it was), and the existence of the archive at the city’s highest level.

• (?) A veritable library of books on magic, history, religion, and all manner of arcane subjects, including Qargan’s spellbook. He may not appreciate people digging through them.

• (?) Qagan is happy to expound on the wickedness of the emperor’s murderous regime and the need to birth a new god to take its place in the cosmology. He has no idea the empire is dead.

29: Temple of the New: Cella

• A vast but mostly blank marble statue, suggesting a person, but without detail.

30: Shrine of the Forest

• Musty courtyard overhung with canopy of massive trees. At its heart: a fungal menhir the size of a house, hard, grey, and pocked with holes of varying size.

• (??) The largest hole – 2’ across – is filled with glittering offerings: weapons, golden goblets, jewels, and a golden war mask, but you have to climb inside to reach them.

  • (?) Treasure is worth 300 coins, including a magic axe, Red Torrent.

  • (!) The menhir will of course release its spores if interfered with – save vs. infection. Psychic contact with the vengeful forest god will be established shorty thereafter.

  • (??) A passage within the menhir leads to a tree bough in the forest garden.

Level 9: Temple of All gods, Week 3

By 'fallstrider'. I had a perfect Beksinski for this week, but I felt like something different.

 

15: Shrine of the Dark: Hall of Echoes

• (!) Lair of the Darkwights. When awoken: mimic speech; move like leaves in the wind; hunger for tender eyes.

• Sound travels far and strangely here, like in a cathedral.

• (?) The great statue of the Dark is a fractal chimera, ice cold, rippling with impossible shapes. Reproductions of its surface (charcoal rubbings, sketches from memory) reveal things that cannot be seen and risk madness or blindness. They may also fetch an incredible price, with the right buyer.​
  

16: Vault of Little Gods

• Thousands of statuettes of every size and material, jumbled everywhere. Smells of old incense and dried flowers.

• (!) Difficult terrain. Don’t tread on a little god, or you might get a little curse.

• (??) If you’re looking for a minor deity, it’s in here somewhere.

17: Well of Stars: Empyrean Vault

• A courtyard under a night sky. Crickets and jasmine. Paper offerings and a golden dagger (100 coins) on a huge stone slab at the end.

• (?) The slab is loose and can be moved, with difficulty. Beneath: the Well of Stars, water shining with the night sky, even when in shadow.

• (?) The water feels normal, until you reach an arm’s length through…

18: Well of Stars: Fountain

• (!) Gravity reverses on the path through the deep water.

• A fountain with marble steps, starts shining in the water. Surrounded by a portico of marble nymphs; water trickles through their hands. Unfamiliar trees with sweet-smelling fruit.

• (!?) The water is clean and refreshing; the fruit are nourishing and delicious. Consuming them makes you more susceptible to the Prince’s suggestions.

19: Well of Stars: Cell

• (!) Lair of the Star Prince. Eternally beautiful inhuman youth under a dread skeleton that burns with starfire.

  • Mien: oh, won’t you stay?

  • Wants: stories and company from beyond

  • Needs: to stay here – it cannot leave the cell.

  • Fears: being alone

  • Knows: all about the other temples

• The cell is a comfortable room with lounges and a chest against the wall. Smells of jasmine and incense.

  • (?) Chest contains great fistfuls of Sapphires worth 10,000 coins, but you have to dig them out of the powdery incense a few at a time. The Prince may offer some in trade.

20: Caterpillar Shrine: Lost Souls

• Walls like fingers, limbs. Become more fleshy as you advance. Faint groans.

• (!) Lair of the Lost Souls, warped faces peeking from behind their long fingers in the walls, begging for a little water, or blood. When roused, some pull themselves out of the wall to attack. When killed, their waxy flesh melts from their bones and their skeletons burn black and keep fighting.

21: Caterpillar Shrine: Sanctum

• High granite walls covered with spiral patterns. A vast sacrificial altar stained black with blood. A ragged wound in the wall, about 20’ up and 10’ wide.

• (?) The hole leads to the sump in the Spa.

• (!?) Placing blood on the altar summons the Caterpillar Demon from the Spa; she just crawls out of the hole in the wall.

Level 9: The Temple of All Gods, Week 2

Beksinksi, from his megadungeon period

 

 

This level is a lot of fun to write. It's basically a funhouse with a set of weird sublevels, and the level conceit means that it doesn't have to make sense to make sense.

8: Imperial Shrine: Hall of trophies

• Rows upon rows of of treasures and grotesques. Weapons and armour piled on racks. Taxidermied people in diverse ethnic clothing styles with jewels for eyes. Priceless funerary urns from extinct eras. Mouldering heaps of silk brocade. A pile of crowns.

• (!) All the good treasure is trapped.

  • 12 taxidermied people – the gemstone eyes are worth 100 coins each, but they are also stoppers, holding in toxic spores.

  • Arms – any weapon or armour you can think of, plus a paired sword and energy pistol, gold-chased and sapphire-encrusted. All are rubbed with Prince’s Embrace, a deadly contact venom

    • (??) Venom visible as a faint blue sheen on careful inspection.

  • 7 funerary urns – not actually priceless, 1000 coins each – sit on plinths with pressure sensors. Removing the weight causes lead darts coated in adder venom to fall from the ceiling, landing in a 5’ radius below.

    • (??) Many coin-sized holes in the ceiling in the area above the plinths.

  • 100 silk robes with brocade, half damp and soiled. The good ones are worth 100 coins each. Beneath the pile of robes sleeps a bone-eater.

9: Colonnade

• 60’ high colonnade with columns like vast marble tree trunks. Lit by dim lights shining from beyond.

• (??) The light seems to change depending on where you stand – each passage between the columns goes to a different place.

10: Shrine of Tears

• A garden courtyard. Water pours from a weeping statue into a clear pool.

• (!) Drinking the water causes you to fall into a deep sleep for 3d6 hours. When you awake, your injuries are healed, and you have permanently forgotten something.

• (??) Something is wrong…

  • There shouldn’t be a courtyard here. It’s under the city.

  • You can hear the sea.

  • The sky is hazy turquoise.

  • …Beyond the high courtyard wall is a tiny temple island on an ocean planet.

11: Shrine of the Dark: Corridors

• Long corridors lead into absolute darkness.

  • Don’t reveal this sublevel on the map, if you are using one. Characters must navigate by feel, players by vague description.

• (!) The dark here is magical. Fierce and sudden gusts of wind blow out flames. Magical or technological lights flicker and die. Night vision goes blind.

• (!) Without precautions, getting lost is easy.

12: Shrine of the Dark: Carvings

• The walls here are carved into all kinds of strange reliefs and pillars.

• (!) The jumbled layout of this room makes it extremely easy to get lost.

• (??) The carvings are grouped by theme, one around each entrance.

  • (a) Bizarre chimeras with a mix of human and animal features – ridged tusks; smooth bodies; barbed tentacles; tiny hands emerging from eye sockets – lead to the Hall of Echoes.

  • (b) Skulls with faceted eyes lead to the Pit.

  • (c) Hunched, weeping, naked figures clutching their faces lead back to the temple proper.

13: Shrine of the Dark: The Pit

• (!) Pit trap. The curving stone is polished and slippery. Fall 15’ down sheer slippery walls into the pit. At the bottom: Eyeless ghouls, feeble but hungry.

• (??) There is a small ledge along one side that you can sidle along the wall without falling.

• Leads to the Treasury.

14: Shrine of the Dark: Treasury

• (?) Writhing, scaly snakes of cold hard metal (gold); fistfuls of faceted stones (black diamonds); an icy hilt in a polished wooden scabbard (Lightdrinker, a legendary sword).

• (!) Robbing this room will awaken the Darkwight in the Hall of Echoes.

​Level 9: The Temple of All gods, Week 1

Pierre Raveneau

 

The temple is a vast, decrepit maze of impossible geometry.

Was: A monument to the vanity and greed of the Emperors.

Intruder: the High Magus, turned traitor along with his followers.

Synthesis & Fallout: Warring congregations looking for followers. The Magus attempts to birth the New God.

1: Pantheon

• Lined with marble statues. The gods have all turned their backs. Natural light from high windows.

2: Imperial Shrine: Great Hall

• Gloom and smoke. A high-vaulted hall with rows of bone-packed gibbets, glowing braziers,  and smouldering incensors hanging from the ceiling. Floor is littered with human bones, ash, and broken swords.

• (?) The massive doors leading to the ziggurat stair are made of solid gold and shaped like snarling lions. They open easily, but are far too heavy to be stolen unless broken apart somehow.

• (?) Gibbets, braziers and incensors hang from heavy chains of uneven length; from 10’ up to 30’ (near the ceiling). It might be possible to move upward from one to another if you find a low one.

• (?) There is a mezzanine floor overlooking this hall, hidden by shadow and pillars.

3: Imperial Shrine: Ziggurat Stair

• The stair is made of human skulls.

• (!) At its summit: the Avatar of Empire.

• (?) The door at the summit leads to level 11: Imperial Palace.

4: Imperial Shrine: Mezzanine Arcade

• 30’ up. Clear view of the great hall from between the pillars.

5: Imperial Shrine: Deacons’ Quarters

• (!) Lair of the Imperial Deacons. Skin and bone and empty eye sockets, chained to an unlife of eternal service.

  • Mien: whispered chorus, sinister chanting

  • Want: more victims for the Avatar, especially apostates

  • Need: to keep the fires lit

  • Fear: the renegade magician

• A gloomy barracks.

6: Imperial Shrine: Storeroom

• Gloomy cellar with seemingly limitless bags of charcoal and incense.

7: Non-Euclidean Corridor

• (!??) This corridor winds back on itself in ways that shouldn't be possible.

Ziggurat Plaza, Week 4

Ben Andrews

 

 

 22: Imperial Stair Tower

• Locked (extreme difficulty – purple key or imperial blood unlocks) and magically sealed bedchamber of the captive princess.
• Small barred widows allow a view to/from the courtyard.
• (?) Spiral stair goes down to the spa and up to the palace.
• (!) Lair of the Princess of Sorrow, Erhua. Appears to be someone the PCs know, bound by iron shackles (the shackles are magical and she cannot remove them herself) . Her chains are long enough to allow her free roam of the room. In her true form, Erhua is petulant and sadistic in blood-drenched feathers and grasping talons
  • mien: plaintive whispers, always about herself or her persona
  • needs: to feed on human blood – she can survive in hibernation without eating, but must to feast to regain her full strength.
  • wants: revenge on her parents, who put her here
  • fears: the same
  • knows: the layout of the palace level and how to get there

23: Vigilator Bays

• (!) Lair of the vigilators. Those not on patrol are always here recharging. The recharging ones are dead to the world, but there is a high chance each tick that one will either wake up or return to recharge.
• Rows of alcoves with brass flutes and prongs. Some contain a sleeping vigilator. Workbench with spare parts and d half-assembled automaton.
• (?) The work area has all kinds of parts and doodads.

24: Warehouse

• Rows and rows of shelves lined with pots, chests, sacks and bottles.
• (??) Many units of flour (stale but edible), wine (mostly vinegar), charcoal (fuel), fat and oil (somewhat rancid).

25: Grand Arcade

• Curving marble path with a view of the city below. Planters filled with spiny weeds; apartment doors between the marble columns and arches.
• (!) A vigilator patrols this path.

26: Empty Townhouses (downstairs)

• A row of townhouses, mostly empty aside from the odd bit of rubble or broken furniture. A search may reveal… (d6)
  • 1 = nothing
  • 2 = a child’s doll
  • 3 = 2d6 coins
  • 4 = an antique vase worth 10 coins (delicate!)
  • 5 = a lot of functional but worthless crockery
  • 6 = the husk of a giant beetle grub, long empty

27: Empty Townhouses (upstairs)

• Upstairs balconies overlook the city.

28: Beetle Lair (downstairs)

• The entrance to this townhouse has collapsed, and part of the balcony has caved in along with it. A truly awful smell emanates from with, ripe and rancid.
• (!) The carrion beetles bring the wyvern’s discarded meals here and lay their young in the rotting flesh. The floor is covered in bones, hair, rotting meat, and pale grubs the size of a person. The grubs are mostly defenceless but spew corrosive bile, and their parents will not be happy with any intruders.
• (??) Beneath the whole stinking mess, buried under bones and filth, is a great treasure.

29: Beetle Lair (upstairs)

• (!) Lair of the carrion beetles. As with all lairs, they may not be home, but random encounters are much more likely.
• The room is completely bare aside from dried blood smeared all over the floor, especially toward the stairs. The smell from downstairs is overpowering.

30: Warzone

• Signs of battle: husks of giant lavender beetles, carved up and scorched; a dismembered vigilator automaton.

31: Courtroom Balcony

• Overlooks the courtroom in the Fortress of Doors (level 5). Dusty but intact chaises longues and coffee table.

Ziggurat Plaza, Week 3

Another wonderful Ivan Belikov.

 

15: Freight Elevator

• Sliding brass doors hide a dingy lift.

• (?) No power – doors can be pried open, manual crank on the wall slowly lowers or raises the perforated metal platform. Goes ~100’ down, to the green room in the Fortress of Doors (level 5); or 20’ up, to the Factory (level 10).

16: Market of Grotesques

• Bizarre statuettes of camphor, ambergris, dragon ivory, sandalwood. Wolf-headed nymphs, melting cherubs, moth-gargoyles.

• (?) 2d6 statues are worth a few coins each.

• (??) One is a cult icon for someone’s god. Magically potent.

17: Market of flesh

• Gloom, iron wall restraints, stained floor.

18: Market of Pharmaca

• Rows of little drawers with every kind of herb, drug, and incense.

• (??) Searching can reveal a specific thing if you know what to look for. Otherwise, roll:

  • 1 = health potion

  • 2 = exotic contact venom – blue powder in a tiny clay pot, 2d6 doses

  • 3 = crumbled deep lotus, narcotic and anaesthetic, 2d6 doses

  • 4 = rare incense, worth 5 coins

  • 5 = dehydrated star larva. Add water and apply to wound (or anywhere on the body) and it will crawl in and take up residence as mutant, symbiotic organ.

  • 6 = powdered demon, 1d6 doses. Imbibe to fall into a trance and astrally project.

19: Vigilator Alcoves

• 3 alcoves with brass hooks and spouts.

• (!) 50% chance of a vigilator in one of them; otherwise, check each tick to see if it returns.

20: Teahouse

• A charming and spacious teahouse. Upper story has a balcony with a nice view of the courtyard of bones.

• (?) Hardwood furniture in disrepair; 20 ticks of fuel. 10 slots of fine porcelain cups, pots, & plates worth 3 coins per slot, each, but good luck transporting them.

21: Teahouse Kitchens

• Pots, pans, range

• (!?) There’s an ooze in a casserole dish in the oven.

Ziggurat Plaza, Week 2

Finally, a dragon in my dungeon. And a magnificent one, by Ivan Belikov.

8: West Guard Tower, Lower

• Wreckage of a bulbous invigilator, spilled across the room.

• (??) Random mechanical wreckage – lenses, gold wire, a weird crystal – worth a few coins. Maybe something useful for a tinker?

9: West Guard Tower, Upper

• Musky and strange air.

• (!) Lair of the Wyvern, Gyezlakur

  • 50% chance to be home. If away, test for return each tick of the clock.

  • mien: venomous, playful; a flying housecat-scorpion

  • wants: entertainment

  • needs: fresh meat

  • fears: the demons in the spa – they compete for food, and it can’t fight them all at once

  • knows: the everything that happens in the open below

  • treasure: a pile of worthless sentimental baubles; beneath which, an antigravity harness, still on the skeleton of the unfortunate victim, along with their gilt dagger.

10: Great Stair Arcade

• Tiles mostly intact. Marble columns wrapped with gods and beasts, carved in relief.

• (?) The arcade provides a covered path between the two courtyards, so that people can pass from the plaza door to the temple stair with only a small chance of being spotted by the guard towers.

11: Anatomical Theatre

• A small theatre or stadium with a stone table in its centre.

• (?) Old surgical instruments.

12: Food Market

• Airy vaulted hall, lit by the courtyard.

• (?) Smashed amphorae.

• (??) Two intact amphorae are filled with dates and saffron, respectively.

13: Crippled Invigilator

• (!) A rotund robotic invigilator with broken legs. Its death ray still works.

  • Mien: it’s a robot cop

  • Wants: to destroy intruders

  • Needs: repairs to its legs

  • Fears: the wyvern

  • Knows: everything about this level

14: Arms Market

• Short vaulted hall. Brass gates are held with a huge padlock. 4 large hardwood chests lie beyond.

• (?) The lock is rusted and can probably be broken or cut.

• (?) The chests are locked, and have classic poison needle traps laced with blood poison.

  • chest #1 = an antigravity harness, leather straps with shining metal globes and a brass dial on the belt to adjust the gravity.

  • chest #2 = masterwork suit of custom plate armour, polished to a mirror finish, engraved with amaranth leaves, lined with crimson velvet. ⅙ chance of fitting you without alterations.

  • chest #3 = a stack of 6 vicious-looking daggers

  • chest #4 = an energy rifle with silver and mother-of-pearl casing.

Ziggurat Plaza, Week 1

Veli Nyström

 

Was: central locus for the city. Forum, luxury markets, townhouses, stores, courtyards, guard towers, shrine, freight elevator, crucifixion mast, homes, slave barracks, temple entrances. Guarded by mechanical Invigilators of various types, and death beams from the towers. A demonstration of wealth and power to the world below.

Intruder: wyvern lives in the broken guard tower

Synthesis & Fallout: silent city of traps and lost treasures. The wyvern soars across the countryside, plucking victims and leaving them on the crucifixion mast. The invigilators have gone berserk, trying and failing to destroy the wyvern.

By design, this is not an emotionally strong level (a break from the spa), but there is resonance in the juxtaposition of brutal imperial order and the chaotic violence of the current denizens.

[this approach to dungeon conceptualisation owes a lot to Jesse Burneko]


1: Plaza Door

• The great basalt lion doors are slightly ajar.
• (?) Joins to the stair in the Forest Garden.
• (!) The Peacock Knight stands just outside, with his back to the gate.

2: Courtyard of Ashes

• Ringed by a peristyle with half its tiles missing. Flagstones raked with burn marks and ashes. Old guard tower looms over marble statues, trickling fountain, scraggly trees bursting from the stone.
• (!) The tower has a death ray and will target anyone who leaves the peristyle without the correct insignia. It only looks down, not up.
• (??) The tower has a crystal eye, much like the one in the outer walls of the city below.

3: East Guard Tower (lower)

• (!) An invigilator robot with grimy lenses sleeps in its alcove. If it senses intruders, it wakes up and attempts to apprehend them. The robot is mostly blind.
• (?) A tight spiral stair leads to the top.

4: East Guard Tower (upper)

• (!) The death ray lens, like the beam of a lighthouse. The lens can’t actually focus on anything in the room, but will attempt to track and destroy targets outside.
• A hardwood bureau and chair. Drawer is filled with moths.

5: Temple Stair

• The next section of the ziggurat stair climbs to colossal brass doors shaped like upheld human hands.
• (?) The doors are unlocked, but heavy, and groan when shifted. It smells like incense inside. The path leads to the Temple of All Gods (level 9).

6: Fountain

• White marble spout in the shape of a satyr’s mouth. The flow is a trickle, dribbling down its chin.
• (?) The water is clean and good.

7: Courtyard of Bones

• (!) The wyvern lairs in the broken guard tower that overlooks this courtyard.
• Flagstones scattered with bones of all kinds, under scraggly lemon trees that just from gaps in the stones.
• (?) The lemons are small and tough, but good.

Health Spa, Week 4

Anastasios Gionis, again.

 

 22: Courtyard Stair

• (!) Lair of a Typhon Demon, dozing on a bed of skulls at the foot of the staircase. One of its seven heads is always awake, whispering to itself.
• Dead trees, natural light from high windows. Whispering fountain foaming blood.

(upper level)

23: Sun Room

• (!) Lair of a shrike demon brood. Roll:
  • 1-2 = 50% home, sleeping
  • 3-4 = all home, squabbling over a messy goat carcass
  • 5-6 = all away, but may return via the balcony with fresh prey at any moment.
• Wrecked chairs, tables, and lounges. Whispers of the typhon downstairs. Heavy shutters to the balcony are wide open. Floor smeared with black feathers and bloodstains.
• (?) Shutters can be barred from the inside.
• (??) Traymobile against one wall, miraculously intact, with a silver platter (5 coins) and crystal decanter (5 coins).

24: Balcony

• A great view of the city and gardens. Marble is scored with talon marks. Directly below (30’) is the picnic area of the gardens.

25: Library

• Locked with the gold key.
• Weirdly untouched. A musty little room that may have the book you need.

26: Hall of Vapours

• Connects to ventilation shaft. A pleasant breeze from below that smells like iron.
• (!) Filled with ripe egg sacs, ready to burst with leaper demons.

27: Office of the Keybearer

• Stately office with furniture of oily hardwood. The Keybearer sits the the desk in his armour, keys on a gold chain around his neck, sword on the table.
• (!) The keybearer is gilt armour filled with demonic mutation and gore. It may or may not be lucid enough to parley, or fly into a destructive rage.
• (?) They gold key opens every door in the level except the imperial stair.

28: Refectory

• Kitchen and dining area, ruined and replete with throbbing shrike demon eggs.
• (!) You know the drill with demon eggs.

29: Upper Foyer

• Two locked doors that lead to higher levels.
  • (A) Marble lion door. Stairwell to the ziggurat city. Locked (gold key).
  • (B) Granite dragon door. Elevator to the highest. Locked and magically sealed (purple key).

30: Imperial Infirmar

• Stately marble hall lit by high windows.
• (!) The young prince of the blood, a gigantic bloated child with biomechanical cables connecting his body to the walls. Scores of demon grubs hang from his body. His limbs are bound to the walls with black fleshy lashes.
  • The prince moans and cries, or thrashes and screams when agitated in any way. This will attract the ire of nearby demons.
  • He cannot move unless his restraints are cut.
  • The prince has the mind of a traumatised child, and remembers only pain and that is parents left him here to cure his illness. He is seldom lucid and may become violent.
  • He is kept alive with a constant supply of human sacrifices to the spa’s machinery of immortality. Stopping the supply or cutting him loose will kill him. The demons feed and spawn from his immortal flesh, and want him where he is.
  • The caterpillar demon visits him sometimes, telling him stories and feeding him milk.