In which I determine what the Tome of Adventure Design isn't and start detailing the rooms in Area 1.
ToAD is not a dungeon generation system, which isn't obvious at first look, although I had my suspicions by the third look. Great tables for coming up with creative features, but no guidance on how often such features should crop up. This isn't an issue for anyone with access to the DMG, it's really a matter of choosing when to move between the two.
I really like ToAD's area design, so starting with that, as I said in the previous post, I know Area 1 Room 1 will be of unusual size. Table 3-40 gives me a room nominally 50x80, with far end a ziggurat like stepped triangle with a 20' point.
OK, what about the door into the room from the chasm? Have to jump around, but Tables 3-27 and 3-28 treat Archways. ToAD defines an Archway as where ever a tunnel or corridor leads out of the room. Leading into one is the same thing, so I have a Trap! We'll leave that for a minute while I get more information. Table 3-29 Normal Doors; Basic Description of - comes to the rescue saying the door while otherwise normal is painted an unusual color. Table 3-30 tells me it's painted a red and white checkerboard.
Traps, there's a whole chapter in ToAD with tables for randomly generating a trap. And none of my random rolls gave me anything I liked. Finally I started reading the table entries and after eight pages came across a magical trap effect "Floating image of person, monster or animal." That, with the door pattern, gave me an idea.
Other than that, ToAD has lots of random room content tables, but as I said no room content distribution table, so back to the DMG Table V-F Chamber or Room Contents. If I roll a Special I'll jump back to ToAD. And I roll an eleven, it's empty.
Area 1 Room 1
Theater of the Crimson Mime.
Crossing the grating, the ledge on the other side is differs only in minor details. The wall on the far side contains a gaily painted door in a red and white harlequin pattern. Successfully detecting traps will find a spring compressed at the top of the door. The trap may be disabled. Detect Magic will detect a a strong illusion dweomer.
Opening the Door- if the trap has been disabled, nothing happens. If it was not disabled, the crimson figure of human wearing a jesters cap and bells appears to have opened the door, it mimes pulling a stout rope (seemingly connected to the party) towards itself, bows and vanishes. Behind it, there is darkness as your feeble light doesn't illuminate the far wall.
Quick Search - the room is 80 feet long and 50 feet wide, the final fifteen feet decrease to a twenty foot width as shown. The last twenty feet of the room, including the reduced width, are raised approximately five feet higher than the floor, forming a stage. There are three doors in the other walls (to be subsequently placed and detailed when I create the rooms.)
Detailed Examination - nothing new.
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| Area 1 Room 1 5 foot square |
(Edit) Exits
The Prop Room is accessed by the doorway off of the rear left corner of the stage. The door posts are painted with a pattern crimson masks of comedy and tragedy running down them, the door itself is unadorned. Try as you might you discover no indication of a trap. The door is not locked, nor is it stuck.
And now I know more about the Scarlet Prince, it's the title given to the Guildmaster of the Community of the Crimson Clowns, a guild of Bards and Jesters.
The Unfinished Domain of Scarlet Prince
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