Creating a Dungeon with the Tome of Adventure Design - Part 2

 Or when to know when to quit rolling dice.

    Having created the entry in Part 1, I decided there should be a transition between there and the first dungeon area.  ToAD has a table for that, which has many possibilities branching from it.

Transitions Between Dungeon Areas (Table 3-23) gave me 'A bridge over a river or chasm' and on the second column of the table a Hazard Trick.

Hazard Tricks (Table 3-92) gave me 'Venting steam, bad air or dangerous gases.  Reasonable hazards for a chasm, so no  river we have a bridge over a pit.  And that gives me the idea that one of the other levels connects back in at the bottom of the chasm.

Wait a minute, I need a description of the actual area where the chasm is bridged.  Back to Corridor, Basic Description of (Table 3-24) which gives me a 10' wide, 10'high natural cavern...with two unusual features!

Corridor, Unusual Features of (Table 3-25) gives me 'Large grates in floor' - must be in the bridge deck.  And a Trap.  Basic Mechanical Traps (Table 3-126) gives me 'Magentism'.  As long as I'm here, I'll roll up the gas from the Hazard Trick on Gases (Table 3-128) which provides the information, 'Removes Oxygen' and 'Lies near floor, lingers'.

    At this point I realized the process had gone off the rails, there were too many features being crammed into a minor corridor - and I hadn't even rolled up a description of the Bridge yet.  But it had given me a number of inspirations to put together.

I decided to strip it down to the basics, a cavern crossed by a loose grating.  Which immediately put in mind of driving over the old Jamestown Bridge to Newport, Rhode Island the first few times I went there for schools in the Navy.  Let me tell you an open metal grating 135 feet over Narragansett Bay, if not terrifying, at least gives the driver an immense sense of relief to have gotten over it.

Corridor

     Leaving the entry through the opening under the frieze of the bridge, the party steps out onto a narrow ledge 5'wide and 10' long.  A grating bridges a chasm.

Quick Search

     The chasm is about 15 feet wide and it's roof is about 10' over the bridge.  Based on what your torch illuminates, it's more than 30 feet deep.  You get the impression that the chasm narrows in both directions, but the light doesn't illuminate the ends. The grating itself isn't fastened to the ledge but rests about halfway across the ledge.  It's made of joined wood, with 2 inch members and 10 inch holes. Any characters moving at greater than half speed need to make a Dexterity (Balance) check or fall.  Potential consequences of the fall range from dropping anything in hand to plummeting into the dark below.

Detailed Examination

    Better illumination will show the chasm is approximately 45 feet deep.  If they drop the light off of the left hand side of the grating, there is a 50% chance they will spot a doorway at the bottom (Perception check).  If they state that they are doing the detailed examination while on or across the grating, they will notice likely handholds in the chasm wall nearest the Entry that can be used to reach the bottom.

Creating a Dungeon with the Tome of Adventure Design - Part I

      I've come across references to the Tome of Adventure Design a few times in reading various blogs and MeWe posts.  It arrived on my doorstep on Monday, 300+ pages of random tables covering more aspects of campaign and adventure design than I have had a chance to digest.  Definitely a five skull product.

    As I'm at a bit of a block with  my current Call of Cthulhu adventure, I decided to amuse myself by using the Tome to design a moderately sized dungeon.  Rather as the Castle Triskelion site is doing for a megadungeon since the G+ days (he's been on a short break since December 2018).   I'll generate the rooms individually, then go back and edit them as further rooms give me more ideas and to fit whatever area configuration I put them in.   (I'm in IT, iterative design provides better results than waterfall.)

     One of the excellent suggestions in the Tome is to design dungeons by areas - connected blocks of rooms with transition connections between them.  They also provide random configuration suggestions for linking corridors, rather than random corridor generation which has been a jarring note to me since the AD&D DMG.  There's no natural way for the dungeon to be complete with those.  I decided on a modest three area dungeon, which I quickly determined to be Area 1 - 14 rooms, Area 2 - 3 rooms and Area 3 - 14 rooms (Table 3-38).  When I went to consider where to start, well I haven't found a table for dungeon entries, so I decided to start with an What Comes Next (Table 3-78).

Entry

      Entering the dungeon, the party enters a 50 by 50 foot room, in a stepped triangle shape, a ten foot opening on the far side can be seen to lead into another large area.  The body of a gigantic snake, obviously dead, lies on the floor.

     What Comes Next - Room with Dramatic Architecture (3-57) and two items of Dungeon Dressing (3-144).  Decided that it should be a Room of Unusual Size (Table 3-40), which gave me the hourglass and it's size.

Quick search.

          The far side of the room is a mirror image of the first, making the whole room a 50x100 foot stepped hourglass.  A carved frieze adorns the far wall around the exit.

Detailed Examination

          The snake was killed by edged weapons, most of the wounds have been stitched up for some reason.  One wound is only partially sewn with the needle and thread hanging off the corpse.

    Dungeon Dressing Table (3-144) - I screwed up handling this one and rolled once on 3-144 and once on Unusual Corpses (3-145).  But I like what I came up with and kept it. 

     The frieze on the far wall is of two figures meeting on a bridge to duel.  The right hand figure is a female human in chain mail with lifelike features, she carries a spear and shield.  The left hand warrior appears not to have been finished, as it's only a rough humanoid shape.

    Dramatic Architecture (Table 3-57) gave me "Walls" and how it is dramatic is "Effect on Viewer".  I decided a frieze would be an appropriate, durable dramatic element on a wall, went to the Statues table (3-75 and generated Battle scene ("Bridge"). 

     The first character to state they are examining the frieze must make a save vs Magic (Will).  If they save nothing happens, if they fail their companions see them appear to get sucked bodily into the frieze, like a genie back into it's bottle, and the left hand figure takes on their detailed features.

     The right hand figure will advance to attack the character, the character has one round before they are in melee.  (The party will see the carven characters moving as they duel.) The character cannot leave the bridge, they must conquer or die.  The only way for the party to intervene is to attempt to destroy the right hand carving as it moves across the frieze.  It's stone and can only be affected as such.  Not that damaging the frieze, by say hammering it, has a 50% chance of damaging the carving of the character too.

    If the character loses, their carving is reset to the left hand side of the frieze.  The right hand carving is reset to a rough humanoid shape, while the party sees the figure pour out of the frieze as her body re-materializes.  The only ways to get the character out is with a Flesh to Stone spell or a Limited Wish.

    Didn't find a table to elaborate on the "Effect on Viewer", but had the idea that a viewer could be drawn in to the scene, like into a Mirror of Life Trapping.  It's a battle scene, so the fight was an obvious consequence.  But I wanted a reward for victory, so I poked around until I found the Benefits and Curses Table (3-121) and gave it a roll that suggested an immunity effect.  

     If the character wins, their body pours out as the carvings reset.  They now bear a round, mirrored shield, covered with a multitude of circular dents.

    Moon Shield (+1 magic shield).  The Moon Shield provides compete  reflective defense against gaze attacks and 50% defense against rays.  Any such reflected attack has a 20% chance of being reflected against the attacker, and a 30% chance of being reflected against some one or something in front of the shield bearer.  Lycanthropes will appear as their natural form if reflected in the mirror.  The Moon Shield disappears after one Lunar year (354 days) real world or campaign year, which ever comes first.

    Don't remember how I got the idea for becoming immune to gaze attacks, but decided a reflective shield as the reward.   Once I had it, allowing it some effectiveness against the smaller rays seemed like a good idea.  And then the idea of having the reflections go in semi-random direction made me think of a shield with lots of small dents, like craters on the moon.  When I got to the name, Moon Shield, I KNEW it had to have something of an effect on lycanthropes.  And finally, it gave me the idea of tying it's use to a Lunar time period, figured a year was better than just a month or the next phase of the moon.

Wolvesey Castle

What does a ruined castle look like?

Been meaning to post these since September.  Anyway, Wolvesey, or Wolf Island castle is in Winchester England within walking distance of the abbey.  It has a fascinating story having been built by the Henry, the bishop of Winchester after he had double-crossed everyone, including his own brother during the civil war known as The Anarchy.  A wonderful period full of opportunities for skulduggery and mischief that will excite any players who like a more political power game.

The Woodman's Gate

Three Thoughts on Carcosa

I've been aware of the unofficial Carcosa supplement for some years, but never saw it in the wild.  A couple weeks ago I picked up the version put out by and for Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

1.  DriveThruRPG keeps it behind the Adults Only barrier due to it's disturbing nature.  Well, if you're a 13 year old with an over-active imagination it might be disturbing.  The fact that almost of of the magic in the book involves sacrifices of sentient beings, some with very specific requirements as to sex and age - well it's not something I would have come up with but nothing nightmare inducing.  It will make SJWs howl, so keeping it where you have to log in and look probably saves them some bad press.  And the names given to the rituals ate fantastic, who doesn't want cast "Geometries of the Labyrinthine Spaces" instead of Maze?

2.  If my players came to me and asked to me to run it, I would.  But contra my thoughts in 1. above, I wouldn't do it around kids.  I don't need blow back from the players spouses - or my own.  Also, the villains would always be working on a ritual demanding a sacrifice that could be fulfilled with one of the players.  Players characters with real skin in the game with a vengeance.

3.  The mashup of Cthulhu Mythos background with space aliens and their weaponry is like the love child of Sandy Petersen and Dave Arneson's imagination.    Very cool and if I don't run it directly, I'll certainly incorporate pieces in my gaming.  You could very easily incorporate as written in RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu or any other BRP derivative.    Other Old School systems would require more work, but nothing too extensive.

Alternative Means of Interring Vampires

Here's a brief survey of some folk remedies for keeping the dead quiet.

Bulgaria - iron stake through the left side of the chest PLUS removal of the lower left leg.  Apparently it makes them tip over when they try to hop after you.

Bulgaria - bind the hands of the dead

Romania - remove the heart of the corpse

Italy - put a brick in the corpse's mouth so they can't feed

Poland  - cut off the head and bury it between the legs.

Colonial America - bury the head in skull & crossbones position (not sure how you do that without complete dismemberment)

The source of these is a Daily Beast article, which is fitting as we're talking fantasy.  [Trigger warning: Do not read the article if you are easily offended by incoherent grammar, fifth grade level factual mistakes (Thracian is the name for the historical inhabitants of Bulgaria, not the name of a city) and/or use of the word ancestors to describe descendants of people previously alive.]

Balcony in the Campo, St. Benedetto, Venice

Another drawing from John Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture .

Who will emerge onto this balcony, a maiden needing help to escape her family or Saruman?

Tracery from the Campanile of Giotto at Florence

In trolling through Project Gutenburg, I've found several books with architectural drawings.  I'll post the images that strike me as being evocative and useful to a DM who needs an inspiration or wants to provide a description of what the players see.

Source: John Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture.

Campanile is Italian for bell tower.  Imagine your players chasing a thief through the tower as the bells begin to toll.