June: Week One

Hello daring dungeon dwellers! Welcome back to my Dungeon 23 mega-dungeon, The Crucible Of Oxyus. This week we enter June and the first seven rooms of a new dungeon level. Below you'll uncover a luxury bathing complex used by the dungeon's ancient inhabitants, encounter a group of technologically advanced lizardmen, and narrowly escape the stinking horrors of a cavern full of carcass crawlers! Read on to discover more! If you like what you've seen you can always check out the beginning of the dungeon, or try out one of my location generators for more weird OSR goodness. 

Week One

A: There is a staircase that leads up all the way to level 3 here. 

6/4: The Sauna

This humid stone chamber has been carved out of straight bedrock. It measures 20’ wide by 30’ long with 15’ ceilings. The walls are lined with long, half rotting benches, and an iron stove with lava rocks set on top sits in the corner, lonely and cold. The smell of sweat and steam permeates everything here, and the floors are slick with condensation. 

• West: There is a door between this room and a hallway that runs east/west. The door is a banded wooden door with old but still intact yellow paint on it.
• South: On the southern wall is a banded wooden door similar in size to the western door. The difference is that this door has been painted blue. Beyond the door is a short hallway that leads directly to room 6/5.
• The Stove: The stove has been cold for a long time. If the ashes are searched, characters will find a small golden bracelet (worth 100 gp), a thumb-sized iridescent pearl (Pearl of Wisdom), and a set of delicate crystal lenses affixed to a frame for aid in seeing (Eyes of Miniscule Sight).

6/5: Water Control

This 20’ square room has 15’ tall ceilings and is cut into the mountain itself. The southern half of the room is dominated by four upright pipes that extend from out of the ceiling and into the floor, surrounded by another set of pipes that have been bent to run parallel to the floor. This pipe is fixed with a series of control wheels. The air here is strong with the smell of mildew and rusted metal. A thin film of mold grows over most exposed surfaces here, and there is an odd broken wooden shaft with a metal and glass bauble attached to it like spearhead lying on the floor. 

• North: There is a small hallway that leads back to the door into room 6/4 on the northern wall of the room.
• The Controls: The various wheels and switches that make up the control panel in this room adjust water level and temperature in the baths (6/6) and sauna (6/4). The busted bauble on the end of the broken shaft can be used as an improvised mace but is otherwise inoperable.

6/6: The Bath House

This rectangularly-carved stone room is 30’ wide by 40’ long with a 25’ tall, vaulted ceiling painted like a forest canopy. There are two long benches on the northern wall (similar to the ones in room 6/4), and the rest of the room is dominated by a cold pool of water about 3 feet deep. A lip of stone runs around the edge of the pool, although the western edge of the lip is quite degraded. The walls are painted in moldy and faded scenes of a forest glade dappled in sunlight. The painting depicts satyrs and pixies with faces fixed in terror, fleeing from three tiger-headed humanoids with backwards facing hands wielding wicked looking barbed scimitars who are painted on the western wall. 

• East: On the northern end of the eastern wall is a banded wooden door that has been painted yellow. This door leads to an east/west corridor across from room 6/4. A perpendicular hallway in the middle of the cross corridor leads south to area A and eventually a long 10’ vaulted grand hall that runs west further into the earth.
• West: Against the pool on the western wall where the tiger-headed humanoids are painted is a secret door. The outline of the lead-most warrior cleverly conceals a door. If the warrior’s sword is pressed, the door will recede into a pocket on the wall, revealing room 6/7.

6/7: The Explorers

This natural limestone cave is roughly 40-45’ in diameter with 20’ tall ceilings pierced with many small stalactites hanging down. Two thick natural pillars dominate the room, their flowing forms covered in a tiny carpet of little amber-colored crystals that seem to glow with a warm inner light. Standing among the beautiful crystal-covered pillars of the cavern are 6 green skinned lizardmen wearing odd glass goggles and wielding long glowing staffs with quietly strobing baubles of metal and glass affixed to their tops like spearheads. A thin copper wire runs from the bauble at the top of the staff into odd clay boxes the lizardmen are wearing on their backs.

• South: The cave is attached to a long 10’ vaulted hallway that runs east to west on the southern end by a short corridor. A banded wooden door that separates the cave from the hallway has swollen shut.
• East: A short corridor on the eastern end of the cave leads to the secret door to room 6/6. There is a small handle on the wall on this side that can be pulled to open or close the door from this side.
• West: The western end of the cave splits into two separate tunnels, one leading to cave 6/8 and one to cave 6/9.
• The Crystals: Those knowledgeable in geology, alchemy, or scrying magic will know these crystals are a kind of mineral known as lemberite. Lemberite is special because it reacts with the ambient magical energies found under the earth. The crystals grow faster in the presence of more powerful magical fields, but they also have a side effect of obscuring the areas they grow in from scrying and other extra sensory magics.
• The Lizardmen: These lizardmen are part of a technologically advanced underground society located further to the west. They are exploring the caves after having found anomalies in the area’s ambient magical fields due to the presence of the lemberite crystals. The exploring lizardmen have already been to rooms 6/4, 6/5, and 6/6. The lizardmen are led by lead explorer Locgral. 
• Mien: The lizardmen are all wearing some manner of heavy cloth jumpsuits with leather kneepads, elbow pads, and belt. As well, they all have a set of leather and glass goggles. Locgral can be identified by his high leather collar and the steel triangle he wears as a badge of rank. Three of the other lizardmen are wielding the odd hafted baubles, and two more have small rock picks and clay jars for collecting specimens.
• Demeanor: Locgral and the rest of his explorers are Lawful. He is generally reasonable, if a bit cautious. He won’t begin hostilities if he thinks a more peaceful solution is still tenable. Locgral and his band speak to each other in a heavily accented form of Draconic, but he does know Undercommon and Goblin too. If Locgral and the others can be convinced that the party has no ill intentions, they will warn them of the Carcass Crawlers who nest in cave 6/10.
• Means: The staffs with odd baubles at the end are actually detection devices the lizardmen are using to collect data about the crystals before they chip off samples. When used in conjunction with the special goggles the lizardmen all have, one can see magical fields as a rainbow of different colors. The colors vary depending on what kinds of magic are present and to what concentration they are. The lizardmen also wield electro batons if they have to (1d8 and save or become paralyzed till the end of your next round). The lizardmen have access to all kinds of technological wonders back in their city.
• Desires: The lizardmen are from a technologically advanced society to the west, across an underground sea. They seek to understand their underground world but have only just started to explore the caverns on this side of the sea. The lizardmen seek knowledge on any parts of the dungeon that players have previously explored. They are curious also about the surface world, having dwelt under the earth for so long that they now view the surface world as more than a little mythological.

6/8: The Bedroom

This natural limestone cave is 50’ long and only 25’ wide with a ceiling roughly 10’ tall. A large post bed made out of exquisitely carved mahogany with a crimson, orange, and green silk canopy dominates the room. The bed is the sort one sees in inns, large enough to sleep four comfortably at least. Next to the bed is a side table, and across from them is a wooden wardrobe with water lilies carved on the doors. The cavern smells slightly of cinnamon with the coppery scent of the deep earth overlaying all else. 

• East: A narrow tunnel leads out of this room to room 6/7.
• The Bed and Wardrobe: The bedding seems like it was laid out recently and is very soft. Under the right pillow is a Dagger +2, Biter. The wardrobe smells of cedarwood and contains many fine gentlemen’s clothes including a colorful silk smoking jacket and an embroidered fez with the letter O on it in gold thread. Though the clothes are exquisite, they are all sized for a halfling or a child.

6/9: The Echoing Chamber

This limestone cave is approximately 20’ in diameter with a 20’ tall ceiling. There are bones on the ground here in the corners of the cave and a most pungent and horrific smell is emanating down the tunnel from cavern 6/10. The walls of this chamber are smooth and reflect sound extremely well, creating a cacophony of echoes when all but the stealthiest try and pass through.

• East: A short 20’ long tunnel on this wall connects this cave to cave 6/7.
• West: The tunnel on the western wall connects this cave to cave 6/10. The terrible stench of death wafts from down the tunnel.
• The Echoes: The echoing is so bad in this chamber that characters must immediately make an encounter check when they enter the chamber. If characters fail, the carcass crawlers in room 6/10 will be altered to their presence and come to investigate.

6/10: The Lair of the Carcass Crawlers

This large limestone cavern is roughly 60’ long and 25’ wide with a ceiling stretching up to 30’ high.  A cluster of three natural pillars mark where the cave’s stalagmites and stalactites have knit themselves together over the eons through the slow processes of accretion. Nestled about the cavern are a handful of frightening carcass crawlers who have made this place their lair. The stench of the corpse-eating monstrosities is almost enough to stun a person. 

• East: The eastern end of the cave is connected to cave 6/9 through a narrow tunnel.
• West: The southwestern end of the cave is composed of a tunnel that splits as it exits the chamber. One leg of the tunnel turns south and connects with the vaulted hallway that runs east/west. The other leg of the tunnel proceeds west into the mountain.
• The Crawlers: The crawlers here have made this cavern their home for a long time. There are 1d3+2 carcass crawlers present when the cave is first explored. At least two will be hiding on the ceiling and nestled in with the pillars. The crawlers are territorial about this cave and will try and push invading characters out of the cave and collapse a tunnel to block further intrusions.
• The Stench: The stench of the dead and rotting corpses of the various monsters eaten by the carcass crawlers that lie scattered about the cave is overwhelming. The stench is truly wretched, forcing characters who do not take precautions before they engage the monsters to succeed on a poison saving throw before they can take an action. Those who fail take a -2 penalty to attack rolls till the beginning of their turn next turn. Those who succeed do not suffer the penalty.