The End of Month Two

Well Covid kicked my ass pretty badly last week. Thankfully it didn't prevent me from getting this week's dungeon out before the end of the week. This is our concluding week to month two. Down below you'll find a mirror's of prophecy, circles of conjuration, and a very alarming corpse. Also written up for the end of month two, the encounter table for this dungeon level. enjoy!

Week Four: The Halls of Prophesy 

2/19: The Antechamber

This 25’ by 15’ antechamber is supported by four slender pillars of jade, carved to look like the coiled bodies of serpents. A hole cut through the mountain into the ceiling lets a thin beam of light enter the room, falling on the handle of the eastern door. A large eye has been carved above the doorframe of the door.

•        East: The sturdy wooden door here is magically trapped. If the beam of light that falls on the handle is blocked from touching any part of the door, anyone within five feet of the door will instantly be teleported to the empty cage in room 2/25.

2/20: The Seeing Room

This oval room is roughly 25’ wide and 35’ long. It is made of a mortared iridescent green stone. There is a small altar slab in the middle of the room, and beyond that a dais with a massive obsidian mirror atop it. Anybody who stays in the room for more than a few seconds will feel the sensation of being watched.

• ·    ·       North: This stone door has a noticeable peephole carved into it.
• ·       South: The door on this wall is made of ancient wicker and slides into the wall.
• ·       The Oracular Mirror: This large obsidian mirror is roughly five feet in diameter. Any divination spells cast in this room while the caster is looking into the mirror automatically succeed. There is a one-in-six chance that casting such a spell garners the attention of the Watcher In Darkness, he who lives in the space between spaces. The caster must immediately succeed at a Magic Save or be rendered mad for 2d4 turns, unable to cast any spells. The caster will continue to have nightmares for at least a week afterwards.

2/21: The Baths

This mildewy room is 25’ wide by 30’ long. A small stove has been built into the northeastern corner of the room, and four single person sized tubs make up the contents of this apparent bathhouse. The water in the tubs is brackish and cloudy, and the air here is heavy with the smell of mildew.

·       North: A short ten-foot-wide corridor leads to room 2/22.

·       South: There is a secret door that leads to room 2/16 here. The western most tub must be moved to reveal the trigger plate to open it from this side.

·       West: The corridor from room 2/20 enters here.

·       East: This wall contains a rusty iron door with the brackets for a crossbar to block the door from the other side.

2/22: The Forgotten Garden

This narrow room, 20’ by 55’, contains a small shallow well and three raised beds covered in colorful mushrooms. At some point this must have been used as a fungal garden, but it has been a long time since anybody tended to the mushrooms here. The walls were painted blue at some point, but the paint has mostly flaked off, leaving little piles in the corners of the room.

• North: A moldering wooden door leads to room 2/23.
• ·       Mushrooms: For every turn spent collecting mushrooms 1d6 rations can be foraged. This can only be done up to three times before all the mushrooms are depleted.
• ·       The Well: The well is only ten feet deep. At the bottom 2d10 platinum coins and 2 golden anklets (25 gp each)  can be seen glinting in the darkness.

2/23: The Kitchen

This cut stone room is 30’ by 35’ with a small stove built into the wall. Two tables can also be found here, strewn with desiccated foodstuffs. A number of chipped ceramic bowls and wooden spoons are scattered about the room as well.

• ·       South: A small hallway terminates in a door that leads to room 2/22.
• ·       West: A corridor on this wall leads back to room 2/20.
• ·       East: This wall contains a secret door that leads to room 2/24. If the flue to the stove is pushed all the way past open, it will unlock the secret door with an audible click.

2/24: The Summoning Room

This domed room is 40’ in diameter with 40’ ceilings. The entirety of the walls are painted in idyllic scenes of grassy plains, though these scenes are now quite faded and molded over. The room contains a small, green-tiled fount with clear running water and a magic circle roughly 15’ in diameter that crackles with eldritch energies. The dried-up and mutilated corpse of a Basilisk lies on the ground to the east of the circle (green X).

• ·       The Circle: This circle is inscribed with runes of summoning and binding. Any Magic User who attempts to cast a summoning spell within this circle is treated as being two levels higher. The water from the fount must be applied to the edges of the circle for the effect to work.
• ·       The Fount: The fount is magical, being used to bolster the magics of the summoning circle. If drank, it will stave off the magics of the Necrotic Resonator for 2d4 hours. This only works if the water is drunk directly from the fount.
• ·       The Corpse: The Basilisk corpse has seemingly been here for years, judging by its desiccated state. The eyes are missing, and the abdomen has been split open.  The heart and liver have also been removed.
• ·       South: A ten-foot-wide corridor leads from this room to a door with a special crank that swings the door open from the top. This door is obviously meant to be secret to those in the adjoining room (2/25).

2/25: The Prison

This room was once 40’ wide by 50’ long, but at some point the eastern half of the room collapsed into the magma river below. The air here is hot and uncomfortable, and the magma lends an orangey-red glow to the room. There are three large, locked cages here, the fourth probably having fallen into the magma when the room collapsed. The desiccated corpses of three adventurers can be found in two of the cages.

• ·       North: The wall conceals a secret door here which can be opened by depressing a hand-sized portion of the wall to the right of the doorway.
• ·       West: A rusted iron door blocks the way to room 2/21.
• ·       The Corpses: There are two corpses of fighting men in the southwestern cage. They both are wearing old chainmail, one bearing a longsword and the other a mace. The corpse in the northwestern cage bares an uncanny resemblance to a random party member. They are even wearing that person’s clothes.  

Month Two Encounter Table

1. 2d4 Goblins on patrol for food (each bears a ruby amulet).
2. 1d10 Goblins carrying two Melted Cultists bound and gagged back to their king (each goblin bears a ruby amulet).
3. 1d6 Melted Cultists foraging for mushrooms.
4. 2d6 Melted Cultists carrying a wooden chest with sapphire inlay back to their master (the box contains a Staff of Swarming Insects with three charges left).
5. 2d6 Zombies shuffling around aimlessly.
6. 1d4 mutilated Goblin corpses (no amulets).
7. 2d4 Giant Centipedes feasting on the corpse of a Melted Cultist.
8. 1d6 Kobolds searching for treasure.
9. 2d4 Goblins engaged in a running fight with 2d4 Melted Cultists.
10. 1d4 Giant Crabs fighting over the corpses of three Kobolds.
11. 2d4 Orcs scouting for food and treasure.
12. Sounds of hideous laughter. 

Week Seven

Today I have for you Week 7 of my personal Dungeon 23 project. This week we delve into lair of a band of goblins and their king. There are geysers, glowing gems, and more rivers of lava! Will you decide to ally with the goblins and work to destroy the cult that makes this level their home, or will you choose to take what you want with sword and spell? Read on to find out what else awaits!

-OS

Week Seven: Lair of the Goblin King

2/12: The Pillared Hall

This room is 60’ wide by 50’ long with 45’ tall ceilings supported by large carved stone pillars. Upon a dais in the middle of the room can be seen a large stone-wrought throne painted all over with eyes. The floor on the northern half of the room is covered in the sour-smelling bedding of roughly a dozen Goblin Bodyguards (2 HD). The Goblin King Kruksis The Snarler (3 HD) sits atop the throne. From here he commands his horde.

·       South: The doorway on this wall connects to a hallway that leads to room 1/29.

·       East: There are two wooden doors on this wall. The northern door leads to room 2/16 and the southern door leads to room 2/13. Both doors are locked. A skeleton key can be found around King Kruksis’s neck.

·       The Walls: All four walls have been painted to display a wrap-around mural of the Akrakogi homeland featuring rolling hills, cypris and olive groves, and the massive bulk of the holy mountain Shinkar. The bottom of the mural has been soiled and hacked away at by generations of Goblin youths.

·       Kruksis The Snarler: The scarred, beady-eyed Goblin King called Kruksis is as wise and intelligent a ruler as goblins can have. Kruksis hates the Melted Cultists and their leader and desires to shut their machine down so that he can clean out this level of the dungeon for his people. Kruksis has no love for adventurers, but hates the cultists more and will try to point PCs in the direction of the cultists if he can. He knows they lair on the western end of the dungeon, in the rooms below the apparatus. He also knows that they have some way of getting up to the balcony level, though he hasn’t found out where yet. Kruksis and his warriors all wear a small sliver of enchanted ruby (20 gp) that shields them from the effects of the Necromantic Radiator (room 2/3). However, the amulets have a painful cost: the wearer’s HP is reduced by 2 as long as they wear it.

 2/13: Spider Pens

This finished stone room is 25’ wide by 45’ long with 12’ high ceilings. Crude wooden pens have been built against the eastern and western walls here. The pens contain the Giant Wolf Spiders that the goblins use as mounts. The smell of rotting kobold corpses used for fodder is very strong. Odd-shaped saddles with Goblin-sized seats are piled up in the northeast corner.

·       West: The iron-bounded wooden door in the northwest corner of the room is locked. It leads back to room 2/12. The metal door in the southwest corridor is barred from this side.

·       East: The door in the southeastern corner is also barred from this side. Beyond it, a hallway leads to room 2/14.

·       Wolf Spider, Giant: AC 7 [12], HD 2* (9hp), Att 1 x bite (1d8 + poison),

THAC0 18 [+1], MV 120’ (40’),

SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S16 (1),

ML 8, AL Neutral, XP 25, NA 1d4 (1d4), TT U

-Cling: Can walk on walls and ceilings.

-Poison: Causes death in 1d6 turns (save vs Poison with a +2 bonus).

2/14: The Geyser Room

This 30’ by 35’ stone-cut room has been overtaken by a natural hot spring that has accreted into two geysers in the corner of the room that periodically shoot jets of boiling water around the cave.

·       The Geysers: A natural reservoir deep underground has been periodically boiling up into this chamber, creating two rounded flowstone geysers. Geyser A erupts every 1d10 minutes, and geyser B erupts 1d4 turns. Anybody within ten feet of the geysers when they erupt takes 1d8 damage from scalding hot water.

·       Teleporter Destination: Anyone who pulls on the secret teleporting book in room 2/11 is teleported three inches off the ground in the middle of this room.

·       In the Geysers: If they geysers are searched, 1d10 platinum coins and a twisted silver wire bracelet with a faceted carnelian (75 gp) can be found inside the lip of geyser B.  

2/15: The Lava Caves

This natural cavern stretches almost 60’ wide with 20’ tall ceilings covered in irregular stalactites. A pillar of natural stone takes up the middle of the room, and at the southern end of the cave a stairway leads to a stone dock on the edge of a river of magma. A stone boat with enough room for five is moored to the dock with a thick rope. A rusted steel railing runs above the dock. The whole room is bathed in dim red light from the magma, and the heat is uncomfortable here. 1d6 +1 Melted Cultists have come ashore and are enacting a ritual to weaken the magics of the gem in room 2/17.

·       North: A 5’ wide hallway has been carved into the rock; a thick metal door blocks its way. The door is barred on the other side.

·       Melted Cultists: AC 8 [11], HD 1 (5hp), Att 1 x sacrificial dagger (1d4), or special attack,

THAC0 19 [0], MV 50’ (25’),

SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S15 (1),

ML 8, AL Chaotic, XP 15, NA 1d6 (2d6), TT R

-Special Attack: Each Cultist has a randomly assigned mutation (roll1d4). 1) Spit acid in a straight line 10’ long (1d6). 2) Horrible, melted calluses cover their body (+2 to AC). 3) Extra fingers and a third arm allow the cultist to grapple a foe on a successful attack. 4) A wretched smell (unable to cast or concentrate on spells within 10’ of this Cultist).

-The Cultists appear melted and warped by some unknown magics. On closer inspection, the cultist’s skin is almost reptilian in its appearance.  Each carries a carved jade amulet in the shape of a blazing goat’s eye and wields a sacrificial copper dagger.

-The ritual takes 1d6 rounds to complete by at least one uninterrupted cultist. If they are not stopped by the end of the last round, the gem in room 2/17 shatters and falls to the ground, thus extinguishing its light and disenchanting any amulets made from it.

•           The Magma: The magma dimly lights up the cave. The southern end of the chamber is open to the lava tube that flows through the mountain and past the dock. Anyone spending more than a minute in the boat or on the dock must succeed at a Death Save or suffer a -2 penalty to all AC and Attack Rolls due to heat exhaustion. This will last 1d3 hours or until the PC has done nothing but rest and drink water for three turns. Anyone falling into the magma takes 3d6 damage immediately and 3d6 damage for every round  after that they remain. 

·       The Boat: Made of dark basalt and etched all over with arcane runes. The magical incantations allow the boat to float on the magma with ease. There is a 20’ long metal oar that is resting in a crook in the boat’s side used for steering the boat through the magma. A crumpled black robe is stuffed in the prow of the boat, along with five thick candles.

2/16: The Warren

This is a crudely carved room, 40’ wide by 25’. The entire room is filled with poorly-made bunks. This room is the main living space for the Goblin women and children. There are roughly 2d20 women and adolescents and 2d10 younger children and babies here. The smell of sweat and vomit permeates the entire room.

·       North: A loose stone at the bottom of the wall hides a pushbutton that will reveal a secret door which leads to room 2/21.

·       South: The heavy metal door on this wall has been barred with a thick metal rod.

·       East: There is a wooden door in the northern corner of this wall that opens to a corridor leading to room 2/18.

·       West: The metal door in this wall has a built-in mechanical lock. Kruksis has the only key.

2/17: The Garden

This is a natural cavern, roughly 75’ long by 50’ wide with many convolutions. The eastern side of the chamber is open to the magma river as it flows past. There is a dock on that side of the room with a metal railing overlooking it. Towards the eastern side of the cave, a head-sized ruby floats in the air. The ruby casts scintillating rays of crimson light across the cavern. Anyone who basks in the light for up to two turns will be immune from the necrotic magic that permeates this level for one day. A blanket of leafy plants is growing along the floor and up the walls of the cavern. There are onions, turnips, rutabagas, and cabbage in well-kept rows.  

·       The Ruby: This enchanted uncut ruby is roughly the size of a human head (1,500 gp). There are more than 20 small gouges cut into the surface on the bottom of the gem. The ruby floats 10’ above the ground and will bob about like a balloon when handled. The Goblins worship this stone as their god. They found it here over fifty years ago and have used its light to grow crops underground to survive. With the coming of the Cultists in the last year, they found that basking in its rays keeps the effects from the Necromantic Radiator at bay too. The ruby is not a permanent solution to their problems, however, as they can’t travel more than a day’s journey away from the gem without losing its blessing. The amulets that Kruksis and his Bodyguards wear have been made from pieces of this gem by the tribe’s shaman Grugina. Creating each amulet incrementally diminishes the ruby’s power and will eventually drain the stone of its ability to sustain the Goblins entirely.

2/18: The Dung Heap

This large room is a 40’ wide and 35’ long rectangle with crudely cut  walls and ceilings. The room is full of heaps of Goblin dung. This appears to be where the Goblins store their dung before they use it in the gardens. The smell is overpoweringly horrendous. Among the piles of stinking dung, the tribe’s shaman Grugina makes her home.

·       East: A hallway in the northern corner leads back to room 2/16.

·       South: In the middle of the southern wall there is a rusted metal door with hinges at the top that leads to room 2/17.

·       The Stash: Under the southeastern dung pile can be found a small wooden chest carved to look like a goblin’s head. Inside are 2,000 silver coins and a small velvet bag with two thumb-sized amethysts worth 500 gp each.

·       Grugina the Shaman: AC 6 [13], HD 3-1 (9hp), Att 1 x spear (1d6),

THAC0 19 [0], MV 90’ (30’),

SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S16 (3),

ML 9, AL Chaotic, XP 35, NA 0 (1), TT n/a

-Spellcasting: Once a day, Grugina can cast Cause Light Wounds, Protection From Evil, and Hold Person.

- Grugina worships the stone in room 2/17 and has figured out how to use small slivers of it to manufacture the magic amulets the tribe uses for protection. She desires to learn how to control the Necrotic Radiator in room 2/3 so she can use it to amplify the ruby and further empower her tribe. Grugina is aware of the archive in room 2/11 and the secret teleporting book there. Grugina doesn’t approve of the way Kruksis treats the weaker members of the tribe and wishes to overthrow him, though she keeps her desire for this hidden.

 

Welcome to the month two, week two of my personal Dungeon 23 project The Crucible of Oxyus. Join me this week as we stumble upon a river of magma, a secret library, and a garden of fungal delights! enjoy...

Week Two: Rivers of Magma

2/5: The Fungal Garden

A 10’ wide hallway leads here from room 1/29, stopping at a large double-arched doorway. The room is a half-circle roughly 50’ in diameter with no obvious tool marks. The floor is covered with florescent yellow lichen, illuminating the room as though it were a full moon. Past the southern hallway, a bright orange glow emanates.

·       South: The southern end of the room opens on a 20’ wide hallway with 30’ tall ceilings supported by six columns.

·       Mushrooms: The room is filled with fungous of various kinds. 10’ tall toadstools (red capped with gold spots) are scattered around the room. Besides these, a set of raised beds are filled with odd mushrooms. Large blue Lion’s Mane, sticky pink slime balls, dark chartreuse chanterelles, blood red moss, and tiny purple toadstools fill the raised beds and overflow onto the floor and walls.

Mushroom:	Effect:
Florescent yellow Miner’s Beard	Casts light like a candle, retains its glow for 6 hours after being picked. Makes a delicious tea.
Red Giant’s Table	The outer layer can be peeled and cured like leather.
Blue Lion’s Mane	If eaten, consumer suffers a -2 penalty to INT and gains the ability to see Invisible creatures and objects for one hour.
Pink Healer’s Salve	Apply to wounds to heal 2 hp, only works once a day.
Green Weldin	A fantastic underground food source, tastes of chestnuts and garlic.
Crusader’s Moss	Brewed as tea and consumed to grant a +2 bonus to your next Petrify/Paralysis save
Purple Leddy	Once dried, smoke crushed mushrooms for 1d4 hours of psychedelic hallucinations. Used by ascetics and hermit-priests.

 

2/6: The Lake of Magma

A 30’ wide platform looks out over a large cavern filled with hot magma. The air is hot and moist, stinking of sulfur. In the southeastern corner, a small stair leads down to a narrow dock. On the dock, a small stone boat with enough room for five is moored. The magma chamber is pierced by a large central pillar of natural stone. There are three rooms visible across the chamber, each with its own dock.

·       The Boat: Made of dark basalt and etched all over with arcane runes. The magical incantations allow the boat to float on the magma with ease. There is a 20’ long metal oar that is resting in a crook in the boat’s side used for steering the boat through the magma. An iron chain keeps the vessel from floating away.

·       The Magma: The magma brightly lights up the central chamber and casts its dim warm glow into the other three rooms that are open to the magma chamber. The northeast corner of the chamber is pierced by a lava tube that flows through the mountain past the docks in room 2/14. Anyone spending more than a minute in the boat or on the dock must succeed at a Death Save or suffer a -2 penalty to all AC and Attack Rolls due to heat exhaustion. This will last 1d3 hours or until the PC has done nothing but rest and drink water for three turns.

·       The Magma Pillar: The central pillar of stone that reaches floor to ceiling in the magma chamber has a secret chamber inside it. An illusion of an unbroken rock face hides the door from casual observance. Those who can fit inside find a small chamber with demonic runes etched in the floor. The heat from the magma doesn’t pierce the walls, leaving those who sleep in here all night with an immunity to the negative effects of the hot magma chamber for the next 24 hours.

2/7: The Forge

This room is 30’ long by 20’ wide with a stone dock connecting it to the magma lake on its eastern side. This chamber contains a large furnace, an anvil, a work table with chair, and a rack of tools. There are the bones of two Goblins in the corner of the room.

·       The Forge: The forge is designed to work off the heat of the magma. It is fully operational.

2/8: The Laboratory

This room’s north side opens onto the magma chamber. The room itself appears to be 25’ wide by 50’ long. There are two tables in this room covered in arcane equipment including small burners, test tubes, flasks, calipers, scales, and various old jars of foul-smelling powders. There is an empty five-foot diameter brass brazier and a three-foot tall carnelian statue of a phoenix (200 gp) in the corner as well.   

·       West: A large carved stone portal leads to a narrow bridge that crosses the magma to a landing with a metal door on it. There is a Goblin skull resting against the metal door. This door is locked.

·       The Illusory Wall: The southern wall is illusory. The room goes back another 10’. This deception hides an odd device built into the southeastern corner. It consists of a 10’ diameter circle of metal and wood on the floor connected by leather tubing to a metal rectangle attached to the wall. This rectangle has two large levers and three small switches on its surface. When the levers and switches have been arranged correctly, the device will teleport up to six people standing on the circle of metal and wood at a time to the other teleportation device in the Archive, room 2/11. Whenever someone uses this device, a massive thunderclap is produced.

2/9: The Audience Chamber

This 30’ long square room is open to the magma chamber on its eastern side. The room is dominated by a large throne on a raised dais that takes up half the chamber.

·       North: A throne of bluish granite with dark green, burnt orange, and light teal stones flecked inside it. The throne floats 8” off the floor. This is the Moribund Throne of the Magician, the legendary seat of the wizard Oxyus of Fenebrahn. It was from this throne that he commanded his legions before they were overrun. The voice of someone who sits on the throne will be amplified throughout the entire level. (This immediately triggers a three-in-six roll to see if a random encounter is triggered.)

·       West: Through a stone archway carved to look like curling moss, a 5’ wide hallway can be seen. This hallway leads to a T-junction after 25’. The right-hand hall leads to room 2/10. The left-hand hall leads to the door to the bridge to room 2/8. Ten feet after the left-hand bend in the hall, a pressure plate has been hidden among the other floor tiles. Those who unsuspectingly step on it will trigger three spears to shoot out at them from concealed holes in the wall (3d6 damage or succeed at a Death Save and receive half.)

2/10: The Chantry

The room is 35’ long by 20’ wide. The walls, ceiling, and floors are all covered with glazed red, orange, and yellow tiles. There are ten stone benches in this room, arranged in two rows. In front of them a carved altar the size of a barrel. There are 2d6 Zombies milling about here, feasting on the corpses of three adventurers. The Zombies seem to be dead Melted Cultists, though none of them wear their goat’s-eye pendants. The adventurers’ equipment is too badly damaged to recover.

·       North: A heavy brass and iron door on the northern wall connects to a long 5’ wide hallway that eventually leads to the secret door in room 1/30.

·       South: There is an archway here that leads to the hallway to rooms 2/9 and 2/8.

·       The Altar: This barrel-sized altar of Tigers-Eye Jade has been carved into a scene of Zaltus Embri, the Phoenix God of Magic being strangled and defeated by the Serpent of Darkness, Aboses. (525 gp).

 

2/11: The Archive

·       This room is immense-- 50’ wide by 100’ long with 35’ tall ceilings. The archive is located somewhere on the material plane, but it is unclear exactly where. The room is divided by three levels with stairways down to each level. There are bookshelves located on all three levels of the archive covering a myriad of topics both mundane and magical.  The archive is always room-temperature. There are several tables and chairs throughout the archive.

 

·       The Teleporter: A metal and wood platform with a rectangular control surface similar to the one in room 2/8. This device works the same way, teleporting six people standing on its pad at a time standing to the other teleportation device in room 2/8. Whenever someone uses this device, a massive thunderclap is produced. This device is the only visible way in or out of the archive.

·       The Library: The bookshelves are filled with too many books to list here. General information on the topics of history, the gods, continental geography, weather, common flora and fauna of the region, mathematics, Elven lore and history, dwarven history, geology, and music can be easily acquired after 1d6 turns of searching. Specific information on these topics or general information on magical subjects takes 2d4 hours to find. Specific magical information will take 4d6 hours to find. The information seeker cannot take any other significant action while searching the archive. This time may be broken up though. There is a one-in-six chance that each search attempt will also uncover a random arcane or divine scroll hidden in a book. (50% chance of either.)

·       The Secret Door: On the bottom platform in the northwest corner  is a red lacquered bookshelf. Pulling the large green-spined book on the bottom shelf titled A Manual of Statistical Inquiry will trigger a secret teleportation circle to activate, teleporting the person who pulled on the book to room 2/14 and leaving a plume of thick pink smoke that smells like berries behind.