Friday, January 27, 2023

[Dungeon] Temple of the Forgotten God

This is a 16-room dungeon I wrote in about an hour for the OSR discord's community hexcrawl. I thought I would share it here too. Meat & potatoes OD&D-style experience. Minimal keying. Have fun!

Download as PDF here!

(now with enhanced map)
Update: enhanced map!




All rooms are hewn from the black basalt of the mountain. Ceilings are 8’ high unless otherwise noted. Doors are stone slabs that slide into the wall. One square = 10’.

Wandering monsters (2d4):
2 2 Robots in love
3 Black Pudding
4 1-10 Pixies
5 2-8 Reptiloids
6 2-12 Koblins
7 1-4 Vampire Bats
8 Time-travelling Thaumaturgist

Areas:
0. Entrance Chamber
The double doors are voice operated (react to OPEN and CLOSE commands uttered in the language of the Ancients). Labored breathing of a large creature can be heard beyond the second set of doors.
1. Trapped Dragon
20’ high ceiling held up by red pillars. Emaciated Adult Red Dragon (half HD), trapped here a decade ago by a cunning adventurer who knew the command words. The monster cannot fit through the doors towards #2 or #5. Small hoard of 1200 gp in the corner.
2. Trophy Room
Rusty weapons and shields (2 swords and 3 shields salvageable) on the walls. Thick layer of dust everywhere: trace of an approx. 3’ object dragged towards #4.
3. Locked Storage
Secret door: ventilation duct 6’ above the floor leads to a 4’ wide passage.
4. Drippy Area
Weird lemony green ooze drips from the walls. The object dragged over from #2 is a 3’ square extremely durable, yet light metal plate with handles.
5. Transitory Room
Doors to rooms #6-8 painted Orange, Yellow, Black.
6. Orange Door Room
Empty.
7. Yellow Door Room
6 Ghouls, transfixed, staring at a grainy TV screen. 
8. Black Door Room
Dark & squalid, walls painted black. Secret door: outline barely traceable below thick black varnish.
9. Healing Pool
Eerie blue glowing water. Murals on the walls depict nymphs bathing – sometimes laughter can be heard! A creature fully submerged in the water for 1 hour regains d4 hit points and, if poisoned, can repeat the save (this healing procedure is only effective 1/week). Partial submersion can lead to weird mutations.
10. Rug Maze
Garishly patterned rugs and curtains hang everywhere. Total value: 500 gp.
11. Crate Maze
Crates stacked high, easy to topple. 9 Dervishes lurk here, their leader holds the Pipes of Slumber (Sleep spell 1/day, but the wielder doesn’t heal from resting). 
12. Generator
Entrance partially obscured by crates. 10 Large Centipedes warming around an energy generator.
13. The Bone Gang
Entrance partially obscured by crates. 8 Skeletons, clearly a former group of adventurers (2 “fighters” with swords and shields, 1 “cleric” with mace and “unholy symbol”, 1 “magic-user” with a staff and a Scroll of Magic Missile, 4 “henchmen” with burnt-out torches and empty sacks). They guard a chest containing 4 rubies (500 gp ea.) and a gilded silver goblet (200 gp).
14. Ape Nest
Pool of dried blood before entrance. 2 White Apes lounging on dirty hay.
15. Wolf Lair
3 Giant Wolves, their hides colored blue (same hue as the pool in #9).
16. Garage
Functioning anti-grav skiff, with enough fuel for 2 days of operation. Seats 2 people.

2 comments:

  1. Is it an eady to operate anyi-grav skiff?

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    Replies
    1. I'm going to resort to the cheapest trick in the book: "it's up to the DM" ;)

      Overall, I'd say it depends on the setting you are slotting this adventure into. I usually go for a science fantasy/dying earth vibe, so the functioning anti-grav skiff is a rare treasure. Operation is possible, but most people don't know how to deal with it off the cuff. However, once they find out, or if they have a science wizard on the team, they can use it to great effect as a scouting vehicle - that is, until the fuel lasts. Then there is another quest to find energy cells or arcano-magneto conductors or unobtanium or whatever it takes to power up the vehicle.

      When I put the anti-grav skiff in the dungeon, I had one of the books in Lin Carter's Green Star series in mind.

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