Showing posts with label cult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cult. Show all posts

Thursday, February 12, 2026

[Dungeon] Wreck Worship - a sea & salt themed cult dungeon

Here's the hide-out of a shipwreck-worshipping cult of weirdos! They even have their own lighthouse to lure sailors onto the reefs. The dungeon is this best situated on a seaside cliff. 

19 keyed areas, minimal keys. Print on two pages or even on a single page. Stats are for Searchers of the Unknown, so, you know, D&D.

There are stairs to a potential level 2 (I envision it to be a Deep One cave?), but who knows if that ever gets created.

The lighthouse is not described in detail here. I imagine it to be a tall tower without an overground entrance, only reachable from below (or if somebody manages to scale the walls).

Actually, now I have TWO sea-cult dungeons. I'm gonna post the other one later as well, because it's also good, plus it was playtested in The World of Tomorrow campaign. But there is some overlap between them, so I cannot just connect them together.

The process was simple:
  1. I picked 8 monsters that fit thematically, put them on the wandering encounters list, and also used that list to stock the monster rooms.
  2. I rolled up the basic structure and contents from the Atelier Clandestin Sandbox Generator (pretty sweet book!)
  3. I re-rolled results that didn't quite fit (like overlong corridors) and then modified everything on the go to make it fit better with the theme


Have fun.






Sunday, March 8, 2020

1d10 habits of hygiene your dark cult follows

Dark rituals are important, but so are health & safety!
  1. It's important to wash the sacrificial dagger after every use.
  2. Please, as a courtesy to the next wearer, wipe the eerie animal mask clear.
  3. Acolytes are required to wash their robes weekly.
  4. The altar must be in pristine condition to honor Azathoth; don't be a Dirty Demoniac!
  5. Always put on gloves before touching the Tome of Death.
  6. You are free to NOT attend the grand ritual if you are a certified Plague Bearer. You can utter your prayers to the Dark Ones from your home chapel.
  7. Clean up after the toxic extradimensional slugs! Summon responsibly!
  8. Consumption of initiates' blood is suspended until further notice.
  9. Bring your own drinking horn; sharing of drinking horns is no longer permitted.
  10. When creating flesh golems, only use fresh, uninfected parts.




Written in collaboration with SlapClick, "the unnamed associate"!

Saturday, August 18, 2018

40 masks for secret cults




Recently in my campaign the players encountered a secret underground cult (as usual).
The gimmick is that all cultists wear different masks, so I came up with a bunch of them:


1
Animal
2
Demon
3
Theatrical
4
Carnival
1
rat in a hat
horned god
young lover
gold frame
2
sinister cat
beak of horrors
rich old geezer
blue velvet
3
smiling pig
red with fangs
hag
frills and glitter
4
gnarling dog
three-eyed
comic relief
butterfly wings
5
raven with huge beak
iron teeth
single tear under left eye
comes with
a veil
6
bat with bloody snout
completely flat; no face; red
cheated & angry
Cyrano de Bergerac
7
fish with feathers
mouth behind bars, Dr. Lecter
cuckolded husband
mirror surface reflects others
8
owl with bleeding eyes
blue with vertical mouth
distorted by pain
seductive silver eyelashes
9
wounded wolf
orange scales
happy face
crimson tears
10
deer, antlers sawn off
three tortured faces
ignorance is bliss
classic Venetian

Most masks are relatively simple, but expressive, hand-made by cult members. The masks don’t have big protruding parts, because they are meant to be worn while moving around in confined places (tunnels and dungeons), or while cavorting naked in the forest.

Animal masks are more or less identifiable natural animals.

Demon masks are nightmarish visions of carved wood and papier-mâché.

Theatrical masks are meant to represent a single emotion or a well-known character type from popular plays.

Carnival masks are halfmasks, covering the area of the eyes and nose. They were obtained in the city.