I did not intend to do another one of these. Certainly I didn’t intend to make another one quite so soon after the last one. But then I was re-reading the “One More Idea Method” for a Blogs on Tape episode. It got me to thinking “Hey, why haven’t I ever done this? I should totally do this.”
Then I thought, “Well, if I’m going to make a dungeon for a blog post, I may as well make it another test of my 20 Architectural Features idea.” And now, here we are, with a dungeon shaped like a wiener dog because I asked Moreven what the dungeon should be shaped like, and of course she said ‘like a wiener dog.’
Aside from “The rooms, when mapped together, form an interesting shape,” I also rolled “Dungeon has a perilous entrance,” and “Has suffered a layout-altering cataclysm.” This was the result:
I am not an artist.
To key the rooms, I’m going to go through them one by one and write down the first thing that comes to my mind. Then, I’m going to go back to the start and go through them again, adding ‘one more idea’ to each. Then again, and maybe again, and maybe again, until I feel like some kind of satisfyingly interesting result has been achieved.
The result will be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness mess. Hopefully putting each pass in its own color will help clarify things.
1. Sewer entrance, perilous. Really long. Eventually connects to some far off city that doesn’t even know when their sewer system was built. The sewers are a labyrinth. Most folk have no idea what’s down there, and why would anybody look? Full of disease. and terrible creatures. There’s one passage, though, which extends out for miles in one direction for no real reason. Eventually leads here. It’s the only way in or out, and would require several hours to pass through. These tunnels used to connect to catacombs, before they were repurposed as sewers.
2. Dogmen. Wienerdogmen, obviously. Refined, gentlemanly, friendly towards visitors, but Territorial. Refer to themselves as “Gentledogs.” Gentledogs are crowded in here, sleeping in heaps. A little too cramped now that area 5 has been given over to the refugees. Civility is breaking down. People are getting rude.
3. More important Dogmen. Equitable council of governors, trying to solve the most pressing problem of the day. There is not enough space for the refugees. Some want to venture down “the passage of filth,” to search for a safe new home for them. Others want to go into the underdark in force to retake the refugee’s home. Still others believe they should simply cast off everything in the Hall of Relics, and use that space to give their friends a new home. Everyone grumbles that the Gentledog Wizard in Area 13 needs to hurry it up. Walls have statues of great Dogmen carved into them. Behind the ear of the founder is a switch that opens the secret door.
4. Precious secrets of the Dogmen. Not anything sinister. The Gentledogs have no dark secrets. The crypt & writings of an evil wizard, which the Gentledog’s ancestors swore to protect from discovery. It was always feared that if her body was found (which does not decompose), it would be a rallying point for a new movement of evil. All the Gentledogs know it is here. None of them will reveal the information to anyone. All will die to protect it. It is their most sacred trust. Correspondingly, the books offer some crazy insights into wizardry, and the corpse is legitimately potent as a political rallying point.
5. Not-dogmen. Refugees the gentledogs have taken in from the Underdark. Pale skinned humanoids which secrete a thick gooey slime from their pores, and have a second set of ears where their eyes should be. Used to live in a network of caves at the base of the sinkhole, and served as the Gentledog’s main allies and trading partners before they were driven from their homes by Drow, which carried off most of their people as slaves, and set up a garrison at the bottom of the crevice. Can communicate with slime based creatures, and befriend them easily. The Drow want to use them for this ability.
6. Really fancy kitchen. Gentledogs are gourmets of great refinement. Because of the extra mouths to feed, and the greater difficulty gathering food, the master chefs have had to stretch everything they have for as far as they can. This is putting a strain on everyone. A group of chefs is planning to defy the commands of the ruling council, and sneak down into the crevice to harvest food. Their craft is worth the risk.
7. Sinkhole into the underdark. It’s where the dogmen get food. Gentledogs can comfortably leap the Northern hallway gap, and so there is no bridge there. 9 is supposed to be off limits, so there’s no bridge there unless you climb all the way down into the underdark, and back up into area 10. Descends about 1000′ The creation of the Sinkhole is regarded as an event of religious significance, since prior to that the Gentledogs had to forage in the filth tunnels for food.
8. Food storage. The Gentledogs have discovered marvelous foods in the Underdark, which have never been brought to the surface before. They would be highly valuable as treasure, particularly if you could establish an open trade. Gentledog sense of smell is refined enough that they will know if you have some of their food, no matter how well it is hidden. Stores are getting low.
9. “Time Out.” A Gentledog who got into a fight with a refugee. Got really anxious about his normal sleeping spot being used by someone else. Bit the slime person. Is ashamed of how he acted, but still agitated about hot having his normal sleeping spot. “Time Out” works on the honor system, because Gentledogs are so honorable. He can leave as soon as he believes he is ready to rejoin the community. Given his agitation, he may wish to join on to the party as a hireling to spend some time away from his people and clear his head.
10. Safest descent into the crevice. Serves as an armory + guardhouse to arm those going down, and protect the gentledogs from anything coming up. Also, there’s a basket on a line between this area, and the hallway to the north, for easy transport of food. A drow spy was just captured. The spy is a male suicide bomber. A priestess has promised that Lolth will allow him to be reborn as a woman if he paves the way to victory. He will not act until he believes his death will be maximally effective.
11. Religious area. Gentledogs worship ‘The Hand that Giveth,’ and their main dictum is that the hand will come to them many times in their lives, in the guise of generous people, and they must never bite the hand. Preacher has recently begun to speak of an opposed entity, “The Hand that Taketh.” He says it is acting through the drow. There is no theological precedent for belief in this second entity. There is already some speculative, polite murmurings among the most dispossessed of the Gentledogs that The Slimeskins are agents of this “Hand that Taketh.”
12. Hall of Artifacts. Like how dogs bury bones, except the dogs are intelligent. There are items here from the surface which the Gentledogs don’t understand, and items from the underdark which they don’t understand. Also probably some bones. From the surface there are books, a compass, an astrolabe, a telescope, and a significant quantity of gold. From the underdark there are paintings that can only be appreciated with infravision, a stuffed Hook Horror, and some torture equipment. One of these paintings is important to the Drow, which is why they’ve come here. If they just asked for it, the Gentledogs would give it to them, but they can’t conceive of such a level of civility.
13. Something bad happening under the dog-men’s nose because they are too trusting. Not anything to do with the refugees. That’d turn this whole thing into kind of an ugly looking allegory. Going back to their founding, the Gentledogs have an unbroken line of goodly wizardry. The cleverest child of each generation is made an apprentice. This Gentledog, however, read the forbidden secrets of the evil wizard in Area 4. She told everyone she needed this space (further cramping the living conditions elsewhere). They agreed, because she promised she could use it to create an extradimensional space, giving everyone plenty of room to spread out. What she is actually doing is opening portals to the various lower planes, and making faustian bargain upon faustian bargain, in an attempt to put her soul in deadlock between multiple infernal powers. She reaps all the benefits, while the Banes of Gre’Thor and the Wraithlords of the Blightlands keep one another busy arguing over who gets to reap her.
14. Library of Scents. Jars and cabinets with stuff in them: rags, liquids, bits of nature, etc. When smelled by a Gentledog, these convey a huge amount of information. Like reading a book with your nose. One of these describes a hidden chamber in the city which is led to from the sewers. The gentledogs have no idea what it refers to, since they’ve never seen the city. Nobody BUT the gentledogs could possibly interpret what the scent means, though. The secret chamber has portals to different parts of the world in it.