Flux Space

A pixelated image with figures out of proportion to one another. The main feature of the image is a circular maze made of stone, open at the top. Someone enters the maze. To the side, two figures (a soldier and a woman in a flowing gown) stand next to one another. In the background are cliffs which drop off to the ocean.

Update January 15, 2024: This post has won the Bronze Bloggie in the Gameable category! My thanks to everyone involved. It’s easy to feel like blog posts disappear into the past, forgotten a few days after they are written. Having my work recognized by my peers is encouraging. Thank you for running this year, Zedeck. Also, neener neener, so long as I don’t win I don’t gotta put any work in next year!

I’ve been inspired by my time working with Gus on Tombrobbers of the Crystal Frontier, and want to play at making something similar: a big intro adventure for Dungeon Moon. Something that sells the vibe of the setting, and will allow me an opportunity to think with modes of play that aren’t accommodated by my current campaigns.

Returning to Dungeon Moon will mean returning to Flux Space. It’s an idea that has had a lot of time to percolate in the 6 years since I last discussed it, so let’s begin at the beginning. What is Flux Space?

The Problem

Classic exploration play is great. The referee describes an environment, the players describe how their characters interact with that environment, and the referee tells them how the environment changes. Rinse and repeat until the player’s characters are either wealthy, or dead.

This simple conversational back-and-forth is a good engine for producing fun, but it falters when the characters are exploring spaces which are Large, Samey, and Confusing. The paradigm example is a maze. Mazes work so poorly with classic exploration play¹ that they’ve become shorthand for jokes about bad dungeon design. Yet bad as they are, mazes stick around because they’re romantic. They beg to be explored, even if our tools for imaginative exploration don’t suit them. It’s why kids love solving them on paper, and why people line up for corn mazes every October. The labyrinth of the Minotaur was a maze, and it’s arguably the most fundamental example of a dungeon we have.

Other examples of large, samey, and confusing environments would be a winding network of caves, a dark and dense forest, or a dungeon which fills the entire interior space of an artificial moon created by an inscrutable warlock.

¹ I do actually think this could be fun with a certain set of conditions. You’d need a group of players who were highly engaged in the process of mapping and exploration, as well as some significant pressure to discourage boring-yet-safe play, such as following the left hand wall. So it’s possible, but not suitable for my game or my players.

The Solution

Flux Space is a way of representing large, samey, and confusing environments without mapping and keying them. No maps or keys are needed, because while the characters must trudge through a Flux making meticulous notes and backtracking from dead ends, the players will be “zoomed out.” Time passes very quickly since the players need only make broad administrative decisions. When the characters encounter something interesting the players “zoom in” to engage with it.

Traversing through Flux Space can be regarded as a type of Point Crawl, with the distinction that moving between each point is especially arduous. Once a Flux is solved it can be peregrinated through more swiftly, but solving it will be taxing.

Flux Space is a mix of overland travel and dungeon exploration. It’s for those situations where an environment exists primarily as an obstacle to forward progress, rather than a rewarding location to explore in its own right. Charting the flux gives space for our imaginations to percolate in these environments, and for them to feel as imposing as they ought to, but does so without straining the players’ patience.

System Assumptions

This new Dungeon Moon adventure is intended for use with Errant, so Flux Space must be built to fit into Errant’s mechanics. Because of that, this post will include more system-specific terminology than has been typical for Papers & Pencils. The free, no-art edition of Errant may be a useful reference. What I will call a Flux Turn is a specialized form of Travel Turn, and if you’d like context for all that entails the chapter describing Travel Turns begins on page 120.

Though I’m using a specific system here, I will avoid jargon where possible. Where it isn’t possible, I will endeavor towards clarity. It should not be difficult to adapt the Flux Turn described here to whatever style of adventure play you practice.

A city in an underground cavern. In the background is a mountain which is on fire, and the fire is spreading out into the city.

Flux Space Procedure of Play

Upon entering a Flux, play shifts to Flux Turns, of which there are 6 each day.² During Flux Turns, the party/company generally acts as a group. Their goal³ will be to find a path through the Flux, which they do by Charting.

Each turn spent Charting represents hours of the company moving carefully, dropping breadcrumbs, taking measurements, making notes, and backtracking from dead ends. All this hard work depletes their resources and requires them to roll the Event Die.⁴ At the end of a successful Charting action the company will discover a Point of Interest within the Flux. Play zooms in for classic-style Exploration to resolve the Point of Interest, after which the company chooses how to spend their next Flux Turn. Thus the basic play loop is:

Chart → Deplete Resources → Resolve Event Die →Point of Interest → Choose next action

Each Flux has only a finite number of Points of Interest. Once all have been discovered the Flux is fully charted, and may be moved through more easily.

² Thus a Flux Turn lasts roughly 4 hours, though it’s important not to let that relationship become rigid in your mind. Turns at all scales are abstractions which cannot correlate one-to-one to certain distances traveled by the hands of a clock.

³ Presumably, anyway. Players have strange motivations sometimes, and far be it from me to dictate what their goals are.

⁴ As per normal for Errant, each member of the company who has an encumbrance greater than 4 adds +1 negative event die to the roll.

Depleting Resources

A Flux is generally a dark place which requires the company to carry portable illumination. Each Flux Turn applies 4 Burn⁵ to all light sources. (Thus if the company are using candles, each candle bearer will go through 4 per Flux Turn. If using torches they’ll go through 2. If using lanterns they’ll go through 1 bottle of oil.)

Additionally, some Fluxes may have special resources the company is required to spend in order to chart them. For example, a Flux defined by cliffs or other vertical traversal challenges may require the company to deplete a length of rope each time they Chart, since they must strategically leave ropes behind in order to create pathways for themselves. Likewise a Flux that is filled with water might require potions of water breathing to be consumed for each Charting Action, etc.

⁵ Errant’s Burn mechanic is designed to create interesting lighting situations for exploration play, but does not mesh with the hella-time cost of Flux Turns. I’ve opted for 4 Burn/Turn because it translates into full resource units: 4 candles, 2 torches, 1 lantern oil. Nothing is ever spent partially. As a happy coincidence, this *also* scales to the average amount of Burn players would experience if they played 24 Exploration Turns (the length of a Flux Turn).

Resolve Event Die

If using Errant’s player roles, the referee calls on the Timekeeper to roll a d6. If not, I like to call on a different player each Turn to make the roll:

Encounter
Rest (+1 Negative Event Die) or gain 1 Exhaustion
Deplete all rations or lower all Supply by 1.
Local Effect
Encounter Sign
NPC Chatter

Encounter — While the company is in the midst of their declared action they meet a creature. Determine surprise and disposition for this encounter as you normally would. Play zooms in until the encounter is resolved.

Rest — The company is fatigued, and must make a choice: do they rest, or force themselves to press on? Resting means the company is unable to perform the action they declared for this Flux Turn, and on the next Turn they gain 1 Negative Event Die.⁶ Forcing themselves to press on causes everyone in the company to gain 1 Exhaustion.⁷

Deplete — Everybody needs to eat! Deplete rations and animal feed by 1 for every member of the company. If there are no rations to deplete, or if food sources are plentiful, instead reduce Supply⁸ by 1 for every member of the company. Any ongoing effects or conditions, and perhaps other intangible resources such as an NPC’s patience, dwindle.

Local Effect — An effect occurs that is particular to this Flux. This is discussed in greater detail below under the heading “Construction of a Flux.”

Encounter Sign — The company receives some clue as to what their next encounter might be. Footprints, the sound of beating wings, a figure spotted at the end of a long corridor, etc. The company might want to track this creature down, or they might wish to take special effort to avoid it. Otherwise, the next time an Encounter or Encounter Sign is rolled, it will be an encounter with the creature pressaged by this sign.

NPC Chatter — Nothing of note happens, which means that any NPCs currently traveling with the party get bored and express themselves in some way. Perhaps they talk with one another, sing a little work song, or try to wrangle better wages for themselves out of their employers.

⁶ In Errant, having a Negative Event Die means that your next Event Die Roll is made with 2d6, taking the lower of the two result. Having a Positive Event Die means the reverse. Both types of event die can stack (2 Negative event die = roll 3d6 take lowest), and if the company has both types they cancel each other out. (1 Negative + 1 Positive = roll the Event Die normally)

⁷ In Errant, 1 Exhaustion fills 1 Item Slot. It acts as an extra burden weighing the character down. Exhaustion can only be removed by resting in a comfortable location, which players are not guaranteed to find outside of a settlement.

⁸ In Errant, Supply is a resource that the company will always want to keep well stocked of. If you’re not playing Errant, the important thing to note is that rolling Depletion always causes something to be depleted, even if the party is in a situation where they don’t need to worry about food.

Point of Interest

A notable location within a Flux, comparable to a dungeon room. A Point of Interest might be as simple as a statue the company can choose to ignore, or it might be as involved as a small series of challenges that must be overcome in order for the company to reach the far exit.

Each Flux has two sets of Points of Interest: Shallow Rooms and Deep Rooms.

At the end of each Charting action, after the Event Die is resolved, the referee rolls on a table of the Flux’s Shallow Rooms. These are closer to the entrance, and thus are much more likely to be encountered early. After each room is found it can be crossed off the list.

As the company continues to chart, eventually the referee’s roll will point to one of those crossed out rooms, and the party will discover a Deep Room instead. Deep Rooms are not rolled. They are encountered in order from first to last.

Once all Points of Interest have been discovered, the Flux is solved, and need not be charted any further.

Choose Next Action

Aside from Charting, there are a few other things the party might consider using a Flux Turn for:

Peregrinate⁹ — The company moves from any space within the Flux to any previously discovered Point of Interest. Even from the entrance to the very deepest of the Deep Rooms, if it has been found. Their meticulous charting allows them to travel more efficiently, so they do not need to Deplete Resources on this trip. They still have to roll the Event Die, though.

Make Camp — Spending more than 4 Flux Turns per day on heavy activity causes each character in the company to gain 1 point of Exhaustion per extra turn. When the company makes camp one of the players¹⁰ makes a navigation check to find a suitable campsite¹¹. Each individual member of the company then decides if they will Sleep or Take Watch.

Take Watch — If no characters keep watch, all Event Die rolls of 5 (encounter sign) are instead treated as rolls of 1 (encounter). If only one character keeps watch they gain a point of Exhaustion. If two characters keep watch together, no Exhaustion is incurred by either.

Sleep — Characters who spend two full travel turns sleeping may remove a point of Exhaustion.

⁹ Note that, due to the nature of Flux Space, the Peregrinate action functions a bit differently than it does in Errant’s Travel Turns. Likewise the Explore and Orient actions are not available. Foraging within a Flux is possible, though the DV might be quite high!

¹⁰ If using Errant’s player roles, this should be The Navigator.

¹¹ If the check fails the party must choose between an exposed campsite where encounters are more likely, or an uncomfortable campsite where their rest does not remove points of Exhaustion.

Maps & Local Knowledge

A Flux would not be a Flux if it were well understood. Any few who might know the space’s secrets and byways will guard their knowledge jealously. If a Flux has inhabitants, then keeping outsiders ignorant will be a vital matter of home defense. Even so, it may happen that the company acquires knowledge of the Flux second hand.

Maps reveal some of a Flux’s Points of Interest, which are treated as having already been discovered. Thus the party gets a head start on their own Charting. A complete map, revealing all Points of Interest, should be an object of exceeding rarity.

Peregrinating to locations the company only knows via the map incurs a negative event die, since they lack firsthand knowledge.

Advice from someone who has traveled in the Flux before grants the party a positive event die for a number of Flux Turns equivalent to the quality of the advice. (Someone who has been there once before can give the party a positive event die for 1 Turn, while a native inhabitant of the Flux could give them advice that’d last 10 Turns or more).

Guides may insist the party wear blindfolds, since they want to protect the secrets of the Flux. If the party then loses their guide, they’ll need to begin Charting from wherever they’re at, and the Flux entrance should be added to the Deep Rooms. (How far down the Deep Room list it is should depend on how far the company was led.)

If the guide doesn’t insist on blindfolds, the party can retrace their steps, but must endure a negative event die. They’re much more likely to take a wrong turn than if they had charted the area themselves.

A screenshot of Castlevania for the NES. It shows the level near the end of the game where Simon must traverse the inside of a giant clock, leaping between cogwheels.

Construction of a Flux

At minimum a Flux needs a Theme which describes the space the characters are moving through; NPCs for the company to Encounter; along with some Local Effects that can occur; and Points of Interest to discover. As with any aspect of play, it’s worth looking for opportunities for Special considerations, though these are not obligatory.

Theme

Hopefully your Flux is not simply a series of grey corridors. Perhaps it’s a maze of stairs which zig zag up and down, or abandoned mines dripping with acidic slime deposits, or a massive clockwork mechanism built by the gods which controls the movement of the stars in the sky. The theme will inform everything else you develop for your Flux, and give you something to riff off of at the table. Instead of saying “After hours mapping corridors and dead ends you find…,” you can more easily come up with stuff like “After hours of climbing spokes and avoiding being crushed by the teeth of titanic cogwheels, you find…” It’s a little thing, but it’s one of the little things that makes moment-to-moment play enjoyable.

Encounter

I would not use the full 2d6 encounter table method for a Flux. The company won’t be in one long enough to make the effort worthwhile. Even if it takes 16 rolls of the Event Die for a Flux to be solved (6 Shallow Rooms + 3 Deep Rooms + 4 Turns of Sleep + 3 Rest results), there’s a good chance they’ll only experience 3 encounters. Instead I will opt for 2d4 encounters per Flux. With a Dragon and Wizard at the two extreme ends of the table, this leaves only 5 unique encounters to concoct.

Because encounters will occur in a nonspecific environment, it may be useful to include a location along with the encounter. (i.e. “d6 skeletons on a narrow staircase”). Alternatively you could write a small table of such environments to be rolled on when an encounter occurs. For myself, I will rely on the theme, and use it to invent an appropriate encounter environment in the moment.

Local Effect

This is how the theme is expressed most directly, and how the environment resists the company’s attempt to control it. Because Flux Space is explored from a zoomed out perspective, local effects must have clear zoomed out consequences. I’ve been able to come up with 4 different types of local effect that will work well in a Flux:

Altered Circumstances — A change that effects all future Turns. It might alter what resources are depleted after a Charting Action, impose a negative or positive event die, or prompt the party to adjust their marching order. For example: “A fierce wind begins to blow, strong enough to send someone tumbling over the cliffs. Anyone who doesn’t tie themselves to the rest of the party will need to make a DV: 2 Phys Check each Turn to avoid falling to their death. Will the scout rejoin the main body of the company, or will they risk it?” Altered circumstances will usually end the next time a Local Effect is rolled. (Instead of, rather than in addition to another Local Effect).
Minor Choice — Some sort of obstacle which requires the company to choose between two or more costs. For example: “The corridor ahead is filled with noisemaking traps. If you set them off a creature encounter is rolled immediately. The company can avoid them all by moving carefully, but this will slow you down and you’ll get a Negative Event Die on your next turn. Alternatively, one character can attempt a DV 8 Skill check to quickly and silently disable all the traps—though failure will count as setting the traps off!”
Attrition — The Flux takes an extra toll on the company. For example: “A flame trap goes off! Everyone in the vanguard of the party takes 2d6 damage, but can make a DV 6 Skill save for half.”
Flavor/Hint — Something about the environment draws the company’s attention without doing them any harm. What they learn may or may not be useful. For example: “Everyone in the company hears a mysterious voice inside their head. It mumbles something about how red is the color of vitality, then fades away.”

Local effects ought to be reusable, so 1~3 is plenty for a Flux.

Points of Interest

For my purposes, d6 Shallow Rooms and 3 Deep Rooms will usually (if not always) be adequate. This is large enough for a Flux to pose a significant obstacle, without wearing out its welcome. Any bigger and it feels to me like all these rooms would be put to better use in a traditional dungeon.

When constructing the Points of Interest themselves…they’re just dungeon rooms. They ought perhaps have a higher conceptual density than standard, since the Flux itself serves in place of the empty rooms. All Points of Interest could easily accommodate monsters, tricks, traps, treasure, and/or special contents if you so desire.

Special

Does Charting this Flux deplete any special resources? Is there anyone outside the Flux who might want the party to do something for them in there? Is there any danger in this Flux which might follow the company when they leave? Do any of the creatures on the encounter table constitute a faction? If so, which Point of Interest do they live in, and what do they want? Is one of the Flux’s Points of Interest a bottleneck, which the company will need to deal with every time they peregrinate through the Flux?

Two women speak to one another, sitting on either side of a circular maze. At the center of the maze, a knight in armor defeats a creature which appears to be human from the waist up. Beneath the waist is perhaps a horse? It is mostly obscured by the maze.

Example Flux: The Zig Zag Staircase Maze

Theme: An Escher painting hewn in stone. Bottomless pits abound, and there is a dearth of safety railings. Gravity reorients itself at fixed spots. As the company charts they may find themselves traversing the same set of stairs several times with a different “up” on each pass. True Up can always be determined by throwing something into a pit and seeing which way it falls. The pits are not truly bottomless. After 900’ there is a wall of magical darkness, followed by a final 100’ in which space loops back on itself. Anything dropped will be stuck looping through the final 100’ forever.

Encounters

Dragon
2d6 Zippity Gloobs: Eyeballs with four razor talons protruding from around their retina. Fly by screaming, though they have no mouths. They gather in wasplike nests seen frequently around the bottomless pits.
1d6+1 Cow Creature raiders. They are collecting loot from the bodies of three dead surface dwellers. Cow creatures can go up stairs, but not down them.
1d6+1 Cow Creature raiders. They’re on the hunt for intruders. Cow creatures can go up stairs, but not down them.
A sludgebelly which wandered out of the Slime Mines, and is now lost. Reaction roll determines how long it has been lost and how hungry & frustrated it is.
Animated suit of armor left behind by a wizard with a bad disposition.
Wizard

Local Effects¹²

(Attrition): The magical gravity doesn’t work properly on this next flight of stairs. In order to Chart it, each character will need to have a kit of Climbing gear with them. Anyone who lacks it must peregrinate to the Flux entrance, buy a climbing kit somewhere, then peregrinate back here in order to continue charting. The climbing gear remains necessary until the next time a Local Effect is rolled.
(Minor Choice): The party comes upon a gap where the stairs have crumbled away. Jumping would be easy to do, but exceedingly dangerous (DV 0 Skill check, but any who fail fall to their death). If the party brought a ladder, or a plank of wood they can use it to cross the gap easily. Improvising a safe way across without proper tools can be done, but will take a long time, and the Company will suffer a Negative Event Die on the following Turn.
(Attrition): The stairs transform into a slide beneath the company’s feet! Each character must make a DV 2 Skill Saving Throw or drop one item of their choice from a Hand or Handy slot. It tumbles away into a bottomless pit.
(Flavor/Hint): The party comes upon a gap where the stairs crumbled away at one point. It has been bridged by a sturdy mat woven from coarse hair, and pinned firmly in place at each end. It will take everyone’s weight easily. (The Cow Creatures placed this here.)

¹² To be clear: There’s no need for each flux to have one of each type of Local Effect. I’m just using this to further illustrate how each type might be used.

Points of Interest

Shallow Rooms (d6)

A tangle of stairs converge into an amphithatre where 16 ghosts are staging King Lear. The ghost playing Kent keeps forgetting his lines during Act 2 Scene 4. Each time, the rest of the ghosts throw up their hands in frustration and begin the scene again from the start. If someone were to stage whisper the correct lines to Kent, the play will finally be able to end. The ghosts will be at peace, and everyone in the audience will receive a blessing: 2 Positive Event Dice for 3 Turns.
A staircase landing, on which there is a gurgling fountain with coins at the bottom. If a penny is dropped into the fountain then the water is supremely refreshing. Anyone who drinks from it can ignore the next Deplete result on the Event Die. Anyone who attempts to drink from it without paying will get stomach cramps and diarrhea. If anyone takes money from the fountain, the water will pull them in and attempt to drown them.
A circular room 100’ across, enclosed by a low wall, and pillars which support a vaulted ceiling. Four broad staircases connect to this room at right angles from each other. Any staircase other than the one the company entered from is a valid exit. At the center of the room is a 9 foot tall marble statue. It will animate and attempt to destroy anyone who enters this room, but will not pursue them beyond it.
Room #3 again, but this time you’re approaching it from a different set of stairs, and must exit using the final set. The statue remembers your behavior from your last visit, and has learned from it.
In the middle of the stairway ahead of the company is an iron gate with a face on it. It’s surrounded by a barrier which extends 5’ out over the edge above a bottomless pit. Dagger blades protrude from the end of the barrier to discourage attempts to climb around the gate. The face animates to ask a riddle of all who approach: “I rise and I fall without ever moving. You may stand on me, though I am neither the ground nor a floor! Though one of me is helpful, you need many of me to accomplish anything. What am I?” If the correct answer is given (“Stairs,” obviously) the door will open. If someone attempts to climb around the outside the door’s face will be offended. It will wait until the climber is in a vulnerable position, then wiggle the dagger blades that protrude from its barrier to try and make them fall.
In a stretch of stairs which spiral around a column, the company comes upon a door with a shingle hanging above it, proclaiming it to be the site of The World’s Greatest Salesperson. Within is a shop filled with models of stairs, diagrams of stairs, and materials for constructing stairs. The woman inside has a big creepy grin on her face, and is convinced the company look like a group who could really use some stairs. It may seem like her services are completely useless. However, if the party pay her a retainer of 50 pennies she will accompany them through this Flux. If they come upon the Local Effect of a crumbled staircase she can quickly build stairs to bridge the gap. After that if the party wish for her continued services they must pay another 50 pennies.

Deep Rooms

The stairs brush up against a rough stone wall unlike any other in this Flux. There’s a hole in the wall: round, four feet across, dripping with acrid slime. Beyond this hole are the Slime Mines, a completely different Flux!
Village of the Cow Creatures, constructed upon the flat top of a column both broad and tall. 35 adult Cow Creatures live here, and are belligerent towards outsiders. One set of stairs leads up into the village, and another leads up out of the village, and because Cow Creatures can only go up stairs one of these is how they enter the village and the other is how they leave it. The company must get through the village by charm, guile, or force in order to explore further.
A great curved arch leading into The Pleasure Palace of Zanator the Opulent! This is a traditional dungeon, and presumably the goal which led the company to enter this Flux in the first place.

An illustration of The Lord of the Rings. Gollum is leading Frodo and Sam along treacherous pathways in Mordor.

Example of Play

Referee: After your harsh overland journey the company reaches the passage which leads down into the stair maze you’ve heard about. Before you enter, are you going to use any scouts?

Moss: Nobody is sneaky, so we oughtta stick together. I’ll be in the front, Ajmira you take the rear, everyone else can be in the middle.

Referee: If that works for everyone, I’ll just need to know what light sources you’re using. Including hirelings there are 6 characters in the group, so you’ll need 6 Burn worth of illumination if you want to stay in bright light. That means everyone carrying a candle, three people carrying torches, or two people carrying lanterns.

Suzan: Torches is what we’ve got, and we’ve got plenty of ’em! You said this place was gonna eat through them, so we hired a whole extra guy to carry supply. I’ll carry one of the torches, and Torgul and Erin will carry the other two like usual.

Flux Turn 1

Referee: If anybody wants to discuss further, or make any additional arrangements before descending the stairs, please speak up. Otherwise, Ajmira, I’ll have you roll the Event Die for the first few hours of exploration. D6, please.

Ajmira: I got a 6.

Referee: Torchie—the hireling you employed just to carry extra supply—tries to strike up a conversation with Torgul, Erin’s bodyguard. Torgul responds with grunts. They clearly regard this weakling as beneath their notice, and Torchie eventually gives up trying to make friends.

Erin: I chastise Torchie for distracting my employee while they’re supposed to be keeping an eye out for threats.

Referee: Torchie looks distressed. This is a rough first day at work for her. Time passes in awkward silence as the party climbs up stairs and down again, working to chart a path through this labyrinth. By the end of the Turn all your torchbearers have gone through 2 Torches, so mark those off. Suzan, can you roll a d6 to determine what Point of Interest the party finds?

Suzan: I got a 2.

[The referee describes the fountain. The party argue about whether they should put money into it or drink from it. Eventually they decide to ignore it and just move on.]

Flux Turn 2

Referee: Alright, you spend a second Turn charting. Erin, can you roll the next Event die?

Erin: That’s a 5.

Referee: Encounter sign. I’mma just roll 2d4 real quick…I got a 3 so…um. A screaming sound rises in pitch from somewhere in the darkness behind you, reaching a crechendo just outside the range of your torchlight and fading gradually into silence. Something has passed you by very closely, and moving very fast.

Moss: Well I move to look at it!

Referee: You go back up the stairs that you just came down, towards where you heard the scream. You don’t find anything. Whatever made the sound is gone.

Moss: And NOBODY glanced over their shoulder to see it?

Referee: I assume everybody turned, but it’s dark, and torchlight only goes so far. Whatever made the sound was too far away to be illuminated.

Ajmira: Where did it sound like it was going? It came down the stairs until it was close to us, then turned around and went back up the stairs again?

Referee: No, the sound was coming from off the stairs. Like it was flying straight up out of the bottomless pit beside you, then continued to fly up after it passed.

Suzan: So it’s very fast and it flies. Fuck.

Referee: Are there any preparations you’d like to take against encountering whatever this creature was?

Moss: While we’re moving, everyone remember to keep watch on the pits and the air above us, not just the path ahead and behind.

Referee: I’ll take that into consideration, but remember you’re a bright spot of light in a dark place. You’ll be visible to a lot of things which you won’t be able to see no matter where you look.

Moss: It’s the best we can do. Let’s get a move on.

Referee: Okie dokie. You continue to map your way through the stair maze. Suzan, Erin, and Torgul, each of you mark off another 2 torches from your inventory, or from Torchie’s inventory if you need to get them from her. Moss, give me a d6 to see what the party finds!

[Moss rolls a 4. The referee describes the circular room, statue, and four sets of stairs. When the statue comes to life the party attempts to fight it, but it injures Moss’s character severely, and the party flees down the nearest staircase.]

Flux Turn 3

Referee: You’ve escaped the terrible marble statue with your lives, and can resume your charting. Ajmira could you roll the Event Die for the next Flux Turn?

Ajmira: Thassa 4.

Referee: Local effect! The stairs the company is walking down suddenly snap flat beneath your feet, transforming into a slide! Everyone is sent careening downward at uncontrollable speeds. Everyone roll a DV 2 Skill check for themselves and their hirelings to see if you drop anything as you try to steady yourselves.

Erin: How does this work again?

Moss: Roll a d20. You gotta get higher than the DV, and lower than or equal to whatever your Skill is.

Erin: My Skill is 12, and I rolled an 8. That’s a pass, right?

Referee: Yup!

Suzan: My Deviant has expertise in Fitness. That should reduce this DV by 2.

Referee: That tracks. You can roll this as a DV 0 check.

Suzan: I make it.

Referee: Does anyone fail?

Erin: Torgul and I both did.

Referee: You both have to choose one item from your Hand or Handy slots which has been fumbled into a bottomless pit, and lost forever.

Erin: Both of us were holding torches, so we’ll drop those. Those are cheap.

Referee: It’s time to deplete torches anyway, so you two go through 3 torches for this Flux Turn, Suzan you only mark off the usual 2. How’s Torchie’s supply going?

Suzan: I kinda wish we’d brought two spare torch hirelings, but we’ve got enough to keep going for awhile if these two clumsy oafs stop dropping them.

Erin: Torgul and I glare at you, and will begin plotting revenge as soon as you’re out of earshot.

Ajmira: It’s time to determine our Point of Interest, right? I got a 2.

Referee: Okay! We already rolled 2 earlier—that was the fountain—so instead you discover one of this Flux’s deep rooms…

[The referee describes the village of the Cow Creatures. The party haven’t encountered them before this, and manages to work out a deal with them: for a 10 penny toll per person, they will be allowed to pass through the Cow Creature village in peace.]

Flux Turn 4

Referee: The Cow Creatures seem happy enough to accept your coins, but they glare daggers at you the whole time you’re moving through their village. It looks like some of them would much prefer to just kill you and take all your coins, but they’re obeying the headwoman’s command for now. You put some distance between yourselves and the village. Now between 3 Flux Turns of charting and the 1 Travel Turn it took for you to reach the entrance to the stair maze, you’re all feeling wiped out. If you don’t bed down for the night you’re going to start taking points of Exhaustion.

Suzan: I don’t suppose we could convince the Cow Creatures to take us in for the night.

Moss: I like my skin attached to my body, thank you very much.

Ajmira: Yeah those guys were assholes. Let’s just find a dead end or something where we can make camp.

Referee: I think Suzan has the highest Skill score, so I’ll have you make the navigator check to find a suitable campsite.

Suzan: Well I got a fucking 20, so that’s a failure.

Referee: That sucks bro. You’ve got a choice between an Uncomrotable campsite where you won’t be able to heal, or an Open campsite where you’re more likely to face encounters.

Moss: I’m the only one injured, but it’s not too bad. I’d rather avoid encounters.

Referee: Unless anyone objects, you can all bed down in an uncomfortable campsite. It’s a secluded little landing that’s enclosed on 3 sides, but there’s heaps of loose stone that make it unpleasant to sleep on. In order to avoid penalties 4 characters will need to take a watch—2 for each turn spent resting. Nobody can get the benefits of a Full Night’s Rest, so it doesn’t matter much who sleeps and who doesn’t.

Ajmira: It doesn’t matter so we’ll let the hirelings sleep while the four of us keep watch. Then they won’t be able to complain when we find a comfortable campsite and make them keep watch.

Suzan: Oh yeah! I like the way you think.

Referee: Alright, I’ll assume Ajmira and Suzan are the first pair to watch. Ajmira, can you roll the Event Die?

Ajmira: I got a 3.

Referee: Depletion! Everyone in the party needs to eat something. Everyone make sure a ration gets taken out of the inventory for themselves and their hirelings please.

Ajmira: Hah, so far the Event Die has rolled each result in descending order. Almost like this is a fictionalized account of a game session constructed to demonstrate how each result would be handled in this mode of play.

Suzan: Lawl.

Flux Turn 5

Referee: The watch changes to Erin and Moss. Erin, can you roll the Event Die?

Erin: I got a 5! Darn it, we broke our streak.

Referee: A result of 2 would normally be handwaved away if it occurred while the company is sleeping, so the dice probably wanted to save that for later. Anyway, you’ve rolled an Encounter Sign! Since this is your second one it would normally result in an encounter with that screaming creature you got sign for back on the stairs. However, since you opted to avoid having an open campsite, I will rule that you simply hear a distant screaming. It’s clearly that same creature, but it isn’t too close. You also notice an additional detail on this second occurrence: it’s not one voice, but many small screams in chorus with one another.

And with that it is the next morning! Would you like to get back to exploring this Flux?

Flux Turn 6

Moss: We gotta get this place cleared, let’s get to it. I’ll roll the Event Die…that’s a 2.

Referee: Apparently that uncomfortable campsite was pretty rough on everybody. The company needs to spend some extra time resting. You can choose to push on and everybody will gain 1 point of Exhaustion, or you can stop for awhile and use this Turn to recover and take a Negative Event Die next turn.

Moss: Let’s just push on, c’mon.

Erin: With a point of exhaustion I’ll have 5 encumbrance, and we’ll need to roll a Negative Event die every single Turn.

Ajmira: We should just take the hit and rest.

Moss: Alright, if we have to, but we can rest in the dark, right? No need to waste torches.

Referee: Sure, you can do that. And if anyone wants to use an armor repair kit they can do that. Otherwise I’ll assume everyone takes some time to sit and catch their breath, then you get right back to charting. Ajmira, I think it’s your turn to roll the Event Die. Remember to roll 2d6 and take the lowest, since resting incurs a negative event die.

Flux Turn 7

Ajmira: Aw shit I got a 1.

Referee: That’s an encounter, and since you’ve had two encounter signs it’s definitely going to be with that screaming thing. You don’t have any chance to surprise it because of your light, but since it is a noisy enemy and because you took some precautions against it I’ll reduce its surprise chance to 1-in-6, annd…no surprise!

[Initiative is rolled, and the party does battle with a swarm of Zippity Gloobs. They emerge victorious with minor injuries. Unfortunately the creatures carry no treasure at all.]

Referee: With your foes all dead the group continues to trudge up stairs and down, making notes as you go. That’s 2 more torches used by each torchbearer, and Erin can you roll a d6 for the next Point of Interest?

Erin: I got a 6.

Referee: While the company is heading up a set of spiral stairs around a massive column, you spot a shingle hanging from the wall up ahead, as if there’s a shop in here…

Alternative

If all that is too much, I do have another method for running large, samey, and confusing spaces: Draw a map on a sheet of paper. Give the sheet to your player group, and start a timer at the same time. For every 10 seconds it takes for them to solve the maze, that’s 1 Exploration Turn their characters must spend inside of it. Once the maze is solved and you know how long they’ll be stuck there, you can resolve the resulting Event Dice one by one.

Additional Reading

Pointcrawling Ruins Revisited, by Chris Kutalik
tbh a lot of stuff in the Pointcrawling Series Index, by Chris Kutalik
An Incomplete History of Mazes in RPGs, by Dwiz
How Do You Handle the “Inside” of a Hex?, by Dwiz
Bite-Sized Dungeons, by marcia
Hexcrawls ARE Pathcrawls, by Ava Islam

Deadly Dungeons 22: The Slide Room

This room is exceptionally simple in function, but can prove quite confusing to players. Particularly if they need to flee quickly!

The room itself (shown here in red) is actually just a small chamber which rests inside of a much larger one. It is mounted to the walls, floor, and ceiling of the larger chamber by a set of expertly crafted rails, which have been treated with a magical oil which does not degrade over time. So perfect are the mechanisms which move this room, that it does not produce the normal rumbling vibrations which would normally be a dead giveaway that something was amiss. Those who are particularly in tune with the ground (such as dwarfs) should be given a chance to notice the movement, but only when they are inside of the moving room itself. And even then, their ability to detect the movement is not certain.

Every corridor which can be used to approach this room is strewn with pressure plates. When activated, these plates will cause the room to move into position to receive the approaching characters. The pressure plates are specifically placed far enough away from the sliding room that it will have ample time to be in position before anyone is within eyesight of its doors. If these pressure plates are detected and avoided, there is a 4-in-6 chance that the room will not be in position when the players arrive, and they will instead find themselves looking into a long featureless room. If the players choose to enter this room, roll a check every few turn to determine if the sliding room moves to crush them.

The inside of the sliding room itself is almost entirely featureless and boring. It must be, or else the extremely sensitive weight detection mechanism would be too difficult to calibrate! So long as any character is inside of it, the room will move to a new position any time one of its doors is closed. If it is at the south-most position, it will move north, if it is in the north-most position, it will move south. If it is in one of the two central positions, randomly determine whether it will move north or south.

So, for example, if the red room is in the position shown above, and the players approached it from the curving corridor on the southern side of the map, then it would glide to the south-most part of the larger chamber before they arrive. If they see the room, and all enter it, then close the door behind them, the room will glide back to the position shown on the map. If they then exit it, and close the door behind them, it will not move, because there is no weight inside of it (unless they left equipment weighing at least 30lb behind). If the party’s halfling then enters the room, and closes the door leaving the others outside, they will see the room slide away with their halfling inside of it.

The 1 Hour Dungeon

Remember when you told your mom that you were leaving food out “as an experiment?” but really you just didn’t want to clean it up? No? That was just me? Well that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing with my GMing lately. I’ve been shamefully avoiding preparation, and justifying my laziness by calling it an experiment in improvisation. But unlike my childhood self, I’m legitimately interested in how the experiment will turn out. So after working on being a better improvisor for the last few weeks, I thought it would be an interesting change of pace to sit down and give myself a single hour to create an entire dungeon adventure. The idea is to simulate the time crunch I experience while improvising a dungeon for my players, while still actually preparing something in advance of the game.

This is what I came up with, all within 60 minutes, which includes the map. I have cleaned up the text a bit, though. I don’t want to ask anyone to understand my sketchy shorthand.

Note that my thought is that this would be used with a game system similar to the one I wrote about last Wednesday. The idea is that the players begin with no classes at all, similar to The Funnel of DCC RPG. As they play through this dungeon, they will seek to define their character.

General Info:

Old man Herst recently pulled down a bunch of trees at the end of his property. His onions were profitable last year, and he’d like to increase his crop this year. While tilling the soil, though, he discovered the most peculiar thing: a stone stairway! Leading right down into the earth! It was the damndest sight he ever done seen, and when he was telling the tale down at the pub that evening, you overheard him.

It’s perhaps 2 in the morning now, and you and your friends have gathered around the stairs. You’ve heard it said that treasures can sometimes be found beneath the earth–treasure enough that a bunch of farm hands like yourselves could buy a better life for yourselves.

Room 1: The walls and floor are a moss-covered flagstone. Stones are missing here and there, exposing the earth. The ceiling is almost entirely exposed earth, supported by stone arches which criss-cross the ceiling. Roots poke through here and there, and it looks as though it wouldn’t take much for the dirt to collapse into the room. These conditions persist throughout the dungeon, unless otherwise indicated.

There’s also a good deal of timber in this room, stacked in piles against the east and western walls. It is clearly old and rotten, perhaps part of the structure which originally stood over these stairs.

Exits to the North and South are visible upon entering the room. The secret exit to the West can be revealed by moving the timber aside.

There are 6 mouse-folk here, huddled in the corner and clutching their clubs. Their fur is mottled, and they appear to be malnourished.

Room 2: The walls have corpse shelves here, though most of these are empty. There are 12 shelves in all, but only three bodies remain. Close examination of any of the empty shelves will reveal a small pressure plate in roughly the same spot on each shelf. Pressing the plate does nothing. Close examination of the wall across from any shelf will reveal a small hole, the purpose of which is unclear.

Moving any of the three bodies which remain releases the pressure plate under their heads, and a crossbow bolt is fired at the player’s back from across the room. Also under each of these bodies, roughly where the small of the back would be, is a small ovoid piece of amber. Each is worth 10gp.

Room 3: Some of the floor stones here have been pulled free, and water from above has formed into a pond which is 2ft deep at its deepest point. There are six mouse people here, drinking the water. Two more stand guard.

Aside from the water, there are three shelves in the room which were once filled with books. The shelves have now been knocked over, and the books scattered about the floor. Most are torn to pieces, and nearly all of them are covered in black mildew and small mushrooms. Thoroughly searching through the books will reveal only one book which is still in good condition. It is written in an odd script, but anyone who makes a successful intelligence check will strangely be able to read it.

Studying the book from cover-to-cover takes 8 hours. Once completed, the reader’s mind will be awakened to magical power. The player may immediately become a 1st level wizard, and may use this book to prepare a 5lb Mage Hand spell.

Once someone has been awakened in this manner, the book must rest for 100 years before it can awaken another.

Room 4: Most of the stones from the walls and ceiling have been piled in the center of the room in a 4ft high mass. Mouse folk have burrowed small nests in the dirt here. There are 14 adult mouse people here, and 26 young.

Beneath the pile of stone is a small chest containing the treasures of the mouse people: 16 gp, 42 sp, 317 cp, and 1 ruby worth 25gp.

The secret door in this room is opened by pushing on a hidden stone, and can only be discovered by performing a search check on the appropriate wall.

Room 5: In the center of this room is a wooden chair with skulls piled up around the base of it. Several skulls are nailed to the sides and legs of the chair as well. A young man in black robes with skulls haphazardly sewn onto the shoulders is nervously pacing here. He is Hezaphezus the Malevolent Bringer of Doom and Unlife. An inept necromancer of 18 years. He already cast all of his spells for the day, but carries a dagger and a Wand of Cold, which deals 1d6 damage and has 1d10 charges. Also on his person are 30 gp.

Room 6: Eight shambling corpses are here, banging on the door which leads to room 5. If zombies can show emotion, these zombies are angry. They’re so intent on getting through the door that they will not pay attention to the players unless they are attacked.

The flagstones on the floor of this room make a spiral pattern which twists towards the center of the room. At the center of the floor is a glass lens, about 1ft in diameter. If you look through it, you will see the plane which your soul would be bound for if you died today.

Room 7: This is the lair of the Spidersnake. The room has no obvious features upon entering. However, it is bisected by the web of the spidersnake, and anyone attempting to move from one door to the other will become tangled.

The spidersnake itself rests in a web funnel it made in the ceiling of the room. Among the bodies in this funnel the players can find 40 sp, 8gp, and a sword whose blade always seems to be covered in a thin layer of green slime. This is a Sword of Rotbane, which sets fire to any undead it successfully strikes.

Room 8: A statue on the Western wall stretches an arm straight out, pointing at a spot on the floor. The statue wears a crown. If the base of the statue is inspected, the players will find writing which reads only “The Pretender.”

Any player who kneels before the statue will cause a crossbow bolt to fire from the tip of the pointing finger.

Stairs: The dungeon descends further down…though to what I have not yet determined.

Deadly Dungeons 18: The Steel Beast Throne Room

Note: This room is near the entrance of Castle Nalew, a central adventuring location in my monthly ToKiMo campaign. While the players have been through this room, they have not yet discovered all of its secrets. I would advise not reading this post if you play in that campaign.

Note 2: One of this room’s features was re-used in the The Midas Chest room. I prefer not to post a room with the same element twice, but here it is not central to the room’s challenge.

The room is massive, with a high arched ceiling and numerous steel doors around its edge. It is heavily dilapidated, with weeds growing through the cracks on the floor, bits of rubble on the ground, and even a few small holes in the ceiling where dirt, light, or rain can filter through. In the room’s center is a shallow pool of water. At one time this was obviously a rather elegant water feature, but now the water is stagnant and fills the room with a putrid stench. Characters will not be able to see the bottom simply by looking in, but the water is in fact only about 1ft deep.

The western wall is almost entirely dominated by a massively wide archway, around which is carved an elaborate depiction of a spiritual battle. An army of celestials charge from the northern end of the arch, while an army of devils charge from the southern end. The armies rise up the wall, and across the arch, meeting in the middle with brutally gory results depicted masterfully in stone. If characters choose to investigate the artwork on this arch more thoroughly, they may notice that there is a small demon, far from the front ranks, depicted as dying. Closer examination of this demon will reveal that the gash from which he is bleeding is in fact an actual slit in the stone wall, just large enough to fit the tip of a dagger into. Doing so will open a secret door within the room. (On the map above it is placed between the throne and the lion statue, but it might be placed anywhere.)

Directly above the archway is a stylized stone scroll, upon which has been carved the following words:

“Atop the world I stand, beneath the world I will lie. Home will always find me.”

In the east of the room is a large brass half-sphere, the apex of which rises to about 5ft off of the ground. It has been expertly crafted to demonstrate the continents, oceans, and even rivers and forests, of the known world. Fused to the top of the world is a heavy chair, also of brass. The chair has been cracked and several pieces of it hang askew, but despite being mangled, it appears to be intact. There are no chunks of brass on the ground, and it seems as though some bending would get the chair back in shape–though it is not so broken that it cannot be sat in without fixing it. Under the edge of the chair is a switch. If toggled, this will release 3 of the chair’s legs from their mounting on the half-sphere, allowing the chair to swivel around on the rotating fourth leg. This will reveal a small alcove, within which is a platinum facemask with three pieces of obsidian mounted under each eye. The pieces has no lips or mouth, and is worth 2,000gp as an art piece.

Elsewhere in the dungeon/castle/world, the players may learn that this are was built by an ancient king named Barj Volik, who was born far away on Stonespear Isle. These islands are well known, and can be found on any sufficiently detailed map of the world. If the players examine the brass world-sphere, searching for Stonespear Isle, they will find it easily enough. If the island is pressed, then seams will appear in several of the world’s larger rivers, and the brass will slide away, revealing a staircase into the tomb of Barj Folik.

Finally, there are four strange statues in this room. They are made to vaguely resemble a bear, a bull, a lion, and a gorilla. However, rather than depicting these creatures as they would appear in the wild, these steel statues instead depict what those creatures would look like if they were outfitted in full-plate armor. If any character sits in the throne atop the world, these four creatures will become animated. The sitting player may then attempt a save versus magic (or will save DC 25). If they succeed, then the creatures will obey them for 1d6+1 days. (after which another save must be made). If the save is failed, the statues will attack immediately and without mercy.

Deadly Dungeons 17: The Battlefield Execution

There is only one way in or out of this room, which is largely empty. The walls splay outward, causing the room to widen further from the entrance. The back wall of the room is a gentle curve, upon which has been painted a detailed mural which has become chipped and faded with age, but not so much as to make the its subjects unclear.

The mural depicts a large army of of hardened warriors stretching halfway to the horizon. The figure’s shadows are long, indicating that the scene is either early morning, or late evening. Rather than doing battle or raising their voices in a cry of war, the fighters are depicted as bloody and beaten. Some even lie dead on the ground amongst their fellows. Their faces are forlorn, and every one of them faces out of the painting, with eyes downcast. Several standards blowing in the wind depict a black cloven hoof wrapped in green thorns, on a red field.

In front of the mural is a kneeling statue of a man who appears similar to the warriors behind him. Like his bretheren, his eyes are downcast. With both hands he grips the blade of a sword with the hilt held out in a deferential gesture. The statue has clearly been painted to match the mural, but like the mural much of the paint has been chipped away. In addition, the statue appears to have been brutalized. Chips and slices cover its surface. It appears as though someone brutally attacked the statue with a sword or axe. Closer inspection will reveal that some of these cuts have undisturbed red paint in them, indicating that these marks are intentional.

The nature of the sword being offered is up to the individual GM. For my use, it is a magical artifact sword of great power. If that were not to your liking, however, it can merely be a sword of great artistic and historical value. Regardless of the sword’s exact nature, though, it is a marvelous and tantalizing treasure to behold. The blade is of unblemished mithril. The crossguard is styled to resemble a lion, and the hilt itself is carved with depictions of 6 spearmen thrusting their weapons up into the lion’s belly. These carvings are heavily stylized, and beautiful in their simplicity.

However, the sword will not budge from the statue’s hands. What’s worse, powerful magics ward the statue against being smashed. The magic which holds the blade in place is also powerful, and cannot be affected by spells designed to loosen or release an object. Furthermore, these wards cannot be dispelled, though they might be overcome by a wish or similarly powerful effect.

The key to this puzzle is knowledge of a battle which occurred 300 years ago. Any characters with knowledge of warfare, history, or nobility will have heard of it. A sage will be able to offer information about it if they are given some relevant information about the scene depicted. Additionally, a room not far from this one in the dungeon should contain a history book detailing the battle and its aftermath.

It was called The Battle of Braeon Ridge. The combatants where the House of Krephis (or noble house relevant to your world), and the unstoppable armies of Fulnaf Thornfoot. It was a monstrous battle which lasted days and killed thousands. At its end, Fulnaf Thornfoot was killed, leaving his father to surrender to the conquering Krephis. Famously, while Fulnaf’s father offered the conquering leader his son’s sword, the patriarch of House Krephis (who had lost his own son in the battle) reached down from his horse and buried a dagger in the back of the old man’s neck. House Krephis rose from being only a minor noble house to being one of the more powerful families that existed at the time.

If the players take a dagger and begin pressing it against the areas where the stone has been cut on the back of the statue’s neck, they will discover that one of these slices was illusory. It in fact hid a large slot, which the dagger fits into nicely. Once the dagger is planted in the back of the statue’s neck, the sword will slide freely from his hands.

Note that the illusion covering the dagger slot is not warded as the statue’s other protective magics are. It can be discovered, and dispelled, by normal means.

Deadly Dungeons 16: Gold Egg Lure

This natural chamber contains several wide, shallow pits. Perhaps 1ft deep and between 6 and 15ft across. Each pit holds several eggs of brilliant, sparkling gold. Each egg has a beautiful swirling pattern, and some even have speckles which appear to be tiny pearls. The beauty of these artifacts is all the more profound because they do not appear to be a work of craft, but a work of nature. The intricate details of each entirely unique egg could be studied for hours.

The empty space in each pit is filled with a dark, foul-smelling mash of organic material. This is packed around the eggs, holding them upright. No egg is closer than 1ft from any edge of the pit, or any other egg in the pit. It is a simple matter to identify the mash as the rotting meat of dead creature. Anyone with basic knowledge of nature will be able to deduce that this was probably done to insulate the eggs before they hatch, and provide food for whatever young emerge from them after. A close, detailed inspection of the mash will reveal that while most of it is of unrecognizable origin, there are several distinct humanoid parts included in the mash, such as fingers.

Also within this room are several small alcoves. The entrances to these alcoves are placed above eye level, between 7 and 10 feet off the ground. They are small, and well hidden amongst the natural flow of the stone walls. They will not be noticed unless the players specifically declare that they are looking at higher areas of the cavern wall with their torches. Simply walking the perimeter of the room would be insufficient.

Within these alcoves rest the parents of the eggs. Between 3 and 8 of them. The specific manner of this creature is left to GM discretion, as this is not a Merciless Monsters post. However, for my purposes, I chose a special breed of giant spider with the following attributes in addition to the basic ones:

Spins web which is razor sharp, rather than sticky. It prefers to consume chunks of bleeding meat, rather than drain its victim’s innards.
Mandibles which become superheated and can easily smelt metal or stone. This is both how it escapes from a golden egg in its youth, and how it creates this specific environment from sheer stone when it is time to mate.
Preys particularly on humanoid species.
Evolved eggs which avaricious humans would find too tempting not to try and steal.

Whatever creature is used, some sign of its presence should exist. Perhaps tangled strands of razorweb bunched up at the door, which a perceptive player might notice glinting in the torchlight.

While characters are distracted by the eggs, the creatures will move in to kill them. In the example of the razorweb spiders, they will spin a web across the cavern’s only exit, causing anyone who leaves to fall into bloody chunks. If the players set a watch while examining the eggs, that watch should notice the spider’s efforts and alert the rest of the party. Unless this or other precautions are taken, however, it is likely that at least one player will die here. Bear that in mind before making use of this room.

Tavern Tales 3 & Deadly Dungeons 15: The Funny Tea Room

The room is simple, largely conforming to the architectural style and level of dilapidation of the surrounding rooms. It is good if this room can be placed adjacent to a dining hall or kitchen, as when the dungeon was active, this room produced a drink which (for some reason) was favored by the lord or lady of the place.

It is dominated by a large pit in the floor, 5ft deep, filled with a swirling, bubbling, steaming liquid of a faintly brown color. On the wall of the room is a large rack covered in pegs, and from many of the pegs hang wooden mugs with a copper inlay. The mugs themselves are essentially worthless, being worth ~3cp each, for a total of 20-60 cups in all. The liquid in the floor both smells, and tastes, like a mild tea. If any one drinks it, they are affected by one of the following, determined by rolling 1d12. All effects are permanent, unless noted otherwise.

The liquid is poisonous to your body. Roll a save v. poison, or a fortitude save DC 15. Failure causes death.
A -1 to a random ability score. Use 1d6 to determine.
Spend 10 minutes vomiting and shaking violently.
Burn the roof of your mouth really, really badly.
Antlers sprout from your head.
Tiny, inefficient wings sprout from your back. They might be of *some* use keeping cool or jumping an extra 3-4 inches, but that’s about it.
Skin turns orange.
Feel pretty good about yourself for the rest of the day.
A scorpion stinger grows in your mouth. It is not harmful to you, nor does it interfere with normal tasks. It can be used to sting anything you put your mouth on, delivering a poison which deals 1d6 CON damage per turn, for 3 turns.
+20 to your strength for 1 hour.
A +1 to a random ability score. Use 1d6 to determine.
+1 level.

Players may continue to drink from the pit as many times as they like. Effects will stack with each other, and any effect rolled twice for the same character should be properly “enhanced” according to GM discretion. However, once a character has rolled a 9 or higher, their body will have adapted to the effects of the brew. From then on, regardless of the mixture they create (see below), or what they roll, no magical effect will occur. The drink is still quite tasty, though. They’ll find they enjoy it even more than before.

Adjacent to this room is a room filled with barrels. These barrels each contain a mixture which, when combined with the tea-water in the previous room, will slightly alter the random roll. If a barrel is completely dumped into the tea-water pit, then the additive will become inert after 10 minutes. If any two of these are mixed together, then their numerical bonuses or penalties will average. Orange spiral overrides anything it is mixed with. If any of these are consumed without being combined with the tea water, it tastes so awful the players will reflexively spit it out. Forced consumption causes death.

The symbols on the barrels, and their effects, are:

Blue Square. Smells like meat-juice. -4 to the random roll.
Purple Triangle. Smells like a bowl of raw egg. -2 to the random roll.
Red circle. Smells like beets. +2 to the random roll.
Black “X.” Smells like coffee. +4 to the random roll.
Orange Spiral. Smells almost sickeningly sweet. The random roll is replaced by a 1d6 roll to determine the player’s skin color: 1. Bright Red, 2. Blue, 3. Green, 4. Purple, 5. Orange, 6. Transparent. This effect functions even after the player has become immune to the tea-water’s other effects.

The above room appears in the megadungeon my players are currently exploring, Castle Nalew. They discovered it yesterday, and I think we probably spent an hour or more there. They tried every concoction they could think of, and much of the above information is stuff I had to improvise when they asked questions I wasn’t prepared for. Other information I had to improvise was: what happens when you become transparent twice, and what happens when you feed the liquid to a green ooze?

I could write a rather lengthy post about how much fun we had with this, but much of it would probably come across as “you had to be there” humor. However there is one story which is so impossibly perfect, I could not resist sharing it.

The very first character to dare drinking from the tea was the party’s monk. He rolled a seven, meaning his skin turned orange. Later, when they discovered the barrels in the next room, the monk was the first to try the orange spiral concoction, rolled a 5, making him orange a second time. I said that while he had been “Trump Orange,” he was now a wholly inhuman neon orange. After popping around to a few different colors, he again hit orange twice in a row, causing him to actually begin to glow orange with the strength of several candles.

The character’s name?

“Karrot.”

Sometimes the dice are the best comedians at the table.

Deadly Dungeons 14: Breaking Your Mother's Back

The floor of this room was apparently a single, smooth concrete surface at one time. Time has apparently not been kind to it, however, as a spiderwebbing network of cracks now cover the floor. Aside from any exits, the only notable feature of the room is a statue of a woman in the center. If the players are positioned such that they can see the statue’s face, each character will recognize it as a statue of their own mother. Any character who never knew their mother will see merely a blank face on the statue. Powerful illusory magic emanates from the statue.

Note that while describing the room, the GM should specify that the cracks are “spiderwebbing” in the manner written above. The GM should attempt to say this merely as part of the description, and only if the players choose to examine the cracks more closely should they be told that the pattern of the cracks does indeed vaguely resemble a spiderweb.

If a player specifies that their character will avoid stepping on the cracks, this can be accomplished easily; though the character’s speed will be reduced by half due to their caution. If a character declares they will move through the room without specifying that they would like to avoid the cracks, roll a 6 sided die. If the die lands on 1-4, then the character has stepped on one of the cracks and their foot immediately becomes stuck. If they are wearing light shoes or no shoes, they will also feel that their foot is not only ‘stuck’ on the bottom, but in fact being held by something wrapped so tightly around their foot that they cannot move it from the floor.

When a player becomes stuck, two things will happen immediately. First, that player will see the statue of their mother crack in half just above the waist, and the top half will fall to the floor. Other players will not see the statue crack, however, they will see a duplicate of the statue’s top half (bearing the face of the relevant player’s mother) separate itself from the actual statue, and fall to the floor. The standing statue other players see will continue to bear their own mother’s face.

Second, thousands of tiny green spiders erupt from the cracks all over the room. They will immediately descend on the trapped character, crawling all over them, and wrapping tiny green webs around their victim’s body in an attempt to cocoon the trapped character. The spiders are so numerous that no mundane attempt to stop them (such as stomping them or brushing them away) will be effective. More dramatic means (such as a wind blast or fireball) will work. It takes approximately 1 turn (10 minutes) for the spiders to entirely cocoon their prey.

If at any point the players cast See Invisibility, or use a spell which has a similar effect, they will be able to see a strange green sludge in the cracks. It gesticulates independently of outside forces, and is piled up around the foot of any player who is trapped. It is clearly a living ooze of some type. If they are able to see this ooze, the players will also notice that the spiders are apparently made of the same substance, and freely separate and merge with it. Once a player is completely wrapped in the cocoon, the sludge will drag them to the ground, and begin to pile itself over the player. A player in this condition will be given room to breathe as the beast prefers live prey, but will be devoured within 3 turns time.

The ooze creature is impervious to most mundane forms of attack, however it is vulnerable to fire, ice, electricity, and salt. Any of these in sufficient quantity will kill the creature, but only a small amount (such as the fire from a torch, the cold from an ice cube, or a small amount of salt for food flavoring) should be enough to free a trapped character.

Deadly Dungeons 13: Twisty Turny Dead End

This is a simple room, but one which kept my own players puzzled for some time.

At the end of the hallway, the players pass through a simple opening into a circular room. The room has a stone floor, and walls of bronze which gently curve inward at the ceiling, rising to a point in the center. The walls may be engraved or otherwise adorned, but the room itself is empty. If the players decide that this is merely a dead end, it is important that they be able to go back through the dungeon and take an alternative route.

If the players choose to tap the walls, they will find most of them to be solid. However, there are definite hollow areas which echo when tapped. Closely examining the floor where the ceiling meets the wall will reveal that the bronze walls are fitted into a groove in the floor which extends all the way around the room. This groove is most obvious where the players entered the room. However, given the generally poor condition of the floor, characters will not notice this groove unless they pay special attention to that doorway.

In fact, the bronze cone has special ball bearings beneath it, and can be turned freely. It is heavy, But a concerted effort from a strong character, or two characters with strength 10+, is sufficient to slowly turn the room at a speed of 1/4 rotation per game turn (10 minutes). More characters working together will be able to turn the walls proportionally faster. As the wall turns, the opening moves, revealing previously hidden passages behind the bronze wall.

The danger, of course, is that by turning the cone the players are cutting off their means of escape back through the dungeon. Unless they have enough people to turn the bronze cone very quickly, they will be forced to face any dangers they reveal.

Map Monday

I’ve been working on making better dungeon maps lately. Incorporating interesting elements, creating large branching paths, stuff like that. This is my most recent attempt which I probably won’t be using for anything. I’ve recently become enamored of dungeons with rivers running through them. It’s an interesting way to incorporate something natural into the generally artificial dungeon environment, and serves as an interesting tool for both exploration and encounters.

If you’ve any desire to use this, feel free.