Here's something I wrote up over the weekend. A fairly simple dungeon with a small group of fire elementals enslaving goblins to mine rubies for them. You've got some rebellious slaves, drow raiding from below, a couple business opportunities for the players, and a couple of puzzles.
After clearing it the party is presented with a tough choice: take what they can and run to safety, delve deeper, or roll the dice on mining more rubies, which runs the risk of getting slaughtered by drow.
Note: Goblins will carry torches. Fire elementals can’t see in the dark but they themselves cast light for HDx10 feet. The dungeon is otherwise unlit.
The values given here assume 1 GP = 1 XP.
Rooms
Note: Multiple doors on the same side of a room will be listed north to south or west to east.
1
West Entry Locked Good Wooden Door (common lock)
East Entry Unlocked Good Wooden Door
Monsters: 4 dire rats, nesting in a pile of refuse in the NW corner. Among the refuse can be found d100 copper and d2 silver coins.
Room features: A crude bed and iron gong sit in the west side of the room, and someone has scrawled "Don't lose your head" in blood on the south wall. The rats will not approach the gong; if it is rung, a random encounter automatically occurs but the rats flee the room.
2
West Entry Unlocked Good Wooden Door (slides to one side)
South Entry Stuck Good Wooden Door. Opens southward. A metal mess plate is propped against the south side of the door; if knocked over, the noise causes a random encounter check.
Room features: A fountain of water sits against the north wall, overing the 6 northeast squares. The water is potable and 3 feet deep. The south wall is covered in scorch marks.
3
North Entry #1 Archway
North Entry #2 Stuck Iron Door
West Entry #1 Stuck Simple Wooden Door (slides to one side)
West Entry #2 Stuck Good Wooden Door
West Entry #3 Trapped and Locked Simple Wooden Door (superior lock)
Large Net Trap. Net is covered in small bells, causing a random encounter check.
West Entry #4 Stuck Simple Wooden Door
South Entry Locked Strong Wooden Door (common lock) (slides up)
Room features: A tile labyrinth mosaic covers the floor, and the scent of smoke fills the room. Many tiles show scorch marks. The 3x3 square area in the middle of the room is a fifteen foot deep pit with gently sloping sides. Chains hang from the ceiling over the pit, terminating ten foot above the pit floor; one could use them to swing across the pit or climb down safely. The chains can be raised or lowered via a winch on the south wall.
Inhabitants: 10 fire goblins sleeping
Random encounter checks are made every turn in this room because so many corridors intersect here.
4
North Entry Stuck Good Wooden Door
West Entry Stuck Good Wooden Door
South Entry Locked Iron Door (Magical lock, opens with a spoken password)
Room features: The east wall is lined with flaming braziers, emitting sweetly performed incense.
A circle of protection from magic is drawn on the floor, covering the tile with the 4 on it as well as the ones to the east, north, and northeast. Nobody can cast spells in or across it until it is physically erased.
Along the west wall are shelves lined with empty bottles, 200 GP worth of uncut rubies, and a wand of fireball with 2 charges left out of a maximum of five.
Next to the shelves is a portal to the elemental plane of fire, a foot long, embedded in the wall. If uncut rubies are sent through the portal, gold or platinum worth 20% more than their value will be returned. If empty bottles are sent through along with at least 100 gp worth of rubies, the bottle will instead be returned with a random potion inside. If a wand is sent through with rubies, it will be returned with one charge restored for every (spell level x 50) gp of rubies so spent.
The person on the other side is Kartzo’s business partner, a fire elemental name Sargaszt. He won’t cheat Kartzo. He has no way of knowing the players aren’t Kartzo if they send rubies through the portal…unless a player sticks their hand through. This won’t harm them, but will result in Sargaszt trying to cheat them.
Inhabitant: Kartzo, a minor fire elemental lord. 8 HD, 2 melee attacks for d8 damage or one fire bolt for d12 damage. Magic as level 5 magic-user. If the party is polite and hasn’t already slaughtered his guards or goblins, he will likely hire them for a mission against the drow downstairs. Also willing to trade for incense.
5
West Entry Locked Iron Door (common lock)
East Entry Stuck Simple Wooden Door
South Entry Stuck Strong Wooden Door (slides to one side)
Room Features: Several headless statues are scattered throughout the room. A rusted and scorched gauntlet lies in the north side of the room.
Monster: Fire elemental. 6 HD, 2 flaming swipe attacks for d8 damage or one firebolt attack for d8 damage. Knows the password to the magically-locked door between rooms 4 and 6.
6
North Entry Locked Iron Door (Magical lock, opens with a spoken password)
West Entry #1 Trapped and Unlocked Simple Wooden Door ; Well-Camouflaged Pit Trap
West Entry #2 Trapped and Locked Simple Wooden Door (superior lock); Rolling Rock Trap
Room Features: This room is full of tables and chairs as well as shattered plates, bowls and rusted cutlery; it was a dining hall in better times. A carved stone statue of a fire elemental stands in the north-east corner of the room, and someone has scrawled "You cannot kill him with magic" in primordial script on the plinth the statue rests on. This is a lie written by Kartzo himself; he is in no way immune to magic. He wrote that due to his phobia of ice and water-based spells.
7
North Entry Trapped and Unlocked Simple Wooden Door (slides down) Spiked Pit Trap in front of the door.
East Entry Trapped and Locked Simple Wooden Door (superior lock)
Rolling Rock Trap, triggered by a mechanism in the lock.
South Entry Trapped and Unlocked Good Wooden Door
Burning Hands Trap, triggered by touching the door at all. Magical runes are visible on the door, but the color of the ink is so similar to the color of the door that it takes either a spot check or active investigation to notice. The trap goes off if anything touches the door, including a thrown rock, and can go off only once an hour.
Inhabitants: 2d6+6 fire goblin slaves mining for rubies, armed with picks (d6 damage). As regular goblins but resistant to fire.
Room feature: this room lies in a seam of ruby, and rubies can be seen embedded in the walls. A goblin can mine d3 GP worth of raw rubies per hour; a dwarf or other skilled miner, d6 gp. The seam contains a total of 60,000 GP worth of rubies. Rubies acquired by mining do not count for XP.
8
Secret Locked Iron Door (magic lock)
The door is concealed behind a statue of an ancient lich holding a book, and opened by pressing runes on his staff in the correct order. The runes carved onto the cover of the book show the correct order in which to press the runes.
Inhabitants: 5 escaped fire goblin slaves, armed with mining picks (d6 damage) hide in this room. They want revenge and freedom for their brethren, but are cowardly.
Room feature: Several ancient statues of what appears to be warriors and nobles, of a race long vanished from the world. Each is big enough to take cover behind, and could be tipped over onto someone.
Corridors
a A rusted iron chandelier hangs from the ceiling here
c A group of demonic faces have been carved into the walls. As the players pass, one moans a warning: “Go no further, unless you seek enslavement or destruction.”
e A toppled statue of a long-forgotten warrior of a vanished race lies across the corridor
i An acrid odor fills the corridor- smoke and scorched stone from passing fire elementals.
m Several corpses are impaled upon iron spikes jutting from the walls
n Camouflaged Pit Trap
r A group of demonic faces have been carved into the walls. Kartzo can see out of them.
Random Encounters
1 d4 fire goblins carrying d100+20 GP worth of rubies towards room 4.
2 A minor fire elemental, patrolling. 3 HD, one swipe attack for d8 damage.
3 d2 level 1 drow fighters, scouting from a deeper level. If room 4 hasn’t been cleared, they instead encounter Kartzo; make a reaction roll to see how well they get along with him. If they fight him, he wins but the fight lasts a turn, during which time it can be heard from as far as room 7.
4 d4 rebellious fire goblins, trying to escape. Can’t be quiet to save their lives; make random encounter checks every turn as long as they’re around.
5 d4 dire rats, scavenging.
6 d6 fire goblins headed between rooms 3 and 7.
d4 days after the two drow warriors show up, a drow war party of 6 warriors, a cleric and a magic user will launch a full-blown assault on Kartzo's lair. Regardless of whether he's already been killed or not, they want the rubies for themselves.
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