Map of Greater Denethix area, this times with hexes

Spawn of Endra pointed out that I hadn't used hexes - total oversight on my part.  I completely forgot.  They looked fairly nice when I substituted them in for the square grid, so hexes it is.

I also tossed in some random bits of map flavor.  Only one area (the unnamed cave in the hill) do I know exactly what's in there - I have a general notion of what's in the ruins in the northeast corner, and the rest is just names dropped down for inspiration.  1 hex = 2.5 miles.

Map of Greater Denethix area

I came up with a map of the Greater Denethix area - the surrounding villages and towns.  I need to add some "flavor areas" now.  Nothing with any actual detail, but some evocative names sprinkled around the map would be cool.

Here's what I've got so far:

More notes on last night's session

So I'm changing up the rules a bit.  I haven't liked the dead-at-0-hp for a while now, so that's changed.  Occasionally you're going to take a hit, it's pretty penalizing to the front-line players to constantly have to roll new PC's.  I don't want to have the players end up so paranoid about standing up front that we're playing Dungeons & Dogs instead of Dungeons & Dragons.

I also decided to do the d30 rule that I first read about on The Lands of Ara.  We don't actually have any d30's just yet, so we're simulating with d6's and d10's, but it worked out well.  All four players blew their d30 rolls on saving throws against the troglodytes, probably because I said "save vs poison."

The henchman-retirement rule finally came into play - it's nice to see them cycle out of play.  The party is getting henchman-and-dog-heavy.  It's slowing the party advancement down as they have to share more treasure than they otherwise would.  So the elf "sleep" brigade will slowly erode, and the party power will reduce back down to what it really should be.  Right now everything they meet gets insta-nuked.  Enjoy it while it lasts, I say!  I might have the departed henchies return as a rival adventuring party at some point.  They know where the dungeon is, after all.

As the session started, I gave Gutboy's player the bad news that his XP was way out of whack.  I reviewed things and there's no way he had nearly as much XP as he thought, and the reason was almost certainly what Spawn of Endra suggested, he had mistaken the "xp for next level" for the "gold remaining".  Since I have the house rule that treasure turns to XP once you spend it, it's pretty easy for that mistake to result in quickly-gained levels.  I don't know exactly how much xp he should have had, but it would've been real close to 2nd level if not actually over the limit, so I reset him back to the exact amount of XP for 2nd level, and no gold.

Some other random comments:

a. Reciprocity.  I've tried to follow & link to the blogs of everyone who's linked to me, if I've forgotten or missed you leave a comment and I'll add you.  And when I say "trying" that's really an exaggeration, I'm incredibly lazy.  But let me know you want some blog-following-payback and you got it!

b. Some new minis arrived from Mega-Miniatures, I got four dogs, P.W. got a halfling, and Netal got over a dozen of the Guthrie Grenadier minis.  Including some monster prehistoric dog that they certainly will not be buying and bringing in the dungeon.

c. I thought it was insane that the players wanted to leave the partly-healed dogs behind - what's better, a dead PC or a dead dog?  Because they had long ago emptied Chelmsfordshire's inventory of war dogs, however, they decided that they didn't want to risk the dogs dying.  Insane, but it does make for better play - less henchies, less dogs, more smart play required on the part of the players.

d. They just never search for secret doors.  They briefly did in the mummified leathery body room, but some of the players actually refused to look after the first few failed rolls.  They were searching an entirely wrong part of the room, but I gave the elves a chance to notice in passing the secret door in the correct location anyhow - but the dice were not with them.  Too bad for them, there was some powerful mojo behind there.

e. Gutboy's player has come up with a theory that this is a "dungeon playground", based on the training room and motivational hologram in the gatehouse level.  Totally offbase - what's funny is, the "dungeon playground" notion is something he came up with in the campaign he runs on a monthly basis, that I also play in.  So he's unconsciously attributing his own dungeon design decisions to me, which should lead to a lot of incorrect assumptions about how things work down in my creation.

Session recap, 2/9/2011

Here's the recap email I just sent for last night's session:

Gentlemen,

First, we have adopted two new house rules:

a. PC's will go unconscious at 0 hp, and die at -10
b. Once per session, a player may substitute a d30 for any roll whatsoever.  Damage, to hit, save, anything.

So here's what went on last night:

The Cast:

Mongo the Fighter, and his henchmen Melzgar the Elf, Rogar the Elf, and Roger the Fighter
Gutboy Barrelhouse the Cleric, his henchmen Slezgar the Elf and Serlo the Elf, and his dogs Rufus and Ruby
Netal the Elf, and his dog Moe
P.W. the Halfling, and his henchman Fast Eddie the Thief

Gutboy instructed Slezgar to poke at the body-shaped patch of blue fungus some more.  Slezgar verified it was fungus, and then started prodding down the length of the "body."  At the waist, his dagger clinked against something metallic - scraping the fungus away, the hips and legs of a skeleton, made of tarnished silver, were revealed.  As the party packed up the skeleton, P.W. the Halfling suddenly burst in - he had been only a few minutes behind the party, having followed them from town.

Introductions were made by Gutboy, and then the decision was made to pry the crystal lamp from the ceiling.  It was firmly attached, but hammering an iron spike finally disloged the light, yanking a bit of wire out of the ceiling.  The lamp was made of solid crystal, with a bit of wire and some bolts sticking out.  The party put it with the skeleton, hoping to sell it back at town.

The party continued deeper into the dungeon.  Following a tunnel west, they came into the upper level of a large room with a balcony.  As they entered, horrible screaming was heard from the darkness, and eyeless pointy-eared clawed albino freaks clambered up from the balcony.  P.W. took a nasty hit to the head and was knocked unconscious, but a sleep spell knocked the screaming freaks out (several falling to the floor below as they lost their grip on the balcony).  The party slaughtered the sleepers, and screams receding into the distance convinced the party the freaks had retreated.

The party decided to stay out of the lower level of the room, and exited to the north, finding an enormous cross-shaped room.  In the center of the room were four yellow-and-red kruller-shaped things, with lots of legs and horns at one end.  Two more sleep spells were attempted, but the weird things were unaffected.  A short battle was fought, and the creatures eventually killed, but the dog Moe was badly beaten and unconscious.

Close examination of the room revealed that the tunnels leading out to the north and south were surrounded on either side by carved columns in the stonework, and topped by a lintel.  Above the lintel were niches, each containing a crudely-carved skull, and lifting the skulls revealed three metal pins protruding from the bottom of the niche.  The east and west sides of the cross-shaped rooms didn't have any tunnels, but did have the columns and lintel, surrounding a wall of smooth stone instead of an opening.  Experiments were performed, moving the skulls to various niches, but nothing happened.

The party headed north, and found themselves in familiar territory - they eventually made it back to the 30' square room, with a 10' square pillar in the middle, and stone faces carved on each side of the pillar.  The pillar was surrounded by skeletons.  P.W. investigated the pillar further, and discovered there was a lever in each recessed right eye socket, in each of the faces.  The party retreated to a room to the north, with a door, and P.W. pulled the lever.  He yanked his hand back quickly as clear ooze began dribbling down out of each eye socket, and ran back into the room to the north.  The party slammed the door shut, and worked their way back around the 30' square room via an alternate path.

Coming back into the room from an eastern entrance, they found no sign of the ooze, but most of the skeletons were now missing.  P.W. theorized the ooze dissolved the skeletons, but this theory was soon to be discredited.  To the south was an open door, and as the party moved south to examine it, eight skeletons with clear oozy bodies marched through the door towards them.

Gutboy immediately tried to turn their creatures, but to his horror realized he had no holy symbol - he had discarded Thor's but forgot to find a replacement.  So melee combat was engaged.  The door restricted the monsters' movement, however, and the battle was decidedly one-sided.  Mongo and the dogs moved up to the front lines, and carved through them, while P.W. and Roger shot arrows over the dogs' heads.  Mongo gave a blast with his napalm-loaded flamethrower, but only managed to splash the wall - he decided to switch to his two-handed sword after that miss.  The combat was brief, and the party prevailed, but another hound was knocked out cold.

Continuing exploration to the south revealed an empty room, without even dust, and beyond that a small room with rusty metal shelving.  The shelving mostly held tiny mounds of dust, but there was a small rack of six vials labeled "Ichor Samples".  Each vial contained a clear fluid.  Netal put the vials into his pack to investigate later.

The group decided to head back to Chelmsfordshire.  At the village tavern, Fast Eddie and Slezgar announced that they were retiring from the adventuring life.  There was muted discussion about killing them and taking their pay, but seeing as the party was in a public place, the two former henchmen were allowed to leave unmolested.  A few days were spent healing and resting, but the two wounded dogs were deemed too unhealthy to risk bringing back into the dungeon.  There was some talk of finding the village's cleric to help with healing, until they recalled that Gutboy was the appointed (and chronically absent) cleric of the town.  Gutboy took some time to teach five of the locals about the glories of Nisus, and soon they were rubbing bugs, worms, and dirt in their hair.  Gutboy also took some time to whittle a holy symbol, a piss-poor representation of a centipede made out of a stick.  The party then headed back to the dungeon, a few henchmen and dogs lighter than they were before.

The explorers made their way west back towards the throne room they had found during one of the party's earlier visits to the dungeon.  Instead of heading through the trap door under the throne, they instead went north through a massive pair of double doors.  The chamber beyond was only partially excavated, but strangely had dressed stone wherever there wasn't rough unexcavated rock.  There were also several giant earwigs, but the creatures didn't seem particularly interested in the party.  Gutboy praised Nisus, and the expedition west east down a long corridor.

The corridor stretched for over a hundred feet, before an opening with a door was noticed to the north.  Exploration of the tightly-spaced tunnels beyond revealed a room with a stuck door, and P.W. heard voices behind it.  P.W. failed to smash through it, but Mongo was able to bash the door open, sending a spike flying across the room.  Inside were four stinking lizard-people, with sharp claws and massive jaws.  Arrows were fired, taking one of the lizards out, and a sleep spell took care of the rest.  The party gleefully set to slitting throats and looting the bodies of their pouches of electrum pieces.  The lizard-people were clearly malnourished, with skin tight against their ribs and distended bellies.

Another room in the tight cluster of corridors was found to contain a stunning pile of perhaps 10,000 gp, plentiful jewels, and a pair of swords sticking out of the pile.  The entire party stared in absolute disbelief, and began raining arrows down on the pile.  The piles began advancing towards the party, but was slaughtered before it could reach them.  It was some sort of fleshy creature with two pseudopods, and the swords and gold coins were attached to its sticky carcass.  The jewels turned out to be the creatures multi-faceted shining eyes.  The gold was real enough, however, and the party divvied up the 1,200 gp (and pocketed the short swords as well).

Beyond this room was another, with a leathery mummified body in the corner.  The corpse was clutching a note, which read:  "I don't have long now.  It's been two days since I sent Jorge down to the pools.  He must bring the water from the brown pool only.  If he doesn't make it, there's still a skull left, use that to bring me back."  Theories were advanced about how the stone skulls might be the skull referred to, and a slanted wall in the room was examined closely, but no other secrets were found here.  The party took the note and left.

Continuing east down the long corridor, it went for another hundred feet or more, and a side corridor heading to the southwest was found.  The party ignored it, and continued on til the long corridor ended, and two new corridors headed north and south.  They headed north, and eventually came to a door.  Opening it, a room occupied almost entirely by a 15' deep pool of golden liquid was revealed.  Opposite the door, 25' from the door to its edge, was a 5' deep by 15' long stone platform, covered with several hundred gold coins.  Closer examination revealed that the golden liquid was probably clear, because the walls of the pool were covered with a sheet of gold that ran a fraction of an inch taller than the pool.  The ceiling was also found to have many strange, regular cracks in it.

Netal dipped his shovel in to see if it would turn to gold.  Instead, it dissolved almost instantly as it came in contact with the fluid.  Mongo flicked a gold coin in, and the coin sank to the bottom, unaffected.  Flicking a silver piece in, that dissolved quickly, like the shovel.

Unable to come up with a plan to get to the coins on the platform at the other side of the pool, the party continued deeper into the dungeon.  As they approached some stairs in a corridor heading down, P.W. and the dog Rufus suddenly fell as a pit trap opened beneath them.  As fast as it opened, it closed shut again.  The party tried pressing down on the pit, standing on it, jumping up and down, but they were unable to get the pit to open again.

In the pit, P.W. found that he was on a grate.  He had managed to hold onto his torch, and could see that there was another tunnel beneath the grate, and a lever on the wall, in the "up" position.  P.W. pulled some chain out of his pack and tried draping it over the lever, but it wasn't enough weight to force the lever down.  He also tried reaching through the grate and pushing with his sword, but his reach wasn't long enough.  As he sheathed his sword, he saw a half-dozen four foot long stony-looking caterpillars with nasty mandibles creeping down the tunnel beneath him.  They stopped and began circling below.  The halfling pulled out his bow and began shooting them, and soon they were all dead, riddled with arrows.

Up above, the party began a frantic search for a way to get to the trapped halfling.  They followed twisting corridors and ran through rooms containing glowing patches of green fungus, and more giant earwigs (that also remained uninterested in the party).  Finally, they saw the corpses of caterpillars up ahead, a lever on the walll, and a grate on the ceiling - they had found P.W.!

P.W. used his rope to tie himself and the dog to the grate, and Mongo pulled the lever.  The grate flung open downwards, stopping short of hitting the wall and the lever, and Mongo untied the two and lowered them to the ground.

And that's where we ended for the night.  Next session will be on Wednesday, Feb 23.

Floating Quarter

I occasionally make mistakes entering shipping costs into eBay, mostly when I click a "Send Invoice" button accidentally on an international shipment without entering the cost.  So apparently some of that shipping in the past has been for free.  An expensive error.  I'm mostly out of gaming goodies that I want to sell (I'm keeping my 1st edition AD&D stuff, thank you very much, and my Delta Green and a few CoC rulebooks).  I do have some other oddities that will be sold, I'll list them once I'm done mailing the current batch of stuff.

Today, I was writing descriptions of points-of-interest in the city.  Most of them have already been posted in "summary" form, but here's a new area I haven't mentioned previously.  Nothing mind-blowing, but I post what I'm working on, so take it or leave it...  Most of the city is described pretty sparingly, I don't need much detail when my players are in it, so I can't imagine anybody else needing much more to run a game there successfully.  Just "broad stroke" descriptions, and some random tables - that should be enough for a DM to make the place come alive, I hope.

Floating Quarter
The wide bridges that originally spanned the gorge proved to be too valuable as real estate to be used as mere transportation.  The bridges became crowded with small buildings and temples, and stone and wooden extensions were built.  Eventually, the space between the two spans was entirely enclosed.  This section of the city is now known as the Floating Quarter.

The Floating Quarter rises gently to a high point in the middle of the structure, as the underlying bridges are arched and buttressed.  From above, this part of the city is most notable for its wooden streets.  If viewed from below, the massive stone and wood buttresses and wooden floors of the buildings and streets can be seen.

Apart from the trapdoors placed in the streets for maintenance purposes, several buildings have private trapdoors leading to haphazardly-constructed "under-bridges" of rope, used by thieves, escaped slaves, and smugglers.  These under-bridges typically run to sewer and storm drain outlets emptying into the gorge.  Explorers brave enough to try these under-bridges will find that only few are maintained – many were constructed years or decades earlier for sinister purposes long since fulfilled, and the elements have since taken their toll.

Old maps

I'm in shipping/receiving hell.  140 items to package up.

Here are some maps, they're a little under 20 years old nowadays.

The Dwarven Crypts, upper level:

Dwarven crypts, lower level:

The Underworld!  Yeah, getting derivative - looks like I read a copy of D1-2.

Were-rats and drow?  Definitely D1-2...

And a drider lair.  Drow? Driders?  Oh well...  it was marginally fresher way back when...

Leading straight to... a MAZE.  Don't know what I was thinking.  When the players hit it, I remember hand-waving their way through it, they hired a minotaur guide or something...

Upper level of the maze... players are getting closer to the surface now.

One section of the maze changed depending on what levers you had pulled.  I'll probably recycle this concept for the megadungeon, it still works for me.

Finally, the players escape into the swamps, and discover.. this poorly drawn lair... of whatever Ki'inari is...

Soon, the excretions will be edible

So I've got a few things on my "must buy" list for this year.

Encounter Critical! - Check! After reading Jeff's write-up of his con session, I had to order a copy.  Let all excretions be edible!
Realms of Crawling Chaos - Check, just ordered it.  Thank you Lulu coupon!
Stonehell Dungeon 2 - I love megadungeons.  Eagerly awaiting this.
Dwimmermount - As I said, I love megadungeons, but I'm a bit nervous about the level of detail he'll include.  James has stated a preference for being light on detail and providing more of an overview on how levels should run, whereas I like loads of keyed rooms.
Planet Algol - no idea when Blair will publish, but oh I want it so.
Weird Adventures - I had no idea until last week that Trey was publishing something, it's on the list now.

So two down, four to go.

Classic megadungeons were full of portals to other worlds, and I see no reason to break with that tradition.  My players will be visiting all of the places in the books mentioned above.  Well, EC would be a "one-off" rather than campaign play - but the rest will be mixed in with portals, spaceships, or whatnot.

I might also go for the S&W version of Tome of Horrors when that comes out, that really depends on price though.  There's only so much money I'll put down for a monster book, given that I tend to just make them all up anyhow.

I'm just writing up stuff you've already seen in on the blog in some form or another, so no exciting new content tonight.  I do need to do a couple of wilderness maps for Greater Denethix and The Land of One Thousand Towers, so expect some pencil drafts next week sometime.

The 140 items I put up for auction on eBay are all ending tonight, too, so I get to play shipping & receiving clerk again.  That should take a good long time to deal with... the prices coming in so far are decent though, so I'll be commissioning some more art for the Anomalous Subsurface Environment book.  Not too much more though, it's a vanity publication and if nobody's interested in buying, I don't want to be too far in the red.  We'll see how the first level book sells (and given that the bulk of it will be available for free as well, I expect to be underwhelmed - it's basically a donation system to recoup expenses and hopefully fund a few bits of art for level 2).