(Re-)Stocking the Megadungeon: Monsters

Monsters.

Meazels, Russ Nicholson, AD&D Fiend Folio, TSR, 1981

Monsters are a large part of what makes D&D exciting.  Granted, veteran gamers are often aware of most of the standard book creatures, but clever usage of classics, alongside published rarities and a sprinkling of custom monsters can keep all but the most jaded players in the dungeon, if only to see what the DM has around the next corner.

From the math done here, I know I'll need 29 monster encounters.  17 with treasure and 12 without.  

Even though the heading is 'monster' it doesn't automatically mean 'things to fight.'  It can and will often turn into this, but not everything must be fought, despite 5e and other rulesets where XP is awarded for critters defeated, but not in my game.  Not having to immediately fight means PCs can make use of their languages known and Charisma bonuses and the DM can make use of Reaction Rolls (B24) and quite possibly end up with roleplay in the dungeon.  

The two main take aways is that the DM is encouraged to ignore the table as necessary and that PCs might find unknown allies among the dungeon denizens.  If your chosen ruleset doesn't have or make use of such rules, consider importing them into your game - it makes sessions far more interesting.

Anyhow, my chosen monsters.  I follow the Goblin Punch guidelines on Dungeon design, and monsters fit neatly under items 2, 3, and 5.  This means some of what the PCs will encounter can kill them dead if they aren't careful.

As the opening picture suggests, there will be meazels on this first level, both laired and on the wandering monsters chart.  Reading the entry for meazels in the original Fiend Folio, it spells out that orcs and kobolds are traditional enemies prey of meazels, so orcs and kobolds are on the first level as well.

Already, a rough plan is taking shape - a colony of meazels dwelling in a series of hidden lairs between the orc and kobold factions, preying upon them.  The orcs and kobolds each believe the others are killing them off, so are actively at war.  Sacks full of orc, kobold, and other bones can house one of the unguarded treasures - gems that meazels think are worthless rocks.  The other main faction is a mixed group of bandits/berserkers near the main entrance; for a fee, they'll let you pass.  Wine and fresh food is a suitable payment to pass through; hard currency is needed to get back out... unless a favor is done for the leader.

Standard vermin are a given: rats (normal and giant), stirges, giant centipedes, giant spiders, fire beetles, and a giant snake.  Most of these are treasureless wanderers, but I can see a webbed corpse or three among the spiders, and dessicated corpses near the stirge lair.  These all feed off each other and stray humanoids.  

Erol Otus, Moldvay Basic, 1980

Some individually tougher monsters can also be found here and there, mostly because I like them.  

Rust monsters, a carrion crawler, a gelatinous cube, and lone bugbears up from the second level (depth?) looking for dinner and treasure.  A pair of mean ogre brothers (named Smash and Grab) operate a lift down to the lower levels; their spokesgoblin cuts deals with anyone wanting a ride down to level three (passing through level two, but only stopping there if special arrangement is made).  Getting the brothers to lower the lift for a return trip to the top can be an expensive challenge - reneging on pay results in the ogres letting the lift run free, for a crashing fall to the third floor; the lift platform tends to survive, but those on it rarely do.  Third level denizens that hear the crash dispose of them.

This leaves undead as the only 'standards' this first level is missing.  Barring a mixed group of cultists and undead, undead are unlikely to be encountered outside of a sublevel off level one.  Skeletons, zombies, ghouls, shadows, and a wight can all be found.  It being BX, the wight or ghouls might account for the whole party.  The Chaos clerics that will inevitably be nearby provide an enemy that won't relentlessly pursue the PCs due to morale.

Ah, morale rules.  Another gem of a rule that can be easily ported to newer editions of the game.  The details can be found on page B27, but the short form is that dice indicate if monsters surrender, run, or fight to the death, checked and modified as needed by rules.  Whether or not your DM counts these as 'defeating the enemy' for XP purposes is another reason why GP for XP is a better system.

I'll round things out on this first level with some monsters that have morphed over time into living traps or dungeon hazards, notably yellow mold and green slime.  My mood will dictate under which category they fall - trap or monster.

So far, the meazels are the only oddballs to a BX game.  I can customize some of the undead in the sublevel (and throughout the dungeon) using Dyson's Uniquely Undead to surprise players.  I'm thinking I'll save custom creatures for lower levels, taking advantage of specials to keep the sense of wonder for players.

All these static lairs are contrasted against wandering monster tables, but that is another post.

Monday MtG: Decks on the Horizon

We actually got to play two weekends past, and the social aspect alone was worth the time.  Seeing some of my revamped decks do their victorious thing was icing on the cake.

Of course, nothing I personally piloted won, but Sygg and Phenax did, the latter twice.  Some of the new mill cards are brutal, especially against players that don't run the original Eldrazi titans.  Speaking of which, Kozilek and its annihilator 4 resulted in at least one round of scoops when it dropped early game.

And people wonder why I have built exile tribal in the past.  Its because of dumb shit like this.

Anyhow, another game promises to happen later this month, so the bug has firmly bit, and the last of this year's single cards have been ordered - to include at least two that I am convinced I own, but apparently not.  I wonder if they were in the batch of cards I sold several years back.  Regardless, these decks are all in various planning stages:

Zedruu the Greathearted - I've built it before, but now have Alhammarret's Archive to run alongside the goat. While there are some Good and Bad Santa tricks planned (driven by artwork), this is an excuse to run Radiate and several cards that will be dumb alongside Radiate, notably Generous Gift, Friendly Fire, Arcbond, and Fractured Identity.  Yes, I prefer a ridiculous draw that might backfire, over a clean win, any day.

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - another I have had before, but I want to run an artifact deck for awhile and this one works best for my purposes.  Another deck for Alhammarret's Archive, so this one may shift to the end of the list.

The Scarab God - zombie tribal.  This deck is probably 80% done, to include necessaries like Paradox Haze as well as pet cards, like the Drowned.  Art like that should see play more often.  

Requiescat In Pace, Quinton Hoover - you had a gift for drawing and colors.

The Scorpion God - once cards leave standard, they often drop to more affordable levels.  The cards from Amonkhet have reached that point, so now they are buildable by me.  Plus, draw in the command zone is a good thing.

Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - she was all the rage a few years back, but now its my turn.  BG is one of my favorite color schemes, if only for the synergy of Perilous Forays and Bloodghast.  Too bad the key snake card - Seshiro the Anointed - is nearly $20.  Beyond Hapatra, it slips neatly into Xyris and Kaseto decks - two more decks I'd like to build one day.  

Xyris, the Writhing Storm - wheel and snake tribal! Tokens! The perfect excuse to pick up Growing Rites of Italmoc, because Gaea's Cradle is long gone and forever beyond budget.  Damn! Growing Rites is (unsurprisingly) $30ish.  

Zurgo Helmsmasher - I already own Worldslayer and some instants that make my team indestructible, so why not?  In the end, Zurgo is definitely a 'win through commander damage' commander who needs haste to survive.  Plus, I don't know that I have ever played this color scheme before, so that alone may push the construction of this deck up in priorities.  

A small part of me wonders if finding a BRG Commander (Thantis Warweaver, maybe) to run The Scorpion God and Hapatra and all their -1/-1 tricks might be worth it, or if they need to be in the command zone for the tricks to truly work.  I do know that there is heavy overlap in the black -1/-1 cards, so I can only have one built at a time.  This would let me run Destructive Flow, which has always excited me with its possibilities.  

Then again, making use of partners or Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder to run Destructive Flow alongside the various blue methods of copying enchantments and upkeeps.  

Which leads me to reconsider how I store my unused commanders.  There are more than a few commanders that are niche enough that the only reason I own certain cards is to support those commanders.  This won't really hamper my current color-storage method, as I skim past those cards, anyhow.  

These are the MtG plans for the next year or two.  

I'd rather be playing D&D, but that requires a more reliable schedule than I can provide.

(Re-)Stocking the Megadungeon: Traps

Obligatory Admiral Ackbar meme:

That out of the way, let's talk traps.  As pointed out here, my 100-area dungeon level would have about 14 traps scattered about; 6 with treasures and 8 without.

It is easy to view traps as arbitrary damage, and there was a time when that is how most of mine were, dealing damage to the tune of 1d6 times the dungeon level, so when the first level PCs ventured to the 3rd level, the door trap (rolling well) of 3d6 killed one PC outright (sorry, Jake).  Everyone else ran.

Traps aren't just for killing and maiming, however.  Capturing, detouring, and party-splitting traps work well regardless of dungeon - or PC - level.  Sometimes traps can both kill and force a detour; a multi-ton ceiling stone may crush an unlucky soul and will block the easy way back to the sunlight.  

I like these types of traps because they don't and often can't directly kill or even hurt PCs.  What traps like these do is force a change of session objective.  Regardless of what the initial plan was, PCs now must find a way out.  Cages, chutes to lower levels, floors dropping to pools, portculli falling, and the like all contribute to a change in environment and a change of mission.  So there will be one or two of these among 14.

Yes.  This is from the boardgame Dungeon.

If the dungeon is an active one, and I am thinking it will be, then some traps may already be sprung or triggered when the PCs find them.  Open pits, spears already jutting from walls or floors, perhaps with an unlucky soul upon/within them, things of this nature.  They still pose a problem, but a nonfatal one.

As this is intended to be a starter level, the truly nasty traps must be few and primarily protecting treasure.  Poison needles in the locks, contact poison on the items, or crushing blocks, for example.  Of course, this means these particular treasures are the ones PCs and players actually want.  Good stuff.  High GP value and magic items.

But not all of the traps with treasure will be like this.  A few - 2 of the 6 - will be incidental treasures from past victims of the traps (small coins, small jewelry, adventuring gear, perhaps a potion or small ring).  

All told, the real trick in placing traps isn't so much what the trap is, but what the tells are for an observant PC/player to take advantage of.  If your ruleset has perception, these tells are the things a PC's good perception score or roll reveals (because a good DM should never baldly state, 'you see a trap'): evidence that a trap is there so that players can make a meaningful decision.

To quote Bastionland's definition of traps, a good trap features at least one part that is immediately visible, allows interaction and investigation, and has impactful consequences for the victim.  Doing this makes dice rolling, well, not irrelevant, but a final step, not a first, or only one.  

Visible tripwires, past victims, strange smells or sounds, rubble or grease in odd places, off-color stones, small holes, scrapes or even runners, whatever else seems fitting, depending on the trap: these are all examples of what PCs might encounter as tells.

I don't know that this post would garner Grimtooth's stamp of approval, but, like Admiral Ackbar, discussions of dungeon traps are incomplete without at least mentioning the venerable Grimtooth.  His books (or pdfs) contain a plethora of fiendish traps.

Note that there is a fine line between specials and some traps, so if the final key plusses up one at the expense of another, so be it.  

All I know is that I'll be a happy trapper.

(Re-)Stocking the Megadungeon: Empty

Once again, I am between campaigns, and once again, the urge to craft a megadungeon settles upon me.

I've done a bit of logistical planning of this current incarnation of my megadungeon, and have already determined that the first level, or entrance level, will feature 100 encounter areas.  Not rooms or chambers, necessarily, but areas.  In the end, it boils down to the same thing.

Filling those 100 areas is easier than it seems, if only because I lean on this table from Moldvay's Basic:

Others have done the math breaking down likelihood of various combinations over 100 dice rolls, but I'll summarize:

6 traps 'guarding' treasure

8 traps

8 unguarded treasures

12 monsters

16 specials

17 monsters with treasure

and 33 areas are empty.  

For the uninitiated, empty doesn't mean empty, it simply means the empty area contains no specified monster, special, trap, or treasure.  Veteran players should be automatically suspicious of a truly empty - devoid of dust and debris - chamber or room.  And rightfully so, as that suggests a monster, a trap, or a poorly conceived illusion.

This means that empty areas can be used for other purposes beyond burning resources and garnering additional wandering monster checks, especially if said area is a larger corridor or chamber with multiple entrances.  These empty rooms can provide respite if defensible and out of the way, or fallback positions in case of PC retreat.  If well-hidden behind secret doors, empty rooms might even be turned into waystations and resupply points by canny PCs.

Mostly, though, these empty rooms can - and should - be used to build up the history and reality of the megadungeon.  Use these rooms to let PCs discover evidence of past explorers, current denizens, or ancient mysteries.  This becomes simpler once the Monsters are (mostly) decided upon and placed, but sometimes these empty rooms can feed into those entries, instead.

Imagine discovering the shed skin of a snake that is apparently 30' feet or more longer.  Then later catching a distinct reptilian smell in the air.  

Other discoveries like large bloody footprints, a burned out fire and discarded food remnants, monster, animal, or adventurer scat, broken weapons and armor, and/or torch and candle stubs all tell a story.  Forgotten or lost useful items (although these may overlap with the Treasure or Special entries) are always welcomed by the magpie adventurers.  

Graffiti is another fine way of giving life (and occasional clues) to your world, as reading 'watch the water that is not water, and beware the basilisk' warns of potential dangers, while 'kilroy was here' warns of rival adventurers (or history-obsessed DMs).

Kalman is no Bargle, but he is still a threat.  Maybe he dwells within the dungeon alongside the graffiti.

Of course, sometimes random is better than design, so a custom table of dungeon detritus and dressing can be rolled on, or one of the published or online forms can be used.  

What all this means is that these 'empty' rooms may need keyed, as well, even if only with a one- or two-sentence description of what is there or just a few words or drawings on the map itself.  Yet empty rooms cannot be keyed if they are not there, so incorporate empty rooms to your dungeons, if only to further emphasize the Exploration pillar of D&D.  Besides, without empty rooms, it can be difficult to show the sheer size of the megadungeon in game.

The Art of Skimming in D&D

In real life, nobody likes a thief.  But in RPGs, players often play as thieves of some sort, either through action or character class.  Violent thieves, at that.

Dungeon Masters Guide, 1979

Even if you've never played alongside a sticky-fingered thief of a PC (thieving players are a different discussion), you've likely heard or read the stories.  The greedy thief scouts ahead, finds some sweet loot, pockets it, and keeps it all for themselves.  The other players get upset, and the game may end for one or all.

"It's what my character would do!" is often the thief player's defense, because many times, the other players are well aware of what has gone on, even if their PCs are oblivious.  The trouble with this defense, aside from it being code for "I want to be a dick," is that in a game based on fictional violence, where the PCs are violent people solving problems through violence, "it's what my character would do" is exactly why killing the troublesome thief would happen, likely sooner than later.

In games where XP comes from GP, this is moves from being a venial sin to a cardinal sin, as no player enjoys having their XP stolen from their PCs.  

Still, thieves are a necessary evil when there are traps to be disarmed and locks to be picked, and arguably moreso when the black market and sketchy shopkeepers are needed to buy or fence items of questionable provenance.  So players continue to play thieves (or rogues, if you prefer).

We know that thieves will be thieves, and treasure won't steal itself, so if this is how you're gonna play your thief, keep the skimming to just that: skimming.  

1. Don't claim all the hidden treasure, just a bit of it.  Players will let this slide because they are still getting part of it.  If nothing else, this will allay suspicion.

2. Don't claim the magic items, especially the ones you cannot use - odds are good the DM put it there for a reason and your selfishness getting the other PCs killed, while in character, can result in hard feelings.

3. Don't always skim, especially if being watched.  Disarm the trap, pick the lock, and back away.  Any time you're rolling the dice (like some form of skill or ability contest against other PCs) you risk losing and getting caught.

Magic Item: Goblet of Apsethus

The Goblet of Apsethus

This silver and bone goblet is fashioned from the skull of a long-ago wizard.  Close inspection reveals miniscule runes within the cup portion of the goblet and within the skull itself.  Detect magic reveals transmutation and necromancy auras.

Drinking a full cup of wine from the goblet restores one spell slot to the drinker.  It is possible to regain multiple spell slots this way, but the drinker will end up quite drunk by the end of that ordeal, as the goblet transforms the wine into a more potent vintage due to mixing in magic.

Drinking a full cup of blood from the goblet transforms the drinker into a ghoul, a vampire, or a werewolf (DM choice).  It can be an instant change or a slow-rolled reveal, as historical details are vague and few.  In my campaign world, this means becoming an NPC.

Drinking a potion from the goblet has variable effects.  1-2 the potion is maximized and of double duration.  3-4 the potion becomes a random potion of normal duration. 5 the potion becomes permanent.  6 the potion becomes a particularly nasty poison. 

Drinking anything from the goblet results in the drinker having strange dreams.  Apsethus, the wizard whose skull was used in the creation of the goblet, comes to the drinker in dreams.  Above all else, Apsethus craved immortality and wanted to become a god.  While the latter didn't happen (yet?), the former did, somewhat, and this fact gives Apsethus hope.  

In the dreams, Apsethus visits the drinker and provides council and information, in exchange for small tasks accomplished in the waking world.  These tasks, Apsethus believes, will eventually result in his godhood.  On occasion, the tasks involve parrots.  Information Apsethus provides can lead to the dreamer gaining more corporeal power (treasure hunts and answers to puzzles and occasionally learning a new spell of the DMs choice).

Filling the cup with holy water causes an explosion destroying the Goblet and releasing an angry Apsethus (in ghost-wizard form).  Granted, the explosion deals necrotic, fire, and shrapnel damage, as well as a final transmutative wave of magic, wherein all in a 30' radius save or are forever changed.

Apsethus is unaffected by the transmutative wave, but is forever bound to the area the goblet was destroyed in - unless all the pieces of the goblet are found and reconstructed (probably via mending) by someone living.  Until that happens, Apsethus has immediate revenge on whomever destroys his goblet and then waits to convince someone to collect and assemble the pieces.

Oracles in the Megadungeon

A good megadungeon includes people beings to speak with.  Item 5 on the Dungeon Checklist even tells us as much.  While factions and rival adventuring parties are inevitable and useful sources of local and limited information, it is the weird denizens scattered throughout the levels that are most useful, both for information and entertaining play at the table.

Cassandra can tell you, being an accurate soothsayer ain't all cakes and roses.  Sometimes, all you can do is make your predictions and watch them be ignored.  Right, Julius?

So here are four such oracles and an honorable mention.

1. An intelligent mimic in the shape of a statue, located at a busy intersection on level 2.  Observant players/PCs notice that the statue slowly grows and shifts appearance between encounters.  Mostly it lives off of vermin and lone dungeon wanderers.  It will happily trade information for food (it is partial to fresh goblins and has a sweet tooth, but in the end isn't that picky).  While it speaks broken common, it doesn't have much of a vocabulary (but can learn) and communicates more by numbers (1, 2, many), rough size, how many legs things traveled on, and how they taste and smell.  This can help regarding monster taste.

2. There is a high-ceilinged square chamber on the 3rd level that has one entrance.  Suspended from the ceiling in the center of the room is a large cage that ends about 3 feet off the floor.  Seated in a lotus-position within the cage, among pillows, books, and what appears to be a bottle or two, is a being wearing simple robes.  The being within appears as a bald, clean-shaven human male.  He sits facing the entrance, and motions the PCs closer, holding a hand to his ear to suggest he cannot hear them from the doorway (which is a lie, as he can hear them just fine). His name is Asklepios, and he spends much of his immortality projecting astrally through the dungeon, watching and learning.  The cage keeps him alive indefinitely, but it doesn't prevent him from wanting creature comforts, such as good wine, tobacco, lotus, and books - offering any of these in trade can provide better answers than not offering them.   He is fond of telling dungeon delvers 'if you have a question, just Ask lepios!' before laughing at his own joke.

Note that Asklepios is a bit of a dick, partially due to temperament, partially due to boredom, occasionally because he is drunk.  Because of this, Asklepios enjoys baiting entire parties to close with him and then he wills the floor away.  

Beneath the chamber is a long drop to a cold dark pondish-lake on the 5th level (bugbears lair nearby and listen for splashes). PCs that survive his 'little joke' and return get some free answers; those that don't provide Asklepios some entertainment as they vainly try to find a way back in the dark.  The bottom of that lake has a large quantity of empty wine bottles.

Despite all this, Asklepios knows LOTS about the megadungeon; whether or not he shares information with the PCs depends on how much they amuse (or bribe) him.

3.  Elsewhere on the 2nd level is a rectangular room. The side walls feature rainbow-hued tiles spanning all 40' of the walls that slowly move as the PCs watch.  Asking a question aloud nets an answer of sorts as the colored tiles fly off the walls and begin to spin around in the center of the chamber (like the school of moonfish in the movie Finding Nemo), to form shapes that answer the question asked.  The mural is NOT all-knowing, so forming a question mark is possible.  After answering 2d4+3 questions, the tiles fly back to the wall and become dormant, turning grey in color.  They won't wake until next session.  Some adventurers report that the tiles have a voice, but that is unverified.

4.  The face on the floor.  He's hungry, his mouth is large enough to swallow your foot (and he will keep your footwear) or a halfling, but mostly he's lonely.  No magic yet has determined where the things Face consumes go, but once somethin is gone, it tends to stay gone. Regardless, Face is bound to this chamber on the 4th floor, but can move about the floor and tries to position himself near whichever entrance (there are several) has noise coming from it.

Of all these oracles, Face is most likely to lie and spin tales to keep people there and talking to him.  If attacked, Face squinches his eyes shut and holds his breath until he turns blue.  Then he disappears, until the next session, at least.  

(My inspiration comes from the Grimjack comic book, where there is a face on the floor of at Munden's Bar (I'm thinking that Munden's Bar should - at least sometimes - open up to Skara Brae).  But a Google search turned up lots of references to 'the face on the barroom floor' that are far older than Grimjack.)

The honorable mention is the Brazen Head from the Holmes Sample Dungeon (1977), room I on page 43.  I won't lie, this oracle is on the first floor of my megadungeon, and its booming voice can be heard echoing through the halls (attracting wandering monsters) whenever it speaks.  Control of this head (as it is one question per day, not one question per asker per day) may yet turn that area into a siege environment.

So, in closing, provide a means to answer PC/player questions, as secrets aren't much fun if nobody learns them.