100 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive NOAH BRADLEY GHOST TOWER OF INVERNESS The four outer towers of Castle Inverness still stand above its ruins. They lean at different angles like tombstones guarding neglected graves, jutting from the ivy-choked rubble that was once the walls of a mighty fortress. Castle Inverness is one of the three infamous “ghost towers” of the Nentir Vale, but unlike the other two, it is not merely a focus for the activities of undead. On certain nights, when the fog rises as high as the old walls’ tops, moonlight seems to strike something in the mist. Clouds take shape, drifting around a huge yet unseen object between the four towers. Then, suddenly, the luminous cylindrical tower of the central keep stands once again, jutting boldly into the sky, defying death and time. When clouds skirt across the moon’s face, the Ghost Tower’s image wavers. And when the moon is fully obscured, the tower vanishes into shadows and mist. The fog flows freely once more, and the apparition vanishes until some other bewitched evening. Few willingly draw near this accursed place. Even without the appearance of the Ghost Tower, Castle Inverness has long been shunned by the locals. The legends of its tyrannical rise, and of the supernatural perils that remain after its fall, are still the stuff of bard song and tavern tales. Tales say that in elder days the great fortress called Inverness gave its lord mastery over all land that could be surveyed from its high central keep, and twice that distance beyond the bounds of mortal vision. The walls of this castle were proof against every enemy and all things magical or natural. In it dwelled the great wizard Galap-Dreidel at the height of his glory. He had lifted the keep from the bedrock to make a kingdom of others’ lands for himself. When lords and royals came to challenge his claim, Galap-Dreidel’s spells struck them down long before they could even see Castle Inverness. Thus were the boundaries of Galap-Dreidel’s lands discerned. Most grand and terrible of all Galap-Dreidel’s work was the keep’s great inner tower where the wizard’s most prized possession, an eldritch jewel known only as the Soul Gem, was said to rest. Legend says that it was like a great white diamond that glowed with the brilliance of the sun. In years long past it had fallen from the sky and landed in the foothills, where Galap-Dreidel discovered it. Through magic most arcane and knowledge forbidden to mortals Moonlight reveals the central tower of the ancient wizard’s fortress
101GHOST TOWER OF INVERNESS CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive did he shape the stone to his will. Stories say that the light of the gem dragged souls screaming from their mortal flesh and trapped them within its many facets. They also claim that whoever controlled the gem could call forth the stolen souls and make them do his or her bidding. Galap-Dreidel harnessed this power and used it against those who opposed his will. To protect the Soul Gem, Galap-Dreidel raised up the great central tower and filled his castle with horrible creatures and traps. Then, using a great incantation, he wrested the tower from the fabric of time so that those within would not be affected by the passage of years. Thus his traps never deteriorated, nor did his guardians age or need food. Some legends tell that he even taught the gem to protect itself from those who would take it from him. Of course, his creatures still had need of amusem*nt, so at times Galap-Dreidel would take a prisoner from the surrounding lands and set the victim free in the tower for their sport. A time came when Galap-Dreidel left his keep and did not return. When at last it seemed safe to assume that the wizard was not coming back, a mob of superstitious people from the surrounding lands laid siege to the castle. Without the wizard to protect it, its walls fell before the force of their rage, and they even threw down the great tower. Despite this victory over their former master, people feared the ruins—for on foggy nights the keep seemed to return. Did the old magic and monsters also return, or perhaps the ghost of Galap-Dreidel himself? No one knows for certain, but that’s what the bards seem to suggest. In recent years, the infamy of Inverness has grown, causing storytellers to once more recount the old tales of its rise and fall. Heedless or ignorant of those stories, a group of settlers built a village within the area encompassed by the four towers. This irreverence eventually prompted a ghost to approach the gates of the village, but even the dire warning of that spirit could not shake the fools from their convictions. THE GHOST TOWER, PAST AND PRESENT “You are hereby granted title to, and ownership of, any and all treasures (save only the Soul Gem) that you remove from Keep Inverness and its grounds. These gains shall be subject to the Ducal treasure tariff of 20%.” With these words, the adventure begins for players of the 1980 module The Ghost Tower of Inverness, by Allen Hammack. That publication was preceded by a tournament version that one could purchase only at WinterCon VIII in 1979 in a zip bag containing 40 loose-leaf pages. But even in its more professionally published form, the adventure’s tournament pedigree was on full display. Discussions of scoring the players’ efforts riddle the adventure text, which presents an oftentimes nonsensical dungeon full of desperation-inducing challenges. Instead of puzzles that players might figure out and solve, many rooms plunged them into life-threatening situations without any rhyme or reason. The players succeeded due to luck and sheer determination, or their characters died. Since then, the Ghost Tower of Inverness has appeared from time to time in various products. Most recently, it was featured in the D&D Encounters™ season March of the Phantom Brigade. In that adventure, the party travels with a group of would-be settlers to the ruined Castle Inverness, only to be attacked by spirits led by the ghost of someone who was killed while exploring the ruins. Continuing the Story What remains in the ruins of Castle Inverness is not clear from the legend, but even if the keep is gone, the four outer towers yet stand, and dungeons might lie beneath the rubble. Given the frightening appearance of the tower, and the penchant for the other ghost towers of the Nentir Vale to attract undead, you’re unlikely to face living foes in the ruins. Prepare yourself for battling undead, but keep in mind that a great wizard built the place and supposedly set it apart from time. If the ghostly reappearance of the central keep is more than a mere haunting, the traps and monsters originally placed there by Galap-Dreidel might still exist. Summoned foes and enthralled minions of any kind could await more victims for sport. No recent stories mention the Soul Gem, so that dreadful artifact might still be protecting itself. If you seek the Soul Gem, do so on a foggy but moonlit night when very few clouds are in the sky, just to be on the safe side. Otherwise, you risk becoming unstuck in time along with the tower, only to emerge months or even years later. t e t ld did he shape the stone to his will. Stories say that A time came when Galap-Dreidel left his keep and NESS
102 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive Within a fortnight thereafter, an army of phantoms overran the village of Inverness, setting buildings ablaze with spectral fire and slitting throats with intangible blades. Background: Inverness Survivor You were there when the ghost of Salazar Vladistone demanded single combat with Brother Splintershield, the leader of the Inverness settlement. You watched as Brother Splintershield smugly renounced the spirit’s claim to the place from inside the boundary of the cleansing ritual he had performed. You had heard some of the stories about the ghost towers of the Nentir Vale, and denying the ghost didn’t seem right, with it standing there before you all. Deeply unsettled by the encounter, you left thinking that something bad was going to happen. You were right. On a cold midwinter night you awoke to screams of terror, and you didn’t have to wait long to understand why. Several ghosts of soldiers came through your walls and ordered you to leave. They needn’t have bothered—the sight alone of the terrible apparitions had you scurrying for the exit. Some in your village tried to fight, but to no avail. Their pitchforks and swords passed harmlessly through the spirits, while the ghosts’ spectral weapons slashed your friends’ bodies. Phantom arrows flickering with pale flames ignited real fires in the buildings. Hot blood steamed on icy ground. You fled with many others, and in the days of travel that followed, more died from starvation, sickness, exhaustion, and cold. With each new corpse in a grave dug shallow in frost-hardened ground, your desire for vengeance grew. You were lucky; you survived the ordeal. But how can you take revenge on the dead? When you got back to civilization, you resolved to find out. Associated Skill: Arcana, Nature, or Religion. Feat: Haunted Your encounter with the spectral undead has haunted you with more than nightmares and terror. Somehow you seem to have acquired a spirit other than your own. You know you’re not possessed. The ghost inside seems to be more of a passenger, subtly guiding you with feelings, drawing your attention to peculiar things, and occasionally warning you of danger. It has never spoken, and sometimes it doesn’t seem to be there at all, but you know you aren’t imagining. You are not mad. You’re not. Prerequisite: 21st level Benefit: When you make a Perception check or an Insight check, you can roll twice and use either result. THE LOST CITY The city lay bejeweled and soft under the sun, winedrunk and sated by plentiful fields. Those who might call themselves its enemy felt no hate for it, only envy and lust. Its beauty captured even the hearts of some gods, binding them to it so that they would be worshiped by no others. It was called Cynidicea, Jewel of the Desert, and it is still out there somewhere, buried beneath the sands. Legend has it that Cynidicea’s last and greatest king was a wise leader named Alexander. Under his stewardship, the harsh desert became fecund and pliable. The citizens of Cynidicea played beneath the groaning boughs of fruitful orchards, luxuriated in seductive pools of limpid water, danced over the black earth of verdant fields, and slept deeply, knowing that they were loved by their three patron gods. When King Alexander at last died, his queen, Zenobia, and the other Cynidiceans turned their tear-streaked faces skyward and built a great tomb to bring their beloved leader closer to the gods. A mighty ziggurat, it reached one hundred feet into the air, and atop it stood statues of the three gods of Cynidicea, each holding up its hands, urging Alexander’s spirit onward. As long as Cynidicea’s people looked to the heavens, all was well, but in the process of expanding the sacred tomb, they also delved downward into the darkness beneath the ziggurat. There they awoke something terrible, a beast of hunger with an evil mind. Zargon had come to life. Despite the swords and spells of great heroes, Zargon could not be killed. The grip of its tentacles crushed the resistance of Cynidicea, and it impaled every member of the royal line upon its horn to crown itself with their blood. Only one thing could save the Cynidiceans now: surrender and sacrifice. The beast vowed that if they were supplicant before Zargon and offered their lives to him, the beast would spare the city and enable it to prosper once more. Supplicate themselves they did, and Zargon lived up to his vile words, but the city did not truly return to its former glory. The Cynidiceans fell into hedonistic behavior, holding wild feasts celebrated with savage glee. Embarrassed by their bestial behavior when control of their faculties returned, they began to wear masks during such debauchery so that others might not know them. Eventually the masks became the faces others recognized, but by then the Cynidiceans could not even remember feeling shame. Its fields untended, orchards gone wild, pools stagnant, and walls unguarded, Cynidicea was ripe to fall. The barbarian horde that came to claim it found insensate citizens lying in the street. The barbarians obliged them with a different kind of oblivion and razed the city in their search for wealth.
103THE LOST CITY CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive They stole little, because Cynidicea took its riches to the grave: Most of its citizens had already moved beneath the tomb to serve Zargon in the depths. There the barbarians would not go. They left behind a dead city, and the unfettered desert buried its bones. The ziggurat is out there somewhere, too great or too terrible for the sands to swallow entirely. No doubt the Cynidiceans’ wealth too remains within its bowels, though what is left of the people or of Zargon none can say for certain. Background: Blessed of Zargon You were born to die. You have the sign of Zargon upon your brow—a birthmark that represents his horn—and your flesh is his food. You were raised in the mad, masked society of the Lost City, your life degenerated into a haze of animal frenzy and ignorant zealotry. When the time came for you to at last meet your dark god, you felt fear and doubt for the first time. That fear gave you strength—strength enough to disobey and run. Your flight to the surface is a poorly remembered nightmare. Your head at last cleared when you removed the mask from your pale face and raised your awestruck eyes to the sun for the first time. You wandered in a trackless wasteland for days before a band of desert nomads found you, and they were kind. They took you to a distant city and introduced you to a world you could never have imagined. Yet in dreams you still see the golden-masked priests and the blood-red eye of the god that marked you as his own. In your head you hear Zargon’s terrible voice, and in your heart you feel the bestial urges of the Lost City’s perpetual carnival. To your knowledge, no sacrifice has ever escaped Zargon’s maw. Surely the Cynidiceans will come for you. Surely you must some day return to the Lost City. Zargon has marked you as his own. Associated Skill: Dungeoneering or Endurance. THE LOST CITY, PAST AND PRESENT The Lost City saw its first and most famous incarnation in 1982 as a Basic D&D adventure of the same name by Tom Moldvay. The dungeon in the ziggurat was detailed room by room as in a typical module, but the underground city of the Cynidiceans was described in broader terms. The intent was to help DMs create their own adventure in the depths, with some inspiration. And did it ever! For most people who played The Lost City, the dungeon in the ziggurat was only the appetizer to the feast that was ruined Cynidicea. The city was described in Dragon 315 in “Mystara: The Lost City,” and an adventure in Dungeon 142, “Masque of Dreams,” took characters to the brink of entering the ziggurat. Zargon and the Cynidiceans received 3rd Edition interpretations in the Elder Evils™ supplement. Continuing the Story If you’re going to explore the Lost City, you’ll need to find it first. Ancient maps roughly place it in the desert (perhaps south of some mountains and east of another still-extant realm), but unless you like desert wandering, you’ll need better directions. Perhaps the barbarians who raided the place have passed down knowledge of its location. Legend says they were known as the Heldann, but do they still go by that name? Do they even exist now? When you set out for the ruins, prepare for a long desert journey as well as the hardships involved in delving into a dungeon beneath the sands. Lots of food and water are of paramount importance, and if you expect to haul out all the treasure of the city, make sure you have a way to bring it home. Consider hiring camels and experienced desert travelers as guides who will wait for your return after you enter the ziggurat. Once in the dungeon, be especially wary of traps. The Cynidiceans haven’t been seen in the sun for hundreds of years, so they clearly didn’t intend to leave the ziggurat and have probably warded it against raiders. Undead are also likely in such a place. And, if Zargon still exists, no stories say how the great beast can be killed. enough to disobey and run. as but of de te to th th in e w C t t
104 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive ADAM PAQUETTE PYRAMID OF AMUN-RE Those who travel the Desert of Desolation know to avoid the Ragged Man, a thin apparition that wanders the dunes clad only in rags. This creature is the spirit of Pharaoh Amun-Re. From a distance it does not acknowledge any sight or sound, but when someone foolishly draws near, the specter suddenly clutches at that person and moans its message, not releasing the listener until it has finished. “I am Amun-Re, son of Takosh-Re of the house of Mo-Pelar. That which you see is but my shadow, which has walked these lands for time uncounted in search of mighty heroes of valor, to plead their aid. “In my time was I Pharaoh of this land now before you. Then, Bakar was a green and beautiful land, blessed by the gods of Heaven Westward with the wondrous spring of Athis, which gave life to our land and nurtured our crops. Yet robbers did raid the tombs of my forefathers and take from them tokens of their passage into the lands of the dead, thus keeping them from their reward after life. I swore that, at all costs, I would not fall prey to their evil deeds. “So it was that I made mighty and terrible war upon my neighbors, plundering their lands of wealth for my own passage. I did enter a contract with a great mage to work a mighty wonder, and, upon the sweat and blood of my people, I did build a theft-proof tomb. “My people turned against me with bitter hatred. I not only robbed our borderlands but taxed grievously my own people. They rose up in anger, demanding their gold and gems, their lives and freedom. “I cursed them, saying, ‘By the ruling staff and the Star Gem of Mo-Pelar, I curse you. Threaten not my life, or by them and by the holy name of Osiris, will the stopping of my heart also stop the Spring of Athis from her life-giving flow. As the river slows and dies, so shall your land wither in the wilderness. This do I swear by Osiris’s holy name and these implements of my power.’ “From the sea of upraised fists before me, rose one with a spear. The shaft sped from the darkness, and so too that night did the Spring of Athis stop its flow. “In death, my spirit gleefully approached my pyramid. But Osiris stopped my spirit from entering that tomb, for, said he, ‘Your monument to life was to be the benefit you brought to the people under your stewardship, not this edifice of stone. As you looked only to your death in life, so shall you look only to your life in death. I am bound to fulfill your curse, for you have called it down with power in my name. But I do curse you as well, Amun-Re. You shall not enter this tomb where the implements are of your voyage to heaven until some mortal soul does despoil this place, The desert sands hide the lost tomb of a cursed pharaoh
105PYRAMID OF AMUN-RE CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive taking your staff of ruling and the Star Gem of Mo-Pelar from your theft-proof tomb.’ “Even have I talked with the wind in hope of help. Uncounted seasons have passed, and my kingdom is not now to be seen in these desert lands. Of it nothing remains save for my tomb, which stands now as then, untouched by time, sands, wind, or any living one. Though many have tried to plunder my wealth, none has succeeded, and I am forbidden passage to the afterlife until one succeeds. “My wealth is thine if thou can but best that which I have built. Remove both my staff of ruling and the Star Gem from my tomb. So then will you gain great wealth, and so then will you release me. Follow my path to wealth or woe, to thy destiny or thy doom.” After this Amun-Re says nothing else, but he dogs the steps of those who heard his message, pointing to someplace far away through the wasted landscape— a location that was once his home and should be his resting place. Thus do people know that the Pyramid of Amun-Re lies hidden somewhere in the sands, and that his treasures remain untouched. PYRAMID OF AMUN-RE, PAST AND PRESENT The adventure that puts characters on the path to the Pyramid of Amun-Re starts with them being accused of a crime they did not commit and threatened with death unless they seek out the fortress of raiders in the desert. But the threat is a little . . . quirky. “And, whereas those persons did attain entry to said residence and did short-sheet the wizard’s bed and do all manner of petty pranks and did leave for the wizard a certain maid for an alleged date with said wizard; “And, whereas said wizard did return to said residence with yet another wench, whereupon both the first and the second did begin a loud commotion and disturbance the like of which has never before shaken this stately court and upset the wizard to no end...” Published in 1982, Pharaoh was the first Egyptian-themed D&D adventure. It appeared on shelves a year after Raiders of the Lost Ark, but that timing was coincidental. The adventure had been written and self-published a few years earlier by Laura and Tracy Hickman for locals in Utah. Soon after, a business partnership went poorly and, driven into bankruptcy, Tracy sent the modules to TSR, Inc., “so that I could buy shoes for my children.” But TSR didn’t want just the module—it wanted Tracy as well. Pharaoh became the first in the Desert of Desolation series, which also included Oasis of the White Palm and Lost Tomb of Martek. The three adventures were collected in 1987 in the Desert of Desolation compilation, at which point the series was placed in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting in the desert of Raurin. Continuing the Story If you intend to explore the place, Amun-Re will lead you to his tomb, but first you must encounter his spirit, and then you must follow it for days or weeks to reach your goal. A magical means of producing food and water might serve you better than a dozen camels carrying your gear. In life Amun-Re acted as a god-king, a mortal member of the pantheon that included Osiris. He was punished by that pantheon, but those gods vanished with the pharaoh’s civilization. Perhaps they took new names and still act as deities, or perhaps they died; in either case, they stopped answering the prayers of the people inhabiting the growing wasteland that became the Desert of Desolation. Despite this abandonment, some worshipers still hold the ancient sites holy. Known only as dervishes by outsiders, these people protect ruins throughout the Desert of Desolation. Since Amun-Re still seeks someone to plunder his tomb, the dervishes must be protecting it. From their point of view, the law of the gods is absolute—even after death. Osiris punished Amun-Re, and he must stay punished. Within the pyramid, you are unlikely to find many living foes except those that are immortal or elemental. No doubt it is trapped, likely in ways meant to seal in thieves as well as lock them out. Prepare for undead monsters, and also consider magical ways to extract yourselves if things start looking grim. If the pyramid contains a mummy (which seems a good bet) you should be concerned about mummy rot. The infection claims the lives of most victims in just a few nights and is extremely difficult to resist without magical help, so the Cure Disease ritual is essential. If you don’t have someone who can reliably perform the ritual from a book, purchase many scrolls. You’ll know when someone is infected: Healing, even from divine magic, has less effect than normal. and a l dis wh sh an no P E a o R i id t PY built. Remove both my staff of ruling and the Star Gem that his treasures remain untouched. PYRAMID OF AMUN RE PAST AND PRESENT
106 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN Search ye far or search ye near, You’ll find no trace of the three Unless you follow instructions clear, For the weapons abide with me. North past forest, farm, and furrow You must go to the feathered mound Then down away from the sun you’ll burrow— Forget life, forget light, forget sound. To rescue Wave, you must do battle With the Beast in the Boiling Bubble. Crost cavern vast, where chain-links rattle Lies Whelm, past waterspouts double. Blackrazor yet remains to be won Underneath inverted ziggurat. That garnered, think not that you’re done, For now you’ll find you are caught. I care not, former owners brave, What heroes you seek to hire. Though mighty, I’ll make each one my slave Or send him to the fire. —K It happened in one night. Three of the mightiest weapons known to humanity vanished from the vaults and strongboxes of the people who claimed ownership of them. The owners scoured their homes for hidden places where the weapons might have been concealed. Neglectful guards and suspicious servants found their necks on the headman’s block or in the grip of nooses. Bounty hunters filled their purses by rounding up known and suspected thieves. When the three owners discovered their shared plight, they took stock of their common foes and sent assassins to take revenge on those individuals. Still, no trace of the weapons—the hammer known as Whelm, the trident called Wave, and the infamous soul-rending sword, Blackrazor—appeared. Only when the owners relented and offered outlandish rewards for the weapons’ return did a clue come forth. Each former owner received a scroll upon which a poetic riddle had been written in a fine hand. It mentioned all three weapons by name and provided tantalizing hints to the weapons’ locations. The conceited challenge of the last six lines appeared over the sign of Keraptis, an infamous wizard thought to have died more than a millennium ago. According to bards’ tales, Keraptis ruled a kingdom, becoming ever more wicked and cruel as he grew in spellcasting prowess. One day his long-suffering people rose up to depose him. Keraptis was forced to flee but could not find refuge in any land, for he had made many enemies during his time on the throne. At last he fled into a mountain, never again to emerge. Many treasure-seekers came in answer to the posted rewards to meet with the owners, and the contents of the riddle have thus been spread far and wide—even the last six lines and the signature on the letters, which the owners often sought to hide for fear of frightening off all those who might take up the quest. They needn’t have bothered with that precaution. To most people, the “feathered mound” seems to be a reference to White Plume Mountain—and that is terrifying enough. White Plume Mountain looms over a maze of ogre-haunted moors and marshy valleys crawling with trolls. From its peak spews a great jet of water that spreads out high in the sky and falls as spray upon the mountain’s eastern slopes. Smaller vents in the mountain hurl lesser columns of fog into the air, making the peak look “feathered.” Rumor has it that Dragotha, the so-called Death Dragon, soars silent and fleshless through these mists on flights from its nearby lair. And Thingizzard, Witch of the Fens, roams the damp canyons of the lowest slopes, her cackle echoing miles from the mountain’s base. To make matters worse, White Plume Mountain has long been reputed to be the home of demons and other vile spirits. Fireside tales told in whispers speak of just one entrance into the mountain other than the crater at its peak: the Wizard’s Mouth. It is through this cave that the mountain breathes. A great sucking wind flows into the darkness, and a few faltering heartbeats later, a blast of fog moans out. Assuming that Wizard’s Mouth was just a fanciful name for the cave, people have made up all sorts of stories about it, but in fact White Plume Mountain might be the very place to which Keraptis fled 1,300 years ago. Now, it seems, he yet lives and hides in the mountain with the three treasures—or at least, someone wants people to think so. There’s only one way to find out the truth. White Plume Quests Adventurers can gain far more for braving White Plume Mountain than the rewards posted by the weapon’s owners. The following additional quests might provide compelling reasons for venturing into the Wizard’s Mouth. Whelm’s Savior: Whelm is a mighty warhammer crafted by dwarves, dedicated to the defeat of their enemies by a passionate warrior of Moradin. Surely it does not belong in the hands of those who locked it away in a vault, much less the wizard who has now
107WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive stolen it. It belongs with dwarves, and dwarves should reclaim it. Blackrazor’s Promise: Blackrazor is rumored to have many powers, but the one that interests you is its supposed ability to destroy souls. Such hunger might sound evil, but is allowing even greater evils to roam the world any better? With such a sword, you could slay vampires easily and destroy liches without fussing over a phylactery. You might even use the weapon against Keraptis himself. Who knows what other deeds you might accomplish with such a weapon? You might destroy the supposedly immortal Zargon of the Lost City (page 102) or put an end to the legendary Acererak in the Tomb of Horrors (page 108). Wave’s Tyranny: The trident Wave has one purpose: forcing others to acknowledge the primacy of the sea. All the works of elf, dwarf, human, and more are sand castles built on a beach between tides. Soon the sea will reclaim all, and the empires of the deep shall once again reign supreme. Wave might be the key to bringing this apocalypse to pass. It has championed this cause in the name of Melora and also in the name of primordials such as Solkara the Crushing Wave. In the hands of the faithful, Wave deals death or disfigurement to all who refuse to submit. This weapon could do no harm while it was secreted in its owner’s vault, but the one who holds it now taunts challengers to come and claim the weapon. Destroying the weapon is the only way to be certain it stays out of the hands of those who would drown the world. WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN, PAST AND PRESENT “White Plume Mountain was written as a sample document to persuade TSR to hire me as a game designer. I just plundered all the dungeons I’d designed over the previous four years, took out the best bits, and cobbled it all together. It worked; TSR hired me, bought the scenario, and published it as a module without changing a word. I’m a little embarrassed to this day by Blackrazor, inasmuch as it’s such a blatant rip-off of Elric’s Stormbringer; I would not have put it into the scenario if I ever thought it might be published.” — Lawrence Schick, from an interview with James Maliszewski on Grognardia.blogspot.com White Plume Mountain’s odd funhouse mix of elements made it a popular adventure after its publication in 1979, despite the fact that the characters never face Keraptis, the nominal villain of the dungeon. Nor do they learn why he stole the items from their unnamed and mysterious original owners, or why he lured adventurers to come and get them. The assumption, which has proved largely correct over the years, is that once characters get their hands on the three weapons and escape White Plume Mountain, the players don’t really care. Lawrence Schick’s original adventure was revised and expanded in 1981, and eighteen years later it received a sequel in the form of Return to White Plume Mountain. In 2005, fans of the original could get a version updated to the 3.5 rules, and since then the elements of White Plume Mountain have made sporadic appearances. The 4th Edition incarnations of Wave and Whelm appeared in The Plane Below and Open Grave, respectively, and the Thrall of Blackrazor was a miniature in the Unhallowed™ set of Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures. Continuing the Story Before you run off in pursuit of Wave, Whelm, and Black razor, it pays to learn something about their former owners. Just who are these individuals who once claimed them, and how did they come by such legendary items? Which is worth more, the rewards or the weapons? Are the owners likely to pay? If you do not relinquish such treasures, how long will you have to keep looking over your shoulder and watching the shadows for the glint of an assassin’s blade? Stealth is your best asset as you approach the mountain. Even the smoke of a cook fire might draw monsters from miles around in the moors, or pique the curiosity of Dragotha or Thingizzard. Keraptis will know soon enough once you are inside the mountain, after all—if he does yet live. The wizard (or whoever sent the notes to the owners) has some plan, perhaps one that requires heroic individuals to serve as slaves, so you should prepare by obtaining ways to guard your mind against domination. If Keraptis still exists, he might be a lich, a vampire, or some other sentient undead with spellcasting ability. Arm yourself against such creatures as a precaution, but remember that the wizard could also have living minions of any sort. ch ll kr - f D th WH TAIN ITE PLUME MOUNTAIN PAST AND PRESENT stolen it It belongs with dwarves and dwarves should the sea All the works of elf dwarf human and more
108 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive TOMB OF HORRORS Day 123 Much has happened, and my heart is sorely heavy; we lost Tiefon yesterday. Today, Grunther lost an arm. A damnable patch of green slime covered Tiefon head to foot in but an eyeblink. The dwarf didn’t even have a chance to scream before he was rendered into so much putrescent plasma. We couldn’t even recover his belongings in the mess. Never has a companion been lost to me so suddenly or so completely; we don’t even have a body for Sather to restore the soul’s connection to. To compound matters, Grunther the big warrior and Falon’s friend stuck his arm where he shouldn’t have during one of our backtracks. With a horrible scream he pulled it back, but it was completely gone, cut as if by a razor. . . . Day 124 Disaster seems to dog our every step now. It seems that with every chamber we win through by using our wits as our guide, we pay the price of another life. It is Aron to whom I allude. The archer was felled by a strange gas, and before we could retrieve him, a huge, magical juggernaut on stone rollers issued forth from a hidden door and rolled over the supine elf, crushing him to a pulp. When the gas cleared and the juggernaut retreated, we recovered the body. Sather tried her best, but the damage was too extensive; Aron’s life had permanently fled from him. Sather was heartbroken. I think she and Aron were very close, closer than the rest of us ever realized. We composed the remains as best we could, but Sather sits and stares now, and the rest of us worry about her. We shall rest another day before we attempt to persuade her to venture onward. Day 127 How arrogant of me to think that with but a hop, skip, and jump I should have delivered into my hands the singular material necessary to move on to the lost city and fortress which I seek. I should have done more research, I should have been more careful, I should not have brought my friends here to die. —From Journal of the Tomb, by Desatysso The great mage Desatysso held sway over the mountains, using his wizardry to subjugate the many giants that plodded over their peaks and crawled through TOMB OF HORRORS, PAST AND PRESENT Gary Gygax designed Tomb of Horrors for the first Origins Game Fair in 1975. “There were several very expert players in my campaign, and this was meant as yet another challenge to their skill—and the persistence of their theretofore-invincible characters. Specifically, I had in mind foiling Rob Kuntz’s PC, Robilar, and Ernie Gygax’s PC, Tenser.” The adventure quickly became infamous among D&D players for its deadly tricks. It didn’t matter how tough or skilled you were; if you weren’t cautious and clever, the dungeon got its due. In 1998, Bruce R. Cordell’s Return to the Tomb of Horrors took players back to the legendary dungeon. In it, the adventure picks up many years after Acererak is presumed to have been destroyed by adventurers going through the original Tomb of Horrors adventure. Gary Gygax wrote a foreword for the product, lauding the new adventure as “demanding” and “thrilling.” Acererak and the Tomb of Horrors have reappeared many times in the years since. In the 3rd Edition of the D&D game, Acererak made a notable appearance as a vestige that could be contacted by members of a class known as binders. Statistics for Acererak in 4th Edition appear in Open Grave. The ultimate 4th Edition expression of the Tomb of Horrors is the Tomb of Horrors book by Ari Marmell and Scott Fitzgerald Gray. This adventure takes its cue from Return to the Tomb of Horrors, building upon the history established by that adventure. Now Skull City is in ruins, and the tomb of Acererak awaits new victims to expose to its horrors, both known and unknown. Continuing the Story What can prepare you for the most deadly dungeon of them all? A healthy dose of caution. If something looks like a trap, it is—and it probably contains another trap you didn’t anticipate. If you see some mystery and are tempted to reach out and grab it, don’t. Arm yourselves with magical means of exploration and interaction that function at a distance so you won’t be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Simple powers such as mage hand can be helpful in exploring the dungeon, and the Hand of Fate ritual can help you choose between options—even if they’re both bad. Of course, you shouldn’t leave behind mundane means of safe exploration such as a ten-foot pole or a set of thieves’ tools. You might want to stash several in a bag of holding or a handy haversack. Make sure to distribute useful items such as potions among the party members, and bring along multiple sources of healing; if the cleric is suddenly disintegrated while carrying all your supplies, it won’t be long before everyone else ends up dead. Finally, take common-sense precautions against undead—a likely sort of foe, considering Skull City and Acererak’s reputation. Items that grant you resistance to necrotic damage might well be helpful. whom I allude. The archer was felled by a strange gas, and before we could retrieve him, a huge, magical juggernaut tains, using his wizardry to subjugate the many giants that plodded over their peaks and crawled through TOMB OF HORRORS PAST AND PRESENT CHAPTER 2 | St i t S i
109TOMB OF HORRORS CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive EVA WIDERMANN The Tomb of Horrors still awaits new prey their caves. When the giants thundered down into the hills and laid waste to all before their avalanche rush, people in the area knew that Desatysso was dead. But some time passed before anyone learned the truth of how he died. An embittered companion of Desatysso survived the disaster that befell the mage and kept his journal hidden for many years. When the accursed diary was at last freed from her age-gnarled grip, others discovered that Desatysso had gone into the Tomb of Horrors armed with special knowledge of its old master, the lich Acererak. Who has not heard the legends of the Tomb of Horrors, crypt of a hundred heroes? Who does not know the name of its thrice-dead master, once half-demon and half-human, then a lich, then a demilich, and finally destroyed once and for all on the cusp of achieving mastery over undeath? Who has not feared Skull City, built by necromancers around the Tomb of Horrors, home to as many of the dead as the living? These are the tales everyone hears, but where does the truth lie? Desatysso ventured into the tomb long after the lich was supposedly vanquished. Although he failed in his quest, others took up his notes and the clues he left behind. By then, Skull City had grown up around the Tomb of Horrors. Constructed by necromancers hungry for scraps of Acererak’s knowledge, the city rose in secret. It grew steadily as it attracted first spellcasters, then mercenaries and disreputable merchants, and eventually all manner of people willing to walk the streets with the undead. Those who followed Desatysso’s clues succeeded in infiltrating Skull City and entered the Tomb of Horrors. Although some died, other heroes succeeded in discovering Acererak’s plot to put himself in control of all undead. For the third time, Acererak perished. Affairs in Skull City spun out of control with the revelation of Acererak’s plot and his failure, and the city broke apart in violent infighting. The Tomb of Horrors once again was an abandoned ruin. These facts any bard can tell you, but they do not explain why lights once again flicker in the ruins of Skull City at night. Nor can they tell why copies of Desatysso’s journal appear on the shelves of booksellers without anyone noticing who put them there. Black-cowled wizards huddle with strangers who seem to sit in their own shadows, and the name Acererak is heard to pass their lips. Has the thrice-dead wizard again risen from his grave? Will the Tomb of Horrors, long thought to have been looted, once again lure bold fools with untold treasures? And if so, what new devilry has Acererak dreamed up? Backgrounds and Feats Dragon 371 presents a wealth of material for connecting your character to the Tomb of Horrors, in an article called “Legacy of Acererak.” In it you’ll find backgrounds and feats that you can use to flesh out your character’s history and his or her affiliation with the tomb, Skull City, or the strange cabal of Acererak worshipers known as the Bleak Academy.
110 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL Sometimes they thundered in like a storm, their horses churning roads into slurries of sword-spilt blood. Sometimes they crept among the people, their corruption undetected and as contagious as plague. When they came to a village seeking wealth or goods, none could resist, nor hope. When they called a name or pointed someone out, people had to choose: Surrender, and thereby gain a few more days’ breath; or resist, which meant swift death for the lucky and days of torture before execution for the rest. Unknown multitudes met their doom in the Temple of Elemental Evil. Children went to the fire. Men were drowned. Women were sacrificed to blackest evil. If you were chosen to be a slave, those fates hung over you for however long you pleased your masters, be they the ochre-robed priests or the thugs who served them. The Cult of the Elder Elemental Eye spared no one. Nobles and peasants alike saw their homes burned, families murdered, and friends taken. The only defense was conversion—but mere words would not suffice. To protect yourself, you had to join in the villainy by robbing neighbors and enslaving friends. If you converted and your relatives did not, as a dreadful test of your faith you had to bring them forward for sacrifice. Such evil could not long be tolerated by the neighbors of the temple, and so armies assembled to fight the cult and destroy its works. Yet the cultists had more than mortal forces: Elemental beings and demonic creatures fought alongside them. Their losses were terrible, but the forces of good ultimately triumphed. With magic and might, the armies tore down the walls guarding the Temple of Elemental Evil and drove back its greatest defender, a demon of rot and ruin. This creature, unable to be slain, was bound in the dungeons below the temple and sealed in with magic. All the forces involved signed an accord never to open the place again— despite the wealth of a nation having been locked away with the demon. With the cult vanquished and its demonic leader imprisoned, the armies of good left to bind their wounds and bury their dead. As the lands around the temple recovered from their enslavement and the war for their freedom, the defeat of the temple seemed to invigorate the realm. Crops grew more fruitful and animals fatter. Wells long thought putrid or dry filled with clear water. People did not forget the horrors, but they could reflect upon them as something from the past. That was many years ago. Now, bandits roam the roads and mercenaries demand money to protect travelers and villages, but the difference between them is sometimes just a mask. People once again fear their neighbors. And the quiet sounds in the shadows could be ochre robes rustling. Background: Cult Survivor You were young when the Cult of the Elder Elemental Eye held sway over all the surrounding lands, but not too young to remember. How could you forget? Your parents were taken during the last days before the war. When the armies of the surrounding lands rode through the streets of your village, pennants flying as they drove your oppressors before them, you were swept up in their wake and ready to spill blood. But your uncle held you back. He took the dagger from your hand and bade you stay still. You were not ready to fight, and he would not allow you to die so soon after you came into his care. Your uncle was a simple man of the fields and market, and he would have stayed as well, but your bravery shamed him. Bearing your father’s sword and your mother’s shield, he joined the army to fight the cult. Word of victory returned, but your uncle did not. Nor did you ever see your parents again. Your aunt raised you and sought to protect you from the world. She thought that if she could keep you away from violence and hide from you the truth about the cult and the temple, you might somehow avoid being hurt by such things. But her efforts only inflamed your desire to know more and to be ready for the next battle. You often slipped away to stand in the shadow of the temple, searching through the weeds and rubble of the battlefield for your parents’ sword and shield. You wonder if your mother and father are still alive, slaves locked behind the temple’s doors. Now bandits again rove the roads, and the village elders whisper that the old sense of terror has returned. If the cult is back, the temple is the source— you’re sure of that. And this time you’re ready to fight. Associated Skill: Arcana, Athletics, or Religion. Background: Former Cult Sympathizer You have done terrible things, acts that still have you waking in a cold sweat more than a decade later. You had killed before and you have killed since, but you remember everything about each person you were forced to execute or enslave for the cult: the color of frightened eyes, the trails traced by tears on upturned faces, brave last words, heart-wrenching pleas and screams, even the sudden warmth of spit on your face.
111TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive You wonder every day if you should have been as courageous as they were—if you should have rejected the Cult of the Elder Elemental Eye and died in the terrible dungeons beneath the temple. Is life worth living with so much blood on your hands? Can you even consider your desperate existence a life? When you encounter anyone new, you search your memory, frantically hoping that the face is not one you recognize. At the same time, something inside you burns to be called out for your crimes. At least then the torment might finally end. Yet each time you consider giving in, you find the strength to stay alive and stay hidden. You’re not really strong, though—you’re just afraid. What else would you be willing to do to avoid death? If the time again comes when you must choose between what is right and what is safe, will you add more faces to the host that haunts you, or will you accept their judgment in the afterlife? Associated Skill: Bluff, Insight, or Intimidate. TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL, PAST AND PRESENT In 1979, TSR Inc. published a slim adventure entitled The Village of Hommlet, which detailed a small farming village, its inhabitants, and a nearby moat house populated by evil creatures. This adventure was originally intended as the first part of a larger series culminating in the exploration of the newly repopulated Temple of Elemental Evil. The temple didn’t see print for six long years, until it was presented as part of a 128-page “superadventure” named The Temple of Elemental Evil. This book included a chapter that updated and revised The Village of Hommlet, gathering the entire story line between two covers. Over the years, Hommlet and the temple have reappeared in a novel, a computer game, and even another superadventure: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (published in 2001 and set years after the original). The 4th Edition of the D&D game refers to the Temple of Elemental Evil many times, including two different adventures that take characters back to Hommlet and its moat house: one created for the Origins Game Fair in 2008 and the other as a DM reward for RPGA™ players. Zuggtmoy, the demonic ultimate villain of the Temple of Elemental Evil, appears with 4th Edition statistics in the Demonomicon™ supplement, and the Cult of the Elder Elemental Eye is discussed in The Plane Below™ and Heroes of the Elemental Chaos™. Continuing the Story Stories of the Temple of Elemental Evil that one can hear today describe all sorts of horrors working on behalf of the cultists: elementals, undead, demons, oozes, and more. Preparing for any one kind of foe would thus be foolish, but you can gain some advantage from this knowledge. One reason that the forces of good were able to defeat the Cult of the Elder Elemental Eye was that the cultists’ forces were divided among the four basic elements, as well as another faction loyal to the demon. This division led to rivalry and suspicion among the groups, allowing subterfuge to set one element against another or against those loyal to the demon. Even if such divisions don’t exist within the temple today, you might open up old wounds and thus inflame your enemies’ latent hate for one another. Whatever foes you might face, you can at least prepare for the environments in the dungeons. An area devoted to elemental fire will obviously be hot, so take along precautions such as potions of fire resistance. Similarly, the likely presence of water in an area suggests the efficacy of a Water Breathing ritual. The ability to fly or a feather fall effect could be useful in an airy dungeon. And the magical ability to dig quickly or meld into stone could be invaluable in a place that highlights elemental earth. oolain m ne es o e led to rivalry TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL PAST AND PRESENT You wonder every day if you should have been as Yet each time you consider giving in you find the
112 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive GATES OF FIRESTORM PEAK The Firefestival might be canceled this year, and at the worst possible time. This month-long annual celebration, held in the village of Longbridge, has become famous over the years. During this festival, people try to outdo one another with their enthusiasm for firebrand battles, fireworks, and candle displays. Of course, no celebration can be complete without food and drink, and the Firefestival is when the locals break out their fire brandy, smoked ales, and spiciest foods. Even sweet treats set the mouth aflame, with candied hot peppers and cinnamon delights prepared specially for the occasion. All this activity occurs in the shadow of the famous Firestorm Peak, the mountain that the festival celebrates. Firestorm Peak has two claims to fame. Once every twenty-seven years, flames burn across its highest reaches, called down from the sky by an unknown magic and raging afterward for a month regardless of the weather. The mountain also hides some secret behind huge, rune-encrusted doors of glass as hard as steel, and nothing can lever them open or break the mountain around them. They open by themselves when the fires burn, and close again as the flames die out twenty-eight days later. Nearly twenty-seven years have passed since the last appearance of the firestorm. That means that this year the comet called the Dragon’s Tear will again appear in the sky, its red tail arcing over the mountaintop, and Firestorm Peak will explode anew with supernatural flames and send them roaring toward the stars. Anticipation and enthusiasm for this event began to build more than a decade ago, and this year should have seen the biggest and best Firefestival ever—but that won’t happen. People in nearby towns have decided not to go to Longbridge this year. They believe the village is cursed, and the people of Longbridge grudgingly agree. For some time now, cows’ milk has been coming out sour. Chickens, when they lay at all, produce only soft-shelled eggs filled with blood. Deer have turned upon their hunters and gored them to death. Stories tell of long-docile animals turned fiendish overnight, driving some townsfolk to drown their pets. Even people have been affected: Tension has led to short tempers and frequent fights, and manic violence erupts without any obvious cause. The gallows in Longbridge had to be expanded to keep up with the number of convicted criminals, but the purpling bodies swaying there have served as little deterrent. Things just seem to be getting worse. As the time of the Firefestival draws nearer, people watch the skies for the first crimson hint of the Dragon’s Tear. Will it bring weal or woe? Can the sight of fire on the mountain bring back some hope to Longbridge, or will the flames be the signal for some new villainy to begin? GATES OF FIRESTORM PEAK, PAST AND PRESENT The Gates of Firestorm Peak, by Bruce R. Cordell, hasn’t been revisited throughout the history of the game as have other infamous dungeons. It appeared just once, as a 2nd Edition AD&D® adventure. Yet that adventure had an enormous impact on the D&D game, for it was the birthplace of the Far Realm. Before that time, D&D had no concept of a plane of alien geometry and maddening entities, but today the Far Realm has been firmly established in the cosmology of the game. Continuing the Story What dangers lurk within the mountain today none can say, but the runes on the gates and their construction hint at eladrin origin. Eladrin do not typically build tunnel complexes, so the location must have been meant to contain a dark secret or imprison something foul. The link between the Dragon’s Tear comet and the opening of the gates suggests star pact magic, an idea supported by the fact that the last person known to have entered Firestorm Peak was a warlock called Madreus (known as “the butcher of Havenburg” for dark deeds done in that city). Perhaps the Dragon’s Tear is an unrecognized member of the host of weird constellations named in the Revelations of Melech (described in “Wish upon a Star” in Dragon 366), thus linking it to the Far Realm. Warlock magic can be difficult to defend against, but star pact magic tends to deal radiant, cold, or psychic damage. If beings of the Far Realm are involved, having protection against psychic damage would be prudent. Also, since the strange powers of warlocks and Far Realm beings often control the minds of their targets or otherwise affect their victims repeatedly, having ways to gain extra saving throws could be important. ons in in kn d be prudent Nearly twenty-seven years have passed since the last appearance of the firestorm. That means that this Longbridge, or will the flames be the signal for some new villainy to begin? GATES OF FIRESTORM PEAK PAST AND PRESENT CHAPTER2| St i t S i
113GATES OF FIRESTORM PEAK CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive STEPHEN TAPPIN Ice Iron The glyph-covered gates of Firestorm Peak are made of nephelium, also known as “ice iron.” This unusual metal has the properties of iron when forged, but like gold it does not rust and, amazingly, it is as transparent as glass. For years people have collected small amounts of ice iron from streams around Firestorm Peak, particularly from the Quickstep River that flows through Longbridge. Indeed, most of the communities on the river arose from the presence of prospectors panning for flecks of the precious metal in the shallowest spots. For many years, ice iron made this area rich. The metal was impossible to obtain by mining—no one could see any trace of it in the surrounding rock—and panning for it was far more difficult than panning for gold, since it is nearly invisible in water. These factors made ice iron fabulously rare, and it fetched twice the value of gold by weight. Those who purchased it were typically wealthy lords who used the metal for small windows in their fortresses. Today the Quickstep River has been panned out, and ice iron is almost never found in its bed. If any more of the stuff exists, it might lie beyond the gates of Firestorm Peak—and in fact, the gates themselves are made of it. So far, though, the gates have proven impervious to any attempt to break them or free them from the surrounding rock, and none who have passed beyond when they opened during the firestorm have ever returned. The path ahead is unmistakable . . . when the only other way to go is straight down Background: Longbridge Local You grew up in Longbridge during the last days of the ice iron rush and can remember running back and forth across the river, pounding the boards of the Long Bridge with your tiny feet, rushing to bring grains of the clear metal to the assayer. One day, in your haste to “quick step across the Quickstep” (as your father used to say), you dropped the bag of hard-won metal and watched it plunge into the river through a gap in the bridge. No punishment from your parents could match the terror and guilt you felt as you saw your family’s fortune slip away. Now the future of your family and many others in Longbridge is more uncertain than ever. The ice iron rush is over, and the curse that besets the village seems like it will never end. You’ve seen good people—even close friends you grew up with—become desperate, go bad, and finally swing from the gallows. The town was a happier place when the metal was here. But no amount of panning in the river or digging in the hills has turned up even a flake of ice iron for as long as the curse has been active. Yet the gates of Firestorm Peak are made of the stuff. Clearly, that fact is significant, but in exactly what way remains to be determined. You’ve made a study of all the legends and history, so you know the gates are invulnerable when they’re shut. But what about when they’re open? Even if they are still invulnerable, there could be more ice iron inside the mountain. You know one sure way to find out. Associated Skill: Arcana or History.
114 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive Dungeoneers’ Tools Adventurers who plumb the depths need to understand that, unlike an aboveground expedition, a dungeon delve promises little hope of replenishing or resupplying. Subterranean adventurers must rely only on what they bring with them, which makes planning—and packing—gear for the trip as important as keeping one’s weapons in fighting shape. In addition to the core rulebooks, the Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium supplement includes an extensive collection of adventuring gear and alchemical items, which is augmented by the entries here. ADVENTURING GEAR A piece of equipment doesn’t need to be a magic item to be useful. The most mundane tool can be a lifesaver in the right situation. ADVENTURING GEAR Item Price Weight Artisan’s tools 5 gp 5 lb. Delver’s kit 40 gp 28 lb. Crowbar 2 gp 4 lb. Iron spikes (10) 1 gp 5 lb. Manacles, iron 10 gp 2 lb. Miner’s helmet 10 gp 3 lb. Sacks (2) 1 gp 1 lb. Surveyor’s gear 15 gp 5 lb. Ten-foot pole 1 gp 8 lb. Drill 10 gp 2 lb. Flotation bladder 2 gp 1 lb. Hacksaw 5 gp 1 lb. Lantern, bull’s-eye 12 gp 2 lb. Listening cone 8 sp 1 lb. Mirror 10 gp 1 lb. Rubbing kit 5 gp 1 lb. Ruby lenses 25 gp 3 lb. Shovel 2 gp 8 lb. Tongs 3 gp 2 lb. Vial bandolier 6 gp 1 lb. Artisan’s Tools: This collection of simple hand tools, nails, and a measuring stick is often seen in the home of a city-dwelling crafter, but adventurers would do well to take a set of these tools along. With them you can perform minor repairs, fashion basic wooden or metal objects, or dismantle simple locks. Delver’s Kit: This kit includes a crowbar, ten iron spikes, iron manacles, a miner’s helmet, two sacks, surveyor’s gear, and a ten-foot pole. Crowbar: Wielding this metal pry bar gives you a +2 bonus to Strength checks to break open locked doors or containers. Miner’s Helmet: You can attach a lantern, a sunrod, or some other light source to the forehead reflector of this headgear to provide hands-free illumination. Iron Manacles: When you put these shackles on a helpless or otherwise incapacitated creature, that creature is restrained until it escapes or is freed. The Acrobatics check to escape from these restraints is against a hard DC of the creature’s level. The Strength check to break the manacles is against a DC that depends on the quality of the manacles, whether iron (DC 24) or adamantine (DC 31). Iron Spikes: Hammering one of these blunt, wide metal wedges between a door and its frame requires a standard action and adds 5 to the DC of checks to open the door. If nothing but a spike is holding a door shut, the base DC to open it is 15. Spiking a door is noisy; each time you drive in a spike, creatures within 20 squares can make a Perception check with a +5 bonus to hear you. Sack: This sturdy burlap sack holds up to 50 pounds and has a volume of 1½ cubic feet. Surveyor’s Gear: With this plumb line, measuring chain with pins, and slate for recording notes, you gain a +2 bonus to Perception checks to search for secret doors or hidden rooms, but using the gear takes at least 5 minutes. Ten-Foot Pole: Prodding dangerous-looking things with a ten-foot pole lets you trigger many traps from the safety of 2 squares away. Drill: This handheld tool comes with six tough metal bits. A drill can bore a hole through wood, stone, and even some metals with enough time and effort. A typical bit can drill through 6 inches of stone or 2 inches of iron (a process requiring up to 6 hours) before it breaks or its cutting power is exhausted. Each additional set of bits costs another 10 gp. Flotation Bladder: The risk of drowning in a cold underground lake leads some adventurers to carry these containers of cured animal hide. A character can blow into a flotation bladder to inflate it and then hang onto it to keep his or her head above water. If you’re using a flotation bladder, failing an Athletics check to swim by 5 or more leaves you treading water instead of sinking. Hacksaw: This thin-bladed saw can cut through tough material, even metal, although doing so can be quite slow. Harder materials dull the blade quickly, so a hacksaw is best used to cut thin or small objects. A single hacksaw blade can cut through a 1-inch-thick piece of iron (or larger objects of softer materials, at the DM’s discretion) in up to 2 hours, before it breaks or its cutting power is exhausted. Each additional blade costs another 5 gp.
115ADVENTURING GEAR CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive ERIC BELISLE Lantern, Bull’s-Eye: A bull’s-eye lantern is equipped with a lens that enables it to project a beam of bright light 2 squares wide out to 10 squares. This way, you can illuminate long hallways without lighting up the whole area. Listening Cone: Put the mouth of this cone of pressed iron against a flat surface and place your ear against its flattened tip to amplify the sounds you might hear beyond. This item grants a +2 bonus to Perception checks to listen through doors and walls. Mirror: The finest mirrors are made of silvered glass and are prohibitively costly, so most adventurers favor these less expensive handheld disks of polished metal. A mirror can let you safely look around corners without being seen, avoid the direct gaze of a medusa, or reflect light to signal distant allies (or to lure enemies). Rubbing Kit: The materials in this scroll case enable you to transfer an image of ancient runes or carvings onto a different surface to be deciphered later. The case contains several thin sheets of parchment and a stick of soft charcoal. After placing a piece of parchment over the surface to be copied, rub The right tools make dungeoneering quicker and safer USING EQUIPMENT EFFECTIVELY Gear is good. If a piece of equipment wasn’t important for some reason already, you wouldn’t bother to bring it along. That said, you can get more out of your tools by being both creative and systematic in your thinking about them. Innovate: Many kinds of gear are so specialized that they don’t lend themselves to being used in new ways, but many others have versatility that’s waiting to be put to use. Need a temporary container for a small amount of liquid? Close off one end of your listening cone and fill it up. Think about what’s included in the surveyor’s gear that comes with a delver’s kit, not just in terms of the bonus to Perception checks but with an eye toward other uses for those chains and that piece of slate. Your DM might not give you a bonus or some other game benefit every time you try to use a tool in a nonstandard way, but there are other ways to reward this sort of creativity. Organize: Being organized is more than a matter of lugging around as much gear as you can carry. The more different kinds of gear you have, the more you need to care about how you store each item on your person or transport it—in case you need something in a hurry. One tip: Hang your crowbar from your belt rather than stowing it in your pack. That way, when something relieves you of your weapon, you have an impromptu club close at hand.
116 CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive the charcoal against it while applying gentle pressure. With a standard action, you can make a rubbing covering 1 square foot. One kit contains enough material for ten such rubbings. Ruby Lenses: These red glass inserts let you reduce a lantern’s brightness without limiting the area it illuminates. The red glow is easier on the eyes, and it doesn’t attract as much attention as the bright light of an unfiltered flame. The light that passes through a ruby lens is dim, but its radius is unchanged. Shovel: With this sturdy tool you can dig through deep, dense, or unappetizing material to locate treasure (or bury your hard-won prizes for security), scoop up small objects that might be dangerous or unpleasant to handle, or clobber an enemy in a pinch. Tongs: These foot-long metal pincers are similar to those used in smithies. With them, you can manipulate objects at times when using your hands is too risky, such as when you’re reaching into a scalding brazier, an unknown liquid, or a dark hole. Vial Bandolier: Stitched onto this well-crafted leather shoulder harness are ten padded holsters that can hold doses of potions, poisons, and elixirs, ensuring easy access while cushioning them against accidental breakage. ALCHEMICAL ITEMS Dungeoneers have developed many recipes for items to assist them in their expeditions. Traded around taverns or sold in outfitter’s shops, these alchemical items give explorers unique advantages in tricky situations. Reading the Table The alchemical formulas used to create the items in this section have three common characteristics, all summarized on the table. Key Skills: You must have training in at least one of the indicated skills to use a particular formula. Market Price: What you pay to purchase the formula (which can also be thought of as the recipe). Creation Time: How long it takes to produce one dose or application of the alchemical item. Item Categories Each alchemical item in this section has a category that defines how the item is used or its general effect. Oil: Oils are applied to other objects (typically weapons), granting those objects temporary properties or powers. Volatile: An item of this category explodes or expands when shattered or broken, often dealing damage by the creation of a specific type of energy, such as acid, cold, fire, or lightning. Poison: A poison is a toxin that hampers or harms a creature. Other: Some items create miscellaneous effects that don’t fall into one of the above categories. These have no designation other than “Alchemical Item.” ITEM DESCRIPTIONS For convenience, the formula cost of each of the alchemical items in this section is repeated in its statistics block. The other gold piece values represent the cost of the components (or ingredients) needed to create the substance for a single application. Aboleth Slime This revolting goo is an alchemical concentration of the aberrant poisons in aboleths’ mucus, which must be harvested from the foul pools in which the creatures dwell. Splashing aboleth slime over a living creature brings it spasms of pain as its form twists uncontrollably. The process of collecting the disgusting stuff is exceedingly hazardous, making this formula both hard to find and very expensive. Aboleth Slime Level 15+ Uncommon This cloudy sludge racks your enemy’s body with pain and unwelcome transformation. Lvl 15 1,000 gp Lvl 25 25,000 gp Lvl 20 5,000 gp Lvl 30 125,000 gp Alchemical Item: Poison Formula Cost: 4,500 gp Key Skill: Arcana, Dungeoneering, Time: 1 hour or Nature ALCHEMICAL FORMULAS Name Key Skills Market Price Creation Time Aboleth slime Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature 4,500 gp 1 hour Longbreath Healing, Nature 160 gp 30 minutes Pacification dust Dungeoneering, Nature 200 gp 30 minutes Phantom ink Arcana, Dungeoneering, Thievery 70 gp 30 minutes Stone eater Arcana, Dungeoneering, Thievery 700 gp 1 hour Violet phosphor Arcana, Nature 70 gp 30 minutes
117ITEM DESCRIPTIONS CHAPTER 2 | Strive to Survive R Attack Power (Polymorph) ✦ Consumable (Standard Action) Attack: Ranged 5/10 (one creature); the item’s level + 3 vs. Fortitude Hit: The target takes ongoing 10 damage and is weakened (save ends both). Level 25 or 30: Ongoing 15 damage. Effect: The target gains the aberrant origin until the end of the encounter. Longbreath Druids and other priests of nature gods capture fresh air in skins or large bottles and infuse it with healing vapors. A deep inhalation from this container not only provides air but also invigorates the lungs to enable them to retain it longer. Longbreath Level 4+ Common The refreshing air inside this container fills your lungs far more fully than its volume would suggest. Lvl 4 40 gp Lvl 24 21,000 gp Lvl 14 800 gp Alchemical Item Formula Cost: 160 gp Key Skill: Healing or Nature Time: 30 min. Utility Power ✦ Consumable (Minor Action) Effect: You inhale the contents of the container. Until the start of your next short or extended rest, you gain a +5 item bonus to Endurance checks to avoid suffocation. Level 14: +7 item bonus. Level 24: +10 item bonus. Pacification Dust Svirfneblin harvest spores from nearby myconid colonies to create this dust. Like the creatures it comes from, it momentarily befuddles the senses of those it touches. Pacification Dust Level 5+ Rare This powder of fungal spores renders those caught in it sluggish. Lvl 5 50 gp Lvl 20 5,000 gp Lvl 10 200 gp Lvl 25 25,000 gp Lvl 15 1,000 gp Lvl 30 125,000 gp Alchemical Item: Poison Formula Cost: 200 gp Key Skill: Dungeoneering or Nature Time: 30 min. A Attack Power (Poison) ✦ Consumable (Standard Action) Attack: Area burst 1 within 10 (creatures in the burst); the item’s level + 3 vs. Fortitude Hit: The target cannot take a standard action until the end of your next turn. Aftereffect: The target is slowed until the end of its next turn. Level 25 or 30: The duration of both the hit and the aftereffect is instead (save ends). Phantom Ink This paste is made from a variety of Underdark mushroom known as indigo svirf. When exposed to torchlight or another source of fire, it glows dimly but is not visible to creatures that see only by means of darkvision. Explorers make use of phantom ink to leave messages or directions in underground areas that are frequented by drow or other enemies that have darkvision. One application is enough for a message one to two sentences long. Phantom Ink Level 2 Common The dark fluid within this small ceramic bottle glows dimly in torchlight. Lvl 2 25 gp Alchemical Item: Oil Formula Cost: 70 gp Key Skill: Arcana, Dungeoneering, Time: 30 min. or Thievery Utility Power ✦ Consumable (Standard Action) Effect: You apply the ink to an area no larger than 5 square feet on a solid object. That area emits dim light that is visible only in lamplight, torchlight, or some other light shed by an open flame. The light lasts 24 hours. Stone Eater This potent but specialized acid is derived from the digestive juices of purple worms. The substance must be harvested minutes after the beast’s passage through an area, before it dries to a useless crust. The alchemical mixture dissolves minerals in a matter of minutes. A typical jar contains enough substance to consume a Medium-sized stone object. Stone Eater Level 10+ Common Pouring the contents of this jar onto stone causes the material to begin dissolving. Lvl 10 200 gp Lvl 20 5,000 gp Alchemical Item: Volatile Formula Cost: 700 gp Key Skill: Arcana, Dungeoneering, Time: 1 hour or Thievery Utility Power (Acid) ✦ Consumable (Standard Action) Effect: You apply the stone eater to an unattended, nonmagical stone object or 1 square of a stone wall or floor. After 5 minutes, that object takes 40 acid damage. Level 20: 80 acid damage. Violet Phosphor Resourceful Underdark explorers extract the luminous compounds from subterranean fungi to create this substance. When shaken, the liquid in this glass vial glows with a long-lasting light. Violet Phosphor Level 1 Common Vigorously agitating this small, transparent vial causes the liquid inside to emit a soft purple glow. Lvl 1 20 gp Alchemical Item Formula Cost: 70 gp Key Skill: Arcana or Nature Time: 30 min. Utility Power ✦ Consumable (Minor Action) Effect: You shake the container, and it sheds bright light in a 5-square radius. The light lasts up to 4 hours.
+ CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon 118 RALPH HORSLEY CHAPTER 3 Master of the Dungeon When DUNGEONS & DRAGONS started, it used “referee” (a term originating with the war games that were the ancestors of roleplaying games) to refer to what we now call the Dungeon Master. Today, many roleplaying games use words such as “narrator,” “director,” or “storyteller” to indicate how the rules of narrative shape the flow of the game as opposed to the rules of a simulated world. So, should you be a heartless referee enforcing the rules of a cruel world? Or are you a flexible storyteller, softening the game’s threat to let the heroes’ exploits reach a dramatically satisfying ending? Either. Or both. Plenty of old-school dungeons reinforced the cold, hard facts of an adventurer’s life. But the game has always put fun at the table above adherence to the rules. Neither kind of play is right or wrong, as long as everybody’s on the same page. Your group might gravitate toward either extreme, or fall somewhere in the middle. Have a discussion regarding what style of play everyone favors. It’s okay to run a no-holds-barred meat grinder if that’s what the players expect. The players won’t have much fun, though, if you give them no warning before your dungeon chews up characters into which they have poured significant time and effort. As always, you should adjust your DMing style to conform to your players’ expectations. Nasty in Your Narrative: The most story-focused games of deep roleplaying, full of sessions when “we never rolled the dice once,” can still have a touch of ruthlessness. Think of when a character you loved in a movie, a book, or a TV series died abruptly. Done right, such a moment can be riveting and meaningful. Done wrong, it is an exercise in hair-pulling frustration. You should always feel free to let the chips fall where they may—death can be random and sudden— but avoid arbitrary affronts to the reality of the game. Falling in lava is unfortunate, but a goblin’s arrow mysteriously dealing four times its normal damage is just unfair. Compassion on the Crawl: In like fashion, a hard-core dungeon crawl can be reshaped by an unexpected injection of old-fashioned drama. When a party accustomed to fighting ogres and spotting killer traps comes upon a lost child in a dungeon, the players might expect ambush or deceit. But if the child really is a victim of circ*mstance, how will the adventurers handle it? Can a hardened, pragmatic crew feel sympathy for an innocent and decide to escort that individual to safety, even if they know that doing so might put them in danger? Advice and Tools This chapter examines a number of ways to craft an interesting dungeon—both in the construction and in the playing. Involving the Characters: Delving through a dungeon’s dank tunnels needs to be meaningful and interesting. If a character has a stake in what’s happening, his or her player will be more immersed in what’s going on. This section shows how to connect the characters’ concerns to what’s happening underground, in the form of adventure seeds for each of the themes in Chapter 1. It continues with some broadbased advice on how to get the characters interacting with the environment through exploration and puzzle solving. Creating an Underdark Adventure: The scope and variety of the Underdark distinguish this underground realm from other types of dungeons. The advice in this section is about capturing the feel of traveling in the Underdark, and fitting your plots and battles to this environment. You can use the “An Underdark Trek” skill challenge to play out the trials the heroes must face as they traverse its caverns. Dungeon Makers: Dwarves and minotaurs don’t build their underground lairs the same way. You can add creature flavor to your dungeons based on who or what made them. This section explores the features typically found in the dungeons of various races and groups, with descriptions of specific features you can build on when you design your own work. Special Rewards: This section describes scrolls of power, which enable characters to wield the magic of the gods with memorable spells such as power word kill and wish. It also includes a few special companions the adventurers might encounter in the dungeon.
120 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Involving the Characters When the adventurers take their first steps into the dungeon, you need ways to keep them moving forward. This section discusses how to customize your dungeon to draw both characters and players deeper into the story of your adventure. THEMES AND ADVENTURE HOOKS A player’s choice of theme and background says a great deal about his or her character’s goals and motivations—sometimes more so than race or class. A theme shouts at the DM, “This is what my character wants to care about in our adventures!” A good adventure should feature multiple ways to engage the players on this level. For example, an adventure that starts by calling out a treasure hunter to find priceless, forbidden books in an abandoned Underdark library offers many options to involve other characters. An escaped thrall might learn that mind flayers have occupied the library and are close to deciphering the books. If the party prevents this event by destroying the books, the Underdark envoy can lead an effort to prevent feuding drow houses from going to war over the missing tomes. Several examples of incorporating story hooks into adventures are presented here, using the themes and sample characters from chapter 1. Each of the adventure hooks is classified in one or two of the following categories, which you can consider when devising your own theme and background connections. Announcement The simplest approach to incorporating adventure hooks is to plant monsters, locations, or plot devices that directly speak to one or more characters, and to be blatant about it. This method is an easy way to get the adventure moving. Foreshadowing Take a plot that is important to the adventure as a whole and link clues regarding that plot to the backstory of one of the characters. When those clues come up in the adventure, only that player will know their significance. Misdirection Place red herrings that appear to tie to a character’s theme, but that eventually lead to dead ends or more complicated truths. Even if the players can see through your deception, they might enjoy playing out the consequences of this adventure hook as though their characters were none the wiser. Newcomer Introduce a character, an organization, a monster, an ideology, or a plot element that has certain aspects in common with one of the adventurers, but opposes that character’s goals in some way. A newcomer might serve as a guide, be in a rival group seeking the same goal as the party, or be revealed as a figure from an adventurer’s past that he or she must reluctantly solicit to gain crucial information. Tough Choice Put a character in a situation where following the behavior suggested by his or her theme creates tension with that character’s moral code, or puts the party in a dangerous situation. IMPROVISING THEME CONNECTIONS It happens to every DM. A question comes up regarding something important and you haven’t prepared an answer. “If this dwarf became king last month, what happened to the old king?” “Wait, didn’t you say the soil’s soft and muddy? Why didn’t we find the killer’s tracks?” If you’re put on the spot, you can look to the theme or background of the character for answers. The player asking the questions has demonstrated that he or she cares about the topic, so give that character a chance to pursue it. ✦ A bloodsworn might ask if the old king died or left under suspicious circ*mstances. Perhaps her quarry, has some sort of connection to the event. ✦ If a deep delver inquires about a lack of tracks, you might decide that the culprit is a creature that has earth glide (such as many earth elemental beings). ✦ On the other hand, if a trapsmith wants to know why there were no footprints, you could say that the killer used a trapped rune with a delay before its effect triggered, then left before the rain started. ✦ An escaped thrall who wants to know what happened to the old king might gain a weird insight or experience a vision that suggests he is now a prisoner of illithids. ✦ If the treasure hunter asked what happened to the king, you might instead decide that he abdicated to search for a fabled lost dwarven hoard. ✦ An Underdark envoy might care to parley with the new king. Perhaps he wants to learn of the former king’s fate, and he suspects a nearby drow city is involved. ✦ An Underdark outcast might hope that the change in rulership will allow him to restore contact with his former life. Perhaps the new ruler requires him to pass a test t at de o st ates s o t ess. to pass a test that demonstrates his worthiness.
121THEMES AND ADVENTURE HOOKS CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Bloodsworn Hooking a bloodsworn into an adventure might seem easy—all you need to do is include his or her hated enemy. But you can’t have a 3rd-level party face off against a drow outpost or a 12th-level pack of monsters. Instead, create some hooks that establish connections to the enemy without requiring the foe to appear. Relics and secondary characters encountered during an adventure might reveal the secret plots of an adversary. Alternatively, a bloodsworn hero might run into other groups that share his or her enmity. Such groups might eventually become allies—or they could be rivals, fighting to see who is more worthy to take on their hated foe. The tough choice technique can be used to great effect with a bloodsworn character. Putting one in a situation in which the party needs help from the enemy, or where the consequences of acting against the enemy could be dire, can push the character’s beliefs to the limit. Use this device sparingly, however, so that the bloodsworn’s player doesn’t feel as though his or her theme is irrelevant. Rook in the Corner (Announcement): In a series of towns they travel through, the adventurers see wanted posters showing different names but all bearing the likeness of a drow named Rook. The posters enumerate no crimes he has committed—being a drow is enough. Eventually, a group of well-armed guards informs them that Rook was last seen going into a deep cave—one they are forbidden to enter— that connects to the Underdark. To Topple an Enclave (Tough Choice): Drow outcasts calling themselves the Scorpion Brigade plot to destroy their former enclave of Thes-Kesselav. The adventurers discover the brigade’s base in caves near the city, where the drow have stockpiled dozens of maps, attack plans, and magic items. Will Meliera take this chance to cause havoc and destruction in the city, even at the risk of betrayal by these outcasts? Behlo the Vengeance Seeker (Newcomer): Like Meliera, the halfling Behlo saw his loved ones die at the hands of the drow. He not only wants all dark elves dead, but longs also to kill any who harbor or serve them—even as slaves. He remains suspicious of elves and eladrin as well, believing that those of the same blood as the drow are not to be trusted. Deep Delver More so than other characters, the deep delver thrives when the environment is at its most challenging. An adventure shaped for a deep delver should contain extraordinary cavern complexes, great chasms, and other terrain that can exist only in the Underdark. Vast and unexplored areas of the map can hook a character who has this theme. A deep delver also likes to demonstrate his or her skill at survival and navigation underground. Add secondary characters who need help traveling through the tunnels—or escaping them. Talk about arduous journeys and barely navigable terrain. You don’t need to call for endless skill checks for simple journeys. Simply mention how the deep delver assists the adventurers and their companions as they travel. The Mercenary Papers (Announcement): After defeating the leader of a group of monsters, Karl and his allies discover notes from a drow merchant house. These notes describe arrangements to purchase a large number of grimlock slaves for use as soldiers. Deia Smallfeather (Newcomer): Karl encounters Deia, a former Deep Guide. She had suspicions that something was amiss in the organization and left shortly before Karl joined. Living aboveground now, she is reluctant to return beneath the surface and explore the caverns again. Freedom for One (Tough Choice): The adventurers and a group of companions they are escorting through the Underdark are captured. A companion reveals a way that one of the party might escape—but only one. Karl’s ability to navigate the Underdark is the best hope for getting a message out or finding help. Will he keep his promise to never desert his comrades, or will he risk leaving them alone to attempt a possible rescue? Escaped Thrall A former master casts a long shadow over an escaped thrall’s life. Make that slaver a major enemy in your game, whether as the mastermind behind an ambitious plot or the lieutenant of an even greater evil. You can show the scope of the thrall master’s scheme by having the adventurers come across other thralls not yet lucky enough to win their freedom, or by providing maddening visions to the escaped thrall suggesting the master’s involvement in multiple devious plots. Incorporate allies and enemies of the thrall master into your campaign. If the escaped thrall was in the sway of a mind flayer, look to aberrant enemies and potential allies such as githyanki. A vampire slaver might suggest encounters with vampire hunters allied with Pelor or the Raven Queen. An escaped thrall’s imprisonment leaves both mental and physical scars. Your job is to set up situations where the character’s pain can resurface. The foreshadowing and tough choice categories of adventure hooks bring the escaped thrall’s past to the forefront, where it provides a dark subtext to the character’s heroic actions. Use this approach in moderation, however, or you risk making the thrall a liability to the rest of the party.
122 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon BEN WOOTTEN The Branded Agents (Foreshadowing/Newcomer): Other former thralls of the aboleths appear in cities, where they unconsciously perform the dark tasks of their aberrant masters. When these sleeper agents are captured or attacked, an abolethic safeguard triggers. This causes them to go mad and melt into puddles of slime, creating a psychic backlash that only Mord can sense. The Passage of Pain (Tough Choice): On the trail of a slaver, the adventurers encounter a locked stone door that can normally be opened only by an aboleth or one of its servitors. Mord can open it, but only by tapping into the repressed horror of his youth. If he does so, no one can be certain that he will return from his descent into madness. The Drowned Temple (Announcement): A vision wakes Mord in the middle of the night— a dark dream of a temple of Ioun collapsing into a sinkhole. The tentacled bodies of aboleths rise from the sunken ground, surrounded by a cadre of child slaves. Father Michelson’s bloodied body lies slumped against an altar. Is this a nightmare? Has this already happened? Or is Mord being warned of events not yet come to pass? Trapsmith A trapsmith can be drawn into an adventure by promises of danger and problems to solve. Because such characters spend their lives getting into tense situations, you need to keep escalating the level of risk. Each trap should be more dangerous than the last, each situation more precarious. Part of what attracts a player to this theme is the idea of having skills unique to that character. So put the trapsmith in a position where he or she alone can overcome the defenses of the dungeon. Establishing a connection between the character and whoever is responsible for the dungeon’s traps can make the trapsmith’s job feel more personal. This theme will have a bearing on how you design the mechanical components of your adventures. You should include a greater number of traps than usual in your dungeon, and have enemies sneak up on the party only to set off the trapsmith’s own devices. The Unbreakable (Announcement/Tough Choice): The enormous and complex trap known as the Unbreakable seals off an open shaft running straight down through solid granite. Numerous factions will pay good money to see it disarmed, and they want to hire Thorry for the task. The Unbreakable is several stories deep, with rooms of traps that can trigger crushing walls, planar imprisonment wards, and disintegration spells. Few know that an imprisoned primordial lies beneath the Unbreakable, and that the trap is designed not to keep intruders out, but to hold the ancient being within. Ella grabs the treasure but sets off a nasty trap
123THEMES AND ADVENTURE HOOKS CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Seven-Pointed Star (Foreshadowing): The kobold traps that the adventurers have been coming across have been simple and easy to disable so far. One small detail stands out, though: a star with seven points carved somewhere on each device. Thorry remembers seeing this symbol on the trap that took his fingers. Could the kobold responsible for that injury still be alive? Tegan Burrwood (Newcomer): Thorry’s strange take on good fortune puts him at odds with worshipers of Avandra, the god of luck. Tegan, a devotee of the goddess, believes that Thorry is blessed, and she wants him and his companions to help guide her expedition. Can Thorry suffer through her exaltations of his greatness and blessed luck long enough to collect the huge payment she promises? Treasure Hunter Immense hoards and risky situations draw a treasure hunter like a moth to a flame. The classic dungeon crawl appeals to such characters, for whom no adventure is too dangerous as long as a good profit waits at the end. The announcement approach can easily grab a treasure hunter’s attention, as you describe the ancient idol or the opulent chambers waiting to be found in a dungeon. Such a character can readily be subjected to a tough choice as well. Anything that provides a motivation beyond getting rich is a potentially interesting deviation from the norm. As demonstrated in Ella’s story, a treasure hunter can seek a specific item for reasons beyond profit. Also, take notice when the treasure hunter starts to care about allied characters or comes to hate a particular type of enemy. You can then ensure that protecting the allies conflicts with finding treasure, or you can put the hated enemies in the way of attaining a legendary hoard. The Red King’s Crown (Announcement): Ella finds an illuminated manuscript with pictures of a noble eladrin of the Feydark known as the Red King. The illustrations show him clad in finery, but the crown he wears is clearly the one that belongs to the Green Man. The Unseen Cage (Foreshadowing): The adventurers find a series of large caverns in the Underdark that would make perfect living quarters, but they are uninhabited. Ella feels a strange sensation that she experienced before on the Green Man’s hill—a feeling that something is imprisoned here. The Green Man Will Burn (Misdirection): The rituals of the fey are foreign to the people of the world. When rumors arise that the Green Man will be burned on a pyre at the winter solstice, Ella has no way of knowing that the burning is merely symbolic, and that the “Green Man” is an unfortunate captive of firbolgs. The firbolgs do not let the adventurers leave, however—and one carries the true Green Man’s scepter as part of the rite. Underdark Envoy This theme is all about face-to-face contact. Negotiating with rival factions, talking circles around sentries, and setting enemies against each other are all part of the envoy’s job. Bring secondary characters and political situations into the mix when engaging an Underdark envoy—particularly characters you know will fall quickly for an envoy’s eloquent charm. Be aware, however, that arriving at too many diplomatic resolutions to conflict runs the risk of annoying other party members itching for a fight. The envoy character doesn’t need to be fully effective every time. Even when negotiations break down into battle, enemies might be swayed by the envoy’s efforts. An enemy who can’t be turned to the party’s side might still give the adventurers good advice or agree to not sound the alarm. An envoy is particularly vulnerable to the misdirection approach, since political maneuvering is more than it seems even at the best of times. Don’t be afraid to drop major hints (or simply tell the player) what’s going on behind the scenes so that the envoy character can cut through the noise. The tough choice approach also makes sense for an Underdark envoy, considering the ways in which diplomacy can lead to unexpected complications. Trapped by Both Sides (Announcement): A gnome refugee camp sits on a fey crossing, pinned between fomorian lands in the Feydark and a svirfneblin city in the natural world. The svirfneblin are suspicious of the gnomes and refuse to share their land, leaving them at the fomorians’ mercy. The gnomes need someone to negotiate with the svirfneblin and win the right to escape from the fey crossing before they are wiped out. To make matters worse, no one knows when the giants have planned their attack. Bjorgand (Newcomer): Khiira met the brusque fire giant delegate Bjorgand years ago, and he has reappeared in one debate after another ever since. Khiira does not bat an eye at killing in secret, but Bjorgand and his allies make their thuggery blatant. The fire giant negotiates with threats and particularly enjoys browbeating whomever the sly drow bard represents in her negotiations. Drow Turncoats (Misdirection): Hired killers from Khiira’s home city track her down. Instead of assaulting her, they appear to swayed by her words when they meet, seeming less interested in killing her than in discovering how she escaped and found a new life. These assassins are secretly under orders from Khiira’s mother to falsely pledge themselves to the envoy’s service. After they meet her allies and contacts, they will carry out the order to slaughter Khiira and anyone who helps her.
124 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Underdark Outcast You’ll need to get a good read on a player’s reasons for playing an outcast before you begin incorporating hooks related to this theme. Though it’s likely the player wants to see the character’s former life play a part in the campaign, some players prefer their outcast’s backstory to stay in the past. For a player who does want to explore his or her outcast’s unfinished business, use the foreshadowing and announcement methods to connect that past to parts of the larger campaign narrative. Bring in secondary characters previously known to the outcast, and have clues leading back to his or her former society. Be careful with such plot elements, however, if the character doesn’t want to physically return to his or her lost home. Instead, introduce secondary characters who are also outcasts, but from other races or civilizations. A newcomer can work well to frame the loss that an outcast character has endured. Create secondary characters of a similar upbringing who were not cast out, or other outcasts who have taken a darker path or suffered in other ways. The Ailing King (Announcement): Korag’s father, Chief Beltag, lies dying. Enemies of Barduum have been kept at bay by old treaties that will end with the chief’s death. Their forces are encircling the entrance to Barduum’s tunnels, awaiting the chance to attack. Korag can never be chief, but can he defend his kin now as he should have years ago? And will he be reconciled with his father before the old dwarf passes away? Krass (Newcomer): Krass is a young goblin kicked out of his tribe after his snooping brought a band of orc soldiers down on them. Though he failed his people the same way Korag did, the goblin believes he did nothing wrong, maintaining that the others in his tribe should know how to run and hide as well as he does. He tells Korag to take pride in being an outcast—even as he resists the dwarf’s efforts to win back his gear that the goblin stole. Not Again (Foreshadowing): The party has been assigned to protect a merchant expedition traveling to a svirfneblin outpost in the Underdark. When drow ambush the caravan, Korag realizes that the attack is meant as a diversion to keep the adventurers away from the outpost—the true target of the drow raid. Korag is faced with an echo of the situation that resulted in his exile. If he supports his comrades against the ambushers, the svirfneblin will fall. But saving the deep gnomes would require abandoning the party. Will Korag be able to choose, and if so, which group will he forsake? EXPLORATION AND CHOICES When two seemingly identical tunnels lead into the unexplored darkness, the adventurers’ decision about which path to take is effectively random. To avoid leaving things up to chance at this juncture, you can present choices that provoke and intrigue your players by placing careful clues that suggest the dangers they might face. One of the simplest ways to make exploration interesting is to add distinguishing characteristics that differentiate the characters’ choices. What if one tunnel leads downward and smells of fetid water, while the other goes to the west and hums with echoing, ghostly whispers? The heroes still won’t know which way to go, but the choice they make feels more meaningful if it is based on their reactions to what might lie ahead. Repeat a Motif: Find a thematic element to emphasize in each section of a dungeon. Spider statues might suggest the presence of drow, while the same statues defaced with reptilian scales could be seen in a drow area that has been taken over by kuotoas. Skulls with holes in them lying in the shadows of caverns, spirals carved into the walls, multiple idols with gemstone eyes in different colors, or objects appearing in groups of a specific number can reinforce the presence of the builder of your dungeon or the monsters that dwell there. Note Environmental Changes: You can create the sense that the party’s explorations are progressing by mentioning minor differences in temperature, humidity, and air pressure. That’s only the start, though. The D&D game offers endless opportunities for otherworldly phenomena, such as ice that IMPROVISING EXPLORATION You don’t need to know in advance what’s behind every door or down every passage; instead, plant clues that you can expand on later. A door that radiates heat might lead to the lair of a fiery creature, a portal to the Elemental Chaos, or an incubation chamber. Determine whether your players have expectations for what lies ahead, then use those expectations for inspiration. If you can arrange for such discussions to come at the end of a session, or hash them out between sessions, you can better use your preparation time to flesh out the details in a way that your players will appreciate.
125MYSTERIES AND PUZZLES CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon JULIE DILLON mysteriously coats a chamber or passage, walls covered with color-changing fungi, insects that swarm in strange patterns, or terrain that warps and shifts. Planar incursions can also alter the landscape, creating chambers and caverns that transition between the Underdark and the Feydark, the Elemental Chaos, or the Far Realm. Appeal to the Senses: As the adventurers move through the darkness, vision might be their least useful sense. Think about the sounds that echo within a dark cavern, the scents of rotting flesh or burgeoning fungus, or the texture of a wall where the energy of the Far Realm warps the world. A seasoned Underdark explorer might even be able to taste a drop of blood along the heroes’ path to see what kind of injured creature might be lurking ahead. Use Obstructions Carefully: Blocking off a tunnel seems like an easy way to prevent adventurers from passing, while a locked door might make the players only more determined to get through it. You can use obstructions to create intrigue and generate curiosity about what lies beyond. Put a “mere” locked door in front of interesting clues, extra treasure, and other items you intend for the adventurers to find. If you want to seal off an area more securely, make it obvious what kind of key or tool is needed to pass a door, a magic ward, or a monstrous gatekeeper. Even as the players realize they can’t go in that direction yet, their characters have something to look for as they continue in another direction. Leave Things Blank: The baseline motivation for any adventurer is a bold curiosity regarding the unknown. If you provide the adventurers with a map, leave large areas of it blank. If the characters see visions in a scrying pool, mention that certain parts of what they view are obscured by darkness. Create locations of which even the creatures of the Underdark do not speak. Those blank spaces might have never been explored, making your adventurers the pioneers who map them for the first time. MYSTERIES AND PUZZLES Some of the iconic elements of a dungeon adventure are the mysterious statue, the complex magical protective ward, and the inscrutable monster posing a riddle. Often created or placed underground by a long-forgotten builder, such a challenge provides a safeguard against the characters’ intrusion even as it hints at the builder’s overall purpose. Puzzles and Solving a puzzle often requires a team effort
126 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon WAYNE ENGLAND mysteries beg to be explored and investigated, just as do the caverns and chambers they are a part of. A simple mystery can intrigue and entertain nearly any group of players. One easy way to spark an investigation is to plant information that’s a little offkilter, prompting the players to think, “What’s wrong with this picture?” If three of four statues face the same direction, why is the fourth looking off to the side? Why are some of the tiles on the floor red and others gold? The answer might be fairly easy to arrive at: Discover that the head of the fourth statue can be pivoted, rotate it so that it matches the others, and suddenly a secret door opens. Alternatively, an initial investigation might reveal a more complex puzzle, a riddle, or a trap. Because in-game puzzles work best when you test the players’ ingenuity rather than the attributes of their characters, be mindful of how willing the players are to be tested in this way. Some groups will happily spend an entire game session trying to figure out a single riddle. Others might be better served with a simpler puzzle that can be solved by trial and error. The following suggestions can help you make puzzles an interesting and dynamic part of a dungeon adventure. Begin with the Familiar: Start with forms of puzzles and riddles the players are familiar with, then twist the structure or the concept to make something new. You might base a puzzle on sudoku or chess, or borrow the design of a trap from a movie, a novel, or a comic book. You could start with the classic riddle of the sphinx, then adapt it so that the answer involves a D&D creature. You could create a rebus (a passage of text in which words are replaced with pictures that match the sounds when said aloud), substituting strange symbols from the game world whose meaning the players must deduce. Drop Clues: When you create a puzzle, think about how the players and their characters will approach it. Some amount of trial and error is to be expected, so make up a list of clues that can be found if the heroes search the immediate area, or attempt skill checks, or recall facts from earlier areas in the dungeon. Introducing clues in a natural way is easier to do if you have a few in mind early, rather than having to think them up on the spot. It Doesn’t Work, But . . .: Even a wrong answer or a failed attempt can still contribute to the solution of a puzzle. When a character tries to pull the blue gem loose from the wall, he might receive a nasty shock. But the adventurers now know that the gem is probably associated with the engraving of a lightningfilled storm cloud on the far wall. Show Why the Puzzle Is There: The nature of a puzzle should speak to why it has been placed in the dungeon and why it works the way it does. A door that opens only if it is dealt cold damage might have been built by frost giants. A complex riddle might be child’s play for the intellect of the mind flayer that placed it as a magical ward, keeping thralls and intruders out while allowing other illithids to pass. Have Consistent Results: The pieces of a puzzle should follow logic to avoid confusing the players. A rune triggered by the presence of fire should be activated equally well by a burning hands spell, a fire seeds invocation, or a flaming torch. Likewise, identical puzzles in the same dungeon should all follow the same internal logic. If the rune mentioned above appeared in another location, the players should be able to expect it to function in the same way that the first one did. Put in a Reset Button: This guideline can benefit you as well as your players. The more variables a puzzle contains, the harder it can be for the players to retrace their steps if they make a wrong move. To keep a complicated puzzle from slowing things down if the characters get off track, you can build in an easy way to reset the puzzle back to its starting condition, using the assumption that whoever created the puzzle would want it to return to its default state for the next creature that tries to solve it. This “reset button” might be obvious to the characters, so that they can activate it whenever they want, or it could be an automatic feature that returns the puzzle to its original state if the players find themselves stumped (or whenever you decide to trigger it). Call it Quits: If a puzzle or a riddle fails to engage the players, don’t force it. If the players are struggling for a solution, drop hints couched as memories from a character’s backstory. If they are truly stumped, present an alternative way to move along so you don’t bog down the game. You can work it so that taking the easy way leads to tougher consequences. For example, nastier fights, lesser rewards, or unsavory characters needing to be bargained with might lie at the end of a route that bypasses a puzzle-locked door.
127INFINITE SCOPE CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon MIKE SCHLEY Creating an Underdark Adventure A party of heroes could spend a lifetime in the Underdark and not come close to exhausting its mysteries or its dangers. The Underdark is one of the best locales in which to set a dungeon adventure. Its staggering size and range of monsters give you a great set of tools to create a challenging and memorable story. DESCENDING INTO DARKNESS As the name of the game says, underground adventures are an essential part of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. Dungeons are exciting places for adventurers to raid, loot, and explore. The heroes enter the dungeon, do their thing, and then usually leave the same way they came in. The Underdark, however, is much more. The first point to understand is that the Underdark is not a mere dungeon—even one of unbelievable size. A dungeon has walls and boundaries, whereas the Underdark extends helter-skelter in all directions. It is a world within the world, and it likely covers the same area as all the realms of the surface. The Underdark is endless caverns and vast oceans, lost cities and great citadels teeming with life. Capturing the unique features of this environment is instrumental to creating Underdark adventures that offer maximum fun. INFINITE SCOPE The vastness of the Underdark is one of its most alluring features, for DMs and players alike. This untamed wilderness is so large that it can never be fully explored. Add to this the bizarre creatures and magic that pervade its depths, and you can see how and why the conventions of traditional adventuring are left behind on the surface world. The Underdark offers great freedom to you as a DM, enabling you to create new wonders around every corner so that your players never know what to expect. This freedom comes at a cost, though. The immensity of the Underdark can easily overwhelm even the most dedicated gaming group. Its passages have so many branches that choosing the right one by The Underdark is full of fabulous terrain
128 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon chance seems impossible. Every false turn threatens to take a party off course and into danger. Tales tell of would-be adventurers who get no farther than wandering the caves of the Underdark looking for a way out. Getting a lost group back on track without obvious contrivance can be difficult, and if the players feel as if the thread of the adventure has gotten lost as well, the game loses its excitement and sense of wonder. Keeping the Underdark under control requires direction on your part. Create a game plan for how you want your players to experience this unearthly realm. Then make that plan clear to them, so that they have an idea of what to expect when it comes time to plan their expedition. An Underdark Overview A vast expanse lies deep under the surface of the world. The Underdark’s tunnels, caverns, lakes, and hidden cities make it in some ways the greatest dungeon of all. Adventure always awaits in the Night Below. The Underdark™ supplement describes these subterranean realms in much greater detail, but here’s the short version. The Shallows: Reaching 2 miles below the surface, this region provides a meeting ground between the deep-digging races of the surface (such as dwarves and goblins) and creatures native to the underworld realms (including duergar and troglodytes). The Shallows is a beachhead to the Deeps, a place where explorers have some measure of safety and knowledge of their surroundings. Still, the numberless caverns and vicious creatures haunting the dark places mean that no one is truly safe. The Deeps: Far more alien and dangerous than the Shallows, the area known as the Deeps houses mad aberrations, the cruel cities of the drow, and innumerable dangers that would never be seen in the light. Vast lightless seas and places of chaotic elemental influence exist in the Deeps, and staying there for too long can warp one’s mind. The Feydark: Since the Feywild is an echo plane of the natural world, it too has an Underdark. The grotesque mad giants called fomorians rule the Feydark. Gnomes and a few other races have carved out small homes in its tunnels, but they must always beware cyclops patrols. The Shadowdark: The other echo plane, the Shadowfell, is already dark and cold, but its Underdark goes a step beyond. Nothing can match the despair and hopelessness one feels when traveling its halls. Apart from the cryptic loremasters called incunabula, few residents of the Shadowdark still draw breath. The undead roam the pitch-black expanse of the World Tomb. THE SETTING’S ROLE When you have an idea of how big you want your Underdark to be, consider what part you want it to play in the campaign. What do you and your players hope to get out of an Underdark adventure? The answer should be something unique to this realm—a goal or quest beyond anything that can be accomplished by a simple dungeon delve. Make sure your game takes the characters to the Underdark for the right reasons, driven by the campaign narrative and with hooks that can appeal to the whole party. The Underdark can seriously challenge even the most hardened adventurers, particularly those whose race or backstory ties them strongly to the surface world. For elves, eladrin, halflings, and others, the Underdark can be an alien and terrifying place—and a wonderful opportunity to push those characters outside their traditional comfort zone. On the other hand, a campaign built around characters at home in the Underdark can have a very different feel. To skilled delvers or those who have always lived below the surface, the Underdark is a wilderness waiting for great heroes to conquer it. The caverns and tunnels of this realm are no less wondrous or dangerous than they are for surface-born characters, but the heroes of the Underdark have the tools to take on those dangers. KEEPING IT INTERESTING Ask yourself this question before you begin your Underdark adventure: Do you want to create an elaborate spelunking simulation or a scenario that focuses less on realism and more on action? If the answer is the former, make sure that this kind of simulation is something your players are as interested in as you are. The constant grind of skill checks and provisioning necessary to accurately describe real-world caving will slow down your game, but can provide a satisfyingly gritty realism to your adventures. Most DMs find that it is faster—and ultimately more useful—to provide only the gist of the delve before getting on with the action. The tone of the Underdark is important, as are the trials of underground exploration, but don’t forget that everyone’s fun should come first. Develop a feel for what level of realism your group appreciates, then help craft the narrative of how their characters overcome the challenges before them. These are heroes, after all, and it’s more interesting for them to triumph over significant adversity than be broken down by endless small challenges.
129CRAFTING THE FEEL CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon CRAFTING THE FEEL It doesn’t matter how well conceived your Underdark adventure is if you don’t invest time in describing the look, sound, and feel of its unique features. Without attention to the physical and visual, an Underdark adventure can too easily become a series of encounters set in bland, mostly empty caverns. Luckily for you, the Underdark is one of the most evocative environments in which to stage an adventure. Legendary Infamy: When setting the stage for an expedition to the Underdark, introduce that realm long before the characters make it a specific destination. Tavern stories, menacing plots, mysterious artifacts, or missing persons can go a long way toward establishing the Underdark’s fearsome reputation in your world. Uncanny Terrain: The geography of the Underdark is unparalleled in scope. Near-bottomless chasms, mile-high vaults, fungal forests, freezing seas, caverns whose walls are the fossilized bones of longdead primordials—you can use any idea from your imagination to punctuate the tunnels and caverns that wind their way to the bottom of the world. Work up a list of memorable sites for your players to experience and interact with during their delve, so that the journey never has to fall back on a boring series of passageways. Effect on Characters: Life in the Underdark takes its toll on an adventurer. Clothing becomes crusted with mud and dust. Gear frays at the edges or is battered by one too many falls. Eyes that have adjust to the darkness find even the brightness of a torch painful to bear. Making use of cavern fungus for sustenance leaves the consumer malnourished over time. Most insidious of all, the stygian gloom and tomb-like stillness of this realm is enough to drive explorers mad. The physical and emotional stress of exploring the Underdark can wear away at a character’s resolve, making him or her think and do strange things. Though you shouldn’t encumber characters with unnecessary penalties, a creative description of the mood and physical demands of the Underdark can inspire creative roleplaying and lend a stark realism to the atmosphere of your game. Inhuman Cultures: The Underdark’s scattered cities are dangerous points of shadow in an even more dangerous darkness. Few such settlements resemble the cities of the surface world. Tales of dwarven strongholds and drow enclaves are familiar to many adventurers, but inhuman monsters such as aboleths and beholders also create settlements and societies here. Adventurers will rarely find succor in such cities. Even the most benign Underdark cultures are distrustful of strangers. At their worst, the races of the Underdark enslave outsiders as a matter of course. Think about ways to portray such civilizations as exotic yet believable. Mind flayer cities still need resources to thrive, even if those resources are extracted by mindless thralls feeding on the corpses of the slaves who fell before them. The Unknown: Never underestimate the attraction of a good mystery. The Underdark’s landscape gives you ample room in which to place enigmatic ruins, inexplicable portals, and bizarre encounters. No surface dweller can ever understand what truly goes on in a beholder’s lair, and neither should you. Unleash your inner weirdness by giving the players a taste of the Underdark’s deepest mysteries, letting facts develop over time. Let the bare bones of intrigue inspire the players to chime in with their own theories, then build on those theories to create a satisfying conclusion. SIGHTS AND SOUNDS You can introduce sensory prompts from time to time to bring the unique environment of the Underdark to life. Examples include the following. ✦ Pulses of light shine up mysteriously from a chasm whose bottom cannot be seen. ✦ Vermin swarm so thickly that they create an impassable wall across a broad cavern. ✦ Animals known to be extinct on the surface are found below ground, having adapted to a life in the Underdark. ✦ In a broad grotto, crystals bloom in flowerlike shapes. ✦ A strangely porous rock muffles all sound nearby it, creating hushed echoes. ✦ A fiery wind howls out of a twisting tunnel. ✦ A sinkhole cave holds the remains of a fortress or a city that collapsed into the Underdark from the surface. ✦ A long-dead explorer has left a cryptic message scrawled on a cavern wall. ✦ A strange maze is revealed to be the immense fossilized remains of an unknown monster. ✦ Hot, stinging clouds of smoke and vapor boil up from a volcanic vent. ✦ An eerie whistling, like a fey song, echoes through small channels in the rock. ✦ A section of tunnel, covered in strange growths, is actually the gullet of an enormous dungeon denizen. ✦ A dark pit seems to contain the night sky, complete with familiar constellations. ✦ Cavern walls of soft chalk display scratches like those of fingernails reaching from ceiling to floor. g g g
130 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon MILIVOJ ´CERAN DEVELOPING A PLOT Once you’ve created the foundations of what the Underdark is in your campaign and how it should feel, you need to come up with a reason to go there. Developing a plot for an Underdark adventure is similar to crafting adventures in other settings, but you should keep a few important differences in mind. An Underdark adventure will likely take the heroes far from their homes or usual stomping grounds, and it might keep them there for a lengthy amount of time. Their motivation for delving had better be a good one. Without the proper setup, the players will wonder what was the point of entering the Underdark in the first place—or will feel as if they’re being dragged along by a cumbersome plot. Creating a memorable campaign hook should be among your first concerns when designing an Underdark adventure. It’s not enough that you want the adventurers to fight the drow—you need to present them with a compelling reason to do so. Character Background A character whose background involves the Underdark, even in a tangential way, can create a good opportunity to get a party underground. Adventurers who have any of the character themes presented in this book are perfect candidates for an Underdark adventure. By leveraging elements from a character’s backstory, you create a personal stake in the adventure that can make it more exciting. Here are some examples. ✦ An Underdark native is called back to his or her homeland after being accused of a crime. ✦ Drow agents go to great lengths to pursue a character who was formerly a prized slave. ✦ The child of a famous explorer discovers his or her parent’s journals and learns of unfinished underground adventures. Monstrous Plots The monsters that populate the D&D game offer plenty of excitement for characters braving the Underdark, but connecting those monsters to the heroes can take some work. By looking for opportunities to bring the peril of the Underdark to the surface world, you can inspire the adventurers to pursue that peril and destroy it. ✦ An important secondary character is suddenly revealed as being under the sway of mind flayers spying on the party. ✦ A tribe of Underdark goblins is building a scaffold to ascend a rift that has opened near a village. ✦ The child of a ruler has been kidnapped by an aboleth and must be rescued. Dark Cultures The workings of the Underdark’s many civilizations are relevant to adventurers, particularly those hailing from the depths. An Underdark adventure can involve characters in political drama and intrigue among cultures wholly different from those of the surface world. ✦ Civil war in a beholder city overflows into surrounding regions when the leader of the eye tyrants is turned to stone by a medusa empress. ✦ Territorial disputes boil over between dwarves and svirfneblin, forcing the adventurers to choose a side. ✦ A duergar baron wishes to defect from his evil city and must be escorted safely to a dwarven stronghold. Fabled Treasure As the impetus for dungeon delves since the very beginning of the game, fabulous treasure and lost artifacts hold a strong allure for any self-respecting adventurer. The Underdark has no shortage of treasures lost or hidden in its labyrinthine depths. Wondrous valuables lie hidden in the Underdark
131UNDERDARK COMBAT ENCOUNTERS CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon ✦ The hoard of a slain deep dragon spills into an open rift, attracting avaricious individuals of all races. ✦ Magnificent crystals rise from the footsteps of a forgotten primordial that wanders the Deeps. ✦ The vaults of Erelhei-Cinlu have been raided by a drow traitor, who was subsequently captured by the kuo-toas of the Dark Lake. Dramatic Circ*mstances Sometimes the campaign can unfold in a way that brings the characters to the Underdark without warning. Unexpected events can hurl the heroes into the depths, challenging their adaptability in new ways. ✦ Stepping through a portal in a wizard’s tower takes the party to the Deeps, along the shore of the Spire Sea. ✦ A fleeing thief takes shelter in a cavern that leads to the Underdark, forcing the adventurers to pursue. ✦ Giant sinkholes open up during an explosive battle, swallowing up heroes and villains alike. UNDERDARK COMBAT ENCOUNTERS Crafting combat encounters for an Underdark campaign lets you utilize every trick in your DM’s toolkit. Any sort of terrain feature, hazard, or other challenge you can imagine can be a feature of your individually crafted Underdark setting. This section takes a closer look at some of the more distinctive aspects of the environment in the world beneath the world. The Battlefield The Underdark is a unique field of combat. On one hand, these dark realms feature the wide-open spaces typical of wilderness encounters. On the other, the caverns and vaults of the Underdark are filled with blocking terrain that provides the feel of a confined dungeon brawl. Unlike dungeons, whose walls and floors usually consist of flat, worked stone, Underdark terrain is rugged and dynamic. Exploiting this contrast can go a long way toward making an Underdark encounter feel unique. A battlefield’s layout becomes as important as the monsters with which you choose to populate that battlefield. Natural Caverns: Most of the passages and chambers of the Underdark have been created by natural forces and so follow no overall design. Lack of symmetry is the norm, but you should plan for more than an endless number of randomly branching tunnels and side rooms. Create unusual angles and shapes for the chambers of your Underdark dungeon. Have wide corridors suddenly narrow down, forcing the adventurers to squeeze through them. Create rough-edged masses of blocking terrain to simulate huge conglomerations of rock and crystal that must be climbed or bypassed. Encouraging tactical thinking from the players at all times is a big part of Underdark encounter design. Terrain: In the real world, caves are extremely challenging to traverse. Even if realism is your goal, however, be wary of making every square of the Underdark difficult terrain. Such terrain can be more common in Underdark encounters than in a typical dungeon or wilderness encounter, but keep it within reason. Caves might feature a scattering of stalagmites or fallen debris. Certain areas can challenge characters by containing mostly difficult terrain, with clear squares becoming valuable assets in the fight. Tight Squeezes: More so than in other dungeons, terrain that confines the combatants is prevalent in the Underdark. Characters seeking a protected alcove or a more advantageous position might be forced to squeeze through a crevice. Low ceilings can force larger combatants to stoop in combat, possibly fighting at a penalty. Try to keep such locations focused to specific areas, however, letting them add variety to the fight without wholly defining it. UNDERDARK EVOLUTION My players’ first exposure to the Underdark was something of an accident. The characters found themselves in a position to pursue a drow infiltrator who had stolen their treasure, then fled deep underground. I assumed the party would steer clear of this plot thread because I had always given the Underdark a creepy and dangerous reputation. They surprised me when they decided to risk going below. I quickly created a series of encounters and sights for them to experience during a two-week trek. Eventually the party found a drow outpost. After barely managing to overcome its defenders, they learned that despite their weeks of delving, they still had miles to go. Hard-pressed and short on supplies, the characters cut their losses and returned to the surface. I decided to make that return journey an adventure unto itself. These adventures were a lot of fun because they allowed me to introduce a setting that lived up to its reputation. The players enjoyed being pushed to their limits, so much so that finding their way out again felt like a victory. The next time the characters entered its depths, they did so with experience and planning on their side. Four months later, they emerged as veteran dungeoneers (and a good deal wealthier). —Jeff Morgenroth
132 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Elevation: Cave floors almost never occupy a level plane; they slope up and down in rocky drifts or end in sheer barriers and ledge walls. Consider adding shifts in elevation to create a dynamic sense of positioning in caverns. Ledges, pits, and large rock formations can also provide ways to vary the height of different areas of the battlefield, making reach or ranged weapons particularly useful. Characters who have training in Athletics or Acrobatics have a chance to shine in such encounters. Fantastic Terrain: The raw, chaotic force that created the Underdark remains prevalent throughout its depths. Use the presence of fantastic terrain to dress up your caverns and heighten the narrative elements of the dungeon. Seismic activity, the tainted presence of ancient monsters, or the legacy of great magic lost underground at the time of the Dawn War can all suggest fantastic terrain for use in your encounters. Light Sources The need for artificial light is a constant challenge for Underdark explorers. In addition to carrying a supply of torches or oil if magical light is not readily available, players must keep track of which characters are responsible for the light. The group should choose one or two players who will track their light sources’ duration and radius. You and the players should be familiar with the effect of bright light, dim light, and darkness on combat, so that you can keep the action moving when the battlefield becomes obscured. Remember that solid objects block a light source, and that Underdark creatures will take advantage of the adventurers’ dependence on light by targeting the individuals carrying it. Though the threat of total darkness should always be on the adventurers’ minds, you can provide ways to improvise if a primary source of light is lost. For example, luminescent fungus is common in the Underdark and can provide temporary dim light. SKILL CHALLENGE: AN UNDERDARK TREK Adventurers who dare the depths need more than weapons, wits, and magic to survive. The Underdark teems with dangers, and those who brave its caverns must make use of every bit of their skill and ingenuity. This section provides a sample skill challenge you can use to mark a party’s progress through the Underdark. It is made up of two components, one using individual checks and one using group checks. Individual Checks: Making Progress Surface dwellers can quickly become overwhelmed by the scope of the Underdark’s tunnels. Without the sun or other landmarks to reckon by, explorers can become helplessly lost without a master dungeoneer to lead the way. This skill challenge simulates a lengthy trek through the Underdark, the goal of which is to arrive at a particular location. The skill challenge represents activity during a day or two of travel, and can easily be broken up by combat and roleplaying encounters. Level: In the Shallows, the level of the skill challenge is equal to the level of the party. In the Deeps, the level of the skill challenge is two levels higher than the level of the party. TALKING THE TALK Want to describe your Underdark locations as something more than “caves”? Use the terms below. Bedrock: The solid rock that makes up the walls of a cave. Chasm: A pit whose depth cannot be determined. Cleft: A relatively small opening made by the splitting of rock. Dormant Cave: A cave without running or dripping water. Grotto: A cave with numerous stalagmites (floor) and stalactites (ceiling), typically containing a large amount of water as well. Karst: A complex cavern created through the erosion of stone by running water. Live Cave: A cave with flowing water. Pillar: A freestanding column of bedrock reaching from floor to roof, remaining after the surrounding rock has eroded. Ossuary: A cave filled with bones or fossils. Rift: A cave that runs vertically, formed by tectonic upheaval. Sea: A giant body of saltwater that fills vaults and covers great distances, usually connected to an above ground ocean. Shaft: A vertical tunnel that sometimes brings air from the surface. Speleothem: Any rock formation created by mineral deposits, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Spring: A natural upwelling of water, often laden with undrinkable minerals. Tunnel: Any long and relatively narrow passage that connects caverns. Vault: A cave of awesome size and height, the ceiling of which might be a mile or more above the floor. g
133SKILL CHALLENGE: AN UNDERDARK TREK CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Complexity: 3 (requires 8 successes before 3 failures). Increase the complexity to 4 or 5 to simulate longer treks, increasing the maximum number of successes for primary skills accordingly. Primary Skills: Athletics, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Perception. Athletics (moderate DC by level, 4 successes maximum): The character climbs through caverns, leaps over pits, or pushes aside barriers to help the party move through rugged terrain. Dungeoneering (moderate DC by level, 4 successes maximum): The character’s savvy and insight enables the party to find the best path, avoid hazards, identify sources of food and water, and move safely through the treacherous depths. Endurance (moderate DC by level, 2 successes maximum): The character pushes through fatigue, endures areas of stale air, and toughs out the psychological effects of constant darkness. Perception (moderate DC by level, 2 successes maximum): Ever watchful for new passageways, monsters, or hidden advantages, the character uses his or her sharp eyes to help the party avoid trouble. Secondary Skills: Insight, Heal. Insight (hard DC by level): By paying close attention to the condition of his or her allies, the character helps the party overcome an Underdark hazard. A successful check against a hard DC, in addition to counting as a success in the challenge, gives each character a +2 bonus to the first skill check made during the next Underdark hazard the group encounters (see below). Heal (hard DC by level, when a character loses a healing surge from an Underdark hazard): The character treats the injuries of one character that resulted from a failed group check to avoid an Underdark hazard. The character does not lose a healing surge, though he or she still suffers any other penalties. Success: If the characters earn enough successes before 3 failures, they arrive at their intended destination. Failure: If the characters attain 3 failures, they become lost in the Underdark. They have a combat encounter of a level equal to that of the skill challenge. The characters must start the skill challenge again in an attempt to reach their destination or to return to their starting point. Group Checks: Overcoming Hazards The characters can encounter numerous setbacks during their trek. Choose a number of skill checks between two and four, with four suitable for an adventure in the Shallows and two representing the more challenging Deeps. Each time that number of skill checks has been attempted in this challenge, choose one of the following hazards and have the characters make a group skill check against the given DC. If half the group succeeds, the party earns 1 success in the challenge, which does not count toward the maximum number of successes allowed for that skill. If the group check is failed, it does not count as a failure in the skill challenge, but the adventurers suffer the described setback. These setbacks usually last until the next Underdark hazard is encountered. When a combat encounter occurs during the skill challenge, any ongoing setback applies to all the characters during that encounter. At your discretion, some setbacks (such as penalties for fighting in cramped tunnels) can be applied to enemies as well. Cramped Tunnels: The characters must crawl through a series of narrow and claustrophobic tunnels by succeeding on a group Acrobatics check (easy DC by level). On a failed check, each character loses a healing surge. In addition, until the next hazard, the characters each take a –2 penalty to all skill checks, due to their disorientation. Eerie Phenomena: The party is unsettled by patches of twisting shadows, veins of mysteriously glowing minerals, or the menacing sound of an unknown creature in the darkness. The characters must succeed on a group Insight check (easy DC by level). On a failed check, each character takes a –2 penalty to Perception checks and initiative checks until the next hazard. Rugged Terrain: The characters must clamber over rubble, maneuver through stalagmites, or otherwise negotiate challenging terrain by succeeding on a group Athletics check (moderate DC by level). On a failed check, each character loses a healing surge. In addition, until the next hazard, each character takes a –2 penalty to Athletics checks and Endurance checks because of fatigue. Foul Air: The characters must succeed on a group Endurance check (hard DC by level) to avoid succumbing to low oxygen levels or poisonous fumes. On a failed check, each character loses a healing surge. Underdark Vermin: A swarm of cave-dwelling vermin or a patch of hazardous fungus represents a potential hazard. The characters must succeed on a group Nature check (easy DC by level). On a failed check, until the next hazard, the characters each take a –2 penalty to all skill checks. Utter Silence: The caverns ahead are as still as death. The characters must succeed on a group Stealth check (moderate DC by level) or attract a hungry predator. On a failed check, the heroes have a combat encounter one or two levels lower than the level of the party. The characters are automatically surprised during this encounter.
134 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Dungeon Makers Every organization or race that braves the Underdark creates dungeons in a specific style. An adventurer who knows how to read the works of different dungeon makers can quickly identify what kinds of traps—and treasure—might lie ahead. CULTISTS Few worshipers create dungeon complexes by choice, and those that do are usually vile. Driven underground or into the wild, these iconoclasts create their sites of worship in the dark places of the world. Such dungeons are typically dangerous places to those not of the cult’s faith, which is dedicated to a forgotten god or otherworldly evil. A cult calls its dungeon a safe haven; the world at large sees it as a place of blasphemy. Living the Faith Cultists spend their time worshiping, praying, or indulging in the dark secrets of their faith. As a result, their living and eating quarters are drab and utilitarian, showing little concern for comfort. Barracks: A cult sizable enough to build a dungeon has a large congregation of zealous followers. These individuals are housed in cramped barracks chambers, possessing only their robes and a religious symbol or some other token of faith. Communal Living Spaces: Cultists work, worship, and take their meals in crowded common rooms. Such areas are designed to take away the identity of the individual, focusing on mass veneration and single-minded obedience. Chosen Ones’s Quarters: The only people in a cult who have private chambers are typically its leaders. Their rooms are locked and mysterious, separated from the rest of the supplicants by a veil of reverence and fanatical guards. Chambers of Worship Veneration of a higher power is the only reason a cult dungeon exists. When worshipers create an area in the dungeon, they do so with that purpose in mind. Images honoring the god, creature, or philosophy of the cult are common, taking the form of elaborate murals, tapestries, or carvings depicting its supposed greatness. Altar: The dominant feature of any cult’s dungeon is the altar, where cultists make foul offerings to their patron. Great numbers of cultists are found here at all times, making this the most dangerous place in the dungeon. The exact nature of the altar depends on the cult, but these chambers always contain unwholesome magic. Meditation Chambers: These smaller rooms are quiet and isolated, smelling heavily of incense and bedecked with religious icons. Acolytes meditating on their cult’s secrets can be found here at all times. DROW Elegant and refined, drow-built dungeons are an extension of that race’s legendary decadence. More than just homes and fortresses, drow dungeons are crafted to indulge a fetish for pain and an appreciation of dark beauty. Just as elves draw the details of their civilization from the natural world, drow shape their cities and buildings to mimic the natural features of the Underdark. Drow are masters of subterranean construction. Magic, an enslaved workforce, and boundless creativity combine to create structures that enthrall and terrify outsiders. Decadent Domiciles The residences of the noble houses of the drow shine like cruel beacons out of the shadows of their cities. Functional as well as beautiful, these great estates exemplify the dark elves’ love of magic and depravity, and their self-declared superiority. The spires of these edifices are meant to inspire envy and fear in all who see them. Fortress Estates: The drow ruling houses possess tremendous wealth, and their leaders are not shy about showing it. Their estates are fortresses featuring outer walls, towers, and well-defended chambers. Drow nobles ostentatiously one-up each other with TEN TRAPPINGS OF A CULT’S DUNGEON 1 A mural depicting the cult’s future rise to power. 2 Sacred animals roaming the halls freely. 3 The embalmed body of the cult’s founder. 4 Defiled holy symbols of other religions. 5 A symbol of the cult worked into mundane objects. 6 Reminders of punishment for disobeying the cult’s leaders. 7 Distant chanting. 8 Incendiary bins to burn forbidden objects. 9 A statue of the cult’s otherworldly patron. 10 Deceptively welcoming entrances to lure new members.
135DUERGAR CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon new construction that shows off their family’s affluence. They set towers apart from other buildings, ensuring that no one can approach those structures’ entrances without being spotted by guards. The interior of a drow noble’s home is lush with opulent excess, much of it plundered from other houses. Chambers of Indulgence: In the high towers of a drow estate stand the halls where matrons and noble scions indulge in decadent excess. Filled with sumptuous couches, diaphanous fabrics, freely flowing wine, and depraved entertainment, these rooms overflow with comforts and diversions, giving the entitled drow nobility a place to carouse their days away. Slave Pens: All drow houses boast impressive slave pens, kept out of sight in the lower chambers. Some families turn these spaces into vast mercantile enterprises, making their fortunes by selling slaves. Others create elaborate training yards to prepare thralls for combat in a city’s gladiatorial arena. No matter what their decorative appearance, slave pens are dismal places of chains, filth, and death. Frontier Outposts Surrounding the metropolitan drow settlements are a variety of guard posts and garrisons that protect each city’s borders. Architecturally, these fortresses display the same artistic grace found in the cities, making them resemble noble villas more than military strongholds. Those who doubt the strength of these outposts because of their appearance learn the lesson of their lives when the drow rise to defend them. Impregnable Defenses: Drow outposts are built atop chasms, cliffs, and even huge stalagmites, making them difficult to attack. Most feature only a single entrance, fiendishly defended by magical wards, cramped labyrinths, or cultivated slimes. Drow take pleasure in tormenting invaders before they are slain, and so they sometimes create false gates and passages that lead far into their strongholds. The leaders of an attacking force think they have the element of surprise, but in reality they are being drawn into a trap. Hall of Blades: All frontier outposts have an area where male drow practice the arts of combat and killing. These large chambers or courtyards are decorated with images of conquest that inspire drow warriors to hate any creatures not of their kind. Cruel weapons hang from racks along every wall, with dueling circles rising in tiers above the ground. Secret Paths: Secret tunnels spin out from a drow outpost like the lines of a spider’s web. Cleverly concealed, they are sometimes hidden even from the drow guarding a fortress. Such pathways provide clandestine access for spies or agents on important missions for the great houses or the priestesses of Lolth. Corrupt captains sometimes sell passage through these tunnels, though they offer no aid against any creatures or wards that might be guarding them. Within the Web of Lolth Rising in an unsettling swarm of barbed towers, the great temples of Lolth dominate the skyline of every drow city. Imperious and threatening, these structures are a constant reminder of the authority of Lolth’s priestesses. An eldritch fire glows behind the spiderwebs that drape a temple of Lolth like a veil, as elaborate statues and carvings leer from the eaves. Webbed Vault: The central area of a temple is a vast chamber large enough to hold hundreds of worshipers. A glass dome overhead sheds a cold and pale light. The high priestess evangelizes from a mighty dais at the head of the chamber, while spiders lurk in the dark tangle of webs that choke its upper reaches. Torture Theatre: Drow take pleasure in the suffering of others, and their dungeons are public displays within Lolth’s temple. Here prisoners are creatively restrained and ritually tormented for the amusem*nt of the populace, who howl with delight as the priestesses perform their ceremonies. Sacrificial Chamber: Deep within the mystic inner chambers of the temple stands the sacrificial altar where important victims are offered up to the Spider Queen. The sacrificial chamber is bedecked in grotesque artwork of gruesome detail and awful magnificence that reveals the dark elves’ love of cruelty. Handmaidens’ Font: Tucked away in the topmost spire of a temple is a place that only the highest priestesses can enter. In this simple chamber stands a basin whose bottom reveals a portal to the Demonweb Pits. Priestesses use the font to commune with the yochlols, the handmaidens of Lolth. DUERGAR The settlements of the duergar rival those of their dwarf cousins in craft and construction. While a duergar fortress is every bit as magnificent and longlasting as any dwarven redoubt, the dwarves build out of a sense of pride and community. In contrast, duergar architecture and construction reflects only that race’s greed and cruelty. The dungeons of the duergar are bastions of their campaign of evil, which imperiously claims ownership of all resources and treasure in their surroundings. The ancient tunnels and pathways of duergar mines are places where few subterranean travelers dare to tread. Fortress Cities The fortresses of the duergar are impenetrable ramparts. Highly defensible, a duergar citadel might be cut into a cliff face or built of stone blocks set into place by long-dead slaves. Behind the walls of a duergar fortress stands a city that reflects the evil of its dark masters.
136 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon ADAM PAQUETTE Outer Defenses: The walls of a duergar fortress rise abruptly from the floor of its cavern, usually surrounded by a moat. This might be a trench littered with cast-off chunks of jagged metal, a stream of flaming oil piped from a well discovered by duergar miners, or a searing pit of molten lava. Monolithic Buildings: Duergar buildings are dour and utilitarian, rising up like stone slabs and devoid of ornamentation beyond the occasional runic label at the entrance. Would-be invaders of a duergar city are stymied by a lack of landmarks along its endlessly similar streets. Cavernous Halls The interior of their buildings is where the duergar invest their greatest skills of craft and design. Not willing to waste time or wealth embellishing public spaces, the duergar create great vaults whose columns and walls are studded with intricate carvings and gems. They proudly display their mined or plundered treasures among images of their infernal kings. Workshops: Duergar keep well-equipped workshops in their lairs, where raw gems and precious metals are transformed into more valuable jewelry and relics. The slaves who toil for them keep these workshops running day and night. Foyers: Duergar dungeons open into a circular antechamber containing passages to other rooms beyond. Meant to honor their race’s connection to the Nine Hells, the floor of this foyer is set with a great seal covered in grotesque carvings. Duergar fortresses are as grim and terrible as their builders DUERGAR DESTINY By Duke Thangaart of Balecrag Our self-righteous cousins would have you believe that their cities are the strongest and most glorious in all the Underdark. Bah! What do they know of strength and glory? Their cities crumble while ours grow ever greater! This is because they slavishly honor the clan, while we duergar honor only the strong. Hellfire burns in our veins, giving us the vitality to conquer, to thrive, to live! Let the dwarves bow their heads in their shabby caves. The duergar will make thrones of mountains.
137DWARVES CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon WAYNE ENGLAND Trophy Room: Duergar nobles practically live in these great halls, which are packed with choice treasures accumulated over generations of greed and evil. Throne Room: Just as the dwarves cling to the trappings of the ancients, so do the duergar. Unlike the dwarves, though, their regal chambers are designed to intimidate visitors more than to honor the race’s ancestors. Infernal Embassy: The duergar’s close connection to the infernal realms sees a steady stream of fiendish emissaries within their settlements. Duergar dungeons contain chambers designed to cater to the needs of a devilish guest. Slave Labor Duergar are driven by a lust for conquest and ownership. To fuel that ambition, they ceaselessly delve into new areas in search of precious ore or gems. To be more precise, their slaves delve. No duergar will lift a finger to perform hard labor with a legion of thralls on hand. Hazardous Tunnels: Duergar care little for the safety of their slave miners, coldly factoring in expected deaths from cave-ins, starvation, or monsters when they plan their excavations. Their tunnels spread in a chaotic web wherever the duergar seek the wealth of the Underdark. Forge: Fueled by infernal fires or the burning of prisoners’ corpses, duergar forges work an endless number of slaves to death as they produce the weapons and tools of their masters’ reign. DWARVES Those who understand dwarves know the pride that members of that race take in smithing and stonework. Renowned for their attention to detail and their dedication to quality, dwarves build their fortresses and dungeons to last. No other race matches the dwarves’ ability to mix beauty and efficiency. Every room and structure in a dwarven dungeon has a purpose, and even the most utilitarian chambers show the painstaking care of master architects and artists. The dwarven style is rigidly geometric, severe, and meant to inspire awe. Complexes feature vaulted ceilings in underground halls, stairways that lead to hundreds of mine tunnels, and gigantic forges that continually churn out marvels. These structures serve more than a utilitarian function. They make the hearts of the dwarves who build and dwell within them swell with pride. Mines and Metal Dwarves love wealth in the form of precious metals and rare stones that hide deep within the earth. Their underground domains are a combination of mine and vault. When they tap into a rich vein of ore or a deposit of geodes, dwarf miners slowly turn a mine into a home. Dwarves don’t simply fill any suitably large chamber with treasure. They decorate their stone walls and pillars with gold, set gemstones into their tables, and weave mithral into fine tapestries. Their smiths craft excellent weapons and armor, and their nobles drink from gem-studded silver goblets. Mine Shaft: Spreading out around a dwarven hall like fracture lines, multiple mine shafts lead ever deeper into the earth. Dwarven mines are narrow and dark, traversed with rails on which carts carry ore to the distant forges. A mine shaft carries the constant risk of collapse, either from earthquakes or the movement of burrowing monsters such as purple worms and xorns. Built to follow veins of ore and gems, dwarven mine shafts are not logically laid out like the rest of a settlement. Outsiders can easily become lost in the twisting tunnels. Forge: Dwarves create huge workshops for their smiths, with dozens of stone worktables and anvils surrounding the forge. Some forges employ magic furnaces, while others tap into natural magma pools. Built for Defense After dwarves uncover their precious treasures, they fight to the death to keep them. Their fortifications are unparalleled at keeping out intruders while allowing the dwarves to endure even the longest sieges. Gate: Every dwarven dungeon has an imposing front gate, ornately decorated and crafted of stone or metal. Dwarves sometimes conceal these gates with illusion magic, then reveal them at a time designed to impress visitors most effectively. Throughout a dwarven dungeon, smaller gates and portcullises create deeper lines of defense. Murder Holes: Dwarves seldom shy away from a face-to-face fight, but that attitude changes when invaders hit them where they live. Dwarven
138 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon dungeons feature secret side passages with narrow openings that connect to the main corridors. Through these murder holes, dwarves attack their enemies with hot oil or crossbow bolts, breaking up their attacks and driving them into traps. Choke Points: As much as dwarves appreciate towering ceilings and wide avenues, they make sure that all approaches to their inner citadel pass through choke points at strategic locations. These narrow defiles force attackers into close confines, where multiple defenders can shoot and strike at enemies approaching down a narrow tunnel. Life Goes On While it is occupied, a dwarven city bustles with activity. Only when abandoned does it come to feel like a true dungeon. When dwarves flee or retreat from a fortress, they take their belongings but leave their structures intact. Their pride tells them they’ll be back to reclaim the glorious home they have lost. Grand Hall: During their frequent communal meals, dwarves gather at long tables to partake of copious amounts of food and drink. A stage for performances and speeches, a huge kitchen, and racks of mugs speak to the raucous gatherings that once filled an empty grand hall with the din of celebrating dwarves. Distillery: In dwarven distilleries, veteran brewmasters craft ale, whiskey, and other potent spirits. Kegs might yet remain in their racks in an abandoned distillery, but be warned—only the truly brave or foolish risk drinking dwarven liquor that has aged an unknown number of years. Animal Pens: Unlike many Underdark dwellers, dwarves have the same taste in food and drink as the races of the surface world. They prefer beef and mutton to spider and mushrooms, milk and honey over rusty water and lichens. Some dwarven citadels maintain aboveground settlements where food animals are raised. Underground pens are used to house overflow livestock that enables the dwarves to maintain a food supply while under siege. Temple: Even though they pay small tributes to many gods, dwarves revere Moradin more than any other deity. Moradin is the only god certain to have a temple in a dwarven community, never far from the central forge. Along with more mundane offerings, master crafters place their finest works in the god’s shrine, which is protected by traps. Throne Room: Dwarves observe a strict political hierarchy, and the throne room symbolizes the authority of their lord. The walls of a throne room are lined with images and stories of rulers going back centuries. HUMANS As with all their endeavors, humans create dungeons in pursuit of a larger goal. Ambition drives them underground to conquer new territories, get rich, or discover unknown lore. A human-built dungeon can serve as a staging ground for the search for underground riches, the secret prison of a citadel, or a last foothold in enemy territory. Humans weren’t made to live underground, however, and they have no formal tradition of subterranean settlements. Thus, each human dungeon is unique in design and purpose. Quick and Dirty Humans use whatever supplies they have at hand when they dig their dungeons, reinforce them, and build structures within them. Functionality comes first, and explorers in a human dungeon rarely see a consistent quality of work and materials. Since a dungeon made by humans is a means to an end, its builders feel no obligation to have it last for all time. Such dungeons are typically either full of toiling workers or long deserted. Workers’ Quarters: Bedrolls line the walls of these rough-hewn tunnels, filled with workers sleeping off a recent shift even as others use the space as a thoroughfare. Wooden struts hold up the ceiling, which sometimes sheds small chunks of earth and ON TRAPS By Tegget Bronzecrown No dwarf should ever build anything like a worthless kobold’s snare or pit. A trap is a work of art, as much so as a suit of armor or a great statue of a dead king. Design your traps as an integral part of the architecture in your halls. Lay down every passage with your traps in mind. The possibility that you and your kin will need to abandon your halls is ever present. But by ensuring that your home remains defended, you make easier your clan’s inevitable return. A real dwarven trap must resist being destroyed or disabled, and it must have a reset mechanism. A device sprung once and spent has no worth. Your traps must endure as long as the dwarf race draws breath. Smash invaders with heavy stone slabs. Drop them into deep pits where they can starve like the vermin they are. Outsiders lust hungrily for the riches of the dwarves, so a trap that triggers when an intruder interferes with the jewels on a pillar or statue is one that will surely be sprung.
139KOBOLDS CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon stone. Workers hit by debris simply turn over and fall back asleep. Water Wheel: An underground waterfall is the site of a wooden water wheel. Its rotation powers a nearby rock crusher, while workers fill buckets at the falls to carry water to the dig site. Planning Office: The overseer of the operation works out of an old carriage-wagon that has been wheeled deeper into the dungeon as its main shaft is widened. The coach’s interior is plastered with maps and plans. Big Ropes: The dungeon makers found a chasm in their path. Rather than spend time building a bridge, they ran a heavy rope across the gap on an incline. Workers burdened with gear slide down the rope to the work area. Coming back requires climbing up a precarious set of steps built into the opposite cliff face, then sliding down another rope coming back in the other direction. A third rope system employs pulleys and metal buckets, allowing the transportation of ore and equipment back and forth. Expanding the Frontier Just as they have always pushed out to explore the unconquered lands of the surface world, humans constantly seek to expand their territories underground. Where a subterranean race such as dwarves might stop short of a drow-inhabited area, humans keep right on going. Pitted Tunnel: The large cavities in this tunnel seemed like a blessing at first, since they made digging easier. Soon, however, human miners discovered that they had dug through a bulette’s hunting ground. The creature is far too formidable to be directly assaulted, so the miners have learned to hide during the forays that occur every week or so. Contested Ground: A line of human soldiers sits on one side of a cavern as workers file past. On the other side, a few drow warriors stand guard. Neither side can afford to take troops away from this unofficial border, but neither can be certain of victory if a battle breaks out. The stalemate has continued for weeks, and the tension is rising. Sun God’s Chamber: A tunnel through solid stone takes a sideways turn to route around an uncovered artifact—a metal cylinder half excavated from a rocky wall. It bears the symbol of Pelor, and the crystals growing around it shine with the light of the sun. The miners who uncovered it could tell that part of the text on the cylinder was a warning, but their efforts to decipher the rest have so far been in vain. KOBOLDS Kobolds prefer to live in natural caverns and tunnels that offer the honeycombs of small passages they favor—and which they protect with effective traps. Kobolds love sites with plenty of twists and turns, from city sewers to ancient limestone caverns. In some cases, they undertake excavations to increase the number of passages in their lair, even if only to throw off invaders. A kobold dungeon demonstrates that race’s cleverness and adaptability through its twists, turns, and hazards. Cramped Passages Kobolds grow anxious in open areas, so they make a point of lairing in cramped chambers. Doing this also ensures that only creatures of their size can move through kobold tunnels at speed, forcing larger pursuers to stoop or crawl. Outsiders can become easily confused and disoriented in these restrictive passages, making them vulnerable to the traps that wait at every turn. Collapsing Ceilings: Kobolds entice would-be intruders into their lairs by way of large, easily navigated passageways. These routes lead to dead ends, however, giving the intruders nowhere to turn when kobold sentries knock out the struts that hold up the ceiling. While the kobolds sneak to safety through concealed side tunnels, the resulting cave-in finishes off the intruders. False Leads: Explorers think they’ve picked the right path to the heart of a kobold lair when the traps they encounter become more frequent. Savvy kobolds know about this assumption, and in a fiendish bit of reverse psychology, some kobold tribes lay their deadliest traps along false paths, leading overly confident invaders away from their lairs. DISPATCH TO KARL BRASLIN Regarding progress on excavation #3 Received your message, understand your concerns. Project must move forward. Rewards will make all this worth it, I assure you. Following strategies will ensure success in venture. ✦ Increasing budget to produce iron struts instead of wood. ✦ Sending twenty more prospective miners to you. Should arrive within three weeks. Will need training on site. ✦ Authorizing you to hire new wizard to replace the departed Zenteem. Do not forget—four months until deadline, when we will default on major loans. Your stake is in jeopardy, as is mine. Best of luck moving forward. Regards, Kaia Elding
140 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Intersections: Kobolds strategically excavate chambers where certain tunnels connect, creating larger intersections. These areas provide enough room to create complex traps and to set up full-scale ambushes when intruders get too close for comfort. Home in the Tunnels Beyond the twists and turns of a kobold tribe’s outer defenses lies the group’s home. The larger caverns in this area are packed with kobolds and interlinked by the same cramped passages that surround them. Living Quarters: The most spacious areas of any kobold warren are the living quarters that house most of the tribe. Craggy and cluttered natural caverns are typically chosen for such areas, providing numerous nooks and crannies in which different family groups take up occupation. Shrine: All large kobold clans carve a shrine to Tiamat out of the rock of their lair. This area is the only place in the dungeon where treasure is strewn openly, since no kobold would dare to steal an offering from its clan’s patron deity. Hatchery: These secure locations are where the females of a tribe lay their eggs and where hatchlings are raised. Kobolds keep these caverns hot and humid to ensure the health of their offspring. Food and Supply Cache: These areas are filled with materials captured from the surrounding environs. A cache chamber is cluttered and filthy, with mold or mushrooms growing in piles of stolen gear. Vermin Corral: Cave crickets, centipedes, spiders, and lizards skitter within these rickety paddocks. A corral is typically built around an area rich with the molds or algae on which the domestic creatures of a kobold clan graze. KUO-TOAS The stench of rotting fish. The reverent chanting to mad gods. The screams of sacrificial victims. These are the signs that a kuo-toa dungeon lies ahead. The underground lairs of kuo-toas are horrid places filled with equally horrid creatures, but the rewards they offer are great. Kuo-toas hoard their wealth near their dark shrines as offerings to the insane beings they worship. Kuo-toas make their lairs in natural caverns that have been eroded by water seeping through the Underdark. Walking into their dank, twisting caves is like entering another world where the ocean has consumed the land and fish rule over all. Rippling black pools reflect light from phosphorescent fungi along the walls, creating the feeling of being trapped underwater. Sacred Pools The amphibious kuo-toas are most comfortable in water, so they build colonies around the deep, murky pools that dot the Underdark. They treat their pools as holy places, connected to the deepest underground seas where dwell the gods of the deep. Kuo-toas believe that aboleths have a connection to their deep gods, and some kuo-toa colonies lie directly atop aboleth lairs. Any passage leading downward into darkness from a kuo-toa lair is a route that all explorers should think twice about following. Breeding Pool: Kuo-toas lay their eggs in shallow pools of clear water, a stark contrast to the murky sumps found elsewhere in their lairs. Not far away, other pools hold kuo-toa fingerlings, not yet a year old and unable to breathe air. Vicious guards protect these pools and look after the young. The leaders of the kuo-toas keep separate royal spawning pools near their quarters. Offering Pool: The wealth that kuo-toas pillage from other creatures is cast into the depths of this diamond-shaped black pool as an offering to the deep gods. The pool’s chamber is usually deserted, though ranking kuo-toas sometimes come here to retrieve valuable treasures for their personal quarters. A Wealth of Slaves Above their brackish pools, the kuo-toas build the cells and pens in which dwell slaves drawn from other races. Kuo-toa lairs bustle with activity, but slaves do all the real work. Overseers keep watch as slaves catch THE MESSY END OF VANCE THE DASHING Recounted by Herc Muleback, loyal henchman It had been four hours since my boss, Vance the Dashing, went down into the kobold warrens. I’d almost given up hope of his return. Then I jumped up when I heard footsteps from the mouth of the cave and saw the familiar brim of his swashbuckler’s hat. My jaw dropped when I saw the golden glow of what he held in his hands. He’d found it—the jeweled Egg of Kurtulmak! Yet the look on his face wasn’t the grin I’d expected. Then I saw the bloodstains on his ripped tunic, the darts bristling up and down his back, and the wire trip-lines dangling from his limbs. Vance stared right through me, his eyes glassy as the egg dropped from his hands. He collapsed face first in the dirt, dead. From the look of it, he never even had a chance to draw his sword.
141KUO-TOAS CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon MILIVOJ ´CERAN fish, clean, dig new tunnels, and craft the kuo-toas’ signature hunting weapons. Other kuo-toas use their time to worship at their weird altars, or undertake excursions into the Underdark seeking enemies or more slaves. Slave Pens: At the rare times when slaves are allowed to sleep or eat, they are stuffed into closely guarded, cramped pens built of thick wooden bars. Each pen offers little more than a shallow pool of filthy water to drink, a rocky floor to sleep on, and a reeking pit for waste. Slaves are fed rats, fungus, and insects. The kuo-toas save their precious fish for themselves. Workshop: Kuo-toas set their slaves to work crafting specialized weapons for hunting, along with trinkets to offer to their gods. Their workshops are flat-floored chambers strewn with simple tools. Purging Chamber: Kuo-toas have a racial tendency to descend into madness. In a futile attempt to prevent the insanity from infecting others, an individual affected by this condition is either exiled or sent to the lair’s purging chamber. Sane kuo-toas will not come near a mad one, so they order their slaves to force those so afflicted through the single entrance to this small room. Slaves attack the mad kuo-toa with spears until they slay it, then leave its body to rot. Worship and Rule The deep gods influence every aspect of kuo-toa society. When kuo-toas create their dungeons, they lay them out based on ancient patterns that they believe have been passed down by their gods. They do not craft many adornments, and the statues and wall art they do create are displayed near their deepest pools and holiest sites. Meditation Cell: Kuo-toa monitors use these small, secluded areas to go through the mental exercises that stave off their racial madness. These areas are left dark and unadorned so that meditating monitors can turn their focus inward. Sacrificial Shrine: In a smaller kuo-toa community, the shrine is no more than a simple stone slab caked with dried blood. In the largest and oldest settlements, kuo-toas have created tall, tiered ziggurats on which their victims are ritually murdered. Whip Chambers: The whips are the leaders and religious scholars of the kuo-toa race. They maintain austere chambers in which they keep their spellbooks and religious artifacts. Kuo-toas guard their precious young ferociously
142 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon MIND FLAYERS If anyone knows how to keep a secret, it’s an illithid. An explorer on the trail of a mind flayer might enter a dungeon, explore it thoroughly, and find no trace of any creature within. In fact, the seemingly ancient ruins are a decoy, designed to keep anyone from finding the otherworldly structures hidden below. A true mind flayer dungeon is a sprawling mass of chambers, planned and built according to intentions that make sense only to creatures of the Far Realm. It takes on a geometrically rigid spiral configuration, from which rise domes, bulbous towers, and twisting tubes. Living Architecture Mind flayers craft their structures to display features of living tissue. The walls of a mind flayer dungeon might have eyes, mouths, or even beating hearts. Illithids favor vertical architecture, with spires and domes looming high above the streets of their cities. Slaver’s Tower: Bone struts and thick tendons support this high tower. Inside, prisoners are lashed to the walls while they await the dark ritual that will make them into thralls. Domed Arena: Mind flayers pit thralls against one another in mortal combat, but not as sport. Rather, the illithids treat such contests as experiments, carefully noting the strengths and weaknesses of the different races. The dome above is made of bone struts covered with stretched, translucent skin. Rippling Tunnel: This tunnel’s pulsating walls drip with slime, and explorers must move along it as if they were traversing the inside of a living creature. Pervasive Psionics A mind flayer dungeon thrums with psionic energy. Sneaking into such a site can be difficult when the very walls can sense the thoughts of intruders. Illithids imprint specific psychic patterns on their thralls, then set up psionic wards to alert them when anyone not imprinted enters certain areas. Elder Brain Pool: In a mind flayer city, a singular creature known as an elder brain leads the illithids in their dark plans of conquest. Formed from the combined minds of deceased illithids, an elder brain dwells in a secure chamber at the center of a city. Soaking in a briny pool, it issues orders as it flares with tangible manifestations of psionic power. Psionic Gatehouse: When a creature steps onto the spongy floor of this wedge-shaped chamber, the doors seal shut. In Deep Speech, a solemn voice declares that the way of the mind opens the path beyond. Only by demonstrating psionic ability or tricking the sensor can an intruder open the doors. Crystal Library: In addition to a collection of standard books and tomes, a mind flayer library contains a small chamber in which rainbow-hued crystals line the walls. These contain psychic impressions implanted by telepathy, which can be unlocked through concentration. But, since those memories were peeled from creatures as their brains were eaten, the experience can be unpleasant. Alien Experiments Mind flayers dissect and reassemble sentient creatures so they can learn how to pervert their minds and bodies. Laboratory: Several wide tables of green-gray metal line the center of this chamber. Partially vivisected creatures are held there, terror-stricken and wracked with pain. Tools extend from the ceiling—articulated arms of metal, bone, and muscle that bristle with implements of dissection and torture. Racks lining the walls are stacked high with organs in jars, writhing worms, and the body parts of Far Realm monstrosities. Monster Cages: The creatures that survive the illithids’ experiments live in small cages hanging from the ceiling of this large chamber. Normal creatures exposed to portals to the Far Realm, hybrids stitched together from mismatched parts, and deformed humanoids created during failed experiments can all be found here, living in constant agony. The stench is overwhelming, and these pitiful creatures beg for release—or death—if discovered. THE LAIR OF THE MIND EATERS Excerpt from the novella by Erin Gale Soulforge Ever closer to the center of the spiral did I travel, heart racing and mind muddled. Never did I see such grotesqueries as those that formed the very bedrock of this city. Darkened towers heavy with sinew and quietly groaning as if in pain reached up into the blackness of the cavern, one I could not see the height of but could sense was of unfathomable scale. Laughter rang out, and I soon realized it was my own. I felt the seams of my mind pulling loose as my dread twisted in the grip of some fell power, bringing upon me a new emotion I could not fathom. Forging onward still, I came upon one last door, imperious and inlaid with scenes of death and dominion. Ecstasy gripped me when dread should have, as I realized my path had for some time been leading me back to where I entered . . . I now stood at the place of my arrival, and could finally escape this hell beneath the earth.
143WIZARDS CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon MINOTAURS In the Underdark, the mazes of minotaurs spread out as webs of twisting passageways nearly impossible to escape. Some labyrinths are built by peaceable minotaurs bearing no ill will toward other humanoids. Others are crafted by great brutes that view the lesser races only as sacrifices for Baphomet, and whose complex passageways are the stuff of legend. Twists without End A minotaur labyrinth can drive intruders mad as they try to navigate its multitude of turns and corners— assuming they don’t die of thirst or starvation first. A labyrinth on the surface might allow crafty adventurers to climb or fly to safety, but an underground maze offers no such option. Explorers here must trust to their mapmaking skills. Stranded Monsters: Many creatures wander into a labyrinth and never emerge again, though not all such creatures perish. Sometimes monsters are able to find food and a place to lair, turning a labyrinth into an unlikely home. Barriers: Rare is the minotaur labyrinth that consists of nothing except halls and turns. Most feature rivers, gorges, cliff faces, and vast chasms that explorers must negotiate. Titanic Construction: The strength and ingenuity of minotaurs is demonstrated by the scope of their mazes. Huge bridges, towering staircases, and high walls abound to challenge intruders. Center of the Maze At the heart of most sizable labyrinths stands a minotaur city. Although not as densely populated as other humanoid settlements, a minotaur city is as strong as the stone from which it is carved. Confusing Architecture: The center of a labyrinth can sometimes be as confusing as the maze that leads to it. Major roads suddenly become dead ends, buildings are chopped off in mid-rise, and passages can give onto pits or secret stairways without reason. Plaza: This area at the center of all the paths of a labyrinth serves as a meeting place where minotaurs gather in times of war or celebration. Outsiders who end up in the plaza can become quickly confused as to which of its numerous entrances is the one they just passed through. Shrine to Baphomet: To the regret of many visitors, an altar dedicated to the Horned King stands near the heart of most minotaur mazes. These barbaric shrines are caked with the blood of sacrificial victims and the leavings of dreadful feasts. WIZARDS All adventurers know that wizards are the masterminds behind some of the world’s most unforgiving dungeons. Whether designed to house a trove of arcane lore or to keep the mundane world and its occupants at a distance, a wizard’s dungeon is a place of bizarre wonders. Such a dungeon is created in a place of power, whether in a mountainside holding an ancient arcane relic or on the perimeter of the abandoned temple of a long-dead god. No matter what its location or how dire the rumors of its magical defenses, a wizard’s dungeon always attracts ambitious adventurers seeking to claim its treasures. An Artist’s Masterpiece Wizards are not content to carve their dungeons from mundane caverns. They go out of their way to create or transform the dungeon environment with magic. A wizard considers himself or herself an artist, so that a dungeon becomes a medium for the individual’s expression of arcane prowess. Challenges Galore: Nearly every room and corridor in a wizard’s dungeon holds potential danger to vex intruders or to test the worthiness of would-be allies. Flaming jets could suddenly shoot from the walls, or furniture might animate when someone touches it. The true nature of a wizard’s dungeon is never what it appears. Mystic Design: The floor plans of some wizards’ dungeons are designed to reflect or harness arcane energy. These chambers and passages create mystic symbols when properly mapped, offering clues to uncovering a wizard’s secrets. Magical Locomotion: Many wizards create dungeons that require fantastic means of movement to traverse, from vertical shafts with no handholds to floating platforms that shuttle travelers over hazardous terrain. Arcane Secrets Abound Wizards create dungeons as a focus for magical research. For some, a dungeon is a testing ground for experimenting with new spells and magic items. Other wizards create dungeons to house the disastrous results of such experiments. Laboratories: Wizards can’t resist the opportunity to study their magic and find new ways to use it. Their dungeons frequently feature well-stocked laboratories where experiments are conducted. Vast piles of scrolls and racks of alchemical compounds abound in these workshops. Summoning Chamber: This foreboding room is present in many an archmage’s dungeon and is always bad news for adventurers. Within, the wizard communes with otherworldly entities that are able
144 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon to cross into the world through magic circles or other kinds of dimensional portals. These creatures are often bound to a wizard’s command and thus eager to attack intruders. Treasure Vault: The wealth of wizards is the stuff of legend. Every wizardly dungeon has a treasure vault, hidden in a warded cache or sealed behind mighty doors. Protected by passwords, riddles, or cunning magical seals, a wizard’s vault can make those who survive entering it rich beyond their wildest dreams. Sanctum: This carefully placed and secure chamber is where a wizard rests, studies, and ponders the mysteries of the cosmos. Some sanctums rest atop the rest of a wizard’s dungeon in a secret apex level, while others are hidden in the dungeon’s uttermost depths. YUAN-TI Filled with shadows, poison, and slithering menace, the dungeons of the yuan-ti are places of sanctity to their cold-blooded race. Hidden from the eyes of the world, nearby yet ever elusive, yuan-ti dungeons shelter the servants of Zehir as they hatch their insidious plots and dream of a time when their coils will encircle the world. The scope of a yuan-ti dungeon varies depending on its role in the schemes of that race. Some are newly built extensions of a cult’s secret lair within a city. Others are many-tunneled complexes built in a time before recorded history. All evoke a primal dread in intruders. Places of Refuge The yuan-ti’s plan for domination begins with infiltrating the population centers of the world. The creatures establish safe houses in abandoned buildings or the homes of mesmerized citizens. From there, they work tirelessly to subvert the authority of a settlement, coming and going in secret. Benevolent Fronts: A yuan-ti dungeon in the cities lurks behind the false front of a charitable organization or other benevolent group. The yuan-ti take great care to ensure that this deception is meticulously detailed, throwing off suspicion of what lies beneath. Hidden Caches: Cultists operating safe houses keep supplies on hand for use by yuan-ti spies, including magic items, poisons, ritual scrolls, and bribe money. Their hiding places are sometimes no more secretive than a cellar or a space beneath the floorboards of a building, with a venomous snake left among the goods to protect them from thieves. Escape Route: A yuan-ti cult maintains secret passages that its members can use to escape if their true nature is discovered. Such a route might lead deeper into an adjoining yuan-ti dungeon, or to an inconspicuous exit in the city above. Lair of the Snakes Yuan-ti dungeons are terrifying places, possessing an ancient and exotic wonder. Winding passages connect a dungeon’s chambers, which are sculpted into serpentine curves. The yuan-ti are perfectionists in their architecture, creating magnificent structures with impeccable detail. These works are cold and passionless, however, as befits a reptilian race. Fanged jaws, sinuous bodies, and scaled surfaces are a constant motif, rippling subtly in the shadows to rattle the nerves of intruders. Cunning Construction: Yuan-ti dungeons have numerous secret passages that crisscross between chambers. In many cases, these passages also lead to the surface, providing easy ways in and out for yuan-ti spies. Temple to Zehir: All yuan-ti revere Zehir, god of darkness, and they create grand temples to honor him. These sites feature stepped pyramids, giant statues, sacrificial pits, and images of snakes throughout. Transformation Chamber: The most fearsome site in any yuan-ti dungeon is the chamber where the dark curses of that race are worked on victims and thralls. These places reek of sorcery and poison, and they echo with the screams of the unwitting creatures that enter and are forever changed. TWENTY WEIRD THINGS IN A WIZARD’S DUNGEON 1 Signs or symbols that warn intruders to beware. 2 A ceiling that appears as a starry night sky. 3 A fountain that flows backward. 4 Animated shadows that move across floors or walls. 5 The stuffed body of a never-before-seen creature. 6 Piles of books being sorted by faeries or imps. 7 A well that draws water from the deep ocean. 8 Rats skittering along the ceiling. 9 Candles or torches burning with green flame. 10 Portraits with moving features or backgrounds. 11 Self-building bridges or passages. 12 A globe showing the geography of another world. 13 A mirror that shows the viewer’s aged reflection. 14 Jars filled with obscure creatures, living or dead. 15 Doors that change location when not observed. 16 Glowing crystals singing the history of the listener. 17 The head or other body part of a historical figure. 18 Flagstones that illuminate when walked on. 19 A tunnel that seems to extend forever. 20 A chamber where time moves slowly or quickly.
145SCROLLS OF POWER CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon Special Rewards The deepest and most heavily fortified dungeons could well contain magical treasures that surpass anything known in the surface world. This section presents scrolls of power, magic items that provide godlike power to those who wield them. It also contains stories and statistics for a quartet of dungeon companions—secondary characters that can enhance an adventure story and fill useful roles in a party at the same time. SCROLLS OF POWER A scroll of power is a specially prepared magic item that contains an unusually rare spell, prayer, evocation, discipline, or hex. Created by gods, exarchs, and archwizards, these scrolls are among the mightiest and rarest of all magic items. A scroll of power can be used by any character as a standard action. Once it is used, the magic of the scroll dissipates and cannot be brought forth again. Item Descriptions Each scroll of power description has three elements. Tier: Like artifacts, scrolls of power are designed for a given tier of play. Benefit: The effect created by the activation of the scroll. Award: The sort of adventure or campaign style the scroll might benefit. Mass Heal Lady Dusk, the compassionate leader of a prominent healers’ guild, spent her life traveling the world. Selfless and courageous, she sought always to mend the wounds of the suffering. One day, Lady Dusk received a message from an old halfelf friend. Trinadel was an adventurous sort, forever looking to unravel ancient lore and uncover rare artifacts. The letter spoke of his stay in the village of Barovia, below the grim walls of Castle Ravenloft. Many in the village were ill, he wrote, and Dusk’s services might help ease their affliction. He also mentioned the eerie nature of the place, and how he could not help but feel that he was being watched. The urgency of the letter inspired Dusk to make the journey. Before long, she and her party entered the strange mists that surrounded Barovia. Disoriented and confused, the group quickly lost its way despite the best efforts of the ranger Rindasu. As the fog thickened, the howling of evil beasts began to rise. The group raced on, hoping to escape the abyssal wolves that shadowed their movement. But with each wolf slain, two more seemingly appeared from the shadows. Finally surrounded, the party was forced to stop. The stalwart paladin Bryce stepped forward to protect his companions, who were exhausted and on the cusp of defeat. Lady Dusk knew that if she did not act quickly, she and her companions would perish. Whispering a quick prayer to Sune, Dusk quickly drew forth a sacred scroll that was their only hope for survival. As she uttered its incantation, a divine light f lared across the battlefield, and the mortal wounds that had ravaged the party were no more. Revitalized and ready for battle again, the adventurers drove off the wolves and raced through the woods to reach Barovia at last. No one spoke, but Dusk offered silent thanks to Sune for the prayer that had saved them. This scroll was created during the Dawn War—a gift granted to mortal warriors fearless enough to stand at the gods’ side against the forces of chaos. The power of Mass Heal was dispersed throughout the ravaged lands of the world and actively hunted by the primordials and their servants. No one knows how many of these relics survived those chaotic early days, but legends tell of worthy adventurers who receive visions regarding a scroll’s location. Tier: Paragon. Benefit: Each ally within 10 squares of the user is restored to full hit points and maximum healing surges, and is cured of all diseases currently affecting him or her. In addition, each ally is immune to fear until the end of the encounter and gains temporary hit points equal to his or her bloodied value. Award: Mass Heal is an excellent reward for a party that completes a difficult quest for a deity or a religious organization. The scroll might be hidden deep within the crypt of a long-dead hero, protected by guardian spirits or constructs. In the game, it can reverse the outcome of a climactic encounter or enable a party low on resources to continue an adventure as if starting fresh. Polymorph Bah’Li, battle mage of the high elves, had been fighting for weeks. The Tyrantclaw orcs’ onslaught was more difficult to quell than he had originally anticipated. With his forces depleted and failure becoming a clear possibility, Bah’Li returned to his camp on the sandy beaches of the island. There, in secret, he opened an ornate rune-etched scroll case—the one his father had bestowed on him prior to his departure. He was told that the power of the scroll could never be spoken of, and that when he found himself in a battle from which there was no escape, its use would turn the tide. A long-forgotten god was the inspiration for the dark mages who developed this fearsome spell—and who paid the price for twisting the laws of nature with
146 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon WAYNE ENGLAND their magic. Legends say that this unnamed god would steal the souls of the innocent and maliciously reshape them into creatures of horror. Knowing that his acolytes yearned to share this dark magic of transformation, the god gifted them with a small portion of his power. The mages worked endlessly to craft the incantations that would grant them access to their god’s designs. In the end, however, those designs were their undoing, as their vengeful god’s magic transformed them into the creatures they sought to shape. Today, precious few Polymorph scrolls of power exist, and all carry a hint of the evil that crafted them. Though Polymorph can be used safely, its benefit comes at a price. Tier: Heroic. Benefit: The scroll’s user assumes the form of an elite monster of his or her level + 2 or lower. Until the end of the encounter, the user has the hit points, defenses, traits, powers, and special abilities of the monster, instead of his or her own. At the end of the encounter, the user resumes his or her normal form and takes damage equal to the bloodied value of the monster. Award: The copies of Polymorph that still exist are protected by mighty wizards and other guardians. Adventurers might be given this scroll to use as a last resort when performing a task of grave importance. Power Word Kill For six days, Emirikol the Chaotic had battled the storm titan Volturnus. The renegade wizard used every spell he knew, calling down elemental fury against the monstrous foe. He summoned demons to rend the titan’s flesh and blasted its mind with raw arcane power. Though battered and bloodied, Volturnus yet came on. With the titan’s fury raining down on him, Emirikol climbed a rocky spur where the battle would conclude face to face. Volturnus thundered out a booming laugh, thinking the wizard would soon be dead. Yet there on the storm-swept rocks, Emirikol shouted out the word of undoing. Volturnus shrieked. The winds howled. Lightning raked the clouds. Then the titan fell dead, a threat no more. For the first wizards, all the world’s languages were insufficient for commanding arcane energy. Lacking the ability and vocabulary to voice the esoteric concepts behind their spellcraft, they created an arcane lexicon—a language of magic—from which the first power words were created. Every wizard spell contains words of power, without which its magic would not take effect. Most are harmless on their own, manifesting magic only when shaped by a caster. A few, however, embody enough potential that merely speaking the words aloud is enough to draw that magic forth. These most potent arcane effects—Power Word Stun, Power Word Blind, and the dreadful Power Word Kill—proved exceedingly dangerous when loosed on the world. Many archmages took it upon themselves to purge these words of power from the arcane lexicon, destroying spellbooks and revising history. The power words were lost, or so they hoped. As it happened, not every wizard was willing to part with such awesome arcane might. Tier: Paragon. Benefit: One mortal creature that the user can see dies. The creature must be of the same level as the user or lower. The user then drops to 0 hit points. Award: The few copies of Power Word Kill that were preserved by the ancient wizards have been lost or hidden for centuries. Adventurers might uncover one of these scrolls in an ancient arcane laboratory, buried in a vault deep in the Underdark, or in a forgotten library of some dead civilization such as the tiefling empire Bael Turath or the serpent kingdom of Zannad. Wizards who hold copies of Power Word Kill guard them closely, fearing that the scrolls will be used against them. Wish The dying god sat on the throne of his crumbling fortress, contemplating the end of all that was. His children had bested him, and now the magic that was his lifeblood was failing. Time and the world would change as they always did, but he would no longer be a part of that. With the last of his immortal might, he began the process of scribing a set of scrolls of power as an eternal testament to his strength and will. The scroll of Wish would be a final gift to his lost followers—the power of the gods themselves bestowed on mortal hands. While casting the scrolls down into the world, he knew that mortals would one day find them buried deep in the tombs and dungeons of the past. He would not live to see the day that they were discovered. But as his life faded, he was content to know that his prowess would once more reshape the world. When the world was young and the Dawn War raged across all lands, gods and primordials alike coveted the loyalty and assistance of the mortals who
147SCROLLS OF POWER CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon BEN WOOTTEN would heed their call. Each side did what they could to entice followers to their cause. Some gave gifts of arms, armor, and artifacts. Others offered access to forbidden lore—the most potent of which was the ability to reshape the nature of time and reality. In time, the use of the wish spell grew out of control. The mortals who had knowledge of it began to dream about challenging the masters of the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos. During the last days of the Dawn War, the gods and the primordials fought to erase all knowledge of it from mortal memory. This most potent magic still lingers in the world, however, trapped in scrolls of power whose creation has been lost to time. Those who have heard the rumors of the Wish scrolls constantly seek out their resting places. Agents of the gods and the primordials are likewise keen to discover these lost scrolls, knowing that one employed by the wrong hands might enable the servants of imprisoned primordials to break their masters’ chains. Tier: Epic. Benefit: The user of this scroll can make one request of a powerful entity. Some examples of valid wishes include: personal improvement (+4 to one ability score of the user’s choice), a single uncommon or rare magic item, a clue to the secret name of a primordial, or the last known whereabouts of an artifact. The user must perform a service for the entity in recompense. Failure to complete the service has dire consequences. Award: A Wish scroll might be granted as a reward for performing a service for an exarch, or might be uncovered in the tomb of a legendary hero. Rumors exist that some demon lords protect copies of this scroll, as do the scribes of the world’s most prestigious library. No one can confirm these rumors, however, since revealing that one possesses such a scroll would likely cause mass hysteria and draw the attention of those who covet it. A wish is as great as its caster can imagine FOR THE DM: BE CAREFUL WHAT THEY WISH FOR Wish has been the most powerful spell in every version of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game. Use this scroll with care. Ensure that your players know that the request of the entity that grants the wish is likely to be very challenging to fulfill. Unlike what is suggested in older editions of the game, you should respect the intent of the player who activates the scroll, not try to reverse or undo the wish by twisting the player’s wording. g y
148 CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon DUNGEON COMPANIONS Adventurers can come across intangible rewards during a dungeon delve, such as assistance from an unusual and unexpected source. The following characters can be used as companions to supplement the heroes’ abilities during their underground adventures. Each presents a unique personality, background, and strengths that can be integrated into an adventure’s plot. For more information on companion characters, see Dungeon Master’s Guide 2. Akaana Vir’tlar “Fine, we’ll do it your way . . . for now.” Entitled and petulant in attitude, this adolescent drow heiress doesn’t know how alone she truly is. Her home, the drow city Aoroon, lies entombed in the venomous webs of the demon-spider Yorgrix—along with the shriveled husks of her formerly influential family. As a child hostage under the cruel eyes of a rival house’s matriarch in a neighboring city, Akaana was spared the destruction of Aoroon. She was determined to be reunited with the survivors of her family, though, and used her magical talents to escape her captors. She now slips through the shadows of the Underdark, unaware of the danger ahead or the matriarch’s assassins in hot pursuit. Gaining Akaana Akaana is young and sheltered, and not yet fully corrupted by the ways of her kind. At the same time, she is firmly indoctrinated in drow superiority, carrying herself as if she were a queen. The source of her arcane gifts is shrouded in mystery. She needs direction to fully develop them without hurting herself or others. The adventurers might encounter Akaana as she wanders through the Underdark, or perhaps as she sneaks into their camp to steal food. She is quick to bargain for an alliance, but she refuses to plead for one. Accustomed to male slaves waiting on her in a sumptuous fashion, Akaana is dismissive toward males in the party. A strong female character, on the other hand, might find herself becoming a role model for this arrogant but vulnerable “princess.” Akaana Vir’tlar Level 13 Controller Medium fey humanoid, drow HP 68; Bloodied 34; Healing Surges 6 Initiative +9 AC 26, Fortitude 24, Reflex 27, Will 27 Perception +7 Speed 6 Darkvision STANDARD ACTIONS m Dagger (weapon) ✦ At-Will Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +20 vs. AC Hit: 2d4 + 9 damage. C Scare (fear, psychic) ✦ At-Will Attack: Close blast 3 (creatures in the blast); +17 vs. Will Hit: 1d8 + 9 psychic damage, and the target cannot make opportunity attacks against Akaana until the end of her next turn. A Dark Gathering (psychic, zone) ✦ Encounter Attack: Area burst 2 within 10 (enemies in the burst); +17 vs. Will Hit: 1d10 + 9 psychic damage, and the target is dazed until the end of Akaana’s next turn. If the target is in the origin square of the burst, the target is also blinded until the end of Akaana’s next turn. Effect: The burst creates a zone that lasts until the end of Akaana’s next turn and is heavily obscured to enemies. MOVE ACTIONS Spider Climb ✦ Encounter Effect: Akaana climbs up to her speed. MINOR ACTIONS Cloud of Darkness (zone) ✦ Encounter Effect: Close burst 1. The burst creates a zone that lasts until the end of Akaana’s next turn. The cloud blocks line of sight for all creatures except Akaana. Any creature other than Akaana is blinded while entirely within the cloud. Umbral Leap (teleportation) ✦ Encounter Requirement: Akaana must be in a square of dim light or darkness. Effect: Akaana teleports up to 10 squares to a square of dim light or darkness. Akaana need not see her destination, but if she cannot occupy that square, the teleportation is negated. TRIGGERED ACTIONS Lingering Magic ✦ Encounter Trigger: An effect caused by one of Akaana’s powers would end on her current turn. Effect (Free Action): The triggering effect instead ends at the end of Akaana’s next turn. Skills Arcana +14, Intimidate +14, Stealth +14 Str 8 (+5) Dex 16 (+9) Wis 12 (+7) Con 10 (+6) Int 17 (+9) Cha 17 (+9) Alignment unaligned Languages Common, Elven Equipment robes, dagger, jewelry
149DUNGEON COMPANIONS CHAPTER 3 | Master of the Dungeon EVA WIDERMANN Meepo “Meepo is just a pawn in big game of life.” The morose kobold named Meepo has always been something of an outsider in his tribe. A runt even by kobold standards, he was assigned to the dangerous task of caring for a white dragon wyrmling hatched from a stolen egg. Ordinarily, such a job would be a great honor. In Meepo’s case, though, the tribe’s leader secretly hoped that the dragon would kill the wretched kobold. Fortunately for Meepo, he has consistently proven quick enough to avoid becoming the wyrmling’s next meal, and he has become enamored of the creature despite its efforts to kill him. Meepo Level 1 Striker Small natural humanoid (reptile), kobold HP 26; Bloodied 13; Healing Surges 8 Initiative +4 AC 16, Fortitude 13, Reflex 16, Will 13 Perception +7 Speed 6 Darkvision TRAITS Combat Advantage Meepo deals 1d6 extra damage against any target granting combat advantage to him. Trap Sense Meepo gains a +2 bonus to all defenses against attacks made by traps. STANDARD ACTIONS m Spear (weapon) ✦ At-Will Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +7 vs. AC Hit: 1d8 + 4 damage. r Sling (weapon) ✦ At-Will Attack: Ranged 10/20 (one creature); +7 vs. AC Hit: 1d6 + 4 damage. MINOR ACTIONS Shifty Maneuver ✦ Encounter Effect: Close burst 2 (Meepo and allies in the burst); the target can shift 1 square as a free action. TRIGGERED ACTIONS M Opportunistic Jab (weapon) ✦ Encounter Trigger: An enemy misses Meepo with an attack. Effect (Immediate Reaction): Meepo uses spear against the triggering enemy, and that creature grants combat advantage to Meepo for this attack. Skills Stealth +9, Thievery +9 Str 8 (–1) Dex 18 (+4) Wis 14 (+2) Con 14 (+2) Int 12 (+1) Cha 10 (+0) Alignment unaligned Languages Common, Draconic Equipment leather armor, spear, sling, 20 bullets Gaining Meepo Meepo lacks the cruelty found in many kobolds; he is a sensitive fellow. Any injury to his beloved dragon causes him to break down in fear for the dragon and of the punishment he might face for failure to keep the dragon safe. Characters are most likely to encounter Meepo after a rival kobold tribe, a pack of goblins, or some other group has kidnapped the dragon. If the adventurers help Meepo recover his friend, he gladly helps them. Any character who treats him well could gain Meepo as a long-term ally and companion.
