Monday 21 December 2015

Bluestone Barrow: A Dunkey Dungeon Adventure

Used the Dunkey Dungeon Generator to make three dungeons for my new setting, The Salt. Changes I've made to the dungeons are in bold.

Below is the first dungeon, which us two Dunks just played through in about half an hour as a kind of mental midnight snack.

Bluestone Barrow

First dungeon is set in the far south; a land of dried-out swamp, mangroves thick with salt, flooding once a fiveyear. The dungeon is a treasure hoard cum barrow. A hibernating CLAY LEVIATHAN slumbers in the cracked earth out front. SPECTRAL PIXIES giggle from the thick NIGHT BLOSSOM covering the mound.

NIGHT BLOSSOM:  PLANT
CLAY LEVIATHAN: MONSTER
PIT ROACH:      VERMIN
SPECTRAL PIXIE: HUMANOID
OCHRE HOG:      CRITTER
MAP:
C--A--B

Room A.
SOUND: Muffled voices from next room. (Room B)
Treasure room. Magnetic gates prevent you removing any gold or steel, even if you brought it in with you. PIRATE'S SPEAR made of pure gold in hand of enormous porcelain golem. Talisman in room B deactivates gates, activates golem.
Entrance is to the south, a half-collapsed arch of rough stones. Eastern staircase leads down to cool cellar. Roof has partially collapsed to the west, separating rooms A and C.

Room B.
SUMPFIANA the HELPFUL PLAYWRIGHT and SUMPROGG the ABSENT-MINDED GARDENER (who are spectral pixies) fighting for possession of a SCABBARD OF THE ELEPHANT (Any weapon sheathed therein gains +2 when fighting from back of pachyderms/aurochs), each with an extremely good argument for why it is rightfully theirs. Actually they stole it from a nearby burial mound and have probably annoyed the shit out some ghosts.

Room is lit by light from Room A and a jar of fireflies. The room is newer and better reinforced than the others. Six bodies are buried in raised, open-air coffins full of salt. One corpse clutches the runekey for Room A. The pixies know this.

Room C.
Formerly a necromancer's lair. Now a breeding pair of OCHRE HOGs has made a nest of the spellbooks, which reveal interesting magical snippets if closely examined. Torn-up pages, gummed back together, may have produced odd new spells. (1d3 workable pages. Roll two results from the first three available death, destruction, earth and plant cleric spells* and mash them together in some way that mostly makes sense.)
A few holes in the ceiling let in dappled light. You could almost certainly bash your way out through ones of these if you really, really wanted to.

*Those spells are:
1. Cause Fear: One creature of 5 HD or less flees for 1d4 rounds.
2. Death Knell: Kill dying creature and gain 1d8 temporary hp, +2 to Str, and +1 caster level.
3. Animate Dead: Creates undead skeletons and zombies.
4. Inflict Light Wounds: Touch attack, 1d8 damage +1/level (max +5).
5. Shatter: Sonic vibration damages objects or crystalline creatures.
6. Contagion: Infects subject with chosen disease.
7. Magic Stone: Three stones become +1 projectiles, 1d6 +1 damage.
8. Soften Earth and Stone: Turns stone to clay or dirt to sand or mud.
9. Stone Shape: Sculpts stone into any shape.
10. Entangle: Plants entangle everyone in 40-ft.-radius.
11. Barkskin: Grants +2 (or higher) enhancement to natural armor.
12. Plant Growth: Grows vegetation, improves crops.


me and Matt on vacation
a juvenile CLAY LEVIATHAN
where Matt and I went on vacation
what the landscape looks like basically
~playthrough below~

Playthrough

Matt knocked together two characters based on the cast and crew of popular 1997 film Anaconda using the vague outline of a ruleset that is my Adventure Point thing. Mateo was Jon Voight's character. He had a machete and his primary attribute was TUFF. Rolf was a parasitic wasp with the exact personality of Owen Wilson, currently animating the corpse of a 40-something woman, an ex-caravan drover. Rolf's primary attribute was SMARTZ. They also had a dog sidekick called King Dog, because Matt is not very creative.

The trio turn up outside the barrow, and immediately start throwing rocks at the suspicious clearing out front. When the earth rolls around and grumbles, Rolf uses their SMARTZ to identify it as a CLAY LEVIATHAN, currently hibernating. Knowing it's safe to ignore the beast, the trio duck into the barrow.

The mudbrick ceiling hangs low but there's a good amount of light from the door outside, enough to recognize value in the piles of old arms and armour scattered around. Against the far wall is a porcelain golem flanked by two blue rune stones, golden spear clenched in one hand. Attempting to walk back out of the room or down the stairs to the left sees Mateo's machete pulled from his hand by mysterious (and magnetic!) forces. The three set up a tripwire across the front door and set about trying to either wake the golem up or smash it before it rises. Neither goal is achieved, so the adventurers check the room to their west.

This section of dungeon is an old necromancer's lair, though our adventurers can only recognise it as a dusty shithole with a big pile of broken furniture and books in one corner. Following the best of adventurer instincts, they shove a torch into the old paper and run out of the room. A short second later, they're followed by two OCHRE HOGS, both ablaze. A melee breaks out, though the hogs are damaged more by the fire than by actual blows. King Dog takes a nasty swipe after trying to do fights with a sword (he's a dog, Matt. Dogs can't sword), but the party is otherwise unharmed. They duck back into the hog lair and recover two scrolls, one of TangleStone (Entangle + Soften Earth & Stone) and one of FearSkin (Barkskin + Cause Fear).

From within the hog lair our heroes can here tinny voices echoing from atop the barrow. They wander back outside and climb up, only to be hurtfully assaulted by homophobic slurs coming from teeny mouths somewhere in the bushes. After slinging back a zesty "No you are!", they tire of the banter and wander back inside to the unexplored staircase.

Down the staircase are a series of stone coffins full of salt, and two SPECTRAL PIXIES arguing over ownership of an engraved leather sheathe. Ignored by the pixies, the crew sneak upstairs. Rolf animates one of the dead OCHRE HOGS and charges downstairs, spectacularly failing to snatch the sheathe from the nimble, airborne pixies. With Rolf back in their preferred body, the team wanders back downstairs, and cannot be even a little bit bothered to deal with the pixies' drama. They dig around in the coffins until they find a blue stone runekey and take it back to the golem.

Key in its skull, the golem flickers to life. Its first wild swing misses, wildly. When the trio charge out of the barrow it follows, stumbling on the tripwire and landing hard on the CLAY LEVIATHAN. Both recently woken and enraged, the two titans set about beating the shit out of each other. Two adventurers, a dog and two dozen pixies sit in silence atop the barrow, eating flowers and watching the bloodshed. After altogether too long the golem is victorious. It turns to face the spectators but before it can move, Rolf reads aloud the scroll of TangleStone. Barbed vines of clay erupt from around the golem and pin it to the earth. The three heroes leap down and beat the everloving shit out of it with stolen swords (King Dog continues to not hit anything with a sword, for obvious reasons). Mateo takes a golden spear to the calf before the golem is finally shattered.

Boss defeated and weird magnet magic dispelled, the crew gather up everything that looks remotely valuable and call it a successful adventure. They might well make it to the next dungeon I roll up for this setting.

3 comments:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkyi8aLgq_k

    King Dog should prooooobably have a sword

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I could feel the Dark Souls reference from 40 paces. I can't in good conscience run dogs w/ swords until I get my shit together and buy that game, though.

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    2. So does down under have Steam or what

      It goes on sale probably once a month. I play it on my graphic card-less rubbish picked comp at about 30fps and love it

      Delete