#Dungeon23 TPD

[Morose]

Jan 2, 2023 1:04:35 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

#Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 001)

Sean McCoy at this link laid out the challenge of doing a dungeon room a day for all of 2023. He says:

Well, I love dungeons and megadungeon play, but writing a megadungeon is difficult! It takes a lot of energy and it’s hard to know when to work on it and for how long. This simplifies things.

A dungeon room a day, every day, for 2023. That’s 365 rooms. I’ll do a level a month, so 12 levels. Every week is a little area of 7 rooms, so I can keep my focus small.

I am going to answer the call and do this myself and post daily for 365 days to create a dungeon. But I am going to disagree with him a little bit. First of all, I would say that a dungeon of 12 levels and 365 rooms is not a mega-dungeon. IMO it is on the small end of the range of medium sized dungeons.

The second thing that I am going to disagree with him about, is that it takes a lot of energy. I don't believe that. First of all, I do not normally sit down and create a dungeon outside the game. I have always created my dungeons in game in real time on the fly. Bitd we typically played for 8 hours two days in a row for 16 hours, sometimes we played a lot longer than that. Over two days we often played 20 hours or more. IMO creating dungeons that way is fun and energizing. He also talks about keeping his focus small, to which I would reply, "Why?"

Aside from the things of which I disagree with him, I thought it was a very good post, I like the idea and I wish him and everyone who is doing this, great success. I hope everyone of us is able to keep up and post every day for 365 days and I hope that no one has any real world tragedies mess this up for them.

As an aside you may want to read this post about my first dungeon.

One note about the writing of the actual rooms below. I am going to write down what runs through my mind as I think about each room. In game, I don't necessarily provide all of that information to the players. Information given is fairly terse and concise. Questions by the players elicit more information, based on the questions they ask. They often ask questions, that will not be part of what I write here and those questions are to be answered on the fly as they occur.

So now on to the dungeon beneath The Ruins of Mount Auyán.

The adventuring party arrives at the Ruins early in the day. They set up camp and their hirelings will take care of the livestock and keep things together while the party are underground. They have been at this a while, so they have a couple of wagons and a goodly amount of supplies and are prepared to stay awhile.

They start combing the Ruins and by mid-afternoon they have found a couple of old stairways that are filled with debris and after some discussion decide to just clear one and not both. It is near dusk when it has been cleared enough to be passable and they set a guard on it for the night.

In the morning they start down into the dungeon. The steps are worn as those many thousands of feet have trod them for many years. At the bottom of the steps is a landing area roughly 40 by 40 in area and there are 8 corridors leading out of this area, two to the front, two on either side and two to the rear on either side of the stairs. None of them have doors, nor is there any sign that they ever did.

This concerns them some; however, they do have an experienced group of henchman and hirelings to watch the camp and to ward the stairs and keep watch over it.

After a short discussion, they decide to take the front right corridor first. The initial landing is a bit damp from recent rains that drained down into the dungeon, but there is no standing water and they do find a couple of drains that are only partially clogged. The floor is cobblestone and that continues into the corridors. They did not hear anything at any of the corridors and they all have a slight musty smell. What will they find?

Hey TPD, did you get the name from Auyán-tepui.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Feb 20, 2023 0:15:27 GMT -5 Morose said:

Jan 2, 2023 1:04:35 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

#Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 001)

Hey TPD, did you get the name from Auyán-tepui.

Yes, I did, good catch there!

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 050)

You walk towards the newly created door that beckons you, as you approach the door swings open by itself, in the dark behind it are eyes, many eyes.

What do you do?

As you get closer you see that the eyes are red, the skin is pale, very pale and the face has a feral look to it with long visible fangs.

What do you do? Stay in the sunlight shining over the stairway or enter the room. You see the eyes, you hear the voices, what do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

I just realized that yesterday was my 666th blog post. Oops, I should have made two yesterday.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 051)

Ok, you survived the vampires, good for you. After that you figured out that this level constantly shuffles itself around, from rooms in many configurations to a wide open space. At each shuffle different monsters and room features appear. Some of them even have treasure, but the odds on any one shuffle are low, but a few of the shuffles are quite rich. It all depends on how much time you want to spend on this level AND on how long this level remains where it currently is.

After a dozen bites at the apple, two near TPKs and the loss of five party members out of the 12 you stated with, you get lucky and reap the following:

5,000 Copper Pieces

2,000 Silver Pieces

10 Gold Pieces, Gold is very rare and extremely valuable.

Various gems and precious stones for another 5,000 Silver Pieces value.

Three scrolls and two maps, one of the maps is of this dungeon and if you stick with it you will find out that the details on the map shift and reform as the dungeon itself changes. You might even find a clue to the earthquakes, actually dungeon-quakes, if you stick with it.

There are two swords and five javelins. There are four potions and three jars of salve. There is a ring, an amulet and a cloak. There is 50' of rope that glows. Six-one foot segments of rod that snap together, to form a quarterstaff, but it will also become flexible and crawl like a snake, even up into the air, and it can do many other things.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 052)

You go down another flight of the stairs and you come out on the edge of a perfectly round tunnel, you step from a small landing through a small opening into the tunnel. The tunnel is cut through bedrock in a perfect circle that weaves back and forth as you follow it. Every now and then an identical tunnel cuts across the one that you are in.

As you follow the tunnel, at irregular intervals you see clumps on the floor of the tunnel, clumps of copper, iron, tin, zinc, silver, gold and other metals all mixed together. These clumps which are mostly iron and copper range from one to two feet across and are like half flattened spheres. You come across one every 200' to 300' apart.

On the walls of the tunnel you see here and there streaks of color that identifies a little ore here and there. Something is cutting the tunnel and concentrating out the ores that are present.

You have been following the tunnels for a while and have changed tunnels a few times. You suddenly realize that you have not marked your path, you are lost and not sure of your way back to the stairway.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 053)

You go down another flight of the stairs and you come out of the landing to a dark, dank, wet, cold system of small interconnected caves. Water is dripping everywhere and there is fungus everywhere. There is constant noise and you think somewhere nearby is a waterfall and a river.

At the edge of the light you think you see small creatures darting around you and you hear the chattering of voices.

What do you do?

Then a large shape comes out of the gloom and as it gets closer you see that it is a heavily muscled *troll with a large gaping mouth.

What do you do?

*My trolls are mindless hungry eating machines. They only become intelligent when they get past 500+ years old and they also grow as long as they live, so trolls that have been around long enough to have some intelligence are also very large, to large to fit into a dungeon. Trolls are essentially immortal and die only of violence, specifically fire and/or acid damage. Even a small piece of troll will grow into a new troll.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 054)

You continue down the stairs another 80' to reach the next landing. Here you see a landing 40'x40' with the stairway in the center, the landing is surrounded by four blank walls, but when you step away from the stairway, the stairway, the landing and the walls disappear, shocked you take a step backwards and then another and you are again at the stairway with the same scene as before.

This time you move forward slowly and the moment the scene changes you stick your spear into the ground and clearly mark the ground with an arrow pointing back the way you came. Now looking around you are in the middle of a large grassy plain and all you see is tall grass up to your shoulders in every direction, no trees or building or hills or even mountains in the distance, just the grass and the sky. Oddly in the sky you see two suns near one horizon and near the opposite horizon you see three large moons. Your world has only one sun and two moons.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 055)

You continue on down the stairway another 60' to a hexagonal landing that is 60' to a side. This area is well lit in sunshine, from where you don't know. It is walkways of polished stone running through areas of trees, flowers and other plants that occupy most of the space. On the far side of the outer walkway the outside wall is black granite, smooth and polished, with no apparent openings.

What do you do?

About 40' from you a creature walks out through the wall, turns away from you walks about 20' and then just past the corner turns and walks back through the wall.

What do you do?

There is a secret to traversing the wall, do you know what it is?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 056)

You walk down the stairway another 40' and where there should be a landing their is a pool of water surrounding the stairway as far as you can see in any direction. A "lip" that extends a foot above the water keeps the water from flowing down the stairway. This lip is 18 inches thick. A 10' pole does not reach the bottom of the water. A grappling hook tied to a 50' rope does not reach the bottom of the water.

What do you do?

Shooting an arrow across the water with a long bow results in a faint splash.

Time and patience results in the catching of strange eyeless fish and eyeless eels.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 057)

As you stand before this seemingly endless pool of water three mermaids rise out of the water standing on their tails. They are large with their heads about 7 feet above the surface of the water. They beckon to you to come to them.

What do you do?

As you watch them, you see that each has a ring in the palm of their hand, again they beckon to you to come take the ring.

What do you do?

If you take the ring it is a ring of water breathing, if you refuse, then you will mortally offend them.

Choose wisely!

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 058)

You walk down the stairway 30' to another landing ( good catch, yes, the water level above extends into another dimension, another world) and when you step outside the area of the landing, instead of walking to one of the doors that you see, you find yourself in the middle of a maze, a very large maze.

What do you do?

Can you find your way out, can you solve the maze or can you untie the Gordian Knot of the maze.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 059)

Another earthquake happened during the night as the dungeon reshuffled itself. All around you the ruins are completely different in appearance. Giant piles of rubble where there were little piles before. A dozen pools of water are scattered around.

As you explore the area again, you find over two dozen stairways, chutes and deep holes throughout the ruins. At one of the holes you drop a large rock, but you never hear it hit anything.

What do you do?

You don't have enough men to guard all the openings, what are you going to do?

What's that? You are going to move the camp so that you have a defensive position with nothing behind you but a solid wall and all the opening are in front of you. You say you are going to explore that nearest opening, while your camp guards are setup to defend themselves.

You continue to explore and listen and check things out before you ever go underground.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 060)

So you have decided on the stairway you will try to access first, after relocating your camp to the best defensible position.

This stairway is a tight spiral and you descend 30' to the first landing. Here you find thousands of what appear to be long thin worms covering the floor, although none come near the stairway as the landing has a very rough and abrasive surface. You scoop one up for a closer look and it is not a worm, at least not like any you've ever seen. It has a head more like a snake in appearance. As you watch you see that they are all crawling into tubes in the walls that seem to slope upward. Soon all of them are gone except the one that you are holding.

What do you do?

If you put it down, it will rapidly follow the others.

Up above you hear shouts.

If you return above you will see these thousands of apparent worms (but they are not worms, neither are they snakes) coming out of the ground and dispersing in every direction.

(none of you are familiar with the three stage life cycle of dragons)

After they have all departed you decide to wait to the following day to try the stairway again. During the night you hear strange sounds and then the beating of giant wings.

In the morning running from a point 40' from the stairway and continuing away from you there is a giant hole in the ground about 120' in length, 40' wide as the widest point and 30' deep.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 061)

The dragon and the thousands of wyrmlings are gone, so you try the stairway again. At that first level you find an area that is collapsed, but you can explore the rest of it. There are two doors opposite the collapsed area.

The door to your right opens into a brightly lit area filled with fountains and walk paths between and around them. Butterflies and other brightly colored insects flit through the air. There are many flowers and bees buzz all around. Then you here a chittering sound and realize that you are surrounded by dozens of foot long scorpions.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 062)

If you try to door to your left, once you get the door open you enter a long, dark, musty corridor with dripping water. There is a general smell of decay and you wish a gelatinous cube had proceeded you down this path. Water pools on the floor here and there along with an occasional skeleton and outcrops of mold and mushrooms now and then. The walls are covered with moss and the walls seem to lean in towards you just a bit.

Here and there you think you see eyes reflecting the torch light back at you, but when you move closer they are not to be found.

What do you do?

About 60' in you come to a four-way intersection and all directions look like what you have just passed through.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 063)

At the four way intersection you try each of the forward three options available and each one gets worse the further you go. as the floor sinks into the muck, mire and calf deep oily, slimy water.

You go back and return above ground, the next day you go down to a lower level than before. Here you find a polished marble floor around the stairway and a circular wall that surrounds the stairway with a diameter about 20' bigger than the stairway itself. When you start exploring and looking for doors or passageways you find that a new wall has formed behind you separating you from the stairway. Then the whole thing starts to rotate.

What do you do?

As it rotates doors appear, lots of doors, but it is too difficult to count them. Suddenly the rotation stops and you are all thrown to the floor. Then you discover that there are then doors around the outside of the circle.

What do you do?

[The Semi-Retired Gamer]

Still going strong!!!!

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Mar 5, 2023 4:28:20 GMT -5 The Semi-Retired Gamer said:

Still going strong!!!!

Thanks, still chugging along, one sixth of the way there!

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 064)

So your proceed to the door straight ahead of you, we will call that door #1, you open the door fairly easily and walk down a 30' long 5' wide corridor that T's into a 12' wide corridor.

Do you go to the right or left or back the way you came?

You go to the right, along the right you see ahead of you in the dimly lit corridor a series of wooden door set into the jet black obsidian walls.

Do you want to try a door on the right hand wall or the left hand?

The left hand, OK this door is very hard to open, but eventually gives. Inside the walls of the room, like the corridor are polished obsidian. The room is 20'x30' and has four 4' diameter tables each with four chairs. Along the walls are six square 2'x2' tables with oil lamps that are lit.

At the left end of the room is a 3'x10' table covered with a bright yellow cloth. On the cloth are various trays. One tray has two pitchers that have frost on the outside of the pitchers. One tray has a platter of different cheeses, another has a platter of different meats that are still steaming hot. Two more platters are covered with roasted vegetables and another has fresh, hot loaves of bread and several butter crocks.

At each end of the table is a statue that is a carved serving person.

What do you do?

If you seat yourself, the statues will animate, fill a plate and a cup and serve them to you. Should you eat and drink?

What do you do?

Think about it!

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 065)

Next you open the 1st door on the right.

What do you do?

If you immediately just walked in, then you had a terrible fall.

If you looked into the room you saw no floor, but you are looking down at a vast plain a very long way below you. You see below you what looks like a very tiny village. You are so far away that if there are people they are too small to see.

What do you do?

Why yes, there may be a way down. To the left of the door a little ways in, you would have to leap to grab it, is a massive bean stalk and you might be able to climb down it.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 066)

So you are climbing down the beanstalk? Are you sure you want to do that? OK

It takes you a full day to get to the bottom of the beanstalk and when you get there you are a lot bigger than anyone there, you are to them as giants in your own world are to you.

What do you do?

As you look around, you see mounted knights with lances and behind them many men coming towards you with swords and spears. Behind them march many bowman.

What do you do?

While you think, a flight of arrows is launched, they barely break the skin, but they do hurt and some of them cause a trickle of blood. Right behind them is another flight and another after that. Then the knights charge.

What do you do? Fight or start climbing?

Climbing? Good choice!

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 067)

Next is the 2nd door on the right. The door is hard to open and when you finally get it open you see two of the largest ogre's you've ever seen, you didn't know they could get that big. They were waiting on you and when the door opens they grab you and pull you into the room and slam the door shut in the faces of your companions and bar it from the inside.

There strength is incredible, you are helpless and they quickly tie you up and once throws you over his shoulder and away they go through a secret door.

The rest of your party is trying to get through the door. Will they succeed? Will they be able to follow? Will they rescue you in time?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 068)

Next is the 2nd door on the left. This room is 40'x160' deep and there is a throne at the back of the room. The room is brightly lit and the throne appears to be made of gold. The throne is encrusted with hundreds of gemstones. On the throne sits a man who must be 10' tall. He is handsome and well built, he looks very intelligent, wise and forceful, his hair is black with gray at the temples. He wears a golden crown and he has a huge ring on either hand.

On either side of it are two large chests, each is 8'x3'x4' high. Each has a lid that sticks up another 18" high. Around the throne are two huge men on both sides of the throne. All four are about 8' tall and each carries a sword and an axe.

None of them are moving at all and there is no sound. A blue glow surrounds everything I have described on and around the throne.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 069)

Next up are the 3rd doors on the right and the left and the 4th doors on the right and the left. These rooms are each 20'x20. They are filled with broken furniture, dust, dead rodents and such. Each of these rooms has a well hidden secret door on the real wall in one of the corners.

The door lead into narrow 3' wide passages.

If you are successful in finding any of these doors, what do you do? Enter them or move on?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 070)

Advancing another 40' down the corridor from the vacant rooms and you enter an area where there has been a recent battle. There are fresh blood stains in the corridor and other indications of recent death, but the bodies themselves are mostly gone. The next four doors on either side of the corridor (doors 5 and 6 both sides) are broken down. All four rooms have been trashed, with freshly broken furniture, wall hangings laying torn up on the floor, blood everywhere. There is a secret door in each room that has been ripped out of the wall and a narrow corridor leading away from each of these rooms. Signs of bodies being dragged down each of these corridors is present.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 071)

Proceeding down the corridor another 30' you come to doors on either side of the corridor (Doors #7)

These doors are made entirely of metal and with a little luck you are able to pick the locks and open each door one at a time.

The right side door opens into a room that is 40'x40' and it is filled with barrels and kegs stacked throughout the room. Everything is covered with a thick layer of dust.

What do you do?

Why yes, you mage does detect magic, but he cannot pinpoint it, he thinks it is all around you. You open a keg and a barrel, you find that they are lined with glass and both are closed (under the barrel lid) with a wax sealed glass stopper. The contents of both look the same so you open the keg and discover that it is honey. There are enough kegs and barrels to fill at least 20 wagons.

The left side door opens into a room that is 40'x120' and this room is filled with rows of shelving. The shelves are 10' high going all the way to the ceiling. The shelves are covered with wooden boxes and crates of all different sizes. All are securely nailed shut and even the smallest ones are quite heavy.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 072)

Next up are doors #8 on both sides of the corridor. These doors are stuck tight, really tight.

How much time do you want to spend on trying to open them?

Wandering monster check, negative.

Do you want to keep trying?

Wandering monster check negative.

More time passes, do you want to keep trying?

Wandering monster check. At the limit of the torch light, you see something, it slowly get closer. It fills the corridor from top to bottom and side to side, it is semitransparent and as it gets closer you see stuff floating inside it.

What do you do?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Dungeon 23 Project - The Ruins of Mount Auyán (Day 073)

You retreated to the right side Door #7 room and hang out there and eventually the Cube of Death passes leaving the corridor spotlessly clean. You peak out the door and see it turn the corner back at the T.

What do you do? Try one of the Door #8 again or move on?

OK, Door #8 it is, left or right?

OK, right side first.

The door opens right away this time, perhaps the Cube of Death lubricated the hinges or broke up some of the rust. This room is 30'x30' and the floor sunken about a foot below the corridor and has a sandy bottom to it. As you examine the room you note that the sand is very clean and before you stepped in there was not mark in the sand at all. There is nothing else in the room and the walls are bare.

If they are lucky that will find one or more of the three secret doors in this room. Or not.

One secret door leads to a stairway going up (only), one leads to a stairway going down (only) and one leads to a 10'x10' room which holds a what looks like a trollish human that is frozen solid.

What do you do?