Now let us return to a time when three alignments were enough, when a handful of character classes ruled, and when magic swords had their own ideas about who's boss.
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INTRODUCING OUR UNDERNAUTS
- Orgatto Snook, Esquire the 2nd (M-U)
*Orgatto the 1st is now a Giant Brass Spider (R.I.P) - Officer Belamere (Fighter)
- Esclamonde (Elf) Morpho-Synth
- Slurm the Sullied (Thief)
- Louise the Lush (Cleric)
This is my modified version of the Delvers Delight by Tamás Kisbali of the Eldritch Fields blog. Tamás has kindly given me permission to share this on the blog. For the original version of this adventure, and many more adventures that I will definitely be using for future sessions- you can find them on the Eldritch Fields blog here:
Lets make running this dungeon simple. Grab OD&D (3LBB’s) or your clone of choice and have at it!
- d6 HD
- d6 Damage
- Every 1 gp spent = 1xp
- 100xp per monster HD
- Oh yeah encumbrance & lighting matters. No infravision for PC’s
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INTRO
While up until now the Cassandra Company has had its sights on on areas further away from the City State, recently there have been a string or concerning occurrences, strange sounds, and rumblings issuing forth from deep below the New City State. The Company has sent a handful of past expeditions below the City State with none returning.
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LEVEL 1: ERRATIC PASSAGES
Map scale: one square = 10’. North is “up”.
Level 2 is an ancient brass complex carved into red jade and littered with the ruinous detritus off the Brass Gods. Surfaces are smooth near the entrance, then gradually get rougher and less polished, taking on a green tarnish as one goes deeper into the complex. All the red jade is inlayed with fine wires of brass that seem to connect everything like a giant web. Nothing is left untouched by the thread-like wires. Ceilings in corridors are 7’, in rooms 10’, unless otherwise noted. Doors are made out of thick, durable wood with finely crafted brass inlays. Bars are rusty (double chance to bend).
WANDERING MONSTERS:
1. Rival Undernaut party! Cleric 2, Fighter 2, Magic-User 1, torchbearer, mercenary
2. 1d6 Grimlocks, hunting and scavenging
3. 1d3 Giant Fire Beetles, looking for a place to mate and lay eggs
4. 2d6 Brass Infected Skeletons, looking for victims to fill up a cup with fresh blood
5. 1d6 Stirges, exploring
6. Brass Poltergeist Chellist (past adventurer), who wants to scare everybody away from the dungeon
KEYED AREAS:
1. Many names have been carved into the rock here before you enter the dungeon. Stairs descend into the darkness...
2. Foul-smelling hall, separated from the staircase with a door (locked from the inside) and a row of sturdy bars. The northern part was excavated to make place for the lair of 22 Grimlocks, led by ZèGorg (HD 3). Usually they nest in the cave area, grooming each other with exquisite jade combs (10 total, worth 5 gp ea.). They notice passer-byes on the stairs and throw javelins and shit at them.
3. Skinned Undernauts and watchmen hang from the ceiling. Door to #4 concealed behind rotting crocodile skins nailed to the walls.
4. Dung-heap covers iron chest with a hoard of coins from the time of the Brass Gods: 5,000 cp, 4,000 sp, 800 gp.
5. Door marked with red ochre occult sigil, recognised by Clerics as the sign of lesser devils. Scratching and chittering sounds can be heard from inside. 10 Asaggim Devils are packed into this small room like sardines. They cannot open the door from inside and rush out at the first opportunity. Shackles hang from the walls, but there are also cozy cushions on the ground, with pins inside them (deal 1 damage to unarmoured and careless loungers).
6. Semi-transparent door, overgrown with moss from the inside – it’s like a fish-tank, and murky water fills up the whole room. The water flushes out when the door is opened. The passage to #7 is behind the glass wall of the tank, and concealed by the mossy layer. The glass must be broken or the tank dismantled to pass through.
7. Six pottery jars stacked up in a pyramid. They are full of dried seaweeds. The middle bottom one also holds 3 jade spheres (60 gp ea.) and a green wave-shaped magic dagger +1 (+3 when submerged in water!).
8. All walls and floors are decorated with large red and black marble tiles, 10’ x 10’, in a checker-board pattern. Each red floor tile is on a spring-mounted hinge and has a 20’ deep pit trap under it. The secret door is a red wall plate that clicks open if something as heavy as an adult human is in one of the pits.
9. A Coffer Corpse lurks in the northern nook. A large terracotta coffin in the shape of two mechanical human-like figures embracing. The sarcophagus is half-filled with a foul black oily liquid (contact poison; causes homicidal mania which is triggered by darkness), with a hoard of 8,000 cp, 3,000 sp submerged in it.
10. 6 Troglodytes behind bars. The portcullis slammed down while they were exploring, so now they are quite hungry. A large wooden chest is visible in the middle of the room, it holds 3 gilded Undernaut helmets with exquisite plumage (50 gp ea.).
11. Rotating blades! Six sharp steel blades, 9’ long, affixed at different levels to a central axis, moving clockwise, at great speed.
12. Nest of 12 Stirges. Very territorial, might go after people passing by in the corridor.
13. 32 barrels are stacked up here (2 x 16), occupying the whole room. The barrels are empty, except the one in the south-east corner: it has a fancy metal hip flask with 2 doses of potion of stone giant strength.
14. A large metal shaft mounted on a spring. It’s the mechanism of the trap in #19. A red painted symbol covers the southern half of the floor: it looks like an infinity symbol, but with three loops instead of two (it is a clue for #28).
15. Water drips from the ceiling. There are stone benches along the walls.
16. The doors to this area are cold to the touch and covered in rime. Columned hall, 30’ high ceiling, with a pool of liquid brass in the middle. Any liquid removed from the pool solidifies. It’s cold in here. 6 Brass Trolls are working on a statue of an of a Brass Spider God wrapping the sun in webs. If finished and somehow preserved, the statue is worth at least 10,000 gp to a collector.
17. Permanent magical darkness fills this area, where a brutally thorny hedge maze is set up (1 damage if touched). 20 Soul Worms lurk in the darkness, remains of past Acolytes of Brass. The rough basalt statue in the mid-north corner depicts a Cthonic-like owl. Its eyes are inlaid with rubies (500 gp ea.) – if removed, the darkness is dispelled.
18. A talking Giant Frog called Larmo the Faithful (a polymorphed Cleric) hides out here. She was driven out of the pool in #16 by the Brass Trolls. She wants to go back. Knows the secret password to #28 (“gimme shelter”). She is now infected with brass.
19. The fake door to the west is a gigantic spring-loaded pile driver (its other end is in #14), primed to squash anybody standing in the way against the north wall (6d6 damage).
20. The empty husk of a Fire Beetle lays here. Thin tendrils of brass wire have wrapped themselves around the remaining bones.
21. Sad howling can be heard in all adjacent corridors. Giant sinkhole in the middle, 15’ deep, a Grimlock child (wandered off from the community in #2) is trapped in it.
22. Knee-deep layer of fine brass dust, the particles rise into the air from the slightest movements, obscure vision and hinder breathing (save vs poison or become brass infected). 3 Huge Brass Centipedes attack if dust is disturbed.
23. Two large chests, full of rotten grains. They have double bottoms. Each secret compartment holds 500 gp and one half of a broken Brass medallion – if near to each other brass tendrils reach out and they try to fuse (worth 100 gp for a half, 500 gp if complete).
24. A 10’ deep crevice runs through this hall. 12 Brass Infected Skeletons with rusty swords stand guard.
25. Starting from here, the long corridors to #26 and #27 are covered with ugly skin mats. The traps are open pits; 30’ down to the floor of the corridor under them (leading to #28). The door to #28 is dark black metal with brass sigils and magically sealed. If touched, a Magic Mouth that looks like the Rolling Stones logo pops up on it and croons “do you know the password?”. The password is “gimme shelter”.
26. Red Jade stairs down to Level 2 (#1).
27. Creepy stuffed humans and crocodiles and old stage costumes; all infected with 15 Rot Grubs.
28. The chamber is divided into two parts by four arches. The pillars are painted red, but the paint is worn in the middle in a wide band (traces of the slithering guardian of the place). When the party enters the chamber, 3 Giant Constrictor Snakes appear from beyond the arcade, seemingly out of nowhere, and attack the intruders! As for the arches, if somebody just walks through them, nothing happens. However, when magically inclined characters enter the southern half, they feel a strange vibration – there is something there, but not quite. If the arches are walked through in a certain pattern* (hinted at by the painting in #14), then the contents of the place are revealed and can be taken. Hanging on wall hooks are a Troll-skin cloak with embroidered runes (cloak of regenerative protection +1) and a gilded shield with a blazing sun emblem (non-magical, but worth 300 gp). In three chests, a hoard of 4200 sp and 3,500 gp ancient coins is divided.
* Enter through A, exit through B, enter through C, exit through D, then back: enter through C, exit through B, enter through A and find the treasure!
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