Mounds of the Old Lords

Lungfungus and I were working on similar ideas about miniburialmound dungeons and this is my version.

Barrow mounds of the Old Lords- 1/6 chance of outside guardians each visit and upon exiting
 Outside Guardians

1.  Aspiring Necromancer hoping to take control of dead within
2. Descendants visiting dead elders(eldead?), not fond of grave-robbers
3. Exorcist seeking out Greater Dead to banish them. Could be helpful or meddling
4. Gang of thieves seeking to rob the place. Betrayal inevitable but deferrable. 
5. Random monster from inside barrow mound
6. Random monster from local encounter tables

I shoulda done this visually ages ago

Entry- Chamber behind large stone slab, opens into room 1d4
May be sealed by
1- A lock. Keys can be found in other mounds based on lineage and dynasty.
2- A permanently Wizard Locked door
3- A blood altar that requires 8HP worth of blood to open
4-A skull altar that requires the skull of a random nearby monster
5-Slab is just very heavy
6- Spell-eating Loadstone- gobbles the first spell cast in a 30' radius per day.

Descent- Staircase to room 5
Key to room 7 is located in room 1d6, guarded by trap/monster if applicable

All Mounds have the same 7 rooms, rooms 1-4 on the upper entry level, and rooms 5-7 below.
Upper Layout-
1- Upper Layout Square with rooms on the 'corners,' descent in room opposite of entry
2- Upper Layout 'Plus' shape with rooms on ends, Descent in central intersection.
3- Straight line, with rooms 567 doubling back under 432, descent in room 4
4- Spiral path down 50' pit with spikes and dead people at bottom, rooms separate chambers dug in wall at regular intervals. Lower chambers also in this layout, though 3 is still the 'top' of 6.

Upper Rooms
#1-Lesser caskets and urns of cremated people and preserved skulls. Tripping hazard.
#2-Pillar room holding up roof. Bad rolls in combat tend to dislodge pillars
#3-Room is pit with narrow bridge crossing it and alcoves high on walls, 20' drop to 6.
#4-Altar, provides hints as to nature of curse and method of curse removal.

Lower Rooms. Layout is either a straight line, a triangle, or a L-Bend.
#5-Statue of Lord- a preview of any magical arms/armor they may have
#6-Retainers coffins.
Entry to 7 sealed by locked bronze door.
#7-Lord in/near Sarcophagus + 2 treasures. Has a decorative Central Pillar, Pit, Pedestal, Pool, or Pendulum. Key is in room 1d6.


Room Specifics
Each room has 2 things
1 Monster
2-Nothing
3-trap- defends treasure if there, doorways if otherwise.
4-Treasure


Trap-

1. Hallway Portcullis + Bell- Seals easiest route to exit (or route to deeper inside if there's a tie)
2.  Burning Oil
3.  Summoning Circle- save vs surprise, 1d6 HD random monster(s) appears
4. Unleashed Plague Spirit. Animates corpse if it fails to possess a human. I like the diseases here
5. Inflicted Curse
6. HP Menacing trap- Rolling boulder, Launched Spear, Arrow Hail, spiked pit, scything Blade

Curse of...

1. Pyrophilia- Fire damage taken and dealt deals max damage, if ignited you need water to extinguish it or you'll burn forever and you gotta save vs catching on fire if you take even 1 point of fire damage. Cured by casting a being with more CHA than you into a volcano.
2. Unlife- When killed, you will rise again as an undead. Undead cursed in this way will rise again and again, losing 1HD each time as their body, mind, and soul crumble. Only curable by purifying ritual suicide, sorry.
3. Beasts- Grow hairy, growly, and bestial. +1 physical stats, -2 mental stats for each stacking application of curse. Cursed monsters have +2AC(not v silver) and Damage. Cured by having your hair braided by a city-dwelling prostitute.
4. Elf-Curse- Iron and Steel burn you horribly, for double damage or 1HP per round of skin contact. Cured by being forgiven by a fey creature.
5. Water- You can't swim and will sink like a rock. Cured by kissing a merfolk.
6. Darkness- Grues stalk you, and will devour you in 1d6 rounds if you ever enter pitch blackness. Cured by sunburn. Grues don't eat undead, but lurk in their tombs all the same.
7. Instant death! Or actually 1d4+1 magic missile damage striking the cursed one.
8. Nemesis-  1 Monster per encounter has maxHP per hit die(and max personal treasure if applicable) until you surrender to an enemy.
9. Bats- You can't see lightsources beyond your own lightsource, and can only see half as far with your own light source. Must descend to the bottom of the Lightless Library, with no light, and read the secret braille name of the King of Bats and squeak it aloud to cure.
10. Metamalus- -1 to all your dice rolls (or +1, whichever is most often bad). Stacks. No save. Remove one level of this curse whenever a nat 1 or 20 is rolled.

Treasure-
1- Small Stone Chest of tarnished antique coins worth 1d6x100c.
2-Embalming jar of organs. Mummified or pickled, worth 30 coins to sketchy necromancers.
Eating them acts as random potion that slaps you with dungeon curse on a failed save.
3-Massive Silver-runed pottery tablet the size of a chair. A fragile 'spell scroll' that weighs 100 pounds and is worth 1200c intact.
4-Skeletons in steel jewelry (2d4 each worth 10 coins). Monsters here will also wear jewelry bits!
5-Stone Statue holding magnificent Bone/Stone/Bronze/Iron/Silver/Gold Spear (400coins) in both hands. 1/6 chance of being Cursed and Magical(not necessarily dungeon curse, could be like a Backbiter style spear or summat)
6-Treasure Map to 1-5 Another Mound 6- distant hoard of type H treasure+warning of terrible guardian monster.

Monster-

1. Skeleton Skirmisher- throws bones, rocks, spears, burning oil, flees if menaced. 1hd but immune pierce and resist slash, and pretty speedy.
2. Ghouls- dug up from below to eat corpses here. Hungry again now. Rationality and cowardice proportional to fullness.
3. Tomb Scorpion- Injects acid, save or d20 damage. 1 point of stinger damage. AC 16 but loses 1AC each hit  HD=1d4, # appearing= 1d6-HD (minimum 1) Surprise indicates lurking in burial pot or beneath earth, usually
4. Warrior Zombie- Largish weapon wielded 1 handed to go first hitting for d8 or 2handed to go last & hit for d10, 2hd, ac 13. Less sluggish than most zombies.
5. Barrow Wight- XP drainer and well-armed, accursed weaponry drains XP from those hit and wielder. 4HD, AC 15
6. Cursed X- Reroll, but entity is cursed with dungeons curse and spreads said curse with melee attacks.

Lord Monster of room 7

1. Greater Dead- See below or just use a vampire, or something
2. Lesser Dead- as regular monster, just with fancy gear.
3. Tomb Queen- Giant scorpion that has eaten the corpse and is clad in smaller offspring
4. Regular Dead Guy- No fight, just loot
5. Dreamwraith- Appears as harmless corpse, but appears on future encounter tables as dreamwraith to hunt the living and reclaim gravegoods. Only dies if dreamwraith and corpse simultaneously destroyed, as one reforms the other.
6. Angry Ghost- as Greater Dead but noncorporeal, or just generic ghost. Can't rest easy till the ghosts desires that tether it to the earth are sated. Usually vengeance.

Greater Dead- Wields 1 1/2 handed sword and breastplate (AC15). 8 HD.
1-Dies The Fire- Takes minimum damage from fire. Touch inflicts cold damage, freezes liquids. Fire in melee range saves or is snuffed. An ice-rimed barbarian corpse crackling with every step.
2-Soulrender- Save or be knocked out of body. If struck in spirit form , save or die, body can be coup de graced if no one interrupts. Glows with sickly light and looks half translucent.
3-Dismemento Mori- Every 8 damage takes off limb which transforms into 1HD monster. Crawling hand, gut snake, etc. Reattaches in 1d6 rounds,  returning HP, if not destroyed.
4-Foulblight- Expels gas that explodes light sources in fireballs. Self explodes if hit by fire too. Green, bloated, stinky, corpulent.
5-Flayedlips-Pyromancer Still smokes from failed cremation. Skin like burnt hotdog
6-Skellord- Glowing bones, makes your bones glow and animate before death. Dominate limb on hits as your skeleton rebels against you. Is a glowy skeleton with a scimitar, skeleton damage resists.

Tomb Queen- 8HD scorpion, 1d8 damage, AC 20, -1 per hit taken. Gets -4 to hit unless it attacked the same target last round, chooses to attack whoever hurt  it worst or (if no one did) sticks to one target. When slain, 1d6 baby tomb scorpions begin to eat corpse & defend it. Acid glands powerful and valuable if you can harvest them, armor plates good for shields.

1. Grab- open 1 claw, aim at target. Save to escape if grabbed, 1d4 squeeze damage each round.
2. Twin Shear- Wave two claws furiously- 2 attacks
3. Block- Save to block frontal attacks, up to 1 per claw.
4. Jab-Only used vs Grabbed opponents.  tail injects acid on hit, make 2 saves. If both fail, you melt from the inside. If 1 fails, acid sprayed on you, lose 1d3 AC and inventory slots/items.
5. Acid Jet- Tail bulges like cartoon firehose and it quivers in targets' direction. Save or doused in acid, save again or knocked prone, each round doused lose 1d6 AC of armor, Inventory slots, and HP. Damage doubled if no armor or inventory items,  tripled if neither. Save each round to end acid, or dive into water or something.
6.  Shake off Juvenile- Baby scorpion leaps from back to join melee.

Dreamwraith- Dreaming and dead, their skull, their spirit will hunt those who disturb their body or their treasure as roaming. The spell The Happy Hunt can be learned from the inside of their skull and more details can be found there.