"Rook requested the following gift: It's multiple choice! Pick one. Conflict/war generator, fantasy colonial or dying world Mini-dungeon generator, dungeon themes like swords and savagery, weird pre-adamitic and cyclopean, I've made a wild west osr game for myself so an 'old west dungeon generator' would be very cool, especially if it's dark, revisionist or spaghetti and not rootin-tootin. Spells or spell generator, Thelemic, Theosophist or UFO cult Cosmic-myth generator."
Originally I was gonna give the old west dungeon generator a shot, then while I was giving plasma my phlebotomist asked if I had ever seen Tombstone and I realized that I didn't actually have much experience with westerns unless you count Brisco County Jr.
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| "Ninjas, time travel, lawyer drama, and steampunk are a dark and anti rootin' tootin' take on westerns, right?" |
I'd put 1d4-1 exits per room, and give each room a Halls of Antiquity fill and a 2-in-6 chance of monster and a 2-in-6 chance of treasure if you're generating it on the fly, or just arbitrarily stuffing a quick randomly genned online dungeon map with these fills. Or you could even use the 5 Room Dungeon method and just pick the fills you like.
What Ancient Beings Built This Place?
- Neanderthals, a race of pre-adamite humanoids with no covenant with God.
- Gondwanans, an advanced race of pre-adamite* humans who were highly sophisticated and in tune with God, but were destroyed incidentally due to the war in heaven. As it is said, 'there is nothing new under the sun' and all technological prowess is essentially stumbling down the same scientific path the Gondwanans mastered.
*"Once God said to the Prophet "O Muhammad I created an Adam before I created your father Adam, whom I gave a life of thousand years. Then I created fifteen thousand Adams all of whom I gave a life of ten thousand years. After that I created your Adam." - Hinn- Beings related to Jinn, but composed of scorching fire, as opposed to smokeless flame. Of the Hinn, only Iblis survives.
- Jinn- Also known as Djinni, Genie, Ifrit. Crafted from smokeless flame.
- N/a, the world is supported by an angel atop a ruby atop a bull atop a fish, which is suspended in water, and you've found yourself in a crevasse of ruby, as you are microscopic in comparison. See 'Red Dungeon' tables.
- Chaos- mash all of the above together.
Neanderthal Dungeons
The Neanderthals lived as beasts in caves, and stacked stones for rough walls of cyclopean construction.
What Halls Of Antiquity Echo With The Voices of The Dead?
- Overhand Shelter- one wall of this room is stacked stone, beyond which is the outside world. 10 minutes with shovels and pickaxes for the whole party can make an exit, or an hour and 1d6hp damage if lacking tools of iron.
- Ancient Bone Pit- a pit filled with the bones of ancient beings- damage as spiked pit if you fall in. Looting the pit may yield rare skeletons valuable to necromancers, collectors, and alchemists, but disturbing this mass grave may awaken the dead.
- Dripping Grotto- an ancient water source, a pool or stream, a cavern filled with stalagmites and stalactites perfect for climbing or hiding behind.
- Tight Spot- a chimney ascent/descent to higher/lower levels. Metal armor and backpacks must be left behind to pass.
- Boulderfall- an ancient trap of a huge precarious rock to be dislodged and fall upon the unwary trespasser.
- Stone Huts, sealed with boulders. Each has a 1/6 chance of treasure, monster, or both within.
- Painted Room- charcoal and colored mud drawings of beasts and social activities upon the walls. Consulting the paintings may reveal...
- Hunting techniques against giant beasts- Fighter-types may study for a night here to gain either +1 critical hit range, +4AC, or double damage against a things over 3 times their size when using spears.
- Secrets of God- Cleric types may either destroy the blasphemous pictures, or have their alignment reversed to go up a level. The middle path is to become a splinter sect and start a new branch of the religion, alienating former church affiliation.
- Disturbing rites of cannibalism. Character may rise as a Ghoul after death due to morbid curiosity aroused by what cannot be un-seen. Minor SAN damage if you have it.
- Ancient Magics- A magic-user may learn a random spell if they can erect stones at the right time of year in the right place corresponding with the depicted star patterns.
- Agricultural Revolution Diss Track- Characters may become anarcho-primitivist hunter gatherers and declare war on society and have arguments convincing enough to rally fellow barbarians to their cause. Class change to barbarian of course.
- Nothing but old drawings. This result replaces 'repeat' paintings within the same cave.
- Burial Chamber- The dead, mouldering bones and grave goods of flint and bone. Disturbing them has a chance of unleashing some ancient plague or curse(1/6), but some of the ancient gear may be magical(1/6).
- Tar-Making Pit- Though the materials are nothing but black lumps and dust, this ancient fire-pit is now little more than a tripping hazard.
- Knapping Cave- various sharp and broken rocks litter this cave like caltrops, dealing 1d4 damage to those who unwarily run through and halfing movespeed for those trying to avoid them. Collecting enough good ones for use as arrowheads/spearheads/caltrops takes a dungeon turn/10 minutes.
- Sabretooth Tiger Skeleton- stats as sabre-tooth tiger, or a regular tiger whose bite does max damage, +skeleton resistances. It will prefer to stalk the party and will flee into unexplored areas after attacking, preferably dragging the corpse of someone it killed.
- Chindi- A human-derived disease spirit, remnants of all wickedness, haunting the possessions of the dead. Stats as a disease of your choice that turns into a shrieking wraith if you try curing it, but can be appeased by returning any possessions to their resting place.
- Ancient Wyrm- Smells horrible, so poisonous that its footprints cause 1d6 poison damage if you step on them. Stats as dragon, but wingless and lacking much intellect or a breath attack, but is so poisonous that touching it is Save vs Poison or die on the spot.
- Wooly Mammoth Skeleton- Possessed by a chindi that has nothing else to haunt, and so walking around bipedally and looking like a tusked cyclops skeleton.
- Grue- Doesn't exist if you have any light sources, otherwise stats as two hasted ninja tigers glued together.
- Neanderthal Ghoul- Stats as Ghasts.
- Uncut gems- value unclear until properly appraised.
- Fossils- Worth jewelry prices (2d8x100 coins) to necromancers, collectors, historians, etc
- Nice Rock- Deals 1d8 damage in melee or thrown. If returned to the earth, gives you a favor with earth elementals.
- Flint spear- As axe -1, but causes sparks when striking hard surfaces.
- Stone Tablet- Random clerical or wizardly scroll written in pictures.
- Gold Nuggets- More impressive if you're in a silver standard.
Gondwanan Dungeon
Lit by strange, hollow gems that glow with light of varying colors. All is metal, and rooms are set up in simple grid patterns.
What Halls Of Antiquity Echo With The Voices of The Dead Here?
- Halls of steel, melted and burned by some unspeakable flame. Halflings/children/small animals can enter the air ducts and crawl to another room rather than taking the usual route.
- Dilating Door- A sealed iron door. The sign of lightning is on a metal box on a nearby wall- if it can be generated, the door will open like a dilating eye. Another application of electricity will close it like a guillotine.
- Reactor Water Garden- Metal walkways over a pool of glowing water from which pillars emerge. The water is hot but the radioactive death only claims those who touch the corpse-strewn glowing crystals at the bottom. Without the shield of water absorbing their malign light, the crystals bring death to all near them, and mutation to those that survive.
- Hologram Chamber- illusions of light and sound emerge, creating a convincing but illusory alternate reality.. Treasure or monsters may be concealed by the light-ghosts.
- Vast Chamber- The ceiling and every wall vanishes into darkness, and all sounds echo in this vast space. Dimensions are 1000x1000x100, so it is by no means guaranteed to find any encounters or treasure within.
- Deep Shaft- a metal pillar descends down a vast pit. Precarious walkways span the abyss. The pillar has hatches that can be lockpicked open, though only inscrutable metal viscera and rope is found within. Damaging it turns off all the power to the dungeon and kills the lights.
- Coffins?- Tightly packed and stacked receptacles large enough for a person, rolling out from a wall. Each contains a smooth and odorless pillow and blanket, untouched by millenia.
- Trash Cubes- perhaps compacted by giants, 10x10x10 cubes of miscellaneous garbage. Dismantling and sorting one takes pickaxes and an hour, but may contain treasure.
- Elevator Shaft- just as it sounds, with a metal cell (the elevator) raised and lowered by cables. Leads to 1d3 additional floors.
- Endless Tunnel- a three-railed mine-cart track, or so it looks like, stretches into darkness. It goes on for hundreds of miles of empty darkness, and may well end abruptly in collapse or the sea, as the very earth has shifted since Gondwanan times.
- Praying Machine*. A small automaton that prays to God constantly. If somehow roused to fury, it has 1hd but the casting power of a 10th level cleric... or perhaps not.
- Scorched Machine- blasted and corrupted by the flame of the Hinn, they are automata of blackened, melted metal that seek electricity and metal. Stats as a ghoul with golem resistances.
- Incredibly Fat Rust Monsters- Interested in the party only if they have exotic non-iron metals. High HP but low morale due to having a superabundance of food.
- Security Turret*- A glowing metal and glass eye with +100 to initiative and to-hit. Fires Disintegration beams at unauthorized targets and functionally has Protection From Missiles as it can shoot arrows out of the air. Mounted on the ceiling, 1hp.
- Hologram Ghost- A request in the scream-song language of Gondawa, to take a message to a loved one, transmitted by an ancient recording table. Stats and general effect as Shrieker.
- Mutant Cockroaches- stats as wolves+random mutation
- Mutant Rats- stats as rat swarm+ random mutation
- Hinn Shadow- a blighted silhouette that runs along the walls, like sooty residue. Stats as Shadow. All that remains of the demonic Hinn.
- Janitor Nanoswarm- stats as black pudding, appearance like a mound of shiny grey dust.. Either heals 1d8, gains 1HD, or spawns a 1HD duplicate of itself upon consuming a person and their gear.. Instantly killed by a rust monster. Replaces security turrets if the power is turned off, methodically devours all other non-rust monster encounters if not stopped.
- Lightning Wand- A small metal rod that stuns human-sized opponents it touches if they fail a save vs paralysis, and will run out of energy on a 1/6 chance.
- Gold Wiring- jewelers who serve kings and queens would pay dearly for this microfine wire that cannot be replicated with current technology.
- Steel Scrap- smiths skilled enough to realize its purity will be able to forge arms and armor that are (nonmagically) of +1 value against lesser materials.
- Panacea- Pills that cure almost any disease. The otherwise doomed might pay any price for this.
- Gondawan Curio- of interest to collectors as abstract art sculptures, or to priests hoping to glean apocryphal knowledge from the thing.
- Glassteel- A perfectly transparent, nigh invisible substance as strong as steel, though it will deform with low levels of heat and can be reshaped.
- Eerie Painting- A captured image of reality indistinguishable from the real thing, of a man or beast.
- Deactivated Prayer Machine- A wind-up cleric. Though no one knows the things language but God, it will surely walk the path of righteousness.
Hinn Dungeons
Everything is of blackened stone that reflects light with a strange, melted opalescence. Fine white ash covers everything, making footprints easy to follow. Always some ash to throw into someones eyes, or to kick up an obscuring cloud to vanish into.
What Halls Of Antiquity Echo With The Voices of The Dead Here?
- 30' tall Ash Mound. It cannot be walked up as it is not solid enough, and clearing it without wetting it down will make the room's air unbreathable. May be treasure atop, or a monster within, an exit concealed, or most likely, nothing.
- Knee deep Ash concealing suffocating pits clogged with the stuff. May be old corpses/treasure in those pits.
- Leaky Room- Water has gotten in and turned the ash to clinging mud that swallows things like quicksand in the most flooded area of the room, blocking all but one exit.
- Drafty Room- Ash swirls in little dust devils and clouds, making vision past 5' impossible.
- Ashen Fulgurite- lightning, the wrath of god, still thrumming within a coral-tree-like structure of fused ash. If broken, the lightning is released and bounces around the room at a random angle- intentional breakage may allow some initial aiming.
- Oil Path- a long hall filled with a thin sheen of slippery, flammable oil, angled slightly up, down or straight. The Hinn would traverse it in a flash of flame, but humans have no such luck.
- Tar Pit- flammable, sticky, dense. Those swallowed by it have little chance of escape. Stone pillars within the pit provide places to stand, though they are too far apart to hop to, requiring bridges. Old human skeletons lie on these islands, and may rise as skeletons to attack sources of flame in a blind, misguided burst of vengeance.
- Bellows Room- Huge metal bellows to be operated via muscle power are here, though apart from the ash, there's no evidence of any flames to stoke (they were the equivalent of being fanned with a palm leaf for Hinn).
- Scaleless Dragon- Burnt and blinded, soothed only by beds of the softest, most feathery ashes. Otherwise, stats as ancient dragon with unarmored AC. Hoard is hidden in an ashmound somewhere.
- Ash Wraith- stats as wraiths. All within melee range of them are blinded by the swirling ash.
- Hinn Shadow- a blighted silhouette that runs along the walls, like sooty residue. Stats as Shadow. All that remains of the demonic Hinn.
- Carbonized Skeleton- stats as skeleton but they take and deal maximum damage due to their forever burning forms and fragile ash bones.
- Fire Elemental. This may well be the body of Hinn, with the wicked soul long departed.
- Ash Worm- As purple worm.
- Hinn Diamond- Uncut- Max gem value, or 5000coins if your system doesn't have a gem table.
- Dragon-Hoard- always hidden under a bed of ash. As treasure type H but with all metal melted into a single mass. Disturbing it alerts the scaleless dragons of the dungeon. If rolled again, ignore.
- Hinn-Sword- +3 flaming sword, a tongue of flame that emerges from a scorched hilt. Acts as Heat Metal on the hilt, quickly rendering it difficult to use.
- Burnt Runes- Scorched into melted stone, a random spell (preferably fire-themed) that can be identified by reading the runes, though it will also activate.
- Hinn Armor- a hulking suit of plate, composed of adamant. It opens at the back and is more golem-power armor than true armor, taking one whole round to exit or enter.. Those wearing it have the defense and offensive capabilities of an iron golem, but it glows with unbearable heat when active and heats up as Heat Metal. If encountered in a room with Shadows, Skeletons, Wraiths, or Elementals, one is almost certainly inside it already.
- Ember of the Scorching Flame- can be consumed to act as a potion of firebreathing, or dropped into an ear where it blackens the soul with whispers of blasphemy- a level of power may be gained by heeding the corruption and turning to wickedness.
Jinn Dungeon(Dunjinn)
Jinn can create almost any physical object at will, so it was not materials, but designs that they valued. Everything is strange and beautiful and unique and often reflective.
What Halls Of Antiquity Echo With The Voices of The Dead Here?
- Mosaic room. Abstract art of great beauty and complexity expressed via small colored ceramic tiles. If it can somehow be replicated it would be worth a pretty penny to artists.
- Stained-Glass Maze- those armored in plate may burst through the walls of the maze without damage, medium armor wearers take 1 point of damage, light or unarmored people take 1d4 damage. The fallen glass acts as caltrops. Light is visible through 3 walls.
- Hall of Mirrors-Polished metal. Players of high intelligence or speed may bamboozle other people as though they had Mirror Images equal to their int or dex modifier. Monsters may do the same if notable faster than people or known for high intelligence. 1/6 chance of a doppelganger being spawned as the maze is traversed- if a player damaged a mirror, the doppelganger will have an appropriate deformity- stretched too thin or to squat or with a swirled face.
- Water Garden- the water is an elemental that will violently reject anything that would defile its sparkling purity, but is otherwise passive. Waterfalls and stepping-stones glisten above the crystal clear pond.
- Whistling Cavern- A massive cavern with an alternate entrance to the surface. 'Climbing Walls' of worked stone with holes in them. The wind whistles strange atonal 'music' through the room- additional chance to be surprised as it's hard to hear monsters. If the proper storm could arrive, lost and legendary songs will echo through the halls.
- Giant's Kitchen- Cups the size of cauldrons, cauldrons the size of rooms tables with legs like trees. Feasts of unthinkable extravagance were once conducted here.
- Firing Range- clay pots hang from chains at all heights and distances. Most have been smashed by the weight of time, but some remain, filled with fireworks to explode into pretty pyrotechnics when struck by a fireball or similar.
- Prideful Throne Room- An empty throne cloven in twain, and all around naught but dust and ash remain.
Replace the Wish-Accursed with Jinn results as they are rolled. There are at most 3 Jinn, one good, one bad, one ambiguous
- Jinn- Reaction roll determines whether they are a faithful servant of God, an ambiguous figure who refused to bow before humans when God commanded it but is otherwise faithful, or a wicked and foolish demon who mistook their own flame for being greater than the light of god.
Either way, stats a Djinni, Ifrit, whatever you got in the monster manual. - A Old Man, who wished for eternal life, but not eternal youth or health. Wracked with plague and misfortune, he attacks as a mummy that cannot die, hoping someone, somehow will end his torment.
- A Beauty, who wished to be forever lovely, and is now a sleeping and indestructible statue.
- A Madman, who wished to know all things, and is now a gibbering lunatic who can cast any spell randomly.
- A Monster, last of its kind, who wished for the strength to defeat their enemies, but not to save their friends. It grows in power to defeat anything it considers a foe.
- An Armless Swordsman, who wished for more gold than he could hold in his arms. Fights with kicks and a sword held in his teeth.
- The Legal King of Everything, who has an official document proving he owns the Earth, the Sea, the Sun, the Moon, and every star in the sky. Of course, he has no power over his vast domain, but will certainly grant you feudal ownership of any land you want if you help him with revenge on the Jinn.
- The Ass Clown- Wished for the Jinn not to grant this wish and now lives to tell everyone how terribly clever he is. Also had his head swapped with a donkeys.
All of these are idiot bait that you can sell to bigger idiots for massive amounts of coin or magic item trades.
- Monkey's Paw- Three wishes. All will go horribly wrong, save for the small mercy that wishing to undo a prior wish will work.
- Trapped Ifrit- Will kill you if released, though as it allows you to choose the way you will die, you might be able to get out of it.
- Legalese Imp- Will obey the verbal and written commands of whoever holds its statuette to the letter. If it ever gets a hold of its statuette, it vanishes with it back to hell
- Deck of Many Things- nuff said
- The Eye of Heaven- A needle that sends anything passed through it to heaven, supposedly.
- Book of Irresistible Bacon Recipes- That's not halal!
Red Dungeons
Tunnels of ruby that cannot be so much as scratched by anything mortal, pulsing with light in time with a beating heart. The whirling stars of the celestial spheres spin beyond the walls, and shapes too immense to even comprehend dazzle the mind. Men were never meant to see this.
What Halls Of Antiquity Echo With The Voices of The Dead Here?
- Outer wall. Each hour of study through this magnifying lens ruby wall reveals amazing astrological insight, and has a 1/6 chance of seeing something too big to be seen and going blind for the rest of your life. If you touch it, it is very cold.
- Bottomless, starry pit. Anything within will fall for a hundred years, land in the waters of chaos, and be lost forever, either in the bowels of Bahamut or the depths of the dark waters.
- Minor flaw in the giant ruby. To you, it is a mile long crack, a hundred feet deep, and 5 feet wide.
- Mirror Realm- Easy to walk into by accident, here in the red reflections. A copy of all the previous rooms, swapped left to right, with a thicker and thicker haze of red light eventually terminating the realm in a dead end 1d6+1 rooms later.
- Gullet Descent- a tight tube of smooth ruby leading down or up. Almost frictionless.
- Jagged Facet- a wall, or a ridge in the floor, like a gigantic razor's edge. Falling on it would be like being guillotined. If you need anything sliced, here you go.
- Pomegranate Tree- Eat as much as you like, it's too late to go back anyway.
- Wet Room- condensed vapor from the sea below, the ruby glistening with dew and ice.
- A self-proclaimed Angel. It asks you a question, and time will not move until you answer. The church will know of your answers. Repeat encounters have similar questions.
- "If God told you to sin, is it sin to obey, or to refuse?"
- "Is ignorance of sin an excuse, or a sin itself?"
- "From whence comes sin, if all comes from God?"
- Fragment of Primordial Chaos- stats as earth, water, or air elemental (roll randomly each round) that mutates on hit.
- Unbearable Celestial Light- Shines in through the ruby walls, scorching your frail mortal forms for 1d6 damage a round. Items used to shield yourself are destroyed after one round of protection. Getting more walls between you and the oblivious celestial being is your only hope of survival.
- A Worm of the Earth- Purple worm stats. Hungry and lost, it doesn't want to be here either.
- Ruby Reflection- Does whatever you do (or more worryingly, perhaps you do whatever it does). If you touch it you are both obliterated.
- Beast of Sloth- Missed getting named in the Garden, couldn't be bothered to get on the Ark, slowly sank to the bottom of the world due to a lack of effort. Like a furry snail, or perhaps a shelled sloth. Nonviolent but extremely hard to kill, though not impossible to roll around. Tends to block off your escape routes if not dealt with.
- Echo of the Word- As 'scroll of limited wish' but it's on the tip of your tongue until you say it, and must be mute until it is spoken.
- Ruby Shard- as vorpal sword, but a way to wield it without losing your own hand must be found.
- Ruby Chunks- 1d6x1000coins. It's surprising there's not more of this stuff around.
- Ruby Dust- 1d6x100 coins, or perhaps more to people who need it as an ingredient.
- Pomegranate Seeds- easily mistaken for rubies when it's all you're expecting.
- The Friends You Made Along The Way- Clerics restore spellslots, everyone else heals half their max HP, hireling morale increases. In this lifeless hell of worthless treasure, you can finally see what really matters.
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