Thoughts on Veins of the Earth

Disclaimer: I haven't actually read Veins of the Earth
But I've read blogposts about Veins of the earth

me IRL

What is Veins of the EarthVeins of the Earth is a dungeon written by Skerples(http://melancholiesandmirth.blogspot.com), famed original creator of Goblinpunch, describing how the world is actually the corpse of Ymir, and as such caves and tunnels and so on are the 'veins' of the earth.

Now you might think it's just a reskinned underdark, and you'd be right, but it's 'osr' so it's cool and W*zard of the Shoreline can **** my pulchritudinous wang(stats as ogre). But lets get into what makes this dumb cave dungeon so popular and gave it the title of 'The Dark Souls of OSR dungeons'

First off, it does away with the annoying aspects of real caves that would make them difficult to adventure in. In fact, the only 'cave generators' it supplies is a bag of cheetos and a link to Dyson Logos which is actually a pretty good deal, from a certain point of view. But it includes a lot of rules for caloric intake and cooking, and if there's one thing I've learned from watching my flatmate play overrated JRPG games, it's that a robust cooking minigame is the cornerstone of interesting gameplay. With the players entertained by pretending to eat fungus men with a side of cave lice, they won't even realize they haven't found any treasure in 3 sessions.

But let's give a breakdown of the dungeon.

Veins of the Earth, Level One
 The entrance to the Veins is a one-way crack you have to wriggle through, leaving all your items behind and forever being unable to return. This may seem harsh, but it's actually great, because it's a 'fresh start' with an old character. The 'Intro level' of the Veins is pretty easy in theory, but in practice everyone's naked and wielding stirge-beak shanks, so it's actually pretty interesting. The players are supposed to take as much meat as they can kill from this first level, but if they're not genre savvy, they'll probably leave behind the meat of the 'Cave Goblins, Cave Bandits, and Dave Zombies(I'm not sure if that's a typo or a shoutout to one of the original playtesters of Veins who died on the first depth but I think it adds a lot to the game) and starve on level two.

Veins of the Earth, Level Two
This is where the real veins starts according to everyone. Every hall is described as a 'maze of twisty little corridors, all alike' and is all about IDing things before fighting them. Stuff like the deR0 (hacker dwarves who use leetspeak, they make more sense once you hit the gonzo crashed spaceship sublevel) and the Olm

Statblocks a bit weird but totally compatible with the GLOG, so

have to be dealt with totally differently. One thing I really liked were 'waterfall traps' that are just curtains of water to menace light sources, they're almost as foreboding as a locked door despite being nothing but water. That's the sort of clever dungeon design the Veins is all about, you see.

Veins of the Earth Level 3
This level gets some flak because it's the 'lava level' and it's honestly not deep enough to be in the mantle, but I forgive it because it has a LAVA KRAKEN.
'But Wiz,' you say, 'Isn't that just a lazily elemental reskin?'
WRONG
The Lava Kraken is the sort of 'Boss fight' that some people think has no place in the OSR, but Skerples has done it again(the first time being his rad basilisk encounter) with this astounding fight.
First off, the scene is in a giant lava lake, where the lava kraken resides. There's an island of treasure with a dead dragon skeleton on it, but there's no way to get to it- or is there?

Ignoring spells or the (frankly lame) option to flood the lake with water from level 2 and seal the kraken inside cooled volcanic rock, the way to get the treasure is twofold- you can either navigate the stalactites over the lava lake (just don't grab a piercer) OR knock the stalactites loose(or piercers!) and use them as stepping stones to cross the lake. Of course, there's 8 magma tentacles trying to kill you during this, and then there's phase two, which I actually don't know what it is because I don't have the book. If someone DOES have Veins of the Earth, please leave a comment telling me what phase 2 of the lava kraken fight is.

Veins of the Earth Level 4 
Here we got a twofold thing- a city of ghouls, and a crashed spaceship in the middle (the dEr0 are there)

This is all pretty much food based politics as far as I can tell. Feed ghouls to get hirelings, feed dEr0 to ghouls or let the dEr0 do whatever they do to advance their faction. I've heard people complain about the '1v1' aspect of the faction conflict but I'm pretty sure the Olm and Mindflayers are factions too. Also there's another weird option to flood the ghoul city with the lava from level 3 that actually turns into a 'gotcha' because that just turns them all into 'pyroclastic ghouls' which is cool but apparently has TPK'd most playtesters.

"Deep Veins"
Remember I haven't actually read this, so a lot of this has been assembled via deductive reasoning. Or possibly inductive.

In any case, you got several veins to go down now, and some arteries too. There's the one that leads to the Paleontological Depths, which has stuff like fossil dinosaurs and your mom's prom dress and for some reason a lot of bird sublevels. Something about 'the three Bird Ages?' In any case I really think it's great that the players can do archaeology to learn more about the dungeon, and use radiocarbondating to determine monster stats within a 1-10000% degree of error. Because it's not just about running out of food and dying, it's about learning about a strange environment and mastering it. Speaking of, the Civilopede is here with it's P-zombie historians, so all in all this is the reward for thoughtful 'explorer' type players.

There's also the 'living vein' which is connected to Ymir's beating heart and is sorta a reminder of 'oh yeah, the VEINS of the earth' ya know? Anyway, it's like a 'go inside giant monster level' only it's all made of ice because Norse Myth. That's the sort of thing that reminds you it's a FANTASY setting, and that real-world considerations of cave delving are tots lame and you could never make good content out of them.

There's also what I've seen described as 'Furry Catholic Hell,' which is pretty much what you'd expect, only it's the Foxlings and Buglings and Slothlings trying to tempt you to sin while the demons act as the fun police. Apparently this section is nearly unplayable unless you have the FATAL tables to cross reference stuff, and since it's the intended 'respawn point' for slain characters, but I think that's a nice callback to old references to CHAINMAIL rules, and in the true spirit of the OSR.

Finally there's the Undersea, which has your giant crabs, mind-flayers-but-not-trademarked, dream whales (aka oneirocetaceans) and similar stuff. I believe it's meant to be Ymir's stomach, though I couldn't say for sure.

In anycase, it's important to note that these are all open-ended, so they're less of a dungeon 'end' and more of a 'Here be GM Improv' zone beyond them, which is nice in theory but in practice, basically just an excuse to put an advertisement for the 'Veins Hexcrawl' which you can only buy for $99.99 (plus tip) and by all accounts is the same as regular Veins of the Earth, just in a different layout.

In conclusion, I'd give this an 8/10, like skyrim but underground.

Spells for Moon Rats, and thoughts on Spell Lists

This is a reference for the various Maze Rats style generated spells in my current game, in terms of how they're cast both in pseudo-vancian 1/day style, and how they'd be cast in GLOG style magic for anyone who delves into the Old Magic. They're mostly level 1-tier spells.

If you don't care about the spells, there's rambling about spell lists after them.


Earth Song
Sing to stone or earth to gain a reaction check from it. 2d6 if vancian, or 1d6 per magic die if GLOG.
1-5 Bad
6-8 Neutral
9+ Good
If 3+ dice are used, the stones may shift in ways that ignore gravity. Stones can collapse, trip people up, roll a little. Mud  and Earth may become firmer or softer, sand can avoid blowing into eyes, that sorta thing. Bad or Good reactions basically just indicate whether these effects favor the caster or not. Neutral effects indicate the stones trying to settle themselves more comfortably- worked stone tends to favor trying to maintain or repair its own architecture, while natural earth and stone just want to follow gravity.

Plague Amber
Lures a disease to inhabit some dried treesap instead of whoever is currently infected. Actual Amber is required to catch great spirits of plague. Breaking the amber releases the disease on whoever's nearest.
Dice Invested/Level of vancian spell

1. Can catch non-lethal diseases
2. Can catch lethal diseases.
3. Can catch extremely virulent plagues ala Black Death, requires Amber
4. Amber Prison become a permanent ward vs one disease, allowing all who touch it to be purged and immunized so long as the prison holds firm. Requires a large and quality piece of amber worth several thousand GP.

Gate of the Knife
Stab a knife into a doorframe, and anything passing through automatically takes damage as though being slashed by the knife. 1 Knife per level can remain active in this fashion, or if casting Glog style, one must roll higher than the # of currently active knives to place a new knife, and 3+ dice allows the placing of Swords.

Crow Scare-Summons a cawing, flapping crow in front of the face of the target. This is extremely shocking and the target must save or spend their next action attacking the crow, jumping back in shock, shielding their face, as opposed to any useful action.
This spell cannot be cast within line of sight of a scarecrow.
If cast with 3+ magic dice, an entire murder of crows will be summoned to scare as many targets as the caster wishes.

Transport Sunshard- Telekinetically shift existing fire or lightning to another place in sight at a rate equal to your own running speed. Once the target is picked the shard moves in a straight line to its destination. Any fire bigger than a bonfire(1d12 damage) is too big to move. The fire will likely go out upon hitting something unless the target was flammable.
With extra magic dice, it may be sent to strike multiple targets beyond the first. With vancian casting, it strikes +1 target per 5 levels of the caster.

Mesmeric Sphere- Creates a hovering, gleaming bubble with 1HP and ac 10. Save or be unable to look away. Entranced people obliged to stare it it are easily flanked, as though they can continue to fight, they may be limited to peripheral vision. The caster need not save as they can look away, and anyone with forewarning can avoid catching a glimpse of it. Combat near the sphere forces extra saves each round(barring clever placement), much like trying to avoid a gaze attack. It lasts until someone pops it, or 1 minute per level(vancian) or [sum]minutes rolled (GLOG)


Oil Colossus- Summons 5-foot wide flame-eyed blob of oil(light as candlelight) to rise from the ground near the caster. If struck, degenerates into flaming pool of oil about 5 feet wide that burns for 2 rounds. The blob obeys commands, but can do little but scoot around at knee height and cannot climb stairs or steep slopes. If struck by an attack(it is automatically hit) or if it just jiggles too enthusiastically (1/6 chance every minute) it ignites and becomes a flaming pool of oil.

Compelling Touch-Touch someone- they won't willingly break physical contact until you do, or outside forces separate you. No save. Also nothing prevents them from shanking you, but your death will not end the effect.
Each 3 levels or extra magic die invested allows an additional target to be compelled in this manner, either from your touch or the touch of someone currently under the spells effects.

Conceal psyche- your mind and spirit are shielded from detection. Nightmares and undead animated by Nightmare will be entirely unable to detect you, and mental effects from creatures that can see you will have a blindness penalty to hit (or a similar bonus to your saving throw). You also can probably bluff spirits into thinking you've already sold your soul. Last until you wake up from sleep. You can only conceal yourself.

Encoding Sand
 Sand whirls like a tiny tornado the size of a pen, etching [sum] words (or 2d6 for vancian casting) down in the blink of an eye.
Alternately, coded symbols or simple drawings can be etched, like a stick figure.
Using 3+ magic dice allows you to instead make complex drawings, like realistic art, copied maps, or as many words as can fit  in [sum] square feet.

Tendril of Screaming Blight, 
which sounds dreadful but what it does is rots some wood and grows a mushroom that will scream if something comes near it. Deals [effect level]d6 damage to tree monsters.
 Dice Used/Maximal effects at Level/2

1. Rots something up to a door or chair. Mushroom as whistle.
2. Rots something up to a wagon. Mushroom as flute
3. Rots a large tree.  Mushroom the size and noisiness of shrieking child or trumpet
4. Could rot an entire wooden wall. Mushroom tree-sized, a deafening siren wail.

Rainshaping You can make rain coalesce into various shapes with a high degree of precision and control. Lasts as long as the rain does. Douse people in water, create shadowy illusions out of rain. Each extra die or 3 levels allows an extra thing to be done simultaneously.

Water Cubes Makes water adopt a resting position of a cube, instead of a puddle. Permanent. Works on solutions, but not purely non-water liquids.
Up to one 10x10x10 cube per level or [sum] can be formed

Thunderous Gate- Utterance of a Word of Power creates a pulse of air pressure strong enough to send small objects flying, slam doors shut, send projectiles off target, etc. It is cast via shouting a single word and can be done as a 'reaction' interrupting other actions regardless of initiative. If 3+ dice are used, it deafens those nearby and forces a morale check against anything afraid of thunder or with sensitive hearing.

Ember Cauldron- A way to keep a container heated without fire so long as you continue chanting. Heat will be up to 'Boiling' in the vancian style.

Dice Used

1. Lukewarm
2. Boiling
3. Red Hot (may destroy nonmetal containers)
4. White Hot (Will destroy most containers sooner or later)

Sealing Script-Creates a 'scroll' that activates when placed on something. If the name written on the scroll matches the true name of the being it is attached to, it activates. Truly nameless beings are immune so long as no one names them, but even animals may have 'names' in the form of specific cries/smells that are difficult, but not impossible to transcribe. All effects allow a saving throw to resist, and automatically end if the paper is removed or damaged to the point the name is marred.
Dice used/Difference between target HD and personal HD

1. Sealed- Prevents use of spells or supernatural abilities like basilisk gazes, werewolf shapechanging, etc.
2. Paralysis- Can think, breathe, etc, but can't move voluntary muscles.
3. Stasis- Target untouched by passage of time. Does not breathe, eat, think, age, etc.
4. Imprisonment- Target sealed inside nearby object, essentially ceasing to exist till seal is broken.

Speak to Crow
Allows you to speak to crows for a single conversation. Doesn't compel them to talk back, but they're gabby beasts you can bribe with scraps of food.

Throne of Foresight- Sit in a chair (or handy branch or rock) and determine who the next person to sit in that chair will be. Their name echoes in your mind and the casting is as subtle as a thought.


RAMBLING
So in typical D&D, there's 'The Spell List.' If you're a wizard (hairy or otherwise), you have a pretty good idea of what spells you'll use, and why. You meet goblins, you cast sleep. You meet a high AC monster, you use Magic Missile. Known solutions to known problems.

So what I'm trying to do with the introduction of a bunch of weird spells that I make up off the top of my head from some words strung together is more of 'give the players weird shit to play with and see what they do.' The power level is definitely weaker than D&D spells, but the weakness of the spells has made being a 'wizard' more about creative application and combination of strange little cantrips than about having a set number of specific answers to specific problems per day.

Some of my favorite uses of the 'weird spell list' have been

A shrunken character using Crow Scare and Speak With Crow to arrange his rescue from being stranded in the sky.

Using the Throne Of Foresight to learn about a bunch of Sludge Vampires pretending to be elves in a giant dead treestump

Use of Crow Scare and Monsterize to get a save or stun + a quick monster

Thunderous Gate was used to blow a falling flying canoe onto a more favorable trajectory

Using Oil Colossus to scout ahead providing light and a nasty firetrap to any lurking monsters

Using Transport Sunshard to turn a burning oil trap against its creator

In any case, I'm not saying this approach to spells is 'better' than the D&D spell list, but it's certainly been an interesting one. I always liked the weird magic items like Immovable Rods that have no 'intended use' and are just potential 'ins' for creative plans, but they're often limited use or very rare, so shifting 'weird, possibly useless item' into 'weird, possibly useless spells' gives more opportunities to come up with a kooky scheme. Grease is one example of a D&D spell like this, though I wonder why it became a spell and not just a purchasable item.

Easy Access Polytheism, plus an old incomplete pantheon

This is something I've done in settings with polytheistic pantheons where pretty much everyone attempts to get on the good sides of the gods.

Anyone can cast cleric spells! Hooray! However, you don't automatically get spells- you pay for them with Favor, and don't have 100% certainty of what will happen. You get favor by doing things that specific gods like. Donating 1000 coins, a magic item, or other things of great value to one of their temples or doing a quest for the church is a solid way to get a favor point with most gods, as is converting more people to the religion.

Each point of favor is the equivalent to a spell level. Invoking a miracle involves praying for divine intervention. Make a WIS check or a saving throw or something, maybe with a -1 per spell level of the miracle you're praying for. Maybe you have to roll under Favor-Requested Spell Level if you want it to be hard. Anyway, if it works, burn favor and the gods will bestow an appropriate cleric spell of a level up to the amount of favor burned in response to your request, assuming your request is in-line with their goals. If it fails, you can keep praying for a cumulative +1 bonus per consecutive round spent praying.
NOTE: To prevent this from being an exercise in 'mother may I' with the GM, god motives and methods should be pretty obvious, not super sophisticated character studies , and as usual, saying 'yes' will almost always make for a better game than saying 'no'

If something dreadful would happen to you and you have some banked favor, the god you have the highest favor with has a favor-in-20 chance of them attempting to save your bacon independently, though they'll be the ones choosing how much favor to burn(all of it, typically) and what exactly to do with it in that case. They might just blow favor at a 1-1 ratio to increase your saving throw vs getting owned or similar simple mathematical tweaks in your favor if they don't have any truly appropriate spells to save you.

Doing things they don't like will likely incur loss of favor, and doing things they REALLY don't like will result in Wrath- the turning of any positive favor to negative.  Negative favor is similar to positive favor given to your enemies, to be used against you at inopportune moments.


Anyway, here are some examples from my last campaign. The might be bad examples to steal wholesale because there's a bunch of setting-specific divine politics implied, but having factional conflict and conditional alliances and so on makes religion interesting.

you get angels of Riikhus &Mokkhus, cuz Riikhus is just the sun and Mokkhus is just a big goffik dude

Riikhus- The King in the Sun, the Flames Of War Which Purify All, The Unconquered Light
Mokkhus- Counter of Bones, Gatekeeper of the Dead, The Unmoved
+1 Favor- Smite an undead or demonic creature of more HD than yourself, or an enemy priest
+??? Favor- Subjugate a divine spirit and add them to the slave pantheon of the Brothers
-1 Favor- Gain more favor with a slave god than your current total with the Brothers
-1 Favor- Act against the interests of the Church
Wrath- Intentionally gain favor with M'shesh or Lumar
Common Miracles
Riikhus's Trumpet- Garb allies and self in arms and armor in fanfare of light and angelic wingbeats
Wrath of Riikhus- As Inflict Light Wounds but Holy Fire damage, or in sunlight, as Magic Missile
Underworld Manacle- Strip immunity to nonmagical weapons from one undead.
Ancestor Spirit- As Animate dead, but animated dead are lawful faithful of Mokhus and will return to the underworld after their task
Intervention- Angel dispatched to smite evil or spirit the faithful away to safety.

Slave Gods/Saints of the Brothers Riikhus and Mokkhus
Lady of Gardens- Law, Plants, Domesticity, Society
+1 Favor- slay monsters and mutants
+1 Favor- officiate lawful proceedings such as marriage, peace contracts, etc.
-1 Favor- polymorph, mutate, sow chaos, minor crimes
Wrath- Intentional polymorph, mutation, seriously destabilizing crime
Common Miracle- Entangle, Grow Plants

Jackal God Of Yuba
+1 Favor- Eat the warm hearts of your slain foes. +2 if higher HD, +3 if over double HD.
+1 favor- Save a Canine from peril
Common Miracles- Charm Canine, Scare Animal, Curse: Lycanthropy.

Hefon- Goddess of Bonds
+1 Favor- save a friend or family from certain death
+1 Favor- avenge a wrong done to your kin or ally
-1 Favor-Abandon allies in need
Wrath- Betray blood or bondsman
Common miracle- bless, healing, or reversed spells when pursuing vengeance

M'shesh is a nice goddess if you agree death was a stupid idea and a world of zombies would be better
No pain! No need to kill living creatures to eat! Stable population!

Free Gods
M'shesh- Mother of Undead, She-Who-Bars-The-Way, the Black Wind
M'shesh opposes death and pain and will never grant a spell that inflicts harm.
+1 Favor- Spare your enemies rather than slay them this session. Also, kill nothing to eat.
+1 Favor- Convert or slay a priest of Mokkhus or Riikhus- those who do not oppose death are welcome to it!
-1 Favor- Slay fleeing or surrendered foes, or kill without necessity.
Commonest Miracle- Breathe a dead soul of a M'shesh faithful into a corpse, creating an intelligent zombie hireling or raising a faithful player as undead. Immune to poison, discomfort, disease, but still vulnerable to level drain and feel like they need to breathe and eat and sleep. If they don't, they start going crazy. Also zombie PCs break a lot of inherent assumptions about the game, like food, need to breathe, etc etc, and you should be careful with this at low levels.

You can't comprehend Yg's true majesty because you're not a snake
But if you were this image would be majestic indeed

Mother Yg- She-of-Skins, the Long Librarian, Egg-Keeper, Serpentine Matron
+1 Favor- Complete a task for a snake
+1 Favor- Retrieve knowledge unknown even to her
+1 Favor- Consecrate a monster egg to be born as a monster snake instead
-1 Abandon a snake in mortal peril
Wrath- intentionally harm a snake

Common Miracles- cure poison, sticks to snakes. Snakify Egg, cause poison, speak with snake(but never charm snake, you can hire them as hirelings for the usual half share of gold. It is a mystery what they do with it.)
Getting Raise Dead'd makes you a bit more snakey each time.

This is what carved wooden idols of T'liki look like. Only even more annoying.

T'liki- Coinflipper, Shuffler of Souls, The All-(f)or-Nothing
+1 Favor- gamble your most prized possession as an offering to T'liki with 50/50 odds. If you can fool T'liki, you might be able to fake sacrificing it.
+1 Do something risky and stupid, and pull it off. Adventurers can rack favor up pretty quick...
-1 Be boring. Festivals of masks and wanton revelry are held to amuse T'liki and ward off his attempts to 'spice up' peoples lives.


Common Miracles- as a chaotic trickster god, T'liki grants random spells of illusion and confusion.
T'liki can be called to intervene directly with no loss of favor by drawing from a deck of cards, rolling a die, or similar, but his intervention leans towards making situations more chaotic and random, rather than any reliable aid. Certain players will take great joy in having T'liki be blamed for bad rolls and praised for good ones, others will despise the addition of extra RNG to an already unpredictable game.

Lumar, One From Nowhere, The Unfathomable, Shines-In-Dark, Bliss-In-Ignorance

 A strange and obscure goddess from the mirror realm, which was once a blurred land of reflections in water and ice alone but has expanded with the creation of humans and their mirrors and glass and metal. Riikhites despise her for the creation of the moon, but is imitation not the sincerest form of flattery? No clerical powers reach into the mirror realm save hers, but regardless, she grants imitation miracles to visitors regardless, and they never know the difference.
not even once they've returned to the world of nonreflected light and shadow
Maybe there never really was a Lumar and the real holy spirit was inside you all along, kid
Or maybe the real miracles were the friends you made along the way?
knowledge drowned in the sea, better left alone
Something like that. 
+1 Favor- destroy knowledge of the true nature of the world and its purpose in the plan of the gods
-1 Favor- learn knowledge as to the true nature of the world
wrath- spread the word of the true nature of the world 
Common miracles- mental manipulation, illusion, moonlight and seafog and information, & planeshifting
BUT WHAT ABOUT CLERICS
The above rules are for everyone. Clerics are still clerics, but they're zealots, fanatics, who serve one god and one god alone. Their favor with their chosen god is indicated by their level and typical spells-per-day business, and while negotiating with other gods and spirits is part of their duty as religious icons, gaining favor with gods and spirits beyond their own is closer to 'leverage' than it is to a healthy religious relationship. 

BUT WHAT ABOUT ANIMISM 
Animism is great for this, though creating a pantheon of gods as factions is a lot easier than being prepared to run everything as a potential spiritual entity. Everything can potentially be a source of favor, be it an old ghost, a river, a tree, a stone, another PC, linguistic concepts... it's a rabbit hole that can go infinitely deep. Imagine Dungeon-as-God, where breaking down doors and strewing goblin entrails about infuriates the dungeon, but properly finding keys and arranging goblin entrails neatly may earn the favoritism of a dungeon. But this post is rambly enough as is, so let's call things quits for now.

2018 One Page Dungeon Submission and Creation

A player wanted to hear about the process behind my submission to the One Page Dungeon Contest.
There have been a lot of cool dungeons there over the years, check it out. Anyway.

There's a game called Five Nights at Freddy's that has you working a nightshift at a food joint and trying not to get eaten by haunted animatronic death robots. The fandom is huge and rabid so I decided to watch a let's play to see what all the fuss was about, and then the principles of that game struck me as a potential source of fuel for a dungeon of OSR problem solving a year or two later. Managing a limited amount of time and needing to be in two places at once, and having the best defense against monsters be not swords, but doors. But doors that you can't just cower behind forever. Anyway, I made an attempt at this dungeon a while back in the BFRPG campaign and it went fairly well.

Yellow squares were candle altars, 0 was an hourglass that needed to be turned over every so often to prevent bad stuff, 1 was a bunch of screaming flying heads at the bottom of a pool and little altars that glowed or went dark depending on if a corresponding candle was lit, 2 was  five stone blocks and 6 pressure plates that needed to be depressed to lift a cage around a candle altar, 3 was just a candle altar on an island in a pond, 4 was deep alcoves filled with endless lines of terracotta warriors who were full of black smoke and would animate occasionally, and only move when their chosen target did, 5 was Father Darkness and an altar at the end of a windy tunnel, and6 was an altar and the Golden Bride, but made of glass instead. Also doors simply took 3 rounds to open, stayed open for 3 rounds, and then shut automatically.

The players read the journal left behind, made a plan to patrol the place and assign people to various jobs and lookouts, and all in all did a good job of keeping the candles lit. I had 7 'tiers' of difficulty that made certain enemies 'wake up' and move faster, but the players ended up betraying the demonic host of this place, and while no casualties ensued, they did get teleported to the undersea and I realized having a demon as the source loot was a bad idea, because seriously who would trust a demon. Also, the way the doors worked, it was a bit to easy to simply make a few contingency plans and otherwise stay holed up behind 'em, which made it less of a real time roleplaying challenge with decisions to be made moment to moment and more of a static puzzle solvable from the get-go.

Still, the players found it memorable and mentioned that it was 'stressful' which was the feeling I was aiming for, so I think it was mostly a success. But it could be better! Faster! Submitted to the one page dungeon contest!

First off, the demonic patron of the place is replaced by 'The Device.' The reward of this place is supposed to be reliable and not another source of uncertainty and anxiety. A huge 'we did it' and sigh of relief to make up for the hectic multitasking required to get here.

Secondly, I changed how the doors worked. They're still slow to open, but they have imperfect coverage. Blocking the monsters from coming one way will set them to wandering elsewhere, and they'll eventually find another way in if you don't react to the changing situation. I think this is the most important change besides the candles.

In the original challenge, the reward scaled per number of candles lit. In this one, you have to keep them all lit for at least 10 minutes. This is to set the players running routes of their own rather than huddling in the safest spot and occasionally relighting candles and doing other things. Not many monsters will actually try to extinguish candles, but the core ones that do, the shadow reflections, are best dealt with by getting somebody else to take it down. The trick is that that person will possibly end up spawning a doppelganger themselves unless they try to kill/reach it with no light source, in which case grues will be a problem.

This dungeon actually encourages players splitting up to get more done. Fortunately, players will generally establish checkups on each other in a situation like this and the place is pretty small so when things go bad and get hectic, they'll usually bump into each other as they rush around, especially at slow to open doors.

I guess I can talk about everything in more detail as advice for anyone who might run this place.
'RUNNING DISTILL THE BLACKEST GOLD'
First off, the players should be well-informed if they're low level. I'd honestly probably just give them the entire one-page dungeon as the 'adventurer's journal' they find in 7. The rude surprises in this dungeon come from opening a door and finding a monster behind it, or running a patrol route and finding Dave isn't pushing down the water dragon head like he should be. The surprise shouldn't be 'haha this weird ass monster you knew nothing about killed you.' Even the 'bonus monsters' were designed to create specific problems for the players to ponder how to overcome.

Another important thing to remember is time. I assume 1 round of combat = 10 seconds so that if you need to open a door, it's 3 rounds of monsters eating your face if they're already on top of you. Depending on what system you use, you may want to alter door-opening speeds, hallway traversing speeds, and how wakeful the water dragon is.

Also important to remember- there are not wandering monsters. You'll need to keep track of where the players and monsters are on a minute-to-minute basis at least. Don't think of it as tedium, think of it as training for timekeeping! Also if you don't fairly and accurately track the monster movements it makes all this kinda pointless.

One-The Device
The treasure from this thing should be good, aite? Like, if someone solos this place, there should be enough gold for them to level up, easy. This place can be stressful and require a lot more thought to survive so it needs to be worth it. My players really liked the idea of 'fusing' different magic items together, so giving that ability to the Device can be a great way to condense hoards of magical items into unique items, or grant unique abilities to people (though they'd have to stay by the device while it operated on them...).

The Narrow Hall- The design goal here is a shortcut, but a dangerous one. It allows you to skip certain doors and hallways, but really play up the whole 'if a monster catches you while you're squeezing through here you're screwed.' if the Bride is seen (and therefore petrified) in here, she'll need someone on either side to push/pull her out. Or like, someone with giant strength. This dungeon is mostly aimed at low level people who aren't gonna just magic their way through walls or anything.

Two-Tree Altar
This room is pretty simple. It's a dead end or an important route depending on the C door configuration, Also it has a giant tree you could climb if you get cornered. Also, an altar to keep an eye on. Said giant tree also has one of the extra perils sealed inside if the players seek to up their game.

Three- Flooded Room
This is sorta meant to be the spooky basement room. You need to get there to light the altar. But you can't get there without spawning a shadow reflection of yourself and everyone with you... unless you go there in darkness, but that means you won't be able to see Father Darkness coming if he's nearby, and of course grues may be an issue. In the event you go there and get cornered by Father Darkness, you can dive into the water so he can't sense your breathing, at the expense of your torches. You can turn this room into a giant underground lake and have a boat bring the players here and it shouldn't affect the dungeons 'flow.' Normally I'm all for alternate entrances and exits, but this one can be hard to tinker with without throwing off the implications of the layout.

Four- Bride's Room
If you want to throw a surprise at the player, having the bride's abilities be initially unknown is a good option. This is a fairly ignorable room, honestly, but players may very reasonably think 'let's just set a watcher here to keep an eye on her and prevent her from running around.' This won't work, but will make for a good moment when Father Darkness shows up, she scampers off under the cover of his darkness, and the player runs off to tell people that everything's gone wrong.

Flooded Hall-
This initially was way more complicated, but now it's just a hallway divided by a deep trench of water into 2 sides and a rib bridge in the middle. Plus spooky giant bones. In any case, this hallway is just to make more interesting encounters with the monsters due to the separated paths- ranged combat across the watery trench, a battle on the bridge, various stealthy options. It's overall just a more dynamic place than the other halls.

Five- Door Nexus
While the most secure place to hole up is probably the device room,  five also gives good control of the movement of monsters via door manipulation, and is near several altars and the water dragon head. Five is also a deathtrap. If a monster DOES make it in, your exits are either a slow door, or a variety of dangerous hallways.

The Winding Hall
Traversing it takes 1d3 minutes. In terms of speed, it is always inferior compared to other hallways, and can lead to strange shenanigans like a monster pursuing you inside and arriving at the destination before you do. This is a gamble and a way for players to delay and bamboozle monsters by careful use of the B door. 

Six- Water Dragon Room
You can't get here without braving either a shadow reflection or going without light, and the need to constantly push it down or check if it needs pushing down is an important 'loop' of gameplay in this dungeon. Apart from the two levels of elevation that might be able to be turned against monsters and players, this is either a relatively peaceful room or a high traffic route depending on door configuration.

Seven- Blackened Gold Room
The final candle altar is probably also the lowest-traffic room. Enemies and players alike have little reason to choose this route, which may make it a haven for skulking grues. It has the 'adventuring journal' here because it is a likely first room to enter, assuming you use the suggested chain entry, so if you change up how to enter this place I'd suggest also changing the journal location.

Grues The Room
Less of a real room and more an excuse to have an entrance/exit/shortcut to unspeakable depths of your megadungeon. Also, a lightsource left here to keep the Grues from entering will need to be checked on every so often. If the players throw the golden bride down this pit, they should get a good amount of time free of her, but when she returns (2d10 minutes, probably), she'll have a horde of grues with her and will extinguish any light left here to allow them entrance.

The Golden Bride- Though relatively feeble, she is an immortal being who wishes to keep her immortality by chugging gold from the device and due to becoming an inanimate statue if anyone sees her, she literally can only be herself among blind grues and father darkness and so on. Her intended complications are opening doors the players don't want opened, and standing in doors to prevent them from closing. Also she can block the narrow hallway. Chopping her up and other attempts to debilitate her are doomed to fail due to her immortality resetting her to impeccable form whenever she changes forms between unseen flesh human to seen inanimate gold statue. If she makes it into 1, she'll gobble molten gold at a rate of -10% final reward per minute (or like, -10% power if the device is fusing magic items or something), Though on the personal level she's nuisance not threat and she won't bother the altar candles, she'll open doors for Father Darkness and extinguish light sources to sic grues on people and I'd be shocked if the players don't try to find more permanent ways of dealing with her than just keeping an eye on her to keep her statueified.


Father Darkness- It doesn't really matter what Father Darkness actually is so long as he's dangerous enough the party doesn't want to fight him, is shrouded in darkness and so indifferent to light, and can't open doors. I went with an exotic Jiang Shi vampire for a few reasons.
1- You can hide from them by being quiet and holding your breath, allowing low level players a chance
2- Vampiric immortality makes him hard to deal with permanently even for parties that might be able to 'kill' him
3- Level drain is scary to everyone

Father Darkness is THE monster of this place. The door system is designed to keep him at bay, and the layout of the place designed to flee from him until you can get a door between him and you. Getting cornered=death. But note that the darkness blinds him too, so if he catches a player he should be attacking with penalties for being blind, so they should have at least some time before their chi gets sucked out their eyeballs.





Grues- Grues are not all that relevant unless the players start sneaking around in darkness.If you have a light source, you are 100% safe from grues (though they can follow uncomfortably close if you have a candle). If you have no lightsource, you'll probably get eaten. The point of grues is to add an extra 'thing' to check on (a lantern set at the grue shaft, probably) and to make water hazardous, since if you take a dip you'll lose your light source. This assumes the players don't have some bullshit eternal flameless light like Continual light of course. If they do you may as well just take out the grues.

Shadow Reflections- 
These are sort of a 'movement tax' to certain locations. I'd recommend them emerging 1d6 minutes after a player passes the shadow mirrors, then going to hunt down the original and extinguish candles they happen across. As they can only attack the original, it's best to have one person pass the mirrors, then kill the duplicate with someone else. If they get out of hand, you can have other monsters target them for destruction, but if you feel they're not enough of a threat, you can add in doppelganger problems like them being indistinguishable from the original, with their memories but a twisted goal, etc etc. You can also make them extremely weak to other players targeting them- like, goblin weak.
You can also shift the shadow hallways around, or add a third one. They're meant to be enough of a threat that players will sometimes prefer to risk going lightless (and being eaten by a grue) but not so much of a pain that they become the main focus. So don't be afraid to tweak how these work in different cycles.

Golden Seals and Extra Perils
This is a way to add replayability to the dungeon and allow the players to get greedy and bite off more than they can chew. I think my extra perils are well designed with the dungeon in mind, but you could add anything so long as it complicates the basic gameplay loops of the place and isn't just some random killable monster. Also, I'd probably limit the device to only working once and then requiring the seals to be unlocked for 1 extra use of the device per unlocking, lest very clever or powerful characters acquire a low-risk source of infinite wealth.

The Nurikabe- Blocking off a hallway or door with a sudden wall can change things up ridiculously. The Nurikabe should move to other locations after it successfully blocks someone for, say, 1d6 minutes, because it staying in one place forever would be either ignorable or totally scenario-ruining.

Sneaking Slime- This monster can ooze through doors, and breaking rules like that should be spooky to players who have come to rely on the doors.It paralyzes people, extinguishes their light, and leaves them to other monsters. Paralysis shouldn't last long- 1d6 minutes, maybe, so there should be a chance of rescue if someone falls victim to it. It might extinguish altar candles if that's where a player got paralyzed, but shouldn't do so immediately. It should also be extremely slow- a threat only if you stay in the same room as itor get ambushed.

Methane Elemental- Another monster designed to complicate the use of open flame. While the detonations cause damage, the huge noise attracts monsters that aren't already chasing someone. The idea behind this is to make players choose to take a different path when they smell it, douse their torches and risk advancing through it blind, or detonating it intentionally to lure other monsters to that location. Again, if the players have Continual Light pebbles or something, you shouldn't bother with this one.

Hot Dog- A playful dog made of lava. Injects some levity and requires fast thinking on how to distract the creature without angering it. Gets interesting if the Methane Elemental is about, or if you're trying to sneak around in the darkness. Maybe if you're nice enough it'll become your pet!

Armour and/or Armor

gack, I accidentally published this post when it was like half done. If you saw that do me a favor and forget you did

In most OSR games, the only reasons not to wear Plate if you can are
1- you're too poor
1a- You're not that poor but the GM has made plate mega expensive or knight-exclusive or something in an attempt to delay the inevitable upgrade
2- you know for a FACT you'll have to go swimming, stealthing, fancy partying, or sleeping
3- your class or STR doesn't let you wear it

Personally I'd like armor choice to be a less clear-cut decision for dungeon delving. If realism is getting in your face, you can also think as these categories as just 'light, medium, or heavy' armors.

• Unarmored- The fastest, quietest option. Also it makes you look less threatening, which can be a good thing or a bad thing when it comes to how you'll be treated if you get caught.

• Leather- You can be stealthy, you can swim, you can even sleep in leather armor. You can climb ropes at a decent pace. I watched some youtube videos and the 'realistic' option here should really be a padded gambeson, which turns out can be quite ornate and stylish.

  

  I mean if you prefer the light armor option to be some sort of leather-clad dominatrix cowboy thing that's cool too

• Chain- You are penalized for climbing, jumping, swimming and sneaking, but they aren't totally impossible. Chain can be donned or doffed without help or having to ruin the armor.

  

  When I googled chain mail I got a lot of 'naked nipples under outer chainmail rings' images so if anyone tells you you have to have under 15 AC to be sexy they're WRONG
• Plate- though obviously the best for heated combat, it is the worst for flexible dungeoneering. Speedy climbing, any swimming, sneaking, running long distances- all no-go. You can take 1 round to cut yourself out of 1d3 points of AC, possibly lowering your armor level, in the events that you really need to be more lightweight. You generally need assistance to take it on and off though. Also, I reckon fantasy platemail is 'unrealistically' heavy and encumbering because realistically it would NEED to be to stand a chance against stuff like giants and dragons, cuz 'realistically' plate IRL that people have proved you can cartwheel in was made to defend against humans and maybe humans on horses, not half the garbage in the monster manual.
  

  

  And you can still be cute in heavy plate mail without compromising defense

And the other big question is 'can wizards cast spells in armor' or does the terrible power of 17 AC + spellcasting make them too dangerous for any other class to possibly compete?
Personally, I don't think it does, and I think the desire to limit weapon and armor choice stems from a desire to uphold a certain cliche image of wizards being academics in silly hats without any strong in-universe justification for why it should be so. Kinda like how thieves get pigeonholed into being dagger-wielding black-leather gymnast-ninja. And with all the items like Rings of Protection or spells like Shield, it seems to me like 'wizards having sucky AC' isn't even a strong and fundamental facet of early D&D, so I say let thieves and wizards clank around in heavy armor if they want, and maybe it will spur your imagination to  make situations that care about more factors than how high everyone's AC is.

Bulletproof armor worn by Ned Kelly, notorious australian outlaw. Sounds plenty thiefly to me.

TWO DUNGEONS ONE PAGE

This might be too small to read comfortably but here goes. XXX refers to my megadungeon, cuz layer 1 was X shaped.

Cathedral of Damon Kars
Damon Kars was an exercise in rolling up a random high level evil wizard and making him as ruthless and horrible via amoral exploitation of his spells as possible. Also his lair sat atop an alternate entry to the megadungeon.
Horrible things he pulled off
1. Reading players minds and stealing some fatty loot from the dungeon before they could get it
2. Flying after the players invisibly until the party wizard mentioned he was out of spells and then spamming charm spells from midair
3. Turning captured (and subsequently retired from play) characters into NPC minions
4. Casting invisibility on a pet basilisk so that it could be safely handled but as soon as it attacked the invisibility dropped and threatened to petrify any would be attackers
 
 The players never killed him in his cathedral (which isn't much of a dungeon so much as a regular old building), but scryed on him for like a week to plan an assassination while Damon was in the dungeon (with his Basilisk and dudes of course) trying to charm some Trolls and ended up tranquilizing him with space drugs and then slitting his throat anyway on the way out when a water nymph asked what they were doing with her friend, getting a bounty placed on their head by said nymph for their troubles. But they killed him despite all his no-good tricks and while the fight itself wasn't much, I think it was satisfying to finally outsmart and outmaneuver an intelligent enemy who had been an infrequent but deeply troublesome thorn in their side. It was for me at least.

Damon Kars-  7th level elf magic user, is willing to parley with adventurers for his own ends. Has charmed various bandits that strayed next to his keep and outfitted them with decent equipment emblazoned with his heraldry. Will try hiring adventurers to bring him monsters or people, which he will imprison and repeatedly attempt to charm. Will gladly add adventurers to his charmed horde if they seem easily tricked (8 or less int) or are unwilling to recognize him as ‘lord’ of the region. If his horde of bandits and charmed monsters grows large enough he will dominate the nearby Bandit Cult and begin leading attempts at ‘rescuing’ slaves from the penal mines in an effort to gain a population of peasants to oppress and perhaps to overthrow the Praetor. It’s not impossible that he could succeed, but unless he acquires something truly astounding like a Dragon he will likely chicken out of a full rebellion.

He will gladly hire adventurers to try to retrieve the second basilisk from the XXX, but forays into the XXX from his fort while he is ‘Friendly’ will result in him demanding all treasure be turned over to him as he is the owner of the cathedral and its ‘Basement.’ However, he will offer them rewards if they bring him captured monsters (or people), and could be a handy spellcasting patron for very unscrupulous parties.

Routinely charms a basilisk and keeps it in his throne room on a chain- but turned invisible daily and charmed weekly, so as not to petrify himself or his men. His throne also has a huge mirror behind it, so as to further discourage the basilisk from looking at him. He spoils it horribly, and it is fat and lazy and probably wouldn’t attack him even if it wasn’t charmed. But he’s not taking chances. He likes monsters but knows they don’t necessarily like him.

If attacked he will unleash the basilisk, cast flight, get out of range of any fighters, then charm person on anyone with a bow. If he can charm most the party he will ‘forgive’ them and send them on a dangerous ‘quest of redemption’ to try to get the other Basilisk’s treasure from the dungeon beneath the cathedral. If his charm spells fail or he takes damage, he will fly out the broken stained-glass window. If he is not badly hurt, he will cast invisibility and return to try charming the party as they (presumably) fight the basilisk, otherwise he will rouse his guards and watch them fire slingstones down at the party from the 2nd floor. If both the basilisk and his troops are defeated he will try to get half the gold from his room (he’s too weak to carry more, I rolled for his stats and they were all like 7), if it is too dangerous he will abscond with his pouch of gems and try to hire mercenaries or bandits to kill the PCs. If this fails and he is without funds, he may vindictively try to blind PC’s with Continual Darkness in invisible flying raids, though he is probably too cowardly to go for a kill himself.

His bandits initially had their leader either charmed or killed, but most work for Damon willingly out of fear or respect for his sorcerous powers. He has cast Continual Light on their spears and all over the castle, making it constantly day and making the scruffy-looking bandits appear to have supernatural support. Damon and his men wear blindfolds when they wish to sleep, as darkness and shadow only exist 60’ from the cathedral due to Damon casting multiple Continual Lights every day for many years of his elvish life.It can be seen as a glow on the horizon at night, which serves as beacon to his men and bait to unwary travelers.

Damon Kars
HP 15
AC 10
Medallion of ESP (Damon’s master made this)
Map to Pelicat Nest in Mountains
Ring of Delusional Weakness
Gem of Giant Growth +5 str
Garnet of Remove Curse
1500 Silver
560 PP
Filigree Golden bracelet worth 600GP
20 gems 3xCloudy75GP 4xWell-Cut200GP 13 semiprecious 50gp
Charm Person xxx
Read Language
Detect Magic
Magic Missile

Continual Light/Darkness
Locate Object
ESP (never memorized thanks to medallion)
Invisibility xx (Always has cast one use already on Basilisk in the morning)
Detect Invisible

Fly
Water Breathing x

Charm Monster  (Is usually expended before bed on the basilisk once per day)
Remove Curse

BANDIT TEMPLE OF M'SHESH
M'shesh is a goddess of undeath who thinks death was a stupid and cruel idea, so her afterlife is just her holding all the souls of her worshippers in her arms until her clerics can breathe them into a handy corpse to live on as an undead. I'll probably talk more about her in a later post, she was fairly popular with the players and was a big deal in the campaign.

In anycase, this place wasn't really dealt with 'as intended' because the players unleashed a succubus in the megadungeon below, had lethal party infighting over whether they should make deals with demons or not, and the as the party reconvened and recovered the Succubus left the dungeon and took over the bandits/M'shesh cultists, the demonic charm-revolt causing the deaths of about half the bandit/cultists and all the undead, and leveldraining the high priest down to level 1 while trying to convince him to turn to demon worship. This all allowed a player to end up as new high priest of M'shesh and ultimate savior of the M'sheshan religion, but I never actually got to see how the dungeon was supposed to work, which was 3 layers with some weird connections, loops, and organized humanoids mixed in with sentient and crazed undead which I hoped would lead to complicated sneaking around and maybe some faction infighting if the players unleashed the basement ghouls.

Oh, there's a trapdoor in the corridor from 1 to 4 that drops you into the maze-catacomb of 8. The fall is only 10 feet but you'll probably be eaten by ghouls down there.
And Yellow=Top Floor, Light Blue=Ground Floor, Dark Blue=Basement

Nonmagical Mine Minidungeon

The Surface- a an obscure but impressive stone abbey lies near forested mountains. It is inhabited by clergy of a deeply religious nature.They do not speak, but have evocative gestures and if pressed, will write monosyllabic responses on slate chalkboards they wear around their necks and get visibly annoyed if they have to do this more than once per conversation. Out to lynch the man in the mines. Will hire mercenaries to take over if the players don't step up, but the mercenaries and monks are content to wait outside rather than risk the beast-haunted mine.

The situation- The head of a recently joined and recently deceased young nun, Goldie, has been stolen by a foreign musketeer. He was discovered halfway through, and fled with his prize into an abandoned and overgrown mine. The monks may show the headless body, and will make little effort to correct the obvious misunderstandings, though actual cause of death was a dagger to the heart, a suicide. Offer the magnificent steed of the musketeer(its stolen from a powerful lord actually, see the fiance mentioned in 6) as payment, and warn of wild beasts(a grimace with teeth bared and hands curled into claws, crouching down) and toxic gas within the mine (holding one's nose, then clutching one's throat)



Random Encounters (but not really)
1-Echoes of Noise like groaning chains, from 6
2-Wild Dogs, or just echoes of their barking if they haven't come to investigate
3-Foul smell preceding gust of bad air that will choke torches and men alike.
4-Collapse- only applicable if the players were mining or making a loud noise
5-Bat swarm flying confusedly about (night only)
6- Impatient but low-morale monks

1- The Overgrown Main Tunnel- roots from the forest above choke this tunnel, forcing one to chop through or proceed on all fours. Hidden by roots are side passages to 3 and 4.

2-Deep Shaft of black, sharp stone with ladder and one side covered in roots. Ladder is rotten and may break if climbed, roots are fragile and likewise, and ropes may be cut by the sharp stones if used to descend. It's perilous. Hidden behind the roots is an entrance to an old lava tube that leads to a bear cave in the mountains, where a huge bear slumbers.

3- Tunnel with sagging roof of earth, nearly collapsed. There are 3 sidepassages that lead to crossroads of mining.
a- root-choked walls are damp and strange creaking can be heard. One wall is thin enough to be broken through to 6 without much effort, though shovels and pickaxes are a must.
b- a support beam is all that prevents the middle of the tunnel 3 from collapsing. One must edge very carefully past this support beam (bonus if you take off packs and armor) as bumping it slightly will bring down the roof.
As for the actual intersection, there is a suspicious brick wall about the size of a door in contrast to the other paths of the T intersection.
Busting through the brick wall leads to a secret passage to the crypts of the Abbey, where the dead nun's body is kept. The passage itself comes out from the tomb of a past Abbot, though the tomb is empty.
c-another intersection. Walls are thin enough to break into 4.

4- Passage in reasonably good condition. Inexplicable steps ascending, then descending once the passage is clear of the secret tunnel in 3b. Ends in a thin, fragile brick wall that leads to the wild dog lair in 5 and the halls around 7.

5- Wild dogs have a den out in the fields dug in the side of a dry streambed, and it links to the mines. They view all the mines as being inside their den, so are more aggressive and territorial than one might expect. They only enter the mines if they hear loud noises like gunshots, collapses, or screaming.

6- A olive skinned man, Antonio, with hair like straw swings on a platform suspended by two chains over a chamber half-filled with water, with more chains and roots dangling from the ceiling, which could be brachiated across. He carries a rifle (or a crossbow if you don't have guns), a good two dozen shots, and is very skilled at swiftly reloading it. He also carries the severed head of Goldie(her hair is like molten gold and reaches the water which he hangs 4 feet above), and will shoot at lights he sees down the 6a hallway. He carries no light himself, and is suspended over the water a good 30 feet from shore, so reaching him or shooting back can be hard.


He claims to be the nun's lover who was thought dead at war, and furthermore that she never shared a faith with the monks and fled to the abbey to escape an arranged marriage. He is out for bloody revenge against her once fiance, who he blames for her death(though he blames the clergy of the abbey as well), and wishes to take her embalmed head across the sea back to her homeland for burial, a typical practice among his people. He has a platinum coin which he will offer as a bribe and claims to know how to break into the fiance's house for more ill-gotten loot like coins and fine horses.

He is irrationally protective of his lovers head and would die before parting with it.

There are 2 brick seals and a key at the bottom of this 10'deep pool, the key opening the secret chest in 11. Draining the water makes the key easy to find.

7-Locked rec room- where the miners of old would play dice and relax. Many old lanterns with no oil, pickaxes, shovels, buckets, and tables are rusting and rotting here. One corner is blocked off by a thin brick wall, behind which is 11.

8B- A sinkhole that the surface has not fallen into yet. Awful fumes of hundreds of years of guano rise from the depths, and bat swarms flitter about. The ramp built into the side has collapsed near the corner, and there is a corpse with the key to 11's chest lying on the far end.

The awful stench and fumes make flame gutter and sputter, and the bottom of the giant pit is meters deep in guano that swarms with flesheating insects (though not the sort that are a threat to live humans)


9- the three dams-two halls lead to water-leaking brick walls that keep the water in 6 held back. If broken, the water flows into 8b if possible, or will simply fill up the pit in 2 about 1/4 of the way if only dam 9a is broken.

11- The secret chamber where the iron strongbox lies, along with a list of names and who gets what share of the embezzled gold nuggets (4000GP worth). Clearly something went wrong, given the disparate key locations and abandonment of the mine...


Possible magical Complications that I left out because I wrote this for a nonmagical intro adventure contest by James Raggi but then forgot to submit it and then decided to salvage my halfassed notes for a blogpost.

The Abbot is a vampire who is exceedingly choosy about creating new spawn, and Goldie killed herself rather than become a vampire. Now the Abbot wants to retrieve the head, sew it back on, and revive Goldie via dark vampiric ichors

The bear is actually the 'missing abbot' from the secret tomb, who faked his own death and went to live as a mad druidic hermit for decades.

Goldie's head is alive and chatty for whatever reason. Maybe she's a dullahan and the clergy tried killing her when they discovered her heretical fey nature, maybe her fiance was a necromancer and can't die until she's properly married to him or maybe Antonio's the necromancer and he can't let go.

The bat-pit of 8b leads to a sinister poisonous lair of some dragon or other foul subterranean menace.

Design Goals- Secret walls that foreshadow later secrets, and also may encourage players to hack through thin walls on their own to bypass obstacles. Simple problem solving and monsters and social encounters that can be straightforward or complicated depending on how much the players engage. Meant to be an intro dungeon that can be finished in a single session, but has hooks to keep going from there.