Castlevania

I made a thread a little while ago about having a 4 person party split up in to 2 man teams, with some NPCs. I have another question I'd like some help with. Once my group hits 3rd level, where they join up, they manage to be the first ones who are actually in the castle, and it's going to be an entire day or 2 before the army they're allied with will be able to join them, so as to get through the forces still protecting the castle. So I want to make the castle in to a giant dungeon, or a (seamlessly) blended together series of dungeons, like Castlevania. I'm thinking it's going to be level 3-8 or so. The boss will be a Vampire, who dominated the real king. (Vampire=Castlevanie again.) I'm looking for tips/sources on making such a large dungeon. I'm thinking it should be at least 16 pages, not necessarily in a 4x4 spread though. thoughts?

I made a thread a little while ago about having a 4 person party split up in to 2 man teams

Click to expand...

What is a man?

Are they going to get through most of the castle and finish the game, only to realize that they could have flipped the dungeon upside down and had double the fun?

Just go get a copy of the Symphony of the Night map from gamefaqs.com and use that. Extra props if you actually make it a 2D sidescrolling adventure.

Dandu said:

What is a man?

Click to expand...

As in "2 person teams." It's some of that phony macho code talk that guys like me use.

I recommend taking a peak through Dungeonscape to get an idea.

RedTonic said:

Are they going to get through most of the castle and finish the game, only to realize that they could have flipped the dungeon upside down and had double the fun?

Just go get a copy of the Symphony of the Night map from gamefaqs.com and use that. Extra props if you actually make it a 2D sidescrolling adventure.

Click to expand...

I AM actually trying to make an effective way of plotting every dimension of a dungeon, or a different dimension. Jump rules would have to be drastically altered. I also want to make a double jump feat.

Dandu said:

What is a man?

Click to expand...

A miserable pile of secrets... What else would he be?



HAVE AT YOU!

Google has a nifty, easy to use 3D architecture rendering program called SketchUp. Free to download.

Or use Legos.

YAAAYYY LEGOS!

Yes, build your giant castle-dungeon out of Legos and then point to that when the players show up for the first session. Point to the minifig at the base of the castle and say "That is you. This is the castle you're storming," and laugh maniacally as they gaze upon the massive Lego structure you've constructed!

It should be at least as big as the giant-Lego-ball the Mythbusters built to roll down a hill.

Bonus points if they're dumbstruck by the scale of your monstrous creation.

As for the design itself, there should probably be some special keys or magic items in different parts of the castle that are needed to access other areas that the PCs need to go through to advance any further. The vampire has constructed a devilish system of increasingly-deadly traps and guardians to keep away those who may try to get rid of him........or perhaps the castle's original builder was kind of a paranoid loon.

For double-jumping, I'd recommend just throwing in some pairs of Boots of Striding or Rings of Jumping or Gloves of Climbing and Swimming as the treasure in one corner of the castle.

Don't make it a Vampire... Vampires suck.



...

Make it something interesting... instead of the king being dominated... a cancerous hateful thing has grown into a massive spinelength tumor along the length of his back, which is the cause of the King's infirmity and why he's covered in his royal cloak and garments during even the most blazing summer's day.

Even after you murder the king (and you'll HAVE to murder the king upon discovery)... you have to fight through a variety of "stages" to finally kill the thing controlling him.

First you kill the living king, then he becomes something of an animated corpse and then finally a skeleton as the creature ingests the kings organic tissue in order to survive.

Before you finally "kill" it it leaps off the kings back and attempts to latch onto and grapple a cloth wearer... give it some ridiculously high modifier to pin the magic user.

If the magic user fails the grapple the creature attempts to burrow into his back and his friends must try to hack it off... but the creature uses their friend as "cover".


You'll want to be descriptive... like


"The clearly dead king points a bony finger at (the one who laid the death blow) and as he does the skin tightens and then snaps back revealing the blackened mottled tissue beneath, the skin of the hand pealing up the arm and beneath the king's cloak, from whence the cracking of bone and the tearing of flesh can be heard.

Employ telekinetic thrust here to hurl the death dealer across the room.


The creature itself appears to be a red strained multichambered organ filled with white effluence, each hacking gash causing a thick eruption of the chunky gloppy pus.

Have a large glob of pus land in the face of one of your most charismatic players.