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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jkusters" data-source="post: 4695199" data-attributes="member: 16895">It has been helpful to spark some creative thinking, but I didn't wind up using anything directly. I still have some stuff to plan out, so will re-read this thread as I sit down for my next planning session.Stuff that I came up with (and started running last night):- The previous level of the keep was "abandoned dungeon" messy. This level was scrupulously clean.- To get to the third level of the keep, they have to find a four part key which will unlock a (enchantedly strong) gate.- Any character that strayed away from the rest of the party would occasionally hear a whisper from directly behind them. At first, the whispers were in a foreign tongue (the guardian intelligence starts off not knowing the common tongue of the party), but later started making messages by "splicing" together words it has heard and figured out, and using the voices of members of the party.- There are murder holes in passages meant to be throttles in case of invasion (it's an ancient fortress), and these would drip fresh blood on the characters as they walked under them.- Furniture re-arranged itself if they revisited a room.- The first major encounter was with some stained-glass "golems" which had some interesting abilities (and very annoying sounds)- Next major encounter was with a stagnant water elemental that half the party encountered (yay split parties!). The other half of the party was investigating a kitchen area and were "attacked" by silverware.The gist of the storyline is that the guardian intelligence sees the party as intruders and doesn't want them gaining access to the main (4th) level, but since they are carrying a token belonging to the last known "owner" of the keep, so it's also trying to figure out why they have it. Unfortunately for the players, the intelligence is also somewhat insane (damage caused by a failure in the power system that keeps the intelligence going). Think GLaDOS from Portal.Anyway, in this level they have yet to explore the main kitchen area, the servant's offices and quarters, and the main soldiers' barracks. I want to ratchet up the danger levels a bit and turn the creepy levels up a couple of notches. (Also give out a few more parts to that key.) More suggestions are welcome, though as I said, they've more helped to give my creative mind nudges rather than get used wholesale. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />JOhn.</blockquote>

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