help fleshing out a dungeon

[Munin]

Here's the backstory:

In this campaign world, the main force driving things is a continual struggle between dragonkind and the 'lesser' races. This is a rare-magic world, which gives the dragonkind an upper hand in the conflict. To even things out a bit, the Gods stepped in and gifted upon the races a means to fight the dragons.
Each God provides a set of arms and armor keyed to fight a specific breed of dragon.
When a dragon stirs and invades the settled lands, the appropriate God would call for his Chosen One who would retrieve the equipment and ride forth to conquer the dragon. In the meantime, the clergy of each God would be responsible to keep the equipment safe until it is needed.

Well, that's the way it's supposed to work. Dragons slumber for a long time. The attention spans of men are short. The clergy neglected their duty and the arms were lost. To make things even more desperate, when the dragon awoke (in this case a Red), the relevant deity (the Sun God) never called forth his Chosen One to fight the dragon. As a result, the settled lands have nearly be conquered by this dragon.

Enter the party.

The adventurers are about to discover a mysterious Ziggurat, which is in fact the location of the arms once kept by the clergy of the Sun God, who is the deity appointed to fight the red dragons.

As they explore the ziggurat, the import of their discovery will dawn on them. Now, the problem is that the adventurers are not the Chosen One of the Sun God, and the ziggurat is designed to destroy any who try to retrieve the arms except the Chosen One.

The opening of the ziggurat is at the top, which has partially collapsed due to age. A band of harpies has taken up residence in that first level, but nothing below that has been explored since it was sealed off by the clergy.
On the bottom level the inner chamber is guarded by several golems, who were ordered to destroy anyone who enters except the Chosen One.

The middle levels are what I need your help with.
Typical monsters are out, since the placed has been sealed for nigh on a thousand years.
Undead are out due to the nature of the clergy.
So I'm basically left with creatures that don't need a supporting ecology and don't mind waiting around for a thousand years or so to fulfill their duty.
Oh, and the party is 8th and 9th level.
Help. Please. Thanks.

 

[diaglo]

constructs.

summon spells/traps... fire or earth elementals

suspended animation... spells holding creatures in stasis until the party breaks the seal by entering the level

the cricket/locust of legend... 1000 year old cricket/locust...

guardian spirits... the clergy swore to protect the objects ... so their souls are tied to this plane until the chosen one arrives.

 

[Shallown]

Well there are some good undead and no reason not to make some normal undead Good to guard the place. Shadows that are good aligned. You just describe them diferently and keep the stats. the strength drain is positive energy being moved from the target to the shadow (not that they need it) That sort of thing. No reason to limit yourself too much.

I did an undersea adventure that had an ecology that was sealed. I had two levels one was ruled/controlled by Vegepygmies which are basically plant people. With this being the sun gods place you could have a whole level that has naturtal sun light and soul. Provide some magical or Divine way to recycle the air and you can have a whole plant culture that wa sonce gaurdiands but in a thousand years has evolved into something else. Plants having short generations and under magical "radiation" from the divine sun may evolve.

I also used mechanical creatures from the MMII the name escapes me but the were classed gold, electrum, silver, and platnium. They had a group mind that was interesting. I made them sort of ant like and switched out a few powers on the Platnium since he had like Mordenkainen's disjunction, which I didn't want to use. But it made for an interesting possibility the two waring factions. Plant versus mechanical.

You could develop some of those into ideas. You could take most anything and slap the construct traits on it and use it.

Also think of lower powered Outsiders (lantern, hound archons) and elementals as guardians.

Throw in an ooze or two that lives on various nasty things and you have a themed dungeon with some surprises.

later

 

[Munin]

summon spells/traps... fire or earth elementals

Good idea. I want to include a couple of traps, this sounds like a good one.

Shadows that are good aligned. You just describe them diferently and keep the stats.

This is an excellent idea. What about a creature that is the opposite of shadow stuff? Something that is similar to a shade but is made out of light?

I did an undersea adventure that had an ecology that was sealed. I had two levels one was ruled/controlled by Vegepygmies which are basically plant people. With this being the sun gods place you could have a whole level that has naturtal sun light and soul. Provide some magical or Divine way to recycle the air and you can have a whole plant culture that wa sonce gaurdiands but in a thousand years has evolved into something else. Plants having short generations and under magical "radiation" from the divine sun may evolve.

Another good idea. I'll describe this level as serene and beautiful and wow the party a bit, until it dawns on them that everything has been subtley twisted by a thousand years of neglect and isolation.

Thanks for the inspiration, guys.

 

[Kalendraf]

For a Sun God, I'd use fire elementals, and maybe even celestial beings. Traps are a possibility. The primary guardian(s) in the final chamber(s) can be one or more constructs. I'd recommend a specially-designed Ruby Gem Golem with DR 15/adamantium.

With years of neglect, it's possible that some insects (giant ants? giant beetles?) have burrowed in from the outside and now use parts of the lower levels as a nest.

 

[Munin]

Fire elementals are in. A trap leading to the final level that involves 4 continuously lite iron braziers. If the trap is not disarmed, the elementals are summoned via the braziers.

I plan on using constructs for the final battle, but I was thinking more along the lines of Helmed Horrors from Monsters of Faerun, with a twist on them. I might give them a flamestrike or scorching ray attack

 

[diaglo]

have you looked at the nishru from the Monsters of Faerun... well older editions too but for newer editions this is where you should look