ISO Feeback/Improvement Suggestions For A Ruin History/Mythos

[_Michael_]

I've started the creation process of a massive ruin, and I wanted some feedback on the concepts.

The site is called Volgas Dol, and it's a large ruin of a castle in the high desert of the Ciaran Badlands, west of the Karolus Mountains. The image is AI generated, but serves as a great backdrop for what I am envisioning. So far, here's what I have on it:

--> The structure's construction dates from three millennia prior to the current day, using forgotten magics and techniques.
--> It was created by the survivors of the Schism, the last of the great archmages of the Age of Dreams.
--> It is thought to be cursed, as it is inhabited by eldritch horrors and incredible dangers.
--> Contains thousands of rooms and hallways, far more than the physical structure could reasonably contain.
--> Many are old laboratories filled with dust and the lingering echoes of terrible breakthroughs. Libraries where forbidden knowledge whispers from crumbling scrolls. Conservatories where plants from alien worlds still grow, their beauty hiding deadly toxins or mind-bending pollens. Dungeons holding things best left chained and forgotten. Some haven't been disturbed since Volgas Dol's creation.
--> The hallways and rooms shift about in a random fashion a la Stephen King's Rose Red.
--> Many report hearing indistinct whispering as they approach, and the whispering will follow those whom usually end up meeting grisly fates inside.
--> Part of an elder god's shattered essence has congealed in Volgas Dol, corrupting the magics, weakening the wards keeping mind-bending horrors and aberrations at bay, and is seen only in shadows that appear out of place, heard only as a whispering madness that smothers the mind.
--> Contains many failed experiments from the High Council, books deemed too dangerous for the world, artifacts that thrum with malevolent power, and all sorts of fodder for campaigns.
--> Lesser creatures, such as revenants, wraiths, and wights, along with a host of other minor undead servitors, serve the purpose of the greater malevolent will that possesses Volgas Dol, an echo of the forgotten god's power.
--> Those who die in Volgas Dol come back as undead to serve the nameless darkness that inhabits the castle.
--> It's supposed to be a more existential horror on the level of Ravenloft or Stephen King's Black Hotel in The Talisman. See also, Machin Shin.

Looking to refine and expand on it. Feel free to AMA.

A bit of flash fiction to round it out:

Spoiler

Above the mournful howl of wind through the rocks and canyons of the western edges of the Karolus Mountains, the clinking of leather and thump of horses could be heard. Quiet sounds rising up in the heat of the afternoon sun, they were occasionally punctuated by muted laughter or a whistle. The hardpan of the Ciaran Badlands was as dry and as hot as could be, baked in the light of Atl all day; it reflected the sunlight back upwards so even wearing wide brimmed hats offered little protection.

The journey from Whiterun Pass to the elven trading post on the western edges of the Ciaran Badlands called Bandharos was well-trodden by caravans of merchants and traders of every stripe. Some would occasionally pass by one another, offering a toast to Astryn, the goddess of travelers and open roads, but even at its busiest during the height of trade season in the warm summer months, it was still a lonely road, populated only by tumbleweeds and breathtaking vistas.

The foothills and mountains stretched north-south off to the distant right, and to the left, the unbroken hardpan stretched out as far as one could see; hundreds of miles beyond was the Ciar Tanith, the Dark Forest where the elves made their homes, hidden away from human eyes.

Straight ahead, however, lay the dark silhouette of the massive fortress of Volgas Dol, its turrets and donjon blackened with dark magics and age. It stretched up out of the shimmering distance like an accusing finger pointing at the forgotten gods of the Old World. The very air around the massive ruin wavered and seemed to darken the longer one stared at it.

The closer one approached, the more one became aware of a pervasive sense of dread that hung in the air like a miasma. It was as though something was inside of Volgas Dol, and was very much aware. That sense of being watched, and the dread that accompanied it, kept all but the most determined adventurers away. The crossroads even had several worn and weathered signs warning people away from turning right instead of continuing on.

“A wise traveler passes by Volgas Dol,” an old man rasped, his eyes fixed on the distant, jagged silhouette against the setting sun. “But not everyone is wise, eh?” He glanced at the lithe woman next to him, a young lass of eighteen summers and the apple of his eye.

Vala tightened the straps of her pack, the worn leather digging into her shoulders. A small rucksack that was creased and worn from use and much care, it was her favorite traveling pack, and went with her everywhere. “Some folk are said to seek the lore of the Old World within its walls, Grandpa.”

The old man snorted, a dry, dusty sound like wind through dead leaves. “Wisdom, wealth, glory—all the same excuses for the same folly. I’ve seen ‘em come and go. Bright-eyed lads, fierce-hearted lassies, most never return.” He spat a stream of brown juice into the dust. “Those that do…well, they ain’t the same. Eyes like empty sockets, hands that shake like autumn leaves. Even if they carry out a king’s ransom, it ain’t worth what they leave behind."

Her gaze lingered on the ominous bulk of Volgas Dol, a dark, imposing castle rising from a desolate, sun-baked desert floor; its appearance was chillingly accurate to the stories. Her dog-eared and worn copy of The Third Millennium Guide To Erdeyn had filled her childhood imagination with adventures and fantasies of slaying dragons, but it also contained warnings about the ancient citadel. “It is a cursed place, now, home to…horrors that will bend the mind and shrivel the soul.”

“But what’s actually inside, Grandpa?” Vala pressed, her voice barely rising above the din of the caravan they were in. “Not just the legends, but the actual truth.”

The old man squinted at her, a flicker of something unreadable in his rheumy eyes. “Truth?” he scoffed, laughing. “Truth ain’t ever had anything to do with Volgas Dol, lass. The whole place is built on illusion.” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Its an ever-changing labyrinth of ruin. The outside shifts and moves about—what you see on one journey jutting from a tower, or even the tower itself, may not be there on the second or third time you pass by.”

“How?” she asked, baffled. How could the walls or towers of a castle physically shift?

“No one is sure. It may be an illusion, or it could be part of the ancient magics still keeping the castle from crumbling into dust. The place feeds on you, though. On fear, on greed, on all the petty desires of the doomed souls who enter. The things that crawl its halls, they’re not just dead. They’re animated by something ancient, something that hungers. Oh, sure, you may get an adventurer or two who will kill a revenant or wight just inside the gates to brag about in the taverns, but those creatures are just the opportunists circling the carcass of the castle being eaten by something far more powerful.” He shivered, despite the warm evening air. “The true horrors inside, they aint’ got names in our tongue, or they were deliberately forgotten. Whatever is inside, it whispers promises in your dreams, things that show you your deepest desires before twisting them into a nightmare you can’t wake up from.”

He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “They say the masters of the Age of Dreams left behind not just treasures, but remnants of their own failed ambitions. Spells that went awry, creatures born of chaos and pain, forgotten gods that crave worship once more. Volgas Dol is a funnel for it all, a wound in the world, slowly festering.”

The hair on the back of her neck stood up. “A wound in the world” was a good description for how the place made your skin crawl. “Are the treasures even real?”

“Oh, sure, there’s treasure enough in there,” the old man cackled. “Piles of gold, chests full of rubies and sapphires as big as your eyes, scepters of power and crowns from kings of nations that haven’t existed in a thousand years. It’s all there, but it comes with a price paid in blood, in sanity, in your very being. Imagine holding a priceless artifact you recover in there, only to find it whispers curses in your ear, or slowly drains the color from the world. Maybe it’s not the artifact itself, but what you had to do to get it that will haunt you.”

He paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, “Some folks say Volgas Dol itself is alive, and that it waits for those who would foolishly seek to disturb it or pilfer from its vaults. A vast, dark organism, drawing in all who approach and digesting them slowly.”

Vala looked again at the distant, brooding silhouette of Volgas Dol. The allure, the siren song of fortune and glory, sang in her ears, and she could almost hear the faint whispers that grew more distinct the closer one approached. Her grandfather’s warning, and the vivid descriptions of what lay within, kept her from foolish wim; tomorrow, it would be behind them and they could finish their journey to Bandharos.

“I guess there is a solid reason that the High Council warns people away from Volgas Dol,” she said. She took a sip of water from her waterskin, but it did nothing to calm the unease she felt looking at the distant black towers of the ancient castle. Nothing would, until it was fading in the distance.

 

[Simon Miles]

I like the cut of your jib! I do like these vast mega-dungeons that seethe with eldritch horror and creeping doooooom. The problem is that (in my experience) the players get fear-fatigue pretty quick. No matter how many nightmares their characters have or Fear Saves (or San Checks) they have to do, eventually it becomes almost a running gag, or a knee-jerk "Cleric to the front, Holy Water out, Protection from Evil, Fireball!" Which is a pity.
I do like the situation you have described - the hints of ancient evil, magical entities, and perhaps even older mysteries from before the BBEG. I would suggest that some premonitions might be fun, but these are difficult to engineer without giving the game away. A simple clue can cause paranoia - the old wise-women who predicts a character will die when stabbed by a silver dagger, then have half the monsters armed with weapons that could be construed to be a silver dagger, and have silvery daggers and knives buried with all the Undead. Keeps them on their toes...

 

[_Michael_]

I like the cut of your jib! I do like these vast mega-dungeons that seethe with eldritch horror and creeping doooooom. The problem is that (in my experience) the players get fear-fatigue pretty quick. No matter how many nightmares their characters have or Fear Saves (or San Checks) they have to do, eventually it becomes almost a running gag, or a knee-jerk "Cleric to the front, Holy Water out, Protection from Evil, Fireball!" Which is a pity.
I do like the situation you have described - the hints of ancient evil, magical entities, and perhaps even older mysteries from before the BBEG. I would suggest that some premonitions might be fun, but these are difficult to engineer without giving the game away. A simple clue can cause paranoia - the old wise-women who predicts a character will die when stabbed by a silver dagger, then have half the monsters armed with weapons that could be construed to be a silver dagger, and have silvery daggers and knives buried with all the Undead. Keeps them on their toes...

I definitely get the horror fatigue. That's why I want this to be very subtle, and the monsters within few and deadly. Much of the danger will come from natural hazards like crumbling bridges and unstable walkways. I want it to be weird, too, on a Stephen King-esque level. However, it's going to be work to set up because I want to give the players plenty of reasons to question what they think they heard in my descriptions, and what they think they're seeing and hearing in-character.

Putting it in spoiler tags so you're not hit with an entire page of text at once. lol

Spoiler

The history of Volgas Dol (for those who are not familiar with Erdeyn and my low-magic campaign setting I've discussed in other threads) involves the Protea, which were magical clockwork constructs powered by crystalline formations called Lithosynes that are themselves semi-sentient (their sentience increases the more of them are gathered together). The machines even assisted people to travel to the sister planet, Aeos, where a cult of priests sought to build a giant clockwork simulacrum to house the spirit of a god. They used a diamond they pulled from the depths of Atlán (the void of space), but it shattered, obliterating the god and scattering its essence across the prime material plane. That essence infected the clockwork machines (through the psychic "network" formed by the lithosynes) and instantly made them self-aware and malevolently bent on the destruction of all organic life. They then turned to Erdeyn, and sent seed ships through Atlán and the Veil (a meteor belt the planet passes through twice a year) to crash land and establish a beach head. From there, humanity was pushed to the brink of extinction, and the other elder races had to step in and help turn the tide and rid the planet of the Protea. Once it was over, however, the good races shut themselves away from humans, and humanity entered a Dark Ages. Three thousand years later, and humanity is finally emerging from it, but the old fears and prejudices in the elder races remain--halflings were the first to reopen themselves to human trade and have since capitalized on it. Gnomes and dwarves are tolerant of humans, but they're only allowed so far into their territories and banned from certain areas altogether. Elves, however, are the most suspicious of all, and very few are found in human lands.

In the aftermath of the Schism, the High Council of Wizardry formed, using a mountain citadel called Uthengard on the island Arkenheim as their headquarters. These remaining wizards and magi established an order to preserve the world, archive the past and keep it from disappearing, and prevent incursions by the Protea. Uthengard itself is a marvel of the Old World--an entire mountain hollowed out into a vast citadel with hundreds of levels and miles of corridor and open air markets in elaborately carved arcades lined with columns and balconies. From there, Magi go out with Red Legion knights to collect dangerous artifacts, put down monsters, and curate artifacts of the past. Because it's a low-magic world, magic itself is high-damage, but rare. Every magical item has a story, and magic users are looked at with awe or suspicion (depending on where they go). There exist no "magic shops," and you won't find a handy hedge wizard in every town and village. Most place characters will go will not see a wizard or hedge mage for hundreds of miles. At the same time, the wild places are littered with ruins and relics of the past, so there's plenty of opportunity for players to explore and interact. I even revised the skill list (and added dozens of refinements to Craft, Knowledge and Profession from several OGL sources) specifically to give players more mundane options for combat and social situations so that magic doesn't become a deus ex machina.

Volgas Dol is a castle that was built immediately after the Schism by the few remaining archmagi and wizards who knew the magics of the Age of Dreams. Designed to be a magical version of Area 51, it was meant to contain hundreds of laboratories, store rooms, dungeons, libraries, and repositories of artifacts--a colossal spell construct, woven from stone and will, meant to maintain the sanity of the world. Each tower, each wall, a binding ward. Each chamber, a containment cell. However, it is also a bit of a pocket dimension, I think. So there's likely way more rooms than could be physically contained by the castle itself, some of which contain libraries and laboratories that haven't been disturbed for nearly three millennia. While the few surviving human wizards scrambled to preserve as much of the past as possible, foreseeing the coming darkness of civilization, wanting to guard the knowledge for a day iin the future when mankind would have need again of advanced sciences and magics. No one alive (not even in the High Council) in the present day has any real knowledge of what lay inside because it shifts. The castle itself, while not sentient, could be considered a grand magical construct akin to a Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, only with a malevolent chaotic evil twist thanks to what snuck in.

Part of the reason why is because when that elder god was obliterated, it wasn't annihilated. Instead, parts of itself went into the Protea. Other parts...congealed. They found dark places in the world where they could hide and regroup. One shard of that deity became the malevolent shadow goddess Che'loth, who rules the Evergloom (my version of the Underdark) with an iron fist through her elves, the Ebynai. Yes, based on drow, but I've done quite a bit of tweaking to make them my own. Che'loth knows she's missing parts of herself, and works to recover them while also engaging on a campaign of empire building in the Evergloom.

Another piece of that forgotten god found Volgas Dol, and as the millennia slowly swept past, and the magical wards and seals began to fail from sheer age and the loss of knowledge of how to maintain them, the dark dangerous things in Volgas Dol began to seep out. However, something also found its way in and began to twist the magics to suit itself, shaping them around its being to protect and conceal it as it slowly digested those foolish enough to wander into the ruin in search of fortune and glory. It's basically a version of Machin Shin, where it's not a physical being, but a shadow, like in the Dr. Who episode The Library where the shadows moved and didn't fall where the light said they should. When it approaches adventurers to learn about them, people hear indistinct whispering voices, which grow louder and more intense when the being attacks. It can kill, physically, but I'm sort of envisioning a siphoning similar to Mass Effect 2 where people were being turned into husks. I could use an undead template to stand in, perhaps this congealed essence of a former god turns them into revenants to use as puppets. Any undead within would likely be under its direct control and could be "taken over" by the former god to act like an avatar. Even passing by the crossroads that lead to Volgas Dol (which can be seen from them, and the way there is blocked by warning signs), some report hearing whispers calling to them, murmurring in their dreams to lure them into the black keep. Others say they feel persistent dread when it comes into view, only departs when they leave the castle behind them. Still others report an eerie feeling of being watched when they get close to the area.

So...that's sort of how I envision this place. I apologize for the wall o' words, but I had to give some background on Volgas Dol so you can understand where I'm going with it. I'm hoping some of the other features will offset the horror-fatigue, and this place is not meant for the light of heart and weak of will, anyway. lol This will likely be one of the end-game locations as a prelude to epic level campaigns--I mean, when you're fighting the ghosts of elder gods who demand sacrifice and blood, you're pretty much at Elminster stage.

Bonus: Lithosyne 3.5e write-up! Woo!

Tl;dr: Volgas Dol has a seriously elaborate and complex history with plenty of campaign hooks and--ooh, is that a free monster write up??? #winning

 

[aco175]

Seriously though, what was it built for and why did it fall? Nobody just builds a giant horror-show in the desert for no reason. Perhaps 3,000 years ago the lands were more grassland and trade flowed past the citadel which say near the mountains on the largest lake in the region. It was an important stop before crossing over to the 12 kingdoms. Over time, the climate changed or new trade routes made this place outdated. The wizard purge in the 12 kingdoms forces many to flee here and continue their studies. Eventually the lake dried up leaving a salt flat and no crops could grow anymore. The place fell into ruin and even the last mages were forced to flee. The citadel was forgotten but by all the oldest lore books.

 

[_Michael_]

View attachment 406324

Seriously though, what was it built for and why did it fall? Nobody just builds a giant horror-show in the desert for no reason. Perhaps 3,000 years ago the lands were more grassland and trade flowed past the citadel which say near the mountains on the largest lake in the region. It was an important stop before crossing over to the 12 kingdoms. Over time, the climate changed or new trade routes made this place outdated. The wizard purge in the 12 kingdoms forces many to flee here and continue their studies. Eventually the lake dried up leaving a salt flat and no crops could grow anymore. The place fell into ruin and even the last mages were forced to flee. The citadel was forgotten but by all the oldest lore books.

lmao Love that meme.

It was built as a secluded storehouse and laboratory for preserving artifacts of the past, and warehousing what couldn't or shouldn't be destroyed. Also, it was built with Old World magical knowledge by the last of the archmages from the Age of Dreams, and when they all died out, much of that knowledge and magical technique was lost. It took many centuries for the High Council to actually form, and it would have been after the construction of Volgas Dol. It was put there because it's so secluded that they figured anything that got out wouldn't get far in the desert and be easily found before it could do much damage. Any explosions or other accidents would be limited in scope of damage caused. But as the elder wizards passed away, things were left to sit, and eventually forgotten about. When they finally got back to Volgas Dol as the official High Council, it was already too late, so instead, they sought to guard others from entering it, figuring the castle's unique nature would nonetheless keep most of the danger contained and manageable. That's why they write in their decennial Third Millennium Guidebook To Erdeyn that it's best to steer clear of Volgas Dol.

 

[Gus L]

So giant mega dungeons need a large amount of variety and factions. While ancient may tower of the mad elder god wizards is certainly a reasonable start, if this is going to work as a mega dungeon you'll need more then decaying cyclopean stone halls, undead and various failed experiments. Factions, factions, factions. Varied nodal environments and multiple entrances and exits - basically variety is a major key to making a mega dungeon work over the longer term.

Now for this dungeon, since everything shifts about a lot I think you've given yourself a bit of a problem for a mega dungeon. A mega dungeon exists as the tentpole or centerpiece of a campaign. It is meant to be entered again and a again and slowly unraveled. New entrances and secret paths are a big part of the players' success in mega dungeon exploration. Constant shifts and movement of rooms (perhaps depthcrawl style - I'm feeling depthcrawl here) are an issue because they break this down and make something hard even harder. I personally like the idea of dungeons that change and shift, but the players need to be able to figure out how, when, and even why this happens so they can eventually lock things in place or even figure out how to influence the shift.

I'd recommend taking in what you can find about the longterm (it was one of the big G+ mega dungeons back in the day) mega dungeon project Nightwick Abbey by Miranda Elkins. It's a thematically consistent (gothic horror) mega dungeon that uses shifting geomorphs to make for a pretty intense and fun experience. I know a couple of Nightwick campaigns that are several years old, and I think Miranda's is going on maybe 10 or 15 years now?

This of course brings up the final thing I'd think about. Mega dungeons are an amazingly complex and work intensive project. To make even a bad one takes a lot of effort and even more effort if one wants to make one for publication. They are a very discouraging first refereeing/designer project in my experience, so be kind to yourself in embarking on something like this.

 

[_Michael_]

So giant mega dungeons need a large amount of variety and factions. While ancient may tower of the mad elder god wizards is certainly a reasonable start, if this is going to work as a mega dungeon you'll need more then decaying cyclopean stone halls, undead and various failed experiments. Factions, factions, factions. Varied nodal environments and multiple entrances and exits - basically variety is a major key to making a mega dungeon work over the longer term.

Absolutely! I love lacing my work back and forth with as many cross references as I can put in to deepen the realism—think the tv show Lost and how everything related to everything else.

I could see this fragment of the fallen god pulling a Che’loth and starting to amass more intelligent servitors to act as proxies, but that’s where I was thinking, alternatively, I could have various tiered power levels of the creatures consumed by the master of the ruin and turned into husks, sort of like how they did it in Mass Effect 2 or 3, only, the D&D version. The elder god (I really need to come up with a cool sounding fantasy name for it) could then seize control of the bodies, but be limited by their power levels. Boom. Instant factionification. lol Also, I could see criminal organizations using it as a dumping ground to feed political enemies or rivals.

I definitely want lots of doors and passages, public, private, and secret.

Now for this dungeon, since everything shifts about a lot I think you've given yourself a bit of a problem for a mega dungeon. A mega dungeon exists as the tentpole or centerpiece of a campaign. It is meant to be entered again and a again and slowly unraveled. New entrances and secret paths are a big part of the players' success in mega dungeon exploration. Constant shifts and movement of rooms (perhaps depthcrawl style - I'm feeling depthcrawl here) are an issue because they break this down and make something hard even harder. I personally like the idea of dungeons that change and shift, but the players need to be able to figure out how, when, and even why this happens so they can eventually lock things in place or even figure out how to influence the shift.

I'd recommend taking in what you can find about the longterm (it was one of the big G+ mega dungeons back in the day) mega dungeon project Nightwick Abbey by Miranda Elkins. It's a thematically consistent (gothic horror) mega dungeon that uses shifting geomorphs to make for a pretty intense and fun experience. I know a couple of Nightwick campaigns that are several years old, and I think Miranda's is going on maybe 10 or 15 years now?

One solution to this is to make the shifting completely illusory and mind-affecting. Make it so that even when players know it’s an illusion, they still get dizzy and have to hold on to the walls because of the hallucinatory effects. Illusions that aren’t dispelled by belief, but still hold even when someone knows it’s fake. Use of optical illusions to have forced perspective would probably also play in, I get that a lot of it would be narrative, but I think it could still be effective.

Have it so the outside does subtly shift in appearance (not physically) as a growing reflection of the evil lurking within, but only when not under direct observation, and there could be other effects, too, like fear or paranoia effects. There probably would also be trap rooms that players, thinking, oh it’s just another illusion! might trigger, like collapsing ceilings and the like because that way, they have to be doubly sure without it being overly annoying. If the rogue beats the illusion DC, great! They still see it but can make their detect traps rolls as normal.

That would also simplify things so physical geomorphs aren’t actually changing, which I could definitely see being annoying af. I’ll definitely check out the references you mentioned—might be able to pick them up on DTRPG.

And yeah, this is a huge undertaking. I totally get it. I’m pacing myself and only taking on bits and pieces of it because otherwise, I’d burn out. Right now, I’m getting all the details hammered out, and then the physical design work begins. I really appreciate your advice and I’m right there with you on your suggestions.