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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5632266" data-attributes="member: 54707">For a long time I've wanted to create a Dungeon  which is basically equivalent in value to the Tomb of Horrors (my favorite  commercially produced dungeon adventure/module).   I think I may now have had an idea that could work  out that way.   It involves what appears to be an old hill that  the natives always considered to have been haunted and built by a race of giants  "from before." The hill lies at the edge of the frontier area near a rather  large village. Most people won't go there though because it is at the frontier's  limit of enemy lands. But after several children disappear in that area, and  evidence points to the hill, locals ask for the Team (player characters) to go  investigate.   When the team gets there they discover the hill is  not really a hill but a very large and oddly shaped barrow mound covered by  centuries of vegetation. They uncover parts of the hill but can't find an  entrance.   One night though a "Glammor Door" appears in the  solid stone and they gain entrance. Unknown to the party the mound has been  infiltrated by a powerful Warlock hoping to use the ancient rumors about the  place to uncover a way to become immortal.    What the Warlock actually discovers is a large  series of unusual tombs and crypts and catacombs all of which contain unusually  conducted burials and bizarrely desecrated graves. The Warlock has disturbed a  couple of these graves and discovered their secrets, but barely escaped with his  life.   Therefore he has been luring others to the Barrow  to entice them to explore the graves and see what happens.   Finally, with the party he hopes to have victims  who are powerful enough to achieve his aims and allow him to discover the  artifacts and relics he thinks are buried there to promote his immortality and  rise in power.      The barrow was actually built nearly a millennia  before by a group of powerful Clerics. These Clerics and their spiritual allies,  like Angels and other Beings and creatures, had built the barrow as a trap for  an place of entombment for the most powerful Undead creatures in the world (at  that time).   Once built the clerics sent out teams to lure the  most powerful Undead creatures known of to the barrow, to lure them inside,  where their physical forms wee killed, and then the remains desecrated and  arranged and patterned in such a way as to make it impossible for them to assume  new physical forms. All that then remained of the various Undead were their  "Shades" which continued to haunt the barrow, usually near their remains.     Shades remain of the world's most powerful  Vampire, Ghoul, Spectre, Mummy, etc. There will be the "shades" 13 Undead  creatures in all. And one Ghost who can haunt any area in the Barrow and one  Demon who became entrapped there who the Clerics though they destroyed but  actually had originally appeared as a shapeshifting Witch. The Clerics thought  they had killed the Witch but the demon survived and can still take a number of  different forms.   When the party members explore the various graves,  if they do certain things, then it is possible for one of the Undead "Shades" to  possess one of the party members, in effect making them into temporary version  of whatever possesses them. The possessor may then immediately attack the party  (the player becoming the New Mummy or Vampire, or whatever it is, with the  monster's former abilities plus some unique ones due to the fact that they were  formerly the most powerful version of that monster in the world), disguise  itself and keep it's agenda secret, or the Shade may seek to escape the Barrow  so that it can summon aid or eventually take on a new physical  form.   The party will be unaware of all of this at first  and have to figure out what is really going on as events develop.   The Barrow itself is also full of a number of  traps, devices, lures, machines, mazes, and puzzles - some magical, many  supernatural, designed to isolate and forever entrap the Undead interred there.  Each gravesite will be different and each gravesite will give some clues about  the former occupant, but not what they were or what they could do. Each Undead  Shade and his powers will differ (at least to some degree) from standard game  version of the monsters. Many of the Undead Shades will be able to directly or  indirectly influence the minds and behavior of the living. In addition some will  have magical powers, some supernatural powers, and some psionic powers. Or  combinations thereof.   The Warlock, having been possessed by two of the  Shades, and barely escaping with his life and mind intact, now understands the  situation and so has lured the party to take the risks of "possession" and the  risks of the Barrow itself. He also hopes to use the party to distract the Demon  (who is desperate to escape) and the Ghost (no one is sure who the Ghost is, or  why he is there, or if he is haunting the place, or Guarding it), and so keep  those off of him.   Also if necessary the Warlock can summon a  powerful Crone to fight the party but the Crone will only be under his power for  24 hours, until she is killed, or until she kills a party member and drinks some  of their blood. Then the Crone is released.      The Warlock though also has another agenda. He  knows of legends of an Artifact, or possibly a Relic, called "The Wreaking."  Rumors swirl about who built the Wreaking or even what it is. Btu supposedly by  possessing it one can gain some form of immortality, and supposedly one of the  Shades knew what it was (it had been used to lure that shade to the Barrow), as  did the Clerics who buried it there. Thus I call the Dungeon, The Wreaking  Crypt.   There are a few other things going on that no-one  knows of, such as the Barrow itself is rotating, and the barrow stones are  actually built of bones, some of magical and supernatural creatures, some of the  stones having been built of the bones of the Clerics or famous Saints and those  who helped build the place. If the party discovers these things then they  can potentially use that to their advantage. There is also a "Barrow-Shade" that  they can summon at certain locales who will give them clues in rhymed verse  about what is really going on. And finally some of the "Undead" physical remains  can be consumed and this will temporarily give the eater some of the powers of  the former Undead creature to use as they wish, however it also makes the chance  of possession that much greater.   Some of the treasure will be very unusual, and  some of it will be the former possessions of the Undead buried there. Much of  that treasure will be secretly cursed.    This adventure/dungeon is obviously for high-level  party members. </blockquote>

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