Turtle Dungeon

[Lendro_Furioso]

Hey everyone!

I've been a long time lurker of the boards, especially the Story Hour(s), and I've finally decided to register and make a thread!

I was hoping for some help for an adventure I'm going to be running in some time. I'm GM'ing a Freeport Campaign, heavily modified and set in my own version of an established setting. The plot is moving towards the players finding out where a particular magical item of importance to the BBEG's plan is. I expect they will want to go after it when they find out what it is and its location. I don't like the idea of dungeons, so I thought of something else: I'd like the magical item to be hidden inside a giant sleeping turtle.

Part of Freeport's harbour (as per the setting, as the players know), is set on top of a giant turtle, asleep for aeons. The story (as I'm putting it), is that the magical item in question was comissioned off-plane some centuries ago. The extraplanar entity who made the delivery packaged it in the huge magical beast, and set it to sleep until it was delivered.
This does two things: leaves a plot hook for a further adventure (turtle wakes up, swims away, taking half the city with it) and gives me a dungeon that is not at all standard. Personally, I like the idea: it is, IMHO, unexpected, and the PC's have been literally sitting on it the whole time. Problem is, I'm totally stumped as to what to put in the actual dungeon!


I've been googling turtle anatomy, but I'm pretty much stumped. I figure there would be defenses setup in case someone unauthorized came to retrieve the item, as long as they would not hurt the turtle itself. Also, an important detail is that I would like the PC's to just miss out on getting the item (I'm setting this up more as a teaser fight with the BBEG). Of course I don't want them to feel like the events were manipulated that way... Anyway, I'd appreciate any hints or ideas you might provide. Thanks for listening.

 

[Dragonbait]

There could be parasites of varying sizes in there. Just use modified bugs and plants. Maybe some fungi creatures are there. Maybe turtle men live in the turtle? I saw some neat terrapin-men minis out there too.

Since the turtle is part of the package from another plane, you could simply use fiends and other planar guardian creatures in the "dungeon" rather than trying to find accurate infestations to thwart the PCs.

Ensuring that you describe the dungeon is more important than the denezins. They need to know that they are in a living thing. Add some blood or mucus difficult terrain, and so on. Maybe have the final fight be near the heart? I don't know how 'deep' you want the PCs to delve.

 

[Lendro_Furioso]

Thanks for the reply!

I like the idea of making the "terrain" be the biggest difficulty. I would think travelling inside a gigantic animal would be rather disgusting. Uncrossable chasms, tunnels squeased at a moment's notice, mucus and blood. Also, would they have breathable air? Having the PC's use resources like Dimension Door and such beforehand also helps my BBEG to escape more believably...

Some parasites are also great! A tapeworm on something like this would be fearsome.

As for the amount of delving... I haven't given it much thought, I guess I want them to delve enough to make it interesting, but not a whole session...

 

[Dragonbait]

Thanks for the reply!

I like the idea of making the "terrain" be the biggest difficulty. I would think travelling inside a gigantic animal would be rather disgusting. Uncrossable chasms, tunnels squeased at a moment's notice, mucus and blood. Also, would they have breathable air? Having the PC's use resources like Dimension Door and such beforehand also helps my BBEG to escape more believably...

There would be very little breathing space. You would probably want to treat it as a deep-sea dive if you want them to go anywhere other than the mouth/throat/stomach/intestines/anus, with spots that have zero visibility (blood - remember that blood is blue till it hits oxygen). Othewise, yeah, there would be foul odors, posion air, stomach acids, and other things that you described. The whole dungeon is hazardus terrain.

 

[roguerouge]

Are you going inside the turtle or in between the turtle and its shell?

 

[Lendro_Furioso]

Are you going inside the turtle or in between the turtle and its shell?

The plan was to go inside the turtle... Anymore takers? Is it just a bad idead? Honestly, I liked it...

BTW, I was hoping for some input as well on point of entry (and possible exit), etc. As for the dungeon, I'm going to draw something up using turtle anatomy drawings, then make up some natural hazards... Thanks for the replies so far!

 

[Raven Crowking]

There is a section in Dungeoncraft that addresses adventuring inside of a large monster, including statblocks for various hazards. If you have access to that book, you might want to read that section.

Oh, and welcome to the boards.

RC

 

[Aeolius]

I am reminded of the Great Pink Sea Snail from the original "Dr. Dolittle" starring Rex Harrison. They travelled inside its shell, for a time.

 

[roguerouge]

Have some undigested items that identify one of the many bodies tossed into Freeport's surf.

 

[Lendro_Furioso]

Have some undigested items that identify one of the many bodies tossed into Freeport's surf.

Great idea, thanks a lot!

I think I'll have a body on the approach to the turtle, trapped in the muck at the bottom of the harbour.