World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]

[jim pinto]

I would strongly suggest you dump this idea.
The region has enough of the monsters (hordes, dread wraiths, morhgs, etc.) repeated throughout the region that it gets monotonous already. Repeating the same extact encounters over and over just makes it worse.

Ha.

You crack me up, Sean.

It depends on your DMing and the PCs play style, but yeah.

That can get monotonous.

If the don't want to do it, you can save the region for a different campaign.

 

[twilko]

..... (much cut)...

Other things from movies/books that might work:
- repeated wall markings from previous adventurers like AS (Arne Saknussemm) from Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
- increase of rat swarms fleeing from something (can be small enough to not do any damage and rush straight past the party) from just about any number of disaster movies.
- foreshadowing of stuff from other sections/plot lines (Babylon5)
- change the colour saturation/hues of the landscape as evil ebbs and flows, or temperature changes up/down from the lava flow felt in the non-lava flow areas of the dungeon (most VR type movies have something like this happening, including parts of the Matrix trilogy).
You don't have to act on any of these - all they do is indicate that change is occurring, and the party's actions might well be the small events that precipitate other things (Jurassic Park - read the book, not the poor interpretation that was the movie).

enough rambling - I'll get back in my box now

-Maybe have creatures they have just killed come back as Zombies in a day or even a few rounds. Don't this every time but as it becomes more frequent it might start to worry the party.

 

[erucsbo]

-Maybe have creatures they have just killed come back as Zombies in a day or even a few rounds. Don't this every time but as it becomes more frequent it might start to worry the party.

sweet.
My players are in E at the moment and in discussion with the Celestials it has been revealed to them that the Dungeon is meant to trap evil, because if you kill it, it reappears elsewhere. I've said this to try and get them to not just kill everything they encounter (and I've already mentioned how their actions have already destabilised Region E in my game).
While I like the idea I might extend it, and couple it with the waves of negative energy that will emerge from N. After a pulse out of negative energy corpses come back to (un)life, but then there is a reverse wave (maybe harder to detect) that summons the new undead back towards N. As the reverse wave washes over the creatures their *souls/spirits* depart (surf the wave back) to feed the negative energy buildup in N. Players that can detect evil, or perhaps are just really in tune with the spiritual side of things might be able to see these departing spirits -either way, the bodies that had reanimated then collapse again - ie. the evil that had been dispersed through the dungeon is now coalescing with the World Eater. This would only happen for the spirits of evil creatures as "evil feeds on evil". Thus - now - every time the characters kill evil creatures they are contributing to the release of the World Eater, and the more they do so, the faster it happens and the more concerned the remaining celestials/garrison members become.

 

[Hussar]

OOo, nasty. I like it. You could really freak the players out by having the zombies ignore them. Just let the zombies start walking in the most direct straight line towards N. Let them get trapped in rooms, bumping against walls, pounding on doors, whatever, for twenty or thirty minutes and then have them fall down again.

Ohh, I likies that idea.

Me, I'm not going to do N. I wanna use the Tarasque. In all the years I've played DnD, I've NEVER used one. I want to let my players have the bragging rights that they legitimately got up to 18th level (or so) and whacked the big guy. While the World Eater is just a great critter, I want Godzilla.

 

[pokedigimaniac]

I dunno. Which one I use depends on the direction my players go. Frankly, I'm not sure how they'll miss N, as it's so very distinctive. Hrm. I want to run ALL of it!

 

[Hussar]

My thought is something like this. After G, a brief stop in K to whack a dragon and free the Lilend "scout" for the Celestial Garrison. The scout sends them off into J to hunt down an efreeti who might be able to get them out with a wish. Wander around J and kill stuff. Come back to G for R&R and hear that the elves in H might be able to help them by building a boat so they can sail out of L. But, before the boat is complete, somebody comes up from D and burns it to the ground. Ticked off, the party heads down into D for the final showdown.

Or something like that. It's still pretty fuzzy and depends a lot on what the party does. One nice thing about the Garrison is that I have a nice source of hooks to go trolling for PC's. I figure I can start feeding information to the players and let the little puppets dance to my every whim. MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Ahem. Erm... :O

 

[erucsbo]

Me, I'm not going to do N. I wanna use the Tarasque. In all the years I've played DnD, I've NEVER used one. I want to let my players have the bragging rights that they legitimately got up to 18th level (or so) and whacked the big guy. While the World Eater is just a great critter, I want Godzilla.

No reason why you need to place D in the SE corner.
Looks like it would be pretty easy to push O to the east and rotate D by 180 degrees and place it between N and O, with the digging heading towards N - oh - and you'd ditch the lava, D15, and make slight changes to D14, D16 and D89.

That way no matter which way they go they end up with the big T. (and if they head south after already having headed north then just have the lava split as usual in D, but with no passages in to the rockface)

 

[jim pinto]

OOo, nasty. I like it. You could really freak the players out by having the zombies ignore them. Just let the zombies start walking in the most direct straight line towards N. Let them get trapped in rooms, bumping against walls, pounding on doors, whatever, for twenty or thirty minutes and then have them fall down again.

Ohh, I likies that idea.

Me, I'm not going to do N. I wanna use the Tarasque. In all the years I've played DnD, I've NEVER used one. I want to let my players have the bragging rights that they legitimately got up to 18th level (or so) and whacked the big guy. While the World Eater is just a great critter, I want Godzilla.

if the PCs get to level 18 before they fight godzirra... make sure you take some of the restraints off of its tactics (fyi)

that's how we kept the CR so low for that encounter

good luck. no one has posted a fight with the terrasque yet, i don't think

 

[tbug]

-Maybe have creatures they have just killed come back as Zombies in a day or even a few rounds. Don't this every time but as it becomes more frequent it might start to worry the party.

I've got my PCs in F41 (the room with the portal to the plane of shadow) and I think that there's going to be a lot of this. They're accompanied by a bunch of NPCs, and I suspect that by the time they're done with F41 there's going to be a lot fewer of them.

As far as I can tell, non-humanoids killed by shadows become wights, and almost anyone killed by the room's negative energy becomes a wraith. That's how I'm playing it, at least. (I've even made handouts with the rules for converting one's character to each type of undead.)

For now this is only happening in the one room, but if it starts just happening generally then I'll have some pretty scared PCs.

 

[pokedigimaniac]

if the PCs get to level 18 before they fight godzirra... make sure you take some of the restraints off of its tactics (fyi)

that's how we kept the CR so low for that encounter

good luck. no one has posted a fight with the terrasque yet, i don't think

Uhh, the spacecrime_wlg group posted a 'fight' with the tarrasque, if you call ". We're running NOW." a fight. (Granted, they did take out Rroliq and THEN run away.)