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

[jim pinto]

Okay, this is inspired and I'm going to run with it. Looking at a Kyton I can see some insurmountable difficulties for a third level party. Keeping in mind that I play 3.0 (I've paid for the the books already damnit) I see that it has a DR of 20/+2, that gets changed to 10/silver. I further see that it has a SR of 17, that gets changed to a 12. I'm going to reduce its chain damage to 1d6+1, but am going to decorate room A103 with hanging chains that are stained with bits of blood and dried entrails and skin (the remnants of Longtail). The story will go that Achsyyx brought Longtail with his humanoids to the dungeon and then to the chapel as the story is written, however the Kyton was the first to emerge. It slew Longtail immediatly and was going to slay the Imp but telepathically recognized that the Imp had a connection with an ArchDevil. So instead of slaying the Achsyyx it has been tormenting him and recieving instructions from this Archfiend who plans to try to find a way to link the open portal with his realm in Hell and send through enough minions to secure the dungeon and win its way to the surface world. (heh heh, I'm enjoying this)

i think you needed a better explanation why he didn't kill Achsyyx,
but this is good

Now the Lemures... they have resistance 5/silver, not impossible for a 1-2nd level group but still tough in numbers. I will stage a room where the Kobalds have been melting thier usless silver pieces (usless in the WLD anyhow) and hammering the metal around thier weapons. Also, a few of the bodies laying about will have these slivered weapons on them. Then I will start to substitute the Lemures for the Darkmantles increasingly until rooms 88 - 92 where not only will I replace them entirely I will add more (nothing like wading through 15 Devils to put a smile on the face of a fighter).

oh crap, that's a lot of fighting

have the kobold's crude silver weapons only last for 2d6 attacks

In room 66 I'm going to place a trapped Hound Archon named Lumiere. When the earthquake hit a ward backfired and trapped the Celestial in that room. Helpless he had to watch his charges escape thier bonds and flee into the Dungeon nearly driving him insane. Long tail and Achsyyx discovered him when they were exploring and now that Longtail has been slain the Imp has been returning to taunt and torment Lumiere with the knowledge of what his ArchDevil master has planned for the portal (gloating in true antagonist fashion). This has broken the Archon and he will have to be carefully questioned by the PC's to uncover what is happening within this Region.

Read about the inevitables in Region E and see if you wouldn't
rather have one of them in there instead. if the PCs have an archon
on their side, the Kyton better be a lot tougher

Lastly, I'm going to place the key to closing the portal somewhere else in the dungeon, possibly in region B so that the PC's don't have to wait too long to finish this thread and can feel that they are accomplishing some good. Haven't gotten that far yet. <Rubbing hands together> Good stuff Jim, good stuff.

see room C103, C104, and C105 (the second one) for a really cool key

 

[twofalls]

i think you needed a better explanation why he didn't kill Achsyy

Why? If the Kyton needs the Imp to be able to communicate to the ArchDevil that seems reason enough.

have the kobold's crude silver weapons only last for 2d6 attacks

This depends on how many I put into the game. I don't think that many of the silvered weapons would have been finished since the creatures from the portal attacked without warning and decimated the ranks of the humanoids. But I have to place enough of that the PC's find at least some of them before being mobbed by Lemures. If they find a lot of them then I agree, if not...

if the PCs have an archon
on their side, the Kyton better be a lot tougher

If by this you mean fighting on thier side, FAT CHANCE. The Archon remains trapped regardless, the PC's wont have the option to free it. Its purpose is vital as a font of info, but its derranged state of mind will make it entertaining to roleplay it out.

see room C103, C104, and C105 (both) for a really cool key

For the benefit of those of you following this thread, pp. 168 and 169 feature those rooms with three D20 charts of random keys, and yup, some of them are quite cool.

 

[twofalls]

A Promise

I'm burning the midnight oil here and putting to type the personalizing touches for region A going into my next game session. In retrospect I find that I'm making fewer additions to the number of creatures present than I had first thought was needed. The Region isn't as loosely populated as my first impression made it out to be <nod to Jim>. The changes to the story by adding Joyot (the Kyton) and the Lemures have me anticipating the next session a great deal.

In region A rooms 57 - 77 I've decided to make a hunting ground. My take is that the humanoids fled to this region in order to hide in the rubble from the fiends, so that is the one area I've increased the population dramatically. I've worked up an encounter chart for that area and increased the number of random encounters to represent the fiends who are hunting there.

1) 8 Lemures picking through the rubble.
2) 6 orcs searching for a hiding space - they are terrified and run from a fight if possible. If the reason this encounter is rolled due to combat noise they flee and there is no random encounter.
3) 3 Fiendish Albadian Battle Dogs
4) Fiendish Gibbering Mouther (spittle causes Darkness for 10 rds not flare) - make sure your party is strong enough, this is a CR - 5 critter... it might be wounded
5) Fiendish rat swarm... large (22 hp)
6) Stadz the wandering Kobald... Stadz is in shock, he watched his freinds become shredded and partly consumed by Fiends and fled the scene. This has resulted in a loss of his wits. He has wandered into the area randomly and no longer recognizes anyone round him as a threat, having retreated into a moblie coma state. He will follow if led, and will only come to if confronted by Lemures and then will scream loudly and flee. He is a skilled scout (sneak +8) and might make a good ally if brought around (or possible PC).

 

[Demon Gnome]

Game 2: The group initially finds a relatively safe room and spends a few days with bouts of Filth Fever and Devil Chills. After recovering they move on and after a little exploration they encountered the kobolds, which they promptly took down (sleep spell took out half the kobolds to start). After a short rest from that they moved on and after awhile they encountered the main group of orcs. Again the dwarf doesn't compromise and so attacked them on sight. After a large fight, the final two orcs finally surrendered. Tying up their prisonsers and interrogating them a little they find out about their leader OrGhar. They goto the next room to find OrGhar sitting in a corner, apparently catatonic. They try what they can to get him to respond for a while but he doesn't ... until one player goes to one of the orc prisoners and asked them if they would be willing to join them (dwarf was out of the room intentionally so as to avoid "conflict"). Of course OrGhar would have none of that and snapped out of his state and attacked, both ragins and full power attack. He dropped two players (who did survive) quickly before he was finally taken down. They needed a serious rest after that and afterwards moved on spending the rest of the night dealing with fiendish darkmantles after fiendish darkmantles after fiendish darkmantles. Eventually they learned to check the ceilings of the rooms. Now they have adapted and the darkmantles aren't as much as a threat as before. (Will likely replace the few left with some other fiendish type of creature.)

Oh yeah, they encountered the stirge 'nest' and smartly decided to close the door and move on. The dwarf got recruited to check the doors for traps by walking through them since he could take the most punishment. (The rogue couldn't show up this week)

 

[twofalls]

Daring Dwarf

He volunteered to be a trap detector? Thats unprecedented in my experience. I'd be torn between punishing him for his foolishness and wanting to reward him for his bravery and sacrifice

 

[haiiro]

Idea #3. Replace the imp and Longtail with a (fiendish) Chain Devil with the summoning strength of a Osyluth. Instead of fiendish darkmantles throughout the Region, replace them with Lemures and the occasional Bearded or Bone Devil. Of course, PCs fighting a chain devil better have a few orcs in toe as their allies to bring him down. This works really well for groups with 6 PCs.

jim, I really like the devils and demons angle as well -- thanks. One of the things that appealed to me about WLD is that I've been itching to run a game that's heavy on those two groups, since I've never really used them before in a campaign. With Green Ronin's Book of Fiends on hand, plus the oodles of demons and devils in the MMs and Tome of Horrors II, there's plenty of source material, and the whole dungeon is already steeped in the celestial/infernal struggle thing to begin with.

Now the Lemures... they have resistance 5/silver, not impossible for a 1-2nd level group but still tough in numbers. I will stage a room where the Kobalds have been melting thier usless silver pieces (usless in the WLD anyhow) and hammering the metal around thier weapons. Also, a few of the bodies laying about will have these slivered weapons on them.

As for the silvered weapons, that's a really clever approach, twofalls. I've been thinking about the issue of monetary treasure -- and even mundane treasure with monetary value -- because I don't get the impression that the PCs get a chance to leave the dungeon and go shopping.

If that's the case, then most of the mundane treasure becomes just so much dungeon dressing, unless it's tied into the plot -- or has alternate uses, like making silvered weapons. Cool.

 

[twofalls]

As for the silvered weapons, that's a really clever approach, twofalls. I've been thinking about the issue of monetary treasure -- and even mundane treasure with monetary value -- because I don't get the impression that the PCs get a chance to leave the dungeon and go shopping.

Thanks haiiro. I've been thinking the same thing regarding the real value of monetary treasures. To a man dying of thirst a golden cup is worthless but he water inside is priceless. I decided to add in a bit more treasure to Region A since I've been adding Devils and such, and for one orc the random generation of treasure came up with a 1000gp diamond. For something found on the body of an already dead Orc I'd typcially toss this... but I decided that since there is no practical use for it I'd keep it and see how the PC's reacted.

If it helps at all, here is my room description for the silvering process...

A39) WEAPONSMITH WORKSHOP – The door is closed and locked with wooden planks on the other side bracing the door closed (cannot be disabled, DC 18 Str. to break down). The forge here isn't ruined as in the original text, rather this is the Kobold armory that is making the makeshift silvered weapons used against the Lumures. The furnace has been stoked up with furniture wood that has been burnt down to coals, and a crucible has been hung to melt silver pieces into liquid. Weapons are then dipped into the molten metal and cooled, then hammered and polished into shape. The results are crude, but effective.

Inside the room are 9 Kobold warriors led by a champion named Sliss.

Sliss – Lvl 4 warrior, HP: 16, Att: +3/+5, (Masterwork silvered Half Spear/Lt. Xbow) AC : 17 (shield) * note: the silvering process has ruined the +1 status of the spear

Warriors – HP: 2 ea, Att: -1/+2, (Half Spear/Lt. Xbow), AC: 15

On the table near the forge is a pile of 282 sp. while the crucible contains 1lb of melted silver worth 50gp. The chest from room A43 has been relocated to here and now only contains the 152 gp.

 

[twofalls]

I have a rave and a couple of rants about section E. I've read the first third of it at this point, and am enjoying the ideas in it a great deal. The Portriat rooms I'm particuarly impressed with (E14 - 16). I understand that it's just dungeon dressing, but its little touches like this that make a setting really come alive and I was very impressed to find that level of detail here. Kudos Jim (or which ever one of your writers did these rooms).

There is a large area of emtpy rooms lacking any description to be found on the map between the Barghest lairs and the Celestrial Formian hive. There is a similar area of empty rooms on the other side of the map though I haven't read that far yet, I can just see that they are unkeyed. I'll have to find somthing to plug in there to detail out those empty rooms or the pacing of the adventure will be destroyed as my group examines empty room after empty room. I'm open to suggestions on what to do with these areas. The other option of course is to simply eliminate the rooms, but I find this option distasteful particuarly since I'll have to modify the map as I draw it out for the players. Also, room E44 is not keyed on the map. Its not difficult to deduce where its supposed to be however.

Also curious, are the Formians who are described as dead in thier cells these past two centuries since the first earthquake. They were attacked by unidentifed assailants, merely described as non-insectoid in room E31. Who were these mystery attackers, are they important in any way to the story (even if they aren't they are... as all the little pieces make the overall story congruent)? Is it going to matter if the attackers are described as demons, devils, orcs, or smurfs?

 

[jim pinto]

655-3600?

what does this mean?

 

[twofalls]

The reviewer you posted the link to suggested a formula based on 16's to caluclate your phone number...