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

[Lonely Tylenol]

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.

That's a spell component if I ever saw one...

 

[jim pinto]

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).

lee hammock did some wonderful stuff in here.

i'm really pleased about how he brought it all together

i especially like the barghest factions and the level of detail
of the major NPCs. lee strikes me as a full DM who likes to
add details to important characters.

where Region A (written by Michael Hammes) is very much what
a first level adventure is supposed to be, the conditions of Region E
should really surprise the PCs. there's a great deal of internal
consistency there, with creatures only being concerned about
Region I... however, depending on the DM, the inevitables can
be concerned about whatever Region the DM wants the PCs to
go to next.

if Region A is filled with the kyton, lemure, osyluth series discussed
earlier, a lot of garrisons/patrols will take place in the southern
portion of Region E

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.

the rooms provide a buffer zone for the creatures. while they may lair
here from time to time, the barghests know they can't maintain everything,
especially since the competition for space is so high.

and because the same encounter over and over against with barghests and shadows would have been silly, these are great rooms for the DM to have random encounters, duplicate monster encounters, or some impossible series of creatures that cannot be killed.

consider mujina in japanese folklore.

they still haunt and pester the other creatures, but cannot be harmed by weapons (100% incorporeal miss chance)

they move items around and perplex the very LAWFUL inevitables who cannot grok what these beasts are. the DM can then said the PCs on a mission to get rid of them. especially, if they came through the fiendish portal in Region A

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?

this is an example of us stealing from Ed Greenwood's style... poorly

ed's adventures always have that inexplicable dagger hidden in a pillar
that have nothing to do with anything (like Room N223), but seem to
add SOOO MUCH flavor that you can't help but put it in. the DM is free
to do whatever he likes with these formians, or even change them to
demon prisoners.

because there IS a really large insect contingent in the Region, the
dead formians could have had these creatures "chest-burst" out
of them centuries ago, still feeding off the detritus of the Region,
growing with each decade.

that's just off the top of my head, though, so unless you want me to
go back and read the region (please don't ask me to read it again),
maybe someone who is reading it now can link the concepts together
better than i can.

hope this helps

 

[twofalls]

No, I like the Formians, they are unusual and go a long way in explaining how such a large area could have been held under gaurd for so long. My main concern was story coherance. If I chose an ememy such as demons (which is what I will choose) to have slain the colony only to find out that choosing them screwed a storyline somewhere else in the dungeon I wouldn't have been very happy. The book is so large I'll be running large chunks of it in ignorance of the goings on in other areas of the complex.

I don't like the idea of each Formian cell containing bodies in the pose of combat on the floor, that doesn't make the defense of the colony flow right to me. Rather I think the front rooms will show signs of the Formians fighting off a suprise attack with lots of overwhelmed dead, and the cells further in indicating that the majority of them were mercilessy slain in thier sleeping holes in the walls of their cells while a handful of guards attempted to defend them. The enemy bodies can be the husks of low end demons, and maybe one or two middling demons.

Thanks for the input. I'll post the ideas I use for the open areas when I figure it out.

 

[jim pinto]

No, I like the Formians, they are unusual and go a long way in explaining how such a large area could have been held under gaurd for so long. My main concern was story coherance. If I chose an ememy such as demons (which is what I will choose) to have slain the colony only to find out that choosing them screwed a storyline somewhere else in the dungeon I wouldn't have been very happy. The book is so large I'll be running large chunks of it in ignorance of the goings on in other areas of the complex.

there are formians in Region D... whether or not they are related
is up to you. the spoiler for Region D is too good to post even on
this site... but they are digging to something important

I don't like the idea of each Formian cell containing bodies in the pose of combat on the floor, that doesn't make the defense of the colony flow right to me. Rather I think the front rooms will show signs of the Formians fighting off a suprise attack with lots of overwhelmed dead, and the cells further in indicating that the majority of them were mercilessy slain in thier sleeping holes in the walls of their cells while a handful of guards attempted to defend them. The enemy bodies can be the husks of low end demons, and maybe one or two middling demons.

if the formians served the celestials (long ago),
then they would have nothing to do with the formians
in Region D

Thanks for the input. I'll post the ideas I use for the open areas when I figure it out.

hope that helps

 

[Lee Hammock]

Section E

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?

Glad you liked section E! Jim really let me run wild with that section and I'm glad the results make sense.

As for the empty rooms I left some wiggle room between factions to give them some space. If I remember correctly the shadows are actually in control of the formia section due to how the doors fall. Since there isn't much for the shadows to eat in that region I figured they mostly ignored it, but there could be all kinda of ambushes set up by Seraxes in that region. Alternately maybe some of the barghests got chased into that region by shadows and are trying to hide out until they can rest up and try to break up. Or if you want to have one of the celestials out hunting shadows, that would be a good area for the PCs to run into them.

Intially I wrote up an encounter for EVERY room in section E, but went way over my word count. If people are interested I could post some of the rooms that got cut for use as general filler rooms.

The attackers who killed the celestial formians were demons who boiled up from below after the second earthquake. But hey, it could have been smurfs. They're crafty. You try outsmarting Gargamel on a weekly basis when you're three apples high.

Of course the formian queen was stabbed in the back by one of her own formians, but he was mind controlled, so we can't really blame him. I'm glad the formians came across well; the concept of an army of divinely powered super ants fighting evil was too cool to pass up.

 

[twofalls]

As a matter of fact Lee, I'd really like to see your additional material. As a GM I'm completly unconcerned about your alloted word count. My problem is that I have four days now to finish completing section A, and prep section E before my groups three day annual game weekend is upon me. I'm lavishing a lot of attention on Region A rewriting it to make sure that my players are caught up and drawn into this setting, and thus other than having read "Region E" I just know I won't have it ready.

Ideas like room E14 and E15 I'd be particuarly interested in... but if you have any of the material you wrote for the other rooms GREAT! Post what you want, and feel free to send me whatever you are comfortable with to jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels. In return I promise to credit you to my group after they play it out and tell you how things went.

 

[twofalls]

er... thats jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com...

 

[JoeGKushner]

So what are everybodies favorite sections?

I'm thinking N for me. The sheer size of it and the number of cool encounters are way cool.

The other one is, I think, off the top of my head, H. The elves and their tree man. Good stuff and lots of rp potential.

 

[shadoe]

This thread more than anything else has made me decide to pick this book up, even though I don't know when I will take the time to try and use it. It sounds truely wonderfull.

 

[jim pinto]

So what are everybodies favorite sections?

I'm thinking N for me. The sheer size of it and the number of cool encounters are way cool.

The other one is, I think, off the top of my head, H. The elves and their tree man. Good stuff and lots of rp potential.

john zinser loves the tree

my favorite regions are C, D, G, and N

but don't ask me to pick a favorite



btw... wasn't that crimson fellow from the other list
going to ask some questions about how to get through
Region D ?!?!?!