Maidens and the Moon: The Siege Castle

Another in my series of posts about my Zelda-esque campaign. I've been playtesting my heartbreaker using an amalgamation of blogs I like, Instagram artists that inspire me, and some A+ OSR modules. Read the big inspiration post before going on. 

And, again, there's material here that my players have not uncovered yet. If you're in my game, be ye warned that this way lies ruin(ed fun). 

I haven't done a ton to clean my notes up for public consumption. Apologies. This is a gritty glimpse into the way I make notes.

I have done some work to inject commentary on how the playtest went as the players went through the dungeon. Retrospective-ing is one of the reasons I'm mocking up these play reports.

The Siege Castle

A thousand siege engines, heaped together, held together by a spine of twisted spears. It plods along on armored feet, each made from a thousand iron boots. It's head is a nest of ballistas and trebuchets.  

It was the Moon King's greatest weapon. Now that the peninsula is pacified (and his attentions have turned elsewhere), the Siege Castle is retiring on the battlefield where it legs were first broken.

The Siege Castle wants war. It wants to feel spears clash against its skin. It wants to burn battalions under its lava spigots. It wants to scoop up knights in its jaws and crush them inside their armor until the pulp runs down its chin.

But it can't move. It's rusting apart, dying a slow death. Rain has accomplished what armies could not. It dies like a wolf; Fenris after Ragnarok.

It is still hungry. It is still capable of assimilating metal and weapons into itself. It is still capable of growing. (That's how it got so big--it returned from the war bigger than when it set out.)

It has servants, too, but they are clumsy things, meant to kill, not to repair. The knowledge and the tools needed to mend it are in the city.

At night, you can hear it groaning out on the battlefield. You can see the forge-fires still smoldering behind its ribs. Every once in a while, it makes an attempt to move.  You can hear the anguished metal tearing from a mile away. 

And yet it does move, slowly and painfully. Every month it drags itself a few feet closer to the Moon Castle. Does it still wish to curl up at the feet like a loyal dog? Or does it wish revenge for its abandonment?

Note: Any use of a hearthember inside the Siege Castle will summon a Campfire Sprite (see below).

1. Resources taxed
2. Resources taxed
3. Resources taxed
4. Resources taxed
5. Resources taxed
6. [Serendipity] Shuddering - The castle shudders and moans, like a cow in labor. The metal walls tremor disturbingly like flesh.
7. [Serendipity] Shuddering - The castle shudders and moans, like a cow in labor. The metal walls tremor disturbingly like flesh.
8. [Serendipity] Maze Golem - A large, animate statue of stone with a red stone glowing in its chest and a single glowing cyclopean eye is placidly making repairs here. (The maze golem won’t attack unless disturbed from his work.)
9. [Serendipity] Maze Golem - A large, animate statue of stone with a red stone glowing in its chest and a single glowing cyclopean eye is placidly making repairs here. (The maze golem won’t attack unless disturbed from his work.)
10. [Serendipity] Steam Trap - A thin razor of steam is escaping from a nearby pipe, invisible except for a high whine. The steam acts like a light saber and slices right through the first person in the marching order unless they succeed on a Test of Cups.
11. [Serendipity] Steam Trap - A thin razor of steam is escaping from a nearby pipe, invisible except for a high whine. The steam acts like a light saber and slices right through the first person in the marching order unless they succeed on a Test of Cups.
12. [Encounter] Totally Not Three Goblins in a Trenchcoat - I am a mighty wizard! For your moneys, I shall sell you this powerful magical bomb! It’s a good deal, and I am a mighty wizard.
13. [Encounter] Totally Not Three Goblins in a Trenchcoat - I am a mighty wizard! For your moneys, I shall sell you this powerful magical bomb! It’s a good deal, and I am a mighty wizard.
14. [Encounter] Blade Collectors - 3 Blade Collectors skuttle on the ceiling, baffled by the PC’s entrance. They ignore anybody not wearing metal armor, initially.
15. [Encounter] Nipterror - [PC] number of Nipterrors phase through the wall, grinning eerily at the PCs. They want something to eat. They eat nightmares, and will trade passage for a story about nightmares. Otherwise, they’ll take a BITE out of the PCs.
16. [Encounter] Nipterror - [PC] number of Nipterrors phase through the wall, grinning eerily at the PCs. They want something to eat. They eat nightmares, and will trade passage for a story about nightmares. Otherwise, they’ll take a BITE out of the PCs.
17. [Encounter] Torchknights - [PC] number Torchknights are in this room, drinking and gambling. They look for honorable sport with the PCs.
18. [Encounter] Torchknights - [PC] number Torchknights are in this room, drinking and gambling. They look for honorable sport with the PCs.
19. [Encounter] Maze Cannon - A Maze Cannon patrols this area, ready to engage with any intruders with extreme prejudice.
20. [Encounter] Maze Cannon - A Maze Cannon patrols this area, ready to engage with any intruders with extreme prejudice.
21. Clue or revelation

Playtest Notes: In my "core" game of His Majesty the Worm I found it very useful to have 20 discrete options on my Meatgrinder table. Each zone was pretty large and had several hexes in it--each zone was a dungeon in its right. Characters came and went. Repetition was to be avoided.

The dungeons of "Maidens and the Moon" are much smaller--usually only 8-12 rooms. As such, having a random table of 20 events is a bit overkill. I doubled up here, to good effect.

Monsters

Blade Collector

A scuttling creature who walks on four, sloth-like claws. It’s head is skull-like, and its arched back is a hardened carapace. Weaponry of all sorts--broken spear shafts, swords, axes, arrows--are embedded in the carapace. It moves cautiously, turning its head left and right.

HD: 4

The blade collector is blind to organic material. Iron and metal is most “real” to it, and it focuses on it the most. It’s unaware that animals or plants exist. Humans wearing metal enrage it.

Special: Immune to weapons - any weapon used against it sinks into its carapace like butter and becomes stuck.

* Defeat the fucker by throwing it off of a cliff, tricking it into a trap, blowing it up with a fireball...whatever.

* If you succeed, you get [draw] mundane items and 1 special masterwork weapon.

Campfire Sprite

Mischievous, reeking havoc on the party as it spreads fire. Will spark off of a hearthfire the PCs light inside of the Siege Castle.

HD 1

Special: Leaps onto something flammable. Flames must be put out or the PC takes 1 Wound at the start of their next turn.

Goblins

Oh man, these little guys. 

HD: 4, but they don’t die from violence

Special: Shifty Buggers - Can disengage for free. Never suffer an opportunity attack

Bombardiers - Prepare bombs as any action. Throw bombs that blast everyone in a zone for a Wound.

Maze Cannon

Three-legged platform, decorated with ancient glyphs, with a canon projecting from it. A red stone glows on the top of the platform, illuminating the space around it. 

HD: 8

Special: Blast everybody in one direction with a fireball. This makes the cannon skitter backwards several steps. 

* Cannot right itself if “Tripped.” Trapped like a turtle on its back.

* The magic stone is worth 50s if sold.

Maze Golem

A cobblestone giant, ancient glyphs winding his way across his grey body. Its hands and feet end in three-pronged claws. A single, glowing red eye looks out of its head. In the center of its body is a red glowing stone. Moss and bird droppings cover its shoulders. 

HD 12

Special: Immune to magic

Vaporwave - As a last measure, can blast a laser that deals a Critical Wound. 

Nipterror

A huge floating head, surrounded by a halo of swords, with one giant eye and a huge, wicked, smiling mouth. It meanders through the air towards you, clacking its jaws. 

(Note: Can mimic any voice)

Wants: To hear your worst fears

HD 6

Special: Of Two Worlds - Can shift between spectral world (transparent) and physical world by discarding any card. 

Teleport - Can teleport to another zone that it can see

Torchknights

An iron suit of armor clanks towards you. It’s lit from within by a terrible red fire, spilling out of the cracks of the armor. 

Part zeal, part showy ironwork hearth, the blazing torchknights are spirits created

on occasion when a weary fighting man dies asleep in front of a fireplace. These soldiers were sometimes top professionals, but just as often they were the gouty, drunken, or slothful.  

Wants: To drink beer, to gamble

HD: 4

Special: Heat Metal - Everyone in the zone carrying metal items must drop them or take 1 Wound.

Immune to Magic due to its metal content

Weakness - Takes damage from water or being extinguished

Zones of the Siege Castle

One of my lesser good maps

The Red Ring Army (Outside the Castle)
A bunch of goblins and pit-fighters that have befriended the Siege Castle by hosting gladiatorial combats where the Siege Castle can watch. They treat the Siege Castle like a Roman emperor when deciding when to kill an surrendering opponent.

If the Siege Castle nods, they live. If it roars, they die. It doesn't nod very often.

The leader of the Red Ring Army is the Kill Boss.

KILL BOSS
A goblin in a suit of armor shaped like a pig-man. Beat him and you can approach THE WAR GOD.

The leader of the Red Ring Army that gathers in the trenches of the Siege Castle Wastes. 

A hulking golem. A rusty suit of iron armor wielding a truly huge morning star. He wants to be seen as big and tall, but is actually quite a small goblin under all of that. 

Likes: To boss people around, to be given compliments, to actually have a challenging fight (as long as things go in his favor)

Hates: To be called “small” (especially “shrimpy” — hates shrimp because of it)

Wants: To keep his goblin army satisfied in blood, chaos, and honor, but quickly running out of ideas. He has an existential idea that someday soon they’ll get bored of this juvenile shit, but will never say that out loud. Needs a new paradigm.

What Can He Do?

He can command, like, a hundred deathless goblins to destroy whatever he points his finger towards. 

In a one-on-one combat, he’s super jacked in a very classic way. No gimmicks, just hits HARD and is hard to hurt. 

---

Here are three sample goblins. They act as yes men for KILL BOSS, so you can interact with them.

Magnus Intractable
A bombardier, and anxious to put his specialty to good use. Bad use? Anyway, he’s a bad little fucker.
Likes: The smell of naphtha in the morning, excitement and exhilaration
Dislikes: Being bored (starting to be bored by the Army)

Noted Groan
Has a beautiful purple mustache and a haughty air. Thinks of himself as a tactical genius.
Likes: Tactics, feeling smart, games of chess (but he cheats)
Dislikes:  Feeling hungry (food is running short)
Wants: Groan will offer you money if you take a letter to the General in Drood Forest for him.

Mark Me Unreasonable
Goofy. Wears a brown hood that totally obscures his face, except for his upturned batty nose. A good pal and moral center of the three goblins. Keeps Noted Groan and Magnus Intractable in line. Doesn’t talk a lot.
Likes: Dogs and rats and stuff. He really likes neat little beasties.
Dislikes: Being lonely (misses the Goblin Market)

Gladiatorial Matches
Things that make you unpopular with goblins:
* using the same tactic twice
* always being cruel
* always being kind

Things that make you popular with the goblins:
Showing off, e.g. saying "I don't need this sword to FUCK YOU UP!" and then throwing your sword into the audience.
Good insults.  (Criterion: did most of the players laugh?)

The Weapontake: PCs are stripped of their weaponry which is put in a general pile. The PCs play rock paper scissors with KILL BOSS to get first call on the weaponry.
Also in the pile are:
* A turnip on a string and shield
* A pike with a pig’s head stuck on it
* A GOBLIN BOMB
* A blowgun with darts
* A wavy dagger and horned helmet (+1 armor)

Mother May I: KILL BOSS acts as the arena master for the battle. Every round, he shouts out some new rule. Whoever doesn't follow them gets shot by the goblin enforcers with crossbows.

* No looking!  (Everyone fights with eyes closed.  First person to open them gets shot.)
* Everyone pray!  (Last person to drop to their knees gets shot!)
* Everyone be nice!  Everyone has to stop fighting and hug each other.  Anyone who is mean gets shot.
* Okay now fight some more!  Resume fighting.
* Gimme some money!  Whoever gives the least gets shot.  (NPCs each donate 1d20-10 (min 0)).
* Eat this bread!  Drops a loaf of bread on the ground.  Everyone has to take a bite.  Lasts person to take a bite gets shot.
* The floor is lava!  Last person standing on the floor is shot.  (Climbing on the BOSS is okay.  There's also a couple of chairs around here, but not enough.)

Surprises: There are two surprises during the flow of combat, introduced by KILL BOSS:
* A Troll!: A troll with a long nose, long green hair, and terrible halitosis will be released into the pit by Kill Boss, who announces a “surprise cameo guest star.”
* Just Playing Dead: When the last goblin is against the wall, the other goblins reveal they were just playing dead.

...If more gladiatorial matches are needed:
Troll-Ball - the teams face off in an arena with two large goalposts. Two trolls are released into the arena, painted some garish color and hopped up on goblin drugs that make them regenerate health even faster. The goal is to get a troll to go through your opponents goal. Each team is given a starting torch, but everyone is encouraged to light things on fire in order to herd the trolls. The crowd will boo if you kill a troll, as they’re famous troll-ball athletes, and their mother will be released from her holding cell into the arena.

Save the Princess - A famous goblin reenactment of the Theft of the Short Princess. The PC’s are playing the roles of the Short Princesses’ guards, namely fighting naked and covered in paint. The ‘Short Princess’ is a dress-wearing hog at the top of a classic stone tower. The PC’s have 3 rounds to prepare before waves of goblins are dispatched to steal the Princess. I had various tools spread around the tower, flasks of oil, swamp gas balloons, marbles, a cat in a cage, moldy apples; lots of junk. The first wave of goblins just rushed the tower, the second wave used grappling hooks and catapults, and finally the third wave used a plethora of flying devices to try and snatch the pig off the tower. Any goblins playing dead cheated and got up on the third round.

Rules for Gladiatorial Matches: You can use a Wands action to hype up the crowd and win favor. When you win favor, the crowd tosses in one of the following:
S: A broken bottle or punjee stick or board with a nail in it. Does 2 Wounds on a hit, and breaks.
P: Coin equal to value x 5 (to be collected by winner after match)
C: Takaleshi jelly
W: Roses

Takaleshi jelly lets you make actions as interrupts by spending a Resolve, but makes you jittery (disfavor to fine manipulation).

When you get X favor, you become a crowd favorite. Different crowds have different thresholds for favor. The graveyard boys need about 5 to be impressed. The Siege Castle needs 12+.

Playtest Notes: The players had bumped into the "Tournament" rules before in the City, but I think they worked especially well here.

Sometimes the "Mother May I" rules confused the PCs, but they learned after getting the sharp end of some crossbow bolts. For example, the players were inclined to translate the order to "pray" to say a quick burst of prayer out loud. They, of course, saw the goblins drop to their knees, drop their weapons, and crawl around. I say that they had no reason to be surprised when their piteous piety earned them a crossbow attack.

The players went into the Red Ring Army pretty blind. They weren't trying to get to the Siege Castle, they were just trying to deliver a fragile tea pot from Granny Goblin (in the Goblin Market)  to the goblins stationed here to make them feel nostalgic and go back home. Because one of the players botched their attempt to sweet talk the goblins, they were thrown in the gladiatorial pits and made to go through this whole rigmarole.

The Lucky Pig (Outside the Castle)
Inside the Red Ring Army’s encampment is a lucky pig statue. It costs X+2 silver to activate, where X equals the number of castles you’ve defeated.

Playtest Note: I've talked about the Lucky Pig Statues before. Very successful. Recommend for anybody.

Approaching the Siege Castle
You can just run towards the Siege Castle. It’s not a good idea.

It fires at anyone that it sees approaching. Trebuchets hurl metal slag. It requires a devastating 5 separate Swords tests to make it across the field of wreck and ruin. There are half-dug trenches, destroyed ballistas, and suits of ruined power armor between the Siege Castle and you. Good, non-repetitive ideas give favor on the test. A failure deals a Critical Wound.

If the party gets a nod in a gladiatorial match in the Red Ring Army, they will be allowed to approach the Castle.

Playtest Note: My players were entered unwillingly into the Red Ring's tournaments. When they won and hyped up the crowd, the Siege Castle nodded for them to approach. The goblins encouraged them to go up, saying this was their "last chance." The PCs ran towards the Siege Castle--even though they hadn't planned on it. 

At the same time, the players managed to convince the Red Ring Army to go back to the Goblin Market by way of the gift of Granny Goblin's tea pot and some good "Charisma" tests. As such, they successfully unlocked the goblin race for future PCs. They only have to go to the Goblin Market to get a new character. 

0. The Mouth of the Castle

A face like a malformed metal bulldog lowers itself. It’s eyes are canons. Metal shrieks as the shuddering castle beast opens its mouth. A huge cavern, with teeth made of shields, opens in front of you. Inside it is dark. It smells of oil, soot, and smoke. 

1. The Cooling Chamber

A factory room, barely made for human habitation. The floor is made out of rows of pipes, the ceiling is chugging machinery. 

It is cold. White frost creeps over the walls. You can see your breath.

Set into the back of the wall there are large, foggy glass containers. They are opaque with frost, but about five feet high and three feet wide. 

To the left is a door with a crank in its center (LOCKED) (room 2). To the right is a hallway that hums “thrump….thrump...thrump” (room 6).

* Wipe away the frost on the outside of the giant-sized hermetic jars to find mummified corpses. 

* If broken open, the corpses will arise and try and fight the PCs. They fight mindlessly, like ghouls. 

* However, the fluid inside the jars is always cold to the touch. If harvested, the COLD LIQUID can extinguish a serious fire instantly, and freeze a substantial amount of water it is introduced to. Handy for both fire and water elementals. Harvest it into hermetic bottles for an added benefit later in the dungeon. 

Playtest Note: My players camped, uncomfortably, in the Cooling Room. They were trying to recover from the tournament. This prompted a Campfire Sprite to show up. They carried him around like a little buddy on a torch for a while, but eventually traded him away. 

When the players tried to leave the room, they triggered a steam jet trap towards room 6. They found it by hearing the whine and experimented around until they found the lethal jet.

One of them cast a portable hole spell on the door to 2 and peered inside to find (random encounter) Not Three Goblins in a Trenchcoat. They talked to them a while and convinced the Not Three Goblins to open the door. As such, the players progressed down the left path for a while. 

2. Machinduma

A coiled machine sits alone in a dark room.  It looks like the polished extrusion of some massive crustacean, with gently fluted crests and warped gullies. The front is the tallest part, and you must slip between some flying buttresses to reach the "front" of the machine.

There are two alcoves here, set into the machine like eye sockets.  Above them, words in an ancient script. 

Past the machine, there is a cramped “hallway” of pipes that lead into darkness (Room 3).

* The script is elven. It reads: One is taken. The other improved.

* The Machinduma has stats as four ogres in full plate, fighting in tight square formation.

* If you put two objects into the alcoves, the chambers will slowly recess and then close off.  Out of the two objects, the more valuable one will be taken by the machine.  The less valuable object will be returned in an improved form.

Shitty swords will be made excellent.  A magical sword will be made amazing.  A non-magical item may be made into a magical one, but the enchantment will be a trifling one.

* A living creature that is improved will be given a random beneficial mutation.

* If you do a lot of exchanges with the Machinduma, and if you show a certain ambivalence for human life, it will start offering you fetch quests.  It will extrude soft white disks with writing on them, which dessicate and crumble away from the warm, bloody interior of the machine.

Playtest Notes: My players experimented briefly with the machiduma, but returned to it a few times over the course of the dungeon. They thought that small items were going to be much more powerful than they were ("I put in a ROCK and a DAGGER...what does it do?"), but eventually grokked the deal. Before they left, almost everybody had a fancy, shiny new item based on some combination and recombination. Fun thing. Major thanks to Goblinpunch for the encounter.

3. The War Room

There is a table here, somewhat oblong, on which is a mechanism like a 3D printer consisting of an x axis and a y axis.  The table has faded paint with a map of the world of the Maze on it. 

On the back wall of the room is a large set of double metal doors. The doors are literally red hot--they radiate an incredible heat and glow with a crimson light. 

A ladder affixed to the wall leads up through a trapdoor in the ceiling, into darkness.

The x axis has 11 points and the y axis has 8 and a half. 

* When the mechanism is set, a handprint glyph: CONFIRM? Flashes on the map of the Maze.

* Press your hand to the glyph. The mechanism locks into place and cannot be changed. 

* You feel the whole castle shudder. 

* The coordinate that was locked into is being bombarded by the Siege Castle’s long distance weapons. 

* It can do this once before its munitions are expended. 

* That place is fucking rubble now. 

The double doors cannot be reasonably opened as long as they are hot. They scorch the hands of anybody who actually touches them (which is easily telegraphed). They lead to Room 9.

* Of course, the PCs can come up with some shenanigans. Perhaps employing the COLD LIQUID from the Cooling Chamber.

* These doors cool down if the Boiler Room is sabotaged.

Playtest Notes: My players used a portable hole spell to peep the room and found several Blade Collectors (random encounter). The party had heard a rumor of them from the Lucky Pig so they were pretty scared of them. They double backed and disarmed the steam trap to progress through the right-hand path.

4. The Spires of Smoke

You come into the fresh air, although it is night outside. The distant stars gleam down on you.

A catwalk loops around a large tower of blackened stone and iron--like a colossal chimney coming out of a cathedral’s spire. At the top, smoke belches into the night sky. It smells acrid.

Following the catwalk leads you to a gap between two smokestacks. You see a door set into the other smokestack, with a small metal “porch.” There’s easily 50 yards (400 feet) between the two smokestacks.

* “As you watch, a squat, shirtless man wearing a helmet steps out of the door onto the porch. He lights a goblin thatch (the equivalent of a cigarette). He hasn’t spotted you, yet.”

* This is the Siege King.

* If the Siege King spots the PCs, he will drop his cigarette and go quickly back into his room (Room 5). He’ll summon [PC-1] Maze Cannons into room 3.

* The PCs are left with a conundrum of how to bridge the gap.

Playtest Note: This worked well. Showing the PCs a glimpse of the main bad guy BEFORE they could encounter him was a good way to frame the encounter and hint about what was going to come. If you have the opportunity to show off your baddies before your PCs just punch 'em in the face, I recommend you do it. 

5. The Siege King’s Personal Quarters

A small round room is found in the smoke stack. It is warm and humid here. 

A hay-stuffed sleeping mat is plopped against one wall. It smells bad. 

A chamber pot, unemptied, sits nearby. It smells bad. 

A pile of 1256 silver sits unstacked and uncounted near a rag doll in the shape of the Siege Castle. The rag doll is kind of cute, but smells bad

At the foot of the sleeping mat is a chest. The chest is closed (and locked). 

* The key is on the Siege King.

* Inside the chest is a collection of ancient elven cogs. 

* You can use them to repair the Cloud Factory. 

You can also sell them for 500s to a rare collector of antiquities in the Wicked City. (Nobody else is very interested in elven artifacts.)

A single door opens onto the expanse of the Siege Castle’s back. Dozens of smoke stacks billow smoke below the door’s small porch.

Playtest Note: My players never found this room.

6. The Hall of Fans

A long, cylindrical hall into darkness. Every fifteen feet, large industrial fans slowly turn. The fans push cool air from the cooling chamber down into the bowels of the castle, and seem passable if you’re quick. 

* There are four fans. Test of Pentacles to get past the fans. Failure results in a Wound, but it breaks the fan so that nobody else will get stuck in that one. 

* Obviously, you can also jam the fans using ingenuity.

Playtest Notes: My players did the good OSR thing of investigating the fans, finding the screws, and then slowly unscrewing them. It ran down their torches, but their cleverness let them bypass the obstacle completely. 

7. The Boiler Room

Five large black boilers hiss and clatter, huge piping connected to them like veins to a heart. In the darkness, you feel immense heat radiating from them. Pipes, like columns, dissect the room. Valves as big as ship’s wheels are affixed to the pipes and walls, hot steam leaking from them.

The room is puddled with warm water. 

You hear the clanking of a chain in the darkness. 

In the darkness, you glimpse an opening beyond the boilers--a single door.

* GUN DOG LIVES HERE. It’s chained to a boiler by a rusty chain. The chain is easily broken. 

* Gun Dog - A dog with a cluster of cannons in place of its head.  Fires teeth.  HD 1. 

If players fiddle with the valves, they will find them very hard to move. They can make a Test of Swords to move them, or dislodge them with grease. 

* If successful, a random character in the room will take 1 Wound from steam shooting from the vent.

* If the boiler itself is broken (which will take some skilled sabotage, or 2 damage in one go), it ruptures and bursts. This deals 4 Wounds to everyone in the room after 1 turn. 

* This makes the HOT DOOR in room 3 become cool. This powers down the mechanism of the War Room and the Hall of Fans. 

The door leads into a small room with a lever in it. If you pull the lever, the small room reveals itself to be an elevator. It ascends to Room 8.

Playtest Notes: This room held a random encounter of nipterrors, which sort of tempered the PCs' willingness to interact with the furnaces or the gundog. They traded some nightmares to the nipterrors (by describing them out loud), managed to tame the gundog enough to get close to it, broke its chain, and then high-tailed it out of the room. 

8. The Magnet and the Lava

An immense pit, like that shaft that Luke fell down in Empire, opens before you. Lava slowly churns after a staggering 100’ drop straight down. The red cast from the fiery magma illuminates the cavernous room. The smell of sulfur and the intense heat coming from the lava all but chokes you; it is very difficult to breathe.

There is a thin metal ledge that winds around the west wall of the shaft towards an opening opposite you. There are spikes driven into the wall at ten foot intervals along the ledge. Along the thin ledge, about halfway to the other opening, is a metal plate affixed to the wall. You cannot read what, if anything, is etched on it. In the center of the ceiling is an orb of metal.

* Characters wishing to cross the cavern by way of the ledge must move slowly and carefully. * The stakes driven into the wall may be used for support and may have ropes tied to them.

* The orb of metal in the center of the ceiling is a lodestone mechanism. When the characters enter the cavern, if they are carrying any metal whatsoever, the lodestone senses their presence and begins to activate. It emits a hum and slight electrical charge, which grows stronger with each round.

* Any steel or iron within the cavern is drawn to the lodestone, where it is held for 1 round. 

* If anybody is already holding onto the spikes stuck in the walls, they may make a Test of Swords. Otherwise, it’s too late.

* Afterwards, the lodestone de-activates, dropping the item into the lava below.

* The metal plate has the word "SHUT OFF VALVE" printed on it. Behind it, a series of disconnected pipes. 

Playtest Note: By this time, we've moved online to roll20. I deconstructed one of those online pipe puzzles and recreated it on the map. When the players got to the metal plate, I just gave them a number of minutes based on their characters stats and made them play the game. It went over pretty well. The player did the puzzle with only a few seconds to spare, which I think made them feel fairly triumphant. This was a good puzzle to transpose to the online scope. Before we moved online, I had planned on passing out one of the puzzles from the Mansions of Madness boardgame. 

9. The Central Furnace

In the center of the room is a large hearth. In the center of the hearth is a bright golden-red flame, about man’s height. It has a malicious face: it cackles like an evil jester, smiling broadly. The flame sits on top of a mountain of coals--and in the middle of it all, a pile of golden hair.

A thick-set man is tending the flame. The Siege King is naked to the waist. He has a dad bod--once muscular, but now with a significant pudge. The only armor he wears is a black full helm. You cannot see his face through the iron slits. He wears a blade strapped across his back. He’s carrying a shovel, which he’s using to shovel a pile of coal near the central hearth.

The room is well lit by the fire, circular, and domed. There’s a heat vent over the hearth. The vent leads to four interconnected furnaces set at cardinal points around the room. 

Each of the four furnaces chug and glow brightly with red flame, which it channels towards the Central Flame. 

THE CENTRAL FLAME HD: 20 

Can make a number of moves equal to the number of intact furnaces.

Splashing significant amounts of water onto it (like the COLD LIQUID) will deal 3 damage to the flame. 

The Flame does not take damage traditionally. In fact, if you just hit it with your weapon, a blast of hot air from one of the four furnaces will immediately refresh it. The weapon you struck it with will be Notched.

If the furnaces are destroyed, you CAN hit the flame with weapons, but it still Notches your weapon.

Special: The Flame can fling fire balls to anybody it can see. These blasts deal 1 Wound and catch the opposition on fire. If on fire, they take another Wound at the top of their turn unless they spend a Recovery action to get rid of the condition.

Additional Rules:

* PCs may break the four furnaces to deal damage the Flame. 

* Breaking the furnaces requires doing 5 damage, which will then deal 5 damage directly to the Flame.

* The Siege King LOVES the Siege Castle. He treats it like the Rancor tamer treated the Rancor. 

* When the Castle is destroyed, all the fight goes out of the Siege King. He weeps openly. 

* The Siege King will use a miscellaneous card to shovel coal to heal the Castle’s Heart. This heals 1 damage.

Siege King: HD 4

The Siege King carries a normal helm, the goreblade, a pack of dragon’s teeth, and a key.

Treasure of Siege Castle: The Goreblade

Looted from the Siege King’s back (he wears it, but never uses it). 

Every hit just makes, like, blood and guts go everywhere. WAY more guts than a thing has. Breaks the morale of whoever is hit by it, even if it doesn't do a lot of damage. 

Playtest Notes: 

The players burst into the room, kicked the Siege King near to death (before they realized he wasn't really a threat), and then managed to dismantle the piping between the Central Flame and the furnaces--they realized the pipes were easier to destroy than the furnaces themselves. This didn't trigger the blowback damage to the Central Flame, but it did reduce the number of moves he could make each round. 

Ultimately, this encounter's toughness was scaled a bit high for my PCs. A few of them were on death's door at the end of it. Because they had done significant damage to the Siege King as well, they managed to convince him to give up. The Siege King calmed the Central Flame down, in turn, and handed over Princess Sun's hair willingly. They all parted on good terms. One of the players has a crush on the Siege King (and vice versa). 

I really enjoy games where players can negotiate with monsters, make friends out of enemies, and end encounters without just pinging creatures down to their last HP. 

Maidens and the Moon: The Skeleton Castle

Another in my series of posts about my Zelda-esque campaign. I've been playtesting my heartbreaker using an amalgamation of blogs I like, Instagram artists that inspire me, and some A+ OSR modules. Read the big inspiration post before going on. 

And, again, there's material here that my players have not uncovered yet. If you're in my game, be ye warned that this way lies ruin(ed fun). 

I haven't done a ton to clean my notes up for public consumption. Apologies. This is a gritty glimpse into the way I make notes.

I have done some work to inject commentary on how the playtest went as the players went through the dungeon. Retrospective-ing is one of the reasons I'm mocking up these play reports.

The Skeleton Castle

The City of Gafferdy had a huge necropolis. Within its crypts, generations of dead were revered, respected, and consulted. 

When the Moon King rose, the dead roused too slowly to save the living. However, the necropolis succeeded in driving off the invaders and building the Walls of Ot. The powerful undead raised new ranks from the fallen and then fortified the city against further invasion.  They walled themselves off from the outside world, creating a city where the dead were the only citizens.

The necropolis limped away from City, crawling on skeletal arms. Now it waits in the Barrowlands, terrified of the living.

Playtest Note: I cover my Meatgrinder basics in this post.

I. Resources taxed
II. Resources taxed
III. Resources taxed
IV. Resources taxed
V. Resources taxed
VI. [Curiosity] Distantly, one of the bells of the necropolis tolls. It sends a shiver up your spine.
VII. [Curiosity] An obelisk bearing the ancient inscription (Cups 4 or Linguist to read): YVAIN - WHO TAMED THE SUN
VIII. [Curiosity] A sarcophagus wrought of many bones, depicting several skeletal hands reaching out towards a skeletal maiden. The inscription reads: HER LOYAL KNIGHTS NEVER LEFT HER SIDE
IX. [Curiosity] A beautifully carved statue of a nude queen, her modesty kept by her long hair, wearing only a crown of sun’s rays. The inscription reads: YLLYSA, COLD AS THE DEW, SWIFT AS THE DEER
X. [Curiosity] The cherubic faces of ghost children are illuminated by their tiny candles that they hold in their chubby little hands. They provide dim light.
XI. [Travel Event] A little grey kitty, the starveling cat, mews and runs through their feet and kneads at their bedroll and looks pitiful. Its ribs stick out. It looks hungry. 
If the PCs don't shoo it away, the starveling cat will begin to follow them everywhere. It hunts for itself and is generally agreeable, but will always hungrily eat any food offered it. They have a pet. 
XII. [Travel Event] Finely-dressed skeletons emerge from the ground. One plays the violin while the others try to dance with characters. If danced with for the entire time, skeletons sink back into ground leaving [discard coin] behind them. 
XIII. [Travel Event] “Hey new guys! Someone threw a bloated dog over the fence, and it’s gotten all stinky. Come grab a leg!” 
Skeletons assume PCs are fresh ghouls. Will grow suspicious if the PCs don’t want the gross dog.
XIV. [Travel Event] A gust of corpse wind and a swarm of skeletal bats extinguish and destroy all light sources. 
XV. [Travel Event] A ghoul’s head is undergoing cleaning by maggots, who are eating off his face. He can talk to you if you blow through his neck hole, and knows about a hidden door in this room that leads to treasure. 
XVI. [Encounter] [PC - 2] Hungry Coffins emerge from the ground. The zombies bear grave goods (two wedding rings, a gold tooth, an amethyst pendant, a pocket watch - ~20s a piece)
XVII. [Encounter] Blurmen trying to distance themselves from the cadaver wizards (each carrying 1 random spell component), but terrified to see the corpse dragging along behind them. Scattering, trying to hide. 
XVIII. [Encounter] Toe Gue Goola displaying the territorial aggression display; absolutely terrifying.
XIX. [Encounter] Phantoms weeping around a kingly corpse. The corpse has 500sp of jewelry and a cursed shield shaped like a woman's face.  The phantoms will haunt anybody that takes the treasure, weeping and pointing towards them. 
XX. [Encounter] Three Blood Liches solemnly removing the bones from a dead mammoth; they will bring them back to the Skeleton King. 
XXI. Ouzel

Monsters

Blood Lich (Stolen from Goblinpunch)
An ooze monster born from the blood of those that adventurers have killed. It seeks vengeance on those who killed it.
HD: 1 (but it doesn't matter)
Special: Immune to damage

This is a symbiotic organism formed between an undead skeleton and a necromantic slime.  The skeleton's bones are squishy, like lutefisk.  You can't hack it apart, and any injury it takes is automatically healed.  They don't even burn, and acid just makes them smell worse.  They're about as strong as a neurasthenic poet, so give them -2 to grappling or something.

Playtest Note: My PCs wasted an entire session trying to defeat the blood liches that shambled out in traditional ways: they tried iron and silver weapons, they tried torches, they targeted their heads and chests and arms. We ended the session mid-combat. The next session, they got serious. They trapped the blood liches in empty cells, shut them inside of iron maidens, and wrapped them up in chains. A+ monster, good job Arnold K.

Blurmen
A mimic that hides in the chest cavity of a wizard’s corpse. They are a meat puppet that knows at least one spell.
HD: 3, AC: Leather
Stats, generally as a mimic.
Special: Can cast 1-4 spells, randomly determined. Will drop the components of that spell if defeated.

Gripp
8 foot tall naked tattooed giants with huge hands.
Stats as an undead ogre in plate.

Each gripp has a particular obsession. Look at the discard pile to determine what this one’s is:
1. Food
2. Shiny Things
3. Beautiful People
4. Eyes
5. Stolen Things
6. String & Rope
7. Tools
8. Weapons
9. Clothing
10. Skin
11. Tongues
12. Maps
13. Potions
14. Pets

Ja Ja Ghoul
Ghosts that jump out of their pots to scare you. Cannot harm directly. Feast on souls of the dead. Less of a monster and more of an opportunity to telegraph danger nearby.

Omar
Friendly NPC. Half-man dog. Lord of Dogs/Slayer of Men. Agile, Loyal. Powerful. Love. Tame. Protect.
Stats: 5th level Fighter

Toe Gue Goola
A creature, roughly gorilla shaped, that walks on its hands and has small, stubby legs. It is robed in red with the symbol of an eye on it. Its hooded mouth is about where its face should be, and long red streamers blow out of it.
Stats generally as a zombie. Undead, with standard undead abilities.
Special: Each "tongue" is a unique curse. Can invoke a curse with a lick. 

Hungry Coffin (Stolen from Goblinpunch)
Essentially the police of Ot. If they perceive the PCs as being alive, it’s their job to undo that unfortunate state.

Phantoms (Stolen from Goblinpunch)

CRUMULA KREMELEN - THE SKELETON KING (Stolen from Patrick Stewart)

Like a man made of dandruff, or quarried from rocks with big crystals that got eroded away. How he has not worn away in full you do not know. Certainly dead, and rather worn. As dry as old lips. A black robe with silvery square stitch skulls staring out. The silver thread is fraying like guitar strings. One still has a needle forgotten in it. The robe has a bat-wing collar that has actual bats nesting in it. Maybe its just part of his look. A little black yarmulke kept on with a bright tack pin pushed into the skull (he doesn't seem to feel it). What Can He Do? He can raise the dead. He has a Death Touch; "It's a little black finger I have on my hand, don't let it poke you?" One poke kills you and makes a zombie. Two pokes makes your flesh fall off and makes a skeleton. Three pokes makes you dust. He can talk to spirits and find out creepy stuff about them if their parents didn't like them (this is why you should always be nice to your parents).

Wants: A new body. This one is being worn out. Hates: Solvents. Acids in particular. Backs away from wine, fears vinegar utterly. "I'm extremely alkali you know."

Zones of the Necropolis of Ot

The Necropolis of Ot with the Mausolem of Kings beneath the Skeleton Castle

Playtest Note: To set the stage for the "heist" part of the dungeon delve, I established the Necropolis of Ot as a mostly-friendly city-crawl. The players took in an enormous amount of uncontextualized lore dump and generally got into trouble, which is what PCs are wont to do.

The Walls of Ot
The obstacle of the Skeleton Castle is getting past the Walls of Ot. It is a low stone wall. Any living thing that passes over the Walls of Ot dies. Only the dead may pass freely. The Walls of Ot are very easy to destroy, but the curse is deadly...

Weeping pilgrims with side quests:

• Lumbering Jack, a lumberjack, wants to ask his brother, Laboring Jim, about where their father’s axe is. He’s a big kitten and weeps openly.
• The axe is in the Forest of Drood, stolen by the shamanders. (The elf of the well now has it.)
• Madam Millicent wants her late husband’s, Master Mellious, permission to remarry. Asks for a concrete sign.
• He takes off his wedding band and gives it to you to give back to her.
• Can also sell the wedding band, if you’re bad.
• Fable and Mavel, two quarreling raccoon half-men twins, want to ask their father, Nigel A Racoon Sneaking, to settle an inheritance dispute. WHO should own the family’s secret ale recipe?
• They were supposed to split it and open up a tavern together. This would make them get closer.

The pilgrims will thank the PCs with 50s (each).

None of the pilgrims know how to get into the necropolis, but they’ll see an undead parrot squawking when its mentioned.

Near the Walls of Ot, there are several things (graffiti, undead parrot) that mention how Modest Madroff the Smuggler can smuggle you into the Skeleton Castle.

It's easy to track down Modest Madroff.  He died five years ago, and was buried in the cemetery back at the Wicked City.

Playtest Notes: The NPCs waiting outside of the death wall is exactly the sort of warning sign you need to make sure that PCs don't cross over a horrible death wall and die. The PCs enjoyed these NPCs, grokked their "deals," and made (unfulfilled) oaths to solve their problems. Once the PCs got into the necropolis, shit hit the fan (as it does). As near as I know, these NPCs are still waiting outside of the wall to this very day.

The Lucky Pig Statue
A copper pig statue, smiling and winking. Around its neck, a (copper) braided rope and bell. The bell says “Lucky” in an ancient mode. A slot on its back obviously accepts coins.

• Every [Castles Cleared]+2 silver placed into the statue, a journal page extrudes from the pig’s mouth.
• The journal pages are from the Knight with the Pentangle Shield
• Trying to pry open the lucky pig causes the pig to squeal. This is a magical effect and triggers a Wandering Monster’s check.
• Unless carefully disarmed, acid floods the pig’s stomach and ruins the remaining pages.

Playtest Note: As I said, I borrowed the monsters or the campaign from AyeJay_Make_Art. Because they've made all this cool art and lore bits, I've printed them out for my players. At every castle is a Lucky Pig--a little pig vending machine with scrolls inside. Put in coin, get out scroll. My players have gone nuts about this. They're assembling a pokedex with all the monsters they might encounter. When I describe a blurman as a "droplet of red goo oozing out of the chest cavity of a desiccated wizard," they say "Wait, didn't we have a scroll about that?" and they all turn in their in-character book. Their little faces are so cute as they light up. I love giving players information up front.

Tomb of the Queen
Her tomb (built after her disappearance, at her instructions) reads, "A queen, a life, a guide, a light.  She will be missed."Under this inscription is a “carving” of a key.

• This is a clue to where she is located: in the lighthouse.
• The key is real and can be removed from the tomb.
• The tomb is empty if searched.

Playtest Note: This was a good level of a obfuscation for my PCs. They looted the key, intuited that there was something to do at the lighthouse, and updated their mental note that "something was up."

Plague Inn
Three friendly diseases trying to invent a cure for themselves. They struggle with human language+culture, adorably.

They want to throw parties and invite all those delightful humans over, but their guests keep dying on them.  This makes them sad.  It was rude of the guests to die at the party, but it was also rude of them to infect their hosts.

Malaria is busy replanting orchids in the garden amid a cloud of mosquitos. She is furious at Lord Cholera's sabotage of her work. She wears a bishop's mitre.
Likes: Gardening, being cozy, humans and their little cute ears
Wants: To make the inn a nice, cozy, homey place

Anthrax loiters in the boudoir, lounging on a couch. She is a bit worried about Sister Malaria, who used to be so much fun. Her plague cauldron simmers in the fireplace.  She wears a wimple.
Likes: Parties, drugs and booze
Wants: To make the inn a fun place to hang out

Cholera sits in the dining room, gnawing bones and writing terrible poetry. He is looking for someone to read it to, now that Anthrax has begun acting so strangely. With a talon-like toenail, stirs the frothy mixture in his plague tureen. He wears a tricorn hat.
Likes: Art, poetry
Wants: To make the inn an art collective
Dislikes: Frivolous people, normies

Staying in their presence is dangerous, but they know how to solve most riddles of the Skeleton Castle.

The Plague Inn should have one of the following groups visiting each time you visit:

• S: A group of vikings are drinking mead and weeping about how they all killed each other, and agreeing about just how honorable they all are.
  (Playtest Note: My PCs managed to start a huge tavern brawl by accidentally casting a lightning bolt on everybody in the tavern, including the vikings. The vikings HULKED OUT and proceded to have a real fight. Things totally went to shit, with spells totally destroying the poor tavern.)
• P: Modest Madoff is drinking rum with his pirate companions, the Drownies (sea-weed covered). They’re swapping big fish stories. Laboring Jim, a skeleton with a dented skull, is carving one of the Drownies a peg leg.
• C: A group of animal skeletons (maskless) are gambling and arguing. Anybody with 4 Pentacles notices a raccoon skeleton (Nigel A Racoon Sneaking) is rolling the bones with a trick toss.
• W: A group of skeletons is posing for Cholera as he tries to paint “unlife - between still life and the quick life.” One of these skeletons is Master Mellious.
  (Playtest Note: My PCs managed to meet Master Mellious and get his permission for his widow. This was a simple and fun quest.)

Side Quest: The plague triplets have heard that garden golems are managing another inn in the Drood Forest. It’s said they cultivate all sorts of herbs--maybe some that will help them find cures for themself. They offer you 220 silver if you bring them back healing herbs from the Garden Inn.

Playtest Notes: I thought this would be a fun little hub with evocative NPCs and a chance to roleplay. Boy howdy, I was wrong. Because of a subsystem in my game where sorcerers can make magical oaths which prompt spell failures when they're broken, one of PCs accidentally unleashed a lightning storm onto the vikings. The vikings were pissed and because the event happened in a "city" where people could go "guards! guards!" eventually the whole thing broke down into being hauled before the SKELETON KING.

These are the sorts of twists that make roleplaying fun for me. A little setting with non-hostile NPCs can suddenly turn sideways from the interesting interaction between mechanics and player choice.

The Well of Lethe
In the center of a pool of milky white water is the huge, porcelain woman with a cracked, burned, and scarred face.

• Milky fluid gushes from her fractured skull.
• By drinking of this water, all memories are irrevocably annihilated.
• Undead that drink of this water enter the cycle of rebirth.
• The waters of this underground river power the avatars of Ot.
• Phantoms have gathered around to drink the milky fluid.
• It trickles through their flesh-less hands.
• Blurring their fingers into spectral rainbows.
• They want the PCs to feed them milky fluid.
• If they do, they enter the cycle of rebirth.
• If they fail to do so, they become enraged and haunt the PCs.
• PCs emerge from the river near here if they ride in on Modest Madoff’s ship.

Playtest Notes: At least a few PCs filled hermetic bottles with lethe water and used it to put some kings into their final rest in room 7 of the Mausoleum of Kings.

Skeleton Castle
The skeleton castle has grown up around the original mausoleum of kings. It is impossible to get to the mausoleum without going through the castle.

• If the PCs just try to walk into the castle, they will be stopped by skeleton guards.

If they meet with the THE SKELETON KING: The Skeleton King, Crumula Kremelen, is friendly if cowardly. He is firm about not allowing the PCs to enter his castle to take the interred memory of his great-great-great, etc., granddaughter. Her memory is an honored guest, protected by the gargoyle golem that serves as the watchdog for the royal dead.

• The Skeleton King is genuinely surprised if the PCs reveal they are alive. 
• “Goodness. How did the living come here?”
• The Skeleton King is terrified of the Siege Castle.
• “If it rouses itself, we’re doomed!”
• ... and acids.
• “I’m terribly basic you know.”
• If the PCs try to kill the Skeleton King, he does not resist. He welcomes them to try.
• Will only use his Death Touch as the very, very last resort. Doesn’t care what happens to him.
• DOES care what happens to the memory of his heir.
• If they attempt, he takes them into his castle himself...as PRISONERS. Then it becomes a jailbreak scenario.
• The Skeleton King calls up hungry coffins to capture the PCs.
• The dungeons of the Skeleton Castle are analogous to the Larders of Ill Omen and Catacombs of Ravenloft.

Whereas the Skeleton King is loathe to kill them directly, the laws of his land allow him to imprison law breakers for ten-thousand years--a stint long enough for them to learn their lesson.

Playtest Note: You never know what players are going to do. I had imagined that the PCs would treat this as essentially a stealth scenario--sneak into the Skeleton Castle and then into the Mausoleum of Kings. They were well positioned to do this. However, they instead pleaded with the Skeleton King to give them Princess Sun's memory. This was something that the Skeleton King was very against, and the players offered not collateral or incentives. As such, they were imprisoned, and the whole affair became a protracted jailbreak. This is definitely not how I had imagined things going down (they never are), and reminds me that role-playing games are a special medium because it's fun for both the "storyteller" and players.

The Mausoleum of Kings
In a garden atrium inside the Skeleton Castle sits the Mausoleum of Kings, built by the Old King Ot for himself.

Depictions of the mythological first queen and king of Gafferdy are displayed on a mosaic on the outside walls of the  mausoleum: the Conquering Queen and the Seer King. As you travel around the walls, you see the outline of their story: uniting the city states under the rule of Gafferdy, the visions and madness of the Seer King, the Seer King holding the city of Gafferdy against his wife’s siege, each dying on each other’s blades.

• Entering the mausoleum takes you to a set of wide, shallow stone stairs that descend into darkness.
• Much of the mausoleum is like a drowned church: a flooded cathedral library. Everything is stained by meta-text.
• Doors in the mausoleum are stained-glass angel-windows. They appear on the walls, ceiling, or floor.
• Submerged windows miraculously support the weight of what is above them.
• Access to the angel windows requires a skeletal eye.
• You can learn this by observing skeletal librarians move around.
• The angels animate, look down, scan their eye sockets with a beam of light, and become partially transparent.

Threat Response Level
The Mausoleum works like a hive.

• Inside, skeletons will not automatically attack.
• Instead, certain actions increase the castle’s threat response.
• Action that increase the threat response  include:
• Damaging the structure
• Damaging the active elements
• Interrupting the work of the active elements
• Magic cast inside the castle
• Taking the Memory of Princess Sun raises the threat level to 5, where it remains
• It’s hard to get out

Playtest Note: The Mausoleum was designed with a "heist" mentality. The PCs had effective disguises and an excuse to be there. I had imagined that they would try and blend in, walk through the dungeon, and then have the dungeon become hostile once they had taken their prize. Easy in, hard exit. However, the players essentially had some critical failures in the first room and thus Benny Hill'd their way through the dungeon, kiting monsters in their wake.

1. The Archive
Shelves of ancient, poorly kept scrolls.

• The paperwork is largely useless to the PCs. It details things like supplies in the library, rotas for the librarians, and so on.

Two gripps guard the entrance to the mausoleum and will attack living creatures. The gripps are ensorcled to prioritize the wellfare of scrolls to intruders, though, and will rush to right any messes or dangers to the archive before dealing with the living.

An ornate lectern, raised on a slight platform. On it, open, a large book..

• Each corner of the book’s cover is fastened to the lectern, and the lectern is bolted to the floor. When no-body is observing it, it gives a soft creak or gentle rattle, as if straining against restraints.
• The book is called: Lessons of House Cat and Tiger.
• A text detailing the techniques of a lost martial art. Somebody with Swords 4 who reads the book becomes is able to treat his hands as daggers as long as he takes a stance that requires 3 belt slots.
• This version, however, is dangerous. Reading it results in paper-cuts as the pages twist awk-wardly beneath your fingers, dealing 1 damage for each turn spent reading. If two corners of the book are unfastened (perhaps in order to remove it), the book animates and rips itself free of its bindings.
• Furious Book
• 3 HD
• Can levitate. Immune to poison, cold, backstabs and other things that need the victim to be alive. Double damage from fire.
• Major Dooms: A Wound instead deals damage to Cups. Each time this happens, the book gains another chapter and a half-inch of thickness.

Skeleton archivists, holding tiny candles, mostly ignore the PCs. They bustle around, going from one room to another by way of the angel-windows.

• They are intelligent, and self-aware, but single-mindedly devoted to their task. If you engage with them while they work, they will happily talk with you, and prove to be well-educated and philosophical. Many of their conversations among themselves take an existential bent.

Playtest Note: A badly told lie in this room alerted the gripps that the PCs were intruders. This was the start of bad things for them. Chased by gripps, the PCs hurried to room 2.

2. The Scriptorium Eternum
Skeleton archivists here do the work of writing the histories of kings and queens of Gafferdy forever. Lit by an oil lamp.

A blurman is restrained here by the skeleton archivists. (The magical inks are derived from mimic blood.) The blurman has gotten free, and several skeletal archivists are struggling with it.

• Help the blurman escape or help the archivists restrain it.

Five large brass vats of ink, tops open to the air, rest nearby. On the sides of each vat is a tap, labelled, that allows you to refill an inkwell or bottle from the vat.

• The black ink is mundane.
• The red ink stings when touched: anything written on flesh in it appears as if it were a birthmark or scar.
• The green ink permanently stains anything it touches, and can never be washed off.
• The blue ink is invisible during the daytime.
• The purple infernal ink can be used to write infernal contracts. Any contract written in this ink is magically binding. Every signatory on the contract instinctively knows if anybody else has broken the contract as soon as it happens.

Playtest Note: My players, on the run from gripps in room 1, just sprinted through this room.

3. The Hall of Justicars
A ruined statue of Justice dominates an Escher-esque courthouse. Water stands on the floor about hip high.

• Robes stained black from inky water.
• Jaw cracked, head slumped at a distressing angle.
• Riddled with man-size maggot holes.
• Sword is broken.
• Her scales replaced with gibbets, from which two naked corpses hang, one slightly heavier than the other.

There is a terminal in the front-center of the statue. Tiles marked with letters a -z, numbers 0-9 and punctuation, that can be pushed. Above the tiles, there is a slot from which emerges a long ribbon of paper that winds down into a pile on the floor, like ticker-tape. A mechanical pen writes onto the paper ribbon as more is extruded.

• It is, effectively, a necrotic computer.
• Pushing a tile results in a series of clicks and new wheels within the machine starting to turn. You can type things into the engine using these tiles.
• Anything the players type in is input to the calculation engine. The output will be written on the paper ribbon, extruded out into the pile. The players can read the response, which will vary depending on what input they used.
• If the players input a fact that is known to be true (which is to say, correctly recorded as factual in any book anywhere in the world), the response is: ###Data Confirmed###
• If the players input a fact that is known to be false (which is to say, correctly refuted in any book anywhere in the world), the response is: ###Data Contradictory###
• If the players input a question to which no answer is recorded in any book anywhere in the world, the response is: ###Data Not Found###
• If the players input anything which is neither a stated fact nor a question, the response is: ###Unknown Input### ###Recalibrating###

As the PCs move through the room or ask 3+ questions from the computer, a blood lich comes squirming out of the statue’s mouth. More follow from its gross holes.

• The blood liches gasp one thing: “You don’t remember us?”

Obvious Exit: A portcullis blocks the entrance to the Flooded Halls.

Playtest Notes: My players missed this room. Remember kids, Jayquaying your dungeons mean that players might skip whole sections of content.

4. The Flooded Halls
Once part of the Mausoleum, the River Lethe has flooded into the mausoleum and ruined the greater part of the archives. It has been abandoned and sealed off.

Stacks of shelves, Tetris-like, on top of each other. Rising, inky black water roars underneath.
There’s nowhere to go but down. It’s pitch black.

• Diving into the water ruins anything that’s vulnerable to water or ink.
• PCs can make essentially 4 actions while holding their breath. Thereafter, they suffer 1 (Piercing) Wound for action taken.
• It takes a successful Cups action to make it down to the next floor.
• Someone who has gone before can lead the rest of the group.
• Anyone swallowing the water for whatever reason loses their memories from that day. They wake up with a start, forgetting everything from the last Camp action.
• It is, after all, Lethe water mixed with other pollutants.

5. The Hall of Urns
Each shelf ends with a china urn containing the ashes of a minor noble.

• Each urn has the death mask sculpted into it.
• Labelled with their name, and the date of their death.

Ja ja ghouls pop out of their urns as you pass them. First two ranks test Wands or drop whatever they’re holding as they pass by. This happens before you resolve the Meatgrinder.

This area is damp and water damaged. Everything smells moldy, old, and cold.

• The floor here is rotten. If 2+ people walk in the middle at the same time, it collapses and dumps everybody into the Hall of Kings. Everybody takes 2 damage.

If carefully searched, ancient coins totally 312 silver can be found in the jars.

Playtest Note: Running from the encounters in rooms 1 and 2, the players kited a bunch of enemies onto the rotten flood and collapsed the floor and fell down into room 7.

6. The Embalmer and the Ossuary
Outside this room, urns of ja ja ghouls are sitting, stacked on top of each other. They howl at you, ineffectively.

A terrible smell of rotting corpses, dust, and embalming fluid.

• Do you remember dissecting a frog from high school? It’s like that.

Pile of fresh bodies which two gripps are currently loading into the Embalmer.On the other side of the room is an ossuary.

• Alcoves of  perfectly preserved, beautifully arranged mummies set into walls of skeletal art.
• If carefully searched, the pile of bodies has 458 silver and a small handful of silver jewelry (1 slot worth 100 silver).

The Embalmer hides in the shadow of the ceiling until someone gets close to it.

• The Embalmer is a huge ebony skull with a splash of molten gold on its face. It has five titanic arms extruding from neck, which it uses to prepare bodies for entombment.
• Anyone Wounding a Talent receives one of the following:

1. Skeleton Arm
2. Skeleton Leg
3. Huge mummy arm
4. Mummified mermaid lowerbody
5. Trepaning - Permanent Wizard Vision, but also permanent mental scar 
6. Flayed Skull  (can open angel windows, but disfavor forever from social interactions)
7. Critical hit (starts pulling your brain out from your nose)

7. The Hall of Ten Kings
A low iron door made of a snarling skull.

• Not trapped, but difficult to open. The rusted hinges howl in protest.

A large room, dimly lit by brass-caged flames along the outer walls. 110'x100', 20' ceilings. Four enormous pillars, crudely chipped into shape, support the roof.

Ten corpses, wrapped in bandages and covered in dry resin, rest in on corroded bronze thrones, each in their own alcove.

• Their names and details are not important, though a character well versed in mythology or history may remember their mythic deeds.
• 1 - Rheman, carrying a severed, crowned head.
• 2 - Tarquin, carrying an iron tablet.
• 3 - Marcus, carrying a masonry trowel and block of stone.
• 4 - Severus, carrying an iron scythe.
• 5 - Lucius, carrying a staff with the symbol of the sun.
• 6 - Vibus, carrying an iron chain with shackles.
• 7 - Allectius, carrying an iron shovel.
• 8 - Caelius, a pair of iron tongs.
• 9 - Priscus, a broken iron sword.
• 10 - Gnomon, an iron cauldron.

Stairs, crudely carved, lead upwards to a giant bronze statue of a gargoyle. On her outstretched tongue is a coal shaped like a brain; it burns.

• If the memory-coal-brain in the gargoyle’s mouth is touched, the brass lamps flare as the Ten Kings awake. If players ignore the memory and smash the corpses of the Ten Kings, they can spend 2 rounds destroying corpses before the remaining Kings awaken and Phase 1 begins.

Phase 1: The Ten Kings (Skerped from Skerples)

They lurch to their feet, resin and rotting fabric falling to the ground.

Ten Kings Stats
HD: 1
Appearance: ancient kings in thin gold crowns. Their armor and robes are streaked with blue-green from their corroding thrones. Their steps are slow, but they do not stumble or stoop. Even in death they are proud.
Wants: to destroy interlopers, protect the wolf statue.
Armor: as chain
Move: 1/2 normal
Morale: 12

The Ten Kings are not very strong. In the end, they are just ten skeletons. They move slowly and can be herded into a group or picked off one by one. They will target anyone holding the key first.

When the last of the Ten Kings falls, Phase 2 begins.

Phase 2: The Gargoyle
A few moments after the last of the Ten Kings is destroyed, the Gargoyle awakens. She shakes herself with a screech of iron, raises her head, and howls. Her howl grows louder and louder, cruel and metallic, and then shrieks into a orange jet of flame. The howl cuts off. She lowers her head, scans the PCs, looks directly at the best armed PC, and charges.

The Gargoyle Stats
HD: 10
Cast in bronze, with iron teeth and iron eyes. Fire drips from her jaws. Her  neck is covered with carved rings like chainmail instead. Her eyes never close and her expression never changes. Wants: blood and conquest and death.
Armor: Immune to iron weapons.
Move: normal Morale: 12

Attacks:
The gargoyle will only deliberately harm people with visible weapons. She will stare with unblinking eyes at swords and other weapons, ignoring everything else. Anything that a PC intends to use to harm the gargoyle counts as a weapon, including spellcasting implements.

Each round, the gargoyle makes one attack from the list below. She can also move up to 30'. She will try to isolate, corner, and devour the most powerful and violent PCs first.

Minor Dooms:
+Leap Back: If surrounded, the Gargoyle leaps back 20', swiping with one paw. A single target is Attacked.
+Devour: Can only be used on a prone, incapacitated, or pinned PC. The Gargoyle spends the entire round clawing and biting them, dealing 3 Wounds. If this kills the PC, the Gargoyle heals +1 Wound for each iron weapon or piece of armor the PC had.

Major Dooms:
+Charge: The Gargoyle moves up to 20' in a straight line towards a single target. Anyone she passes over (including the Ten Kings) takes a Wound. Whoever the Gargoyle lands on is knocked prone.
+Howl: The Gargoyle pauses and howls. 1d3 of the Kings lurch back to their feet. They are stunned for one round, but attack normally at the start of the next round.


Phase 3: The Gargoyle Bloodied

When the gargoyle suffers 5 Wounds, she pauses for one round and howls again. Black smoke and dark orange flames burst from her wounds. In the middle of each round she also makes one of the attacks below.

+Flame Burst: Anybody engaged with the Gargoyle suffers a Wound as intense heat erupts from her.
+Brutal Cough: The Gargoyle belches up a 40' cone of flame. Anything in the cone suffers a fire Attack,The pillars block the flame.


When the gargoyle is killed, she makes on final Flame Burst attack and slowly melts.

The burning coal of memory flickers dangerously low after the gargoyle has been dispatched.

Loot
The Gargoyle's ten iron teeth can be used as arrowheads or forged into a weapon. On a hit, they burst with flame, dealing fire damage.

The ten thin gold crowns of the kings, assuming they were not melted by the Gargoyle’s flames, are worth 200gp each.

Playtest Note: The gargoyle and the ten kings were an appropriate challenge for my party--daunting, but not insurmountable if the PCs are careful and tactical. The multiple stages of combat were fun and kept a "throneroom" battle interesting.