Writing a Dungeon Fantasy adventure with everything—literally

Michael Thayne · 07-13-2019, 12:06 AM

In a bout of silliness, I decided to try sketching out a premise for a Dungeon Fantasy RPG adventure/campaign that uses literally every monster from the original boxed set. I'm actually pretty happy with what I came up with. Further ideas—say, about incorporating specific magic items and traps, or monsters from Monsters 2—are greatly appreciated. Or just ideas on how to flesh things out, because this is very skeletal:

The adventure begins as a wilderness adventure in the Frozen North. This, of course, should be an excuse for any number of random encounters (mainly with trolls and any plant or animal monsters not being saved for a later point in the adventure), but there should also be a map with a number of prepared set-pieces. For example:

A cave system that functions as a “mini-dungeon”, positioned in a way that makes it a tempting shortcut if the PCs can survive the monsters inside, which notably include an ice wyrm, a colony of foul bats with a demonic leader, and a bugbear who maintains the cave system’s traps.
A grove of trees considered sacred by the local wildmen. If the PCs don’t realize what they’re seeing and find another route, they’ll have to fight a group of wildmen led by a powerful druidic shaman who knows every druidic spell with a prerequisite of PI 3 or less, commanding a several bears and a whole pack of dire wolves.
A draug with some good equipment to tempt the PCs into trying to loot its body.
A farmhouse that appears to have a friendly family willing to offer the PCs a safe place to rest—but the family is actually a group of throttlers.

Next comes the main dungeon. The dungeon is partially—but not entirely—controlled by the Legion of Doom, which has stationed a fire-breathing dragon, siege beasts, and orcs with tripod crossbows to guard the main entrance to the dungeon. A frontal assault should be obviously suicidal, giving the PCs reason to find a side entrance in the form of a secret door.

The secret side entrance will take the PCs through parts of the dungeon not controlled by the Legion of Doom. These parts of the dungeon have a mix of traps which do not discriminate between good and evil intruders, as well as monsters who are without exception either too unintelligent or too cursed to organize themselves in any fashion. These include literally every variety of demon and slime, as well as giant rats, a stone golem, a horrid skull, a specter, and a spirit guardian. Oh, and things like bronze spiders and earth elementals occasionally come tunneling through the dungeon, too.

Sneaking through the “disorganized” section of the dungeon lets the PCs play Die Hard in a Dungeon with the portion of the Legion of Doom that’s taken up residence inside the dungeon. That means skeletons, zombies, corpse golems, a golem-armor swordsman, some gargoyles, a werewolf, a few orgres and minotaurs, and a seemingly endless supply of the three main types of goblin-kin, all led by a lich-queen who knows every spell in Spells and some forbidden secret rituals besides. The Legion also has lions and gladiator apes that it can set loose on enemies, but not control in any meaningful sense.

No matter what happens, though, the PC shouldn’t be able to have their final showdown with the lich in the dungeon. The reason the Legion of Doom is in the dungeon in the first place is that the lich realized the dungeon contained a portal to a tropical island ruled by a dark god whose power she hopes to harness. After the PCs have had a chance to skirmish with the Legion of Doom some, the bulk of the Legion goes through the portal, taking most of their treasure with them. (If necessary, this can happen as part of fleeing a losing fight with the PCs, if things are going unexpectedly well for the PCs.)

If the PCs follow (and what treasure-hungry delver wouldn’t?), they’ll have a chance to encounter ciuaclan, Demons from Between the Stars, dinomen, electric jellies, elementals, flesh-eating apes, giant apes, horde pygmies, leaping leeches, lizard men (riding slorn, naturally), slugbeasts, tigers, trigers, vampires, and anything not included included in the adventure yet for being too “tropical” in nature.

For the final act, after a lengthy ritual the lich-queen is close to harnessing the power of the dark god which will allow her forces to invade any part of the world they choose, when it all goes horribly wrong. The lice-queen essentially breaks time and space on the island, and suddenly there are Elder Things everywhere. The only saving grace is they’re not all cooperating with each other: the eyes of death and spheres of madness in fact are mainly concerned with killing each other. A bigger problem is the mindwarper that shows up with an army of void brutes…

Dalin · 07-13-2019, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

In a bout of silliness, I decided to try sketching out a premise for a Dungeon Fantasy RPG adventure/campaign that uses literally every monster from the original boxed set.

More silliness! This was fun to read.

In one of Yssa's adventures, we encountered Horde Pygmies who were coming through a portal from their far off tropical island home. It was a fun element and we've been back to the island at least once for side adventures.

Michael Thayne · 07-13-2019, 09:41 AM

One thing I had trouble fitting in to my initial sketch was horde zombies. It feels kind of hard to differentiate them from the regular kind, unless there's a large supply of innocent villagers nearby the zombies could potentially convert, touching off a zombie apocalypse. Maybe part of the coda could be that all the goblin-kin and pygmies and such that die on the evil god's island rise as horde zombies, and if any escape back through the portal they could touch off a zombie apocalypse, giving the adventure a very clear "save the world" aspect.

Yssa · 07-13-2019, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dalin

In one of Yssa's adventures, we encountered Horde Pygmies who were coming through a portal from their far off tropical island home.

Just for fun, I mounted some of these pygmies on the backs of flesh eating apes.

Here are my notes on that: Pygmies ride the apes backs; can shoot any direction except straight back. Ape provides partial cover from the front: must target head to hit, otherwise, damage goes directly to the Ape instead. Ape can parry/dodge even if the Pygmy is targeted. Pygmies might flee before apes; Any major uncounciousness or stun would cause them to fall. Knockback would require a DX check to hold on. Apes are under an animal control spell from a pygmy shaman, if that spell is interrupted/broken for some reason, the apes would turn on the pygmies.

Dalin · 07-13-2019, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yssa

Just for fun, I mounted some of these pygmies on the backs of flesh eating apes.]

Ah, yes, that was a great encounter!

Joe · 07-13-2019, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

In a bout of silliness, I decided to try sketching out a premise for a Dungeon Fantasy RPG adventure/campaign that uses literally every monster from the original boxed set. I'm actually pretty happy with what I came up with.

This was fun, Michael!

Dalin · 07-14-2019, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

One thing I had trouble fitting in to my initial sketch was horde zombies. It feels kind of hard to differentiate them from the regular kind, unless there's a large supply of innocent villagers nearby the zombies could potentially convert, touching off a zombie apocalypse. Maybe part of the coda could be that all the goblin-kin and pygmies and such that die on the evil god's island rise as horde zombies, and if any escape back through the portal they could touch off a zombie apocalypse, giving the adventure a very clear "save the world" aspect.

I like the idea of horde zombies being part of the island somehow. The save the world aspect is good for this type of adventure.

The encounters on the island might be differentiated into different regions or mini-dungeons. Perhaps the delvers could discover clues to the destruction of the lich in the evacuated dungeon before heading through the portal. They need to get some number of MacGuffins that are hidden in shrines around the island. (Pieces of a shattered amulet?) One shrine is in the region controlled by giant apes (and horde pygmies or whatever). Another is in the perpetual darkness of the haunted jungle (lair of vampires and demons from between the stars). This could provide a way to group the remaining monsters into clusters with any leftovers populating random encounter tables. Another benefit here is that it might make story sense for the amulet (even if incomplete) to be the object that disrupts the final ritual of the lich. Alas, the prophecy (or whatever) didn't mention the side effect of ripping open time and space.

Michael Thayne · 07-14-2019, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dalin

The encounters on the island might be differentiated into different regions or mini-dungeons. Perhaps the delvers could discover clues to the destruction of the lich in the evacuated dungeon before heading through the portal. They need to get some number of MacGuffins that are hidden in shrines around the island. (Pieces of a shattered amulet?) One shrine is in the region controlled by giant apes (and horde pygmies or whatever). Another is in the perpetual darkness of the haunted jungle (lair of vampires and demons from between the stars). This could provide a way to group the remaining monsters into clusters with any leftovers populating random encounter tables. Another benefit here is that it might make story sense for the amulet (even if incomplete) to be the object that disrupts the final ritual of the lich. Alas, the prophecy (or whatever) didn't mention the side effect of ripping open time and space.

Hmmm. IMHO it might be better to have just one McGuffin, "N pieces of a shattered amulet" feels too much like a video game. Ciualán, Demons from Between the Stars, and obsidian jaguars are all natural guardians of an ancient abandoned temple. You could also throw in a whole mob of variant vampires with Supernatural Durability instead of Unkillable, who start out at -5xHP because the civilization they used to rule over collapsed and they're starving. This means that initially they have Move 4 and Dodge 6, and can be killed by a single point of fire damage, but if one somehow managed to suck a few adventurers dry it could get a big upgrade to its threat level. Make the temple the sort built near an active volcano so sacrifices can be thrown into it, and you could justify having some fire elementals around.

Everything else would be "wilderness encounters". You could force more of those on the PCs by having the portal to the Steamy South go haywire when the PCs step through it, so they come out somewhere slightly different than the Legion of Doom.

Michael Thayne · 07-14-2019, 11:09 PM

You know what would be a great McGuffin for an adventure involving a lich? A meteoric iron longsword which isn't just magic-proof, but cuts off anyone injured by it from all forms of magic for 1 second. That means no spells, and nothing affected by mana/sanctity/Nature's strength. Which include's the lich's Unkillable ability.

07-13-2019, 12:06 AM	#1
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	Writing a Dungeon Fantasy adventure with everything—literally In a bout of silliness, I decided to try sketching out a premise for a *Dungeon Fantasy RPG* adventure/campaign that uses literally every monster from the original boxed set. I'm actually pretty happy with what I came up with. Further ideas—say, about incorporating specific magic items and traps, or monsters from *Monsters 2—are greatly appreciated. Or just ideas on how to flesh things out, because this is very skeletal: The adventure begins as a wilderness adventure in the Frozen North. This, of course, should be an excuse for any number of random encounters (mainly with trolls and any plant or animal monsters not being saved for a later point in the adventure), but there should also be a map with a number of prepared set-pieces. For example: A cave system that functions as a “mini-dungeon”, positioned in a way that makes it a tempting shortcut if the PCs can survive the monsters inside, which notably include an ice wyrm, a colony of foul bats with a demonic leader, and a bugbear who maintains the cave system’s traps. A grove of trees considered sacred by the local wildmen. If the PCs don’t realize what they’re seeing and find another route, they’ll have to fight a group of wildmen led by a powerful druidic shaman who knows every* druidic spell with a prerequisite of PI 3 or less, commanding a several bears and a whole pack of dire wolves. A draug with some good equipment to tempt the PCs into trying to loot its body. A farmhouse that appears to have a friendly family willing to offer the PCs a safe place to rest—but the family is actually a group of throttlers. Next comes the main dungeon. The dungeon is partially—but not entirely—controlled by the Legion of Doom, which has stationed a fire-breathing dragon, siege beasts, and orcs with tripod crossbows to guard the main entrance to the dungeon. A frontal assault should be obviously suicidal, giving the PCs reason to find a side entrance in the form of a secret door. The secret side entrance will take the PCs through parts of the dungeon not controlled by the Legion of Doom. These parts of the dungeon have a mix of traps which do not discriminate between good and evil intruders, as well as monsters who are without exception either too unintelligent or too cursed to organize themselves in any fashion. These include literally every variety of demon and slime, as well as giant rats, a stone golem, a horrid skull, a specter, and a spirit guardian. Oh, and things like bronze spiders and earth elementals occasionally come tunneling through the dungeon, too. Sneaking through the “disorganized” section of the dungeon lets the PCs play Die Hard in a Dungeon with the portion of the Legion of Doom that’s taken up residence inside the dungeon. That means skeletons, zombies, corpse golems, a golem-armor swordsman, some gargoyles, a werewolf, a few orgres and minotaurs, and a seemingly endless supply of the three main types of goblin-kin, all led by a lich-queen who knows every spell in *Spells* and some forbidden secret rituals besides. The Legion also has lions and gladiator apes that it can set loose on enemies, but not control in any meaningful sense. No matter what happens, though, the PC shouldn’t be able to have their final showdown with the lich in the dungeon. The reason the Legion of Doom is in the dungeon in the first place is that the lich realized the dungeon contained a portal to a tropical island ruled by a dark god whose power she hopes to harness. After the PCs have had a chance to skirmish with the Legion of Doom some, the bulk of the Legion goes through the portal, taking most of their treasure with them. (If necessary, this can happen as part of fleeing a losing fight with the PCs, if things are going unexpectedly well for the PCs.) If the PCs follow (and what treasure-hungry delver wouldn’t?), they’ll have a chance to encounter ciuaclan, Demons from Between the Stars, dinomen, electric jellies, elementals, flesh-eating apes, giant apes, horde pygmies, leaping leeches, lizard men (riding slorn, naturally), slugbeasts, tigers, trigers, vampires, and anything not included included in the adventure yet for being too “tropical” in nature. For the final act, after a lengthy ritual the lich-queen is close to harnessing the power of the dark god which will allow her forces to invade any part of the world they choose, when it all goes horribly wrong. The lice-queen essentially breaks time and space on the island, and suddenly there are Elder Things everywhere. The only saving grace is they’re not all cooperating with each other: the eyes of death and spheres of madness in fact are mainly concerned with killing each other. A bigger problem is the mindwarper that shows up with an army of void brutes… Last edited by Michael Thayne; 07-13-2019 at 08:30 AM.

07-13-2019, 09:41 AM	#3
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	Re: Writing a Dungeon Fantasy adventure with everything—literally One thing I had trouble fitting in to my initial sketch was horde zombies. It feels kind of hard to differentiate them from the regular kind, unless there's a large supply of innocent villagers nearby the zombies could potentially convert, touching off a zombie apocalypse. Maybe part of the coda could be that all the goblin-kin and pygmies and such that die on the evil god's island rise as horde zombies, and if any escape back through the portal they could touch off a zombie apocalypse, giving the adventure a very clear "save the world" aspect.

07-14-2019, 11:09 PM	#9
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	Re: Writing a Dungeon Fantasy adventure with everything—literally You know what would be a great McGuffin for an adventure involving a lich? A meteoric iron longsword which isn't just magic-proof, but cuts off anyone injured by it from all forms of magic for 1 second. That means no spells, and nothing affected by mana/sanctity/Nature's strength. Which include's the lich's Unkillable ability.