Dungeon23: Week 1

Welcome back to the Lair!  If you’re new here, be sure to check out my first post.  Before I get to the meat of this post, I have something I’d like to address.

 

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

Unless you’re living under a rock, you probably know that a new version of the OGL (v1.1) has been leaked.  It seems the new version of the license will negatively affect companies, content creators, and alas, both veteran and fledgling OSR bloggers (such as yours truly,) who depend on the OGL to produce content compatible with the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game (and I’m probably understating it.)   What does that mean for this blog?  Honestly, I don’t know yet, but for now I will stay the course patiently on the Dungeon23 project until conditions on the ground change.

 

 Keep calm and carry a lightsaber

 

And now, back to the program.

 

The Temple of the Snake Cult

Long ago, a perverse Cult spread like a malignancy across the land.  It promised its adherents a way to carnal power and Paradise in the afterlife in exchange for allegiance to an inscrutable Snake God.  The cult spread slowly at first, gaining influence among the youth and aristocracy who forever seek rebellion and decadent diversion respectively.  Eventually, they raised their twisted, serpentine temples in all the major cities of Man, gaining riches and power enough to challenge kings.

 

One such king, a sellsword turned conqueror, sought to stand against them after they had seduced his children into thralldom.  Alas, he was unaware the Cult had infiltrated even his inner circle and barely escaped an attempt with his life.  Forced into hiding, the King formed a band of adventurers and brothers-in-arms from his mercenary days.  Together, they assaulted the Cult’s mother Temple, in a redoubt deep within the ghost-haunted hills.

 

In the dark of night, the King and his company infiltrated the Temple and fought their way through guards, acolytes, and unnameable horrors the Temple spawned.  They eventually reached the Inner Sanctum of the Cult where a furious battle against the High Priest and his Champions ensued.  That night, the steel and iron resolve proved mightier than demonic sorcery and fleshly influence alike as the Cult was brought low.  Its High Priest slaughtered before his demoralized fanatics.

 

Following their defeat, the Cult’s temples were looted and razed.  Their rhetoric was forbidden across the land on pain of death.  The Temple in the hills, however, was never looted, as the King cared not for the Cult’s cursed and snake-tainted riches.  Long after both King and Cult passed from memory and into legend, the intrepid and foolhardy have sought the Temple’s haunted treasures, but none have returned alive.

 

Dungeon Level 1 - Area A: Entrance Chambers

 

Note: shout out to the Bat in the Attic blog, whose invaluable Inkscape mapping tutorials made this map possible.  This map is created under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

 

Level Notes:

• Squares on the map are 10 ft.
• Unless otherwise noted, all doors are made of hard wood and stuck
• Hallways and chambers are generally 15 feet tall
• There is no illumination, although there are unlit torch sconces, braziers, and/or oil lamps about every 30 feet in hallways or rooms
• Monster and creature names are in bold.  General OSR statistics are provided where necessary.  Otherwise, use equivalents from your favorite classic or OSR fantasy game.

 

Entrance:

The entrance to the Temple consists of a set of marble stairs that climb to the foot of a single, small mountain.  Separate stairs on either side lead to a balcony above.  Under the balcony ahead is a set of bronze-covered double doors stained with verdigris.  The left door is ajar and the right has been ripped from its hinges and rests on the floor.

 

The balcony above is littered with debris consisting of broken columns and the burnt remains of what was once and ornate wooden roof.  Under the debris to the left of the stairs is a secret trap door which if opened, rouses nine (9) stirges that fly out of the trap door like a swarm of bats.  They are hungry.

 

Room 1

The hallway leads to a double chamber with rounded alcoves (1a).  The alcove on the right has a statue of a jackal-headed man and the statue on the left is a large, sinuous snake with an open mouth.  In the mouth of the snake statue is a handle that opens the secret door to the left of the entrance passageway.    If the stirges in the Entrance area haven’t been encountered, they are roosting in this hallway.

 

The room has four exits plus a doorway ahead that leads to a vaulted chamber (1b) decorated with faded frescoes on the walls depicting serpentine arabesques.   The two doors ahead are decorated with a sun (left) and one with a moon (right).  Between the doors is a fresco depicting an eye surrounded by snakes (the Cult’s symbol).  When someone steps 10 feet into the room, the fresco Eye glows an eerie blue. A deep voice enunciates the following: “INFIDEL DEFILERS BEWARE!  THOSE WHO SEEK TO VIOLATE THIS TEMPLE WILL DROWN IN LAKES OF BLOOD!” the Eye then stops glowing, leaving the room silent.  The message resets after one hour and is reactivated in the same manner.

 

There is a humanoid skeleton on the floor in front of the Moon door to the right.  The skeleton is devoid of valuables other than five rusted darts embedded its tattered clothes and rib cage.  The opposite wall has five holes in the wall disguised as the eyes of various snakes.  The dart trap used to activate when someone opens the Moon door, but is now inactive.  The Sun door is not trapped.

 

Room 2

This room is has the rotted remains of wooden cots cabinets and bench tables.  The table has earthenware plates, bowls and old, wooden eating utensils.  One intact cabinet has a false back which conceals a secret door.  However, the cabinet is a nest for a vampiric snake, a long, pale, and segmented creature with a bulbous head that is in truth neither snake nor worm, but an aberrant creature.  If roused, its head expands into a winged hood, revealing a slit-like mouth covered in small teeth.  A successful strike causes it to latch on to the victim and drain blood for 1d4 damage every round.  Three (3) more vampiric snakes crawl out from nearby cots as they are alerted to a potential meal.

  

Snake, vampiric: AC 7 (14), ATK 1 bite, DMG 1d3 + drain blood (1d4/round), HD 1 (+1), MV 40 ft., SV 17 (warrior), AL Neutral, 15 XP

 

 Room 3

This hexagonal chamber has multiple small and large barrels lined up on the walls.  The ones to the north wall have staples like rice, flour (now spoiled) as well as preserved vegetables (still surprisingly edible.)  The large barrels on the south wall however are very tightly sealed, requiring force or tools to open.  The inside is filled with slabs and cuts of what appear to be preserved meat in brine.  A closer examination, such as dumping the barrels’ contents on the floor, reveals them to be human body parts.

 

Room 4

This chamber has a small altar on the south side in front of an enclosed area with a tightly-latticed iron fence.  The fence’s gate is unlocked and ajar.  The wall beyond has a pair of manacles and is painted with serpentine designs as well as three Cult symbols.

 

The small altar has two carved snakes facing each other.  The left one is a lever that causes three (3) cobras to slither out of holes on the wall within the painted Cult symbols.  There is also a secret panel in the altar that houses the cobras when the lever is not in use.  Inside are also various small, snake-themed religious items made of silver, worth 40 gold coins in total.

 

Room 5

The door to this room seems to have been taken from its hinges.  In the center of the room is a statue of sorts made from random wooden parts (including the smashed door and furniture from this room.)  It is roughly in the shape of a winged woman with bird-like legs (a harpy) covered in dried blood and wearing a necklace made of rotted fingers and ears.  At its base is a ceramic bowl with dried blood, unidentifiable flesh matter, dried flowers, and herbs with two unlit but half melted candles by its sides.  In its eye sockets are a pair of real (albeit rotted) humanoid eyes.  Anyone paying attention notices the grotesque eyes move slowly to follow any living creature’s movement in the room.  (Note: I have yet to determine who, if anyone is watching through those eyes.)

 

Rusted torch sconces on the northeastern and northwestern walls open secret doors on the east and west sides respectively.

 

Room 6

This room is a garden open to the outside, with a fountain in the center and galleries 10 feet above.  The garden is overgrown with lotus blooms of various colors.  Three (3) gobb-men – pale, squat, and misshapen humanoids with asymmetrical features, are looking for and consuming lotus blooms.  Two remain alert, but the third is in a drugged stupor.  Four (4) additional gobb-men skulk in the gallery above.  All the gobb-men are armed with spears.

 

Note: as you can probably guess, the gobb-men are goblins reskinned for a more swords & sorcery flavor.  They are the remnants of the Cult’s sorcerous breeding programs .  I’m similarly reskinning other common fantasy humanoids as follows:

• Hobb-men (hobgoblins) – human-sized versions of the gobb-men and their natural Alpha leaders

• Oor-men (orcs) – The most human-like of the lot, albeit with brutish features and green-tinged skin that becomes more pronounced in scaly patches.  They believe themselves to be the true heirs of the Cult and are waging a genocidal war against the heretical hobb and gobb men for control of this level of the Temple.

• Kobb-men (kobolds) – Smaller versions of the oor-men (not that the oor-men will ever admit it.)  All the other humanoids hate them and they have learned to be conspicuous, cunning, and cruel as a result to survive.

• Baern-men (bugbears) – Large, fur-covered, and primitive versions of the hobb-men, who mostly keep to themselves in the caves below.  They wear leather masks made of stretched, human and demihuman face skin.  They will eat or ally with other humanoids on a whim.

 

If combat ensues, there is a 1 in 6 chance hitting a lotus bloom on a missed attack and spreading a puff of pollen.  Roll 1d6 for type and effect below.  Breathing the pollen requires a save against poison to avoid the effects.  The effects last 1d10 rounds.  The gobb-men are immune to the pollen.

 

1. Shade lotus: victim falls unconscious as per a sleeping spell.
2. Dun lotus: Induces a berserk state, granting +2 to attack, but will attack anyone within 5’ ft., including allies.
3. Fuschia lotus: Induces a state of sensory ecstasy that makes the victim want to touch and be touched in turn by others.  Treat as being under the effects of a charming spell in regards to the gobb-men and other characters.
4. Violet lotus: the victim becomes paralyzed (treat as similar spell)
5. Crimson lotus: induces a euphoric state that seemingly slows time, granting one additional attack per round with a +1 modifier and AC that is one point better
6. Ochre lotus: mages and non-clerical spellcasters can recast one used spell or otherwise gain one additional use of a spell.  Other characters enter a hallucinatory state (treat as a spell of confusion with a random action every round.)

 

The fountain's brackish water is full of various coins worth 20 gold coins in total (they weigh as much as 50 coins.)  A repaired area of the garden’s wooden floor to the northwest of the fountain has a small sack inside with coins and small temple trinkets worth 100 gold coins total.

 

The lotus blooms are also valuable.  Anyone searching has a 1 in 6 chance of finding one viable, intact sample (rolled randomly as above.)  Handling a lotus bloom requires a save against poison to avoid its effects (a failed save ruins the sample.)  A viable sample is worth 20 gold coins to an alchemist.

 

The western exit can only be reached from the gallery above.

 

Room 7

The ground in the northern center of the room has been dug up and glyph-carved standing stones with lengths of chain have been placed on the bare ground opposite of each other.  There are claw marks on the wall and on the edges of the makeshift pit.  The ground is muddy and contains pottery shards with unidentifiable, dried spices, nonhuman teeth, and dung next to a broken dagger.

 

In the center of the room is a pedestal in the shape of a serpent, with its open mouth facing up.  Inside the mouth is a hexagonal slot.   The slot’s crystal “key” is buried in the mud (and dung.)  When the crystal is placed in the slot and turned to the right, the northeast wall revolves to the right reveals a doorway but blocking the hallway to Room 2.  If turned left, it revolves the opposite way and opens the east wall but closes the north one.  It can be returned to a neutral position, closing both doorways.

 

A wooden armoire on the south wall is empty, but has a secret panel door leads to a kind of storeroom (7b.)  It is mostly empty save for an old pair of leather boots, a full-length mirror, and a bottle of scented oil.  The boots are near useless, but the mirror and oil are serviceable, and may be valuable at the GM’s discretion.

 

Thanks for reading!  If you like this stuff so far, be sure to share and follow for the next part of the Temple of The Snake Cult.