Dungeon23: Level 9 – The Ovoid From Beyond the Stars

This map is released under terms of the  CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Area Links:

Area A – Chalazaeic Passages
Area B – Albumic Chambers - East
Area C – Albumic Chambers - West
Area D – Embryonic Core

Ovoid Encounters (2d6)

2.  A worm-dragon (see Room 15)
3-4. 1d4 handmaids (see Room 5)
5. A bone creature (golem, see Room 1)
6. An ochre jelly – part of the Ovoid’s immunity response
7. A gelatinous sphere - a semi-solid, mucosal secretion that cleans the Ovoid’s passages.  Treat the same as a gelatinous cube.  Indeed, these may have evolved from the original creatures within the Ovoid.
8. A black pudding – the Ovoid’s organic waste product.
9.  An amber beast (golem, see Room 21).  These do not have inner brain-nodes.
10-11. 1d4 handmaids
12. Elgezerd the Hunchbacked (see the Sorcerers of the Underworld encounter table,) accompanied by an NPC adventuring party that he has hired (equal classes/levels to the PCs or known rivals.)

Commentary

 

The Alien Level

I had been toying with the idea of the Snake God being a cosmic horror of some sort since early on and I hope this level makes good on that promise.  However, there aren’t many answers to be had regarding its nature.  Is it an avatar or extension of the Old One sleeping within the Ovoid, a representative like the Mouth of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings, or just another alien servant like the Handmaids?  My preference is to keep the players guessing in this regard.  After all, some things man was just never meant to know.  Still, some answers concerning the Ovoid will be forthcoming in Level 10.

I Goofed!

In what is an incredibly embarrassing math error, I misjudged the number of levels/city quarters/map portions that I would get out of 52 weeks by sticking to a strict schedule of one entry per day, a section per week, and a level/map per month.  It looks like I will finish Dungeon23 about four weeks early (not really trusting my math at the moment.)  This is just as well, since it’ll provide me with some leeway in the case of any disruptions due to the holidays.

What about any remaining time before the end of the year?  Well, I think I’ll go back and fix some of the ugly temp maps I had way back in Level 1.  I’m also considering adding some bonus rooms or sub-levels where I think they might fit.  Finally, I'd like to do a third, bonus mythology article to round out the known deities of the Northern Marklands.

Despite the error, I’m very proud of having stuck it out all the way to the end, and I hope the dear reader has enjoyed this journey with me.

This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.