Dungeon 2023 Week 1

Will be doing end-of-week posts for my dungeon 2023 project. Won't be fitting together the rooms just yet, coming up with the concepts for now and putting them down on a map later.

This wikipedia article on the traditional water sources of Persian antiquity has been inspirational, and is generally interesting.

Unsteady Nest

A bird's nest in the center of a tangle of vines covering the main vapour-vent of Lacrimada. Fog rises through the gaps in the vines. The glint of precious metal can be glimpsed in the nest - a brass-and-pearl necklace bearing the image of the grandmother of the current marchioness of the Eastern Gates carved in zitan, worth 100 sp, or a favour if returned to the marchioness on par with being granted a squad of ten fiercely-loyal infantrymen armed with spears and shields.

Requires a dexterity check to make it to the nest and back. Failing, or attempting the task in metal armour, results in falling through the vines to the plaza 100 feet below.

Rusty Airlock

Stubby hallway with heavy, rusted iron doors on both ends. There's a lever midway along the west wall of the room that starts the water/air cycling process, which takes ten rounds to finish. The south door is stuck shut, and won't open to the underwater area beyond when the cycle's complete. Requires a contested strength check against a strength of 20 to push open. +4 to your check if you've got a crowbar or similar leverage.

Hydraulic Elevator

Squat, cylindrical room with sliding metal doors embedded in big stone pillar. Six drowners are bound to its floor by chains. An apparatus like a ship's wheel lets you choose the floor you want it to go to.

Non-functional when found, requires turning some valves across a level to restore the water pressure to activate it. The lower floors it can go to are initially flooded, and must be drained somehow.

Mummy Larder

People used to bring mummified corpses to Lacrimada in the hope that the heavenly waters could rehydrate and resurrect them. This unfortunately did not usually work, and even more unfortunately occasionally did.

This room's a catacomb for storing mummies awaiting rehydration. Newtants (see below) are using them as a food supply, mashing bits of them into water to make something like porridge.

Spiked Tunnel

Tunnel that normally has a water current flowing through it, with spikes set in the walls to impale anything getting pushed along with the current. Can be drained to make getting through much less painful, but the way to drain it is circuitous.

Glam Clam Farm

Glam clams (actually a type of oyster) form disco ball-like pearls that concentrate and reflect light as blinding rays to dissuade predators. The Osprey's Bastards harvest these pearls to make traps and flashbangs, using some blinded and selectively-mutated members to do so.

Note: writing this dungeon for GLOG - Many Rats On A Stick version specifically, which has rules for wounds to particular body parts. As the heavenly waters of Lacrimada have regenerative properties, I will make the mutation table(s) that result from exposure to it biased towards mutating wounded parts first - lose your eyes, mutate some other sense, lose your hand, get a crab claw, something like that.

Fishtalker's Pier

Ramshackle pier over small, algae-choked cistern and nearby hut, home to the mad & starving hermit Fishtalker (see below). He has been trying to persuade the fish that they should rationally allow themselves to be eaten by him, and has had no such luck yet. He's using a key as a fishing rod or something. Please don't bully this harmless old man.

The Infinite Ocean

The heavenly waters become more concentrated, more potent the deeper you get in Lacrimada. At the deepest point they metastasize into a totally-fucked region of space-time. I think the best way to represent that is by making the last level of the dungeon a depthcrawl. The entrance to this depthcrawl will be a huge pit with a crimson vortex swirling in it, wherein the posthuman forms of Lacrimada's former citizens can be glimpsed. More for that later.

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Some other ideas for the dungeon that I haven't put in a room yet:

Newtants

Mutated slaves of Lacrimada, turned amphibious so that they'd be better at underwater construction and repairs. The city's their home now that all the slave-drivers have died, disappeared, or lost their minds, and they don't take kindly to home invaders. You can mutate yourself into one of them too. It'd be just like Avatar 2: The Way of Water.

The Order of the Cleansing Torrent

Derogatorily known as "wetbrains" or "drenchuds". They saw the top of their heads off and meditate under waterfalls. A faction with a territory that goes deep rather than wide, with magic power to boot. Really working with the faction and getting their knowledge, power, and shortcuts requires someone in your party to join the cult - trepanation and all. Thinking it will be a deceptively strong trap option - something like recovering magic dice or becoming immune to miscasts that day if you meditate under a waterfall, but if you take a critical hit you die instantly as it strikes your exposed brain. Something like that.

Screwfoils

One part hang-glider, one part Archimedes' screw. They're personal transports for going up and down waterfalls. Not magical, despite this being impossible in reality. A piece of equipment for a faction lower down in the dungeon, which everyone else wants to get their hands on and wants to learn the secret of manufacturing. Opens up player options for vertical movement, especially as they divert flows to make waterfalls of their own.

Fishtalker

A kooky old hermit who talks to fish, and can teach you how to talk to fish. The fish of Lacrimada have a good understanding of its pipes, reservoirs, etc., having grown up in them.

Drowners

If you drown in the heavenly waters you come back as a ruddy zombie.