Grendel's Grotto: A Mini-Dungeon

My muppet-y take on Goya

I am actively running a Thurstle Island campaign again. Inspired by John's Black City and a recent reading of Beowulf (the Seamus Heaney translation), I made a little dungeon. 

I'm working on a handful of these, a sort of dungeon-Lego, to fill out the undercity. I don't have a lot of bricks yet, so my players are likely to face a quantum-grendel. 

Highlighter on index card.

Key below the fold.

Dungeon Key

1. Antechamber with Pit: Floor is icy and slick. A 10' ledge surrounds a  20' wide, sheer-sided pit, descending 50+ feet. Cacophonous snoring reverberates from a narrow door to the east. 

• Pit: Rapid movement nearby risks a falling in: save vs. dex. On a failure, slide into the pit. Dropping everything in hands, will let the character cling to the edge. If helped by a friend before their next turn, they are automatically saved. Otherwise, on their next turn they make another saving throw, on a failure they plunge.
• Eastern Door: Open doorway, 2' wide. Making noise in Room 1 will attract attention from the berserkers in Room 2. Peering through the doorway, reveals the contents of room 2 and that the snoring is coming from deeper in.

2. Grisly Lunchtime: Inside a soot choked room, two Feral Berserkers are roasting a human torso over a small, greasy fire. Loud snoring comes from a large archway to the south. Eastern arch is quiet.

• Feral Berserkers: Hushed as they cook, focused on their meal. Will investigate loud noises nearby and recklessly attack any intruders. Stat block below.
• Loud Snoring: Peeking through the southern arch reveals room 4. Loud noises in Room 2 will wake the grendel, drawing his ire in d4 rounds.

3. Hoop-a-loop: A tall round room littered with in-blown snow and debris. Narrow staircases ascend to a platform in the center, dominated by vertical, hoop-like structure. A 6' tall relief carving of a Githian face dominates the north wall. A frozen blood-stain blots the arch to the south. A wide, steep ramp rises to the east. 

• Hooped Structure: is a Githian artifact. Any non-living object which passes through becomes weightless for d6 hours.
• Carved Face: Black stone with closed eyes. The eye-lids are articulated and if opened, reveal milky white eyes and  cause the whole face to slid upward into the wall revealing a niche containing a glowing blue crystal worth 1000sp. Removing the crystal, deactivates the Hoop.
• Bloodstain: Astute observers will deduce about a persons worth of sanguine spillage. Amidst the mess, a well-made sword (one-handed, d8 damage), its blade is blackened and discolored by fire.
• Ramp: Ascends to another level. Many large bare-footprints.
• Arches to Rooms 2 & 4: Loud noise in Room 3 will draw the Berserkers from Room 2 and the grendel from Room 4 if they haven't been faced yet. They'll each arrive in d4 rounds. 

4. Grendel's Wallow: A large vaulted room, echo-y and pungent with rot. An enormous, smelly humanoid with long simian arms, sleeps, snoring on a pile of half-eaten corpses. 

• Enormous Humanoid: A slumbering grendel. Occasionally he sleep talks and is surprisingly philosophic.  Terrible teeth and terrible claws, bits of viscera on blood-specked jaws. Normal movement in the room won't wake him but loud noises will. He's a man-eater and will be ravenous if woken (morale 9). If he succeeds in catching one person, he won't chase down the rest. He can't fit through small doors (like those into Rooms 1 and 6) but he has a long reach and can throw large objects. Stat block below.
• Corpse Pile: Dozens of bodies, both human and animal. Some fully frozen, others just slushy. A locked chest is visible in the pile.
• Locked Chest: Dragging the chest out of the pile is certain to wake the grendel unless clever precautions are arranged. The lock is accessible and the chest could be opened without moving it much. Inside the chest: 1500 jangly silver coins and a silent undead skeleton with two rusty knives.
• Human Corpses: If you have the leisure to search, roll a few times on your favorite search-the-body table.
• White Ape Corpse: If checked, roll on the White Ape search-the-body table.
• Large Arch: toward the west opens into a big, echo-y room, currently silent.
• Narrow Door: Tight squeeze to the south opens into a 2' wide hallway.

5. Resonant Room:  20' ceiling, mostly empty, magnifies sound. Littered with cast-off liquor bottles and casks, detritus of the grendel's plundering. On the ceiling two green slimes.

• Magnified Sound: Noise here will wake the grendel in Room 4 if he hasn't already been dealt with. He'll arrive in d4 rounds.
• Bottles: Noisy if jostled. A few are still full. 
• Green Slimes: Will try to drop on anyone moving through the room. They move slowly, so rapid movement that doesn't pass directly underneath can bypass them. Stat block below.
• Southern Door: Leads into narrow passage. Silent.

6. Githian Moai:  Small square room dominated by 8' tall Gith-head statue. To the south, the wall opens on a chasm, sheer sides, no visible bottom. 

• Statue: Faces the north doorway, but it turns smoothly in its mount. If turned to face the chasm, the mouth opens to reveal a socket for a crystal, empty. If a charged crystal (such as the one in Room 3) is inserted, a glowing bridge of light appears, crossing the chasm to the south. If removed again, the bridge disappears.
• Bridge: If activated, leads due south into the dark, lit only by its own glow. This leads to another sublevel. 
• Chasm: Functionally, bottomless. Looking out to the south-east, barely visible at the edge of torchlight, a structure hangs over the void on a heavy metal chain. It doesn't look Githian. It's its own mini-dungeon.
• East Hall: Narrow hall loops up to the grendel's bed. If still there, his snores will be audible.

Monster Stats

Stats for Ultra Bastard below but they should work fine in most OSR games with light conversion. If you play a Basic flavor of the game, there's also simpler, default stats for all of these (berserker, grendel is a troll, green slime). 

Feral Berserker

Hit Dice: 1, 5 hit points. Reduce all incoming hits by d4 (due to Berserker Salts)

AC: 10 - Reckless & naked, but fast

Attacks: Attack DC is 12. 2d4 damage with improvised weapons and drugged strength

Morale: 10. They be crazy.

Number Appearing: 2d4. Pack hunters

Movement: Speed as unencumbered human. Sprinting and screaming

Saves: 15+. Disadvantage on anything that requires they pay attention

Berserker salts: Snort to enter a Rage for d4 turns. While raging, add d4 to damage and reduce damage received by d4 per attack. Roll with disadvantage on any check that adds INT, ALERT or CHARM. When the rage ends, gain a level of deprivation (Rest).

Gareth Hind's much scarier grendel

Grendel:

Hit Dice: 6+3. ~30 hit points. 

AC: 14 - Thick, scabrous hide. Reduces mundane fire damage by d4/hit.

Regeneration: Restores damage from all sources except fire, hot metal & acid at a rate of 6 hit points / round.

Vulnerabilities: Hot-iron and acid. Hit them with a red-hot sword or the effluvia of a melted jelly-cube to bypass regeneration. 

Attacks: 

• Claw x2, Attack DC is 16. d8 damage.

-or- 

• Grapple: Defend + strength + dex, ignores armor. Grabbed on fail. If not freed by the grendel's next turn, it rends for 2d12 damage. An ally can attempt to grapple the monster to aid the grabbed guy. DC15 strength check to free (or Open Stuck Doors if you play a Basic flavor), even on a failure the attempt delays rend (d6 crushing instead). On a 20+ the grendel's arm is ripped off and it will attempt to flee as soon as it can. Torn limbs never regrow.

Morale: Roll 2d6 when encountered. They are moody and often cowardly. Check morale at half HP or if struck with hot-iron.

Number Appearing: Always only one. They are solitary wanderers, marked by loneliness.

Movement: Speed as unencumbered human.

Saves: 12+

Green Slime:

Hit Dice: 1, 4-8 hit points.

AC: 8 - Slow, unarmored goop.

Damage Immunities: Immune to weapon attacks.

Vulnerabilities: Fire & salt. They are flammable and take d6 damage from torches. If attached to a victim, the victim takes the damage too. Salt melts them like a slug, needs ~1 lb to kill. 

Attacks: Attack DC is 12. Once hit, they adhere and deal acid damage every round based on their current HP. All damage dealt is immediately added to their hit points. 

<5 HP slime: d4 damage

5+ HP slime: 2d4 damage

Fission: If the slime reaches 9+ hp, it immediately splits into two equally sized slimes  

Morale: 12. Literally brainless.

Number Appearing: d6. 

Movement: Very slow. Speed is less than a human crawling

Saves: 15+.