One Page Dungeon Contest: Kill Several Demons

 

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On Friday, I was catching up on my D&D blog feed and I saw a post about this year's one page dungeon contest. I thought to myself, "Awesome! I've been meaning to enter but I always forget and miss the window, I wonder when submissions are due..." 

Turns out it was Saturday. To make a long story short, Saturday morning, I set myself the goal of making a One Page Dungeon in one day, from idea to finished PDF. 

Needless to say, I don't think I'm a real contender for the contest but I had a lot of fun making my dungeon and I hope folks will enjoy it. I'm pretty proud of what I produced on a tight deadline.

Thurstle Island: Actual Play Map

 

Sometimes it's fun to see the maps that turn up in actual play rather than the ones that were drawn with careful premeditation during prep. 

We play with just a whiteboard rather than a virtual tabletop and I draw as we go. 

I ran the Ruined Fort over our last couple sessions. It's been a lot of fun.

Thurstle Island: Ruined Fort of the Crusaders

In our most recent session, my players explored the first level of the Barrow of the Twisted Wyrm. They retrieved, the major artifacts and saw the clear evidence that the barrow had been previously looted by Gothic knights. They have deduced (correctly) that the corpses they found (as armored zombies) were likely from the abandoned fortress on the hill above the town. They're planning to explore the fort in our next game.

Getting back to the fort will be challenging. The only way the players know to reach the fort takes them through both the  Old Forest and the upper portions of the Smuggler Caves.The druids in the forest are furious that someone has desecrated the barrow, and the Smugglers (the "Willing Few") are beginning to rebuild their operations after the player characters wrecked their hideout.

Thurstle Island: Barrow of the Twisted Wyrm

The dragon of Thurstle Island is buried in its most traditional dungeon, a prison-tomb filled with traps, puzzles, undead and demons.

How It Works

Pale blue post-it

• The barrow has three levels and this post details the first one, the upper tomb.
• Lore about this dungeon is seeded all over the island, on stelae, in rumors etc. 
• The central chamber is a magical maze. Living creatures cannot pass through the walls but objects and undead can. The party will likely attract the cursed husks of former tomb-raiders here.
• Each of the wings contains a blend of traps, puzzles and monsters protecting artifacts of Ulric's battle with the wyrm. In a few places the horrors below are peeking through.
• A locked stairway leads to the lower levels. 
• The second level of the dungeon is crawling with demons and the lowest level holds the remains of the wyrm itself. 
• Each level down is a very large increase in difficulty for adventurers. My intent is that the players will explore the first level, leave to gather strength & information, and then return. 
• The wyrm is intended as one possible Final Boss for Thurstle Island.
• The cultists in the island's NW worship the wyrm.
• The warrior-monks of the abbey believe they can harness the demon's power for their own ends. They're probably wrong, but even if they are right it will turn out awful.
• The druids from the Old Forest know that something evil is hidden in the barrow but have lost most of the details over the centuries.

Album Cover

Thurstle Island: The Willing Few, Smuggler Faction Focus

The Tree Fort

Yet another post-it map. 

To keep intruders from stumbling onto their cave-cliff hideaway, Thurstle Island's smugglers have fortified the trail through the Old Forest that leads to their base with traps and an arboreal watch post. Tricky to attack or defend, depending on how the player's allegiances develop. 

• Guards: 3d4 smugglers will be present at any given time. Stats as bandits or pirates.
• Battlements: Guards with javelins and bows guard the path from hoardings built in the tree. They have excellent cover and field of view. Rope ladders can be lowered to access the fort.
• Ready Room: The happening hangout spot and a convenient place to retreat if the action on the battlements gets too hot. Games and snacks. If you root around, roll on the "Search the Body" table. 
• Stores: A few quiver's of arrows, 2d6 harpoons, flask of lockjaw poison. 
• Living quarters: Another option for retreat, higher up in the tree. Not visible from the ground and only accessible from a rickety stair and a narrow bridge. Easily defended. 
• Crow's Nest: Very high up, above the surrounding canopy. Gives a good view of the Cliff Path, the Sword Meadow and the Fog Cliff, as well as the entrance to the cave hideout (map) and the trail up to the Fort. Contains a few signaling flags and a spyglass.
• Harming the Tree: Setting a fire or starting to saw will quickly draw a horde of angry druids. The players should know that this is suicide.

More about the gang, its members and modes below.

Thurstle Island: The Ancients Themselves

The City of the Ancients forms the main mega-dungeon of my Thurstle Island mini-setting. It is an abandoned alien city inspired by all of the ancient aliens of Lovecraft. In this post, I'll sketch an outline of it's builders.

The Gith

The humans of this world are not special. We are not the only examples of our species. Scattered across the stars, the inverted labyrinths and the manifold planes of the multi-verse, there are many races of men and women. Our origin is further back in infinite history than even the gods remember and many gods share our shape. 

One such race, born among the stars, is the spindle-limbed Gith. They are no less human than us, but their bodies are longer and more fragile and their brains have additional organs that allow them to grapple with the semiotic framework of the world directly. They are less rooted in matter. 

• The Gith, otherwise know as the Greys, are psychic alien humanoids.
• They look like Alberto Giacometti sculptures.

Thurstle Island: Ziggurat of Yog

Another Post-it Map

The landscape of Thurstle Island's City of the Ancients is pierced by many towers. Among these is a sinister 200 meter black stone ziggurat. 

Five layers rise into the sky, and a single steep, narrow stair climbs to the pinnacle. The rise of the steps is much to high for a humans foot, and their breadth is very narrow. There are no railings to prevent a lethal fall. At the top, there is a shrine and a shaft that descends all the way down, through the structure, and into the earth. 

This is a small, fairly linear dungeon with a couple minor fights and some obstacles on the way to meet an Elder God and claim a dubious treasure. It should take about one session to run.

Thurstle Island: Notes on Camp

Birka, a historic viking town restoration

Perched on the edge of the City of the Ancients, Thurstle Island's vikings have established a fortified camp. From this base, they regularly venture into the City's towers and under-structure to plunder powerful artifacts and strange materials. 

Thurstle Island: Oozes of the Undercity

Jared Murphy (King328)

In my Thurstle Island campaign, oozes in their many varieties are the corrupted remnants of the Ancients' servitors. Their minds were poisoned by the malign influence of the Twisted Wyrm, buried nearby. This is not an original idea. It is drawn directly from Lovecraft: 

They had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestion of the Old Ones, and had modelled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs; but now their self-modelling powers were sometimes exercised independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion. They had, it seems, developed a semi-stable brain whose separate and occasionally stubborn volition echoed the will of the Old Ones without always obeying it.

The oozes, slimes and jellies overthrew their creators but lacked the sophistication to form a society of their own. Effectively immortal, they have roamed the decaying city for centuries, some are maddened and consumed with hatred, others are merely bewildered and frustrated.

I don't want oozes to be just another sludgy slurry of hit points. Consequently, ooze-type creatures take no damage from weapon attacks. Deciphering their other vulnerabilities is what makes them fun. Each type of ooze is it's own mini-game.

Oozes do share a few things in common: 

• They hate the cold. It slows their movements and their minds. Even minor chilling magics will dramatically reduce their mobility and power. Freezing an ooze solid then shattering it, is one of the few methods that works on nearly every type.
• They are often disrupted by admixture. Dirt, salt, water. It depends on the variety of ooze what bothers them most.
• They can climb vertical pipes and shafts if the concentration of their bulk is large enough to fill the space. I.e. a 10' Jelly Cube can ascend an 8' wide shaft but not a 15' diameter pipe.
• They can squeeze through cracks and small spaces though the process is usually slow. 
• They cannot cross a grate without dropping through.

Fortunately for the players, rods of ooze control are not too uncommon in the Ancient City.

Thurstle Island: City of the Ancients

The metallic ink just doesn't translate on screen.

The City of the Ancients is Thurstle Island's mega-dungeon. A glaciated urban husk, long abandoned by it's starborne builders. Like an iceberg, the portion visible above the surface is merely a fraction of the whole. 

This is largely inspired by John Arendt's Black City and H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountain's of Madness (full text). It will also borrow lots of elements from the new edition of Deep Carbon Observatory (incredible, buy immediately) and Roadside Picnic. 

Unlike Cove Town or the Old Forest, I'm not ready to nail down all the specifics yet. I have the skeleton and plan to flesh it out while the players begin their exploration. They'll probably start with one the mini-dungeons (like this or this) anyhow. 

That said, I want to think aloud as I put it together.

Nodes are significant buildings.

Thurstle Island: Cove Town

Rather than a street map, I opted for a relationship map.

I want Cove Town to be a place for scheming. In contrast to the traps and monsters of the island's dungeons, the conflict and maneuvering in town is primarily social. Different groups control access to critical resources. Supplies, information and opportunities to hire help require making friends with the right people. 

How it Works

I recently solicited the advice of the OSR subreddit on what makes a good starting town. My favorite suggestion was to use the guidelines formatted as the "Gygax 75 Challenge" by Ray Otus based on an old Gary article. The challenge recommends the following components: 

• Town Map: Since politics are more important to me than geographic proximity, I drew mine as relationship web. I'll also give them Kevin Campbell village cards as a visual reference on what shops and services are available. 

Kevin Campbell via Dyson

Thurstle Island: To the Lighthouse

To the southeast of Thurstle Island, on a little spur of rock, a lighthouse spears out of the sea. Its beacon went out years ago but as Gothic colonization accelerates and the Northmen thegns smuggle more contraband, its strategic importance is growing. 

The Situation

Many years ago, after the earthquake, when the Templar were abandoning their fort, the supply packets to the lighthouse stopped. Trapped at his post, the miserable monk who tended the light starved to death and, soon after, so did the lamp. 

Some time later, en route to an island prison further out to sea, a Gothic ship smashed on the unlit rock. An ebony coffin, containing the vampire Drusilla, bobbed ashore, and the lighthouse found a new master. She enthralled the few sailors who came ashore and now feeds on them just a little every night. The sailors have all gone mad.

Drusilla is trapped on the island. She cannot fly over water and though she needn't breath and could walk to shore on the seabed, she has no way to bring her coffin with her. She will seek to threaten or negotiate anyone arriving on the rock to take her to Thurstle Island. Her husband was also on the ship that stranded her here, but his coffin was made of iron and chained closed. She desperately wants to rescue him.

Karl Alexander Wilke from Die Muskete magazine 1926

This is intended as a low-level dungeon. The grunts are not very threatening. The boss almost certainly outmatches the player characters but wants to negotiate. Gaining control of the island could be a major boon to the players.

Thurstle Island: Old Forest

The Old Forest fills the lowland interior of Thurstle Island. Travel between the clifftop locations around the perimeter of the island usually has to pass through the forest. 

The trees of this wood are crowded, gnarled and tired. Their creak and rustle hide other noises and it is easy to be surprised when moving along the paths. The trees are not friendly to visitors and many of the plants (from an older post) that live under them are deadly in their own right. 

How it Works

This is the central "blob" of the Thurstle Island map. It is a pathcrawl maze. Player characters will need to find routes through the wood in order to reach other parts of the island. 

• Most of the nodes are features of interest that are useful or interesting rather than dangerous.
• Conflicts and obstacles are concentrated on the paths. The first time, player characters travel across them they will trigger the keyed encounter. 
• If they find a way to placate the Druids, many of the more dangerous encounters will be avoided.
• Once the PC's have visited a node, they can "fast-travel" there with a single wandering encounter role
• DM Note: When moving over paths that have already been explored, any encounters that come up will be designed for quick resolution i.e. Druids throw javelins then flee into the woods. I don't want to bog down our gaming time re-hashing the same territory. 
• Many of the node locations contain stele (drawn in on the map) . These will reveal useful parts of the island's history and give clues on how to defeat the boss enemies. They will also grant XP bounties when discovered.

Over the Garden Wall

Thurstle Island: Smuggler's Caves

I started brainstorming how to layout the Smuggler's Cave dungeon for Thurstle Island and the doodle turned into something I liked.

It is widely believed that Thurstle Island has only one navigable beach, but several years ago Skarde the Boneless found a hidden inlet accessible via a system of caves. He recruited a tight-knit gang (the Willing Few) and together they make enormous profits circumventing the Governor's taxes and importing contraband. They have a sideline manufacturing berserker drugs derived from the island's ice snakes.

The smuggler gang, could be an invaluable ally to PCs who fall afoul of the island's authorities. Alternatively, if the PCs want to hunt the outlaws, their hideout is a small, vertically-oriented dungeon.

• This is intended as a low-level adventure, but could be easily scaled up. 
• Smugglers have stats as bandits or pirates (5e or OSE) and will attempt to imprison intruders. They are not bloodthirsty and will likely negotiate. They will flee tough resistance and summon help. 
• If they are alerted and have time to prepare, some will take berserker salts which grant bonuses equivalent of a barbarian's rage. While berserking, they will not listen or negotiate.

Map key below:

Thurstle Island: Introduction

Sketch, my own.

My usual 5e game has been on hiatus during pandemic lock down and so I've been running Mork Borg online (Tuesdays @ 7:30 Eastern, let me know if you'd like to join). It's been a lot of fun, but it started as a one-shot and so follow-up sessions have been a scramble each week to prep a handful of funhouse encounters and puzzle monsters with little over-arching story.

There's a campaign I've had kicking around in my head for six or eight months and I think that after a few more sessions of Mork Borg, my online crew might be ready for a shift to a regular campaign.

The campaign will take place on an island. I'm aiming for a manageable, self-contained area with a few dungeons, two towns and a sinister forest. It will serve as my first Blob Crawl oriented game.

Long ago, when the Giants were as large as mountains. Woden slew the giant Thurstle and threw their corpse into the sea. Thurstle turned to stone and has been an island ever since. 

EDIT: I will link the pieces below as they are completed.