d100 Dungeon section barriers

I decided on a simpler option for connections and hubs and crossroads that divide dungeon sections or levels apart. This is more elegant than my previous ones and helps justify diferences and isolation of levels. Such barriers often have means for locals to bypass or they are very experienced at crossing. Possibly could mark border between factions, a warzone no mans land or a neutral area used by all factions. It could justify stylistic and aesthetic variation in a dungeon complex.

Any such area not dangerous enough can have wandering monsters also.

d100 Quick Barriers

01 Dark Stairs - up or down connections

02 Cavernous Pit - cross obstacle
03 Sinister Bridge - choke point 
04 Great Door  - great barrier hidden or manned
05 Great Trap - serious trap that halts explorers
06 Guard Post - outpost of armed hostiles
07 Magician Lair - a arcane specialist
08 Horrible Monster - a monster lair 
09 Strange Shrine - sacred holy site
10 Weird Entity - planar being of power

d100

01 A winding corkscrew staircase twisting to lower level

02 A deep shaft with a long ladder or carved into stone or iron staples
03 Grand palatial stairs seen better days for grand proscessions 
04 Worn smooth old brick stairs some with creeks running through them
05 Natural flow stone or volcanic formations form stone stairs
06 Worn battered dripping tunnel sloping down
07 Stairs are actually connected by magic to dungeon far away
08 Stairs are a escalator d4 1=down 2=up 3=both 4=broken
09 Stairs with slide trap d6 drops into 1=water 2=pit 3=rocks 4=lava 5=spikes 6=lair
10 A elevator for 3d4 passengers possibly unsafe
11 A sinkhole has opened a great shaft into the darkness into cavern
12 A flowing river of lava in bottom of a canyon can almost be jumped over 
13 A great pit with jagged stones and broken skeletons
14 A pit over a cavernous monster lair, possibly for sacrifice
15 A great pit but with safe island path you hop onto path through 
16 A gaping canyon with a single line across where some cross 
17 A huge pit crawling with giant bugs and worms and slime and webs at bottom
18 A chasm with fast flowing waterfall cutting through path dangerous to cross
19 A fragile ice or crystal bridge spans a great gulf
20 Span crossed with something d4 1=old pillar 2=megalith 3=spider web 4=huge log
21 Old bridge with a d4 1=trolls 2=ogres 3=giants 4=horrible ape creatures
22 Natural stone archway with long worn passage
23 Two or three cables over gulf used as crossing
24 Flimsy rope and plank bridge over chasm
25 Wooden bridge only a bit wobbly with mounts and waggon loads
26 Stone bridge allows carts and mounts to cross easily
27 Covered stone bridge with shops, apartments, sweatshops and pubs
28 Bridge over pit heavily fortified chokepoint
29 Bone and sinew bridge with strange totems and signs
30 Bridge has bound being from other plane guarding it begrudgingly 
31 A wooden gatehouse with great log door
32 A stone wall with a great iron reinforced wooden door 
33 A highly decorated metal clad wooden door
34 A gate house with portcullis gate
35 Entrenched area with crude palisade wall defence structure
36 A huge creature blocks passage but occasionally moves or you may crawl through it
37 A huge crude stone secret doorway made with magic or camouflage
38 A door is really a gate transporting users to door in far away land
39 Door opens into a pocket dimension with doors elsewhere
40 A impregnable magic crystal wall or force feild with a secret doorway
41 Roof set to cave in or deadfall of rubble prepared
42 A log or beam sweeps area then returns to position
43 Swinging razor pendulum or several
44 Swarm of missiles d4 1=arrows 2=darts 3=magic 4=poison needles
45 Explosive trap with gunpowder, incendiary or magic blast
46 Kobold trap team camping to deploy fresh traps and repair old ones
47 Capture based trap d4 1=nets 2=snare 3=animal trap 4=pit
48 Trap releases enraged horror from confinement
49 Magic device if triggered summons supernatural defender
50 Chemical or attack d4 1=poison gas 2=acid 3=troglodyte musk 4=disease
51 A pile of filthy bed rolls, empty bottles and several indolent guards of a faction
52 Scaffolding up walls and on roof provide fire platforms for archers
53 Shack and checkpoint where faction guards check your papers
54 Tax collectors camp awaiting violates so they can press gang adventurers
55 A camp of filthy dirty murder hobos keen to kill anyone more wounded than them
56 Several guards with a tame monster camped here overlooking passage
57 Hidden guard watches and sends messengers through gremlins or tiny animals
58 A squad led by a charismatic leader are here to stop rumoured intruders
59 A camp of evil knights and templar clerics who demand single combat or payment
60 A boss monster and entourage is here for great battle priest said comming
61 A tower overlooks open area and a wizard runs a magic shop
62 A crumbling ruined base of tower is home to a witch who demands service to pass
63 A wizard threatens travellers from inside a huge statue giving them safe view to cast
64 A wizard appears as a phantom to threaten travellers, will alert local bosses
65 A sorcerer has built a pleasure dome of drugs and other vice for sale
66 A psionic squid wizard or chaos doppelganger uses spells to delude and infiltrate party
67 A cult of sorcerers have remained hidden here and are paranoid about strangers
68 A mighty elf lord with guards is camped here but are willing to share 
69 A bard here challenges visitors to tests of ability, knowledge and might
70 A wizard on other side of bridge demands a riddle to pass or payment
71 Horrible umberhulks lair in cave with scattered corpses
72 Aggressive Ankhed are giant carnivorous burrowing bugs 
73 Purple worm breeding tunnel with huge chamber and huge sleeping horrors
74 Spider lair covered in webs with various types and a evil magical queen
75 Dragon lair or lair of a draconic creature with hoard feared by all factions
76 A filthy wet it with froghemoth or several giant frogs all hungry 
77 A pool with aquatic horror blocks the passage with possible fish men hybrid followers
78  Undead have congregated here to block passage
79 A mixed gang with ogres, trolls and giants live here mostly sleeping
80 A ancient automaton juggernaut has kept this area free of people
81 A demonic cult attend their shrine and a demon will come to aid them
82 Underworld cultists with undead slaves bar this place demanding money and blood
83 Hunting party of humanoids here hiding and camping and ready for a fight
84 A shrine attended by old prriest and a d4 assistants
85 A wizened monk hermit will not let any pass
86 A small temple here has several priests, some guards and several loyal cultists
87 A group of pilgrims to see the holy place on the holy night and outraged by intruders
88  A graveyard defended by a d6+6 priests and some servants 
89 A ruined monument guarded by a senior priest and a dozen followers
90 A religious monument like a ziggurut staffed by a small town of clergy 
91 A bound demon manifests here to bar any forbidden mortals
92 A land spirit appropriate to location manifests and lives here as a human
93 A area where elementals or related beings pour through and attack
94 Attractive shape shifters here lure travellers to their doom
95 Judgmental Archon slays any impure or false persons or a flaming balrog demon
96 Ruined temple of old ones with hungry tentacled outer god guardian
97 Pool of protoplam spawns creatures and monsters to defend itself from mortals
98 Underworld non corporeal spirits, ghosts or spectres lurk here
99 A serpent folk shrine where ancient priests sleep guarded by dinosaurs
100 A petty god is currently lurking here and they can be un predictable at best

d100 a funny thing happened while the party away....

So will be glad to have days off and not running club lots and working less for a bit over xmas. Might play at friends warehouse for a day in session soon. Some extra players soon in wed game as DnD oldschool mania has taken club and we have many older returning gamers. Many computer gamers interested too. Some of the po-mo magic story gamer kids in black seem unimpressed with direction as club changes. Had three tables of oldschool and 4th ed dnd fri night. Viability is a bit of a struggle due to various issues but Ive loved every minute of it.

I just got a tablet and already it has replaced big pile of books. Great for maps. Done one post here using it. Music and video options in hand too.

This a blog on what happens to characters when players away.
http://the-city-of-iron.blogspot.de/2013/11/underworld-lore-dungeon-disappearances.html
Slightly too funny but I like the idea and got me thinking

Big danger of random player sandboxing is that players wanna come back. Ive had same party raid a dungeon 4 times and this taking notes business is kinda like work. So I am contriving this from some discussions with JDJarvis of late in my monster island post:

"If you didn't keep notes of room contents fill the area with lava, ice, greenslime, radiation, toxic gas, huge swarms of nth dimensional pirhana stirges, hardened lava.."

So im blowing  this germ into tables for indoors and outdoors to cover up locations and change contents of an area. On Pychon id just blow stuff up or something but in regular setting i might need some variety and possibly more subtlety. Basic idea to drive players from returning to location or make return to somewhere more interesting. Players may go on instead of flee. Let them but make life tough and are unfamiliar. You might need to make an area more hostile than maps indicate and want to remodel the hex. You might want to use to ad some history to an area or a boring dungeon might need more backstory. You could roll for a complex if left a while for a dungeon event while party away or do this to one of their properties then send in to clean up.

d50 Outdoor hexcrawl redecorating
1 Bushfire razed area into soot, ashcloud, smoke and burned logs
2 Snowfall buried everything
3 Earthquake swallows everything or created ravines
4 Mudslide buried everything
5 Tsunami buried under water and debris
6 Flash flood covered everything in water
7 Plague of critters swarming in millions, frogs, worms, mosquitoes, flies, mice, stirges, rotgrubs
8 Underground collapse of mine or cave changes land shape or stuff falls into sinkhole
9 Meteor strike from space fills area with craters
10 Drought everything unrecognizable without vegetation, desperate hungry beasts
11 Crawling with plague of undead, gathering for festivities or war
12 Battlefield with armies locked in struggle in huge dust or smoke cloud
13 Dust storm covers all in choking dirt also buries stuff
14 Disease outbreak effecting animals and people, driving them crazy and hostile
15 Wild weather like cyclones, storms or hail make travel virtually impossible
16 Monster hordes swarming in area for war or festivities or holy event
17 Mutagens warping plants and animals into horrible creatures
18 Kaiju battles have changed land and made less hospitable, some leave giant lice or toxic waste
19 Cursed land turned sour from influence of a god or monster
20 Volcanic activity and lava, possibly attracting monsters
21 Fire rained from skies burning, killing everything
22 Bolt from heaven blasted the land, now a cursed land of mutants
23 Area sunk into cursed swamp with beastmen and cultists building stilt villages on top
24 Prehistoric undead horror monsters dig up from below ruining land
25 Gods changed the land due to some great epic agenda or jut to remind us of who is in charge
26 A barbarian horde arrived and set up camp, they kill any intruders at this stage in settlement
27 An army in area interrogates and torture any they find as potential spies
28 Monster hoard killing all in area such as giants, dragons, demons, lycanthropes
29 Cloud of toxic or flammable or asphyxiating gas
30 Huge subterranean explosion blows open earth drowning area in fire, smoke and gas
31 Supernatural woodlands hostile to humans grows rapidly, populated by sylvan life
32 Gateway to underworld opens releasing undead, monsters, devils and demons into world
33 Ancients awaken and reclaim land from hidden crypts where they have been sleeping
34 Haunted mist rolls over land claiming for evil, supernatural minions and magicians loose
35 Star or fragment of moon falls from sky leaving strange blasted wasteland and weird beasts
36 Ice covers land in great sheets, bringing monsters and becoming a supernatural land of winter
37 A god came and moved some features to another plane or far away land
38 Someone opened crypt of the elder ones, ushering madness and monsters across land
39 Evil magical being covertly taken over area, uses minions to keep party away
40 Elemental beings of roam land changing rapidly until mighty magicians and gods drive away
41 Water contaminated by toxins, kill or drive locals mad turning some into mutant monsters
42 Violent mob of cultists, escaped slaves, angry farmers or some other group roam area
43 Area over run by slimes, jellies, oozes and amoeba creatures eating everything
44 Wild storms, severe weather,lightning and hail make travel difficult
45 A wizard has unleashed zombies, demons or some other horror across land
46 Royal dungeoneer corp came through stripped all of interest, leaving ruined rubble and dead
47 A defeated army passed through looting all and leaving some troops behind
48 Religious war with two battling faiths runs rampage her with fanatics murdering non believers
49 Non corporeal spirits swarm over area
50 Underground fire in mine, dungeon or coal seam chokes area in smoke and toxic fumes

d100 Indoor dungeon redecorating
1 Green slime everywhere
2 Collapsed area partly unstable
3 Kobold remodelling team was here changing area
4 Adventurers looted and burned area and collapsed some walls and smashed doors
5 Rot grubs crawling everywhere
6 Stirges crawling everywhere in hundreds
7 Kyuss grubs and worms shambling about in droves
8 Swarming with undead screaming and moaning
9 Covered in toxic mould and fungus
10 Yellow musk creepers and zombies crawling everywhere
11 Vegemen colony sprouted and taken over
12 A wizard or shaman has made an orc breeding pit and has been busy
13 Necromancer has moved in with undead labour and remodelled
14 Waist deep in parasitic worm and maggots looking for hosts, locals burst with worms if killed
15 Lava has flooded areas with magma, smoke, gas and ash
16 Royal dungeoneering corp mine team burrowed in, smashed, killed and robbed everything
17 Ice has covered are making floors slick and blocking with solid ice
18 Covered in hostile plants and bioluminesance
19 Demons made area living twitching flesh horror, spawning monsters and eating visitors
20 Devils remodelled as torture and deathtrap zone and released monsters
21 Gremlins have flooded and trapped everywhere and put tiny tunnels for them linking everywhere
22 Goblinoids assemble here in insane mass to prepare for a rampage, holy drunken revelry
23 Bandit gang have moved in and do not welcome intruders, many new traps
24 Cult have moved in and remodelled into a temple and other sacred chambers
25 Undead have awakened and gathered here in force to claim some ancient territory
26 Flooded ankle deep making traps harder to spot and hide some critters and traps
27 Flooded knee, waste or neck deep as 26 but worse, very large water creatures able to hide
28 Totally flooded occupied by marine races and monsters as if home
29 Area flooded with magical darkness and cannot be broken except by a gods intervention
30 Outer planar being has established temporary court for business here, remodelled and guarded
31 Flammable gas fills dungeon, whole place could blow up. any fire creates fireball
32 Poison gas fills but mild so defects slow such as 1d2 points per turn or -2 stat feats and saves
33 Poison gas asphyxiating fills area, displaces oxygen nothing to breathe
34 Poison gas save per turn or choke and die
35 Poison gas save per turn or start to lose 1hp/round
36 Corrosive gas, save every turn or 1hp damage, equipment saves every hour
37 Flaming gas jets have erupted everywhere filling with smoke and poison gas
38 Demons have turned into horror abattoir to butcher beings for export back home
39 Devils have made slave yard where planar beings visit to buy slaves
40 Dungeon dimension has merged with local area, possibly of different zone type but area changed
41 A witch coven has moved in and set up curses and constructs and guardians
42 A monster witch doctor with guardians, servants and weird hybrids has moved in
43 Area dripping with slimes, oozes, jellies and other gross horrors fit for the demon slime god
44 Yog Sothoth has warped local time and space leaving time warps and space loops everywhere
45 Yog Sothoth has warped local time and space leaving gates to different times and dimensions
46 Yog Sothoth came and mated with everything, crawling in gibbering mutant horror hybrids
47 A underworld god came and released demons & monsters as part of their claim over all dungeons
48 A cursed relic was brought here and evil gods noticed, remodelled and unleashed monsters
49 Nothing left now but teenage youth gangs writing graffiti, making out and drinking
50 Things from a deeper darker layer of long sealed horrors has leaked into this area
51 A mighty demon has settled here and has raised army of orcs or goblinoids to worship it
52 Tar has begun oozing up into dungeon attracting other creatures and interests and hazards
53 Ghosts and non corporeal dead are swarming area for some unknown underworld purpose
54 Fire elementals, salamanders and other flaming horrors have taken over
55 Earth elementals, rock beasts, molemen or sandmen have overtaken area
56 Water elementals, undines, fishmen and liquid beasts have overun and partly flooded
57 Air Elementals have over run area and wind beasts, birdmen and other aerial killers abound
58 Demiplane of Shadow has opened releasing shadow beings that have set up court here
59 Dungeon dreamlands opened releasing nightmare beasts from dreams of locals or the party
60 Demiplane of lightning has released energy beings, willow the whisps and shock beasts
61 Demiplane of smoke has filled with toxic fumes and hostile smoke creatures
62 Kobolds have arrived to modernise dungeon with traps, secret passages and improved doors
63 A brick golem has wandered about changing walls and building new structures from brick
64 Dungeon has been self aware and come to life rearanging itself and spawning new creatures
65 Magical otherworldly fog floods are making spirits visible from other side
66 Planar convergence has allowed otherworldly horrors to see in and will attack intruders
67 Demiplane of radience opened here releasing luminous energy beings and strange magic auroras
68 Demiplane of cold has opened chilling area and crawling with ice beasts and ice elementals
69 Lycanthrope has gone wild, now everything here a werebeast horror as well
70 A divine being blessed local monsters now all hothoused with extra health and magic powers
71 Spirit world leaking through attracting spirits, some magical beings and shamen attracted
72 Astral weak point and lay line convergence attracts psionic beings, psions and shamen
73 A being has had area remodelled and turned into a guarded trapped tomb for kinsman
74 Crawling with insects, centipedes, scorpions, spiders and other pest in millions
75 Giant spiders moved in to start breeding colony, millions of tiny spiders and giant brood queens
76 Crawling with frogs, flooded tadpole infused pools, frog and toad monsters and humanoids
77 Millions of snakes of all types crawling over everything, even blocking tunnels
78 Reptilian humanoids awakened from slumber and broke into area to build a forward base
79 Bugbear mobsters with tommyguns and stills have taken this area as a brewery and distillery
80 Gun wielding soldiers from another dimension have broken through here
81 Mutant monster species taken over with deadly new powers like phase stirges or fire lizard men
82 Magical distortions alter magic, stopping divine spell recovery or making arcane magic wild
83 Psionic fields influence locals into hive mind community all know if others in trouble
84 Psionic fields make locals more hostile and alignments more extreme, from gods of disorder
85 Locals ordinary folk have moved into area to use as storehouses, residence or adventure holiday
86 Devilish swine men have set up organisation here charming other humanoids to be slaves
87 Statuary or artwork has come to life and has haunted area, some are golems others phantasms
88 Gate to underworld has opened releasing devils, demons, undead and lost souls
89 Primal chaos plane leaked into area creating hideous mutant spawn and attracting evil beings
90 Primal law moved in, all angles made perfect, clean, well lit with modrons on patrol
91 Good beings have come to prey and meditate on reforming this place, keep intruders out
92 Fly demons have turned into giant garbage dump full of ogres, goblins and maggots
93 Demonlord building army of goat men and undead to attack surface world
94 Monk order or martial art schools have taken over as training ground
95 Imperial templars and inquisitors and paladins set up shop to kill any evil or impure they see
96 A state has set up HQ for spies, secret police and assassins here, any witnesses must be killed
97 Area covered in magic runes, sigils, magic traps and curses to keep out intruders
98 Wizard has moved in to take over, most have servitors and remodel quickly
99 Criminal chapter from city mega gang moved in for secret secure storehouse and to rob locals
100 Gateway to evil open, letting loose horrible demonoids, devilkin and elder horrors

What to buy and design next?

Times are a changing. Despite my health - been a bit better i have lots of school holiday art teaching jobs coming up and a paid appearance at a zine fair. I should be working on a coloring book now to print tomorrow, worst case is i buy a printer cartridge and make a 1/2 size edition. Hope to do some DnD zines or versions of my PDFs as limited run zines on hemp in future which will get me some media attention. I could milk the old school DnD angle as young hip nerds think its cooler far more than modern DnD gamers.

I wanna do 3 colouring books. One of fake comics, one of my puffy octopoid cuties and another one of octopuses in dungeons which kids like lots. So Ill be quitting a few games im playing in. I will keep up herbies 70s paranormal agents game and tonight we playtested his reverse Cthulhu con game. We play house servents of our untrained in magic new mistress who keeps being tempted to chase boys and buy dresses. We protect her from island of sanity in the cruel cosmos - the local village. Tonight my gardener burned all the dress shops in the village to keep her safe. Us cultists keep trying to convert her to our god and then she will lead us to conquer/destroy the world. Big fun. Just a few more weeks till  Sydcon. Got to design my player aid hand outs for Planet Psychon and maybe a gamer zine or some stickers for this site might be good giveaways.

Might get to DM something while other Keeper away in Jakarta pitching toy deals. So Psychon or RQ or post apocalypse/carwars/cyberpunk/dredd type thing or sf game or supers might be viable...

Went to game shop to stare at stuff. Ended up getting Cthulhy New York Source books. Will get some more Cthulhu stuff and some 3rd party gear is very good and even laid out more like old cthulhu stuff. Magic world i stared at. Seems like old stormbringer rules really. I really find big type a turn off but a maybe. Amber Coast tempting but i find crusaders, samurai and ss death camp guards really unappealing as game material (history ok).  BRP Iceland looks good but once again slightly big type. I feel dumber reading big print or something. Mutant Future RPG is super dense and as a designer I dislike layout bloat. Although well stocked with good sales my local shop has only a few games I would buy, mostly Cthulhu, BRP and still tempted by eclipse phaze. Id snap up right history books in a flash. Looked at A-Z Dungeon book and would rather PDF than book. I can make wacky tables myself and have some fine peers on blogger doing it to.

Have a online want list, half by independant bloggers

Gothic Stuff
Gothic game stuff in production and necromancer piece jumped to 6th biggest page Ive done in 2 days. So something to think about apeal of that one. Good to mix with redbrick elements and very useful in game at moment. Gothic+dwarf table worked well to improvise a dwarf ruin in play.  Lots of Gothic projects done but more still:

Rich mans pockets
d100 Grave Urns and funery vases - smash=loot?
d100 saint relics - bits and items of great holy folk
d100 Dungeon Decor Table - dress up dull dungeon
d1000 curses
d100 Tragedy table
d100 Haunting table I did reasons for haunting table - overlaps with tragedy one
d100 religious items - religious drssings, probably lootable
d100 Things in Coffins
d100 Corpses
d100 Commoner's pocketsd100 Wealthy pockets
d100 Random Crypt Table
d100 Random Corpse Tables
d100 Non Corporeal Undead Encounters
d100 Corporeal Undead Encounters
d100 in the graveyard at night
d100 Weird old Houses
d100 Forbidden Castles
d100 Doomed Immortals
d100 Necromancers
d100 Towers 1 and 2
d100 Crossroads
d100 Islands
Castle Geomorphs
Manour Geomorphs
Crypt and tomb Geomorph
Mousoleom and cathedral Geomorphs
d100 Strange Graveyards
d100 Grave lone grave
d100 Necromancer Relics
d100 wandering holy folk, hermits and hunters of unholy

Planet Psychon
Needs more play i have done heaps. But some ideas include:

Techtonics on psychon - weird table to apply to a hex for interesting stuff underground
October – my Sydcon Module
Space Gods and aliens
Elder Gods and pre human horror
Mutations and mutant characters class
Beastmen character class
Robots and synthetic characters class
Spaceman characters class?
Ancient character class?
Organizations and other creeds of psychon...

Gammaworld recycling a bit but I wanna run my Spacefleed DnD sometime for a bit and want to see it rise up in my top10 again. Some of this stuff will overlap with psychon and gamma world in space.

crew, hardware, gunboats, setting intro
http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/spaceships-and-spacemarines.html

ships, encounters, random colonies
http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/spaceships-and-spacemarines-2.html

Plenty to keep me going plus:
Revise cthulhu 1490s sheet
Mapof Shadelport
Exile Island high detail map or at least map of mountains and highlands

Cthulhu 1490 been a hit but might have a SF Cthulhu interlude break for a change soon...

More Geomorph Experiments

Sorry for not using grids on some of these i dont use figures or tactical combat. I recommend you try to photocopy a grid onto acetate or overhead projector film. I will post grid versions on my flickr sometime.

This is a mad wizards school with a library and a trapped magical maze to test students in. Includes some mines, a factory, library and barracks. While an assault group attack the front, players can sneak through caves and maze and try to kill leaders while troops at front door.

Ill spare you more genre mash-ups as i cant base games just on adorable costumes for kobolds. Though little cowboy hats on kobolds and goblin warg rider cattle rustlers in a Boothill dungeon springs to mind. I could be really evil and make only native Americans human. Starfrontiers races all in spelljammer anyhow.

Gangbusters, Goblins and Geomorphs

Kobold Mountain is a dungeon made up from some of my geomorphs. Basically a kobold clan have been instinctively building this. At some point an evil wizard joined them and has been tutoring the best kobolds in wizardy. The rest stick to traditional kobold arts like rearing mushroom tree gardens and building traps.

I googled gangbusters and the pdf came straight down a link unbidden. The game was never sold in my state and so i got the modules on sale a dollar each and lived in my CoC folder since. Rules on criminal profits handy. I had a Cthulhu party get a gate from L and used it to smuggle booze to finance war on evil. London to Arkham  Hmmm gangster era encounter tables might be a goer and even Marvel ones might work. Lots of mechanics here leaked into top secret and star frontiers. Im glad to have seen it after 30 years looking for it. Since ive read it, i went into dreamy dreamland and had awesome imaginings of gangbusters-dungeon mash up.

Bugbear bootleggers with pinstripe suits. Hobgoblin extortionists. Goblins mobsters take the docklands and blow up a wizards tower. Since that magic cabinet was found with a transworld gateway fell into Bugsy's paws the dungeon denizens have been inflicting new terrors on the local hobbits and humans. Farmer Dilby didnt pay his protection and lost his cows. The tavern was burned down and the brewer driven out of town. The guildsmen and Mayor and other civic leaders seem incapable or unwilling to stop this tide of strange evil. Many common folk have become hopeless gambling addicts, drunks and many owe kobold card sharks and hobgoblin money lenders. Bugsy, the bugbear leader of the dungeon gang armed with a strange thunder gun killed the sheriff and his whole family for daring to kill a hobgoblin.

Since then, gnomes and wizards and the three sages have been kidnapped and dragged off in sacks to the dungeon for some unknown purpose of the bugbear gang boss. There is less daily violence but orc, hobgoblins, goblins and kobolds walk the street openly and none dare challenge them. They have been making a smooth roadway from the dungeon through the hamlet for Bugsy's big surprise.

I dont know where this is going but its the sort of thing I dream while dozing off.

Working Dungeon Blues

Hmmmm ive finished two three big projects. This is a doodle ive been doing last few nights.

I want it to last about 4 sessions and wanted to play with levels as i seem to make mostly one level sprawls. Ill do a whole page of stairwell geomorphs soon too. One more gammaworld session at Urchin books then DnD and this might be it. Will use my redbrick tables work for the first levels.

Want to give the old school feel which suits newbs. Also inspired by fighting fantasy books.
Ill go back to complex plots when i have a weekly game of veteran players again. Sandbox fine for now.

So the evil sorcerer has been hidden in his mountain, breeding monsters and recruiting evil minions. Folk were content to let him revel in forbidden lore and madness but of late monsters have been demanding more than chickens. Several homesteaders have vanished and  livestock and children. Till a whole hamlet vanished. Enter the Impirial Dungeoneer Corp led by Prince Fastivius the 23rd in line to the imperial throne. Unusually they comp on top of the dungeon but this time the mountain citadel makes this tactic unworkable. Also flying monsters like gargoyles, stirge owls, bat winged snakes and even a dragon, the wizards steed.

Prince Fastivius has had his men set up camp in the burned out hamlet and surround it with a coral. The corp priests and wizards are an defective deterant. His agents have searched every prison, tavern and whorehouse for adventurers and the party is presented to him. Dubbing them dungeoneer corp auxiliary scouts 3rd class, the party are frog marched right up to the entrance by guards. A priest and a an apprentice are with them for healing and to help classify magic items and choose which ones the prince will take as his share.

The party must return with valuable intelligence (documents not hearsay), used ammo and at least half wounded or face court marshal and execution. The guards and priest will heal adventurers several times and will be replaced withing 8 hours if used up. They will take heavy goods, coins, or anything valuable off poor burdoned adventurers. When its level up time the party will be marched back to the hamlet and allowed to have a beer. Now the hamlet has a stockade, trenches and catapults and even more troops.

If party cries lots they may be put on clean up detail with some peasant labor looking for stuff missed by proper adventurers. Fancy aristocrats looking for fame may arrive and be given privelaged dungeon looting rights for certain level making some conflict. The party may be sent to rescue some fops who will then steal all the glory and loot. Possibly some noble will bring a wife or daughter who will be kidnapped by hobgoblins and taken to the citadel. Perhaps a player could find true love to have the wizard's dragon fly of with them. Eventually the party level will earn them respect. By 4th they should be treated as non-scum by nobles and will earn own rights and keep treasures.

Possibly money looted here will be sent to home war effort but some may be to hire mercenaries and improve hamlet fortifications. When the sorcerer and his followers are killed the property may be made available. Very luck heroes may get to meet bluebloods and dine with them.