Some Monsters

It might sound like heresy to the old school crowd, but even if you're running an old school game you should have a peek at the 5e Monster Manual when you're statting up monsters.

Read through the Labyrinth Lord/OSE/S&W/etc Monster Manuals and you'll get a lot of generic stat blocks of predictable HD/AC/ML and the sort of generic claw/claw/bite or weapon attacks you could have made up yourself. This results in the evergreen tip of Just Use Bears.

Meanwhile 5e will at least give a generic Goblin the ability to run and hide as a bonus action.

Basically if you've run enough D&D and you're running an OSR module with not much prep time, give the 5e MM listing a quick glance to see if there's anything interesting the monster could be doing beyond 3 attacks at 1d6/1d6/1d8.

The other thing about running anything is that you've got about a hundred different things zooming through your head at a time, so if there's an ability it should be pretty easy to remember and simple to adjudicate, and if there's some sort of contextual trigger you should probably just tell the players as soon as seems reasonable (that way it's in their head instead) and/or tie it to something obvious like death throes or odd/even damage rolls.

You can also have a Recharge mechanic like 4e monsters - special abilities are recharged (and usually immediately used) on a d6 roll.

So in that vein here are some normal monsters.

Black Pudding

HD10 AC13 ML12

Menacing pile of jet black ooze that dissolves pretty much anything that's not stone.

Fears fire, but not light. Immune to acid, poison and cold.

When hit by a stabby or choppy weapon, splits into two smaller oozes with half the HP which each have the same attack.

Hits for 2d10 damage. Hits deal a Notch to armour. Weapons that touch it are also Notched.

Slow but can squeeze through very small gaps no worries. A terror.

Carrion Crawler

HD3 AC12 ML5

Squirming maggoty corpse eaters with a full 8 attacks from their 8 flailing stingers. 

Each hit deals a Pain Poison (1-in-HD chance to pass out per round) but no damage. 

Bites for a mere 1d4, but that's cold comfort when you and your friends are paralyzed.

Deep Ones

HD2 AC14 ML9

4-eyed frog monsters.

2 claws for 1d6 each + paralyzing bite for 1d6: as much Pain Poison on failed Save vs Doom.

Long ranged hand-tongue attack - on hit they suck you towards them (for small things) or them to you (for brutal leap). Successful tongue attack means they get a free bite or wrestle at +4 to hit.

Deep One "Mermaid"

HD4 AC14 ML9

2 claw attacks for 1d6 + magic pheremones charm all who scent them. 

She looks like the woman of your dreams. If you're not into women you get a +4 bonus to the Save vs Doom or be Charmed and do whatever she wants - usually get implanted with frogspawn.

1d4 hours gestation time (Roll 1d4 every hour - on a 4 it's time). Save vs Doom or rupture as the eggs erupt from your throat.

Eggs swell into Sea Salties after 24 hours immersed in water. A Sea Saltie that sinks to a great pressure will hatch into a male Deep One. A Sea Saltie that's swallowed replaces your tongue with a baby female Mermaid that will grow and slip out of your mouth into fresh water in a few weeks.

Swallowing a Sea Saltie gives you an hour of water breathing and pressure resistance from the unnatural mutagens. Further sea salties don't breed more mermaids though!

Dwimmerdragon

HD9 AC16 ML9

Wingless dragon-ish creatures made of Azoth-enriched stone, siblings to the Dwarves and originally designed as protectors of the Dwimmermount mines.

Alas, they cannot leave the Azoth area without falling ill and slowly turning back to stone.

They make Stone Sons of themselves, original masters of the technique.

They are chatty and vain, prone to flattery.

They are covered in pearls and gems, a side effect of the stone son procedure, worth 1d10*1000 obols.

Roll 1d6 for their attack each round:

1-2: 1d6/1d6/3d10 claw/claw/bite 

3-4: Garlicy sulphur-breath deals their HP in a cloud and turns extremities of non-stone creatures to dirt.

5: Roll two spells and cast one of them as a L9 Wizard.

6: Sink into stone and regenerate 1d10 HP.

Gargoyle

HD4 AC14/20 ML7

Weeping Angel style menaces. While in line of sight they are statues - AC20, take 1 damage from non-magical. 

When not seen they are blindingly fast dusky blue winged creatures that leap and strike with a claw/claw/horn for 1d6 each.

Smashing a gargoyle turns the area pitch black - as Darkness 15' Radius.

Gelatinous Cube

HD4 AC12 ML12

Practically invisible. 

Pseudopod attack on all in melee range for 1d6. 

Envelops stunned people for 1d8 damage/round. Wrestle at +8 to escape.

When damaged Save vs Stun or get as much Pain Poison. 

Giant Boring Beetle

HD4 AC14 ML6

Huge beetles with big mandibles. Bite 5d4. Drones on and on.

All Boring Beetles are linked in a giant hivemind. They act as one and all roll the same die - it applies to all attacking beetles.

If you are bitten by a Boring Beetle you are infected with their Boring Hive Mind and get the same roll as the beetles. This lasts until a Boring Beetle rolls under your Wisdom Score with an attack.

Giant Stag Beetle

HD5 AC16 ML6

Surprisingly stealthy. Giant stag beetle loves to grab and pinch and crush!

Two attacks. On hit, 1d8 damage and Wrestle at +10. Deals 1d20 damage in a Wrestle.

Can move around normally while Wrestling, hoping to drag prey into a dark corner.

Giant Tick

HD2 AC14 ML8

Huge arm-length ticks that crawl up you and stick their whole head in your body to feed on your blood.

Horribly fast. 

Drain 1d6 HP and 1 Constitution from their victim per round. Drop off if burned, submerged, or killed.

Victims Save vs Doom after combat or contract the tick's paralysing disease - every day Save vs Doom or lose 1 point of Strength. Pass 2 days in a row to recover.

Green Slime

Drops on living things to turn them into more of it. Awareness check to avoid as it falls.

Deals 1d6 Constitution damage/rd (Save vs Doom for half) until scraped, burnt or frozen off.

Burning always works (and deals 1d6 damage to the recipient), the slime leaps away from the open flame.

Scraping deals 1d6 damage and the recipient gets a Save vs Doom to make the green slime get gone.

Destroyed by fire and sunlight.

Hell Hound

HD4 AC12 ML12

Stitched-together corpse frankensteins made from dogs.

Bite for 1d10. 

Breathes flies and glowing green poisonous vomit in a cone for 1d8 damage + Notch armour and weapons. Recharges on a 1-2.

Can detect invisible with exceptional hearing and smell.

Horrible Unicorn Persons

HD6 AC15 ML8

Astonishingly fast (hence AC) and pale white. An attempt to make a perfect being that went horribly wrong. Won't attack virgins unless attacked first. Androgynous, nude, no genitals.

Double damage horn ram on charge, attack at +8 and wield great weapons that lend them +2 damage from strength. 2 attacks - 1 gore with horn for 1d8, 1 weapon attack usually a greataxe for 1d10+2. Punch for 1d6 in a pinch.

Phase Spider

HD5 AC14 ML8

Spiders whose webbing phases into the Ghost Dimension. 

While on the webs, these spiders can phase in and out at will. Off the webs, it takes a Move.

Bite deals 1d6 damage and as much Pain Poison on a failed Save vs Doom. The venom phases you into the Ghost Dimension while it's in your system. Good luck!

Roper

HD10 AC16 ML8

Classic stalagmite monster.

50' reach with its 1d8 damage tentacles.

On hit, grabs you by the leg and pulls you through the air towards its maw. You've got two tries to escape the Wrestle, else 1d20 damage per chomp.

Rust Monster

HD5 AC12 ML6

Strange cockroach-like beasts with whipping antennae, rust monsters rust metal and eat the rust. Dreaded by all.

2 tentacle whip attacks deals 1d4 Notches to metal armour on hit.

Hitting it deals 1d4 Notches to metal weapons.

If it crumbles a weapon or armour to rust it'll spend a round eating it up, very cute.

Shambling Mound

HD10 AC18 ML12

A mass of moist vegetation around a supremely hard to hurt (thus AC 18) moist wet core.

Two clubbing limb attacks for 1d8 each. If both hit, auto-grapples and engulfs, suffocating you and dealing 2d8 damage per round.

Lightning attacks heal it for traditional reasons. Vegetation is too moist to burn so takes only 1 damage per die from fire attacks. 1 damage from Smashy or Stabby weapons.

Wight

HD4 AC12 ML12

Humanoid shapes full of shadow and burning black fire.

Immune to mundane.

Armour piercing 1d4 ghostly chilling touch + Save vs Doom or Level drain (down to just under level up). Inform the players of this as soon as they see the Wight and see how they react!

Anyone drained by a Wight becomes a 2HD Wight under its control, their soul dragged from their body by a spectral claw and turned to burning darkness.

Ravenous Zombie

HD3, AC14, ML12.

A zombie that ate a brain and became fast and intelligent. Glowing red eyes give them away. 

Vicious and can speak, mostly to mock and coordinate. 

2 claw attacks for 1d6 each. 

Always burst down the person with the most Bleed dice, or otherwise least HP. 

Ravenous Mode lasts 10 minutes, so usually walk around like a regular zombie until they spot prey.

Zombie
HD1, AC13, ML 12.

1d6 claw. Double HP. Slow as hell - they have a special third initiative behind everyone else.
If they eat an intelligent creature's brain - become a Ravenous Zombie.

Horde: +1 Backstab per zombie in melee range of their target.

Secret Santicorn 2019: The Breakdown

This post is just a link to DIY & Dragons who has organised aaaaall the Secret Santicorn stuff we did in the Discord at the end of last year!

Secret Santicorn 2019

There's some really great content in there, I think making stuff for other people really makes people put in all the effort!
Big shout out to what is obviously the best one, the one Spwack made for me!


Feels weird to have such a short post with no pictures stolen from a google image search, so please enjoy this sandwich alignment chart.
Bring it out next time you're out with friends or on a date and I guarantee a good quarter hour of conversation.

Santicorn 2019: Tide-Flooded Caverns

Santicorn baby! The second annual Santicore-alike we've organised on the OSR Discord channel!
Everyone requests a thing, we shuffle the requests around, and everyone fulfils one of them as a Christmas Santicorn gift! How wholesome!

I got this one from Wizzzargh:
"Dungeon room fills, be they tricks, traps, treasure, or monsters, for a dungeon regularly flooded by seawater at high tide. Bonus points for fills that require very different approaches at different water levels"

So here goes!

The Tide-Flooded Caverns

The smell of salt and smoke. Rumours of smugglers and sea-witches. Warnings of a rising tide that claims all who enter. Everyone in the village built on the bluffs above knows of the caves, and all are wise enough not to explore them.
At low tide the seawater slides around the cave mouths like a lover's tongue, sloshing over the slick sand and sucking mud and shifting stones of a treacherous beach.

The tide turns and waves of cold scummy seawater gush into the waiting mouths, pouring in through the twisting passages and wider caverns that honeycomb the headland.

Exploring the caves is dangerous, the rising tides changing the nature of the chambers inside, but there are stories of vast treasures and strange creatures within...

How to Use

There are 20 caverns detailed below, each with a description for Low, Mid and High Tide.
There are also 10 treasures to spice up a chamber, or maybe to find if they loot a room.

Finally, 6 random encounters because of course.
Do whatever you feel like with them!

You could roll randomly as PCs travel through the caves (maybe 1d20 for chamber and 1d20 for treasure, where treasure results 11-20 are "nothing extra"), or pre-build the cavern complex.

If you do the latter I suggest room 9 (Gillifier) be placed fairly deep in the caves, since it's a gimmick room that reverses whether you breathe air or water and it might be fun to recontextualise all the other chambers they've been in already.
Room 10 (Lamprey Witch) contains a powerful foe so could be used as a boss room if that's something you like doing.
Room 6 (Cork Golem) would make a good guard fairly close to the entrance, especially since the poor chap becomes a bit useless when the water level rises!

Either way the routes between the chambers are up to you. I envisage twisty slippery seaweedy passages that fill up at high tide.

Tracking the Tide

Time from Low to High tide is apparently 6 hours, which is a lot for your average delve, but whatever. Hopefully they get a bit trapped by the time Mid Tide rolls around and have to make some hard decisions.
I suggest having a row of six boxes like so:

☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
  Low  |   Mid  |  High

Use an Overloaded Encounter Die and have result 3 say "Tide rises - Check off a tide box". That should mean you get about one box ticked off per hour.
Result 4 could even be something like "Freak Surge - treat as next Tide in cycle for next 10 minutes" to add some more watery unpredictability!

Drowning

You might have drowning rules already, but if you don't here's how I do it -

If you get a chance to take a deep breath before diving, you can hold your breath for 5 rounds +/- your Constitution modifier.
If you don't get to take a breath first, you have 1d6-1 rounds of air left, also +/- Con Mod
Once you run out of air you take 1d6 damage per round until you can breathe again.

The Chambers

1. Aqua-Pause Pillar

Any Tide:
A chamber with water seemingly frozen in time, forming a bowl-shape around a vibrating glass-and-stone pillar. The pillar is honeycombed with glass panels revealing the glowing bubbling blue liquid within. Smash the pillar and a ripple shudders through the water. Hit hard enough, the vibration stops all the water within a mile in place! It still feels like water, but it doesn't move or ripple or pour. The effect lasts for an hour, after which the water suddenly springs back to where it should have been.

2. Barnacle Spear

Any Tide:On a raised barnacle-encrusted dais in the middle of this frieze-carved chamber is a long tool with a rusty barnacle-scraping edge filed to a point on the end. Water rushes down the holes at the foot of the dais, keeping the water in this chamber knee-high.

The Barnacle Spear counts as an ordinary spear when nowhere near the sea. When it's near the sea it's a spear with powers based on the tide.

Low Tide: Ebb - on hit, get a free move and disengage backwards.

Mid Tide: Splash Zone - on hit, push everyone in front of you 20' away.

High Tide: Surge - On hit, pierce through and hit another target behind the first. This can combo indefinitely until you run out of targets. You can move up to 20' forwards between strikes.

3. Bastard Seagulls

Low Tide: Seagulls fly into this guano-covered chamber through the many small holes in the ceiling. They are fiercely territorial and massive bastards who will flock and kill in a barrage of savage pecks.

Mid Tide: Seagulls float happily on the surface of the chest-high water in this chamber, occasionally flying in and out of the many small holes in the ceiling. They are fiercely territorial and will swarm anyone who enters above the water, but won't attack anyone swimming below.

High Tide: A few seagulls bob on the surface of the neck-high water in this chamber. There's not much room though, so most of them have already flown out to the outside world through the small holes in the ceiling. Anybody with their head above the water will be attacked by the seagulls who paddle over to peck at their face - there's not enough room to swoop.

-

Bastard Seagulls

HD1 AC unarmoured ML9

Attacks: 1d2 Peck or 1d4 flyby swoop attack

Abilities: At will, a seagull can detect the distance and direction of hot potato chips within a half mile radius.

Attitude: Extremely bad-tempered. Swoop if there's room, peck if there isn't, squawk no matter what.

4. Bluebottles

Low Tide:
The slimy, lumpy floor of this chamber is covered with small pale blue pear-shaped balloons and tangles of bright royal blue tendrils. Touching a tendril brings hot red whip-like marks on the flesh and extreme agony. 

Mid Tide:
The waist-high water in this chamber has many small pale blue pear-shaped balloons bobbing about in it. Their bright blue tendrils drift about beneath the water. Wading or swimming through the water inevitably leads to these stinging tendrils drifting into you and bringing up incredibly painful whip-like welts on any body parts which went beneath the water - legs if wading, pretty much all of you if swimming.

High Tide:
Pretty blue strings drift about in the currents of this water-filled chamber, seemingly hanging from the ceiling above. If you swim through this room you are beset by the agonising stings of the tendrils and risk death by drowning.

-

Bluebottles (Hazard)

Effect:

Their tendrils bring great pain through a powerful venom. 

If touched by a tendril (even through cloth), Save vs Stun or keel over prone from the pain - you can Save again each round to recover. You take 1d4 damage each round you have clothing touching the affected body parts for the next 10 minutes. Additionally, for small areas (a hand, a foot), that body part becomes useless for the next hour. For larger areas (torso, multiple limbs), you count as having 1HP for the next hour until the pain fades away.

Main Danger:

Keeling over from the pain on land likely makes you fall onto more of them. Doing it in water risks stinging more and more of you as you stir up the water (and tendrils) in your agony, leading to your inevitable drowning.

5. Chasing Crab

Low Tide:
This crab is big and hungry and now it wants to eat YOU. It scuttles sideways at twice human speed across the wet floor of this chamber, claws bared, ready to PINCH! It will chase you until you either kill it, or get two chambers ahead of it at which point it gives up.

Mid Tide:
This crab is big and hungry and ANNOYING SLOW IN WATER! It scuttles sideways through the waist-high water at human unencumbered speed, claws bared, ready to CLAMP! It will chase you until you either kill it, or get two chambers ahead of it at which point it gives up.

High Tide:
This crab is big and hungry and AGONISINGLY SLOW SUBMERGED. It scuttles sideways under the water at a quarter human speed, claws bared, extremely FRUSTRATED! It will chase you until you either kill it, or get two chambers ahead of it at which point it gives up.

-

Chasing Crab

HD8 AC plate ML10

Attacks: 2 Pincer attacks for 1d10 each. If both hit, dents your armour giving you -1 AC until you get it repaired.

Abilities: Fast on land, slow in water. Max speed on land is twice human. Max speed submerged is quarter human.

Attitude: Chase down victims, but try to keep on land where it's fast!

6. Cork Golem

Low Tide: A huge golem made of cork stomps around this slippery chamber floored with black cave-kelp, guarding the way deeper into the complex.

Mid Tide:
A huge golem made of cork bobs around in the chest-high water in this chamber, flailing around because of how floaty it is. It's slow but powerful. Black cave-kelp waves on the floor.

High Tide:
A chamber filled completely with water, black cave-kelp waves in the water below. A huge golem made of cork is pinned to the ceiling by the water.

-

Cork Golem

HD10 AC leather ML12

Attacks: Powerful punch deals 1d12 damage and blasts victim back and prone - hitting a wall or other creature deals an extra 1d6 damage to both.

Abilities: Floats, immune to fire when wet (always in here), 1 damage per die from bashing attacks.

Attitude: Stomp around, punch people into other people, stomp on people while they're lying on the floor!

7. Dehydrated Ooze

Any Tide:

The passage slopes up to a small cave above the waterline. Inside is a crusty aquamarine bulge with gold coins glimmering under the hardened candy-like shell.

Pour a bunch of water on the lump and it rehydrates into a massive absorbent Aquamarine Goop! Run! Or kill it somehow to claim the treasure...

-

Aquamarine Goop

12HD AC leather ML12

Attacks: 1d8 Dehydrating Slap - On hit, Save vs Doom or lose 1d4 Strength from sudden dehydration!

Abilities: If hit by a water or ice-based attack, gets an immediate free turn. If hit by a fire-based attack, stunned for a round as it loses moisture.

Attitude: Schlorp after the juiciest foe and steal all their juices!

8. Eel Pit

Low Tide: The way out of this chamber is on the other side of a 50' deep pit with a shallow pool of water at the bottom. Electric eels hide at the sandy bottom of the pit, but won't attack when the water is this shallow. How come this pit isn't just a permanent deep pool? - The water in the pit drains away slowly through narrow shafts beneath the sand.

Mid Tide: The way out of this chamber is on the other side of a deep pit with a 20' deep pool of water 30' down. Electric eels hide at the sandy bottom of the pit, and will swarm out at anyone who jumps into the water.

High Tide: The way out of this chamber is on the other side of a 50' deep pool of water. The water is infested with electric eels which will swarm out at anyone who gets into the water.

-

Electric Eel

1HD AC unarmoured ML6

Attacks: 1d4 bite deals double damage vs metal armour - On hit, zap makes target drop whatever they're holding

Abilities: Electric bite

Attitude: Swarm anything that moves, zapping them so they drop their stuff and have to jump in to get it back.

9. Gillifier

Low Tide:
This damp stone chamber smells of salt and earth and wet metal, small fish flop industriously around the room. The walls are lined with nooks that shimmer with layers of with valuable mother-of-pearl, and a squid peers curiously down from one of these nooks. This room reverses whether you breathe air or water for 24 hours. Anyone who spends a minute or so in this room finds it hard to breathe, and soon they discover that they have grown gills and can no longer breathe air! They begin to suffocate immediately.

Mid Tide: This stone chamber with knee-high water smells of salt and earth and wet metal. Small fish float about with their faces on the surface, gulping down air. The walls are lined with nooks that shimmer with layers of with valuable mother-of-pearl. This room reverses whether you breathe air or water for 24 hours. Anyone who spends a minute or so in this room finds it hard to breathe, and soon they discover that they have grown gills and can no longer breathe air! They must go on their hands and knees to dip their newfound gills into the low water, else begin to suffocate.

High Tide: This stone chamber with chest-high water smells of salt and earth and wet metal. Small fish float about with their faces on the surface, gulping down air. The walls are lined with nooks that shimmer with layers of with valuable mother-of-pearl. This room reverses whether you breathe air or water for 24 hours. Anyone who spends a minute or so in this room finds it hard to breathe, and soon they discover that they have grown gills and can no longer breathe air! They begin to suffocate unless they submerge themselves into the water.

10. Lamprey Witch

Low Tide: A smoky chamber with shallow pits filled with water and black oily shapes - lampreys. A smoky blue driftwood fire is in the centre of the chamber, surrounded by stones. Hiding in one of the pits during the low tide is the Lamprey Witch - an emaciated old woman with lampreys latched onto every piece of her. She always seeks more food for her children and will strike from the smoke!

Mid Tide:
A hazy chamber that smells of salt and woodsmoke. Oily black shapes writhe and twist through the knee-high water- lampreys! They wriggle through the water towards you, awful mouths wide! If you turn back you see a horrible writhing figure, a human form with lampreys latched onto every inch - the Lamprey Witch is behind you already!

High Tide: The water surges behind you, barrelling you from the tunnel into this chamber of neck-high water. When you manage to catch a breath the air smells like woodsmoke. Black oily shapes writhe towards you in the water - lampreys! They're all around you, and you hear a choking laugh as a mass of lampreys bursts from the water - a mass of lampreys in human shape - the Lamprey Witch!

- 

Lamprey Witch

HD8 AC chain ML10

Attacks: Lamprey Toss - throw lampreys at a target, 50' range - 1d6 damage and the target gains attached lampreys equal to damage.

Lamprey Surge - AoE lamprey attack - all foes in 20' Save vs Blast or take 1d4 damage and gain attached lampreys equal to damage.

Abilities: Can breathe underwater, never takes damage from lampreys, breeds lampreys rapidly.

Attitude: Wants to find food for her babies! Main technique is to hang back and lob lampreys from afar, then use Lamprey Surge if she starts to get surrounded. Optimally foes will be so busy trying to get the lampreys off themselves that they can't concentrate on her!

Jumping Lamprey

HD0 (1HP) AC unarmoured ML5

Attack: Leaps up to 30' and latches on with its horrifying bloodsucking mouth! Each attached lamprey deals 1 point of damage per round. An attached lamprey can be pulled off as an Action (occupying your hand) or attacked with a weapon. If attacking, roll to hit vs AC 10. On hit, it's dead. On miss, it's dead and you deal weapon damage to the person it was latched onto.

Attitude: Swim or jump in, latch onto flesh, suck the blood!"

11. Octopus in a Hole

Low Tide: A fairly large cavern with slippery kelp floor and a pool of black murky water at the side of the room. A giant octopus lives here, and anyone touching the water will be grabbed by the octopus within and dragged down into its lair below!

Mid Tide: A fairly large cavern filled with sloshing knee-high water. The water gets blacker and murkier towards one side. A giant octopus lives here, flattening itself beneath the water. It will try to grab anybody who separates from the party and drag them to its lair, although its big body will be visible above the water as it does so!

High Tide: A fairly large cavern filled with rolling neck-deep water. The water is murky, but swimmable. A giant octopus lives here, and it will drag anyone it likes beneath the water and drag them to its lair. Anyone who seems hurt or vulnerable is a prime target!

-

Giant Octopus

HD7 AC leather ML7. 

Attacks: On hit, Grapples for 1d6 choking damage per round, preferably dragging into water where you'll drown. Can move while grappling no problem.

Abilities: Ink cloud - Cloud of ink obscures the area. Squeeze - can squeeze through pretty much any crack.

Attitude: Smart but alien ambush predator who wants to pick off one person and devour them. Grabs, drags into water, leaves an ink cloud behind to obscure where it's going.

12. Oysters

Low Tide: 

Shallow, warm, knee-high water in a fairly flat sandy chamber. Huge oysters tower out of the water, tightly shut. Their shells are hard as rocks.

Mid-Tide: 

Tepid chest-high water in a flat, sandy chamber. The lips of huge oysters stick about a foot out of the water. They are slightly open and frilled with strange flesh, but will suck it in and slam shut if disturbed.

High Tide: 

Cool water fills this flat, sandy chamber. Huge oysters lazily open and close under the water. Several of them have valuable pearls within! They snap shut if you touch them and their shells are hard as rocks, so it might take some doing to claim the pearls.

13. Reversible Merman

Low Tide: 

There is a horrifying creature in this damp chamber. Human legs from the waist down and a monstrous anglerfish head and body where the torso should be! It runs, warbling, seeking to rip gobbets of warm flesh from live prey.

Mid Tide: 

A handsome merman swims below the surface of the waist-high water in this chamber. He mimes a warning not to get too close. If you approach, he emerges from the water and shifts into a horrifying creature with human legs and an angelerfish top half which seeks to devour you!

High Tide: 

A handsome merman swims below the surface of the water that fills this chamber. He's quite pleasant if you can find a way to speak to him, but he has a horrible curse that turns him into a monster if he ever comes above water.

-

Merman: Horror Form

HD9 AC leather ML12

Attacks: 1d10 monstrous bite or 1d6 Anglerfish electric lamp-slap targets all in front of him.

Abilities: Horrifyingly fast. Changes back into a merman if completely submerged in water.

Attitude: Chase down and FEAST. Big bite on lone targets, lamp-slap on two or more in melee.

Merman: Handsome Form

HD9 AC leather ML6

Attacks: None. Unarmed attack at best.

Abilities: Fast in water. Changes into Horror Form if any part of him touches air.

Attitude: Prevent himself from going above water and becoming the Horror!

14. Safe Cave

Low Tide: An easy climb upwards towards a flat sandy cave. Small crabs scatter as you approach.

Mid Tide: Splash through knee-high water towards an easy climb upwards towards a flat sandy cave. Small crabs flee to plop into the water below as you approach.

High Tide: Though it seems to be filled with water, swim through and upwards from the entrance and you'll find yourself in an air pocket with a flat, dry sandy cave to rest in. Little crabs live here, and flee if you approach!

15. Sea Anemones

Low Tide:
Thin downward-sloping chamber scattered with closed-up wrinkled lumps the size of beach balls. Knee-high water at the lower end.

Mid Tide:
Thin downward-sloping chamber with colourful tendrils waving beneath the water that comes halfway up the chamber. Travel through the lower waterlogged half of the chamber and you'll be attacked by the giant sea anemones!

High Tide:
Thin downward-sloping chamber filled with water. Colourful tendrils wave beneath the surface. Swim through here and you'll be attacked by the giant sea anemones!"

-

Giant Sea Anemone

3HD AC plate (closed) or leather (opened) ML12

Attacks: Grapples with its sticky tendrils - on success deals 2d6 damage and paralyzes for 10 minutes if you fail a Save vs Stun.

Abilities: Closes up outside of water, gaining armour but becoming useless. If killed in its closed state, gets one last attack as its tendrils burst out and flail around.

Attitude: Just wait around for something to come close, then sting the fuck out of them. Especially hates people who can't say "anemone" - an em oh nee.

16. Smuggler's Elevator

Low Tide:
A steep high chamber that rises diagonally from the entrance below to another entrance above. Five rough-looking men loading crates onto a large sodden wooden platform resting on the floor of the chamber, connected by a damp rope to a trapdoor on the ceiling. Two more men shout encouragement and crude insults from above. The water is ankle-height. The trapdoor is a secret entrance to a hidden basement under the smuggler's fish-smoking hut above. The crates contain valuable contraband.

Mid Tide:
A steep, high chamber with neck-high water that rises diagonally from the entrance below to another entrance above. Faint voices can be heard. There is a large wooden platform stacked with crates floating in the neck-high water, connected by a rope to an open trapdoor on the ceiling. The trapdoor is a secret entrance to a hidden basement under the smuggler's fish-smoking hut above, where seven smugglers toast to their recent haul.

High Tide:
A steep, high, water-filled chamber that rises diagonally from the entrance below to another entrance above. Voices can be heard chatting amongst the echoing sounds of wood being moved. Two rough-looking men on a large floating wooden platform pass crates up through a trapdoor to their five smuggler friends above.

-

Smugglers

1HD AC unarmoured ML5

Attacks: Knives and long hooked poles

Attitude: Defend selves foremost, extort tribute from weaker groups if possible, pay stronger groups for their silence.

17. Toxic Scum

Low Tide: A virulent green scum coats the damp floor of this chamber. Touching it with bare flesh means your flesh starts to melt away! Each round you're touching it, Save vs Doom or take 1d4 Con damage.

Mid Tide: A virulent green scum floats on the waist-high water in this chamber. Touching it with bare flesh means your flesh starts to melt away! Each round you're touching it, Save vs Doom or take 1d4 Con damage.

High Tide: A virulent green scum coats the ceiling of this water-filled chamber. Touching it with bare flesh means your flesh starts to melt away! Each round you're touching it, Save vs Doom or take 1d4 Con damage.

18. Trapdoor Crabs

Low Tide: 

A large sandy cavern with obvious circular sandy manhole-sized discs scattered around the place. Trapdoor Crabs hide beneath, and if you get close they burst from their trapdoors and try to drag you into their burrows!

Mid Tide: 

A large, sandy cavern with knee-high water. Trapdoor crabs hide under their trapdoors beneath the sand, and will burst out to drag you into their burrows if you get close!

High Tide: 

A large, sandy cavern with chest-high water. Trapdoor crabs hide under their trapdoors beneath the sand, but won't attack unless you really fuck with them.

-

Trapdoor Crab

HD4 AC chain ML7

Attacks: 2 Pincer attacks for 1d6 each. If both hit, drags you wherever it wants.

Abilities: Trapdoor - gets a surprise round when it bursts out of its trapdoor

Attitude: Burst out, grab a victim, and drag them into the burrow where it can't fight back easily in the confined space.

19. Vertical Chamber

Low Tide: 

The tunnel dips down into the bottom of a tall, narrow chamber with thigh-height water and a ledge high above. Mussels and hanging strands of seaweed dangle from the walls.

Mid Tide: 

A waterlogged tunnel dips down into the bottom of a tall, narrow chamber. Dive in and you can get into the air pocket inside the chamber. A ledge is within reach above. Mussels and hanging strands of seaweed wave in the water, attached to the walls.

High Tide: 

A waterlogged tunnel dips down into a tall, narrow chamber filled with water. Dive in and you can get to the small air pocket and ledge at the top of the chamber. Mussels and hanging strands of seaweed wave in the water, attached to the walls.

20. Whirlpool

Low Tide:A low chamber with a hole in the middle of it. Water slowly rises out of the hole until it reaches ankle height, then gets sucked back down the hole. This repeats every few minutes.

Mid Tide:
A low chamber with waist-high water getting sucked towards a whirlpool in the middle of the chamber. Get close and Save vs Stun or be drawn down the funnel and stuck where the hole narrows.

High Tide: A low chamber with shoulder-height water surging towards a whirlpool in the middle of the chamber. Entering the chamber risks getting sucked in - Save vs Stun or be drawn down the funnel and stuck where the hole narrows. 

Random Encounters

Roll 1d6

1. 2d4 Smugglers
2. Giant Coneshell
3. 2d6 Bastard Seagulls
4. 1d6 Kleptomorphic Nudibranchs
5. 1d6 Stoneshell Crabs
6. 1d20 Jumping Lampreys

1. Smugglers

1HD AC unarmoured ML5

Attacks: Knives and long hooked poles

Attitude: Low or Mid Tide - Follow quietly until the party is in trouble, then extort or kill them. High Tide - they've been caught out in the todal surge and will work with anyone if they can escape!

2. Giant Coneshell

HD6 AC plate ML9

Attacks: Neurotoxin Harpoon - Reach weapon deals 1d6 damage and Save vs Stun or fall unconscious for 10 minutes.

Gulp - Swallow a victim whole, dealing 1d10 damage per round as they're smothered.

Abilities: Insulin Cloud - Once per day while in water, ejects weaponised insulin into the surrounding water. Anyone in the cloud must Save vs Stun every round or lose their turn. Water-breathing creatures get no save.

Attitude: A chest-high conical shell containing an ambush predator mollusk. Waits in ambush then harpoons a victim in the ankle and engulfs them. Much more dangerous in water since its weaponised insulin cloud can prevent others fighting back. Not fast, but good at burrowing into sand and gravel.

3. Bastard Seagulls

HD1 AC unarmoured ML9

Attacks: 1d2 Peck or 1d4 flyby swoop attack

Abilities: At will, a seagull can detect the distance and direction of hot potato chips within a half mile radius.

Attitude: Extremely bad-tempered. Swoop if there's room, peck if there isn't, squawk no matter what.

4. Kleptomorphic Nudibranch

HD1 AC leather ML5

Attacks: Whatever their target is using!

Abilities: Morph Mucus - At will, exudes a massive amount of mucus in the form a nearby creature and pilots it from inside the chest! It has all the physical attacks of the target, but none of the magic or armour etc. The mimic has 1 HP for every HD of the target, and when it is destroyed the whole thing sucks back into the nudibranch's mouth ready to be re-exuded on their next turn.

Attitude: Create mucus mimic of whatever looks most threatening, recreate the mimic any time it's destroyed to defend core body.

5. Stoneshell Crab

HD2 AC plate ML5

Attacks: 1d6 pincer - On hit, grapples.

Attitude: Grapple foes and pinch them to death! Their stone shell gives them powerful armour, but once one is killed their crappy morale will send them packing.

6. Jumping Lamprey
HD0 (1HP) AC unarmoured ML5
Attack: Leaps up to 30' and latches on with its horrifying bloodsucking mouth! Each attached lamprey deals 1 point of damage per round. An attached lamprey can be pulled off as an Action (occupying your hand) or attacked with a weapon. If attacking, roll to hit vs AC 10. On hit, it's dead. On miss, it's dead and you deal weapon damage to the person it was latched onto.
Attitude: Swim or jump in, latch onto flesh, suck the blood!

Treasures

Roll 1d10:

1. A silver locket with a severe woman's face in profile
2. A tarnished silver crown, studded with black gems
3. Golden sand dollars
4. Hyper-umami kelp, valuable to specialist chefs
5. Long boxes containing strange ornamental harpoons carved with grotesque frogs
6. Proper pirate treasure chest
7. A set of fishbone cutlery
8. An iron-bound narwhal horn
9. A cask of well-aged rum
10. An overstuffed walrus taxidermy sealed in a glass box.

Happy Santicore, Wizzzargh!

The Lair of the Holly Spirit

Dungeon PDF here

The local group of evil cultists have been hard at work for the past year preparing for the culmination of their plan to SUMMON SATAN!
Unfortunately their leader was dyslexic and fucked up the final ritual.
Now their mountain lair is full of CHRISTMAS FEAR! Prepare to meet your doom in… THE LAIR OF THE HOLLY SPIRIT!

This was the dungeon I ran for Christmas last year and it was quite well received!

The session began with a bunch of generic black-robed cultists fleeing down the mountain past the PCs.

If stopped, one of the cultists will inform them that their Satan summoning ritual went wrong because it turns out the cult leader's dyslexic!

The best part was that the players somehow didn't work out the dumb Satan-Santa dyslexia joke until right at the end, up until then they'd been hunting the "Ice Satan" and his christmas themed minions.

Download the pdf here

Monsters

- Christmas Gremlins

- Evil Snowmen

- The Toy Soldier

- The Nutcracker

- The Snugglebear

- Santa

Christmas Gremlins

HD 1, AC unarmoured, 1 snowball attack dealing 1 damage, morale 7

Snowballs auto-hit and deal a single embarrassing point of damage.

Ineffective in close combat, but their friends can throw snowballs into combat with perfect accuracy.

Evil Snowmen

HD 2, AC leather, 2 attacks dealing 1d6  + freeze, morale 10

On hit, save vs Paralyze or be frozen in a block of ice until you break free with a successful wrestle (Ice gets +0 to wrestle), every round you’re trapped you take another 1d6 damage.

Snowmen are immune to fire.

The Toy Soldier

HD 4, AC plate, one gun attack dealing 1d8 + gun benefits OR bayonet dealing 1d8, morale 12

Gun attack pierces 5 points of armour and deals exploding damage (ie. If they roll 8 for damage, roll 

again and add to total. Keep going until they don’t roll an 8). Gun takes a round to reload.

The Nutcracker

HD 4, AC chain, grapples to CRACK NUTS, morale 12

Doubles wrestle bonus (ie  total of +8 bonus to wrestle). CRACK NUTS deals 2d8 damage to men or 1d4 damage to women.

The Snugglebear

HD 4, AC leather, one snuggly attack dealing 1d6 damage + snuggle, morale 12.

Takes only 1 damage from smashy weapons. On hit, forces you to snuggle it – jump on and just give it big hugs. Save vs paralyze on subsequent turns to stop snuggling, but you can’t attack the bear on the turn you stop snuggling because it’s so warm and lovely and you love it.

Santa

HD 6, AC leather, multiple attack options, morale 12.

Santa can attack twice a round with his choice of the following attacks:

- SACK WHACK – 2d8 damage from overhead sack smack

- HO HO HO – blasts all nearby away from him! Those blasted into walls take 1d6 damage.

- HELLVES – Summon 1d4 Christmas Gremlins to his side!

Additionally, Santa is surrounded by CHRISTMAS MAGIC BULLSHIT

Every time a character attacks Santa (no matter whether they hit or miss) roll 1d6 –

1. Mistletoe Mayhem! Random character has mistletoe appear above their head, Save vs Magic or smooch random person nearby. Obviously both miss their next go due to smooching.

2. Christmas Cheer! Random character is doused with magic eggnog and is fucking trashed. Save vs Booze (aka vs Poison) or -4 to all actions and AC for the next ten minutes.

3. Ice to Meet You! Terrain in a 20’ radius around Santa is suddenly slippery as fuck. Characters who want to move through it must save vs Paralyze or fall on their arse. Santa is immune of course.

4. Elf on the Shelf! Random character has a Christmas Gremlin appear on their head and start attacking their mates with snowballs while giggling joyfully.

5. Family Argument! Random character attacks their closest ally, who also attacks them back. Save vs Magic to avoid this if either player brings up a legitimate grievance they or their character has against the other.

6. In a Single Night! Santa teleports behind a random character and attacks them with his SACK WHACK.

The person who strikes the KILLING BLOW against Santa, as in classic Tim Allen documentary The Santa Clause, becomes the new Santa!

They gain the following abilities during the winter months:

- Immunity to cold weather, half damage from cold attacks

- Heart beats in time to “Jingle Bells”

- Unerring aim with snowballs, dealing 1 damage

- Children will always tell you the truth

- Detect Naughty or Nice at will

- Ability to ascend/descend small vertical shafts instantly

- If killed, killer slowly becomes Santa Claus

But also the following penalties during the winter months:

- Must return to grotto in the Frozen North for the entirety of December

- Massive weight gain no matter what you do

- Hair turns white

- Cannot lie, cheat or steal.

- Craving for sugar, brandy and milk

 

 

THE DUNGEON

1. Out the front of the grotto are 2d10 Christmas Gremlins! They’re in two teams having a snowball fight and it’s obviously a great time. They keep throwing really impressive trick shots to hit each other behind the snow barricades. They’re pretty friendly.

2 Evil Snowmen are also here, but they look like normal snowmen unless they and/or the Christmas Gremlins are attacked.

2. 13 Reindeer are harnessed to a sleigh, facing a misty portal. Their leader has a red nose. The portal leads to a similar misty portal halfway up the mountain. This is the launch pad for the Santa’s reindeer team.

If one of the players flicks the reins and can recite the reindeer’s names in order for real without looking it up, the reindeer fly out of the misty portal and into the sky! Anyone in the sleigh itself can easily steer. The reindeer run out of magic in January.

3. The Workshop was once the kitchen and pantry for the Satanists. Now it contains 2d6 Christmas Gremlins who hate their jobs making shitty anachronistic branded toys from wood and plastic. The toys are worth 3000sp if sold to somebody who realises how incredible Thomas the Tank Engine and Meccano are to pre-modern society.

4. The Playroom was once the bedroom for the cultists. Now the Toy Soldier, the Nutcracker and the Snugglebear are in this room, but they look like set dressing. They will come to life if the Christmas Gremlins and/or Santa are attacked… or if someone searches the room.

The cultists stored various valuables in this room. Notable are a small silver goat statue worth 500 sp, a case of miscellaneous magical herbs which give a one-time +5 bonus to a casting of Summon, and a pack of Satanist pamphlets that mention the cult’s address in a nearby town.

5. The Grotto was where the summoning of Satan was supposed to take place. Too bad the dyslexic cult leader summoned Santa instead.

Above the door to the south, Mistletoe is on the ceiling. Anyone who enters the room must Save vs Magic or smooch their nearest ally.

Santa is in this room. He’s jolly, but does not take kindly to people interrupting his Christmas preparations! Santa will fuck you up if you come into this room. Also, if he’s attacked, a massive siren will sound and everyone else in the complex will come to defend Santa.

To the north, a Portal to the Christmas Dimension swirls inside a pentagram. Floating in a frozen shard of ice above it is the cult leader whose name is Tranquilix Vern (real name Herbert Schuster) who just wants to go home.

Inside Santa’s sack, if you defeat him, are the following things:

- A Terry’s Chocolate Orange. 20 charges. Each “charge” heals 1d6 HP, but temporarily costs a single point of Constitution. Lost points of Constitution come back after a good sleep.

- The Ice Shard Sword. A critical hit means the target is frozen in ice like they were hit by an Evil Snowman! Only works in the winter months (in-game and real life) otherwise the blade melts.

- Candy Cane Daggers. A paired set that taste deliciously minty. Killing someone with one dagger creates a Christmas Gremlin. Killing someone with both (ie. When you roll the same damage on both rolls when dual-wielding) creates a Christmas Gremlin under your control.

- Horrible Christmas Jumper so impossibly horrible that people blank it out of their minds. +3 to Stealth. On successful Stealth roll though, lights up with a loud fun jingle!

- 10 Mince Pies that count as rations for adults, but force a morale check in children.

- Santa’s Expanding Sack will expand to encompass anything you put in it.

THE DUNGEON OF IAXWW - Christmas Gimmick Dungeon of 2016

2016 has been a tough year. Celebrity deaths. Brexit. Trump.
So rather than stock my annual Christmas gimmick dungeon with Santa and elves and snowmen again, I decided to stock it with a bunch of dumb 2016 references.

This should give you some indication of the calibre of the material here.

Overview

Countries united!
GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP of the UNITED STATES has teamed up with the Goblin King NIGEL FARAGE to enact a great and terrible RITUAL that will enable Loegria to PHYSICALLY LEAVE Europea and PHYSICALLY UNITE with America, destroying everything in its way!

The DARK REFERENDUM requires that AT LEAST HALF OF THE POPULATION OF LOEGRIA agree to leave Europea! To ensure this happens, the God-Emperor and Goblin King are enacting the RITUAL OF MASS TELEDEPORTATION, a ritual that will teleport any non-white non-native non-human people STRAIGHT INTO THE SEA.

YOUR PARTY OF NOBLE HEROES has been summoned to this Christmassy gimmick dungeon by THE LAST OF THE CLINTON CLAN.
She was at least two million votes more powerful than Trump, but even she could not defeat him.
Now it is up to you.

(Naturally, replace Loegria with your campaign setting. And Europea with the continent it's on/near. And America you can just leave as is, right?)

  

Monster Stats

The Dead – 1HD AC12 ML12
Prince: Surrounded by purple rain, those nearby save vs Magic each round or weep.
Bowie: If you kill him – you are floating in a tin can far above the world. Escape back to Earth if you can sing like half the song.
Alan Rickman: Has 5 random potions on his person. If you kill him – speak in Alan Rickman voice and physically become one of his characters. Transformation happens in one round, and maintains for as long as you stay in character in real life.
Gene Wilder: If you kill him - become a big blue blueberry that can barely fit through doors. Lasts the rest of the session. If popped, you die.
Muhammed Ali: AC 18. Missed attacks mean he ducks, weaves, and punches you in the fucking jaw for 1d8 damage and blasts you backwards. If Ali takes you to 0HP, he bits your fucking ear off.
Ron Glass: Peaceful. Holds book covered in a layer of wool. Allows reader to speak with sheep.
Fidel Castro: Attack has 50% chance to be Good (attack heals 1d6 HP) or Evil (attack deals 1d6 damage)

Harambe – HD4 AC12 ML4
Automatically grapples and drags. Dragged creature becomes as helpless as a small child. Deals no damage.
Takes double damage from projectile weapons, triple from firearms.
If you kill him – Save vs Paralyze whenever somebody says the name Harambe or fall to the ground, distraught at what you did to that noble, perfect creature. Lasts until people finally stop posting Harambe memes on the internet.
Everyone else – While in the presence of Harambe’s killer – asking for Harambe’s Blessing gives you a +1 bonus to your next roll. Stops working when people finally stop posting Harambe memes on the internet.

Nigel Farage the Goblin King – HD3 AC12 ML12
Any time you are in the same room as Nigel Farage the Goblin King, you must punch him in his stupid smug grinning face (just fists, no weapons) unless you Save vs Magic-ally Punchable Face.
Nigel Farage has a big mug of Real British Ale. Every round he can take a massive swig of his Real British Ale to heal up to full health, but takes -1 to his AC. Stop him from doing this by either dragging him away from the tap (hard when you’re punching him in the face) or taking/adulterating his ale somehow (which sends him into a rage).

God-Emperor Trump – HD 8, AC 17, ML 9
Trump takes half damage from women and does double damage against foreigners and minorities
Roll 1d8 twice every round for Trump’s attacks:

1.       Pussy Grab! Wrestle. 1d4 damage to men, 2d6 damage to women.
2.       Build a Wall! Creates a wall 30’ long and 20’ high in the location of his choice. Anybody of even vaguely South American descent in the room (player or character) loses half their cash.
3.       Glass Ceiling! A huge pane of glass drops from above. Deals 1d6 damage to women inside the room, but men pass harmlessly through it.
4.       Rigged Pole! Springs from the floor and smacks a random person nearby for 1d10 damage. Roll to hit, but change the result to anything you want. It’s rigged.
5.       Krav MAGA! Three attacks for 1d6 damage each aimed at whoever he chooses.
6.       Hell Toupee! Hairpiece LEAPS FROM HIS HEAD and begins strangling someone. 1d6 damage every round until you wrestle it off. If he rolls this again, jumps again.
7.       Charm White Male! Random white human male in room is Charmed and does whatever Trump wants. Save vs Magic in subsequent rounds to break free.
8.       Deport Minority! Random non-human in room is teleported to the dungeon entrance.

Dungeon Key

Entrance. The Resting Place of the Last of the Clinton Clan
It is snowing. A blonde woman in a pantsuit ages before your very eyes.
"I was two million votes more powerful... but not even I could defeat him... I have used the last of my strength to summon you here. Please, save 2016. Save us all."
She collapses into the snow. If searched, you find no emails.
Above the dungeon entrance, festive neon splutters and fizzes in the cold. The letters spell IAXWW. The foetid stench of a horrible year blows from the dungeon mouth.
We were forced to got through 2016. Now so are your characters.

Room 1. Hall of the Dead.
The Celebrity Dead of 2016 are here, stacked in neat alcoves amongst tinsel. Search the berths and you will find every celebrity who died this year.
Progressing means several animate and attack! Specifically the first five I made stats for - Prince, Bowie, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder and Muhammed Ali.
They will generally say that they didn’t want things to turn out this way, but the dark energies unleashed by Brexit have caused them to hate the living.
Surprise! It's not over! When the five are defeated, Ron Glass and Fidel Castro appear! Ron Glass does not fight and offers a book bound in wool. Castro may attack depending on the group's opinion of him.

Room 2. Harambe.

Shallow water surrounding a central island. Narrow ledge around room could be traversed with some difficulty. On the island, a single bare-branched Christmas tree.
If someone climbs down to the water - Harambe the Gorilla runs around the island, grabs them, and begins dragging them through the water to the sound of screams!
If the ledge is traversed instead - the smallest character falls! No save! Harambe catches, cradles, drags through water to the sound of screams.
Harambe is peaceful and harmless, but scared. It's up to you to work out how to save whoever fell in.
Leaning against the christmas tree is the Gorilla Gun. Any who touch it must Save vs Magical Device or shoot the nearest gorilla they can see. It deals 1d10 damage and has 6 shots left.

Room 3. The Inevitable Slide
A slide shading from dark blue at the top to dark red at the bottom. Those who didn’t vote in the EU Referendum or the US election this year take 1d10 damage from the sandpaper roughness at the bottom of the slide.
It doesn't matter what you voted for, just that you voted.

Room 4. Lair of the Right.

God-Emperor Trump and Nigel Farage the Goblin King are here!!
Steep 20' cliff with stairs up on the west side. This is to make this room into a "6", but also so people can get knocked off the cliff.
Farage stands by a tap marked Real British Ale and is laughing gleefully. He and Trump are smooching while also gloating about their plan to cast Mass Teledeportation which will throw all non-white non-human non-native people in the land into the sea.
Ritual circle on the ground is a big gold pentagram filled with blood.
The chamber shudders, and somehow you know it’s Loegria beginning to drag itself away from the continent!
Trump and Farage will fight you if you try to stop the ritual, of course.
The main boss fight gimmick is that you can't attack Trump if you're punching Farage in the face, and Farage's punchable face keeps healing when he gulps down his ale.
Kill Farage quick, or find some way to avoid seeing his punchable face.
Trump gets Opportunity Attacks on people who are forced run past him to punch Farage, by the way.

Treasure in the final room!
- Gold pentagram is worth 5000sp, and counts as double that if used as a Thaumaturgic Circle for the purposes of the Summon spell.
- Farage Mug magically fills itself from whatever it was last filled from. If filled with ale, heals 1d6 HP if you drain the mug but gives you -1 AC for the rest of the day.
- Real British Ale tap sticking from wall has 1d10 pints of Real British Ale left in it. Heals drinker to full health but gives -1 AC penalty for the rest of the day.
- Trump Power Armour is tacky and poorly made but wrapped in gold leaf! Low quality plate armour. Worth 10000sp.
- Trump’s Toupee, when placed on a bald head, will protect its new owner. Jumps and wrestles like a headcrab. 1d6 damage per round until wrestled off, but any damage will kill it. Comes back to life when you offend at least 100 people with a single statement.
- Wall Button acts like Wall of Stone but eats 1000sp from user whenever it’s pressed. User can pass this cost onto a South American in line of sight if they wish, but it fails if they don’t have the cash.
- Sack containing 350 million gold marked with the letters “NHS”. Super heavy because of this. If you look inside, there's nothing there and the sack weighs as much as an empty sack. Basically you can carry it around easily if you're looking inside it the whole time.
- Frog Face Grimoire has a frog's face stretched out on the cover forming a horrible grimace. Contains the ritual "Dark Referendum".
Casting time: 2 months
At the completion of the ritual everyone in the country is given the choice to Leave or Remain. If at least 50% choose Leave, the entire country begins moving in the direction of caster's choice at a rate of a mile a day, leaving behind a big hole and smooshing any other landmasses in its way!
This spell can be delayed indefinitely by the leader of the country, so kill them asap if they're not on your side.

So I Ran Castle Gargantua... Poorly

After Kabuki Kaiser gave me a copy of this thing to review moooonths ago, my players finally decided to check it out.
And, basically, I fucked up. And not even in a good way.
If you want to know how to run something into the ground and waste a lot of wonderful potential, read on.

How not to run Castle Gargantua:

Assume the random generation gimmick means you don't need prep
First off, running this thing was sprung on me by the players at short notice.
I already had a big fuckoff tower on the map that nobody had ever gone near. Since nobody had ever gone near I'd never bothered stocking it beyond a vague "yea this is a big Skaven tower" idea. When Kabuki gave me a copy of his megadungeon I looked it over and thought "sick, randomly generated thing. I can slap this down here for now and look at it properly when the players start to get close".

Long story short, the players got their hands on the giant eagle from Deep Carbon Observatory due a lucky Halfling mind control roll. It being said Halfling's last session before she moved back to Portugal possibly forever, the party decided they should use this brief power of flight to explore somewhere they'd never been.
"How about this giant tower?" said one person, pointing at a potentially interesting giant tower on the map.
Ha ha yea ok let me load this thing up ha ha yea give me a sec.

Reskin it on the fly
The best time to reskin something is when you've only ever glanced over the contents once, and also when the thing you're reskinning is intended to be a megadungeon that could be the tentpole of a campaign.
And also when you're trying to reskin a grandiose gothic gigastructure filled with stone and bone and blood and lust into... a strange tower inhabited by ratmen.
Just waste all the goodness of the strangeness and replace it with fucking rats.

Pictured: Imagination!

Don't print out the helpful stuff at the back
Hey you know how there's some helpful stuff at the back to help you run the thing? No? Well there is, and it would have been veeery useful in terms of both keeping track of the place as it increased in size and complexity and maintaining a consistent Castle Gargantua between sessions.
Anyway, don't see that. Don't even look at that. Don't go anywhere near the back when you're running it. Great policy.
And you know how there's a list of one-word room and chamber descriptions per area? Different types of room to sell the theme of the zone? Keywords for you to use as general descriptions when people enter a room and cross off as they're used? Don't use those either. Just a giant version of a generic stone walls stone flagstone dungeon. Nothing of note other than bare stone walls. Fun.

Don't tell the players you're rolling as you go
Rather than letting the players know that this is a special dungeon with an interesting roll-as-you-go gimmick, try and hide it. Give them the impression that this is all written down somewhere and it's just like a normal dungeon.
They won't be able to tell, certainly not. The process of divining the dungeon from the dice, rather than being an enjoyable experience, should become a race against time to roll and find results and put them together in your head while you scroll to the descriptions of anything out of the ordinary.
The clatter of a handful of dice behind your hand or screen? Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Your players won't pick up on the clatter of countless dice at all. Your players sensing your discomfort and trying to help by asking about dungeon details to expand the shared perception of the environment? That's just more stress on top of the rest of it. Breathe fast.
Oh and remember how I said don't print anything out? Yea, just keep scrolling back and forth between the list of results and the descriptions. While trying to pretend everything's written down in a regular room description. Do that.

So is it good?

The worst thing about running it wrong was that I could see hints of how I should have done it. Dungeon generation via dice is a cool thing which I'd quite like to try out properly. But as with anything if you're bad you can mess it up, as I found to my eternal shame.
The other thing is I tend to review things only after I've run them, which I think is an ok gimmick in a world where you're reviewing something that only really becomes real when it's used in play, but if I have a bad experience is it the fault of the product or the fault of ME?!

Like, the book is good. The ideas in the book are good. The art is good. The monsters and treasure and weird things are good. The shape of the thing is good.
So much potential goodness foolishly wasted.

So hell, you now know how and why I messed it up. Let's try something new.

Why I think Castle Gargantua should have been good and unique and interesting as an experience but wasn't because I messed it up and all.

The Sheer Size
Gargantuan castle with huge ceilings, enormous rooms, and a scale of 60' per square? Unheard of. That scale means that the party's torches don't even reach the edges of the tile.
I've got a few megadungeons in my collection because I have a problem, but they're all in the rooms-separated-by-10'-wide-corridors vein. A dungeon at a scale this huge is craaaazy.

Thematic Differences
Speaking of megadungeons, I've spread them around my map and each has a distinct feel.
Stonehell is classical dungeon crawling, easily reskinned and primed for ease of use. This is what I imagined Castle Gargantua to be before I dived into running it.
Dwimmermount is full of history, history about itself and a history of the world which I felt compelled to massage into my own campaign. Dwimmermount is about discovering knowledge.
Barrowmaze is a relentless delve into a world owned by the undead, with the interesting distinction of spreading outwards instead of downwards.
The Castle of the Mad Archmage is the a-wizard-did-it dungeon of deadly whimsy in the Gygaxian style, with wacky traps and strange rooms and an intrinsic unpredictability. It doesn't have to make sense.
And then there's Castle Gargantua which SHOULD have been a baroque and intense megadungeon where the very walls of the echoing halls and cavernous corridors foreshadow the strange sights to be found within. It SHOULD have been a dungeon where each themed section had its own life. Walls bleeding wine as grape-faced guards step carefully through drug-fuelled orgies, blood-soaked barbarians battling in their own private Valhalla, cyclopean statues hewn from the walls of vast and echoing halls. Enter a Lust area and you can tell, from the furnishings, that this is a place where you should be careful of temptations and too-good-to-be-trues. Themes that allow players to predict dangers despite the weirdness, strong themes that set the dungeon apart from others like it.
Instead, swiftly reskinned mole rat people. Great.

The Main Gimmick
I might not have actually said this yet and just sort of implied it under the assumption that you know already, but the main gimmick of Castle Gargantua is that it's set up as a series of themed zones.
Most of these zones don't have traditional maps, and are instead randomised by throwing a handful of dice as the party leaves a given room.
The zones are Stone, Lust, Blood and Wine, each with appropriately themed set dressing and challenges, while special Gold zones feature actual keyed maps and actual keyed room descriptions.
Finally, travel between the zones is in the form of a snakes and ladders setup. After travelling through an arbitrary and DM-decided number of rooms (the default is four), you roll a d6 and the party travels that many zones on the game board.
Now I already love Snakes and Ladders as a game gimmick, but this sounds especially interesting due to its effects on how the game plays out. It takes one kind of map agency from the players ("We should avoid the northwest corner because spiders, but I don't thing we tried east yet") and replaces it with another ("That's two rooms we've been through, do we want to go through another two or head out?").
I'd be inclined, after my experience of trying to hide the gimmick from players, to just let the players in on it completely. Give them a printout of the Snakes and Ladders board and tell them how it's going to work.
How does this pan out in play? No idea! But I'd really like to find out for myself.

Interesting Impacts Yet Unknown
Just like having Snakes and Ladders instead of a traditional map alters gameplay and player agency in a way I'd be interested in discovering, there are a few other unknown effects of rules that I can see maybe happening.
For instance, monsters being bigger (and thus, more powerful) based on average party level. It initially sounds like the sort of challenge-rating balanced combat hokum that I wilfully fled from when I stopped running 4th ed and embraced the loose imbalance of the OSR.
BUT my assumption is that, like the rest of the castle seems to be, once it's been generated it stays that way. This would seem to imply that as the characters explore the castle and level up, the enemies get (literally) bigger and nastier. And THAT means that you maintain the classic megadungeon how-deep-in-do-we-go gameplay, while also having the interesting implication that once a party levels up enough they'll never generate smaller "normal sized" enemies when they enter a new area. They're only going to find the bigger ones.
Unless, that is, the players roll up some lower level woobies and go in to explore.
Which is weird but maybe fits if you play up the fairy tale aesthetic? I want to find out the implications of these things, man! I want to see how it plays properly!

Final Thoughts

I didn't run it good. It looks like it could be very good.
I'll probably do a second review after the players go back, except this time I'm going to use the aesthetic as intended and not try to reskin it.
Really the main advantage of trying to run it was seeing the horrific amounts of squandered potential at play here. I SHALL RETURN.
I am going to solve my problems by placing pouches of magic beans and/or scrolls of Engorge Beanstalk and Anchor Cloud Castle in treasure keys until the party finds one and uses it.

Should you buy it? Yea man.
But learn from my mistakes and run this thing right.