Alot of great games have closed encounters. It makes a nice simple flow, gets the characters into the scenario easier, players react easier, the answers to the puzzles seems easier.
Dungeons are classic. You enter, you search for any given exit, find out whats beyond the exit, deal with any problems, repeat. When all possible exist are exhausted, you return to the previous room. Nice simple semi-linear, understandable layout.
Personally, I dont like when a dungeon is designed purely as a adventure for the players. Worse is when its designed as a computer game. A dungeon, to me, should have an existant reason, a back story, and sometimes this means its not even solvable. Why an adventurer team is raiding the dungeon, is somewhat an ambiguous alignment problem. Raiding someones property is not really a good thing to do, and definately not lawful. more on that later.
Caves, to some extent are similar, they have tunnels, paths, ongoing areas, exist, but the reason can be far simpler. Home. Many creatures reside in caves, they store their wealth, baubles or trikets, maybe just dead bodies of victims, This 'hoarde' is usually what advanturers seek. destroy the creature claim its mountain of previously dead heroes equipment. Theres really no major alignment issue, as your killing off a creature which threatens the lives of your own race, but going out of your way, to kill something.. hmm.. its still a bit.. bad.
Lastly, Sewers. the tunnels that wind their way around under the city. they are usually clear of any major threats, but smaller threats come in from time to time. These have a more ambiguous nature to them. Is an exit an exit from the room, or an exit from the dungeon.. some parts of a sewer may have NOTHING to DO with your quest, should players explore the entire sewer? Some more story strict linear GM's might block paths, close doors, or enclose the adventure, to keep it flowing.. wheres the realism in that?? no, a sewer to me, is more real if its a great big freaking MAZE of tunnels, that people should only enter if they have a clue where they are. As to Alignment.. its your home city, and anything thats down there is invading YOUR territory, so its fair game.
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The Kingdom of Noctor, The City of Noctwain, Noctorian Castle. well actually a little tavern just down the road:
The Heroes have decided to wait for their friends weapon, its cheaper to stay in town than to purchase provisions, and they have some savings to survive on (and the beds are Sooo much more comfortable). So they wait.
After a couple of days, the team finds out some basic troubles, the sewers are indeed still problematic, apparently, the giant rat they encountered a few months ago, is only one of many, as a result, the king has promised to pay a handsome reward of 3 gold per body.
The King is still quite sure that magicians are responsible both for the rats, the occasional centaurs to the west, the dissapearance of weapon stores, and the fact that witches are practicing more and more magic in the forest. This last point has triggered a local Templar chapter to offer their services, and aided with some kind of holy blessed gloves, the Templar have successfully discovered and burnt several witches.
(I write alot of this, so my players, who read this blog, can catch up on things they may have missed, or didn't fully understand before)
So, coming down for breakfast one morning, they can plainly see two, fully gleaming armoured knights, seated by the glowing embers. They eat their breakfast, and ignore the group. Amarta, still a little tipsy from the night before, tries to get their attention by standing on her chair, flashing her legs and doing a little dance. The knights, seem not to move, but scady notices that they shifted their armour to get a glimpse in the reflection, of what was going on.
The team make some enquiries, but not too softly, and the knights, upon finishing their meal, stand, turn and make an offhanded comment. Harvey seems to take offence, and offers an implied insult, too late, scady realises this was a ploy of the knights to determine if anyone in this group is a witch sympathiser. The knights imply a warning, that they shall return for them, and then promply leave.
Scady, curious about the prison system, makes some enquires, but the people he's been told to talk to, are not so friendly towards strangers. They offer information, but none thats important enough.
The Following night, the team attend a witch burning, Bumping into several other herioc types that also attend, they chat, one particular elven robed man catches scady and ospies attention, as again this elf seems to be unseen by the general populace. He stays only to see the woman emerge from the dungeon, but upon seeing her as a human, he departs. Its obvious that the prospect of hearing this poor innocent womans screams will be too much for the group and they leave the kings square.
A few more enquiries, and the team manages to get permission to enter the sewers, from the guard captain that helped before, a fellow magic sympathiser. They offer to enter the sewers to clean out the rat problem. The Main well in Market square is opened, huge metal bars pulled back, and a rope ladder lowered into the depths.
The sewer is well made, but ancient in construction. two small channels either side of the path allow sewer water to flow away from the cleaner water areas. small pipes and tunnels lead into the main tunnel every so often, and the smell is none too pleasant. yet the torches and lanterns burn the air enough to allow the group to progress easy enough.
The first few bends make no real sense, the tunnels turn here and there, t-junctions and broken bends cause a small misunderstanding, but once things have been double checked they soon realise there is a basic format to the tunnels. Soon enough they come to some huge buried structure, four sets of feet. Statues. EagleOwl recognises that the feet probably belong to the four statues on the surface that stand side by side at the entrance to the kings square.
Further along, there is a great panel of stone. no one can budge it, but a spell cast by EagleOwl, unlocks the mechanism enough, and they can budge it. it sinks a full inch into the wall, and a deep audible gear grinds some ancient stoneworks from within the wall. Something has been set in motion.
The Path comes to a dead end, but not a natural one, the old ancient stonework has been replaced by some kind of new more modern stonework. the dead end part of this new construction.
Upon returning, the Four feet are gone, replaced by four columns, each with a great door, and steps leading down into the depths. the steps are wet from the pool that the feet once stood in, but not dangerously so. The first door, 25 steps leads to a circular room, with a skeletal face of a man, carved in the floor. huge, 10foot from side to side. unwilling to touch it nor the water that has drained down here, the team retreats to the second. 35 steps lead to a similar room, but no face can be seen. the forth, 45 steps, and the last 55 steps, also in both, no face, just empty, save for the 1 foot of water, rooms, no exit.
The team, unwilling to waste time, return to the last unknown path. a few hundred feet along it, guard alcoves are present on the left wall, then a great metal door.
The door has obviously been attacked by the rats, scratches and claw marks, even some kind of device has been put to the doors edge, with no results. the door has remained. So the team proceed.
Finally the corridor comes to an end, dirt, fallen stones, quite fresh looking, have caved in here, and the team cannot proceed, cept for the small hole in the top. Opsy, being small enough, has been using his powers to see in the dark, he climbs up the mound of dirt to peer through. On the other side he can make out the shapes of some things, three of them, preparing some large device. The device when powered starts emitting a greenish purple glow, which highlights the great drill, and its three skaven henchmen.
Suddenly Harvy cries out, he's being attacked from the rear.
Harvy, dodging and weaving, tries casting some spells, some inflicted wounds, some attempts to pin the creature with roots of entaglement, Eagleowl backs him up, while the rest try to re-position themselves in the tunnel. a few claw marks to the body, Harvy is wounded, Healed by Amarta, and then pushed to one side as Sir Draco steps up to fight the beast.
The Ratman is fast, agile and naturally arnoured, but no match for the skill of Sir Draco, while the fight lasts a few rounds, blade vs claw, a few cutting blows quickly take the creature down, and just in time, as the machine behind the wall of earth, roars to life.
Opsy, warns the group, that they must retreat Now!, Harvey, grabs up the body of the now dead skaven, and they all start down the cave, just as the machine breaks through the earthwall behind them.
Tags: Bane_Star Roleplay Russia Group Dungeon Sewer
