Constellation

Constellation Convention is having Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games (GURPS, Illuminati, Car Wars, and plenty of others), and so they are having a discount for gamemasters who run three games. Since I'm likely to run some anyways, and I LOVE discounts...

I'm thinking of D20, Mage the Ascension, and some SJ Game. I obviously want to do Multiverser. J, my superbright friend, wanted to do a vampire game, and I leaned more toward Mage so he suggested he play a vamp in a mage game. Now I could do a vampire in my D20 game...

D20
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I feel that there should be more of a focus on dungeon-hacking with cleverness and R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I don't want Temple of Elemental Evil with Instant Death traps, but we do need a lot more traps. I also find that in a dungeon that there should be a greater emphases on the virtue of being small.

In other words, I'm going to make a thieve's dungeon for halfling, gnomes and dwarves. Six foot tall human knights in plate armor are not going to fit.

I also like the idea of Tucker's Kobolds.

Also, low level characters with higher level of power....like third level gnome vampire.

So....

Treasured Lady, a D20 Adventure
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The Minyow Clans of Halflings have lived on their lands since the end of the Alustra War between the Light and Dark Elves which is generally regarded as the beginning of history. Two thousand years later, humans came to to what they called Minnow in the Great Ships, and one Captain Houslan went to the Halfling Clans and bought rights to some of the surface lands. And so the humans built the city Minnow.

Eventually this became the Dual Monarchy with the High and the Low Monarch. Each race (human and halfling) developed a royal family. The halflings royalty came from their most prominent clan, and the human royalty came from descendants of Captain Houslan. One race puts up a Low Monarch, and the other a High. Then the High dies or abdicates after twenty years, and the Low becomes High, with the other race nominating its Low.

With humans came many other races, but they don't get representation. There is a gnome college of experimentalists, and a dwarf mine (which led to the Deep Mine War, three hundred years ago, when orcs and kobolds tried to invade the Minyow area from underneath.)

Enough history...

The halfling princess, Merrybelle, had her father, the Low Monarch die but weeks before he was to ascend to the High Monarchy. Now, in but a day, she has to ascend to the Throne of the High Monarchy to claim her right, or see it be given to the humans. As part of her duties, she has to complete an audit of the Dual Monarchies' Treasurehouse. Its kind of like being a cashier at McDonalds, you count the money in the change box when they give it to you, add the money you're receiving, and at the end of the night, the manager counts it. Same thing here.

Second post...

Then Marshal Paxton came to clan chieftain Brogan, and told him that Princess Merrybelle had been abducted from inside the Treasurehouse. It was not humans because the hole in the wall is too small for humans. Help! Brogan grabbed the nearest collection of adventurers, and flung them at the problem, planning to add someone more qualified later.

The team is that collection of adventurers.

Ideas about the Dungeon
=======================

There is a foot by foot hole in the wall of the vault. Merrybelle was alone, and now she's gone.

I want a small fight with 1st level characters who fight very, very well. This is the first fight, and its a skirmish.

Toss in about three traps in a few different choices of passageways. I read about Tunnel Rats in Vietnam. One VC trick was to put a bamboo tube with a snake in it stuck to the ceiling. Crawl by, brush the stick off the ceiling, irritate the poisonous snake...

Get down to the second fight, and have the Dark Wizard join in. He has the princess turned to stone with a one use scroll, and put in a trap which if activated will break the princess into small bits of stone. And if you rescue her, you might kill her, or yourself.

The DW is surprised to see them. He thought he had a deal.

Now taking the stoned princess back up, you run into a problem. Most of the passageways were extremely small, some even tight fits for halflings who had to crawl on stomachs. Now you have a princess with arms thrown out....only solution is to break off her arms.

Worse, this introduces a potential crack that runs right through her torso so any further damage to her might kill her. Also, the stoned arms leak blood slowly.

Have to deal with an attack or two on the way back.

Once you get back, you hear the humans talking among themselves. It sounds like they were planning on getting rid of Merrybelle so that the human Marshal can be the High Monarch.

Now I'm not sure exactly how to do that, a nd I'm not sure if I want to add another twist with it being revealed that the huamns are being mentally controlled by a monster like a vamp or dragon. If in that case, you still have to beat down the humans, but without killing them, which makes it harder as they are trying to kill you.

Third post...

I'm watching 'Deadliest Warrior', Spartans vs. Ninja.

One thing is the Ninjas carry 'black eggs', egg shells filled with ground glass, or with a liquid pepper juice. My 1st level monsters (orcs????) could carry black eggs to blind the heroes....follow that with throwing nets....follow that with long spears.....this could be extremely painful.

Another trick is pour oil down a ramp, perhaps have the monsters backing up a ramp as the heroes attack, and a monster kicks over a pre-set bucket of oil...

One trap-related trick: A tripwire that goes entirely over the head of a kobold will snap at chest height on a normal human. I'd say that if you plan on running a dungeon focused on playing small characters, stuff like that is better than rendering human characters pretty much incapable of participating.

I wouldn't be too sure about that "the only solution is to break off her arms" bit. These are adventurers you're dealing with. They might come up with something, and/or they might never consider/unequivocally refuse to consider damaging the statue in any way. Off the top of my head, they might split the group, sending some back for magical help while others remain to guard the princess - and that's not even the sort of outrageous plan I've come to expect from low-level adventurers.

Additionally, it's always best to have the dungeon designed for players possibly doing something other than planned, so innovation won't force you to close your eyes and mumble for a while to stall.

Now I feel guilty for all the mumbling and stalling I've done while running James . . .

I am waaaay over on the improv side of the scale, but sometimes when I do pre-plan I find myself not be so flexible, so its good to be reminded to stay loose.

I'm thinking with the humans...
Start with two red shirt knights and a large opening. One get zapped right off with the above height tripwire. The other insists on being the first to go into a spiral tunnel on his belly which leads him face-first and confined into a monster with a spear waiting in the room below.

This type of spiral tunnel is something that was historically used as a defense by some people in Asia Minor.

Then make it hard for the heroes to rescue the second knight's body which means they have a blockage and will likely have to use a detour, and hope it joins back up with their main route.

This also serves the purpose of letting the players know the nature of the dungeon. This will get rid of the NPC characters and leave the team to go on.

To keep my idea of a small dungeon, but allow players to play humans and elves, I'll give the humans and elves 'Rings of Halfling Size'.

Well, most of the time you don't plan far in advance, but for something planned a while in advance, you want to minimize exposure to the Lord British Rule and relatives. Expect that the players may come up with another way to get the princess out, especially if they have magic that might let them break or phase through walls. Have a plan for what to do if they manage it. Also have a plan for if they manage to somehow get the humans in. They probably won't, but it's not like adding an alternative will take a hundred lines of code, so it's best to plan for at least several broad alterations in the plan.

Mind, if they're too low level for stone to mud or dimension door, they don't have many options. However, that also means that cutting the princess's arms off is not exactly a reversable decision, so they'll try to find an alternative even if you indirectly suggest cutting her arms off.

Also, beware that the players may decide that, since there is resurrection magic, there isn't really any strict pressure so long as they don't get the body destroyed too badly.

Man, if I were to "indirectly suggest" breaking her arms off, I expect my players would assume I was taking sadistic glee in their predicament.

That's because you have a history of that. Like how you kept the Book of Vile Darkness out in plain view during the cleric game.

And because of the grinning.

I like the spiral tunnel, as long as you have house rules ready for how you'll handle things like murder holes. The oil thing is cool, too, with the advantage that you can crib rules from the Grease spell (but probably with lowered DCs to account for the effect being mundane rather than magical).

If there is an encounter on the way back from the boss fight, I'd stick to one, not two, and leave open the possibility that clever players could avoid it. Two attacks is asking for player character fatalities unless they've had a chance to rest from the (apparent) climax. Probably an unnecessary warning, as I
'm sure you'd see whether the players could handle another fight or not and know whether to keep it or scrap it on that basis, but the comment about "an attack or two on the way back" caught my eye; I generally save that technique for when I want a feeling of pursuit by an overpowering foe.

Is there treasure missing from the treasure chamber as well, or just the princess? It seems like that would be a convenient way for the traitors to pay the abductors untraceably.

Edit: Now, James, that's not entirely fair. My obvious use of the Book of Vile Darkness could be justified solely by virtue of the fact that it's the only sourcebook I have that I know you don't own.

I'll admit to the grinning.

Scenes
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A: Table at the Brass Knob pub in Minnow. The adventuring party, the Purple Falcon Company of Bonded Adventurers, is on retainer to the Brogan, Halfling clan chief. They're waiting, and passing the time eating, and drinking the watered ale as it rains heavily outside. Yesterday, they had to clear a house out of huge rats which the owner thought were were-rats, but weren't. (CLUE.)

The Brogan comes in, breathless, and demands help. Sends them to the Treasurehouse Vault. The Princess Merrybelle has been abducted from the Vault.

Cut straight to the Vault without wasting time verifying your credentials to the guards as that serves no purpose. (It could be used to show anger between humans and halflings, but the two races get along well.)

Establish the scene in the vault. Three humans, the Lord Treasurer, and two red shirt knights are there, and so are two halflings. One is ....

A box of scrolls was taken, and so was a Kingly Wallet. The Scrollbox holds nine scrolls, and at least two of the scrolls are death traps. The KW is what the High Monarch carries. It allows her to reach inside and directly draw from the Vault. Unfortunately, all the gold in the Vault is spelled so even if the gold is moved, the KW thief can still take the gold at will. It seems a bag of gold doubloons was taken as well.

There is a five foot by two foot hole in the wall.

B.

One knight, will go in the midst of the party to let the rogues keep an eye out. He gets whacked in the narrow passage down 45 degrees by the tripwire which releases a rock tied and knotted with a bow to the ceiling. It crushes him, and then rolls downhill to possibly hurt anyone in front of him. Forty pound boulder, semi-spherical.

C.
Two stories down, a passageway down a tiny staircase two feet clearance to the left, and a spiral tube to the right. The knight will 'learn from teh last guy' and insist on going first down the tube. He gets gilled by 1st level Kobold on level below him. This blocks the passage.

Someone above them, on the ramp down, opens a secret door, and starts rolling down several twenty pound stone balls a turn.

The secret room is only a hole in the wall with ammo, and space for someone to hide and wait. However, opening it drops a porticullis across the passageway. This gate is of wood, and it has holes near its base which would allow the rolling of stone balls.

The stone roller is a charmed 1st level Farmer who got kidnapped by the kobolds from his fields outside the city.

D.
The stairs are numerous and painted white and black, alternating. At the bottom of the stairs is a set of chopsticks set in the keyhole of a solid metal door two feet tall. It refuses to open until the riddle is solved.

E.
The Barracks Room. Bunk beds (20) hold (10) sleeping kobolds. On the far side of the room, through the passage right between the kobolds, the central 'hallway' is a door. It needs to be picked, very quietly.

Next to the exit door are several coins embedded in the dirt partially. It looks as if someone were playing a game of using coins as darts to throw at a wall. A crudely cut target surrounds all the coins. The character can pry easily three silver coins from the clay wall of this cavern. Another one glints in the wall, and its harder, but it turns out to be gold. And there is another fully coverd in the clay in the wall.

If the pc removes this one, and scrapes off the clay which comes loose very easily, he will find that the coin is enchanted with Continual Light, thus waking up all the kobolds, and the pet something really nasty which is sleeping under a bed on the floor.

The kobolds will leap up,and tip over the bunk beds to use them as cover to throw javelins at the pc's. The beds will tend to pin the pc's in a confined area near the exist door.

F.
The Chasm Canyon. A fireballed and destroyed wooden bridge leads across the canyon. If the pc's go there, they meet the Con Troll, an escaped prisoner from the Dark Elves. He lives alone in a cave on the far side which guards a passage down to the Dark Wizard.

He needs a trap or something to make him more interesting.

Redo F.
The Chasm Canyon. A fireballed and Mostly destroyed wooden bridge leads across the canyon. If the PC's go there, they meet the Con Troll. *Bad jokes and comedic elements if they are not overwhelming are good* He is an escaped prisoner of the Dark Elves who grafted a control gem into his chest which he uses to control people. Give him four charm other spells per day. But if the gem is broken, he dies.

He lives alone in a cave on the far side as a guard monster for the passage down to the Dark Wizard.

Don't like the scripted events in B and C. Make those encounters far more flexible. At least set up alternative ones for B and C for these two cases:
1) the players persuade the knights that rescuing the princess is better left to halflings because the tunnels are so small
2) The players notice the tripwire
Second one is easy, it doesn't trigger. Just make sure that you have a persuasive reason for getting rid of the knights or your combat balancing will be shot. Have them run into a hole the knights can't get into later, I guess. For C, same if they notice the secret door.

The idea my previous comment was getting at goes roughly like this: kobold fires a crossbow at party, then runs under a tripwire as the party charges. A human snaps the tripwire and is filled with crossbow bolts/melted/incinerated/crushed/whatever.

Careful with D, they might just break the door down instead of dealing with the riddle, and saying, "You can't do that" is going to feel arbitrary and annoying. That flies in scripted media, but is often irritating in gaming. Maybe bashing down the door will have a bad consequence, though, like alerted kobolds in E.

E is good. I'd recommend a lizard type thing for flavor reasons. You could alternately stick in a small dragon, though that would potentially look like a plot thread they'll want to be followed up.

Dunno about redo F. If the chips are well and truly down, busting out with all four of the charm spells could easily badly screw over the party. If the meatshield types get charmed, then the squishy ones might be doomed unless the fighters or whichever get lucky on the second saving throw. It's also a bit too much of a puzzle monster, though the right flavor text can sort that issue out. Maybe drop him to two charm spells.

more in a bit.

I think there's a bit of confusion that got into the mix here. My recollection is that Eric started with the idea that the dungeon corridors would be too small for humans or elves, because he wanted the party limited to halflings, gnomes, and dwarfs. Someone objected, and he moved toward a sort of compromise in which there would be two NPC humans killed almost immediately, and it would be apparent that the dungeon was unsafe for "big people".

I would go back to "corridors are too small for humans and elves" and forget the added human fighters. It would irk me to have the referee give us fighter support and arbitrarily kill them right at the start, and it raises in my mind the question of whether I, as an adventurer, am going to continue this little trip if our two "best" people are killed as quickly as that. Arrest me if you want, but don't expect me to go against something that is that deadly.

You can still include some NPC fodder, er, fighters, but don't take them all out that quickly.

--M. J. Young

I'd been figuring that large PCs would be a trap option of sorts in the original conception. If they just aren't played, then you might as well say the knights don't enter because it's obviously too small for them to fight effectively in, and it's not likely they need to worry about halfling duplicity. It had sounded disturbingly like an easy way to split the party if humans were supposed to participate, and would bog things down and irritate the humans.

A note on kobolds: They have favored class: sorcerer, which means that a good number of the kobolds with class levels are sorcerers. Low level sorcerers being thrown into a couple of fights would let the fights punch a bit above their weight, since sorcerers are hard to beat before wizards get quicken spell and invoke Skip Hates Sorcerers (all metamagic used by sorcerers in 3.X casts as a full round action. including quicken spell) and are ideal for doing more than expected damage for level, though not for things that don't really matter in many encounters.

Advice would really be easier if you pinned down the exact level so I could know what to expect out of the party.

I will go back to 'the tunnel is too small for humans' and the only humans that can go in are party members who have Rings of Halfling Size. I introduce the rings because I know some people are going to really want to play humans or elves, but this is basically a dungeon for the Little People. I am wanting to make a point here. I've been in a couple underground caves and it was real easy to see how a 2-3 foot tall humanoid could hide in a small passageway and ambush a large human (moi).

I'm not going to include redshirts as its just an added complexity I don't need.

In C, I think I'll skip the porticullis as it sounds like too much work for the trapmaker. I like simple traps easily set up, no hundred thousand gold piece masterpieces. Instead, we will use the bucket of oil and a guy with an invisibility scroll and some stones who has been charmed.

In D, your suggested response of waking the kobolds is good. Saying 'you can't do that' is something I would very rarely do, and I personally find it highly annoying when I'm a player and a GM does it to me.

I'll go with a lizard; I don't want dragons (sorta :) ).

With the Con Troll, yeah, I'll drop him to two charm spells, and while he is a puzzle monster, he can also be killed in typical troll fashion. Its best, IMO, to have multiple solutions available to a problem. I'd probably let a player rip the gem out of the troll's chest and then use it to control the troll. Come to think of it, I should give the troll a -8 on saving throw vs. charm spells which was the original purpose of the stone, I'll say. Back when the dark elves had him enslaved, they kept him charmed and happy. Also, another way is that the PC do not have to face the Troll. I don't neccessarily want them crossing teh bridge. Its an option, and probably the lesser one.

The other two options are to climb down the cliffface into the sandy bottom of the canyon and follow the canyone to the lair of the Dark Wizard, or kill the two kobold guards on the stairway down teh cliff face and do the same. The guards are not so much of a big threat (although I need to make them interesting) combatively, but more as a noise problem. The cliff face is a natural 'trap' or danger.

The attacks on teh way back are more in the line of opportunity attacks. A couple kobolds charge the last guy in line, get killed, but maybe slow the party down. Which probably does mean that I need some sort of overpowering force chasing the party. Perhaps their are 'drums in the deep' or clanging alarms which are waking up the kobold tribe which is five levels down, and if you don't get out in half an hour you're not getting out. But the attacks on the way back would be very light attacks.

As for party, hmm, 6 ECL. Level Three characters with enough magic or special abilities to make them six.

The Kobolds....most are Level One warriors, and perhaps the squad leaders can be Level Two sorcerers, and the Dark boss can be a Level Two warrior, Level Three Sorceror. I want to give the Kobolds clever enough tactics that they scare the party despite being inferior in strength.

Alright, B through E look good, just need stating.

With F1(Troll, just establishing abbreviations for future use) just make sure the troll stats are still beatable with one fighter out of the fight, which has a 75% chance of happening if they need a 10 on the saves. 25% of losing two is included in that, but pretty unlikely.

for F2(cliff), don't set the damage from falling off the cliff too high, but maybe alert something up ahead in addition to damage.

for F3(guards) maybe give them a PC class other than sorceror. Interesting to fight, but not a serious threat.

for the attacks on the way back, maybe put in some being just shooting crossbows and running. Not seriously dangerous, but it will slow the party down and make them feel harried, moreso than kobolds who can't judge odds.

level 3 with serious magic items is good, it means they can't bust out with any of the travel spells for a dungeon bypass unless you give them an item for it. Don't do that without planning for it carefully.

Bear in mind that kobolds are much more of a threat when at range, try making most of the cleverness ways to stay out of melee for a while.

F2, I'll make it a low-ish cliff, maybe forty feet over the soft sand at the bottom of the canyon. I'm not going to do the alert thing, unless they scream. I might have them do a fortitude save to keep from screaming (reminds me of a Charles Bronson movie with Apaches where you're expected to die silently if you fall.)

F3 instead of a fight, I'll give them a moral dilemna. As they climb down the rickety stairs to the guard shack halfway down the cliff face on a ledge, they will begin to smell sweet smoke which will make them feel lightheaded and cheerful. Once they get to the shack, they see two O level kobolds breathing in the smoke from burning mushrooms and giggling. The guards do have a bell ready to hand which they can use to warn the Dark Boss. Now do they kill two practically helpless stoner kobolds, or tie them up, or sneak past, or try to tie them up and get the bell rung...

With F1, I'm going to say that unless there are very unusual circumstances that the DB hears them fighting the troll and is warned.

=========

A few ideas...

Upon entering the Lair of DB, you see a dragon on a ledge, it glows internally from the heat of it, and you can smell a faint acidic stench....Acid Dragon right? No! Its a statue of a stone dragon carved from the wall of the lair, and it has a furnace inside to keep the lair nice and toasty. And currently the DB is doing a magic experiment which includes lots of vinegar.

Hopefully the pC's charge and firebolt the statue and thus waste their surprise attack.

I'll say that the lair has an expansive ceiling so that humans and elves can grow to their full size for the fight. There is a rushing noise behind them during the fight.

After defeating the DB and rescuing the princess from the trap, the pc's go back toward the canyon. And the canyon is filled seven feet deep with a rushing underwater river. At the beginning of the day, it was raining up top....

second post....

One 'random' monster encounter. In the dry sand canyon, a giant scorpion is spotted ahead of the players. If they wait, or if they do a good enough job sneaking past (+10 because the scorp is not paying attention to them, its focused on something else), they can get by this problem with no loss of HP.

This is one of the ideas I want in the game. Not every encounter requires a fight.

If they wait, it will suddenly skitter up the canyon wall and leave (because its sensed the oncoming water.)

=======

In the Lair...

High ceilings to allow humans full height.

Stone carving of dragon as furnace on wall.

Bucket of vinegar and other nasty stuff being stirred by 0 level Kobold Potstirrer. Its part of a magical experiment.

Princess turned to stone in princess crushing trap. I'm thinking a giant hammer on an axis set above the ground ten feet. Axis is fifteen feet from Princess. (hammer haft is twenty feet long, and hammer head is giant wooden mallet about eight feet tall and five feet through). There is a rope attached to the Princess that runs to the far end of the haft and into a locked box at the haft end.

Inside the locked box is a double set of gears (my mechanical skills are not up to this, but I'm sure its possible.) which if the rope is tightened will unhook the rope and drop the hammer, and if the rope is loosened, it will do the same.

Now the PC is going to think of one of two things. 1) Knock the Princess flying. 2)hold the rope taut, neither less nor more. 3)Brace the haft some other way. OK, three things.

There should be at least one trick for each easy way to stop the trap.

1)The Princess is surrounded by a glass box. This box is locked. The trick is, there is no way to unlock the lock. The lock is actually a trigger for the box. The box when triggered, explodes sending glass shards scything across the room, and knocking everyone down. One round passes, and then it rebuilds itself. To get thru, cut your way in, or eat the damage and do the dive tackle.
2) The ropes are banded in colors. They are actually stretchy snakes. Each snake is malicious, and if it sees or senses someone trying to meddle near it, it will unhook its jaws, attempt to bite with poison, and unleash the trap.
3)Not sure yet...

F2S3 Dark Sorceror by the name Wilthak. "I am Wilthak the Dragonblooded! You cannot defeat...err, what are you lot doing here?"

This is followed by a kobold leaping up from the table to light the oil channel afire which divides the room. other kobolds will flip over the table and two of them will hide behind it to use it as cover to shoot arrows from behind it. One of the last two kobolds will run to stand with shield out in front of Wilthak. The last kobold will hide behind the barrel of vinagar stuff.

If enough PC's breach the wall of flames, the barrel will be tipped over and it will spread across a sizable section of floor. It is an acid. The room slopes downhill toward the entrances (the canyon entrance or the staircase from the troll's cave.)

The Kobolds are armed with shortbows, ten quarrels, one black egg with one of ground glass OR one of the other of pepper juice, a net and a trident, and a small shield, and leather armor. The small shield is typically carried on the back.

Third post....

More idea...

I've been reading 'Alector's Choice' which is a fantasy that has a bat guano mine. Perhaps this is what the kobold tribe uses for money when they are not raiding. I was thinking that I might have no conflict, just force the paranoid players to wade through a foot thick bat do-do, and gross them out, but considering the benefits....

Stinking cloud, minor effect.
Slippery footing
Possible drowning in guano
The kobolds being more experienced in this environment.

Yeah, that could be cool in a really, gross disgusting kind of way. Perhaps have kobolds shoving mine buckets out on ropes that go over the mine pit, and crashing these wooden barrels into the pc's.

Also, if I want to be really nasty, I could have a sinkhole in the center of the mine pit where the kobolds know not to go. Nothing like plunging into twenty feet of bat guano to spoil your day.

I'm trying to do a whole draft for the d20 adventure here, but its not completed. More later...NOTE: There are at least three ways into the lair (troll's, door from guano pit, and chasm canyon boat ramp).

Treasured Princess, a D20 adventure/dungeonhack for the smaller races of good alignment.
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Characters are gnomes, halflings, dwarves, or brownies. Humans and elves can be played, but they require a Ring of Halfling Size which reduces STR by 2 when worn. The Characters are Level 3 with enough magic or special advantages to raise them to ECL 6. It is highly reccomended to NOT give them means of warping the dungeon by spells.

This is a Thieves' Dungeon with traps, riddles, and some clever tactics by the foemen. Blindly charging is not reccomended for survival. However, instant death traps are largely avoided as well by the designer.

Area and History:

The Minyow Clans of Halflings have lived on their lands since the end of the Alustra War between the Light and Dark Elves which is generally regarded as the beginning of history. Two thousand years later, humans came to to what they called Minnow in the Great Ships, and one Captain Houslan went to the Halfling Clans and bought rights to some of the surface lands. And so the humans built the city Minnow.

Eventually this became the Dual Monarchy with the High and the Low Monarch. Each race (human and halfling) developed a royal family. The halflings royalty came from their most prominent clan, and the human royalty came from descendants of Captain Houslan. One race puts up a Low Monarch, and the other a High. Then the High dies or abdicates after twenty years, and the Low becomes High, with the other race nominating its Low.

With humans came many other races, but they don't get representation. There is a gnome college of experimentalists, and a dwarf mine (which led to the Deep Mine War, three hundred years ago, when orcs and kobolds tried to invade the Minyow area from underneath.)

Enough history...

The halfling princess, Merrybelle, had her father, the Low Monarch die but weeks before he was to ascend to the High Monarchy. Now, in but less than a day, she has to ascend to the Throne of the High Monarchy to claim her right, or see it be given to the humans. As part of her duties, she has to complete an audit of the Dual Monarchies' Treasurehouse. Its kind of like being a cashier at McDonalds, you count the money in the change box when they give it to you, add the money you're receiving, and at the end of the night, the manager counts it. Same thing here.

A: Table at the Brass Knob pub in Minnow. The adventuring party, the Purple Falcon Company of Bonded Adventurers, is on retainer to the Brogan, Halfling clan chief. They're waiting, and passing the time eating, and drinking the watered ale as it rains heavily outside. Yesterday, they had to clear a house out of huge rats which the owner thought were were-rats, but weren't. (CLUE.)

The Brogan comes in, breathless, and demands help. Sends them to the Treasurehouse Vault. The Princess Merrybelle has been abducted from the Vault.

Cut straight to the Vault without wasting time verifying your credentials to the guards as that serves no purpose. (It could be used to show anger between humans and halflings, but the two races get along well.)

Establish the scene in the vault. Three humans, the Lord Treasurer, and two knights are there, and so are two halflings. One is the Crownkeeper who tells them that they must rescue Merrybelle in five hours. Another is Magnus, the high priest Level 7 (who does not have ressurection magic and is the highest cleric in the area) who blesses them.

A box of scrolls was taken, and so was a Kingly Wallet. The Scrollbox holds nine scrolls, and at least two of the scrolls are death traps. The KW is what the High Monarch carries. It allows her to reach inside and directly draw from the Vault. Unfortunately, all the gold in the Vault is spelled so even if the gold is moved, the KW thief can still take the gold at will. It seems a bag of gold doubloons was taken as well.

There is a two foot wide by three foot tall hole in the wall.

B.
The narrow passage goes down 45 degrees for one story. The tripwire which releases a rock inset in the ceiling is tied and knotted with a bow to the ceiling is raised by a silent pressure pad downhill from it. It crushes the third or fourth in line, and then rolls downhill to possibly hurt anyone in front of him. Forty pound boulder, semi-spherical.

C.
Two stories down, a passageway down a tiny staircase two feet clearance to the left, and a spiral tube to the right. The tube traveller gets gilled by 1st level Kobold on level below him who is armed with a barbed spear. This blocks the passage.

A charmed by the Con Troll, and made invisible by a scroll Human F1/F1 above them, on the ramp down, kicks over a bucket of oil to make the ramp 'grease' with less DF than magic spell, and starts rolling down several twenty pound stone balls a turn.

The stone roller is a charmed 1st level Farmer/Fighter who got kidnapped by the kobolds from his fields outside the city.

D1.
The stairs are numerous and painted white and black, alternating. At the bottom of the stairs is a set of chopsticks set in the keyhole of a solid wooden door two feet tall. It refuses to open until the riddle is solved or until the PC's dismantle the door or until the PC's manage a very difficult pick lock skill.

The riddle solution is to dance 'Chopsticks' on the staircase as if the staircase were a piano.

D2. If the PC's are able to enter the room at the bottom of the tube, they find one Kobold F1 armed with one barbed spear and one Kebab Spear +1, and leather armor. One spear is a Kebab Spear without barbs +1. A Kebab spear makes those speared on it to be weightless, and pierces through the target so that another target can be speared on it. It may hold up to five humanoids before full. It also has +4 Fortitude saving vs. Fire for the spear, not for the spear-user.

The room is a small cavernous space three feet tall. On the far side is a Fat Man's Squeeze which requires two Dex Checks to get through if you're a Halfling, but one if you're a Gnome. As you squeeze and belly crawl through the mud of the eight inch high space that is twenty feet or so long, there is a 20% chance each turn that you may encounter a 1)Rat 2)Snake-non-poisonous 3)Snake-poisonous 4)Undead skeleton of a Rat 5)Shadowbane (a tiny one. Shadowbanes are made of animate shadow and desire lifeforce. They are immaterial and may only be banished by fire or magic weapons (they have 1 HP). They do 1d4 hp per turn if successful in latching on as Level 1 Fighter.) 6)All of the above.

D1-E.
The Barracks Room. Bunk beds (20) hold (10) sleeping kobolds. On the far side of the room, through the passage right between the kobolds, the central 'hallway' is a door. It needs to be picked, very quietly.

Next to the exit door are several coins embedded in the dirt partially. It looks as if someone were playing a game of using coins as darts to throw at a wall. A crudely cut target surrounds all the coins. The character can pry easily three silver coins from the clay wall of this cavern. Another one glints in the wall, and its harder, but it turns out to be gold. And there is another fully coverd in the clay in the wall.

If the pc removes this one, and scrapes off the clay which comes loose very easily, he will find that the coin is enchanted with Continual Light, thus waking up all the kobolds, and the pet something really nasty, a Porcuzard, which is sleeping under a bed on the floor in the far corner.

The kobolds will leap up,and tip over the bunk beds to use them as cover to throw javelins at the pc's. The beds will tend to pin the pc's in a confined area near the exit door. The exit needs to be picked or it needs to be riddled.

Riddle: What's up? There is a spinner with three spots for letters, and the letters run from 'no letter' to 'a' to 'z'. The answer is 'U' 'P' 'Null'.

D2-E.
After leaving Fat Man's Squeeze, the PC's enter a cross tunnel a foot and a half tall of dirt. To the left is a staircase that runs down. To the right is a very well-fitted door of wood with a lock and a riddle.

Riddle: What's good with BBQ sauce? The answer is eight letters with each having a spinner ranging from 'no letter' to 'a' to 'z'. The answer is 'halfling'.

D2-Ea.
Once the door is opened, it becomes immediately obvious why it was well-fitted. A reek that combines the worst features of sewage and manure gushes out. It acts as a minor stinking cloud spell while the door is opened or the players are in the Bat Guano Pit Room.

There is a five foot high cavern, about forty feet in diameter. The pit is about thirty-eight feet in diameter on the sides, and thirty on the two door ends. The floor goes down in ragged steps at a forty-five degree angle to the pit. On the left is a difficult climb around the pit, on the wall. On the right, its even more difficult.

Ropes are strung across the pit and they droop down to near the guano in the center. Large wooden buckets are obviously slid out to the miners in the water-filling from a crack in the right wall (which has turned the guano to sludge)

There are 2x the number of players of Kobold Miners. They are armed with tridents and small shields and guano shovels. As Miners, they are not +3 on Dex vs. the players while both are in the guano pit. They are skilled with their shovels, and skilled with guano flinging skill to blind the enemy.

There is a twenty foot deep sinkhole in the left quadrant of the pit where miners do not go.

Upon gaining the other side, there is another well-fitted door, and a ladder which goes down through steam from cracks in the walls to a T-passage. To the right is the Lair. To the left is the Kobold village after a winding passage, obviously heavily travelled, of two hundred yards. There are thirty warrior kobolds in the village.

Getting into the Lair is much like the passage from the boat ramp.

F1.
The Chasm Canyon. A fireballed and mostly destroyed wooden bridge leads across the canyon. The bridge will collapse on the return side when the last PC gets halfway across the bridge. He will have to hang on as it swings him down into the rock face. He then has to climb up 15-20 feet. This makes it more likely for the PC's to return by one of the 'water' routes.

To the left is a steep staircase going up. This leads to D2-E. If the pc's go across the bridge, they meet the Con Troll, an escaped prisoner from the Dark Elves. He lives alone in a cave on the far side which guards a passage down to the Dark Sorceror.

He has a gem grafted into his chest by the Dark Elves. If its broken, he dies. He also may be killed by ordinary methods. The gem allows him to charm twice per day. It also renders him more susceptible to charm with a -8 penalty to his resistance. The PC's may remove the gem and use it as a charm monster 2/day item.

At the back of his cave is a door which is locked and trapped. If the trap is triggered a spring-loaded grabber in the very large door handle with grab the thief's hand, and a Pit and the Pendulum style Pendulum will begin swinging back and forth, once per round. It will take three rounds before it reaches ten inches off the floor, and it will drop two inches every round after that. It is very heavy (four hundred pounds).

Beyond the door is a stone staircase with eight foot ceilings that curves down to the Dark Sorceror's Lair. From the base of the steps, you can see the 'dragon'.

F2.
Upon facing the Chasm Canyon, and the damaged bridge, and the staircase up to their left, they also notice a climbable cliff and a rickety ladder down the side of the cliff. Halfway down the cliff is a shack attached to the ladder with light coming out of cracks inside it.

If they choose to climb down the cliff face, they can. Its not difficult, and it is about forty feet down to thick, soft, sand. If they fall, they will yell, unless they make a Will save. Dwarves do not need to make this save.

F3.
Climbing down the loose, and shaky ladder attached to the cliff face by inadequate holds leads them right past the guard shack which is twenty feet above the sandy canyon floor. As you approach, you'll smell a sweet, meaty scent that leaves you feeling lightheaded. Upon getting closer you can hear kobold giggles and conversation between two kobolds. You can also clearly smell Magic Mushrooms being burnt which has an effect similar to marijuana on kobolds and halflings and for gnomes tends to make them stare dreamily at walls, and for dwarves does nothing at all.

This leads to a moral dilemna for the players. Kill two stoner kobolds who are close to helpless? Tie them up and risk them hitting the alarm bell? Sneak past?

F2. and F3 sequel.
One 'random' monster encounter. In the dry sand canyon, a giant scorpion is spotted ahead of the players. If they wait, or if they do a good enough job sneaking past (+10 because the scorp is not paying attention to them, its focused on something else), they can get by this problem with no loss of HP.

This is one of the ideas I want in the game. Not every encounter requires a fight.

If they wait, it will suddenly skitter up the canyon wall and leave (because its sensed the oncoming water.)

G.
In the Lair...

The entrance from the canyon is a wide boat ramp with a tied up boat on dry stone. The passageway is tall, but it narrows to only one at a time before looking out over a cavernous room with a ten foot stairs down to the floor and then a gentle rise to the center of the room. There is a corner of the pasageway you can hide behind, and from it the 'dragon' on the wall looks like a dragon on the ledge with internal heat. There is also the smell of vinegar so the adventurers should be thinking acidic dragon.

Hopefully, they waste their first attack on the 'dragon'.

The cavern is dimly lit.

High ceilings to allow humans full height.

Stone carving of dragon as furnace seemingly perched on ledge.

Bucket of vinegar and other nasty stuff being stirred by 0 level Kobold Potstirrer. Its part of a magical experiment to use bits of princess to make a very strong magical healing potion.

Princess turned to stone in princess crushing trap. I'm thinking a giant hammer on an axis set above the ground ten feet. Axis is fifteen feet from Princess. (hammer haft is twenty feet long, and hammer head is giant wooden mallet about eight feet tall and five feet through). There is a rope attached to the Princess that runs to the far end of the haft and into a locked box at the haft end.

Inside the locked box is a double set of gears (my mechanical skills are not up to this, but I'm sure its possible.) which if the rope is tightened will unhook the rope and drop the hammer, and if the rope is loosened, it will do the same.

Now the PC is going to think of one of two things. 1) Knock the Princess flying. 2)hold the rope taut, neither less nor more. 3)Brace the haft some other way. OK, three things.

There should be at least one trick for each easy way to stop the trap.

1)The Princess is surrounded by a glass box. This box is locked. The trick is, there is no way to unlock the lock. The lock is actually a trigger for the box. The box when triggered, explodes sending glass shards scything across the room, and knocking everyone down. One round passes, and then it rebuilds itself. To get thru, cut your way in, or eat the damage and do the dive tackle.
2) The ropes are banded in colors. They are actually stretchy snakes. Each snake is malicious, and if it sees or senses someone trying to meddle near it, it will unhook its jaws, attempt to bite with poison, and unleash the trap.
3)Not sure yet...

F2S3 Dark Sorceror by the name Wilthak. "I am Wilthak the Dragonblooded! You cannot defeat...err, what are you lot doing here?"

This is followed by a kobold leaping up from the table to light the oil channel afire which divides the room. other kobolds will flip over the table and two of them will hide behind it to use it as cover to throw javelins from behind it. One of the last two kobolds will run to stand with shield out in front of Wilthak. The last kobold will hide behind the barrel of vinagar stuff.

If enough PC's breach the wall of flames, the barrel will be tipped over and it will spread across a sizable section of floor. It is an acid. The room slopes downhill toward the entrances (the canyon entrance or the staircase from the troll's cave.)

The Kobolds are armed with two javelins, one black egg with one of ground glass OR one of the other of pepper juice, a net and a trident, and a small shield, and leather armor. The small shield is typically carried on the back.

Monster File:

The Kobolds....most are Level One warriors, and perhaps the squad leaders can be Level Two sorcerers, and the Dark Boss can be a Level Two warrior, Level Three Sorceror. I want to give the Kobolds clever enough tactics that they scare the party despite being inferior in strength.

Typical Kobold Javelinist
Typical Kobold Sorceror
Wilthak the Dragon-blooded
Controlled Human Knight in Plate Mail Armor with Longsword (non-magical)
Con Troll

Porcuzard aka Spiny-Back Lizard: Any attack on it provokes a reflex raising of its yard long needles all over its body. These attack with the same skill as the attacker, and do 1d4 + Str bonus of attacker plus Save vs. Fortitude for paralyzation of hand. There is obviously something magical about this counterattack. The creature may also bite with its incredibly septic mouth for 1d6 damage and save for Fortitude against disease. When not attacking, the needles serve as steel-reinforced leather equivalent. Its HP is 20. Its length of the main body is ten feet, and its tail is another ten feet, but the tail is too skinny to attack and not flexible enough to wrap around someone. It attacks with a bite as a 2nd level Fighter.

Crownkeeper (a Halfling) (ultimate villain who intends to kill all the candidates and then as of legal right take the throne himself. He is armed with a device to control humans. He lusts after the Crown and despises the 'immature idiots' or the Monarchs.)

This is largely done except for the climatic duel in the treasure vault, the interesting question of how all the guano got there in a closed room, the water blocked passage on the way back, the javeling sniping on the way back, and the hardest of all, the Monster and the Character Files.

Edit: JohnA1, this is also testimony of a point I've made a number of times. Keep your concept of your first worlds simple. This is a very simple adventure, Rescue the Princess, and I've been working pretty hard on it for a week, and I've still got a lot to go, and I'd kinda love to stop now. Imagine if I'd made a more complicated adventure.

I'm going to say there is a bat sized crack that runs through the ceiling to the surface. So bats fly down into the cavern at night. This explains the guano and the passage is too tight for even halflings.

It allows for rain to come in and that's why the guano is now guano sludge (as well the mini-water spring in the right wall.)

==============

On the way back is a rushing, seven foot deep stream where the dry canyon had been. The rain on the surface has gone into the ground, and gathered and now floods down this occasional usage channel. It will be semi-passable mud in two hours.

==============

On the way back, one or two at a time, Kobolds snipe at the players doing hit and run tactics with javelins. The more noise the players make, the more such attacks to expect.

==============

Upon arriving back in the Treasurevault, the Magnus, the halfling priest is found murdered. The Lord Treasurer is dying, and he sees them and mouths the words 'the Crownkeeper is traitor.'

The Crownkeeper is not happy to see them, and he has two charmed human knights in full plate armor to kill the pc's.

Need something to jazz up this a little bit.

Possibly have the hole in the wall grated up with a bit of iron grating and have cement being put on it. The priest is dead in the hole, and the Lord Treasurer is lying in the hole as well, dying from a knife stab to his stomach. He weakly mumbles 'the Crownkeeper is a traitor' before passing out.

Now the pc's have to deal with the mason who is putting cement on the wall (who is innocent), and the two knights who are charmed and the Crownkeeper who has a wand of something or the other and probably a decent layer of stoneskins.

I want to give everyone a chance to whack at the crownkeeper and yet not make him too tough on HP.

Kobold Javelinist
Level One Fighter; Lawful Evil; Male; HP 4
Strength 15-4
Dexterity 14+2
Constitution 12-2
Intelligence 13
Wisdom 10
Charisma 8

*Cowardly
*Light dazzled
*Low light vision 60 ft.
*Small

+1 bonus on attack rolls. +1 bonus to armor class. +1 natural armor bonus. +4 to hide.

Wilthak the Dragonblooded is going to be a straight Kobold Sorceror Sixth Level.

Human Knight Lawful Good (Charmed) Male 1 and Female 1 (both have same stats to make it easy on me.) Level??

Bruce the Bold is ruggedly handsome and scarred across the face. Patricia the Pullet (so named for her first 'monster' she killed is blonde with her hair back in a ponytail and easy on the eyes).

STR 15
DEX 12
CON 15
INT 12
WIS 11
CHA 14

Hit Points:
Armor, chain.
Small Shield
Longsword

No magic.

Need to finish this off.

Crownkeeper
Neutral Evil Halfling. Level??

STR 11
DEX 13
CON 10
INT 16
WIS 12
CHA 13

Hit Points:
Crown of Charming:
Ring of Stone (for stoneskins):
Venomous Dagger +1
Ring of Dastardly Escapes (Evil aligned character may teleport once per week without error while creating a stinking cloud at where he left.) This is for the Crownkeeper to attempt to do the villainous flight with the promise to have his revenge. The PC's may notice it and remove it first.

The Stonemason (charmed) has no combat abilities other than fists which he will miss with, and HP 5.

I need to get the characters stats both good and evil for this game.

I need to get the characters stats both good and evil for this game.

I've bought 'Legend of the Shadowfell' or some such thing which included characters, 4E basic rules, and Kobold Minions, Kobold Dragonshields, and almost certainly a Big Bad by the name of Kalarel. Pressed for time, and feeling lazy (as I have game wise for some time) I shall run the copier on the characters for the PC's (which unfortunately is going to mess up my point about Little People Dungeons, but oh well, ....I'm less inclined to be serious about games nowadays, and more inclined to goof a bit.), and just use the Adventure Book for the NPC's with perhaps a wing it or bit with any extra magic that Kalarel might need.

That might leave me needing Human Knight stats, but I can probably wing those as well.

Other than that, and looking over Kalarel, printing off the parts of this thread I need, finding figs and dice, and some map stuff to shove into a binder....I suppose this is mostly done.

That leaves Vampire/Mage game, and also Multiverser to get done by Thursday.

I see you are running Multiverse on Saturday from 4-7pm. Since this is a Sci-Fi convention, please have the holo projector set up so I can play :P

Also I don't do d20 D&D or I would offer to help you with characters.

I'm just lazy and busy.

And I think the holo projector I have is curved out or something. Anyways, it doesn't work in this universe.

You can do what that one webcomic does and just setup the webcam with a microphone let me link it: http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php

So, how did this work out? Or am I confused on the dates and it is in the future?

there is a review on the main site of Gaming Outpost.

We did warn you that the players would figure something out relating to curing petrification. What spell did they end up using? Also, 11 foot poles are the true trap-detector.

It went A+, but more details are at the link Nikolaj posted.

There is a spell for 1st level clerics evidently that allows them to do damage to a target and get a second save for a companion inside a certain area. They've made the clerics a lot more involved in the fighting in the new design.

I can look up the name later.

And I used a Thieve's Friend Trap on a door. That is, the whole room falls into the pit except for the couple feet right next to the door. Unfortunately the thief used a javelin.

But on another trap, the thief pushed a button with a javelin and chopped the javelin a foot shorter...which was not his arm so he was good.