Adventure: The Lottery Dungeon

I made a mini-mega-dungeon, for ACKS, free to download: http://www.theskyfullofdust.co.uk/2012/12/the-lottery-dungeon-a-69-page-mini-mega-dungeon/

what do you use to draw your maps?

The “Night at the Oasis” table put a big smile on my face.

This is really quality stuff. I love the “rotating dungeon” idea!

@Jard: The dungeon maps were all done in Inkscape, the caverns and tower using Dungeonographer, and the caravansary was in GIMP then Inkscaped.

Would you mind if I make a MapTool version of it? I am almost done with Dwimmermount and I got the itch of adapting more dungeons to that tool.

thanks! How long does a typical dungeon take you to draw in inkscape, and was there a steep learning curve?

Feel free. I used MapTools for it when I ran it.

Not that long, a couple of hours I guess. And the learning curve isn’t too steep, but then I have been using Inkscape for a while now. I just create white squares with black borders, allowing me to just duplicate them and build a dungeon from them; then create the doors etc. as I go along. I use lots of layers too.

I am running your adventure! :slight_smile:

Yesterday my players made it through about three rooms from entrance 3 (rooms 13 and 5) and their little delve raised some questions!

  1. Will waiting for a new configuration allow them to circumvent locked doors? (They have no thief)
  2. Are the custodians and caretaker meant to be rolled as possible random encounters when the dungeon is open? (Description seems to imply the caretaker is stationary until the dungeon closes)
  3. Can the custodians/caretaker open locked doors?
  4. Did the adventurers in room 13 spend the night in there after exploring just two rooms? Why?

I’m enjoying it a lot so far and looking forward to next week. :slight_smile:

Hi Shane. Hope you all enjoy it. I killed my party off when they delved into the second level… death by ghouls.

To answer your questions:

  1. I just let my players kick the doors in, that worked in place of a thief. I guess the doors could unlock, to allow the custodians easy access (makes sense);

  2. The custodians are wandering monsters, but yes, the Caretaker stays put until the dungeon closes, then cleans the place;

  3. The Custodians can open doors, the Caretaker does not;

  4. They made camp just as a precaution… or, they spent two hours arguing where to go next and got trapped.

Let us know how the next session goes :slight_smile:

So, I should probably report on last week’ session in the Lottery Dungeon, before we have our next one today!

The party gained a thief and a dwarven delver, bringing us up to five adventurers, including an elven enchanter, bladedancer, and dwarven fury.

Highlights of last session, which remained confined to the first level:

  1. The thief and elf found small openings to the central shaft, which they were able to just squeeze into to remove and damage some gears. I ruled that each turn they spent removing gears and damaging the mechanism kept the dungeon open 1d4 extra turns of uninterrupted repair by the Custodians. Whether this will benefit them remains to be seen!

  2. They killed the Cursed Frog guarding the jeweled dagger, with the Fury receiving the hunger curse! They did not know if this was a curse or a disease, but trucked on, handing over their rations to the ravenous dwarf as needed.

  3. Open opening one of the rooms, their henchman Thorp ran through a giant spider with his sword, just as it plunged its fangs into him. Knowing that he would die without immediate aid and unable to provide it themselves, they carried him as quick as they were able out of the dungeon and called for anyone to assist them. Fortunately a cleric of sufficient knowledge was passing through the oasis, and cured the poison before it took Thorp’s life.

Then demanded 375 gold pieces.

Thorp begged the party to give the cleric the dagger they had found in payment for this aid, and the party vehemently denied possessing any such dagger, assuring the cleric that Thorp was still feverish and deluded.

The cleric, convinced of the party’s destitution, accepted a contract of indentured servitude from Thorp, and Thorp, unwilling to deny his savior recompense, grudgingly entered his service, leaving the party.

The next day, the party cashed in the dagger and pooled most of their earnings (“Adventurer’s Insurance!”) to have the same cleric remove the hunger curse affecting the dwarf.

Thorp was not available for comment.

I am considering the ruling that while the passage to the outside is open, the passage to the lower levels will not be, obligating them to wait until the outside is closed off to delve deeper.

Thus far they have been very reluctant to stay overnight in the dungeon, and I think obligating them to do so in this way might create very interesting situations. But then again, it has been established that there are poisons and curses to be found beneath, and keeping the chance for aid closed to them might be needlessly punitive.

Considering it is the opinion of at least one player that ACKS is needlessly punitive as-is, maybe I should give them a break. :smiley:

Sounds like a fun session, and I like the idea of having the lower levels open up only when the dungeon is ‘closed’.

I don’t think ACKS is that deadly, as in not many actually die, but the Mortal Wounds table does leave a lot of injured adventurers in inns resting for weeks at a time. So far no one in my game (42 sessions and counting) has died, but they have all suffered injuries somewhere along the line.

Alright, just got back from Session 3 of the Lottery Dungeon!

They entered the first level from Door 2, and after poking around a bit, triggered the springing floor trap, launching Nymeria the Bladedancer and Yuric the Ordinary Man down the stairwell. Nymeria was knocked unconscious and after a turn of stressful waiting and inspection, the trap reset and she was found in a condition requiring two weeks of bed rest, in addition to having a mangled ear.

Rather than wait those two weeks and see their gold go down the drain, they joined up with a visiting magic user—Caerd the Divine Arcanist. (The Bladedancer’s player had a reserve stat block that qualified for a Wonderworker!) Abelo the Footpad blew what gold he had for a night at the oasis, and came out of it with a mild hangover but no worse for wear.

They said goodbye to Nymeria and wished her a speedy recovery staying at the inn, and set off into the dungeon again. Carefully opening various unexplored rooms, they found a magical silver mask that allowed the wearer to see in the dark, three animated skeletons that the adventurers destroyed for their fine attire, and upon visiting a storeroom again, uncovered a fine staff carved to represent two snakes twined around each other.

They met a haggard man who introduced himself as a “Collector” and threatened to destroy the adventurers if they did not leave him to his work. Later on, the Collector returned with another like himself and tried to destroy the adventurers. Caerd summoned berserkers from Valhalla, who cleaved through the ghoulish collectors.

Travelling further, with Ghyslain the Dwarven Caver in front (wearing the magical mask), they came upon a 10’ covered pit that the dwarf missed and fell into.

Inside was a crazed, starving adventurer from a party that had entered with them on the first day, who, in his madness, violently attacked Ghyslain, who deftly dodged his blows until the other adventurers came to his aid. Unable to talk the trapped adventurer out of his frenzy, Yuric ended his life to save their companion.

Beyond that pit lay a looted trophy room, where they set up camp for the night, setting snares in the corridor and trusting in the pit to keep the worst monsters at bay, as they had bashed in the door to gain access to the room.

In the morning, they hope to uncover the passage to the levels beneath.

Sounds like a fun session :slight_smile: