So couple of weeks ago I got infatuated with the idea of taking Kindap the Archpriest and using it instead as a downwards going spire of a prison complex rather than a high tower of an archpriest's palace.
Around the same time, if not a bit before, a friend of mine was showing interest in dipping their toes to a more OSR styled game so I was also looking for something to run as a little introduction to the style.
Ideas ruminate and I ended up realising I was already building up the "Inverted Kidnap the Archpriest" inside my head not long after.
And if I was already taking the maps from KtA, I might as well staple on some bits and pieces from other modules as well. One suggestion I really liked was taking some choice lairs from Caves of Chaos and stapling them on to the sides of the downwards spire as additional prison wings.
And of course if I was already inverting KtA, the premise could also be swapped onto it's head. Instead of kidnapping an archpriest, what if the PCs are there to rescue some specific person from this prison complex.
It's just Fear & Hunger, isn't it? Especially with the style I tend to run my games, leaning towards more horror-y aesthetics and presentation of locales.
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| I needed some illustration or the post looks barren, haven't used this one yet iirc |
As such, I've been slowly working on keying out rooms and modifying the stitched together maps to better fit my needs for roughly two weeks. Last saturday I got to run the first session of this mess too!
Always a lot of fun to run stuff that I've built together myself as opposed to just bridging gaps between numerous published modules in an open sandbox.
Now that the rambling is out of the way, here's the section of the dungeon the players mostly cleared in that first session so I can even say it's playtested for the most part!
Marble Cage - Chapel
Two storey tower adorning one of the four corners of the hefty walls surrounding the Marble Cage.
Random Encounters: Check every 2 turns
Area Boss: Self-Mummified priest
Where is the Priest headed:1. Pyre outside chapel, burning more books
2. Common cell (8), collect more bodies for her flies
3. Underground Shrine, to commune with God (yet unkeyed location)
4. Relic Hall, to inspect the sacred text (53)
5. Headed to party's location
6. Lair (44)
Random Encounters: The way this works is it keeps the boss monsters roaming around the place, potentially creating opporturnities for encounters with them. Fighting might not be advised.
1 - 3. Area Boss (roll to see where they going next)
4 - 5. Random Monster (appears from somewhere)
6. Random Boss from different area (roll to see where they going next)
42 | Entrance Timeworn wooden double doors, barrable from the inside. Faint smell of incense & something going bad. Heavy marble pillars. Large censer-like metal orbs hanging by chains from ceiling, chains attached to an overlook (47) above.
43 | Altarside
Stench of death and near-deafening buzzing of flies. Stained silver candle stands. Marble steps lead up to altar covered in candles. The back wall behind altar is covered in numerous tumour-like hives oozing red-black liquid (honey). Six robed figures prostrating in front of the stairs (each with a polished metal spike cracking the back of their head open, in severe state of rot).
- Silver holy symbol clutched in the arms of each priest
44 | Crypt & Wall Fountain
Smell sweet enough to feel at the back of your throat. Heavy marble pillars. Lit torch scones. Modest sized wall-fountain & pool full of blackened-red honey. Entire back wall covered in slowly dripping blackened-red honey.
- Black Honey heals for 1hp per handful
- Start receiving the total amount healed during single day as ramping up damage on following days (day 1 - 1dmg / day 2 - 2dmg / day 3 - 3dmg etc etc.)
45 | Chapel Cells
Row of confessionals, painted wooden doors defaced with carved symbols.
From left to right:
1. 3d6 cut open and composing corpses covered in ashen dirt, white bell-flowers growing from them like on flowerbeds.
2. Barrable from outside. Walls scribbled full of incomprehensible passages and symbols, In the middle of the back wall a palm-sized symbol sticks out amids the scribbles.
- Looking upon the symbol causes nausea -> Save vs Magic or vomit out the contents of your stomach, taking 1 damage and an entire dungeon turn doing so.
- Studying the symbols and scribbles for a dungeon turn reveals this to be notes about some sort of ritual.
- Spending an hour studying the ritual reveals the spell Summon.
3. Single bible, pages from other books glued onto it's pages with black-red honey.
4. Barrable from outside.
5. Empty.
6. Barred from outside, peephole hacked into the door covered in dark red sticky residue. Three prisoners, mouths peeled of skin and crawling with flies.
- Tell that their insides feel like they're burning, says they have been fed strange stuff that tastes like ash and honey.
46 | Library
Scattered books, piles of tomes, fallen bookshelves, torn pages & loose papers with strange symbols. Tome glued together with red-black honey laying open on a lectern. Several books have been glued shut with black-red honey. Others have their contents altered by gluing pages from yet other books inside them.
- Tome on lectern is full of rambling gibberish and symbols, open on a page reading: "Anointed with life, a body submerges in nectar. Spirit trapped in viscous balm does not ascend. What returns is no longer just sum of it's parts. This is but one of the paths a man may walk to leave mortality behind."
- 3 cleric prayer scrolls mixed in with the papers: Sacrifice, Sanctuary, Insect Plague
47 | Overlook
Body with it's back flayed open, dozens of flies crawling on it.
48 | Balcony
Ornate wooden door with stained window panelling, locked but easily forced.
Self-Mummified Priest
HD: 5✝ / AC: 18 / Honeyed Touch @ +5 -> 1d6+2 dmg. | Damage from touch does not heal
- Sloppy, sticky footprints. Accompanied by buzzing of flies.
- Long priestly robes with ashen sash. Sticky black-red handprints.
- Sunken features, translucent skin clinging onto cheeckbones and hollow eyesockets. Once a woman, now a walking festering wound.
Priest's Key - Around her neck.
Supernatural: Only tracks hits dealing 6+ damage, after receiving equal to or more such hits than HD it crumbles into honeyd jerky.
Spells:
Drown in Ashes (F&M p. 114)
Duration: Permanent | Range: 0 | Area of Effect: 50ft radius | Save: Vs Breath
A wave of ash, 1m (3ft) high, fills the area of effect.
Any living being with it's head below the surface must save Vs Breath or be buried, taking d4 choking damage per round untill they do save.
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