Beneath Castle Bélial - Encounter Keys

Dungeon Level
Suitable for 3-6 characters levels 1-2

Wandering Monsters (1d20, 1/3 turns)
1-10. No Encounter
11-14. Skeletons (1-6)
15. Green Slime
16-17. Giant Rats (2-6)
18-20. Sinister happening

Sinister Happenings (1d6)
If not otherwise specified, the perceived direction is determined on a d8: 1 N, 2 NW, 3 W, 4 SW, 5 S, 6 SE, 7 E, 8 NE.
1. Loud shattered rock sound
2. Sudden female scream
3. Rustling
4. Chill air current (extinguish torches on 1-2 in 12)
5. Green goo on the walls
6. Strong putrefaction smell

Legend
1 square = 10'
'x' = shattered grave

Standard Features
Walls are made of rough stone blocks, floor is tiled, and the ceiling is carved out stone in rooms, vaulted in corridors. Rooms are about 10-15' high, corridors are 10' feet high. Doors are made of rusty iron reinforced heavy wood, and are all closed unless otherwise specified. Doors of the tombs are made of stone, and require a Strength check with a -1 penalty to open. The entire level is dusty, air is damp and stale, bringing a faint smell of putrefaction. Dense cobwebs cover everything.

Background
The adventurers who built the moat house dug the crypts to bury their henchmen and fallen companions with their treasures. One of them, a good magic-user named Lòkhr, was buried with a cursed artifact: The Eye of Decay, which he had stolen from a powerful necromancer. The corrupting power of The Eye quickly lead the party to an inevitable doom, and the moat house was abandoned. One of the long term effects of the power of The Eye was to awaken the dead buried in the tomb, who eventually returned as skeletons. All except the good magic-user, whose spirit returned as a presence. His mind twisted, the magic-user acquired control over the skeletons, and commanded them to kidnap a young girl in order to possess her body and return to life.

Encounter Keys
1. Entry Room: The statues of a mighty warrior and a hooded sorcerer guard the crypt's entry. The warrior is tall and bearded, and holds a great sword and an incredible shield. The sorcerer holds a big, tattered book and a strange sphere.
2. Falling Ceiling: This room is empty, dust shows signs of frequent passage. There are some spots of fresh human blood here, leading to the east. As the northern door automatically closes (thanks to a spring mechanism) both the doors gets automatically stuck, and the ceiling starts to descend (1' per round). Characters have 1 turn to get out of the room or die in it.
3. Tomb of Àlshol: A human thief, named Àlshol, was buried here. Àlshol is inside a stone coffin, he returned as a wight and is sinisterly scratching on the grave's lid which he can't open. If the characters open the grave and defeat Àlshol, they can get the treasure buried with him: 1.200 gp, a big gemstone (worth 200 gp), a short silver sword and studded leather armor +2.
4. Burial Chamber: This is the place where the dead were prepared for burial. The southern door is made of stone, and it's partially open. The fresh blood spots from Room 2 lead there. 5 skeletons are guarding this room, guarding the magic-user who is attempting to go ahead with the ritual in Room 20. From the start of the fight, the magic-user needs 1 turn to complete the ritual.
5. Arrows from the Walls: This room is empty, dust shows signs of frequent passage. There are holes in the walls, at a distance of 5'. As the characters enter the room, the arrow trap triggers. 1-3 arrows attack every character, hitting as a 5th level fighter. Save vs. Breath to halve damage.
6. Burial Furnishings: In this room are a pile of rotted torches (some may still work), sealed jars filled with aromatic oils, a pile of candles and a chest containing linen bandages.
7. Passage Room: This room is empty, dust shows no signs of recent passage. A sliding wall (marked as S on the map) leads to the secret tombs of two of the members of the party.
8. Tomb of Sigfyrd: Sigfyrd was a legendary archer, and the husband of Nyhanil. In his stone grave he was buried with his padded armor (of magnificent manufacture), and his elven composite bow +3 (to hit). His quiver contains 10 arrows +1 (+2 vs. trolls, also prevent regeneration.) The grave is protected by a gas trap: as the characters open it, they have to Save or Die vs. Poison.
9. Fake Tomb: The cover of this grave is magnificently carved, showing a mighty warrior holding a two-handed sword with magical inscriptions on it. The lid opens easily (no roll required), and the tomb is full of gold beetles. Within a round, the beetles come to life and attack the party as a swarm (as Summon Swarm spell cast by a 10th level wizard, and if they hit with an 18-20 they penetrate under the living flesh, dealing 3 hp of damage every round – have you seen The Mummy?)
10. Tomb of Nyhanil: Nyhanil was a incredible elf girl, a powerful warrior and the wife of Sigfyrd. She was buried here with her Elven Chain Mail, her Dragonslayer Sword +2 and a wonderful necklace, a Talisman of Health. The grave is protected by a gas trap: as the characters open it, they have to Save or Die vs. Poison.
11. Passage Room: This room is empty, dust shows no sign of recent passage.
12. Lòkhr's Puzzle: This used to be the tomb of Lòkhr. There are roman numerals above all the doors: a VII on the southern one, a XVII on the center one, and a XIII on the northern one. The only number that makes sense is the XVII, whose anagram is VIXI ("I lived", in latin.) Thus, that number indicates the tomb of Lòkhr.
13. Ka-boom: The XIII sign on this door is a magical glyph. As a character opens the door, the door itself explodes as a Fire Ball cast by a 5th level magic-user. The room is completely empty.
14. Tomb of Lòkhr: Here was buried Lòkhr the magic-user with the Eye of Decay and his voluminous spellbook. If the Eye of Decay is destroyed, all the undead immediately turn into ashes, and Lòkhr is finally free. If the girl has been possessed by Lòkhr, she falls faint and forgets everything from the day she was kidnapped.
15. ZAP: As the characters open the door, they get "zapped" by lightning originating from a hole in the opposite wall (THAC0 18, 2-8 dmg, always hits characters wearing metal armor.)
16. Burial Chamber: This is the place where the dead were prepared for burial. Four zombies are confined here.
17. Empty Tomb: This is an empty chamber, probably an unused crypt. Characters may rest here, since the stone door is good enough to protect them against the perils of the dungeon.
18. Burial Furnishings: In this room are a pile of rotted torches (some may still work), sealed jars filled with aromatic oils, a pile of candles and a chest containing linen bandages. Two giant rats are in this room, trying to open the jars. They are hungry, and will attack characters on sight.
19. Lower Crypts Entry: The statue of a kneeling priest guards the entry to the lower crypts, where the henchmen were buried.
20. The Final Match: Lòkhr is trying to possess the young girl as explained in Room 5. Characters have only two possibilities to stop the ritual: destroy The Eye of Decay or use it to awaken the mighty warrior Edlebert, who was buried in this small temple. If Edlebert defeats Lòkhr, he will also show gratitude to the characters and resuscitate their fellows who met their maker in the crypts. Then, he will destroy The Eye of Decay. If Lòkhr manages to go ahead with the ritual, the possessed girl immediately becomes a 9th level magic-user, able to cast all the spells in Lòkhr book. She only has 5 hit points, anyway, and if the characters kill her Lòkhr will flee away, commanding his undead slaves to find another girl. The characters can still try to awake Edlebert to defeat Lòkhr.
21. Lower Crypts: Here were buried the henchmen. The chambers marked with an 'x' contain shattered graves, and the bars of their doors have been torn open. 2-12 skeletons dwell in the darkness.
22. Empty Tomb: This is an empty chamber, probably an unused crypt. Characters may rest here, since the stone door is good enough to protect them against the perils of the dungeon.
23. Treasure Room: This room contains most of the adventurer's treasure. Room a contains A Type treasure, room b contains B Type treasure, and so on.

The Eye of Decay: The Eye of Decay is a transparent glass sphere of the same size as a human eye. It feeds on people's misery. It was created by a powerful necromancer to awaken an army of undead, and needed his power to transform misery into a controlled force. Alone, the artifact needs a very long a time to actually do that. The Eye of Decay is very fragile, and can be broken just by throwing it to the ground. In defense, the artifact casts Charm Person on anyone who takes it. If destroyed, the crypt will collapse, all the awakened dead will turn back to dust, and the party will have to run out as fast as hell not to die into the collapsing crypt. On the other hand, the moat house will finally be free, and wonderful flowers will grow everywhere (even if it's winter.) The Eye of Decay turns blue near a buried corpse, and immediately awakens it if the owner feels strongly enough.

I'm still not that happy with The Eye of Decay, so if you have suggestions I'd be glad to use them!

Special Encounters in Map 01

Refer to this map. I've tried to follow the advice ChicagoWiz kindly left to me in the comments of this other post:

For instance, the wandering monster tables you mention. In opening up new areas, I don't do that so much. I just have a list of monsters that I'll use and I roll against generic tables like from the ref sheets or in OSRIC/DMG. Depending on that result, I'll check against the monsters I've specified. So if the result is dragon, I'll see what is dragon-like in my own list, or what is as strong as a dragon, and go from there.

As you will note, I went even a bit further. The following encounters share the same structure of the ones found in Carcosa or Planet Algol. Only, they aren't hex-fixed. Once I give this a try, I will let you know if/how it works.

Ibkah City Encounters

1. Òzmul The Mad sit in his sedan chair surrounded by his eunuch bodyguards and slave chicks.
2. Thief trying to jostle the characters.
3. Naked mad preacher predicting The Day of Judgment.
4. Cardinal Azor and his servants.
5. Pusher selling hallucinogen drugs, stimulants, opiates and such.
6. Slave market – very good prices (discount up to 40% on emasculated kleengons.)
7. Gambling house.
8. Kids playing (will offer aid to strangers in exchange for 1cp.)
9. Pimp offering pussies for a penny.
10. KORGOTH.

Jungle Encounters

1. Patrol of 2-12 cannibal aborigine hunters.
2. 1-4 alien, talking, albino baboons armed with laser weapons.
3. Vampire flowers.
4. Random colored lotus*.
5. Giant stone heads.
6. Ruins hunted by 1-6 radioactive ghouls lead by a ghast.
7. Patrol of 2-8 Mi-go scientists**.
8. Ooze/Mud/Pudding and the like.
9. Congo's giant killer gorillas.
10. Tropical downpour (lasts at least a week.)
11. Mutated T-Rex.
12. Decrepit robot*.

Plain Encounters

1. Caravan of merchants (may hire adventurers as mercenaries, see Ibkah description for daily fee.)
2. Tribe of 30-300 nomadic barbarians (30% women, kids and elderly*** unable to fight, at least one 7th level barbarian leader and some 3rd level barbarians lieutenants – all other are 1st/2nd level barbarians.)
3. 3-6 pterodactyls**** attack from the sky!
4. Strange pool of brackish water, possibly radioactive or otherwise venomous.
5. 1-4 pilgrims, heading either towards Ibkah or the Monastery of Renewed Pain (50-50.)
6. Game (boars, gazelles and such.)
7. Farmers from Tadék headed towards Ibkah's monthly market.
8. Mr. Spock, Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy and two other anonymous officers headed to the monolith (strange alien activity detected.) Will attack Kleengons on sight.

Mountain Encounters

1. 1-3 Shoggoths**.
2. Abandoned outpost of the Space Aliens* – defense systems still active. The outpost is haunted by a mad AI (type G treasure inside, plus artistic stuff and some laser weapons.)
3. Pterodactyl's**** nest (1-8 adults plus 2-24 chicks.)
4. Lair of one Ettin.
5. Snowstorm (lasts 3-6 hours.)
6. Spawn of Shub-Niggurath*.
7. 2-4 megalo-centipedes.
8. One poisonous snake.
9. 7-12 dire wolves lead by one worg.
10. One carrion crawler.
11. Decomposed human remains.
12. Lair of one huge scorpion.

Venomous Marsh Encounters

1. One Spawn of the Toad Demon.
2. 2-12 sub-humans (worshipers of the Toad Demon.)
3. One crocodile.
4. Water pool with black lotus on the surface, full of leeches.
5. Giant mutated snail (acid slime.)
6. Toxic fumes! Chose a random lotus* for effects.
7. Tribe of 5-100 troglodytes lead by one evil troglodyte 2nd level shaman (qv DMG pg 40.)
8. Ooze/Mud/Pudding and the like.
9. 2-8 radioactive ghouls.
10. 3-9 white lotus zombies (once adventurers.)

_____________________________________

*Stats from Carcosa.

**Stats from D&DG

***Kids over 7, young women and men below 45 are regular fighters, so this percentage only shows "unable to fight" types.

****Same stats as Pteranodons (see MM, Dinosaur.)

The Purple Plateau

Yaqqothl is like a warm cloak. Yesterday Zak put out this pretty interesting post about how he wants to hear about settings. So why not? Maybe I can give this a try. Reference map here.

The Purple Plateau
The Purple Platea is a pretty weird a place, and very dangerous to venture into. Have you read The Abominations of Yondo? That. Purple sand and rocks are everywhere, and there's little to no vegetation at all. Definitely not a pleasant place. Near the coast is a barren heath, where grass is thick, low and colored blue and violet, with beautiful iridium flowers of all shapes and sizes, that grow in sparse shrubs. Encounters near the coast occur with a probability of 1 in 6 (check every 6 hours). Encounters in the center of the Purple Plateau occur with a probability of 1 in 6 (by day, check every 3 hours) or 3 in 6 (by night, check every hour.)

PS: Also, it's cold there!

Encounters in the Purple Plateau [1d8+1d12]
2. Remorhaz
3. Demon, Vrock (Type I)
4. Dervishes
5. Mastodon
6. Moon Dog
7. Ogre
8. Pilgrim
9. Scorpion, Large
10. Desert Crawlers*
11. Jackal
12. Wolf, Dire
13. Herd Animal
14. Scorpion, Huge
15. Abominations of the Purple Plateau*
16. Pudding, White
17. Purple Worm
18. Wolfwere
19. Gorgon
20. Troll, Giant

*New monsters, stats to come

Special Encounters: Tower of the Re-Animator

I'm about to start keying the sandbox following Blair's advice, so I decided to write down a list of "Special Encounters" I can use when the dice tell me to do so. ("[...] when the dice tell me to do so"?! GOD I HEAR VOICES IN MY HEAD!). I want these encounters to be kind of jokes and filled with many quotes from pop/geek culture to maximize the fun of playing them. The following is a clear example of this.

The Tower of the Re-Animator
Dr. Herbert East was a fairly successful physician in Mizara around eight hundred years ago. Although, he was always insanely attracted to death and immortality, and so conducted many strange experiments in the processes of re-animating dead bodies. When, due to the failure of one of his experiments, he unleashed a small scale zombie holocaust, the citizens of Mizara expelled him from the city. For days he wandered aimlessly through the wastelands of Yaqqothl, until he finally found an abandoned tower. Settled here, he discovered that the tower was home to a vast library of forgotten and prohibited tomes. Here Herbert uncovered the secrets of necromancy, conducting thousands of experiments on unfortunate travelers who were passing near the tower. Nowadays Herbert is still the lord of the tower, having found a powerful spell that allows him to replace his dying organs with new ones, granting him virtual immortality.