Your dungeon is great – love the theme and the ghouls bit especially I’ve played around with the idea of a sort of ‘water temple’ before. As no coincidence, I’ve always envisioned it being an old school ‘punishment before redemption’ dungeon. That probably has more to do with the water temple in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (easily the most punishing dungeon in the game!) than anything else!

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Although you’ve given the PCs a way to discover the rituals already (the book in the hidden cache), another (slightly more obvious) way would be to have someone make it into (but not out) of the temple before the PCs.

The hidden cache could be open when the PCs arrive with one blood-stained torn page of the ritual book on the floor and a bloody smear on the floor leading back through the pillared hall and into the bullette tunnels.

The rest of the book and some sparse humanoid remains would be in the bullette’s lair. It might or might not be there at the time, depending on how lucky the PCs are.

Using this approach, the PCs would know from the blood-stained page that there IS as book to be found (and you might even give them a clue as to what the ritual does) and would almost certainly have an idea of where to find the rest.

If you go that route, it also provides an easy (although slightly cliched) adventure hook. Whoever the unfortunate explorer was, his companions/family/employer send the PCs after him.

Edit: On further consideration, perhaps the bullette’s victim wasn’t a good guy. Perhaps a water cultist discovered mention of the temple in an ancient library and was seeking to re-start it. And the PCs’ mentor/employer sends them in to stop him.

@Flying: The trapped ghouls is my favorite idea about the whole dungeon for sure. I’m still simmering how I’ll introduce the dungeon into an adventure. I’m sure something devious and appropriate will come up.

I am very curious about how you’re going to implement this Font of Sorrows into the Primal Dungeon you described. If I were playing it, I would leave some clues (and scooby snacks) about the nature of the dungeon. Perhaps an old scroll that will take a few sessions to decipher. But that’s just an idea, you could also place other indications of the whole of the dungeon in a more subtle way (ancient runes, a blocked passage way, or some nice templates for the elementals that indicate the tampering of a greater evil), or not at all… Anyways, I am very anxious to see the results!
Keep up the great work!

Did you plan on having any water elementals in the dungeon? I was reminded of the 2e module” Sea of Blood,” which contained an imprisoned water elemental who was bound to the task of keeping water boiling hot in a given area. Perhaps such a beastie could be involved in maintaining currents and/or monitoring portals to the Plane of Elemental Water in this dungeon. A fellow like that could be very dangerous; heroes attacking them would be overcome if he wins, and the party may have to deal with a permanently open portal to the elemental planes if he loses.

Thank you for posting this. Very inspiring work.

That old school enough for ya?

Also, BACON. Because that’s my anti-spam word, and worthy of shouting. BACONBACONBACON. Mmmmmm…

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As for not numbering the dungeon, I don’t plan to design this campaign (at least the one I’ll test with my players’ with multiple levels of the same dungeon. I plan to have a series of smallish dungeons, all found near the City Within and each with a specific reason for the PCs to go into.

1. Acid sharks. Yay!

2. So I’m not the only one who doesn’t get anywhere with the drawing tools (I’ve tried Autorealm myself). I should print out a batch of those sheets and play with them sometime.

3. I like the non-linearity of this dungeon. At least two entrances too, three if the river breaches the surface somewhere.

4. Not starting at level 1? Of course, you didn’t say this was the first level of the dungeon…

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Thanks! And thanks for the others that started the process.

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@Vulcan Stev: After reading your river suggestion, I pictured that I could see a scenario where players (or a NPC) stumble on the temple by the river… maybe there’s a huge Waterfall a bit downstream and the little “sewer” pipe out of the dunegon could be spotted and used to save the party from falling a few miles deeper.

Good hook there…

As for ties to the elemental, we’ll see. I’m sure that all the rituals in the Water Temple could also serve as minor quests to get the PCs there.

@Chgowiz: Thanks for the template and the link love this morning. I hope to start loving random encounters again. As long as we find a way to make them mean something in the game, I’m sure we’ll enjoy them. I’m happy how the table I made turned up… we’ll see how it applies in game.

@Ravyn: You’re right. I was too sleepy last night to register it. The busted glass sarcophagus and the possibility that the Bulette actually reactivated a whole lot of Elemental Water magic (The Basin/Altar, the pool etc) could definitively cause trouble in the city’s water system.

In fact, maybe everything but the Glass coffins had been dry for centuries and the Bulette’s “exploration” started the water running again.. Unholy, tainted, Chaos Elemental-laced water.

I love this! Thanks!

@Chris: I’m glad you like all this. I’m sure having fun doing it. Stay tuned then!

@DLuck: #11 is indeed a waterfall that goes to the river.

The whole floodding dungeon bit is a great idea… and making the temple’s water poisonous/corrosive yet breathable is the kind of sick crap that I love to pull on players.

Thanks for the idea man!

I once did a whole dungeon crawl adventure in a flooded dungeon with a party without access to magic… we played the whole thing in real time, counting rounds while PCs were holding their breath… it was a great game.

@GlennZilla: With the Gimp, the stupid thing that’s been holding me back is that I can’t for the life of me, figure out how to insert text in images that’s other than the stupid default blocky text you get by clicking on the text box tool.

Think you can piint me out to a good tutorial about that?

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Just an idea.

If the players decide to do it, their success could lead to an “Indy” moment. The water could start to rise, slowly for a “Titanic” style finale or fast if you’re at the end of the game session and you want to push the player out. They could have to face the Burrower after sealing the drain. Forcing them to finish the encounter with only X number of rounds before they drown.

You could even drown them with no escape possible (let them believe there is). Once they think they are dying, make them roll fortitude saves. The first one to miss breath water and discover he can breath it. The water is magical, it gets you sick if you drink it, but you can breath it. You could create a whole dungeon level completely submerged.

mmm… that would be a “Abyss” moment!

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