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Page 1: The Legendary Halls of Bardoz - img.fireden.net · The Legendary Halls of Bardoz by Anonymous THREADS 68095390, 68215731, 68300964—VERSION 0.09 FROM 22-09-2019

The Legendary Halls of Bardozby Anonymous

THREADS 68095390, 68215731, 68300964—VERSION 0.09 FROM 22-09-2019

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SURFACE THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

Far away from any civilized lands, atop a treeless hill standsthe Grand Head of Bardoz. Here the legendary dwarf mage-adventurer built an outpost deep into the earth after hisretirement. Yet trouble brewed after his untimely death.Seven generations ago* fire and fangs destroyed the out-post and the nearby village of Klemt. Now dark beings moveamong the ruins and deep caverns. What horrors and trea-sures await thee in the Legendary Halls of Bardoz?

SURFACE

Hooks

THE GHOST SHIP

While the party is traveling along the coast, it is surprisedby a sudden storm. Through the storm they can see a largesailing ship, a long pier, and numerous moored rowboats.

Figure 1: Area map

The general atmosphere is remarkably like a storm atsea, it’s raining sideways, and waves crash and threaten tooverturn any row boat. The large sailing ship has raggedblack sails, and is flying a jolly roger. The sounds of a bat-tle come from the ship’s deck, where ghost of the PIRATECAPTAIN DREADTIE continually relives his last moments,desperately fighting off a mutiny by phantoms of his for-mer crew. If the party loiters too long on the ship’s deckor if they attempt to intervene in the replaying events, thephantoms fade away, and the ghostly pirate captain takeson a visage of his appearance in life and attacks, believingthe party to be his mutinous crew.

If the Captain’s ghost is defeated, the storm, the ship, theboats, and the pier all dissolve away, and the scenery is re-placed by a sandy beach, in the center of which are severalshovels, the skeletal remains of two pirates, and a cornerof a chest which is buried in the sand. Digging here willreveal a +1 Cutlass and an upended chest of pirate trea-sure, which contains ancient dwarven coins and a tatteredparchment map with the position of the Halls of Bardoz.

*human generations, two dwarf generations.

MISSING ADVENTURERS

A nearby village or lord hires the PCs to check after theprevious group and report their status. Perhaps a relativeor friend of a local mayor/lord/farmer/PC was among theprevious group? These are the adventurers that camped in1-A1-2 before fleeing: ELRYON the elven ranger, the dwarfKARRUK THE CUNNING, and the human female fighter PHE-DRA (the villagers may not know their names).

RUMORS

The players may hear some rumors about the Halls of Bar-doz in a nearby village or town and learn its rough postion.

1. Bardoz is a Lich. (F)

2. Beautiful elvish maidens sing sweet seductive songs tolure the foolish in. (T—except it’s Father Alex)

3. The bats that live in the caves spread lycanthropy.

4. Dwarves did it. (T)

5. That place has a giant so big that it crawls on all fours!

6. The heat fried the dwarves’ brains and they went crazyover money and killed each other. (partially true)

7. The dwarves were turned into mudmen by a curse! (themudmen are actually the golems that the dwarves in-tensively used)

8. Bardoz found something deep and dark underground!He might be still fighting it!

9. The whole thing is a coverup to build a Dwarf militaryoutpost!

10. The Elves did it. All of it. Weren’t there some hostilitiesbetween Dwarfs and Elves back then? There always is!(F)

11. Huge monsters have crawled out of deep caverns. Twonights ago Larry lost two sheep! (T)

12. A dwarven expedition whent there when my pops whasyoung. Not many came back.

13. Whole place is unholy and cursed. People have night-mares near the place.

14. Back at Hendricksons Tavern there is old stuff fromtime when it was still lived in. Few axes and picks. Heeven has a miniature of that Head of Bardoz over hisfireplace! The dwarfs seriously liked that dude! (If theGM decides so, the “Inn” in the maze in 2-C4 may bea one-way teleporter to the nearest working inn.)

The legendary halls of Bardoz

The ancient entrance used to be a small cliffside. After thedwarfs founded the outpost, they started worshipping thegeomancer Bardoz who died in magma. In order to honorhim, they carved and sculpted the whole cliff into his head.They also burnt down all the nearby trees so the huge stonehead is clearly visible.

Alternative: The face of Bardoz is carved in the face of acliff instead of an entire sculpted head.

Local humans all agree that the dwarfs took this wholeBardoz thing a bit too seriously but hey, dwarfs are all (atleast) a bit mad. And it is rumored that the dude had 18CHA (before melting)!

The entrance to the dwarven outpost and the other partsof the dungeon is a through the mouth of the Head of Bar-doz and down the throat. From there, stairs lead down intothe darkness (go to 1-C3-1).

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ SURFACE

Village of Klemt

The village of Klemt had just started to form into theshadow of the Head of Bardoz and was not even fortifiedyet. It was just few houses around a well, an inn, anda stable for travellers visiting Bardoz. Then came fire andfury, slaughtering most of them. At least some humans fledwith the dwarves, spreading crazy tales of death and fangs.

Now there are just burnt foundations and few standingcorners and wall segments. The old well hole is not col-lapsed and reaches the waters in 1-A5-4. A single stonecellar can provide shelter. Far away, to the southwest,there is a surface grotto where an old dwarven escape tun-nel ends; following it, one may reach the cavern in 1-A5-4below the well, and enter the dungeon.

The village ruins are often raided by the manticore andsometimes checked by bullywug scouts. They are also regu-larly observed by the sneaky cats of Lord Vart. They are stillsomething the PCs can try to use as their (temporary) basewhile venturing downwards. (Primarily adventurer-servicetowns sound too high fantasy. Bardoz sounds far more funif it is desolate and far from civilization.)

Alternative: It would actually make sense for a village tobe close. Given the dwarven settlement’s riches, a tradingpost would be needed to move goods in and out, and thusgenerate wealth. This would eventually grow into a town.With the fall of the dwarves, the trade would stop and thetown would shrink, but still exist. The village would nowprimarily service adventurers going to suicide in the bigdwarf ruins. There are probably ruins of a large marketnear the town that have been entirely picked clean. LordVart might also use the village to resupply, porting minionsin and out. Note: This could be the next inhabited villagewhere the survivors of Klemt settled down.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 1 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

DUNGEON LEVEL 1

Map

Legend1-A1 1-B1 1-C1 1-D1 1-E11-A2 1-B2 1-C2 1-D2 1-E21-A3 1-B3 1-C3 1-D3 1-E31-A4 1-B4 1-C4 1-D4 1-E41-A5 1-B5 1-C5 1-D5 1-E5

Figure 2: Map of Dungeon Level 1

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 1

1-C3

1-C3-1. ENTRANCE

Stairs lead up to the surface and out of the dungeon. Thewords “Trespassers will be flayed alive” is written in Elvishon the northwest wall in what appears to be blood. A secretdoor on the east wall leads to 1-C3-2 and can be openedby pressing a button disguised as a brick.

1-C3-2. TABLET ROOM

Two clay tablets engraved with arcane runes sit on an altarin the center of the room. Scattered across the floor arecoins of many varieties. There is a 1 in 6 chance that thewizard known as AMPHISOS will be present, studying thetablets. He will attack if disturbed.

Every midday Amphisos casts an illusory (touch + vision)wall on the empty corridor leading south, blocking it frompeople noticing it from 1-C4-9. The spell weakens everysunrise and can be detected rather easily during the morn-ing hours.

1-D3

1-D3-3. LIBRARY

A huge chamber with massive shelves. A glowing ball oflight floats over a white book on a stone altar.

This room is enchanted to prevent fires of any kind.Torches go out, fireballs fail, etc. Magical lights function.When the party enters, more lights appear, enough for oneper visitor. They move quickly and try to position them-selves behind each person. These are just reading lightsand will follow the person around until they leave the room.Dispel magic will dismiss them until next time.

The white book is about Dwarven Sacred Geometry andArchitecture. Anyone can read it, even illiterate people. Thealtar is magic and translates text. The shelf nearest to thealtar has about 3 dozen books on arcane lore. All the othershelves are empty. The library has a strict return policy.Any book taken from the room teleports back to the shelf.

The library has a secret entrance to 1-D3-4.

1-D3-4. ROOM WITH CAGES

This room contains some cages with both monsters andanimals. Surprisingly, it does not smell and is quiet. Apassage leads to a laboratory (1-E3-1).

There is a smallish giant spider, a larger cage with 4 giantrats, a wolf, a rust monster, a hutch of normal rabbits, anda freshwater electric eel from the lake on dungeon level 3in a stone tank. All seem content, well fed, and clean. Ifcarefully observed, the giant rats are playing a game similarto rock paper scissors using pebbles and twigs.

1-C4

1-C4-9. OPEN AREA

A large open area strewn with rocks. On one side is asteeply sloping tunnel leading down into the darkness, to2-C1-1, with a crumbling cable cart system for haulingonce-rich ores from the mines below. Legends say you canstill hear the ghosts of the dwarves singing about diggingholes. On the other side, lava wells up from below into a

pool and channel. A large lever, currently in the off posi-tion, is attached to a piece of wall.

A corridor leading north is hidden with an illusionary wall(see 1-C3-2).

1-C4-10. HUGE MACHINE

A huge machine, a mess of pipes and cogs. Its purpose wasto drive the winding wheel, but the secrets of its operationand construction died along with its dwarven operators. Itnow rusts mostly silently in its room, occasionally brieflyjerking the crankshaft of its own accord. What the machineneeded lava for and where the lava now goes is long lost totime.

1-B3

1-B3-13. LARGE HALL

A large hall that has three branching off points to explorethe western half of the dungeon. Nearly every surface inthis room is covered in some sort of grime, muck, dirt,blood, or ash caused by numerous fights that have bro-ken out in here over the years, as no one has any desire toclean it up.

1-B3-13a. HIDDEN ROOM

Hidden behind a rotating wall from the previous room arenearly a dozen cots with bedrolls upon them, leather sacksunder each cot containing some sort of dried meat or ration.The denizens who call this room home “work” elsewhere inthe dungeon.

1-B3-13b. WATCH STATION

This room—heretofore left undiscovered until now—is asmall watch station left behind by the original builders ofthe dungeon. A magicked porthole in the wall allows one-way viewing through it into 1-B3-13. A dusty skeleton,humanoid in shape but with little else on it, lies slumpedin a pile on top of some severely rotten wood, the remnantsof a chair the poor soul was sitting in. A dusty tankard liesnext to the pile, and an empty wine bottle atop a fragile—yetstill standing—desk at the back of the room.

1-D4

Here once were dwarfish barracks and living quarters. Nowthe area is deserted, pitch black and eerily silent. Some mi-nor signs of struggle are visible. Has many sturdy woodendoors, but most locks have been broken ages ago.

1-D4-14. SHRINE

A shrine to some almost unrecognizable Dwarf God. Nowutterly desecrated by elvish graffiti. Lawful dwarves willhave to roll vs. hatred or suffer a minor insanity.

1-D4-15. LIVING ROOMS

Dwarves used to live here. Now only vermin infest therooms. Roll d6 for each room: 6 is something interest-ing (minor treasure, abandoned gear, mementos, friendlyrats, etc.), 1 is a problem (vermin, ceiling collapses, cursedcheese, etc.).

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DUNGEON LEVEL 1 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

1-D4-16. PRIEST ROOM

The priest of 1-D4-14 lived here. Now the room is used asa toilet by elf cultists.

1-D4-17. EMPTY ROOM

Empty. Used to be the dwarf reliquary. Contains smallhideout only findable by priests of the same order. Roll d6:on 4+ it contains valuable material, otherwise only crum-bling papers and a short sword.

1-D4-18. BROKEN STATUE

There used to be a statue here, now its pieces are scatteredaround.

1-D4-19. GUARDROOM

A guardroom by the looks of the empty weapon racks. Con-tains a secret entrance to 1-D3-4.

1-D4-20. BREWERY

A dwarvish brewery. The smell of alcohol is still is in theair. Next to this is a storage of empty beer and wine bar-rels. Searching the place might find d3 beer bottles or onewhisky bottle. Skeletons of dead rats fill the storage.

1-D4-21. DINING HALL

Magnificent dining hall, two stories high. Old chandeliersare infested with spider webs (spiders are not present).

1-D4-22. SMALL GATHERING ROOM

The western wall contains an engraving of dwarves fightingdaemonic elephantlike devils amidst lava falls.

1-D4-23. KITCHEN

The kitchen is still in working order, if one dares to operatethe magma-heated oven.

1-A1

This one is a deep underground grotto that crosses with themore constructed parts of the dungeon.

1-A1-1. GIANT MUSHROOMS

Giant luminescent mushrooms light the scene, allowing forfairly good vision of the very tall cave.

1-A1-2. ABANDONED CAMP

The recently abandoned encampment of three adventurers.No body can be found, but most of their equipment is stillthere. A good tracker could date their arrival and disap-pearance to only two or three days.

The adventurers are ELRYON THE COWARD (according tohis former party members), an elven ranger, KARRUK THECUNNING, a dwarf rogue, and PHEDRA, a human femalefighter (afterwards gaining the nickname THE PHASING).They were separated when their camp was attacked by thecreeping lake tentacles from 1-A1-3 and had to flee. Allof them can be used as as reinforcement for a small party

or as replacement for the PCs if one dies, and are of equallevel with them. They can be encountered through randomencounters in dungeon level 1 and 2.

1-A1-3. LAKE

A big lake full of lurking tentacles that try and grab anyonewho comes close. The tentacle’s touch is slightly stingy, andthey are, in fact, poisonous. Upon analysis, the tentaclesbear some semblance to the idols of the elvish cultists in1-B2, but too faint to draw any conclusion. The tentaclesdo not seem to belong to a singular entity; in fact a druidor ranger can discover that they are in truth plant mattertwisted into an animalistic shape. The PCs can discoverthat heat seems to keep them away. A dingy wooden boatcan be found on the bank of the lake.

1-A1-4. ALTAR

An overwater altar without a divinity. Treasure can befound stashed on it.

1-A1-5. WATER PASSAGE

The lake and grotto taper into a passage to the next room,which the players can swim or row to.

1-A1-6. GROUND PASSAGE

A ground passage filled with treacherous stalactites. Smallcharacters might find it easy to navigate, but tall ones willbump their head frequently.

1-A2

Here are the outskirts of 1-A3.

1-A2-1. CAVERN WITH COLLAPSED BRIDGE

This is a cavern with a grand and deep fissure. There usedto be a bridge across, but it is currently out of order. Aghoul foreman and some workers are currently working onrebuilding the bridge, although most of the work is done bysome zombies mindlessly hammering at the bridge, whilethe ghouls are supervising and shouting loudly.

While climbing may be difficult, a levitation spell or sim-ilar may easily lead a PC to the bottom of the fissure in2-A2-2.

1-A2-2. HOUSE OF SIMON

This is the house of SIMON, a ghoul hermit, who spendshis days tending to the garden in 1-A2-3. If the roadworkin 1-A2-1 becomes too loud, he’ll come by and complainabout the noise. He may carry a little bronze dwarf headthat he found in 1-C5.

1-A2-3. GARDEN OF SIMON

This is Simon’s garden and contains mushrooms with vari-ous exotic magical properties.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 1

1-A3

This is ghoul suburbia. A bizarre copy of a terrestrianneighbourhood, where ghouls, skeletons and some otherundead have established a society of sorts, with housescarved in rock and pretend gardens filled with rotting flow-ers and bones. The undead are not hostile at first, butwill soon turn against any living visitor because they lookdelicious. They prefer the term “alternatively living” to “un-dead”.

1-A3-1. “TOWN HALL”

This is in fact just a natural grotto where the undead meet,and the “house”-less zombies stay.

1-A3-2. HOUSE OF LADY MAYOR GRETCHEN

GRETCHEN is a ghoul priestess of Orcus, and she’s veryproud of her “little slice of undeath”. She’s keen on coop-erating with the PCs as long as her little community isn’tharmed, and will bargain for corpses against safe passage.

1-A3-3. PETE’S BUTCHER SHOP

PETE is a frenzied ghoul who manages the suburbia’s meatsupplies. He employs mindless zombies who will scour thedungeon looking for corpses. Pete is always hostile to livingPCs, and will attack them with two meat cleavers.

1-A3-4. THE PARK

Another meeting place for the undead, this “park” is full offungi from the mushroom colony in 1-A4. Undead childrenplay here.

1-A3-5. TOWN SQUARE

Criminal undead are hanged there. Of course since they’realready dead, they’ll just complain atop their post untilsomeone frees them. Freeing them might allow the PCssome knowledge of the dungeon layout from a particularlygrateful ghoul named FRANK.

1-A3-6. GHOUL HOUSES

Little ghoul houses, all the same.

1-A4

This area was once a mushroom garden for the miners, nowit is home to a sentient mushroom colony. The colony mu-tated from the magic fuckery happening in this dungeon. Itharnesses the magic to create powerful illusions, such asthe titanic priestess in 1-B4-1, in order to draw in prey. Itappears that the hive is friendly with the elves.

1-A4-1. BIG ROOM

A big room that under the spell appears to be full witha prey’s greatest desire. The giant priestess in 1-B4-1,SOPHIA THE SULTRY, will invite the party to this room to“show them something special”. If no one notices the illu-sion, she will direct the party to the red X, where 4 tentaclessprouting from the hive attacks it.

1-A4-2. HEART OF THE HIVE

This room contains the “heart” of the hive and all the trea-sure from other prey.

1-A5

This is an old dwarven evacuation tunnel. Its connectedcaves have been flooded and thus area 1-A5-1–1-A5-3 areunder 3’ of water, though it is not as stale as the water inthe passage in 2-B5 in dungeon level 2 between 1-A5-1and 1-C5-1.

1-A5-1. GUARD POST

This is an old guard post with some old dwarven weaponsand a horn. Blowing the horn awakens the golem in 1-C5-2 and it will visit the post to look for intruders. The door isnot hidden on this side.

1-A5-2. LAIR

This is the lair of some cannibalistic frog folk. They don’tspeak common but are only semi hostile if you manage tocommunicate with them. They are looking for their lostpet eel and will reward the finders with some pretty bonecarvings. The pet eel may be found in the tunnel connecting1-A5-1 and 1-C5-1, or nearby.

Whether they are related to the bullywugs from 1-E4 ornot is up to the GM. Options may include a hunting groupfrom the tribe, outcasts, a different more primitive groupof bullywugs, a different but similar species. This could bean amusing instance where the party makes some offensiveassumptions.

1-A5-3. KITCHEN

This is a rudimentary kitchen, though the water meansthat the only food preparation here is chopping meat intosmaller chunks. Some unidentified cuts of meat hang here.

1-A5-4. WATER RESERVOIR

This is a reservoir filled 20’ deep with water. It connects toa surface grotto a good distance to the southwest. An oldwell hole reaches the water here from the ruins of a smallhamlet on the surface. Someone has thrown a very fine ringinto the well and it lays at the bottom of the murky water.

1-B1

1-B1-1. FLOODED CRYPT

This room was seemingly a crypt, now flooded. It is guardedby 1d6+1 dwarf skeletons outfitted with iron boots that al-low them to walk in the flooded areas without floating.

1-B1-2. FLOODED CRYPT

This room is similar to 1-B1-1, though holding 1d10+4iron boot-clad skeletons, plus one wearing gilded plate withspellcasting as a 4th-level evil cleric.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 1 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

1-B1-3. CRYPT

This area of the crypt is walled off from the others, and isthus left unflooded. A determined adventurer with a pick-axe may be able to open a passage from here to 1-B1-1 or1-B1-4, but doing so will cause water from those chambersto rush in, along with any skeletons.

1-B1-4. FLOODED CRYPT

In this flooded crypt there are 1d6+1 iron boot skeletons. Astaircase on the southern end of the room leads out of thewater. In an alcove, a secret door to 1-B2-10 can be found.

1-B2

Here were once storage rooms, but after a magician hidingin 1-B2-1 miscasted a spell, darker forces have taken holdof this area. Large black scorpions with glowing eyes wouldoften like to feast on passersby. If one sleeps in this areatheir dreams will be horrible and potentially fatal.

The other half is the lair of the Elvish Cultists. What theyactually are worshiping (from heavy metal to Lovecraftianhorrors) is up to the GM, but it should not be anythingnice.

1-B2-1. HIDEOUT

This was once a secret hideout of a magician (nicknamedSHADOWFAIL). Now it is a burned out husk halfway fusedinto some kind of shadowy realm—and is the nest of theblack scorpions. Usually unhabited, there is only a 1 in 6chance that someone is actually there.

Removing the portal to nether requires serious magic, ei-ther arcane or divine.

1-B2-2. LIVING QUARTERS

This were once the living quarters of the poor mage. Nowthe room is mostly in tatters with a scattering of skeletons.

1-B2-3. ALTAR ROOM

This is the main altar room of the Elvish Cultists. The altaritself hurts the eyes of good characters and inspires evilcharacters.

1-B2-4. HIGH CULTIST ROOM

This is the spartan room of the High Cultist, Father Alex.It contains loot and the High Cultist may be present, mostlikely angry. During nights, roll d6: on 6 he is in such adeep meditation that he does not care about loud noises un-less someone (cultist or adventurer) physically pokes him.

1-B2-5. DOORS

Here are the heavy ceremonial doors to 1-B2-3. The cere-monial doors will be opened for only the greatest of events,such as sacrificing player characters. Usually there arecultists on guard duty here.

1-B2-6. SLEEPING ROOM

This is the sleeping area of the cultists. There are 4d6 intotal.

1-B2-7. ARMORY

This is the armory of the cultists. Contains many curved,sharp and otherwise nasty weapons, but only few armours.

1-B2-8. STORAGE ROOM

This is general storage room of the cultists. If they have anyprisoners, they shall be bound and thrown here.

1-B2-9. RITUAL ROOM

This is the cultists ritual room. Usually there is a teleporterto the wilderness beyond.

1-B2-10. EMPTY ROOM WITH SECRET DOOR

This room contains only a secret stone door to 1-B1. It isopened with a password from 1-B1 or a switch from 1-B2.It can be also locked, which it most often is unless cultistsare moving in the corridors.

1-B2-11. COLLAPSED CAVERN

This was a mighty cavern, now collapsed. One might almostsee some sunlight during bright days.

1-B2-12. DESTROYED ROOM

This room has some nasty insects hiding among the rocks.Their carapace is hard but valuable. They will not attack,unless provoked. They will help PCs against the scorpions,though. But do not let them eat a corpse of a scorpion...

1-B2-13. EMPTY ROOMS

These rooms are mostly empty. The scorpions like them,and often torture their prisoners there. The remnants ofthe victims might be valuable.

1-B4

1-B4-1. GIANT BEDROOM

This room has a bed for a colossal sized creature. The colos-sal sized priestess of this dungeon, SOPHIA THE SULTRY,invites you to join her with a lustful gaze (see 1-A4).

1-B5

Note that the tunnel between 1-A5-1 and 1-C5-1 is indungeon level 2, see 2-B5.

1-B5-1. THE FIVE BLUE DOORS OF DEATH

The central corridor leads to a star-shaped intersection of5 other corridors that end in blue doors. Once the partyreaches the star, all 5 doors start shooting magical damageat them: lightning, arrows, cold, fire, and cold iron. Open-ing the doors will take work and pain, too bad they are allfake and lead to nowhere.

The eastern chamber is an untrapped library with tonsof wizardly books worth money but without spellbooks.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 1

1-C1

Golem Factory. This area was used to carve, prepare, andanimate golems. It has thick walls, sturdy iron doors withfiring ports and was designed to keep something in, not out.

1-C1-1. DWARVEN GUARDPOST

Both doors have firing ports and can be bolted from theinside. The room itself has sleeping platforms and tables.

1-C1-2. “THE QUARRY”

Rough stone cutting and storage. Stone slabs to carvegolems from are piled high. Two 12’ stone golems shapedlike Dwarves are sitting and talking to each other. Severalmedium sized stone golems stand motionless. One is work-ing at carving a bowling ball. There are dozens of bowl-ing balls around. The big golems are speaking Dwarvishand are discussing fracture lines in different type of stone.They ignore the PCs unless they get annoyed, then theyswat someone across the room and go back to talking. Ifsomeone releases the Snake creature from 1-C1-4, theywill get up from their very long coffee break and fight it.The smaller golems will also attack, except the bowling ballcarver. The creature can’t out fight them but it can outrunthem.

1-C1-3. GOLEM PREPARATION CHAMBER

Final carving and rituals to prepare the ‘body’ was donehere. Stone tables with countless unpleasant stains bearsilent testimony.

1-C1-4. ELEMENTAL INFUSION CHAMBER

New golems were put in here and elemental spirits weresummoned to be bound to them and activate them. Thisroom contains a hideous aberration missummoned by theelf cultists. It is vaguely snakelike with powerful arms. It ishostile to everything and quietly starving after the elves leftit trapped in the magic circle and locked the doors. Releas-ing it should not be wise at all. No treasure can be found inthe room. One can hear its rhythmical blargs when listen-ing at the door.

1-C2

Dwarven Living Area.

1-C2-1. BATHHOUSE

Small private baths and one large communal pool. Plumb-ing is plugged and the water is very, very dirty. Even thebullywugs avoid it.

1-C2-2. TOILETS

The sewage was hauled to 1-C2-3.

1-C2-3. MUSHROOM FARM

Small (edible) mushrooms grow everywhere in this room,including the walls, ceiling and doors. There are placeswhere they have been scraped up. There is a chance of aratman or mongrelman sneaking around gathering a sackfull.

1-C2-4. LAUNDRY FACILITIES

Same water problems as 1-C2-1.

1-C2-5. GUARD POST

Sturdy wooden doors with firing ports.

1-C2-6. BARRACKS

Sleeping platforms made of stacked stone blocks.

1-C5

These were dwarven barracks and a temple.

1-C5-1. STAIRS

Stairs lead down to a tunnel to 2-B5 in the second dungeonlevel and again up to 1-A5-1. The tunnel is filled with 3’deep old nasty water. A lost pet electric eel (see 1-A5) mayperhaps be found here.

1-C5-2. ALCOVES

There are two alcoves, one of them containing a stone golemof a dwarf in bronze platemail. It will attack intruders, butnot dwarves. When defeated, the golem disappears and re-turns to its alcove and will not attack for 24 hours.

1-C5-3. PRIEST QUARTERS

Priests quarters with a small chapel. The walls are carvedwith dwarven holy texts and some of the history of the dun-geon. The room is nearly empty, the bed and armoire arethe only furniture left.

1-C5-4. CROSSBOW ALLEY

A silver headed bolt magically shoots once a round from thesouth wall at a non dwarf anywhere in this passage. Theycan be collected. This trap can not be shut off.

1-C5-5. DWARVEN BARRACKS

These rooms have been stripped of valuables, even thebunks have been hauled off to build the bridge in 1-A2.

1-C5-6. TEMPLE OF STEADFAST

A 15 foot stone statue of a lion wearing bronze plate bardingwith a small stone altar before it. Dwarves can not bringthemselves to desecrate it and will stop others who try. Nondwarves are struck with feeblemind and wander aimlesslyoff if they try.

1-C5-7. VAULT

A super vault and secret forge room. The only way in isto find a little bronze dwarf head (golf ball sized) which re-produces the dungeon entrance head. A dwarf holding themagic ‘bobblehead’ can walk through the wall and lead nondwarves with them. The inside of the vault is mostly empty,but the dwarves left behind a fortune in iron ingots and adozen silver ones they missed when evacuating.

One of the miniature heads might be carried by SIMONthe ghoul hermit (see 1-A2-2), who found it in this area.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 1 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

Another one is buried with the founder of the outpost in1-E5-2.

1-D1

1-D1-1. PRISON

A prison with 8 cells. They all have iron doors. The north-eastern cell has a skeleton. The southeastern cell has ashort secret escape tunnel leading to darkness (1-D2-2 and1-E1-1). The southwestern cell has sounds coming from it,and it it is locked. There is a human head on the floor. Ifthe party comes close, he presents himself as ABRAXAS andstarts begging them to take him (he is super bored).

1-D1-2. SECRET GUARD POST

The inside of the door has an enchanted brass porthole thatallows one way viewing.

1-D1-3. BARRACKS

Empty—no sleeping platforms.

1-D1-4. BARRACKS

A few sleeping platforms. This door can still be locked andthere is a stone block to slide over to barricade it. A rowof 15 stone golem heads are lined up on display against thewall. One of the platforms is stacked over a cavity filledwith supplies. Jugs of water, rope, tools, 3 swords, a warhammer, a large bag of old silver coins, and a carved crystalskull (dwarf).

1-D2

Dwarven Living Quarters.

1-D2-1. KLEGG’S TAVERN AND GYM

Contains a bar, tables, a fireplace, a boxing ring, manystone weights and other simple exercise tools. The frontdoor is broken and this place has been stripped of all boozeand most valuables. It is unusually clean and tidy. Thereis a damaged stone golem here that cleans it. GERTA lookslike a young Dwarven barmaid, she is much more intelli-gent than usual, she was created with speech and domes-tic skills. She is missing one arm, and is badly chippedup. She can talk about recent events and patrons, butthings more than a year ago are vague. She will be friendly,serve customers water, and can prepare food if providedwith some. Theft or vandalism inside the tavern will causeher to attack. Patrons are allowed to sleep here if they wish.She will not interfere with fighting inside the tavern as longas they don’t cause damage to the tavern. She expects tobe paid, and will accept supplies or cash. No one has everfound where she has put all the coins she has collected overthe years.

1-D2-2. ROUGH TUNNEL

Rough passage carved long ago by some great tunnelingbeast before the Dwarves moved in. They were so impressedby the teethmarks on the stone that they left the walls un-touched and only smoothed the floor. It continues to 1-E1-1 and then spirals gently down to Level 2.

1-D2-3. HIDDEN PANTRY

Behind a superior secret door are untouched crates of bot-tled alcohol and waxed casks of ale. These are a decoy.Another secret door leads to 1-D2-4.

1-D2-4. VERY HIDDEN LARDER

These rooms are packed with food, water, and alcohol.Preservation spells have kept it all fresh. Opening the doorbreaks the spell and the food starts to age normally. Thereare perishables, like apples and fresh meat. There are alsostaples like jerky and dwarfbread.

1-D2-5. FEAST HALL

This room has a large table carved from a single piece ofclear quartz, it is 15’ long, 3’ wide and 1’ thick. The wall be-hind it has a large mural of dwarves battling a red dragon.The images of the dwarves have been smeared with filth.Scraps and splinters of wood are all that remain of thewooden tables and benches that used to be here.

1-D2-6. KITCHEN AND PANTRY

This room is mostly empty. All that is left seems to be somepreserved food, but it is hard to tell whether it is edible ornot. This is dwarfbread. Few nondwarves want to eat it,but it lasts forever.

1-D5

Once the blacksmithing cavern that led into the barracksof 1-D4. Blocked off by a magically soundproof door, whenyou open this door, what you see are rows of anvils, old anddusty. Ages have passed since last sparks struck off thesehunks of cold metal. You can see what looks like tools thatlitter the ground amongst these.

1-D5-1. FORGE

On the far side of the room, a large forge with 3 separatechutes stands tall, leading a large chimney that casts redlight onto the ceiling, from what looks to be a still lit forge.

1-D5-2. CABINETS

Cabinets that are carved into the rock itself. Upon inspec-tion, 3 of the large cupboards contain 10 sets of blacksmithstools, jewelers tools and mason’s tools. One of the cabinets,to the south, has seemingly been ripped open by something.

1-D5-3. LAVA WATERFALL

On the right side of the forge is a running lava waterfall,that seemingly falls into a small basin that sits at aboutwaist height. The room is cordoned off by a huge hunk ofrock that protrudes into the room.

1-D5-4. DRAGON LAIR

Ms. Scarlet, a young female red dragon has taken upresidence here and is the cause of the large rip in thestonework. A small pile of coins and gems has beenamassed, and she is asleep on them as you walk in. Awyrm sized hole has been dug out into the rock behind her,leading to the surface.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 1

1-E1

1-E1-1. TUNNEL

The tunnel spirals downward to the next level and endsin 2-E1. The secret chamber might have peep holes andguards.

1-E2

1-E2-1. RATMEN CAVE

This big cave is utilized as a home by a dozen ratmen. Theirleader and broodmother is Priestess Deathwhisker. The rat-men appear to be the ones who took the supply of foodfrom 1-D2-6. They are not hostile and will ask for helpwith a spider problem (see 1-E3). A lightshaft from thesurface to 2-E2 bypasses this area. It may be discovered ifthe ratmen (or some other creature) expand the caves.

1-E3

1-E3-1. WIZARD’S LABORATORY

This laboratory has herbal and alchemical equipment andingredients. The jars of powdered silver and ruby are easyto sell, the rest is generally not worth looting. There is amongrelman cadaver on a table. It has been dissected butit has been preserved and does not smell worse than it didwhen alive. Another table has a longsword in a fancy silverscabbard. Both are magical. The sword is +2, the scabbardcasts a minor healing 1/day on the bearer. It is not a trapor cursed.

This sword was left here for intruders to find and takewith them. Amphisos is able to scry with either the swordor scabbard and can see and hear within 30’. He noticeswhen someone picks it up. He usually lets them take itwith them when they leave, but when he wants it back, hecan recall it with a teleport. He usually gets to know a lotabout the intruders pretty quickly. He often just listens forhours while he does his experiments.

In the eastern wall there is a secret exit to 1-E3-2.

1-E3-2. SECLUDED CAVE WITH HERBS

Here a minor fire elemental guards the door and the herbsAmphisos grows there. This part of the cave is invisiblefrom the outside (1-E3-3–1-E3-6), since there are illusionsof rock walls (depicted by purple lines on the map).

1-E3-3. CAVE WITH YELLOW MOLD

A small part of the cave is overgrown with yellow mold andin the middle there is a chest seemingly untouched by it.

1-E3-4. RATMEN STRONGHOLD

This is a ratmen stronghold. There are fortifications madeout of scrap there. A guard or two are always present.

1-E3-5. CAVE WITH SPIDER WEBS

This cave is partially covered with spider webs.

1-E3-6. SPIDER ROOM

This is the spider room, the room is covered in web and agiant hostile spider hangs from the ceiling. A large amountof skeletons and sucked dry corpses wrapped in webs coverthe floor, most of them bullywugs. A spiral staircase leadsupwards to 1-E4-3 and downwards to 2-E4. Water tricklesdown the staircase.

1-E4

This area contained the Dwarven Thermae with a hot,warm, and cold bath that are still working. Between 100and 300 bullywugs live here. Rooms with water contain10–30 bullywugs each, the remaining are outside huntingand foraging. Whether the cannibalistic frog folk from 1-A5-2 is related to this tribe or not is up to the GM.

Amphisos has been known to hire the bullywugs but cur-rently is too focused in his studies.

The giant spider from 1-E3-6 is the only thing keepingthe bullywug infestation of 1-E4 in check, for it likes toeat d3 of them each night. The bullywugs in turn havebegan worshipping the GRAT HUNGRU ONE (typoes inten-tional) and ritually sacrifice it one of their own / any cap-tive every day at the stairway in 1-E4-3. The spider seemscontent with constant food supply and does not bother theratmen from 1-E2 at all. The ratmen are still terrified bythe spider, not knowing that if it is killed they would beswarmed by bullywugs.

The wandering monsters in 1-E4 are:

1. 3–12 Bullywugs

2. 1 Doppelganger per player

3. 1 blind Medusa Alyssa(*) from 1-E4-1

4. 1 Manticore(*) from 1-E4-5

5. 1 Giant Spider(*) from 1-E3-6

6. 4–8 Elves

(*) There is only 1 of these creatures. Replace with bully-wugs if killed or recruited by the players.

1-E4-1. HOT, WARM, AND COLD BATH

A 10’ tall bas-relief wall carving of the head of Bardoz spitsscalding water into a 4 foot deep pool (H). The water is hotbut not dangerous. Drains move water into the next roomwhere the water is warm (W), then the water is cold in thelarge pool (C). The drain was blocked by the bullywugs, andthe water trickles out into the other rooms (1-E4-2), par-tially flooding them, and finally down the spiral stairs (1-E4-3).

The bullywug carved two tunnels between the rooms.They are made for short humanoids, humans and length-ier people have problems traveling them, and it impossiblefor very large creatures. The tunnels are excellent choke-points, easily filled with lots spear ends. There is a smallpeekhole where the bullywugs guard the stairway in caseGrat Hungru One is coming up for more sacrifices.

These rooms are inhabited by the leaders and strongerbullywugs, including the chief SWAMPAXE and the priestGLEMMORTH, while the younglings and weaklings wereforced out because of space problems. ALYSSA, the blindmedusa, also lives here. She has 3 bullywugs that protecther and lead her around, one is an apprentice priest namedGLIB. She might be a rejected lover of Amphisos.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 1 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

1-E4-2. PARTIALLY FLOODED ROOMS

The former changing and sitting rooms of the dwarven bathare now partially flooded, and holes were dug in the floorin order to collect more water. They are inhabited by theweaker bullywugs, most of them living in the southernrooms, while avoiding the northern rooms closest to thestairs.

1-E4-3. SPIRAL STAIRCASE

The staircase leads down 1-E3-6 and further down to 2-E4. Some water from the bath drips down the spiral stairs.At night, the giant spider from 1-E3-6 collects the offeringsfrom the bullywugs, wrapping them in webs and carryingthem down before consuming them. If she’s still hungry,she may climb up again to hunt additional prey.

1-E4-4. EMPTY HALL

This large hall is completely empty, stripped of anythingvaluable—it’s too close to the staircase for the bullywugs,but it will be soon flooded and occupied by them if the spi-der is killed.

1-E4-5. MANTICORE NEST

This former maintenance room is now the nest of a Man-ticore. The manticore finds the bullywugs insulting to itsculinary senses and is therefore hungry all the time. Itusually roams the dungeon in search of tastier prey, butif unsuccessful, it will kill a bullywug after 2d6 days, sinceeating bullywug is still better than starvation.

A magic sword from an adventurer who attempted to slaythe manticore now rests in a corner among a nice collectionof 3d6 skulls of adventurers (no bullywug skulls).

Searching the room may reveal some items that may helpthe party in other parts of the dungeon, like valves (possiblyrusted and inoperable) that regulate the flow and the tem-perature of water in the bath, tools and tattered instruc-tions for magma pump operation, a bottle of dwarf-grade“XXX Fungicide XXX”, and so on (GM discretion).

1-E5

1-E5-1. HALL WITH STATUE

An intelligent one arriving to 1-E5-1 can recognize a silverstatue of the STARING MATRON, the guardian of dwarvencommerce, behind a magma trench. This betrays the orig-inal idea of this area: Storage room for all the great itemsforged in 1-D5.

However now the four great storage-halls (1-E5-3–1-E5-5) are filled with only the remnants of the great calamitythat wiped out this location.

1-E5-2. HIDDEN GRAVE

This hidden room is the grave of the founder of this out-post, URIST, later nicknamed AMUTHAFUKINGIDIOT by thesurviving dwarves. He died under alcohol-related circum-stances and is buried in a polished steel (original:diamond)coffin in a pool of lava. He was buried with his magicaladamantium pick and a duplicate little bronze dwarf head(see 1-C5-7). The entrance is hidden and one needs topush the right ear of the statue of the Staring Matron in1-E5-1 for it to open.

1-E5-3. STORAGE-HALL

This storage hall contains mostly well-crafted coffins withcarved names. Yet still they seem to be created in a hurryand are not polished well. Most are miners.

1-E5-4. STORAGE-HALLS

These two halls contain more randomly placed coffins, nownot much more than stone boxes. If one understandsdwarvish runes, most of these dead are older and more ex-perienced dwarfs, with few smiths, warriors and children.No reason of death is written. The rooms are only half-full.

1-E5-5. STORAGE-HALL

This hall is filled with dwarf corpses and body parts. Theyseem to be just thrown there with no much thought.

In total one can count approximately 120 dwarf corpsesat least. The graves are undisturbed, for a hastily drawnrune-line protects the entrance. Any evil and/or undeadcreature crossing the charm takes 3d6 damage. There arefour skeletons of persons just over the line: two bullywugsfrom 1-E4 and two undead from the suburbia 1-A3.

Suburbian undead are most interested in the dwarfcorpses here. The dragon from 1-D5-4 does not care, itonce got zapped by the runes and afterwards has not both-ered.

1-E5-6. GRAVESITE

This is the official gravesite of the dwarves. A small tem-ple dedicated to their God of Death has been vandalizedslightly by burn marks (if one manages to truly destroy theengravings here the protective lines will fade in d6 hoursbut the attacker must roll vs. curse). The corridors left andright are protected by proper defensive rune-lines, whichdeal 6d6 damage to anyone stupid to cross them, usuallyleaving only ashes behind.

1-E5-7. BURIAL ROOMS

These rooms contain proper shiny stone coffins in two lev-els. A total of 8 coffins is in each with the exception ofthe eastest room that only contains 6. Most of the burieddwarfs are miners, one cheesemaker, and a mayor.

1-E5-8. BURIAL ROOM

This is an unfinished proper burial room. A surviving dwarfof the massacre lived there for a terrible long time, scrib-bling warning messages to the rocky walls. Sadly most of itis very, very messed up stuff, but a sufficiently insane onemight understand it and give clues to how the dwarf out-post fell. There is also a long list of dwarvish names—somecorrelate to coffins. The decayed corpse of the survivor isstill in one of the corners, hands eternally grasping a mag-ical axe.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 1

Random Encounters

1. d6 elven cultists from 1-B2, most likely unalarmed.

2. d3 animated fleshless corpses, patrolling for intruders.

3. d6 cats, they follow the party and report back to theirwizard master, LORD LART VON KLAUFFEXTOR.

4. d3 large rats, originally from 3-A5. They usually arenot bothered by PCs, but will brutally murder any catfound. Surprisingly smart: If fed can lead to nearesttreasure or warn about a danger. Will not want to leavethe dungeon.

5. The party stumbles upon a fight between the rats andthe cats.

6. An old cat vs. rat battlefield. Only rotten and eatencarcasses remain.

7. A ghost of a former adventurer, trying to find a wayout. It will haunt the nearest village if led outside.

8. Wizard AMPHISOS. If not met in his lair can be ne-gotiated with. Severely interested in ancient artifacts.Hates dwarfs for their meddlesome ways.

9. ELRYON THE COWARD (according to his former partymembers). An elvish ranger with a debilitating fear oftentacles, he was on guard in the camp 1-A2-2 whenthe vines from the lake attacked the party. He fledinstead of warning them. He now feels terribly guilty,and will reward the PCs with gold if they can find histwo other party members.

10. KARRUK THE CUNNING. A dwarven rogue, descendedfrom the ones who fled the mines. When the camp in1-A2-2 was attacked by the vines, he got alerted bythe screaming Elyron and fled too. He pretends he isthe true heir to the dungeon, but in truth is only de-scended from a miner. He seeks the lost treasures, andhas some handed-down knowledge of the dungeon lay-out (at least the dwarven parts). He will reward the PCswith his crudely-made map if they help him find “proof”of his heritage (that he will try and plant himself).

11. A freshly made flesh golem, accompanied by 2d4 skele-tons.

12. d2 black ghostlike scorpion-devils with glowing eyesfrom 1-B2. Can be bargained with sacrifices but oth-erwise hostile by default.

13. 10 bullywugs from 1-E4 on an expedition, looking forfood and loot.

14. d6 utterly lost wolves, slightly starved. Fear cats andtheir hides are scarred with claw marks. Bullywugstried to domesticate a pack but failed miserably.

15. One extremely hungry Manticore from 1-E4-5.

16. A grand slob of Material That Should Not Exist whathas crawled up the dwarven shaft in 1-D4. Almostunkillable by mortal means but in other turn usu-ally does not care about mortals in turn, unless pro-voked. Seemingly drawing eldritch eye-hurting sym-bols across the dungeon, in what appears to be a ran-dom pattern. The pattern is ready in d20 weeks.

The Wizard master of Cats is LORD LART VON KLAUF-FEXTOR, a neutral evil wizard of a nearby Zibenheim tower.He is never present on the dungeon itself but has kept aneye on the place ever since the dwarfs became extinct. Hisspies, the cats, are most interested in everything magical.

The shadow-nest of 1-B2 was caused by a former appren-tice of Von Klauffextor and this situation in particular hetries to keep in check. The cats are neutral to the un-dead suburb but are now searching the location of the elfcultists.

Relations between Von Klauffextor and Amphisos are de-termined by a roll of d6: Enemies (1), friendly rivals (2),old friends (3), neutral (4), allies (5) or not-yet-met (6) areoptions.

If the cats discover something truly worrisome the lordof Zibenheim sends forth his apprentice OBITREH and 12mercenaries to handle the situation. One worrying matterwould be the Material That Should Not Exist almost finish-ing its work or the bullywugs from 1-E4 or undead gettingtoo antagonistic with surrounding villages.

Exits

There are multiple connections between the dungeon andthe outside world, which may be noticed more or less easily.

• 1-A5-4: a dwarven escape tunnel leads to a surfacegrotto; also an old well hole from the ruins of a smallhamlet reaches the water here.

• 1-B2: this hideout contains a portal to the nether (1-B2-1), a teleporter (1-B2-9), and a collapsed cavernthat may have a (small?) connection to the surface (1-B2-11).

• 1-C3-1: this is the main entrance to the dungeon.

• 1-D5-4: there is a steep narrow hole to the surface,just big enough for the dragon.

• 1-E2: a lightshaft from the surface to 2-E2-3 in thesecond level, bypassing the first level. About 300’ total.

There are several connections between the first and sec-ond dungeon level:

• 1-A2-1: the great chasm leads down to 2-A2-2.

• 1-A5-1 and 1-C5-1: the flooded tunnel between themleads to 2-B5.

• 1-C4-9: the dwarf mine access leads to 2-C1-1.

• 1-E1-1: the spiral tunnel downward leads to 2-E1.

• 1-E4-3: the spiral stairway leads downwards to 2-E4.

Then there are magma channels in 1-C4, 1-D4, 1-D5, and1-E5. Places below these locations will be interesting mostlikely.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 2 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

DUNGEON LEVEL 2

Map

Legend2-A1 2-B1 2-C1 2-C1 2-E12-A2 2-B2 2-C1 2-C1 2-E22-A3 2-B3 2-C3 2-D3 2-E32-A4 2-B4 2-C4 2-D4 2-E42-A5 2-B5 2-C5 2-D5 2-E5

Figure 3: Map of Dungeon Level 2

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 2

2-A1

Underneath the black lake is an undisturbed lair.

2-A1-1. WIDE CORRIDOR

A wall at the eastern end of this corridor can be knockeddown to reveal a hidden passage to the large storage hall 2-B1-4. This can be ascertained by the bricks being a slightlydifferent colour and quality than the ones around them.

2-A1-2. LAIR UNDER THE LAKE

A large Stone Golem with a head similar to the dungeon en-trance lies still in the middle of the room. The plant tenta-cles from the lake in 1-A1-3 all converge into a large rootedmass in the far corner of the room. When the PCs enter, thegolem wakes up, revealing to the party that it is controlledby plant tentacles like a puppet by the thing in the corner.The golem itself is indestructible, but if the adventurers getto either the root mass and destroy it, or cut the tentaclesattached to the golem, they can defeat the mini boss.

In the center of the roots, a large key can be found, whichunlocks the barred gate in 2-A1-3.

2-A1-3. BARRED GATE

This gate is locked and can only be opened with the keyfrom 2-A1-2.

2-A1-4. CORRIDOR

A small dark corridor leads south to 2-A2-1, with a hiddenblade mechanism ready to kill intruders.

2-A2

This is the bottom of the top level’s ravine. Hammering andshouting from the work on the bridge in 1-A2-1 may stillbe heard.

2-A2-1. DWARVEN PANIC ROOM

Protected by the blade trap in the corridor 2-A1-4, thisheavily reinforced room was probably intended as a hid-den safehouse for dwarven nobles. Most of it has beenstripped away, but some high-quality stone carvings canstill be found on the walls. Some more recent childish coaldrawings are covering some of them. This rooms seems tohave been breached by a badly-carved tunnel in the southwall.

2-A2-2. BOTTOM OF THE RAVINE

Here seem to live a tribe of a dozen of diminutive and silentfolk covered with ill-made cloaks, who flee and squeakwhen the PCs approach them. If they manage to catch oneand pull its hood, the individuals are revealed as infantmongrelfolk, seemingly mute and terrified of them. Theyare Kalita’s brood (see 2-A2-3).

2-A2-3. TENT OF KALITA

KALITA is a mongrelwoman who seemingly mixes the traitsof almost all races found in the dungeon. Her face for ex-ample is half-bullywug, half-elven, split down the middle,and her hair is a mess of squirming rat tails. Next to her

tent is a mess of junk from all around the dungeon. Shecalls the other mongrelmen her children, and given the agedifference, she might well be. Unlike them, she speaks andis rather coherent. Polite PCs might trade with her, or evenbargain for shelter. They can also buy a ride up the ravineif they wish to come back to the upper level. Kalita andher children will take them on their back and climb up to1-A2-1, seemingly effortlessly. If the PCs ask her for herorigins, she’ll say that she was thrown into the chasm by aman who called her a failure. The players can identify thisman as Amphisos.

2-A2-4. TUNNELS

These tunnels seem to have been carved by the mongrelmenas escape routes. They twist and turn but are relativelyeasy to navigate (no traps). There’s a 50% chance the PCswill encounter 1d4 giant cave crabs while navigating them.The crabs are hostile, but not very dangerous, and both theghouls from 1-A3 and Kalita from 2-A2-3 will gladly tradefor their flesh. The south-eastern tunnel ends in the cavern(2-B2-8).

2-A3

The tunnel from 2-A2 heads steadily downward beforeopening into a large room with a balcony high above. Thefloor is stained with blood. The tunnel continues on downinto darkness.

2-A3-1. BALCONY

A large balcony overlooks an ancient field of battle. Thereare rotting chairs and tables, and a short railing surround-ing the balcony.

2-A3-2. BATTLEFIELD

The floor here is stained with blood and littered with bones,some seemingly ancient. There is a 1 in 6 chance that adenizen of the deep will be present here, picking throughthe refuse. If so, this creature will be immediately hostile.

2-A3-3. GUARDROOMS

Differing from the natural tunnel, these room are clearlycarved with a purpose. They contain rusted and rottenweapons and armor. 1 magical dagger is present whichhas escaped the passage of time.

2-A3-4. TUNNEL

The tunnel continues downwards, through a dark opening.Faint laughter can be heard.

2-A4

This zone is composed by a series of connected natural cav-erns with some caved in sections and a lot of scorch marks.The eastern part belongs to the temple in 2-B4–2-B5.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 2 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

2-A4-1. BAT CAVERN

This is a large cavern with a muddy floor, movement hereis inhibited. It is the nest of 4d6 carnivorous bats. Thereis a 4 in 6 chance that they are hibernating or sleeping,otherwise they will attack any intruder. If they sense thatthey are losing, they’ll flee back to the ceiling or to anotherother parts of the dungeon.

2-A4-2. CROSSING

This is a caved in crossing with scorched walls and floor.A human skeleton carrying ordinary adventurers gear iscrushed under the rocks. In addition to his other gearthere’s a shimmering golden potion nearby his corpse. Ifdrunk, it grants temporary invulnerability to the ghosts in2-C4.

2-A4-3. MUMMIFICATION WORKSHOP

This is a mummification workshop, containing chemicals ofuse in the mummification process as well as other necro-mantic rituals. The walls are lined with sharp implementsfor the same purpose.

2-A4-4. HOME OF FIRE SPIRIT

This is the current home of the fire spirit RAGECOMBUS-TION. He has been trapped in this section since the cavein and has gone a little crazy from the cabin fever. He isnot hostile but is desperately longing for company and willuse force to keep anyone in the general area. He is a for-mer servant of Amphisos and is deathly afraid of water. Thewalls of this cave have awkward paintings made in soot ofidyllic household scenes like a family around a dinner tableand such. Ragecombustion prefers to stay in the dry areasof 2-A4-2, 2-A4-3, 2-A4-4, and 2-A4-6.

2-A4-5. SIDE CAVE

This small side cave is mostly featureless. An earlier dun-geoneer hid part of his haul here in the muddy earth. It isa treasure of some appropriate value.

2-A4-6. CAVE

This is another cave inhabited by Ragecombustion. Thewalls here are painted with idyllic farm life scenes, also inan amateurish hand and exclusively with soot and ash.

2-A5

This is a small addition to the Evil Temple in 2-B5. Waterhas not reached these rooms yet moisture is very high.

2-A5-1. SCROLL DEPOSITORY

This room was once the scroll depository of the Evil Tem-ple Priests. However, when the dwarfs first excavated thisplace, they decided to have a joyful and righteous bookburning session here. A giant scorch mark still marks thespot where the idiots thought that burning many eldritchand magical scrolls at the same time was a great idea. Itmight have been this act that started the downfall of Bar-doz or not.

What is clear is that Ragecombustion claims to been bornin this Library if asked about its past. It met Amphisos onlyfar later, after a terrible amount of loneliness.

There are no scrolls nor magic books left. However, theplace is clearly magically tainted and as such makes a won-derful summoning location.

2-A5-2. OGRE LAIR

This was once part of the library but now it is the homeof two malnourished Ogres, escapees from 1-D3-4. Af-ter they became lost in the mines they have holed up inthis room and will defend it vigorously, fighting with hugemakeshift clubs. Sometimes they roam the neighboringhalls in search of food. They can be reasoned with if aPC can speak their language and offers them enough to eat(which is a lot). They have amassed a small chest with someamount of treasure and loot (might contain a little bronzedwarf head of Bardoz).

Also in the room is the half-eaten corpse of a third ogre.BORKE was wounded in a fight with the bullywugs and theogres had to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. Theyare deeply ashamed of this.

2-A5-3. HIDDEN ALCOVE

This is a hidden alcove of the Evil Snake Priests. Proba-bly nothing lovely is hidden here. A grimoire guarded by areanimated skeletal snake lies on a small pedestal. Manyfun and wondrous things can be found within it. Please donot give it to Amphisos or lord von Klauffextor. There is a50% chance that it is at least somewhat damaged by themoisture and age.

2-B1

This area served as temporary storage for stone materialsfrom the mine (see 2-C1) that might be useful, before beingtransported to the workshops in 2-B2 or in constructionsites elsewhere.

2-B1-1. STORAGE WITH CHESTS

Five side tunnels contain dwarven storage chests filled withall kinds of stone matter what pinged dwarvish “this mightbe interesting” stone sense. With hours and proper toolsone might (5+ on d6) find in each of the chests (roll d6):

1. a small amount of gold worth 2d100

2. a small strand of adamantium, enough for a dagger

3. some pretty metal ores intended for jewelry

4. a small glass opal

5. a medium sized ruby

6. some particularly pretty stones

2-B1-2. STORAGE WITH CHEST

This stone chest is similar to those in 2-B1-1, but rein-forced and locked (for an additional challenge: trapped withexplosive runes). It contains materials that seemed morevaluable (roll twice 1d6 in the table above).

One of the six chests in 2-B1-1 and 2-B1-2 is a Mimic(randomize it with d6).

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 2

2-B1-3. TRAPPED CORRIDOR

This corridor between the storage hall and the workshopscan be secured with a spike trap.

2-B1-4. LARGE STORAGE HALL

The large hall contains heaps of boulders, rough stoneblocks, and gravel—stone material of little value that mightbe used in constructions.

Climbing over the heaps may be dangerous. A searchreveals a pair of dead rust monsters that were killed by arockslide (alternatively: they are still alive, digging). Fur-ther (dangerous) digging in this zone may reveal somemetallic minerals that attracted the monsters (roll 1d3 inthe table above).

Several carts can be found in the hall, but only one is stillin working order (the metal parts of the others were eatenby the rust monsters).

A portion of the western wall can be knocked down toreveal a hidden passage to 2-A1-1. This can be ascertainedby the bricks being a slightly different colour and qualitythan the ones around them.

2-B2

This is a continuation of the Dwarven Mines. It has beenmostly accessed from 2-C1-1 (the door has been brokenlong ago) and secondarily from the storages of 2-B1.

The eastern part is one of the earliest parts of the minesand shows signs of many, many years of use. However, itwas converted into workshops to use the materials of themines here directly (metal ores were taken to the forge, 1-D5).

2-B2-1. JEWELRY WORKSHOPS

These were two jewelry workshops. Many kinds of preciousstones were cut here and there are still some shiny frag-ments scattered around the floor. No tools etc. remain.

2-B2-2. MASON WORKSHOP

This was a workshop of an amazing mason. A masterstonecarver worked here, bending stone to his will. All fur-niture are made out of beautifully carved stone worthy ofa king and all weight more than a ton. Dwarf PCs are in-spired by the stonecarving quality here. Tools and anythingeasily removed are long gone.

2-B2-3. SLEEPING ROOM

This is a soundproof room with two soft beds. It was madefor the craftsdwarves to sleep after a heavy work day. Theheavy oak door has never been broken and is still locked.A ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hangs on it. It is a single use sigilthat is still working. The entire group of PCs must makethe save or they all walk past without noticing the door.

2-B2-4. STORAGE ROOM

This is a storage room for the products from the workshops.A quarter of it is for the jewelers and the rest for the mason.It is mostly empty (it was evacuated before the Disaster) butthere is a d6 tons of unused stone slabs and d3 unfinishedcoffins bound for the burial grounds (1-E5).

2-B2-5. FORMER MINE

This is a former mine what was blocked after a jeweler com-plained that he does not like a hole in his wall. Actually, hedid hide a small locked and trapped chest with part of histreasure under a pile of rubble, before the hole was sealed.It was never recovered.

2-B2-6. BATTLE SITE

At this spot a fierce battle took place. The dwarves clearlylost, given the pieces of dwarven armor and bones litteringthe floor. Spending some time one could gather enoughpieces for one complete set of dwarven plate mail.

2-B2-7. WALL

The precious stones in the walls still shine beautifully fromthe PCs torchlight. Lichen grows on the brick wall.

2-B2-8. CAVERN

A corridor opens in a large cavern with damp uneven walls.It continues south to a more developed debris-filled area (2-B3). In the west, a crude, recent tunnel (2-A2-4) leads to2-A2.

2-B3

Dwarven storage space.

2-B3-1. COURTYARD WITH FOUNTAIN

This “courtyard” appears to be a sort of staging area for ex-tending the mines into the natural caves to the northwest.The floor here is covered in debris, smashed tools, looseore and the odd heavily gnawed bone. A small fountain,now dry, is set into the wall to the south, while the heavyoak door in the east wall hangs loosely on one bent hinge,having been smashed open some time in the past.

2-B3-2. BIG ROOM

Equipment storage and a ready room, where the dwarveswould gather to prepare for the day ahead. Near the northwall of this flooded room are two huge banks of lockers andcrates, still filled with badly rusted picks, shovels, hammersand other mining gear. A huge stone roundtable, lovinglyengraved and large enough to seat a dozen (short) men, sitsnear the back of the southern locker bank, scattered platesand tankards on and around it.

2-B3-3. FLOODING FOUNTAIN WITH ELEMENTAL

Another fountain, this one large and fairly ornate, takesup the western quarter of the room. This one is not onlyfull, its overflowing, and is one of the sources of the ankledeep water flooding this area and 2-B4. The water is fairlyclear, but the fountain itself is the home of a surly waterelemental, who has taking a liking to this soggy locationand would take offence at people attempting to drain itshome. The pipe’s spigots have frozen open, but if one wereto unstop the drain, currently packed full of mud, the localarea might begin to drain.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 2 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

2-B3-4. OFFICE AND QUARTERS OF THE FOREMAN

2-B3-5. VAULT

This was once the office and quarters of the foreman ofthis section of mines. A greedy bastard, even by the stan-dards of dwarves, he had been stashing away the best gemsand other shiny bits in the vault (2-B3-5), keeping themfrom his grumbling subordinates. When the outpost fell, helocked himself in his vault, not that anyone really botheredor cared to look for him. He suffocated in there, too madfrom fear and paranoia to open the door. His corpse rose assome sort of ghastly undead (something level appropriate,anything between a ghoul to something nasty like a moghr)and jealously guards his riches, which he has counted overand over for untold years.

2-B3-6. LOCKERS

These heavy stone benches are arrayed in front of an im-pressive set of heavy wooden lockers, though the first twofeet of wood have rotten clean through from the water.These used to hold the miner’s heavy leather and metalmining suits, offering substantial protection from the harshconditions of the occupation. The lockers mostly standempty now, though one, its corroded brass nameplate read-ing ‘Shatterwood’ in Dwarvish, has thus far resisted anyattempt to force it. Inside is one dwarf-sized mining suitremaining, reeking of mold, but by and large intact. Thesuit functions as full plate with only a +5 AC bonus, butgrants some resistance to heat; not enough to swim in lava,but enough to at least get close to it. To the east, a smallpublic washroom sits, flooded as the rest but otherwise in-offensive.

2-B3-7. DESTROYED STOREROOM

This storeroom (also the concealed entrance to thespeakeasy in 2-D2) was clearly the place of a final stand.The door is still heavily barred by overturned shelves andcrates, but something seems to have smashed its way inthrough the south wall and the resulting fight wreckedmore or less everything in here. The door to the speakeasyhas been left hanging open, and if a tracker is in the party,this passage still sees a bit of travel, the rubble mostlycleared away in a path from north to south through therubble.

2-B4

This part of the ancient temple (see 2-B5) contains storagerooms and some bunks. The water has also seeped in here,but the stairs leading out of this area contain it somewhat.

2-B4-1. ROOM WITH SARCOPHAGI

This room is lined with 4 sarcophagi along the walls, con-taining a mummy each, ready to attack if they discoverintruders. However the water has rotted their lower bodyand they crawl around on the submerged floor instead ofwalking if they leave their sarcophagi. Note that the wetmummies may be less vulnerable to fire.

The corridor to the west to 2-A4-2 has caved in.

2-B4-2. SLEEPING ROOM

2-B4-3. SLEEPING ROOM

These rooms contain bunk beds and some chest for per-sonal belongings stacked up. Anything below the waterlinehere is mostly rotted away, but 3 of the chests above thewater contain extravagant and well made robes.

2-B4-4. STORAGE ROOM

This storage room contains empty clay pots and differenttools.

2-B4-5. STORAGE ROOM WITH SNAKES

This storage room is filled with sealed clay pots stacked tothe ceiling, except a small winding path to the door on theother side, which leads to 2-A4-3. Inside the jars are mum-mified but still very alive and angry snakes. Knocking overa stack of jars means 3d6 pots containing undead hostilesnakes shatter.

2-B5

The dwarf miners stumbled upon a far more ancient templeduring their digs, filled with only dirty water, elder runes,and terrible perils.

The tunnel between 1-A5-1 and 1-C5-1 in dungeon level1 (filled with 3’ of stale water) leads to the second dungeonlevel. In the deepest part of the tunnel, after two flights ofstairs in either direction, there are two large double doorsleading to the ancient temple complex, which is also par-tially flooded.

The doors north lead to 2-B4 and those south to an un-holy altar in an octagonal room. South of it, the wall iscovered in a large wall hanging depicting serpents and hid-ing a large double door.

South of that, a storage room and two apartments for thepriests, connected by a hidden corridor.

East, a large crevice has opened up, letting you fall downone floor deeper to 3-B5. The water in this part of thetemple disappears into the crevice and forms a waterfall soit doesn’t fill up the entire underground.

2-C1

Dwarven Iron and Adamantium Mine (also covering squares2-C2, 2-D1, 2-D2). The stone in this area is extremelyhard to mine and it is easier to dig around it.

2-C1-1. ACCESS RAMP

40’ ceiling. Iron rich stone makes mining difficult but prof-itable. The veins of Adamantium make it fabulous! Hugemine carts were pulled up to the first level (1-C4-9) on thetracks.

2-C1-2. TOOL ROOM AND BAR

1 in 6 chance of finding a decent tool, all alcohol is gone.

2-C1-3. DEPLETED ADAMANTIUM VEIN

Still glittery though.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 2

2-C1-4. MINE BOSS’S ROOM

Looted long ago, but the ghost of the mine boss is still there.He does not like non dwarves.

2-C1-5. TINY CORRIDOR

A tiny 3 foot by 3 foot passageway, probably carved bykobolds or other rodents.

2-C1-6. HIDDEN DWARVEN SPEAKEASY BURLESQUETHEATRE

Behind a secret door is the entrance to a Dwarf strip club,“The Titty Twister”. Somehow overlooked by looters overthe years, this place has a stage, an impressively stockedbar, and a lot of exotic underwear for dwarf chicks.

2-C3

Sunken Gardens—This large chamber is lit by a 5 foot di-ameter glob of magma that shines like a tiny sun, providinglight for the lush vegetation. The shining globe mimics thelight conditions outside, at night it dims to look like a fullmoon. Every morning at dawn it rains in this chamber fora few minutes.

Fruit trees, grass, and crops grow abundantly. Whitemarble stairs lead down to the lower rings. In the center, asmall pond surrounds a tiny grassy island.

Figure 4: Cut through the garden

2’ tall stone armadillos work tirelessly to maintain thegardens and grow food. They don’t talk or attack, but theyunderstand you and will point to or lead you to anythingyou ask for in the garden (except 2-C3-8).

Note: There will be very few wandering monsters here,generally only ones who make it through the maze past theminotaurs.

2-C3-1. THE GREEN DOOR

A large stone door made of Malachite, with a second doorthat matches it just beyond it. Works like an airlock, thefirst door must be shut before the other door will open.

2-C3-2. UPPER LEVEL

The upper level of the garden has fruit trees and a littleGreek-style building of white marble at 2-C3-7.

2-C3-3. MIDDLE LEVEL

The middle level has larger trees like pecans and lots ofberry bushes.

2-C3-4. LOWER LEVEL

The lower level has lawn and cute little garden plots.

2-C3-5. POND

In the pond is a baby Awakened froghemoth named TAD. Itis lonely and will capture visitors and put them on the is-land (2-C3-6) and talk with them. It eats the fish that comeinto the pond through the tiny drains. It knows Amphisosas ‘Baldy’ and thinks he is funny. It says the armadilloshurt its teeth so it doesn’t eat them anymore. It doesn’tknow much else except it remembers the shadowy magefrom long ago who was his first friend. Tad is pretty toughbut not very aggressive. he hides in a underwater crevice ifhe gets hurt.

2-C3-6. ISLAND

The island is just a grassy hillock, perfect for picnics.

2-C3-7. MARBLE BUILDING

The white marble building is cute and tiny. The back pas-sage leads to a bronze door with a sign: “Amphisos—Knockand Enter”.

2-C3-8. CRANKY FRANK

An animated apple tree named CRANKY FRANK guards thesecret exit of the garden. A superior secret door leads toa similar door opening into the mines. In the passage isa backpack and a magic staff. The pack contains a smallspellbook, potions, rations and other travel gear. CrankyFrank will let you pick apples, only animating to preventsearching for the door.

2-C4

The Haunted Labyrinth. This area was deliberately con-structed by Bardoz to prevent intruders from proceed-ing further into the dungeon. It consists of a confusingmaze guarded by four ghostly minotaurs, transplanted andbound here by Bardoz’s magic. Each turn spent in thisarea, the characters have a 4 out of 6 chance to encountera minotaur ghost. Once spotted, the ghost will magicallyalert the others and pursue the characters until they haveleft the maze. The ghost minotaurs will not attack a groupif one of the little bronze dwarf heads is shown to them. Theminotaurs were loyal followers of Bardoz in life and mightknow lore about him. Speak with the Dead spells can un-cover long lost secrets.

The maze contains some rewards:

1. Large Cut Ruby

2. Crossbow

3. Enchanted Arrow(s)

4. A sign of an inn (actually a one-way teleporter to thenearest inn, “Hendricksons Tavern”). Alternative: Anenchanted beer tankard.

5. Shiny Silver Coin

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DUNGEON LEVEL 2 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

2-C4-1. CENTER OF THE MAZE

The room in the center of the maze holds four minotaurskulls on altars of obsidian. The skulls and altars are in-tangible and cannot be touched or dispelled. If any of theghosts are destroyed, they will reform in this room after 1hour. The ghosts can only be permanently destroyed byexorcising each altar.

2-C5

Kobold Warren—The eastern part of this area contains akobold warren with 4 foot wide, 4 foot high rough muddytunnels.

At the south exit of the labyrinth (2-C4) are poorly speltsigns promising “tresur, geld, magick items”, “kurses onthose who stel the pharos mask”.

2-C5-1. DIRT-TUNNEL

There is a muddy, crudely dug dirt-tunnel with mold in it.Gems are embedded into the side of the walls, but uponfurther inspection, they are worthless glass beads.

Several traps are randomly scattered along the tunnel.Most of these were sprung or failed long ago.

• one tripwire

• a bottle of acid hanging on a wire

• 2d4 fish-hooks hanging at eye-height (human man-sized eye height, heights above or below medium aren’taffected)

• 1d4 tiger-traps

2-C5-2. TUNNEL WITH ARROW-SLITS

This tunnel has a sign on the far corner saying “bewear thekurse of teh pharo!” There are obvious arrow slits along theside of the walls that are covered in wooden slats from theother side. There are no traps, except for a pool of slipperymud.

2-C5-3. TUNNEL

Noticeably, the floor slopes up a bit. At the far end youcan see a large boulder ready for rolling down towards you.However, there appears to be no one to move it. The boul-der is actually pretty light, it was woven like a basket andcovered with clay. Pretty clever, seems real at first.

Alternative: It’s real.

2-C5-4. WARREN

The room is full of kobold skeletons. It appears to be a smallkobold warren with a cooking pot, a few chests carryingnothing of worth and a curtain across an alcove.

2-C5-5. ALCOVE

Behind the curtain is the skeleton of an adventurer. He hasa full kit of rusty plate armor but all else has been lootedfrom him.

2-C5-6. HIDDEN APARTMENT

Behind a superior secret door is a hidden apartment for adwarf. It has never been discovered, which is good becausethere is a small chest of adamantium ingots hidden beneaththe bar. The tricky part is that the owner is now a ghost thatguards it. There is a fortune in booze and a couple of magicdwarfhammers, but the ghost only cares about the ingotsand stays invisible.

2-C5-7. LARGE ROOM

Large room with a dais, broken glass scattered on floor.

2-C5-8. OOZE CATHEDRAL

After the crevice in 2-B5, large gothic double doors leadsouth to a room with a gothic, cathedral sort of look with 8pillars. At the end of the room a mysterious green ooze cov-ers the floor. Hooded phantasms ceaselessly chant lullingthe ooze to sleep. They do not attack but only “sh” hushyou if you make a noise. This is maybe part of the ancienttemple in 2-B5.

2-D3

VIP quarters. This mansion was built together with themaze in 2-C4 by Bardoz. The shadow wizard from 1-B2lived here afterwards, blocked off the normal entrance, andadded anti-teleport properties. Amphisos moved in a coupleof years ago and lives here with his retinue.

The dark gray stone area in the southwest (entrance roomand guest room) resists all scrying, teleport, stoneshape orother spells, the reminder of the mansion is less protected.The master (and servants) of the VIP quarters are autho-rized/attuned to use the basic way in and out, and theycan lead guests in or out. After he gets into the SunkenGardens (2-C3), Amphisos uses his own teleport often togo up to the first level, where he does his research.

There are a lot of valuable things in 2-D3, but not muchstored treasure or wizardly stuff. Amphisos does some bookresearch here, but not experiments. His treasure is hiddenback in the nearby town.

2-D3-1. ENTRANCE ROOM

The small marble Grecian Shrine in 2-C3 leads to a bronzedoor with a sign: “Amphisos - Knock and Enter”. The dooris locked unless you knock on it. There is a wooden doorbeyond. Beyond that is an oval room with a man behinda desk. This is AMPHISOS. He is writing and has severalbooks on the table. Actually, this is a simulacrum, createdby Amphisos to do paperwork. If he is convinced that thevisitors have legit business, he might teleport them to 2-D3-2.

2-D3-2. GUEST ROOM

Cheery fireplace, nice bed, table, chairs, desk, and stockedbar. Bathroom with nice tub. There is a red wooden doorthat is actually a teleporter to the red door in 2-D3-3.Knock and grab the knob. This can be turned on and off bythe inhabitants to lock guests in this room.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 2

2-D3-3. HALL OF THE MEDUSA

50 stone statues of men and beasts line this hall. Many ofthem hold lit lanterns or torches. All are freestanding, nonehave bases attached. Humans, elves, some ogres, lion, direwolves, etc. Most of these are illusions, some are statues,some are golems, a few are actually petrified creatures.

2-D3-4. KITCHEN AND PANTRY

Two twin redheaded human girls run the kitchen, RUBYand PEARL. They are low level wizards and apprentices ofAmphisos.

2-D3-5. DINING HALL

Large fireplace in western wall, pair of crossed battleaxesover the mantle.

2-D3-6. SERVANT’S QUARTERS

Common room with a bath and 3 bedrooms.

2-D3-7. HAREM

Rugs, low couches, silk hangings, and even a splashingfountain, but no girls. This room was decorated by theshadow wizard. Amphisos summons companions instead.The ancient human butler MAXWELL lives here. He is amodestly competent wizard.

2-D3-8. FANCY BATH

2-D3-9. MASTER BEDROOM

Well furnished, nice fireplace, with a small bookcase nearthe writing desk. Two Dire Lions are in this room most ofthe time. One is Amphisos’s familiar, MR WHISKERS. Theother is a Sentient Illusion named SKITTY. Skitty speaksCommon, is intangible and can run through walls. MrWhiskers understands 9 languages, but can’t speak. Theyboth protect the bedroom. Skitty runs for help.

2-D4

The Hall of Legends. The dwarves spent countless dayscarving murals along the walls, floor, and even ceiling.Throughout the room are great stone statues of their great-est heroes. Rising from the center of the room are fourgigantic golden statues of dwarves holding up the ceiling.(Actually, the statues are only gold-plated).

When the Dwarves were digging the Hall they discoveredan extremely valuable vein in the northern wall and justhad to follow it, leading to 2-E3.

2-D4-1. CENTER OF THE HALL

Within short walls carved with murals stand four massivegolden dwarves, their arms upraised to brace the ceiling.At their center the face of Bardoz is carved into the floor.Standing by the statues gives you a strong feeling of awe,but also of safety.

2-D4-2. STATUES GALLERY

Granite statues of dwarven heroes line this great hall.Within each rests the angry shade of whoever is depicted,forever guarding the Hall of Legends. Any damage done toany of the carving will cause them to attack the PCs. Whenthe PCs attempt to leave the room, they are accosted by theshade of the statue closest to their path.

2-D4-3. ROUGH TUNNEL

The wall here has fallen away, revealing a rough tunnel thatextends off through 2-E4 into 2-E3.

2-D4-4. EXCAVATION SITE

Something valuable was excavated in here as well. Or wasit a beginning of stairway downwards?

2-D4-5. STONEMASON SHED

The statues of the Hall of Legends were carved here. Theshed is now filled with (rock) clutter. There is a crude graf-fiti carved to the northern wall, reading “Drtide Wuz Her!Yarr!”.

Note: “Drtide” is the pirate captain Dreadtie from theghost ship encounter. Originally, it was placed in 2-D4.

2-D4-6. OLD MINE

Another old mine tunnel (iron and copper). Predated theHall of Legend construction.

2-D5

This is the Magma Laboratory of the Dwarves. Here thedwarven engineers bended the molten rock to their insanewill. If you did not hear mad laughter and a lightning strikeyou did not understand the craziness of the whole opera-tion.

Four of the five magma pump machines are still workingdue their sturdy and unnatural construction.

2-D5-1. CHIEF OPERATING ROOM

This is the chief operating room. There are few stone tables,mechanisms and gears scattered around in fractal forma-tions. The temperature is extremely high and red light fromthe almost bursting pumps lights the place in eerie light-ning.

The kobolds from 2-C5-3 have somewhat poked andsearched the room, but the magma pumps gave their dan-ger sense too much goosebumbs, so they have left thisspace mostly intact.

2-D5-2. LIVING QUARTERS

This are the living quarters of the Dwarven Magma Doctor.Or one could call it a pile of all kinds of stone instrumentsand more stuff in fractal patterns. Why fractals? No oneknows for sure. There even is no bed, the poor lad proba-bly just fell over to the closest pile when sleep claimed him.If one finds and tries to understand his scriptures, theytake d10 sanity damage and apparently understand thatthe pump mechanisms work under their own power duethe Heatacity (TM pending) of the magma. Various otherplans are written down, one such being an armoured mag-mathrower that moves on tracks.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 2 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

2-D5-3. WALLED OFF SECTION

The dwarves walled off the previous Dwarven Magma Doc-tor. Yes, he was that insane. His dry corpse is laying on theground oddly peacefully.

2-D5-4. LEAKING PUMP

This magma pump is leaking, and barely working, andmagma flows toward 2-E5. The damage may be causedby the curious kobolds.

2-D5-5. WORKSHOP

This is the workshop of the Doctor. It contains one experi-mental Magma Proof Suit made out of magma-proof stone.Only a dwarf fits inside and the movement is extremelyslow. It gives a huge bonus to defense (and double thatversus heat) but it also gives a similar minus to anythingphysical. With it one can walk in lava without an issue.Being completely submerged in lava requires a constitutioncheck, if fails then the dwarf boils alive.

2-D5-6. EMPTY ROOM

This room is empty. With proper emphasis on the word GMshould be able to make players spend hours searching thisroom.

The corridor corner below this room contains a crudespike trap. Stepping on a misplaced metal plate springs athree foot metal spike from behind the corner to the heightof human heart (kobolds unaffected). There appears to beena barrier what has blocked the corridor but it has beentaken apart, possibly by kobolds fleeing the demise of theirwarren.

2-D5-7. STAIRWAY

Behind a sturdy locked stone door is a stairway downwards,probably to check the magma mechanisms there.

2-D5-8. ENTRANCE

The Doctors demanded that their “Magma Palace” re-ceives a suitable grand entrance and the dwarven outpostobliged. Therefore the entrance is gloriously detailed withfire engravings and there are several obsidian pillars withsculpted flame patterns. Yes, this place should look like thefinal boss room. The two heavy (and magmaproof) doors re-quire two persons to push but are unlocked. They opentowards the magma laboratory.

2-E1

As the PCs enter from either the west (corridor 2-C1-5) ornortheast (through the tunnel from 1-E1-1), they enter ahuge natural cave with stalagmites and stalactites. A faintdrip is heard every so often, and thin hairlike roots are seenin every surface.

2-E1-1. MUSHROOM TOTEM

A huge mushroom decorated with many ornaments andfetishes takes up the center of the cave. Some shroomcultists are seen worshipping it, and seem to not be in-terested in the party. A ratman or two can be seen heretrading with the shroom men.

2-E1-2. POOL

A large pool of clear water has formed here, with whatseems to be a fish swimming inside.

2-E1-3. SHROOM VILLAGE

The small village of the shroom people is guarded by twolarge shroom warriors. These guys will escort a willing partyto the chieftain DEATHCAP.

2-E1-4. CHIEFTAIN HOUSE

The fenced house of the chieftain Deathcap is guarded byhis chosen warrior. If the best melee adventurer of the partycan defeat him in an honorable duel (not to the death), thenthey can see the chieftain. He and the shroom cultists willgive the PCs the task of hunting the Great Salamander inthe pool (2-E1-2). If they succeed, then they can regu-larly trade with the village for exotic goods and potent fungimagic, as well as buying a war-rat from 2-E1-5.

2-E1-5. TRAINING PIT

A pit made for training war-rats.

2-E2

2-E2-1. STONE DOOR

Walking up the stairs, the party come across a huge stonedoor without any hinges or gaps. The only way to open itis to place the small bronze Bardoz in a hole in the center,effectively acting as a key. Once the head is locked in place,a loud sound is heard as the ancient construction movesinto place.

2-E2-2. TRAP FILLED CORRIDOR

Once the party pass through the gate, they will see a longempty hallway. If a PC is dwarven and related to the in-habitants that once dwelt here, they can walk through thestraight path without harm. If the magic runes on the wallsperceive someone to be an intruder, they will be forced topass the gauntlet. First they must duck and dodge throughthe Blades of Dusk, then they have to jump across the Pitof the Evening (which opens up from the floor when intrud-ers arrive), then they have to shuffle on a ledge past theChasm of Midnight, and finally they have to run from theBoulder of the Dawn. Finally the PCs will reach the Roomof the Sun (2-E2-3), which has another slot for the smallkey head, which deactivates the traps behind them. Thismeans that the whole gauntlet can be bypassed if a dwarfrelated to this place is present.

2-E2-3. ROOM OF THE SUN

The Room of the Sun is brightly lit from a hole leading upto the surface in its center. Decorations cover the sides,showing the story of Bardoz and the founding of this place.

Alternative: The room is dark at first, but once the play-ers enter, it starts to light up revealing an awesome sword.

At the center of the Room of the Sun lies an adamantiumsword stuck into the ground, which was once wielded byBardoz himself (two handed for dwarves and one handedfor humans/elves). One would have to succeed in a difficultstrength, dexterity, and constitution test. A player can only

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 2

try once every day, but a failed test injures you. A dwarfgets easier rolls. It’s up to the DM to decide the numbersneeded to succeed based on the party. The stats for thesword should also be based on the level of the party. It willnever break, is incredibly light, glows when fell things arenear, and can cut through stone with enough strength.

Note: The hole may be a bit of a security breach—butstuffing a halfling down a hole using every rope the partyhas could be entertaining (around 300’ are needed). Onthe other hand, the dwarfs may have installed countermea-sures (compare the trap filled corridor 2-E2-2). Optionsmay include a simple steel grate, a hilarious rope-cutting(flamethrowers, blades) anti-magic trap section, or an anni-hilation/teleportation field just before an enchanted (inde-structible?) diamond lens used to concentrate the sunlightin the room below (GM discretion).

2-E3

Here is a deep deep pit in the earth, inside a slightly en-larged natural cave.

2-E3-1. THE PIT

A fairly regular, very deep pit, that was probably used tosearch for ore. The glow of magma can be seen at the bot-tom. There are remnants of scaffoldings, barely hanging onto the inside. Upon closer examination, the ledge of the pitseems irregular in two places, bearing three longish markseach, as if something had clawed out of the pit.

Going cautiously down the pit leads to 3-E3-1, but thisshould be almost impossible without fire resistant gear (forexample, the suits from 2-B3-6, 2-D5-5, or 3-D5-3) orspells.

2-E3-2. TOOL SHED

A tool shed carved in the rock. It seems barred from theinside. Outside of the sheds are the scattered bones of adozen dwarves. Inside the shed, if the players can removethe barricades, are various old tools, and the intact skele-tons of four dwarves. One of them clutches a heavy tome,rendered unreadable by blood and dirt. Among the tools,the PCs can find a magical tower shield that was used tobar the room, and a few ingots of gold.

Shield of the Last Stand: This dwarven-made towershield is sturdy and heavier than its humans counterparts.It menaces with spikes of steel, one of which is blade-shaped and at its bottom, serving as a rest of sorts to plantthe shield in the ground. Whenever its bearer does so, theshield becomes immovable as long as its user is alive, nomatter what kind of strength is pushing on the other side.It otherwise functions as a +1 tower shield with a higherthan normal strength requirement.

2-E4

The rooms in this area are clearly more swiftly designed andaren’t as well carved. The poorest dwarves lived in here.There might not be enough head-space for humans here ifGM is cruel.

A tunnel leading north was started but left unfinished.Now it is flooded and probably is home to something, ifnothing else Bullywugs probably like it.

The spiral stairway leads upwards to 1-E3-6 and furtherupwards to 1-E4-3 in the baths.

The square 3x3 room contains machinery for the bathsin 1-E4.

This area is being flooded by increasing amounts ofmagma and water. Extremely nice combination for sure.

The northwestern corner has a cavern that connects 2-D4 to 2-E3.

2-E5

This large chamber seems to have been mined for preciousgems at some point, as there is mining equipment strewnabout and the walls seem to glitter. Now the room is mostlyfilled with lava, which seems to be overflowing from themain pool into 2-E4.

2-E5-1. POOL OF LAVA

A large pool of lava fills most of the chamber. Recliningin the pool is THRALDRIM, a large fire titan, only his headvisible above the surface. He appears to be quite happy. Hewill not attack the PCs unless provoked, but he also doesn’tfeel like getting out. If asked, he explains how he made thislava bath for himself. Thraldrim is a collector of nice rugs.

2-E5-2. CHAIN

A massive chain is connected to the floor and runs into thepool. Thraldrim built this to create his pool, and pulling itwill allow the lava to drain away.

2-E5-3. WESTERN PART OF CHAMBER

The western part of the chamber is not filled by lava. Miningtools litter this area. If the PCs search through it, they canpotentially also find d4 precious stones.

2-E5-4. LAVA FLOW

The lava is overflowing from Thraldrim’s pool and runninginto 2-E4.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 2 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

Random Encounters

1. d10 Shrooms cultists. There is a possibility thata group of mushroom-like small humanoids can befound in one of the depleted adamantium vein pock-ets of Bardoz. These sentient beings are immediatelyhostile, and will try and drag any adventurer to besacrificed to their great Shroom-mother. They are poi-sonous, and are capable of fighting with many injuries.

2. d6 large rats, originally from 3-A5. Similar to thosefound on level 1, they will attack any cat on sight. Inthis level, the rats mostly would prefer that the PCswould leave and otherwise just try to leave. They stilllike food though—they will lure the party away fromtheir nest or from the area 2-A3, or show them thenearest peril.

3. d6 carnivorous bats looking for food, will flyby soft tar-gets to chomp on them like flying piranhas.

4. One or two malnourished ogres from 2-A5-2 can befound walking around in the south-western halls ofthis level. If killed, they can be found carrying ad-venturers equipment in their food sacks (on theirbacks). They use makeshift clubs from bone and sta-lagmites/stalactites in combat. They can be reasonedwith if a PC can speak their language and offers themenough food.

5. 10 Bullywugs on an expedition. Their leader even hasa whip and a fedora. Can attack PCs on sight, yet theymostly are just looking for loot. Roll d4: with a fourthey have set up an ambush.

6. One of the Minotaur Ghosts - this one has managed toescape the Labyrinth (2-C4) for a moment.

7. PHEDRA THE PHASING. A human fighter, she wascaught by surprise when their party was attacked in1-A1-2. Seeing as her comrades had fled, she, in de-spair, put on a magical ring of phasing they had foundearlier, and phased through the floor. Unbeknown toher, the ring was cursed, and Phedra is now blinking inand out of existence every few seconds. If the playersare quick enough, they can catch her, and either cutoff her finger or remove the curse with a spell. If freed,she will reward the PCs with her ring (if uncursed) andher sword-arm.

8. RUNEGAR the Dwarven Stealthmage from 3-B4-1 as amouse, looking for information, food and ale to pilfer.

Exits

There are some connections between previous levels anddungeon level 3.

• 2-A3-4: A dark wide tunnel leading down to a dwarvenfortification in 3-A3.

• 2-B5: A large crevice has opened up and created awaterfall, letting you fall down one floor further thanthis to 3-B5.

• 2-E3-1: A deep pit leads down to a magma filled cham-ber in 3-E3. Of course, it would be horribly dangerousto use it without fire resistant gear.

• 2-E4: The stairwell continues downwards to 3-E4.

• 2-D5-7: A stairway downwards leads to 3-D5.

• 2-E5: A lava drain, but that’s pretty much suicide.

Note that in level 3 not all places are interconnected—thePCs need to delve downwards from separate locations. Forexample, the crevice in 2-B5 leads to an isolated coast sec-tion of the Deep Lake, and further exploration may only bedone by boat or by swimming. The area 3-D4-3-D5-3-E4-3-E5 is also isolated from the reminder of the level.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 3

DUNGEON LEVEL 3

Map

Legend3-A1 3-B1 3-C1 3-D1 3-E13-A2 3-B2 3-C2 3-D2 3-E23-A3 3-B3 3-C3 3-D3 3-E33-A4 3-B4 3-C4 3-D4 3-E43-A5 3-B5 3-C5 3-D5 3-E5

Figure 5: Map of Dungeon Level 3

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DUNGEON LEVEL 3 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

3-A1

This area hides two hidden and difficult to reach retreatsof Bardoz, as well as one of the guardians of the dwarvensettlement.

3-A1-1. UNDERWATER TUNNEL

This tunnel is water-filled and emerges 10’ below the sur-face, very close to a colossal stone crab, which is actuallya hidden refuge of Bardoz, the Lake Cabin 3-A1-4. Smalltasty crabs often wander up from the lake, and many endup in 3-B1-3.

3-A1-2. CLIFFSIDE COTTAGE

A steep natural tunnel leads up. This was Bardoz’s firstretreat. He liked looking out over the lake. He needed towind down sometimes. Behind a superior secret door is amostly bare room. It has a few stone furnishings and alarge, thick clear crystal window with a great view of thelake.

Camping here is: JO-JIM THE MONGRELMAN CHAMPIONand his pack of war rats. They act friendly and will try tobuddy up to tough looking adventurers. Jo-Jim has twoheads with different personalities. Both of them want tokill you, only Jo wants to eat you. The rats are well trained,they look at you and smile and wave. Jo-Jim has a pairof matching magical shortswords, a strength-boosting belt,and a Bardoz head. The sudden betrayal will be inevitable.

3-A1-3. BENEATH THE LAKE SURFACE

Beneath the surface of the lake are numerous huge stonestatues of crabs, one of which is colossal. This is theLake Cabin. Bardoz’s sculptures pleased the scary localDruidess Alice and she blessed the area with a bounty oflarge tasty crabs.

3-A1-4. THE LAKE CABIN

The lake cabin is guarded by Bardoz’s faithful petwatchcrab. The smallest of the stone crabs is Buster. Tosafely get past Buster you must call to him in Dwarvish byname. Buster is the only golem in the complex that canswim through stone.

The Lake Cabin is a stone structure in the shape of a crabwith a 60 foot diameter shell. The top of the crab is 10 feetbelow the normal height of the lake. The entrance is veryhard to detect, a masterpiece of construction. The mouthcan be opened like a pair of double doors. Inside is anotherset of doors and a brass cylinder contraption with a longhandle. When the outer doors are closed, the water drainsout of the airlock. The manual pump is just a backup.

3-A1-5. INSIDE OF THE LAKE CABIN

The Cabin has been undisturbed since Bardoz’s death. In-side is a 40 foot dome cabin with a bedroom, kitchen, andan open area with a workplace. Magical floating lights ap-pear and act like the ones in the Library on level 1 (1-D3-3).Smooth molded counters and furniture. Magical rectangu-lar portals cover a 40 foot section of the interior wall, al-lowing a clear view through many feet of stone. A dwarfsized chair with a large stone tub beside it faces the hugewindows. The bedroom has a sleeping platform with bed-ding on it, the tub is easy to fill with hot water. The shelves

hold small prototype models of many of the older golemsand devices. Some were never built, like the Great Tun-nel Chewing Beast. There are also many beautiful and raremineral specimens on display.

Research laboratory. Tools and small parts, rough de-signs for a magma rifle, bird golems, etc. mostly bundles ofnotes in the writing area. These notes would be very valu-able to some people.

Toilet. This chamber has a toilet and a brass pump witha handle. A sign explains how to use it. Hidden in back isa chamber with two spheres: a 6 inch sphere that is activeand powering the entire cabin on 0.06 dwarvolts. There is astandby 4 foot diameter Magma Blob capable of delivering268 dwarvolts.

THE TANKMARINE

In some worlds, this is just a funny shaped underwaterhouse. In other worlds it is an Amphibious CrabHouseTankmarine. The trick is how to turn it on. The CaptainKirk chair with the big viewscreen seems obvious, but youget nothing but a great view out the window of a eerie lakebed.

Buster is the key, security system and pilot. He might letyou go in as houseguests, but he sure isn’t going to startthe Tankmarine for anyone but Bardoz. He has to settledown in the tub by the chair and his Master must be inthe Kirkseat. Once it is activated, the Master can get upor even leave the Cabin, but Buster has to stay in the tubto keep the Tankmarine active. The Tankmarine can climbwalls but damages them doing it. It moves at the speed ofan armored dwarf on land or in the water, and half thatclimbing.

You can gain Buster’s loyalty with a Wish spell.There is probably enough room to take it out the exit

river from the lake. Bardoz never planned to take it to thesurface, it was to guard the mining outpost.

3-A2

The Quiet Bay is actually part of the Deep Lake. 3-A3 and3-A4 are part of a peninsula, and one can swim or row from3-A5 to this bay.

3-A2-1. TUNNEL

Natural tunnel modified by dwarves. A trickle of water from3-B2 runs down the gentle slope. A block wall with firingports defends a sturdy doorway. The door is destroyed.

3-A2-2. NEW EXCAVATION

Unfinished excavation, the ceilings are 6’ high. One cham-ber is completed, with a smoothed floor.

3-A2-3. QUIET BAY

The Quiet Bay is pretty clean, and has small cave fish. Theshallows are safe for bathing or getting water. Any creaturelarger than about 15 lbs that tries to swim or boat from or tothe lake or across to the north shore will awaken STORMY.A stone golem in the shape of a 18’ tall Storm Giantess risesup and stands waist deep. She will attack but not pursueanything that makes it to the shallows. She tends to graban opponent and shove them into the sand underwater andstand on them while fighting others. A fancy suit of Humansized enchanted plate armor lies scattered at the bottom.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 3

3-A2-4. STONE PILE

A pile of quarried stone, taken from the smoothed wall. Thetunnel is unfinished.

3-A2-5. SAND PILE

Buried in the sand is a back pack with 10 ingots of adaman-tium. 100 lbs total.

3-A3

The natural tunnel from 2-A3-4 winds down to this level.The eastern part was fortificated by the dwarfs into a shoot-ing gallery in order to restrict the access to this level.

3-A3-1. BALCONY

A balcony 15’ high has crenelations scaled to fit dwarves.A sturdy bronze door leads to 3-A3-2. A dwarf-sized rocktunnel leads southwards to a similar fortification with twobronze doors to 3-A3-3.

3-A3-2. BARRACKS

An armory and barracks. Dwarven scaled furniture anddecorations.

3-A3-3. BARRACKS

This section is similar to 3-A3-2, but has arrowslits on thesouthern wall.

3-A3-4. CAPTAIN’S QUARTERS

These are the captain’s quarters and he still resides there,even though he died long ago. There is a locked chestwith 100 magical arrows +1. The barracks have never beenlooted, and have modest treasure and lore about the Bardozera of the dungeon.

GHOSTKILLER is a Dwarven Grudge Spirit. Once a pow-erful archer and warrior, now an animated dry husk. Heeternally guards his post by animating undead followers toman the walls. Any race, any (lesser) type of undead arein his troops, spectres and ghosts shoot ghostly arrows,skeletons with bows, bullywog zombies toss rocks, mostother zombie types use bows. Ghostkiller only attacks fromthe balconies and defends the barracks, those who get pastare not pursued. 15 spirits guard each balcony, and willreinforce each other during combat. Ghostkiller’s magical‘Singing Bow’ is a real prize, so far he still has it.

3-A4

This is a large hall with roughly polished stone walls andseveral side chambers. Here ends the work of the craftd-warves. The little architecture left is ugly and utilitarian.Remnants of a battle are scattered on the ground, thoughmost bodies have been stripped of valuables already.

3-A4-1. ASSEMBLY HALL

A group of scouts from the ghoul suburbia (1-A2) residein this hall. They were sent by Lady Mayor Gretchen totry and recruit Ghostkiller from 3-A3-4 as a sheriff. Hewasn’t exactly agreeable. The stranded group is led by ES-HCL THE GNAWER, Gretchen’s apprentice, a ghoullywug.

The other survivors are d4-1 ghouls, d6-1 zombies and d6-1 skeletons, almost all of them have arrows sticking outof their dead bodies. If the PCs have fought (and elimi-nated) Ghostkiller, they will be friendly and mention oneother group that disappeared into the mine shafts (theyhave been killed by the Unshackled One). Afterwards, theyare free to return to the upper levels. Otherwise the starvedundead will attack the PCs to eat them.

3-A4-2. SIDE CHAMBER WITH ORE PILE

A bunch of ore (precious and non-precious) wagons arewaiting here. The PCs can scavenge them for a value ofd20 gold pieces per 5 minutes of scavenging (after one hour,nothing of value is left). As long as the PCs are scavenging,the noise has a 1 in 4 chance per 5 minutes to attract arandom encounter.

3-A4-3. SIDE CHAMBER WITH WAGONS

Empty wagons, and a bunch of rails.

3-A4-4. SIDE CHAMBER WITH CORPSES

Some dead bodies have been stashed here, namingly thoseof Eshcl’s party. There is a 10% chance the Shackled One iswaiting there for an opportunity to jump the ghouls (it willthen, of course, prefer the PCs). Otherwise the room lookslike it was a resting room for the miners. Tables, chairs, etc.A pair of magical ivory dice can be found here: they havea 1 in 2 chance of rolling the exact numbers their user isthinking of.

3-A5

The Rat Islands. This part of the lake contains a sandybeach and two islands inhabited by giant rats. All the ratswill defend these islands to the death.

3-A5-1. BEACH

The beach is sandy and devoid of the glowing crystals com-mon to the lake. There are covered pit traps that collapsewith more than 50 lbs of weight, with sharp spikes at thebottom. A tunnel leads northwards to 3-A4-4.

3-A5-2. BIG RAT ISLAND

On this island there is a small cave (not shown on map) notvisible from shore, with a 3’ ceiling. The innermost chamberis carefully lined with the glowing crystals embedded intothe clay walls. This is the Holy Birthing Chamber of theRats. It is guarded fiercely. There is a wooden sculpture ofa very pregnant rat with a small stone altar in front of it.the sculpture was gnawed, not carved. Rats born here arelarger and smarter than most giant rats.

The leader is THE RATCRONE, an ancient hairless ratwith green glowing eyes that can shoot beams of deadlyradiation. The Ratcrone is really old and remembers whathappened in the past in the vicinity of the rat nest. 3-A4was a natural tunnel from 3-A3 to 3-B4. Dwarves quar-ried it and drove a tunnel to the lake shore. Later an EarthDruidess moved in for a short while. She enlarged some ar-eas and threw up natural looking curtains of stone wallsto make chambers, but never finished the project. TheDruidess might be retired and living as the Giant WalkingCatfish that lives in the lake.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 3 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

3-A5-3. LITTLE RAT ISLAND

There is a net between the islands that the rats catch fishwith. Many rats live on both islands, they are good swim-mers. Since there is not enough fish to feed all rats, theypatrol the dungeon for more food.

3-B1

A little pond in the caverns. The water is actually quite nicefor standard humanoids. Roll d8: It is a nest of:

1: Another juvenile Froghemoth (probably a sibling ofTad: both have been hidden by their mother/the bul-lywugs).

2: 2d20 bullywugs led by a level 2 fighter with the won-derfully unimaginable name of SCAR.

3: 2d10 Eel-men. Probably unhostile, they prefer to eatfish.

4: Empty save d6 bullywug remains.

5: A pretty goldfish weighing d6x7 kilograms. It is magicaland will Charm anyone trying to fish it.

6: Current base of the Skeleton Platoon.

7: A crazed dwarf miner hid here after the demise of thefort. He managed to turn into a half-Gollum beforesomething killed him—and did not bother eating thecorpse. Alternative: The survivor/Gollum is somehowalive. Probably wishes that he would not be. 2d100insanity points. Chance for some treasure.

8: A Gigantic Crocodile (or Alligator). It feasted on all thefish living in the pond and now is too fat to get out. Itis not enjoying its forced diet very much.

3-B1-1. LAKE

The water is sligtly muddy but drinkable. The shores con-tain pretty green mold, which is tasty and healthy. On thesouthern end there is one +1 bronze pick sunk to the bot-tom. Its shaft is long gone.

3-B1-2. DRY SPOT

A small dry spot. Probably something is hidden there if thedenizen is intelligent. The spot is large enough that one canhide in it from the shore and remain unvisible and dry.

3-B1-3. SIDE POOL

A side pool with an underwater entrance to 3-B1-1. It is arather handy escape route. It can be easily detected if thereis light on the other side. Water drips from the roof often(originally from the 1-A1 water source.) Similar lurkingtentacle-leaves have started to grow here but they are notyet dangerously sized. Several small crabs from 3-A1-1ended up here.

3-B2

3-B2-1. DRUID’S POOL CHAMBER

Natural chamber has a clearly constructed pool with a lowrim of smooth continuous stone. Water drips heavily fromthe ceiling, keeping it filled and pretty fresh. A few smallfishes live in it.

3-B2-2. BALCONY

There is a balcony 15’ up on one wall. It leads to a 20’ highhemispherical chamber supported by a column sculptedlike a large tree in the center. The Earth Druidess madethis chamber to be her home, but never finished it. Shealso created the pool. A large Fishing Spider lives here. Itcan shoot its web to capture prey, dragging them up to thebalcony. It eats pretty well, so it is only hunting on a 1in 6, it sleeps a lot. Lots of dried husks of creatures arestuck to the walls. One was an elf wearing elven chain, a+1 longsword, and 10 magical arrows.

3-B2-3. FORTIFIED GUARD POST

When the separatist dwarves built 3-E1, they made a for-tified, hard to discover guard post in the tunnel they dughere. The magma chambers of 3-C2 were less dangerousto travel through back then. The doors are sturdy iron andhave firing portals. The doors still close but the locks arebroken. Wandering encounters with bipeds here are com-mon, often the doors are wedged shut and they are defend-ing the position.

3-B3

Halls of the magma-fueled golems.

3-B3-1. LARGE ALCOVE OF HEARTBURN

This alcove is the resting place of a golem named HEART-BURN, a Dwarven Flesh Golem in fancy bronze plate anda halberd. His chest cavity has a open bronze box with asmall (apple-sized) magma blob that glows like a tiny sun.His duty is to check the that the two doors to 3-A3 arelocked and re-lock them if needed. He is to also attack anybiped who is within 60 feet unless they are a Dwarf with aBardoz head. His halberd has a hollow iron handle, and heuses it as a barrel to aim magma bolts from his chest attargets if they are too far away to hit with the axe head. Heis very tough.

He stops in his alcove after checking both doors and restsfor 2 minutes, which heals some damage if he needs it. Hecan be lured a short way from his regular path, but soonreturns instead of pursuing.

The two doors to 3-A3 are large and hollow. Made ofplate bronze with internal locking gears, they are designedto only be opened from the East side. It still takes a strengthcheck to turn the mechanism, but it’s easier if you have theright tool (few do).

3-B3-2. GOLEM LAB

Stone vats hold dried sludge covering completely pickleddwarf bodies. The Magma Doctors eagerly broke everyrule of dwarf culture to further their goals. The room hasbeen pilfered of loose valuables, but the secret door hasnever been found. This small circular room is a trove ofgruesome lore. Clay tablets baked unbreakable by dwarfmagic hold notes that sane people should avoid. Hundredsof sealed potions are carefully packed into sturdy lockedchests. None of these should be sampled by those who en-joy breathing.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 3

3-B3-3. WARG DEN

The wall to this room is an open grid of stone bricks like acheckerboard, allowing air and light in. The door is open,inside are a few scraps of bone, but the den is long aban-doned.

3-B3-4. WARG ROOM

Quarters and mad lab for converting wargs into Death-golems. Fairly typical dwarf style bedroom with a largestone tank full of a weird glowing fluid and holding a largewarg who was dead long before it was put in the tank. Thelight comes from a magma blob wired into its chest cav-ity. No one has been brave enough to release the bronzestraps holding it down. . . yet. If released, it will awakenand immediately attack. Use Sabre-toothed cat stats withan annoying number of hit points.

3-B3-5. BONE ROOM

An entire mausoleum could be filled with those who residehere. Stacks and stacks of wooden boxes, just big enoughto hold a disassembled medium hominid skeleton, about 3’long. All of them are carefully labeled. ‘Thurfold Stoutarm,hero of the Draco War’, ‘Unknown human thief, 12.1.1005’,etc. These were used to build bone golems, designed towork the mines and be used as shock troops. Numerousempty stone tanks.

20 dwarven bone golems in bronze plate stand in forma-tion, waiting orders that will never come. They automat-ically attack all non dwarves. They have tiny grape sizedmagma blobs wired into their chest cavities.

3-B3-6. STORE

Secret store room for the secret potions needed to create theminions. Plenty of notes to cause mayhem later, as well.

3-B3-7. POST

Sentry post has small firing ports instead of traditional ar-row slits. Eight skeletal magma Dwarven bone golems inbronze plate eternally guard this passage and take potshotsat everyone who goes by. They have magical bone rods thatshoot a heavy crossbow bolt once per round.

3-B3-8. EXTRA CHAMBERS

These odd chambers were prepared for additional wargpens, but never used.

3-B4

Natural Passages

3-B4-1. OLD STOREROOM

Rough chamber sealed off with a block wall and sturdydoor. An illusion covers the door making it look like a stonewall. There are some remains of old nets, oars, and fish-ing gear here, as well as a dwarf sized bedroll and campgear. This is the hideout of RUNEGAR, the dwarven Wiz-ard/Thief. He slipped in here recently and is quietly ex-ploring and studying the dungeon. He has a Bardoz Headthat he got from his grandfather, and a ring that can changehim into a mouse. He uses invisibility and puts the illusion

on the door every day. He will be interested in spying onadventurers to learn what they know, and will try to stealtheir alcohol, food, and maps if given a good opportunity.He is very cautious and will be tough to catch, or even no-tice. His familiar is a small ordinary looking sentient rock.He usually leaves it with his gear, over out of the way. Hecan summon it to him when desired.

Runegar has not been affected by the crystals from thelake shore. He sleeps in a stone room without any crystalsand has only been here a couple of weeks. He is sneakingaround all over the dungeon most of the time.

3-B4-2. GOLEMS

Tommy, Bertie, and Willy. Three clay golems shaped likeDwarves regularly patrol a circuit in 3-B3, 3-B4, 3-C3,and 3-C4. They act like beat cops patrolling a neighbor-hood. They make a regular loop counterclockwise. The de-fenders in 3-B3-7 do not shoot at them. Passing through3-C3 heals them of all damage. They look in periodically onside rooms to prevent squatters taking up residence, butstick to their beat. They only speak Dwarvish. “Evening,folks. Where you heading?” Any reasonable answer inDwarvish and they go back to their patrol, otherwise theyattack. The three golems keep most of their area clear ofcreatures making lairs. They do not pursue opponents thatrun away.

3-B5

Water from 2-B5 falls down a large crevice. At the bot-tom of this waterfall there is a sandy coastline of an un-named subterranean lake. On this part of the stone coastis a small crystal-filled coastline. It is mostly inhabited byworms of various sizes. There is some significant mutationsamong the largest ones and they will begin eating any un-moving adventurer. At least 3d6 large worms are living atthe beach. The crystals glow in the dark with eerie greenishhue and are radioactive (d6 rads/hour). They are not di-rectly magical, but will fetch a good price from alchemists,wizards, and mad scientists.

3-B5-1. THE WORM ORACLE

The worms are led by THE WORM ORACLE who lives on topof a raised stone hill with a beautiful view to the lake. Here,a worm was blessed by the crystals with understanding andintelligence. It lives a peaceful existence where it mostlyponders the higher questions of its solitary existence. Ithas ascended so far to its internal wormhood that it canuse magic—it has started casting level 4 wizard spells re-cently and has 2d6 spell slots per day, usually filled withCommand Worm, Hold Humanoid, and Ponder Wormhood.

Lacking any way to communicate, it believes to be theonly intelligent being in the universe—PCs might prove itwrong. Left to its own devices, it will reach the next levelof wizard spells in roughly a month. It has also realizedthat before it reaches level 7 spells it will most likely splitinto half, producing an evil version and a good version ofhimself: a vicious power struggle will occur between thetwo. These halves will be both capable of casting level 3spells. Understanding that the crystals give it power, TheOracle would not like to leave this beach.

If the Oracle dies, the large worms become wild again andmight attack humanoids.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 3 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

EATING THE WORMS

Eating a small worm is actually rather tasty. The fishes ofthe lake also like their taste.

Eating one of the large worms gives you d100 rads, 2d6damage to internal organs and a chance to gain some minormutation.

Eating the Oracle: Roll Wisdom Save. Failure makes youpuke the excess magical force out along with your brains.Roll another character, it has +1 CHA. With success yougain the ability to cast wizard spells up to 1/3rd (roundingup) of the Oracle’s spell level.

If this causes you to go past 8th level spells roll anotherwisdom save: With failure POWER OVERLOADS and youdetonate in a flash of blue plasma. 2d100 damage to every-thing in line of sight (max range: 500 meters). With successyou Ascend into True Wormhood and become a minor WormGod with matching alignment. Your physical body disinte-grates as you march to conquer the realms beyond. Pleaseroll another character, the current one is Too Much Worm.All the worms of the world begin doing curious things whichmight be fun in the long run. . .

The same happens with either Half of the Oracle, if ithas splitted. Note that a victorious evil half will most likelyconsume its defeated good kin.

Eating one of the glowing crystals: You have cancer. Won-derful. Roll some kind of endurance check: With a successit is not very rapid.

3-B5-2. BOAT

There is a small boat with two oars. The Oracle does notknow what happened to its owners. It has been on thebeach for a long time and with a 50% chance will not becompletely waterproof. Two humanoids fit into it properly,with more it risks sinking.

THE DEEP LAKE

The lake is most likely inhabited by all kinds of fun stuff.Eyeless fish will follow the boat a bit too closely.

The lake should be left as it is: very large, dark, and mys-terious. Exploration should be limited to the coastline. Ifthe players want to explore further (and leave the halls ofBardoz): The lake extends very far southwards and is sur-prisingly deep at the eastern end. A small river (extremelydifficult to traverse) leaves westwards. Following it sevenkilometers and surviving the troll-nest of Kurnu allows oneto reach the surface.

Bullywugs are so common in the dungeon because thereare numerous large tribes of them living in the lake. Moreshow up regularly, which is handy, because the predatorseat them faster than they can breed.

The lake has two major denizens. GRUMPY THEICHTHYOSAUR is a sneaky and clever beast. ALISS THEARCHDRUIDESS has retired and spends her time as a ple-siosaur. She has been having her fishy minions gather thegreen crystals from the lake and put them on the beach forland walkers to haul away.

3-C1

A cavern with a ramp that steadily works its way down intothe gloom. Along its path are carvings and statues verydifferent in type from dwarven work. In the depths, youcan just make out an orange glow.

3-C1-1. VAULT

The PCs will notice that the orange glow seems to emanatefrom here. The surface is solid and can be walked upon,although it is very smooth, unlike the surrounding rock.If the PCs have a light source with them, its light will bereflected through the substance, lighting it and the cavernup in its entirety. When the cavern is lit, PCs will be ableto see THE BLEAK ONE, a gargantuan many-eyed creaturewithout a mouth, and with several massive clawed arms.It appears to have been frozen in the orange substance,with one clawed hand almost reaching the top. The PCsget an uncomfortable feeling that they are being watched.Should Bardoz’s mech be activated, The Bleak One will alsobe freed.

3-C1-2. ALTAR

An altar is set upon this flat section of the ramp, sur-rounded by statues of bizarre figures. Upon the alter restsa pedestal and book, written in a language the PCs cannotread. It can be surmised that this was used to seal up TheBleak One.

3-C1-3. WALLS

Two foot tall stone walls line this area, seemingly in prepa-ration to defend against whatever is in the orange sub-stance.

3-C1-4. OPENED CAVE

The wall here has fallen in, leaving the cavern not open toentry from the chasm beyond.

3-C2

There is sparse vegetation in this cavern, tapering off from3-D2, although there is still a fair amount of steam inthe air. Large, smooth-skinned reptiles lay about on largechunks of stone, basking the the hot, wet atmosphere. Pe-riodically they emit a deep rumble, but otherwise appearcontent.

3-C2-1. REPTILE ROOM

There are dozens of the reptiles scattered about the room,although they do not appear hostile. However, they willattack if provoked. If slain, their skins can be fashionedinto extremely fire resistant clothing, although the clotheswill always feel wet.

3-C2-2. BRIDGE

A large rock appears to have fallen from the roof of the cav-ern, creating a bridge over the chasm and an access to 3-B2 and beyond. Crossing this, however, will be very, veryhot.

3-C2-3. HALF BRIDGE

Another fallen stone stretches slightly out over the chasm,and is occupied by one of the largest reptiles. Beyond, thePCs can see a clear shelf of rock, and if they make the 5’jump, they will be able to continue on to 3-C1. The power-ful heat makes this jump much more difficult than normal.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 3

3-C2-4. RESTING PLACE

Out over the chasm, the PCs can see what looks like severalskeletons lying on the ground. If the PCs can make it acrossthey can acquire d12 precious stones, a suit of +1 armor, apair of adamantium boots, and a set of loaded dice.

3-C3

This area contains an insane magma reactor hidden behinda series of secret doors and a labyrinth.

3-C3-1. SECRET ARMORY

Behind a secret door lies a hidden armory. Crossbows,swords, hammers, and axes hang on the walls. There isa locked wooden chest with 100 bolts +1. One of the cross-bows is enchanted. There are no traps.

3-C3-2. REAKTOR

Hidden behind a superior secret door beyond the previoussecret door is: Der UberOberReaktor!

The central area of the dungeon has a huge crevice ofmagma. Built on top of that is the Magma Doctors’ mostambitious, most dangerous, and most expensive Device ofCertain Calamity. From this point forward, having one ormore dwarves in the group will improve the survival oddsdramatically. The Magma Doctors covered the crevice witha slab of basalt (solidified lava). Then they built a labyrinthon top of it and sunk huge iron tubes down into the magma.The walls of the labyrinth are also made from basalt, and ateach dot on the map is an embedded dwarven skeleton fac-ing inward with its arms spread wide. All of the walls of theLabyrinth have visible scraps of bone embedded in a SacredMystical Matrix of Elemental Necromantic Racepride-fueledMadness. (Sort of Art Deco—in an angry way).

In the center is an empty hollow crystal hemisphere 25’tall and 50’ in diameter. (Actually a sphere, it goes belowfloor level). The embedded skeletons in the central room areclad in ornate Dwarven plate armor. They all have match-ing helmets with an indentation in the forehead that willfit a tiny Bardoz Head. Copper rails run across the wallsto connect all of their hands together. It is probably not agood idea to remove the copper. Many of the important safe-guards were not finished, Security systems and EmergencyShutdown systems are totally not working. The ActivationHelmet has incomplete instructions just to make it morethrillin’.

THE WATCH DOG

The floating Bardoz head helmet can speak; “Please give mea technical excuse to destroy you all.” It will only fit on aDwarf’s head. “This complex is only 92 percent completed,THE ACTIVATION is not advised, due to the likely chanceof Cascading System Failure.” As long as there is a dwarfpresent, the group will probably not be attacked. If a dwarfwears the floating helmet and puts 6 bronze Bardoz Headtokens into the 6 helmets of the wall-dwarfs, the magmastarts being pumped up into the crystal sphere. It is aboutto turn into an unstable and unholy Magma Blob Sun ofLegendary Proportions! You might want to run. (Note; thegarden upstairs is supported by a 5’ diameter magma blob.It has a power of about 500 dwarvolts. This is a 50’ diameterBEHEMOTH with a power well over 500 million dwarvolts!

(And did I mention it is an incomplete and untested exper-imental prototype built by insane fanatical pyromaniacs?)What happens after that is up to the DM.

3-C4

Passages and Magma Crevice

3-C4-1. SECRET ENTRANCE

The heat is intense. A curved wall of basalt (solidifiedmagma) is visible, the crevice of magma runs under it. Thesecret entrance to the armory in 3-C3 is well hidden.

3-C4-2. POOL

Stagnant pool of scummy water. A medium sized alligatormoved in recently. At the deep part in the back, under themud, are 200 platinum pieces, a magical dagger, and a fewchewed human bones.

3-C5

3-C5-1. THE GREAT BRASS KOI FISH

A giant metal fish over 30 feet long rests on the shore ofthe great lake. It is an unfinished submarine from the daysof the Magma Doctors. It has been looted and vandalizedrepeatedly but most of it still sits there. All the easy tosteal parts are long gone. In the middle of the ship is alarge bronze box that is designed to hold a terrifyingly largeMagma Blob. Massive pipes are in place to function as aSteam Jet propulsion system.

A large tribe of bullywugs lives in this area and use theship as a defensive lair. They are aggressive but quick toretreat into the water or hole up in the ship. Some of theirweapons seem to be constructed with parts of the ship:steel harpoons, short spears with blades of scrap metal,steel pipes, maces with cogs as heads, and so on.

3-C5-2. BARRICADED CHAMBER

Old lumber blocks both passageways to this chamber. Thisis the resplendent harem of the bullywug named WARLORD.He is as large as an ogre. If that isn’t enough, he has a tri-dent that shoots lightning, and some 30 fanatical followers.Most of his treasure is smelly fish, but he has 3 of the un-breakable clay tablets of Forbidden Dwarvish Eldritch Lore,like the ones in 3-B3-2 and 1-C3-2.

3-D1

Natural caves run through most of this area. At the furthestnorth point, there appears to be a spring which feeds alarge pool and runs out through the cave system. As isunfortunately common in this area, as there is water, thereare also bullywugs.

3-D1-1. LOST POOL

A large deep pool of water sits in this cave, fed by a springin the back. There is nothing living in the pool, as the bul-lywugs have killed anything that might have lived here.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 3 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

3-D1-2. BULLYWUG CAMP

The bullywugs have made this area their camp, with d12bullywugs present, along with poorly built shelters and asmall fire, an unusual addition to a bullywug camp. If thePCs somehow manage to communicate with the bullywugs,they will learn that the fire is there because none of themfeel comfortable in the dark in this area.

3-D1-3. STATUE ROOM

The only area not of natural stone, a short hallways leads toan octagonal room. In the center is a golden statue. Behindthe statue is a wall carved with countless eyes. The statueis of an unfamiliar creature, and the art style and writing inthe room is foreign. The eye mural hides a secret door intothe room beyond. Bullywugs appear to not enter the statueroom at all.

3-D1-4. BAD SHRINE

The bullywugs have attempted to create a shrine in thisroom, complete with what you can only assume is thestatue of the deity. Both the shrine and statue are verybad. They fill the PCs with feelings of pity and sadness.There are d4 bullywags in this room.

3-D2

Damp humidity hits your face as soon as you enter thisarea. The stream running from 3-D1 falls into the chasm,where it evaporated and fills this cavern with a haze ofsteam. Taking advantage of this, a strange type of plant,similar in appearance to kelp, as begun growing from theceiling, reaching almost to the floor. Consequently visionis extremely limited. Small animals abound, and bullywagsoften hunt here.

3-D2-1. STREAM

The stream flows over the edge of the chasm, creating thesteam that gives this cavern life. Oddly, there seems to bemore steam produced than the stream should account for.

3-D2-2. INVERTED JUNGLE

The inverted jungle is dense and this, with bizarre mirrorsof animal life found on the surface, although they make nonoise as they move through the growing plants. There ared4 bullywugs hunting in this area.

3-D2-3. THINNING MIST

The steam and plant growth are a bit thinner on this side ofthe bridge, and continue to thin the further one goes fromthe chasm. Visibility becomes better, and the PCs can hearstrange sounds ahead of them.

3-D3

This is part of a series of dry and sulfuric caverns, partiallyfilled with lava and magma, that extends northwards into3-D2. The temperature is at least 40◦ Celsius and heavilyarmored PCs will have heat problems.

3-D3-1. ABANDONED LAIR

This was a nest of some unknown creature. Now it ishideously smelly and the floor is coated in all kinds of ex-crements and half-baked nastyness. Few bone parts can befound here and there.

3-D3-2. LAVA POOL

A female lava salamander is living deep in this lava pool,guarding 2d4 eggs. It will mostly just stare at approach-ing PCs with its piercingly white-hot eyes before resultingin biting. Its hide is valuable and heat resistant. How-ever, getting it out of the lava pool will be extremely diffi-cult. Amphisos may be interested in some of the eggs. Thesalamander will quickly befriend Ragecombustion if the twoencounter each other.

3-D3-3. BOULDER

A huge granite boulder. It once was used to hide the en-trance to 3-D3-4.

3-D3-4. DOORWAY

A broken hidden doorway that leads to 3-D3-5.

3-D3-5. SMALL CHAMBER

A small chamber with a serious warning in ancient letters:“BEWARE! This is not a place of honour! This vault con-tains the dire. . . ” The rest of the message is destroyed asthe giant bronze door has been bashed open from the in-side.

3-D3-6. RECTANGULAR VAULT

In this room there is a surprisingly large amount of humanbone pieces. Once this room had a hideous bone constructintending to kill anyone breaching the bronze door from 3-D3-5. However, the room was breached from 3-E3, and afurious battle occurred in this spot anyways.

What happened: A long time ago, the Shackled One wasimprisoned in 3-E3 by the Evil Snake Priests. They createdthis vault to guard it, but the dwarves mined their way intothe prison and into the vault. The greedy idiots then ofcourse broke all the vaults mechanisms while looking forloot.

There is a 10% chance that the Shackled One is hidingin one of the corners of the vault.

3-D3-7. MAGMA-FILLED CHASM

This is the beginning of a deep chasm, magma can be seenat the bottom. Unless you are fire and heat resistant like aBalrog, jumping in will be lethal.

3-D4

The Grand Menagerie. This hall was once filled with won-ders or, more likely, horrors of the natural world, each keptin their own enclosure. Now it has fallen into disarray,some of its occupant dead, others escaped.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 3

3-D4-1. MENAGERIE DOOR

The rough cavern of the pump room ends in a grand door,beyond which lies the menagerie. The door is carved withmany fanciful beasts.

3-D4-2. CORPSE ENCLOSURE

This enclosure contains nothing but the bones of some longdead animal. From the looks of it, it seems to have beensome sort of mammal, but with far too many legs.

3-D4-3. SECRET ENTRANCE

The occupant of this enclosure is no longer present, itsmeans of escape being to break through the wall in theback. This has opened a passage into 3-E4. If the PCswant to use this route, they must figure out some way tobreak into the enclosure.

3-D4-4. BROKEN ENCLOSURES

An empty enclosure, the front burst open with tremendousforce. Whatever was once housed here is long gone.

3-D4-5. WATER TANK

This enclosure is filled 3/4 of the way to the top with water.Judging from the bones, whatever was originally housed inthis enclosure is long dead. However, two bullywugs havemanaged to get themselves stuck inside. From the looks ofthings, they seem quite happy to stay, as none of the manypredator of the halls can reach them.

3-D4-6. DEMON ENCLOSURE

This enclosure is lower than the surrounding floor, allow-ing onlookers to gaze upon the occupant from above. Sur-rounded by powerful magical wards, an extremely boreddemon looks up as the PCs get close. It appears he hascarves several rocks in the enclosure, and is in the middleof some sort of game of solitaire.

3-D4-7. ELF CAGE

Judging by the bones in this enclosure, its former occu-pants were humanoids. A keen eye will detect that theyonce were elves.

3-D5

The Magma Pump.

3-D5-1. CORRIDOR

Descending the stairs from 2-D5-7 one first sees a giantobsidian door with a small hole in the middle. Insert theBardoz head to open the door which leads to 3-E5-1.

Alternative: Having a bronze dwarf head will cause thedoors to open automatically, otherwise they will need to beforced open.

Yet if one takes the left bronze door one finds itself (afterfew stairs) in a storage room of the Dwarven Magma Doc-tors.

3-D5-2. WORKSHOP

It appears that a quick construction was attempted here,as there is a full workbench between two fractal-piles. Suf-ficiently insane ones can finish the job: It is a PortableMagma Thrower Mark 3! Fill it from a magma source andit can fire a stream of pressurized magma for even 30 me-tres! (Usage requires extremely heat immunity, from magicor else). Once the gun is loaded it can lob the magma ball.Roll a ranged hit, if failed the ball misses by amount failed(roll d2: either over or before target). Damage: Anythingmortal without extreme heat defence is instantly slain bythe magma ball. Nearby beings treat its explosion as a fire-ball with double damage.

Given that the thing is very experimental, roll d6:

1: The gun explodes when fired. Treat this as a successfulhit to the wielder.

2–3: the thing fires exactly once.

4: The thing fires three times.

5: One must crank the pump for a full round before firing.The pump makes a badass sound. Otherwise as 6.

6: The thing actually works! Hopefully the Magma Inten-sifier Capacitor stays intact.

3-D5-3. STORAGE ROOM

This is the discarded projects storage. There is an unlitmagma golem among all sorts of other fun projects. Dump-ing the magma golem into lava or dragonfire awakens it, butit does not take any commands. One can also find enoughparts for one heavy miner suit (see 2-B3-6).

3-D5-4. MAGMA PUMP

This is a good, properly made magma pump. It is thereforeonly horribly dangerous—please do not touch any of theseventeen valves.

3-D5-5. MONSTER MAGMA PUMP

This is a monster of a machine. All dwarves who see itsuffer 3d10 insanity. Touching it causes 3d6 heat damage.Breaking it melts d100% of this dungeon level (and half ofthat of dungeon level 2). It will break soon without expertmaintenance.

3-E1

This is what appears to be at one time a very small butfunctional dwarven community. A careful eye will note thatits construction occurred after the Halls of Bardoz was wellunderway, and there are no faces of Bardoz to be seen any-where. No dwarves live here now. A terror of the deep stalksthese little halls.

3-E1-1. DWARVEN DOOR

At the end of a rough passageway is a carved dwarven wall.By pressing the correct runes in sequence, a door will swingopen, allowing access to the rest of the settlement.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 3 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

3-E1-2. GRAND HALL

Upon entering, one is greeted by a grand carved hall. Nofaces of Bardoz are present, only scenes of dwarven hero-ism. There are long gouges in the floor, and ancient bloodstains the walls. Broken and discarded weapons can befound.

3-E1-3. FARM

A large room containing what was clearly meant to be afarm, some mushrooms growing wild. The back wall hasbeen forced in, pieces of rubble littering the dirt. A tunnelcontinues on down from there and leads to 3-E2-2. A care-ful eye will notice faded signs of an explosion unconnectedwith the breach in the wall; it appears that the dwarvesmanaged to collapse the tunnel.

3-E1-4. OVERSEER OFFICE

Larger than the other rooms, this appears to have beenthe quarters of the settlement overseer. The PCs can findthe account of how these dwarves broke and fled from thedwarves of Bardoz, beginning anew in a difficult to reachcavern. The door to this room has been forced in, and someof the stone of the door frame has been torn away. Tracesof ancient blood are present.

3-E1-5. STANDARD ROOMS

Standard dwarven rooms. All of these show signs of battle,although clearly the dwarves were on the losing side of it.

3-E2

3-E2-1. MUSHROOM CAVE

This little cave host a gigantic mushroom. It is actuallyrather cute. Eating a third of it gives you psychedelicdreams for the next 2d6 months and +(d3-2) CON, but isconsidered evil murder of a semi-sentient being.

3-E2-2. COLLAPSED TUNNEL

This natural tunnel begins to go downwards, as if a de-scend to level 4. . . but it has collapsed ages ago and is nowcompletely full of rocks.

3-E3

Lair of the Shackled One.This magma chamber is absolutely impossible to access

unless the PCs can protect themselves against fire. Themagma suit from 2-D5-5 and the mining suits from 2-B3-6 and 3-D5-3 can help as well as spells. This is avast grotto which does not feel natural nor dwarven-made.Disturbingly, the walls and natural features of the placeseem to have been twisted in ways that should be impossi-ble for stone, as if some invisible hand had sculpted themlike putty.

3-E3-1. HOLE IN CEILING

This chamber can be accessed through the pit in 2-E3-1, with caution as the scaffoldings are not all holdingwell. Some heat-resistant stones have been paved over themagma to allow access to the un-magmatic part of the cave.

3-E3-2. GIANT SHACKLES

Giant mithril shackles lay on the ground. Though veryheavy, they could prove worthy loot if the PCs can breakthem up for transport. Worryingly, the shackles seem tohave been broken open.

There is a 25% chance that THE SHACKLED ONE is here.A mysterious entity from unknown origins, the ShackledOne is invisible, even to people who can otherwise seethrough illusions (they can perceive its presence and whereit is, but not see any shape). Instead, people who close theireyes can see it there, a blurry shape made of a thousandfanged eyes. The Shackled One asks for a willing vessel. Aprisoner still, despite its chains having been broken, it can-not go to the sunlight it craves. Should a PC be willing, theShackled One will possess them. Should they refuse, it willattack them, but only until it can take one of them hostageand pressure the others into becoming vessels. The Shack-led One cannot be hurt by regular weapons (unless they’remithril) or magic, but illusions are treated as real for thepurpose of hurting it. Likewise, a PC who does not movebut only imagines what they would do to the Shackled Onecan hurt it this way. It can also be Banished, in which caseit simply disappears.

Should a PC (or NPC) become a vessel for the ShackledOne, it will disappear and possess them. It will not make itspresence known, unless the character actively seeks to getrid of it or is in mortal danger (in which case it will try andtake control of their body, and flee towards the surface).Inside a vessel, the Shackled One can still be banished asnormal. Killing its host body will just make it reappear nextto it. If the Shackled One reaches the surface, it disappears,leaving its host changed forever.

3-E4

Flooded digging site. This is a continuation from the dwar-ven low income housing in 2-E4. Though the place wasnever finished, it was obviously meant to house the poorestdwarves. The water infiltration and magma heat rendersthe atmosphere pretty unbearable with constant steam.The whole shoddily dug place is sloping to the north, whichis why the water accumulates there. The roof here is lowerthan anywhere else, and characters taller than 1.80m willscrap the ceiling.

3-E4-1. FLOODED STAIRS

The water here is shoulder-high (for a human). Small blindfishes seem to have estlablished residence here. They seemharmless at first glance, but will nibble on open woundsshould the characters be hurt. The bullywugs considerthem delicacies, and will be glad if given some. There isa 50% probability an Ancient Fish Mother will be present.This one looks more like a barracuda, and will agressivelylead the other fishes to swarm the PCs.

3-E4-2. COMMON ROOM

This was probably to be a common room for the poordwarves of the lowest level. The water here is hip-high for ahuman. The room is full of whatever construction materialshaven’t rotten away, and more fishes.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ DUNGEON LEVEL 3

3-E4-3. STORAGE ROOM

Whatever its ultimate intended purpose was, this is a stor-age room for the people who worked on the building site.Most clothing have rotten away, but some trinkets, toolsand other mementos can be found. Among other things, aplain gold wedding ring can be found at the bottom of thewater. The inside reads: “To my gem, may only the fire oflove ever burn you.” This is a ring of Protection against fire,useful to cross the hotter rooms.

3-E4-4. TUNNEL

This rough tunnel is finished but is filled with water andbroken stones. It can be used to go westwards to 3-D4 ifone manages the rubble.

3-E4-5. UNFINISHED TUNNEL

Small chambers were dug up around this tunnel. Judgingby the only two finished ones, they are the very opposite ofcozy. Only dwarves and smaller races can even stay uprightin them. There is a graffiti on the wall, reading “[make loveto] the taskmaster and [make love to] you too” in dwarvenrunes.

3-E4-6. COLLAPSED TUNNEL

Another unfinished tunnel, this one is half-collapsed, half-melted because of magma infiltrations. A brave enough soulcan pry a few raw opals from a vein on one of the walls.

3-E5

The Grand Tomb. This room is a large cavern, with walk-ways over lava. Invaluable treasures lay about, as well asnumerous statues and carvings. Towards one end is thesarcophagus for which this all was built.

3-E5-1. CORRIDOR

After the doors in 3-D5-1, an inscription in dwarven reads“REJOICE!”. The corridor continues and opens in a largelava filled cavern, with walkways over lava.

3-E5-2. PLATFORM ABOVE LAVA POOL

Sweltering in the heat of the lava below, this platform islined with iron statues of dwarven warriors, their faces allleft blank. A dwarf, carrying a bronze dwarf head, will beallowed to pass, otherwise the statues will automate andbegin to attack.

3-E5-3. PLATFORM WITH TREASURE

Gold and jewels line the back of this platform. However, be-ing near the treasure for an extended time can cause mad-ness, doubly so for dwarfs, and again for skin contact withthe treasure. Slaying the creature in 3-E5-4 will removethe madness, and make the treasure safe.

Alternative: It would be hilarious if the treasure roomwould be already been emptied or there newer was time tofill it with stuff—only a note: “Please mark the locations ofthe treasure chests with chalk, Urkm will haul them downtomorrow”.

3-E5-4. THE TOMB

The sarcophagus itself is a plain stone box, 5 feet by 10 feet.To either side are large granite statues of dwarves that arebowing prostrate to the sarcophagus. Behind the sarcopha-gus is a large golden carving of the face of Bardoz. However,this face is all wrong, seemingly weeping from large holeswhere the eyes should be. There is a large smile on thiscarving’s face. If the PCs move to within 5’ of the sarcoph-agus, laughter is blasted from the mouth of the carving,and the sarcophagus opens, releasing The Madness of Bar-doz Incarnate into the room, a being which is immediatelyhostile.

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DUNGEON LEVEL 3 THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

Random Encounters

1. Eerie scream echoes through the dark caverns. Spell-casters forget one of their memorized spells.

2. d3 giant cave crabs (see 2-A2-4).

3. A lone mongrelfolk kid crying. It wants to get backto mommy (Kalita from 2-A2-3). Its cries will forceanother random encounter roll soon if it isn’t silenced,but big and loud adventurers will most likely just scareit more. It likes food though.

4. d6 bullywugs. 50% chance that they are actuallyrebels/outcasts/exiles of the spider-worshipping tribeof 1-E4. This will probably not affect their reactiontowards PCs (violence) though...

5. A group of d6 exiled ratmen led by an old shaman(see 1-E2-1). They will rejoice if the PCs haveharmed/killed DEATHWHISKERS. Otherwise they willattack if they are at least as numerous as the PCs, orflee if they are not.

6. 2d8 large rats, from 3-A5. At this level their reactionto the PCs will depend on their previous encountersand amount of cats with them. However, they will notattack if outnumbered. The rats will prefer ambushesand sneak attacks in that situation. There are 5d20large rats in total in this dungeon. Half of these areyoung.

7. d4 dwarven ghosts. There is a 50% chance they do notnotice the PCs at all and pass through them. Other-wise, a 25% chance of seeing them as friendly envoysfrom the surface, and a 25% chance they will see themas intruders.

8. A lone familiar, PATIENCE. This obviously magicalgolden cat is not one of Lord Vart’s but the sad andlonely companion of an unfortunate adventurer, who’sbeen surviving on vermin and fear. If the PCs arefriendly enough and feed it, they can recruit it. Thecat sees in darkness and has a 50% chance of seeingthrough illusions, hissing at them. Speak with Animalsallows communication. He knows that Simon the Her-mit ghoul from 1-A2-2 has a Bardoz head and whatits purpose is. If the PCs leave the cat or treat it badly,it will join Lord Vart’s spies after d10 days.

9. Dwarven golem. A small stone golem in the shape ofa stylized dwarf, who probably wandered since the de-parture/death of its masters. It is hostile unless theparty is all-dwarven or has a tiny Bardoz head.

10. A dire centiped. Venomous. Fast. The stuff of night-mares.

11. Near the lake shore: Giant walking catfish, about asmobile as a huge alligator, but hungrier.

12. A family of d6 slimy trolls (25% of them are young).They are holed up in some deadend room or cavern andare grilling some whitish fishy thing over a fireplace. Itsmells horrible. The largest one spends half of its timefishing at the nearest shore and sleeps during the otherhalf.

13. The Evil Skeleton Platoon. Now without comman-der (who might have been the shadow magician from1-B2-1). They patrol these tunnels with haphazardpattern, inflicting unnecessary cruelty to anyone alivethey encounter. Their sergeants have rudimentary in-telligence but are mostly pissed that they have not re-

ceived new orders in ages and cannot smoke their to-bacco. The ghoul-scouts of the platoon rebelled sometime ago due lack of food here and founded the subur-bia in 1-A2–1-A3.

14. The Red Lantern. A floating lantern which fills theroom it is with eerie crimson lights. It is harmless andmoves into next room within d5×10 minutes. 1d8 hp.

15. The Evil Red Lantern A floating lantern which fillsthe room it is with eerie crimson lights. It is usuallyharmless, yet sometimes consumes living human-sizedthings with a flash of light (some kind of save allowed,otherwise person just disappears). It moves into nextroom within d5×10 minutes. Attacking it causes it toeat anyone hostile one per round, unless they flee theround. 3d8 hp. Cannot be near the other lamp.

16. One of the dwarf miners had a terrible secret: He likedhuman ciders and to him even Elvish wine was actuallydrinkable stuff. His secret stash is nearby, but oneof the bottles has been broken—it has gotten rathersmelly. There is 1 in 3 chance that a small critter liveswith the bottles. How alcoholic / protective it is is leftup to the GM. A proper Dwarf PCs might be heavilyshocked!

17. The adventurers somehow disturb the Flintspider. Abad feeling goes through them. The rock elemental spi-der actually wakes up only after d3 disturbances andthen gets its dose of calcium from the nearest/easiestsource. This might not be the PCs but any other dun-geon denizen as well. (The PCs cannot easily find anypattern about how to poke it. Researching this subjectmight work but in turn is rather suicidal).

18. A swarm of 3d6 blind bats rush past the PCs. They arenon-hostile unless attacked.

19. Runegar the Dwarven Stealthmage from 3-B4-1 as amouse, looking for information, food and ale to pilfer.

20. A group of peculiar blueish mushrooms. Inhaling theirpollen might cause one to develop an shroom infection,turning them slowly into a shroom cultist (see 2-E1).

21. 2d4 elf cultists. Roll d4:

1: are scouting a location for a ritual2: are preparing a ritual3: are finishing preparations for the ritual (runic cir-

cle drawn with blood, candles lit, skulls in posi-tion, willing/charmed sacrifice ready)

4: are in the middle of their ritual. Sacrificial virginget a clawed hand into her in 3, 2. . .

Please do not allow them to succeed. Left alone theyproperly pronounce the Dark Tongue with a 1 in 3chance.

22. A magical rune glows in the floor, wall, ceiling, some-where odd. It was left by The Unspeakable, so disarm-ing or scratching it may be a good idea, but dangerous.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ BACKGROUND NOTES

BACKGROUND NOTES

Timeline

A rough timeline seems to be emerging:

• The Evil Snake Priests create a temple deep under-ground.

• Bardoz discovers the place (kills the priests??)

• With Urist Bardoz founds the outpost, discoverAdamantium.

• Bardoz dies in magma. He is worshipped. The Head iscarved.

• Magma Doctors move in (somehow don’t see them be-ing here at the same time with Bardoz)

• The Calamity, death of the outpost.

• Various beasts and demihumans move in.

• Sean the Shadowfail moves in and goes boom.

• Undead suburb arrives (it does not feel like an oldthing)

• A few years ago Amphisos starts his research here.

Bardoz

BARDOZ was the dwarf Geomancer that built the maze in2-C4. He was also the Chief Engineer of the Pickaxe Con-sortium. He died in a magma accident and his followersvenerated him by carving all the dwarf heads.

It is said that Bardoz was the one to discover this greatdwarven city, and at his death, he was worshipped as theirpatron god. This great under-city holds many secrets, andmany foul things. After the great calamity, many dwarveshave tried reclaiming this ancient fort, and all of them failed(though some lasted longer than others). Amphisos hasspent many years documenting and trying to uncover themysteries of the great calamity (perhaps he wishes to har-ness it).

Calamity

Whatever the final boss is, it should be from the deepestdark pits of the earth. Perhaps a demon of some sort?

I think the invaders should be elemental spiders that canmove through rock without needing tunnels, they crave thecalcium in bones and ignore the mineral wealth of the dun-geon. They left long ago, but a few were killed and theirstone corpses still decorate the lower level.

’Wandering Monster’ The Final Boss does not have a roomas a lair. He finds them when he feels like it.

One lazy Flintspider the size of a warhorse remains sleep-ing in the solid rock, waking up every few months and grab-bing a tasty boney critter to snack on and goes back tosleep.

I agree that this dungeon does not need a True FinalMonster, place is far interesting as we are only seeing theremnants of the true Calamity and Things that killed thedwarves are long gone (and there is no need for them tostay here). We are only seeing what happens afterwards tothe ruins and how it receives new life/unlife afterwards.

Id say the Grat Hungru One is not related but might havearrived to Bardoz because it sensed a kindred spider. Ofcourse the Bullywugs have gotten the spiders confused af-ter the Flintspider once massacred their numbers.

I believe that if the dungeon kept on going deeper, youwould eventually find the huge caverns that the rock spi-ders, mushroom men, and various other things came from.When the dwarves stuck into this place in search of moreadamantium (digging too deep), they were attacked by thecreatures they unleashed. They had to close off the minesfirst, then the main forge areas, leaving them with just thefirst few layers. The rock spiders and other things are heldback by the lower tunnels being walled off by adamantium.

Though the warriors were able to repel the creatures withadamantium after a great effort, they were forced to leavetheir great Homeland due to not being able to mine to sus-tain themselves.

The Big Calamity was a spell that didn’t go as planned.Elemental Discord Greatshout is a spell known by a few

efreeti. It was cast by a Dwarf. The spell triggered allof the golems, even the sacred ones, into a killing frenzy.Three days later, they all stopped attacking and went backto nearly their regular behavior. The survivors left. All be-cause some idiot Magma Doctor wanted to build a cannonthat used berserking golems as ammo.

I do like this variant yet me thinks that we should notnail down what actually happened, just provide ideas.

That said, I can see a Magma Doctor McCrazyCannoneercasting Elemental Discord Greatshout and then the GM go-ing“Hey did you notice is what is the range on thisspell?” —“I think it was Touch? Can I now fire thiskillerbonebloodmagma-axe-golem? Need to find out if itsurvives the impact. . . ” —“The range is 500 metres, misterCalamity.” —“Uh oh. I am going to fire the cannon anyway.If it works lets warn everyone. . . ”

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. . . AND BEYOND THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

. . . AND BEYOND

The Dwarfimus Magmatron

Fellow Dwarves, feast your eyes on the first edition of THEDWARFIMUS MAGMATRON! To operate it, just gatherthe Heads of Bardoz, start the reaktor, insert the Swordof Bardoz to is proper location, and PULL THE LEVER!

Please note: Activating the Magmatron will utterly anni-hilate the rest of the Legendary Halls of Bardoz as it will digthrough anything to assemble itself.

Figure 6: Magmatron

Power Settings (aka what you have filled the reaktor with)

• The Regular Magmapump (13 M DV): The Magmatronwill be mostly immobile (5 feet per minute) but can con-vert itself into a MAGMA-ARTILLERYTRON capable oflaunching magma balls for 10 kilometers. 1 launchuses 1 M DV. Using the reaktor fully is the only safeway to turn off the Magmatron.

• The Monster Magmapump (120 M DV): The Magmatronis a bit sluggish but can move as fast as a regulardwarf. After every week active, roll d6: with 1 a com-partment breaks completely. When the Reaktor breaksthe whole thing melts into a magma lake.

• Der UberOberReaktor with Magma (500 M DV): TheMagmatron is capable of limited flight. It can alsoshoot a magma-beam regularly from the reaktor. Everyoccupant takes 2d6 fire damage per round, increasingevery day.

Somehow the Magmatron is almost stable with this set-ting. It will however catastrophically deassembe if any-one touches the LEVER, removes any of the BardozHeads or pulls the Sword of Bardoz. Its destruction hasthe power of volcanic eruption with pyrokinetic cloud.

• Der UberOberReaktor with Bleaky (666 M DV): If theplayers have managed to pull this off (all NPCs are suf-ficiently sane to not attempt this), the smartest way isto use Magmatron as an ICBM—it has power to devas-tate half a continent with heat and unholy damage. Ithas the coordinates for Elven Kings Summer Palace atleast pre-calculated.

If they don’t launch it immediately, The Bleak Onetakes control of the Magmatron and is now a freakishlyspeedy eldritch monster.

• Der UberOberReaktor with Magma and Bleaky (???DV): Why PCs Why??? The Magmatron becomes anUnholy Sun that will consume the whole world in 3d6weeks without divine intention. Even Lawful Goodgods will ally with Chaotic Evil rivals to combat thisfrom happening.

The Magma Doctors

Among the Dwarfkind, there exists fragmentary rumours ofinsane doctors who sacrificed their minds for Magmahoodand destruction. In the darkest whispers, it has been evensaid that the Doctors could cast magic. The whispers aretrue.

PLAYING A MAGMA DOCTOR

The player character must be an unlawful dwarf who haslearned Magmic Lore, either from a teacher (extinct) or fromsome bloodsoaked grimoire etc. No other species has suf-ficient mental deficiencies—and one must be born a dwarf,no cheating!

Hit Dice: d6. All other progress akin to Wizard. Maywear metal armor and cast spells, provided it is sufficientlyMagmic (x3 cost and must be metal).

Instead of Vancian Magic, the Dwarf Magma Doctor castsusing Sanity. The Doctor has a Sanity Cap equal to hisWisdom. Sanity does not replenish on its own but whenthe Doctor performs Dwarven normal stuff such as killingElves/Goblins, drinking way too much, mumbling aboutgrudges, eating delicious cheese, sleeping in a properlyhard rock bed and CREATING CRAZY INVENTIONS, hegains one sanity back. Particularly Dwarven deeds mightreward more sanity. However, one source of sanity worksonly once per week usually.

Magma Doctors have access to spells like a Wizard ofequal level. He cannot learn Lawful or Plant/Water magic,however.

To cast a spell, the Doctor sacrifices Spell Level amountof Sanity (minimum of 1).

If the Doctor reaches 0 Sanity, they gain a temporary Mi-nor Insanity. They can continue casting.If Sanity becomes negative, the Minor Insanity might be-come permanent (save etc.). If Sanity becomes negativeWisdom, the Minor Insanity becomes permanent and savevs. Major Insanity.After that, the Doctor can continue to cast but must savevs. Major insanity EVERY TIME.

For every level gained, the Doctor loses one way ofregaining Sanity, such as drinking.For every three levels, the Doctor gains a permanent MinorInsanity.For every five levels, the Doctor gains a permanent MajorInsanity.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ . . . AND BEYOND

The only ways of restoring Sanity that cannot be lost arerelated to Magma, Fire and INSANE CONSTRUCTIONS.

Note: There is actually not that much connection be-tween magma and the Doctors. The innate elemental con-nection of dwarves and mountains just makes it so thatthey most likely will start digging molten rock more as theirinsanities spread.

One could theorize that Elf Doctors would be mad abouttrees etc. with similiar burning fervour. Luckily, no elf hasever been mad enough.

TRDR: Fukking powerful at lowest levels, then becomesobsessively crazy, mad and insane FAST!

PS: All proper Dwarves will HATE a Magma Doctor PCwith unimaginably deep rage. As does almost anyone withsome kind of sane intelligence.

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FACTIONS AND NPCS THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ

FACTIONS AND NPCS

A number of both established, but not well developed. Moreideas never hurt!

Figure 7: Some of the NPCs

Amphisos and retinue

A group of newcomers to the dungeon, likely not here morethan a year or two. Most of the retinue stay within 2-D3and maybe 2-C3 unless Amphisos needs their assistancewith something.

AMPHISOS

Amphisos, Human (?) Wizard. A bio-researcher and col-lector of oddities both mundane and magical. Here in thisruined Dwarfish outpost to research the variety of magi-cal phenomena and wildlife, as well as keep his researchhidden from prying eyes, looking at you Klauffextor. Rea-sonably chill, but of dubious moral fibre. Living quartersare in 2-C3 and 2-D3, though much of his research takesplace upstairs in a number of areas in the eastern wings ofthe outpost, namely 1-C3, 1-D3, and 1-E3-1.

RUBY AND PEARL

Ruby and Pearl, a pair of young female wizards, twinsand red-headed, race (apparently?) human. Currently ap-prenticed to Amphisos, which means they’re doing all thedrudgework. Residing in 2-D3.

MAXWELL

Maxwell, Human Wizard. Amphisos’ ancient butler who iscurrently living in 2-D3. Competent and probably long suf-fering.

MR. WHISKERS AND SKITTY

Mr. Whiskers and Skitty. Dire Lion Familiar and AwakenedIllusion of a Dire Lion, respectively. Servants of Amphisosand spend most of their time in his quarters in 2-D3-9.

CRANKY FRANK

Cranky Frank, either an awakened apple tree or an appletreant. Guards the secret entrance to the mines north of2-C3.

The Bullywug tribe (and related creatures)

They primarily occupy 1-E4, though small parties of themcan be found roaming the dungeon most anywhere thereis water. Very proliferant, which is good because they sitat the bottom of the food chain here. Consequently, theirterritory is raided with some frequency by various predatorywanderers. Whether the CANNIBALISTIC FROG FOLK from1-A5-2 is related to this tribe or not is up to the GM.

SWAMPAXE

Swampaxe is a barbarian and the bullywug chief. His axe ismagical and whispers things to him in his dreams. Terriblethings.

GLEMMORTH

Despite his eldritch name, Glemmorth is actually a cowardwho knows little of magic nor leadership. His father in turnhad been wise (for a bullywug) and cunning and because ofthis his son is as much revered. He mostly casts using hisinherited holy staff, which can d3 times a day:

• bless a follower with +d3 hp and +1 to hit,

• spew forth black corrosive blobs (2d6 damage),

• cast darkness.

Glemmorth is the one who has converted the majority ofthe tribe to worship the Grat Hungru One, for he had noother ways of handling it.

GLIB

Glemmorth’s apprentice. Glib is constantly harassed andinsulted by his master, since he is far smarter and pi-ous than he is. Currently, he mostly handles the medusaAlyssa.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ FACTIONS AND NPCS

ALYSSA

Alyssa, the blinded Medusa. Formerly of some associationor romance with Amphisos, though the exact nature of thatrelationship, its end and what happened to her eyes (a re-cent misfortune, judging by the handful of petrified crea-tures in 2-D3-3) are unknown (and thus up to the DM).She has taken refuge amongst the bullywug tribe, as theyare the only ones who aren’t interested in eating her, andprovide a convenient meat shield against anything that is.

GRAT HUNGRU ONE

The Grat Hungru One, a Huge Monstrous Spider. Currentlyoccupies the caves in 1-E3 and under 1-E4. Worshippedas a god by the Bullywugs, to whom they sacrifice one oftheir members each day at the spiral staircase leading downto its lair. Acts as a barrier between the Bullywugs and theRatmen tribe in 1-E2.

THE MANTICORE

A hungry beast that nests within 1-E4-5. Dislikes the tasteof Bullywugs and only kills them out of boredom, so it isoften out roaming the dungeon looking for food.

The Ratfolk tribe

They occupy 1-E2 and 1-E3-4. Sometimes sends scoutingparties out into the dungeon for food and supplies. Terri-fied of the Grat Hungru One in 1-E3 and have been takingissue with Klaffextor’s cats’ nosing about. Their leader andbroodmother is Priestess Deathwhisker.

PRIESTESS DEATHWHISKER

Priestess Deathwhisker is as nasty as a drow matron, andshe is a lycanthrope, too. She can be a human womanwhen she wishes, she likes to pose as an adventurer, go totowns and lead groups to the dungeon. She worships theTrickster, a goddess of shapeshifters and backstabbers.

Elf Cultists

A group of Elvish Cultists that have occupied a number ofchambers within the dungeon, primarily within 1-B2, butroam the dungeon frequently. Who or what they worshipis unclear, but based how much it hurts to look at theirtentacle-esque idols, its probably nothing good.

HIGH CULTIST FATHER ALEX

Father Alex is the leader of this group, usually found in 1-B2-3 or 1-B2-4, where he meditates and leads dark rites.He is a very happy and extremely cheerful fellow, he singsperky upbeat songs, often dancing as he does so. His fol-lowers try to keep up with his energy level. Too bad they alldo horrible things to the people and creatures they catch.They are convinced that they will be rewarded by the Whis-perers from the Far Realms when they open the path. Theyare all also a few guppies short of a full aquarium.

(Funny designer note: Inspiration for the cult leadercame to me after I ran across a pic of Arthur Frayn/Zardozin ‘Zardoz’. The actor Niall Buggy also played the priest in‘Mamma Mia’, which means Father Alex sings Abba songs.)

SERPENTINE ABOMINATION

A botched attempt by the cult to summon up some heavysupport, this creature has been locked into the chamberin 1-C1-4. It sits there hungry and murmuring twistedphrases in a dark tongue, gnawing at the bones of thecultists who were too slow to escape the room.

Note: The cultists can be detailed by the GM, as they arerather standalone and easy to customise fitting the GMsown setting. Some more or less serious options include:

1. The majority of the cultists is young (60 to 90 years)elves going through their rebel phase—teenagers basi-cally. As such they are worshipping Heavy Metal andgetting far too exited about it. Most Elf PCs should beonly ashamed of the idiots. The High Cultist is eitherinsane or too much into his role.

2. The elvish cultists are Dwarfophiles, they draw facialhair on themselves, and speak Dwarvish (in a falsedeep voice) by preference. They drink Dwarvish ale intankards, they brought barrels of it with them. Someeven wear false beards.

3. The elves entered the place to loot the halls. Whenthey desecrated the dwarven shrines and altars, theywere hit by a curse of insanity. Alternatively, they en-countered a dark denizen (perhaps related to the blackscorpions and the nether portal in 1-B2-1) that needssacrifices.

Shroom Cultists

A collection of odd people living in 2-E1, where they wor-ship a massive mushroom that has been growing here.Whether they are actual mushroom people or regular in-fected with some sort of parasitic fungus or even just regu-lar nutters is up to the DM. Nominally agreeable and tradewith the Ratfolk and probably Bullywugs at the least. Theyhave been attempting to breed trained War-rats.

DEATHCAP, THE SHROOM CHIEF

Leader of the Shrooms, who has been having a problemwith a giant salamander taking up residence in the Cult’sprimary water source.

THE CHOSEN SHROOM

Champion of the Shroom Cult, insists a party member duelhim before they can see the chief.

The Undead “Suburbia”

A collection of living chambers in 1-A3 and 1-A2. Underthe leadership of their "Mayor", Lady Gretchen, a crude fac-simile of village life has been recreated here, populated byghouls, zombies, skeletons and a variety of other lesser un-dead. Though they initially attempt to put on a friendly (ifdecayed) face, ultimately they will succumb to their darkerurges attempt to eat any of the living who happen uponthem.

“LADY MAYOR” GRETCHEN

A Ghoul Cleric of Orcus. A cheery sort and clear out of hergourd, Gretchen is the founder and leader of the undeadwho dwell in this part of the dungeon. Perhaps because

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of her delusions, she is better at managing her urge to eatfaces then her people and is willing to talk and trade withthe party, perhaps even assign them a quest or two. Prob-ably for fresh corpses. Or even not fresh corpses. She’s notpicky.

PETE THE BUTCHER

A violent ghoul who serves as the town’s huntsman andbutcher, dragging back the bodies of any he kills for thetown to feast on. Is under no illusion as to what he is andwill happily carve up the living on sight.

SIMON, THE HERMIT

Another Ghoul who lives on the northern edge of town,across the gorge splitting 1-A2 in half. Tends to an herbgarden containing a variety of helpful and sometimes mag-ical plants.

FRANK, THE “CRIMINAL”

A male ghoul currently hanging from the gallows of the sub-urbia’s “town square” (1-A3-5). As an ex-adventurer, heknows the layout of the first level of the dungeon fairly well.

ESHCL THE GNAWER

Gretchen’s apprentice, a ghoullywog. He was sent to re-cruit the Dwarven grudge spirit Ghostkiller and to scoutthe lower levels, but didn’t return. Currently he is strandedin 3-A4-1.

The Mongrelfolk

A group of mongrelfolk children, living at the bottom of thegorge under the Undead Suburb, in 2-A2. Non-hostile andrather helpful if treated politely.

KALITA

By far the eldest Mongrelfolk of the group, appearance is amix of all races in dungeon. Has a mother-children rela-tionship with the rest of them; she certainly refers to themas her brood and she’s old enough. Friendly and willing tohelp polite PCs.

JO-JIM THE MONGRELMAN CHAMPION

The second-oldest of the mongrelfolk has two heads withdifferent personalities. He left the group and started ex-ploring the halls, collecting some wonderous items. He nowresides in 3-A1-2 with a pack of war rats.

The Deep Lake inhabitants

ALICE THE ARCHDRUIDESS

Alice the (Arch)Druidess is a female elf that retired from along career of adventuring 50 years ago. During her longlife she was known under different names, like Miss Alice,The Great Lake Goddess, and Alyssandrakonika.

She settled down, turning all of Deep Lake into her Sa-cred Grove. She is a cheerfully bloodthirsty person, muchlike the little old ladies that go to boxing matches, sit in thefront row and yell at the fighters. One of her favorite forms

to be is a plesiosaur. She is less picky about who she eatsthan most elves. Encounters with her are quite rare, butmost often happen when you are in a little boat and shepops up for a chat. This does not always end in being asnack. Alice has had spies gather information before sheshows up. This means she is in a talking mood. It does notmean you will like what she says.

She strongly believes in letting the weak be removed fromthe gene pool. If an invading force moves in and wipesout all the bullywugs, including her minions—she wouldn’tstop it. A fair sized tribe of bullywugs worship her as a de-ity. They are her terrified and loyal servants and spies. Herspy network also includes blind fish, normal sized spiders,tiny mice, and bats.

She despises undead, and keeps Deep Lake clear of them.A few wash down from the surface or wander in, but they donot last long. Alice will tend to them personally if they causetrouble for her minions. Her bullywugs, fish, and squid ser-vants search the lake for the glowing green crystals calledJadium and deposit them on the beach at the entrance tothe Legendary Halls for the landwalkers to haul away. Sheknows they are dangerous and has been cleaning them upfor years. She does keep the biggest ones and uses them inan isolated cave hatchery for testing. Of course she does.Don’t worry, I’m sure it will be fine.

Long ago Alice sculpted parts of the lowest level of theHalls and took residence for a short while but left it un-finished and moved to the lake. She left behind a groupof mongrelmen orphan children she had gotten from some-where else. She gave each one a dagger, some water andsome food. She released them in the Bardoz Halls and toldthem to watch their backs. One of these children was Kalitafrom 2-A2-3. Kalita is mixed up, well. . . she does have ratsin her skull.

GRUMPY

Independents

These various creatures have no real relationship with anyof the above groups, aside from attempting to eat them.

ABRAXAS THE ANIMATED HEAD

A severed but seemingly still alive humanoid head lockedinto the southwestern cell in 1-D1. Begs the party to takehim with them, as he has been very bored. He is cursedwith immortality but blessed with poor memory. He onlyremembers back about 5 years even though he was bornlong, long ago. He is pretty crazy, never sleeps, and rarelyshuts up. He is often funny, but drives people crazy.

Alternative: Judging by his location within chambersAmphisos largely controls, he’s most likely responsible forthe head. Unruly apprentice? Caught thief? Failed rival?Any number of interesting possibilities here.

THE FUNGAL COLONY

A huge mass of fungus mutated from the original dwarves’mushroom stock into a sentient and predatory collective.Has completely taken over 1-A4 and is starting to spreadinto surrounding areas. Is capable of projecting illusionsand uses them to lure unsuspecting prey to their doom.Has figured out that sexy women make for good lures, sohas been using the illusion of a giantess priestess namedSOPHIA THE SULTRY lately. Seems to be in communicationwith the elf cultists.

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THE LEGENDARY HALLS OF BARDOZ FACTIONS AND NPCS

LORD LART VON KLAUFFEXTOR

An evil wizard with an interest in the outpost. Has beensending in magical cats to scout the dungeon and monitorany interesting phenomena hunt for artifacts. Is nowherenear the outpost itself, but could be brought there if some-thing was sufficiently alluring enough. Unknown rela-tionship with Amphisos, though they are almost certainlyaware of each other by now.

MS. SCARLET, A YOUNG RED DRAGON

Ms. Scarlet (adopted name to hide her real draconic name)is a young female red dragon that has settled into the work-shop in 1-D5 with the beginning of her hoard.

She likes to talk to bipeds and speaks Common and sev-eral other languages. She also likes to eat them. She reallylikes toying with humans and other bipeds and adopted hername to help ease the encounters. She is not as arrogantas most red dragons, and she doesn’t consider herself in-vulnerable. She can detect magic at will, become invisible3× per day, and can move quietly.

She lost most of her treasure and her lair in a fight withanother dragon. She has no magical items and wants toget some. She found and killed the tunneling monster thatmade the entrance and took over its lair (alternative: Shetunneled in here not too long ago, drawn by the warmth ofthe magma.) She is likely planning on clearing out someof the surrounding rooms in search for loot and modifyingthem to her liking.

RAGECOMBUTION

A fire elemental previously summoned by Amphisos thatwas trapped in the caverns in 2-A4 after a cave in, with theonly remaining passage out being flooded with water from2-B3. Frantically lonely and delighted to see the party, tothe point where he starts getting pissy if they attempt toleave. A very good boy.

TAD, THE AWAKENED FROGHEMOTH

A baby Froghemoth that lives in the pond in 2-C3.Friendly, though a bit clingy and has a poor comprehen-sion of personal space or that people might not want to liveon his little island for the rest of forever.

THRALDRIM

A Fire Giant who has busted open one of the magma pumpsin 2-D5 in order to create a hot bath for himself. Ispresently relaxing in 2-E5 and is not showing any sign ofleaving any time soon.

THE UNSPEAKABLE

Some. . . thing is roaming the halls of the outpost. Amor-phous, hideous and seemingly unkillable, it drags itselfaround the dungeon, using acidic pseudopods to etchstrange, eye-watering runes into the walls, floors and ceil-ings, seemingly completely at random. It thankfully seemsto be completely uninterested in anything it comes across,living or not, but woe unto those that provoke it. Amphisosand Klaffextor both seem to be keenly interested in whatthe beast is, where exactly it came from and what preciselythe runes it has been etching mean.

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