Bartertown.com

Okay, folks.
This is it.
Here's your chance to dazzle me with your imagination and cleverness.

I'm DMing an ongoing AD&D 2e campaign, and the party is heading into Undermountain.
(cue suspenseful music)

I love adding lots of little things to my dungeons. Things that might or might not mear something.
Anything from actual dungeon dressings (a small sack filled wich the skulls of human children) to the inane (Scrawled on the wall in white chalk is 'Beebo Watches!' - the chalk will not rub off).
Random pools of blood (or other liquids)... whatever.

So, here's where I impose on you... fill my dungeon with little details.

I don't need help on encounters or treasures. I'm pretty good on traps, but am always up for a good one (Please, no "Grimtooth's Traps" style auto-killer traps). Just little dungeon dressings that can fill out the small details.

Here's something I've used with success in the past:
The party is traveling through a corridor that seems to be carved directly out of the rock around them. No seams are visible.
The walls are covered in decorative carvings. One wall shows a scene of dwarven forces routing al manner of fell creature. Skeletal legions, goblin hordes, giant clans and the like all fall to their mighty hammers and axes.
The other wall, however, is carved in the visage of a rampaging dragon. If the party looks at it, it seems to be nothing more than a well carved image. As the party moves, however, one of the members notices that the dragon seems to be stalking him. When he looks at the dragon, it's always next to him (everyone can see this). As the individual walks with eyes forward, though, the dragon can be spied stalking him from his peripheral vision (nobody else notices this). The dragon never does anything but follow, and only while in a certain area.

So, hit me up, Bartertown. Give me your dungeon dressings. Do your best (or worst). Dazzle me! LOL

Eric

The "stalking dragon" is really just a ward by a wizard to "spy" on those entering.

The dragon encourages/discourages action by the party - based on what "it" does or does not want the party to do.

The dragon is simply a 'modified' magic mouth that has significant, or nothing, to do with what actually will, or will not, happen.

The dragon tried to warn them of a trap, which they do not heed because they're "know it all" adventurers and, sure enough, they fall into the trap the dragon was trying to warn them about... Now they're in this underground city that is just one bad turn of events on top of another, but -amazingly- there is great rewards (treasure) in this underground city - if they can survive, etc.

Eric, seriously, this is SOOOOOOOOOOO my kind of challenge, but I happened to see it after consuming large amounts of adult beverage and it's now 12:30AM and my newborn son is due to wake up and want a bottle any minute.

I will revisit this post and attempt to contribute "something" worth while. In the mean time, I would like to get your feedback on what I've posted thus far so I can get a better feel for what you're looking for.

God I wish you were in my town so I could "play" D&D instead of always DM'ing!! Seems like you'd be a good DM!!

Cheers

Rik

I always liked the little plants from Dark Crystal.. had eyes on the end of fungi stalks and would stare at the players walking by... just.. watching.

How about an "old trap fired".. players entering an old disused section of the dungeon find a door that is ajar.. and in front of it is set a pair of boots, filled with ashes. No gear beyond the boots. No trap on door.

A few things I had fun with.
1. A throne room with ALL the trappings of wealth and power. A sorcerer with all the trapping who sits on the throne room. VERY old man, long beard, pouches, pointy hat, the works. He just HAS to be level 1000 or so. Have him intimidate the party with tricky cantrips such as making empty suits of armor move (the "guys" in the armor HAVE to be super high level anti-paladins) so on and so forth. In the end, it is just a hedge wizard sitting in a room filled with junk but the party feels foolish for being fooled.
2. A cool pair of sunglasses is always wierd and out of place but a clever player will eventually find ways to help them gain advantages down the road above ground.
3. A large room of "stuffed monsters can make a party wonder. I remember a party coming into such a room once. When I described to them the first thing that they saw (a large black dragon looking right at them, they zapped it in the snout with a lightning bolt and filled the whole place with stuffing.
4. LARGE claw marks gouged into the floor or walls. Eventually, the party may or may not come across the goblin carrying the stick with metal claws on the end as he continues to mark his area to keep people out.
5. I know you dont need traps (glad to see I'm not the only one who got ideas from grimtooth), but I GOTTA make a case for contact poison. I was once put in as a fake character by a DM and was secretly told to think of a way to kill off the party in as sneaky a way as possible (almost did it too). My best ploy was rubbing contact poison onto a skull. As the party passed it around to investigate it, they did not realize till too late what was going on. Of course, that also makes a great case for adding in character npcs with their secret agendas.
6. Areas of permanent magic darkness. The party never knows why it is there and the area is hard to navigate. Of course, it is also fun if it is used as a lair by giant skunks. Think about it.
7. an area that is magically filled with water. I mean like a tunnel network or series of rooms where there is an invisible barrier that is holding the water in and the water fills all of it. The party needs to find a way to navigate. Even more fun if the are has such defenders as a barracuda or sharks or piranhas. Just hope your party doesnt make the same mistake one of my parties once made (yes the same magic user the fired off the lightning bolt mentioned above) and fire off an ice storm/wall to try to keep the stuff away. NOT good to use ice storm while totally immersed in water.
Just a few of the things I did over the years of DMing.

Bless you Eric!

This has the trappings of being another great MM thread.

Have you access to the Tomb of Horrors? How about Greyhawk Castle (not the comic version) or OD&D greyhawk book? There are plenty of dressing and tricks and traps in those.

Another module comes to mind: The living room. All the tables attack, rugs and drapes attempt to smother, etc.

.... Maybe "Bottle City" as well?


Obviously, you can use those in a pinch. As for anything else, let me think and post soon .

A room in 1970's disco fashion. Shag carpet, Disco ball, those egg-shaped chairs, a mini bar, and a hi-fi system with eight track. When all the adventurers enter the room, the door closes, and the Bee-Gees start playing on the 8-track. The tape is a greatest hits that is on repeat and cannot be turned off or destroyed. The door won't open, and there is no way out. The mini bar is empty.

Does your party map? If they do and you don't (i.e. no big map in the center that you draw that they can reference) have a long corridor that is actually two corridors attached via teleporter and illusion. As they walk down it they are transported from one side to the other and show up in the illusion. To the party, it is a single corridor, but it causes all kind of fun when their map starts crossing on itself wrong.

I love to foreshadow events and conditions that may or may not show up in the adventure depending choices the PCs make. If they've been treading through a fairly dry dungeon for several sessions and suddenly someone has to make a dex check to stay standing due to a wet, slimy surface, everyone immediately assumes the worse (slimes, molds, gelatinous cube..) when in fact it might just be a small leak from a spring

Or it could be far worse, Saughagin, evil water demons, etc. And while a very difficult encounter and fabulous treasure await the party, they're only going to find it if they bear right at the next T junction. Otherwise they simply keep going along the main course of the adventure.

So if they don't take the turn towards the denizens of the deep (sorry) they will simply chalk the wet stones up a to a leaky faucet and keep going.

Another thing I like is monsters that are afraid of PC. Lurker type creatures that primarily live off mouse sized prey. Stalagmites that run away are gold in my book.

There is my two silver pieces.

Some good info, guys.

To give everyone else an idea of what I'm looking for and to contribute to the list myself, in case anyone else wants to use any of these ideas:

1) An open (sprung) pit trap in the floor with a couple pitons/climbing spikes/spikes in the wall with a rope attached. If the party pulls the rope up, they discover a frayed end (or perhaps a sheer cut end) about 15' down. The last 2 to 3 feet of the rope is saturated with blood.

2) A gold coin of unknown mint. If the PC who picked it up pays attention, he'll notice that the image on the front looks like him/her.

3) A locked door with a high level difficulty to open (high CR rating, negative to Open Locks % chance, etc). It opens away from the party. They're UNABLE to force it open under any circumstance. *IF* they manage to get the door open by unlocking it (burning it down, etc), they find a solid wall on the other side. There is no secret door.
As an extra "ha ha" at the party, the door can also be trapped. it should be easily located, but the difficulty for disarming it should be similar to the door.

4) (I've used this. It definitely F***'s with the players' minds) A room at the bottom of a lot of stairs. A bronze statue stands in the corner, mouth agape. Once the whole party enters the room, the door shuts. NOTHING will reopen the door. A round after the door shuts, water starts gushing out of the open mouth at a steady pace. NOTHING stops the water. If the party damages the statue (beheads it, etc), the water moves at an increased pace. Make the players roll constitution checks every (enter number here) rounds, once the (ice cold) water is higher than their character's head. Describe the slow, painful, tortutous death of each character in turn, until there are no more left alive.
After a pregnant pause, describe an awakening, as if they've all been dazed or mesmirized. They're fine. They're alive. The door's wide open. It was all some sort of hallucination.
...
As they leave the room, send a note to the last person in the party. Describe how he looked back into the room on his way out, only to notice that the party was leaving behind a trail of wet footprints.
When I did that with my group, the beheaded statue was still beheaded, as well.

5) Two Ogres guard a passageway. "Two coin me. Two coin him," (4 coins) for passage. Each person has to pay each Ogre two coins (the ogres only accept it in a specific way - one coin per hand. This keeps them from getting confused).
They can speak only a few words of Common
"YOU two coin me. Two coin him."
One will repeat this phrase at each character in the party in common. They speak only common (one sentence) and whatever language ogres speak in your campaign.
The ogres will not accept ANYTHING but coins. No trade bars, gems, jewelry, etc. They will not accept a diamond, but they will accept a copper piece (they are not exactly bright).
Being less than bright, they do not notice the difference in any coin. So, if you give them 4 CP, and your buddy gives them 1 GP... Your buddy still owes them some money.
Sometimes, there might be a note in common stating that the toll for passage is 4 sp per person, which pays for maintenance and patrols to keep the area safe (I usually include this note). The ogre will hand this note to whomever the party leader seems to be.
If the party speaks the ogre's language, the main ogre will tell them that it costs two coins to each ogre for each person to pass. Note that the ogre has forgotten "silver coin" and only remembers "coin."
If the party pays, everything is fine. The Ogres smile and wave them through.
If they attack and defeat the ogres, the only treasure they find is a couple sacks filled with a (very) few gold, a small amount of silver and a LOT of copper pieces. Eventually, however, their boss will want to have words with the ones who killed his employees.

**side note**
I love to use this as a DM, and it works really well in a forest setting, where there can be hidden goblin 'watchers' to report on anything untoward (destructive PC's, thieving Ogres, etc). It works well as a tool to remind the PC's that they're not alone in the world as, inevitably, they kill the ogres. Whomever is sent after the PC's to demand recompense (I like to use a well spoken Orc or half orc as head of a MUCH TOUGHER warband) lectures them that not only human and demi-human kingdoms claim the land. Why should a human king be able to collect taxes and tolls to keep the roads safe, but a goblinoid who does so is suddenly a bandit or thief?


What else you got?

I'm adding this as a placeholder for later. I've got a lot of possibilities for "dungeon flavor" that I've acquired over the past...uhm...too many years of DMing and not enough as a player. But still.

Some Time Later...
Right. So.

First, some background. One of the groups I ran for once made the error of underestimating the intelligence (and wisdom, such as it was) of a clan of Faerie Dragons. This allowed me to indulge my fondness for puns and literal wordplay (not to mention utterly tormenting the group) as well as inventing new spells.

Example:
Red Herrings: These fish, magically altered to be red, had Confusion spells cast on them. Some had Misdirection, some Nystul's Magical Aura. They all stank. It took the party over four hours before someone asked "What kind of fish are these?" and roll a proficiency check to determine...Herrings.

Slug Throwers: Party came across a HUGE magical laboratory stocked with all kinds of bizarre stuff. They found these strange metal tubes installed in wooden stocks, much like crossbows. Metagaming like mad, the group figured these were arquebus or similar early firearms. So they grabbed as many as they could, grabbed as many of the smallish brass cylinders as they could find, and went out to do damage. First time they fired the weapon...well, they got lucky. Some of you may know the material component of a taunt spell is a slug. The nasty worm-looking thing. The somatic component is THROWING the slug at the target, which is pretty offensive. In this case, these were modified wands of Taunting for which the cartridges contained a slug in a stasis field. Some of these slugs were Giant Slugs under the effect of a Shrink spell...
(Typical Faerie thinking - if getting hit by a small slug is rude, just imagine how offensive and FUNNY getting hit by a HUGE slug would be!)
Took them a bit to recover, and they were PISSED that all the loot from the encounter was buried underneath a living, 30-ft pissed off SLUG.

Coat of Arms: Just a mundane coat with about 30 sleeves stitched in. No one dared put it on.

Blinking lights will derail a party for HOURS as they try to figure out WTF the lights do, or mean. For bonus points, establish a pattern they can figure out. Then break the pattern. Hilarity ensues.

Unseen Servant is a great spell to have a "poltergeist" effect that does nothing more than freak the party out that an invisible SOMETHING just brushed past them.

Architecture: Change the shape of the stones used from time to time. Go from square to hexagons to octagons to bricks, and be obvious about it. Bonus points for Cask of Amontillado type obliettes the PC's can find and freak out about. Bonus points if Living Walls are involved.

A cell (any size, bigger is better) with massive, broken restraints inside and bars that have been obliterated outward. Bonus points involve the party finding giant tracks pounded into the stone floor or a tunnel carved in a random direction. To scare them later, have them feel mild tremors as if something HUGE was nearby.

Sometimes people teleport into things, and die because of it. It's even funnier when it's an Illithid (mind flayer). Have the group encounter a forearm, or leg, or something randomly sticking out from a wall or ceiling. Whatever extremity it is starts twitching when the group gets close.

Violate convention. If they're doing the typical "hunt for evil wizard" type thing, have a servant waiting someplace to bandage wounds, serve food, etc. "The master doesn't like to meet people when they're not at their best...postmortem repair is so difficult sometimes" and that sort of thing. Think of a villain in the vein of Miracle Max. Not really evil, just really irritable.

But my personal favorite spell for screwing with people's heads..."THERE/NOT THERE." Tome of Magic, wild magic spell. SO MUCH FUN. Cast it on floors, or doors, or for double bonus points on the wall/door of a bathroom ("Why is she screaming for us to close the door? Damn thing's been shut since she went in there!"). Do it on weapons, or armor, or even make it Area of Effect just to make everyone cry.
For those who don't know, T/NT (yes exactly) literally makes the object, objects, or things in the area it's cast have a 50% chance to either be there, for real, or NOT there, for real, each time someone encounters or looks at it. You can blink rapidly and have something appear and vanish, appear then vanish, etc. Can't be cast on living or intelligent beings though it does work on their clothing.

1) I had a room once where you opened the door and the characters saw a ghostly blue grey light above a large marble slab. On the slab is a slain horse (or appears to be). I put this DEEP in the dungeon.

It kept the characters busy for a while. Looking for traps. Considering the light source. Wondering how the horse got there. All kinds of things.

I just put it in for filler, but it worked fairly effectively in keeping them thinking...

Other ideas:

2) A grate in the floor with a gold coin at the bottom. The grate will NOT come out and is indestructible. Just to frustrate.

3) The ever favorite "room of pools". Stolen from one of the OLD dungeons, but it is fun to let them play with the various pools of various substances.

4) A fully functional longship deep in the dungeon. Could add treasure and a "viking king" if you want to give the players a gift.

5) Fingerbones placed at intervals down a hallway. Funny how that can freak out players...

6) A VERY bored talking statue that REALLY wants company. He/She/It can be VERY needy and won't want the players to leave the area.

There are so many more, but I can't think of them all off the top of my head. I will see if I can add some as I think of them.

I hope these help.

Karl

Adunaphel wrote:1) 6) A VERY bored talking statue that REALLY wants company. He/She/It can be VERY needy and won't want the players to leave the area.

Karl

Reminds me of the Singing Bush. Next you'll tell me they are supposed to summon the invisible swordsman.

A pouch full of potions can be a GREAT find for a party. Especially if the dead person they find it on was kind enough to label them. It can be MUCH fun if the bottles are mis-labeled though.
In my D&D town I had a large building that fronted on two streets. One side was a potion shop and the other side was a poisen shop. The twin brothers who ran the businesses shared storage space in the middle and all of their wares were color coded, Of course, they were both color blind...
A variety of effects within items can make them much fun as well. Most DMs have "poisen". But you CANT tell me that there are not player's characters who will pay through the nose for a poison that has these effects 1. The Victim's guts explode over a 15 foot area covering everything in the 15 feet. 2. The guts are affected by the poison in that they are now bright glow in the dark blue and does NOT easily wash off. How cool is THAT to a player who likes to use poison? Of course, there are other items and effects that you can use your imagination on but that is one of my favorite examples.

Dungeon Idea:
A friend and fellow DM told me that once he had a party encoutering these incredibly life like statues (pertified adventurers) here and there while making their way through an eerily silent dungeon. They realized the implications of the statues and the party got more and more paranoid the further they made their way into the dungeon. They were looking around corners with mirrors, that kind of thing. They finally get to the heart of the complex and find a medusa and a basilisk in a stare down having turned each other to stone.

Idea for interesting NPC:
I had a player in my group playing a wildmage. Wildmages have interesting things happen when they use a rod of wonder. I had each of my players submit 10 ideas for effects of a rod of wonder. I took the best of them and created a percentile list for the rod. 100 different effects on the main list, 100% CHAOS, 100% AWESOME. When his character was introduced, they were in a city under siege. He came around the corner running from some enemy military forces. His hair singed, the remains of his clothes being reduced to cinders, clutching the only possession his character began with: His Rod of Wonder.

Sorry, Off Topic:
I still have the rods list of effects saved in a word document. If anyone is interested, PM me to make a trade for it.

Back on Topic:
Everyone has heard the story of the adventuring party entering a clearing and seeing a Gazebo and the players (not knowing what a gazebo was) attacking it mercilessly. One of the Rods effects was that it would create a Gazebo. Further percentile roll would determine if it was just a gazebo, a portal liked to other gazebos created by the rod in the past or a mimic intent on killing anyting that came near.

Hope these help.

Dakkar98 wrote:Dungeon Idea:
A friend and fellow DM told me that once he had a party encoutering these incredibly life like statues (pertified adventurers) here and there while making their way through an eerily silent dungeon. They realized the implications of the statues and the party got more and more paranoid the further they made their way into the dungeon. They were looking around corners with mirrors, that kind of thing. They finally get to the heart of the complex and find a medusa and a basilisk in a stare down having turned each other to stone.

Idea for interesting NPC:
I had a player in my group playing a wildmage. Wildmages have interesting things happen when they use a rod of wonder. I had each of my players submit 10 ideas for effects of a rod of wonder. I took the best of them and created a percentile list for the rod. 100 different effects on the main list, 100% CHAOS, 100% AWESOME. When his character was introduced, they were in a city under siege. He came around the corner running from some enemy military forces. His hair singed, the remains of his clothes being reduced to cinders, clutching the only possession his character began with: His Rod of Wonder.

Sorry, Off Topic:
I still have the rods list of effects saved in a word document. If anyone is interested, PM me to make a trade for it.

Back on Topic:
Everyone has heard the story of the adventuring party entering a clearing and seeing a Gazebo and the players (not knowing what a gazebo was) attacking it mercilessly. One of the Rods effects was that it would create a Gazebo. Further percentile roll would determine if it was just a gazebo, a portal liked to other gazebos created by the rod in the past or a mimic intent on killing anyting that came near.

Hope these help.

We used wild magic and we had fun with it. I made my own chart to see when it happens and to see what effects happen. Have a dungeon with constantly shifting wild magic areas. Casters never know if they are in a wild magic area until they start casting. I had one effect that made the caster and target switch places. It's funny to see the look on peoples faces when they shot arrows at that orc over there and now they are hitting the caster. Or when a spell goes wrong and everybody in the party starts speaking in different languages. It's funny to watch them trying to communicate with only hand signals. I had stuff on the chart from triple the spell effect to somebody growing huge ears. Half of it was just humorous stuff.