Beyond the hamlet, through the infested forest and beneath the stately mansion you may find there, terrors mercifully unwitnessed are carried out by mortals who have left mortality behind. "Dragon Node Ascending" is a smallish dungeon based on my favorite work of Lovecraft, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". Place it beneath a stately manor or a long-abandoned henge. Could serve as the possible top level of a deeper dungeon.
Hooks:
1 Wagons of slaves go up to Corwin place, but they never come out and the amount of food they have delivered never changes.
2 The patron saint of our fair hamlet refuses to intercede on the behalf of the penitent faithful anymore and we know not why, but the master of Corwin place seems more smug than usual about it.
3 On his deathbed, your quiet grand-uncle confides that the reports of unearthly howling and squishing, frightful knocking beneath Corwin place happened once before, fifty years ago. He will not speak of the horror the brave vigilante posse saw as they crawled through the secret catacombs there, but of the two score that went down only a handful came out.
4 An evil-looking man from an unsavory rival nation recently bragged about the "souls" he captured for Corwin. That very night, the graves of some of town's oldest families were desecrated and robbed.
Players enter via the stairs coming down on the lefthand side, or through the secret tunnel entrance in the bottom right.
It was nigh a century ago that Corwin began his vile experiments in this place. He was nearly defeated for good when the good townsfolk of the nearby hamlet sought to destroy him fifty years ago, but his guile allowed him to escape and to return a generation later, impersonating his great-nephew. His earliest activities involved carting in huge amounts of slaves to excavate the harsh halls of his underground complex. Once they had been worked to death's door, they were gruesomely dismembered and converted into shambling blobs of faces and limbs. In this period, Corwin also investigated several routes to immortality. Following his exile, Corwin returned with the legal services of Novalny, Novas, and Fleck, esq, on retainer, on the advice of his colleagues abroad. His second phase of experimentation involves the reduction of mortal remains to salts that can then be called up, restoring the deceased to life. He is using this power to learn the world's dark secrets and find the caches of relics hidden from time immemorial. At the very moment the PCs enter the dungeon he is completing the Ritual of Continuance required every decade or so for him to maintain his age. He has taken extra sacrifices this decade in the hopes of earning enough dark favors to restore his hair to it's previous luster.
Random Encounters
1 Resurrected Ancestor. They are the spitting image of one of the PCs. Speaks in Old English, generally friendly but potential has some problematic ideas about respecting one's elders.
2 Wandering Shoggoth. Fearless and very hungry. 5HD, armor as leather. +6 grab attack, 1d6 damage. Automatic 2d4 bite damage every turn while grabbed. Sufferers of Pareidolia must save vs fear, or else targeting the Shoggoth counts as a perception based task.
3 Tante, Slave Ghost. He has mustered up the courage to try to speak to the party. He only knows a handful of languages that are only spoken on remote islands far away, but if this can be overcome he will warn the party to leave this place. If they persist, he may try to help them defeat Corwen, though he is hesitant to do so. He can become intangible and invisible at will, though Corwen could easily banish him.
4 1d3 Lawyers, Novalny, Novas, and Fleck. Evil lawyers. Noncombatants, but crafty. Ready to defend their client (Corwen) but always looking for more clients. Their firm has connections throughout Hell and Earth.
5 2d4 Hellish Beastmen. Shaggy fur, armor sewn to skin, a shining corona of fire. 2 HD, armor as chain, DR 1 against nonmagic weapons. +4 attack, 1d10 damage. Getting within a foot of them deals 1d4 damage every turn, dumping water on them ends this effect as well as their damage resistance.
6 Resurrected Stranger. Roll randomly to determine their morality and historical importance. Probably knows at least one important thing about the past, but doesn't know what it is.
7,8 No encounter
Random Treasure
1 "Dictum Infernis", a book teaching the Dark Speech. Worth about 80 sp to the right buyer. With about one hundred hours of practice you will be able to pronounce at least one syllable of Dark Speech, breaking the will of the hearer and probably bursting one of your molars like popcorn.
2 "In the Light of the Morning", a well thumbed grimoire on how to obtain the favor of Asmodeus. Worth about 40 sp to the right buyer, but it's also illegal and heretical.
3 "The Gate and the Key", a book (based on the Key of Solomon) used to summon spirits, find love, favor, and friends. Worth about 120 sp to anyone interested in the arcane arts or spurned lovers.
4 "Abaddon's Gate", a pamphlet on how to summon the demon Abaddon, who rather than taking a personal form manifests as a location. Worth 20 sp to a collector or 100 gp to his cult.
5 "Auramancy, a Practical guide", a textbook teaching the reader on how to read auras, discern information from their colors and discussion on how to interpret the symbols therein. Worth 40 sp.
6 "The Lapping Tide", a book listing 100 entities and how to summon them. Worth 60 sp.
7 Trinkets from a new continent. Worth 1d4*10 sp to a collector or archeologist.
8 Potion of Flight
9 A stack of 3d6 sp, the faces depicting mints a century out of date.
10 Nothing
If a book is rolled more than once, gain an Illuminated Manuscript instead. Otherwise you can draw from this list by Skerples: 1d20 More Books. The book is worth 10 sp.
Atrium As the party comes down the stairs, they may catch a glimpse of a ghastly figure of a slave named Tante, the only of Corwin's slaves to ever have died. Tante seems to be carving glyphs into the wall with his fingers, but will disappear as the party approaches or if they call out to him. The glyphs are present beside every door in the dungeon, their letters evershifting and painful to read. Doing so gives some warning of what may be found within and trigger a mental save. On a failure, the reader experiences a phantom experience from long ago in the dungeon and suffers a mental malady
1 Flashing visions of hideous faces smashed together, silently calling for mercy. Suffer from enhanced pareidolia (seeing faces in inanimate objects). -2 to perception based tasks. If pareidolia gets worse, it becomes difficult or impossible to read and creepy to sleep as your pillow stares back at you.
2 Harsh incantations that should not be possible thunder between your ears. The tether between your ego and your body becomes looser. -2 to resist mental domination (does not include mental check to read glyphs). If this condition gets worse, it becomes difficult to go against the suggestions of your friends or to make decisions for yourself.
3 In a whirlwind you see everyone you have ever met decaying sequentially in the blink of an eye. Strangers, acquaintances, friends, and finally dear loved ones wither and desiccate at you watch, held back from intervening. -2 to tasks you perform with no allies nearby. If this gets worse, you will actively resist being separated from your trusted allies, even when it would be advantageous.
4 The tickling vibration of your flesh as you see, plain as a dream, a random limb being sawed off. -2 where that limb is essential. If this gets worse, you feel a deepening sense of phantom limb syndrome and it may disobey your wishes.
If a PC suffers the same malady more than once, the malady gets worse. The -2 penalty accumulates.
Ruined Stores Random treasure hidden in the junk. Long ago rotted food and tepid water. Once fine riches decayed into garbage.
Slave Paddocks Random encounter and a random treasure if the slave stalls are searched. A holding area for Corwen's slaves.
Dismemberment Random encounter. Wicked saws, hammers, and stretching devices of a hundred varieties hang off the wall. Slabs with restraints. Rusty coating of dried blood on most surfaces.
Jail Cells For containing Corwen's more troublesome resurrected subjects. Two of the four cells are occupied. One has an unmartyred saint who is no longer in a position to intercede on behalf of the prayers of the faithful. He wants to escape to lead a virtuous life in service of God, or else continue to defy Corwen from inside prison. The second is a previously defeated dark lord whose strong magicks are kept in check by the magic manacles he wears. Say, they could use these manacles to bind Corwen. He would be happy to help if they just passed that key on the wall there...
Torture This is where Corwen tortures reticent resurrected souls who refuse to give him the information he's looking for. All the classic torture instruments are here.
Law Office Random Encounter, and if searched reveals a Random Treasure. The cramped field offices of Novalny, Novas, and Fleck, esq. Their paralegal, a fastidious, mustachioed, bespectacled halfling named Boq, will be clerking the desk. He is madly in love with the Mirror Oracle, but has never had the nerve to tell her. When the party arrives he will be giving legal advice to whatever random encounter was rolled, unless it was a Wandering Shoggoth, which he will be trying hard to ignore, or 1d3 Lawyers, who will immediately start trying to sell their services to the party.
Dark Well Random Treasure. A bare room with thick stone bricks and a well in the center of the room. Black water fills the well just past the brim, meniscus glinting in the light. This well is used to communicate with it's sister wells in other forgotten places. 3 in 4 chance there is no one on the other side. 1 in 4 chance another villain is looking in the well. In your setting this is a chance for a verbal encounter with some dark other dark sorcerer or amoral climber with deep pockets.
Mirror Oracle Random Encounter and Random Treasure if searched. This room has fine furniture, plush carpets, bookshelves full of poetry and cheap paintings all over the north, west, and eastern walls. The southern wall is made up of a massive mirror. Lounging in the reflection of the finery is an oracle named Delilah. She is an obliging enough oracle, but will quickly tire of repeated requests for prophecies unless paid in furnishings, beautiful things, or a promise of either freeing her from the mirror or from this dingy dungeon . She also has a soft spot for her friend, Boq the paralegal. Shattering the mirror will kill her. Placing a mirror in front of her mirror will create infinite copies of her for as long as both mirrors remain, if the second mirror is drawn away their will be an infinite number of soft shrieks as all but the original Delilah die.
Library A massive library of world knowledge. Dozens of alcoves dot the walls. One minute after the parties arrival, 1d4 Solid Shadows will emerge from these alcoves. One minute later, 1d6. Then 1d8, 1d10, 1d20, and finally 1d100.
Solid Shadow Humanoid silhouette, 3-dimensional and featureless. Makes no sound but obvious even in dim light. 2 HD, unarmored, +3 to hit with knife, 1d4+1 or double on a surprise attack. Can't take damage from mundane weapons, but magic weapons work and even waving a torch in it's face will do 1d10 damage.
Valuable books can be found in the library. For every minute spent searching, test intelligence to find a valuable book. On a success, roll 1d6 on the Random Treasure table.
Mummification Chamber An aborted early attempt by Corwen to find immortality, his first test subject is still here. The mummy is chained to a boulder in the center of the room, his chain allows him to reach anyone who walks more than 10 ft into the room. Half-insane from the mummification rituals and the decades of solitude, the mummy would like nothing more than to spend time around other intelligent beings. It will become violent if deprived of this chance. Hamstringing it's social intentions are it's lack of ability to articulate words, leaving it to rely on pantomime and loud groaning. On the west wall of the chamber is an alcove with six canopic jars. If consumed by the mummy, it will remember enough of who it was to potentially overcome it's mental maladies if reintroduced into society. If the contents of the jars are fried and consumed by anyone else, each will improve one ability score by 1 permanently.
This chamber also contains a tunnel leading outside to a riverbank. The exterior end of the tunnel is caved in.
Salt Raising Chamber Random Treasure. The room is covered in arcane glyphs. Five slabs, one covered in salt, occupy the center of the room. In a corner is an obvious summoning circle for astral spirits. In every available space, against every wall, every shelf, on top of every cabinet are urns containing salt, each with a tag and a number. Lying near the slabs is a book titled "Esentile Saltes and Their Properteys", which outlines a ritual for reducing a body to it's essential salts, which anyone can do with enough time and practice. It also tells how to call up an entity based on it's essential salts, resurrecting it (Dragon Node Ascending) or returning it's resurrected form back to essential salt (Dragon Node Descending). For a smart person who has read this book in it's entirety, either takes only a round. For someone who has read part of the book, it takes 1d4+1 rounds to perform. The essential salts on the table belong to Carlotta Meltis, a heretical warrior from a legendary age.
Dark Telescope A nearly spherical room with catwalks leading to a telescope in the center of the room. Controls allow it to point in nearly any direction. Looking through the telescope allows the viewer to see through to the stars on the other side, despite the fact that the telescope is underground. Pointing the telescope straight down allows the viewer to see stars on the other side of the earth.
The Shoggoth Wells Random Encounter. The rough hewn tunnels leading away from the Dark Telescope, Salt Raising Chamber, and the Dismemberment room go on for what must be several miles. Finally, they let out onto a huge flat expanse. Vaguely in the center of this expanse, though still a mile or so distant, firelight can be seen. Occasionally interspersed across the expanse are wells, their tops covered up with stone slabs. Burbling and sloshing can be heard within, though it will become silent if the stone slab on top is removed. Dropping a light source down the well reveals there's a shoggoth down there, the sudden sight of which should cause a mental save for sanity damage (if you use that) or pareidolia (see atrium). If left uncovered, the shoggoth will find it's way up in about an hour.
The Henge Black stones arranged in a circular henge monument are in the center of the expanse, a massive bonfire in the middle and a wall of fire surrounding the henge. Corwen himself is performing magical incantations. Five elves (or another long-lived race) sit bound and gagged around the bonfire, sacrifices for the culmination of the ritual. Solid Shadows in a feminine form dance with reckless abandon between the bonfire and the wall of fire, though they can take no hostile action. 5 Hellish Beastmen tarry in the wall of fire, shouting words of encouragement. If they hear suspicious noises in the darkness, they might send two to investigate.
Joseph Corwen 3 HD. Armor as chain from semi-corporeal mage armor. Unarmed, immune to magical fire. +2 bonus against necromancy effects. Can summon walls of fire, but only large circular ones. Can use Dark Speech to cast Charm Person, Dominate Person, and Hold Person. Whenever a spell is cast with Dark Speech every PC in earshot must make a save or be deafened for 1d3 hours. Only the hearing can be effected by spells cast with Dark Speech. Can also Summon Monster of up to level 3 safely, or level 5 without being able to control it, which he will do if he fears death is inevitable.
Corwen wears a silver broach and ring inlaid with jade and malachite of exquisite quality worth 225 gold. After his death, the Solid Shadows around the bonfire and the library will linger, but will stop being solid. They are thereafter harmless but still pretty creepy. Freed of this threat, the true hoard of this dungeon is the library, which is easily worth 1,000 gp or more if you can find someone to buy it, though you will have to contend with the Novalny, Novas, and Fleck serving as the executors of Mr. Corwen's estate trying to steal it back.
