February Entry: the Necromancer's Lair

[Djekspek]

hehe, moving like a rocket as usual.. what can i say, i love your handdrawn stuff GP and i can already tell this will be an awesome dungeon

[Gamerprinter]

OK, update on the map so far. Its late (well early in the morning) got back from gaming a half hour ago and decided to put in some walls, and the backend of the room. I also decided to shrink the altar area much smaller in dimension - still each tile and mortar is 5 square feet. The black walls are placeholders for now, I plan to hand-draw the walls appropriate to the style with beveled shaped beneath and halo shadows, as usual. I still need to place doors, more stairs on either side of the chapel chamber. The Necromancer Lich resides in that large chamber towards the top right corner, while the chambers below are laboratory and library. I plan to place a chasm with bridge crossing, with switch back trail on opposing chasm wall leading up to more dungeon chambers, to the bottom of the map, then another crossing of the chasm to entry chambers at the start of the dungeon area. The bottom right will contain the title, key and other parts necessary for the One Page Dungeon Contest.

I've decided to make this necromancer really a lich, perhaps like a Mystic Theurge prestige class as both a wizard and a priest. As mentioned above his residence and "office" are is to the right of the Skull Chapel. The skull itself is the lich's phylactery. Within the Skull Chapel is the phylactery skull, guarded on either side by undead skeletal dragons, also the fourteen sarcophagi contains his undead guardians - including four Mummy's with levels in Priest and four Vampires with levels in Wizard (flanking either side of the altar). The six sarcophagi on the southern end of the chapel contain four skeletal warriors and two death knight black guard (center pair of sarcophagi). The open mouth of the skull phylactery is a portal to the Negative Energy Plane. If the lich (yet unnamed) is slain his spirit is whisked into the Skull. Agents will secure an appropriate humanoid bring to the skull altar and cast them into the mouth - draining their life energy until dead, at which point the Lich possesses the sacraficed humanoid and exits the mouth in a new undead body, until slain again.

Lots more to do, but the background story started to develop as I began setting up the over all layout of the entire page, with the resized chapel. I plan to place markers for traps later on.

GP

### Latest WIP ###

[mrrkyl]

Looks like another work of art in progress!

[Gamerprinter]

I think I"m about a third complete with this map. I still need to furnish the residential area east of the chapel. My canyon of blood is done as well. I need to make a necropolis area, trapped hallways, and the front area dungeons then the title block.

GP

### Latest WIP ###

[Ascension]

I love me some big ole pools o blood and this one's got a bloodfalls to boot...good stuff.

[Gamerprinter]

Slight update, I added some detailing - created stairs between the Blood Canyon chamber and the Main Chapel itself, as well as a short stairway going from the chapel to the residential area. In case you can't tell, both stairs go upward from left to right. Made the doors kind of a golden color so they'll stand out against the grey and green background. Though I hate grids, I added a grid to the Blood Canyon Chamber.

If any of you recall my "Lair of Lhessadrak" map (which is now called the House of the Dead in the CWBP - in the south parts of the Beast Lands.) I'm going to build a webpage for this entry containing my detailed room key, random monster/traps charts, perhaps a couple new monsters, and stats for the Lich, Lhessadrak. I'm also going to post that old map to represent the structure over this dungeon and post it on that same page. This map in PDF format will have a direct link to that page - as per rules of the other "One Page Dungeon Contest".

The map will still contain simple key, with each chamber named and numbered - as well as number keys in each chamber - as per this challenge's rules.

This is probably it for tonight...

GP

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[Gamerprinter]

OK, last update for the night. I decided to close up this part of the dungeon, considering it the Inner Sanctum. It will be accessed from the rest of the dungeon via an A-B Portal. Notice the magic circle at the base of the stairs in the Blood Canyon Chamber - this is the B Portal. Since this is a Lich's Lair, the portal is extra nasty to operate. If entering either portal and the person is evil it works automatically without mishap. If neutrally aligned the portal drains one life energy level (Fort DC 25) if saves portal does not activate. If a good being tries to cross, same DC check, but loss of two life energy levels to operate. This makes the adventurers most likely drained prior to entering the Inner Sanctum making it that much more damaging to those adventuring here.

GP

### Latest WIP ###

[Gamerprinter]

OK, slowly, but surely, I added two more sections to the left of the previously mapped area to fill out the top half of the dungeon design. I have a small cave area containing the A portal to access the Inner Sanctum. Also a small maze like area, I'm calling "cold storage". I might throw in some ice and snow in the corners of the rooms with a few corpses and furnishings. Moving right along.

GP

[Gamerprinter]

OK, I decided to knock out the Cold Storage area with all the intended objects - I have tables, cabinets, blood draining beds, surgical tool shelves, a blood bank, corpses in post mortem operating rooms, a "parts" room, and two failed experiments, as well as a corpse of a Celestial Deva (a recent prize acquisition!) An icy ream is present in several of the rooms to keep the goods from spoiling.

I plan to do this level of detail in the residence, library and lab on the far right side of the man (still to do yet.)

I started labeling the main sections, I think this will help make it easier when I finally get to designing the title block and map key.

Progress moving forward - about half done.

GP

[Ghostman]

Does the red 'S' indicate a secret door? If so, what makes it useful? It seems that you can reach all the parts of that area without needing to discover that entrance.