Nightmare Keep - WiP

**StarRaven** · 12-01-2009, 03:32 PM

This is the map I threaten my players with when they're bad....

Ahahahahaha, I kid, I kid. I actually think this is mostly finished... or, rather, that I don't want to keep working on it for fear that I'll get lost in it again.... This is just the "base"... I need to mark the locations of locked doors, keys, puzzles, monsters, riddles, etc. For that, I think I'm going to end up making a new set of symbols. Right now, only the most important locations are marked.

1: Main Gate (for those who enter willingly, muahaha!)... it has five doors to the five rooms where one can start the maze.
2: Location of a key (and the puzzle solve or monster to defeat to retrieve it.)
3: Location of a key (and the puzzle solve or monster to defeat to retrieve it.)
4: A map of the maze, and a location of a key (and the puzzle solve to retrieve it.)
5: Courtyard, the garden of riddles. Location of the key puzzle and one of the keys. (The entrance to this is from the lower southeast room of the giant six-sided tower. I need to remove that wall....)
6: Location of a key (and the big monster to defeat to retrieve it.)
7: The locked door to the "end" of the maze.

This is actually a "dungeon" for the game I'm currently running. Something quite epic, probably for the final epic battle against the PCs' current archenemy. That battle's not coming up, and I'm not going to send them running all over it quite yet, but they are going to get a taste of this labyrinth soon, when they are sent to retrieve something from the garden of riddles. (And a sense of irony later, when they realize the guy they're after was there the whole time.)

Fonts are "So Run Down" (text) and "Troll Bait" (numbers) by Ray Larabie.

**mearrin69** · 12-01-2009, 03:37 PM

Pretty. Is it on an island? At first glance I thought it was in a cave but then realized there aren't any ways out of the cavern...so now I'm guessing island. Whatever the case, I like the look you've got going.
M

**Ascension** · 12-01-2009, 04:37 PM

Great shape, I like it.

**Ramah** · 12-01-2009, 05:06 PM

That looks really, really nice. Gah! I wish people would stop posting these maps that make me want to have a crack at them.

**Ascension** · 12-01-2009, 05:11 PM

Jot it down on the "list of things to mess around with". My list got to be too big and it sank into the swamp. So I made another one. It sank into the swamp. The third one burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one...stayed on my desk

**StarRaven** · 12-02-2009, 03:20 AM

It was very much inspired by the library in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. I liked the idea of a maze made up of rooms rather than corridors. I'd also have to say that it's also inspired by the castle in Ico. I wanted a dungeon made up of puzzles that the players could solve, rather than just smashing through monsters and relying on their stats to save them.

GM: "You open the door and come into yet another square room with tall stone walls. There is a sturdy iron gate in one wall, which leads down into a dark corridor filled with knee-high water, and lit only by a little sunlight coming in through square holes in the ceiling of the tunnel. The wall there is only about half the height of the rest of the walls, but it is too far up for anyone to reach, even if they jump."
Player 1 (playing Zeiksu): "Is the gate locked?"
GM: "It doesn't have any noticeable locks or handles, or even hinges now that you look at it."
Player 2 (playing Jez): "I'm gonna jiggle it. Does it move? Can I push it up or to the side or anything?"
GM: "It gives a bit if you move it upward, but not much. It's locked somehow."
Player 3 (playing Reya): What if Reya stood on Gambit's shoulders? Could she reach the top of the wall then?"
Player 2: "Gambit's a wolf...."
Player 3: "He's a big wolf."
GM: "No, it's still not enough height."
Player 2: "Hmm... hey, what does Reya weigh? Jez is pretty tall, could Reya reach the ledge if she's standing on his shoulders?"
GM: "Could be. Try it."
Player 3: (After climbing onto Jez's shoulders.)"Okay! Can I reach the chain now?"
GM: "Yeah, it looks like you can reach it now."
Player 3: "All right. I climb up."
GM: (After appropriate climbing rolls.) "Reya manages to get up without much problem. What she finds is another stone corridor. There is a stairway off to the left and a line of square grates in front of her, leading to a sharp drop into a dead-end corridor flooded with water about to knee height. There seems to be another stairway leading down into it, but also closed another iron gate."
Player 3: "Hmm... how big are the grates?"
GM: "About four by four feet."
Player 3: "Can I get one open?"
GM: (After appropriate strength rolls.) "She manages to get one of the grates open. Inside is the water-filled tunnel the group saw from the first room."
Player 3: "I jump down."
Player 2: "Great, now you can't get back out.... How much does Zeiksu weigh?"
Player 1: "What does Reya see?"
GM: "A water-filled corridor. In the middle, on either wall, there are pressure plates with magic symbols on them."
Player 2: "Traps!"
Player 3: "I'm gonna push one."
GM: "When Reya pushes it, the symbol glows blue and the gate to the water-filled dead-end opens."
Player 3: "Okay, I push the other one. Does that open the other gate?"
GM: "It does, but as soon as Reya's hand is off the first one, the first gate falls shut."
Player 1: "Keep the gate open so we can all come in." (They do that.) "Hmm... now, I'll keep the next one open and then... maybe you all can lower a rope to lift me out."
Player 2: "Reya should've taken a rope up in the first place!"
GM: "There was nowhere to tie it, and she's not strong enough to lift the guys."
Player 3: "Besides, how would Gambit get up?"
Player 2: "Okay, we do all that stuff Zeik just said."
GM: "Once they get Zeiksu out of the corridor, the stairway on the left is the only other place to go. As they approach it, though... is that growling they hear...?"