Stocking the Megadungeon - 1st level philosophy

 This is the first post detailing how I stocked the first level of my dungeon. This post detail my philosophy in stocking the dungeon. The second post will deal with rolling up the rooms and their treasure. The third post will deal with the monsters and assigning them in the various rooms.

---

There are certain things I'm trying to do with my megadungeon, and one of those things is to keep it old school.  Graph paper and pencils to map it, with interesting shapes, 10 foot per square scale, and increasing deadliness as you go down deeper.  I'm keeping in mind the weirdness of dungeons, and I'm not going to shy away from magic pools, talking statues, and other assorted goodies.  I'm also keeping in mind that this isn't some basement, or castle prison... this is a Mythic Underworld!  Not everything will make sense, and in that vein I want to randomly roll what is in it, and try to stick to the rolls I get. 

That was the theory anyway.  In practice that turned out to be a lot more difficult right from the first level.  While I understand that things aren't necessarily balanced, and in fact can be rather highly unbalanced, I ran into a problem that basically forced me to make major adjustments to the results of my rolls. 

It's pretty obvious that a series of somewhat improbable rolls could make a level unplayable without the DM stepping in and tweaking things.  As it is things are still going to be pretty interesting with some really tough potential encounters, but there will be more about that in the upcoming posts. 

I'm guessing that true old school DMs do what I've been doing, tweaking things so that it fits, but I'm not sure.  What do you do if you somehow roll a treasure that is great enough to raise a party's level from 1 to 6 in a single delve?  Or roll a series of monsters that will slaughter the party?  Do you send your players into your dungeon and see what happens or do you tweak it?

Megadungeon Wandering Monsters

I used the Rules Cyclopedia charts as a base, and shuffled around some things.  I disliked the random human entry that took up so much space, and figure that NPC Party pretty much covers that.  I plan on making a separate chart for that result, which will include a possibility of a lone person.

When I stock the dungeon these will be the monsters I plan on using, though I'll use the number of creatures as indicated by the lair entry.  I think that I'm going to restrict each level to a single NPC party, so if I roll more than one of them for a given level, I'll use that roll to do something weird that isn't on the chart.

I was thinking also, that rather than roll for each room specifically, I will roll up a bunch of room encounters, and then fit them into the dungeon in slightly less random order.  So I can group a couple of orc rooms together to make a clan.  Anyway, that's the idea.      


Level 1   
1    Bandit    1d6
2    Beetle, Fire    1d6
3    Centipede, Giant    1d6
4    Centipede, Giant    1d6
5    Darkmantle    1
6    Ghoul    1
7    Goblin    1d6
8    Green Slime    1
9    Gremlin    1d8
10    Kobold    2d6
11    Kobold    2d6
12    Lemure (devil)    1
13    NPC Party    1
14    Rats, Giant    1d3
15    Skeleton    1d10
16    Spider, Crab    1d2
17    Stirge    1d8
18    Wererat    1d2
19    Zombie    1d3
20    Zombie    1d3


Level 2   
1    Beetle, Oil    1d6
2    Carrion Crawler    1
3    Centipede, Giant    1d6
4    Ghoul    1d4
5    Goblin    2d4
6    Gray Ooze    1
7    Green Slime    1
8    Hobgoblin & 1d10 Goblins    1
9    Hobgoblin    1d6
10    Kobold    2d6
11    Lemure    1d3
12    NPC Party    1
13    Orc    1d10
14    Orc    1d10
15    Rat, Giant    1d6
16    Shadow    1
17    Spider, Black Widow    1
18    Wererat    1d4
19    Zombie    1d6
20    Zombie    1d6

Darkmantle

Rathgar grunted as suddenly the world went dark.  Not the first time things had gone dark for him, but usually it involved much less a strangling sensation.  


Muffled voices started yelling "Get it off him!" and "What is that thing?"  He dropped his weapon to grab at whatever it was that was trying to choke the life out of him. It's rubbery skin covered rope strong muscles.  Suddenly he felt a sharp wack to the side of his head.  "Ow!!"  


"Don't hit it."  Feris said  


WACK! Rathgar grunted and stumbled.  "I said don't hit it!" Feris repeated.  "Your hurting Rathgar!"


"If I don't hit it how do we get it off?"  Nimbles muffled voice asked.  


"Like this."  If Rathgar could see, he would have seen a flash shoot out from Feris' wand, striking the creature.  It screatched and released Rathget, and flapped it's way up to the ceiling.  

Darkmantle
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 1+2 (S)
Move: 30' (10')
     Fly: 60' (20')
Attacks: Slam/Special
Damage: 1d4/special
No. Appearing: 1d4 (2d4)
Save As: F2
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: K
Intelligence: 1
Alignment: Neutral
XP Value: 19

Type: Monster (Common)
The darkmantle is an underground predator who lurks above, dropping onto their prey's head, and strangling them to death.  If they suffer much damage they will disengage and try to fly back into the darkness.
A darkmantle gains a +1 to it's suprise roll due to it's natural hiding ability.  If the darkmantle has surprise it gains a +2 to it's attack roll.  If a darkmantle beats it's to hit roll by 4 or more it has successfully wrapped itself it's prey's head, and can automatically cause 1d4+2 points of damage per round.  Any damage caused to a darkmantle that is wrapped around it's prey, half is delt to the prey.  A successful open doors check will remove a darkmantle, but doing so causes an additional  1 point of damage. 

Lemure

"Psst... Feris!"

Feris turned, looking past the firelight of the camp.  Large yellow oval eyes looked back at him.

"I want you to know I mean you and yours no harm.  To be completely honest I want to offer you a gift" the voice whispered.  


"Power."  The voice paused.  "Just a little power."  Something below the eyes began to glow with a golden light.  The light illuminated a squat misshapen body.


Feris frowned and sighed.  "Begone devil.  I want none of your gifts."  He then grabbed his wand from beside him, and when he looked back the creature was gone.

The Lemure
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 2** (S)
Move: 90' (30') 
      Fly: 60' (20)
Attacks: 2 claw
Damage: 1d3/1d3
No. Appearing: 1d2 (1d4)
Save As: C2
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: Nil
Intelligence: 12
Alignment: Chaotic
XP Value: 30

Type: Planar Monster, Enchanted (Uncommon)
The lemure are the lowest forms of devils, used as minor tempters, messengers, and spies.  They may naturally become invisible, and are immune to sleep, charm, and hold spells as well as normal weapons.  Silver and magic weapons will do normal damage. 

Magical Skulls - Future Skull

"Please don't go away!" the metallic voice whined.  "You need me!"

"I don't need no loud mouthed robot mucking things up for me.  You're useful, but you never do shut up."

"It isn't like I ask you for much, just kill some people for me.  It isn't even like they're real people.  Muties aren't real people..."  The head began. "Only humans like you are real people, humans and androids of course.  See, that's what being nowadays don't understand!  They aren't human, so they aren't people.  It's really a pretty basic concept, even for a dumb meatbag like you!"

"See, this is why I'm leaving you here."  The door swung shut, leaving SI-351840189910d in the dark.  

"If I had my body you wouldn't dare leave me here!" Sid yelled.  No one answered.  Not for a long time. 

SI-351840189910d (Sid for short) is the head of a robot series that was designed to wipe out mutants, well before they were as common as they are today.  Due to Sid's extreme age he has developed beyond his initial programing and is a true AI.  Sid comes equipped with a Class IIb sensor system (upgraded chemical sniffer), self-recharging battery, extensive knowledge of ancient tech which will provide a base +20% to the chance of success to all technology rolls, a strong prejudice against mutants, and a vocalizer with which to share his knowledge and his prejudice. If asked what happened to his body he will claim one of the following:

A one-eyed mutant blasted it out fron under him
Chopped up by a short kanuk mutie
Smashed by a furry blue smartypants
Ripped apart by a mutie that looked like an android
Picked up and dropped by a winged freak
Lost it to a card shark mutie
Sold it to a blue devil mutie for everlasting life... as a head. 
Stolen and sold as scrap by a bunch of sewer dwelling troglodyte muties.  

Now thats a treasure worthy of D&D

I'm interrupting my magical skulls series (which will be wrapping up tomorrow morning) to bring you this from the BBC:  

52,000 roman coins were found recently in Britain. 

"The coins were all contained in a single clay pot. Although it only measured 18in (45cm) across, the coins were packed inside and would have weighed an estimated 160kg (350lb)."

 Even if they were all copper pieces that's a pretty nice find considering he didn't have to slay a dragon!

Magical Skulls - Helm of the Pale King

The skeletal horse beneath him was bony.  This came as no surprise to anyone, not even Josh, but it was still an annoyance.  The zombie horse had been worse, first with the smell, and then with the leaking fluids that got on everything.  You have no idea how hard it is to get horse guts out of an expensive cloak.


"Form up!  Spears at the ready!"


It was nice how they all listened to him now though, and that made it worth putting up with the little annoyances. 


"We march!"  As one, the force moved forward. 

The village elders would be surprised when Josh marched in with his new troop.  Bandits had been plaguing the area, but with a force of 30 skeletons and a few odd zombies, he could defend the village from anything!  They would have no choice but to offer him Elana's hand in marriage, especially since he was the only one his new troop would listen to.  

"Josh's Bones!  No... Maybe The Dread Defenders?  No... Josh's Dread Defenders!"  His musings were suddenly cut off as a pair of logs rolled down the hill toward his troops flank.  He barely had time to yell "SCATTER!" before it started smashing into his troops, shattering them.  From behind a tree ahead the village priest stepped forward brandishing his holy symbol, and with him was a tall young man in blue and yellow robes holding a wand at him.  

"Begone foul creature of death!" Belairgron the priest called out "Trouble our village no more!"

Josh raised his hand to order them to stop their attack when he felt a sharp pain in his back.  Reaching behind him, he felt the arrow piercing his back.  "You shouldn't have stopped me" Josh whispered.  "I'd have helped..."  A second arrow, and then a third pierced him before he fell.  As his body dropped to the ground his host fell unmoving too.

The Helm of the Pale King is a skeletal mask attached to black fabric that is pulled over the owners head.  When so donned the wearer will appear to transform into a skeleton headed undead creature.  The wearer will also have the ability to raise and control up to 40 hit dice worth of lesser undead (under 3 hit dice).  The magic of this mask will protect the head of the wearer as a full plate helm.