"We are excited to invite you to the 2024 One Page Dungeon Contest. We are accepting submissions starting now and to the end of July. The contest challenge is to create an intriguing and fun dungeon to play... on only one page. We would love to see you get involved." – Invitation to the 2024 One Page Dungeon Contest and the Dungeon Contest homepage
Invitation to the 2024 One Page Dungeon Contest
I submitted an entry for the One Page Dungeon Contest. Since I would like the dungeons to be close to the prep I do for my own games so that I feel like I belong to a community of referees that spends a similar amount of time for their adventures I took some of my (German) prep notes, cleaned them up and added some text boxes using Inskape and decided against spending time on polishing it up.
At the time, my players had a hard time getting past the gate.
2023-08-22 Hammond verfolgt den Orkzug
2023-09-20 Das Endes des Balrogs
2023-09-26 Der Kampf auf den Galerien von Grosshammer
Result:
At the time I had a second 10-headed hydra, too…
The boss orcs had 3, 5 and 7 hit dice.
And later, when the players had killed all the orcs, a bunch of goblins led by one Eye Poker resettled the halls.
These are the stats I would use:
* **Grishg** HD 3 AC 6 1d6 F3 MV 12 ML 8 XP 300; with *gauntlets of max strength* granting +3; under the influence of the demon
* **Shagdog** HD 5 AC 6 1d6 F5 MV 12 ML 8 XP 500; lightning bolt 1×/day for 5d6, save vs. spells for half; very loyal to Maufimbul
* **Ashuak** HD 5 AC 3 1d6 F5 MV 6 ML 9 XP 500; willing to buy freedom and leave
* **Maufimbul** HD 7 AC 3 1d6 F7 MV 6 ML 9 XP 700; wielding *Fur Hunter* +1/+3 vs. mammals; traditionalist spear dancer
Clearly, the pyrohydra is the worst if you fight it without multiple lightning bolts or the like.
As for intelligent monsters, I figured that it would be possible to somehow sneak in and overhear orcs talk about the four bosses. If somebody wanted to, the power dynamic could be exploited. As it turned out, though, my players tried to force the front gate with sleep spells, alerted the guards, which brought on the fire demon and all the hell hounds. The enemies were destroyed but the party had to retreat. Next time, the party found the outlook, sent up a ranger with dark vision and a magic item that could charm humanoids. He killed the four orc guards, climbed down the netting into the cavern, found the way to the shooting gallery, started killing all the orcs and that was the signal the others needed to begin the race down the the long stairs. At the bottom, the orcs had cajoled a ten-headed pyrohydra into the Merchant Hall but it died in the first round after being hit by lightning bolts and other spells.
The treasure map to the Cistern of Sulphur does not contain any new monsters or traps; it's not a new lair or dungeon. It's part of the treasure gained here so all it takes is a one day trip up the mountains to that sulphur cavern. The only risk involved is random encounters.
#RPG #1PDC