THE LAST ROOST OF THE BEAKED GOD
On the ungovernable border land between the North Eastern Crystal Frontier and the Imperial canton of Blackacre, the jagged Maiden Tomb mountains meet the sea, straggling out into the shallow, dark waters as a series of seamounts and spectacular cliffs. This land is home only to neolithic goat-herders, backwards fishing villages, and near abandoned outposts of various powers: Carceral Templars, the Warlock King’s Court, Imperial Syndicates, piratical Smugglers, and perhaps even the Ghouls of the Mud Isles. Rugged and fog shadowed, there are few reasons to come to this liminal land, beyond escape from elsewhere. Yet even here the hand of humanity has left a mark - a great ruin that constantly draws explorers, plunderers and tomb robbers - the ancient monastery of Mont Sainte Bec.
Built onto and within one of the pillars of rock that jut from the broad bay called the Black Mirror, Sainte Bec has stood from the earliest accounts of the region, a monastery that predates recorded history, devoted to the worship of the antediluvian avian deity … the enigmatic “Beaked God” whose worshippers once held dominion over a great dominion. Now in ruins, only two generations ago the monastery was still a place of opulent wealth, tithed by pilgrims for the cleansing songs of its choir and plied with generous gifts. A “Protected Hersey” under the laws of the Empire, the monastery had persisted, outwardly unchanging, collecting tariffs on sea trade and tithes, gaining a reputation for the power of its militant orders (falcon and ebon knights) and the availability of divine succor from its ancient god for those who could pay a high price.
The Fall of the Beaked Mountain
Though it appeared static to outsiders the Bird God's monastery has been in decline for centuries, its black fleet of ancient obsidian hemiolia suddenly vanished, replaced by a few golden sailed, but mundane dromon. The Mont lost its tariff monopoly in the Narrow Sea. Worse, with it’s knights and fleet reduced it could no longer protect the silver fleet of Kosse Sildar, or the safeguard pilgrims who sought its choir’s blessings. In another few decades, even its dromons were gone, their duties taken up by the navy of Kosse Sildar. Ambitious youth no longer sought a place in the priesthoods or military orders of the Beaked God. The monks grew older and fewer, while pilgrims grew fewer, their gifts smaller.
Then suddenly, but predictably, the rafts of the Mud Isles swarmed the ancient monastery and Mount St. Bec was reduced to ruin … first sacked by the White God’s cannibals from across the Narrow Sea, and then burnt by the Templar force that came to relieve it. The once feared Ebon Knights of the Raven and the mysterious Paladins Falcon seemingly gone or too few to man Sainte Bec's considerable fortifications. Since, the Monastery has been a ruin for forty years or more, though some monks are said to remain. It rots, guano-stained and salt-encrusted. A wind scoured wreck of golden shrines, hostels, halls, aviaries, libraries, bastions, catacombs, choirs, and greenhouses, carved into a stone sea-spire, with rumors of hidden vaults beneath. While the templars and ghouls carried away fortunes from the sack, even their rapacious plunder couldn’t account for Sainte Bec's thousand years of hoarded treasures. Golden tithes beyond counting, magics, lost treasures of the Imperial ascendence, artifacts from before recorded history, and entire rooms made of precious jewel set metals must remain within the ancient pile -- wealth beyond a plunderer’s dreams waiting to be taken, guarded only by monkish spirits and the hollow wrath of a dead god.
As the Crystal Frontier is tamed. As its gem robber bands grow more numerous and competitive. As the Imperial See’s hold on Blackacre loosens while the Lui grow bold in the forest deeps and the Templars squabble among themselves … hungry eyes turn to Mont Sainte Bec. Those who can unravel its mysteries, plunder its treasuries, and steal its relics on behalf of the competing powers will gain great honor and station. Even the less ambitious drawn by the magnetism of gold promising ruin could become rich. Mont Sainte Bec becomes yet another hallucination in Crystal Frontier's fervid dream of avarice.
SCENIC ARROAXA
RUNNING MONT SAINT BEC.
I have begun to playtest Monte Sainte Bec - a “Primordial Stack” style megadungeon, at least in the sense that it’s a campaign’s worth of dungeon. It’s currently planned at 12 levels of anywhere between 15 and 45 keys per level and aimed at a party raising from level 1 to about level 6. I’ve only keyed the first 100 rooms or so over 4 levels, but have outlines for the rest and have run 15 hours of adventures in the dungeon (5 sessions). I expect to continue running them until I finish the dungeon or real life intervenes.
I’ve been running an online open table game with parties of 4 - 9 PCs through the dungeon as a continuous play test - that is each session represents an expedition following up the previous one, and each session begins and ends outside the dungeon. So far this has meant that the cautious players have stayed on the first level, and uncovered almost all of its secrets over the five sessions - I expect the next one will pretty much explore the entire level, unless they head upward. 24 of 28 keyed locations have been investigated, and most have been plundered.
However, the players haven’t used the verticality of the dungeon to bypass challenges or find new ways. Instead sticking to the first level and largely avoiding areas they perceive as dangerous (inhabited by cannibal raiders and their ghoul priests) while focusing on unraveling the mysteries of the fallen Raven Order as seen in the decorating choices of the ancient monks.
Running play tests is an essential part of preparing any adventure for publication, and of course I like to actually play games, not just write them. I could of course just keep writing and filling in details, with the adventure growing larger and larger, but play testing while I write is very useful because it shows areas that need to be adjusted. So far, while running St. Bec I have discovered several important changes I need to make to the dungeon:
First, the bottom level needs more treasure. The players are motivated by wealth and the bareness of the first several rooms near the entrance has been discouraging.
Second, I want to have better interactions with the world around the dungeon, more rumors and hints at the various complex schemes and mysteries within.
Third, I want to encourage more effort to move deeper into the dungeon, with more obvious ways to access its higher levels.
Fourth, I need to have tools to escalate tension with dungeon factions as the party makes repeated expeditions into the dungeon.
1) Treasure
Part of the issue with “low” treasure amounts has been party size - the treasure was initially placed with a party of 4 or 5 PCs estimated as the average size. The reality in the last five sessions is I’ve gotten 6-8 PCs most sessions. The monster challenges have held up well enough (largely due to OD&D’s risky combat mechanics) and I have been checking the keys on the lower levels and making sure that they include more sufficient treasure … for older style games, sufficient means a LOT of treasure.
Generally I take two factors into account when placing treasure first the “level” of the dungeon and so the expected level of the adventurers exploring it and the dangers faced. Second, the expected number of adventurers. For the 1st and 2nd levels I would like to see a party of 6-8 adventurers gain a level of xp. I need to add about 30% for missed treasure because I don’t expect adventurers to “clear” levels of a megadungeon. At roughly 2000 XP/GP to reach level 2 I want to have 11 x 2000 GP worth of treasure, or at least 22,000 or so on the 1st and maybe parts of the 2nd level of the dungeon.
Setting this goal is helpful because it’s tempting, even after years of dungeon design, to think that 1000GP of treasure is a lot. It’s not in older D&D, it’s not bad, but it’s a pittance when it’s split 6 or 8 ways. If a party of 8 adventurers recovers 1000 GP a session it will take them at least 16 sessions to gain a level - and that’s far too long. Consider that my party is exploring 4-8 rooms per three hour session. In 16 sessions that’s almost 100 rooms and 48 hours of gaming. I don’t want to key or run 100 rooms of level 1 dungeon. I’d rather that 5-6 sessions, or 25-30 rooms be enough to raise the party’s level, especially at first. Conveniently, this is also the number of keys I’ve chosen per dungeon level… so 16,000 - 22,000 GP of treasure on the 1st level of the dungeon.
Of course since the current game has been open table and lost two PCs to dungeon denizens, this might not even be enough! The cast of PCs changes frequently, and I believe that over 5 sessions the party has recovered only around 5K GP total! While some of this might be due to caution, it’s really a design issue. I need to up the opportunities.
That gets me to the other major concern here.
Treasure, like monster and trap placement, needs to make sense. I don’t design or run randomized “mythic underworld” style dungeons, and think it’s hard to make such things hold together for longer campaign without some continuity and mysteries the players can unravel. With treasure “sense” comes in two ways, the description of the treasure and its placement. When working their best, both can tell stories that are interesting and useful to players - hinting at larger mysteries within the adventure or in the setting beyond. At the most basic level though the treasure discovered needs to make sense. For Mont Sainte Bec this means that the majority of treasure will be in: bird themed decorative art, religious items, arms and armor from its militant orders, and donations from pilgrims. Since the setting is close to the Crystal Frontier, the silver of Kosse Sildar’s mines will be the most common valuable metal. With locations that leaves me with some issues here as the lower levels especially have been looted before, decorative art is largely stripped out, perishable wood carving, paintings and textiles will be ruined by the wet salt air, and most of the shrines will have been plundered. Untouched Hidden spaces, lost valuables, and the broken bits and pieces of art made from valuable materials or too heavy to easily remove are about the only sensible treasure I can place.
2) Mysteries, Rumors and Overworld Factions
Megadungeons, when they exist in an overworld at all, pull on it with the gravity of a black hole. Since the adventurers aren’t going to wander about meeting new people (if one wants to keep the megadungeon campaign going), faction representatives need to visit them. For Monte Saint Bec several of the local overworld powers are already inside the dungeon, but I want a tool to draw more intrigue onto the party and into the exploration. To this end I’m working on a system that allows the players to recover items from the ruin and build up a base of some sort. Most obviously the Cockerel monks of the sea-side tower abbey inhabited by refugees from the ruined monastery and their orphan novices.
I am borrowing a relic recovery system from I Cast Light’s “Super Cleric Brothers” campaign - where finding things and letting the religious order use them will attract visitors such as blacksmiths, potential henchmen and pilgrims to the growing shrine. These relics will also offer various magical benefits in downtime, such as cure spells. As a shrine grows it will also attract interest and animosity from local powers and by that time the party should be invested enough in it as a home base to be its major defenders. This allows me to introduce a variety of new hooks and even a few special siege scenarios if the party’s actions manage to anger overworld powers enough. It can also link to other smaller dungeons such as the Lighthouse Shrine of The Drowned Saint I have keyed for another project or something risen from the deeps … the Black House of the Dead Shore - if the players solve certain mysteries and take ascertain steps.
Of course making this system workable for a published scenario is the sort of thing that drives me to stop writing them half-way.
3) Accessibility and Shortcuts
One of the plans behind writing and running Mont Sainte Bec was to see how viable the OD&D design advice is. Can a “Primordial Stack” work - especially as a coherent dungeon that’s good the level of Jaqauysian detail and interactivity that I like? A big part of my thesis is that paths need to work in three dimensions, and that to facilitate expedition (no sleeping in the dungeon) style play in three hour sessions there needs to be several ways to access various parts of the dungeon. In my original design I underestimated both the caution and exploration speed of my players - who so far have only ventured up to level 2 for a brief moment, despite finding two of the several ways to access level 2 from level one. Likewise the outside “climb the side of the dungeon tower” method has not been especially enticing. I will need to review my maps and perhaps include a second doc with stairs leading up to level 2 or 3. It’s also something I need to keep in mind for the higher levels - outdoor access that can be easily negotiated to start sessions without too much travel through previously explored levels.
This is not as easy as it might be for the designers of Soulslike video games, which are famous for their dungeon shortcuts, because as a table top referee I can’t put in unclimbable cliffs or vistas one can’t descend from. There are now “invisible walls” available in dungeon design - just the access limitations of the real world like narrow or barred windows and locked doors or portcullises. I have reserved magically locked gates for special areas as these tend to be more an attractive nuisance than anything else. The point is that one can’t really “path” a party through a tabletop dungeon, and it’s not worth trying. Instead I just need to offer more inducements and opportunities to expand the scope of my players ambitions and exploration.
Perhaps some golden ornament on the outside of the spire is also in order.
4) Faction Escalation
There is only one intelligent faction on the first level of Mont Sainte Bec - a band of cannibal sea raiders and their ghoul priests. Players seem to strongly dislike cannibals, but also to fear and avoid them … at least until the last session, where random encounter rolls more or less forced a running confrontation that lasted the majority of the time and ended with a massacre of the raiders. These interactions have reminded me that intelligent factions need to respond to player action and that the expedition rule gives them time to do so. In the future (especially for more organized groups) factions will need both an order of battle and a set of responses to player action - when and how they will go on “war footing” and when they will ask for peace or flee.
Tools to do this in a published adventure (and in my home game really), besides simple instructions and faction sheets, might include changes to random encounter tables, as “vermin encounters” fall off to be replaced by patrols and small patrols by factions increase in size and animosity.
It’s nice to be designing as I run a campaign again, and there’s nothing like a megadungeon for doing that. I don’t know if Mont Sainte Bec can stay a manageable size during play, but so far, despite the ways playtesting is revealing the need for some changes to maps, keys and overall structure, the project still feels viable for a large book. I expect to have more Mont Saint Bec content and design thoughts as the campaign progresses.
Though it appeared static to outsiders the Bird God's monastery has been in decline for centuries, its black fleet of ancient obsidian hemiolia suddenly vanished, replaced by a few golden sailed, but mundane dromon. The Mont lost its tariff monopoly in the Narrow Sea. Worse, with it’s knights and fleet reduced it could no longer protect the silver fleet of Kosse Sildar, or the safeguard pilgrims who sought its choir’s blessings. In another few decades, even its dromons were gone, their duties taken up by the navy of Kosse Sildar. Ambitious youth no longer sought a place in the priesthoods or military orders of the Beaked God. The monks grew older and fewer, while pilgrims grew fewer, their gifts smaller.
Then suddenly, but predictably, the rafts of the Mud Isles swarmed the ancient monastery and Mount St. Bec was reduced to ruin … first sacked by the White God’s cannibals from across the Narrow Sea, and then burnt by the Templar force that came to relieve it. The once feared Ebon Knights of the Raven and the mysterious Paladins Falcon seemingly gone or too few to man Sainte Bec's considerable fortifications. Since, the Monastery has been a ruin for forty years or more, though some monks are said to remain. It rots, guano-stained and salt-encrusted. A wind scoured wreck of golden shrines, hostels, halls, aviaries, libraries, bastions, catacombs, choirs, and greenhouses, carved into a stone sea-spire, with rumors of hidden vaults beneath. While the templars and ghouls carried away fortunes from the sack, even their rapacious plunder couldn’t account for Sainte Bec's thousand years of hoarded treasures. Golden tithes beyond counting, magics, lost treasures of the Imperial ascendence, artifacts from before recorded history, and entire rooms made of precious jewel set metals must remain within the ancient pile -- wealth beyond a plunderer’s dreams waiting to be taken, guarded only by monkish spirits and the hollow wrath of a dead god.
As the Crystal Frontier is tamed. As its gem robber bands grow more numerous and competitive. As the Imperial See’s hold on Blackacre loosens while the Lui grow bold in the forest deeps and the Templars squabble among themselves … hungry eyes turn to Mont Sainte Bec. Those who can unravel its mysteries, plunder its treasuries, and steal its relics on behalf of the competing powers will gain great honor and station. Even the less ambitious drawn by the magnetism of gold promising ruin could become rich. Mont Sainte Bec becomes yet another hallucination in Crystal Frontier's fervid dream of avarice.
Your band of treasure hungry adventurers finds themselves the first out of Scarlet Town, and after a tense crossing of the Frontier rests at the fishing village of Arroaxa, the closest anchorage to the Bird God's Last Mountain. The journey has offered a few hints and others can be had along Arroaxa's fish-stinking stone street, along with poor lodging.
ILL INFORMED RUMORS ABOUT MONT SAINTE BEC
“Their cursed God lives within the Mountain! Primordial… beyond good and evil! Birthing bird things that flock amongst the guano poisoned rock … Savage beasts out of time … They steal the catch and menace us all! The cursed God’s heralds!
- A Drunken fisherman of Arroaxa
Brothren and sistren! In this fallen world the Beaked God can have power again if you let it! DO You desire such a world? NO! NO! NO! ABSTAIN, ABJURE and ABHOR the abomination! What can a thing so ancient seek? Not the goals of men! MONSTROUS!”
- A rag clad preacher fanatic of The Gentle Emperor’s cult.
Great-Uncle was a caballero in the Princesses’ court before the revolution. He took grandmother to the Mont, and also a fine silver service, a hundred plates and bowls, as a gift.Grandmother heard monks sing in the great quire atop the monestary - a dome of glass and gilded iron filled with a lush jungle and strange birds. She would tell us of the birds: beautiful with golden feathers and long tails, peacocks and firebirds. Others dangerous like the coquatrix: round, feathered in purple or blue, and scaly legged with a touch that brings slow death.
- Leathery Bull Kingdom jinette of the Carriage Burners regiment (formerly a noble scion)
“The Narrow Seas were never safe. Piracy has always been common - as is the fate of any land bordered by so many dead or dying states! However … in the Undern Age such excesses of profit and loss were controlled. The fleet of Ravens, out of Mount Saint Bec, controlled the sea, a fleet of twelve obsidian ships - light hemolina, raiders only, but their keels were laid at highest noon of the Successor Empire and they were well armed and acquitted with fel sorcery: grave serpentines, mighty culverins, and screaming ribalds! Those dark vessels kept the peace … at the price of ruinous tariff.
- An Imperial historian in service of the Syndicates.
The Trees still speak of the birds’ descent… So long ago… but the Trees know. They came from the South and from the East, dragging their god in a great cage, with chains of thousands to build and carve a home in the sea… Time is a circle … THE TREES… [convulsive fit] … As with all flesh they took they did not look deep and built the fortress of the bird’s is built on old foundations. Built on the glass dwellings of the old people, still sunken beneath the waves…. HA! The Trees cannot protect fools!
- Moss scarred and heretical Stump Servant.
Templar forces out of at least two spires are skulking around Monte Sainte Bec… You can only speculate what they seek ehh? Crazed bastards … relics? A new tower site? … perhaps they even parry the White God’s next thrust? Faa! In the end the Templars will only serve the Templars, woe to the rest of us.
- A Gem Robber in the know.
 |
| The Monte Sainte Bec Region |
ILL INFORMED RUMORS ABOUT MONT SAINTE BEC
“Their cursed God lives within the Mountain! Primordial… beyond good and evil! Birthing bird things that flock amongst the guano poisoned rock … Savage beasts out of time … They steal the catch and menace us all! The cursed God’s heralds!
- A Drunken fisherman of Arroaxa
Brothren and sistren! In this fallen world the Beaked God can have power again if you let it! DO You desire such a world? NO! NO! NO! ABSTAIN, ABJURE and ABHOR the abomination! What can a thing so ancient seek? Not the goals of men! MONSTROUS!”
- A rag clad preacher fanatic of The Gentle Emperor’s cult.
Great-Uncle was a caballero in the Princesses’ court before the revolution. He took grandmother to the Mont, and also a fine silver service, a hundred plates and bowls, as a gift.Grandmother heard monks sing in the great quire atop the monestary - a dome of glass and gilded iron filled with a lush jungle and strange birds. She would tell us of the birds: beautiful with golden feathers and long tails, peacocks and firebirds. Others dangerous like the coquatrix: round, feathered in purple or blue, and scaly legged with a touch that brings slow death.
- Leathery Bull Kingdom jinette of the Carriage Burners regiment (formerly a noble scion)
“The Narrow Seas were never safe. Piracy has always been common - as is the fate of any land bordered by so many dead or dying states! However … in the Undern Age such excesses of profit and loss were controlled. The fleet of Ravens, out of Mount Saint Bec, controlled the sea, a fleet of twelve obsidian ships - light hemolina, raiders only, but their keels were laid at highest noon of the Successor Empire and they were well armed and acquitted with fel sorcery: grave serpentines, mighty culverins, and screaming ribalds! Those dark vessels kept the peace … at the price of ruinous tariff.
- An Imperial historian in service of the Syndicates.
The Trees still speak of the birds’ descent… So long ago… but the Trees know. They came from the South and from the East, dragging their god in a great cage, with chains of thousands to build and carve a home in the sea… Time is a circle … THE TREES… [convulsive fit] … As with all flesh they took they did not look deep and built the fortress of the bird’s is built on old foundations. Built on the glass dwellings of the old people, still sunken beneath the waves…. HA! The Trees cannot protect fools!
- Moss scarred and heretical Stump Servant.
Templar forces out of at least two spires are skulking around Monte Sainte Bec… You can only speculate what they seek ehh? Crazed bastards … relics? A new tower site? … perhaps they even parry the White God’s next thrust? Faa! In the end the Templars will only serve the Templars, woe to the rest of us.
- A Gem Robber in the know.
As the old law says: "viperam sub ala nutricare". Threats to the Warlock King and the People of the Bull Kingdom are everywhere, and we cannot investigate every potential danger … but Mt. Sainte Bec is a place of note. It has wealth of course, and that belongs to any who can take it … but the King sees more there, ancient power, unnatural beasts and things of old. Such things are always dangers and it is a king’s right to see them ended or tamed. The Warlock King is generous to those who recognize such and more to those who aid in doing. Perhaps yourselves? No?
- Bull Kingdom Recruiter
- Bull Kingdom Recruiter
 |
| A Raven Knight of the Ebon Order |
SCENIC ARROAXA
A subsistence fishing village that persists primarily on the urchins, nautiloid, and anchovy. Low buildings of stone, silt mud daub and ancient brick make a community of eleven houses, fourteen coracles, and 54 people (21 able adults). Uneducated, untraveled, and unworldly fishers, the people of Arroaxa pay fealty and taxes to no lord, relying on their isolation, poverty, and ability to flee by boat for protection. The town’s leading citizens are Jacques the Brewer and the brothers Xipo who work the olive grove.
Service and Personalities
The Brewer
“Sirrahs and Madeems, I am Jacques, I speak for this humble town and I am happy to be a friend to you. <whisper> Sadly, I am the only one here who has seen the world … Arroaxa has nothing to offer.”
Arroaxa’s brewer, Jacques, a skinny, bald man in a shark leather apron, makes sweet, thick millet beer flavored oyster shell with seaweed and a smaller amount of mead from wild honey. He sells it by the glass and by the bucket from his house, the largest in the village, and serves patrons on a set of rickety tables made from barnacle-encrusted ship’s planking in front of it - Arroaxa’s substitute for a square. Behind Jaques’ home an ancient stone cistern covered in sailcloth and fed by sluices provides Arroaxa water.
Jacques can help party members “carouse” in Arroaxa for 100 GP.
Once every two sessions a character can sponsor a party with flowing beer, copious mead and one or more large fish (bonito, blue tunny, or giant clam) roasted. The entire town will celebrate and the character throwing the event saves vs. poison. On a successful save they gain 100 additional XP and a measure of popularity in town. On a failure they have a hangover and some incident disrupts the party and the PC gains a reputation for:
(roll 1d6) 1- violence 2 - lechery 3 - drunkenness 4 - haughty manners 5 - cruelty 6 - idiocy.
Jacques will not throw additional parties for a character with a bad reputation.
A House for Rent
“I’m too tired for charity, and the sea takes every promise. You have no roof, and I have no money… If you have money I can lend you a roof. That is business.”
The Widow Siza is weathered, cable-armed (STR 14), and hard-eyed (WIS 13). In her 30’s she lives with her plump bumpkin of a teenage son, Cork, and they are in need of money, as Siza will not marry again and the two of them cannot properly bring in and process a full catch. She will rent her house -- two rooms of low, silt crusted stone with a brick hearth -- and provide meals of shellfish stew, oil, and millet flatbread for 5GP a party member per session. Siza and Cork will sleep under the family coracle while that party uses the house. Cork and the boat can also be hired for 10 GP a day (The family loses a day of fishing - and that must be recouped) to row the party to Mont Sainte Bec (this takes three hours) and wait to row them back at dusk (Cork will not approach the Spire until he must).
Both the Widow and Cork can eventually be talked into serving as retainers/torch bearers (F0, HP 3) if the party is polite and brings back significant wealth from their delves. They will want a ¼ share of loot or 50GP (whichever is more) a session for doing so and will not take unreasonable risks.
The Net Sheds
"We don’t have much need of strangers, but I doubt any will take offense if you use the sheds to keep out of the weather.”
Gido Midden is a squinting, salt-burned fisherman maimed by a “Huge Purple Devil of a Crab”. Midden is missing his right hand and leg below the knee, and now works by leading a crew of children to guard Arroaxa’s fish drying racks from birds and mends its nets. Gido is master of a dozen rickety sheds wedged into the spray blown rocks of the shore and the drying racks above them. He's a kind man who is happy to chat with anyone, desperate for grown-up company.
The sheds and nets all stink of dried fish and seaweed, but offer minimal shelter and a safe place to camp for a party that has offended the Widow Siza. Gido will sell rations of dried fish for 1GP a person per day, and even cook them into a gluey stew if asked. If he’s treated well he’ll even give bowls of this meager fare to the hungry. Sleeping in the sheds is uncomfortable and any PC that does so will be tired and sore (-1 HP per HD at the start of the session).
Olive Grove
“The grove is a wonder and my brothers and I are her husbands. We care for her, we soothe her when the storms come, protecting her delicate roots from the salt, carrying water to quench her in the heat and in turn she gives us her bounty - it is beautiful.”
The brothers Xipo (Arratz, Barkana, and Coldo) are three identical looking men - short, round, elaborately mustachioed, and friendly. They work Arroaxa’s unique and uncanny olive grove and treat it with a near perverse affection. The grove consists of six jagged lines of enormous, gnarled trees, stunted by centuries of pruning, but still fecund and productive - providing Arroxa is mountains of golden olives and filling countless ceramic jars with light, highly flammable oil.
The brothers will sell oil in leaking clay flasks (5GP) to anyone who will buy it. They will not let outsiders investigate their grove, tucked in a gulley behind the town.
The Light
"It is a sacred duty! Not to the big gods maybe, but to the little! Those that most help us, the living. This is a temple, and I am a priest who does their work so have a care!”
A leaning pile of ancient stones, three men high and surrounded by a rickety wooden stair. At the base, in a weed caulked shack of stone and driftwood, dwells the stocky, bearded keeper, “Olde Kunezen”. In fog and rain he climbs to the top of the stack to warn vessels with burning piles of oil soaked driftwood and the clangor of his ancient bronze bell.
The stones of the stack are largely the rubble of some an black marble construction: wall blocks, fluted column sections, and fragments of statue. A scholar or other educated adventurer can identify them as dating to the early Successor Empire, an age renowned for its grandeur and wealth.
Oude Kunezen wears a salt stained robe and proudly displays a tarnished silver medal (150 GP) with the symbols of a flame, a crow, and galley.
Service and Personalities
The Brewer
“Sirrahs and Madeems, I am Jacques, I speak for this humble town and I am happy to be a friend to you. <whisper> Sadly, I am the only one here who has seen the world … Arroaxa has nothing to offer.”
Arroaxa’s brewer, Jacques, a skinny, bald man in a shark leather apron, makes sweet, thick millet beer flavored oyster shell with seaweed and a smaller amount of mead from wild honey. He sells it by the glass and by the bucket from his house, the largest in the village, and serves patrons on a set of rickety tables made from barnacle-encrusted ship’s planking in front of it - Arroaxa’s substitute for a square. Behind Jaques’ home an ancient stone cistern covered in sailcloth and fed by sluices provides Arroaxa water.
Jacques can help party members “carouse” in Arroaxa for 100 GP.
Once every two sessions a character can sponsor a party with flowing beer, copious mead and one or more large fish (bonito, blue tunny, or giant clam) roasted. The entire town will celebrate and the character throwing the event saves vs. poison. On a successful save they gain 100 additional XP and a measure of popularity in town. On a failure they have a hangover and some incident disrupts the party and the PC gains a reputation for:
(roll 1d6) 1- violence 2 - lechery 3 - drunkenness 4 - haughty manners 5 - cruelty 6 - idiocy.
Jacques will not throw additional parties for a character with a bad reputation.
A House for Rent
“I’m too tired for charity, and the sea takes every promise. You have no roof, and I have no money… If you have money I can lend you a roof. That is business.”
The Widow Siza is weathered, cable-armed (STR 14), and hard-eyed (WIS 13). In her 30’s she lives with her plump bumpkin of a teenage son, Cork, and they are in need of money, as Siza will not marry again and the two of them cannot properly bring in and process a full catch. She will rent her house -- two rooms of low, silt crusted stone with a brick hearth -- and provide meals of shellfish stew, oil, and millet flatbread for 5GP a party member per session. Siza and Cork will sleep under the family coracle while that party uses the house. Cork and the boat can also be hired for 10 GP a day (The family loses a day of fishing - and that must be recouped) to row the party to Mont Sainte Bec (this takes three hours) and wait to row them back at dusk (Cork will not approach the Spire until he must).
Both the Widow and Cork can eventually be talked into serving as retainers/torch bearers (F0, HP 3) if the party is polite and brings back significant wealth from their delves. They will want a ¼ share of loot or 50GP (whichever is more) a session for doing so and will not take unreasonable risks.
The Net Sheds
"We don’t have much need of strangers, but I doubt any will take offense if you use the sheds to keep out of the weather.”
Gido Midden is a squinting, salt-burned fisherman maimed by a “Huge Purple Devil of a Crab”. Midden is missing his right hand and leg below the knee, and now works by leading a crew of children to guard Arroaxa’s fish drying racks from birds and mends its nets. Gido is master of a dozen rickety sheds wedged into the spray blown rocks of the shore and the drying racks above them. He's a kind man who is happy to chat with anyone, desperate for grown-up company.
The sheds and nets all stink of dried fish and seaweed, but offer minimal shelter and a safe place to camp for a party that has offended the Widow Siza. Gido will sell rations of dried fish for 1GP a person per day, and even cook them into a gluey stew if asked. If he’s treated well he’ll even give bowls of this meager fare to the hungry. Sleeping in the sheds is uncomfortable and any PC that does so will be tired and sore (-1 HP per HD at the start of the session).
Olive Grove
“The grove is a wonder and my brothers and I are her husbands. We care for her, we soothe her when the storms come, protecting her delicate roots from the salt, carrying water to quench her in the heat and in turn she gives us her bounty - it is beautiful.”
The brothers Xipo (Arratz, Barkana, and Coldo) are three identical looking men - short, round, elaborately mustachioed, and friendly. They work Arroaxa’s unique and uncanny olive grove and treat it with a near perverse affection. The grove consists of six jagged lines of enormous, gnarled trees, stunted by centuries of pruning, but still fecund and productive - providing Arroxa is mountains of golden olives and filling countless ceramic jars with light, highly flammable oil.
The brothers will sell oil in leaking clay flasks (5GP) to anyone who will buy it. They will not let outsiders investigate their grove, tucked in a gulley behind the town.
The Light
"It is a sacred duty! Not to the big gods maybe, but to the little! Those that most help us, the living. This is a temple, and I am a priest who does their work so have a care!”
A leaning pile of ancient stones, three men high and surrounded by a rickety wooden stair. At the base, in a weed caulked shack of stone and driftwood, dwells the stocky, bearded keeper, “Olde Kunezen”. In fog and rain he climbs to the top of the stack to warn vessels with burning piles of oil soaked driftwood and the clangor of his ancient bronze bell.
The stones of the stack are largely the rubble of some an black marble construction: wall blocks, fluted column sections, and fragments of statue. A scholar or other educated adventurer can identify them as dating to the early Successor Empire, an age renowned for its grandeur and wealth.
Oude Kunezen wears a salt stained robe and proudly displays a tarnished silver medal (150 GP) with the symbols of a flame, a crow, and galley.
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| A Paladin Falcon |
I have begun to playtest Monte Sainte Bec - a “Primordial Stack” style megadungeon, at least in the sense that it’s a campaign’s worth of dungeon. It’s currently planned at 12 levels of anywhere between 15 and 45 keys per level and aimed at a party raising from level 1 to about level 6. I’ve only keyed the first 100 rooms or so over 4 levels, but have outlines for the rest and have run 15 hours of adventures in the dungeon (5 sessions). I expect to continue running them until I finish the dungeon or real life intervenes.
I’ve been running an online open table game with parties of 4 - 9 PCs through the dungeon as a continuous play test - that is each session represents an expedition following up the previous one, and each session begins and ends outside the dungeon. So far this has meant that the cautious players have stayed on the first level, and uncovered almost all of its secrets over the five sessions - I expect the next one will pretty much explore the entire level, unless they head upward. 24 of 28 keyed locations have been investigated, and most have been plundered.
However, the players haven’t used the verticality of the dungeon to bypass challenges or find new ways. Instead sticking to the first level and largely avoiding areas they perceive as dangerous (inhabited by cannibal raiders and their ghoul priests) while focusing on unraveling the mysteries of the fallen Raven Order as seen in the decorating choices of the ancient monks.
Running play tests is an essential part of preparing any adventure for publication, and of course I like to actually play games, not just write them. I could of course just keep writing and filling in details, with the adventure growing larger and larger, but play testing while I write is very useful because it shows areas that need to be adjusted. So far, while running St. Bec I have discovered several important changes I need to make to the dungeon:
First, the bottom level needs more treasure. The players are motivated by wealth and the bareness of the first several rooms near the entrance has been discouraging.
Second, I want to have better interactions with the world around the dungeon, more rumors and hints at the various complex schemes and mysteries within.
Third, I want to encourage more effort to move deeper into the dungeon, with more obvious ways to access its higher levels.
Fourth, I need to have tools to escalate tension with dungeon factions as the party makes repeated expeditions into the dungeon.
1) Treasure
Part of the issue with “low” treasure amounts has been party size - the treasure was initially placed with a party of 4 or 5 PCs estimated as the average size. The reality in the last five sessions is I’ve gotten 6-8 PCs most sessions. The monster challenges have held up well enough (largely due to OD&D’s risky combat mechanics) and I have been checking the keys on the lower levels and making sure that they include more sufficient treasure … for older style games, sufficient means a LOT of treasure.
Generally I take two factors into account when placing treasure first the “level” of the dungeon and so the expected level of the adventurers exploring it and the dangers faced. Second, the expected number of adventurers. For the 1st and 2nd levels I would like to see a party of 6-8 adventurers gain a level of xp. I need to add about 30% for missed treasure because I don’t expect adventurers to “clear” levels of a megadungeon. At roughly 2000 XP/GP to reach level 2 I want to have 11 x 2000 GP worth of treasure, or at least 22,000 or so on the 1st and maybe parts of the 2nd level of the dungeon.
Setting this goal is helpful because it’s tempting, even after years of dungeon design, to think that 1000GP of treasure is a lot. It’s not in older D&D, it’s not bad, but it’s a pittance when it’s split 6 or 8 ways. If a party of 8 adventurers recovers 1000 GP a session it will take them at least 16 sessions to gain a level - and that’s far too long. Consider that my party is exploring 4-8 rooms per three hour session. In 16 sessions that’s almost 100 rooms and 48 hours of gaming. I don’t want to key or run 100 rooms of level 1 dungeon. I’d rather that 5-6 sessions, or 25-30 rooms be enough to raise the party’s level, especially at first. Conveniently, this is also the number of keys I’ve chosen per dungeon level… so 16,000 - 22,000 GP of treasure on the 1st level of the dungeon.
Of course since the current game has been open table and lost two PCs to dungeon denizens, this might not even be enough! The cast of PCs changes frequently, and I believe that over 5 sessions the party has recovered only around 5K GP total! While some of this might be due to caution, it’s really a design issue. I need to up the opportunities.
That gets me to the other major concern here.
Treasure, like monster and trap placement, needs to make sense. I don’t design or run randomized “mythic underworld” style dungeons, and think it’s hard to make such things hold together for longer campaign without some continuity and mysteries the players can unravel. With treasure “sense” comes in two ways, the description of the treasure and its placement. When working their best, both can tell stories that are interesting and useful to players - hinting at larger mysteries within the adventure or in the setting beyond. At the most basic level though the treasure discovered needs to make sense. For Mont Sainte Bec this means that the majority of treasure will be in: bird themed decorative art, religious items, arms and armor from its militant orders, and donations from pilgrims. Since the setting is close to the Crystal Frontier, the silver of Kosse Sildar’s mines will be the most common valuable metal. With locations that leaves me with some issues here as the lower levels especially have been looted before, decorative art is largely stripped out, perishable wood carving, paintings and textiles will be ruined by the wet salt air, and most of the shrines will have been plundered. Untouched Hidden spaces, lost valuables, and the broken bits and pieces of art made from valuable materials or too heavy to easily remove are about the only sensible treasure I can place.
2) Mysteries, Rumors and Overworld Factions
Megadungeons, when they exist in an overworld at all, pull on it with the gravity of a black hole. Since the adventurers aren’t going to wander about meeting new people (if one wants to keep the megadungeon campaign going), faction representatives need to visit them. For Monte Saint Bec several of the local overworld powers are already inside the dungeon, but I want a tool to draw more intrigue onto the party and into the exploration. To this end I’m working on a system that allows the players to recover items from the ruin and build up a base of some sort. Most obviously the Cockerel monks of the sea-side tower abbey inhabited by refugees from the ruined monastery and their orphan novices.
I am borrowing a relic recovery system from I Cast Light’s “Super Cleric Brothers” campaign - where finding things and letting the religious order use them will attract visitors such as blacksmiths, potential henchmen and pilgrims to the growing shrine. These relics will also offer various magical benefits in downtime, such as cure spells. As a shrine grows it will also attract interest and animosity from local powers and by that time the party should be invested enough in it as a home base to be its major defenders. This allows me to introduce a variety of new hooks and even a few special siege scenarios if the party’s actions manage to anger overworld powers enough. It can also link to other smaller dungeons such as the Lighthouse Shrine of The Drowned Saint I have keyed for another project or something risen from the deeps … the Black House of the Dead Shore - if the players solve certain mysteries and take ascertain steps.
Of course making this system workable for a published scenario is the sort of thing that drives me to stop writing them half-way.
3) Accessibility and Shortcuts
One of the plans behind writing and running Mont Sainte Bec was to see how viable the OD&D design advice is. Can a “Primordial Stack” work - especially as a coherent dungeon that’s good the level of Jaqauysian detail and interactivity that I like? A big part of my thesis is that paths need to work in three dimensions, and that to facilitate expedition (no sleeping in the dungeon) style play in three hour sessions there needs to be several ways to access various parts of the dungeon. In my original design I underestimated both the caution and exploration speed of my players - who so far have only ventured up to level 2 for a brief moment, despite finding two of the several ways to access level 2 from level one. Likewise the outside “climb the side of the dungeon tower” method has not been especially enticing. I will need to review my maps and perhaps include a second doc with stairs leading up to level 2 or 3. It’s also something I need to keep in mind for the higher levels - outdoor access that can be easily negotiated to start sessions without too much travel through previously explored levels.
This is not as easy as it might be for the designers of Soulslike video games, which are famous for their dungeon shortcuts, because as a table top referee I can’t put in unclimbable cliffs or vistas one can’t descend from. There are now “invisible walls” available in dungeon design - just the access limitations of the real world like narrow or barred windows and locked doors or portcullises. I have reserved magically locked gates for special areas as these tend to be more an attractive nuisance than anything else. The point is that one can’t really “path” a party through a tabletop dungeon, and it’s not worth trying. Instead I just need to offer more inducements and opportunities to expand the scope of my players ambitions and exploration.
Perhaps some golden ornament on the outside of the spire is also in order.
4) Faction Escalation
There is only one intelligent faction on the first level of Mont Sainte Bec - a band of cannibal sea raiders and their ghoul priests. Players seem to strongly dislike cannibals, but also to fear and avoid them … at least until the last session, where random encounter rolls more or less forced a running confrontation that lasted the majority of the time and ended with a massacre of the raiders. These interactions have reminded me that intelligent factions need to respond to player action and that the expedition rule gives them time to do so. In the future (especially for more organized groups) factions will need both an order of battle and a set of responses to player action - when and how they will go on “war footing” and when they will ask for peace or flee.
Tools to do this in a published adventure (and in my home game really), besides simple instructions and faction sheets, might include changes to random encounter tables, as “vermin encounters” fall off to be replaced by patrols and small patrols by factions increase in size and animosity.
It’s nice to be designing as I run a campaign again, and there’s nothing like a megadungeon for doing that. I don’t know if Mont Sainte Bec can stay a manageable size during play, but so far, despite the ways playtesting is revealing the need for some changes to maps, keys and overall structure, the project still feels viable for a large book. I expect to have more Mont Saint Bec content and design thoughts as the campaign progresses.
Very interesting, sounds promising, but I would change the name if I were you. You're all over the place with your own title putting e in Mont and Saint. Bec is beak, but Saint-Bec doesn't make much sense anyway. How about the Tower of the Beaked God?
ReplyDeleteNo.
DeleteLove the worldbuilding, and that region map is wonderful
ReplyDeleteThanks Trey - it's an open table on US Sunday mornings if you ever feel like dropping in.
DeleteHow would one join this open table, if one were so inclined?
DeleteOne would need to be on one of the various discord servers I post game events on.
DeleteGlad to see you're taking a crack a publishing a megadungeon. Your thoughts on megadungeon design have been very inspirational to me as a GM. Very hyped to check this one out!
ReplyDeleteFascinating read, can’t wait for more updates from play testing. Have the last three months of play and development yielded any more insights about the “Primordial Stack”?
ReplyDeleteYes things are moving along, the main thing I've noticed is that A) the player impulse to "Clear" dungeon levels is strong, B) Players are strongly motivated by minor inconveniences, C) Implications of danger are very effective at making players avoid areas, D) After several sessions parties tend to develop specific schemes or sub goals that they push to carry forward...not the ones that one might expect or that NPCs might want them to do. This is all good but it slows down exploration. The party is perhaps 1/2 way through the 2nd level and has taken the last few sessions to deal with a mini dungeon outside the main one.
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