Mad March Map - "Town"

Mad March Map the 27th - "Town"

Another tiny scene...

SOURCE

Explorers find the neighborhood ruined by cataclysm. Disconcerting energies cause their normally stalwart wardog to whimper. A metallic smell of dust and bones permeates everything.

For when wizards duel, the collateral damage lingers, even after these long years passed..

The district is characterized by blast craters, shattered, tottering walls, the remains of buildings barely standing...  The streets and shattered buildings echo with traces of majical fallout, and the place reeks of necromantic energies

Shuffling golems and zombies animate, the remnants and remains of the town's inhabitants, they still operate in a grotesque pantomime of their former lives, play-acting as shopkeepers, a smith at a cold forge, a skeletal maid sweeping before an empty, blasted inn.

No one in their right mind goes there anymore...

Voices in the Chapel - revising an old map

Hi all - here's a brief setting built from an old Dungeon magazine map that popped up.  Set in a rural chapel, the locals are frightened by their local priests increasingly chaotic messages and behavior.

The map was found in Issue 2 of the magazine, as part of the 'Caermor' adventure published within.  The map itself is a simple, clean design, easily re-interpreted for a campaign location, such as this one.

So what is going on in Father Aldo's church?

Take a look here!

Edit: quick revision to the thing in the cellar...

Torches and pitchforks

Blame Jackson for posting a quick map of a small tomb on Easter. That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

A heretic was recently executed, their body placed within a tomb outside of town. As insurance against their meddlesome followers, the tomb entrance was barricaded and manned with guards to warn the curious away. This morning, the guards' replacements found the barricades dropped and the guards missing.

1. Tomb Entrance - Barricades placed across the opening have been removed/displaced. A smell of death, greater than what would be expected, permeates the area.

2. Signs of Death - Scattered bones are strewn on the floor. Remnants of armor and weaponry indicate that these were once the tomb guards, left to keep watch over the barrow. Secreted away under a boulder emerging from the north wall is an urn containing 190 gp and a few ambers (9, 10, and 20 gp).

3. Ghoul! - A ghoul has found its way into the tomb, and has been picking clean the bones of the dead guards. It will attack anyone investigating the tomb.

4. Pool! - A seep has created a pool in the center of the room. The water has absorbed some divine characteristics, and is the equivalent of holy water. It will cause damage (1d8) to the undead in Area 5. Drowning the being will prevent its regeneration. Remains of another unfortunate tomb guard are in the corridor to the tomb (+1 hammer, purse with 41 gp).

5. Heretic’s Tomb - The tomb houses a stone sarcophagus containing the restless remains of the martyred prophet - an undead still containing a ‘spark’ of life - unfamiliar necromantic energies have imbued the corpse with regenerative abilities, and it becomes "less dead" with each passing day.

Revenant: 5 HD; AC 4/15; Atk touch (1d6+ level drain); Effects: Undead resistances, may cast charm and fear once per day, level drain. Holy water, magic or magic weapons are required to hit and damage. Regenerates 1HP/round during combat. The 'Revenant' becomes more resistant to turning each day by 25%. Roll 1d3 for days "dead." After 4 or more days, the being is immune to cleric turning abilities.

The alter at the north side of the room is that of a protective god, placed as a ward against potential reanimations. The alter grants resistance against the Revenant's spell and level drain attacks to anyone within 5 feet.

Downloadable version here

Random Monster: Hippolyta's Hounds

Just attended A Midsummer's Night Dream ballet with the kidlet, had been a few years since I'd seen the performance.  As always, a visual and dance spectacle...

I had forgotten details of some of the scenes and set, and was quietly amused at some surprised audience gasps as a set piece representing a dew-covered spiderweb descended on-stage - complete with a spider that dwarfed the dancers (4HD, I estimated....).

And so gamable. Fey, drugs, love triangles...

Midway through the first act is a solo dance by Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.  In this production, she is accompanied by six 'hounds', who circle the stage around her, as if flushing prey.

There is a mere glimpse of the hounds at about 1:40:

Again, noticing details - the dancers ran with their arms stretched before them, the nearly-white dog-heads (below) contrasting with form-fitted reddish 'coats'...

Source

And all I could think was Undead....

www.deviantart.com/seriocomic

Hippolyta's Hounds

Undead hunting dogs bearing the souls of poachers, those who wasted their kills, and those who trespassed in the sacred groves. Captured and cursed by a goddess of the hunt, they live their afterlife in the bodies of decayed hunting hounds...

Bony skulls and bodies flayed of skin, baying in pain and anger, they pursue their own ghostly hunts or trespassers into the groves, as well as seek those next accursed souls.

HD 4; AC 6/13; Atk 1 bite (1d8)1d8 - save or the wound becomes necrotic and can only be healed by magic; Move 14; Save 12; AL N; CL/XP 5/240; No. appearing: 3-6; Special: The hounds' baying has the effect of a 'Scare' spell, -1 to saves for each additional dog in pack greater than three.

www.deviantart.com/nikkiburr

Mad March Map: Spire

Back to a couple of quick scenes/bits of adventure for some purpose...

Mad March Map 28 - "Spire"

Lazlo Nabitovy lives on top of a truncated Methuselah-tree deep within the Liviy Woods. The tree, sheared off by some cataclysmic storm a generation gone, forms the foundation for his dwelling above the treetops. A sage, he has stylized himself as a tower hermit/stylite. Or at least that's what the rumors say.

Nabitovy does generally live a hermit's lifestyle.  From his aerie, he barters with the bird-folk for supplies and news.

But anyone who makes the arduous climb to the top of the tree will find not a hermit's shanty, but a well-appointed manor. Filled with empty rooms, Lazlo mostly knocks around on his own with but a simpering birdfolk servant named Kiawk.

He will gladly entertain visitors and supplicant's for his knowledge and interpretation of signs.  Better yet, if they have brought spices or other rare ingredients, he is quite the epicurean...