The Conch Tower (30-Minute Dungeon)

Tristan Tanner has created a really compelling 30-minute Dungeon Challenge. This is both an attempt to make one of those, and to flesh out part of a sort-of-secret project I'm trying not to promise too much about.

This took me well over 30 minutes. In fact, it took me several hours, but Tristan's template (in the link above) was really helpful keeping me on track. The dungeon is rough around the edges, but I'm going to post it now or I'll second guess myself and it will never see the light of day. Hopefully I will get around to cleaning it up and throwing together in the coming days. I would also like to write some brief reflections on making this thing, but that's another post.

Without further ado, here is the dungeon:

THE CONCH TOWER

Max Ernst, Europe After the Rain II, c. 1940 - 1942

HOOK: The coelacanths tells of a place they used to swim, that has gone dry. They kept nice things there, but the water was driven out by a curious song that still echoes through its halls.

BACKGROUND: The CONCH TOWER is a sort of vertical tunnel spiraling into the ground. It is underneath a flooded piazza with a broken-down well in the center. The water in the well reaches a couple dozen feet down before stopping abruptly — passing through it leads one to fall into open air.

The water is blocked out by ARTEMESIA ANATOLANIA, the ghost of a cloudsinger who was wrongly imprisoned here for allegedly sneaking in an Orsellian spy.

The tower has been here since before the founding of Pumpai, the crumbling well a remnant of its previous existence. Artemesia's punishment was to sing the Song of the Drowned, which repels water, while chained to the bottom, until her breath would eventually give out. She did — for years, but her spirit continued singing even after her body gave out, and still sings there now.

ENTRANCE (TRAP 1/2): Entering the place is difficult. The water pressure as one descends the well is crushing; Unprepared characters who are able to hold their breath long enough to make it through take 1d6 damage from the pressure and must Save vs. pressure sickness. Those who break through into the Upper Atrium (room 1) take an additional 3d6 damage from the abrupt fall into a pile of fish bones.

ROOM 1 - UPPER ATRIUM (EMPTY 1/3): A wide atrium with a dome-shaped ceiling. The walls are made of a smooth, even stonework uncharacteristic of Pumpai. Several DEAD COELACANTHS and a variety of smaller fish lie in the center of the room, and the bones of more are spread throughout. A small OPENING at the top is filled with water. The SONG OF THE DROWNED echoes faintly out of a wide ARCHWAY.

If one digs through the bones, they will find in the jaws of a coelacanth a GOLD-TIPPED MARBLE ROD (500 gp). They will find human bones mixed in as well, and a slip of velum warning the reader to "mind the steps". Observant characters will notice that the note is lightly coated in oil - a common Pumpano measure against water damage.

ROOM 2 - SPIRAL PASSAGE (TREASURE): This tunnel winds down from Room 1 and connects to some others. The walls are inset with bronze carvings of gigantic fish from a sea beneath the world. The style is harsh and frightful, yet possesses a certain awful beauty. Each carving is about 3 feet x 3 feet in size, quite heavy, and hard to remove from the wall, but can be sold for 250 gp each. There are 6 such carvings in total.

ROOM 3 - GIANT OYSTERS (COMBAT 1/3): A ways off the SPIRAL PASSAGE, this chamber appears to once have been a kind of amphitheatre. The Song barely reaches here, allowing some water to trickle in through cracks in the ceiling and fill the lower part of the chamber. Along the sloping "audience" section of the room are a number of GIANT OYSTERS. They are in the shallower section of the water, and each contains a GIANT PEARL (100 gp). However, they are extremely hard to pry open and will attack as a group any who tries to harm one of them. There are 5 oysters.

### THIS IS WHERE I HIT THE 30 MINUTE MARK ###

ROOM 4 - ADVENTURERS' BASE (NPC): Off another branch of the SPIRAL PASSAGE. This room is small and has a big, heavy door, which lies wide open. Inside, the walls are scrawled with fading diagrams and notes. It bears the remnants of a campsite. In the center of the room is a long-extinguished LANTERN. Next to it, its hands splayed as if warming them, legs broken, is a SKELETON. It is the undead kind, but intelligent, very friendly, and happy to have someone to talk to. His name is GERONIMO, he wears a ruined backpack, and he doesn't remember much from when he was alive. He would have tried to leave ages ago, but without the use of his legs there isn't much he can do. He will express a naive, child-like crush on the "Lady Downstairs" (Artemesia). He knows little about her, however, as she can't stop singing long enough to talk to him. He is aware of this, and will attempt to dissuade the party from any course of action that might interrupt her. He is also aware of the trap in 6, but will only remember it if asked about traps and dangers. This is done out of concern for his new friends as Geronimo, obviously, cannot drown.

Adventurers messing with the door will discover that closing it completely blocks out the sound of the Artemesia's song. The water that pours forth from it will be shoved up the SPIRAL PASSAGE, carried to the top of the UPPER ATRIUM, and pushed into the well shaft. Geronimo will be carried as far as the UPPER ATRIUM before falling out, delighted but with a strange sense of deja vu.

Careful study of the writing on the walls reveals warnings about the trap in 6. These will be erased if the room is flooded.

ROOM 5 - MIDDLE ATRIUM (COMBAT 2/3): Visually similar to the UPPER ATRIUM, dotted with cracked stone COLUMNS lined with carving of creepy-looking fish. Strewn across the room are the SKELETONS OF SEVERAL COELACANTHS. Most of them are just plain dead, but one is undead. Tucked in its ribs is a little WIND-UP CROW. In the center of the room is LADDER leading down a SHAFT into the LOWER PASSAGEWAY.

The coelacanth skeleton is furious that its old treasure-hiding spot has been found and looted, and lashed out at any living thing that enters here. It is surprisingly mobile and quite strong, now freed of the troublesome need for water to breathe.

COELACANTH SKELETON: HD 5, HP 30, AC 13, MV normal, ML 12; ATK bite +6 (1d8 + auto-grapple) + tail slap +4 (1d6, cannot have same target as bite); SP Stench (all w/in 10 feet of it must Save or be too sickened to approach until they pass a subsequent Save)

WIND-UP CROW: When wound, it flies off and grabs the single shiniest object light enough for it to carry (up to about the weight of a dagger) within 200', and returns to the point it was sent from. It is old and fragile, and has a 1-in-6 chance of breaking after every use.

ROOM 6 - LOWER PASSAGEWAY (TRAP 2/2): Like the SPIRAL PASSAGE, but narrower and made of darker stone. There are no carvings here, and where they would be are simply empty recesses. (These were never inset with art, although the Coelacanths once used them to store their treasures.) Connects to the MIDDLE ATRIUM (5), the SHRINE CHAMBER (7), the AUTOMATON CAMP (9), and the LOWER ATRIUM (10).

At the bottom of the ladder from the MIDDLE ATRIUM are three human skeletons showing signs of death by blunt force. They died when they triggered the trap, below, and were crushed by the onrushing water. The shaft up was narrow enough that their bodies got stuck at the top of these stairs until the water eventually drained out again.

Midway down, there is a TRAP: A pressure plate disguised a step causes two great stone doors to slam shut further down. The steps above and below this one are visibly more worn, and the trap does not activate until pressure is removed from the plate. Depressing the plate makes a loud a grinding noise followed by a click. Therefore, the person who sets the trap off can forestall its activation by staying put. This is fortunate for the adventurers as this trap, initially devised simply to keep out intruders, is extremely deadly. The closing doors abruptly silences the Song of the Drowned, causing water to come crashing in, flooding the entire dungeon above the closed doors in a matter of minutes. The initial rush of water deals 6d6 damage, and chances of survival are slim even afterward.

A little further down, the right-hand wall is carved with a message from a prior visitor advising to keep a weight on the pressure plate if it is already triggered. Unfortunately it is just out of sight of someone standing on the trigger, perhaps intentionally, as suggested by the maliciously smiling face crudely drawn underneath.

Regardless of whether it activates, the trap will reset after about 2 hours, the pressure plate popping back up and not depressing again until the weight on it is removed and replaced, or else more weight added.

ROOM 7 - SHRINE CHAMBER (EMPTY 2/3): A smallish round room. The side connected to the entryway is old masonry, but the far end is living stone. A long, narrow crevice extends into darkness above and below. A natural spring once ran through here, but was pressed back by the Song and eventually diverted; it will never flow again.

A character climbing up the crevice will quickly find themself unable to go on as it narrows and becomes impossible. Climbing down the crevice rounds out, affording passage down at risk of slipping. One listening from above faintly hears what rounds like the distant trickling of a river, and those sensitive to spirits will feel a presence below. This presence is the dead river's ghost (see 8), but may be confused for Artemesia's ghost, whose voice echoes up the crevice.

ROOM 8 - RIVER'S GRAVE (COMBAT 3/3): The vertical passage narrows out to flatter area - one a riverbed. The river's ghost still leaves here, taking the form a huge ethereal serpent. It is enraged at its death and maddened by the song; it attacks on sight and fights to the death, but cannot leave this, its grave.

RIVER GHOST: HD 5, HP 25, AC 15, Mv fast; ATK slam (targets a curving 50' line; Save vs drowning); SP immune to normal weapons and all fire, turns as undead.

ROOM 9 - AUTOMATON CAMP (EMPTY 3/3): The broken remains of an automaton rest here. The years have left their machinery dry and brittle, and it cannot be repaired without new parts. Their name was ARABESQUE THE FIRST KINDEST BLUSH OF MORNING; CRASHING VIOLENTLY INTO THE SEAS. Among their belongings are FINE DUELING SWORD (140 gp), and some SCRAWLED NOTES.

The NOTES were produced using a kind of automatic writing, allowing Arabesque to write down tune and words of Artemesia's song even though they could not read it. It takes some work to decode the tune, but the lyrics are easily recognized. Careful study of these notes, once decoded, will allow the reader to learn the Song of the Drowned. (When sung, repels water in a 10' sphere around the singer. The effect is dispelled if the singing stops, even for a moment. This power is priceless to the Loyalists, who could use it to sneak into the Palazzo Grandissimo.)

ROOM 10 - LOWER ATRIUM / ARTEMESIA (WEIRD): Look what's in this room is kind of obvious and I'm getting tired of writing and this has taken several hours instead of 30 minutes. It's Artemesia's ghost, floating above her bones. She can't stop singing unless her name is cleared, which would lead to this entire place flooding and collapsing. It is in fact theoretically possible to exculpabalize her, as she is innocent of the crimes for which she was imprisoned, and no secret is buried in Pumpai that cannot be unearthed.

Ghosts are common in Pumpai - strangely so, and this room offers some faint clues as to why. The room is raw stone, gnarled and twisted in strange colours. It is shaped like a downward-pointing conch shell and any sound made within echoes throughout the dungeon. Inside the walls carry the fossil of some massive fish, and those of the amphibean folk who worshipped them. The fossils all detect as undead, even though they do not appear to be able to act in any way. They are all prisoners too.