The Old School Dungeon – Populating Level 2, A Bit More O’l Schoolery
The Leader of the Game
Back in days of yore we grew up with playing the game in its formative years during which the terms Ref and Dungeon Master came into being. The person with the rules was often the one who designed the underworld for the players. We didn’t often alternate or pass around that role. Some were drawn to this creative aspect of the game and others just wanted to play characters. The designer of underworlds in effect got tagged with the term Ref or Dungeon Master. We didn’t give it much thought at the time but to me at least the term Ref implies a certain impartiality and Dungeon Master, well mastery. Of what though?
In previous articles I have referred to mastery of the rules and by this I do not want to imply that as the leader of the game you will have control, far from it. Things are going to happen you can’t predict or even imagine so you will have to roll with the play of the game. You need to understand what to do, understand how the game is played and arbitrate the rules, but you have to learn you do not need to control the outcome. As the leader of the game you are as much a participant as the players as you role-play the monsters and other adversaries. You will need to have a little detachment and not become too fond of your underworld creations. Don’t be disappointed if the players bypass the really cool stuff you’ve made or knock down your special monster. The things we create, our underworlds, serve us as background information over which we play. Our text therefore gives us answers and consistency. Even if the players never visit or explore it all we can re-use it later!
Designing Level 2 – Continued
As we continue to create our underworld, if we follow the process laid out for us in the rules, we find that we will tie things together, using our creativity. With Level 2 we continue our fun, placing monsters and treasure we’ve chosen. We have already placed a lot of our Monsters and Treasure but we have a few fun things left before we start randomly determining content for the remainder of the level. Bear in mind we are never compelled to use everything we’ve picked if we decide it doesn’t fit or if we think we have enough. Also, we might simply add or substitute monsters and treasure.
We’ll also continue to describe and elaborate on the content we’ve picked simply by using our imagination as we go along. We have already tied some of our monsters together and developed this into a little bit of a theme connected to our villains Thrax and the Acolytes of Pestilence, the underworld tomb of Patriarch Devious Ingrate. We’ll continue to treat this level as the Patriarch’s ancient underground tomb. No doubt we’ve all been inspired by books, movies, and the monuments of ancient civilizations. These can all influence the descriptions of our make believe tomb/underworld. In no way are we belittling scientific discoveries but we draw upon them, respectfully, as the spark plug of fantasy. We can also provide hints like tracks left by the monsters, and dung.
Map of Level 2
Map key 19
This map key marks the entrance to a separate part of level 2, not far away is the stair to level 3, and our previously discussed friends the Ghouls are hidden away nearby at Map Key 4. Some of this area 19-26 can be damp, and wet, as we have similar water penetration in the underworld rooms directly above them. Yes, we are starting to think a little about our underworld environment.
The coffins of plague ridden Zombies, one of which Thrax and his Acolytes retrieved, we previously decided are hidden at Map Key 26, which is a secret room. So we will add a bound coffin in a fresco as an ominous hint, at this point we know at least one coffin contained a plague ridden Zombie. The idea is to scare the players, a little, but they still have to make the connection there might be something sinister ahead. We will add more creepy art throughout this part of the underworld.
19. Painted Room. A fresco is falling off of the walls due to damp. There are coloured fragments of plaster on the floor. There is enough of it left still on the wall showing a funeral procession. Soldiers bear a bound coffin.
Secret Ref Info: The bound coffin in the fresco is an ominous hint, the coffins contain plague ridden zombies. The idea is to scare the players, a little, but they have to make the connection there might be something bad ahead.
Map key 20
There are supposed to be 3-12 Skeletons on the first level of a dungeon. Their number is meant to be increased for level 2. We can refer to page B30 and B60 of the Moldvay rules for guidance. In theory we can double the number of monsters to 6-24 per the recommendation on page B30. Page B60 tempers this with the advice that you can try to assess the challenge and determine what is right for your players. There should be a chance of success but you want to avoid making it a walkover. The room is small, so for practicality lets arbitrarily pick a number, eight.
We will tie this area to Map Keys 21, 24, and 27 with the tracks of a Carrion Crawler passing by. Tracks on the floor and ceiling lead West and East. They come from the stair. We’ll use an INT attribute check roll to allow the players to track this monster by following them but not to identify it unless they have seen a Carrion Crawler before. We will put the Carrion Crawler in Map Key 27. The Carrion Crawler goes by the name of “Carcass Scavenger” in Labyrinth Lord and “Carcass Crawler” in OSE.
20. Sepulchre. The door to this room is wood bound with copper straps and studs. They are green with oxidization. Squeaking and hooting can be heard to the south. It sounds like a flock of birds. There are tracks on the wall and the ceiling.
When the door is opened: The tracks on the wall and ceiling belong to a Carrion Crawler but the players won’t know that, the tracks can be followed with a successful INT attribute Check Roll and they lead up from the stair toward Map Key 24 but the players won’t be able to identify the creature unless they have seen one before other than it is quite large and multi-legged.
This room is very damp and wet. The ceiling drips. Water collects in puddles on the floor. The ceiling was once painted blue with white stars but they have mostly fallen off. The west wall has peeling fresco painting showing coffins being placed in this sepulchre. The east wall shows the soldiers receiving rewards in the afterlife, food being presented by servants, servants working farms, etc. Eight wood coffins lay in the middle of the floor, they are covered in wet plaster debris from the ceiling. At the base of the walls are boxes and little clay figures, the servants of the soldiers in the afterlife, in various acts of work, planting reaping, herding cattle, etc., some are broken.
Secret Ref Info: The squeaking and hooting are the Stirges at Map Key 21.
The coffins contain the remains of the soldiers depicted the fresco. They are still dressed. The boxes contain grave goods, common personal household items without much worth. The little clay statues have a value of 10 sp each. The skeletons remain inert so long as the grave goods and little statues remain in the room, these items can even be handled. However, if anything is taken out of the room,or broken, the skeletons in the coffins rise and attack intruders.
8 Skeletons, Armor Class 7, 1 Hit Dice, 4, 6, 3, 1, 2, 5, 4, 3 Hit Points, Move 60/20, 1-6 damage, Save F:1, M12, Alignment Chaotic, not affected by sleep or charm spells, these undead can be turned by a cleric, they attack until destroyed, monster description Moldvay page B42.
Map key 21
Map Key 21 is the stair to level 3, scary! We have some monsters picked that we still haven’t placed, Stirges! There are supposed to be 1-10 on the first level of a dungeon. Their number is meant to be increased for level 2. We can refer to page B30 and B60 of the Moldvay rules for guidance. In theory we can double the number of monsters to 2-20 per the recommendation on page B30. Page B60 tempers this with the advice that you can try to assess the challenge and determine what is right for your players. We can prepare them in advance and then their number can be reduced as required. There should be a chance of success but you want to avoid making it a walkover. Perhaps the players don’t disturb the Stirges and, on seeing their number, sneak away. That’s one way of keeping the players out of Level 3 before they are ready. These creatures squeek and hoot so the players won’t be surprised and it gives them a chance to avoid the monsters. The players can run to Map Key 20 and shut the door to escape the Stirges. These monsters can chase the players to Map Key 20 and lose interest after a bit and return to their roost.
We will place some tracks on the floor here belong to a Carrion Crawler. We’ll propose they come from Level 3.
21. Stair – Roost. The ceiling drips, water trickles down the stairwell which descends into darkness. You can hear numerous creatures squeaking and hooting, like a flock of birds. There are tracks on the floor here which come from the stairway and the level below but they don’t stay on the floor, they go up the wall and are on the ceiling.
Secret Ref Info: The tracks on the floor and ceiling belong to a Carrion Crawler but the players won’t know that unless they have seen one before, the tracks can be followed with a successful INT attribute Check Roll and they lead to Map Key 24 but the players won’t be able to identify the creature other than it is quite large and multi-legged.
As soon as the stair is approached and the first lamp light falls upon the first 10’ of the stair the strange bird-like creatures roosting in this stairwell attack. They fly up and out of the dark. They make shrill and eager cries as they attack.
17 Stirges, Armor Class 7, 1 Hit Dice, 1, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 6, 1, 2, 4 Hit Points, Move 30/10 Fly 180/60, 1-3 damage, Save F:2, M9, Alignment Neutral, +2 first attack, successful attack means it is attached and automatically sucks blood each round after its first attack, monster description Moldvay page B43.
The Stirges will chase the player characters if they run. They fly much faster than the players. The players can take refuge in Map Key 20 and shut the door to keep the Stirges out (Refer to map key 27 Playing the Carrion Crawler below for a brief discussion of door rules). The Stirges will lose interest in 1d12 Turns (1-12 Hours) and return to their roost in the stair. They do not attack again unless their roost is approached.
Map key 22
22. We will skip over this key and randomly determine its contents later.
Map key 23
23. We will skip over this key and randomly determine its contents later.
Map key 24
This chamber is empty, we won’t put a monster here because we have the rather formidable Carrion Crawler in the next room.
24. Antechamber. The walls of this chamber are painted with frescoes depicting marching soldiers. The faces have all been defaced. This room smells bad. There are tracks all over the room, floor, walls, and ceiling. There is a door in the northern wall but it has been barricaded shut with spikes and boards. The door is wood bound with copper straps and studs. They are green with oxidization.
Secret Ref Info: The smell is from some monster dung in the Southwest Corner. It’s Ghoul dung which can be identified with an INT attribute check roll.
An INT attribute check roll can be used to follow the tracks, it looks like a large multi-legged creature and they came from the eastern entrance and lead to the northern door of this room, as if it were chasing something. The tracks belong to the Carrion Crawler in Map Key 27 but the players won’t know that unless they have seen one before.
Map key 25
This is a false sepulchre meant to distract from the secret door hidden in the north of this room. This room is a red herring, meant to distract and conceal the actual zombies in the bound coffins in Map Key 26. I’ll just make up some stuff here to go along with the entries for Devious Ingrate and Thrax. We are building interactions out of the entries, not quite a story. Again, we’ll place some skeletons. Per the rules, the number encountered can be doubled, but from the point of view of plausibility, and due to the presence of the nearby Zombies we intend to place at Map Key 26, we don’t want to be over the top so we’ll choose a number within an acceptable range of possibility.
Tinkering with Monster Stats
As we have mentioned previously, Skeletons don’t appear in the list of wandering monsters after Level 1. That seems a shame. Per the rules discussed previously, refer to B30 and B60, we are meant to judiciously increase the numbers of these monsters, 3-12 becomes 6-24 on Level 2. The practicality, if not the plausibility, of this begins to stare back at us from the abyss. On level three we would potentially be facing 9-36 Skeletons? Where are we to put them all? In terms of the design of the game, one wonders why the authors and various editors did not choose to increase the number of hit dice of monsters found on the levels of increasing difficulty. For example why couldn’t those second level Skeletons have 1+1 or 2 hit dice? The rules replace lower level monsters with something “different”. As the leader of the game we have the agency to develop it as we see fit. If we make a decision, we must write it down including our intent and the context in which it is to be used.
For this map key let us propose an alternative to the doubling of monster numbers as part of our mastery of the rules. If we refer to the Wandering Monster tables for level 2 (refer to Moldvay B54), and we look at the statistical information, we soon see we have a range of Hit Dice used for these monsters and we can quickly compare their statistics. There is more to a monster than its mere statistics but you can see where I am leading with this. A very quick survey shows the following Hit Dice are in use for Second Level Monsters: 1, 1+1, 2, 2+1, 3, 3+1, 3+2, 4+2. The number appearing varies.
The closest “monster” statistically to a Skeleton is the Berserker at 1/2 the number appearing. The Berserker matches in Armor Class. However, the description of the Berserker grants it special abilities and variable damage dice types. A comparison can be made to adjust the Skeleton’s statistics as required for Level 2, in particular we must consider the number to be encountered.
We could grant our modified Skeletons 1+1 or 2 Hit dice. This will shift the attack up one row on the combat table making them more deadly. Skeleton’s don’t have special abilities like the Berserker. It is these special abilities that make the Second Level monster more formidable. In view of a Hit Dice adjustment we can reduce the number of Skeletons encountered to 1/2 the usual amount, 1-6, or keep it at 3-12 as there are no special abilities, and see how it works by trial and error. There is also a necessary wholistic consideration of the rules:
- These guardians are created by magic (Refer to the Expert Rules). Increasing their Hit Dice should impact the spell Animate Dead and reduce the number created to 1 monster every 2 hit dice for 1+1 or 2 Hit Dice Skeletons and Zombies.
- We must also decide whether the Cleric can still Turn Skeletons per the rules in Moldvay page B8. Rules like OSE quantify turning by Hit Dice (Refer to Classic Fantasy rules Tome page 23) which affects the success of Turning in effect making it more difficult. Apply what seems appropriate to your rules.
Our revised Level 2 Skeletons might look like this:
Skeleton, Number Encountered 3-12, Armor Class 7, 1+1 or 2 Hit Dice, Move 60/20, 1-6 damage, Save F:1, M12, Alignment Chaotic, not affected by sleep or charm spells, these undead can be turned by a cleric in the normal way, they attack until destroyed, monster description Moldvay page B42.
25. Sepulchre. This tomb is in disarray, coffins here are in a jumble, smashed and opened. Boxes of grave goods have been opened and overturned. Little clay figures are smashed. The walls are painted with frescoes.
Secret Ref Info: The following is a more detailed description of the room which requires the players to look more closely; in many respects it is very similar to Map Key 20. It appears this tomb has been looted.
There are 6 bound coffins here, most have been pried open or their lids smashed revealing skeletonized corpses inside.
There are boxes of grave goods which have been opened, searched, and overturned. There are small clay figures, servants and farmers, all of which have been smashed. The grave goods are common personal household items without any value because they are spoiled. The little clay statues are damaged and have no value.
There are six 10’ poles with rusty iron collars here stacked at the west corner. These, if secured around the neck of a Zombie (by pushing – the collars close around the neck of a Zombie, there is a spring and a latch, a rope pull releases the collar), allow the Zombie to be held at a distance and its movement controlled. This requires a successful to-hit roll. The Zombie no longer moves silently. These collars are rusty, the poles are rotten and unfit for use, and will break 5-in-6 if this is attempted.
The walls are painted with frescoes that are still intact but all the faces of the figures are defaced. (South Wall) The bound coffins are shown being carried to other lands by soldiers commanded by Patriarch Devious Ingrate. (West Wall) The coffins are opened by the soldiers who then hold the Zombies at the end of long poles. (North Wall) The Zombies are used to attack the populace of other lands and spread pestilence. It shows plague spreading and claiming many victims in these other lands. A tentacled bat-like entity (also defaced) is shown rewarding the Patriarch for these these deeds. Right next to Devious Ingrate is a glyph Ӝ.
There is a secret door concealed behind the North Wall fresco. Remember, most rules allow any character a 1-in-6 chance of finding Secret Doors and that means they roll a d6 and on a roll of 1, 2-in-6 for Elves. That doesn’t mean they can open it! There is a hidden switch concealed by the fresco painting, the glyph of Patriarch Devious Ingrate is over it, Ӝ. If pressed it opens the secret door. Per the description above be sure to mention the glyph, its a clue! Otherwise, there is a 1-in-6 chance of spotting the switch; 2-in-6 if the character is an Elf. There is a peephole in the secret door which allows this room to be spied on from behind the door; refer to map key 10. If the switch is not found the secret door may 2-in-6 be forced open.
When the secret door is opened the skeletons in the coffins rise 1d4 rounds later and attack. They are here to protect the secret vault. 10 Skeletons, Armor Class 7, 1+1 Hit Dice, 7, 2, 4, 3, 5, 3 Hit Points, Move 60/20, 1-6 damage, Save F:1, M12, Alignment Chaotic, not affected by sleep or charm spells, these undead can be turned by a cleric in the normal way, they attack until destroyed, monster description Moldvay page B42.
Map key 26
This secret vault contains the diseased Zombies previously discussed on Level 1 Map Key 8. It is from this room that Thrax and the other Acolytes of Pestilence obtained their Zombie bound in a coffin. Are there more? It wouldn’t do to have too many diseased Zombies! Let’s propose what are left are Zombies of the normal type, except one. We can still make them all disfigured by pox just to terrify the players!
26. Secret Vault. The walls and ceiling of this vault are painted with a colourful fresco. There are places on each wall for two coffins. Five coffins remain and they are bound with metal straps. There are two coffins on the West and East walls. There were two on the Northern wall but one is missing. The floor is clean where it once lay.
Secret Ref Info: This vault is painted with scenes of woe. All of the faces have been defaced, chipped away. On the West Wall cities are falling to flame, sword and plague. In the stormy sky above, painted from the walls to the ceiling, looms a black hole in the clouds, a fanged mouth of enormous size. The Northern Wall depicts the Patriarch Devious Ingrate raising pox ridden Zombies from the dead. The East wall depicts the Zombies being imprisoned in bound coffins.
Each wooden coffin is bound with metal straps and locked with a padlock. When the player characters enter the room the coffins shiver and shake as the Zombies would attack the player characters were they able to escape their confinement. They cannot, unless someone is so foolish as to open the locks which keep the bound coffins shut. (The key which opens the padlocks is at Map Key 10.)
We’ll propose that only one imprisoned Zombie still carries disease, like a rat, refer to page B41, Anyone attacked by the Zombie has a 1 in 20 chance of being infected (this chance should be checked each time the Zombie successfully hits). The victim may still avoid the disease by making a saving throw vs. Poison. If failed, the victim will either die in 1-6 (1d6) days, otherwise the victim will be sick in bed (unable to adventure) for one month. Roll 1d4: the disease is only deadly on a result of 1.
5 Zombies, Armor Class 8, 2Hit Dice, 6, 9, 11 (diseased), 4, 7Hit Points, Move 120/40, Damage 1-8, Saving Throw F1, M12, Alignment Chaotic, monster description page B44, Undead Human, they are slow fighters, and always strike last (no initiative roll needed), make no noise, not affected by Sleep or Charm spells. May be turned by a Cleric.
Map key 27
This room is a tomb for a Captain of Devious Ingrate’s Guards, we’ll name him Dumb Fist, and we shall add to our room connections. Let us propose that one of the Acoylytes of Pestilence was chased into it by a Carrion Crawler and his Chaotic companions ruthlessly shut him in with the monster. We’ll assume that ol’ Dumb Fist has indeed departed and is not a Skeleton monster.
27. Sepulchre. The door to this room is shut with spikes.
Secret Ref Info: There is a stone sarcophagus in the centre of this room. An Acolyte of Pestilence is hiding in it from a Carrion Crawler which hangs from the ceiling waiting for him to come out. There are bones in the sarcophagus as well belonging to Captain Dumb Fist of the Guards.
The moment the door is opened to this room the Carrion Crawler will lose all interest in the Acolyte Pimple and attack the player characters. Pimple isn’t too pleased his Chaotic companions abandoned him and will join in on any attack against the Carrion Crawler. After that he may be persuaded to temporarily join the party of player characters, for mutual safety, until they leave the underworld or run back into Thrax, in which case his loyalty changes. Pimple will know the names of all the other Acolytes, Thrax, and that they are getting a pox ridden zombie to use to spread pestilence but that’s all he knows. As we don’t have a wilderness yet we don’t have to speculate where the Acolytes of Pestilence come from or if there is a larger plot.
There are boxes of grave goods, common household items, and painted clay figures of farm workers and servants. Some of the little figures are broken. Ten are worth 1 GP each.
Carrion Crawler, Armor Class 7, 3+1*Hit Dice, 13 Hit Points, Move 120/40, Damage Paralysis, Saving Throw F2, M9, Alignment Neutral, monster description Moldvay page B32, This monster is worm-like, 9′ long with lots of legs. Its mouth is surrounded by 8 paralysing tentacles, all 2′ long. The attack of this creature paralyzes for 2-8 turns on a successful hit unless a saving throw vs. Paralysis is made. The Carrion Crawler will stop and eat its defenceless paralysed prey unless it is attacked. The paralysis can be removed with a cure light wounds spell.
The Acolytes of Pestilence wear costumes not unlike those of plague doctors underneath their armor, mottled and stained brown cowhide garments and the beaked leather mask of a plague doctor. Acolyte, name; Pimple, Armor Class 2, 1 Hit Dice, 6 Hit Points, Move 60/20, Mace 1-6, Saving Throw C1, M7, Alignment Chaotic, refer to Moldvay page B30.
Playing the Carrion Crawler
The Carrion Crawler moves faster than the Player Characters which means there is little chance of outrunning this monster. Most rules concur on the following point Monsters are automatically able to open any door unless the door is held, spiked, or closed with magical spells. The text in Moldvay on page B21 requires careful reading because it distinguishes between an “unlocked stuck door” and all others. These doors it grants a 2-in-6 chance of opening. The text does not tell us a locked, held, or spiked door may be forced open with an x-in-6 rule by characters or monsters. We are told a monster cannot automatically open a locked, held, and/or spiked door. The Moldvay text differentiates between a held door or spiked door and a magically closed door. As a Ref we have to decide how best to interpret the text not only from what it says but what it does not say and apply it during the game, the following are my interpretations:
- Unlocked doors can be opened. If they are stuck there is a 2-in-6 chance player characters can open them. There can never be less than a 1-in-6 chance of a player character opening such a door.
- Locked doors do not automatically open for Monsters and cannot be forced open by a player character with an x-in-6 roll but they can be opened with a key, by picking the lock, and with magic. Refer to the Knock spell in Moldvay on page B17. A Knock spell can open a known secret door, held door, barred and otherwise secured or stuck gates, locked chests, wizard locked doors, locked chests, and so on.
- Held doors do not automatically open for Monsters. Held doors may not be forced open by a player character with an x-in-6 roll. Refer to the Knock spell.
- Spiked doors do not automatically open for Monsters. Spiked doors may not be forced open by a player character with an x-in-6 roll. We may infer that the Knock spell, taken broadly per its description, is meant to circumvent the barred and otherwise secured which would plausibly include spiked doors.
We can see these door rules create special conditions in which only magic, in the form of the Knock spell, can resolve. This is a deliberate feature of the rules which allows a character to take refuge from a terrible monster by holding shut a door and/or spiking it shut. The rules don’t tell you how many players have to “hold” a door shut, so we can infer only one is required.
If there is a plausible circumstance that arises during the game in which a held, spiked, or locked door could be forced by either player characters or monsters you as the Ref will have to rule on it. I would be very careful. There are no rules for breaking down stuck, locked, held, or spiked doors with rams, multiples of monsters, or big monsters. There are no rules for chopping down a wooden door with an axe. Once this genie is out of the bottle players will try to use it on every door and they won’t realise the importance of the held or spiked door as a barrier, consider the following as potential ways to handle exceptions:
- Allow spikes to be removed but only if characters are on the side of the door where they are applied. This act creates noise which means any monster within cannot be surprised.
- Rams. Context is everything, a ram is heavy, we would need to assign it a weight in coins per character if encumbrance rules are used. The characters have to be able to carry it. For characters we might want to assign an x-in-6 roll per type; 4-in-6 Normal “stuck” door, 3-in-6 locked or spiked door, 2-in-6 for held doors, and 1-in-6 for reinforced doors, magically shut doors cannot be forced open with a Ram. This act creates noise which means any monster within cannot be surprised. Rams can only be used by characters and intelligent Monsters. Magical ram heads grant +1, +2, or +3 to the check roll but they cannot defeat a magically shut door.
- Multiples of monsters can push open a held door if they are of equal or greater size and their numbers are greater than that of player characters holding the door shut. Consider carefully how many characters and monsters can push in the available space. The rules only permit 2-3 characters or monsters in a 10′ square.
- A Monster larger in size than a single player character can push open a held door when only one such character is holding the door shut.
- Three player characters are required to hold a door shut vs. Large Monsters.
- Three player characters per 10′ square are required to hold a gate shut vs. Giant Monsters.
- An axe may be used to break down a normal, wooden, stuck, locked, held, or spiked door in 2+1d4 rounds. This act creates noise which means any monster within cannot be surprised. An axe cannot be used to break down a reinforced or metal door, any gate, or a magically closed door.
Note – The above rules all leave the magically shut door as the only remaining safe way to separate player characters from monsters! Use with caution!
Backtracking
We have some earlier Map Key numbers as yet unaccounted for.
Map key 6
We will skip over this key and randomly determine its contents later. The underground cavern depicted in the frescoes refers to Level 3.
6. Segmented Chamber. There are tracks on the floor. Frescoes on the walls depict men wearing plague masks hunting large beetle-like insects in an underground cavern.
Secret Ref Info: The tracks on the floor were made by the Oil Beetles in room 8. They can be followedby an INT attribute roll, a character must roll less than or equal to their INT to identify the tracks if a character has seen Oil Beetles before.
Map key 7
We will skip over this key and randomly determine its contents later. The underground cavern depicted in the frescoes refers to Level 3.
7. Segmented Chamber. There are tracks on the floor. Frescoes on the walls depict men wearing plague masks hunting large beetle-like insects in an underground cavern.
Secret Ref Info: The tracks on the floor were made by the Oil Beetles in room 8. They can be followedby an INT attribute roll, a character must roll less than or equal to their INT to identify the tracks if a character has seen Oil Beetles before.
Map key 8
We’ll put one of our monsters in here, Oil Beetles. The underground cavern depicted in the frescoes refers to Level 3.
8. Segmented Chamber. The walls and ceiling of this vault are painted with a colourful fresco depicting men wearing plague masks hunting large beetle-like insects in an underground cavern.
Secret Ref Info: 6 Oil Beetles, Armor Class 4, 2 Hit Dice, 8, 7, 8, 6, 8, 7 Hit Points, Move 120/40, Bite 1-6,Saving Throw F1, M8, Alignment Neutral, monster description Moldvay page B31, Oil beetles are 3′ long giant beetles, they squirt an oily fluid at one attacker range 5’, a “to hit” roll is needed. When hit a victim fights with a penalty of -2 on their “to hit” rolls for 24 hours or until a Cure light wounds spell is used.
Map key 9
We will skip over this key and randomly determine its contents later. The underground cavern depicted in the frescoes refers to Level 3.
9. Segmented Chamber. There are tracks on the floor. Frescoes on the walls depict men wearing plague masks hunting large beetle-like insects.
Secret Ref Info: The tracks on the floor were made by the Oil Beetles in room 8. They can be followedby an INT attribute roll, a character must roll less than or equal to their INT to identify the tracks if a character has seen Oil Beetles before.
Map key 10
This is the room at the end of the chute from Level 1 Room 3. The chute is too slippery to climb. Lets put a pile at the bottom of the chute and some junk in it.
10. Segmented Chamber. A chute leads upward to Level 1 Room 3. At the bottom of the chute from Level 1 is a pile of debris. There are tracks on the floor.
Secret Ref Info: The tracks on the floor were made by the Oil Beetles in room 8. They can be followedby an INT attribute roll, a character must roll less than or equal to their INT to identify the tracks if a character has seen Oil Beetles before.
The chute is too slippery to climb up to Level 1 Room 3. There is a pile of junk here collected from Level 1; an old boot, one glove, bones, a candle, three copper coins, 10’ of rope. We can also put something useful in here from the equipment list; 100’ of Rope, a Sack containing 10 GP, one weeks Iron Rations in a backpack, Boots, Gloves, 6 Torches, Mirror, Holy symbol, a Key to the Zombie coffin padlocks in Map Key 26.
Summary
In our next article we will continue to populate the empty rooms of Level 2 with Random Content. We will also make a Special Wandering Monster List for this level. We also have some true and false information to create that Devious Ingrate may reveal to the player characters. We won’t do that though until we have fully created Level 2 so that we have something to write about.
Until next time!