Dakar's Dungeon - A FREE 90+ room, 4 Level Dungeon for PCs lvl 4-6ish
As a part of a “blog post secret Santa”, I received a prompt to write about a dungeon with a resident god as the main focus. Obviously, I’m late. Hopefully the size of this project will help you find the will to forgive me.
I’ll preface the thing with this - this isn’t an officially published thing for sale, so there may be typos, and there may be issues. Please, if you see any let me know, and I will gladly update the document.
I’m gonna post the introduction, the background of the adventure, and the pictures of the maps here. However, if you just want to download the damn thing and have a look at it, I have linked a PDF, here. In an effort to make the dungeon dead simple to run, I managed to keep it down to about 15 pages total.
So, heres the introduction and the pitch.
Introduction
Meant for 4-5 characters of levels 4-6. I haven’t play tested this yet but I plan to lodge it into my campaign, and will be running it solo with a “party” of four character soon. I imagine there are some things that need to be modified, such as numbers of monsters in some location, and treasure amounts, but I will work on that as I go, and try to post frequent updates.
This module is designed for use with the upcoming RPG called Old Castle, but is completely compatible with B/X D&D, OSE, and other OSR games. Nothing here should seem particularly new or unusual. The only change you would have to make, is to make Dakar basically a magic-user with the spells in his stat block prepared. It also assumes that the silver standard is used. If using a gold standard, step up each coin type by 1 (i.e. silver pieces are now gold, gold pieces are now platinum, etc.)
The premise behind this module is built around my home fantasy setting, Azorynia. However, this module can comfortably be slotted into any world. Just drop it into a dark forest a few miles away from civilization and your you’re good. Simply use your own versions of the goddesses of life, nature, chaos, etc.
In Azorynia, there are a type of people called “ascended” which are essentially saints that have been granted immortality by the goddesses, and are more or less demigods. They are usually given a task in immortality that reflects on what they achieved as mortal. For example, someone who dedicated their entire life to feeding young children in the name of Kivelia, might have been tasked with wandering the world saving young children from starvation in exchange for their immortality.
The Ascended are not truly immortal - they can be killed by violence. However, they are generally extremely powerful and hard to kill. Something like 15-20 HD, and their murder will often result in the wrath of the goddesses coming down on your head.
This particular module centers around an evil “ascended” who was gifted immortality by the goddess of chaos. You could use your world’s equivalent of these types of individuals, or refit the module to use a lich as the Big Bad. Either way, you need a super fucked up evil dude who is immortal.
I have designed this module to be extremely usable. Room descriptions are simple, and each level only takes 2-3 pages of text. You could realistically run this entire dungeon by just taking 10-15 minutes to read the level and room descriptions before you start your session.
The characters know about the origin of the dungeon, and the mechanism by which Dakar is locked in his prison. The biggest motivation for entering the dungeon, aside from getting rich as hell, should be that the nearby town is starting the see the beginning effects of his potent evil. Crops are dying, animals are being attacked by wolves, goblins, and orcs, and the water supply is making people sick.
Background
Dakar’s Origin
Dakar was never a good person. When he was a mortal over 700 years ago, he was horrible, just as he is horrible now as an immortal. As a young man, Dakar became extremely scared of the prospect of death. He spent years pleading to the goddess of life, Kivelia, and the goddess of death Phalarys. He got nothing from them. Eventually, something snapped in his head and he turned his attention to the shunned goddess of Chaos, Fomoira. He decided he would do anything to get her attention.
Dakar started a cult using some unknown dark magic, building his numbers over a few years, and found a hill in the woods about 8 miles from town. He begun construction on a temple. People from the town began to question the strange goings on in the woods, so he concocted a plan to keep things secret. The first thing he did was dedicate his new temple to the goddess Kivelia, in order to quell any suspicions. Then, He had his cultists capture creatures from within the surrounding woods - goblins, kobolds, orcs, ogres, etc. - and force them to start work on the true project. A bigger, grander temple dedicated to his true muse, Fomoira, in an elaborate dungeon directly under the false temple.
Dakar then spent decades conducting strange, evil experiments on monsters, woodland creatures, even people who wandered into his cultists patrols. He acted with sociopathic cruelty, and no concern for the pain and suffering he caused. His only focus was finding a way to immortality. As he aged and grew more insane and more cruel, he finally earned Fomoira’s attention.
Without the consent of her sisters, she made Dakar an ascended, and granted him immortality. With his only fear in life gone, and his only goal achieved, Dakar had no idea what to do. He only spiraled further into insanity, shutting himself in his dungeon and continuing to cause needless suffering.
Even Fomoira realized her mistake, and all but abandoned him just after granting him Ascended status. Instead of becoming the extremely powerful demigod he envisioned, he withered into a shell of himself. Eventually his evil temperament began to leak into the very air around him, and infect the dungeon itself.
Locking Dakar Away
Around four hundred years ago, a legendary adventuring party braved the dungeon to put an end to the evil of Dakar. Their wizard had procured an item that can permanently lock a single door from one side. If the door is opened, the spell is diffused forever. The party scrawled a message outside his lair saying “do not open the door.”
The party were unable to fully defeat him. When all hope seemed lost, the wizard ran to the door, locked it using the enchantment, and left his friends behind. He had no choice.
The remaining members of the party were slaughtered, and turned to enslaved undead. Dakar has been alone with them in a single room for nearly years now.
Although still magically adept, Dakar is completely insane and not nearly as strong as an ascended should be. A clever party of about 5th to 6th level should be able to handle him, though they may not all survive.
And Here are Some Pictures of the Maps
