Both Nirrum and I can swim
But only one of us can fly.
The entrance to the third floor will always reveal a pitch black space that sounds like the ocean. Hell of an opening isn't it? Dramatic. The Marleys were dead, to begin with. Really sets the mind into question mode. Welcome to the third installment, third floor, and third session of the Danzuishanese Maze as I ran it. Here
Put this on, right click and hit loop, you'll need it.
This room really felt like the real beginning of the maze. One might note that this follows the theme of hub and spoke designs for each floor. In here, I was able to portray a sense of vastness, and for a brief moment, hopelessness. Just a touch of frustration until they figured it out. This floor takes themes from Bloodborne, less so from Lovecraft, but plays them counterpoint to my own artistic voice. Juxtaposition, disjointed and staggered stories, lines of thought and ways of thinking. This is where they learned that instincts can pay off, while they also taught me a valuable lesson. I'll get to that.
The entrance to the third floor will always reveal a pitch black space that sounds like the ocean. If light is shone in to the room, turbulent but black waters are visible, 15ft below.
The Entrance to the room appears to be mounted on a floating rock above this ocean, on top of which is a small Island with the skeleton of a human maze hunter carrying an Adamantine spear. He has a small bag of 25g on him. One of the coins is a mimic, and will attempt to attack anyone who picks it up during their next long rest. The room is 1000ft wide and the entrance is in the centre of it. 70ft above the entrance is another floating island upon which rests a door.
The room is windy, with rapidly changing directions. The Water is cold, and for each round spent in the water, a creature must make a dc13 con save or take 1d4 cold damage. A creature that is Resistant or immune to frost or one that is capable of breathing underwater has advantage on this save. The water is 100ft deep, and at the bottom of it there is a large fork of Metal, which, if hit, rings at about 30hz for an amount of minutes equal to the damage dealt to it.
Ringing the bell causes the waters to become Tolerable to swim in for that amount of time, but also spawns a swarm of quippers every minute that attack people in the water. They disappear when the ringing stops, but the water gets cold again. The fork will break if more than 30 damage is dealt to it at once.
A literal ocean in the maze. The room is not lit and it is too wide for darkvision to see the edges. Vast. Turbulent. This room screams into the mind of the player that they are small and vulnerable. I ran this for level 9s, they still struggled, they still feared. They also had a mermaid in the party and one of them turned into an octopus. The other summoned an aquatic mount. It was a good time. They never did ring the bell or even look at the top of their own island, let along discover the floating one.
There are five doors at the edges of the room, each one a perfectly square door that is 5ft high and 3ft above the level of the water, an athletics check DC 10 is needed to pull oneself up toward the thin threshold which can be stood upon *barely*
The entrance to the third floor will always reveal a pitch black space that sounds like the ocean. Hell of an opening isn't it? Dramatic. The Marleys were dead, to begin with. Really sets the mind into question mode. Welcome to the third installment, third floor, and third session of the Danzuishanese Maze as I ran it. Here
Put this on, right click and hit loop, you'll need it.
This room really felt like the real beginning of the maze. One might note that this follows the theme of hub and spoke designs for each floor. In here, I was able to portray a sense of vastness, and for a brief moment, hopelessness. Just a touch of frustration until they figured it out. This floor takes themes from Bloodborne, less so from Lovecraft, but plays them counterpoint to my own artistic voice. Juxtaposition, disjointed and staggered stories, lines of thought and ways of thinking. This is where they learned that instincts can pay off, while they also taught me a valuable lesson. I'll get to that.
Third Floor-Dark Water
Created Sunday 31 March 2019The entrance to the third floor will always reveal a pitch black space that sounds like the ocean. If light is shone in to the room, turbulent but black waters are visible, 15ft below.
The Entrance to the room appears to be mounted on a floating rock above this ocean, on top of which is a small Island with the skeleton of a human maze hunter carrying an Adamantine spear. He has a small bag of 25g on him. One of the coins is a mimic, and will attempt to attack anyone who picks it up during their next long rest. The room is 1000ft wide and the entrance is in the centre of it. 70ft above the entrance is another floating island upon which rests a door.
The room is windy, with rapidly changing directions. The Water is cold, and for each round spent in the water, a creature must make a dc13 con save or take 1d4 cold damage. A creature that is Resistant or immune to frost or one that is capable of breathing underwater has advantage on this save. The water is 100ft deep, and at the bottom of it there is a large fork of Metal, which, if hit, rings at about 30hz for an amount of minutes equal to the damage dealt to it.
Ringing the bell causes the waters to become Tolerable to swim in for that amount of time, but also spawns a swarm of quippers every minute that attack people in the water. They disappear when the ringing stops, but the water gets cold again. The fork will break if more than 30 damage is dealt to it at once.
A literal ocean in the maze. The room is not lit and it is too wide for darkvision to see the edges. Vast. Turbulent. This room screams into the mind of the player that they are small and vulnerable. I ran this for level 9s, they still struggled, they still feared. They also had a mermaid in the party and one of them turned into an octopus. The other summoned an aquatic mount. It was a good time. They never did ring the bell or even look at the top of their own island, let along discover the floating one.
There are five doors at the edges of the room, each one a perfectly square door that is 5ft high and 3ft above the level of the water, an athletics check DC 10 is needed to pull oneself up toward the thin threshold which can be stood upon *barely*
- The door above the island is a 12 foot tall double door that is only 2 feet wide. When opened it reveals a domed blue and green room with the customary mosaic pendentive. Within this room is a massive skeleton which appears to be made of glass. It has too many ribs and its skull is cracked open. Inside of the glass appears to be some cerulean blue substance (extremely similar to horseshoe crab blood). If the party approaches the skeleton, a Death Knight with a Frostbrand Flyssa (longsword) attacks. It is wearing Armor that functions as Dwarven plate but looks to be made out of Red, glittering Resin trimmed in dark green. The symbol of a Kingfisher in flight sits on the right breast of the armor, it is made for someone just over 6ft tall and humanoid.
The kingfisher dives from above the water to catch fish. Frostbrand represents the cold, and the death knight represents the dark. A very surface level and basic bitch comparison, but I didn't have the energy to type out the prog metal concept album that I felt should be behind the door instead. - One of the doors on the side of the room has a seven pointed star on it, and the doorway is covered in markings, Each of which read "Xanaran's" in some language. Upon entering this room, one finds themselves within the Awl Inn Xanaran's, Xundrin Ry'lendar is currently talking with Soleanna Vexus. The Awl inn item is sold here for 75k gold pieces.
A bar? In the maze? It leads outside the maze technically, sort of an interuniversal bar, but you can only exit the way you came in. Inside, are two very powerful characters. A 14th level assassin and equal level cleric. A single turn Deleter build and an extremely powerful healer. Alcoholism ensues, and they rested here for a day, paying a solid 100g each. I found the Awl inn in a homebrew items list for DnD 5e a long time ago, and I loved it, almost as much as the charity weapon, which turns into a chair. - One of the doors has a Triskellion carved in jade and leads to A 60ft round room with two liches in it. Both liches are at half health, clutching their phylacteries, and only have their first level spells left. They jealously guard piles of chalk, salt, and diamonds. Each lich offers the party the other liches treasure if they kill the other one. Both Liches have Imprisonment ready to use the second they are not being focused on. Neither of them have a spellbook. Both are using Staves of Withering which are out of charges, The liches have, evenly divided, 30000g in Diamonds.
I did not expect what happened to happen in this room. One of the Liches was killed as they took up the bargain, but one of the players tried to steal the Survivor's Phylactery. The survivor was imprisoned and the other players have out of game gripes with this one so they just... didn't save him. In game, stealing from someone you're trying to save gets you bad endings. No one cared to save him in or out. That guy is now on his tenth character, while others are on their first or second. The lich waited to see what their reaction was and everyone just shrugged, for the rest of the dungeon they kept asking the lich if he wanted the soul of something before they killed it. This vile creature, steeped in isolation and greed was baffled that they were feeding him of their own will. Did they not know what a lich was? Little did the lich know, his kind were plentiful and swiftly dealt with if they stepped out of line in this world. - One of the doors seems to be covered with kelp has a hallway that is 100 feet long, 50 feet tall, and 10ft wide. Within it is a Chapel to Blibdoolpoolp filled with rotten lobsters and 200gp in pearls. There is also an eye on a necklace, three sticks of incense, and a crown made of shells and kelp sized for a small character. Three sea hags use their lair actions and coven spells to slowly hunt and haunt anyone who takes from this treasure pile, making them blind at inopportune moments and generally shagging up their day
But one of the players can see them, so they just died. Oh hey, free loot. Blipdoolpoolp is the god of Kuo-toa, loosely based on the deep ones from Shadows over Innsmouth in design from what I can tell. - One of the doors is plain and leads to a room That contains a Kraken within it. The Kraken is crammed into a room that is far too small for it. Its eye lines up with the door but it cannot move, nor escape. Thus it can only use its lightning storm action and legendary action. In front of the Kraken is the skeleton of a Githyanki with a gith silver sword. He is pressed up against a door which leads down to floor 4, if rolled aside.
So the paladin tried to blackmail the kraken, see floor four. - One of the doors is made of silver and leads to another vaulted cieling room, this time with squared ribbing. It is a chapel to the Silver Flame, and has a font of holy water. However, The fountain hides a secret entrance to the 4th Floor which can be found by offering a prayer to any good-aligned god while within. Light streams from the windows, but behind them is only stone.
They went this way after the cleric's first instinct was to offer a prayer. This was rewarded with a way forward, and praise.
Alagan sho brekmiku kaovi'a wanlo
-Nirrum the mad
-Nirrum the mad
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