The Top of the Bottom of the Multiverse: Behind the Screen

This was an in-person megasession spread over 2 days. A dream come true.

Planar Rules, Zero Gravity Combat, and Other Basics

• Spells do maximum damage. Healing spells heal minimum HP. Air, Fire, and Wild Magic spells are diminished, dealing one fewer damage die. Maximum spell level or such spells is 4th. Spells that access the Astral and Outer Planes fail. Matter created here crumbles to nothingness in 1 round.

• This is basically a space station. Space horror ambient music worked well.
• Random encounter rules/table for the dungeon. 
• For zero-gravity combat in the guardrooms, I simplified a 30ft spherical room to 3 circles: lower and upper parts of the sphere, both 20ft in diameter; and a central area 30ft in diameter. 3 simple circular maps, with an X marking the centre line. Squares above/below each other are counted as 5ft apart. It worked well enough for the players. I also appropriated Newton’s Third Law, ruling that shoving things also moved the shover backwards. Could a creature float backwards merely by throwing an object away from them? I think so.
• What light conditions do you want? I used a mix of dim and fully dark.
• If you can, print out/photocopy the dungeon map for ease of annotation. I used a dot of blue tack to keep track of the party’s location in the maze of chambers. Expect your players to get lost.
• There are a few critical skill checks in this dungeon: finding the secret passages, the map, and the skeleton crown. If your party lacks the proficiencies to pass them, consider removing the check and just giving the info to your players. I plan on keeping Perception/Investigation checks for the secret door and map, with the DCs in the 12-13 range.

Ghouly Guard Rooms

6 ghoul fights is just too many. You could cut all 6 if you really wanted. I halved it, grouped the guard rooms into 3 pairs, and had each player call a coin toss at the start of the session. If they guessed right, I put the ghouls in whichever room was advantageous to them as they explored – generally the other room of the pair. If they guessed wrong, I did the opposite. I changed the Spectre conglomeration to swarms of Crawling Claws, and a few Gorelings and Flesh Reavers from the Creature Codex. Using a different monster for each room added some much needed variety.

Each room slowly fills up with floating gore as the players kill more ghouls. Don’t forget to describe it.

Xeg-Yi Statblock

Tri-Flower Frond Statblock

The Phylactery Chamber/Laboratory

I went off Jarred Caldwell’s update, ruling that touching the liquid does 15f6 poison damage on a failed CON save, with anyone in the room when it breaks taking 4d6 poison damage on a failed CON save. I’ve hidden extra magic items in the laboratory, including one of the Teeth of Dahlver-Nar, and the artefact-level Demonomicon from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Will the players find it? And will they take it? For me, the potential risk of derailing the campaign is worth it for the laughs.

Tenebrous’ Map

My players have all expressed some interest in going to Mechanus, so I’m reskinning the Pelion part of the adventure. Much of Mechanus’ official lore is unexciting: the area called Nemausus, recently broken off from Arcadia and full of warring petitioners and modrons, has the most scope for action. No way was I planning the whole adventure at this stage: I just picked a few of its placenames from the Planes of Law book, and reskinned the existing map using the new names and locations. Map and details were made using this website, then printed out, with names and lines penned on by hand after. It took fucking ages, I don’t know if I would do it again unless I found better treasure map making software. The result, scanned, is here. It looks better in person, honest:

 

This marathon of a session went very well – telling everyone to expect a dungeon added to the hype.