Re: The Last Dungeon

[David Michael Grouchy II <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>]

 A telekinesis potion and a petard are a deadly combination. 

They would drink the potion, have someone light the petard, open the door, and float the petard down the hall or into the room. Close the door and run. 

Boom. 

You get seven hundred and fifty experience points. 

They ran back to town for more supplies. 

Everyone wanted a taste of that kind of experience. 

They were going to kill everything in the dungeon. 

They had no idea what was going on. 

So I started telling one of the players that their character was having dreams that the entire dungeon was magic item. If they killed everything then they would de-enchant the item. 

My sister Becky had the hardest time getting the others to stop killing. Everyone demanded another round of telekinesis petards. They wanted more experience. 

The entire dungeon was a support community for a magic item. It was a Quiver of replenishment with +3DX and flaming arrows. The bottomless pit was the quiver. The Jumping jackals (enchanted monsters with teleport) returned the arrow to the quiver during the movement phase. The hobbits represented the _+3DX. The wizard hobbits represented the flaming arrows. The quiver gave who ever wore it mage sight. 

When the players finally stopped playing mad bomber and started negotiating a take over they discovered the following. 

All the hobbit wizards had 4 ST, Alchemy, Chemist, and aid. They produced two hundred healing potions a month and twenty invisibility. They had enchantment labs out the wazoo. They could produce three of the 100ST fire elementals in a day, if they did nothing else. 

When the Three eyed strategist leader of the hobbits gave his magical quiver to Becky's character, the entire loyalty of the dungeon was transferred to him. 

The denizens of the dungeon represented the support community required to make a magic item. 


After dying over and over, they finally discovered that even magic weapons were extremely rare and powerful. If a character encounters some one with even a minor magic item that item represents an entire community somewhere. Or a city. 

Imagine if a magic item represented an entire city. 

Even a plus one sword would constitute a major threat. 




I heard this story about this guy that had a Middle Earth Role Playing game where one of the players had a +15% sword, and the other one had a . . . 

[narrator goes to deep mystical ghost voice] 

. . . 'Magical Sword'. 

It also was a +15% sword. It was exactly the same in fact, but the GM refered to the first players sword as just a 'plus fifteen percent sword'. 

The player told me 'I didn't get it. Why would mine just be plus fifteen old percent while his was magical?' 

The reason most people get tired of dungeon crawls is they kill everything. They have de-enchanted the magic item. Of course they don't want the dungeon. 

Back in my day we got to keep any dungeon we cleared out. It would become a base of operations. 

My intent had been to design a dungeon the players would love to keep. 

When they finally went to the bottom of the stairs they found a dead end. Five reveal spells later they found a gate in the floor. It looked like the stairs continued down but the gate didn't seem to be on. 

A scroll of control gate later they found out the comand words are "I'm home". 

Inside they found an old dwarven wizard inside a solid gold lab. 

The walls were star splashed with strength batteries tied together with golden tracings and runes. His name was Gigamax, and he had created the hobbits, the bottomless pit, the jackals, and the quiver. He had forgotten about them, actually, as the strength batteries had replaced all of his apprentices. He was pleased to see the quiver in such well kept condition.

Thank you for reading.

David Michael Grouchy II