Post by Admin on Dec 6, 2016 6:27:40 GMT
Jayson Rocky Gardner Lots of them.
1. A room that opens some historical information on the dungeon. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
2. A room with a fountain that gives X bonus. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
3. A room that allows looking at some other specific point in the dungeon. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
4. A control room that can open doors, portcullis, sliding walls etc. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
5. A store. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
6. A room that teleports the party somewhere cool and/or exotic (back to the tavern or China or a tavern in China) (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
7. A room with a recipe for killing a Big Bad (possibily in a strange language- hieroglyphic maybe) (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
8. Peter DuBois You could make a theme to special rooms for the megadungeon. Maybe there are non-medieval fantasy treasure items in the rooms, some of which are not useful to the PCs. Hovercars, dilithium crystals, a superheroes shield, etc.
9. Peter DuBois I thought of a twist to this idea, that I'll use at some point. The special rooms in the megadungeon have items for scavenger hunt. The items are mostly anachronisms (3d chess board, collector's items tied into to 21st century movies, etc.). The last special room will have extraplanar beings (I'll probably use Dr. Who for inspiration here) where the PCs can turn in the scavenger hunt items for a story reward. It could be a nice relief from dangerous parts of the dungeon.
10. James Robertson My copy of the guide is 1E. There were sub-tables for special rooms, and in some cases asterisk characters were used in footnotes to expand on the result. Can't really speak to any other editions. Never needed anything more than 1E.
11. Eric Johnsen tessaract
12. Eric Vicaria Definitely pick a theme and stick with it as appropriate to the designers and/or inhabitants of the dungeon.
13. Eric Vicaria Definitely pick a theme and stick with it as appropriate to the designers and/or inhabitants of the dungeon.
Scholarly retreat? Orreries, storage of thodelites and cartography tools, seed storage, collection of animal hides, etc.
Cult of a destructive god? Shrine of broken weapons. Warehouse of captured banners. Store room of defaced holy icons.
14. James Robertson The above suggestion makes me think of the Astrolabe in the Icewind Dale games. If memory serves the Astrolabe was the central facet of the tower, it's primary theme, and the towers haunted backstory. I also read a good suggestion about keeping in mind...See More
15. Eric Johnsen onsizzle.com/.../mee-summons-a-demon-go-demon-god...
16. Library (Mike Bachini)
17. Creepy kids secret hideaway (Mike Bachini)
18. An anomaly. Contents of a torn bag of holding (Mike Bachini)
19. Portal to the ancient kings harem rooms (and now undead harem) (Mike Bachini)
20. A trap(gasp) (Mike Bachini)
21. A room under the stairs of another room (Mike Bachini)
22. Garbage compactor on the prison level of the Death Star (minus Luke and Han, but with the tentacled beast) (Mike Bachini)
23. An otyug refuse pit. (Mike Bachini)
On and on. Remember rooms always have a purpose, it's costs money and energy to build them (even if you cannot fathom the purpose)
24. Robert Burke Potions lab, padded rm, summoning room.
25. Shawn R Grigg Room that has a Disjunction spell perma cast in it. That's about as harsh and evil a trick room as you can have happen to players. Make it the only way into and out of the treasure vaults. Some treasures are meant to be locked away for ever after all.
26. Sean Liddle dancing girls and a banquet of food. they are actually animated skeletons disguised through illusion and food is also an illusion. they absolutely do not attack the party and if illusions are dispelled they keep acting like dancing girls, who run and cower when / if attacked
27. James Robertson I had a few other thoughts. In the Forgotten Realms setting your mega-dungeon could intersect with the Underdark. You could also borrow a concept from Jules Verne in Journey to the Center of the Earth and as your players progress deeper and deeper in they could encounter increasing strangeness like lost world-esque caverns home to primitive and savage tribes of humans, a door that opens onto a bazaar located on the Outer Plane of Concordant Opposition.
One of the concepts that was present in the Underdark in the Baldurs Gate game series was a Mind Flayer Arena, and there was even a Silver Dragon's lair.
The Monster Manual is filled with interesting creature concepts that you can construct an entire story around, so some of your special rooms could grow into an entire section with it's own ecosystem and culture.
28. James Nacy II a "Special Room" should be something unique to the rest of the dungeon. How about a pedestal with gowing purple orb that seems to serve no purpose or an emoty room with a "Hurricane Lamp" hanging closed in the middle. I like to have "Side Mysteries" in...See More
29. Harold Hankins On the silly side, You could have a room where a cream pie hits each character while a dis-embodied voice shouts "GOTTCH YA". Of course the shouting could draw a wandering monster.........
30. Debra Phillips a harem. only, not full of sexy bullshit but a real harem, if inhabited, then with the household's females and elderly and children, and the sick. a protected space. if its a ruin, they could find healing items, medikits, simple surgery tools, drugs. and lots and lots of bedding. there could be a source of fresh (or not so fresh) water, and possibly magical statues or creatures as guardians. the women, if any are there, could be the owner's Mother, sisters, wives, girlfriends, or other female relatives or friends, kept safe from everything outside the harem. very nice for evil keeps, for instance, where the boss has to worry about his evil henchmen trying to get down with his mama or something else even more gross.
31. Troy Stambaugh Pick up one of the trap books or go nuts on your own.
32. Rocky Bindhamer Special Rooms can be just about anything, but we prefer to fvck with the players minds. We've had; 1. A 1940s greasy spoon diner, 2. A malt shop. 3. A "corridor" with targets on the left wall, a one-way illusionary wall on the right & beyond it archers...See More
33. Jeff Hawks I always liked the room full of magical pools from B1: In Search of the Unknown.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Unknown
34. Rocky Bindhamer www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/4oyx8s/help_with_special_rooms_to_mess_with_my_players/?st=iwd4grxm&sh=03c4ceb7
35. Keith Parker If you have the the original D&D LBBs and, especially, Greyhawk, read the suggestions for tricks and traps. Those almost certainly came from the original Castle Greyhawk campaign and are really quite clever.
36. Mark Andrew Packer Encounter with high status NPC (like a character from the Forgotten Realms novels).
37. Mark Andrew Packer Tiny library with treasure maps detailing areas in the mega dungeon.
38. Mark Andrew Packer Room containing portal to a deeper level in the dungeon.
39. Lenard Lakofka It can be the room's shape, an elevator floor, having a special purpose that's unexpected (a potion concoction room, religious purpose, library), prison room for someone, a teleported in the center of a bare room....
40. Jeff Kerby If you could have a trap setting off moving walls or ceiling or you can also do like an invisible creature one of the things I tried and the characters never the players never got to was a doppelganger they never got to the room with a doppleganger was
41. Jeff Kerby I saw a movie one time that there's a hallway with a long hallway with no door ways except for one on the other one on each end and as soon as I got to the door on the far end the handle receded and a plate came out over the door handle for the door ha...See More
42. Lenard Lakofka You also have the Munster movie where you pull the right overhanging pull cord or you go flying out.
43. Jeff Kerby Like an automatic the floor moves and you have an air shaft to shoot you straight up maybe that's some turns and some corals by time you get out you're so banged up with ragged edges on the walls and hitting your head possibly and maybe even do damage to the armor
44. Siong Han I have been a DM for over 25 years now: the trapdoor in the ceiling that NO player will find. It is not hidden, so detect hidden doors and or traps will not work
There is such a thing as hiding thngs in plain sight
A moving statue always nice to scare the willies out f any group
the door that only opens towards players, locked by magic; opening by dispelling its magic will unlock the door together with a mass of water able to carry the players ANY place you want them to drift (in)to
the cellar being part of or leading into the Underdark/other dimension
the people living under the starts
RED RUM
45. Allan T. Grohe Jr. Some ideas you can use: www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html
grodog's Greyhawk Castle Archive: grodog's Version of Greyhawk Castle
GREYHAWKONLINE.COM
46. Kyle Jourdan Room of respite are great. And also a personal favorite is a challenge room. For example, a room that once entered closes and can only be opened by answering a riddle or solving a puzzle. Simple but a nice change of pace to open the door look for traps or treasure and of course kill the enemy waiting on the other side.
47. shifting features (walls, doors, floors, ceilings, levels, falling blocks, uncovering wells, etc.---triggered locally or remotely, etc.) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
48. chasm that's only crossable via a swing (rope swing?) = it takes TIME to cross safely; galleries/balconies overlook the chasm (similar to Star Wars chasm, LOTR Durin's Bridge) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
49. frescoes/faces/sculptures/statues/etc. that change over time: sleeping, silly face, sticking tongue out, Spock eyebrow raised, frown, scowl, smile, laughing, etc ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
50. floor designs, mosaics, etc. that change over time (color, pattern, shapes, depicted image, map display that changes over time [and can be controlled, perhaps?], etc.) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
51. portrait gallery of heroes who have fallen in the dungeon, with blank portrait space and blank name plates scrolling off into the distance ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
special zones and/or destination points/attractions like the Black Reservoir, Great Stone Face, etc.; landmarks that ground you, and let you know where you are when you find them after you've been lost:
52. black and white zones (no color, only shades of grey and gray) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
53. silent zones ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
54. reverse-gravity area (side-gravity areas = localized by surface gravity) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
55. Elemental areas/themes (earth, air, fire, water, wood, metal, ice etc.) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
56. dead magic ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
57. free/powerful magic ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
58. areas/doors/portals/gates/arches/etc. that only allow passage by certain races, classes, alignments, sexes ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
59. corridors, rooms inscribed with runes, symbols, glyphs, stories, dead languages, etc. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
60. sleep- or stasis-incuding area that has a treasure in plain sight, surrounded by doznes of mosnters, NPCs, etc. (note: this would be a possible place that could save your life if you get there in time before poison, mummy rot, etc. kills you) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
61. slow, haste, youthening, aging zones (level that when you enter it ages you 50 years, you have to be old, then exit again on other side in order to regain your youth) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
62. fungi gardens and other food sources (cave fish, cave crickets, rats (rat traps?), giant bee hives, etc. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
63. frozen area: icy, rime- and icicle-covered corridors, snow, freezer burn, etc. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
64. the hall/wall of blades: it grows and spreads over time; according to legend, for each blade that breaks in the Castle, the shard disappears/is absorbed by the stone, and it grows out of the wall in the hall of blades (note that you can't see the stone of the wall at all, you can only see the blades---blades from swords, spears, pikes, daggers, knives, leaf-bladed arrows, etc.) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
other legends hint that various doors/ rooms/halls have been encrusted over with blades, and that various spells will part the curtain of steel to allow egress to the otherwise hidden areas; PCs may also find maps to areas that have since been over-grown with blades; treat the discovery of such areas without a map as secret doors that are twice as difficult to find; sometimes when such areas are opened, a loud grating and snapping of blades will occur, as the metal is sheared off by door/opening actions ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
65. the Leaden Cathedral - a large, vaulted chamber/cathedral (perhaps not really a cathedral, some way just dubbed it that?), built of and with lead and non-magic stuff throughout; anyone present in the room is 85% undetectable to non-deital scrying; this leaden chamber is like a bank's safety-deposit storage vault---each mini-vault (and there are thousands lining the walls) may contain an undetectable item (magical or mundane), because it is enclosed in lead and wards, it cannot be located/scried/etc. The Leaden Cathedral is in a VERY dangerous level, and each of the vaults is trapped, summons guardians, is over 80 feet high in the air and behind a secret door in a flying buttress, etc. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
66. the Stair Well - a huge, deep, open, winding, spiral stairwell that descends many levels into the bowels of the Castle Dungeons; a narrow stair skirts the open shaft (at least 50' wide if not wider); flying creatures are true hazards; scavengers live at the bottom on those who have fallen to their doom; windows, balconies, and landings are strategic points of contest, and are sometimes fortified and manned (charge tolls?) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
67. rooms and sublevels that require PCs to expend a lot of resources just to get there---lots of protection from [elements] spells, prot from evil, passwall, wraithform, stoneshape, etc.; use these areas as lures/destinations on treaure maps that mention the long distances travelleed, tec. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
68. a long, long corridor lined with bones and covere with at least 1-2" of a fine, blueish-white dust (dust of sneezing and choking); it's very hard to move within, or above the corridor because air currents cause the dust to stir (which necessitates the usual save or die); flying, levitationg, etc. willl most likely cause the dust to stir as well (at least 50% chance per passing person without strong precautions in place); thes dust in not easily harvestable for this same reason; PCs find a map showing areas on the other side of the long corridor, perhaps significan treasure; the corridor cuts the level in 1/2 or in 1/3 and 2/3; if PCs are uanble to safely cross the corridor, they need to bypass the corridor and access remainder of the level from another route from above or below ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
69. a waterfall corridor, in which water cascades downward from above, blocks visibliity, soaks the PCs, and threatens to wash them away with the water itself if they're not cautious ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
70. sewers, drains, and infrastrucutre sub-levels: maintenance corridors/access points to reset traps, feed monsters, channel water to the Black Reservoir, spy on dungeon invaders, control pivot points (to redirect a corridor's direction/flow/access from A to B [like a train tracks switch]) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
71. a spy room accessible from many levels above the room that's being spied upon, which allows the king/dungeon builder/whoever to spy on those working in his treaure room (accountants, counters, guards, whatever); the spy room sits above the high, vaulted ceiling of the treasure room, and looks down into it via spy hole slots in the flor (you lie down on the floor in the body-cavity indentations, place your face into the indentations, slide open the spy holes slot, and peer below); the room is accessed via a long, winding narrow stair, via asecret door from a much higher/easier dungeon level than where the treasure room is; it's a long walk (2+ hours?), which helps the king reach a nice, rope old age (exercise, you know) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
72. a series of synchonized one-way secret doors, that open all at once, based on the opening of the first door; they close based on a timer, and if PCs dawdle too long too far into the string of secret doors, they may not be able to exit until someone else comes in the first door (imagine the closing credits of "Get Smart" as the PCs try to flee through the doors as they close around them...). ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
73. Something to do with BOOT HILL
74. Something to do with GAMMA WORLD
75. The Bell Room
76. Donald Pyle In my big dungeon i have designated "rest areas" that promise no wandering monsters if a posted amount of gold is deposited in the slot. With vending chests. Some supply food, some supply weapons like arrows, some even supply single use magic like scrolls and potions. A few are traps tho. LoL All at premium prices of course.
Donald Pyle I also have a new race called the dungeonites. They provide a hotel of sorts. You pay to enter, 24hrs get a warm bed, shower, with total protection from any interuptions. Additional services like healing and armor/weapon repair. A merchant shop and magic supply. When your done you leave thru the same door and continue on. They are a race that has learned to profit from the service of adventurers with a great reputation and great service they are very trustworthy and true nutral so the will serve anyone just the same. Curiously enough the area is just a door. Entry inside is huge but takes up no space on the map. Just the door. All establishments are identical except items for sale. Those are always tailored to the party and adventure. Expensive to be sure but worth the price. Merchants will buy gems and items. A book of credit is always available so characters can cash in items and not cary them or gold around and then buy whats needed later. If a dungeonite hotel is available at that location, and is vacant. Yes they have a no vacancy sign. Bad behavior gets you 86ed for life.its a fun idea but not always a convenient one. I often put them in places where the party dont yet need them. Forcing a long back track or to push on till they find one. Kind of like roadside rest areas. Never one when you realy need it.
77. The Tarot of Many Things
78. Something to do with Modern Monsters (cf. Dragon 57 / Best of Dragon Vol. V)
79. Timothy Harman When I was in High School (back in '83 to '85) our DM had a soft drink machine-like dispenser in one area where we could buy (for a pretty hefty price) healing potions of various strengths.
80. Donald Pyle Forgot the equipment vending chest. Torches and oil are common items, along with rope and iron door spikes. Vended items are always of lowest quality tho. Faster burning torches and oil at twice to four times the price. The further in you get the higher the price. I also have a success chart for vending chests. Just like vending machines sometimes they fail to give product. Or give the wrong selection. Often times the most desirable selection is "sold out". I even have a very small chance of running into the vendor that stocks the chests. He is a greedy old coot that can be bribed to reveal the trap locations. Sometimes accurate sometimes not.
81. Inert Weapon
82. Dastardly deed or devious device.
APPENDIX: APPENDIX H (92-98)
92. Deity
93. Gate
94. Tesseract
95. The Dueling Room
96. Chess Room
97. Gate to the Lair of Prespos
98. Re-roll 2 times
99. Re-roll 3 times
100. Artifact
1. A room that opens some historical information on the dungeon. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
2. A room with a fountain that gives X bonus. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
3. A room that allows looking at some other specific point in the dungeon. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
4. A control room that can open doors, portcullis, sliding walls etc. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
5. A store. (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
6. A room that teleports the party somewhere cool and/or exotic (back to the tavern or China or a tavern in China) (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
7. A room with a recipe for killing a Big Bad (possibily in a strange language- hieroglyphic maybe) (Jayson Rocky Gardner)
8. Peter DuBois You could make a theme to special rooms for the megadungeon. Maybe there are non-medieval fantasy treasure items in the rooms, some of which are not useful to the PCs. Hovercars, dilithium crystals, a superheroes shield, etc.
9. Peter DuBois I thought of a twist to this idea, that I'll use at some point. The special rooms in the megadungeon have items for scavenger hunt. The items are mostly anachronisms (3d chess board, collector's items tied into to 21st century movies, etc.). The last special room will have extraplanar beings (I'll probably use Dr. Who for inspiration here) where the PCs can turn in the scavenger hunt items for a story reward. It could be a nice relief from dangerous parts of the dungeon.
10. James Robertson My copy of the guide is 1E. There were sub-tables for special rooms, and in some cases asterisk characters were used in footnotes to expand on the result. Can't really speak to any other editions. Never needed anything more than 1E.
11. Eric Johnsen tessaract
12. Eric Vicaria Definitely pick a theme and stick with it as appropriate to the designers and/or inhabitants of the dungeon.
13. Eric Vicaria Definitely pick a theme and stick with it as appropriate to the designers and/or inhabitants of the dungeon.
Scholarly retreat? Orreries, storage of thodelites and cartography tools, seed storage, collection of animal hides, etc.
Cult of a destructive god? Shrine of broken weapons. Warehouse of captured banners. Store room of defaced holy icons.
14. James Robertson The above suggestion makes me think of the Astrolabe in the Icewind Dale games. If memory serves the Astrolabe was the central facet of the tower, it's primary theme, and the towers haunted backstory. I also read a good suggestion about keeping in mind...See More
15. Eric Johnsen onsizzle.com/.../mee-summons-a-demon-go-demon-god...
16. Library (Mike Bachini)
17. Creepy kids secret hideaway (Mike Bachini)
18. An anomaly. Contents of a torn bag of holding (Mike Bachini)
19. Portal to the ancient kings harem rooms (and now undead harem) (Mike Bachini)
20. A trap(gasp) (Mike Bachini)
21. A room under the stairs of another room (Mike Bachini)
22. Garbage compactor on the prison level of the Death Star (minus Luke and Han, but with the tentacled beast) (Mike Bachini)
23. An otyug refuse pit. (Mike Bachini)
On and on. Remember rooms always have a purpose, it's costs money and energy to build them (even if you cannot fathom the purpose)
24. Robert Burke Potions lab, padded rm, summoning room.
25. Shawn R Grigg Room that has a Disjunction spell perma cast in it. That's about as harsh and evil a trick room as you can have happen to players. Make it the only way into and out of the treasure vaults. Some treasures are meant to be locked away for ever after all.
26. Sean Liddle dancing girls and a banquet of food. they are actually animated skeletons disguised through illusion and food is also an illusion. they absolutely do not attack the party and if illusions are dispelled they keep acting like dancing girls, who run and cower when / if attacked
27. James Robertson I had a few other thoughts. In the Forgotten Realms setting your mega-dungeon could intersect with the Underdark. You could also borrow a concept from Jules Verne in Journey to the Center of the Earth and as your players progress deeper and deeper in they could encounter increasing strangeness like lost world-esque caverns home to primitive and savage tribes of humans, a door that opens onto a bazaar located on the Outer Plane of Concordant Opposition.
One of the concepts that was present in the Underdark in the Baldurs Gate game series was a Mind Flayer Arena, and there was even a Silver Dragon's lair.
The Monster Manual is filled with interesting creature concepts that you can construct an entire story around, so some of your special rooms could grow into an entire section with it's own ecosystem and culture.
28. James Nacy II a "Special Room" should be something unique to the rest of the dungeon. How about a pedestal with gowing purple orb that seems to serve no purpose or an emoty room with a "Hurricane Lamp" hanging closed in the middle. I like to have "Side Mysteries" in...See More
29. Harold Hankins On the silly side, You could have a room where a cream pie hits each character while a dis-embodied voice shouts "GOTTCH YA". Of course the shouting could draw a wandering monster.........
30. Debra Phillips a harem. only, not full of sexy bullshit but a real harem, if inhabited, then with the household's females and elderly and children, and the sick. a protected space. if its a ruin, they could find healing items, medikits, simple surgery tools, drugs. and lots and lots of bedding. there could be a source of fresh (or not so fresh) water, and possibly magical statues or creatures as guardians. the women, if any are there, could be the owner's Mother, sisters, wives, girlfriends, or other female relatives or friends, kept safe from everything outside the harem. very nice for evil keeps, for instance, where the boss has to worry about his evil henchmen trying to get down with his mama or something else even more gross.
31. Troy Stambaugh Pick up one of the trap books or go nuts on your own.
32. Rocky Bindhamer Special Rooms can be just about anything, but we prefer to fvck with the players minds. We've had; 1. A 1940s greasy spoon diner, 2. A malt shop. 3. A "corridor" with targets on the left wall, a one-way illusionary wall on the right & beyond it archers...See More
33. Jeff Hawks I always liked the room full of magical pools from B1: In Search of the Unknown.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Unknown
34. Rocky Bindhamer www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/4oyx8s/help_with_special_rooms_to_mess_with_my_players/?st=iwd4grxm&sh=03c4ceb7
35. Keith Parker If you have the the original D&D LBBs and, especially, Greyhawk, read the suggestions for tricks and traps. Those almost certainly came from the original Castle Greyhawk campaign and are really quite clever.
36. Mark Andrew Packer Encounter with high status NPC (like a character from the Forgotten Realms novels).
37. Mark Andrew Packer Tiny library with treasure maps detailing areas in the mega dungeon.
38. Mark Andrew Packer Room containing portal to a deeper level in the dungeon.
39. Lenard Lakofka It can be the room's shape, an elevator floor, having a special purpose that's unexpected (a potion concoction room, religious purpose, library), prison room for someone, a teleported in the center of a bare room....
40. Jeff Kerby If you could have a trap setting off moving walls or ceiling or you can also do like an invisible creature one of the things I tried and the characters never the players never got to was a doppelganger they never got to the room with a doppleganger was
41. Jeff Kerby I saw a movie one time that there's a hallway with a long hallway with no door ways except for one on the other one on each end and as soon as I got to the door on the far end the handle receded and a plate came out over the door handle for the door ha...See More
42. Lenard Lakofka You also have the Munster movie where you pull the right overhanging pull cord or you go flying out.
43. Jeff Kerby Like an automatic the floor moves and you have an air shaft to shoot you straight up maybe that's some turns and some corals by time you get out you're so banged up with ragged edges on the walls and hitting your head possibly and maybe even do damage to the armor
44. Siong Han I have been a DM for over 25 years now: the trapdoor in the ceiling that NO player will find. It is not hidden, so detect hidden doors and or traps will not work
There is such a thing as hiding thngs in plain sight
A moving statue always nice to scare the willies out f any group
the door that only opens towards players, locked by magic; opening by dispelling its magic will unlock the door together with a mass of water able to carry the players ANY place you want them to drift (in)to
the cellar being part of or leading into the Underdark/other dimension
the people living under the starts
RED RUM
45. Allan T. Grohe Jr. Some ideas you can use: www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html
grodog's Greyhawk Castle Archive: grodog's Version of Greyhawk Castle
GREYHAWKONLINE.COM
46. Kyle Jourdan Room of respite are great. And also a personal favorite is a challenge room. For example, a room that once entered closes and can only be opened by answering a riddle or solving a puzzle. Simple but a nice change of pace to open the door look for traps or treasure and of course kill the enemy waiting on the other side.
47. shifting features (walls, doors, floors, ceilings, levels, falling blocks, uncovering wells, etc.---triggered locally or remotely, etc.) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
48. chasm that's only crossable via a swing (rope swing?) = it takes TIME to cross safely; galleries/balconies overlook the chasm (similar to Star Wars chasm, LOTR Durin's Bridge) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
49. frescoes/faces/sculptures/statues/etc. that change over time: sleeping, silly face, sticking tongue out, Spock eyebrow raised, frown, scowl, smile, laughing, etc ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
50. floor designs, mosaics, etc. that change over time (color, pattern, shapes, depicted image, map display that changes over time [and can be controlled, perhaps?], etc.) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
51. portrait gallery of heroes who have fallen in the dungeon, with blank portrait space and blank name plates scrolling off into the distance ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
special zones and/or destination points/attractions like the Black Reservoir, Great Stone Face, etc.; landmarks that ground you, and let you know where you are when you find them after you've been lost:
52. black and white zones (no color, only shades of grey and gray) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
53. silent zones ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
54. reverse-gravity area (side-gravity areas = localized by surface gravity) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
55. Elemental areas/themes (earth, air, fire, water, wood, metal, ice etc.) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
56. dead magic ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
57. free/powerful magic ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
58. areas/doors/portals/gates/arches/etc. that only allow passage by certain races, classes, alignments, sexes ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
59. corridors, rooms inscribed with runes, symbols, glyphs, stories, dead languages, etc. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
60. sleep- or stasis-incuding area that has a treasure in plain sight, surrounded by doznes of mosnters, NPCs, etc. (note: this would be a possible place that could save your life if you get there in time before poison, mummy rot, etc. kills you) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
61. slow, haste, youthening, aging zones (level that when you enter it ages you 50 years, you have to be old, then exit again on other side in order to regain your youth) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
62. fungi gardens and other food sources (cave fish, cave crickets, rats (rat traps?), giant bee hives, etc. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
63. frozen area: icy, rime- and icicle-covered corridors, snow, freezer burn, etc. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
64. the hall/wall of blades: it grows and spreads over time; according to legend, for each blade that breaks in the Castle, the shard disappears/is absorbed by the stone, and it grows out of the wall in the hall of blades (note that you can't see the stone of the wall at all, you can only see the blades---blades from swords, spears, pikes, daggers, knives, leaf-bladed arrows, etc.) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
other legends hint that various doors/ rooms/halls have been encrusted over with blades, and that various spells will part the curtain of steel to allow egress to the otherwise hidden areas; PCs may also find maps to areas that have since been over-grown with blades; treat the discovery of such areas without a map as secret doors that are twice as difficult to find; sometimes when such areas are opened, a loud grating and snapping of blades will occur, as the metal is sheared off by door/opening actions ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
65. the Leaden Cathedral - a large, vaulted chamber/cathedral (perhaps not really a cathedral, some way just dubbed it that?), built of and with lead and non-magic stuff throughout; anyone present in the room is 85% undetectable to non-deital scrying; this leaden chamber is like a bank's safety-deposit storage vault---each mini-vault (and there are thousands lining the walls) may contain an undetectable item (magical or mundane), because it is enclosed in lead and wards, it cannot be located/scried/etc. The Leaden Cathedral is in a VERY dangerous level, and each of the vaults is trapped, summons guardians, is over 80 feet high in the air and behind a secret door in a flying buttress, etc. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
66. the Stair Well - a huge, deep, open, winding, spiral stairwell that descends many levels into the bowels of the Castle Dungeons; a narrow stair skirts the open shaft (at least 50' wide if not wider); flying creatures are true hazards; scavengers live at the bottom on those who have fallen to their doom; windows, balconies, and landings are strategic points of contest, and are sometimes fortified and manned (charge tolls?) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
67. rooms and sublevels that require PCs to expend a lot of resources just to get there---lots of protection from [elements] spells, prot from evil, passwall, wraithform, stoneshape, etc.; use these areas as lures/destinations on treaure maps that mention the long distances travelleed, tec. ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
68. a long, long corridor lined with bones and covere with at least 1-2" of a fine, blueish-white dust (dust of sneezing and choking); it's very hard to move within, or above the corridor because air currents cause the dust to stir (which necessitates the usual save or die); flying, levitationg, etc. willl most likely cause the dust to stir as well (at least 50% chance per passing person without strong precautions in place); thes dust in not easily harvestable for this same reason; PCs find a map showing areas on the other side of the long corridor, perhaps significan treasure; the corridor cuts the level in 1/2 or in 1/3 and 2/3; if PCs are uanble to safely cross the corridor, they need to bypass the corridor and access remainder of the level from another route from above or below ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
69. a waterfall corridor, in which water cascades downward from above, blocks visibliity, soaks the PCs, and threatens to wash them away with the water itself if they're not cautious ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
70. sewers, drains, and infrastrucutre sub-levels: maintenance corridors/access points to reset traps, feed monsters, channel water to the Black Reservoir, spy on dungeon invaders, control pivot points (to redirect a corridor's direction/flow/access from A to B [like a train tracks switch]) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
71. a spy room accessible from many levels above the room that's being spied upon, which allows the king/dungeon builder/whoever to spy on those working in his treaure room (accountants, counters, guards, whatever); the spy room sits above the high, vaulted ceiling of the treasure room, and looks down into it via spy hole slots in the flor (you lie down on the floor in the body-cavity indentations, place your face into the indentations, slide open the spy holes slot, and peer below); the room is accessed via a long, winding narrow stair, via asecret door from a much higher/easier dungeon level than where the treasure room is; it's a long walk (2+ hours?), which helps the king reach a nice, rope old age (exercise, you know) ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
72. a series of synchonized one-way secret doors, that open all at once, based on the opening of the first door; they close based on a timer, and if PCs dawdle too long too far into the string of secret doors, they may not be able to exit until someone else comes in the first door (imagine the closing credits of "Get Smart" as the PCs try to flee through the doors as they close around them...). ( www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_grodog.html )
73. Something to do with BOOT HILL
74. Something to do with GAMMA WORLD
75. The Bell Room
76. Donald Pyle In my big dungeon i have designated "rest areas" that promise no wandering monsters if a posted amount of gold is deposited in the slot. With vending chests. Some supply food, some supply weapons like arrows, some even supply single use magic like scrolls and potions. A few are traps tho. LoL All at premium prices of course.
Donald Pyle I also have a new race called the dungeonites. They provide a hotel of sorts. You pay to enter, 24hrs get a warm bed, shower, with total protection from any interuptions. Additional services like healing and armor/weapon repair. A merchant shop and magic supply. When your done you leave thru the same door and continue on. They are a race that has learned to profit from the service of adventurers with a great reputation and great service they are very trustworthy and true nutral so the will serve anyone just the same. Curiously enough the area is just a door. Entry inside is huge but takes up no space on the map. Just the door. All establishments are identical except items for sale. Those are always tailored to the party and adventure. Expensive to be sure but worth the price. Merchants will buy gems and items. A book of credit is always available so characters can cash in items and not cary them or gold around and then buy whats needed later. If a dungeonite hotel is available at that location, and is vacant. Yes they have a no vacancy sign. Bad behavior gets you 86ed for life.its a fun idea but not always a convenient one. I often put them in places where the party dont yet need them. Forcing a long back track or to push on till they find one. Kind of like roadside rest areas. Never one when you realy need it.
77. The Tarot of Many Things
78. Something to do with Modern Monsters (cf. Dragon 57 / Best of Dragon Vol. V)
79. Timothy Harman When I was in High School (back in '83 to '85) our DM had a soft drink machine-like dispenser in one area where we could buy (for a pretty hefty price) healing potions of various strengths.
80. Donald Pyle Forgot the equipment vending chest. Torches and oil are common items, along with rope and iron door spikes. Vended items are always of lowest quality tho. Faster burning torches and oil at twice to four times the price. The further in you get the higher the price. I also have a success chart for vending chests. Just like vending machines sometimes they fail to give product. Or give the wrong selection. Often times the most desirable selection is "sold out". I even have a very small chance of running into the vendor that stocks the chests. He is a greedy old coot that can be bribed to reveal the trap locations. Sometimes accurate sometimes not.
81. Inert Weapon
82. Dastardly deed or devious device.
APPENDIX: APPENDIX H (92-98)
92. Deity
93. Gate
94. Tesseract
95. The Dueling Room
96. Chess Room
97. Gate to the Lair of Prespos
98. Re-roll 2 times
99. Re-roll 3 times
100. Artifact
