Level 11 - Fungus Forest and Mold Falls

[makofan]

Calithena has graciously let me spearhead the Level 11 Project, designing the Fungus Forest and Mold Falls. I would delight in collaborative work here, getting people to post ideas/encounters/maps that would make this truly outstanding. I would be more like editor/lead designer if this worked. To get the creative juices flowing, here is the map of the dungeon:



Here are Calithena's thoughts on the level:

11 - fungus forest and mold falls - haven't really thought this one through too much, but I imagined it sort of super-dangerous alice-in-wonderlandy, with a few possible allies and lots of enemies and everything being differen

Here are some random musings I tossed out

Level 11 is a high-level dungeon, so it can be deadly. Deadly spores and molds, and a completely alien ecology would be de rigeur

Objects have color by absorbing and reflecting different wavelengths of light (itself a narrow band of the electro-magnetic spectrum). Some of the fungus/creatures have adapted to the dark and mutated from radiation and only reflect wavelengths of energy in the infra-red or ultra-violet spectrum. The infra-red reflectors would be effectively invisible unless a PC has heat vision of some sort. The ultra-violet monsters might be visible to elves or people who can see like a cat. Since these are naturally invisible, they don't turn visible when they attack.

I can envision an environment where the normal five senses function poorly, and in fact mislead the party.

Intelligent mold, communicating telepathically, with psionic-type attacks.

Sluggish slime carpeted with various molds, meandering slowly like a swampy river through the fungus forest, over cliffs and creating the Mold falls for which it is reknowned

and a calithena response

Maybe even some general color puzzles that players need to solve (spells/items to correct?) to get through (or get through more easily).

So tack on any ideas or suggestions to this thread. i would love to amass a great wealth of ideas then knock them into a dungeon level after.

[calithena]

Definitely a big level size-wise. I would like some huge tree-size funghemoths for PCs to battle.

Also, through the mold falls is probably the only way down to level 13, and that should be heinous both visually and in terms of getting through, at least if you don't dimension door or whatever. But a giant cloud of spores at the base of the falls seems almost de rigeuer.

Standard treasures will probably be minimal on this level. To compensate for that we should probably have some of the fungus things do really rare, cool stuff, like serve as ingredients in potions, permanently raise attribute scores, or perhaps bestow cool psychic powers, that kind of thing.

[sham]

I've always loved the Fungus Among Us theme, that of a race of humanoids, or even undead, that have essentially been 'mutated' as their members act as walking hosts for the almost parasitic mold colonies.

Former adventurers might comprise most of their number, those hapless souls who were consumed by the rampant mold and fungi of this level. Barely recognizable, these shambling almost zombified servitors of the mysterious Mold-Mind seek to spread their alien master's influence by providing more fungus hosts in the form of captured, subdued or slain adventurers (or any humanoid denizen of TDB). You'd possibly have a mish-mash of Fungal Fodder with men, dwarves, troglodytes, trolls, orcs, etc all serving mindlessly the greater good of the sprawling mold colony and it's pervasive uncaring all-consuming Mold-Mind from regions beyond.

Since this is fairly deep down in the dungeon, they'd have to present a formidable challenge. To borrow themes from monsters past in the D&D anthology, perhaps upon death these Fungal Fodder (need a name here, maybe Infest-Dead) explode in a cloud of deadly spores. Perhaps their most feared method of attack is a breath weapon which seeks to infest victims in a cone shaped areas with these parasitic spores?

The Mold-Mind might even be able to watch and command the actions of it's servitors, presenting a coordinated force of suicidal 'Infest-Dead' opponents.

I love the theme for this level, so I'm sure I'll be able to ramble off more crap soon.

[makofan]

Another idea I had is 'silence'. Mold makes no noise, and neither does fungus. We could have a realm where all is eerie silence. Uncounted depths of underfoot moss/mold deadens foot steps, so the party makes no noise either. Since we depend on sound for balance, players are disoriented and get '-2' to attack rolls due to balance and perception problems.

[makofan]

The mold mind assimilates the abilities of its hosts (like the Star Trek Borg Collective). Mold colonies casting wizard spells!

[sham]

May 26, 2008 7:23:33 GMT -6 makofan said:

The mold mind assimilates the abilities of its hosts (like the Star Trek Borg Collective). Mold colonies casting wizard spells!

Nice! You could even make more than one Mold-Mind...maybe the colony morphed into two distinct minds at some point, who are now adversaries. Or, just one all consuming, uncaring alien Mold-Mind from dimensions uncharted works.

This level might end up being crazy, bizarre, unconventional and ultimately memorable due to it's unique flavor. Me likey so far.

[makofan]

A big question is should we have a Red Nails ability - the fungus and the mold are at war and the party can somehow exploit this?

[calithena]

I think probably not for this level, but if you work it out that's great. What you might do for this level is have a few individual creatures (e.g. tribes of fungus-men or lone plant elementals) who could be parlayed with and turned into guides or even allies for the right price. But I think we've already got warring factions going on levels 1-3 en toto and 5, plus the whole upper levels of the dungeon have to deal with the dark trolls on 9, so probably the 'thinking man's' challenges on this level should be somewhat different.

[makofan]

Hmm, why do the dark trolls make occasional forays into this place? If we can come up with some ideas on that, it also helps.

[calithena]

The Dark Trolls consider themselves masters of the caves, but my guess is they don't go much past the opening of this one, assuming it's all horrible fungus stuff which kills their dinosaur mounts anyway. Maybe they have a resident alchemist who comes here for potion ingredients or something like that. But you should talk to the dark trolls guy about this if you want to develop something...also, the inter-level connections need to be kept to a minimum for the published versions in the mag because they're supposed to be 'plug and play' there, later on we'll weave it together for the published final combined module. But putting a dark troll alchemist with a couple of guards on the random encounter list makes sense to me at least.

[makofan]

Evreaux over at Dragonsfoot posted some information I try to take to heart

www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18710&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30

In my opinion, designing a good dungeon also involves creating a good map. It must be stressed that this is obviously only half the battle - without imaginative content, all the effort is for naught; while a dungeon whose map is poorly designed may be saved by well thought out encounters. In this thread, I don’t wish to discuss the latter aspect, only mapping and how it can contribute to enjoyable play. What makes a map good or bad? Fundamentally, a good map should enhance the factors which make dungeon crawling enthralling: for instance, exploration, player decision making, uncovering hidden areas and secrets, as well as maintaining the pace of action.

***

Exploration entails discovering previously unknown territory. To find a lower level, a section the PCs have never been to, or simply some entertaining and imaginative room, is one of the great joys of dungeoneering. However, for all this to feel like an accomplishment, there has to be a meaningful effort on the part of the players and a challenge on part of the DM. There can be no real exploration if the dungeon isn’t large enough or complex enough to allow failure, as in certain areas being missed. If encounters are presented one after another, there is no challenge and no accomplishment in this respect.

Player decision making from the operative to the tactical and strategic level involves dealing with obstacles, negotiating hostile territory and ensuring the success of an entire expedition. Naturally, many individual decisions are based on a „golden rule” such as left-hand-on-the-wall or random chance, especially when there is no way of knowing what the decision „means”; that is, what its likely outcome in one case or the other may be. However, by making a dungeon where the players can choose to avoid or meet obstacles, take or avoid risks by visiting/not visiting „deeper levels”, explore side branches or concentrate on reaching an objective, etc., player decision making becomes a more interesting and meaningful challenge. Generally, branching, complex maps offer many possibilities for decision making, but overly complicated maps do not: they just cause frustration.

Uncovering hidden areas or secrets is yet another form of reward for resourceful players. Finding a secret door leading to a room with treasure is fun; finding one leading to a hidden sublevel or a previously undiscovered section is even better. A good dungeon should have at least a few of these, preferably a good amount, and they should be found primarily due to player ingenuity. Judges Guild’s Caverns of Thracia is likely the best example of a dungeon with well designed secrets: entire levels and sub-levels may be uncovered by observation and resourcefulness.

Finally, maintaining the pace of action is important to ensure the game remains exciting and doesn’t get bogged down for too long

I think if we try to keep these goals in mind we can have an awesome level

[makofan]

We need a mold or slime dragon !

[jcstephens]

Since no megadungeon is complete without obscure pop references, there needs to be at least one reference to "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" as well.

[makofan]

I had another idea suggested to me

How about a race of fungal dryads, each bound to one of the great mushroom 'trees', the most ancient in the forest and deep within the centre. They would come from their mushrooms to enchant unwary travellers, their comely forms emitting spores that would affect the minds of the adventurers, then they would come in for the kill.

By kissing the traveller they could implant spores within the body which over time would warp the subject and slowly turn them into a fungus, becoming part of the forest itself! This deep in the dungeon and in such a bizarre dungeon level I think it could be appropriately weird

Keep them all coming - we'll sift through the good, bad and bizarre later - right now we just need to generate ideas

[calithena]

I think we might want to have some sort of grotto, a positive shrine that contains something that might be helpful against the Black Lord of Nothingness, or more generically at least in the level as stand-alone. This is going to be a tough environment to survive in for long and a safe base might be helpful.

Also, I have to say that if you haven't looked at Rob Kuntz' Garden of the Plantmaster adventure, it's not especially fungal, but there are lots of good inspirations there for plant-based battles.

[kesher]

I'm continuing to read these megadungeon threads with great, great pleasure.

I feel moved to point out the singular awesomeness of:

1. "The Black Lord of Nothingness"

2. "funghemoths"

3. spore dryads

What's that? A rift opening up to the pure creative goodness of middle skool obsessiveness?? Woot! I cannot WAIT to see the final product!

Congrats to all of you who are working on it; Fight On!

[Thorulfr]

Some really creative brainstorming here, but there are a couple of things to which I must take exception:

Level 11 is a high-level dungeon, so it can be deadly. Deadly spores and molds, and a completely alien ecology would be de rigeur

Objects have color by absorbing and reflecting different wavelengths of light (itself a narrow band of the electro-magnetic spectrum). Some of the fungus/creatures have adapted to the dark and mutated from radiation and only reflect wavelengths of energy in the infra-red or ultra-violet spectrum. The infra-red reflectors would be effectively invisible unless a PC has heat vision of some sort. The ultra-violet monsters might be visible to elves or people who can see like a cat. Since these are naturally invisible, they don't turn visible when they attack.

Objects either reflect, absorb, or transmit light (elecrtomagnetic) wavelengths. If something were to "only reflect wavelengths of energy in the infra-red or ultra-violet spectrum", it would appear black in visible light, unless it were transparent/transluscent. Even if it were perfectly transparent, it would be visible unless the refractive index (the degree to which light is bent when entering or exiting the substance), just like a piece of clear glass can still be seen in air or water.* And if it were adapted to darkness, there would be no need for it to go to all the trouble to be transparent/identical RI to air in visible light.

Another idea I had is 'silence'. Mold makes no noise, and neither does fungus. We could have a realm where all is eerie silence. Uncounted depths of underfoot moss/mold deadens foot steps, so the party makes no noise either. Since we depend on sound for balance, players are disoriented and get '-2' to attack rolls due to balance and perception problems.

Our sense of balance does not "depend on sound" - while the organ used is the inner ear, what our brain is interpreting is the way the fluid inside the inner ear moves in response to gravity and inertia - which works whether vibrations are being pumped into that fluid by the bones in the middle ear of not. I don't lose my balance when I put on a pair of hearing protectors. I might find it a little harder to navigate if I am consciously or unconsciously using a source of sound to orient myself (I have found that my own 'sense of direction' uses the sun, moon, and bright stars almost unconsciously - if I can't see the sky, I need something else to keep me pointed in the right direction.)




*What is freaky is when the refractive indices match exactly - my high school physics teacher brewed up a solution in a tank which had the same RI as pyrex glass - lab glassware placed in the tank completely disappeared. Absolutely invisible. The frosted markings on a beaker looked like they were floating in the liquid. Disembodied little patches of frosted white that read "25ml"

[makofan]

thorulfr - thanks for the science corrections! Would you be able to suggest a bit more scientific justification for the ideas I am trying to convey? I know I can always invoke "It's magic!", but I would prefer a more sound justification!

[Thorulfr]

Jun 2, 2008 12:39:06 GMT -6 makofan said:

thorulfr - thanks for the science corrections! Would you be able to suggest a bit more scientific justification for the ideas I am trying to convey? I know I can always invoke "It's magic!", but I would prefer a more sound justification!

Let me ruminate on this over lunch...(and thanks for letting me be constructive, rather than just a nay-sayer - I didn't want to stomp on anyone's creativity, but if I were a player, I'd protesting rather vigorously if a DM sprung those on me...)

[Thorulfr]

There are a couple of ways to go about this - the easiest would be 'hallucinogenic spores" and give the characters a (secret) saving throw, and if they fail, you could start feeding them any sort of line you want, ranging from quietly adding minuses to their rolls based on slightly altered perceptions of distance, to misrepresenting the time it takes to do things when their time-sense goes wacky ("...You walk for what seems like hours - just how long is this corridor, anyway?..."), all the way up to the full-bore 'Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Diamonds" phantasmal attackers where one half of the party is battling the tentacle-beasts, while the other half is wondering what has gotten into their companions. (Or, if you want to mess with their minds, have REAL attackers, and the hallucinating members are the ones that see nothing....or see something else...)

Going for something more concrete, I guess the first question to ask is whether the party is going to be relying on infravision to get around, or will have a light source to aid them. Your fungus-beasts are not likely to be homeothermic, so everything will be about the same temperature, making things difficult for the demi-humans.
Now, things that live in caves tend to be white, since there is no need of protective coloration/resistance to sunlight/etc. Did you ever see the movie "THX 1138"? Do you remember the detention center? Everything white on white; curved surfaces so there are no sharp edges; everyone wearing white coveralls. Very disorienting. Now imagine a section of cavern that was totally covered with white fungus, every surface curved and blobby: any fungus-monsters are going to be nearly invisible until they move, and even then would be hard to see. Add to that the fun of stalactites and stalagmites covered in that fungus: a missed sword blow might *snick* effortlessly through a column of white, or might run smack into hidden stone.
If you want to get even more confusing, think of the 'Dazzle' camouflage used by ships in WWI - you can't hide a ship on the open ocean, but you can make it hard to tell the size and outline, thus the speed, identity, and distance of the vessel, all of which are extremely important when a stopwatch and the Mk. 1 eyeball are your main tools for aiming the torpedoes. Now imagine a cavern of black basalt, full of columns, curtains, stalactites, stalagmites, etc., but only partially covered with a confused welter of white, patchy fungus. Any fungus-monsters which have to defend themselves against bio-luminescent predators might develop a similarly patchy, black-and-white integument. The jumbled mix of hard and soft surfaces might also make echoes confusing, making it harder to pinpoint the location of sounds.
(For more fun along these lines, Renee Magritte did a painting of a horse and rider against a dense stand of birch trees - but reversed foreground and background in a visually eye-bending manner. I wish I could remember the name of the piece...)

[Max]

Jun 2, 2008 15:23:57 GMT -6 Thorulfr said:

(For more fun along these lines, Renee Magritte did a painting of a horse and rider against a dense stand of birch trees - but reversed foreground and background in a visually eye-bending manner. I wish I could remember the name of the piece...)

Is this the painting you had in mind, thorulfr?

[Thorulfr]

Probably - I thought it was birch trees, but I might be mixing that detail up with a different painting entirely.
But pretty cool, nicht war? ;D

[makofan]

LEVEL 11 IDEAS SUMMARY AS OF JUNE 3

I have summarized all the thread ideas - good starting points to think about here

ACCESS
Entered from level 8 Deep Caves
Exit to level 13 Slime Caverns

DESIGN
Super-dangerous alice-in-wonderlandy
A few possible allies and lots of enemies and everything being different
Level 11 is a high-level dungeon, so it can be deadly.
Deadly spores and molds, and a completely alien ecology would be de rigeur
The normal five senses function poorly, and in fact mislead the party.
Definitely a big level size-wise
Standard treasures will be minimal
Some of the fungus things serve as ingredients in potions, permanently raise attribute scores, or perhaps bestow cool psychic powers, for example.
Eerily silent realm- causes disorientation?
Should we have a Red Nails ability - the fungus and the mold are at war and the party can somehow exploit this?
The Dark Trolls consider themselves masters of the caves, but my guess is they don't go much past the opening of this one, assuming it's all horrible fungus stuff which kills their dinosaur mounts anyway. Maybe they have a resident alchemist who comes here for potion ingredients or something like that.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Sluggish slime carpeted with various molds, meandering slowly like a swampy river through the fungus forest, over cliffs and creating the Mold falls for which it is reknowned.

The mold falls should be heinous both visually and in terms of getting through, at least if you don't dimension door or whatever. But a giant cloud of spores at the base of the falls seems almost de rigeuer

General color puzzles that players need to solve (spells/items to correct?) to get through (or get through more easily).

We might want to have some sort of grotto, a positive shrine that contains something that might be helpful against the Black Lord of Nothingness, or more generically at least in the level as stand-alone. This is going to be a tough environment to survive in for long and a safe base might be helpful

'Hallucinogenic spores" - give the characters a (secret) saving throw, and if they fail, you could start feeding them any sort of line you want, ranging from quietly adding minuses to their rolls based on slightly altered perceptions of distance, to misrepresenting the time it takes to do things when their time-sense goes wacky

Monochromatic world? Everything is white? Very confusing

MONSTERS
Invisible monsters? Due to natural or magical phenomena

Intelligent mold, communicating telepathically, with psionic-type attacks.

Huge tree-size funghemoths for PCs to battle

Fungus Among Us, a race of humanoids or undead, that have 'mutated' as their members act as walking hosts for the almost parasitic mold colonies. Former adventurers might comprise most of their number, those hapless souls who were consumed by the rampant mold and fungi of this level. Barely recognizable, these shambling almost zombified servitors of the mysterious Mold-Mind seek to spread their alien master's influence by providing more fungus hosts in the form of captured, subdued or slain adventurers (or any humanoid denizen of TDB). You'd possibly have a mish-mash of Fungal Fodder with men, dwarves, troglodytes, trolls, orcs, etc all serving mindlessly the greater good of the sprawling mold colony and it's pervasive uncaring all-consuming Mold-Mind from regions beyond. Perhaps upon death these Fungal Fodder (need a name here, maybe Infest-Dead) explode in a cloud of deadly spores. Perhaps their most feared method of attack is a breath weapon which seeks to infest victims in a cone shaped areas with these parasitic spores? The Mold-Mind might even be able to watch and command the actions of it's servitors, presenting a coordinated force of suicidal 'Infest-Dead' opponents

The Mold mind assimilates the abilities of its hosts (like the Star Trek Borg Collective). Mold colonies casting wizard spells. You could even make more than one Mold-Mind...maybe the colony morphed into two distinct minds at some point, who are now adversaries.

Putting a dark troll alchemist with a couple of guards on the random encounter list makes sense to me at least

A mold or slime dragon

A race of fungal dryads, each bound to one of the great mushroom 'trees', the most ancient in the forest and deep within the centre. They would come from their mushrooms to enchant unwary travellers, their comely forms emitting spores that would affect the minds of the adventurers, then they would come in for the kill. By kissing the traveller they could implant spores within the body which over time would warp the subject and slowly turn them into a fungus, becoming part of the forest itself! This deep in the dungeon and in such a bizarre dungeon level I think it could be appropriately weird

[Epengar]

fwiw, this much edible biomass might attract a lot of potential fungivores -- creatures that eat fungus. Some might stay around the edges, to avoid the worst of the fungal defenses. Some might be symbiotically linked to the fungus, and so tolerated. Maybe insects (of various sizes...) or other animals eat the fungus, and also disperse spores up to the higher cavern levels. Maybe some creatures tunnel into the giant fungal growths, living there the way surface-dwellers might live in caves or hollow trees. Bats perhaps? Some arthropods actually carry spores with them when they disperse to new patches of (bark, dung, grass shoots) -- they inoculate the new feeding site with the spores, and then feed on the fungus as it grows, and on the same material the fungus is digesting. This could be happening in the dungeon too -- any organic material left unattended for very long might attract a cloud of somethings that bring the spores of the Great Mold. Soon that pile of dung, or mass of unused lumber, or temporarily abandoned body of a party member, becomes infested with the fungus....

maybe there are a bunch of tunnels connecting the Deep Caves (8) to the Fungus Forest. The two areas might actually be a single cavern system, but the Fungus Forest area might be centered around something that makes it particularly congenial to fungal growth. Radiation? Hot springs? Mud pots? The Mold Falls might be massive sheets of mold and fungus that hang down over a precipice with water cascading down over them.

This source of food might support a more abundant variety of fungus-eaters in the Deep Caves. Things that would relish some diversity in their diet, and are in turn preyed on by hunting parties from elsewhere.

[hackman]

Makofen, this is really cool. The ideas you've come up with are great. I'm really looking forward to your work on this one.

[Max]

Jun 3, 2008 13:32:50 GMT -6 Epengar said:

fwiw, this much edible biomass might attract a lot of potential fungivores....This source of food might support a more abundant variety of fungus-eaters in the Deep Caves. Things that would relish some diversity in their diet, and are in turn preyed on by hunting parties from elsewhere.

Yes! With all this talk of spores and slime let's not lose sight of the fact that mushrooms are delicious!

In addition to their possible value to alchemists and poisoners, some of the fungi in the forest would undoubtedly be prized by epicures -- monstrous and otherwise. Perhaps the cook at Longspear’s Halfway Inn expects a particularly dangerous guest and wishes to serve an unforgettable beef a la duxelles...

[brumbar]

I like the idea of free floating spores that require saving throws for various effects (not all spores are alike) such as sleep, halucinations, violence, fear.

Another thought (to borrow something from ad&d) but shambling molds seem like they would fit in nice here.

As some creatures may have succumbed to the molds and spores there is always a chance for undead trolls etc.

[Epengar]

more fungus-themed ideas:

puffballs, fungus that emit smoke-like clouds of very tiny spores. The spores might be toxic, psychoactive, or flammable. These might be hazard or treasure

living noose traps. There is a microscopic fungus that grows into fast-tightening rings that snare passing nematode worms in the soil. I think giant versions of these would be plausible. Keep in mind that fungus usually eats slowly, so natural fungus traps won't necessarily be instantly or even quickly lethal, but will be quite tough to escape. Local predators might take advantage of this, chasing prey into a patch of trap fungus and then devouring the trapped victims.

Fungi produce many natural antibiotics (to prevent their bacterial competitors from getting to the goods first). So fungi with healing or disease-curing properties might be another alternate form of treasure.

A wacked out, frequently (continuously?) tripping druid-esque npc might be an entertaining forest dweller. Maybe human, maybe something else entirely, but with his/her/its normal prejudices and attitudes deeply altered. Could be a valuable (if frustrating) ally, or a deadly opponent if offended. Maybe a small community, not just a lone hermit?

[makofan]

I love you guys

My plan is by the end of June to take all these ideas and actually start mushing them into a cohesive/coherent whole. Who knows what will hit the cutting room floor? I look upon my role here as that of the game developer, taking other people's designs and making them work mechanically and thematically. I'll make sure everyone gets a credit

[coffee]

Jun 4, 2008 11:26:14 GMT -6 Epengar said:

A wacked out, frequently (continuously?) tripping druid-esque npc might be an entertaining forest dweller. Maybe human, maybe something else entirely, but with his/her/it's normal prejudices and attitudes deeply altered. Could be a valuable (if frustrating) ally, or a deadly opponent if offended. Maybe a small community, not just a lone hermit?

And you can call him Egon...


From Ghostbusters:

Janine: Do you have any hobbies?
Egon: I collect molds, slimes and fungus.