Dyson's Delve II - Level 1 (Patreon)

I’m still keeping on with the #Dungeon23 projects – here’s level 1 in its entirety with the full map and short-form stocking.

1-1 The Gates
The doors of the gates are long gone but sounds can be heard from within the walls as scavengers dig through the ruins of the burned structure within. The walls are 16 feet tall and lack any form of battlements or similar, instead being rounded at the top to prevent grappling hooks and similar from finding purchase.

1-2 Courtyard & Ruins
Three toadfolk are scavenging through the burned out ruins in the southeast. One has just found something and they are about to start fighting over it.

1-3 Corner Tower
The door to this space is ajar and two toadfolk are checking it out and will try to hide or climb to the tower roof if they hear violence in the courtyard.

1-4 Entrance Hall
Shattered massive door remains on the floor. East door is locked. Two more toadfolk are peering about in the darkness to find anything to salvage. If they hear others enter, they will try to hide in the archway of the west door and escape as soon as they can.

1-5 Long Tower
Accessible from outside through the fallen wall, and from above via the ladder. Four bandits are on this level watching for intruders and ready to scare off the toadfolk. Bandits in the tower above will come down if there is any extended commotion down here.

1-6 Central Shaft
The centre of this chamber is a shaft around a 10 foot wide column of solid stone. The shaft goes down multiple levels. Stairs lead down from here to the next level below. A solitary screamer hangs on to the south side of this column watching for intruders. It has seen the toadfolk but has not started to scream yet because they have not proceeded any further than the entrance hall yet.

1-7 Split Gallery
Along the upper portion are ratty old tapestries of marching armies. A nest of cat-sized giant spiders is hidden behind the central tapestry in the souther set of three. The body of a very recently deceased toadfolk lies on the lower tier nearby.

1-8 Sally Door
The door here is long missing and the wall above it collapsed, but then much of the fallen rock has been cleared to allow entry here again. There is still a lot of debris here and entering quietly will be difficult, doubly so since both tower 5 & 9 watch over this entry.

1-9 Round Tower
d4+1 darklings are here, always alert for activity from the bandits tower. The ladder leads up to other darklings living above. They won’t attack those coming through 8 unless they’ve already been in conflict with them in the past or they look like the bandits.

1-10 Up to the Castle
Stairs lead up to the castle on the hill above. Southwest corner is barricaded with wrecked furniture and d6+2 morlocks are guarding this barricade against the bandits and darklings alike.

1-11 Bubbles
A 2′ diameter pearlescent sphere is in the middle of the room which slowly grows and releases a 4′ bubble every d2 turns. The bubble floats off in a random direction (roll d12 for direction, d6 for number of feet moved, reroll both dice each turn) and pops on contact with anything. If the bubble touches a creature (or a creature touches the sphere) the creature mus save vs paralysis or suffer 2d6 lightning damage and be paralyzed for 1d20 turns.

1-12 Skeletal workshop
Skeletons of both a morlock from the south and a darkling from the tower are on the floor of this workshop, electrocuted by silent bubbles from 11. The outside of the east door is scratched with a big X to warn others not to enter. The workbench contains a number of intricate brass pieces of unknown purpose, but one is a wand-shaped piece of brass that gives advantage on saves against lightning and prevents the damage and paralysis from the bubbles for the wielder.

1-13 Looted Storage
Two darklings have just finished burning off a chunk of green slime here and are about to open the three (empty) chests on the west wall.

1-14 The Long Hall
Alcoves line this hall and a slight breeze moves down it from north to south. Three stone benches along the centre of the hall are bloodstained and the centre one has old bandages and a knife on it. A virtual demilitarized zone for the inhabitants, most wandering monsters along here will be darting from alcove to alcove to try to avoid being seen.

1-15 Dining Hall
Five 12 foot long tables with bench seating. Southernmost table is charred, as is the ceiling overhead. The south doors look partially dissolved.

1-16 Morlock Tomb
The rotted remains of several morlocks are piled upon the long-dead remains of others. Morlocks leave their dead here because on sunny days they can see a bit of light from outside via areas 4 & 7 from here, and they will not travel into the sunny parts of the delve.

1-17 Kitchens
Every wooden surface is discoloured with mold and rot. The base of the southern closet door is partially dissolved and horrible slurping noises within indicate the presence of a foul jelly or pudding of some kind.

1-18 Bathrooms
Both lead down to the Otyugh pit on level 2. 18a contains a significant mass of green slime over much of the ceiling. 18b looks to have a major plumbing issue, but this is actually a grey ooze.

1-19 Barracks
These old barracks have been appropriated by an advance guard of 5 morlocks. They avoid the ooze in 18a, and watch for intruders from the north – one Morlock will attempt to run to 22.

1-20 Dry Pool
A two-foot deep depression was once a pool. A fine crystalline residue is at the bottom of the pool. There is enough powder to collect 3 doses of it. For each dose roll on the potions table twice and the potion miscibility table.

1-21 Wild Beast Storage
This cage was meant to hold wild beasts of some kind, but is used by the morlocks to hold anyone they’ve captured and not sacrificed to their elemental masters yet. d4-2 prisoners will be here, plus any PC adventurers they may have defeated or stolen from other factions. If there are prisoners, there will be the same number of morlock guards.

1-22 Morlock Wizardry
The apprentice of the morlock warlock stays here, training new apprentices. He is not allowed to return to the tribe because of his strange mutations (a crown of thumbs and a boneless misshapen arm). He remains in 22a, invisible, watching the party, waiting for the opportunity to take on a solitary party member or steal something magical.

1-23 Apprentices’ Chamber
The warlock’s two apprentices are in here, producing and/or consuming strange shamanic drugs to bring them into touch with their elemental patrons. Drugs abound!

1-24 Morlock Church Antechamber
The morlocks use this chamber to prepare before abasing themselves to their elemental patrons in 25. Small containers have special annointing oils dedicated to the five elements, each having d12-2 doses giving a +2 bonus on saves vs that element for the next 24 hours.

1-25 Morlock Church
Various effigies of the elemental patrons are on the small tables in this room, ten in total, two for each element. All are twisted caricatures of living creatures. Demonic statues at each end watch over the chamber. There are d20-10 morlocks here at any time.

1-26 Ruined Fane
This chamber lies in ruins, the walls partially torn down.

1-27 Chained Ghouls
4 ghouls are chained on the raised section, captives of the morlocks. If things go poorly for the morlocks, they will bring the key (or an axe) to break the ghouls free before fleeing.

1-28 Morlocks in the Shrine
This old shrine is now a morlock den with a dozen morlocks living here in horrid filth. They have some paltry treasure among them.

1-29 Smashed Hall
Mosaics have obviously been torn down from the walls and columns here and rubble fills the corners.

1-30 Morlock Hall
Another eight morlocks live in here, and are joined by the ones in 28 when feasting occurs. One has a single-use magic clay sphere that explodes as a half-strength fireball when thrown.

1-31 Secret Chamber
Only the chief morlock warlock knows of this chamber, and has a map to its location. The chamber was used by someone in the past to store their goods and has a moderate hoard of treasure, but several of the boxes are trapped with fungal spore poison.

The 1200 dpi version of the map was drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and is 10,800 pixels (36 squares) wide. To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for 10′ squares) – so resizing it to either 2,520 pixels wide or 5,040 pixels wide, respectively.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2023/02/06/dungeon23-dysons-delve-ii-level-1-complete/