[OD&D] Help me build a catacomb dungeon!

[chronoplasm]

Anyone playing in my PBP game on odd74.proboards.com, please keep out.


OK, so here's the situation:
Whenever someone dies, an organization called the Green Candle Order collects their pets and makes sure that the animals are well cared for until they can find a new home.
There is a very important magical reason for this. In the past, it has been found that people's pets will tend to try and follow them into the catacombs after they die. Somehow these animals are able to raise their dead masters with their sad howling.
So, the Green Candle Order takes care of the deceased person's pets in order to prevent these furry four-legged friends from raising their former owners as man-eating zombies.

However, some fiend has decided to release the animals from their kennels into the catacombs.
The players must catch the animals to prevent them from raising undead.


What I'm looking for is suggestions for various traps, hazards, and interesting features for a catacomb dungeon.
It's a nautical-themed campaign, so I think I'd like to have a flooded area on one of the lower levels.

Any thoughts?

[Ursca]

Wel, first of all, you're spoilt for choice when it comes to maps. There's plenty of maps of real catacombs on the internet.
http://www.planetware.com/i/map/M/st-pauls-catacombs-map.jpg
Then there's Ossuaries. With walls made of bones. Add in some gribbly reanimation and you can't go wrong.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Catacombs-700px.jpg

[DeeCee]

If you're going to have a flooded area, you might want to play up some of the more horrific aspects of that, depending on the constitution of your players, of course. It's water in a catacomb, so I'd be playing up the chance of contracting disease all the way through the dungeon, then when they happen upon the flooded area, really lay it on and inform them what it is they'll be swimming and diving through down there.

Oh, and just to wear at their nerves a bit more, have at least one room that is flooded enough that their torches will be extinguished if they try to explore. So they're down there, in the dark, with possibly reanimated bodies, swimming around in a pool of human stew.

As for traps, it's unlikely that people will put in death traps for a catacomb, but this is D&D. If they go to an abandoned or disused area of the catacombs, that's when I'd add in some locking doors, puzzles on the tombs, or undead ambushes. If they're in the working area of the catacombs, remember that people have to come here to inter the dead on a daily basis, so I wouldn't make it too dangerous. The local undertaker isn't likely to be an adventurer after all.

[Hellzon]

With walls made of bones.

Try chandeliers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sedlec-Ossuary.jpg) Now imagine that thing climbing along the ceiling (or is that too crazy?)

Nice touch with the reanimating pets. I'll have to steal that someday.

[chronoplasm]

If you're going to have a flooded area, you might want to play up some of the more horrific aspects of that, depending on the constitution of your players, of course. It's water in a catacomb, so I'd be playing up the chance of contracting disease all the way through the dungeon, then when they happen upon the flooded area, really lay it on and inform them what it is they'll be swimming and diving through down there.


Yeah!
Doesn't the Blackmoor Supplement include rules for Dysentery?


Oh, and just to wear at their nerves a bit more, have at least one room that is flooded enough that their torches will be extinguished if they try to explore. So they're down there, in the dark, with possibly reanimated bodies, swimming around in a pool of human stew.


That would be pretty nasty. Especially if there was an Ochre Jelly in there. You need fire to kill those, right?


As for traps, it's unlikely that people will put in death traps for a catacomb, but this is D&D. If they go to an abandoned or disused area of the catacombs, that's when I'd add in some locking doors, puzzles on the tombs, or undead ambushes. If they're in the working area of the catacombs, remember that people have to come here to inter the dead on a daily basis, so I wouldn't make it too dangerous. The local undertaker isn't likely to be an adventurer after all.

I imagine that some people would have their earthly treasures buried with them. Traps could be used to ward of grave robbers.

[B. Miller]

My favorite trap is a covered pit, at the bottom of which is another covered pit. It's so stupid it's funny, especially in play.

[DeeCee]

I'm not sure which supplement has Dysentery rules, but it seems like a good fit for your dungeon if you can find it. I don't believe it's fatal, but it would drive home the unsanitary nature of the place they're exploring.

[chronoplasm]

My favorite trap is a covered pit, at the bottom of which is another covered pit. It's so stupid it's funny, especially in play.

Collapsing floors would certainly work. It makes a good hazard and it makes for a good way to weave the lower levels into play.

I'm not sure which supplement has Dysentery rules, but it seems like a good fit for your dungeon if you can find it. I don't believe it's fatal, but it would drive home the unsanitary nature of the place they're exploring.

It's in Supplement II.
It can be potentially fatal, but only the first time you catch it. After that it can never be fatal.


Hey, if Old Geezer is reading this:
How would you set up such an adventure?

[chronoplasm]

OK, so some encounter ideas...



One of the escaped animals, a big dog, belonged to a member of the city guard who died in the line of duty. As is the custom in this city, the guardsman was interred in formal uniform complete with funerary truncheon (for beating criminals in the afterlife).
The truncheon counts as a +1 club.

Another escaped animal, a black cat, was a witch's familiar. The zombified witch has enough memories from life to cast light and ghost sound.

There will be a rhesus macaque monkey. Perhaps he belonged to a thief?

Maybe at some point there's a zombie being slowly consumed by an Ochre Jelly that covers half his body? Wouldn't that be fun?

*edit*
Also, killing the pets automatically kills the undead, but there's a much larger reward in the end for each animal that the party catches alive.

[chronoplasm]

Sorry to necro, but I'm a little stuck on something...

See, I still need to come up with some more interesting undead for my catacombs.
So far I have:


City guardsman, raised up by his pet dog, wielding a "funerary truncheon".
Old witch, raised up by her black cat familiar, holds a spellbook and still remembers a spell.
"Grandfather Domovoi", domesticated goblin, raised up by "Scruffy".
Master thief, raised up by pet monkey.
The Necromancer Pirate Samael, raised up by his parrot First Mate Crackerjacks who orchestrated this entire event.


The zombies can be destroyed by killing their pets, or separating them from their pets. The animals have to be in close proximity to their former masters for the magic to work.

Any suggestions for more zombies?

[trippingsatyr]

Fluffy the cat...owned by a rather large ogre killed by adventurers?