Fight On! #16 (which has Seven Gates & Fifty Dog-Faced Men)

A Dog-Faced Man

A Dungeon I made, Seven Gates & Fifty Dog-Faced Men, is in Fight On! #16

Fight On! #16 HERE

Here's some unused art for the people who want that kind of thing:

Giant Lizards (Very Golden Axe)

Mummies!

little purple men!

Sea Slug Zombies! (Ew)

Toddler Skeletons!

It's a multi level dungeon with a several twists - it's top floor has been invaded by a ton of dog faced men, and all of its doors have symbols painted on them.

The symbols are for use with the spell Seven Gates - but they also very quickly will make players search for a pattern.

"This room is marked with a hand!"

"This means something *taking notes*"

There's no correlation between the door symbols and the room contents.

Potion #1

There are: potions - lots of hidden things - not many encounters besides on the first floor and one encounter on the second, a huge amount of potential experience, and an entrance to the underdark.

The potions are intended to be mixed and there are some clues to that effect - the potions are LotFP potions and the guide I have for what colors they are and how to mix them is HERE and HERE.

A Golden Key (you need seven, ideally)

The hidden things are scrolls of Seven Gates, they are concealed around the dungeon so the door symbols can be used to escape or explore - there are also golden keys hidden all over, which can be used to get a huge amount of silver, maybe. There's also some secret passages and secret doors.

A Trapdoor, Under the Hay

On the first floor is some old manky trapped undead - a couple weird creatures like an elderly dragon (not really something that can even fight anymore), little purple men, that kind of thing.

There's also 40+ Dog-Faced Men, which don't speak English, have oral fixations, and carry two weapons.

The axes are for breaking down doors and the truncheons are for knocking people out.

They've been raiding all over lately, and anyone they capture, including you, is taken to another resident of the first floor - a vampiric mosquito butler.

This butler serves the leader of the dog-faced men, a bald bespectacled man, he has no powers other than a small list of magic items.

So exploring to find the keys and scrolls of Seven Gates + small rewards here and there is the body of the module, and the constant pressing force is getting by or evading the dog-faced men. The keys (rather, what they unlock) is the main large source of experience.

The fourth floor also has a room acting like a dock on a dark underground sea/lake, depending on the scope you want.

You can put all sorts of modules out on rocky islands on a dark sea, and I have some simple tables for quick factions or quests or locations - so the players can use the module as a base of exploring the underdark too.

The main feeling of this adventure is intended to be: sneaking in and seeing that each time you enter the dog men are in different places, and depending on the time there's different amounts.

They bar doors, and you can bar doors.

They also can't manage to fit down narrow corridors, so there's a lot of level one they -can't- reach, so there some exploration possibilities too.

They haven't gotten to the second floor, or the third, or the fourth.

However, if the player characters leave a way to the lower floors open....

Well, they'll probably follow eventually and then this module is cat and mouse - as player characters play a game of constantly exploring while running as they hear axes opening the doors they barred behind them.

This cat and mouse will also happen if Seven Gates is cast, because then there's a chance a door on the first floor will lead to lower floors, certain castings make this not only likely, but downright one inevitable, and then there's fleeing through the doors to try and hide or escape.

I had two groups play test this module - a duo and a small group of folks, and I had fun both times.

The duo looked around and saw the well, saw the piton marks.

Then they went down the stairs, looked at the levers and debated pulling them.

Mysterious Levers

They decided not to pull random levers (disappointing!).

After that, they continued creeping down halls and looking around.

They went into the latrine and got into a series to nail-biting wrestling matches with the three Dog-Faced Men in the near darkness of the stinky bathroom, knocking over an urn, stabbing a dog to death, strangling the other two, one player character limping out with two HP and the other player character unconscious.

They then bought rope and daggers with the paltry silver they snatched from the dead dogmen.

The group noticed the well.

They climbed down the well, collected the coins, looked around, couldn't find a way to trigger the porticulis.

So they went out and found the secret door, figured out the mechanism for it.

I should quickly tell you what the party was comprised of: my Gran is a specialist, my mom is a fighter, my dad is a specialist, a beloved family friend is a drow, and my good buddy semen is playing a MU. Later on my buddy Zack came and played a cleric.

So they poked up into the dungeon and saw the sleeping dogs, heard the ones in the lizard stable, went into the fountain room and were creeped out by the skeletons and the shuffling sound over in 27.

Several sessions of creeping around included: buying a mule and then tying him up outside, observation of the dog faced men's patrols and excursions, they used Enlarge to make a gap in the porticulis and get into the laboratory section of the first floor and poke around, eventually getting to the mummies (they lit one on fire and nearly TPK'd), and looting the laboratories.

They also eventually killed the toddler skeletons and several lonely dog faced men.

I think four sessions in they found the mosquito butler, but he fled - they saved the prisoners and stole some books.

Books!

After that they went back and ganked the mosquito, and a dog man escaped up, barring doors behind him, but didn't make it far (he was bleeding out). Eventually, the players went to room 18, and there was a showdown with the charlatan.

I think there was 6-7 sessions (two hour sessions), until they got to room 18.

That fight was a cliffhanger, because they saw the room and then it was the end of a session.

They saw green light, creepy decorations that implied Medusa, heard hissing, and all had different reactions to being told to close their eyes.

Then the charlatan used Palace of Means and pulled a tommy gun out of the tent, sprayed that through the curtains and missed the player characters, they fled though - through the room with a elderly dragon (snoozing) and down the cliff to the beach.

They found the boat, got onboard and were fighting against wind that sought to blow them ashore (after killing the two lazy guards on the boat), then the charlatan used the Featherfall scroll and him + 40ish dog faced men fell gracefully to the rocky beach and started after the ship.

The player characters got away after some fumbling and panic during a chase, and found the silver on the boat + the various chambers in it's hull.

They sold the boat and haven't been back to the dungeon since.

They went to another dungeon and that's where they've been 4-5 sessions.