Possum Drawing Dungeon

In publishing my musings on the process of designing, drawing, and stocking a dungeon, I produced - intended to be humorously - a map floor plan from tracing a drawing of a family of possums hanging from a tree. I kind of liked the map, and it was already drawn anyway, so I went ahead and added one more loop for good measure and decided to key it.

Enjoy!

Scale: 10 ft.
Click here for a PDF copy of this adventure!

A - Foyer

A narrow hallway leads into the dark behind an iron portcullis. The door in the center is rusted. It has a lock on it, but it has been unlocked and cast aside. The narrow hallway is even, with a gradual slope downward: net, 10 feet between the iron grate and where it levels out, near the door to N.

The door to N is not locked. The door to I is locked. The secret door to B is a faux stone pattern, painted to look like the stone around it - it will shift, if pressed, and once discovered, should be treated as a stuck door - opening inwards and hinged to the left.

B - Mirrored Corridor

This small corridor has mirrors on the north and south walls. If the players look closely, their reflections face with them rather than the opposite: thus, if they look to one mirror, they will see the back of their head - but behind them, their face in the other mirror. If they touch the mirror, it will allow them to pass through: as though a portal to the other side of the narrow hallway. The doors to A and D, opening inwards, are obvious from this end, but stuck.

C - Hat Room

Inside are Halfling-sized hats - a dozen of them - hanging at various heights from lines affixed to the ceiling. A lone lockbox sits in the south-west corner. It is open and empty.

D - Moai Chamber

The doors to L and C are not locked. The secret door to B is faux stone, painted to match the walls. Once discovered, treat it as a stuck door. The door to E is obvious - but will not open, being secured with iron bars behind it.

In the two angular sections in the south wall are basalt moai - mouths agape, a circular slot on the tongue. If a gold coin is placed on the slots, they will loosen, allowing the party to rotate them. If they are set to face each other, one east; the other west, the door to B will slide open on its own; if they are set to face opposite, the door to E will open. If the gold coin is removed from either, they will slide back into a northward facing position, causing both the door to B and E to close.

A party of 13 Halflings (B36) are investigating the moai - but none of them brought any gold. They will claim they had gold, but it was pilfered by a subset of their party - whom they are tracking.

E - The Narrows

A breeze runs north to south through these narrows - wide enough barely for a man-sized creature to squeeze, gradually descending from south to north. Mushrooms that glow line the corridor - they will glow for 2-12 minutes further if plucked: illuminating as a candle. There are enough of the mushrooms that the whole of the narrows are illuminated dimly. If ingested, Save vs Poison or die, retching, in 1-4 rounds.

The secret exit to J is obvious from the Narrows - being a hole in the ceiling obscured by thatch. The exit to H is not as obvious - as it is a sheer drop from H, 20 feet in height. The doors to F and D are locked.

F - Workshop

Two Gnomes (B35-6) sit at a small table - their workspace the size of a Human step-stool. They are dissecting an entity which appears to be half biological and have mechanical. They look up curiously if disturbed.

Each gnome has a pouch, in which can be found 500 electrum pieces. The clockwork creature has a small, spherical gemstone at its heart - worth 100 gold pieces - which emits a faint glow. The gnomes tools, probes, and miscellaneous equipment is worth 50 gold pieces. 500 silver pieces are piled neatly on a shelf on the south wall.

G - Glue Room

Three feet into the room, there is an obvious groove in the floor. In the south-east corner, there are two skeletal corpses on top of each other; in the south-west corner - a desiccated corpse on the floor - Halfling sized. There are three alcoves in the south wall, each with a small silver idol: one covering its eyes, one covering its ears, one covering its mouth.

The idols are worth 20 gp each.

If a character steps onto the floor past the groove, the floor begins to sink down; from the edges bubble over a sticky liquid. Any character on the sinking platform must Save vs Paralysis or become stuck. The floor will sink a total of eight feet over the course of 4 rounds; characters who cannot be freed from the sticking substance will drown. The trap takes one week to reset; the liquid being mildly acidic, eating away the flesh of the victim, absorbing it into the liquid, itself, thus reducing the weight pushing down on the mechanism.

In a pouch on one of the skeletons in the south-east corner can be found 30 gold pieces.

H - Gilded Balcony

This area is a balcony overlooking I, no visible way up, its floor 15 feet higher than I. In the rear of the room are six Halflings (B36) quietly arguing and fiddling about with the locks on some strongboxes. Among their horde are:

• Three locked strongboxes with 2,000 copper pieces each
• One locked iron chest containing 3,000 silver
• An unlocked jewelry case containing a necklace worth 150 gold pieces and a garnet worth 50 gold pieces
• A satchel containing 2,000 electrum pieces

They are nervous and will likely retreat if confronted, carrying with them as much treasure as they can hold. The door to G is not locked; additionally, there is an area of the floor that has fallen away - indicated by stippling - this is open, a 20 foot straight drop to E.

I - Honeyed Halls

The doors exiting this room are locked. The secret door to O is wedged slightly open, a faux stone painted to resemble the walls. It is wedged by a nest of Killer Bees (B37) - of which 8 inhabit the hive, flitting in and out of O. They are agitated, as normally they can exit the cave via the door to A, but the Halflings running through closed the door behind them, locking it, when they came through; thus trapping the bees.

J - Straw Idol

In the center of this room is an idol depicting a sitting gnome. It is made of straw - excepting two platinum pieces that it has for eyes and a smile made from real teeth - and there is a mat of hay all across the small closet space. If the party works to remove the straw, they will find a thatched mat in the rear of the room that covers a small crack in the floor leading to E. It is too narrow for a character wearing heavy armor to fit through.

K - Stairwell

On the east side of the room is a 10-foot vertical stairwell, with banister, leading up to a platform. On the west side, planter box with what appear to be petrified cactus with wicked looking spines. There are marble runners that flank the east and west walls at approximately 1 foot higher than where the banister is.

The second-to-last step on the stairs is a pressure plate; if a character steps on it, the marble runner from the east wall over the stairs juts out - striking any characters on the stairwell. They may Save vs Wands or be knocked into the cactus: roll 2d6, taking the higher result for any character falling into the cactus from higher on the stairwell and the lower result for any character falling into the cactus from lower on the stairwell. The trap resets in 1 round.

The door to L is not locked.

L - Atrium

The floor of this space has a drain in the center. In the north-east and south-west corners are hanging fixtures with three prongs each, curving up bluntly like a coat rack's tines. Neither the door to K nor D are locked; the room is open to M in the north-west.

M - Lever Chamber

This rectangular space has two circular wells - both dry, both around two feet tall and three feet deep. The north circle, in the center of the well, there is a Silvered Sword - it is identical to a one-handed sword, excepting that it will not rust and is treated as Silver for the purposes of creatures resisting normal damage; the south circle, in the center of the well, there is a silver chain with a holy symbol at the end. If used as a holy symbol, the user gains a +1 bonus to Turn Undead; it is worth 100 gold pieces for materials and craftsmanship alone. In the center of the room is a box - 18 inches cubic - from which protrude three levers - three feet long each. The levers are all in the "down" position.

The wells are protected by a shell of three (or four, see below) sets, each, of retractable iron bars. These bars are controlled by the levers, as detailed in the Lever Puzzle section.

N - Resting Place of the Mace

The door to A is not locked by default. The door to O is hidden - faux stone on a steel door, painted to match the wall, that slides in if pressed heavily.

In the north-west corner, there is a small circular room containing a slightly smaller circular well, 2 feet tall and three feet deep, behind a set of three (or four, see below) metal bars which retract and extend, blocking the entry.

The metal bars are controlled by the levers in room M, described in more detail in the Lever Puzzle section below.

In the well is the Mithril Mace, submerged. In the walls are lined with three sconces with two gemstones at the end, like eyes, illuminating the mace. If the sconces are not covered or turned such that the light no longer touches the mace - the "eyes" can no longer "see" it - if a character attempts to remove it, the door to A locks and the well begins to overflow: filling the room in 2-6 turns. It will remain filled for a further 1-3 turns before draining completely. It will be dry for 1-6 days, after which point, the trap resets.

The mace weighs half as much as a normal mace and gains a +1 bonus rolling To Hit only.

O - Caves

These caves are nondescript, though a tight squeeze. The secret doors out are obvious from this side, metal plates holding up the faux exterior.

Lever Puzzle

Each of the three barred wells are protected by a set of retractable metal bars. This is either three sets of bars or four - depending on how much your party enjoys puzzles. To start, the bars are configured as follows, where O indicates the bars are retracted, giving them:

Simpler Well 1st Bars 2nd Bars 3rd Bars M North Open Closed Open M South Closed Open Open N Open Closed Closed

More Complex Well 1st Bars 2nd Bars 3rd Bars 4th Bars M North Open Closed Closed Closed M South Closed Closed Closed Open N Closed Closed Closed Closed

I envision the bars to all be vertical, in the case of the wells in room M, but to be criss-cross in room N - first bars being vertical; second being diagonal from the top-left; third being diagonal from the top-right; and fourth being horizontal - but you are free to elaborate or interpret as makes sense to you.

To start, all levers are in the down position. When a lever is pulled up, some of the bars move: retracting or extending, toggled into the new position from their previous state. If using the more complex puzzle, the levers move different bar sets when moved up versus when moved down:

Simpler Lever Bars Moved Left 1st & 2nd Center 3rd Right 1st & 3rd

More Complex Lever Upward Downward Left 1st 1st & 2nd Center 2nd 3rd Right 4th 3rd & 4th

In both complex and simple examples, there is an obvious trap (or perhaps mechanical malfunction):

• If one lever is in the up position, a slight humming can be heard from the box.
• If two levers are in the up position, a louder humming can be heard from the box and perhaps sparks begin to arc around it.
• If three levers are in the up position, all levers become charged. Any character touching any lever with a conducive element - their hand, a metal object, etc - will be shocked for 1-6 points of damage.

The above is net state: that is, if three levers are up and one is pushed down, it reverts to humming,  but is no longer dangerous; whereas if that same lever is up again - the charge resumes.

At Least One Solution
There are many solutions to the presented puzzle, but at least one can be achieved for each as follows from the initial state:

Simpler Well Lever Sequence M North Left, Center, Right M South Center, Right N Center, Left

More Complex Well Lever Sequence M North Left, Center, Left, Right M South Right, Left, Right, Center N Center, Right, Center, Left

Note, it is unlikely the players will interact with the puzzle more than once in its initial state – but that’s intentional as part of the challenge.


Public domain possum drawing respectfully pilfered from ReusableArt.com in August of 2020. Public domain drawing,  Foucault & Dubosc Electromagnetic Regulator by an unknown artist, retrieved from OldBookIllustrations.com on 9/5/2020. Attribution in alt text.