CTHULHU DUNGEON

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Moon Dragons - ''Draco Fengari''

All Moon Dragons start their livecycle as foot long larvae, called Earth Moreys. These silver-grey, eyeless and eerie eel-like critters crawl out from the carcasses of animals and swiftly burrow deep in to the cthonian depths of the earth, where they'll spend their larvae-lifestage by voraciously hunting anything alive with their pharyngeal jaws and feeding in preparation to the next stage of their lifecycle.

Once an Earth Morey has fed and grown enough, reaching the length of three to four feet in size, it finds a secluded spot and crawls it's body into a ball and begins to cocoon itself. Inside this cocoon the Earth Morey metamorphoses into a completely different creature, the nymph stage of it's lifecycle: the Night Gaunt.

Night Gaunts are terrifying, eyeless and faceless winged hunters that fly on gulfs of cool air from the stygian depths of the eternally dark earth, emerging from their otherwordly caverns in flocks of hundreds or thousands, to snatch hapless animals or bystanders admiring the nights sky and drag them back to their lair before dawn, never uttering a sound.

As Night Gaunts mature and grow stronger and more skilled flyers, they slowly leave the safety of their lairs and company of their kin to become more solitary and more dangerous winged fiends called simply as Gargoyles.

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Gargoyles are Night Gaunts reaching towards the last stage of their livecycle, that of a fully mature Moon Dragon. They hunt alone by climbing on top of cliffsides and peaks, and remaining completely immoble, blending in with their environment and waiting for unsuspecting prey to walk, crawl or fly by or underneath their cyclopean observation post. Using a form of echolocation and other more outlandish sensory means to detect a potential prey, Gargoyles soundlessly swoop down on top of their kill, in perfect darkness, as light would provide no assistance at all to these eyeless hellions.

Over time a Gargoyle grows bigger, it's wings grow larger and it grows a barbed tail to store water and fat and develops sexually into an adult Moon Dragon. Now at last it is ready to enter it's final lifestage and begin it's inexpicable flight through the airless and freezing void that separates the earth and moon in order to reach it's mating grounds.

On the moon the now fully adult male Moon Dragons quickly pick and fight over the most prosperous mating sites; the pinnacles of lunar hills or the small craters left by meteorites, as they display their fitness by beating their black wings, trying to impress any female Moon Dragon flying by. Once a male Moon Dragon begins it's mating signalling it no longer feed or sleep, it's only focus being on attracting and mating as many females as possible, until it dies from hunger or exhaustion.

The females, once fertilized by a male, begin gather their strenght and prepate for another awesome flight from the moon back to earth where they hatched, this time with their bellies full of eggs. Upon earth the female Moon Dragons will search for a body of a large animal, living or otherwise, to plant their eggs in; the perfect incubator and first meal for the larvaes that will hatch from them.

Mastodonts and the carcasses of beached whales are particularly favoured as likely vessels for the eggs, each cabable of housing as much as a hunred eggs, but when pickings are slim smaller animals, such as cattle, can house as many as a dozen eggs. When a Moon Dragon mother finally finds a fitting vessel to plant it's eggs, it coates the body a tar-like substance which both prevents the body from decomposing too rapidly, preserving the edible flesh, as well as wards off potential carrion eaters that would otherwise consume it and the eggs with it. After a short while the eggs hatch, the larvae or Earth Morays feed on the carcass from the inside and finally burst out from it, and thus the cycle continues.

This is a monster i found in another thread that im going to adapt to my Cthulhu Dungeon Campaign.

Im renaming it Moon Gaunt and will use him as basicaly as a Winged Alien, but with better life cycle. In lovecraft work, he loves monsters that fly through eather (space) to other places to do things.

>>48778423
>
You should look at Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

The problem at the core of the idea is that it presents the Mythos as a challenge. An imposing one, but one that is finite and that investigators can come back to. It invites power creep.

It wouldn't work as an investigation. Instead maybe it can be a doomsday clock? The world is going more and more crazy, catastrophes, revolutions, disasters, it just keeps piling up. The stars are all wrong and it keeps getting worse. Scientists are dumbfounded and governments are in a panic. But the heroes have a clue which leads them to the dungeon and presses them to unveil its secret soon to save the world from Armageddon slowly unfolding already.

And then don't clutter the dungeon with random Mythos challenges that obediently wait their turn in their chamber. Instead tell a story. Start with previous expeditions and what they left behind. Proceed to strange things and promising clues. Underline outlandish and imposing architecture, make the characters feel unsuited for the location with too large steps and doors under the ceiling. Then have ONE guardian or guardian race. Don't use combat challenges, use fear of a mounting but unseen threat.

>>48778423

For me, shit's going to fall apart when they have to leave and return to the dungeon. You can handwave the travel time if you want to but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

You can use Dave's Dungeon Mapper to do some randomly generated dungeon stuff.

>>48778926
>Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

Will take a look at that.

I like the doomsday clock idea. I didn´t want to start with that, but will get there. I want the beggining to be very mundane challenge, then the weird begin slowly creeping in.

Yeah, im going to go slow with the mythos creatures. But they must appear.

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>The Hounds of Tindalos dwell in the distant past of the earth, when normal life had not yet advanced past one-celled organisms. They are said to inhabit the angles of time, while other beings (such as humankind and all common life) descend from curves.
>Because of their relationship with the angles of time, they can materialize through any corner if it is fairly sharp—120° or less. When a Hound is about to appear, it materializes first as smoke pouring from the corner, and finally the head emerges followed by the body. It is said that once a human becomes known to one of these creatures, a Hound of Tindalos will pursue the victim through anything to reach its quarry. A person risks attracting their attention by travelling through time.

I was thinking about monsters in the dungeon. I didn´t want much of "enter a room, MONSTER!" kind of thing.

For the Hound, i thought about a Portal inside the dungeon that is not working. After they find the pieces and investigate how to make it work, they activate it. It sends whoever is courageous enough to primeval earth. After a little exploring, they find a Hound. If they run, Hound will attack then again when they go back to civilization in some horrible time for that to happen.

They being explorers, they can have 1-2 session of exploring, analising weird things, die/mad and one session of going back to civilization break the monotony, to research what they found, maybe trying to sell stuff (if they do, cultist appear).

Also, the campaign need to evolve with time. In the beginning its mostly mundane stuff (things from past explorers, polar bear, weird structure), then it get more curious (alien artifact, some unknown monster that you dont see very well), then weird (non-euclidean buildings, more perilous monsters, spells), then RUN (big bad mythos creatures, portals, interacting with Yithians)!

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I love mega dungeons !

This is a cool idea. The way you would need to run it, narratively, is just trap the PCS inside and then force them to try and escape. Make it a gruelling expedition thing. Hunger, cold, fear of the dark and lack of light should be huge. Something should ALWAYS BE following them, and it gets closer every time the lights go out. That kind of thing.

Watch "The Thing" and then imagine it in a closed space. For weeks.

>Day 47: Johnson is talking to the walls again.

I would add a few "havens" inside of the dungeon for them to take some time to recover. You can use these for chances to restock, gather some sanity, and give them "checkpoints" as they progress. You could also use these against them later in the campaign, by having them ransacked or their protective enchantments broken by otherworldly forces. Something like -

>Reaching the end of the corridor, you find a long stairway descending to the next level of the [dungeon]. A faint light flickers at the end of the staircase which appears to go on far longer than it should. Gathering your strength, you and your companions take the first step down, oil lamp causing long dark shadows to flicker over the walls.
>Strange scratching noises can be heard on the other side of the stone around you. Faint at first, but picking up in intensity the farther down you go.
>Faster and faster they get, seeming to frantically attempt and rip through the hard stone. You and your companions pick up the pace, yet the staircase doesn't seem to be getting any shorter.
>With an abrubt halt, you find yourselves at the bottom of the staircase, looking into a giant antechamber, stone columns and archways extend overhead, almost like a dark cathedral lit by several lamps along the walls. A sense of calm falls over you.
>Glancing backwards, you see strange runes inscribed on the stone surrounding the entrance to the staircase. The shadows seem to unnaturally stop at the threshold of this large chamber.
>Looking around, you see several tents and a wooden table with notes piled in the corner of the room, and after further inspection you see more runes of a similar nature all over the walls and columns.
>It appears you and your party can rest here, for the moment.

>>48779396
Also, don't be afraid to separate the party and force them to attempt to regroup.

If you want a masterclass on horror in a tabletop setting, read this if you haven't already:

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12130366/#12132717

Anyone here played extended campaign in a megadungeon?

I think most people like the concept, but when it goes to actual gameplay its very different beast.

Some dungeon background I though of:

>Millions of years back, there was a grant city of Eldar Things in what is now South Pole
>Eldar Things died or hibernated cos of their own creation (Shoggoth) and constant war/intrigue with other mythos races.
>Many other Mythos races used the city and surroundings for reasons, including serpent people and powerful mythos cultists.
>More in recent history, there was some undocumented explorers that went there. Most died or got crazy.
>Present day (1920ish) some kind of doomsday happening is going on and the only way to stop it is in the Elder City

I need more background, suggestions will be gladly welcome.

>>48779396
This can be used.

I thought initially that the entrance of the dungeon is on a side of a mountain. There they could set a semi-permanent camp. If they need some time to breath, they can go back.

>Glancing backwards, you see strange runes inscribed on the stone surrounding the entrance to the staircase. The shadows seem to unnaturally stop at the threshold of this large chamber.

>Glancing backwards, you see strange runes inscribed on the stone surrounding the entrance to the staircase. The shadows seem to unnaturally stop at the threshold of this large chamber.

So the havens are place with protective mythos runes/signs that past explorers found to be useful places to rest?

Im collecting some normal dungeon stuff map that i will reskin, give a reason to exist and slap it inside my megadungeon. My dungeon will be mostly "empty" because I want the narrative to be slow, slow, slow, weird, weirder, RUN!

To not be too oppressive all the time and not kill the campaign after the third session, i will also need to reward my players with valuable or interesting stuff.

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Here some maps I have

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map 2

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I was thinking of using images like this but change the medieval tone to Lovecraft stuff, like:

>The ship is a petrified monster that is not imediate recognizable. Inside it, we can have some mythos vermins that is slowly eating his petrified flesh.
>The main room is a camp made by past explorers
>Room 6 is were some mythos ghouls are keeping some past explorers alive to eat latter.
>Room 9 is where the ghouls rest and eat.
>Room 4 is a excavation of a huge elder thing artifact.

You got the idea

>>48779539

You just gotta think it through and make sure it all makes sense.

>>48780579

Do you have suggestions? I don´t want to expend eternity planning.

I want to have some coherent stuff, ways for players to understand why or what is going on. One of the big mistakes in published adventures is long detailed story that players will never see.

Also, what does not make sense, is basically some lovecrafting unknown (basically "magic you don´t need to explain shit")

>>48780647

>One of the big mistakes in published adventures is long detailed story that players will never see.

Not a mistake at all. That's for the players if they care and the DM so they understand the dungeon.

As far as makes sense, even in Cthulhu the creatures have motivations and such things. I'm also talking about making sense in terms of game flow. Like, personally I wouldn't even have them return to some outside town, just put towns or supplies inside of the dungeon.

>>48780705
>just put towns or supplies inside of the dungeon.
how?

>>48780737

You just put them there. Apparently the dungeon is huge so I don't see why they can't fit.

The players open a door and BOOM town.

Or gut a monster and BOOM rations (assuming they didn't bring in the magical ability to create rations)

You could even tie it in to why the dungeon exists or if there is some kind of mastermind behind the dungeon

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>>48780737
>how?

>>48780768

Im thinking about this, some considerations:

I can put a non-euclidian geometry place inside the dungeon that is basicaly a portal to a city.

The problem is that my dungeon will be mostly "empty" with very very rare "random" encounter if nothing happen for too long.

That means that the city place will be easy to reach after been discovered. It probable need to be a one way portal, cos if it is not, they can go back with shit ton of people and stuff.

>>48780801

I like this. But i guess you don´t find Walmart with people and stuff there, or do you?

>>48780888
Well you'd more likely find some ancient civilization's metropolis overcome with Carcosa's taint, the monstrous inhabitants still going through the motions of production and commerce in a sleepy haze with larger parts of the ancient walls crumbling from decay and no one left with enough inspiration to repair them.

>>48780862
I'm just not a huge fan of backtracking.

Put the city in their dreams. The mythos fuckin loves dreams.

Bonus points if they can only reach it from burning the incense in a lamp they find

>>48779467

I just began reading this then I realized I already did in the past. Great stuff there.

>>48780967

I thought about the trap the guys in the "last" level of the dungeon and make then go up to escape.

But that comes with it own problems like how to introduce new players, the boredom of always being in the dungeon for session after session.

Any idea how to overcome that?

>>48781067

Well that's just making the dungeon have a variety of different things to encounter. Having interesting combat and non-combat encounters, having little ministories with villains for them to deal with or maybe other parties as they proceed through.

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>>48780998

Rereading this gave me the idea of making the campaign in space, in the future, more like Prometheus movie.

>What do you guys think better or worse?
>Future means gadgets like Flashlight, drones, laser-cutting apparatus, laser weapons (useless against most mythos monsters), extinguishers, etc, all of which are cool to have.
>I could give then some kind of futurist tool maker (like in the game Subnautica) where you put raw material and he create the tool.

Im also searching good Mythos creature pics on the net, if anybody has some, I would be really glad.

More awesome needed.

>>48781732

Sounds cool enough

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>>48781732

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>>48781732
CoC field guides
Francois Launet

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>>48781732

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>>48779048
I recognize that artist

>>48783149

That is a much better Dark Young then the normal depiction of then. I like it. Saved to eat some of my investigators soon.

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>>48778423
Anyone have that creepy as fuck half human half farm animal thing i've seen floating around here in Lovecraft threads?

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>>48786717
you mean this one?

>>48779396
Nice narration