Mini Module - Lair of the Gore Cloud

So your players need to pass through a chunk of Bastion's Underground? Don't just send them through a featureless tunnel

Send them through the Lair of the Gore Cloud.

Immediate room contents are listed. Contents in parentheses require further investigation to discover.

Whenever you would have a random encounter, it's the Gore Cloud.

Gore Cloud
A slowly drifting orange fog. Mindless, drawn only to heat, including body warmth. Cannot be the target of normal attacks or arcana, but can be blown away by a strong gust or held at bay with splashes of water. Any contact forces a STR Save to avoid being turned inside-out and dying horribly. Repeat the save for every turn of exposure.

Entrances/Exits
East: Old Sewer Tunnel: filthy water, brown slime (hammy smell, harmless), leads to 1
West: Daredevil Chute: partially rusted ladder (difficult to return up), leads to 11

1: Sewer
Rushing Sewage (smells hammy)
Mossy Walls (red paint marking BEWARE GORE GAS)

2: Giant Petri Dish
Colourful slime on water (harmless, concealing two dead men turned inside out)
Ceiling:Dripping Purple Slime (intensely cold, harmless)
Frogs Feeding on slime (harmless)

3: Bug Nest
Cockroaches (harmless)
Pool (leeches, penny coin)

4: Hidey Hole
Wall:curtain (covering alcove containing story books, lantern, wine bottle)
Corpse (old man, turned inside out)

5: Croc Shrine
Cloth covered pile (covering remains of huge crocodile, stabbed to death).
Altar (smeared painting of crocodile breathing fire)

6: Tiny Town
Scraps of Wood (modelled into tiny town, partially stomped up)
Rat (dead, turned inside out)

7: The Flush
Chain (rusty, wooden handle, causes sewage to rush in from the ceiling pipe)
Ceiling:Pipe (dripping, smelly)
Stone Tiles (damp, mouldy, smelly)

8: Surface Signal
Wall:Pipe (can hear faint sounds of the city, no response to calls)
Three corpses (dogs, turned inside out)

9: The Herd
Pile of dead cattle (turned inside out).
Shallow Water (hammy smell, animal waste, sun pendant worth 2g beneath the filth)

10: Containment Chamber
Heavy Iron Door blasted off its hinges (red cross painted on both sides, wax around edges).
Brick walls (corroded, hammy smell).
Corpse (man, turned inside-out, sword, pistol, torch).

11: Waterfall
20ft Waterfall Drop (four child corpses at bottom, turned inside out)

12: Shimmering Pool
Bubbling, Silver Pool (mercury tained, 1d6 STR loss).

13: Filth Angel
Pile of Waste (face replies cryptically to questions)
Terrier Corpse (turned inside out)

14: Mutie Tomb
Two Stone Sarcophagi (carvings of horribly mutated figures, contain misshapen bones, gold necklace worth 50s, silver ring worth 30s)

15: Feeding Room
Waste Piles (animal waste, chicken bones)
Chain (fixed to wall, broken metal collar)

16: The Stash
Metal Door (locked)
Pile of papers (soggy star cult material)
Two crowns (costume imitations, worthless)
Decorative dagger (worth 10s)
Crystal skull (unconvincing fake, worthless)
Floor:Chalk Markings (Constellations, not very accurate)

17: Seed of Gore Cloud
Corpses (woman and man, both turned inside out, two muskets, 20s)
Twenty Football-sized Spheres (water held in thin membrane, slight orange hew, releases a smaller Gore Cloud if pierced or dropped - disperses after one turn).


Dungeon map from http://paratime.ca/cartography/colour_dungeons.html

The Worst Thing from Bastion's Underground

When the galleon, Emerald Sky, returned from an expedition to the Golden Lands, its entire crew were missing. Instead, the ship was being piloted quite expertly by an unnatural monster. The striding brain stepped onto Bastion's docks, snatching up a few unsuspecting stevedores, before squeezing through a refuse chute, vanishing beneath the city. It hasn't been seen since.

Striding Brain
STR 15, DEX 14, WIL 18, 16hp, Armour 2, Tentacles (d12).
Immensely intelligent, the brain will never fight when the odds are against it. Can climb as a spider, broadcast telepathically, and operate machinery with ease. It is motivated by gathering Arcana and materials to create a vast machine of unknown purpose in its lair.
On Critical Damage the victim is snatched up and eaten, crunched up by the creature's retractable beak.

The Iron Coral Map

My first ever attempt at hand-drawing a map, inspired by Dyson Logos. Of course, I couldn't resist mangling it through pixlr to make it look suitably odd.

The Second Worst Thing from Bastion's Underground

Every child in Bastion has their own stories about the Underground, but they all know of the Maggot Children. The legend claims that babies thrown into the sewers grow into monstrous abominations. This particular urban myth is based on a truth even more horrible. 

Maggot Child
STR 7, DEX 12, WIL 10, 6hp, Bite (1d6).
These abominations act and speak as you would expect from any street urchin, right up until they're in biting range. On Critical Damage they inflict the target with their foul condition. The target immediately starts to secrete a white liquid from their skin, forming a cocoon. Within 24 hours the victim emerges as a Maggot Child. Any attempt to disturb the metamorphosis will cause the victim to lose d12 STR. If they survive this, they will retain their (mostly) human form.

Five-Die Dungeon Generation

Need a dungeon right now? Grab a sheet of paper.

Throw down five dice.

Draw a room around each die that landed on the paper. Throw away those dice that fell onto the table. 

Put some big nasty monster in each of these rooms. Something that's going to lair up and not go wandering around too much. 

Now, for each room look at the pips on the die*. Add some rooms around it until it looks like the pips. So a 4 is a box, 5 make a sort of cross. You get the idea. Connect the surrounding rooms to the monster lairs, but keep each monster's territory separate for now!

Now in each rooms put something linked to the nearby monster. A home for their minions, their treasure hoard, the place they take a dump. Something to warn adventurers that they're getting close. 

Now we want these territories to be connected, but buffered. Put in some rooms that would act as a barrier. Could be through sheer size (a sprawling sewer) or being difficult to cross (gaping chasm). You could even put something nasty in there that nobody would want to wade through (worm nest). Use these neutral rooms to connect the monster territories. 

Look around for the least horrible parts of the dungeon. Attach some entrance points to the corridors around there and you're finished!

Oh, and if you're feeling generous add some treasure. You can see I didn't bother here. Adventure!

*Yes, this is where I somehow knocked the yellow die from 3 to 4 without realising. 

The Third Worst Thing from Bastion's Underground

The tunnel network underneath Bastion serves as sewer, catacomb, smuggling route, and homeless shelter in equal measure. Neighbouring caves have been disturbed by all this activity, and all sorts of strange creatures pour forth.

Embalmer Crab
STR 18, DEX 16, WIL 5, 12hp, Armour 2. Claws (d10).
Usually found in pairs. Quite content to ignore passers by, unless hungry.
On Critical Damage the crab vomits a gluey fluid over the incapacitated victim, which hardens around them like plaster. They suffocate unless the shell is broken, and the crab will try to carry them back to its home.

Mercy - Bastion's Forgotten Quarter

A mini-module for your Into the Odd game.

A mess of makeshift shacks fills the gaps between old, stone houses. A high, white wall keeps the residents in, and guards in masked isolation suits watch the lone gate. Equal parts prison, asylum and plague-ridden shanty town.

Reasons to be in Mercy
- Someone had you thrown in.
- You need someone from inside.
- There's something hidden inside.
- There's a secret entrance to a lost vault inside.
- After a gin-fuelled night, you woke up on the wrong side of the white wall.



Places

King ErrolAn elephantine beast, formerly an attraction in a travelling circus. When the beast became demented, it was spared its life, but thrown into Mercy. After a lengthy rampage, it died in the centre square, where its body stands semi-preserved. Something of a mascot for the quarter, the square is a hub for organising riots against the gate, burning corpses, or planning the next elaborate attempt to climb the wall.

The Hole
A prison within a prison. Anyone deemed a danger to the quarter is thrown into this literal pit and forced to fight their cohabitants for scraps of bread and rotten meat.

The Still
A beacon of order amongst the madness. Whoever runs the still is sure to keep it well guarded, handing out bottles of volatile spirit in exchange for favours or goods smuggled from beyond the wall.

Hurling Hill
A pile of rubble, broken furniture and corpses, heaped against the wall's lowest point. Guards beat down any attempts at escape, but it's a great spot for throwing unpleasant waste at the normals on the other side. 

Residents

Moon Devil
Tall, broad, with thick red hair and beard. Claims rulership of a small cluster of shacks, mostly popualted by weeping, pathetic creatures. Constantly prophesises about his own greatness, claiming the moon sends him messages to bring down the white wall. Enforces his rule by killing anyone that questions him.
STR 13, DEX 8, WIL 8, 13hp.
Sledgehammer (d8), 10s.
White Pendant: Remove all damage and harming effects from yourself. Requires the blood of a recent human kill to use.

The Ape Mob
A common enemy of all Mercy's human residents. Not actually apes, but a band of men that seem itnent on returning to a savage lifestyle. This is working remarkably well for them, and they continue to recruit new members. Run naked, screaming and attacking anyone they see. 
STR 12, DEX 11, WIL 5, 4hp.
Tooth and Claw (1d6)

Fly Stan
A short man with unnaturally large eyes and a constantly drooling mouth. Has an intimate knowledge of the area, including tunnels in and out of the quarter. Despite this, he continues to live in Mercy. Makes his home in the hidden vault where he found his rings.
STR 4, DEX 14, WIL 16, 10hp.
Pistol (1d6), Big Knife (1d6).
Spark Rings: Surround yourself with a crackling field. The next being to move within 5ft of you suffers 2d6 damage, ignoring armour, and the field disappears. If you move at all, the field disappears.

Father Mercy
A jolly old man draped in white furs and ancient armour. Considers himself a protector of Mercy's residents, and spends most of his day stood at the gate, bellowing greetings to anyone nearby, and welcoming newcomers. In actuality, his advice is always terrible and leads to many newcomers dying within their first day. 
STR 8, DEX 7, WIL 11, 8hp.
Sword (1d6), Shield Armour (1), Horn, 12s in fineries.