So this Friday, I'll be having my players raid an ancient Sith Temple (it's the one that's mentioned in the prepub Onslaught at Arda I on Jagomir; they've been there before but never went into the actual temple itself. I'm tying it into a homebrew campaign).

My thought is that a journey through a Sith Temple should be one that really coaxes them to the Dark Side. Most of my players aren't Force users, only one of them is a Jedi in training. This is sort of the outline of what they'll find as they go in:

1. The "White Room" - I'm stealing this from a video I saw on YouTube (https://youtu.be/k-P6Ys_EHME)

2. A trapped hallway, followed by an attack by droid guardians (probably based on the ones mentioned in Lords of Nal Hutta's modular encounter)

3. The Walk of Fear - The players need to tread a narrow ledge that could pitch them over into pit or spikes or something nasty. Halfway across, a nerve agent paralyzes them temporarily (requiring a Resilience check to see if/how long). Once that's established, some sort of monster drops down and gets in their face, prompting a Fear check. The point is that a Dark Side Force adept would use their fear to break free from the paralysis to fight the monster. Not quite sure how to do that, but there we go.

4. A breached room that's allowed some local wildlife into the temple. Naturally, the Dark Side has twisted them and made them nastier.

5. The Hall of Justice: A Force induced vision places the players as magistrates of a Sith-conquered village. A young man has been found murdered and the local police have uncovered two suspects: one is the victim's best friend who was seen arguing with the victim. The other is the victim's father, who is an influential member of the community, a local pillar, one who not-so-secretly has a temper. You have to decide on the murderer's identity and execute the guilty party. What do you do? (the correct Sith answer is you murder both of them).

6. A Force phantasm attack. Basically Dark Side spirits attack the party (basing these off the creatures mentioned in Chronicles of the Gatekeeper).

7. A Stone Maze, one with no exit, forcing the players to blast their way free (the correct Sith answer)

8. The Inner Sanctum. They will find a stone golem animated by Dark Side energy. I'm planning on using the rancor's statblock but up the Soak to 10+ to simulate the stone. Perceptive players will notice there are six stone pillars in the room with glowing crystals on their top; one is cracked and the golem walks with a limp. Destroying all six will paralyze the golem.

So I'm looking for feedback, I guess. Am I missing something? What kind of tricks or traps would you expect to find in an ancient Sith Temple that hasn't been opened for four hundred years?

1) One of my characters has actually encountered this "trap". In Jedi temple ruins. It was designed to keep out dark siders who are ruled by their fear.

2&3) I'd combine these into one, and switch out the paralysing agent for a hallucinogenic one, making them see some dark side monstrosities instead of some archaic combat droids if they miss the resilience test. I'd make the poison a product of Sith alchemy, and the hard Resilience test a combined Force check where you can spend dark side pips to downgrade the difficulty.

4 and 5 seem nice.

I haven't played Chronicles of the Gatekeeper. Seems to partly duplicate an earlier test though.

7) has two issues. On a conceptual level, it occurs to me that the Sith and Jedi ways of solving mazes are identical: just lightsaber through the walls. On a practical level, if I were a Sith I wouldn't want a trap in my temple that needs to be destroyed whenever my own people need to pass through. Not sure how to fix it.

8 looks like fun. I wouldn't give the hint of the limp and the broken crystal. If there's glowing crystals, players will probably be smashing them as soon as they spot them. The golem can develop faulty legs and arms as crystals are smashed.

I would also go for a huge, lean, sleak, demonic looking obsidian sculpture instead of a D&D looking stone golem.

What I really would put in is not traps that reward having a Sith outlook, but that heavily punish light side Force users, or heroic, altruistical behaviour in general. And have rooms like in the Sith Temple in Rebels, that can only be entered by one Master accompanied by one Apprentice. But your players would obviously not be able to enter those, so that's probably not practical here.

Don't forget to punch up the color. Ages ago, when the players were investigating an old sith facility, I would throw in stuff like the disembodied (yet still alive) faces hanging from meathooks or headcrabs like the monster from The Thing, but way more eldrich-y, gooey and X-Rated (for violence, not sex - but I could see a bondage Sith going the adult rated route too).

Check out Nexus of Power as well for Dark side nexuses

Okay, I've modified my plans a little bit. Did some combining and so on. The Stone Maze will only appear to have no exit. There is one, but Sith alchemy has created an illusory door. It'll take some careful looking to spot the illusion and then pass through it to escape the maze.

I've also modified the end encounter. It will be an Obsidian golem-like creature with a glowing blue crystal in its chest (what the players are really looking for). I'm also adding in two "obsidian spiders," based on the Assassin Probe Droid from Collapse of the Republic, complete with the swarm ability. My players are high level and I want to keep them on their toes.

I've attached the stat block for the golem and the spires that are controlling them. If you have suggestions or improvements, please let me know!

@Scapino , it might just be a typo... you gave the golem 6 Brawn, but you say its Brawl is YYGGG, which is only 5 dice.

Mostly off topic, but, prepub? What does that stand for?

4 minutes ago, ddbrown30 said:

Mostly off topic, but, prepub? What does that stand for?

Pre-publication. Like, a beta-release for play-testing or review/comment before the final published version is complete.

2 hours ago, jendefer said:

@Scapino , it might just be a typo... you gave the golem 6 Brawn, but you say its Brawl is YYGGG, which is only 5 dice.

Whoops. My bad. Thanks for the catch. It is indeed a typo.

2 hours ago, ddbrown30 said:

Mostly off topic, but, prepub? What does that stand for?

I misused the term. I meant pubbed, or published, adventure. It's not something I came up with, it's an FFG release. My bad (again).

Just a though, here: What about the Droid angle on things? If the party has one, will its mere presence completely circumvent things, or are there checks for them built in somewhere?

Something to consider, is all Otherwise, a great basis for a chapter of an adventure.

I ran through a similar homebrew last session with my group. The golem/crystal fight at the end was great. My Indiana-Jones-wannabe ensnares the golem, which really hindered his damage output. I put the crystals up on the wall, and while most of the group shot at them, one had the broght idea to climb up and dislodge it with Athletics. Triumpant check with several threat had it shatter on the ground, but he landed right next to the golem!

As a preliminary room, I had the PCs solve a puzzle of mirrors reflecting light to the proper places. I wanted to emulate the tropish puzzles you often find in games like the Zelda series or MMOs, so I used a Skill Challenge (as described by Order 66 Podcast) and my players loved it! They used Education to figure out the angles, Athletics to climb to the higher ones, etc. Anyone else try something similar?

We've been doing a bit of a dungeon-crawl through a Sith temple lately in a two-player GM-less game. (We're using a GM-emulator, and one or the other of us will take the GM reigns if needed for some scenes.) Since the temple is being generated on the fly, we decided each room's challenge would be intended to be solved by one of the 20-ish Force powers (convenient for randomly rolling). It has been interesting circumventing that with characters who aren't Force Users. One of them does have Pathfinder and Emergent, but he just bought into his first actual Force Power, Sense, and only has the first level.

I like that idea about using Athletics to climb somewhere to disarm something. I'll have to keep that in mind as we move to more rooms.

I have use the Jagomir Shimmering Falls as a little Ancient Sith Sanctuary. Nothing as epic as your, but I put a little trap for my players. Maybe you can use it too.

My players (allRebels) was looking for a recon rebels team that didn't came back. They suspect some space pirates (or beasts) encounters and go searching for the missing team. As they go behind the fall, they found the sanctuary and one rebels at the gate. Man is in panic (need to be put down) and was talking about many Empire's soldiers in the sanctuary. Since it's the Jagomir base form Arda1 story, my players try to locate Imperials and try their 'murderhobo'things: to protect the base.

They found the Imperials (Stormtroopers and one Officier) and it was a easy win for them. And so the illusion dispels, my players have beaten the missing rebel team. I give them a lot clues but they wasn't sure about this...

The Dark Force influence was working as follow "People see what they want to found". So they were looking for Imperials to kill, they have found "Imperials" to kill. It's was kind of hard to explains this to their superior after the mission.

17 hours ago, Khamai said:

I have use the Jagomir Shimmering Falls as a little Ancient Sith Sanctuary. Nothing as epic as your, but I put a little trap for my players. Maybe you can use it too.

My players (allRebels) was looking for a recon rebels team that didn't came back. They suspect some space pirates (or beasts) encounters and go searching for the missing team. As they go behind the fall, they found the sanctuary and one rebels at the gate. Man is in panic (need to be put down) and was talking about many Empire's soldiers in the sanctuary. Since it's the Jagomir base form Arda1 story, my players try to locate Imperials and try their 'murderhobo'things: to protect the base.

They found the Imperials (Stormtroopers and one Officier) and it was a easy win for them. And so the illusion dispels, my players have beaten the missing rebel team. I give them a lot clues but they wasn't sure about this...

The Dark Force influence was working as follow "People see what they want to found". So they were looking for Imperials to kill, they have found "Imperials" to kill. It's was kind of hard to explains this to their superior after the mission.

And how did they recieved this? I mean plotwise it's great, but I can imagine the disappointment of the PCs that they've just killed their comrades

6 hours ago, Rimsen said:

And how did they recieved this? I mean plotwise it's great, but I can imagine the disappointment of the PCs that they've just killed their comrades

I was nice with my players (only one rebel was very badly injured during the fight). They came back together and everyone had to speak with the superor.

One of player was force sensitive, and found out the problem when leaving. He talk about it to his leader and since the Force cannot be understood by everyone, they chose to keep this secret.

The missing team explains how they respond to laser shoots from an unknown target (they were under the influence too). And the player's leader makes a "complete" situation report , but choose to hide one information : the force influence. He didn't hide the fact that they've shot first (Very dangerous with this one, but roll was pretty good).

So in the end, the cave has been closed and forbidden due to hasardous gaz making people crazy. And all players need to works twice to replace their comrades (giving them an obligation).

I was probably too nice, but killing a complete campaign should have been really sad. Maybe next time....

One trick I learned from reading Ben Robbins (West Marches resurgence, Microsope, etc.) was archaeological layering. Not always necessary or useful, but it can add some color and twists to what may start out as straightforward tomb-raiding.

My table actually just entered the complex I made months and months ago (got a little sidetracked; it's not their fault). Players are investigating 1) a dark Jedi enclave from 2,500 years ago but the 2) caverns themselves were excavated by animist worshipers of a monstrous creature hundreds of years beforehand; the long-abandoned place was 3) surveyed just 20 years ago by Sith under the nose of 4) a large pirate outfit that's taken residence in the palace built above the caverns a millennium or so after the first two groups of inhabitants.

On 8/6/2019 at 8:34 AM, Scapino said:

I've also modified the end encounter. It will be an Obsidian golem-like creature with a glowing blue crystal in its chest (what the players are really looking for). I'm also adding in two "obsidian spiders," based on the Assassin Probe Droid from Collapse of the Republic, complete with the swarm ability. My players are high level and I want to keep them on their toes.

We used a version of your golem yesterday in the final room of our Sith temple dungeon crawl, so thanks for sharing the stats! A mechanic we used, as each crystal was destroyed, was to apply an appropriate Critical Injury to the golem. I'm not sure what we would have done had the torso control been destroyed, but it worked well for how everything proceeded.

Here is how it went, for anyone interested...

A little context, first. We had two PCs, who I'll simplify down to a Scout and a Pathfinder for ease of reference. They had earlier gotten split up after encountering an archaeological party in the temple. The Scout was temporarily teamed up with a Forsaken Jedi there to find an amulet that belonged to an ancient Dark Sider. The Pathfinder was stuck with an Archaeologist there to find an amulet that belonged to a legendary musician. Of course, it's the same amulet, and the Forsaken Jedi had infiltrated the Archaeologist's team, posing as a grad student. That amulet was worked into a tiara on the golem. We set the six control crystals in elaborate sconces atop columns located around the golem's resting place in the middle of a huge mausoleum. It was triggered to get up and start attacking things around it when its bier was disturbed.

The first shot that the Scout took at the golem with her blaster pistol was not enough to get through the soak (and I had even decreased it some from the given stats), but it did have a Triumph, so we said the shot hit one of the crystals. We rolled randomly for what body part that would be, and it was the right arm. With the damage, we considered the arm to be Crippled and applied increased difficulty to its attack (smacking the Scout around... she was dismayed by its short-range reach), saying that the arm started moving jerkily. The PCs realized then that the crystals affected the golem's movement.

Given the dim surroundings, the two PCs still didn't know each other were there, and each was still just assisting their temporary companions in the interest of having help getting out of the temple. The Pathfinder climbed the nearest column. We'd had Force-y traps earlier in the temple with technological components that the PCs had used to disable them. So, here, the Pathfinder was able to find wires that were channeling some of the energy from the crystals and used Skulduggery to disable it. A random roll resulted in that shutting down the left arm. So now we applied Maimed to the golem, for a black die added to all its checks, and no use of the left arm.

The Pathfinder lassoed a rope to some other fixture in the ceiling and used that to swing to the next column over. The Scout, unbeknownst to him, used her jumpboots to get up one of the other columns, to the gem she had already partly damaged. She tried hacking at it with her vibrosword, but no luck. The golem turned its attention to the Pathfinder. With another Skulduggery check, he disabled an additional crystal, this one corresponding randomly to the head. So now we treated the golem as also Blind. It knew where the Pathfinder was, and it kicked at the column, totally smashing it. Fortunately, the Pathfinder was still holding onto his rope, and he was able with a Coordination check to make it to another column.

The Scout now used her utility belt gadget to produce a fusion lantern that she could wire into her crystal with a Mechanics check to overload it. That disabled the right arm completely, and we decided it completely blew up, showering everyone below (the Archaeologist and the Forsaken Jedi) with a shower of rocks. The Forsaken Jedi, who had been subtly trying to eliminate the Archaeologist, now convinced her that the Pathfinder was a Dark Force user, and needed to be taken out. She started taking shots up at him. At this point, up on columns closer to each other, the Scout and Pathfinder finally realized they were both there. The golem was now blindly stomping around, and with the Pathfinder taking hits from a blaster, they decided... this isn't our problem. We don't care at all about that pendant. And they switched to figuring out how to disengage from the situation.

It was a great culmination to their time in the creepy Dark Force temple. So thanks again for sharing!