Hello again, all. A modest question, a seeking of opinion, here. I'm planning on running a modified version of the adventure out of the back of the Rogue Trader core book, and have run into a complication, so to speak. When the players wind up looking for the Celestial Spyglass, the adventure describes the ruins that surround the structure as a maze-like hive-city built in three dimensions. My thoughts were that if it's actually maze-like, wouldn't that mean there'd be some complications in getting to the Spyglass? Thus, my idea for having a maze, and something nasty in it.

I took the liberty of moving the hive to the "dark side" of the world, so that it'd be, well, dark. The players will land a distance away, able to see the spyglass gleaming from afar. The maze-city will be somewhat empty, save some sort of roiling wall of smoke and fire that'll be stalking them; ideally, it'll insta-kill an NPC to give the players an idea of lethality. Of course, it won't kill player (as I find one-shot kills kinda... disappointing), but if it gets too close to a player it'll start inflicting corruption/insanity, haven't decided which. I figure with this thing showing up semi-randomly and inspiring chase scenes, that'd keep things somewhat tense. The problem is... how do I incorporate the maze element to it?

So far, I figured I'll draw up a simple maze, and let the players navigate through it, with some set pieces at pre-determined locations along the way to keep things from being an "endless identical passages" sort of ordeal. But then again, it'd be good for players to be able to use skills... bah! I'm flummoxed! What do people think? Suggestions? Hate it? Hate me?

The simplest method is largely the one thing all GMs have to learn; namely, how to impart a sense of urgency without having to actually do much. "The partially caved-in tunnel before you is still lit by the burning corpse of Ensign Ricky. The Fire? Smoke? Throne, whatever was, that... engulfed him, still seems to be fixated on his remains for the moment. You're able to pick out two exits at the end of the corridor. Left, or right?" Don't give them much time to consider it. As they progress further into the maze, describe less about the environment and more about what's pursuing them. Have sudden cave-ins force Strength or Agility tests to get past, let the techpriest's auspex (really, I've never seen an explorator without one, if only to make exploration challenges absurdly easy) flare in and out of life, the mass spectrometer component of it screeching that the explorers are currently surrounded by tons of crushing water, et cetera. By all means include set-pieces for combat or challenges to overcome, but don't try and plan the maze out ahead of time. Keep them in the maze until they're beginning to get used to it, then change things up. Suddenly they burst into a brightly-lit arboretum, surrounded by the skittering sounds of chitin on stone, or they bump into kommandoes sneekin' about all proppa like.

Et cetera.

Errant said:

Fan-tastic. Thanks muchly!

in my opinion, a Maze is just screaming for extended Tests on Navigation or Intelligence. But keep in mind that these are the ruins of a maze-like hive. It is not a maze in the first place.

Obstacle: Stone slab door
The pc follow winding corridor/tunnel lined with openings into rooms shaped like a reverse bowl. Through cracks in walls and ceiling, sand was found its ways inside and fills most of the rooms to one amount or the other and even spills on the street. There is a complete lack of any tracks in the sand,not even that of vermins. The pc are the first to set foot here for Emperor-knows how long.

At the end of the corridor/tunnel, the pc reach a large opening that is blocked by what seems to be an ornamented door in the form of a stone slap firmly pressed against the opening from the other side. Any attempt to find a mechanismen to open the "door" will be fruitless. If the Explorers want to move it, they have to pass a Strength(-40) Test . Up to 3 other n/pc can assist the first, three attempts can be made. If none of them is successful, they are able to move the obstacle after 5 rounds and evey n/pc involved will gain one point of Fatigue.

Obstacle: The Plaza of Sands
The pc reach a place that lies under an oval shaped opening from the sky can be seen. Beneath it, sand has accumulated so that was once might have been a wide plaza now looks akin to a patch of desert. Lightning arcs over the sky sometimes electricity licks in and dances along the edges of the oval opening and the walls of the plaza. Different openings to rooms or further corridors can be seen, but the pc need to cross the sand first.

The plaza is 50 meters across and the pc better run. Each turn they spend in the opern, role d10. On a 9, the pc are hit by an energy arc and will suffer from 2d10 points of damage (no reduction from armor). Of course, the pc can simply crawl flat over the sands to avoid being hit by an arc (Ordinary Test for Logic).

I always enjoy your dungeon tidbits, gregorius.

Gregorius21778 said:

What if they just decide to make a hole in the 'door' instead of moving it ?

If you're going into any kind of ruins without some way to make your own entrances, you're party isn't properly equipped. Across DH and RT there are plenty of tools that would be helpful here, and others that could make an improvised one (like an inferno pistol).

Bilateralrope said:

Good and valid point! I expect the slap to be very durable, so most measures will be fruitless. The only reason that it can be moved by 4 man is the fact that it was designed to be moved. Otherwise, an ordinary(+10) test for Demolition will solve the problem... if explosives are carried. With enough time, drilling through will be an option...but since some SmokeFire-Thingy is up there trail, I expect not enough time is at hand. If the Demolition skill is not successful, there will still be a hole in the wall.... and some more , with debris coming down etc...

The howling tunnel
The pc will come across a long underbridge which is leads into some kind of atrium which is open to the elements. Wind howls through the underbridge and is blowing through some ornamental applications on the walls reminding the pc of coralline. The wind makes a fluting, whaling noise so load that it will nearly deafen the pc (-10 on every hearing based role for the next (5-TB) hours).

The cracking plaza
About one hour later, the players will have to cross another plaza. The ground surface is covered with thin layer of sand. As the pc move over it, the pressure they put on the ground will lead to the ground to start cracking like porcelain (a fact that will only be noticed on an ordinary(+10) hearing based perception role). If the pc apply more then 100kg of pressure on the center of the plaza, they will break in and falls about 8 meters into the deep. They either have to find another way, move along one by one or (if they are to heavy) ...decided to walk along the sides of the plaza (Logic+20 or suiting Trade+20 to come up with this solution to the problem)

Site Note: The "plaza" is in truth the semi-translucent ceiling of dome underneath the pc. It was never meant to walk upon it. There was a balustrade blocking the "entrances" the pc use to move onto the ceiling... but those have crumbled away long ago. With a hard(-20) sight based Perception test, one might to identify the remains as such.

Gregorius21778 said:

The thing you want to be careful about is not to make moving the door too hard , especially if you're playing up how close the smoke monster is. Players have a funny way of rolling really badly at exactly the wrong moment in my experience. A door that's supposed to hold them up for a couple of minutes while the smoke monster closes in might end up being the death of them if they just can't roll well enough. Ruling out explosives right off the bat deprives them of an escape hatch if they can't make the Strength test.

I agree guns would probably be useless. The stone is too thick for boltguns to penetrate (plus ricochet if anyone's silly enough to try. - "Woah, woah, WOAH! Man! Bullets bounce!") Lasguns and meltas would probably get through given time, but time is not something they have. A Krak grenade taped to the door would probably do it in a pinch, though. I would wait for them to think it up on their own, though. And I would probably have something scary happen when they used it. Like maybe the explosion causes tremors throughout the ruin that cause secondary stonefalls nearby, or raise concerns that the star-thingy they're chasing might fall down and shatter before they get to it. You want to discourage things that make it too easy to progress, but you also want to leave them an easy way out if the dice are against them. Just make sure they think of it as a last resort.

If all you want to do is make the smoke monster close in to scare them, you can use the tried and true "offscreen teleportation" trope to have it get caught up mysteriously. Any time the party looses sight of the monster, you can just make it round the corner 5 seconds after them (even if it shouldn't have been able to move that fast.) Especially with a smoke monster this sort of trope will be less obvious. If you want to have fun with it you can have this happen multiple times in a row and then not happen when they round the corner that has a big stone door at the end of the hall. The players will be expecting this thing to pop around the corner any second, and will probably thank god for every combat round they have to make the roll to push the door open, even if you're secretly letting the smoke monster lie until they succeed.

AND THEN MAKE IT POP OUT AS SOON AS THEY CRACK THE DOOR OPEN! OMFG IT'S RIGHT THERE! AHH!

Edit: In general, I find sources like tvtropes.com can be a gold mine of little manipulative tricks you can use to evoke the emotions you want from your players. It's also amusing to see how these cliches, which my friends are only too quick to criticize when watching a movie, somehow fly under the radar when I pull it on them in a game session. You can tweak them to avoid any blatantly obvious continuity issues with your game's setting.

Something like the Dahaka chases from Prince of Persia: Warrior Within would be perfect if you can pull it off:

I especially like how the creature just ignores pitfalls, teleporting past them, with no apparent sense of urgency to its motions.

Steve-O said:

yep. That´s why I wrote that the pc will still succeed if they botch all three roles.. In that case, it will just take them 5 rounds (and perhaps a further npc and/or some damage) and a level fatigue.

Errant said:

I am glad to receive positive feedback, thank you. Perhaps I should switch back to old-school D&D dungeon crawls....
If you like tidbits of descriptions, I advise the "into the....." products of a company called "Tabletop Games" which can be found at drivethru-rpg in the internet. No or next to no rules for obstacles, so.

The broken stairtowers
The Explorers reach an opening within this strange maze city. In an oval place easily several hundred meters from one side to other needle like towers rise about a dozen stories into the air. Each of the towers is about 10 diameters at the base and without windows, but there are door opening at their feet. High above (after about the third level) stone walkways lead from the edges of the surrounding hivewall to the tower, criss-crossing between them to form strange cross sections and connections. Inside the towers, spiral stairs lead up. In some of the towers, the stairs do already lay in ruin or are not more then a heap of rubble inside the tower. Somewhere, a little rubble falls noisly into the depths....

The obvious thing would be the "stairway breaks under the pc" & calling for agility tests. If this is to cheesy, providing NO intact stair and asking the pc for a nigh vertical jump would be an option. If they do have rope&anchors and/or grappel hooks with them it could be about climbing up the rope (climbing test) before the smoke things reach them... or before the stone segment there rope is locked at finally gives...

If you are into the eerie and dramatic, make a tower (or a crossway segment!) come down just the pc pass.

The portal of the tune riddle
The pc end up in rectangular room that is riddled with small openings. In front of them is a huge crystal portal featuring wave-like ornamentation.
To the right, there is a recess where long metal rods with translucent crystals on top in different shapes have secured in holes in the ground similiar to those on the floor.

If one of the rods is placed in the opening, either a tune or a strange sound can be heared. It is a puzzle. The pc have to place a "tune ladder" on the ground. (Perception / Hearing to recognize it; give a substantial bonus for those with a singer or musician skill). It needs five person in total to place the rods one after the other (the tune will only be heared for about three seconds after it was inserted..it needs to be re-inserted for a replay).
If performed right, the crystal portal will vibrate at the sound of the last tune and will become half-substantial . The n/pc will be able to pass, the monster won´t.

Of course, the pc can just shatter the crystal portal (and make it clear that they do not think that this portal will sustain some solid hammer blows or a bolter round)...but in that case, the monster will be able to follow them further.....

[Glyphs on the Wall]
The pc will notice some crude glyphs that have been carved into a stone wall. The Glyphs do not seem to be as ancient as the rest of the structure but a more contemporary addition. Ask for a Test on Forbidden Lore (Xenos)+30 . On a success, the Explorers can identify these as Ork Glyphs. With two levels of success, they will know that these are some kind of warning of a danger.

What danger exactly is up to the GM. Perhaps another of those Smoke-Fire-Monsters? An unstable area of the hive?
Otherwise, the pc can feel free to give them an encounter with some feral Orks (the adventure mentions them, anyway).

[The Chambers of Autumn]
The pc follow a long, winding stair into the depths of the maze-hive, the steps flattened and smoothened by what must have been centuries of use [ask for Agility tests if the pc are running… for example if the FireSmoker is hot on there heals). The timeworn steps end in large round chamber with a domelike ceiling. The chamber is surrounded by a large number (11) of door openings. Most of them are covered by slates of milky crystal, the other feature the broken remains of such and allow a look at the room behind: a small chamber, only large enough for two men to stay inside. The ground inside the chambers is not stone but a crystal the color of amber.

If the pc touch the milky crystal doors, the will silently slide up and allow the pc to step inside. Once they do, the door slides down again. The monster will not be able to enter and it will not be able to perceive the Explorers inside the chambers. If they look through the doors, the might see the burning gloom move about reluctantly inside the chamber before leaving after about a minute (10 rounds)
But the chambers aren´t harmless. Three rounds after they have been entered, the pc must pass a Toughness test or will temporarily lose 1d5 toughness and strenght as the chamber drains away their life force. If a pc loses half or more of his/her toughness, the pc collapses to the floor and will not regain conscious for about an hour. The doors will not open as long as anybody inside is alive. They can be broken, however, with the use of a solid object and an ordinary(+10) Strength test. Note that weapons damage will suffices as well, but an energy weapon will not break the Crystal but simply cut through. The pc will need to cut himself an opening.

If this chambers were meant as Executions rooms, as a final cure for the sick or as a perverted mean of capturing energy is up to the GM. If anyone will ever

[The extinct Arboreatorium]
The corridor the pc are following leads comes to an abrupt end. In front of them is another oval yard, some 15 meters beneath and they are actually standing on some form of balcony with just a very small and fragile balustrade, reminding of fishbone and mostly crumbled away. From where the pc stand, they can see a lot of similar balcony at irregular intervals the other walls forming the yard. And the most strange remains of a garden.

Around stone pillars in the yard and along the walls surrounding it, strange remains of plants wind up like vines. They look like a mixture of a tree and a tentacle, dead and petrified.

The strange plant remains are dry and dusty to the touch, living the hand covered in fine grey dust. If the pc try to climb them up or down (Climb+20) , the material will make some cracking noises. It seems to support the weight, but for how long? Role a d10 after each round of climbing. If the number is lower the number of rounds the pc have been climbing, the plant remains break and they fall to the ground.

Option: Perhaps some of the Explorers will show an allergic reaction to the dusty remains. Role a D5 for each Explorer. If the result is higher then the TB of the pc, the pc will suffer watering eyes, a bad cough, sneeze and a short breath after 1d5 minutes (temporarily loosing 1d10+5 points of Perception and Toughness). Allow a re-role for the initial d5 if the pc wear respirators and cancel all of this if they wear full breathing gear.

Awesome stuff Gregorius! I'll be stealing a few of these...

Also figured I'd post what I had for the Maze Monster... let me know what you think, or if you've got any suggestions.

After about fifteen to twenty minutes of exploring, the players will come upon a great plaza, with a sand-filled courtyard. Have the players make an Ordinary (+10) Awareness Test . Those who succeed will notice crumpled forms along the edges of the dark plaza. They bear the livery of the Feckleton Dynasty, and are all recently killed. From basic investigation, it would seem they killed themselves; all wounds seem to be self-inflicted, from head-wounds to slit throats. The character who succeeds with the most degrees of success will notice the howling wind seeming to fade, despite the storm overhead raging unabated. They will also swiftly realize that it's not just the wind that seems quieter, all noises seem to be muffled, from their own voices to weapon discharges. Quickly, the air will fill with what sounds like whispered voices, just at the edge of hearing, and a foul wind will begin to blow down the alleyways, towards the heroes, as if something was heading their way...

Hi Mystrunner,

sounds like a atmospheric introduction, well done! . The one thing I would change is the suicide-thing. This would mean that either the fear this thing projects is immense or it has astounding control over the will of people. Both seem a little much to me, especially if compared to the regular results of failed fear tests.

The idea with of placing the remains of other Explorers in the way of your pc is a good way of pointing toward the danger and this Sentinel really is. But I would change them from suicides to victims of flame. If the remains are those of... let´s say 8 or 12 people in armor and with (once!) good weapons, the pc will get the nudge that " stand you ground and FIGHT! " is the wrong command here.

Please tell us how this episode of your adventure played out in the end.

Oh! And one last thing: do not make the sentinel appear after mere minutes. If you planned the whole affair to be one of a couple of hours, make him appear after an hour or so. A faster appearance would indicate that he is omnipresent. If that is the case, one has to wonder why the Explorers are able to run away from it at all.

For maximum effect, let the pc find the burned remains of the Competition, then let them strole around, make them have a scene or another (climbing about an obstacle, finding Ork glyphs, whatever) and then introduce your sentinel the way you did.

Hmm, a good idea all-round, I think. I'll keep some of the "suicide-suggestion for the weak-minded, but make sure that in the center, there'll be what looks to be a heavy weapon team set up, with craters blown out of the wall their were facing, charred to the bone with a few other soldiers. The ones with the self-inflicted wounds will be spared from a torch-y fate, I think. Do you think that'd get the idea across?

I think I'll have the players' rival (Feckleton) be in the ruins with them instead of having already been there... that'll add some spice to things, and give them something to do before the Monster shows up. Every time they encounter him, he'll have noticeably less men...

Hi Myst,

having some live opponents around if of course better then just encountering their corpses. But I would not use a heavy weapons team as corpses. Such are normally either deployed as defense for something or to attack a tank/a stronghold. None of this is the case, the other teams just went in for Exploration.

How about some special weapons guys instead? Perhaps someone was totting a Plasmarifle...but was definitively not rosted by plasma.