They Scamper And Scurry With Their Little Toesies: A GLoG adventure

I had to make a dungeon in an hour for a Carolingia one-shot, and lo and behold, with some polish, here it is. It was a blast ripping someone else's GLoGhack a new asshole, I cannot recommend it enough. Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

THE WHOLE STORY

The d’Avegnor family ruled over this barony for generations. The last of their line, Cheldric d’Avegnor, was an eccentric egotist with a strange obsession with rats, and his disastrous rule ended the d’Avegnor line and resulted in a coup that nearly reduced d’Avegnor Keep to rubble. The only structure still standing is a singular tower, propped up by the sagging remnants of shattered walls, and many believe that it contains passage to an exchequer yet undiscovered by looters.

The source of Cheldric’s rat obsession was the latent portal to the Elemental Plane of Rats deep below the tower. When he accidentally opened the portal, it spewed out Rats and mutated him into a half-rat monster, explaining why he disappeared and the barony dissolved. Now the Rats lead the mundane rats in the tunnels to Cheldric’s eternal worship, continuing to feed his insatiable ego.

The most recent resident of the tower is Monteaux, a biologist on sabbatical to study the indigenous rat populations. As a bit of a recluse, she has built up a persona as a “rat witch” to try and scare away interlopers and continue her study. Why are the rats behaving so strangely, and why does no one come back from the hole in the base of the tower?

THE BROKEN TOWER

• The dilapidated, hollow interior of the tower is occluded by rubble, broken timbers, and tattered claret-and-gold banners

• A lucky quick scan notices a rope ladder tied together from banners ripped from the walls leading up to the BELFRY

• Extended searching through the rubble reveals a dented bronze key, hidden there by Monteaux for safekeeping

• It works on Monteaux’s chest in the BELFRY

• A large, pitch-black hole in the root-choked earth leads into the CHAMBER

• Mundane rats occasionally scamper in and out, bringing bits of debris back down with them

• As the players enter, a metallic, booming voice cries out “trespassers, leave at once! This tower is the domain of the Rat Witch!”

• This is Monteaux, using a metal pipe to throw her voice down from the BELFRY

MONTEAUX’S BELFRY

• Monteaux the “rat witch” lairs in this conical tower

• A large hole in the ceiling allows her to spy out into the courtyard

• A smaller peephole allows her to look down into the TOWER below unseen

• All of Monteaux’s prized possessions are in a locked, rotten chest mouldering in the corner

• A jar of rat pheromones (the source of her “power”)

• A carved wooden box that screams when opened, revealing it empty

• A journal of taxonomic notes of the indigenous plants and animals, the results of Monteaux’s sabbatical

• A lead coin that always lands tails and is listed to be minted in 11 years

• Monteaux tries to put on a rather contemptuous aura of grandiosity to scare interlopers away from disturbing her isolation

• If this facade is lifted, she will be disagreeable but cooperative towards who agree to leave her alone

• She knows that no one who has descended into the hole in the TOWER floor has made it back alive

• She has seen one Rat scuttle out; it rattled her, being entirely unnatural

• Her pheromone manipulation allows her to command mundane rats to do her bidding

RAT WORSHIP CHAMBER

• Three tunnels, set into the room like three out of four sides of a square, lead away to the... 

• STATUARY (water reflection on the tunnel’s ceiling)

• LAIR (sounds of deep snoring)

• GROTTO (harsh slope downwards)

• The untunneled stone wall, choked with vines, adjoins the d’Avegnor exchequer

• Behind the thick stone wall is just a ludicrous amount of loot for the taking

• Pushed up against the wall is a large pile of debris

• Rotting food, torn cloth, salvaged bits of metal and wood

• Many rats scurry to and from the pile, putting in new offerings for their god

• 2d6 Rats dwell within the offering pile

• One additional Rat spawns every ROUND, emerging from a root-choked hole next to the offering pile

• Also in the hole is DON’T LOOK BACK, a ruby-encrusted sword that automatically beheads agents of the Church

• The hole leads through to the exchequer

EGO CULT STATUARY

• The center of this natural chamber is dominated by a crystal clear mineral water lake

• The water comes from a recent rift in the wall of the room, burying the lowest parts of the natural chamber

• Submerged in the lake is a stone coffin housing an inert skeleton adorned in opulent jewelry

• This is Adrienne d’Avegnor, Cheldric’s mother

• Hence the carved inscription in the top of the coffin: DIVINE PROGENITOR (DO NOT EAT, DAVE)

• Against the far wall, carved out of the natural limestone, is a massive sculpture of a seated Lord Cheldric

• A long-cold brazier sits in its lap, home to a Dire Rat (presumably Dave)

• Dave, having fattened himself on naught but ash, plays dead until someone is close enough to bite and drag underwater

CHELDRIC’S LAIR

• An obese Rat-human hybrid snores in the center of the room, surrounded by bleached bones picked clean long ago

• This angry, somnolent wreck is what remains of Cheldric d’Avegnor

• He talks in a chattering trainwreck of ungrammatical third-person gibberish, believing himself an invulnerable god

• Every ROUND he in in danger, a Rat appears to come to his aid

• In the corner are soiled robes, a bent scepter, and a sundered crown

• A tailor or jeweler respectively could repair the items and buy them for pocket change

• The Rats will distrust, but not attack, anyone wielding them

CRYSTAL GROTTO

• An almost-complete circle of light-catching crystals dominates the room

• There is one small breach in the circle, about a foot long

• If you put a light source there, the crystals all alight with arcane glow and opens a gateway to the Elemental Plane of Rats

• The crystals can be broken off with 2 WOUNDS of damage and sold to a geologist or wizard

• Two rat-bitten skeletons, the first of the Keep’s raiders, lie mid-rot against the walls

• They raise to try and stop someone putting a light source into the gap

• Unfortunately, they are mute and panicky, so they often just try and wrench the light source out of people’s hands and destroy it

BESTIARY

Rat NX H2 A Swarm (X is ⅓ the number of Rats present), Plaguemonger (every hit, target rolls contested CON or is inflicted with a random disease), Hyper-Rat Nature (The Rats look different from normal rats in that they resemble exactly you think rats look like- every feature accentuates when you look at it, and diminishes as your attention wanders) I To worship

Dire Rat N2 H6 Plaguemonger, Acid Reflux (vomit corroding acid once per day, deals WOUNDS and destroys a random item), Hyper-Rat Nature A To eat

Cheldric N3 H8 A Teeth and Claws, Plaguemonger, Batshit Crazy (cannot take STRESS; mind affecting magic fails, caster instead takes STRESS) I To wallow