A level of taverns and caves. Cheese caves, obviously, probably along with wine cellars.
So what does a tavern level need?
Warning: Potential spoilers for my players. But not really, they're all familiar with pubs.
- Bar fights, using the DF10 bar fight rules!
- drinking contests (three pints at lunchtime!)
- wandering pub crawl groups, themed (Santa, Halloween, etc.) and unthemed.
- patrons in threes (a dwarf, an elf, and a hobgoblin walk into a bar . . . )
- all of those fun games from Yaquinto's Pirates and Plunder rules - arm wrestling contests, darts, drunken shooting and ones from The Vikings with Kirk Douglas and even worse ones - pun battles and trivia contests. Hidden Lore (Spirit Lore) never seemed so critical until that's the category to beat the elite orc trivia team for a free round of beer and wings!
- weird drinks from games and sources past and present - rageahol, jungle juice, grug-splunk, skittlebrau, porter (made from actual porters), stouts (made from stout halflings), and bier (made in and on biers.)
- silly bar names.
Sure, you might think that I could do this all in town, and you'd be largely correct. But then it wouldn't be Felltower's rumored level of taverns and caves, would it? For some reason I picture this as an odd mix of the undertown from Wormy and the town-as-blue-skied-dungeon feeling of Pool of Radiance. Plus bits of Lankhmar, Odd Alley, Waterdeep, Sigil, etc. as I feel like throwing them in.
And yes, it's going to be silly and have potential reward and potential lethality. People who don't want silliness shouldn't agree with Hasdrubul's player when he says, "There HAS to be a tavern level!" Because now there is.
How and when I'll use this, I don't know - it might make a heck of an in-dungeon "base" to delve from. It wouldn't be a safe town, though, not really.
My underground tavern is more of an intersection between different factions. Some enterprising delver branded it a neutral zone and its sprung out from that, guaranteed by some more powerful monsters/delvers.
ReplyDeleteIts not town though. So staying there is equivalent to camping.
I wasn't planning on putting one, but since my players insisted, I figured I'd go all the way to 11.
DeleteA few of my enterprising players are teying to build taverns in the dungeon.
ReplyDeleteI've had players who really like to open bars in games. It usually comes down to "I'll make tons of money and have bar fights!" and ends up being "I make some money and have a place to stash my extra gear." One in a dungeon, though, can make for an interesting themed campaign.
DeleteI love everything about this. And if exploring it as a level seems tedious... make it like Stone Head Island. Something we looted, touched, or disturbed (or drank too much from that tasty liquor pool!) brings us back to this level, and "winning" is the only out (defeat the trivia team from Scumbag College, drinking contest with a were-cameleopard)...
ReplyDeleteI had to share this, a reader of mine is named Baron Chugg. I told him he will be immortalized in a tale eventually... seems like the perfect name for a demon lord on this level.
I pretty much expect I'll have to use it as a mapless-explored place rather than as a level.
DeleteI like Baron Chugg. That's usable.
*Hidden Lore (Spirits)* - I see what you did there.
ReplyDelete"Hello, welcome to Moe's Cavern!"