Dungeon23: Greystone - Days 8 & 9

Week 2!!  We've moving on from the house and into The Temple. My overall plan for the month is taking shape as well.  Since there's a three day "week" at the end of the month, my plan is to design four seven-room sectors and connect them all together with the three remaining rooms.  So, we've already got The House and now I'm adding The Temple. Both of these buildings are adjoined by some kind of plaza, yet to be designed.  Part of the work of week 5 will be figuring out what that looks like, but we're not there yet!

So, Sunday was a bit of a bear and I just didn't have time to get everything done. I made a start on room 1-8, but I had to finish it and 1-9 today.  But I'm cool with that.  As soon as I click "Publish" on this post, I'll be back on track.

Since this is a fairly well-to-do part of town, I thought that a place of worship would be a good next building to put here. 

I'm working from a fairly classic and simple design here, slightly modified. So, the first room is The Narthex which sounds like an otherworldly word, but really just means the lobby or entryway. It was here that a dwarf would sanctify himself with blessed water before going further into the church. The font with this water is still here. But this is not "holy water" as it appears on the equipment list.  This is a unique (though very simple) ritual that must be observed before going deeper into the temple. Basically, the water must be poured over a person's head. When it is, that person is "anointed" for one day. I know what "anointed" means, but I'm not going to write it down since it will first become relevant in room 1-10.

Room 1-9 is the Choir Gallery.  This is where members of the church choir would sit and also where they'd stand when singing. A few of them are still here. With the limited monster books I'm working with, there are very few undead. This is just the OSE Classic Fantasy Monsters book. I know there are dozens or hundreds of other OSR monster books I could be pulling from, and I may do so as time goes on. I've even got my old Rules Cyclopedia.  But for today, I just wanted something low HD, semi-corporeal and with some kind of singing attack.  So, I reskinned and tweaked.  I think I'm going to be doing that a LOT.

So, Phantom Singers are my first custom monster of the dungeon. Knowing how I operate, I think that there will be many more.  They're skeletons in every way except three (though I see I only wrote down two). First, they should float, so I'll note that. Second, they're only semi-corporeal, so I think it's half damage from any non-magic attack. Third, I'm adding a singing attack. I'll probably add a name for the ability, but basically it's a loud otherworldly howling song. Anyone withing 30ft must save vs paralysis or be deafened for 1 day.  I even added some choir-themed treasure: a bunch of silver-plated music stands. They're valuable, but heavy/cumbersome. I think I'm going to be doing a lot of that as well.

Well that's about it for today. Tomorrow, I'll write up 1-10, the main body of the church and we'll find out what happens to someone who goes in there without anointing themselves first.

See you tomorrow!