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Okay, folks.
This is it.
Here's your chance to dazzle me with your imagination and cleverness.

I'm DMing an ongoing AD&D 2e campaign, and the party is heading into Undermountain.
(cue suspenseful music)

I love adding lots of little things to my dungeons. Things that might or might not mear something.
Anything from actual dungeon dressings (a small sack filled wich the skulls of human children) to the inane (Scrawled on the wall in white chalk is 'Beebo Watches!' - the chalk will not rub off).
Random pools of blood (or other liquids)... whatever.

So, here's where I impose on you... fill my dungeon with little details.

I don't need help on encounters or treasures. I'm pretty good on traps, but am always up for a good one (Please, no "Grimtooth's Traps" style auto-killer traps). Just little dungeon dressings that can fill out the small details.

Here's something I've used with success in the past:
The party is traveling through a corridor that seems to be carved directly out of the rock around them. No seams are visible.
The walls are covered in decorative carvings. One wall shows a scene of dwarven forces routing al manner of fell creature. Skeletal legions, goblin hordes, giant clans and the like all fall to their mighty hammers and axes.
The other wall, however, is carved in the visage of a rampaging dragon. If the party looks at it, it seems to be nothing more than a well carved image. As the party moves, however, one of the members notices that the dragon seems to be stalking him. When he looks at the dragon, it's always next to him (everyone can see this). As the individual walks with eyes forward, though, the dragon can be spied stalking him from his peripheral vision (nobody else notices this). The dragon never does anything but follow, and only while in a certain area.

So, hit me up, Dakka. Give me your dungeon dressings. Do your best (or worst). Dazzle me! LOL

Eric

I've always been a fan of "highly detailed statues" around places where things like basilisks and medusa lurk. After a while, I can usually get the party walking around mostly covering their eyes.

Just to throw them off, put a room in there with many different colored floor tiles. Always creeps players out. Especially if you take a couple minutes to draw a map with a tile layout. And let one of them see said map.

I have a nice list of magic items I made to screw with a party as well, such as the magical repeating crossbow. It creates bolts in the clip! You never have to reload! But as soon as you fire it the first time, it NEVER STOPS.

I have also put in very unusual things in a dungeon before, such as a small bathroom with a fur sink. Yep. That confused 'em for a while.

Mattlov wrote:I've always been a fan of "highly detailed statues" around places where things like basilisks and medusa lurk. After a while, I can usually get the party walking around mostly covering their eyes.

Just to throw them off, put a room in there with many different colored floor tiles. Always creeps players out. Especially if you take a couple minutes to draw a map with a tile layout. And let one of them see said map.

Those 2 are classics. A couple of my favorites.

There's one thing that always rings true... If you bother to draw it out or put a miniature out to represent it, the players will think it's important.

: )


Eric

So you're the Evil DM type then, are you?!?

Who?
Me?

Nah.

I prefer "devious."

Eric

I put a magically hardened Adamantium sarcophagus with spell resistance on it in an otherwise unremarkable room that had been seriously locked and trapped in dungeon.

They literally spent hours trying to open it. They'd come back after weeks adventuring in other locales to try and use different magic items they had picked up and spells that they had learned on it. It became a prominent feature in the campaign, just because it was killing the PCs to not know what was in that gakking box!

Little did they know that trapped within the casket was a rather high level vampire that had long since gone completely insane from hunger and loneliness. When they finally got it open, the death toll from his killing spree would have been high indeed!

put a midget in there, and make him completely bad ass, I put one in on my dark heresy mission, Ws:65, S:53, T:56, with 16 wounds. of course the pc's didn't know this, so after an argument one of the characters tried to punt him, he was not a fan of that, then another shot him with a bolt pistol. it was pretty funny, its more of a side show joke but its still fun, not to mention they could get some vital dungeon info out of him ie maps, what kind of monsters are up ahead, whats in the magically hardened adamantium sarcophagus, E.C.T., E.C.T.