Node-Based Megadungeon: Pit of the Misshapen

Pit of the Misshapen

Campaign or Scenario Role

Dumping ground, a miscellany of creatures and objects.  Almost anything can be found here, potentially, but it’s probably not in very good condition.

Theme

Civilization of broken creatures.

Threat

• Very defensive and insular, will view interlopers with suspicion at best (and as food at worst).
• Allied, after a fashion, with the Aboleth Conclave Outpost (willing to allow passage and guidance for visitors bearing aboleth tokens).
• Many would be happy to avenge themselves on Aristothanes, the one who caused the current condition of many of them.

Reward

• Safe refuge if friendly.
• Information about Aristothanes if it looks like the asker will harm the wizard somehow.
• Alternate route into the Fane of Baalshamoth.
• ‘Friendly’ access to the Aboleth Conclave Outpost.

Relationships

• Stream from the Fungoid Cavern provides a path between the regions, and a source of food for the Misshapen (and sometimes dangerous fungoid creatures — also potential food, once they are beaten down).
• Some travel to the Fane of Baalshamoth to look for information, particularly to destroy Aristothanes.
• Aristothanes uses the Pit of the Misshapen as a dumping ground for his experiments when he is done with them.
• Arrangement with the Aboleth Conclave Outpost to provide passage and guidance to visitors.  Some escapees from the aboleths hide here, if they can’t or don’t want to get farther away (the aboleths know and are satisfied to know where they are, for now).

Description and Identification

Description

‘Cliff city’ of natural and carved caves with rickety but adequate scaffolding between the areas.  Inhabitants with different responsibilities live in each area.

Signature

Broken creatures, often modified in some fashion by the wizard Aristothanes for his experiments.  Not all are less than they started, some are more capable in a limited way (and often contradictory — greater than normal strength with reduced dexterity or health).  Most find a use suited to their new abilities.

Location

Near the bottom, in many ways.

Mechanics

No actual mechanics yet, but I’ll include notes for later.

• Fishers: Gather food from the water and defend against Fungoid creatures coming from the Grotto of Genesis.
• Pool: Fresh-water pool with fish and the like.
• Caves 1: Living area for the Fishers.
• Gatherers: Misshapen who search the Gathering Place for survivors and useful creatures to be rescued.  Or dead, or soon to be dead, meat for consumption.
• Caves 2: Living area for the Gatherers.
• Hunters: Misshapen who deal with problems (Fungoids from the Grotto of Genesis and creatures from the Gathering Place) that are too troublesome for the ones who normally deal with them, and who hunt in the Aboleth Conclave Outpost.
• Caves 3: Living area for the Hunters.
• Scaffold 1 and 2: Collections of ladders and scaffolding linking the different sets of caves, providing simple defensive measures against travel up or down.
• Waterfall: Great cascade of water from the Pool down to the bottom of the Chasm.
• Cache: Hiding place for food and protected members of the tribe when needed, behind the Waterfall.
• Chasm: Big hole in the ground.  Nobody is known to have explored the other side, it looks like it might go way, way up.
• Gathering Place: Location where Aristothanes’ discards land, usually painfully and often fatally, though sometimes they were already dead.