The dungeon is laid out with the doors on the points of two six-pointed stars. The dungeon level is better quality stonework than the rest of the castle. Anyone skilled in stonework will be amazed at the quality of the work here. If they’ve seen Dwarven work before, they’ll recognize it immediately. Otherwise, legends of Dwarven miners and craftsmen are still likely to come to mind.
Doors are spaced nearly exactly ten yards apart. The hallway is 360 feet in circumference measured from the inner wall. All of the doors open easily unless they are locked. The Dwarves’ craftsmanship endures. Doors are generally unlocked but closed unless otherwise noted in the flavor text. They open into the hallway (toward the characters).
Note that the wall painting descriptions assume that the characters are moving clockwise or counter-clockwise around the circle. Transition descriptions are marked “CW” for clockwise, and “CCW” for counter-clockwise. There will also often be an “inside” text for when they open the door or peer inside.
The walls in the hallways are usually set with stone. The walls in the rooms are usually set with thin stone.
Zodiac Dungeon: Encounters
The chance for an encounter within the dungeon area of the castle is 10% every six hours.
| 01-20 | Normal Spiders (1d20) | 20% |
| 21-40 | Mice (1d20) | 20% |
| 41-55 | Snakes (1d3) | 15% |
| 56-70 | Rats (1d10) | 15% |
| 71-80 | Huge Spider (1) | 10% |
| 81-90 | Giant Rats (1d6) | 10% |
| 91-00 | Poisonous Snake (1) | 10% |
The huge spiders are from the Aquarius room. See that room for details.
Center Room
A large hexagonal pillar rises from the center of this tiny circular room. Large, rusted keys hang from the simple stone pillar.
The center room contains entrances to the prison rooms (3, 7, and 9), and the keys to those rooms as well. Keys to both the inner (barred) doors and the outer, observation, doors to the prisons hang from the wall. There are thus seven keys: two each for rooms three and seven, and three for room nine.
The center room also provides drainage to the other rooms. Tiny holes in a groove around the edges of the column allow water to seep into the earth.
Aries (Stairs, Ram)
Large grey stones of varying shades lead down stairs that twist right and then left for at least a hundred feet.
At the bottom is another oaken door, bound in iron and barred with two thick wooden poles. The poles pass through bars on both the wall and the door.
The stairs are forty yards long and drop fifty feet. (There are 99 steps total.) The door is barred from both sides. Huge iron slots in both the walls and the door hold two six-inch-diameter poles and keep the door from opening into the dungeon hallway. On the dungeon side, spears hold the door shut, but they are weak. A strength roll at a penalty of 3 will crack them. The door is six inches thick, and oak, with metal bars through the center of the wood.
You smash the door in. The hallway runs in a curve to the left and right. The walls and floors are set with large stones, boulders of granite, and occasional dark marble, inlaid with a greenish metal around the stones. The hallway is about five feet wide and seven feet tall. The walls are covered in paintings of mountains silhouetted by the night sky.
If they turn around to look at the door they’ve just opened:
The door you’ve just opened is lacquered with a scratched and chipped ram’s horn beneath a crescent moon. Broken spears lie scattered on the floor.
If they’ve arrived from clockwise or counterclockwise, use the appropriate description:
CCW: Rural library and field becomes hill and mountain, darkening the night so that mountain peaks are silhouetted by stars and moon.
CW: Hell gives way to earthly tortures. Sodom and Gomorrah burn in the night. Destruction fades to tournaments as jousters take the field. Jousting fields and crowds in turn give way to mountains, darkly lit by the painted night.
Libra (1, Scales of Justice)
CCW: The mountains give way to tournaments of jousting, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the scales of hell. Yellow stars mark the outline of blue lacquer scales on an inner door.
CW: Man’s great labors fall into decay. The pride of Babel drops to the fires of hell, its stones weighed and found wanting.
Inside, stone stairs lead down a small auditorium, past oaken seats to a table flanked by dark marble statues of scales and a huge crab. High-backed chairs decorated with silver stars hold ceremony to the empty seats. Torch sconces line the walls. Two large ones jut from the wall behind the high-backed chairs.
The statue of the scales is on the left, the statue of the crab on the right. The marble is veined with white and blood-red streaks.
Pulling on the right torch sconce behind the chairs opens the secret door.
Taurus (2, Bull)
CCW: Destruction gives way to the rebirth of great structures and cities. Man and beast toil to move stone blocks and raise great monuments to God. On the outer wall a lacquered carving outlines a rampaging bull, glossy black against the rich brown door.
CW: Whirlwinds calm, and from the desert grow great monuments to God and man. Beasts and workers toil to move huge stones to create grand tombs and towers to the heavens, where man speaks to the stars as an equal.
Inside, a huge glass table held off the floor by an obsidian-black bull is covered in papers. The bull’s hollow eyes give it an eerie, vacant stare. Two brilliant red gems lie on the floor beneath the table.
The maps are of Highland, Biblyon, and Illustrious Castle. It looks as though they were planning an attack on Illustrious Castle when last here. The red gems, the eyes of the bull, are worth 100 shillings each. The bull, could it be removed—it was carved in place—is worth one to three thousand shillings, or even four thousand with its glass top, depending on the buyer.
Scorpio (3, Scorpion)
CCW: Cities give way to deserts as you approach a door on the inner wall. Whirlwinds stir up dust, and the devil tempts Jesus with the illusory kingdoms of the world from a rock overlooking the desert’s desolation. A white lacquer scorpion raises its tail menacingly at you from the entrance to the door.
CW: Armies lie dead in the fields, rotting to skeletons and dust. Desert sands overtake all. Jesus stands atop a huge rock and overlooks the great cities of the world, tempted by worldly power.
Inside, a barred window looks down on strange devices. A hollow man with spikes and an open, man-shaped door; whips of many kinds, and metal and wood contraptions you have no idea what they were used for and probably don’t want to know.
Anyone familiar with torture instruments will recognize the iron maiden, the cat-o-nine tails, thumbscrews, and others. From the central room, a door of vertical iron bars leads into this room.
Sagittarius (4, Archer)
CCW: The desert gives way to combat. Arrows rain down on helpless armies; war machines carry destruction to castles. On the outer wall, the door is slightly ajar, but you can see a translucent amber archer pointing his arrows to the stars.
CW: The serenity of lake and mountain turns to masses of soldiers battling endlessly in forest, city, and plain. Arrows rain death to soldiers, and great machines carry destruction to castles.
Inside, an hour-glass-shaped room holds benches, and bows and arrows in various states of repair. Strings hang from rods on the walls. You see the edges of a pile of dirt around the squeeze in the “hourglass”.
In the far section eleven monks broke through the wall and tried digging to the southeast. They made it ten feet before dying; all eleven remain as skeletons. They were trying to reach the secret tunnel out of the southeast tower. The monks didn’t have the Dwarves make a secret exit here because they didn’t want the Dwarves knowing about the secret tunnel to Stelopolis.
The cool dryness of the underground is less destructive to wood and string than the wild weather changes above ground. While the bows are probably not usable, they look reasonably nice, and the arrows could probably be put to use, though they might need refletching (use them at a penalty of two to attack). There are seven bows and thirty arrows here.
Gemini (5, Twins)
CCW: Combat gives way to writing, study, and experimentation.
CW: Sharp peaks smooth to soft, restful mountains.
Both: A monastery sits at the edge of a serene lake, a mountain looming behind it; both the mountain and the monastery are reflected perfectly in the lake. Giants look down and over to the scholars.
Unless they stop to take a look, proceed immediately to the next room rather than reading the next section.
The stars above the mountain are of Gemini, and a twin-faced god stares down from the heavens. A two-headed giant lifts its head from behind the mountain peaks, its eyes vacant holes with pinpricks for an iris.
A perception roll is required to find the door. It is metal, with thin stone, designed to blend with the wall. There is a bonus of four if they know where the door is and that it should be Gemini. The Gemini room key fits into the eyes of the rightmost head. Locks & traps rolls to pick the lock are at one worse than normal
The giant’s head twists and the door pops inward, gliding silently open to reveal the darkened room. Inside, past a short initial hallway, two bronze bells flank the entrance. The walls on the far end of the “diamond” are lined with shelves and benches, themselves holding inkwells, and decorative sculptures of horizontal rods with rings around the rods. A large tapestry is woven with an image of the castle. Above the castle, in the night sky and surrounded by attending stars, the moon greets the sun.
The room is somewhat diamond-shaped. About five feet inside the room, it begins to widen, and there are two bronze-colored, bell-shaped devices, one on either wall just at that point. The “decorative sculptures” are abaci.
The bell trap
The entrance trap is triggered if the key isn’t used to open the door. Anyone picking the lock must make a perception roll at a penalty of 2 (with their locks & traps bonus) to successfully disable the blade. (The Dwarven craftsman recommended that the key have to remain in the lock, but the Astronomers overrode him on safety grounds.)
The wall near the bells has a thick dark line running up from floor to ceiling. This thick line is an opening in the wall as if for a sliding door. The opening extends from floor to ceiling and is about three inches thick.
The trap is triggered by at least 40 pounds of weight stepping on a three foot by three foot square of the floor inside the room just as the room widens. If the door is not opened with the key, the first person to step into the room must make an Evasion roll at a bonus of 1, or take 2d6 points damage from a massive blade that swings down on a heavy pendulum.
The bells ring sweetly if tapped and loudly when hit by the pendulum. The head of the pendulum will strike both bells on each pass, which is likely to attract creatures. An encounter check is made for every two minutes that the bell is ringing.
The pendulum will swing for ten minutes before it winds down over another ten minutes. Characters can pass between swings on a successful Evasion roll, at a bonus of five, but it’ll be safer to wait. (Of course, they might not realize this.)
The trigger can be reset in room 19 (the Library Workroom) on the first floor of the castle.
Gemini (5, Twins): The safe
Across the bottom of the tapestry reads “Praeluxi Astralas Erudit”, or “Knowledge shines forth from the stars”. The tapestry is intact and worth 400 shillings. It is seven by five feet and has a bulk of 25. The tapestry covers a safe.
A simple metal door stands at chest height behind the tapestry. A small keyhole mocks you on the right side of the door.
Here, the Astronomers followed the Dwarves’ recommendation: if the safe’s key is not in the keyhole, anyone removing or jostling the contents will trigger an arrow. An evasion roll is required to avoid d6 points damage. The trap will work twice. Anyone looking closely at the sides of the safe might realize that it “gives” slightly when touched.
The door pops outward. The safe is filled with papers, books, and scrolls in nearly pristine condition. One book’s spine reads, embossed in leather, “Morpheus Somnium”.
Most of them are contracts and treaties, in the Ancient tongue. One Anglish contract is with the Dwarves for building the dungeon complex in the 863rd year of the Cataclysm of Earth. The long preamble, among other things, forgives the Dwarves for “working with their long-despaired enemy”. They paid in large amounts of grain, alcohol, vegetables, and wood. There is another contract, far in the back, for the building of the clock tower, dated from the 795th year of the Cataclysm of Earth.
There is a peace treaty in Anglish and Ancient with the Order of Illustration, dated June 15th of the 887th year.
There are three spell research notes. One contains the secret dream spells of the Astronomers: Dreams, Sleep, Dream Omen, and Dream Walk. It is inscribed on the inside with “Rex somnium dicat servis suis, et interpretationem illius indicabimus.” This is from Daniel, and means “Let the King tell his servants the dream, and we will declare the interpretation of it.” Another contains Indestructible Object and Elemental Ward; these were researched by Master Astronomer Abiram Forney. The final is a shorter book discussing “Ephemeral Backdrop”, and including that spell. Each of these are for mnemonic casters of Highland, but a classical (West Highland) caster should be able to use them with a little extra study.
And there is an excerpt from No More Stars, taken from the Order of Illustration.
Capricorn (6, Goat)
CCW: The restful mountains and stream build to rocky badlands and sharp peaks. A lacquer pink ram bounds from peak to peak on a wide open door on the outer wall.
CW: Swamps are fed by rivers, rivers by streams, and streams wind through rocky badlands. Badlands grow to sharp peaks and stark hills. The door is open.
Both: Tiny goats range through hills carved on the frame around the doorway. A mountain shepherd leads a flock of goats and lambs to his cottage home overlooking a valley.
Inside, cobwebs hang everywhere. Skulls and skeletal hands poke upward through the webbing in shelves on the left and the right. Two ornate arches hold up the ceiling at ten foot intervals.
The spiders no longer abide here. They are usually in the Aquarius room. There is a 5% chance that one huge spider is here.
This is a crypt. The majority of the Order is buried in the cemetery in Stelopolis. Higher-status members, such as officers and leaders, were lain here on shelves in the sides of the walls, once their flesh decayed from their bones in the graveyard.
This crypt is for you to work with. At its most basic, it is a crypt that may provide clues to the higher-status members of the Order. While none of the skeletons will animate, there’s no reason that some of them couldn’t. Or there could be oracular ghosts haunting the crypt, or phantasms. Or it could lead to an entirely new dungeon of your design. Just make sure to put in the right backstory elsewhere in the adventure if necessary.
The arches are inscribed with goats and snakes prancing among trees and hills. At the far end of the crypt is a statue of a tree. From the tree hang fruit and snakes. At the base of the tree is written “Ipse revelat profunda, et abscondita, et novit in tenebris constituta: et lux cum eo est” which means “He reveals deep and hidden things, and knows what is in darkness: and light is with him.”
There are three apples on the left side of the tree which, if pulled, cause the right side of the tree to slide over, revealing a ladder on the inside and a hole in the ceiling. This hole leads to the statue of Moses up top (which has also opened up). This secret exit was known only to Abiram, Parthane, and Cambel. Cambel died in the forest, and Abiram and Parthane escaped to die in Stelopolis.
A thief examining the tree’s trunk might, on a Locks & Traps roll at a further penalty of 4, see the fine seam running down both sides of the tree. A similar roll looking at the apples will let them know that some apples are just very slightly more giving than others.
Cancer (7, Crab)
CCW: Badlands turn to streams, and streams to rivers and swamps.
CW: Aqueducts and cities draw from deep dams, dams hold back rivers, peasants carry water from river to hovel. Rivers meander into swamp.
Both: Crabs abound in the water, and tiny gnome-like creatures feast on boiled crab. A lustrous white lacquered crab menaces a door on the inner wall with its raised, open claws.
Inside, a barred window looks down on benches and cots, empty.
This was once a prison cell. Any items or people teleported by the trap on the Pisces room will be here. The door with the barred window is locked. The keys are in the Center Room. A gate of vertical iron bars leads in from the Center Room.
Aquarius (8, Water-bearer)
CCW: Peasants carry water from rivers to hovels, aqueducts carry river water to cities, and dams hold back the rivers.
CW: Thrones rule castles, castles rule kingdoms, and kingdoms rule cities. Cities depend on life-giving water delivered by complex schemes of aqueducts.
Both: An open portal with no door leads into dirt and darkness. An earthy odor emanates from the inky blackness.
As you turn around the twisting corridor, you begin to see a light glow, and hear the gurgling of falling water. The corridor turns and you find yourself gazing into a garden of unearthly beauty. The walls and arching ceiling glow a soft white; pastel purple flowers hang amidst gossamer strands of white. Vines loop around bright red and yellow flowers. Tall plants, their white clusters swaying ever so slowly, grow from reddish leaves at their base. Flies buzz by, and a light warmth surrounds you. Fireflies flicker before your eyes.
In the center of the garden a small, stone-lined pool is cooled by green ferns. Dragonflies skim across the water. Three skeletons recline around the pool, almost as if they were sleeping.
Two small waterfalls fall into pools in alcoves to the right and left. A beetle crawls over your foot.
The tall, white, clustered plants are giant Venus Flytraps. Closer examination will reveal the pods at the top and perhaps a rat skeleton or two decaying into the ground as nature takes hold of it.
There are d6 huge spiders (90% of the time), d6 poisonous snakes (65% of the time), and 2d6 giant rats (90% of the time) here, and many more rats, spiders, snakes, and insects. The creatures are rarely aggressive, unless they are hungry, which happens 5% of the time for the flytraps, and 10% of the time for the huge spiders. They will fight back if attacked, unless frightened. (Flytraps can’t run, and huge spiders bite if frightened. They might bite and then run if that seems instinctively expedient.)
Huge Spiders (Animal: 2; Movement: 10; Attacks: 1; Damage: 1d3; Defense: 1; Poison: strength 2, one round action time, d3 injuries)
Venus Flytraps (Plant: 2; Movement: 0; Attacks: special; Damage: d3; Defense: -1)
Poisonous Snakes (Animal: ¼; Movement: 12; Attacks: 1; Damage: 1; Defense: +2; Poison: strength 2, one round action time, d2 injuries)
The pool in the center is blessed. Three people per week may drink once from the pool. Doing so will heal 1d8 survival points, minimum 3. Otherwise, the pool is merely refreshing. The water must be drunk in the garden.
A niche at the far end, about head height in the wall, has a small curtain covering it. Behind the curtain is a skull. This is the skull of the founder, Aaron Paul. Beneath the niche is a simple plaque engraved with the words “Et eduxit eos de tenebris et umbra mortis et vincula eorum disrupit.” In Anglish, this is “And he brought them out of darkness, and the shadow of death; and broke their bonds in sunder.” A person familiar with the bible might recognize this as a psalm.
Anyone taking the skull will incur a curse. The last voluntary bearer of the skull will have a penalty of 1 on all rolls, including saving rolls, ability rolls, attack rolls, and damage rolls. The curse will only be broken when someone else voluntarily takes the skull, or the skull is returned to the niche.
Leo (9, Lion)
CCW: Cities grow to kingdoms, kingdoms to castles, and castles to thrones.
CW: Whales battle great waves to escape huge kraken. Storms rile the sea, but fade to lesser and lesser waves as you move on. Sea comes to shore, shore to forest, and forest arrives at castle and throne.
Both: Wise rulers dispense wisdom and justice. A ruby red lion, outlined in gold, roars proudly on an inner door. Red eyes, shining with an inner fire, stare back at you. Its tail is a cluster of bright gems of purple, red, and blue.
On the inner wall of the main corridor, toward the floor, there is a running satire. Beneath the grand human castles and cities, a gnome king leads his subjects against a rat king. His heroics end when a flood cleans the undercity of both gnome and rat.
The gems are worth two shillings each. There are seven in the tail.
Inside, a door with a barred window stands slightly open. The room beyond the door is Spartan but comfortable. Two jugs stand beside a wide bowl. A large ceramic pot shows a lion tearing a deer to pieces.
This prison was used for noble captives awaiting ransom.
Pisces (10, Fish)
CCW: The paintings on the wall fade from throne to forest, forest to river, river to sea, and sea to storm. Whales battle the waves, and great kraken feed on the whales, their eyes glittering like stars.
CW: Utopian bay disappears across endless waves. Storms batter the seas, and great monsters rise out of the water. Whales flee the tentacled monsters, and the monsters feed on the whales. The monsters’ eyes glitter like stars in the storm.
This is a secret door. Unless they stop to look, move on to the next room. Like the Gemini room, if they realize that there should be a room here and that it should be Pisces they’ll have a bonus of four searching for it.
Opening the door
The eyes of the Kraken are moonstone, and most are placed in the shape of the constellation Pisces. If all 17 eyes of Pisces (and only those eyes) are pressed in at the same time, one of the waves will roll over, revealing a keyhole. Two people at least are required to do this.
You hear a slight click, and a smaller wave rolls over, revealing a small hole in the wall.
The lock is at a penalty of 3 beyond normal to pick. If opened without the key, it will magically trigger a trap:
A huge wind assails you, sending a storm of dust into your faces.
Evasion rolls are required to avoid going sand-blind for d4 rounds after the wind stops. The wind stops after one round.
Inside, the room is filled with sacks overflowing with treasure: gems, coins of gold and silver, necklaces and bracelets studded with gems, goblets of gold embedded with rubies and sapphires, and goblets of ruby held in baskets of spun gold.
This is an Ephemeral Backdrop. It is easy to recognize as unreal if examined closely.
The trap is magical: a one-way magic portal to the Cancer cell, dungeon room 7. The magic portal will last six rounds (one minute). The illusion will last 24 minutes before disappearing to reveal the weapon storage.
This is a daily trap: once set off, it will not be set off again until after midnight, whereupon both portions of the spell renew.
If they wait over a minute, but less than twenty-four minutes, to step through:
The treasure disappears. Three halls extend down, each lined with swords, spears, or maces. The walls are made of large stones set in a pebbled mortar.
The spears are untrustworthy. The swords and maces could be used, though the grip on the swords is unlikely to last long. There are sixty spears, thirty swords, and thirty maces.
Pisces (10, Fish): The safe
At the end of the middle hall is a secret door. One of the pebbles below it moves to reveal the keyhole. This lock can be picked as normal. If the safe’s key is not used, it will trigger a gas trap. Unless they recognize that there is gas being released (it makes no noise), they must make a Health roll or fall unconscious for d20 minutes. If they do realize gas is being released, they’ll be allowed an Evasion roll to hold their breath.
Anyone at the end of the hallway will need to make a saving roll about four rounds after the gas is released; their saving rolls will be at +3 due to the gas being diluted. The gas dissipates completely in two minutes.
The gas trap is a one-time trap.
The safe contains 200 shillings (in two bags of one hundred each), 100 pounds (in ten bags of ten each), and bags, jars, and vials of magical materials: powders, spices, dried plants. One large, heavy (bulk fifty) blackened rock. Feathers, hooves, teeth, bones. Insects. Insect parts. Lizard tails. Animal hair. All the oddities you expect in a wizard’s pantry.
The forty bags of spices (hand sized, bulk .25) are worth ten to sixty shillings each. The 15 jars (bulk 3) are worth 2d20 shillings each. On an intelligence roll, a character can choose the best four, which will be worth 20+d20 shillings each.
Virgo (11, Virgin)
CCW: Storm is abated by bay, and waves lap lightly on shores untouched by war or hunger.
CW: Mountains drop down to fields and isolated libraries.
Both: Delicately painted nobility pursue their studies chastely and without emotion in library and field.
Inside, skeletons lie on the floor, amidst sacks of flour, barley, wheat, hemp, beans, and roots that have been ransacked and scattered about.
This was a dry food storage room; most of the food has been eaten, though it must not have been comfortable. There are three Astronomer skeletons here.
