The Bogeywoman's Cave

What Is This? Way back in 2018 when I started my blog, the main thing I made were "30 minute dungeons". I made several posts on the subject and a couple that had tutorials on how to make them yourselves. The goal was to produce a relatively usable adventure, sans map/statistics, in only 30 minutes. I've moved past the "30 minute" aspect a bit, and what I usually do now is simply make a dungeon in about 10 minutes on a single sheet of notebook paper and then elaborate it later into something proper at my leisure. That is how I made my last two posts. What I aim to do in this post is to consolidate all of the information from my previous dungeon design posts into one big post here, for the convenience of everyone. For the convenience of everyone I will be referring to this concept as the Ten Room Dungeon for the rest of this article. I've recently tried out the OD&D style of art, that is to say heavily using a reference and adding slight changes. This gobl...

 Background/Hook The local chieftain, Ulfrik the Unconquerable , comes to the party in tears. His daughter, Deanna the Swift , was captured by the swamp dwelling "Sisterhood of Buzzing Wings" . The player characters will be rewarded handsomely if they can retrieve her. If pressed as to why he doesn't lead his own warriors to reacquire Deanna, Ulfrik will shamefully admit that he has a terrible fear of mosquitoes. As a boy he nearly died after being bitten by one which infected him with the Purple Pestilence. GIF SAFE GIF SAFE   Description of the Dungeon The temple itself is located deep within the Swamp of Suffering, taking a day's ride by canoe. Along the way, the party may encounter giant leeches , alligators , or human-sized murderous crawdads . The temple is a semi-submerged ruin covered in vines and moss. The air is buzzing with hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes within the vicinity of the building. It appears to have once been a place of worship for some mor...

Background/Hook The dead have been rising in the small village of Dunbeck, walking North to the nearby Barrow Mound . To prevent further re-animations, church officials have taken to locking coffins shut with iron chains, or burning the bodies in the case of poorer families. The local priest, a portly alcoholic fellow by the name of Father Matthews, has gathered a small sum of money with which to pay the party to investigate. He lets the adventurers know that the Almighty will surely overlook any missing items from the barrow. Monster Encounters A small group of animate corpses guard the entrance to the mound. They are equipped with rusted spears, torn chain mail, and dented shields. One of the corpses wears a golden drinking horn on its hip, dented but still worth a decent amount of coin. An undead knight stands guard on a bridge which crosses an underground stream. It is encased from head to toe in rusted armor, and the clatter of bones can be heard when it moves. Its sword is re...