A Hundred Rooms for a Hundred Dungeons, Part 1

So, here it is; the first blog post of what I can only hope will be many. I've been meaning to set one of these up for a while now, but was unconvinced that I had anything worth adding to the vast pool of ideas the OSR and TRPG space is made of. 

I remain unconvinced, to be fair, but why the hell not, hmm?

I had already written and posted this first set of 6 rooms that will one day be the titular Hundred over on yuigaron.itch.io but Josh McCrowell of Rise Up Comus and Clayton Notestine of Explorers Design both sold me on the idea of first writing these down in a blog to collate later for itch; a much easier way of managing the concept.

So, what is A Hundred Rooms for a Hundred Dungeons? My answer to my depression, writer block, and general anxiety over writing and design this last year following burn out. Fun. Despite that being the actual truth it's not all that helpful in describing what I'm doing. A Hundred Rooms for a Hundred Dungeons is a growing collection—a living document—of rooms to throw into your dungeon when you need the inspiration or a quick idea. I'll be adding to it in, ideally, chunks of 6 every now and then until I have the the full Hundred. I know the maths doesn't quite work out, but that's fine. Six just pleases me for some reason.

There will be less of a preamble to the rest of the posts concerning this idea. It is after all just a d6 table of rooms. So, lets start.

The First Six Rooms for a Hundred Dungeons

001: A Feast Amongst the Stars

An ancient, strangely lit dining room. At its centre a long sturdy table of dark wood surrounded by large chairs. Each of the chairs is occupied by a corpse, long dead and skeletal. Before each corpse is a feast of food, completely unspoiled. High above the table, localised entirely within this dining room, is what appears to an aurora of striking purples and greens drifting beneath a sky of stars. The ceiling cannot be seen.

Eating of the feast restores your character as if taking a long rest (or equivalent), and clearing all disease and sickness, but the food tastes so sublime and appears to be so endless that no one wishes to leave the table. Failing a difficult save causes the diner to stay here and eat until they literally burst.

002: Light Your Own Path

A small space overwhelmed with the presence of wretched looking candle stubs piled, stacked and protruding from one another in a lumpen mass or crowded on stone shelves. The floor is nothing more than a pool of hardened wax and wicks.

Adding a candle rendered from the fat of a creature you have killed and lighting it brings forth a door that was not present before. Beyond it is a staircase that descends into the aching darkness of the earth.

003: The Reliquary

This room shouldn’t possibly exist within this space. Endless darkness surrounds you, seeming to swallow even the door (it still exists, but cannot easily be seen unless somehow marked). Torchlight illuminates you and objects near you, but this place remains pitch dark; neither floor, nor walls, nor ceiling can be lit. This place creaks and cracks as if struggling to exist at all.

At its centre—so far away—the only other point of light, a small bead within the void. It comes from the desiccated hand of some forgotten saint, and its power wanes. It once brought back to life any creature that had lived, no matter how long ago. Now it retains only enough will to deny death to those on its doors; and that only a handful of times.

This place begins to collapse when the hand is taken. Those still within when this happens cease to have ever existed.

004: Arresting Moment

Three quarters of this room are beyond the thick iron bars of a gaol, the door oversized and rusted open. Shackles—driven deeply into the wall—are sized for a creature much larger than most. Grotesques peer out from the wall with looks of disdain, pity and mockery.

Within the cell a bonfire burns, its warmth peaceful.

005: Fealty

A circular room of hard packed sand, red and dark with spilled blood. Coins lie scattered amongst the sand, ten in total and each defaced as if struck with a weapon.

Two high backed chairs look down from a balcony high above, ghostly figures sitting impatiently upon them. Behind them a curtain of rotten red cloth hides an open door. If a bloody bout is fought here, entertaining the spirits, the floor opens up to reveal stairs leading down. Similarly, striking a coin bearing the face of your ruler opens the way; a treasonous gesture that once held more meaning than it surely does now; though the spirits will surely still consider it binding.

006: A Fire Shared

This chapel has long been looted. The bare stone walls have been scraped for every ounce of gold and silver and even the pews used for firewood over the years. It is now nothing more than a yawning cavernous space devoid of the holy.

Seated around a fire—its smoke coiling in the high, vaulted ceilings and smelling sweetly of Chagga—a group of mercenaries (3d6 and leader) tend to their wounds and aches. Eager not to fight for no reason, they invite any who enter to share their fire and company in exchange for drinks and food.

They cannot currently be hired, as they have a task here already. Well, not unless the pay is better than for their current job.