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Green Devil Face #3

James Edward Raggi IV, Editor
Green Devil Face logo by Jeff Rients
Maria Kyytinen, Proofreader

Front Cover: Osculum Infame from Compendium maleficarum by Francesco Maria Guazzo (1608)
Back Cover: illustration detail from De corporis humani fabrica libri septem, by Andreas Vesalius (1543)

The copyright to all text belongs to the attributed authors.

Another Green Devil Face!

It’s been an interesting few months here at LotFP headquarters, but I’m happy that I can present another
issue for you.

It does seem that GDF gets shorter each issue, but I believe in the concept. For all the publishing going on
right now in traditional RPG land, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot designed to just be dropped in the middle
of an individual referee’s own creations. How well Green Devil Face accomplishes that is up to the reader to
decide – but without feedback, and without your submissions to show us how it’s really done, Green Devil
Face will choo-choo along looking something like this.

Until next time, have fun mining this issue for ideas that your players will hate.

If you have a particularly original or clever trap, room, item, or tricky situation that you’ve used in one of
your games and that you would like to share, submit it for publication in a future issue of Green Devil Face.
We can’t pay anything, but you keep the rights to your work, and you get to see your name in print. All
contributors get a copy of the final finished product.

James Edward Raggi IV

lotfp@lotfp.com
http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/
http://lotfp.blogspot.com
Helsinki, Finland
August 9, 2009
The Fine Print: Labyrinth LordTM is copyright 2007, Daniel Proctor. Labyrinth LordTM and Advanced Labyrinth LordTM are trademarks of Daniel Proctor. These
trademarks are used under the Labyrinth LordTM Trademark License 1.0 available at www.goblinoidgames.com… This product uses the OSRIC™ System (Old
School System Reference and Index Compilation™). The OSRIC system text may be found at http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric. The OSRIC text is
copyright of Stuart Marshall. “OSRIC” and “Old School Reference and Index Compilation,” are trademarks of Matthew Finch and Stuart Marshall and may be
used only in accordance with the OSRIC license. This product is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast… Swords & Wizardry, S&W, and Mythmere Games are
the trademarks of Matthew J. Finch. This product is not affiliated with Matthew J. Finch or Mythmere Games™…

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 Pool of Fideceal
A Vexing Dungeon Furnishing
by Alfred John Dalziel
alfreddalziel@gmail.com

The water of this magic pool shines with a faint red-bronze radiance. Upon entering this pool maimed
extremities (including limbs and digits) are regrown in the span of 1d4 rounds. The character’s height also
increases by 1d6 inches during this time, and the process is mildly painful. Only growth and regeneration
happen for Neutral characters that enter this pool. However, if the victim entering this pool is of a non-
Neutral alignment any regenerated parts are self-willed and of opposing alignment.

While using the new limb any action attempted by the character that violates the alignment of the limb
requires the character save or be Confused for one round. This condition is negated if the character changes
alignment to match that of the regenerated part, or by means of a Remove Curse spell. At the referee’s
option this pool may also affect the organs of the senses which have been destroyed. For those referees who
are particularly fiendish, a penalty to the saving throw may be applied according to the magnitude of
regeneration (nil for cosmetic or sense organ regeneration, -1 for a digit, -2 for an extremity such as a hand
or foot, -4 for an entire limb).

If the headless body of a character is bathed in one of these pools, a new head is grown and the body lives –
level and skills remain but all memories are gone and the character’s alignment is reversed if not Neutral.

This feature works well with pendulum blade traps, and it would be lovely fun to throw a Lawful eunuch
into one. The Imperial Court in Sansul uses one such pool for castrated criminals.

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 The Heat of Greed
by Andreas Davour
http://theomnipotenteye.blogspot.com

For those moments when you feel your characters should be reminded that everything has a price. This is a
plain 30 by 30 feet room, with two doors. It’s lit by mystical means, or by torches. Deep in my T&T
dungeon, the Dungeon of Voorand, this chest of gold can be found.

The Hook:
This trapped room is a plain 30 by 30 area, devoid of any ornamentation or obvious valuables. The only
thing in the room is a chest. The chest is of stout build and it is bolted to the floor.

The Line:
The chest can be opened without any major troubles (maybe it’s stuck, so not to make it too obvious for
your players). In it are piles and piles of coins! It’s filled to the brim with glittering coins of all
denominations and from all realms to the world.

The Sinker:
The bottom of the chest is a grill, a mesh of metal, and so the bottom of the chest is exposed to the heat of
the lava beneath. Opening the lid will slide a false bottom in and cover the furnace beneath. If your players
start to scope up the gold they’ll find that the valuables are searingly hot and will burn as hot as their greed.

Options:
If you want this to be a bit less likely to cause inflation in your game world, say that the coins are all of lead,
painted gold and silver.

If you want you players to get less of a warning, make sure this room is in a hot part of the dungeon, so they
won’t be ticked of by the fact that hot air meets them when they open the chest.

Feel free to mention to anyone who examines the chest that there seems to be a false bottom which slides
aside when the lid is closed. Would any player be brave enough to step into the chest and let the other party
members close the lid?

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 The Hypercube of Doom
by Andreas Davour
http://theomnipotenteye.blogspot.com

This is a regular corridor, except there is a small alcove with an altar. The altar is fairly big, 2m by 1.3m by
0.75m. The most curious thing about it, though, is that it looks like it’s made up of smaller cubes. The cubes,
and the altar, are made of black stone and they feel solid enough.

If someone decides to put some weight on top of the altar, say 50 pounds or so, something happens. It
becomes obvious that all the cubes are weighted against each other, like a stone archway. The cube in the
middle of the top surface of the altar is the keystone.

Now, this altar will not only fall apart, it actually folds into itself! This is an unstable hypercube, and as the
corners of the altar and the front and the back fold into the hold on top, the cubes beneath “roll forward” and
even though the cubes that make up the altar disappear, new ones appear, so it looks like the altar is standing
still all the time, but what was the inside is now the outside.

When this happens, anything on top of the altar gets sucked in, and what was on the inside gets spit out.
Make something up! I had a heavy amulet show up, a bag of gold, a golden chalice, and such items. In my
dungeon two different adventurers decided to use themselves as weight, so those parts might come out as
well. One leprechaun stepped on the altar, and a dwarf *sat* on it. Start to imagine what the altar might spit
out.

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 Sparkling in the Night
by Andreas Davour
http://theomnipotenteye.blogspot.com

This is a fairly big dungeon room. The exact size is not as important as the proportions. The characters will
enter through one of the opposing doors, and they will see stairs leading down into salty water. The entire
floor is covered in water. Feel free to make the water murky and mysterious. The room is pitch black, except
for a sparkling display in the middle of the room. The sparkling is a big (make it big enough that it will
cover most of the width of the room) glass tank filled with electric eels. The eels swim around and electric
lightning light up the room with sharp flashes. The tank is precariously balanced on a bunch of weak poles.
The poles are far enough between that it will be hard not to hit one as you try to squeeze between them. So
far nobody has found this room in my campaign.

The trick here is to keep this room dark and the water mysterious enough that your players will use their
natural clumsiness.

The Danger:
When a character manages to bump into one of the poles, the whole tank comes crashing down, releasing
electric eels, to give the poor clumsy fellow a shock. Since the water is saltwater it leads electricity, and if
you want to get out of it in a hurry you have to handle the fact that the water is now filled with sharp shards
of glass. Congratulations.

Options:
To make your players more likely to tamper with the tank, put something valuable in it.

Another option is to have the room being magically darkened, so stumbling into the poles will be even more
likely.

If you want to be really devious, tie a slim cord to some of the poles, and tie the other end to a ring in the
wall on each side of the tank. Preferably at chest height, since most players should be occupied enough with
the water not to look after a tripwire at that height.

Good luck shocking your players with this one!

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 The Great Golden Ball
by James Edward Raggi IV

Somewhere in the dungeon is a great pit, maybe one hundred feet in diameter. The important thing is that if
four people were standing equidistant around the thing, a single light source would not be sufficient to see
the next person.

At the twelve, three, six, and nine o’clock positions are great chains bolted into the floor. The chains lead up
over the center of the pit. They too are beyond the reach of a standard light source held by someone standing
at the pit’s edge.

Above the pit is a golden ball about the size of a basketball. It is smooth with no markings or features
besides the metal clamp fastened around it which the chains are attached to. As long as three or four chains
are connected, all is well. If only two chains are connected, every turn there is a 1 in 6 chance the ball will
free itself, ripping the chains from their moorings. If one chain is connected, there is a 1 in 6 chance every
round the ball will free itself.

The ball will always fly straight up if it is not firmly attached to the ground. If not attached to the ground by
chains, it takes at least five hundred pounds of weight to hold it down. Otherwise, anyone or anything
hanging onto it (or sitting on it!) will fly straight up into the air… forever.

The ball is worth 2000 gold, if a buyer can be found. These things are usually valued based on weight, so
what value does a weightless object have (to a stupid merchant, anyway)?

Remember to roll those wandering monster checks if everyone is scattered around the pit, and certainly if
three or four PCs have their hands full transporting the ball.

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 The Zigzag Path of Doom
by Akseli Envall
akseli.envall@gmail.com

This one consists of several rooms and a total of 8 traps, but it’s really a thematic entity, and makes much
more sense if presented as a whole. It was a part of the 2nd level (upper floor) of a castle. It is a path of
rooms, leading to a place where the PCs want to go (the bedchamber of the main bad guy of the adventure,
the lord of the castle).

The trick is, if the PCs don’t want to get mauled by traps, they should realize the pattern that these trap
rooms have. If they realize that (as my players did, to my surprise!), they can solve the Zigzag Path of Doom
quite easily! The theme of the path is, “pick your poison.” The PCs are given two choices time and time
again, one of which is always safe, the other always harmful. With luck and wits, they will survive; with bad
luck and bad judgements, they might die.

The Intermediate Rooms

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The “intermediate rooms” have no content related to the puzzle. They were just various utility rooms in the
castle (dining room, library, physical training room, wardrobe, painting room, meditation room etc). Perhaps
they could be changed to just small, empty rooms with four doors (two coming from the previous trap
rooms, two leading to the next trap rooms). They might even be replaced by other trap rooms, submitted by
other GDF contributors, as long as they have 4 and only 4 doors!

The Shape Of The Path

In the original adventure, the shape of the path was a circle, or actually a square. However, I feel that the
exact shape of the path is not important here. What is important here is what you can access and from where.

The square doesn’t need to be a square, really, as long as it behaves the same way. For example: the twin
paths might be straight lines, adjacent to each other. Then, the starting room might have all four doors on the
same wall; however, they should be in sets of two, so that the PC’s will realize that this pair of doors has
something in common, and that pair of doors has something in common. Anyway, if they open the doors,
they will see that one pair leads to completely identical rooms, as well as the other. The main thing is that
they should realize that they can proceed by two paths (and each of them splits into two paths as well,
although those two paths will rejoin at the next intermediate room).

I’ll say it one more time: do what thou wilt with the intermediate rooms. Just don’t erase them completely:
they have to be there, so that after each pair of trap rooms, the party has again the choice of two new rooms.

Room Keys

1. Entrance Room
This is where characters enter the Zigzag Path of Doom. The starting room has to have 5 doors, one of
which is the entrance to the whole shebang, which is not shown on the map. It doesn’t matter if the entrance
is from the inside of the circle (like it was in the original adventure) or from the outside of the circle (you
might prefer that way if your GDF dungeon has only 1 floor), or a trapdoor in the ceiling or floor.

2. Yellow Mold Trap

The first trap rooms in the clockwise path have a mixed assortment of furnishings: there’s an old cupboard
(empty), a set of dining utensils on the wall, a moose’s head trophy on the wall, and a motley rag rug
(nailed) on the floor. In the trapped room, if you traverse the room but do not step on the rug, the moose’s
head will blow a cloud of yellow mold spores to the room. If each person steps on the rug, the trap does not
go off. The non-trapped room is of course completely safe.

3. Acid Pool Trap

The second trap rooms in the clockwise path have a narrow path going across two narrow but long pits. The
pits are 10’ deep, and the bottom 3’ is filled with acid. The path’s width is one third of the room, and it goes
in the middle, so both pits have a width of 1/3rd of the room, with the length of the whole room. One set of
stone steps leads to each pit from each door. (So there are four sets of steps in each room.) Thus, it is
relatively easy to get out of the acid, should one fall there.

The acid inflicts 1d8 damage to a creature fallen in there each round, as well as taking away 1d3 points of
strength and dexterity each (roll separately). This attribute damage comes also each round. The points come
back when the damage that suffered from the acid is healed. If a creature falls in the acid, it must make a
dexterity check for getting out. On a successful check, it gets to the stairs in one round and thus suffers the
damage and attribute losses only once. On a failed check, it takes two rounds, and thus the damage and
attribute losses come twice.

In the safe room, the PCs can cross the bridge in peace (unless they start fooling around) and have no chance
of falling. In the trapped room, the bridge itself is trapped, and will flip a traversing PC into the acid pit.
They should make a dexterity check, a save vs. wands or the like, to see if they indeed fall, or if they can

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avoid the flip and jump to safety. This save or check should be at –3. Also remember that the pit is 10’ deep,
so there should be falling damage as well, should someone fall to the acid (1d6).

4. Trap Door in Darkness

These rooms have a Continual Darkness spell cast in them. The rooms are completely empty; the only
feature is a trap door in the middle. The trap door covers the whole width of the corridor, so it cannot be
averted by going around. It can be jumped over, however, as it is only 5’ long.

If the Continual Darkness is dismissed by Continual Light, Dispel Magic or the like (it is cast by a 9th level
cleric), the outlines of the trap door can be clearly seen. However, even the safe room has similar outlines in
the floor (remember that the rooms look completely identical!), although it has no trap. The real trap door
leads to a 30’-deep pit, the fall doing 3d6 damage. It used to lead to the 1st floor of the castle, in the middle
of a corridor. If your dungeon does not have a structure like this, then it just might teleport the victim to the
starting room of the dungeon, 1 round after the fall.

5. Iron Statue Trap

These rooms are empty with the exception of three statues made of iron lining the walls. In the trapped
room, these are indeed animated iron statues and will attack anyone stepping in front of them. In the safe
room, the statues are made of iron, but otherwise normal.

6. The Green Dragon’s Painful Trap Room of Madness

These rooms look outright nasty. The rooms are full of large metal balls with long spikes attached in them,
small caltrops on the floor, and barbed wire all around. A narrow but clear safe path zigzags through the
rooms, leading to the opposite door. From the ceiling in the middle of the room, a thick green metal tube
descends downwards, carved in the likeness of a green dragon’s neck and head. The dragon’s mouth is open.

In the trapped room, when anyone is under the dragon tube, it breathes out a white but transparent mist that
fills the whole room. Anyone in the mist must make a saving throw vs. spells (only once) or go berserk for
1d4 rounds. A berserk character will physically attack anyone near him or her, with his or her most effective
weapon. That’s bad in itself, but here’s the catch: anyone who takes physical damage in this room must
make a dexterity check (or appropriate saving throw) or they will fall to the spikes, caltrops and barbed wire.
The check or saving throw will have a penalty of the amount of damage taken, divided by two, rounded up.
A character who fails the check or saving throw will take 1d8-3 points of damage from the sharp objects. Of
course, this damage will not trigger another check.

In the safe room, unless the PC’s start fooling around, they should be able to reach the other side unscathed.

7. The “Press Here” Poison Needle Trap

A narrow red carpet goes in these rooms, from one door to the other. In the middle of the room, a portcullis
effectively bars entrance to the other side of the room. The portcullis is a grid of criss-crossing iron bars and
quite easy to see through. In both ends of the room, near the door, there is a text on the wall: “Press Here”.
Under the text, there is a tile in the wall with a sunken relief image of a human hand. In the middle of the
hand, there is an ominous small hole. The hand tile can be pressed down, but only if an object of human
temperature is touching the whole sunken relief image of the hand. This will lift up the portcullis for 15
seconds, after which it will slowly drop down again.

In the trapped room, both hand tiles are trapped: a small poisoned needle awaits in the hole in the middle of
the hand, and will stab anyone pressing the tile with their hand (or any other body part). Then they will have
to make a saving throw vs. poison, or suffer the consequences (2d6 damage, or alternatively death if you’re
into that sort of thing). All the holes in the hand tiles have a tiny Continual Darkness spell cast in their
bottom, to hide away the needle. In the safe rooms, there are still needles in the holes in the darkness, but
they have no poison, and they’re a tiny bit shorter so they do not damage or even touch the pressing hand.

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8. Blindness Trap
These rooms are completely empty. The trapped room has a magical trap; a flashing light will burst in the
middle of the room, and anyone in the room must make a save vs. spells or be blinded for 1d10 turns (i.e.
1d10 x 10 minutes). There should be wandering monsters about in the dungeon for this trap to be
meaningful.

9. The Double Double Double Dragon Trap

These rooms are otherwise empty, but a strange statue descends from the middle of the ceiling. The metallic
object is of reddish-hued iron and looks like a four-headed dragon. Two of the heads curve and look towards
each door. One of the heads on each side is an oil-sprayer, and the other is a sparkle-sprayer, designed to
ignite the oil. Observation, even from afar, will reveal that the other head has some soot soiling it (the
sparkle-sprayer), while the other is stained, and slowly dripping with oil (the oil-sprayer of course).

In the safe room, none of the dragon heads are functional, despite their alarming outlook, but in the trapped
room, they will indeed function, and spray a huge, destructive storm of burning oil when anyone enters their
side of the room. Everyone in that half of the room (and even in the adjacent intermediate room, if the door
is open and someone is in line-of-sight) will take 3d6 fire damage. A successful save vs. dragon breath will
halve the damage. Keep in mind that if the PCs survive the damage and press on to the other half of the
room, they will be blasted by those other two dragon heads in the other side of the room! Let’s hope they are
not that stupid!

After the Double Double Double Dragon Trap (yes, there are 8 dragon heads, count’em!) comes the end
room (10). From there, 2 doors lead to the iron statue trap rooms.

FINAL NOTES:
The in-game reason for this whole Zigzag Path of Doom was that this was an inhabited castle, not an
abandoned tomb. The castle lord wanted his private chambers guarded by traps, but the kind of ones that he
would have no trouble going through several times a day. Thus, for him, it was easy to avoid the traps with a
minimum of fuss. Also, the castle had an open courtyard in the middle, so that’s where the circle/square
shape comes from.

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 Beware the Red Stream
by Caleb Jensen
Bluskreem@gmail.com

While traveling down an unfamiliar path the party comes across a grave warning, and are privy to an
unusually threat: the Deadly Curse of the Sea Kittens.

A Very Odd Scene Indeed

Along the side of the road the party encounters a partially mummified corpse propped up on a crudely
constructed sign. The corpse is that of a male goblin bowman, wearing an old vomit-encrusted leather vest
splattered with what appears to be bright red paint and a bridle clenched tightly in his mouth. The sign bears
a warning in the goblin tongue, “Beware the Red Stream” written in dried blood . In the distance the sounds
of a bubbling brook intermingled with splashing, laughter, and “mewing.”

Further down the path the party sees what appears to be a heard of wild horses being attacked by a dire wolf
before a stream. As the party draw nearer, however, it becomes apparent that the wolf is not attacking the
horses, but frolicking with them. Should the wolf be attacked and killed, the horses will become sullen and
try to nudge and awaken their fallen companion. No animal in the clearing can be tamed.

Within the stream the characters can find the source of all the giggling and mewing: Mer-fish, the kittens of
the sea. These adorable, fuzzy and fishy felines frolic in the shallow water. As the party comes closer more
and more Sea-Kittens will come towards the surface and start singing strangely catchy, yet wholly irritating
song in their mewing tongue as they dance and frolic.

The road is bisected by the stream.

The Curse of the Sea-Kittens

Any horse (or other draft animal) that comes close to the stream will be entranced by their song, bucking off
any rider it may have, and turn to play with the horses already there. Any gear that is carried by the pack
animal will magically be teleported to the back of the animal’s former master, and cannot be removed with
out a successful casting of “Remove Curse” on them.

If a party member that is wearing leather armor, or has attacked a creature with in the eyesight of the stream
comes near the stream, the sea kittens will stare at them intently. Should they try and forge the stream
several sea-kittens will spit a stream of viscous red liquid at the party member (Save vs. Breath Weapon to
avoid). This red fluid sticks to their armor, cursing it. The sea kittens will not attempt to impede their
progress any further.

Whenever a party member wearing the red armor eats, or witnesses anyone else eating any kind of meat,
they suffer from vivid hallucinations of mistreated baby animals, and scenes of slaughter accompanied by a
ghostly chanting, “Murderer! Murderer!” repeatedly. This is accompanied by waves of nausea, forcing the
character to vomit up any food they might have eaten in the past day. If the character is not careful this may
eventually lead to starvation. Further, monsters and NPCs will act more aggressively towards a character
wearing the cursed armor, and unconsciously refer to cursed individual and his associates as murderers.

(When a DM rolls on a reaction table for a party containing at least one member wearing the red armor treat
the result as though it were one step more hostile.)

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 Between a Rock and a Hard Place
by James Edward Raggi IV

This one works only if there is an intelligent force interested in luring interlopers to their doom.

In a large cavern area are many dozens of statues. Each is incredibly lifelike. All depict men dressed in full
robes and hoods in various poses showing they were trying to evade some fate. Some have hideously
terrified expressions on their face. All are carrying a sack or backpack that looks to be overflowing with
coins, gems, and jewelry (also part of the stone statues).

In the center of the cavern is a raised dais, with a pit in the middle and stairs leading down into the darkness.
The sound of rattles can be heard below. Anyone venturing below will see in the room below, at the edge of
their torchlight (or infravision or whatever) the silhouette of a female form with snake-hair.

This female is a helpless 0 level woman with two hit points. She is chained to the floor and is gagged. Her
hair is dreadlocked and knotted so as to stand up, looking curiously like snakes in dim lighting. If attacked in
panic, of course she’s likely to die. If she is survives and is questioned, she says she was captured by (insert
name of the forces that control the dungeon). All she knows is that she was told the medusa that used to live
here was killed, and that it was “advantageous” to make people believe one still lived here. She also
overheard talk about the statues – that the (insert name of the forces that control the dungeon) would love to
get at the treasure they carry, but each was a powerful holy warrior and they fear too great losses.

There is a pit near the woman in which lies a giant rattlesnake. Amongst the refuse is a scroll case
containing a Stone to Flesh scroll.

The statues are all petrified medusae, of course unrecognizable as they are all robed and hooded. If one of
them is unpetrified, it will immediately attempt to stone everyone around them. The “treasure” is all copper
and glass and tin, practically worthless.

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 Affluentarium
by Settembrini

Behind a metal door at the end of the hall the Explorers find an
oblong room with two very different types of fountains.

The recess on the right hand is about 2m (7’) deep. Inside is a

tastefully elegant and simple basalt basin, filled with a lutescent
liquid. The basin stands on a small pedestal, which is
surrounded by a crevice, 15cm (6”) wide and of unknown depth.
The basin is constantly overflowing, with the excess liquid
falling into the crevice with a slight and hollow gurgle. The
liquid faintly smells like rotten eggs, and indeed is sulfurous
water. The basin shows some signs of sulfuring, especially on
the edges. The liquid in the basin constantly bubbles from the
center, where a small copper pipe is located. The lutescent water
has about human body temperature.

The recess on the left hand is also 2m (7’) deep. Inside is a

roughly hewn brimstone trough, filled with a thick, jet black
liquid. The trough has an overflow hewn into the back. The liquid smells and tastes metallic, and is only
somewhat above the freezing point of water. Even small amounts are nearly fully opaque. A seemingly
natural opening is where the liquid sprouts from the wall into the trough.

There is a table between the fountains. On the table there is a cast iron bowl, a porcelain dipper, a paper box
and a bronze dipper. The porcelain dipper has a blue flame painted on it. Inside the rather fragile paper box
are six (out of a possible ten) 1” long items, that look like large bouillon cubes, but smell like woodruff.

If the porcelain dipper is used to scoop water from the basin, and poured onto a cube in the iron bowl, and
afterwards quenched with a dollop of black fluid from the bronze dipper, a Gelatinous Ooze will grow from
the cube within a turn, attacking the next living thing. All other permutations will just dissolve the cube.
This process works everywhere, e.g. it’s possible to create a Gelatinous Ooze anywhere, as long as the
liquids do actually come from their respective sources, and all the correct implements are used. The
knowledge to create new cubes seems to be lost, but might be rediscovered. One of the scarcer components
is the cooked brain and liver of a master-forester, the main component being ground orc bones.

Background: The two fountains are directly connected to two great stream systems of the Underearth, the
Dark River and the Sulfur Stream, the latter of which is known to sometimes burst into blue flames. Anyone
with alchemical knowledge knows sulfur burns with a blue flame. Explorers with knowledge of the
Underearth might have heard of the great streams themselves.

13
 Swallow of Summoning
by Chris Weller
chrisweller@yahoo.com

This miraculous creature appears as a small, ordinary bird and indeed it must be fed, protected and cared for.
It can live inside the sleeve of a robe, in a cage or under a large hat.

Once per week, the swallow’s owner can command the bird to find a PC or NPC and either deliver a
message or compel the target to travel to the owner’s present location. The owner’s instructions can be very
general, as in, “Go find a priest to resurrect Sir Belch,” or quite specific as in, “Fetch the frost witch
Mathilda. You will find her at Castle Cragbelt in the Northern Moors.”

The swallow will then fly off in search of the target at the speed of an unladen swallow, which is 16-19
MPH. During this time, the swallow needs neither rest nor food, but it must have a clear way out of any
enclosed location, such as a dungeon, or it will wait until one is available.

The time it takes to find the target will depend on the how specific the request is and whether the target is
likely to be at the location(s) suggested. In addition to time flying to the target’s general area, add one to two
days if the swallow needs to search a medium city or forest; add a week if the city is large or the bird must
scour the nearby countryside. It can travel between continents or planes of existence (add one day per plane
crossed). The swallow may be noticed as it travels, and can be followed. It will try to elude pursuit. It is
immune to harm by all but the mightiest gods and demons as it travels.

If the owner only sent a message, the bird will whisper it verbatim to the target, who will understand it
regardless of any language differences involved. Note that this is word for word translation. Idioms may not
be understood.

If the owner wants the bird to lead a PC back, the bird must first catch the attention of the target and the
target must approach the bird, talk to it or catch it. It might sing strangely, knock on a rock, flap about, steal
a small item (jewelry, spell component small personal item, etc.) to lure the owner into this interaction. If the
target is an NPC, the GM should decide how to proceed.

Once the target has interacted with the swallow, the bird will whisper to the target, who must save vs. spells
or be placed under a geas with the directive to follow the bird to the place where the bird last saw its owner.
In some cases, the target might save but still want to follow the bird to the owner, in order to join the party
or avenge this insolence.

The swallow will lead the target on the safest available route as fast as the target can follow, up to the
swallow’s maximum velocity. If the target should die en route, the bird will return to the owner’s last known
location with some grisly proof.

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 This Is Seriously Unfair
By James Edward Raggi IV

This works well for a fiendish overlord’s throne room or other personal chamber. There should be a secret
back entrance into the area in addition to the obvious entry from which the players will most likely enter.

Simply put, there is a very large room with a throne or some such on one end. By the throne is a lever. When
the lever is thrown, the trap activates:

There are several “safe zones” in the floor, about five feet apart from each other. If anyone steps on an area
of the floor that is not a safe zone (automatically unless jumping, 4 in 6 chance if randomly jumping
around), then spikes jut up from the floor inflicting damage every round someone is standing there.

The safe zones all have Silence 10’ Radius spells which activate when the trap lever is thrown, so no
spellcasting from the trap floor!

The trap area ends 15’ in front of the throne.

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