As mentioned last week, Bosukumo’s lair consists of four levels connected via strong teleportational magic. This magic is subtle because it is blended into the very structure of the interconnecting passageways that run between the levels.
Whenever the players’ characters enter a level, roll 4d10 to determine what passages lead away from each of the outer archways. Orient the passages so that they best connect each archway. Roll 1d4 to determine to which level each passage leads. A second 1d4 determines to which outer archway the passage connects.
1 = Entry Level 2 = Eight-Pointed Star Level 3 = Halls and Rooms Level 4 = Water Pit Level
1 = North 2 = East 3 = South 4 = West
Don’t worry about repeats or strange results. For example, it is possible that the northern outer archway leading away from the Water Pit Level leads to the norther outer archway of the Water Pit Level.
Bosukumo is not an average goblin-spider. It has 6.5 hit points per HD (26 hit points), and it enjoys a +2 bonus on saving throws against magical effects that affect the mind or emotions. Bosukumo’s gaze poses a threat. Once per day each, Bosukumo can inflict charm monster or hold monster on a human, demi-humanoid, humanoid, or giant that meets its gaze. This ability works in any of Bosukumo’s forms. Because of these additional abilities, Bosukumo is worth 294 XP. What’s more, Bosukumo’s treasure type is 4 (Hoard).
In other respects, Bosukumo is a typical goblin-spider, the stats of which follow.
Goblin-Spider Number: 1-2, 2-5 Size: Small to Medium HD: 4 (d8) AC: 14 or 15 Move: 30 ft., 20 ft. (climb) Attacks: Bite (1d3 or 1d8) or by weapon Special: Darkvision 90 ft., Poison, Shapeshift, Twilight Vision, Web Saves: M, P INT: High Alignment: Neutral Evil Type: Shapechanger Treasure: 4 XP: 130+4
The goblin-spider is a yokai, a type of supernatural creature that most often has an evil disposition. In its natural form, the goblin-spider appears much like a man-sized spider, but its eyes are those of a mammal rather than an arachnid. The goblin-spider is a shapeshifter as well. Intelligent, malicious, and aggressive, the goblin-spider poses a serious risk to the humans and demi-humans upon which it prefers to prey.
Poison: A victim bitten by a goblin-spider must make a constitution save to prevent the immediate affects of the venom taking place. A successful save halves the poison’s initial effects and negates the second round’s effects.
A goblin-spider’s poison on the first round causes 1d10 points of damage. On the second round, it causes a further 1d8 points of damage plus paralyzation for 3d6 hours.
Shapeshifting: During the day, a goblin-spider is about the size of a goblin, and it cannot use its shapeshifting ability. When in small form, it is AC 14 and its bite inflicts 1d3 points of damage. Once the sun sets, a goblin-spider grows to size medium, and it can shapeshift into any small or medium animal, human, demi-human, or humanoid.
In animal form, it gains the appropriate movement, AC, and attacks. If that form has a bite attack, the goblin-spider’s bite remains poisonous. In human, demi-human, or humanoid form, the goblin-spider loses its poisonous bite, but it can wield weapons, wear armor, et cetera.
A goblin-spider speaks the language of arachnids and the Common Tongue regardless of form. In animal form, it speaks with animals at will. In human, demi-human, or humanoid form, it speaks the appropriate racial language.
Web: In either small or medium goblin-spider form, this monster spins webs. A single strand of its silk is strong enough to support the goblin-spider and one creature four times as large. Eight times per day, a goblin spider can throw a web (as the wizard spell). To protect its lair, a goblin-spider creates sheets of sticky webbing from 5 to 60 feet square. It usually positions these sheets to snare flying creatures as well as to trap prey on the ground. A goblin-spider can move across its own web at its climb speed and can pinpoint the location of any creature touching its web.
The rubble from a long destroyed tower helps conceal the narrow flight of descending stairs that are the entrance to Bosukumo the goblin spider’s lair. Bosukumo’s vicious humanoid servants creep forth on the darkest nights to do their master’s bidding.
The Entry Level
The aforementioned stairs lead down to a chamber shaped somewhat like half an octagon. The stench and smoke makes breathing difficult. Most of Bosukumo’s followers are goblins, and this level is overcrowded with those squabbling, cowardly, vile humanoids. There are two exits from this chamber.
The exit closest to the stairs’ terminus opens to a columned bridge leading to a second half-octagon room. The bridge is 20 feet higher than the floor below, which is where most of Bosukumo’s goblin followers lair. The stench and smoke from the wafts up from the lower floor.
The goblin rank-and-file set up their beds of dirt and rags along the walls, leaving the floor open for fighting, cooking, et cetera. There is little airflow through Busokumo’s lair. Smoke and stink hang in the air, and the floor and lower walls are smeared with filth.
Thirty feet to either side of the bridge, there are two steep stone staircases leading up from the lower floor to square rooms. Under the bridge, the goblins store a half dozen crudely fashioned ladders long enough to reach up to the bridge.
The Outer Archways
All four geomorphs have archways on their outer walls. Each archway leads to a twisting tunnel carved through stone. Those who constructed these tunnels and the four levels of Bosukumo’s lair imbued their work with strong teleportational magic. Consequently, to where each tunnel leads is determined randomly. The specifics of how this magic works will be detailed next Wednesday.
The Eight-Pointed Star Level
This level is dark and cold, and an oppressive, sub-audible quavering tone hums ceaselessly. The original architects built this level as a storehouse for otherwordly trophies. The L-shaped halls in each corner of the level have bizarre artifacts displayed in cases arranged along the outer walls. The square chamber in the center of the level has shelves holding books and scrolls collected from numerous non-good planes of existence.
All of the doors on this level are magically locked. Attempts to force the doors open may trigger wards designed to rout, disable, or kill would-be robbers.
Halls and Rooms Level
The air quality here is bad, but not as bad as the entry level. Tougher humanoids in Bosukumo’s service lair here, so adventurers will encounter boss goblins, some orcs, and shamans who believe/claim they gain their spells from Bosukumo itself. The humanoids in this area are tougher and more disciplined than the rank-and-file goblins in the Entry Level.
The Water Pit Level
Bosukumo lairs here. This level is divided into four separate sets of rooms around a center square pit that drops down to well of cold water. Bosukumo can scurry along walls and across ceilings, so its movement here is not hindered by either the central pit or the thick webs that line the floor, walls, and ceilings. In one of the chamber is a secret door in the floor. If found and opened, a shaft descending into darkness is revealed. This shaft leads down to another set of magically connected geomorphs.
Well, it’s been a bit since I’ve posted anything here. So, let’s see if some structure can help. On Mondays, I’ll post a map. On Wednesday, I’ll post about what can be found in the areas mapped. On Friday, I’ll post a monster. That might work.
Today, I present four artisanal dungeon geomorphs. Each geomorph has been loving crafted by hand, drawn first with a freshly sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga soft HB 2 pencil and then carefully inked with both a black TUL Fine Liner and a black Paper Mate Flair M felt tip pen. The final step involved using an eraser to remove stray pencil lines while at the same time avoiding as much as possible smearing the ink. I’ve used this method to produce maps for nigh on four-and-a-half decades. The results speak for themselves.
Today, I shift away from Chaos Goblins and the Undead and toward the Fimir, found on pages 218-219 of the 1989 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WHF).
WHF tells us that the Fimir might be “part Human and part Demon” and that they “haunt bogs, fens and desolate moorlands throughout the northern and western wastes of the Old World.” While usually fond near coasts, Fimir dwell “anywhere that is suitably dank and dismal”, where they live in “strongholds [that] are typically forbidding, craggy piles of rock, crudely built in the semblance of human castles on jutting headlands and other rocky eminences”. These strongholds are “constantly wreathed thick, writhing mist”.
“The Fimir are creatures of mist and darkness, and shun bright light.” They live in communities populated “almost entirely of males”. These creatures have a caste system. From lowest to highest, these castes are the Shearl (thralls), “a cast of servitors and menials”; the Fimm (warriors), “to which the bulk of Fimir nobility belongs”; the Dirach (demonfriends), “a small but powerful cast of magicians”; and the greatly feared Meargh (hags), “the witch-queens that rule over Fimir strongholds. The Meargh are the only female Fimir.”
Fimir live by raiding isolated communities to seize food and prisoners. Since the Meargh are sterile, Fimir “abduct Human women” with which to breed; offspring of these blasphemous pairings are always fully Fimir whose castes are obvious at birth. Very few female Fimir are born, and most of those are killed by the stronghold’s reigning Meargh.
These raiding parties “generally consist of a dozen or so Fimm and a roughly equal number of Shearl”. Along coastlines, Fimir “travel in low-hulled, black longships.” For important raids, a Dirach leads the Fimir. Meargh are seldom encountered outside their strongholds. Fimir favor “great heavy maces and axes, which a Human would need both hands to wield; some Fimir, especially the nobility, go into battle with one of these weapons in either hand. Fimir do not generally use missile weapons, since the fog which is their natural element precludes missile fire.”
“Fimir dress in an almost Human fashion, but always leave the legs, arms and tail bare. The Fimm often weapon shirts of chainmail in battle, and nobles favor long cloaks fastened at the shoulder by heavy brooches of gold set with gems.” Fimir nobles love blood-colored gems. “Dirach and Meargh wear long, drab-coloured robes and cloaks.”
Fimir resemble large humanoids with powerful chests, short legs, feet with three clawed toes, and long arms that nearly reach the ground. Fimir are quite strong, with strong muscles hidden beneath a flabby layer of fat covered by leathery skin. They have large, mostly bald heads that resemble a cross between a boar and a lizard, with a single lidless eye. Fimir have no exterior ear structures. The average Fimir stands about eight feet tall, but they typically stand hunched over. Fimir also have “powerful, snake-like tails, which average about 6 feet in length.”
Fimir
Magic: Dirach cast spells as an 8th-level wizard. Dirach always know summon lesser monster. Due to their pacts with hellish powers, a Dirach can summon a specific type of monster, as desired, and the summoner can communication with its summoned monsters. Meargh cast spells as 10th-level wizards. Furthermore, a Meargh can prepare cleric spells of up to 3rd level in place of wizard spells of the same level. These cleric spells are gained through devotion to evil deities.
Furthermore, once per day, Dirach and Meargh can cast fog cloud. The bilious fog created by this ability is centered on and moves with the caster.
Strength Bonus: Due to their size and strength, Shearl, Dirach, and Meargh receive a +2 bonus to melee weapon damage (including tail lashes). Fimm receive a +4 bonus to melee weapon damage.
Tail Lash: In place a melee weapon attack, a Fimir may lash out with its tail, striking at a creature no farther away than 10 feet. A The tails of Shearl, Dirach, and Meargh inflict 1d6+2 points of damage. Fimm have stronger tails that end in bony knobs or spikes for nobles. These tails inflict 1d10+4 points of damage.
Twilight Vision: No type of fog — natural or magical — obscures a Fimir’s vision. Fimir dislike bright light. They suffer a -2 attack roll penalty in bright light as well as a -2 penalty on saving throws against fear while exposed to bright light.
