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Under Gallax Hall - Level 2 - Steam Tunnels
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Upon observation and every Turn thereafter there is a 1 in 6 chance a Custodian is in this room. (Note: not approaching, literally inside the room, as if they’d been there all along) They will be hostile to all intruders.
Supply Room for the Custodians. Tools and Implements line the walls or are propped up on stands like a medieval armory. A treasure trove of hardware. Intensely idiosyncratically organized, requiring a SEARCH if looking for anything useful or in particular.
Immediately observable in abundance: brooms, mops, cleaning supplies, paint, bleach, grease, screwdrivers, wrenches, hammers, sponges, plungers, rubber gloves, dustpans, waste bins, goggles, toilet paper, soap, paper towels.
SEARCH: Roll 1d6 on success. Roll one higher die for each Turn searching (1d6 > 1d8 > 1d10). Items replenish weekly. Italicized items do not replenish.
(1): 2d6 Custodial Uniforms.
(2): 1d4 Industrial Drums of Acid
(3): 10 pound sack of dust
(4): Diamond-tipped Hacksaw
(5): 3d6 thick balloons full of high-proof alcohol
(6): 3d6 folded bodybags
(7): Locked metal drawer (Trapped: handle contains die that permanently stains surface touched in ultraviolet ink, visible to Custodians, who will Curse you if they see it on you). Contains 3 rolls from the Body Loot table and a Wand of Hold Portal.
(8): 1d4 Spellscrolls: Cloth to Lead (2nd Level, 75gp each)
(9): Map of Level 2 - Steam Tunnels (including hidden shafts and secrets)
(10): Portable Hole
TREASURE: One among many mops is a Flying Mop, detectable by Detect Magic. It is only capable of flying when wet, drying out over 1d4 Turns.
Cloth to Lead: 2nd Level Transmutation. 30ft Range. Save vs. Wands. Converts all cloth on person into lead. Leaden clothes require time to remove as armor: Partially Clothed = Light Armor, Fully Clothed = Medium Armor, Excessively Clothed = Heavy Armor. Lead clothes provide protection from Radiation. Conditions dependant on how well-dressed subject is:
Naked, Clothes not made of Cloth: No Effect.
Partially Clothed: subject becomes moderately encumbered and suffers 20% spell failure.
Fully Clothed: subject becomes severely encumbered and cannot cast spells.
Excessively Clothed: subject takes 2d4 damage, and is effectively stunned.
28. Hidden Jammed Emerald
Hot and muggy. Hundreds of fine pipes line the walls, floor, and ceiling. An invisible patchwork of cool and oven-hot metal.
SEARCH: An rock-embedded emerald as big as your eye (1500gp) is jammed two inches into the tail end of a pipe. It's incredibly hot to the touch both the emerald and the pipe, dealing 1d3 damage per Round while in unprotected physical contact.
TRAP: The emerald holds back the steam. Every round it's removed, unless something perfect eye-sized is jammed into the pipe, hot steam will fill the room, dealing 1d8 damage per Round to all within.
29. Covered Pit
A pit at the intersection. 20ft deep, covered by a chain link mesh that bends downward when stepped on. No Dexterity checks required to avoid unless 3 or more people (about 600 pounds) are standing on it. In which case the chain link mesh will collapse inward.
CONTINGENCY: The Custodian from Area 24 will slowly approach if any loud noises come from here. It will take them 5 Rounds.
30. The Furnace
1-9: Two occupied Custodians | 9-1: 3d6 Custodians
MONUMENT to the CLEAN GOD. The Furnace - a raging, unquenchable black flame encapsulated in an antiquarian crucible of star-steel and radioactive matter. It is a nuclear machine of impossible complexity, fed by indolent snaking pipes drooling condensation and oil.
Some say the Clean God resides within the brooding flame.
Some say The End of The Universe resides within the languishing flame.
Some say there's Nothing inside. Just Heat.
From 9 o'lock to 1 o'clock there is a gathering of Custodians to worship the Clean God's monument, each bringing an offering in a man-sized sack. They stand motionless for 1 Hour, chanting in unison, before one-by-one casting their offerings into the furnace, exclaiming in lifeless monotone: "For The Clean God, this Matter I offer..."
TREASURE: At the mouth of The Furnace is a Bottomless Bag of Coal. It weighs twenty pounds, and contains a virtually infinite supply of coal.
TRAP: At the peak of the steps, where the heat from the open furnace becomes least bearable, one may be forced to gaze into the core of The Furnace and see The End of All - the heat death of the universe - the inevitable fate of all things - the Clean God laid bare - thermodynamic Entropy.
They must Save vs. Charisma every instance they gaze into the Furnace, or succumb to existential nihilism, and become a servant of the Clean God. They will be NPC'd to be a Custodian. They shall clean without end and without rest, to bring more entropy to the universe and hasten its demise. Nothing may be cleaned without something else becoming more dirty, without more Entropy.
CONTINGENCY: Two Custodians always guard The Furnace, tending to its great chemistry by adjusting gears and coaxing pipes that the University may be kept warm. If any intrude upon The Furnace who are not devotees to the Clean God, they will first offer a view of its inside with a gesture of their hands, and Curse those who refuse.
If the meeting is occurring, the Custodians will forsake their usual aloofness, and simply drag those present and force their view of The Furnace. Each is twice as strong as a normal adult.
31. Extending Crossway
This crossway requires 20 Turns (2 Hours) to traverse. Time shenanigans. Feels like 10 minutes. It seems to fly by...
Guaranteed Wandering Encounter: Roll on the Wandering Encounter list. It comes when you’re at the crossway. 1d4 for direction: 1: North, 2: East, 3: South, 4: West.
32. Warm Morgue, Paddleboat??
1-4: Empty | 4-6: Custodian | 6-7: Empty | 7-10: Ghoulish Hybrid | 10-1: Empty
Sixteen empty stretchers, laid out like a triage clinic. The Ghoulish Hybrid (see Area 35) comes here looking for meat and bones to steal.
There’s also a paddleboat in the corner. Requires two people to lift, and can seat four. Moves at half human speed. Draws the Giant Croc. Causes Sewer Oozes to flee.
CONTINGENCY: If any mass battles occur, the Custodians will bring the excess of bodies here, to strip them down of anything useful before carrying them off to The Furnace (Area 30). These bodies will be gnawed on and mutilated by the Ghoulish Hybrid in the meantime.
It’s warm and humid. Bodies rot like it’s a jungle.
33. Closet
1-5: Empty | 5-7: Ghoulish Hybrid | 7-9: Empty | 9-10: Custodian | 10-1: Empty
Detritus, yet the floors are clean. Four human femurs, three academic papers on feline psychology, and a broken brass clock with 11 Hours on its face.
TREASURE: The brass clock is worth 40gp for its historical curiosity. If provided with evidence of the Administrator’s time meddling this value jumps to 1200gp.
SECRET: From inside the closet, the wall across from the door (secret entrance on map) is revealed as illusion. One can simply walk through it.
34. Shrine to the Clean God
1-3: Empty | 3-4: Custodian | 4-1: Empty
A dark, cold abyss. An unending vacuum. A neverending hungry void. Hold the door open for too long, and it will suck you in.
TRAP: The door resists opening. If forced open a steady vacuum into the abyss ramps up.
Round 1: No Effect
Round 2: Save vs. Strength with Advantage or get sucked in.
Round 3: Save vs. Strength or get sucked in.
Round 4: Save vs. Strength with Disadvantage or get sucked in.
Once something’s been sucked in, or the door is voluntarily closed, the door will slam shut. Those lost to the Abyss return as Ghosts on Level 3 - Old Gallax Building, or as Custodians in 2d6 Days.
35. Creaky Metal Walkway
1-5: Ghoulish Hybrid | 5-6: Empty | 6-7: Custodian | 7-1: Empty
ARCHITECTURE: Entire room’s floor is an elevated metal walkway, with two feet between it and concrete below. This walkway creaks loudly as it’s walked on.
It’s dark. Lots of places below the walkway to hide and stalk. Small chutes in the dark corners of the room to descend below the walkway.
A Ghoulish Hybrid often lurks beneath the walkway, in the darkest corner. If one is really silent on approach, one can hear its rasping breath. It retreats here daily to avoid the Custodians, and hides from all newcomers, fearing for its safety.
Ghoulish Hybrid
AC Leather HD 2 HP 9 Morale 4
1d8 Desperate Claw
Undead Immunities
Sneaky: 3 in 6 Hide chance. Can hold breath for 1 Hour.
Half-Undead: Turning checks against have Disadvantage.
36. Concrete Seal
ARCHITECTURE: The door to this room is a solid concrete wall, darker (more recent) than the concrete around it.
One needs to tunnel or bypass 2ft of concrete to access this secret room. Any tunnels made into this room will be patched up by the Custodians in 2d6 Days.
Fingernail claw marks on the inside of the secret concrete wall.
SECRET: A similar concrete wall on the south side of the room. Tunnel 5ft through it and you’ll reach the shaft spanning between Level 1 - Basement and Level 4 - Monastery.
TREASURE: A dusty steel chest containing 245gp, the old-fashioned key to Area 47, and a well-dressed (9gp) skeleton clutching it. An old note in the chest: “It was hell getting this from the monks. Curse the cats. I’ve increased my share.”
37. High Waters West
1-3: Giant Croc | 3-1: Empty
It's dark. Sewage waters waist high, emerging from pipes all around to slowly drift south and east.
A Giant Crocodile prowls these waters, unflinching to source of light. It will ambush anyone near the bank if they hesitate in their actions, attempting to crush then drag the bodies into the water.
CONTINGENCY: Loud noises draw the Giant Croc from 38 or 40, if not present.
Giant Croc
AC Chain HD 4 HP 20 Swim Speed x2 Human
1d12 Chomp
Enhanced Critical: Attacks deal an additional 1d12 damage on an attack roll of 20.
Looks like Flotsam: 2 in 6 chance of surprise when waiting in murky water.
Hypnotic Death Roll: If restrained or grappled, may perform a corkscrew roll, flashing brilliant multicolored scales on its belly. As Hypnotic Gaze.
Shapeshift - Dungeon Swan: If the Dungeon Swan is incapacitated or dies, the Giant Croc shapeshifts into the new Dungeon Swan within 1 Day.
38. Grate
1-3: Empty | 3-5: Giant Croc | 5-8: Empty | 8-1: Giant Croc
Waist high water, slowly listing east and south. Steel bars cross the south part of this T-junction.
CONTINGENCY: Loud noises draw the Giant Croc from 37 or 40, if not present.
39. Flotsam Junk Trap
Floating and bottom-rolling waste piled water-surface-high in big soggy smelly masses. Fatbergs of detritus and oily wads. If something at some time was flushed down from the building above, it’ll probably end up here.
SEARCH (1): 5d20gp in magical salvage (wand parts, broken gems, teeth)
SEARCH (2): The Custodial Brush
The Custodial Brush - An unusually clean hand broom. Cleans any surface graced by its bristles perfectly, even soaking up oil, rust, and any trail conceivable. Also ‘cleans’ off skin. Effectively a +2 Medium Weapon vs. Unarmored targets.
40. High Waters East
1-5: Empty | 5-8: Giant Croc | 8-1: Empty
Waist high water, slowly listing south.
CONTINGENCY: Loud noises draw the Giant Croc (see Area 37) from 37 or 38 if not present.
41. Electric Lab
1-8: 2 Hybrids | 8-1: 2 Sisters of the Cell + 2 Hybrids
Copper wires and tesla coils all over the damn place. The errant spark snaps and crackles. A single examination table at the epicenter of this mess, hooked up to all manner of exposed wiring fed through tubes and mediated via levers.
Jars of clear briny buffers and buckets of poisonous salts.
From 8 to 1 two Sisters of the Cell are here, siphoning off power from the Quartering Pylons (Area 49, Level 1) for all manner of electro-assay and frankensteinian experiment. They like cackling, lots of cackling.
(Inform Dr. Kinsley of this and you’ll gain the favor of the Torture Department. He’ll also send you down to end this in exchange for favors (typically involving torture).)
Two trusted Hybrids, loyal to the Sisters, guard this station. If either of them are part-man, they can use the cords to electrocute enemies in the water. If not, they’ll play dead until an opportune time to strike.
CONTINGENCY: Exposed cords are 1d10x10ft long. If introduced to watered rooms they deal 2d6 damage to anyone in that room each Round.
42. Empty, Dry, Spare Pipes
It’s empty, but dry. Two stacked piles of 15ft-long spare pipes by the eastern wall.
43. Dead Custodian
A decomposing Custodian body rots, floating face down. The bloated torso has been rent open (by toothed bill), and its liver is missing. His custodial uniform is quite spoiled with blood, and sliced from the front, but intact otherwise.
TREASURE: Roll thrice for What’s In The Pockets?
44. Whirlpool
Large whirlpool continuously sucks down nearby sewage and objects. Coming within 10ft prompts a Save vs. Strength or get sucked in. That which enters the whirlpool must roll percentile and make a Breath Holding check.
Percentile: On a 1% chance, that object is whisked away to the realm of the Clean God, never to be found again. If the Custodians have been crossed recently, that chance is 3%.
Breath Holding Check: If failed, the creature arrives in its new destination unconscious with sewage in its lungs. (Water breathing negates this. Methods like air bags grant advantage.)
All other results end with the object marooned within the Waterfall (Area # TBD) in Level 4 - Monastery.
45. Gratings, Vandalism
Metal grating covers the northern passage. Broken metal grating covers the western passage, leading up to Area 51.
Evidence of vandalism: hash marks etched on the wall totaling 37 (representing Black Magic Brothers who made it this far). Caveman-like black paint graffiti of skulls, ghosts, and students in black robes. The graffiti seems to dance in torchlight, among light-refracted aurora borealis from the water.
46. Dungeon Swan
1-2: Dungeon Swan | 2-4: Empty | 4-1: Dungeon Swan
In the darkness rests a giant black swan. Its eyes bear a hated yellow. Anything that comes close it will attack. It eats nothing but fresh bloody liver.
TREASURE: Three corpses beneath the murky waters hold 1d20x5gp each.
SECRET: Revealed by searching or by torchlight - a shimmering beneath the surface. The Robe of Mirrors - a cloak crafted from broken mirrors. Noisy, bright. Causes one to be Invisible to Ghosts while worn.
Dungeon Swan
AC Chain HD 4 HP 20 Swim Speed x2 Human
1d12 Gut-Seeking Toothed Beak
Enhanced Critical: Attacks deal an additional 1d12 damage on an attack roll of 20.
Shapeshift - Axe Murderer: The Dungeon Swan may shift forms into a beautiful axe murderer. In this form remove the Swan’s swim speed, but give it a 3 in 6 chance of surprise. It can also converse with people in this form, but it hates them too much to do so.
47. Hidden Library
The steel door is locked. The key may be found in Area 36. An Unregistered Key or successful Lockpicking would also do.
If a key (or pick) is used to unlock the door, a message appears in luminous red letters upon the door:
“Read to your fill, but take only one,
or the curse of the library will never be done.”
If a Knock spell or similar method is used, no message appears. The door closes itself unless propped open.
TRAP: Any person that takes more than one book (one book checked out per person per lifetime) past the threshold of the room will provoke a Curse on themself. Until all books the victim took are returned they cannot read, nor cast spells - words leap from the pages and crawl into cracks in the floor (rendering the book worthless), and the sounds of spells dissolve and evaporate into impotent gas. Trace their direction, and one will find them crawling or oozing back to the Hidden Library to compose new books.
TREASURE: 37 textbooks on various subjects, including some rare unpublished editions containing writer’s notes in the margins. Of the 37 books 1 in 4 chance of book being present on any given subject. Each book is worth 1d10x50gp.
48. Secondary Disposal
1-4: Empty | 4-5: Sister of the Cell | 5-6: Water Bear (Area 49) | 6-1: Empty
Secondary dumping ground for the experiments of the Sisters of the Cell. One of them will be doing so from 4-5 o’clock.
Two 5ft high cliffs separate the waters from the Sisters’ territory. They toss their trash off them, though sometimes they miss the water, making the cliffs a bit slippery.
TRAP: Dexterity Save the first time one climbs on the cliffs. Failure and one slides down into the water, taking 10ft of fall damage and drawing the Water Bear from behind the grates of Area 49.
49. Water Bear Den
1-5: Water Bear | 5-6: Empty | 6-1: Water Bear
A Bear-Ooze Hybrid (AC Chain; HP 13; HD 2; 1d8 Acid Teeth; Squeezable; Immune to Crits) lairs here, occasionally coming out to feed on the waste thrown from the cliffs in Area 48.
TREASURE: A gnawed-on chunk of amber worth 500gp.
50. Hatred Grass
1-2: Empty | 2-4: Dungeon Swan | 4-7: Empty |
7-8: 1d3 Sisters of the Cell | 8-1: Empty
Tunnel glows in the dark with neon blues, purples, and reds of Hatred Grass, growing under the water. Invisible if conventional light is present. Swimming right down the middle of the tunnel can avoid one touching the grass.
TRAP: Touching the grass induces an intense hatred of anything and everything, causing those affected to immediately lash out at anyone nearby for 1d4 Rounds in blind fury.
CONTINGENCY: If the Dungeon Swan dies or is unavailable the grass will completely overtake this passage, and spread to each adjacent room at a rate of 1 room per day, until the entire submerged area is overgrown.
CONTINGENCY: If the Hatred Grass is removed, add the Dungeon Swan to the Variable wandering encounter list for this level. It'll be rightly pissed.
51. Semi-Sealed-Off Marble Stairs
1-9: Empty | 9-10: 1d4 Black Magic Brothers
Metal grates over the west and north entrances. East entrance has been sawed through. The marble doors and other entrances are visible from any grating.
Through the marble doors are dual spiral staircases leading down to Level 3 - Old Gallax Building.
ARCHITECTURE: Metal pipes and oily rusted walkways turn to polished granite floors and walls. Press your ear against the stone, and you'll hear soft mad whispers of budgets and meetings.
52. Big Ol’ Sewer Ooze
1-3: Empty | 3-10: Sewer Ooze
Water is waist high and filthy - oily slicks on the stagnant surface, garbage from the Wet Lab. Bones and cartilage of failed biomancy experiments hidden beneath the murky water.
If here, a big ol’ Sewer Ooze lies in wait beneath the surface, waiting to feast on flesh.
53. Sewer
1-3: Sewer Ooze | 3-10: Empty
Water is waist high and filthy.
If here, a big ol’ Sewer Ooze lies in wait beneath the surface, waiting to feast on flesh.
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