This month we would like to move to the surface with your adventures. Welcome to the demon temple where ancient evil lives. Thanks to this map, the Game Master will be able to show his players the fight against dark forces in a large area (30×30).
What else can you show or describe to your players?
- Areas where worship is done. Sounds like you already have this with your altar on the mountaintop, but that would be the large rituals – what about smaller ones taking place in other areas of the temple? These rooms would give you opportunities for some cool loot protected by traps. Minor artefacts of the religion, with wards that guard against those who would take the item without the appropriate temple rank. The wards could be bypassed if a token of rank is worn by a player. How would they get that token? By finding it in the…
- Accomodation blocks. A large temple like this one will house a great many priests, acolytes, initiates etc. There will be medium/large dorm areas for the initiates (depending on how long training took, the longer it takes the more initiates tehre will be at any one time), large/medium dorms for the acolytes, and slightly smaller ones for the priests. The priests may even have their own study, or share a room with a small number of others. This will allow a more labyrinthian feel, with many smaller siderooms that may be locked, and may have some interesting items in them. If, as I understand your post, the temple is abandoned by its original inhabitants, these rooms may be a small goblin town within that wing of the temple. In that case, goblins are small, so extra floors may have been constructed by laying planks across the room resting on wall shelves. This makes it harder for the players to get in and find/fight what’s in there. The labyrinthine nature also makes for the danger of flanking, or being surrounded. Never underestimate the power of many small enemies in a sufficiently confined space that AoE spells are no longer an option.
- Since your previous session involved demons, the players may be subconciously thinking that more are on their way, and what better place to find holy water than in a temple? Storerooms don’t need to be extensive, but relatively regular, and with a varying level of security depending on what they contain. You can put a lot of potentially useful stuff into the storerooms, and it’s entirely justified that they are in there. You could place one in the accomodation areas that contains robes and the like, which (unknown to the players) may allow them to bypass some traps and wards if worn.
- Kitchens and larders are fairly self explanatory, and should be near to the meal hall(s). They probably don’t have much of interest in them, but there might be a treat for the investigative individual…
- Teaching rooms brings us back to intersting areas – there could be diagrams showing certain passageways, things that can give the players clues of what will protect them from what, books on the powerful relics of the order and where in the temple they are kept, details of the belief that may be usable later on in the final battle, all sorts of things. These areas can basically be a massive lore dump for the temple and the religion it served, in which a few useful tidbits may present themselves.
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