It’s been a lot longer than I realized since I last wrote something about the Ruby Talon Deeps dungeon. As a reminder, I’m still in the high-level brainstorming phase, so what I’m offering are area descriptions and rules concepts rather than full details. I’m hoping this acts as a design diary, brings up some fun weirdness, and entertains you in some way.

Map | Locations 1 | Treasures | Locations 2

The Lake of Porcelain Tears

One of the claustrophobic tunnels of the Spider-Nest gives way to an underground lake. It is 50 feet across, 35 feet wide, and 15 feet deep at its deepest point. Its waters are almost still aside from an occasional drip from the ceiling, which sends languid ripples across the oddly pearlescent surface of the water, which glows with the faintest of white lights and provides dim light throughout the chamber.

The water is safe to drink and to swim in for creatures that aren’t Fiends or Undead. Fey creatures (including those with the Fey Ancestry trait) can regain 2d6 + their maximum number of Hit Dice by bathing in this pool; once they do, they can’t benefit from this again for 24 hours. Fiends and Undead take 1d10 acid damage from contact with the water of this lake, or 4d10 acid damage from full immersion. The water loses this special property 1 hour after it is removed from the lake.

The Shattered Stair

This staircase is 10 feet wide with a sturdy stone banister, or at least that’s how it was built. Substantial portions of the stair and banister are now long gone, fallen away into a drop of at least 200 feet. The stair descends 120 feet from the Lake of Porcelain Tears.

Three large gaps make the stair a treacherous descent. The first is 40 feet from the top of the stair, and a span of 10 feet has crumbled away. A character with at least 10 Strength can leap this with ease, but must roll a DC 12 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. On a failure, the character lands prone and takes 1d6 falling damage. A character that fails by more than 5 falls, landing on an outcropping 40 feet down. A character with less than 10 Strength can make a Strength (Athletics) check against DC 10; on a success they take 1d6 falling damage and land prone. On a failure, they fall 40 feet to the outcropping below.

The second gap is 75 feet from the top of the stair, where a span of 8 feet has crumbled away. This seems to be an easy traversal, but a chuul is hidden on the near side of the gap and lashes out with its pincers to try to grab the first two characters that try to leap the gap, or that walk up to the edge of the gap to look down at it. It doesn’t give chase if characters slip past it. A character grappled by the chuul when it dies falls 30 feet to a lower outcropping.

The third gap is 110 feet from the top of the stair and 16 feet across, making it very difficult for characters without great Strength or magical aid. Characters with 16 Strength and a running start clear the gap without a roll; characters with a lower Strength can make a Strength (Athletics) check against DC 16. On a failure, they take 2d6 falling damage and land prone, clinging to the stone on the far side of the gap; characters that fail by 5 or more fall 60 feet into total darkness, where they are attacked by a pack of three shadows on the rocky, jagged floor of the cavern.

Sidebar: The Help Action and Jumps

One character can help another with the Strength (Athletics) checks needed to traverse the stair. A character needs at least 14 Strength to Help a Small character, or at least 16 Strength to Help a Medium character.

Raven Tree

The Shattered Stair ends in plaza of perfectly fitted tiles, with a barren tree with pure black bark. The tree is 35 feet tall, and at least a hundred ravens watch the PCs from its branches, cawing raucously as they approach. At the base of the tree, there are leaves of silver, red, and gold. A small clay bowl near the tree holds a random collection of four remembrances. If the PCs take any or all of the remembrances, an unkindness of thirty or more ravens flies away from the tree, up through a chimney in the distant ceiling of the chamber.

Ram-Govog’s Descent

A shaft 50 feet across descends 1000 or more feet here. An outcropping 40 feet down has a piton secured in the stone, anchoring a cable running downward across the shaft. Its far end is anchored to another piton, and so on. Characters can climb or zipline down these cables with relative ease, but ascent using the cables is incredibly grueling, requiring a DC 15 Constitution saving throw for every 50-foot span across the shaft that you ascend. A creature that fails this save takes a level of exhaustion, and a creature that fails this save by more than 5 falls. A creature automatically succeeds a number of these Constitution saves equal to its Strength modifier, and regains expended automatic successes when it finishes a long rest.

The cable has been severed below the sixth piton, requiring some additional effort – likely magical – to run a new cable down to the seventh and later pitons. The tenth and later pitons aren’t shown on the map, but an unlucky explorer placed them as he sought deeper passages… a path from which he did not return.

Market of Nyrus

A heavy wooden door separates the Market of Nyrus from Ram-Govog’s Descent. This chamber is filled with colorful tents and market stalls, where a single goblin named Nyrus is the sole proprietor of every shop. Characters showing interest in another shop have to wait for Nyrus to finish his current business, hop down from his stool, hustle over to the next shop, and climb the next stool. Sometimes he stops to change clothes to suit the persona of the next shopkeeper; he also usually changes to a new, atrocious accent.

That said, Nyrus’s wares are excellent, his manner is friendly… and stealing from any shop here imposes the Curse of Nyrus on the thief until they pay for or return what was stolen. The Curse of Nyrus forces the character to chew up and swallow 150 gold coins each time they finish a long rest, or take three levels of exhaustion.

Nyrus has 15,000 gp available to buy things the PCs wish to sell, and his various shops offer almost any nonmagical item from the Player’s Handbook (though rowboats are the only vehicles he sells), as well as a random assortment of 8 different common, 5 uncommon, and 2 rare magic items. Anyone who spends at least 5 gp in the Market of Nyrus becomes his friend, and he serves surprisingly delicious teas and coffees to his friends whenever they visit.

If Nyrus is injured or killed, all of the shops fold up on themselves and vanish, returned to the Feywild until one of Nyrus’s relatives returns here with them. In addition to buying and selling goods, Nyrus sells information about Ruby Talon Deeps.

What Nyrus Knows:

• For 40 gold, or for free to any individual who has spent at least 150 gp, he tells the story of Old Stave Church. It was once a library, where humans and dwarves studied runic lore together, based on things they discovered in occasional interactions with Ram-Govog’s people, or from bringing the Machinist’s creations back to the surface. It fell into disuse for over a century, when Oghus opened the Eye of Desolation. Most of the adventurers working for the library were killed, and the few survivors sealed the Rune-Marked Doors before they fled. When people returned to the area of the library, they built a temple to the sun god on the ruins of the library.
• For 10 gold, Nyrus explains that there is an Altar of Greed on the far side of the Lake of Iron Tears, and how to use it. Something lurks in the lake, and he would pay to see it destroyed.
• For 250 gold each, Nyrus is willing to transport people back to Waystation 172, using a pathway through the Feywild. This is a two-way trip, if the person wants it to be.
• For 10 gold or the gift of one remembrance, Nyrus explains what remembrances are and how to use them.
• For 100 gold, he sketches a rough map of Ruby Talon Deeps as far down as the Deep-Seer and the Operations Console, though he refuses to sell information on the Immortal’s Reliquary or Banisher’s Watch.
• He has a long rope ladder that he can lower for people who go to lower levels of the dungeon, but he’s the one who cut the cable, to make it harder for the things that live down there to get to him.

The Lake of Iron Tears

Much like the Lake of Porcelain Tears, this underground lake’s waters are almost completely still, save for a slow drip of iron-dark water that ripples outward. This lake is 90 feet across, 15 feet deep, and 50 feet wide. It is heavy and viscous, and clings to the skin; any creature whose skin or fur touches this water has disadvantage on Dexterity and Charisma checks and saving throws for 8 hours. The first time a creature uses prestidigitation to attempt to clean this off, an affected creature can roll a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw; on a success the effect ends. On a failure, further uses of prestidigitation on this creature automatically fail for the next 8 hours.

A character can gather some of the iron-dark water in a flask or waterskin and use it as a thrown weapon. On a hit with a ranged attack, the flask or skin bursts and the target creature has disadvantage on Dexterity checks and saving throws for 8 hours. It is about twice as heavy as clean water.

At the midpoint of the lake, a trio of xorn erupt out of the water, focusing their attacks on characters carrying gems or precious metals. The xorn can “breathe” this water because of its high metallic concentrations.

Altar of Greed

Oghus the Machinist constructed this altar to bargain with the gods of the duergar. He left silver, gold, and gems here as a sacrifice, and from time to time they gave him supernatural gifts and strange flashes of insight.

The altar is gold foil over stone, at a height to be comfortable for a dwarf to use. The floor is a checkerboard pattern of black and white marble, and the ceiling is reinforced with sturdy arches. For a sacrifice of 25 pounds of precious metal (so 1,250 copper, silver, electrum, gold, or platinum coins), or gems totaling 600 gp in value, the duergar gods grant one of the following:

• Charm of the Gilded Brow. While you have this charm, your skin takes on a metallic golden undertone, and your hair looks like strands of metallic gold. You gain resistance to acid, and when you fail a saving throw against an effect that deals acid damage, you can choose to succeed instead. When you have chosen to succeed with this charm three times, the charm ends.
• Charm of the Sundered Chain. While you have this charm, your eyes become a solid slate gray, with neither white nor pupil. When you fail a saving throw against psychic damage or the stunned or charmed conditions, you can use your reaction to roll 1d8 and add it to your saving throw result. When you have succeeded three saving throws with this charm, the charm ends.
• Charm of the Holy Delver. While you have this charm, your fingernails grow to resemble a badger’s claws. You can make an unarmed strike with them, dealing 1d6 + your Strength modifier damage on a hit. As a bonus action, you gain a burrowing speed of 30 feet until the end of your turn. When you have used this bonus action nine times, the charm ends.

Design Notes

A lot of what I’m going for here is just making sure cash treasure stays relevant and exciting for a party that doesn’t go back to the surface during the adventure. That’s something I perceive as a meaningful problem in designing dungeons that are meant to last longer than 1-3 sessions.

I’m also poking at ways to keep Strength scores relevant and exciting in gameplay, so in this dungeon you can either spend a bunch of spell slots circumventing challenges, or you can take them on directly with physical ability (taking some survivable damage if the dice cruelly betray you).

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