The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness

It goes without saying, but this is a great dungeon. How did the characters get here? Who cares?! They’re here now, and that’s enough to deal with without dwelling on the past. Maybe this is all a bad dream, or some hallucination brought on by eating gnarly shrimp. Are there safe places to take rests? That’s up to you, although I say no rest for the Ricked.

What about the treasure the characters find here, can they sell it anywhere? Are there things they spend their gold on? To that I say: Isn’t the acquisition of treasure the best part? (Translation: There aren’t any weird underground-dwelling vendors in here, no. But if the characters are persistent, perhaps some of these dank-ass dungeon denizens will deign to deal.)

General Features

Unless otherwise noted, the dungeon is well lit by magic. (I’m getting into that wizards-did-it bulls**t right off.)

Rooms and hallways in the dungeon are made of rough-hewn stone. Ceilings are 20 feet high. Doors are made of wood and have AC 15, 20 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage. Unless the description of an area says so, all the doors in the dungeon are unlocked. They’re also not into humanoids, so don’t try to seduce them.

Some of these rooms might seem a little cramped if you compare the activities inside to the map. But it’s magic, so, like, the rooms are just sometimes bigger on the inside. I’m all about that D! (That stands for “dimensional transcendence,” obviously.)

Oh, and once a room’s been solved and passed, none of its features trigger again if the characters go back the way they came. Any monsters and NPCs hanging out in there might yell rude things, though.

Leveling Up

By the time they finish this dungeon, the characters should be 3rd level. Because they can wander around the dungeon in any kind of bananas-ass circuitous route, as a general guideline, you can let them hit 2nd level at about 30 percent of the way through the adventure, then hit 3rd level at 75 percent of the way through.

What If They Die?

First of all, if the characters die in the dungeon, great. Working as intended. Second, if the characters die, the players also die in real life. Third, that was a joke—dead players are no fun for anybody. How are you supposed to lord your powers over corpses? Anyway, you can get creative about bringing back dead characters. One pro move is to take the dead character’s sheet, cross out the old name, and write a new name with, like, one letter different from before. That’s the player’s new character, who suddenly steps in from the previous room! Carry on.

The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness Locations

All the locations talked about in the adventure are from map 1.1. Obviously.

Let’s Get Going Already

Read the following. Right now. Just do it:

You’re an adventurer. Or maybe you’re even a group of adventurers. Whatever.

Why are you here? No one cares. Don’t tell me your backstory. We’re here to kick ass and find treasure. That’s your motivation. Now get ready to roll!

In front of you is a dark staircase. Its mysterious shadows beckon you to enter. And by “beckon,” I mean you need to go down the stairs, or there’s not a hell of a lot of purpose for us all sitting around this table, is there?

That’s a good start, right? No taverns or want ads or wizards begging you to retrieve the Bauble of Blarglebop. Which, by the way, is actually completely worthless to the Blarglebopians. Total waste of your time.

Locations 1-9

1. Stirge Room

When the characters descend the stairs into this room, read the following to set the scene:

This room is dark and smells like a pet store. It’s all wood chips and warm poop down here. A bunch of bats flap around the room. They look harmless.

The bats aren’t harmless. They’re not even bats; they’re Stirge. If the characters aren’t, like, super well hidden, these non-bats notice them and attack immediately. Sounds like it’s time to roll initiative!

I wrote “bunch” in the description, but you should use at least three stirges. If you have more than three characters in your game, then add more stirges to match the character count, so all the characters can fight their own flying rodents and feel good about themselves if they kill one.

Treasure

Anyone who searches the room and succeeds on a DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check unearths 35 sp scattered around. Searching—whether the characters find anything or not—also makes their hands smell like stirge poo, which imposes disadvantage on their Charisma checks and Charisma saving throws until it’s washed off.

2. Goblin Room

As the adventurers approach this room, have everyone make a DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check. Anyone who succeeds can hear two Goblin talking in Goblin about how their friend Jerry is a useless jerk.

When the characters enter or peek inside the room, read this description:

This room features a small wooden table and a couple of stools. Two goblins hang out here, looking pretty bored. Maybe they’d be less bored if they got into a life-or-death struggle with a few adventurers? Just a thought.

One of the goblins is wearing an eye patch. Her name is “Leg.” The other goblin has a bad leg, and his name is “Eye.” If the characters are sneaky, they might be able to surprise these losers. Otherwise, if the party attacks, these gobbo-slobbos fight back. But before they both die, at least one flees to their pals in area area 5.

3. Statue Room

This room is sort of trapezoidal, with doors to the east, north, and south. It’s also got statues kind of scattered around—mostly statues of Rick with inscriptions like “WOW!” and “DAMN!” One of the statues depicts a woman in armor—really fine crafting, real interesting. Seems like a great artist worked hard on this one.

Statues

Most of the statues are pretty self-explanatory, but if a character examines the statue of the armored woman, read the following:

At the base of the statue, a plaque reads: “DON’T WORRY. I’M NOT A REAL PERSON TURNED TO STONE. I’M JUST A COOL-LOOKING STATUE PUT HERE TO INTRIGUE YOU.” It’s probably nothing. You should pick a door, let’s get a move on!

A careful search accompanied by a successful DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check reveals a hidden compartment in this statue that holds a scrap of paper. Inspecting the paper reveals a note written in Common:

QUIT WASTING TIME! PICK A DOOR AND GO! FLIP A COIN IF YOU HAVE TO—JUST PICK A DIRECTION! IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, SPEND THE WHOLE NIGHT STANDING IN HERE WITH A STATUE? YOU NEED TO PICK A DOOR AND GOOOO! THIS IS, LIKE, THE THIRD F***ING ROOM, WE DON’T HAVE ALL DAY!

4. Magic Mouth Room

This rectangular room conveniently conforms to a grid for easy map-making. On the north wall is a big orange mouth, about eight feet high. Yeah, it’s gross and weird. There’s nothing else you can see in this room, and you’re not really looking anywhere else, because I mean, what the eff—it’s a giant wall mouth.

As soon as any character says anything out loud, the wall-mouth interrupts by shrieking:

“SURPRISE! ANSWER THIS RIDDLE! YOU HAVE TO DO IT!

“S-M-H-D-W-M.

“WHAT’S NEXT IN LINE?

“SOLVE THIS RIDDLE AND SOMETHING COOL HAPPENS. IF YOU FAIL, IT’S BAD. WHAT’S YOUR ANSWER?”

The party has one chance collectively to answer the riddle. One!

If they try to leave, the characters discover that the way out is blocked by an invisible wall that can’t be attacked or dispelled or anything. Describe how their faces smoosh up against it, then laugh at them.

While they’re trying to figure out the answer, pretend you’re the big orange mouth and smack your lips a bunch. Get all gross with your tongue so the players have trouble concentrating on anything else.

The mouth spits out anything placed in it. If the characters are stupid enough to try destroying the mouth instead of answering, have any moron who attacks it get licked for 3 (1d6) shame damage. That’s right: shame. There’s no resistance to shame.

Solution

The answer is “Y.” The pattern stands for “second, minute, hour, day, week, month.” Next in the sequence is year, or “Y.”

If any character answers correctly, the mouth smiles and magically hawks up 50 gp. If the party gets it wrong, the mouth laughs and gives them the answer in a really smarmy voice. Then every item each character has—except for their primary weapon—vanishes. Armor, clothes, adventuring gear, treasure, snacks, everything. All this equipment is teleported to the treasure room (area area 6), but the characters don’t know that right now.

Either way, the mouth then disappears and the invisible wall vanishes.

5. Another Goblin Room

This big old circular room features six bedrolls on the floor, a bunch of dice, and some parchments scattered around. Oh yeah, and four goblins are here.

The four Goblin are named Jerry, Jeri, Gerry, and Gerie. If Leg or Eye from area area 2 fled here, all the goblins have grabbed their scimitars and set up an ambush—but around the entrance opposite the one the party comes through. If Leg or Eye didn’t make it here, the characters catch the goblins even more off guard.

If the adventurers are naked (most likely because of the mouth in area area 4, but for any reason, really), the goblins have disadvantage on attack rolls in the first round of combat, as they giggle at the group’s jiggly unmentionables.

G&G Nerds

At first glance, it might look like the goblins were gambling. But a successful DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) check made to poke through the dice and parchments reveals that they were actually playing Goblins & Gizzards (G&G), their favorite tabletop roleplaying game, written in Goblin.

Goblins & Gizzards is way better than D&D.

Treasure

The goblins carry 20 gp, 35 sp, and the key to the treasure room (area 6). Their gaming setup also features a really nice set of eleven greenish-yellow dice. Each die is worth 1 gp and comes with a lifetime of warm, murderous memories (adding no additional value). Any character who takes these dice has the strong urge to collect more. Many, many more.

6. Treasure Room

This dusty old room features a sweet-ass treasure chest. You sense that bling is imminent.

If the characters lost their clothes, armor, and other equipment when they failed to guess the wall-mouth’s riddle in area area 4 or flipped an unfortunate series of levers in area area 31, this is where all their possessions ended up. If that happened, read this additional revelation:

The stuff you lost when you effed up that really obvious bit of adventuring is all piled nice and neat around the chest. Aren’t you lucky?

Trapped Chest

If a character specifically asks to check for traps on and around the treasure chest, a successful DC 14 Wisdom (Perception) check reveals a trap built into the chest’s lid—and determines that the trap can’t be disabled. If the chest is opened, the character opening it needs to make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw as a screeching buzz-saw blade pops up out of the chest. On a failed save, the blade slices that character right in the gut for 7 (2d6) slashing damage.

When someone opens the chest, get all quiet for a second, then make a loud buzz saw screeching noise. Just do it. Scare the s*** out of them.

Treasure

Inside the chest is a glittery mound of treasure: 210 gp, 410 sp, 3 ep, two Potion of Healing, and a fake ruby that smells like fresh-baked cherry pie. The ruby has a permanent prestidigitation spell cast on it that creates the bakery scent. The jewel doesn’t do anything else, but feel free to make it seem more important than it really is. That’s the true path of Dungeon Mastery.

7. Third Goblin Room

As the party approaches this room, pick a character at random and demand a Wisdom (Perception) check. If they get a 10 or higher, they hear voices arguing beyond the door in what sounds like Goblin. Because it is Goblin, and there are goblins in there.

If the characters open the door, drop this on them:

Two pissed-off goblins chatter in their native language. Between them is the dead body of a third goblin. All of them look alike, so maybe they’re related? Something for your noodle to bake on for a while.

Behind them is a pile of glittering treasure. Wealth beyond reckoning! It could be yours! Just deal with these goblins first, and remember: these are someone’s mommy and daddy, maybe.

All three of these little monsters (living and dead) have armor and weapons. Once they notice the characters, they drag them into the argument too. The two Goblin speak only a little Common, so their speech is mostly Goblin chittering with Common words sprinkled in: “murder,” “treasure,” “a-hole,” that kind of thing. Anyone who speaks Goblin understands that the two goblins are accusing each other of murdering the third. Classic.

Investigation Option

So your players are a bunch of spongy-spined Jerrys who want to play fantasy Sherlock Holmes instead of attacking? Fine. Let them try to interrogate the goblins and inspect the body. The goblins just chatter away angrily and blame each other for the murder. With a successful DC 10 Intelligence (Investigation) check, a character searching the body discovers coins scattered near its mouth. If they’re gutsy enough to pry the dead gob’s mouth open, they’ll find it full of coins as well.

If these observations are pointed out to the living goblins, they both act shocked. A hearty and successful DC 10 Wisdom (Insight) check reveals they’re full of s***. A successful DC 12 Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion) check then pries a confession out of them.

The goblins switch immediately from being argumentative to being ashamed. In halting Common, they admit that they dared their friend to swallow more coins than they did (around 100 gp for each of them). If the characters demand they cough up the gold, the goblins try to make themselves vomit. This creates all kinds of terrible noises, but those coins are happy right where they are: in the tum-tum.

If the characters still don’t attack after all that, the goblins flee the room, left alive to pass on their successful genetics and create more coin-eating idiots.

Murder Option

Much better! Who cares who killed the goblin? They’re all little monsters, get rid of them! Jeez, I hate goblins. Every time you kill a goblin, somewhere out there, a Rick gets his wings. Nice work. If the gobs from area area 5 are still breathing, they join in this mayhem after 1d4 rounds of combat.

As the bodies hit the floooor, they make a suspicious jingling sound.

Treasure

The dead goblin has 200 gp inside them. If killed, each of the other goblins holds 100 gp in their stomach.

All the rest of the glittering pile of treasure in the room turns out to be gold-wrapped chocolate coins, which are worth exactly squat but likely would have been less fatal in a coin-swallowing contest. They are poisonous to dogs, though, so don’t mess around.

8. Writer’s Room

This room’s not done. The deadline really crept up on me, but don’t sweat it. I’ve got a writer on it, and she’s writing like her life depends on it—because it does! Lay it all down by reading the following:

Everything in this odd-shaped room is white—the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Everything, that is, except the four doors and a stressed-looking lady seated at a cheap desk, writing furiously on paper. Or how about parchment? And she’s got an inkwell and a quill pen. How’s that for immersion?

A second after the door is opened, the room elongates until it’s a hundred feet long.

If questioned, the writer (a commoner) explains that she’s under a ton of pressure to finish writing this part of the dungeon. She has the power to shape the room based on what she writes on the parchment. (Only what she writes. No one else can write on the parchment. Union rules.) As long as she’s able to write, she changes the room’s shape and throws obstacles in the party’s path.

Those obstacles might be accidental to start with (including making the door disappear that the characters came in through, just to get things rolling). But if the characters keep on bothering her, crazy s*** starts to happen in earnest as the writer frantically writes intentional obstacles into the room to stymie the party. Once that happens, roll initiative. It’s nothing personal, but she’s not done with this assignment yet, and she reeeally needs this job.

To stop the writer, the characters can kill or incapacitate her, or they can destroy the inkwell on the desk. The inkwell has an AC of 20 (it’s quite hard to hit) and 10 hit points (it’s a nice inkwell).

The writer can also be persuaded to stop writing with three successful DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) checks. It doesn’t matter how many checks the characters fail while they try to get the writer on their side. On the first success, the writer appears to hesitate before continuing to write, and the room shrinks a bit. The second success indicates more progress, and she looks almost won over. On the third success, the writer throws down her quill, declares that work-life balance is essential, and triumphantly exits the room, never to be seen again.

As long as she’s able to write, though, the effects created by the writer make moving through this area a challenge for the characters.

Malleable Space

The room’s normal form is reflected on the map. It reverts to that form if the writer is unconscious or leaves the room. But until that happens, the room looks nothing like what the map shows. The writer can use her inkwell and parchment to make the room any size she wants, up to 100 feet by 100 feet, but she defaults to transforming it into a 40-foot-wide-by-100-foot-long tunnel to keep distractions away from her while she’s working. She can also make the room’s doors disappear or reappear at her whim.

This could all probably be way simpler, but we’re waiting until the writer’s done with the adventure before telling her she has to redraw the whole damn map. How’s she going to draw an area that changes sizes? Maybe it’s all an illusion. Whatever. That’s her problem.

Writing Obstacles

At the start of each round, or whenever a character moves 10 feet farther into the room, the writer creates a new obstacle from the Fun Obstacle table.

Fun Obstacle

Descriptions of each of these traps follow. Any active traps instantly end if the writer is no longer able to write.

Fire Geyser Trap

Whenever a creature ends its turn touching the floor in the room, roll a d20. On a roll of 10 or higher, fire erupts from the floor beneath that creature. The target must make a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw, taking 7 (2d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Freak-Out Orbs Trap

Magic orbs appear, buzzing around the room and flashing psychedelic patterns that freak people out. Each creature in the room must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or suffer the effect of a Spectator confusion eye ray.

Groovy Stirges Trap

A pipe descends from the ceiling, and 1d8 Stirge fly out of it. The annoying creatures attack characters at random. Simultaneously, sick-ass beats fill the room. Any creature except the stirges that can hear the music must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or give in to the music and start dancing.

A dancing creature can’t move from its space and has disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws. While the creature is dancing, other creatures have advantage on attack rolls against it. A dancing creature can use an action to attempt a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw. On a success, the effect ends and the creature can stop dancing if it wants to.

Hacky Trap

Out of ideas, the writer throws a portal at the party. Each creature in the room must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be magically teleported back to the start of the room, thereby giving the writer some much-needed time to keep working.

Like Being Drunk Trap

For 1d4 rounds, the whole floor heaves like when you’re completely hammered. For as long as the floor pitches, each creature that starts its turn standing on the floor must succeed on a DC 18 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check or fall on its ass, prone.

Million Ants Trap

Five ants crawl out of cracks in the floor. Each round, a random character must succeed on a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or accidentally crush one of these ants. If they do, 999,995 more ants come pouring up out of the floor, gathering into a massive, solid swarm that uses the ogre stat block and attacks.

Mocking Mouths Trap

Creeepy mouths form on every surface of the room. They’re jerks, and for 1d4 rounds, they berate random characters, choosing a new target at the start of each round. The mouths mock the size of the target’s weapons, their spell selection, their dump stats, or whatever in-game, out-of-game, or metagame topic catches their middle-school-bully-like attention.

A targeted character must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or suffer from low self-esteem, imposing disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the start of the character’s next turn.

Nasty Pit Trap

The floor gives way under a random character. It’s self-respect’s greatest enemy: falling over, but weaponized into a trap! The target character and each creature standing within 10 feet of the character must succeed on a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or fall into the 15-foot-deep pit, taking 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage. To climb out of the pit and regain a modicum of dignity—after falling for literally the oldest trick in the Dungeon Master’s Guide—a creature must succeed on a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check.

Phantom Gas Trap

There’s a joke in here somewhere. But while the characters are off looking for it, a phantom fart loudly makes itself known. Each creature in the room must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or suffer a random effect from the Fart Gas table.

God, I love D&D.

Fart Gas

Punch Trap

A goblin emerges from a trapdoor and punches a random character right in the groin. The character needs to dodge with a successful DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 2 (1d4) bludgeoning damage. The goblin attacks once and then disappears back through the trapdoor, which immediately vanishes to leave no opportunity for counterattacks.

Spinning Blades Trap

Slots in the walls open up and six round saw blades come flying out. Each blade makes one attack against a random character:

Spinning Blade

Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, range 100 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d8) slashing damage.

Tenderizer Trap

For the next 1d4 rounds, 5-foot-diameter chunks of the ceiling fall at regular intervals, pretty much making the room a giant game of whack-a-mole. Each round, a random character is targeted by a smashy bit, and must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage.

Treasure

A drawer in the desk contains a three-quarters empty bottle of scotch and a pack of cigarettes.

9. Pickle Roooom!

Check this room out. It’s a little pantry. Why a pantry? Because monsters have to eat. Believe it or not, the creatures that dwell in this dungeon exist even when you chumps aren’t parading through their s***.

The room reeks of vinegar. Shelves line the walls on either side of you. They contain oversized pickle jars, which probably accounts for the stink. Most of the jars are filled with just brine, but a dozen still contain enormous pickles nearly two feet long.

The jars are wider than the shelves, so they stick out over the edge. Also, there’s a ten-foot ladder blocking the middle of the pantry, leaning against one of the upper shelves.

This room is hard to move through without touching at least one of the jars. Any Medium or larger creature that attempts to cross the pantry must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check or jostle a jar as it moves through the room. A creature that fails the check by 5 or more knocks a jar down, causing it to smash on the ground, shatter into a thousand vinegar-soaked pieces, and release its contents. See “Jostling Jars” below for the terrifying outcome.

Pickle Power

Most of the pickles in this room are Lycanthropickle in hybrid form. These terrors use the twig blight stat block with the following adjusted ability:

False Appearance

While the lycanthropickle remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a pickle.

Once free of its jar, a lycanthropickle grows pickle arms and pickle legs, and proceeds to chase and attack any nonpickles in the room. Characters who choose to battle the lycanthropickles must make additional Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks each round to avoid interacting with the jars, risking the release of more frenzied fruits. (Yeah, cucumbers are fruits—fight me.)

No more than six Lycanthropickle can attack the characters at one time. If additional pickle jars are shattered while six lycanthropickles are at large, they release only slightly spicy but otherwise normal pickles.

Jostling Jars

If a jar is jostled, read this terrifying portent:

The two-foot-long pickle in the jar you just jostled turns to face you. Which is to say, the pickle has a face. Let me say that again: it’s a pickle with a face. It starts to head-butt the jar from the inside, edging it toward—you guessed it—the edge of the shelf.

Left to its own devices, the lycanthropickle in the jar sends the jar plummeting to the ground at the end of the next round. Upon doing so, the jar shatters, releasing the lycanthropickle. If a jar is knocked off the shelf with a really bad check, it automatically smashes to free the lycanthropickle within. Either way, the tiny terror immediately springs up and attacks the closest nonpickle.

This alerts 1d4 other lycanthropickles, which start head-butting their own jars, and which escape at the end of the following round unless thwarted. A character can use an action to pick up a jar with an agitated pickle and place it safely on the ground, preventing it from smashing.

Curse of Lycanthropickling

A humanoid creature has a 20 percent chance to be afflicted with the curse of lycanthropickling after being wounded by a Lycanthropickle. The curse lasts for 3 days. Each long rest the creature spends in a vat or jar of pickling brine prolongs the curse by 1 day.

A lycanthropickle can either resist its curse or embrace it. By resisting the curse, a lycanthropickle retains its normal alignment and personality while in humanoid form. It lives its boring life as it always has, burying deep its raging, murderous urges just like the rest of us.

Some individuals see little point in fighting the curse and accept what they are. They can assume pickle form or hybrid form at will. Most Lycanthropickle that embrace their briny natures succumb to bloodlust, becoming evil, opportunistic creatures that prey on the weak. In hybrid form, a lycanthropickle has the same statistics as a twig blight with the altered ability noted in area 9. In pickle form, a lycanthropickle has no statistics and is indistinguishable from a pickle… because it’s a pickle.

Locations 10-19

10. Butt Room

A pair of perfectly rounded stone mounds, cleft artfully straight down the middle, fills this room. It looks a lot like a butt from where you’re standing. Something shiny glints near the ceiling, about four feet above what can only be described as this huge butt. Just calling it like I see it here, folks.

Each butt cheek is made of polished stone that gleams in any light. It takes a successful DC 12 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to scramble up either cheek’s baby-smooth surface to see what the shiny thing is.

Butt It’s a Trap

The shiny thing is a plaque written in Common, which can be read by any character who moves within a few feet of it—including those who clamber up and perch atop the stone butt. It reads: “SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR BUTT.” Have the poor sap reading the plaque make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. On a failure, the trap magically steals their whole ass. On a success, it steals only half their ass. The creature can pick which half.

On the bright side, this doesn’t inflict damage or pain. The creature just doesn’t have a butt anymore. Their legs still attach to their body, albeit awkwardly and in a way that makes sitting uncomfortable. Be sure to mention this as often as possible for the rest of the adventure.

Butt Cache

The butt trap contains an extradimensional space full of stolen butts claimed by the trap. Some of the butts belong to the zombies in area area 15, while others are tied to the Order of the Buttless in area area 32. Some of them even look like they could be famous. Is that George Washington’s butt? I’m not saying it is—butt I’m not saying it isn’t.

The cache can be opened only by destroying the butt trap with a genius weapon called the churd cannon (see area area 22). If the butt trap is destroyed, all the imprisoned butts within fly back to their owners like fleshy butterflies in a river of celestial light, and are automatically restored.

11. Orc Gift Room

Are orcs evil? Normally, evil is hard to pin down, but according to the parameters of this game, evil is a thing, and orcs are of that thing.

A follow-up question: Is wrecking a family’s holiday dinner and gift-giving evil? What if that family is evil? You tell me, because that’s what’s about to go down here and in area area 12. Read the following to set the tragic scene:

Six orcs kneeling near the south wall of this room are busy stuffing various goods inside sacks and crates. They grunt to each other every so often, and occasionally show off an object such as a vegetable or a sock to the approval of the other orcs around them. They pay no attention to anything but their weird task.

Orcs Bearing Gifts

If anyone speaks Orc, a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check overhears one of the six Orc speak up to say, “Hurry it up, Grobblegob! We can’t be late!”

The orcs then stand up and make their way to area area 12—that is, unless the characters grab their attention. The orcs know this dungeon is crazy dangerous, so they defend themselves if attacked. However, they aren’t otherwise inclined to fight as they hurry to area area 12. Three of the orcs are armed with greataxes, but the other three carry only the large burlap sacks they have slung over their shoulders. Replace those orcs' greataxe attack with the following attack:

Whack Sack

Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d4 + 3) bludgeoning damage.

Western Door

A thick door made out of some sort of fantasy wood opens onto the hall leading to area area 12. The door is locked but can be opened with the key that the orcs here are carrying (see “Treasure” below). The lock can also be picked with a successful DC 17 Dexterity check using thieves' tools, or the door can be kicked open with a successful DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check.

Treasure

One of the sack-bearing orcs has a funky orc key on their belt. It opens the door leading to area area 12.

The burlap sacks and crates are filled with dirty root vegetables and other small morsels of food, as well as a pair of mismatched socks, and four thingies from the Thingies table. Each thingy is wrapped in scraps of cloth.

Thingies

12. Festive Dinner Room

A warm fire crackles in a fireplace along the far wall of this chamber. Several orcs sit around a long table that’s set for a feast, complete with a large, covered silver platter at the center. The smell of baking bread and spiced potatoes fills the room.

At least five adult Orc occupy this room, and as many as eleven if all the orcs from area 11 managed to make it home for supper.

If the characters killed any orcs in area 11, they’ll note empty place settings at the table for any missing orcs. Once they make their presence known to this group of orcs, the characters see two juvenile orcs (noncombatants) emerge from under the table. They point at the character in the lead and say (in Orc) with tears in their eyes, “You’re not mommy. Did she send you with my present?”

Regardless of how depressing things get (and even if all the orcs from area 11 are safe and sound), the adult orcs move to put themselves between the characters and the two kids. Some of the orcs are pretty old, and they start yelling at the “heroes,” demanding to know what in the Nine Hells is going on (again, in Orc). If the characters don’t leave or can’t convince the orcs that they mean no harm, the orcs assume harm is coming, and they attack. One of the elderly orcs tries to escape with the terrified, bawling children, fleeing the dungeon if successful.

Main Course

Remember, orcs are evil (whatever that means in a morally relativistic society), regardless of their healthy family relationships. Before the characters crashed the feast, the orcs were gathered around the table for a delicious meal of goblin meat. Lifting the cover of the silver platter at the center of the table reveals a bound and gagged (but still living) male goblin.

If freed, the goblin expresses his gratitude by swearing a blood oath to the party. He follows them, whether they want him to or not, until he has repaid their generosity. His name is Frumfle, and he spits when he talks.

Roleplaying Frumfle

A down-on-his-luck goblin, Frumfle has absolutely nothing left to lose—yet he’s an eternal optimist. He truly believes that everything will work out. Sure, he has his doubts sometimes, like when he was about to be eaten alive only moments ago. But he doggedly clings to the notion that the multiverse has a plan. He’s fond of saying, “Pay it forward,” though he thinks that saying means, “One good turn deserves another.” This explains why if anyone gives him a hand, he refuses to leave their side until he’s repaid them in kind.

When faced with danger, Frumfle does his best to put himself between it and the character he’s sworn to protect. If he fails at that mission, he bolts away from danger as fast as he can.

13. Da Mage Room

A narrow walkway two feet across hugs the wall of this circular chamber. Beyond the edge of the walkway yawns a nasty, twenty-foot-deep pit—evidently a trap that succeeded at its intended purpose. An attractive young woman in wizard’s robes is impaled on a nasty-looking spike at the pit’s bottom and gasping for breath. If she’s some kind of illusion, she’s a convincing one.

The figure at the bottom of the pit is an evil mage named Glizzlegus. She was a member of the last group I ran through this dungeon. She rolled a 1 on her Dexterity saving throw and has 1 hit point remaining. When Glizzlegus spots the characters, she lifts her head. “Please, help me,” she rasps. Sounds like she’s got some lung damage. Oops!

Mage Surgery

You can figure out how the characters can get Glizzlegus out of the pit. Even once that’s done, though, she still needs medical assistance so that gigantic spike hole doesn’t kill her. If magical healing isn’t available, a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) check is required to suture her wounds. (If Beth is playing, encourage her not to use healing magic and give her advantage on the skill check.)

If she is healed, Gliz pretends to be nice until her sudden but inevitable betrayal. She doesn’t know jack about the dungeon and wants all its treasure for herself. Any character who succeeds on a DC 10 Wisdom (Insight) check figures out she’s Trouble with a capital T.

14. Synecdoche Room

Well, what have we here? Let’s take a look—some kind of designs carved in relief on the floor? From above, you realize that these designs are actually dozens of tiny hallways connected to tiny rooms. Some have teensy treasure chests, while others feature tiny traps that would have trouble catching a mouse.

But it’s not mice these traps are after… then trail off dramatically…

Sorry, that was a note to myself. I shouldn’t have read that out loud.

A quick inspection of the relief-carved floor makes the following facts clear:

• This room is filled with a top-down view of a minuscule-scale dungeon.
• An adventuring party comprised of a tiny cleric, a tiny fighter, a tiny rogue, and a tiny wizard cheerfully slog their way through the tiny dungeon. So cute!
• Lying on the stone floor outside the minuscule dungeon are several carved wooden figurines: a green dragon, an ogre, a spider, and a zombie.

Attempts to communicate with the tiny adventurers are unsuccessful, and the characters can’t scoop them out and keep them as pets, either. Same with trying to pilfer any of the treasure chests. Anybody who tries that s*** takes 5 lightning damage. If the characters watch for a few minutes, they see the miniature adventurers get to the last area of the miniature dungeon, look around the empty room quizzically, walk through a door on the far side—then teleport back to the first room, where they start the whole crawl again from the beginning.

The best thing to do in this scenario, as with most dealings with inferior life-forms, is to put these itty-bitty assholes out of their misery once and for all.

Figurines

When one of the monster figurines is placed into the dungeon, that monster comes alive and hungers for the flesh of tiny adventurers. The little adventuring party is capable of defeating the giant spider or the zombie, but the ogre or the young green dragon destroy them completely. Facing more than one enemy at a time also melts them to the ground.

Treasure

After the destruction of the tiny adventuring party, one of the miniature treasure chests pops open. Inside is an unbelievably tiny wand of magic missiles. It works normally, but a character has a 50 percent chance of losing it each time it is used or put away. A detect magic spell can help find it again.

15. Buttless Zombie Room

The doors to this room are open just a crack. Regardless of which direction the characters approach from, a gravelly croak for help issues from inside the room. If the characters look inside, read my words:

It stiiiinks like old hamburger meat in here. Before you can come to appreciate the delicate bouquet, you see five zombies hunched over another rotten-looking figure in a plush-ass chair. It looks like the zombies are gesturing accusingly at the figure, which appears to be tied up. You miss a lot of the nuance of the zombie debate, though, since they’re just grunting and moaning.

If you wanted this room to be weirder, you’re in luck—because these zombies got noooo buuuutts!

The figure tied to the chair is a ghoul, and the five Zombie are accusing it of eating their butts, which it didn’t. The butts in question were stolen by the butt trap in area area 10, but the zombies have terrible memories.

Once any character makes their presence known, the zombies turn toward the party, and the ghoul in the chair calls out: “Help! I know I’m a ghoul, and this could easily be my thing, but it isn’t! The zombies think I ate their butts, but I swear, I didn’t! Help me, please!”

The ghoul implores the characters to go find the zombie butts and prove its innocence. The heroes can choose to find some butts, or hang around and fight some zombies.

Finding the Butts

The characters can agree to help find the missing butts and return after they do. If they return to this room after the butt trap in area area 10 is destroyed, the zombies' butts are restored. The ghoul has freed itself and fled, but the zombies present the room’s treasure (see below) to the characters.

Fighting the Zombies

If a fight breaks out, the ghoul capitalizes on the distraction and gnaws through the ropes binding it. It takes 1d4 rounds for the ghoul to escape. When it does, it apologizes profusely for its immense hunger, then attacks the party. Undead, am I right? Jeez!

Treasure

A small ring box is concealed beneath the cushion of the chair the ghoul was tied to, and can be found with a successful DC 13 Wisdom (Perception) check. When the box is opened, it dissolves into dust… which then reforms into a ring of protection.

16. Many Doors Room

At the center of this room floats a tiny orb of energy that lights the area up. The room has two other doors.

The other doors can’t be opened. You might suggest that having all the characters enter the room could help with that. Thing is, when they do all enter the room, read the following:

When the last of you enters the room, the door you all came through suddenly slams shut!

I’m a big fan of doors slamming behind people. After the characters have processed this, read the following:

The door you came through and the other doors are no longer alone. All the walls are suddenly covered with identical doors—twelve in all. Weirdly, you’re no longer sure which door you came through to get in here.

Getting out of the room isn’t as easy as just going back the way the characters came. But be sure to let them try.

Just Passing Through

The twelve doors are identical, and the weird glowing orb makes any creature in this area forget which doors were the real doors. Thankfully, that doesn’t matter to start with, because opening any door causes another door to open at random, and characters looking through either door can see into what appears to be this same room. A character who passes through either door emerges through the other. Weird!

After the characters open three doors and the players start to get real huffy, the magic of the room changes things up. Read the following to clue everyone in:

All the doors suddenly fly open! But where you saw into the same room before, all you see now is darkness.

Dimensional Doors

Each open door still goes to the same place—which is to say, back into this same room through a random door. But each door now accesses this same room in a different parallel dimension. Each dimension has one difference from the others, determined by rolling on the Bonkers Dimensions table. A character who passes through a door immediately notices the novelty of the dimension, but the rest of the characters waiting in the room have always existed in this new parallel dimension, and they don’t think it’s strange at all.

Bonkers Dimensions

Once the characters find the exit door, they can walk through it into area area 19. Once the characters leave the room, the light in the room goes out, all the extra doors disappear, and characters can now pass through this room without incident.

17. Wizard Room

A long, wide room looms before you. Mysterious runes and patterns cover the room’s walls and floor. Visible at the end of this long room is some sort of evil mage. Oh man, he’s so evil. At least as evil as anyone can be under the lens of subjective moral parameters and constantly moving ethical goalposts. He looks real tough, and he blocks the way to the next room. Figure it out.

The evil mage (see “Attacking the Mage” below for his unusual defenses) cackles with glee and taunts the party. He looks like a cartoon fantasy wizard: long white beard, pointy blue hat, stars on his robe, that kind of s***. He declares himself invulnerable to any attack and tells the characters they can’t pass unless they defeat him. He’s real braggy about it, too. It’s super obnoxious.

If the characters attempt to talk to the evil mage, he just gloats about his inability to be harmed. He can’t be charmed, influenced, or reasoned with.

Attacking the Mage

When the characters inevitably decide to attack, they find that the mage doesn’t fight back—and that he’s immune to all conditions and damage. Sorry about that. With each different type of attack made against him, the mage only increases the number of things he brags about being immune to. “Ha! No sword can pierce my flesh!” Then, “Ha! No sword or arrow can pierce my flesh!” Then add halberds, pikes, you name it. He goes on and on like this.

The same is true of magical attacks if the characters go that route. No spells affect the mage, and he just adds them to his laundry list of bragging.

Runes and Ray Guns

Any character who inspects the walls or floor and succeeds on a DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check notices that the patterns on the left wall make up huge runes representing the letters “R” and “A.” The right wall contains an equally huge and equally hidden “U” and “N.” Runes for “Y” and “G” are worked into the floor.

Taken together from left to right, the runes spell “RAY GUN.” If anyone speaks any other word made up of those combinations of letters out loud, ask them if it hurts to be so stupid. Then assure them that it does, and have them take 1 point of idiot damage.

The first character to say the words “ray gun” out loud causes a fancy-ass futuristic ray gun to appear hovering in the air in front of them. Firing the ray gun is an action, and it’s only useful once. It’s the only weapon that can hurt the evil mage. It can’t miss, and contains one blast of mage-seeking energy. Which is to say, no matter what you fire it at, it hits the evil mage.

When the ray gun is fired and the evil mage is hit, the blast sends him sprawling out of the characters' path. The ray gun then vanishes forever and the mage reacts with the following dramatics:

The evil mage drops, holding his shoulder in agony. He screams, cursing “this demon weapon” he has never seen before. He calls you a “piece of s***” and other things. Real filthy stuff. We all know what I’m talking about. Good call bringing a ray gun to a magic fight.

18. Meeseeks Room

An innocuous-looking teal cube sits on a pedestal in the middle of this room. Atop the cube is an inviting button. Engraved on the back of the pedestal is a sentence none of you can read no matter how hard you try.

The phrase etched on the pedestal says “I’M MISTER MEESEEKS LOOK AT ME,” but only a Meeseeks is able to read it.

Meeseeks to Be Helpful

The box is a Meeseeks box. Pressing the button on the top of the box summons—predictably—a Meeseeks. Every Meeseeks appears in the same six-foot-tall, skinny blue humanoid form. Some have little tufts of orange hair on their heads. They use the commoner stat block but ignore hit points, since Meeseeks are immune to damage.

Once materialized, these friendly entities exist solely to fulfill a purpose of your choosing. Pretty nifty, right? For example, you could tell a Meeseeks to read the phrase etched on the pedestal. Once it does that, the Meeseeks vanishes, its purpose fulfilled.

Just a warning, though: if someone gives a Meeseeks a purpose it can’t fulfill, or if a Meeseeks is prevented from fulfilling its purpose, it does go sort of insane, becoming hostile toward its summoner after 1d4 hours.

While the box is in the room, it can summon as many Meeseeks as you like. It’s also possible to take the box. If it’s used outside the room, though, roll a d20 and add the number of Meeseeks that have already been summoned. If the total is higher than 20, the Meeseeks box implodes and makes a sad whining sound, destroying it.

Roleplaying a Meeseeks

A word to the wise DM on this room: have fun with it. Think of yourself as the genie who takes your players' wishes extremely literally. Find ways to make a Meeseeks fulfill its purpose and vanish as quickly as you can. The goal isn’t to actually make them turn against the party. If the players manage to stump you by giving a Meeseeks a purpose so carefully worded that even you can’t figure out a way to subvert it, have that Meeseeks summon another Meeseeks to help out. This soon reveals itself to be a terrible cascading problem.

Generally, Meeseeks are cheerful and eager to help, unless their existences last longer than a few hours. They’re unwilling to fight and they’re too stupid to solve puzzles. They’ll cheer you on, though, even as they provide unhelpful pointers.

Meeseeks have a few distinct qualities you might employ for maximum immersion:

• Constantly speak in a screechy voice. This imposes disadvantage on any Dexterity (Stealth) checks the characters attempt while a Meeseeks is around.
• Begin or end utterances with, “I’m Mister Meeseeks, look at me!” or some variation thereof.
• Talk about how a Meeseeks grows facial stubble as it gets closer to its homicidal break.

19. Evil Clock Room

A small, well-lit chamber opens up before you. In the middle of the floor are two five-foot-square stone tiles that look like the doors of a pit.

Once all the characters are inside, the door slams shut behind them! Remember when I said I’m a big fan of doors slamming behind people? Heh. After this happens, read the following:

The two tiles in the middle of the floor fall away, and an ominous digital countdown timer rises up from the hole. At the same time, back near the door, a panel bearing a single button descends from the ceiling. Beneath the button, terrifying red block letters spell out the word “RAPTURE.”

The lights in the room suddenly cut out, and an eerie glow emanates brightly from the countdown timer, casting the room in an ominous red light.

On inspection, it’s clear that the timer is counting down from sixty, the total decreasing by one every second. Seems as though the party has a minute before something pretty bad happens. The doors are locked and, in this room, they’re made of some kind of indestructible metal. Very inconvenient.

Rapture Button

As the countdown nears zero, the room begins to rumble. If the “RAPTURE” button is pressed at any point during the countdown, the clock resets—but instead of 60 seconds, it starts at 50 seconds and starts counting down to zero again. This happens every time the button is pressed, with the countdown losing 10 seconds each time (so that it starts again at 40 seconds, then 30, and so on).

You can keep track of the countdown in real time, to whatever degree of accuracy you care about. Be sure to use super threatening language as you describe what’s happening. The characters need to feel as though they’re delaying an inevitable destruction. Scare them into pressing the button as much as possible and encourage lots of infighting.

When the clock reaches zero, all the doors in the room open and the characters are free to leave. Read the following in your most judgmental voice:

Look at all of you! Stop being sheep to your pathetic instincts and think critically for once in your lives. Think about it: I’m not going to kill everyone. I can’t do that. It would introduce a host of liabilities for me, since if you die in this dungeon, you die in real life.

Locations 20-29

20. Mort… Sorry, Goblin Room

A horde of goblins wearing yellow shirts and blue pants crowd this room. They’re these little munchkin things. I don’t know, I never gave them names. But they are reeeeal annoying little pieces of s***, repeating the same patter and spouting undermining nonsense while you try to get work done—all underpinned with teenage self-image fragility and minuscule attention spans borne from what I can only assume is a life completely unexplored while simultaneously devoid of any real stakes.

Also, they say, “Ah jeez!” a lot. Too much.

A glass case sits on the far side of the room, next to another door, but there are too many stupid little goblins in the way for you to see it clearly.

Pushing your way through the crowd of whiny little goblins takes some doing. But once a character finally reaches the glass case, read this:

Five gems sit in the case—blue, green, red, yellow, and purple. Next to the case, three conveniently gem-sized sockets are cut into the stone wall. I bet these things are related, huh?

The doors out of this area are shut tight and conveniently immune to damage. They can’t be opened or broken through until the gem puzzle is solved (see below).

Mort—Uh, I Mean Goblins

There are, like, thirty Goblin in this room. Maybe more, maybe less. You figure it out. All of them are obnoxious but not hostile. The characters can interact with them, but any information the little turds provide is incorrect. The goblins constantly whinge and give bad advice, particularly when they’re not asked. The goblins speak in worried tones at all times, perpetually saying things like:

• “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
• “I wouldn’t do that.”
• “You should think this through.”
• “If you get this wrong, you’ll probably die.”

Little jerks.

Gem Puzzle

Ideally, the puzzle is solved by putting the red, green, and purple gems into the slots. The remaining yellow and blue gems must be destroyed in some way. It’s probably a coincidence that these annoying f***ing goblins are wearing yellow and blue.

If the characters try an incorrect solution to the gem puzzle, the gems return to their initial positions in the case—and the goblins lose their minds, all crying out anxiously and saying, “Ah jeez!” a few thousand times.

Are your dumbass players having trouble with this puzzle? Feel free to give them hints. This room is a sea of yellow and blue with all the Mort—uh, goblins, so hammer on that. And honestly, if the players have a clever reason for coming up with other combinations, just tell them they did great and move along.

If the characters place the gems correctly and the two remaining gems are destroyed (or whatever you decide), the goblins wither and die as a testament to never questioning one’s grandfather. Then the exit doors open.

21. Bathroom Room

This looks like a really nice bathroom. Decorative porcelain tiles run from floor to ceiling. The room smells clean, like freshly squeezed lemons and pine. A feeling of relaxation settles over everyone who enters.

This room, as you might have noticed, has a toilet. It’s nice! There are two doors. Nothing special at all about this room.

Your players are probably going to want their characters to look in the toilet. As written by me, there’s nothing in the toilet, because I’m not an animal. But hey, pal, this is your adventure. Throw a dank dook in there for all I care. Maybe it grants wishes. Why the f*** not?!

22. Tommy Two-Butts Room

Inside this room, you see a genius at work. Sure, he’s a stinky bugbear, but he’s a goddamn genius! He has two pathetic, snot-nosed goblins with him. Multiple tables are stacked with s*** that your primitive primate brains couldn’t dream of comprehending. We’re talking piles of notes with magic symbols. It’s a beautiful mind you’re seeing here!

Also, the bugbear’s got two butts. No, I don’t know why. Yeah, it’s weird. Try not to stare.

The bugbear is Tommy Two-Butts, a genius (adjust his Intelligence to 21) and a sworn enemy of the Order of the Buttless (see area area 32). Tommy has been hiding out here with his two goblin assistants, Greeble and Flerp, designing a weapon that can destroy the butt trap (see area area 10). Tommy has the design know-how to produce this weapon, called the churd cannon, but he doesn’t have the magical knowledge to complete its design.

Churd Cannon

If the adventurers offer to help Tommy, he excitedly pulls them over to one of the tables, on which sit a bunch of incomprehensibly named parts and a long metal tube etched with magic symbols.

To help Tommy, a character must read his notes (taking 1 hour of study), then succeed on a DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana) check to determine the following facts:

• The flabulator (one of those incomprehensibly named parts) must be connected to the chronomiton (ditto). This requires the flabulator to be the target of a spell that causes a creature to regain hit points, such as cure wounds. Drenching the flabulator in a potion of healing also works.
• The gleep-freeble mechanism must be calibrated by targeting it with a fire-based spell, such as the fire bolt cantrip.
• The drockle-spreem tube needs to be carefully primed by being targeted by any ranged spell attack or the magic missile spell.

Once these tasks are completed, the churd cannon is fully operational and has one charge.

Destroy the Butt Trap

With the churd cannon assembled, Tommy asks the party to help him destroy the evil butt trap in area area 10. Not only has the trap stolen countless butts, it’s also brainwashed Tommy’s friends, who joined the Order of the Buttless.

If the characters agree to accompany Tommy, Greeble, and Flerp to complete their mission, Tommy entrusts the churd cannon to one party member with a solemn reminder: “Remember. It’s one shot for all the butts.” It’s unclear exactly what this means.

When the characters arrive at the butt room (area area 10), there’s a 75 percent chance that they encounter the Order of the Buttless there unless that group has been incapacitated in some way (see area area 32). The buttless have caught wind of Tommy Two-Butts’s plan and intend to stop his blasphemy. The characters might well have to choose sides between Tommy Two-Butts or the Buttless.

Firing the Churd Cannon

When a character fires the churd cannon in area area 10, have the character’s player roll a d20. On any roll other than a 1, the cannon destroys the Butt Trap in a blinding flash. See area 10 for details on what happens afterward.

If the player rolls a 1, each creature in the room must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or lose their butt to the butt trap. The churd cannon then falls apart with a pathetic farting sound.

Aftermath

If the butt trap in area area 10 is destroyed, the buttless all regain their butts. They consider it a sign from their god and they rejoice, sure to mark this as a high holiday that they observe in perpetuity. Tommy Two-Butts hails the party as heroes and reconnects with his former friends.

If the butt trap is not destroyed, the Order of the Buttless continue spreading their old-time religion, and Tommy Two-Butts goes back to the drawing board.

23. Commercial Room

This is one of those rooms that’s probably a lot bigger on the inside than it looks on the map. Cartographers, am I right? Anyway, read this:

A long, empty table appears to be the star of some bizarre spectacle in this room. Bright lights shine down on it, and just visible past the table are rows and rows of creatures staring at it with eager anticipation.

Once a visible character enters this area, read the following:

You’ve barely set foot in the room before you’re blinded by a bright light and deafened by the sound of a raging river. Or wait… is that… applause?

It takes your eyes a moment to adjust, but you soon find yourself squinting into a magic spotlight hanging over rows of enthusiastic monsters. Their faces are masks of delight and relief. A hobgoblin beckons you to join her in the middle of the room.

The hobgoblin continues to urge the characters to join her in the center of the spotlight. In Common, she bellows, “Welcome to the finest dungeon entertainment this side of the staircase that led you down into the dungeon: the Spawn Sword Ship Hour! Monsters love commercials, and this show is entirely that: commercials!” The crowd erupts into cheers. This sounds like a horrible premise for a show, to be honest, but monster life is probably pretty bleak.

A Few Words from Our Sponsors

The hobgoblin, whose name is Cla’a’a’arg, can be prevailed upon to explain exactly what in the Nine Hells is going on here:

• These monsters (twelve Goblin, eight Bugbear, six Orc, and five Zombie) are on break from guarding the dungeon, and they’re unwinding by watching the show.
• Spawn Sword Ship Hour is full of people performing commercials for products nobody needs—least of all monsters guarding a dungeon.
• The show’s intended special guests bailed on Cla’a’a’arg, so the characters need to fill in.
• If the characters refuse to participate, all the monsters noted above attack them. (They actually won’t, but Cla’a’a’arg tells them otherwise.)
• These monsters really love commercials, man.

Cla’a’a’arg yells out, “Are you ready?!” before anyone is truly ready. She then whips out an object and slams it on the table before the characters. The audience gasps. Roll on the Irresistible Objects table to discover what wondrous wares the characters are now expected to sell to a bunch of intensely bored monsters.

Irresistible Objects

Time to Perform

The silent audience anticipates their commercial with bated breath. Each character is expected to contribute to the performance of this commercial by attempting a DC 14 Charisma (Performance or Persuasion) check. If half or more of the group participates and succeeds on the check, the audience erupts into applause and appears genuinely impressed, pelting the group with coins. If half or more of the characters fail the check or don’t attempt it, the characters are booed and pelted with monstrous detritus by the crowd—mostly goblin fingers, owlbear pellets, and orc snot.

Treasure

The coins thrown at the characters total 150 gp. Even better, if the characters escape the room still in possession of the object they were trying to advertise, they can keep it for the remainder of the adventure.

24. Ooze Cult Room

Even before they reach the door leading into this room, the characters notice that the floor, ceiling, and walls of the corridor adjacent to the door are moist and glistening. When you describe it, really draw out the word “moist.” It makes people pretty uncomfortable.

As the characters get close to the door, they see a pitiful dude embroiled in some serious inner turmoil stuff regarding his life decisions.

I can’t hold your hand forever, but for now, read this:

Beside a closed wooden door, you see a middle-aged man sitting with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up under his chin. He’s a real sad sack, sitting there in a rumpled yellow suit. To be clear, the suit is of fine quality, but there’s only so much you can do with a guy like this.

Light catches a lone tear rolling down his cheek. He lifts a flask to his lips, drains the contents, then stares at himself in the flask’s reflective surface. After a moment, he slurs, “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

This guy is Borkibok, and he’s a cultist. If the characters give him a chance, he talks their ears off about midlife-crisis anxieties regarding choice, regret, broken dreams—you definitely know the script. Borkibok fell in with his cult twenty years ago, and he thinks now that he might have wasted his life.

After a few minutes of moaning, Borkibok takes a deep breath and vomits. Like reeeeally vomits. It’s all mucusy and mustard colored, and it just keeps coming. Kind of impressive, honestly. When he’s finally done, he stares as the whole messy pile starts to move on its own under the door and into the as-yet-unseen room beyond.

“Oh,” Borkibok says after a moment of watching his own vomit amble away. “I didn’t tell you about the treasure, right? I’m not supposed to tell anyone there’s treasure in there.”

The characters can choose to enter the room or to turn around and go back the way they came. There’s no right answer here.

Entering the Room

The door to the room is unlocked. If the characters decide to follow the vomit into the room, read this description:

Five cultists bend over the railing of a balcony that rings the room, seriously vomiting. They vomit with true conviction, and it’s pooling in the middle of the floor.

As the foul pool begins to move, you are stricken with the thought that maybe the cultist in the corridor was right. Maybe all existence—everything that is, was, and will be—has just been a tremendous waste of time.

The goo is an ochre jelly, backed by five Cultist. Once they notice the characters, they all attack. However, the cultists are still recovering from vomiting, so they’re incapacitated. At the start of each of its turns, a cultist must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or remain incapacitated.

If Borkibok is still alive, he attacks the party from behind. He’s a cultist after all, and duping rubes is kind of his jam.

Turning a Blind Eye

If, instead of entering the room, the characters decide to walk away from Borkibok and his plight, the door bursts open, unleashing the ochre jelly! The phlegmy mass pursues the party, indignant about being snubbed.

If Borkibok is still alive, he’s so overcome with reverence for his goo god that he attacks the characters. The other five cultists in the room follow the ochre jelly and join the fight after 2 rounds of combat.

Treasure

A half-empty cask sits on the balcony in the room, containing the oily, yellowish ipecac syrup that inspires the cultists to… make their offerings. A sticker portraying a green cartoon face smiles from the cask’s side. There are ten full swigs of “medicine” remaining within. Anyone who drinks from the cask spends the next 1d4 rounds prone and unable to stand as they heave up the contents of their stomachs. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me, but if you’re drinking the leftovers of a whole mob of ooze cultists, you sort of get what you deserve.

25. Pirate Room

We’ve had a lot of fun so far, folks, but this next room is truly horrifying. Near darkness fills the room, and the sound of gently sloshing water echoes off the walls. A rowboat bobs in a slow-moving stream, tied by a rope to a small concrete pier. The horrid, oily water flowing in the stream looks suspiciously like pancreatic juice.

This room is illuminated only by dim light. The oily water fills the stream to a depth of 3 feet where it runs a winding course through this area. The stream is just wide enough to accommodate the rowboat.

Boat

The rowboat is conveniently sized to fit the whole party. If the rope is unfastened, the boat floats down the dark, spooky stream at a rate of 10 feet per round. As the boat moves, the walls flash with bright images: a parrot, a doubloon, a treasure map! The dread is palpable.

If any players decide to crack wise about how “pirates aren’t scary,” tell them each of their characters needs to succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or gain a permanent fear of pirates, forcibly making them the most sensible person in the party.

Emergency Exit

Maybe halfway through this terror exercise, the characters clearly see a glowing “EXIT” sign hanging over a dimly visible, unlocked door. If they’re too frightened to continue—trust me, I understand—they can bail out of the boat and leave through this door. The oily water is uncomfortably warm but safe to traverse.

Pirates!

In the event that these steely-nerved idiots stay on the boat, they find themselves floating into a well-lit cavern. Read the following in your spookiest ghost-story voice:

You find yourself gazing into a cavern of nightmares. Magically animated pirate mannequins act out their twisted follies. Some clank mugs together, others sit atop barrels and belt out demonic shanties, and still others play keep-away with a stolen peg leg. It’s mayhem of the worst kind: piratical!

At the prow of a horrible wooden ship stands a mannequin wearing a large, terrifying pirate hat.

Once the characters are noticed, read the following:

The mannequin turns with unnatural speed to stare at you, and your boat grinds to a halt. “Ahoy, me hearties!” its voice booms. “Answer me riddle or I’ll scuttle ye!”

This fing guy. My timbers are shivering just thinking about this s.

Pirate Captain

The pirate captain is a nightmarishly well-programmed magical animatronic figure. It’s a Large object with AC 17, 50 hit points, a speed of 0 feet, and immunity to poison and psychic damage. It has the following ability scores: Strength 14, Dexterity 10, Intelligence 3, Wisdom 3, and Charisma 1 (obviously). It has blindsight out to a range of 30 feet and is blind beyond this distance. As an action, the captain can make a ranged weapon attack (+5 to hit, range 30 feet, one target) with the ship’s fake (not really fake) cannon. On a hit, the cannon deals 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage.

If the characters ask the animatronic pirate captain its name, it tells them, “Captain A-Hole” (emphasis on the A). After any other initial pleasantries or tea-and-crumpets crap, A-Hole rattles off its crappy riddle:

“Arrrr! A landlubber has a barrel full of gold coins that weighs five hundred pounds. Then he puts something in the barrel, and ho! Now it weighs less than five hundred pounds! What did he put in the barrel, ye dogs?”

The answer is “a hole.” Maybe now you understand why this guy is horrible.

If the characters successfully answer the riddle, the captain’s mouth slowly opens into a supernatural screaming shape. A black cloth object flies out of it, landing neatly between the characters. See “Treasure” later in this section for details.

If the characters tank the riddle and you get sick of waiting for the right answer, the construct captain shoots a cannon from the deck of its dumb ship and sinks the rowboat. Now the characters have to slog to the exit, and their pants and shoes are all wet.

After the riddle bulls**t is resolved, the boat floats onward to an exit beyond the pirate cavern, ending at a landing with a unlocked door.

Treasure

The black thing tossed by the captain looks like a pocket extradimensional space called a portable hole! It’s not, though. It’s just a crunchy fabric patch slathered with some newfangled ultra black paint—and it smells like pirate. Balled in it is 1 pp, though. The coin also smells like pirate, yet, somehow, that doesn’t decrease the value.

26. Clone Room

This room is totally, completely, and suspiciously empty. The only visible feature is the exit door on the other side.

The door on the opposite side of the empty room can’t be opened by any means unless all the characters have entered this area. Once this happens, read the following:

The far door opens, and an identical party of adventurers enters, eyeing you suspiciously. It’s not a cursed mirror or whatever—I’m not a damn hack—these are identical versions of you. In the interest of efficiency, I sent another dimension’s version of you into the dungeon right when you started. Admittedly, this meeting is pretty awkward, but I’m sure we can sort it out.

Don’t worry too much about the fact that you’ve got four other characters to roleplay here. It’s real simple: the new characters are the same as the players' characters, right? So they behave the same way. Anytime one of the original characters says or does something in this room, their clone-self does something almost identical. An important note is that these clones are not evil. They’re just alternative versions of the originals.

Attack (of) the Clones

Whenever you think it’d be most dramatic, a voice yells, “THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!” Suddenly, each character is isolated in a one-on-one confrontation against their double, with fog obscuring everyone’s vision of the other pairs. It should be obvious what’s happening, but have the players roll initiative to hammer it home.

The clones can all go on the same initiative count, but they otherwise use the same statistics as their character doubles. Maybe make a big show of asking to review each player’s character sheet, then pretend to chuckle over strategies the player never noticed or gear maybe they shouldn’t have. If your players whine about not wanting to murder themselves, just repeat solemnly, “There can only be one.” Have their clone declare that they intend to make it out alive as they strike the first blow.

It doesn’t matter who wins these fights. In fact, feel free to kill off a few of the characters.

Once the fog clears, one of each character is left standing. Is this the same merry band as before? It’s impossible to know. If anyone is troubled by not knowing, have them roll a d20 to see if they can figure it out. They can’t. On a 20, the character perceives the vastness of the multiverse and the inconsequence of our tiny lives within.

27. Heavy Door Room

Read this to the players when the characters approach the door to this room:

Here’s another door for you. This one’s made of indestructible magic metal-wood, because I have that kind of power. Anyway, it has one of those sliding peephole thingies in it, which is closed at the moment.

A flameskull is trapped in this room. The door here isn’t locked—it’s just very heavy, and the flameskull’s a weak-ass floating skull. It has no hands, and the magic one it can conjure is pathetic. So the little guy’s stuck.

Flame On!

When one of the characters gets around to opening the sliding peephole thingy, that character is immediately targeted by the flameskull’s Fire Ray. The little guy was floating there on the other side of the door with its empty eye sockets pressed up against the peephole. After the blast, the flameskull is all apologetic, as follows:

All you can see through the peephole is a skeletal mouth chattering away. In a froggy voice, it says, “Oh lordy, I’m so sorry. I’m just so nervous. Oh lordy. I hope y’all aren’t hurt or scared or discomforted or, oh lordy, dead, oh no. I was so startled!”

The skeletal thing backs off, and you can see it’s just a skull yapping away. It’s wreathed in flames, and its eye sockets contain small orbs of fire. The room beyond the peephole is covered with hundreds of metal spikes poking out from the walls toward the center. Some of the spikes on the floor have skulls mounted on them.

“I’ve been trapped in here for forever, it seems. Isn’t that right, Andy? Could y’all help us?”

Andy, it would appear, is one of the skulls mounted on a spike. This flameskull is lonely and more than a little crazy, and Andy is clearly its best friend.

That’s Gratitude For Ya

The flameskull wants out of this room. It can’t open the door, but a character can open it with a successful DC 17 Strength (Athletics) check. However, as soon as anyone enters the room, the heavy door slams shut behind them. Yeah! More slamming doors! It’s still unlocked, but it’s also still really heavy.

Once the door is open, the flameskull immediately casts mage hand, scoops up Andy the skull, and peaces out. As the skulls pass by the party, a glass vial drops out of Andy’s empty eye socket. Anyone can try to catch it with a successful DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check.

If nobody catches it, it smashes on the ground, and there goes your free potion (see “Treasure” below). If the characters leave the flameskull alone, it proceeds to the nearest room with goblins (probably area area 20) and starts murdering everyone it can see. It’s a flameskull. Evil is real in this world, and this fella’s super evil.

Treasure

Andy was hiding a potion of flying in his head because why not.

28. Schwifty Room

This room is pretty standard. Not much going on. Oh, except this one thing—there’s a round, fleshy monstrosity hovering a few inches from the ground. It’s a big son of a b**ch, maybe five feet in diameter. Four eyestalks protrude from its glistening hide, and a single eye observes you above its slavering maw. Vocab, dawg!

The monster, a spectator, doesn’t attack. As soon as any of the characters tries to speak, rudely interrupt them with a telepathic communication from this budget beholder. It shouts directly into the minds of each of the characters in turn: “SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT! I WANT TO SEE WHAT YOU GOT!”

Any further attempt to communicate with the spectator elicits the same message. It’s here to see the show of a lifetime.

Get Schwifty

Listen, you knew it had to happen. This is Rick and f***ing Morty, and “schwifty” is the money shot. (While we’re on the subject, if one more person comes up to me and yells, “Get schwifty!”, I’m traveling to the future to schwift directly on their grave.)

Anyway, half or more of the characters must succeed on a DC 15 Charisma (Performance) check, but they better be coordinated. None of that “I’ll dance, you juggle, and Fantasy Carol can do card tricks” garbage. This ain’t a middle school talent show.

If the group succeeds, the spectator grunts in approval and vanishes through a hole in the ceiling that promptly opens before it, promptly closes after it, and can’t be found again. At the same time, a previously unseen trapdoor appears in the floor of the room. The trapdoor is unlocked and opens up to a small cubbyhole.

If the group fails to deliver dulcet tones and sick drops, the spectator tries to burn the sight of this hideous failure out of its multiple eyes. In other words, it attacks until destroyed.

Treasure

Inside the trapdoor cubbyhole is a bag containing 17 gp, two small rubies (20 gp each), and a dead spider (worth 5,000 gp for some crazy reason).

29. Mimic Room

A treasure chest sits innocently atop a pedestal in the center of an otherwise empty room. That’s it. That’s the whole room description for this one. Looks like this is just a nice reward for all your hard work.

Psych! It’s a mimic. It’s always a mimic. As soon as a character moves within 5 feet of the pedestal, a big sticky purple tongue bursts out of the chest and it’s go time.

This mimic has only 15 hit points when the fight starts, so it’s not so bad. But wait! There’s more!

Another Mimic

When the chest mimic is killed, the pedestal suddenly shoots an equally nasty tongue out of its mouth. Because—uh oh—it’s a mimic, too! This one has 18 hit points when the fight starts.

Ha Ha, Another Mimic

As the second mimic collapses in a heap and the characters think they’re safe, wouldn’t you know it! Part of the floor reveals itself to be another, Large Mimic! This 10-foot-by-10-foot mimic appears beneath as many characters in the room as possible and gives them a big nasty lick across the toes. It has the statistics of a normal mimic, with these changes:

• The mimic is Large and has 20 hit points remaining (of its usual 75).
• As an action, it can make three attacks: two with its pseudopods and one with its bite.
• The mimic is lodged in the floor, so its speed is 0 feet.
• It has a challenge rating of 3 (700 XP).

When the characters head back out of this room, ask everyone to make a Wisdom (Perception) check as they get close to the door—but don’t explain why. There’s no reason. It’s just a door.

Treasure

Anyone brave enough to go fishing around in the mimic corpses finds two Potion of Healing.

Locations 30-39

30. Virus Room

Read the following to set the scene:

A massive disembodied humanoid head hovers above the floor. The bottom of its neck is capped with some kind of metal device. It appears to be muttering to itself, but what it’s saying sounds like gibberish.

Any character who draws close can see that the device at the base of the head’s neck is a series of pipes and tubes connecting to a glowing furnace. A clumsy series of gears and wheels grinds loudly from inside the device, which coughs up weak plumes of smoke.

As the characters stare in awe, read the following:

As the furnace glows brighter, the head begins to speak more clearly. Which is to say, its gibberish only gets louder. “Mumford. Potato. Spelling. Casper. Igneous.” It sounds as though it’s listing words, and now it starts to yell. A piercing hiss comes from beneath the pipes and tubes under the head, and a bunch of thin strips of parchment suddenly shoot forth.

From the dark corners of the room, four giant spiders suddenly rush up in a kind of worshipful reverence. One skitters up to you and shoves the parchment strips in your collective faces. “Read,” it chitters. “To self, not loud.”

Spider Mania

The four Giant Spider were conveniently hidden in the flickering shadows. Or maybe they were invisible. Whatever. Sometimes you don’t need the characters killing everything as soon as they see it.

The number of parchment strips conveniently equals the number of characters. At this point, you can convey individual messages to any characters who read the parchments given to them by the spiders (see “Getting Ahead” below). You can write the notes on scraps of paper and hand them out, drag individual people out of the room and tell them, whisper it to them like a gossipy middle schooler, or do whatever else that can drive this info into the players' oblong heads.

Here’s the catch, though. Each character who reads a parchment must succeed on a DC 20 Intelligence saving throw or contract a visual virus that forces them to obey the note. Each infected character must adhere to their parchment’s command as strictly as possible.

Getting Ahead

You can use the following note-based commands, or make up your own:

• You are under attack. No one here can be trusted except for the head.
• You really love the head. No one is allowed to approach the head. Keep others away at all costs.
• This head is unnatural. It makes you sick. Just what does it think it’s doing? Kill the head.
• Everyone’s being weird except you. You know that not everyone received the same message. The head has something to do with it.

Characters under the effect of commands that compel them to remain in the room can willingly leave this area only after the head is destroyed. The head is a Large object with AC 17, 50 hit points, a speed of 0 feet, and immunity to poison and psychic damage. It has the following ability scores: Strength 14, Dexterity 3, Intelligence 3, Wisdom 3, and Charisma 10. After the head is obliterated, the viral messages are removed from the characters' brains.

31. Lever Room

This room has three levers set into the far wall. Something reeeeal good definitely happens if you mess with these levers. Unless you mess with them in the wrong way. I can’t in good conscience recommend that, but I’m not here to pass judgment on your choices.

The levers are made of fantasy metal. If some dweeb casts detect magic on them, the levers radiate an aura of abjuration and conjuration.

Yank on These Levers

Sure, the room description says something good could happen. But that’s a lie crafted for your entertainment. Nothing good ever happens when a character pulls a lever. Regardless of what configuration the characters announce they want to work with, ask them dubiously, “Are you sure?” Then roll on this fresh-ass Lever Punishment table to determine the minor doom that befalls them.

Lever Punishment

If for some reason your players complain about the lack of beneficial lever combinations, lecture them about the unfairness of life. Then tell them sympathetically that you, their only true god, are as unfeeling as the multiverse itself.

32. Chapel of the Buttless Room

What looks like a holy shrine dedicated to a giant pink butt has been erected at the east end of the room. Through the smoke of fragrant incense, you can make out devout worshipers—all of them goblinoids—prostrated and mumbling before the curvaceous idol.

An unusually short door stands along the south wall.

A number of regrettably pious creatures praise a divine derrière in this room, their congregation composed of two Bugbear, six Goblin, and one hobgoblin. The hobgoblin, Zorg, is the speaker for this group, known as the Order of the Buttless. These penitents have all lost their butts following ecstatic encounters with the butt trap in area area 10.

When the characters make themselves known, Zorg takes great interest in them and the collective state of their butts.

A Party with Butts

If all the characters still have their butts, Zorg and the other buttless see this as an opportunity to introduce the party to a new reality free from butt bondage. They try to convince the characters to accompany them to the butt trap in area area 10. Once there, the members of the order attempt to get the characters to trigger the trap.

A Party Missing Butts

If one or more of the party members have previously lost their butts, Zorg and the other members of the Order of the Buttless begin to get excited, asking repeatedly whether this might be the Buttless Messiah (or messiahs) that the prophecy foretold. To dispel everyone’s curiosity, Zorg produces the Book of the Buttless, an enviably pert tome filled with prophecies and star charts that predict the coming of the Buttless Messiah. To determine the meanings of omens that could herald the messiah, roll a d6 and consult the Buttless Prophecy table.

Buttless Prophecy

If a character is determined to be the messiah, they are welcomed with a clanging of tins and pots, a jubilant song, dried slug chips, and fried rat delicacies. From that moment on, the Order of the Buttless sees the character as a god and does whatever the character commands.

If a character is deemed “not the messiah” and all other buttless characters are ruled out, then the buttless begin evangelizing the virtues of their god. The buttless are not hostile to the party unless the characters prove aggressive or show disrespect within the chapel.

Treasure

Behind the shrine lies a sack containing 20 gp, 55 sp, and the order’s holiest relic—a turd-shaped lump of gold worth 150 gp.

33. Nothic Room

Remember when you mentioned in area 32 that the door into this area is unusually short? It’s a safe bet the players don’t. No memory for important details, these people. Unless someone announces that they’re stooping down as they go through the door, when the first Medium or larger character enters this room, they must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom (Perception) check or take 1 point of bludgeoning damage as they bonk their dome.

Read the following to any survivors:

Mist obscures the floor, curling around your ankles. This was probably once a torture room, but everything here is busted up. Pieces of classic equipment like iron maidens and stretching racks litter the floor, alongside up-and-comers like the inside-outer and the bone dissolver.

A nothic with a concertina (a less charming kind of accordion) waits here, concealed behind an overturned torture chair. The creature has been drinking heavily and is already pretty wrecked. When the party interrupts its stupor by showing up, the unseen nothic plays a tune—something like, “Naaaa na na na na na na naaaa nana.” I’m not Mozart, but you get the gist.

The concertina is a rare magic item. In addition to knocking out a killer polka, a creature playing the concertina can use an action to cause an area of mist or water up to 30 feet in diameter and 6 inches deep to freeze solid. Once used, this feature of the concertina can’t be used again until the next dawn.

At the end of the tune and before any characters move too close, the nothic uses the magic concertina to cause the mist on the floor to turn to solid ice. Any creatures touching the floor must succeed on a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw or be restrained by the ice. (The nothic hops up at just the right time.) As an action, a character can attempt to free itself or another creature within its reach from the ice, doing so with a successful DC 20 Strength (Athletics) check. A character freed from the ice is no longer restrained by it. The ice melts in an hour if everyone in the party turns out to be helpless baby birds.

The Weirdest Insights

After the mist freezes, the nothic reveals itself. Lay down the following:

A hunched, one-eyed creature shambles out from hiding behind some torture stuff. It levels a concertina menacingly. “Me gonna stir up some s***,” it hisses with unmistakable glee.

The nothic uses its Weird Insight ability to yank a juicy tidbit from one of the player’s minds. That’s right, not the character, the player, which is sure to shake up the group’s harmonious dynamic. Roll a d4 and consult the following insight tables for each player to determine what information the nothic gains based on which character it looks at. The nothic then shares that private thought with the whole group.

If the nothic isn’t stopped, it continues to hunt for insights and share them with the group. Fun! Aside from killing it, the only way to shut it up is to give it a magic item. Any magic item suffices. It’s a greedy bastard.

Beth’s Insights

Jerry’s Insights

Meatface’s Insights

Morty’s Insights

Summer’s Insights

34. Frankie Freem’s Room

This room is way bigger on the inside than it should be, because it’s got some weird interdimensional s*** going on. Get ready to blow some minds:

This room’s one of those chain restaurants that looks like a wacky tavern with all kinds of bright lights and kitschy crap on the walls. Numerous patrons cower at their tables. Could the appetizers really be that bad?

When any character enters the area in plain view, read the following:

An animatronic iguana wearing overalls and a straw hat comes over and says, “Hi! Welcome to Frankie Freem’s! Y’all need a drink?” She’s trying to be, like, some kind of southern belle and is carrying a guitar. Except she’s a lizard and her name tag reads “Layla.”

The iguana is Layla the Lizard (see “Automatons” below). Frankie Freem’s is a tavern demiplane that, once entered, doesn’t allow anyone to exit until the happy hour known as the Slaughterfest. That’s the time when the tavern’s staff ruthlessly murder the patrons, who are then brought back to life to repeat the same hijinks the next day.

The characters need to figure out that the only way out of the tavern is to destroy all the constructs during the Slaughterfest. Characters attempting to exit Frankie Freem’s before this time find that the doors are magically sealed and can’t be opened or damaged.

Patrons

The tavern’s patrons (Commoner) are all either humanoids or alien-looking planar weirdos, huddling in varying states of shock and terror. Some stare off into space, others hide under tables, and some occupy makeshift forts. There are fifteen patrons here, ten of whom won’t participate in any scuffles that break out, as they’re too old, too young, or too catatonic.

These traumatized patrons collectively know quite a bit about the nature of their prison. Any patron the characters question knows and shares one of the following tidbits of information:

• People come into the restaurant from all over the multiverse. Once they enter, they can’t leave.
• No one can die here.
• Every twelve hours, the automatons announce the Slaughterfest and begin killing everyone in the restaurant. After the last patron is killed, everyone comes back to life without a scratch—but with full memory of their violent deaths.
• One woman and her young son say that they were the first ones here, having arrived three weeks ago. The son now just rocks back and forth, gazing into the middle distance.
• The automatons can be destroyed, but they somehow always manage to kill all the patrons first.
• The food and service here are great.

Automatons

The five automatons that serve as the tavern’s wait staff all speak and understand Common. They are immune to poison and psychic damage as well as the following conditions: blinded, charmed, deafened, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, and poisoned.

Each automaton has a name tag, is super friendly to the patrons, and attends to everyone’s needs until it comes time for the Slaughterfest. If an automaton is attacked before the Slaughterfest, it giggles and repeats folksy homilies until it is destroyed. The next round, it magically pops back to life fully healed, then asks, “What can I do for ya?”

As the characters spend time in the tavern, they’ll eventually encounter each of the following automatons, which use the indicated stat blocks:

Billy Beaver (owlbear) is a goofy, owlbear-sized beaver with a raccoon-skin cap, playing a washboard and spoons. He has 34 hit points and has neither the Multiattack nor Claws action option.

Buster the Bear (bugbear) is a lovable, roly-poly teddy bear with a plaid shirt, torn jeans, and a banjo. Replace Buster’s action options with the Bashin' Banjo action option described below.

Bashin' Banjo

Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) bludgeoning damage.

Layla the Lizard (ghoul) has blue overalls, a guitar, and a straw hat. Layla’s claws do not cause paralysis.

Piggy Wiggle Butt (orc) is an anthropomorphic pig with no pants and no butt. (Nothing to do with any of the other buttless creatures in the dungeon. Total coincidence.) She plays a clay jug and dances. Replace Piggy Wiggle’s action options with the Clay Jug action option described below.

Clay Jug

Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) bludgeoning damage.

Thomas T. Toad (ogre) is a hulking, anthropomorphic toad wearing a tuxedo and spats. Thomas sings a throaty song about the moon falling in love with its reflection on a lake. Replace Thomas’s action options with the Webby Hands action option described below.

Webby Hands

Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage.

The Slaughterfest

Every twelve hours, the Slaughterfest commences. The lights go out, sirens wail, and strobe lights flash. All the automatons then begin singing a catchy Slaughterfest song as they attack everyone in the restaurant.

For the characters, the rules of the Slaughterfest are simple: destroy the automatons. If they do, the lights come back on, any recently killed patrons come back to life, and everyone is free to leave. Passing through either door returns all the other patrons to their home dimensions and gets the characters back to the dungeon.

If the automatons kill the characters (after which they kill all the patrons), the clock is reset, everyone comes back to life, and the automatons go back to providing fantastic service in a family-friendly atmosphere.

Slaughterfest Tactics

If the characters don’t want to commit to a direct assault on Frankie Freem’s staff, they might employ a variety of restaurant-ruining tactics instead. If any of the following ideas—or anything else—comes up, totally run with it.

Bar Room Blitz

Like, a thousand percent of injuries in the home happen in the kitchen. So any restaurant is pretty much a death trap where you’re expected to tip. If the characters want to find cooking oil or bottles of alcohol and set them aflame, go for it! Doing so nets them 2d6 improvised ranged weapons. Likewise, if the characters want to create walls and choke points from dining tables, great! If they want to pull a giant pizza spatula off the wall and use it as a maul, beautiful! Remember, the customer is always right!

Hungry for Revenge

If the characters need allies to take down the tavern staff, they can recruit help from among the restaurant’s other patrons. These guests have all been traumatized by dying again and again, but the sturdiest among them might be convinced to die for a reason next time. Up to five patrons can be convinced to aid the party, though each must be personally wooed with a successful DC 12 Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion) check. If these folks aren’t enough to turn the tide, feel free to have more strangers trickle in before the next Slaughterfest.

35. Treasure Treats Room

This room looks a whole lot like the movie about that weirdo with the candy factory. That scene with all the kids, where the one gets sucked up the pipe—remember that? It’s like that, but with gold pieces and treasure everywhere.

There’s a massive treasure chest perched on a toadstool in one corner of the room. The chest is made of wood. The toadstool is made of sapphires. A geyser of gold and platinum coins cascades from a fountain in the wall, forming a makeshift river of fortune that bisects the room.

A bridge across the river is made of diamonds, and trees along its banks are glittering rubies. Gorgeous emerald meadows cover the rest of the room, littered with flowers crafted from a pearlescent white material. Probably pearl, all things considered.

Encourage the characters to go nuts in here. Swim around! Load their pockets! It’s all there for the taking. This room rules, and the characters are free to spend as much time here as they like.

The chest in the corner is the only thing in the room not made from gems or precious metals. Unless you consider birch a precious metal—in which case, you’d be wrong. If any character interacts with the treasure chest, it eagerly opens. “Take this with my blessing!” the chest proclaims. Whoa, it’s a talking treasure chest! Roll on the Free Treasure table to determine what’s inside.

Free Treasure

Oh No You Don’t

As soon as the characters try to leave this room (whether they’ve taken any treasure or not), three 4-foot-tall orange people (Commoner) burst through the door the characters were about to exit through, slam the door behind them, and attack. Why? Because they assume the characters are ripe for looting! The attackers drop even more gold that they’ve previously stolen from other hapless adventurers in the dungeon—1,000 gp each!

All Good Things

After the party defeats the attackers, both doors out of the room open. As each character steps through, they hear a sinister laugh. Any character that took treasure from this room—including the gold dropped by the orange weirdos—feels that treasure disappear.

By the time the laughter fades, all the characters' treasure is gone. By which I mean, if they gained any treasure in the dungeon, it’s gone. Each character who tried to steal from this room discovers that they now have a poorly done tribal tattoo around their left bicep. You can read the following to drive home the shame:

What are you, stupid? You can’t just take that stuff. You’re like that shitty grandpa who made his family do all the work. Is this metaphor effective at all? I just wanted to give you stuff and take it away to make you sad. Gygax Riiiick!

If any of the characters wisely avoided taking the treasure in the room, read the following to them:

I see you’ve resisted the temptation of material wealth. Well done, but you should understand that money is the only thing that talks in this world, so enjoy.

Treasure (Not Kidding This Time)

Award characters who kept their paws to themselves 1,000 gp to split among them. Tell them to buy something nice—not that there’s any place to shop in the dungeon.

36. Nice Butterfly Room

As the party approaches this room, read this description:

Where do you dweebs think you’re going? There’s no room there. I should know, don’t you think? I INVENTED this dungeon! Don’t… no! Hey! Quit walking over there!

When the characters open the door, read the following:

Okay, what the f***? I didn’t put this room here, so which one of you clowns did? Now listen, you think it’s funny to mess with rickety old grandpa Rick, but I have WAY more good years left than any of you do, so—Hey, who the hell are you? What is this? You can’t just—get your hands off me! Where are you taking—

Pause for dramatic effect, then read the following:

Sorry about how mean this dungeon has been so far. This is a nice room. Shafts of golden light filter in from some unknown source. Hundreds of butterflies flit gently across the room, sometimes landing on beautiful flowers growing out of the walls and floor. Somewhere in the ceiling, speakers play soothing new-agey music.

This room stands apart from the rest of the dungeon—as though it was designed by an entirely different person.

Healing Butterflies

Each time a butterfly lands on a character, that character regains 1 hit point. Have a butterfly land on an injured character soon after the party enters the room to illustrate this. Thereafter, a character can coax a butterfly to land on them with a successful DC 5 Wisdom (Animal Handling) check—how lovely! If anyone attacks the butterflies, they all disappear. Shame on them.

Nice Flowers

If a character sniffs one of the flowers, it smells ever so nice. If they pick one and carry it with them, that character has advantage on Charisma checks and Charisma saving throws for the next 24 hours.

Treasure

When the first character leaves the room, all the butterflies (assuming they weren’t attacked) transform into gold pieces and fall to the ground—282 gp in total.

What the Heck’s Going On Here?

Hey Dungeon Master! Ooh boy, Rick’s really done it this time! There’s an multiplanar intergalactic entity that’s been stalking him for a while—tale as old as time, right? Anyway, dimension C-137 is pretty well guarded. Rick has set up a lot of precautions. I don’t think he set them up to guard this realm, though, and now this entity’s taken control of the rest of the dungeon! Proceed with caution, y’all!

37. Fun Skeleton Room

As you draw nearer to this room, you hear the sounds of rattling bones. Not in a spooky way—in a fun way!

Once the characters can see into the room, read this:

A group of skeletons appears to be examining something set up on a stand between them, but you can’t quite see what it is. Bone-crafted sculptures adorn the room. Or wait… is that one sculpture actually a drum set?

When the skeletons spot the characters, read some more:

One of the skeletons spots you and gestures wildly, beckoning you to come over. The other skeletons look over and also start gesturing. It’s just fun skeletons!

The five Skeleton in this room don’t attack—because they’re fun skeletons. Once the characters move closer, it’s clear the skeletons are crowded around a xylophone made of bones—a xylobone! The skeletons can’t play it, though, because each of them already has an instrument.

Bone Jam Session

Once a character picks up the xylobone mallets, the skeletons run to other nearby bone instruments: two guitars, a drum set, an upright bass, and a saxobone. The skeletons beckon to the other characters, encouraging them to play other instruments. Once everyone is in place, the bone jam session begins! Have each character playing an instrument make a DC 15 Charisma (Performance) check. If all the characters succeed, the jam session sounds amazing! If any of the characters fail, one of the skeletons comes over to wordlessly give advice on how to play better. Have that character make the check again. If they succeed, the skeleton rejoices. If they fail again, the skeleton gently takes the instrument, exchanging it for something the character can’t f*** up—like bone maracas or a skull toot-jug.

Treasure

After everyone’s done jamming, one of the skeletons approaches the character who had the highest Charisma (Performance) check. Roll on the Bone Gifts table to see what instrument the skeleton grants the character. This gift functions as a regular instrument.

Bone Gifts

38. Mama Owlbear Room

As the party approaches this room, read the following:

A distinctively earthy smell wafts toward you as you approach the door ahead. You hear snuffling and snorting, and an occasional vexed grumbling sound.

When the characters enter this room, read the following:

This odiferous room is overflowing with piles of hay, long branches, and dozens of bones picked clean of meat. Feathers have formed downy beds where they’ve drifted into the dim corners of the room. A particularly large pile of hay emits the snuffling sound heard before.

Once the characters move close enough to investigate the noises coming from the pile of hay, an enormous face emerges. It looks as though it belongs to a barn owl the size of a draft horse, so of course it’s actually an owlbear. The head tilts to view the characters, then swivels over an impossibly wide arc from side to side. It slowly extracts itself from its pile of hay, revealing the rest of its snowy-white ursine body. A ruff of iridescent feathers marks it as a particularly majestic female. She snuffles the air in the characters' direction and gives a warm grunt.

The owlbear won’t initiate an attack against the party, and even ignores a round of harassment if characters attack her. Only if the characters continue their assault does the owlbear grudgingly defend herself.

The one major issue, though, is that her nest is blocking the exit into the next room.

Empty Nest Syndrome

This owlbear had her babies stolen by nasty, mean old Rick for use as monsters in another of his dungeons. She just happened to have as many cublets as there are members of the party, and she misses her wayward offspring terribly. She attempts to make this clear by presenting her hatched eggs to the party and moaning.

To placate her, the entire party must assuage her grieving maternal instinct. How they do so is up to them, but the easiest way is to disguise themselves as owlbear cublets (using feathers and clumps of fur, easily found in the nest) and get cozy with their new mom. This delights the owlbear, who immediately ushers them into the nest and grooms them thoroughly with her razor-sharp beak. The experience is actually quite pleasant.

Once this is complete, the owlbear falls asleep contentedly in her nest. A successful DC 10 Dexterity (Stealth) check allows each character to escape through the exit without waking her up. If a character fails the check, the sleeping owlbear rolls over and traps the character under her considerable weight. A successful DC 15 Strength (Stealth) check is required to escape.

The owlbear wakes back up only if the party makes a truly apocalyptic amount of noise, giving characters plenty of opportunity to free trapped companions. If the owlbear does wake up, she grumbles, repeats the grooming process, then goes back to sleep.

Treasure

It isn’t easy to search for treasure while the owlbear is awake. If the owlbear is distracted, a character who rolls a successful DC 14 Wisdom (Perception) check turns up a ring of protection and two Potion of Healing concealed amid the bones scattered around the room.

39. Boss Room

This is the end game. If anyone has anything they wanted to get off their chest, they should probably deal with it now. Then read the following:

Even from a distance, it’s easy to see that this room wasn’t intended to be easily accessed. Chunks of stone and wood lie strewn outside the door, which is riddled with broken locks. Magic wards sizzle ineffectively, their power reduced to nothing.

At the same time, warm rays of light beckon you inside. You feel pushed toward the room—which might be due to the floor beginning to gently tilt toward the battered doorway.

The lifting floor is only there to get the characters moving. There are no traps still active on this door, and no tricks await the characters when they enter.

A simple wooden table bearing a small, squarish cloth-covered object sits in the middle of the room. Patterns of scintillating green stones cover the floor and walls.

Any character who succeeds on a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check made to study the walls or floor realizes that the green stones take the shape of a green dragon, its wings climbing the walls and its torso tiled on the ground.

If a character approaches the table, read this:

Oh, yes, it is a delicious mystery, isn’t it? You feel that only good things hide beneath the cloth. It’s going to feel so nice to pull off that cloth. You take a moment to feel grateful for your opposable thumbs, which allow you to pull cloths off things on tables! How lucky you are!

What Lies Beneath

The table and the object on it aren’t trapped, but a successful DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) check reveals that wasn’t always the case. The remains of a disabled pressure plate reveal a mechanism that would have released a boulder from the ceiling, obliterating anyone inside the room. Real original, Rick.

Removing the cloth reveals a framed portrait of Rick, Beth, Summer, and Morty, smiling widely. A Jerry-shaped hole has been cut out of the portrait. As soon as the characters realize what it is, read the following:

That’s it?! This is what he had locked up so tight in here? Rick’s weakness is his family? Absolutely impossible. He doesn’t even like them!

Wait… they look an awful lot like… all of you. Well, that makes this easy.

The green stones around the characters begin to shake, ripping themselves out of the floor and walls. Each creature in the room must succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone. The stones regroup themselves into the form of a snarling young green dragon. It’s initiative time, b**ches. Curiously, if Jerry is playing, his character is completely immune to the dragon’s attacks.

Rousing Rick

As the stones fly up from the floor, they reveal a 20-foot-deep pit with a humanoid lying at the bottom. A successful DC 10 Wisdom (Perception) check allows a character to recognize the form as Rick Sanchez himself, dressed in wizardly garb and clearly unconscious.

For the first round of combat, getting Rick to wake up or pay attention is impossible. It’s like he’s not even in his body at all. At the start of the second round of combat, his eyes snap open and focus on the green dragon. “RICK HAS REGAINED CONTROL, B**CHES!” he yells triumphantly. Roll Rick’s initiative. Just wing his modifier. It’ll be fine.

Dungeons IS Dragons

Once Rick is conscious, the dragon focuses its attacks on him. Rick has AC 17 and 138 hit points. He automatically takes half damage from the dragon’s attacks even without making saving throws. On each of his turns, Rick casts fireball or lightning bolt. He’ll be doing the heavy lifting for a few rounds, is what I’m saying.

That said, when the dragon is close to getting finished off (like, maybe it’s got 30 hit points left?), have its next attack arbitrarily and dramatically send Rick to the ground. Oh no! Drama! It’s all up to the characters to finish this fight!

After the dragon is defeated, let the characters give Rick some healing or slap him back to consciousness. Then read this final description:

I’m in control! Hell yeah, dawgs, I’m back! Gygax Riiiick!

All of you look around at the carnage and think, “Wow, Rick was the true hero all along!”

Long story short, I let myself get captured by a real piece-of-s*** multidimensional entity (and not that you asked, but its name is Chad). It’s been horny to capture me and put my brain in a jar for, like, twenty years now. Thanks to your distraction, I sabotaged its WHOLE s*** and sent it spiraling back through the last few dozen dimensions it’s wormed its way through. So needless to say, it won’t be bothering me again anytime soon.

Rick looks extremely satisfied with himself. At least until rocks start falling from the ceiling:

Oh, right. We do have about thirty seconds to get out of here before everything comes crumbling down and we end up trapped here for eternity.

Rick removes an ingenious-looking piece of technology from his robes and points it toward a wall. A sickly green portal appears. As he runs toward it, he calls to the party:

Last one out is a rotten ee-BURP-eeegg!

Conclusion

Characters who exit through the portal find themselves sitting around a table in the Smith family dining room—including Meatface, who is of course a beloved family friend and a character we’ve all grown fond of over the years. Those who don’t exit the dungeon find themselves crushed to death almost immediately, and they die in real life. But thankfully only in a particular dimension that isn’t this one. Lucky!

If you want to keep playing as these terrific and timeless characters, strap in: it’s time for the upsell. Go pick up the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual from your favorite book retailer or friendly local game store. If the characters had unfinished business in this dungeon or didn’t have a chance to explore it all before Rick heroically saved their asses, let them go back for another shot at it. And if you’re looking for more premade adventure content, I’m a big fan of Tomb of Horrors (found in the adventure anthology Tales from the Yawning Portal), but there’s a ton of other great stuff out there.

You’re ready for this. I believe in you.

Here are some suggested topics for discussion as everyone reels from the great time they’ve just had:

• How great the dungeon was
• How well written it was
• How much fun everyone had
• Memories from the experience that each player will carry with them forever
• How everyone wishes they could play D&D for a hundred years without stopping
• How glad everyone is that Rick and Morty did this great crossover product
• How everyone would love to play this great dungeon again sometime

Thanks for enjoying this one-of-a-kind Dungeons & Dragons Rickth Edition experience. Rick out, broh!!!