Previous posts in this series on my Dungeon23 project, the Great Cuttle: Introductory Post | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3

Into the Odd Resources for the Rainy City: Rainy City Starter Package Table | Rainy City Arcanum Table (coming soon)

This week’s section of the Great Cuttle megadungeon started off as a brief note I made back in 2019 when I first prepped the Cuttle for the one shot we were playing. It simply said: “The Sunken Maze: Crazed Rainy City Pirate, stuck down here, driven mad w/ fear.” I’m pretty sure they never made it to the Sunken Maze during that one shot, so that area remained as nebulous and unprepped as everything else…until now!

(As always, the notes below are largely transcribed, except where an error was too egregious for me to ignore; this week in particular there’s a lot of clunky description I will want to polish later, but for now it’s fine.)

The Sunken Maze (Zone: The Wake Fields; Dungeon Level: 1)

General Details

• Sticky, wet moss all over, seeming to be what’s holding the shape of the area, glows softly
• Water drips and runs everywhere here, a strong sense it could collapse at any moment
• Area feels constructed, but poorly and with a tinge of madness
• Area smells weirdly sweet – spending longer than 10 min in Maze requires a WIL save, on failure, lose 1d4 WIL
• Corridor floors jumbled and waterlogged, like walking on a raft floating on water
• Entering the water anywhere here will attract carnivorous sucker fish (d2 damage every round in water)

What Do You Hear? (d4)

1. Angry crying and screaming
2. A soliloquy about tea
3. Ranting about the “perfidious Gaunts!”
4. “I smell you, I smell you…”

Bestiary

• The Brill (aka Aquellus Brillitane)
  • An emaciated ghoul in tattered fancy dress, body covered in patches of sticky green moss that may or may not be growing out of him!
  • STR 12, DEX 14, WIL 10, HP 12
  • Driven to secure fresh meat and entertainment, not necessarily in that order all the time
  • Attacks with claws (d6), showing great ferocity. If anyone takes Critical Damage, they are paralyzed and bitten for d10 damage.
  • Talks to self constantly, unless he’s trying to hide from potential prey
  • Exiled from the city by his ghoul family, probably because of his failure to hold cutlery correctly, or other such aristocratic ghoul nonsense (ed. thanks, Rich!)

Where is the Brill?

• Make a Luck roll in every keyed area to see if the Brill is there

What’s the Brill’s Mood? (d4)

1. Pleasant and Inviting
2. Lonely and Pensive
3. Suspicious and Scared
4. Angry and Violent

1.8 – The Plaque

• ← Heads back to entrance
• → Continues into the maze
• A dirty & tarnished brass plaque has been mounted on the wreckage here
• A fresh bundle of sea urchins has been left in front
• Inscription says:
  • “Dedicated to the Marie Clare – May she bring luck to the fleet for all days”
• → Pool at end of corridor goes under wreckage to 1.9

1.9 – The Treasure

• ← Pool goes under wreckage, leading to 1.8
• ↓ Pool goes under wreckage, leads to corridor that eventually reaches 1.12
• → Partial piece of large rowboat in wall, creating an awning
  • Under awning, skeletal body in tattered uniform & locked chest (d20 in S, diamond ring [3S], fine silver dagger [2G])

1.10 – The Moss Baby

• A large lump of undulating moss fills the area, sticky to the touch, coos softly if touched or climbed over, but otherwise harmless
• Clearly the source of the moss holding the maze together
• Moss baby extends down into the water (through the floor); this may only be a small part of the creature

1.11 – The Bone Gallery

• → Way out, leading back to 1.12
• A dozen corpses (bones only) are affixed to the walls in these dead end corridors (notable: fin folk, gull, a larva husk, winged serpent)
• ↑ Strange glowing frog idol at end of corridor; approach within 10ft triggers a fleshy tongue to lash out, DEX save or be dragged to idol & take d8 energy drain until freed or make a STR save (per round)
• Chest behind idol: 2G & 1 Arcanum

1.12 – The Brill’s Nook

• This is the private nook of the Brill (formerly Aquellus Brillitane, a ghoul of the City trapped here, or more like exiled)
• → Pool allows the Brill to catch sucker fish & escape quickly if threatened
• Chest, locked: oyster shells taken from The Wrap, 45S, & deed to rowhouse in the Mids (Smallsides)

1.13 – The Dead End

• → Pool under wreckage leads to 1.14

1.14 – The Way Out

• If the PCs have not encountered the Brill, then he will be here, desperate for them not to leave
• If asked, can warn about the Ostreogolem in The Wrap, will also complain about the “burrowers in the big boat” not being hospitable to him
• Knows of the fin folk town of BrokeShell, but doesn’t know how to get there

Next week (*sigh* this week), I plan to start tackling the “burrowers in the big boat” aka Seychell’s Arc, one of the larger area’s of Level 2.