Previous posts in this series on my Dungeon23 project, the Great Cuttle: Introductory Post | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4

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

For the start of February and what’s essentially level two of the Great Cuttle, I wanted to shift gears a little into a settlement of what I’ve been calling “burrowers” in my notes. These are basically folks who have been stuck on the cuttle and decided to just make the best of it. So here’s the burrower settlement known as Seychell’s Ark.

The ark itself is a massive ruin that’s nestled down in the lower reaches of the Wake Fields zone, with only the very top of the ship peeking out above water where the Lonely Hut is on the Introductory post map. Most of the ship is flooded and destroyed, but the front area of one deck and the middle area of two lower decks are still viable (it’s a fantasy world, let’s run with it, shall we?).

As always, this is mostly transcription, not polish, except where I didn’t have enough room in the Hobonichi Techo to make my intent clear.

Seychell’s Ark, Upper Hold (Zone: The Wake Fields; Dungeon Level: 2)

General Details

• Seashell fused pipes are threaded throughout the Upper Hold as a rudimentary air vent system (connected to the Mongrel Mush in the Chum Pit of 2.2)
• Water drips down constantly, but someone is always running around slapping slime or mucus into the cracks (in the Unseen, slime/mucus has a strange magical glow, as if it has been treated with magicks)
• Seychell’s right hand is Eunice Greentoes, a florens folk from another world, who has the bunk next to Seychell in 5 (specifically 5a); she designed the seashell pipe system

2.1 – The Lonely Hut

• ← Door into hut is locked & sealed w/ mucus that looks freshly replaced
• Was once an aviary for the Ark below; walls still have stalls and rusty cages & perches, no birds
• → Barrels of salted fish along the walls of the inner room
• → Murder holes in wall to shoot crossbows through (on table with bolts inside)
• → Doors (↑↓) barred from inside, open hatch in floor leads to 2a after a long shaft
  • Sides of shaft wet & slippery, lots of mucus and sticky glue to seal in doors to flooded parts of the ark
  • 15×15 foot shaft
  • Several seashell fused pipes thread down the other walls
  • Makeshift ladder built into wall of shaft & a knotted rope hangs nearby
  • Pulley system for moving heavy objects up & down
• Bored guard (Lars, STR 8, HP 4)

2.2 – The Market

• Vaulted center hold of the Ark, with support beams running the length on either side
• ← Flotsam wreckage blocking area off from flooded ship
• ↑ Corridor to 4 & 5
• ↓ Corridor to 6 & 7
• → Doors, never locked, to 3
• Marketplace w/ stalls & work areas all over (use chart below for special items on sale), lots of people always here (use other chart below)
• 2a leads to 1 above

2.3 – The Warren

• Formerly crew quarters, now basically a tenement for residents of the Ark
• Doors to the Warren not secure, although someone is usually sitting by them to say hi
• Corridors are usually busy, and many people leave their doors open; strangers are always greeted as potential community members
• Use charts below for people & treasures (coming soon)

2.4 – The Fishery

• Old animal stables converted into basins for farming the Mogg Fish, a rare fish from another world that’s quite delicate and tasty, a staple of the diet here
• Each stall has a low chain gate
• → Top left stall has salvaged barrels labeled “Gryter’s Stout”
• Caretaker: Arles Fries, is quite friendly, would love to get his hands on more moss from the Sunken Maze, the fish love it

2.5 – Seychell’s Bunk

• Seychell Andragosi understood the waters were coming, and built an Ark to save who and what he could…and when the Ark wrecked on the Great Cuttle, he worked to save the last survivors as well
• Seychell has lived for 175 years, sustained by the Doppel Gem he wears under his shirt (in the chest in his side room, locked, is the shriveled husk of his twin brother, Desroch, wearing the Ganger Gem)
• Desk contains personal papers
• Under bed, 1 Arcanum:
  • The Bat Whip, a riding crop/whip that when you crack it a crazed vampire bat appears (STR 6, DEX 8, HP 2, d4 bite) that attacks warmblooded creatures except for the wielder of the whip

2.6 – The Moot

• ← Door to 7, always barred from the outside
• Hole in floor leads to flooded deck below & eventually out to the water
• 1 Long table and 4 chairs, damp and moldy
• Room used for trade with fin folk or the occasional undine curious about the burrowers
• Bell hangs above pool, with string down into the water, for signaling an arrival

2.7 – The Cap

• Large double doors in floor, access shaft that leads down into the Lower Hold at XXX, about 3 decks down
• Always 2-3 guards here (STR 6, DEX 8, HP 3, d6 w/ axes or daggers or hooks), as beasts in the Lower Hold are always trying to get up here

Special Items For Sale in the Seychell’s Ark Market (2d6)

• 2 – Arkshroom Tapenade (in seashell that’s sealed w/ skin covering and sinew twine)
• 3 – Bone Jewelry (made from dead coco birds and Mogg fish)
• 4 – Cuttle Drums (made from wooden salvage & specially treated cuttle skin)
• 5 – Candied Fish Heads (made from gulfweed and, uh… fish heads)
• 6 – Ornate Lantern Sticks (using shimmer moss & flotsam, work underwater)
• 7 – Skin Suit (made from cuttle skin, greatly improves swimming)
• 8 – Cuttle Rope (made from muscle fibers, stronger and more durable than hemp rope)
• 9 – Spec Breath Moss (strange, eldritch moss that when held in mouth like chew, allows user to breathe water like air)
• 10 – Clacker Eggs (from clacker crabs, taste sweet)
• 11 – Cuttlebone Dirks (specially sharpened but somewhat brittle, 1 in 6 breaks per use)
• 12 – Conch Horns (for music and signaling)

Ark merchants prefer barter over coinage that’s fairly useless to them (although occasionally handy when buying off pirates). Barter is the main means of trade with undersea factions. If “money” is used, specialty items range between 20S and 40S in cost.

Random Folk Living On or Visiting Seychell’s Ark (1d12)

• 1 – Crelina Farkstad, weaver of rope, doesn’t miss the feel of ground anymore
• 2 – Sandy Shimmyjimmy, achterfuss resurrectionist, just dropping by for a pickup
• 3 – Eugeus, a porter, has supposedly drowned 10 times, claims the water hates him
• 4 – Hamo Heraclia, a balladier, lost their love recently to a slime serpent and can’t write anymore
• 5 – Lyell Lowbottom, mucker on an old galleon, The Blackspitter, but she’s wrecked now, nothing to do but die
• 6 – Warynicks, former bounty hunter, now missing an arm, tried to bag the carrion hag (Lvl 3), but couldn’t hack it, but if you feel lucky…
• 7 – CiCi, a whaler, well, not anymore, misses pastries and blue skies, is it true that there’s a whale that can swallow other whales whole?
• 8 – Quint Taber, an ex-Clanger, grew tired of the animosity w/ the Thatchers, came for the quiet (secretly exiled for unsanctioned murders)
• 9 – Toothy, an old sea dog with “Hold Firm” tattooed on his knuckles, has a piece of metal shot lodged in his head
• 10 – Esmond, half-man/half-snake soothsayer, will tell your future, if you dare to know it
• 11 – The Wizard Talcinder the Resonant, here to capture a rare spore folk in the Lower Hold
• 12 – Leroud, a seamstress, who believes in going where the people are no matter the difficulty

Random Treasures of the People of Seychell’s Ark (aka, what do they have in their bunks – 1d12)

• Coming soon!

Next week, the Lower Hold, which is probably going to be a weird mushroom ecosystem with wild beasts from another world roaming around. It’s either going to be wild or a mess…or both!