Adventure Component: the Well of Ways (Doorjamb Jam 2024)

 Another adventure component, this time an entry in the NSR server's Door Jamb Jam, a celebration of the sorts of games where you get really fiddly about exactly how you open a door in the middle of a dungeon crawl.

The Well of Ways

In some dungeon somewhere, a 10x10’  section of floor is actually a hole with a carefully painted piece of canvas stretched over it. This canvas conceals a 50’ pit with spikes at the bottom. A pit trap is common enough, but this one has five iron-banded doors in each wall, built over each other, with their 1” sills 10 feet below the last. They all have handled doorknobs and open into (rather than away from) the pit, except the bottom-most doors, which must open out because otherwise they’d get caught on the spikes. Unless desired, any rooms in the Well of Ways are extradimensional spaces and do not connect up to the rest of the dungeon.

Each door is designated with its cardinal direction and numbered going down.

N1. You can feel spring tension as you twist the doorknob. When the door is cracked, a magical WIND rune in the wall behind the door activates, blasting anyone at the door back. If S1 is open, they will fall into it. Otherwise, they'll slam into S1's door and have a moment to catch themselves with a successful save. On a failure, they fall into the spikes below.

N2. Rusted chain hanging from the door, easily snapped off. Opens to a massive chamber of marble columns surrounding an empty pool, full of snoozing baboons. On the other side of the room is a gem-eyed golden baboon idol. Footsteps echo in this place.

N3. Opens to a small room with a block and tackle hanging from the ceiling.  Would be useful for lifting things out of the lower sections if you had rope.

N4. The knots and grain in the wood planks of the door resemble a staring face. It is a mimic. Behind the door is a closet full of adventurer skeletons.

N5. Scent of blood coming from behind the door. Opens to an ornate blood fountain with strange winding gore-tracks going in and out of it. A vampire boa constrictor will rise from the fountain to regard anyone who approaches. In the bottom of the pool is a cache of four random potions.

E1. False door. Does not open.

E2. Opens to a straight, space-defying 20’ tunnel that leads to S4. Your ears pop as you walk through it.

E3. Door smells of saliva. Opens to a cell containing a ghast meditating on his hunger and spite. Has a cool hooked wrought-iron sword but prefers to tear up his prey with his hands and teeth. Normally sits in a pool of his own spit— gross!

E4. Opens to an extradimensional bookshelf (like in the movie Interstellar.) On the other side of the bookshelf is a goblin merchant, Marko, a jolly little guy with a blue headwrap and silver medallion necklace. He can pass supplies through the shelf in exchange for valuables. On his side of the shelf, it’s a sunny coastal villa. Living things cannot pass through the shelf.

E5. This door is airtight and has an extra latch you must unlatch to open it. Opening the door triggers four spouts which shoot out Dolorfetor, a violet cloud which coats the throat, lungs, and mucus membranes with Agony Molecules. Anyone who isn’t holding their breath at this level of the well must save or die. The cloud rises at a rate of 10’ per round, inflicting the save on any it catches until it dissipates after emerging from the pit.

S1. Opens to a 100’ corridor where gravity pulls forward instead of down. Sideways torch sconces. At the bottom of the pit is a pile of skeletons. One has a pointed hat and robes, laying in a pile of shattered glass and a ruined potion of feather fall. The corpse also has on it a spellbook, a staff of dancing lights and a valuable cameo locket.

S2. Door is painted purple, already chipping away. Within is a cavern with a garbage-filled pit.

S3. False door. The "knob" twists oddly smoothly. It is a cork. Pulling the knob pops it out, exposing a canister of volatile dragon gall to the air, causing it to explode.

S4. See E2.

S5. Seems to be a brick wall covered in graffiti— “DAMM BABOONS”, “TRY IT IN THE DARK”, “KEY BROKEN”, and “FOR A GOOD TIME CALL ON ASH OF THE ROADSIDE HOUSE.” There is a small  keyhole in the corner with a twisted piece of key trapped in it. If twisted with lockpicking tools, the whole wall will slide up like a garage door, revealing a ransacked arcane study. (The door can also be broken down as an Open Doors roll at -1 penalty.) Trapped in a jar is a blue-green pixie named Trouble Dancer. She will ask PCs to slay the one who imprisoned her, the master of a dungeon the DM wants to run soon. If they accept, she will blow pixie dust on them, giving them youthful levity (-2 intelligence) which will wear off into weary disillusionment (+2 intelligence) if they ever slay their target. She’s kind of a bad friend and you have to use an unbearably high voice when you speak as her.

W1. Opens to a closet with a barrel of hundreds of steel rings. If touched, they start to link together and form a Chain Link Freak (stats as a green slime)

W2. Opens to a full-length steel mirror. Anyone looking in sees their own smug reflection. Behind their image they see a heavy chest full of dubloons, a wheel of cheese, and aged wines instead of the rest of the Well. Their image will prevent entering the mirror room. If there are no lights to cast a reflection, they can enter unheeded.

W3. Door slightly hums. Opens to a New England forest micro-plane— but oh no! Yellowjackets built a huge hive on the other side of the door, and opening it will panic and alarm them.

W4. Opens to a small alcove housing a silver gyroscope built around an hourglass filled with gold shavings. If the gyroscope is spun, the hourglass upends and the spinner is immune to gravity for one hour or until the gyroscope is spun back.

W5. Signs of frequent use on the handle and hinges. Opens to a root cellar converted into the haven of a feral child. She has been on her own in the dungeon for almost three years, and responds to intruders by throwing sharp objects and shouting insults. Answering to “Breakfast Doubledare”, she has been left alone by any nearby dungeon captains out of rare mercy. Her only friend is Iohel, an talking +2 Toothed Zweihander. He can sense undead and speak archaic languages, and when his ego overwhelms his wielder he drives them to bloodthirsty vampire aristocrat behavior. Pretty much the worst possible guardian to Breakfast.