“ The PCs see a large oak tree, a curious species of yellow and black butterflies swarm around it. Upon further inspection they find that the tree is hollow and that there is an underground cave in it from which the butterflies appear. Will they inspect this strange cave?”
“ Once every decade on the eve of St. Poskov's Day during mid-winter, the coastal city of Tiyabon experiences a horrific event. Quool's Tide rolls in, depositing hundreds of bloated, fish-eaten corpses upon the pebbly shores of Tiyabon's wide bay. This singularity is to this day unexplained, though countless theories abound. It is said for example, that these corpses are not eaten by the myriad fish of the seas completely, due to the fear all creatures of the seas hold for Quool.
Named for Quool, a terrible, antediluvian god of seas and storms, who no longer exists for he has no worshipers, the Tide chokes the beaches and surf with the countless rotting bodies of those who had perished at sea in a violent way.
Almost immediately, the lifeless corpses are fed upon by crabs, gulls, and worse things that await the horrid feast. The townsfolk let nature take it course with disinterested disgust, though lately some enterprising adventurers have taken to searching along the beaches of flesh for former deceased companions, with intentions of raising them again!
Surprisingly no undead ever rise from among the many corpses. This is also a mystery.”
“ Here at Dragonsfoot http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=65381 The post discuses the use of the classic arcade game " Dragon's Lair" as a playable dungeon but it approaches it like a normal D&D game. You cannot represent DL with " Ok Bob, it's your turn what are you doing?" So I've got a germ of an idea.
The castle itself is a dream construct of the way-too-powerful-to fight Dragon. From a distance the castle is changing, growing towers, walls falling , getting bigger and smaller in rapid succession. The castle "eats" interesting things that the players will need to extract. It is also Multidimensional and planer and moves around.
The way I am planning on running it is that individual rounds are broken into 3 parts and only one player gets an action to interact with the "trap". a second player will be able to aid the "phasing" player in what ever action he takes. casting spells will be broken up over the 3 partial rounds(depending on L of spell).The phasing player will in essence be the party leader for the 3 partial rounds. The phasing player "job " will be rotated in some fashion(havent got this worked out yet). This is all run w/ the idea that you are trying to recreate the frantic pace of DL The growing and shrinking nature of the castle forces constant movement on the players A brief description of the situation will be provided with the idea of "looking around" will be an action that takes up a whole "partial" round. A few normal combats to be sprinkled in.
Since a lot of work will go into an encounter that should only take IRL 2 maybe 3 min., the rooms and traps are reusable (justified by the "dream logic")
This will obviously not work for a large group of players. Prob want to keep it to 3 or 4.
This will require MASSIVE prep time for what will prob amount to a 1 hour crawl at best (depending on how many standard fights you work in) That's why REUSABILITY is key. To make the prep worth it , you can rerun it w/ the "dream logic"
Not sure if I'm going to pull the trigger on this. But I really like the idea.Not promising a part two if I don't.”