The Room in a Container

The What and How

The Room in a Container is where a magic user creates an alternate space inside a piece of furniture or part of a building. This is generally a magical flex, showing they have the money, time, and skill to spend on turning their coffee table into a private library or a bar into a visible castle living space.

Presented as a Five-Room Dungeon

Entrance and Guardian

Entering a Room in a Container requires the person wanting to enter to know where the access point is on the outside, touch it, and speak the access phrase. Then, in a swirl of essence, they are transported through the outside of the container and enter the room through an easily overlooked foyer space. Leaving the room is done the same way, touching the access point and speaking the exit phrase.

RP Challenge/Puzzle

The room inside the container generally has a purpose, and that is the reason the players have entered it to begin with. A secret library perhaps, a vault of treasure that thieves have not been able to locate, whatever.

Trick/Setback

C'mon, dont make the room in the container an in and out job, make it a trip to the big box store or a Rick and Morty pocket episode, fifteen minutes I swear, and then make the players sweat and freak out.

Climax/Boss

Is the thing inside the container worth hiding, and if so, it should still be worth protecting, so give it some sort of final defense

Reward/Revelation/Twist

This will also vary per room and can include having to find the exit point. Nothing says it has to be the same as the entrance point.

SEVEN ROOMS IN A CONTAINER

1. The Secret Library

Hidden inside a stylish credenza, the Secret Library contains many forbidden tomes, risque works, and other esoterica associated with things that are generally not socially acceptable. Inside is a three-story library with sliding ladders, reading areas, several of those giant book wheels, and a lounge so that a guest doesn't have to leave until they feel like it. It has a series of defenders in the form of regular-sized insects that have been enchanted to act as guards and servants. Most are ants. The final boss for intruders in the library is a regular orb-weaving spider that has a web spun across the top of the library. She is genial with proper guests, knowledgeable of the library and its contents, and has a taste for halflings and thieves. The exit is in the same place as the entrance.

2. The Secret Alchemical Laboratory

Hidden inside a pillar base, the alchemical laboratory contains all the tools and supplies needed for alchemical research. Why is it hidden? Who knows. It isn't defended, but the insides are very messy, and an accidental bump against a table or mishandling of equipment can trigger an alchemical explosion, triggering a larger chain reaction. Maybe this is why it is hidden. There is no boss, but the difficult thing is finding the exit. There are a few skeletons inside, so it's obvious some people found their way in and never escaped.

3. The Secret Seraglio

Hidden inside a bedside table, the Secret Seraglio is a harem stocked with multiple women, servants, and summoned magical defenders. It is kept supplied by the use of Unseen Servants, and the majordomo of the castle makes sure that all the supplies the facility needs are present and all the refuse is removed on a regular schedule.

4. The Secret Pantry

This can be as innocuous as a secret snack room or a magically concealed wine cellar. Such things would not likely be heavily defended, as they are storage areas.

5. The Secret Vault

Like the Secret Pantry, this is a magical vault where valuable things are kept. This can be gold and proper treasure, to an art gallery, wondrous items and weapons, anything. It would be defended, likely with golems or summoned magical beasts that do not need food or water to survive. 

6. The Secret Prison

Why not have a secret prison for an evil noble to put people he doesn't like? No one sees them, no one can find them, they ae as good as dead. This can also be a place to keep general undesirable, the elderly, creating a ghetto in a box, or even a barracks in a box so that a building can be invaded from inside with an armoire containing dozens of soldiers.

7. The Secret Zoo

Same as the Secret Prison, but this one has monsters in it.