Adventure Location: the Oubliette

Campaigns often peter out before they reach the dizzying heights of power at the highest levels. Part of the reason for that is the dearth of prepared material for that tier of play--GMs are forced to invent challenges out of whole cloth, challenges worthy of the demigods that the adventuring party has become. They can simply run roughshod over the mortal world, it's true. There's some fun in beheading every king who disrespects you. 

But even high-level characters occasionally want a challenge: not just a huge monster with enough HD to threaten them, but an adventure environment that feels epic. Here's one: an extradimensional prison where criminals who offended reality itself are kept isolated, their very memory excised from history. It's designed for use with the excellent (and free!) Godbound by Kevin Crawford, but should be easily adaptable to any spiritual descendant of D&D.

The Oubliette

Overview

• A shard of the former Hells, the Oubliette is an extradimensional dungeon that once held history’s worst criminals, those whom the universe deemed so evil they should not persist even in memory
• It was ruled by Zabut, a dark god of crime and punishment who was killed in the opening salvos of the Mortal War
• Since the breaking of reality, the Oubliette has drifted through the Uncreated Night, gradually decaying
• The Oubliette can only be approached from above. It only exists from that angle; attempting to maneuver around it causes the whole structure to fade away
• A great treasure lies deep in the shard’s bowels: the Theurgic Invocation of the Throne known as Directed Convulsion of Law

Inhabitants

• Leibuzar the Forgetter / Razubiel the Rememberer
• Archdevil/archangel of Zabut
• Communicates not through words or even telepathy, but pure mental conveyance of meaning and intent
• 3 actions per round, can teleport 120’
• HD20, AC 5, 5+ Sv., 2x1d12 straight (mind kill)
• Theurgy: Bright God’s Canticle (Gate, always active)

LeibuzarabuzieL

• Neferna dar Ix
• Once a mighty brown dragon, ruled a massive empire rife with pointless human sacrifice and atrocities
• When she was slain by her own spawn, Zabut judged her soul deserving of excision from history
• Now she rages fruitlessly in the lowest reaches of the Oubliette, at once the dungeon’s most dangerous prisoner and its second-most powerful guardian
• Since the shattering her soul has begun to fade, and she has difficulties remembering where she is, or even that she is dead
• HD15, AC 2, 8+ Sv., +10 3x1d10 straight (bite, claw)
• 5 Effort. Corona of Fury (7d8 flensing sand), Thrall-Making Shout (Command)
• Wing buffet: Hardiness save or be hurled 30 ft. away
• Acts twice per round

Neferna Dar Ix

Locations

1. Control Pyramid
• Shattered floating rock mote, a great pyramid of purple stone cracked open atop it
• Empty corridors wind through the edifice, leading to dusty chambers and strange dead ends
• Brief exploration leads to cracked and faltering Celestial Engine at the center
• Powers the excision of large parts of history
• 1 Shard of Heaven to repair
• Breaking yields 3 Shards, but restores all excised history
• Cyclops civilization on the Hurricane Isles
• Brown dragon dynasties of the Oasis States
• Time of Fire and Madness
• A thorough search also recovers an uncut gem that glows with orange light (the Dungeon Key)
2. Funnel Mouth
• Deceptively slippery slopes are easy to climb down, but almost impossible to climb up
• LeibuzaR waits in a ritual circle of orange light at the bottom of the pit
• If the PCs wield the Dungeon Key, he greets them as servants of Zabut
• Otherwise he is singing the Bright God’s Canticle, and follows them around without answering queries (whether they pass or fail their save) until they provoke wrath by releasing a prisoner or entering area 7
• Bare stone corridors lead in both directions
• Path to 3 echoes with the clamor of many voices
• Path to 4 has sound of rushing wind and distant moan
3. Isolation Cells
• Vertical shaft is enchanted, step out into empty space and will yourself up or down
• Each cell is blocked by a barrier of impenetrable (but translucent) green energy (Theurgy of the Gate)
• Approaching with the Dungeon Key causes a mote of orange to appear in the center
• Touching the Key to this mote dismisses the barrier (though the mote remains)
• Touching Key to mote again restores the barrier
• Prisoners are rarely lucid; some are so far gone they’re nearly intangible
• Marblejaw, the cathedral killer. Pale white gargoyle who laired in a temple and slaughtered every congregant therein once per century, on the dot, for four hundred years. Was finally destroyed through intervention of an angel
  
  
  
• Cyriaque, nihilist philosopher. Wrote a treatise so convincingly grim that it drove all who read it to suicide. Black-haired and resigned to his fate
  
  
  
• Mathoulda XI, the flayer queen. Delighted in having her foes’ skin made into leather. Imperious and senile
  
  
  
• Urarin Bahassi, the filivore. Mage who lived for centuries through the Excision of Days, exclusively using his own children as victims. Silver-tongued, painfully lucid
  
  
  
• He Who Looked Beyond, alienist wizard. Fashioned an arcane telescope to see outside reality. Things move beneath his flesh. Was not sane even in life
  
  
  
• Lucien Embon, the thief of stars. Plucked a constellation from the sky (through means unknown) to gift his lady love. Doe-eyed, naïve
  
  
  
• Tsilavina Pascale, empress of the dead. Incubated a zombie plague that wiped out half a continent, then ruled an empire of rotting flesh-puppets. Smirking, convinced she’s the smartest person in any conversation
  
  
  
• Breaker-King Hau, last of the Cyclops monarchs. Led his entire civilization to heights of depravity that saw them cut out of history. He feels his people returning to the world, and rages that he is kept from joining them
  
  
  
• Ivica the Desecrator, heretic of Lom. The Oubliette’s most recent arrival. Broke off from the atheocracy for her belief that religion should be befouled, not destroyed. Committed sacrilege at over five hundred temples, including an ancient ruin dedicated to Zabut
  
  
  
• Temji Opener, long-clawed Nephilim. Can open Night Roads with the flick of a finger; responsible for the fall of the Bleak Reach
  
  
4. Soul Vault
• This cavernous chamber swirls with a misty mass of undifferentiated souls, those faded enough to lose their individuality
• Entrance blocked by a barrier of impenetrable (but translucent) green energy (Theurgy of the Gate)
• Approaching with the Dungeon Key causes a mote of orange to appear in the center
• Touching the Key to this mote dismisses the barrier (though the mote remains)
• Touching Key to mote again restores the barrier
• Cavern walls are pockmarked with tunnel entrances that lead into area 5
  
  
  
5. Ghostmaze Labyrinth
• Twisting tunnels wind through the rock, stalked by individual spirits
• For each hour spent wandering:
• 2-in-6 chance of being assailed by a wraith
• HD4, AC 3, 13+ Sv., Spirit save or be possessed (taking damage allows another save attempt)
• 2-in-6 chance of finding the barred tunnel that leads to area 7
6. Neferna’s Crypt-Prison
• Cavernous space full of half-real pyramids, dunes, and oases conjured by Neferna’s fractured mind
• She demands obeisance and worship
• If pleased, she may show the entrance to area 7
• If angered, requires a sacrifice to her glory (someone for her to eat)
7. Manuscript Archive
• Laid out on a stone table is a crumbling scroll that bears the Theurgic invocation Directed Convulsion of Law
• The affliction of the Oubliette has caused some of the writing to fade, but with three months’ study the invocation can be learned
  
  
  

Thoughts

The major draw here is the Invocation of the Throne; those are devilishly hard to get your hands on. The various imprisoned NPCs are mostly there for flavor (Neferna being the clear exception), but what flavor they have! Drop them into your own campaign as villains and see what havoc they can wreak.

Still, the point of this dungeon isn't the treasure, or even the inhabitants. It's the vibe. When your characters have the power of demigods, they need adventure locations worthy of demigods. They shouldn't be defending hamlets anymore, they should be cruising through the Uncreated Night in their flying pirate ship, fending off Misbegotten leviathans and making deals with fallen angels.

More of this to come.

-V