Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Ziggurat of Ngbabaturca - Post Apocalyptic Mars Adventure Encounter



File:Ebla ziggurat.jpg
The illusionary nature of the Ziggurat makes this a deadly place to visit 

The Ziggurat of Ngbabaturca
At the polar ice caps of  Mars are two twin cities that are known as the Ziggurat Of Time & The Lost. Illusions of green grasses, welcome sands, & flowing waters beckon the lonely & lost. Those who venture into the seemingly welcome embrace of the structure find only blood &sand to welcome them instead.
The Time Pylons 

The Ziggurat is surrounded by a scattered plylons of greenish glowing metal. These of these structures focuses planar & tachyon energy  toward the Ziggurat & the buried alien city.
Each pylon is controlled through a series of psychic matrices. Each of these crystals responds to both the power of the mind & life essence. 

The ziggurat itself is built into the side of a mountain & snakes its way to a central plaza into the hallowed out under  the mountain. 
The place is guarded by a group of ancient Lovecraftian horrors from beyond the Outer Darkness They will guard the place against all explorers & intruders.
They patrol the ruins keeping the place free from debris & making repairs where necessary. 



File:MarsTopoMap-PIA02031 modest.jpg
The location of The Ziggurat of Ngbabaturca

The strange ruins of the ziggurat & its surrounding ruined underground city extend some 22,000 levels down. The ruins snake their way down through the polar valley floors. 


 
Points of Interest 
 

The Halls of Reflections 
Here hordes of time stasis Yithians await the centuries but for what purpose is unknown. There are over 75 of the aliens intact here but the rest are ruined & dead. 

Reservoir of Knowledge 

A vast 250 foot pool of liquid memories awaits those who enter this room. A reservoir of psionic energy & memories sits. The stories & knowledge of a million races awaits. These minds reflect & contemplate eternity. They have no real agenda of their own except what the person gives to them. With no will of their own they will answer any & all questions put to them. Some of these answers may drive those who ask insane or worse.
A fake Yithian librarian is on staff to help with inquires.

 
The Orb Of Expansion & Reason 


An orb of 40 foot around floats in mid air here. It will reach out with an alien intelligence into the mind of those viewing it. It will plunge them into the time streams. The orb itself is made from solid tachyon mists & unstable particles. The person's mind is the guide for the orb & acts as its stable instrumentality. The orb can plunge someone 1d1000 years X  intelligence. There is a 60 % that the Hounds of  Tindalos may follow a person through time & space once the orb has them. It will take 1d20 weeks for such a creature to catch up with them.
 



One Voice Many Faces 
These are minds of  those who have ventured to closely to the center of time to know the secrets of the Great Nuclear Chaos itself. They are in pain & highly insane. These minds will lash out with a deadly psionic blast to share that pain. Each blast does 1d6 points of damage & lowers the intelligence of the target by 2 points unless a save versus wands is made. The minds can be secreted back behind a Greater Barrier of  Psychic Energy if the victims mind brushes against it.
 



The Ziggurat Of  Ngbabaturca Random Encounters 1d10  

  1. Time Lost Red Martian Warriors 1d10 2nd level  
  2. 3 Hit Point Nanite Cloud 1d3 damage per round. Will attack anything with an energy signature 
  3. 1d10 mini machines of alien origin that will buzz the players & play merry havoc with any electronic devices for 3 rounds 
  4. A series of strange rain bows surrounds each person in the party. They will whisper strange secrets of space & time to the victim. They will have to make a wisdom roll to not  give in to the mind numbing effects of these whispers of blasphemy & cosmic nonsense . 
  5. A Hound of Tindalos is reflected out of the corner of the eye of the victim. They must make a saving throw not to be pursued by the monster. It will chase them otherwise for 1d10 years showing up at very incontrovertibly at the wrong time 
  6. Two 3 hit point chaos elementals appear near the party & attack 
  7. Lose 3 hours each & appear back where the party started randomly 
  8. A vast alien city is seen on the horizon & 1d4 horrors begin to stalk the party. This lasts for 3 rounds & then it all vanishes 
  9. The vast bulk of Hastur appears before the party with his back to them. There is a 40% of the Great Old One turning around & causing everyone to lose 2 intelligent points & 1 wisdom point before the vision vanishes. If it was a vision! 
  10. A time door way appears infront of the party & they are swallowed up only to reappear at the twin city of  ziggurat. There is only a 10% chance of them realizing what has happened.
    There is a 30% of a shaggoth appearing randomly caught in the time field  & teleported across time & space from when the Great Race &The Elder Things were at war! These shaggoths are very angry & hungry. 

8 comments:

  1. Packed with detail as always! The pylons make me thick of the pylons in Land of the Lost--always one of the most interesting aspects of that show to me.

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  2. "The strange ruins of the ziggurat & its surrounding ruined underground city extend some 22,000 levels down..." Nice! Talk about a real Megadungeon. Great stuff!

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  3. Trey - I admit I stole them from Land of The Lost! It was one of my favorite shows growing up! Glad you liked it! I'll be doing more with this location soon!

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  4. garrisonjames- You must have heard me prowling around your site. I 'borrowed' extensively from some of your awesome blog entries.
    The bit about the 22,000 levels was done on purpose again inspired by some of your blog. There's more to come soon!

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  5. Glad to hear that someone is finding that stuff useful. We were considering shutting down a few things. It would be fun to do a sci-fi megadungeon of 22,000 known levels for any system...

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  6. garrisonjames- I will be using more from there in the next couple of days so please don't get rid of it... yet
    22,000 levels! Please don't tempt me! There's more projects yet in the works from me!

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  7. Okay; since people are using it, we'll leave it alone...though we're going to transfer-over one or two features from Old School heretic to Hereticwerks, like RPG Brainstorming. We went back and re-read some of the old posts on the Time Tunnel, etc. and it got us to thinking about a way to go explore such a place...so we're building a special sub-blog just for that specific purpose--an expedition into a megadungeon that incorporates all the OSH-derived stuff. We'll start with some Labyrinth Lord delvers, and see how it develops from there. Once it's up and running, we'll be in touch to see if you'd like to help us develop new levels and such. All OGL, and all that.

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  8. Love to garrisonjames! I think part of the problem I've seen happen with blog folks is the firebombing of the blog once its done! There's been some awesome OSH stuff that you've done. Can't wait to see what you do with it! Keep me posted!

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