Monday 21 November 2016

d100 Ancient Dungeon Machine Rooms





Ancient Dungeon Machine Rooms
The ancients leaving tech is pretty common in the OSR and I wish MM2 included the robots and androids in it because DnD would be very different without it. Basic D&D modules featured tech and the mention of Gamma World in the DMG, Blackmarsh and Greyhawk mention tech occasionally. It fits in with other weird and fantasy fiction quite well.

The Russel Crow Noah film is interesting because it shows a gnostc cosmos - a resource depleted world. There was a advanced world and it abused a glowing magical material Zohar which it depleted. But I always thought Middle Earth and The Bible were post apocalypse worlds.

I remember reading about a kabbalist idea of a lost age with golems everywhere providing mechanical energy. Doors, water wheels, mills, gates, torture machines, lifting bridges, boats, pumps, gates, spit roasts, potters wheel, wagon, seige engine, etc. Golem crossbow that selfs cocks might be nice. I like the idea that some ancient artifact might just be a nice oven or steam bath machine or a theatrical prop for a king.

Lots of the newschool take on oldschool dnd books have dungeons with mighty machines. Even whole dungeons of them. Here is a collection of machine rooms with remains of elder tech. Much might be semi functional or sealed for aeons. Much might require some fuel source. These could be used with various races also with own custom tech

See my past blog on magic murder machines which i often stick in a dungeon
http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/1d100-magic-monster-machines-for-your.html

Operating a working machine usually is more dificult the stranger the function and more primative the medlers. Divination, researching elder tomes and time consuming manuals might help. Some might require some fuel or power source.


d12 Machine Operation
1 Crystal Grid of stone depressions which crystals are inserted and concentrated on to operate
2 Mechanical with cogs and levers and pulleys in secret combinations
3 Alchemical apparatus with glass tubes and vials of fluid with a furnace and pressurized liquids
4 Pneumatic brass tubes with vacuum cylinder transport system for small packages
5 Crystal Panels which if waved over light up in colours and links system to users mind
6 Living fleshy biological systems with tentacles, suckers, fleshy curtains manipulated by hand
7 Necrotic highly complex biological structures of bone covered in chitin, skin contact panels
8 Focal object like pool of liquid or mirror or crystal orb if concentrated on controls machine
9 Clay tablets in ancient text are inserted into slots in complex magical formulas
10 Steam Boiler powers mechanisms by elaborate gauges, pipes and furnace
11 Golem like beings incorporated into machines operated with magic signs
12 Bound entities like elementals or demons power the machinery and obey commands

d12 Condition
1 Rotting heaps of scrap barley disconcernable to experts
2 Shattered mess or rubble and broken equitment

3 Broken machine with essential and valuable parts missing
4 Badly burned and melted
5 Shattered from explosion
6 Smashed by vandalism spree from some past upheaval
7 Flooded and coroded with mounds of silt and slime
8 Shambling heap with missing parts but possibly repairable

9 Broken but repairable
10 Battered but functional
11 Good condition some wear
12 Shining new


d100 Ancient Dungeon Machine Rooms
01 Automated toilet
02 Water pump control room
03 Bakery with oven and huge mixer
04 Washing machines
05 Water heater and pump
06 Steam room boiler
07 Brewing or wine vat
08 Blacksmith forge and machine hammer
09 Weaving machine easily fowled
10 Lighting control room

11 Alarm control room
12 Servant bell control hub

13 Electrical generator
14 Message cylinder pressure plant
15 Message cylinder mail room
16 Telegraph room
17 Automated bell machine
18 Steam engine
19 Metal press for cutting patterns in sheet metal
20 Furnace for heating or burning
21 Kitchen with ovens 
22 Steam press
23 Refrigerator
24 Smoke house
25 Spinning machine
26 Mulching machine for organic waste
27 Slaughter room with hooks and guilliotine
28 Butchers room with saws and fridge
29 Steam bath and massage machine
30 Torture chamber
31 Rending plant for extracting fat and oil from organic matter
32 Music machine like a steam calliope or organ
33 Automated prison cells with possibly functional food and water and toilet
34 Ice machine makes foot cubes of ice
35 Milling machine for grains to make flour
36 Dying vat for making batches of coloured cloth, uses lots of water 
37 Hair cutting machine
38 Dentistry machine
39 Portrait painting machine
40 Printing press
41 Saw mill and machine to mix glue and sawdust into particle board
42 Kinetiscope or crude recreational image making machine
43 Music machine plays from collection of discs like huge jukebox
44 Canning or food preservation machine
45 Smelting furnace
46 Huge clock
47 Manufacturing assembly line with convener belt
48 Spray booth
49 Water filtration plant
50 Glass furnace
51 Huge alchemical apparatus for growing monsters
52 Dream recording chamber
53 Machine to turn corpses into zombies
54 Machine turns corpses into iron rations
55 Huge electronic drum kit
56 Security monitoring room
57 Automed med bay surgery machine
58 Beautification spa machine
59 Plastic surgerey machine
60 Face transplant machine
61 Brain transplant machine
62 Polymorphing machine
63 Controls for dungeon burrowing machine
64 Controls of subtereanean hydro dam (stops flood)
65 Machine that pumps blood from deep underground sleeping kaiju 
66 Machine that controls undead sleeping army
67 Machine that pacifies or enrages orcs
68 Orc making machine converts corpses to monsters
69 Machine drains life force to generate power
70 Orgone energy acumulator drains sexual energyfor miles around
71 Soul storage device 
72 Dimensional prison containing evil wizards of yore
73 Growth Accelerator turns children into ogres
74 Blood draining machines with storage vats
75 Long range comunicator
76 Time machine sends subjects to when monsters ruled one way
77 Machine fuses humans and animals to create beast men
78 Machine regulates dungeon lighting
79 Machine regulates dungeon temperature
80 Machine contains trapped tortured elementals
81 Gremlin containment machine
82 Machine allows operator to comunicate with other planes
83 Control room for one shot weapon to harm a god
84 Control room for slumbering cyborg kaiju
85 Time scoop can summon prehistoric monsters
86 Weather machine
87 Microscopic and bacterial lab
88 Reactor controls 
89 Video confrence room
90 Holographic film library
91 Long range god or artifact scanner
92 Image data library screen
93 Potion lab aparatus or distilery
94 Golem animation aparatus
95 Suspended animation pods
96 Cloning vats
97 Clairvoyant aparatus or scrying device
98 Astronomical observation device
99 Teleporter pad and array
100 Machine that opens dimensional gate

4 comments:

  1. The second half of 91 seems unnecessary. A "long range god" seems plenty interesting to me, especially with all the implications for your world building it brings along (does this mean short range gods exist? Are all gods classified as if they were weapons? Are all gods, in fact, ancient technology? Why would anyone just leave a god lying around?).

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  2. long range god makes no sense to me
    so no short range gods either
    Long range (god or artifact) scanner

    gods and artifact detector may lead to more quests

    gods are always being crippled, bits of them laying about, getting bound, trapped under volcanoes (typhon) - plenty of adventures and films and books like this

    if i used it in my Psychon games gods are machines

    If in my regular fantasy a bit of tech or magical apparatus that seems like tech might appear

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