6-Room Dungeon 11: Eldritch Monolith

Please comment below for future posts

Hell Freezes Over - continue my hell series & expand my glacier stuff
or
The Great Dragonspawn Pits - where dragons breed and get ready for the apocalypse

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1 Redbrick
2 Goblin Mine
3 Gothic Tomb
4 Magic Mansion
5 Glacial Chasm
6 Jungle Shrine
7 Underland Cavern
8 Auldwood Grove
9 Sunken City
10 Desert Ruin
11 Eldritch Monolith
12 Hell Gate

mapping your 6 room dungeon

i will be doing a second set of tables for each type

Giger, the artbook for game Scorn and some of my past work on alien biozones in generation ships and my Xor setting. My Stone Age sorcery book had some stuff for this too.

Eldritch Monolith

In certain desolate places in the world, you can find prehuman ruins of the age of darkness. Each of the four directions you can find them, and there are some cities with eldritch catacombs beneath them. The largest are in remote or dangerous places thought of as lifeless. A great coastal city on the coast of the frozen north, a desert city sometimes revealed in the sand or deep in the caverns of the underland. The oldest ruins are for prehumans and possibly non-humanoid and the most alien. In the Middle period the various beast abhumans in service to the monster kings. The later ones even had humans and orc slaves and the demon gods and planar overlord idols will actually be familiar to modern peoples. Most people shun these places and priests will warn people of meddling with them. Humanity is better off forgetting these places. The interior climate may be very different to outside. They are often cool and absorb heat energy. May have mist inside or even interior weather in large chambers. Very little is flammable inside.

Doorways often have rounded arches, and some have membrane curtain seals.
Some have fleshy sphincter gates or toothy mouthlike portculis.
See through crystal pane or forcewall walls are possible.
Do add local environment decor. Is it in the sea or desert or snow?
Who came here and died in the last few thousand years?

d12 8Eldritch Monolith Decor

1 Obsidian monoliths or pillars
2 Pools of slime, did one quiver?

3 Strange stone urns

4 Sealed pit or well with alien sigils

5 Statues, faces may be smashed off or alien beings

6 Black obsidian altar with weird glyph

7 Weird biological structures overgrown wall surfaces

8 Strange skeleton or mumified body or boney decor

9 Luminous bug colonies or glowing walls

10 Pools and puddles with scuttling trilobites

11 Squat idols, statues and strange sphinxes

12 Walls of carved alien text with occasional images or symbols

d12 Eldritch Monolith Hazards

1 Control altar, with a grid of holes in the top, some with coloured gems inserted. Playing with gem positions or adding them may activate effects. Removing gems may shut down basic functions like light, air, humidity, and temperature

2 Strange angles can be confusing and cause confusion or hypnotic states

3 Alien angles occasionally swallow someone into another dimension or some creature passes through
4 Corpses lying about, if disturbed, may reanimate and hunger

5 Mind of an ancient or alien wizard observes by scrying device

6 Guardian statues come to life

7 Swarm of insects or worms in strange nest colonies

8 Crystal cylinder with swirling pulsing slime inside, dont release the slime!

9 Pit with an improvised or damaged bridge over a chasm of slime and eyes

10 Frozen prehuman in a block of ice, warming the area or altering the environment will thaw it

11 Air pressure increases, causing bloody noses and headaches

12 Dormant eggs hatch if anyone exhales in area

d12 Eldritch Monolith Encounters

1 Swarm of invertibrates, flying or crawling. Worms, trilobites and flies are common

2 Adventurers from rival expedition d4 1=cultists 2=looters 3=wizard and guards 4=explorers

3 Degenarate cave-dwelling tribe or abhuman beast folk

4 Shoggoth out on cleaning patrol or formless black devouring liquid horror

5 Ancient golem or living statue, usually have monster heads or weird abstract figures

6 Undead cultists, tribals or beast folk

7 Floating aerial jellfish with toxic tentacles

8 Slime ooze or gelatinous monster

9 Undead wizard with a servitor or summoned monster guardian

10 Giant flightless bats or terrorbirds or Utah raptors or giant carnivorous albino penguins

11 Non-humanoid eldritch alien creature, now degenerate with a spear

12 Lobster octopus hybrid horror  

d12 Eldritch Monolith Static Encounters

1 Pit with broken seal. Shoggoth, a corrupt elemental or darkness demon, lives here

2 Huge occult sigil on the floor, a planar being is trapped inside

3 Gigantic tentacled frog monstrosity in a black pool

4 Camp of adventurers, may be occupied or might now be undead d4 1=cultists 2=looters 3=wizard and guards 4=explorers

5 Gigantic worm creature (possibly in a cocoon) it was once a wizard and can cast spells

6 Shadows and a wraith slumber in stone crypts

7 Invisible tentacled blood drinking horror from beyond

8 Undead wizard with servants studying ancient apparatus

9 Chamber with alien eggs covered in mist, ready to hatch. The mother might be lurking or dead close by

10 Pool crawling with slime, oozes and gelatinous beings 

11 Gigantic monstrous corpse with giant mites or leeches feasting

12 Elder crinoid alien wizard, barrel-shaped with tentacles, starfish head and shrunken folding wing membranes

d12 Eldritch Monolith Entry

1 Black obsidian tower with a strange ward on stone door slab. Inside is long abandoned but their is a stone lid covering stairs into the deep. A creature might use as a lair or shelter. Humanoids might use as a base. Haunting or guardian being likely also 

2 Icy cold black dripping cave in process of thawing. Frozen melting creatures here may attract carnivores or bears or even tribal hunters. Pools of pure water may have some trilobites or other marine invertebrates. Slippery, wet holes and pits go deeper

3 Dripping sinkhole into an ancient complex in the deep. What seemed to be a cave with cave art and bones of fallen prehistoric beasts has under calcium formations, has stone doors. Other pillars and features are strangely uniform and made by intelligence. A calcium-encrusted panel of crystals can be cleaned and used to open doors and adjust the environment and light. Tribal folk think this place is taboo. There may be a fallen madman, ghouls or undead megafauna in here or an evil guardian spirit. Passages go down to deeper chambers

4 Mysterious crack in the earth with a strange-smelling mist. Inside is a green crystal chamber with sealed crystal doors. They can be shattered or opened with spells. Crystaline guardians or statues may guard here

5 Mysterious crystal doorway in the cliff visible under certain stars. Can be detected with nagic or is you can see invisible. Magic might be required to open it. Inside is a humming, glowing chamber  

6 Beneath a stone slab with a warning script under a ruined old temple. Inside is a black stone chamber with sealed basalt doors. Some kind of magic trap is likely here, and a guardian protects and repairs the complex

7 Through a doorway high up on a cliff, mostly hidden by shadows. Difficult to spot and requires a climb to reach it. In the opening chamber with fossils in walls are remains of a ancient burial and older passages beyond. Undead or a spirit might dwell here

8 Passages in the bottom of stone sarcophagi in a ruined tomb. The passage is older and seems to be biological material like roots or bones or flesh. Creatures live in the walls and will swarm or ambush with hit-and-run tactics. Possibly worms, bugs or giant vermin dwell here, and passages go into the deep. Opening fleshy doors requires the manipulation of nerve ganglia nodes    

9 Circular, perfect hole cut into rock, possibly blocked with stones later. Chamber within with sloping passages and pit exits. The room is round or square and perfectly formed, possibly with magic or superior stonework. Weird loners, witches and cults like this haunted place for its strange aura. Animals shun it

10 Trapped temple ruin with warning symbols of the ancients. Wall art depicting the history of dealings with alien horrors of the outer void frames far older passages below. A guardian might be left to keep mortals out

11 Excavation site with mounds of dirt, dools and the exposed passage into the dungeon. Someone has come to this place with a work crew camp and worked this site. They found a stone-sealed door with warnings. Opening it killed the leaders and drove off the workers. The final pit has opened at least one stone door with various tents around it, with finds and rubble being sorted. Mounds of sorted broken stone urns, bones and fragments with symbols lay around the pit. A guardian will be hiding somewhere, watching 

12 Opened a portal, possibly activated from a scroll or by a relic leads to a portal entry room. Other possibly broken portals or teleporter pads are around the chamber. Broken masonry and dead intruders remains are scattered about. A guardian being protects the portals and some try to maintain the complex 

d12 Eldritch Monolith Sub Rooms

1 Slimy chaos frog demon bound here, released if opened

2 Shelves of alien tablets of occult lore of evil

3 Reliquary with an alien tool, weapon or magic item on a shelf

4 Stone sarcophagi with magic symbols, might be inhabited by sleeping being

5 Mumified corpse, possibly will reanimate or crumble to dust if opened

6 Slime or ooze creature currently dormant

7 Cacoon of some giant bug or worm

8 Pulsating, glowing organic globes with rapidly growing guardian creatures

9 Shadows or a wraith with funeral urns inside

10 Gas or foul odour and some creature corpse that melts into slime when open, may have toxic or diseased miasma

11 Creature in a stasis field with a gem-studded altar

12 Portal with a gem-studded altar, might be open to another plane, possibly elemental or a distant ruin or elsewhere in a complex

d12 Eldritch Monolith Main Room

1 Reliquary of artefacts. Polygon-shaped niches with crystal panes cover strange alien artefacts. Most are magical or biological specimens in a state of stasis. A control panel can open the screens and play sound recordings of strange speech or illusions of alien beings interacting or studying the relics. Guardians and traps are likely. The items do not operate like familiar magic items; most cost the user some resource or temporary attributes or levels. Some cause psychic trauma.

2 Stasis chambers with a polygon symbol on the floor, some are plain, others have a shaft of light from above trapping them in stasis like a crystal column. Each has a crystal control console which can release stasis-trapped beings or turn them to dust or trap intruders. Beings trapped here can be castly old or even recent bumbling thieves or cultists  

3 Portal chamber with a large portal with huge doors and stairs. Likely closed and locked with magic. Linked to an elemental world, some era in the past or a slimy demonic plane. Opening the door is likely to welcome invaders, and a guardian and a trap is possible to prevent that

4 Alien laboratory with a great central slab with benches around it with bottles and unfamiliar tools. Alien machines on armatures can be lowered from above to assist. Several crystal screens show images of past experiments if controls are touched. Cylindrical columns with bubbling fluids have strange creatures growing in them or possibly just brains and nervous systems or other horrors. Some former experiment or automaton might still remain

5 Alien library with vast collections of tablets, conical metal disks, metallic books and strange scrolls. Cultists and wizards may visit here, but a guardian stops you from leaving with books, even ones you brought. So more recent recognisable books will be here also, not just alien gibberish

6 Prison chamber with sealed pits on the floors, doors all around walls and possibly hatches in the ceiling. A central dais with a console controls all doors. Immortal gibbering mutants are in their cells cry for release. A warden of some kind might maintain the room and the prisoners 

7 Pit chamber with a great dark hole into the deep. Will be a walkway around or over it. A plarform where victims are hurled from. A gong or a horn or bell awakens the pit dweller or its minion. A vast slumbering alien god dwells here with its parasites  

8 Eldritch machine with strange apparatus. May be biological even a creature plumbed into the structure. Room surfaces hum and glow. Several gem control consoles control whatever operates here. Automatons or some devolved former operator might dwell here. Alarms or traps also 

9 Barrier chamber a polygon chamber but all doors are on otherside of a barrier of force, fire or some other threat. Maybe a wall of swarms or thorns. Small hostile creatures may defend the wall

10 Control chamber with hundreds of rows of gem controls. An operator automaton or a devolved resident lives here. A screen may show the complex and inhabitants or looped scenes of prehistory 

11 Forbidden Temple with alien idols and ornate art. Undead robed priests of a cult are here to question if intruders or new cult members.

12 Alien Sarcophagi chamber with some giant alien humanoid. It might be undead like a vampire and hungry if woken up. It will have weird treasures

d12 Eldritch Monolith Feature

1 Observatory with a domed ceiling, and diagrams of hstars on floor. Several control altars can project on the ceiling scenes of the heavens. See the celestial palaces of the star spirits, the heavenly citadel, the world tree, the cosmic mountain, the sun and moon gods in their chariots, selenites being enslaved by gnome troops on the moon, the planetary realms of the great gods and through the great dome into the realm of the outer gods where hungry beings swarm. A guardian of some kind, likely, but living or undead cultists likely too. 

2 Cosmic Egg, a glowing, enigmatic orb or egg is kept secure inside a forcewall or magical field. Might have a vacuum or different gravity inside. Is it s d4 1=doomsday device 2=egg of a kaiju 3=planar communion device 4=vision orb. May have a guardiam or alien wizards or undead cultists working the consoles

3 Genesis device, a great gold cube with a planar language script. Text may grow or the box can float so one person can move it at Mov3 (otherwise it weighs over a ton). If the control grid is tampered with it starts a countdown in alien voices. If opened d4 1=skeltal angels come out to kill all witnesses, then fly into sky forever  2=shoots a 6d6 lightning bolt each round at lawful beings until closed 3=liquid slime and mutagenic spores from abhoth the slime god who will form an avatar in some dark forbidden place to grow, the box held it in stasis. 4=seversal tons of flesh and biological structures grow out per round, smothering any who get close. It is part of Xor a dimension of infinite flesh and hunger who eats worlds. The box is guarded by some monster but the right hand gestures that it will back down. Well you can try and use human limbs anyway

4 Alchemical refinery with huge crystal vats where creatures are grown of kept asleep  for aeons. Some vats and an alien lab can be used for alchemy if you have enough materials. Constructs, golems or slime monsters might lurk here

5 Crystal chamber with crystal structures and surfaces of brilliant glowing consoles. An altar with crystal rods operated the chamber. Crystal sarcophagi for subjects are possible or a marked area of floor might have a marked area or geometric shape in a different colourA guardian or cultists might be here. The controls can use the power of crystals d4 1=open a time bubble for observation, travel, opening stasis boxes or disintegration 2=has banks of sarcophagi to drain humans and make into power gems to operate eldritch technology 3=crystal resurrection chamber 4 = convert organic to crystalline immortal life. Some kind of fuel might also be required

6 Stargate chamber with a coded locked console gate with an iris valve that transports targets to some mysterious location. Often has a guardian caretaker or cultists trying to open it. Controls can define where the gate opens d4 1=ruined alien city under the deep in the dark depths, opening this flooded chamber and starting a countdown to seal the complex 2 = alien monastery above the world with alien beings, possibly with automaton knight bodies in robes. They watch the earth, awaiting a new age of darkness 3=distant jungle temple or pyramid 4=lunar temple ruin

7 Vortex test chamber with alien machines, crystals and brains in vats, with a large inner crystal chamber with two doors to get in. Consoles surround the chamber where a subjects inside can be d4 1=environmental tests (pressure, temperature, atmosphere, temporal fields, mutagenic rays or elemental plane simulations) 2=vortex opens and can be used to observe banished hungry evil beings of the outer darkness and the can see back 3=conjure an elemental node where elemental beings can enter our world and provide energy or raw materials 4=can conjure beings imprisoned in a pocket dimension in stasis through a dimensional vortex

8 Arcane engine with some vast machine with crystals, jars of light, gringing pistons and unearthly noise and vibrations. Control consoles around the room control the machine, which may have automaton or undead workers. An exiled alien or wizard might use this as part of a sheme d4 1=machine that sucks souls and creates underad from victims in hopper 2=produces a shoggoth, slimes or flesh golems from protoplasm vats or throw bodies in hopper to make protoplasm 3=controls environment in the region, with quakes can raise or lower land level, or use weather or make a micro climate over a few miles 4=awakens kaiju across the continant and they start a terraforming process which might include their violent battles or love making

9 Pilot Throne chair on dais reached by stairs. Has control gem grids on arm rests and possibly a crystal helmet. Lesser control stations in niches or a pit surround the throne dais, and a great crystal disk is positioned in front of these. If touched, alien holographic displays flicker on, and the big screen may start. The complex is a star-travelling vessel, and a launch sequence to the moon, or some other world, may be triggered. Doors will close and the vessel will begin to shake as it rises, then accelerates into the void. Concealed niches with guardians might be ready to repel intruders

10 Colossal crypt with a huge ornate black stone sarcophagus weighing tons. A console might help open, revealing a crystal coffin with an alien vampire within who will awaken. It has unusual forms, powers, vermin it can summon and weaknesses to kill. Other ancient alien or planar beings might also be imprisoned

11 Alien sphynx on a dais in the middle of a chamber. It is streamlined and alien. If awakened, its eyes will light up and it will offer knowledge for knowledge. Often has a series of lesser sphynx more like faceless deco gargoyles who will protect the great one. This is a synthetic intelligence that dealt with humanoid minions for the masters and is used to communicate in any language via magic. Some include divination orbs to expand the sphynx range. It might offer quests to find cosmic secrets. Often better informed than most local beings here. It cannot be removed, but it can be destroyed. Some might be blinded. They cannot move but they can cast spells

12 God Prison, a great sealed pit with control consoles. Controls may open the pit for inspections or communication but sets off alarms, flashing lights, and release mist. Using two sets of controls at the same time, you can release the god who will try to eat as many as it can and gate away, leaving a portal behind them. Might be corrupted elemental or slime or living darkness or some more forgotten prehuman demon. Sometimes the bound god is being tormented for resources or magic power

Crystal control altars and you
Control altars have a grid of 2x2 or 4x4 8x8 or 16x16 holes for crystals
Moving crystals tend to alter their current function
Removing them shuts some systems down
Adding can produce obvious results, usually increasing lighting and ambient sound
The more gem slots the more powerful the system
Gems are red green blue yellow red green magenta, and orange
Blear gems are depowered and spent
Black gems are cracked and burned out

d12 Common Crystal FX 2x2 or 4x4
can be opened by anyone with a basic stat roll, given time and notes taking
eventually, with practice, you can manipulate common consoles like locks

1 Lighting

2 Heat/Cold

3 Mist/Humidity

4 Complex vibration and hums

5 Klaxon or alien speech repeated

6 Seal or open doors

7 Illusions of past events

8 Atmospheric mix or gas venting

9 Magic items glow

10 Make petty spirits visible

11 Telepathic contact in an alien language

12 Attract wandering monsters

d12 Rare Crystal FX 8x8+
can be hacked with cryptography, given time and notes taking
eventually, with practice, you can manipulate like locks

1 Summon aliens from beyond

2 Summon spirits from beyond

3 Psionic attack from beyond
4 Everyone slowed or hastened
5 Open or close a stasis bubble (might unknowingly lose years or worse)

6 Telepathic contact from an alien mind

7 Open a portal or teleporter pad

8 Alarm increases wandering monsters

9 Causes mutations

10 Move the whole complex to another location

11 Anti magic zone - no effect on complex 

12 Increase or decrease dimensional barriers - might see things from beyond swarming like giant plankton in air or might see you too and attack or dimensional beings or effects dont work properly

d12 Where do I find crystal control altars or gems
1 Next to doors to open or unlock them, rarer ones are more complex. Used by ancients or wizards who want to impress with old relics they have obtained 
2 Room master controls for environmental settings, including strange light spectra, fog for humidity, heating, cooling and lighting. Larger ones have alien music and voices, and might project images

3 Long empty simple sockets might be on ancient stone monoliths to open concealed doors. Inside will be a chamber larger than is possible, with a more complex control altar inside. 
4 Four sockets in a stone wall, not obvious at all. Reveals secret, invisible, locked doors in a stone wall. Might be a single chamber or a base

5 Old temples may have a control altar hidden with warnings and traps to control local environment

6 On covers that lock metallic books of alien wizards

7 Local tribal leaders might have gems in their ritual dress and items and priests might have a control socket grid on a chest plate or helmet, possibly granting powers. They may know a secret site they use as a treasury or tomb and open seasonally

8 Prehistoric prehuman jewellery sometimes finds its way to collectors or wizards with gems or a control grid that can attach to systems with panels broken or missing but only simple ones

9 Later magic workers may have incorporated them into other devices, you will have to break them to use the gems

10 Might find a grid of gold with gems mixed with ancient treasure or it has been hijacked as a lock for a chest

11 Ancient crashed ornithopters or airships or aether flyers might have gems and panels. Long buried or undersea
12 Certain monstrous species use the gems and grids they hijack the function of. Mostly simple ones