MORE WINE! PART 1: What Happens When A Wine Cellar Goes Bad?

 "The Wine Dungeon"

A dungeon resulting from having a morning cup of coffee, a random dungeon room/hall roller, and a single sheet of graph paper. I ended up with about 50 rooms. And I liked it so much I wanted to try and run something with it that was more "off-the-cuff D&D". Kinda in the same vein as how I imagine the Tonisborg dungeon came together.

What leaped into my head is a little bit of the mythic underworld mixed with a non-crypt underground structure (wine cellar) and populated by some of my dreamland monsters to sorta kick myself out of the more typical dungeon molds.

And in addition to just trying to ensure its a fun dungeon, I am trying to do two other things: 

(1) organically grow out the world as my players require. I sorta did this a little bit with the "Super Cleric Bros." campaign. Trying not to exhaust myself with prep, but more just throw potentially useful KNOCK! articles, blog posts, and favored tables into a binder

(2) use the actual play of the dungeon to guide the development of it instead of agonizing over it. Did the group have fun? Yes. Well, play it again. Is this little random dungeon I found seem cool? Great. Let's say one of the fountains has dried out and now there are stairs leading to it.

Peter Paul Rubens "Two Satyrs"

The Setup

Master Aeolos has returned from a long voyage to Banquet Season in The City Under The Veridian Moon.

But horror! His fabled wine cellar has gone rancid and turned into a dungeon. A few servants have died, the house guards won't go down there, and things have moved in.

With the season arriving quickly and several parties to be hosted this month,  Aeolos has hired you to delve into this cellar and retrieve casks and bottles of spirits. Oh, and maybe bring back some notable "dungeon meats" ("I did have a wonderful pond down there").

"And keep quiet! We can't have a word of such neglect spread!" (Behind the scenes, the cellar is where Aeolos has buried some of the more unsavory elements of the past- which have also grown in his absence)

1 Wine Amphora can hold about 82 pints of wine or 164 cups; each amphora recovery is ~200sp & 200 xp. Plus whatever else the player can hide on their person and avoid discovery. Afterall dungeon or not, the cellar is still owned by Aeolos.

I'd also want the players to have to recover differnt types of wine for different parties during the season. That way there is a reason to hit up more than the first cellar they find.

If they recover wine, then they can carouse at the party for no money. If they fail to recover the wine, then out into the streets they go due to Aeolos' frustration and anger. Maybe there is a night-on-the-streets table to roll on, but opportunity to be approached by other groups looking for dirt on Aeolos.

"Cask" of Characters:

• Master Aeolos- concerned with present society; want to keep the past just that; hates being inconvenienced
• Mistress Persephone- seeks her own power behind the scenes
• Castellan Cerebrus- suspicious of PCs; hold to a strict protocol in the absence of Master & Mistress
• Captain Hauberk- considers the PCs slightly better than feral dogs and less useful than the hunting dogs; quick to punish
• Several other household staff who can give players equipment, be a source of rumors, and potentially be hired to join them.

Just The Wine Dungeon?

Off the top of my head, here might be some modules I'd throw in or module parts I'd use:

• Through Ultan's Door
• Desiccated Temple of Locha
• Incandescent Grottoes
• the NPCs from B2: Keep on the Borderlands by Gary Gygax
• The manor layout from The Waking of Willowby Hall by Ben Milton