Lost Galmagia Week 0, the City Ruins

My first week is from December 26 to January 1, giving space to define the ruins above the dungeon. I want both Gygaxian & Jaquayed – naturalistic features that players can exploit; full of loops so players have meaningful choices – so knowing what buildings room clusters were under helps. The biggest feature of Galmagia is the Grand Canal. Galmagia maximized its utility with not just a lower port but underground roads to move goods. These link six major buildings and flavor the clusters under them. 

Wandering Monsters

There is a 1 in 6 chance of a small goblin patrol also hiding in the city when the PCs enter with a 1 in 12 chance of encountering the PCs each hour; these will always race back to S31 if they see the PCs. If the PCs are exploring S31 when the goblins are out, they find the gate unlocked.  

M26:  The Cathedral

A center for the Matriarchy of the Moon. The thick, 4’ high stones of the cathedral’s walls lie scattered about. Exploration takes either 4d12 person hours to find a trapdoor to the dungeon half buried under a 4’ stone cube of stone (clearing that has its own time requirements). If the PCs have an accurate rumor about that trapdoor, finding it takes 1d4 person hours. The space is infested with 4 Soul Echoes, a new Level 0 monster that saps constitution (1 pt per hit, max 1 per hour); they wait for their targets to sleep so to steal 8 points overnight. Sapped constitution will return when the PC rests in a Place of Safety.

T27: The Stone Lean-Tos

These buildings had 15’ x7’ x 1’ walls; while broken and unmoored, they lean against each other in haphazard fashion creating rough shelters that for travelers. The PCs can set this up as a place to rest and recover, but it would take magic to make it a Place of Safety. There’s a 1 in 6 chance that there’s some other travelers here (Nomads or Acolytes) whenever the players enter after the first visit. 

W28: Candlelight and Customs

The ruin of the old custom house mostly pillars and statuary on a grand marble floor, which seen from a distance at night still dance with lights weaving in and about them. Up close those are revealed to be Fire Beetles moving up and down the broad, mud-covered steps to the lower customs house, and the easiest access to the dungeon. Here, the Fire Beetles have a Morale of 2, racing below or scattering. 

T29: the Ratholes

This space is over the old noble manor houses, and Prairie Rats, new level 0 monsters that are a step between regular and giant rats, infest this space. It has considerable dirt and earth cover over years of the city eroding into it, and the rats use that for burrows. They are violent and easily scattered (morale 4), but will regroup here every d4 days. There’s a passage into the dungeon wide enough for lightly armored characters to squirm through that each PC has a 1 in 12 chance of stumbling across (elves 2 in 12); it can be cleared enough for a more comfortable passage in 2d12 person hours. 

F30: Enticing Ruins

The bulk of the city, this is low stone and rotted wood ruins that the monsters from below, horseclans, and travelers have picked clean with no passage down. Any time the PCs spend here is wasted. the acolytes ward had seen it's wooden buildings both collapsed and torched, and its ground is ash made muddy from the canal overflow (F30A). The space that used to be the eastern city park is now naught but stone and earth, and the park ward's strong stone merchant houses are now am uneven, impassable floor (F30B); the ancestors ward has seen all the graves knocked flat, the ones with any accessibility prized open and plundered (F30C, but see 1.23).

S31: Failed Sentry

This was once a tall, square guard tower, now destroyed to the point where walking is uncomfortable due to the rocky shards littering the ground. 2d12 person hours search (or 1d4 with an Accurate Rumor) locates stairs down to a metal gate to the old armory & prison that is usually locked, but 1 in 6 chance it is not because there are goblins on the surface somewhere). The lock can be picked, or the gates bent or ripped down, as normal. 

Room 1:  The Customs House Ballroom

The muddy marble stairs from W28 lead here, an opulent room left to the elements. A stream runs down the stairs to the south, either out the west door (to 3) or pooling in the southwest corner. The water clearly flooded south once, as all the furnishings are clustered against that wall (concealing the grate to 2). There are 4 Fire Beetles here but like those in W28, they are Morale 2. There south wall debris has been picked through, but 1 turn of looking yields a pair of gold candlesticks worth 25 GP each.