The Longton Cult Compound (Crossword Dungeon)

So Molomoot posted a cool idea over on Bluesky about using solved crossword puzzles as inspiration for both the layout and contents of dungeons. It's pretty brilliant, and sounded like a lot of fun, so I tried it out. Here's how it went.

The puzzle

I've never really been interested in crossword puzzles, so I'm not sure if I had ever—in my 48 years of life—actually completed one before Mol posted their method. However, it turned out to be easier and a lot more engrossing that I expected!

I only had to cheat on the last letter—the M that's highlighted pink in the image—and that's because both crossing words were celebrity names. Just not my area of expertise, man. Anyway, I took that as a cue to make that square the dungeon's entrance.

Turning it into a map

After that, I added walls until things looked like a workable dungeon map, making one room circular because my excessively square layout was honestly looking kinda boring. I messed around a tiny bit with diagonal walls, but found I was ending up with an implausible interior space that would be difficult to describe to players. (I definitely need to get better at dungeon maps, so I'm really glad I did this!)

Adding details

Then—departing from Mol's method and wandering thoughtlessly back to my comfort zone—I started getting dice involved. I selected potential locations for doors, made some quick tables, and rolled for what kind of door situation was going on at each such spot.

1d6	Doorway
1	Trapped door*
2	Locked door*
3	Secret door*
4	Obstructed door*
5	Unlocked door
6	No door

1d6	Trapped door
1–3	Physical trap
4–5	Accidental hazard
6	Magical trap

1d6	Locked door
1–3	Unlocked by key
4–5	Barred on one side
6	Unlocked by combination (or password or something)

1d6	Secret door
1	Hidden by conspicuous or predictable covering (tapestry, waterfall)
2	Hidden effectively, but opening trigger is noticeable (torch sconce with scuff marks, obvious button)
3	Covered up by obvious, easily-removed obstruction (paint, wooden paneling, crumbling plaster)
4	Hidden on one side, but obvious from the other (which is accessible by other means)
5	Fully visible, but opening trigger is hidden or elsewhere
6	Hidden, but something gives it away (scrape marks, draft, light, seeping fluid)

1d6	Obstructed door
1–3	Stuck due to damage or poor maintenance (rusty, warped, swollen)
4–5	Accidentally obstructed (by debris, corpse, rubble)
6	Deliberately barricaded

(That "secret door" table, by the way, was very strongly influenced by the Conspicuous Secret Doors article over at A Blasted, Cratered Land. Lots of good ideas there!)

I also leaned on some random dungeon-stocking table stuff—you know, the kind with results like "monsters and treasure", "trap", and "special feature". And at this point, I was also influenced by Chris McDowall's Non-empty Rooms article for when the stocking table handed me an "empty" result. On top of this stuff, I also used a room generator thing I made that gave me keywords, colors, materials, and other inspirational stuff.

And, reader, I wrote up a bunch of notes and ideas for every room in the dungeon before realizing I had completely forgotten to do anything with the crossword puzzle words. Which was, like, 50% of the point of this exercise.

So, I did my best to work in puzzle-derived ideas as I wrote the whole thing up. I don't think I did a great job of it, but see if you can spot them!

The actual dungeon

So, what I ended up with was the abomination-infested basement of a cult compound under the ruins of a dead town. (Because, honestly, even when I'm running a fantasy game, my first instinct is always to turn it into horror.)

Hook

About a month ago, the isolated town of Longton was massacred and burned by the regional authorities. The official explanation was that a plague had taken hold there, and the slaughter was necessary to prevent illness and death on a vast scale. People from nearby villages partially corroborate this rationale with stories of Longtonites glimpsed with hideous afflictions . . . but partially contradict it with their own health. If Longton harbored some infection, it was apparently caught before it could escape.

The authorities were certainly as careful as they were swift. Soldiers were stationed in camps outside the ruins for weeks, tasked with keeping any survivors from leaving the ruins, or any looters from entering them.

But the watchers left just a few days ago, and some curious souls have already reported a potentially interesting discovery: a staircase leading into the ground beneath the ashes of what must have been a mansion. It ends at an impressive door protected by a deadly trap. One would-be looter was killed by it, and their partner decided to sell the information to professional adventurers rather than taking more risks.

Background

The actual deal here is that Longton harbored a planar contact cult that managed to invoke a dangerous, flesh-warping force they named the Hand of Change—something more like an invasive ecosystem than a discrete entity—and the authorities got massively freaked out when they caught wind of it. The cult—more of an academic group than a charismatic one—had some wealthy members and owned a few local businesses, but certainly didn't control the entire town. And the Hand of Change isn't communicable in the plague sense (mostly). So Longton's annihilation was probably an extreme overreaction.

The group behind all of this never really had a name, and mostly didn't think of themselves as a religious organization, but the term "cult" applies due to their secrecy, insularity, and controlling internal dynamics. They were a dangerous bunch, fully ready to kill in the pursuit of knowledge and power.

Longton had its own dark history predating all this shit by generations, having been home to an aristocratic family that got into some seriously dark magic. Its was that extinct clan's ill-storied mansion that brought the cult there in the first place, having been prepared as a ritual space around a planar veil weakened by years of large-scale human sacrifice.

Now the mansion's basement—all that remains of the cult's compound—is partially overrun with "unruly flesh", the basic undifferentiated matrix of the Hand of Change. It slowly consumes dead or immobile tissue, and occasionally births remote organs that feed and maintain the expanding alien biome. The cosmic source of the Hand of Change was severed from this plane when the cult was slaughtered, so its extrusion into this world is slowly dying, but it could keep growing for months yet.

Random encounters

Every 10 minutes—or when the party does something noisy—roll 1d12. On a 1, roll on the encounter table. If the pit in the Pit Alcove (5) is uncapped, then a roll of 2 produces an encounter of 1d12 skeletons.

1d6	Encounter
1	2d4 stinging organs. Aggressive, spidery, gelatinous things. Stats as giant centipedes.
2	2d4 flying organs. Flapping, leaping things like asymmetrical bats, each with a single black eye. Follow and watch intruders. Only attack to defend themselves. Summon a random encounter if someone harms the unruly flesh. Stats as hawks.
3	2d4 infectious organs. Aggressive, squirming things like velvet worms with wobbling, fluid-filled heads. Stats as giant rats. Anyone who dies while infected turns into unruly flesh.
4	1d4 ripping organs. Aggressive horrors like huge sea cucumbers with thrashing limbs and spiny mandibles. Stats as crocodiles.
5	1 grabbing organ. Fleshy, lumbering, many-limbed thing. Transports corpses or other biomass to unruly flesh. Defends itself if attacked. Stats as giant crab.
6	1 assimilation organ. Aggressive, amorphous flesh mat. Stats as gray ooze. Only camouflages with unruly flesh. Anyone it reduces to 0 HP turns into a new encounter.

Dungeon entrances

The basement actually has two entrances, but the only one that's been discovered is the staircase to the Preparation Room (1). If the PCs decide to spend some time searching the ruins of Longton above ground, they'll also discover (underneath a pile of scorched timber) a bulkhead door leading to the Large Storage Room (8).

The party has been informed that the Preparation Room (1) stairs are trapped, and if they make any effort to examine the area, they'll notice six 1-inch holes at neck height along the walls just outside the basement's door. (These used to be better disguised by some fancy paneling, but that burned away, so now they're very visible shafts in bare stone.) These are basic dart traps targeting three steps near the door, and two darts will be launched at anybody stepping on one of those stairs (1d4 damage each). The first two darts have already been expended, so it's only the lower two steps that are actually trapped.

The bulkhead leading to the Large Storage Room (8) is unlocked, but can be locked with a key from the Mosaic Room (3) or Barracks (11). Anyone listening at it will hear something like a single voice chanting below. From the surface, the bulkhead can be cleared of debris with just a little work.

1: Preparation Room

The south door to the surface is wooden and fire-blackened. There's a ragged gap at the bottom (big enough to reach through, but not to crawl through) where animals have scratched and chewed a way under. It has a peep slot, with a sliding cover on the inner side. There's a keyhole, but it's unlocked.

This room is a waiting lounge and robing chamber that was used before and after the cult's ritual experiments. It is unlit, but the sun will light it dimly if the party enters during the day. It has pale pink wallpaper and dark wooden wainscoting, only slightly heat-damaged and ash-stained. A relentless scratching noise comes from the east. There are two dark blue couches (both in poor repair), and a few small, mismatched tables with iron candelabras, all crusted with white wax. Pegs along the east and west walls hold 11 dark blue robes.

In the north-east corner of the room, a fallen robe covers three pairs of old boots and a family of rats. The rats' movements cause the robe to twitch suspiciously. They'll dart out the south door and up the stairs if disturbed.

Exits

The north door to the Ritual Chamber (3) is locked (key in Mosaic Room (3)), but flimsy. A strong shoulder or a blunt instrument will crack it open loudly.

The east door to the Armory (12) is larger and more ornate, with no knob or handle. It's iron paneled with wood, and is opened by a lever in the Armory (12). It would take significant work with tools or a powerful destructive force to open it from this side. This is the source of the scratching noise.

2: Ritual Chamber

This is a cutting edge magical focus chamber created by the cult to conduct planar contact and summoning rituals with around eight participants. It's a dome-shaped room with walls of green-gray stone, heavily decorated in gothic style, set with dozens of waxy niches holding unlit candles. The floor is a disk of bluish metal with intricate circular inlays. The feeling of active magic is obvious to anyone who enters as a kind of dizzy pressure. The whole place smells like assorted mind-altering chemicals.

If a spell is cast in this room, the unfinished arcane working hanging in the air will consume it, canceling the spell's effects and producing a different effect. Roll a random spell of the same level as the one consumed, or just pick some entertaining fuckery like confusion, polymorph, etc. The unfinished working then has an X-in-6 chance of clearing, where X is the spell effect's level.

Anyone who sleeps in this room while the working is still active (which is difficult to do!) can reestablish contact with the Hand of Change, potentially becoming its cleric or mutating horribly or being granted a single wish of bodily metamorphosis.

Exits

The west door to the Mosaic Room (3) is unlocked, but stuck, obstructed by something tight and rubbery on the other side. This is a layer of unruly flesh, and will tear free with an audible pop and a gust of troubling organic odors if forced.

3: Mosaic Room

This room is overrun with unruly flesh. It's something like mold or coral: a rubbery, lumpy, corrugated layer of lurid magenta and green tissue that covers the floor and most of the gothic stone walls.

The ceiling is covered with the remains of an elaborate mosaic. It portrays an expanse of sea or sky spangled with pale, lacey stars or sea creatures. A dark, crab-like shape dominates the center of the image. The mosaic was created before the cult contacted the Hand of Change, and represents an earlier obsession.

In the southwest corner of the room, the remains of a table have collapsed underneath the unruly flesh. Lying in this heap and partially covered by alien tissue are various ambiguous objects the table held. If the party searches the pile and is willing to tear things out of the flesh, they'll find assorted broken alchemical equipment, vials of drugs and drug precursors worth 150 coins, and a key to all the key-locked (or lockable) doors in the compound—such as the doors between the surface and the Preparation Room (1), between the Preparation Room (1) and the Ritual Chamber (2), between the South Corridor (6) and the Small Storage Room (7), between the South Corridor (6) and the Barracks (11), and between the Large Storage Room (8) and the surface—as well as the pit in the Pit Alcove (5).

Exits

The east door to the Ritual Chamber (2) is stuck by a layer of unruly flesh (if the party hasn't already torn it open recently). It will tear free if forced.

The south door to the North Corridor (4) is mostly free of the flesh, but is barred on this side by a heavy wooden plank.

The west door to the Large Storage Room (8) is severely stuck by a layer of unruly flesh (if the party hasn't already torn it open recently). It requires either significant force or the use of a cutting implement to open. A sound like a single voice chanting comes from this door.

4: North Corridor

This corridor stinks of rot and is overrun with unruly flesh, a rubbery layer of lurid tissue that covers the floor and most of the gothic stone walls. There's a male human corpse in the middle of the corridor, half-overgrown with the flesh.

A spike trap in the north wall drives four rusty spears into the south wall when a weight trigger in the floor is pressed. Both the spike apertures and trigger are covered in flesh, so they're very difficult to spot, and only have a 2-in-6 chance of triggering when someone walks through (maybe 1 in 6 for small people, 3 in 6 for heavily armored or encumbered folks, if you want to get complicated). When triggered, they'll do 2d8 damage to regular-size folks or 1d8 damage to small folks (saving throw to avoid completely).

The corpse lies just east of the trap, face down, head pointing east. It is raggedly punctured in its left thigh and throat, and the wounds seem mechanically inflicted, rather than the result of combat. It hasn't rotted much in the month since death. It wears casual, not particularly fashionable clothing. The unruly flesh has begun covering and consuming the body, but anyone willing to cut it free can find 10 coins, a scroll of shield, and a scroll of sleep on it, and see that its face has been wholly converted.

Exits

The northeast door to the Mosaic Room (3) is barred on the other side (unless the party has already opened it).

The south door to the Pit Alcove (5) is obstructed by something. It feels soft, but not elastic like the unruly flesh. It's another corpse—this one not adhered to the ground—and it takes only a little pushing to get this door open.

The west door to the Library (9) is trapped. The door is thick and iron, and its handle is in a recessed pocket just big enough for a hand. If the handle is turned without being pulled slightly outward first, a metal cuff in the opening will snap shut around the character's wrist, and the door will lock shut. 10 minutes' work with thieves' tools will free the hand (with a check to avoid causing the trapped character 1 point of damage in the process). Alternatively, the mechanism can be released from the other side of the door.

The northwest door to the Large Storage Room (8) is locked with a combination lock, but opens normally from this side. There's also a reminder to the combination written on this side: the numbers 2-7-5-3 written top-to-bottom on the doorframe, near the lock mechanism. A single voice can be heard chanting unintelligibly on the other side.

5: Pit Alcove

This area is free of unruly flesh, and the green-gray gothic stonework is fully visible. There's a ten-foot-diameter pit in the middle of the alcove, covered with a lid of wrought iron, emitting rattling sounds. There's a corpse leaning against the north door (unless the party has moved it). The area stinks of rot.

The pit is where the old mansion's original owners disposed of sacrificial victims. The cult, more recently, threw inconvenient living people in there—sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. Now, the ongoing arcane catastrophe has set off the accumulated death energy below, and the pit contains a virtually endless supply of feral undead skeletons. It's 50 feet deep, so they're not easily visible from the surface (Is it safe to turn an oil lantern sideways?), but their frenzied clacking and scratching is obvious.

The pit's lid is very old and ornate, like a net of iron vines. It's fastened at two points with much newer locks. A key from the Mosaic Room (3) or Barracks (11) will open them, but it will take at least 30 points of combined Strength (or somewhat fewer points and a good plan) to move the lid. As soon as the lid is open, 7 skeletons will emerge (half climbing, half pushed up from below) and attack. 1d4 more skeletons emerge every round that the pit is uncovered and a living person remains in this room.

The corpse near the north door to the North Corridor (4) is that of a human woman in unremarkable, academic clothing. It appears to have been mauled horribly by some kind of animal, but hasn't rotted nearly as much as you'd expect. If searched, it will yield a dagger and a potion of invisibility.

Exits

The south doorway leads to the South Corridor (6).

6: South Corridor

This area is free of unruly flesh, and the green-gray gothic stonework is fully visible. The walls are lined with candle alcoves crusted with white wax.

There's a pit trap in front of the door to the Small Storage Room (7). It's not obvious, but anyone examining the hallways will notice that particular square of floor isn't polished by years of foot traffic like the rest of the hallway. It pops open when about 50+ pounds of pressure are applied to it, potentially dumping a character into a 30-foot-deep, five-foot-diameter pit. It's supposed to reset itself afterwards, but only has a 4-in-6 chance of doing so. At the bottom of the pit are six inches of filthy water and a silver-plated religious icon (depicting the widely popular monkey trickster deity Woho, worth 360 coins) that the cult lost a year ago.

Exits

The northwest door to the Library (9) is barricaded on the other side by crates full of papers, if the party hasn't already moved them. It would take 30 points of combined Strength to slowly push it open. Otherwise, the door could just be destroyed or removed from its hinges.

The north door to the Small Storage Room (7) is unlocked, but could be locked with a key from the Mosaic Room (3) or Barracks (11).

The northeast doorway leads to the Pit Alcove (5).

The southeast door to the Barracks (11) is locked, but could be unlocked with a key from the Mosaic Room (3) or Barracks (11).

The southwest door to the Bathing Chamber (10) has no lock.

7: Small Storage Room

This room used to be storage for daily sundries, but was emptied when the cult fled the compound. Now it only contains a lot of empty wooden shelves and cabinets. They could be used to block the door very effectively. The door could also be locked with a key from the Mosaic Room (3) or Barracks (11).

8: Large Storage Room

This is a large, warehouse-like space full of shelves and crates. It is overrun with unruly flesh, and whatever goods were stored here are largely ruined. Alas Enti waits behind the shelves, chanting endlessly and meaninglessly.

Alas Enti

Once the head of the contact cult, Alas Enti has been massively transformed by the Hand of Change in a desperate attempt to adapt into something that would survive the attack on Longton. She was also mentally devastated by that change, and by the disruption of the Hand's contact with this plane. She's now a swollen horror of lurid magenta flesh with fractally branching antler-like growths and virtually no humanoid features. Her psionic antennae cause constant psychic damage to those around her as they attempt to contact the Hand of Change.

Alas' mind is all but gone. She no longer understands speech, and the combination lock that trapped her in here is completely beyond her. She hates being alone. She is comforted by her nonsense chanting and the presence of the unruly flesh. If she is aware of another person, she will move towards them and chant at them. She won't leave the fleshy area of rooms 3, 4, 8, and 9, and she'll try to stop anyone else from leaving, as well.

She's still weaning the remnants of a black robe and 1,440 coins' worth of expensive, tasteless jewelry. She doesn't care about any of it, and will let anyone take it as long as she's calm and isn't harmed in the process. Much of the jewelry has been partially absorbed by her expanding flesh, but half can be removed without having to be cut free.

Alas has the stats of a troll, and does 1 point of damage to anything with a mind for each round that she has line of effect with them.

Exits

The east door to the Mosaic Room (3) is severely stuck by a layer of unruly flesh (if the party hasn't already torn it open recently), and requires either significant force or the use of a cutting implement to open.

The south door to the North Corridor (4) isn't covered in flesh, but is locked with a novel combination lock: Four cylindrical dials are stacked vertically next to the door's latch mechanism. Each one can be turned to display one of nine different arcane or a blank space. They're basically nonsense, corresponding to no actual language, but can easily be interpreted as a numbering system. Dialing in the glyphs for 2-7-5-3 unlocks the door. While the door can be opened from the North Corridor (4) without being unlocked, it will close and relock itself if the right combination isn't set.

If the west bulkhead to the surface hasn't already been cleared of debris, it's hard to do from underneath, requiring a total Strength of 20. Up to two adult-human-sized people can work together on this, more if they're smaller. It's unlocked, but can be locked with a key from the Mosaic Room (3) or Barracks (11).

9: Library

The cult's library of rare esoterica and original research has been all but completely consumed by unruly flesh.

Anybody who spends 10 minutes searching has an X-in-6 chance of finding intact old books worth 1d10 × 10 coins to a wizard or antiquarian (X = 3 - previous finds). They will also notice two mostly converted corpses underneath the unruly flesh.

If the party spends some time examining the cult's writing, go ahead and tell them about what happened here. You can be as vague as you want, since they're really only interpreting fragments.

There are two large (4' × 2') paintings on the walls, each only slightly marred by unruly flesh. They're merely decorative, not esoteric, depicting a lion and a dove in a competent if unimaginative style. They're worth 30 coins each, and would be a pain in the ass to carry.

The crates that barricade the south door are mostly full of old papers, but one contains a diamond lens worth 300 coins to a jeweler or 600 coins to an optician.

Exits

The north door to the North Corridor (4) is trapped from the outside, but opens normally from this side. The trap can also be unlocked from this side.

The south door to the South Corridor (6) is barricaded by crates full of papers on this side, if the party hasn't already pushed it open. From this side, they can be moved with just a little work.

10: Bathing Chamber

In the bathing chamber, the basement's green-gray stonework smooths out of its rugose gothic style of ornamentation, and switches abruptly to whimsical mosaics of sea creatures. The southern end of the room dips down at an angle below filthy black water, five feet at its deepest.

If someone decides to wade into the suspicious pool in a dungeon cursed by a flesh-warping planar power, feel free to pull out your favorite mutation table.

A toilet alcove in the northwest corner was a later and cheaper addition, and offers no privacy beyond a curtain that separates bathers from shitters.

Exits

The north door to the South Corridor (6) has no lock.

11: Barracks

This room served as excess sleeping space for low-ranking cultists when the mansion's bedrooms were fully occupied. It contains several beds and chests of drawers, four braziers, and two buckets. Three of the beds contain corpses. The walls are green-gray stone in the basement's usual style, with candle alcoves and two big iron chandeliers. The room stinks of rot and shit. There are a few crates full of supplies here.

The corpses are two women and one man, all cultists who locked themselves in here during the siege of Longton and the madness of their leaders, then overdosed on alchemical entheogens after their food ran out. They wear plain, vaguely scholarly clothing, and are very decomposed. If searched, each will yield 2d20 coins and an empty drug vial. One of the women has a key identical to the one from the Mosaic Room (3). It fits all the key-locked (or lockable) doors in the compound—such as the doors between the surface and the Preparation Room (1), between the Preparation Room (1) and the Ritual Chamber (2), between the South Corridor (6) and the Small Storage Room (7), between the South Corridor (6) and the Barracks (11), and between the Large Storage Room (8) and the surface—as well as the pit in the Pit Alcove (5).

The chests of drawers are almost empty, containing only spare bedding, no personal items.

The supply crates mostly contain various mundane sundries. The food is long gone, but there's plenty of lamp oil, paper, ink, charcoal, soap, and even a few weapons (four daggers, two shortswords, and a crossbow).

The buckets are full of shit and piss.

Exits

The north door to the South Corridor (6) is locked, but could be unlocked with a key from the Mosaic Room (3) or the corpses.

The east door to the Armory (12) is barricaded on this side by two chests of drawers and a bed, if the party hasn't already pushed it open. From this side, they can be moved with a bunch of work and some time.

12: Armory

This room is an utter wreck. There are broken weapons and smashed furniture strewn about, and scratches all over everything. There are scant remnants of three human bodies: some oddly diminished bones and a few twists of desiccated flesh. If the party makes any noise when opening or entering this room, Etsetto will immediately be upon them.

There's very little of value in this room. Six daggers, three suits of leather armor, one suit of chainmail, and four crossbow bolts have survived Etsetto's rage.

Etsetto

This creature used to be the cult's head of security and principle enforcer. He was rapidly given extensive and reckless biological enhancements when the group realized it was under attack, and his mind was destroyed when their connection to the Hand of Change was disrupted. He's now a gaunt, towering, distressingly flexible pink-and-russet humanoid with very little in the way of a face. He sports a third arm (notably smaller than his other two) and his feet have worn away to bony spikes—a fact which hasn't slowed him down as much as it should have.

Etsetto cannot rest, and prefers not to stop moving. Being trapped in this room has not improved his mental state, and all he wants to do right now is kill people and break things, in that order. If there's no one immediately available to kill and nothing interesting to smash, he'll absorb any corpses in sight. Failing that, he'll relentlessly lurch around on his spike-feet in search of mayhem.

Etsetto has the stats of an unarmed ogre with a 1d8 punch attack for each arm. If he assimilates a person-sized corpse (which takes 10 minutes), he heals fully and gains an HD. He might also gain a new limb or other faculty. He can squeeze through surprisingly small openings for such a big flesh mutant.

Exits

The east door to the Preparation Room (1) is locked, but is opened by a lever on the north wall nearby.

The west door to the Barracks (11) is barricaded on the other side by two chests of drawers and a bed, if the party hasn't already moved them. From this side, it would take 35 points of combined Strength to slowly push it open. Otherwise, the door could just be destroyed or removed from its hinges.

Postmortem

Wow, this one got out of control. I honestly thought it was going to take just a day or two, but instead I worked on it for almost a week. I really do need to be more concise. I do like what I came up with here, though. I actually want to run it!

Anyway, much thanks to Molomoot for inspiring this whole thing. I did a really poor job of following the instructions, but I had a great time.