Evolving Dungeons

It's that time of the year again! when this blog is finally used, to bring gifts and happiness to everyone! this post is the gift requested by Arnold K. Go also check Foremole's blog, who did my request!
these are all dungeons that drastically change during their exploration.

The Hidden Prison of the Wizard-Kings

It was built to imprison the enemies of the wizard-kings. Lots of demons and other immortal beings are sealed here. The Warden-King watches over the entrance to the lower levels, protecting the terrible secrets held there. His powers enforce the unbreakable rules of the prison, and his death will cause a massive revolt.

random encounters:

• King is alive-

1. Warden Automaton, patrolling
2. 1d6 Prison staff, checking
3-8. nothing.

• King is dead-

1. Xur, demon of Lead, gathering followers
2. Aristen, demon of Wings, offering deals
3. Nyol-clovv, demon of Light, hungry for souls
3. Scathrash, demon of Rot, blindly lashing out
4. Lich Witch Nua, hunting their enemies
5. Lich Paladin Jum, in search of demons to fight
6. The Dragon Bird, looking for a good meal
7. Pink, the crystal wizard, causing mayhem
8. Swarm of lesser spirits, seeking bodies to possess
9. Warden Automaton, fighting/chasing (roll again)
10. 1d6 Prison staff, fleeing (roll again)

Room: Mass Detainment

• King is alive-

A bridge crosses this cylindrical room: the floor and roof are out of sight. Rows of hundreds of heavy locked doors fill the walls. Five very long metal arms descend from above (Control Room) at the first loud sound, pushing intruders down the bridge (Processing)

• King is dead-

Hundreds of Minor Demons rampage in the room: some of them are climbing five metal arms up to the Control Room; the weight prevents the arms from moving. A small group of undead inmates is hiding from the demons in a cell and is looking for help to escape the prison.

The sanctuary of Green Tears

A maze of passages cut deep into the rock connecting wider rooms, glistening with moss and shadowed by great trees above, in a lush forest growing in an otherwise lifeless region hiding at its center the last tear shed by a deity of Life. if the green tear is taken, the forest will die and the dungeon will start to wither: the trees above will go trought an accellerated autumn and the moss will dry.

random encounters:

1. Giant frog, waiting for prey
2. Giant mantis, praying
3. Giant tiger, stalking
4. 2d6 animal people, patrolling
5. 1d6 giant baboons, protecting territory
6. 2d4 giant ants, searching food
7. Grove of strangling vines
8. roll two times

after the tear is taken, there are no random encounters.

Room: Gator's Pond

Here the ground is muddy and covered in almost knee-hig  clear water, full of waterlilies and algae. near the center the water is much deeper and darker, and a giant Killer Log floats there, fat and content. The pond can be crossed walking on the back of the reptile, but this will enrage the giant egrets nesting there, and they will attempt to knock anyone in the water. if the Log senses anyone moving in the deep water, it will slowly move to face them and lazily bite them.

After the tear is taken, dead plant matter dots the blackened water. while crossing the deeper central part, long, flexible arms will reach from below to drag anyone underwater. if the players escape, the Giant Killer Log Skeleton will emerge and pursue them.

The Living Cave

The recently opened caves complex presents a rounded and homogeneous conformation. it doesn't looks like it was built, but its too orderly to be a natural cave. If the players stay long enough in the dungeon, it will begin to depetrify itself and return to life, sensing that it is no longer isolated and can again access food. once it is fully recovered, the "stone" will have been seemingly replaced by firm blue-gray flesh, the tunnels slowly contracting and dilating.

random encounters before/after the cave wakes:

1. Stone urchins, slowly encircling the players/Soft urchins, waving spike-tipped tentacles
2. Rock beetle, hunting warmth/Bloated matrix, spewing worms
3. Hard spores, midlessy rolling/White cells, looking for intruders to fagocite
4. Plate lobster, camouflaged/Tender tiger, sneaking
5. Bouldermen, meditating/Polypeople, scheming
6. Chalk moth, hungry for light/Membranous dragon, thirsty for news of the outer world

Room: Ducts hub

room shaped like a funnel resting on its side: at the narrow end, the walls are dotted by small tunnels, each leading to another room, but its tiresome and hard to travel through them. Eleven Bouldermen rest here, sitting in a circle

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the watery nutritive fluids coming from Digestion and Air Shafts pools and mixes here, until regular contraptions of the walls push the solution trought the sucking tunnels to the other rooms. being caught in the suction will deposit a player in a random room (specific for each tunnel) and deal them 1d6 damage from the fast, wet trip. Eleven Polypeople live here, trying to assess the current status of the Cave and devising a plan to deal with the blockages in Circulation.

The Tower Of Invention

The old workshop, turned weapon factory turned fortress turned labour camp turned waste dump. But the desire for creation and experimentation is still etched into its essence, and when the Furnace Heart will be relit, the ancient laboratory will activate and work again, like it did way back beyond the gulf of time. the materials that accumulated here over time cannot compare to the stuff of the old times, but by sheer quantity are enough to produce a staggering amount of treasures and weapons.

Room: Garbagetown

A society of rejects formed here, below the tower and just above the cold Furnace, where the garbage is so much that it has completely buried the ancient structures. They can provide you with lots of cheap garbage equipment and supplies. they where subconsciously drawn here, and don't imagine the real power of the place, but know that it is ancient, dangerous and important.

Denizens of Garbagetown:

1. Jur, Blacksmith Poet
2. Dolethi, Visionary Engineer
3. Scoria, Very Bad Alchemist
4. Paper, Surgeon-Mechanic Pioneer
5. Zenith, Machine Trainer
6. Coli, Occult Historian

Furnacetown

After the Furnace Heart is relit, the furnaces buried under the garbage will devour all of it together with the town. The Fame Of Invention burning in their hearts too, the denizens will rebuild their bodies to withstand the heat and start using this power to actually pursue their visions. The place will also populate with dangerous Gleaming Machines, their insides full of rare metals.

The Laser Palace Of The Chrome Sultan

The original purpose of the Laser Palace has been forgotten, but it clearly was one of his most prized propreties. Inside, rust-eaten racks hold bizarre long-guns beside multicoloured dance floors and holo-projectors. Some systems are functioning still (mainly the security ones), but others haven't worked in centuries. 

If the Command Deck is reached, the security network will enter in critical alert and force-reset the main AI. Its purpose remembered, the airship (the palace is actually an airship) will free itself from the ground and travel to the Hunting Grounds, where the Sultan liked to spend his vacations.

Random Encounters:

1. Crazed service droid
2. Digital Ghost
3. Security Laser Annihilator
4. Neon Worms

Room: Holodeck

Flashes of holo-projections constantly flicker though the room, dark except for the intermittent beams of focused light summoning ephemeral images. Roll on the encounter table: there is an actual threat hidden here too.

After the airship takes off, the projectors reset and start working fully, but still chaotically: images taken both from the memory of the players and from the ancient archives of the ship are assembled in a dream-like landscape. The boundaries of the room seemingly vanish, creating the illusion of a boudless expanse of random light-memories. Also, the north side of the room is missing, left on the ground when the ship lifted itself: the strong wind is not immediately noticeable (the sound it makes is suppressed by the sound-manipulators of the room and holograms aren't affected by it), and anyone swept away by it will be hurled out of the ship.

The Digital World Of N10-XVIII

A folded space-out-of-space, a complex system regulated by encoded data. Some parts of it are autonomous and even sentient, but it doesn't have any unified consciousness. The code that makes it up breaks apart easily. If you do too much things you are not supposed to do, it will reach a critical state and quickly collapses into a mess of glitches and bugs.

Room: Grove Of Memories

A shadowy wood, with marble columns instead of trees. Their tops disappear in a thick darkness a few meters above ground level: from there, golden lights shine down on pedestals holding recostructions of events and things from a forgotten past. Many of them are downscaled models, but the ones that are at actual size can be looted and used. doing so causes errors, and attract the attention of the Mage Program.

After the Digital World glitches completely, the atmospheric shadows in the Grove disappear, showing that the columns just go up forever. Almost all the models on the pedestals are completely glitched, and some of them fused into three Glitch Horrors: a spaceship battle fused with a popular recipe, a field of flowers with stretched busts of historical figures as legs, and an extinct animal compenetrated with a sports star. There are also 1d6 Paradox Treasures to be found on the pedestals.

SANTA'S SACK'S FULL OF GUTS THIS YEAR

So for secret santicorn i got to grant Die Uncast's wish: «A bunch of interesting magic items (or the like), but as grotty biotech. Extra credit for making it a generator or something of the sort (or better yet, adding one to the side as a bonus)»
So, here they are.
They all have to be fed blood (actually nutritive solution but blood is easier to come by) to be kept alive if they don't have other ways of feeding.

LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH

Lesser alchemic converter

Basically all potions are made in some kind of thing like this, but those are generally bigger, all black chitin and long hollow quills dripping with magic juices. This is a member of the same family, small enough to fit in a backpack, and lacking magic glands, but the base system is there: five mouths, each attached to a functionally different digestive tract, programmed to transform various common substances in other common substances. the operation is simple.

Pour in one of the following substances to have it transformed into another of your choice within minutes, with a rate of 2:1

• grease (edible)
• fire oil
• glue
• acid
• honey
• blood

Pour a potion or a magic material inside and...

1. It is excreted as one of the fluids in list, but mantain its properties
2. it has effect on the converter
3. it is absorbed by the converter, which undergoes a mutation (see table below)
4. its properties are reversed, or it is turned into another magic substance
5. the converter bursts with a slimy explosion, the substance rains on everyone nearby
6. the converter vomits. for the rest of the day if used it will only produce random substances

Pod of Guys

A big pink thing, vaguely resembling a bean pod. If ripped open it reveals 2d4 small humanoid creatures, which will happily follow every order from the opener of the pod. They cannot talk and are kinda dumb, but understand Language and have preimplanted knowledge about various common concepts. They might be especially skilled at being lab assistants, or maybe roll on some profession table to see for what work where they made. They last a day.
Also there are rare living pods that can be resealed and grow 1 guy/day if fed properly.

Riding Worm

Fearsome piece of biotechnology from the rightly feared House of Maggots. Sink in the cavity just behind the head and fuse your nervous system with it's to move it around. You will be able to use it's senses (telluric perception, which is a bit like hearing but trought earth; powerful smell; vague tactile perception). You don't even have to eat, drink or breath while inside, the worm has built-in support for all those things. Save or get a mutation every 2 days you stay inside the worm, if you fail you have a [mutations number]-in-6 chance of remaining stuck inside and needing a surgical extraction. if you really want to leave, thats it.

Riding Worm: HD 5, light armour (thick skin), worm bite d6+swallow, regenerate 1pf/hour, tunnel trough earth

Some people grew their own worms, so there are all kind of alternative versions out there. Also, like all biotech, riding worms are prone to mutations.

1. Can hold 1d4 additional riders; only first one controls it
2. Has actual eyes
3. Dangerous spikes deal 1d4 damage to anyone in melee
4. Disgusting poisonous retractile stinger from head/tail, d6 damage, 3d6 poison damage per day, you can spread it over multiple attacks
5. Has lots of legs and chitin plates and is actually a centipede. medium armour, 1d8 but no swallow mandibles, climb but cannot burrow
6. Worm regenerates rider's hp as well

Bugsight helmet

symbiotic chitin plates holding an array of two big compound eyes, several ocelli and two pairs of antennae, along with millions of feeler hairs ower all the surface. It allows for 360° degree low-light vision, perception of air currents, stronger smell and ability to taste anything without having to touch it (by wawing antennae over things). It also makes your vision terribly imprecise and pixellated. Can be used by blind people too

Lobster suit
this bioarmour encases the user’s arms in chitin limbs ending in crab-like claws. Under these, eight auxiliary arms can be used for fine manipulation (but still not as good as uman hand’s one) and to scuttle along the ground at full speed. The armour permits to effortlessy stand up from this position too, but it makes you pretty helpless when knocked to the ground belly-up. As medium armour + medium weapon.

Healt bug
things like these are generally used by TRUE biotech enthusiasts because they are useful as they are disturbing. The revolting appearace, like a black mouse combined with a locust with many retractable thin and long legs, hides extremely advanced flesh-shaping systems. Just eat it, and it will happily scuttle around your insides, fixing everything that’s wrong. Every hour, you regain 1 hp. Each day, you heal one point from every damaged phisical score and/or reduced maximum hp. It also removes poisons, diseases and body-altering magic, preventing you from dying from them unless the death they cause is INSTANTANEOUS. If it removes something especially virulent, toxic or cursed it will mutate.
Also you have a 1% chance of being infested by healt bug eggs each full day it is in your body. It is a really not funny condition.

Buzzguns

A family of hive-based weapons, very infamous due to the horrible stories of the survivors of encounters with them. All of them produce 1d6 “shots” per day, up to teir clip size.

Sark .50 Special: looks like a lump of hardened wax the size of a big orange. Shoots things like wasps with a theeth crown in place of a head, they latch on flesh and pump in poison. They are painful but don’t cause damage beside the poison. if you don’t hit anything they still seek flesh, so next round they attack the nearest target in the area they have been fired in. If they don’t find any near in a round they die. 1d6 poison damage/round until they are removed or a 6 is rolled. Clip size 6

AS-12: still the favourite among scourge lords and terror knights. Like a cluster of black shells from which many sligtly curved pipes protrude forward. Shoot a barrage of small unidentified black things that deal 1d6 damage as they bite and rip skin. Every 2 extra shots expended you attack an additional creature. You can expend all 10 shots to create a cloud of furious insect-things. Clip size 10, two handed.

Sark ’44: a more modern weapon, it looks like a crossbow fused with a cricket and shoots long worm like creatures bigger that what is usual for projectile life-forms, self propelled trough a spiral of pseudo-wings around all the body that bite with their centipede-like mouths and reflexively coil themselves gripping the body of the victim. 1d10 damage, and the wielder of the Sark ’44 can perceive the direction and distance of every victim with a dart still stuck to their body. Clip size 5, two handed.

Item mutations

bioitems are riddled by genetics errors caused by centuries of attemped cloning, shoddy modifications, lack of competent care and original biocodes being lost. You may find them already mutated, or they might mutate following contact with concentrations of magic or unstable energies. 

You can also roll to make biotechnological (or just weirder) "normal" magic items

Roll 1d20:

1. Bioluminescent markings higlighting operable parts of the device
2. Monotone voice warning against errors and security violations at the worst times
3. Kind female voice offering trivial advice about the operation of the device
4. Zelant voice excitedly preaching about the holy All-Flesh at irregular intervals
5. Item is now sentient. Can talk only with those phisically linked with it, unless a voice is given to it
6. Linked to a network of other telepathic items, allowing communication with their owners
7. A small copy of the item grows from it and detaches, reaching adulthood in 3d6 months
8. Acidic blood, it will spray anything attempting to damage the item
9. Item sheds skin and emerges regenerated every week
10. Item grows several pairs of bug wings. It flies to follow it’s owner, if its small enough to lift iself
11. Item happily purrs when used
12. Item emits a hig pitched scream when someone different from the owner tries to steal or damage it
13. Stripes forming a symbol representing the owner of the item at the time this mutation forms
14. great quantity of tentacles. Item cannot be forcefully separated from the owner’s grasp
15. Item releases pleasure pheromones upon being used. Addictive
16. Coat of fur resembling that of a rare and exotic animal, it looks extra fancy
17. Edible, it tastes and smells of licorice mixed with minimal traces of something revolting
18. Item secretes biofluids causing exposed flesh to mutate and imitate item’s functions
19. Chaotic growth drastically alters item’s anatomy giving it an additional function
20. Iridescent scales, delicate flower-shaped stalks and transparent fins: this item looks extra expensive

This count as a random generator i guess just take any random magic (or even mundane why not) item and roll for some added biological fun