The Goblin Cubes

Stairs down through mist-filled abyss for like 100feet. No ceiling, no floor, no walls, nothing but mist and stairs.

Then the stairs terminate at a door in the base of a 50' x 50'x 50' cube.

The surfaces of the cube are dense and all awrithe with carvings in black soapstone, kind of like...

Now while you can just go through the door (on Face 1), there's also doors on every other face, only these are set in the middle of these faces rather than the base.

Also, there are no stairs to these other doors, so you'll have to climb or fly around.

Once inside, the gimmick is threefold:

1) Each door leads to a slightly different version of the room inside the cube.

2) Only one of these versions has access to another set of stairs leading down further the rest of the dungeon. The rest are dead ends.

3) Once you open a door, you'll see that around the perimeter of the floor of the room there's a line of carved runes which, if crossed, triggers a magic trap--a different one from each direction.

Doors close when unobserved. Opening multiple doors simultaneously causes multiple effects.

The party has encountered two examples so far, some influenced by the Perplexity tables in* Red & Pleasant Land:

Statue Room

The carvings on the outside of the cube include the famous epic of the First Goblin King Insulting The Sun Thus Beginning Their Enmity. The room contains, in the center of the room, a life-sized statue of a goblin lord pointing to Face 1.

Stepping across the line of runes behind the door from Face 1 turns anything leather you've got into syrup.

Stepping across the line of runes behind the door from Face 3 turns anything metal you've got into syrup.

Stepping across the line of runes behind the door from Face 5 turns anything wood you've got into syrup.

Stepping across the line of runes behind the door from Face 6 turns anything stone you've got into syrup.

A) The door in Face 1 leads to a version of the room which has an exit on Face 6 which has stairs to the rest of the dungeon.

B) The door in Face 2 leads to a version with no other exit but back out to Face 1.

C) The door in Face 3 leads to a version like B but completely filled with a blackish liquid that gushes out in a torrent when you open the door.

D) The door in Face 4 leads to a version like B but:

-the door (which opens out/down) is directly under the statue

-the statue is now made of linked (easily dissassemblable and carryable) pieces of gold

-the statue stands in the middle of a ring of indestructible candles and anything crossing them (or their airspace) disintegrates.

...likely anyone who opens this door unaware of what's about to happen will feel an immense weight of the statue falling through the door and need to roll some dice.

E) The door in Face 5 leads to a version like D only you're seeing it from the side so it'd be real hard to get to the gold statue without being disintegrated.

F) The door in Face 6 leads to a version like B but there are versions of the adventuring party, all dead inside, apparently after some horrific battle.

Turtle Furniture Room

The carvings on the outside of the cube include the famous tale of The Goblin Brothers Who Turned The Moon Sideways To Use As A Boat Across The Night. The room contains a hearth, a rug in the center of the room, and several pieces of comfortable goblin-sized furniture carried on the backs of galapagos tortoises.

Stepping across the line of runes behind the door from Face 1 turns anything paper you've got into syrup.

Stepping across the line of runes behind the door from Face 3 turns anything magic you've got into syrup.

Stepping across the line of runes behind the door from Face 5 turns anything gold you've got into syrup.

Stepping across the line of runes behind the door from Face 6 turns anything liquid you've got into syrup.

A) The door in Face 1 leads to a version of the room which has an exit on Face 6 which has stairs to the rest of the dungeon and an ancient goblin king with a midas-touch who has been imprisoned here. There are gold footprints on the floor and the patch of ground around him has been turned to gold.

B) The door in Face 2 leads to a version with no other exit but back out to Face 1. 

C) The door in Face 3 leads to a version like B but containing 6 goblin guards armed with pikes.

D) The door in Face 4 leads to a version like B but containing an iguana-sized basilisk. (You come up under the rug).

E) The door in Face 5 leads to a version like B but containing happily married or otherwise settled future versions of the PCs, who have freed the turtles and who urge the PCs to stay and relax forever.

F) The door in Face 6 leads to a version like B but containing 6 small mammals (they look like hamsters but are really overweight shrews) who have gone made, having been trapped here since the dawn of their species by goblins resentful of "the new animals". They have red eyes and ancient diseases you have no immunity to.

So far the party assassin has managed to have the gold statue fall past him (he rescued the arm), had his leg disintegrated by the candlesmoke, got turned to gold leaping on the midas king, then turned to stone by the basilisk.

He got better.

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