Tuesday, May 26, 2026

The Testing Chamber

This can be used in any appropriate dungeon or just as its own dungeon. It should keep players busy for an hour or two.

  • PCs appear in the chamber colored green. 
  • Each of the four doors out of the green room has one symbol: sword, coin, cup, wand.
  • Behind each of these doors is a sleeping ogre with a sack of coins worth 100gp. Each ogre is identical to the other three.
  • Opening the red doors leads to a magic portal--the portal leads back to the green room.
  • To end this loop, each ogre must be overcome by the proper means, which won't be told explicitly to the PCs:
  • --The ogre behind the sword door must be defeated (at least partially) by physical attacks
  • --The ogre behind the wand door must be defeated (at least partially) by magic
  • --The ogre behind the coin door must have his coins taken by the PCs in a nonviolent way
  • --The ogre behind the cup door must not be harmed (or robbed) at all--just get to the door
  • If an ogre is overcome in the way appropriate to their door, then they will remain in the state they were left (dead, sleeping, etc) any time that door's checked until all 4 of these identical ogres have been properly overcome.
  • If an ogre is overcome in an "inappropriate" way, they will reappear in their original state (unharmed and asleep with all their coins) next time their door's opened and any coins taken from that ogre will evaporate.
  • Once all four sleeping ogres are overcome in the way appropriate to their door, the PCs still reappear in the green room, but this time each door leads to an ogre that's awake. This is a different ogre (technically a mountain ogre rather than forest ogre) and he has a sack of coins worth 400gp. He must be overcome 4 times in the same ways as above.
  • After the mountain ogre, the 4 rooms contain coffins, inside each of which contains 800gp and an (identical) sleeping vampire. She must be overcome 4 times in the same ways as above.
  • After the coffin is overcome, the 4 rooms each contain a different vampire (awake) wearing 1200gp worth of jewelry. She must be overcome 4 times in the same ways as above.
  • After all that, the test is over and the new, richer PCs can go back to whatever and wherever they were.


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