A few months ago, I wrote a post about puzzles and predicaments for role-playing games. One of those predicaments was something I called “the spirit maze”, in which the heroes encounter a series of rooms that don’t fit together in way that can be mapped. This is not a particularly difficult or complex predicament, but I think it would be fun to explore.

I decided to expand this idea into a post of its own, with more specifics so you can make it the climax of a dungeon of your own.

The Setup

The general idea is that the heroes have delved into a dungeon that was once a temple and/or monastery now fallen into ruin. They have already fought various creatures, both living and undead, and they have so far come away with little treasure. But, if the rumors are true, there should be treasure here. The ancient monks supposedly abandoned the place in a rush amidst smoke and flame from a barbarian raid–taking few of their fabled treasures–but were slaughtered on the run.

Now the heroes find themselves well underground and in a chamber with a door on each of its four walls. The map below is merely for illustration. The rooms are not square but various shapes, with specific features as described.

Chamber 1: the Oval

The heroes enter the maze here from a traditional monastery or temple ruins with some underground passages.

This chamber about 20 feet by 15 feet and oval, with four columns. They and the walls are adorned with carvings of the ancient monks. A short staircase goes up to a door on the west wall. Two other doors on the north and south walls. As the heroes enter, a sharp breeze swirls around the room and blows closed the door they came thru on the east wall.

If the heroes open the door they came thru, an icy wind howls thru it and slices at them with shards of tiny icicles. Anyone nearby, particularly the one opening it, takes 2d4 hp damage, save for half. Others away from the door take 1d4 and save for half. The door slams closed again. If they open it again and take pains to keep it open, they continue taking damage each round.

The other doors are normal and nondescript. They may be held open or spiked closed as any other door might. The west door leads to chamber 3. The south door leads to chamber 2. The north door leads to chamber 4.

Note that from here on, the cardinal directions don’t mean anything, because the south door to 2 is the east door in that room, so the heroes will be oriented differently depending on which way they enter the room. If they are mapping, their map may soon make no sense.

Chamber 2: Long & Narrow

This chamber is long and narrow, with a staircase winding down to a door at the far end. In one corner is a stone plinth built up to table height, on which a large wooden bucket stands. A couple of steps go up to doors on the other walls.

Opening the south door releases a torrent of water that forces characters nearby to make a dexterity check or fall for 2d4 hp damage. The water will tumble down the stairs to the west, fill the staircase in 2 rounds, and then begin flooding the room. Closing the door against the torrent is very hard and requires two characters with high strength and another dexterity check against a fall.

If not stopped, the water will flood the room to the ceiling in 6 rounds, but if at least one other door is opened, the water will flood into the adjoining room or rooms, leaving all the rooms waist- or knee-deep in water, depending on how many it can get to. (The doors are magically sealed when closed.) If one of them is chamber 3, and it has been flooded with sand, the sand will largely keep the water out until it tops the sand, at which point it will start turning into a muddy, quicksand-like mess.

If any character uses the bucket to catch some of the water, the torrent will cease and the door will close. Given several hours, the water will drain away thru cracks in the floor.

The door to 5 at the bottom of the steps is locked. If the room has been flooded even to knee-deep, this door will be fully under water to a depth of seven feet.

The other doors (to 3 and 1) are normal and nondescript.

Chamber 3: the Circle

This chamber is circular, about 30 feet across. Four doors are equally spaced around the perimeter.

If the door opposite the one to 1 is opened, it will cause holes in the ceiling to begin pouring sand into the place. Any hero struggling to stay above the sand without getting stuck takes 1 hp damage per round. If the room has been flooded with water from chamber 2, the damage is 2 hp per round due to the thick, sticky, quicksand-like effect.

If not stopped, the sand will fill the room to the ceiling in 8 rounds. If other doors are opened, surprisingly little sand will spill into the other rooms, so merely leaving the room is an option. Beyond the door that triggers the trap is a tiny space with a chain hanging down to about 8 feet. A fine silk cord was once attached to it to allow easy access, but it has long since crumbled to tatters on the floor. Pulling the chain will close the ceiling holes and stop the sand.

Chamber 4: the Rectangle

This chamber is large and rectangular, with several columns and is adorned with sconces and tattered, old tapestries depicting life in the ancient monastery. On one side of the room, a staircase rises five feet up to a door. Three other doors on opposing walls are at normal level. In one corner is a writing table and chair. There are two sheets of parchment, a quill pen, and a corked ink pot there.

The door at the top of the stairs to chamber 5 is locked.

The ink in the ink pot is dry an unusable. Adding water to it will make it usable, but the parchment will crumble at any touch. The ink is ink of praise; anything written with the ink will be sung by spirits of the place in the voice of the long-lost monks (that’s you, GM). If this room has been flooded by the water trap in 2, the table will float upright with its contents unless disturbed.

Lighting the old torches in their sconces does nothing special. But if the door opposite the one to 3 is opened, gouts of flame will roar out, causing any nearby hero 2d4 hp damage, save for half. The flames will catch the writing table, chair, etc. on fire, as well as anything else nearby that’s flammable, including the heroes’ cloaks and robes and leather items. Each character gets a check against difficulty class 13 to avoid their possessions catching fire; this is separate from the saving throw.

Chamber 5: the Square

This chamber is about 20 feet square. The door to 6 is raised on a step, but the others are flat on the floor. The walls are adorned with carvings of the gods. The floor is covered in what were once very fine crushed velvet rugs.

The door to 6 is locked.

Opening the door opposite the door to 6 triggers the great stone slab ceiling to begin descending with an ominous grinding of stone against stone. Any open doors close with great force and lock. After two rounds, the ceiling will be down to door level, and the doors will no longer open (they all open inward). After 5 rounds, the ceiling will be flat to the floor, crushing anything foolish enough to remain there.

There is nothing beyond the trapped door: it opens to a stone wall. There is no way to stop the ceiling from descending to the floor. (At the GM’s discretion, pushing one of the stones here stops or even resets the ceiling.)

But because the door to 6 is up a step, there is a cutout for the step in the ceiling. Therefore, heroes could stand against the door (as many as two human-sized characters side-by-side) and squeeze thru the hole and climb on top of the descending slab. If they act quickly, other heroes could take their place, allowing several to avoid crushing defeat.

Anyone who leaves the room by the other two doors before the ceiling slab has descended will find the ceiling slab then blocks the door from opening (unless it is magically reset by the monks, which will never happen). However, with the right tools and a lot of effort, the bottom of the door could be chopped away, allowing it to swing into the room again.

Chamber 6: the Dilemma

The chamber is a large square with four columns and a statue of an ancient monk in each of its four corners. Its walls glitter in firelight from the gilding on the fine paintings that depict the monks in worship, at work, in combat, and at sport.

The statues all gesture oddly. One statue points at each door and at a painting on a wall. Careful examination may reveal:

• The statue pointing to the west door also points to monks at worship
• The statue pointing to the east door also points to stone masonry work
• The statue pointing to the south door also points to monks in combat
• The statue pointing to the north door also points to monks at sport

All the doors apart from the east door to 5, which the heroes entered thru are locked. If the south door is unlocked, it will bring a displacer beast out of many decades of stasis, and it will quickly recover to leap out of the tiny blind chamber.

The west door opens to a small treasure chamber, containing all the treasure the heroes deserve for surviving the adventure. The north door opens to a passage that smells of earth and nature, as it leads up and into the light of day (or moonlit night) via a trap door in a large, hollow tree stump in the forest outside the ancient monastery. However, the passage is a one-way magic portal to the tree stump staircase, and there is no way back in from it.

If the heroes attempt to remove the treasure from the room, the statues will become animate stone golems and attempt to stop them by attacking them and collapsing the room by shifting the room’s columns off their foundations. Each round, one golem will try to shift a column, which requires a roll of 12 on a d20. With each success, the room becomes more visibly unstable.

The shifted column may remain standing off its base or fall over or partly break apart; it matters little. When three of the four columns have been shifted, the fourth crumbles, and the room’s ceiling gives way and caves in, raining stone blocks and rubble. If the exit is open, anyone still in the room must make a check to escape and survive. This may be a dexterity check or something else that seems appropriate. If anyone goes into the treasure room, they will be trapped in a solid stone vault with no way out.