A Sapient Megadungeon is You (Generic D&Dish fantasy)

[Fellgar]

Thanks.

There are also two votes from IRC.

a2znut: [X]Actual Dungeons Actually Included [X] Voiced
And
Kinglugia: [X]Actual Dungeons Actually Included [X] Voiced

Which brings the leading votes to be 14- [X] Voiced 10- [X] Darkness if my count is right.

Going to lock votes then and start on the update.

Click to shrink...

*sigh* Well I hope we are smart enough to talk one of the rouges into being a minion of ours. AKA we ensure he gets through all our traps unscathed every time but he has to bring in fresh adventurers every time he comes back. Having a local guide lead unuspecting adventurer's to their doom~! Obviously letting a few through so that word spreads and attracts more but with the lure of easy loot.

 

[Robotninja]

Assuming, you know, the difficulty doesn't drive people away.

Click to shrink...

Let a handful of people survive with loads of money.

 

[Darkened]

Despite all the delightfully lethal ways you could spend the power, you find yourself turning first toward communication. Your kobolds spent so much of their lives chattering amongst themselves, talking to you. And you've certainly seen the adventurers turn first to shouting and screaming and making other strange sounds when you attacked.

Is it curiosity that drives you, some strange urge to better understand your prey? Or perhaps in some dim crevice, you believe that the chance to communicate, to trick your prey with words as well as pictures would be more useful than another tool of death. Ultimately, you aren't suited for such introspection and simply set the matter aside. You are what you are and you chose to give yourself a voice. Why bother wondering what makes this choice feel so right?

Carefully you test your voice.

Soon

The word echoes through your chambers, panicking a few birds outside. The sound is unnatural, like some long forgotten echo brought forth from the depths of time; it is the sound of wind rushing past bloodstained rocks, of someone falling to their death. You have heard the humans speak and scream and cry. You heard your kobolds chitter. This is a sound could never be mistaken for either. Your first word was a promise: of food, sensation, murder, even contact perhaps. It is a promise to wait, to lure prey in and devour them. For your first speech it will suffice.

But you have more important things to do than listen to the sound of your own voice. Turning to the other mass of power, you shatter whatever it is and scatter it around the air inside you. The effect is not immediately obvious as the power sinks into the air. Gradually, your shadows grow darker. Then the unnatural shadows spread to swallow the cave, devouring the light itself. The resulting darkness is thick enough that it seems almost tangible. You have no eyes, nor any true understanding of how it is that you perceive the world within your cave, or its immediate outside. You can both see how obscuring the darkness is and see through it with ease. How could your own body possibly be hidden from you?

Soon, mere feet from your daylit entrance, everything becomes shrouded from view. Light simply dies when it enters you. Intuitively you know this darkness is anything but natural. The glow of a fire will fall a fraction of the distance it otherwise should. And the darkness will not tolerate light for long actively consuming it and breaking it down. And you sense you could push this even further, make the darkness so absolute those within your body would become unable to see glimmering gold mere inches in front of their face. Only such creatures as might live without sight or see even in the total darkness will be immune.

This attunement is not without its price. Your beautified walls and glittering gems are all but impossible to see. The darkness will surely scare away many adventurers who aren't prepared to brave the unknown or prepare countermeasures. More fundamentally, you feel that choosing this path has cut off some other possibilities, though you don't quite understand what you have lost.

The power to cloak oncoming death in shadow is worth it.

Your resources are expended and there is little for you to do. Of course, you could rearrange your traps, practice, but there is little value. Instead you decide on a configuration and wait, slowing your expense of power, hibernating until prey approaches. You know you won't have to wait long.



1. How many rooms do you create? (Choose between 1-3) Each room is another chance to kill adventurers, but if you want to let some go, or put everything you have in the first few, there's no need to use all of them.

2. Design the Entrance Room choosing all of the above
A- Floors/walls (decorations, smooth/slippery stone floor or a dirt floor that better hides traps)
B- Choose traps (No more than 15 between all rooms)
(All your traps besides pit should be generally be connected to at least one trigger. It should probably make sense. There's a certain amount of magic assumed here, so actual engineering feasibility isn't a problem, but something like a pressure plate that makes the floor below it vanish into a pit would probably require actual magic. As noted before, you can improvise new traps and triggers of around the same level as your listed ones. Designing traps that trigger other traps is entirely valid, as is using a trap trigger to reset a trap.)

C- Choose monsters (Pick a number of each, if you want them in a specific place feel free to do so. But assume that, say, wolves will eat rabbits if left there or that orcs will bully goblins and the like. Current options are deer, rabbits, wild dogs, wolves, bats and nothing.

D- Choose Treasures (Gold, gems and silver now. Note where you want it in the room and how you want it arranged.
E- Special Features (Choose as many as you want, though all you have right now here is the ability to drop visibility even further.)

3. Do you talk to those who approach?
[ ] To mock them
[ ] To lure them deeper in
[ ] Just to talk
[ ] Write in
[ ] Silence is best to start.

(This is room 1, if you decide to make 2 and 3, you're welcome to plan those out after seeing the actual adventurers.

The formatting on choices here is just to make it clear what options need to be considered. You're more than welcome to ignore the discrete sub-choices if you want to make a more connected setup. For example a treasure chest full of gold which triggers arrows from the ceiling when gold is removed is more easy to conceive if you just mention the treasure and the trap together.

Also Cavern of Lewd Perversions seems to be winning for name. Will leave it open one more round for some other option to beat it, then finalize that.)

 

[Silversun17]

1
[X] 3 rooms
2
[X] room 1: Entrance.
-[X] perfectly round room, 10 foot radius
-[X] trapped chest in the center of the room. when opened a spike shoots out of the floor, hopefully into the balls of whoever was dumb enough to stand right in front of the chest.
-[X] monsters: 3 wild dogs
-[X] Treasure: chest is filled with silver coins
[X] Room 2: hallway
-[X] 10 feet wide hallway with a downward slop.
-[X] rolling boulder trap tied to pressure plate at the half way point of the hallway. pressure plate is armed by trap chest in the third room
-[X] monsters: 5 wild dogs
-[X] treasure: little piles of gold in little bowls carved into the walls
[X] Room 3: final chamber
-[X] square room 12feet x 12 feet.
-[X] trapped chest, 50% of arming the rolling boulder trap
-[X] monsters: 6 wolves
-[X] trasure: even mix of gold and gems in the chest. more gems scattered around the room for heroes to trip on.
-[X] all light sources are dimed by 50%
3
[X] lure them

 

[Winged One]

Room 1 seems pretty standard, if a bit mean-spirited.
...wow, Room 2 is some serious bullshit if they forget the layout. Might cause a TPK, but not guaranteed enough to make it a sure thing. I think I approve.
Room 3 is also pretty standard. May want to add a token trap to the chest in it so they don't suspect the real trap, but letting them think the last chest is untrapped might be good too.

Should we incorporate the kobolds into the dungeon design, or will they just do their own thing?

 

[Silversun17]

I gave the rolling boulder a 50-50 chance of arming so some get out lure more to us but some get pasted.

 

[BFldyq]

Kobolds are dead and gone.

 

[Darkened]

A quick note on what you can expect to face.

Adventurers in general are marauding humans who want to invade your body (currently a cave system) and seal your insides (gold.) Your job is to kill them. Adventurers have many things in common. Most are homeless and don't have a real job. Most are highly prone to violence in unexpected situations and even the self proclaimed 'good' adventurers rarely have problems attacking a tribe of any species that isn't adorable, murdering them all and stealing valuable cultural relics. But, not all adventurers are created equally.


Peasants: The lowest of the low. A bit more useful than your kobolds were. All new adventurers who aren't wizards are classified here. Frequently prone to highly irrational actions. They display little awareness of what a dungeon entails and are frequent victims of easy traps.

Hirelings: Generally hired by proper adventurers to serve as support and backup. Generally melee fighters or rogues, with the occasional apprentice wizard, these are far more dangerous than peasants, but still quite easily dealt with. Most mercenaries, veteran soldiers, etc are here. They rarely have magical gear or items and don't have much dungeon delving expertise (paranoia).

Adventurers: The ordinary category of adventurers. They're strong enough to overcome most monsters you can make one on one and can take out your champions if they gang up. Adventurers tend to divide labor more cleanly. They have clever thieves to slip through your traps, warriors to slay your minions and clerics to heal the wounds of others and provide blessings.

Wizards: Ostensibly the same tier as adventurers. Skilled wizards are just kind of annoying. They're more deadly than the warrior, better able to evade traps than the thief and as competent at everything else as the cleric. Fortunately their stamina isn't that great and they can only cast so many spells a day. Their power is highly correlated with spell selection and the cleverness of the wizard in question.

Heroes: The best adventurers. Heroes have unique magical artifacts, powerful unique abilities and generally stand above the common adventurer like a common adventurer stands above peasants. But what really defines a hero is their attitude, not their power. Heroes never give up or surrender, innovate around traps and dare to do the impossible. They usually have complex backstories and motivations Their determination and sheer willpower is legendary, as is their absurd luck

Everyone's luck runs out sometime and capturing or killing a hero offers many great rewards.

???: If you an encounter an adventurer beyond the abilities of a hero, you're better off just letting them take whatever they want.

Should we incorporate the kobolds into the dungeon design, or will they just do their own thing?

Click to shrink...

They're pretty extinct at this point. At least until you put points into monsters and learn to make more.


Also I'll reiterate, you can vote on all three now. But you're more than welcome to design each room separately and respond to the specific adventurers that you see in room one. You don't have to vote on all of them now. (Though from an IC perspective the whole layout would be decided before anyone enters.)

 

[Silversun17]

1
[X] 3 rooms
2
[X] room 1: Entrance.
-[X] perfectly round room, 10 foot radius
-[X] trapped chest in the center of the room. when opened a spike shoots out of the floor, hopefully into the balls of whoever was dumb enough to stand right in front of the chest.
-[X] monsters: 3 wild dogs
-[X] Treasure: chest is filled with silver coins
[X] Room 2: hallway
-[X] 10 feet wide hallway with a downward slop.
-[X] rolling boulder trap tied to pressure plate at the half way point of the hallway. pressure plate is armed by trap chest in the third room
-[X] monsters: 5 wild dogs
-[X] treasure: little piles of gold in little bowls carved into the walls
[X] Room 3: final chamber
-[X] set for each individual adventuring party
-[X] trapped chest, 50% of arming the rolling boulder trap further can be set for each individual adventuring party
-[X] monsters: set for each individual adventuring party
-[X] treasure: even mix of gold and gems in the chest. more gems scattered around the room for heroes to trip on. further can be set for each individual adventuring party
-[X] all light sources are dimed by 50%
3
[X] lure them

 

[iamnuff]

Silversun.

also, you might want to watch a bit of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHt0eWNBp1Y

it's a "Two best friends" look into "deception, Blood ties" which is your basic "lure heroes into your castle, then kill them with traps, WITH ADDED ANIMU!" game.

might give you some ideas.

as for how our voice works. We should be totally unfront about what we do and are.

"I am the cavern of [---] Within my depths lies chests of gold! defeat my challenges, and it's your's for the taking, fail, and your life is forfit!"

alternatively, lose the big melodramatic gravitas, so go for a more casual "yeah, come inside and try to get my loot, but if you fail, your ass is dead, think you got the stuff to beat me?"

if we see the same guy twice, be sure to recognize him. let him know he did good last time, to get out with treasure, but we changed stuff around, and this time, we won't hold back!"

also, if anyone takes one look at us and pussies out, we have to mock them till they get out of earshot.


actually, we might want to lay off the traps a bit on the first couple of goes.

let someone go in, fight the wolves, take a big lapful of gold, then tell everyone he meets about how we made a challenge and he beat us.

it was full of gold, and super easy.

word of mouth is good advertisement, right?

 

[BFldyq]

[X] 3 rooms

[X] room 1: Entrance.
-[X] perfectly round room, 10 foot radius
-[X] trapped chest in the center of the room. when opened a spike shoots out of the floor, hopefully into the balls of whoever was dumb enough to stand right in front of the chest.
-[X] monsters: 3 wild dogs
-[X] Treasure: chest is filled with silver coins
[X] Room 2: hallway
-[X] 10 feet wide hallway with a downward slop.
-[X] rolling boulder trap tied to pressure plate at the half way point of the hallway. pressure plate is armed by trap chest in the third room
-[X] monsters: 5 wild dogs
-[X] treasure: little piles of gold in little bowls carved into the walls
[X] Room 3: final chamber
-[X] set for each individual adventuring party
-[X] trapped chest, 50% of arming the rolling boulder trap further can be set for each individual adventuring party
-[X] monsters: set for each individual adventuring party
-[X] treasure: even mix of gold and gems in the chest. more gems scattered around the room for heroes to trip on. further can be set for each individual adventuring party
-[X] all light sources are dimed by 50%

[X] Just to talk.

 

[Silversun17]

Silversun.

also, you might want to watch a bit of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHt0eWNBp1Y

it's a "Two best friends" look into "deception, Blood ties" which is your basic "lure heroes into your castle, then kill them with traps, WITH ADDED ANIMU!" game.

might give you some ideas.

as for how our voice works. We should be totally unfront about what we do and are.

"I am the cavern of [---] Within my depths lies chests of gold! defeat my challenges, and it's your's for the taking, fail, and your life is forfit!"

alternatively, lose the big melodramatic gravitas, so go for a more casual "yeah, come inside and try to get my loot, but if you fail, your ass is dead, think you got the stuff to beat me?"

if we see the same guy twice, be sure to recognize him. let him know he did good last time, to get out with treasure, but we changed stuff around, and this time, we won't hold back!"

also, if anyone takes one look at us and pussies out, we have to mock them till they get out of earshot.


actually, we might want to lay off the traps a bit on the first couple of goes.

let someone go in, fight the wolves, take a big lapful of gold, then tell everyone he meets about how we made a challenge and he beat us.

it was full of gold, and super easy.

word of mouth is good advertisement, right?

Click to shrink...

I'm gonna use ideas from that game once we rank up some stuff.

 

[Robotninja]

I wanna be glados. Testing traps and whatnot.

 

[imposter36]

3 rooms
50% lower light
[x] room 1
Square floor at 10x 10 each.
Tripwire in the middle resulting in an arrow trap.

[x] room 2
Corridor about 5 feet wide and fifteen feet long.
Pressure plate in the center resulting in a pit trap.

[x] room 3
Circular room about twelve feet in diameter with a treasure Chest on a pedestal at the center
Treasure chest filled with silver and gems.
Reverse pressure plate under chest releasing a boulder from the ceiling shortly after. Small boulder mind you. Should give them a good chance to dodge.

At the entrance introduce yourself simply as the cavern and invite whatever would be adventurer to come further inside. However (assuming we can) lock the doors and keep them shut until he answers a question about their motivations. Such things can come in handy when dealing with future prey.

 

[Silversun17]

your dungeon looks... bland.

 

[BFldyq]

Also, capital x's please.

 

[Emral282]

[X] Dungeon Suggestion:

Replace 'bats' with whatever the batlike monster that can actually harm adventurers is. (Like dire bats or something)

Bats swarming would be adventurer's faces will be a mighty fine distraction against the low to the ground traps. Plus, making the big chest at the end double-trapped will probably get a few groups who fail to notice one or the other.

Edit: How do you turn an image into a thumbnail?

 

[kinglugia]

[X]

 

[BFldyq]

Darkened, could you please explain the "danger" and "reward" stats?

 

[Darkened]

Danger: Perceived danger. Your reputation for killing off/hurting adventurers, also effected by just looking scarier (darkness bumped it up a bit.) Usually danger will drive off adventurers, particularly weak ones. On the other hand, some types will seek you out because of a high danger rating.

Reward: Perceived reward for braving the dungeon.

They're a breakdown of your reputation. As it is right now you're seen as a very low reward (go kill a few kobolds!) and almost as low risk (A few people vanished recently, it's all dark and scary).

Reputation will change based on what you do and factors outside your control. If no one knows where a party of adventurers went, killing them all won't increase your danger. If they made it known they were going to you, then you might get a big boost. By contrast, killing 4-5 will leave someone to share stories. Converting people and getting them to lie about you would be able to increase reward and drop danger.

Get people to see you as a needlessly deadly area with no rewards of note, and you'll only end up attracting the powerful, the arrogant and the stupid. No food means using power to survive and not growing means eventual game-over.

Which isn't to say low risk is great. As you get bigger and nastier, killing a few farm-kids isn't really going to be worth setting up an entire dungeon.

Sufficiently odd behavior may net other sub-ratings to reputation. (Being all mysterious, or hammy, or going crazy with love potion traps)



Also last time I'll repeat it, since I may or may not be miscommunicating a bit. You're allowed to (OOCly) design room 1 now, wait, see how it works, and then do 2 and 3 after a wave of adventurers comes through. Chiefly this is to allow for more interaction and responsiveness mid-encounter.

Rather than leaving you with no recourse to influence events (as you lack the merits to do so) besides talking. I have no problem if people want to design the dungeon in advance, and many of the plans look viable so far, but as this seems like knowing what you're up against and adapting accordingly would be a straightforward benefit to the players, I want to make sure it's out there clearly.

You're welcome to design multiple rooms if you wish. But unless you plan to link the various features together (Like a chest in room 3 priming a trap in room 2 as one plan suggests), you don't have any real need to do so.

Replace 'bats' with whatever the batlike monster that can actually harm adventurers is. (Like dire bats or something)

Click to shrink...

Dire bats would definitely be an option! If you had any points in monsters that is. The bats you do have are great for a distraction, being creepy and getting people to stumble into traps. Just don't expect much coordination or actual damage.

 

[Heaven Canceler]

[X] To Lure them in Deeper
[X] Appearance suggestion:

[X] The first room shall be a dark one, giant rocks strewn around the ground, the light of the sun shining inside and showing gleaming gems in the walls, while the darkness grows stronger with each step. The path to the way inside shall lead upwards, almost forcing one to climb over the broken rocks. The ground itself is slippery and the rocks there will be a dangerous little piece of work. A dozen bats sleep between the rocks, or upside down from the ceiling and the flame of a torch may well awaken them. At the end of the room, three treasure chests lie. One is trapped, a pit swallowing whoever stands in front of the other treasure chest beside it. The second secretely holds Spikes inside, slashing at whoever tries to take any of the Gold inside. The third is clean and without a single trap.

Put up an idea for the first room, will leave the others for now.

 

[iamnuff]

ok, I had another think about my idea.

I think we should let the first guy in, fight off a few wolves, then get out with a lap full of silver or gold.

low risk, high(ish) reward. this will bring us more people, which is good for the short-term.

after that, we should try and find a way to get energy from people without killing them.

GM did mention love potion traps, and a lot of my new idea's are NSFW, so i'm not going into too much detail unless the quest gets transfered to the other board.

lets just say non-acidic slimes could be a good way to entrap and "Drain" adventurers.

also, be a decent way to strip them of their gear (which we can then use as bonus loot)

a good Plus of this method would be that if we drain someone, let them get a couple of handful's of coins then run away, they might come back. either for more loot or for vengeance.

(Note: we should probably limit our talking to when nothing else is going on, no draining, no combat, no traps. perhaps talk to them outside (when they enter and leave) and between sections? try and be nice, affable, even, but not too helpful.

Maybe how "helpfulness" should be limited to something like, after a heroine falls down a slimepit, gets energy-drained and has her armour melted, we mention that the chest two rooms back had a robe it in, that she didn't pick up because it wasn't magical.

just a little "yeah, you made a mistake, and got your clothes melted off and your energy stolen, but it's not personal, i need to eat to live too, you know, and you DID know this was full of traps and monsters when you came in."

Granted, hearing we have "lewd" non-lethal traps might drive away some of the more prudish heroes, but it might draw more too us.

if they know there's a chance for gold and glory, and a minimal chance of us horribly killing them...

besides, crushing dudes to death doesn't really get us many repeat customers. does it?


after we get a couple more level-ups, we could try and get a succubus to work as a "miniboss"
Someone who can play the same part of "non-lethal draining" as the slimes, but mobile instead of a trap, and with more Mez/daze abilities, to make her more successful.

no direct combat, but something like having her cast spells on specific objects, or set up a big empty room with a glass pane in the middle, make them think it's a mirror, then their "reflection" suddenly hit's them with a eye-contact based Daze or something.

We could do that by summoning one up from the underworld, trying to create one, or just hiring one. we get half the energy she takes, and in return we give her a place to live and hunt from, a endless torrent to prey comes to her, and our monsters and traps (hopefully) keep her from getting killed.

a symbiotic relationship, and a decent use of our "Voiced" merit. (does this make us a Demon-cave-pimp?)

we could also talk to people who are about to enter the cave, act friendly, none of this "DOOM" bullshit. Calmly let them know that yes, there IS treasure in here, and yes, there are monsters.

if you think you can handle the latter, then you can get the former, but if you lose, you might die or get drained.


also, had an idea about a character.

some farmhand/sherpard's son/young hunter/ect shows up, talks to us, gets a couple of copper coins thrown at him to prove that, yes, we are legit.

leaves, comes back with a friend, goes inside, kills some animals, gets some loot, gets out (with our without his friend, i don't know)

we congratulate him on passing (or commiserate him on the loss of his friend) and he leaves. we don't hear about him again for a while, but he turns out to have become a big shot adventuerer.

then he gets bigger and bigger. "Dragonborn" big, or "hero of time" big.

at the end of his quest, he, and his true companions, come back to us.

They want to end this where it started, redoing the lvl 1 tutorial dungeon with all their epic loot.

its going to be a cakewalk, it's going to be hilarious.

mostly, they came back to us because we can talk, and they want to see how we react to this.

They get two room in and Hero realized this isn't how he remembers it at all.

then the entrence seals off, and we let them know that we have been growing just as much as they have.

there's still a way out, but you need to fight your way through to the 50th floor, beat the dozen boss monsters, grab all the keys and get out the other side.

Welcome to the Final Bonus Dungeon.

Hope you have potions.

 

[kinglugia]

*reads iamnuff's post*
...
Why Can't I Hold All These Feels! ಥ_ಥ

 

[iamnuff]

*reads iamnuff's post*
...
Why Can't I Hold All These Feels! ಥ_ಥ

Click to shrink...

what, the final bonus dungeon?

yeah, i like the idea of that, but i like the idea of lewd dungeon modo more.

not just for the lewd, but the way we are going (Darkness, High traps) seems like a great way to get marked up as High Threat. and have only the strong come after us. with isn't great, because strong people are rare, and we need lots of food.

low-threat (perceived), High reward. would be a good way to get lots of people to come after us, and if some of the groups that go in, never come back, then what about it, right? it's an easy dungeon, obviously they just sucked.

we don't just need people to die inside us, we need them to WANT to come inside. having a way to take what we need (energy) and let them take what they want (loot) give us a symbiotic relationship.

not too much loot, we need them to believe that we have more treasure. lots and lots of valuable stuff, so they keep coming back. so we draw people from further away.

we take what we can from anyone who falls into our traps, but we don't kill them, anyone we can't catch gets some treasure, but comes out SURE that there's more. so both the "winners" and the "losers" both come back for more. and we get to feed on them again and again.

hell, we might even get specific "heroes" coming in specifically because they heard we have a succubus, and they want to "lose" to her.


HAHAHA, we should be a H-game dungeon!

we do need confirmation from the GM that we can get energy from people without killing them though.

 

[Emral282]

Changing vote to
[X] kinglugia's improvement on my dungeon plan.

Fancy stuff like the erodungeon can come once we get some more exp.

 

[iamnuff]

Changing vote to
[X] kinglugia's improvement on my dungeon plan.

Fancy stuff like the erodungeon can come once we get some more exp.

Click to shrink...

well, it has to, doesn't it? we don't have any ero traps at the moment.


lets give us a chance to build the seoncond/third rooms when we see who actually enters, right?

 

[Silversun17]

all the options that have been posted since i went to bed seem a bit too blood thiersty. we want people to come back and mine balances the need for lure more parties and the need to kill them.

 

[Robotninja]

So we should help a handful of the first few groups escape with loot. That will vastly increase our reward rating.

 

[iamnuff]

So we should help a handful of the first few groups escape with loot. That will vastly increase our reward rating.

Click to shrink...

hmm.

maybe we should do things like place an arrow trap a little too high up on the wall, so it shoots over their heads, giving the appearance of a threat, but actually being mostly harmless.

setting the trigger for a spike trap JUST a little too far away, so it lances out of the wall infront of them, instead of into them.

make it looks scary, but be mostly harmless, so they can get in, get a fistful of silver, and get out.

then tell everyone about the big scary dungeon they just found.


we'd need someone to actually write up an "easy-modo tutorial dungeon" vote for us to do that though, and i don't have time right now.

if someone writes one up after i've gone, then it has my vote

[X] easymode

 

[drake_azathoth]

For the name: I suggest 'HIDDEN PALACE'. Sculpt a face on wall of the final room, talk to people there. Sell them a story.

Story: Basically, we go with Kinglugia's layout and make use of all that decoration on the walls to convince people the 3 rooms we have at the top are actually just the ENTRANCE to a palace. There is the 'pleasure palace' of a powerful wizard hidden below the rooms at the top, but it requires a 'key' to gain entrance to the deeper levels.

The 'key' is of course... Blood on the ground of our third room. The blood of someone who has the blood of the wizard! Of course, he had many concubines, and many of his descendants no doubt live still. You should be able to recognize them by their magical power, though, and all you need to do is bring them here and have them bleed some on the floor.

We'll be happy to open the way to a treasure trove of wealth and magical knowledge in return. Perhaps even some of the wizard's inhumanly beautiful concubines live there still, preserved by his magic and their own.