The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Room One: Entrance and Guardian -The Princess Eleanor of Vallermoore chose to seek a royal husband and a possible alliance far across the Gichigumi lake on the side owned by the country of Karnivhal. Rather then sail across in her royal yacht, she chose to sail across on a vessel that was truly the pride of the Vallermoorian side, the Edmund Fitzgerald. With a dozen decks, the vessel was truly luxurious, with every kind of food on board, with entertainers, tennis courts and many other ways to keep the wealthy passengers happy through the long trip. The trip went well until the captain apparently accidently ran the ship aground in high winds half a mile from the harbour he was aiming for...enter the PCs...

The PCs are a party of Karnivhalian royal guards entrusted with safely escorting the Princess to the royal capital; they have a court wizard amongst them and short swords, light crossbows and billhooks as weapons, but until now, it has just been a routine piece of boring escort duty. Organized crime generally avoids directly threatening a royal, as the heat that it would bring on them makes it not worth the trouble; the PCs were supposed to be there to fend off disorganized bandits, stalkers and the like. Now when they hear the news from the cowardly captain who abandoned ship without attending to the safety of his passengers, they face a race against time to rescue the Princess and as many of her entourage as possible from the stricken vessel before it turns over and sinks to the bottom of the sea.

The first problem is getting there in a lifeboat through the huge waves. Assuming the PCs make it there safely, they find another boat has got there allready and a rope ladder is hanging down, making entry easy. When they get inside they find a band of people (two per PC with one minor magic user amongst them) who it soon becomes clear, are looters on the lookout for whatever they can find of value. If the PCs challenge them because of their behaviour, they will draw an assortment of weapons and try to murder the PCs rather then come quietly and face prison. The magic user amonst them, until killed or critically injured, will cast a spell once every two rounds. Throw a D6 to see what kind it is.

D1/D2- A healing spell on one of his friends.

D3/D4- A small fireball that does 1D6 worth of damage.

D5/D6- A spell that causes a muscle on one PC to twist up with pain for one attack round, temporarily disabling him or her.

If the PCs kill them they can loot the bodies if they wish.

The decks are at a 45 degree angle; it is up to the GM what effect this has on combat for both sides.

If the PCs choose not to challenge the looters, they will be left alone...at least for now.

Room Two: Puzzle or Roleplaying Challenge - A trial that cannot be solved by steel alone.

When they (having either fought the looters or left them alone) get through one of the hatches, they find the corridors leading to the royal apartments each have a door lined with metal blocking them, to prevent thieves, assassins and the great unwashed from getting inside. Each has a keypad with letters from A to Z. The doors are resistant even to small fireballs, but there are a number of tickets on the floor with the letters POSH on them. Typing the letters POSH on the keypad will open the door.

Room Three: Trick or Setback - Build tension through tricks and setbacks and give them a double-dose of gameplay such as more combat or another roleplaying challenge.

The water down here is now knee deep, the only light comes through the portholes and from any sources of light that the PCs have and there are a number of floating bodies. One or two keeled over with a heart attack or were trampled underfoot in the mad rush to escape, but others have clear sword wounds upon them. It turned out that a noble mage was trying to bring back a couple of Ironbones labelled as something else and the crates were broken open when the ship crashed, setting the Ironbones free. Seeing everyone else but their owner (who fled by lifeboat without seeing them, not knowing they had escaped) as opponents, they have cut down a number of those who did not make it out quickly enough.

They are hard to deal with; thrusting wounds harm them very little and blades just glance off their iron-plated bones. The trick is to crack their skulls and there are several ways of dong this. A crossbow bolt direct to the skull will do it, but they won't be easy targets, and crossbows are quite slow to load. A halberd brought down two-handed and hard enough that hits the skull will crack iron plating and skull alike but it won't be an easy thing, as the Ironbones are master swordsmen and will also splash at the PCs to try and put out any sources of light they may be carrying. A lack of light will not worry the Ironbones but will be a pain for the PCs.

Room Four: Climax, Big Battle or Conflict - The final combat or conflict of the dungeon.

When the PCs reach the royal quarters, they find a large group of pirates there with a very large crocodile that they tamed as a baby after stealing  it when it was an egg, and they are trying to break down the doors with cutlasses and axes and have already slain a couple of Vallermoorian royal bodyguards. The first mate of the Edmund FitzGerald is revealed to be on their side, and caused the crash on purpose so that they could kidnap the Princess and steal her riches in the confusion. They will have at least one magic user amongst them with an electro-wand which on a critical failure hits the water and gives everybody, pirates and PCs, except for the crocodile, in stats terms, two D6s of damage. Otherwise a successful hit with it gives the PC who is hit 2 D6s of damage because of the waist deep water.

The crocodile has a very tough hide but  if it's eyes are targeted it will turn tail and swim out of the ship. If the combat goes on for more then ten rounds, the pirates will break in to the royal quarters, and if it goes on for more then twenty rounds the Princess will die fighting. Assuming the pirates are dispatched the PCs, and the Princess and  any surviving Vallermoorian bodyguards, must escape before the ship topples over and sinks to the bottom-this can be played in real time with only a certain number of minutes before the ship sinks.

Room Five: Reward, Revelation, Plot Twist - The dungeon is complete but what is it about this dungeon that made it different or memorable. What kind of mystery have they discovered, what kind of reward have they won, and what kind of information have they recovered?

Assuming the PCs have managed to rescue the Princess Eleanor alive, they will get royal thanks, gifts of gold equivalent to three months of royal guard pay, will be promoted up one rank, will become locally famous for a time, and will no doubt feel very pleased with themselves. Otherwise they just get what they looted from the ship, and mild praise for trying from their commander.