This is the final version of the Adventure called “The Blasphemy of Pavel”.
I began with the 5e Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG), graph paper, pencil, and some dice using the tables on page 290. I completed about half of the dungeon only fudging rolls when I encroached upon the edges of the graph paper. I got about half-way finished and decided to jump ahead to the other tables to see what kind of dungeon I was creating. On the “Lair” table I rolled “Barracks where the lair’s defenders are quartered”. While looking through the tables, my mind was drawn to the “Temple or Shrine” table and I rolled “Central temple built to accommodate rituals”. The blending of these ideas made me think of a militant, religious order like the Knights Templar. I decided to check out the monster tables to try and see what sorts of monsters might be good to populate the dungeon with. As I perused the tables, the picture of the Bone Devil on page 308 caught my eye. I decided to get the Monster Manual (MM) and read about the Bone Devil.
While looking up the Bone Devil I came across the Death Knight and the Chain Devil as two candidates for Bosses. While reading the description of the Death Knight, the idea began to form of the plot that would result in the final product. I liked the idea of an Order of Good Knights descending into the stuff of Conspiracy Theory and Secret Society-type corruption. Having the Chain Devil be the cause of this fall fit right into the dungeon.
As I went back and finished rolling up the dungeon, I came up with religious practices that might go on in this shrine. I knew I needed to have the Knights as cultists in the dungeon. I also knew I wanted to have 3 Boss Battles. The first one I determined would be against Pavel. I learned from Ed Wetterman from a conversation as well as an adventure he ran at this year’s Genghis Con, that nothing stirs the Party as much as a good old Philosophical-style Moral Dilemma thrown in their lap. I thought it would be interesting to see if the Players would try and determine whether or not Pavel was beyond redemption. There’s no clear answer presented, but all options would be playable. A good DM/GM could also have Pavel say certain things that might raise such questions amongst the Party. I also gave Pavel a sword from both systems which are obviously versions of Stormbringer. Will this doppelganger of Elric suffer a similar fate here?
The third Boss Battle was a no-brainer – Chagûl the Chain Demon. But what could the second one be. While looking through the MM and the Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion (SWFC) cross-referencing monsters, I must have either made my Notice roll or succeeded on my Difficulty Class roll, because I happened to notice that both systems have Archmages. After reading both systems stats – BTW, I think a cool Con game would be to run this adventure in both systems back-to-back just to experience the differences between two similarly designed adventures and how the two games play out – I decided to model the Archmage on Rasputin. I thought that it would be a cool second Boss Battle.
I finished rolling all of the dungeon except the very top part that connects to the Underdark. By that point, I knew the general plot and had ideas on how to key the dungeon.
I hope you enjoy this and decide to play through it. If you do, or just want to share your own random dungeon, please let me know!