30 Minute Dungeon Delve 6: The Viking Vault

Idea: An underground vault that was built by an ancient viking-like society. The ruins are now inhabited by undead vikings and giant bugs.

Hook: Legend has it that there is a magic horn in the ruins, capable of raising the dead back to life.



Key:



1. The corridor here leads to a stone door. The door has an image depicting a horned human skull with a beard. (The floor is ancient and crumbling, and gives way under the slightest weight. There is a small pit beneath the masonry full of squirming worms, grubs and cockroaches.)

2. Piles of mummified bodies are in grave niches in the walls, and everything is coated in a thick layer of dust and webs. 7 Spiders the size of cats crawl about the room, one of which is picking at a corpse, trying to find if it can eat it. (The spiders will attack if the adventurers get too close, but they are scared of fire. The corpse that a spider is picking at is wearing a bracelet worth 1000 coins to the right buyer.)

3. A vast stone slab serves as a table in this room, with old wooden bowls and iron utensils arranged along it. Piles of splinters indicate where chairs once were, and there is a large carved throne at the end of the table. (Near the throne is a large iron key, covered in mystic looking runes.)

4. Shards of wood lie strewn about the room, as well as a few half-crumbling longboats of ancient make. (One of the boats has an iron chest on board, containing 1200 ancient gold coins. Traces of paint can be found on the longboats.)

5. In here are a handful of cages, some of which contain skeletons of humans or semi-humans. Various machines of odd design are around the room as well, evidently torture devices. (Some of the skeletons are very short and have sharp teeth. Most skeletons, while having some broken bones, appear to have died as a result of neglect, not execution.)

6. Carvings of bearded faces line the walls, some with open mouths as if blowing. (If someone steps into the “line of sight” of one of the blowing faces, poisoned darts fly out to hit the interloper.)

7. There is a stone statue of a beautiful and androgynous person with pointed ears. Next to them is a stone with a large keyhole. (If the key from room 3 is put into the keyhole, the statue will turn to flesh, and the person comes to life. They have a slightly bluish green tinge to their skin, and their voice sounds musical. This person is named Anlin, and they are an elf sorcerer who was imprisoned millennia ago by a high priest of a now unknown god. Anlin is arrogant and cares little for the wishes of mortals, but if he brought back to life by the adventurers he is bound by his own code of honor to assist the party with one task.)

8. 5 undead mummified vikings in crude dresses stagger about the room, making strange rasping noises. They wield swords in one hand and shields in the other. (The zombies attack on sight, but will not hurt anyone who is unarmed. The words they are using are of surprising quality, having been made with a technique that has been lost to time. Each sword is worth 200 coins.)

9. A crystal ball sits on a stand made from black metal. Dark vapor seems to swirl in the orb. (If anyone touches the ball, their mind is briefly transported to a Hellish plane of existence where horned warriors in spiky armor battle giant chitinous serpents. The experience makes the viewer better at fighting, but also small horns begin to grow from their forehead, and they become subtly unnerving to normal people.)

10. The skull of an ancient dragon on the wall, stairs lead up to pedestal with a sarcophagus of stone, slightly ajar. Within the coffin, a mummified corpse in ancient armor holds a sword of rusted iron, with a ring of silver around its finger, covered in runic symbols. (If anyone attempts to remove the ring from the finger of the mummy, it comes to life, green fire burning in its eye sockets as it attempts to kill the intruders. The mummy moans out words in a long-forgotten tongue and attacks the mightiest warriors first. The runic symbols on the ring are symbols of rebirth and vitality, if the ring is put on the finger of a recently deceased corpse, the corpse will come back to life.)