The dungeon changes you

Transmutation advancement

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An early concept for Inkvein’s Roothaven region.

Descending into the dungeon changes a character, or so they say.

Let’s make that concrete.

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New level? New you

All good ‘larger’ dungeons have a strange heart I think. The Inkvein has one, the sanctum of the Ink itself, deep, deep down.

Each time you reach a new level in a dungeon (including when you enter the first level), you get closer to its strange heart. Roll on the dungeon’s transmutation table a number of times equal to the floor number. These transmutations change your character.

The GM makes the transmutation table for the dungeon based on its themes. Consider having some entries that can be used repeatedly.

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Example

For a dungeon themed around mirrors.

Dungeon Transmutations (d10)

1: Swap two random attributes.

2: Your face is flipped, making you look uncanny to those who know you well.

3: You don’t have a reflection anymore.

4: Your reflection moves independently of you. You can talk to it, and get it to look round corners.

5: Two of your senses are location swapped. To blind you, your ears must be blocked, to deafen you, your eyes must be covered.

6: Swap your HP with one of your attributes.

7: You can only have a verbal conversation whilst you are sleeping, otherwise you are mute.

8: You hydrate by eating food and get calories from drinking water.

9: Staying still tires you out. Moving is restful instead. Hiding by being still requires you rest afterwards by moving.

10: Your temperature perception is reversed. You feel hot as cold and cold as hot.

If you like random tables join MurkMail Premium (get a 7-day free trial), I include a neat and fresh d6 table in (almost) every issue!

Rumours

You can generate rumours to incentivise players to delve into dungeons using the transmutation table, especially half-true ones.

I heard that someone who went into the Vestibule of Mirrors can fill their stomach just by drinking water!

Make a transmutation table and you get cool rumours for free.

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Advancement

PCs delve into weird places and the closer they get to the heart of the weird, the more they get to roll on the transmutation table. Deeper levels are a potential glut of character altering options. In the mirror dungeon, getting to level 5 almost guarantees you an attribute swap.

It also incentivises players to delve deeper into dungeons without relying on treasure alone, but provides them no guarantees of how they will change. They can pick which dungeons they like the sound of and delve furthest into the ones they like the transmutations of.

Plus, this tailors advancement to the setting being explored. It means you can keep all character progression on theme with your world.

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Use cases

I think this mechanic would be pretty neat for Into the Odd or Cairn, where we don’t necessarily care about characters getting better but becoming different. Mörk Borg would gel well with it too, especially if you make it grim and gross.

I can see a sci-fi version for Mothership, where the transmutations are bio-mutations themed around the nasty thing you’ve got at the centre of your scenario.

You are chasing weirdness, not just treasure.

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A realisation

In my megadungeon Inkvein, there is a corruption table.

Writing this piece made me realise that for some players, the corruption could actually be… an incentive? If they want their character to become weird then this is a way to do it.

Now in Inkvein, the corruption comes with the potential of exile and maybe even total possession by the Ink eventually. But there’s still something to that weird ‘negadungeon’-esque incentive that makes me think folks may actively pursue corruption regardless.

I wonder if the transmutation table should progress a ‘possession’ track. When the possession track completes, the dungeon fully controls you and you become one of its denizens. This is how it works in Inkvein.

It’s an interesting idea to explore in the context of multiple dungeons, something for me to chew on I think!