Orthopraxy

Prep- The Night Floors as a Depth-Crawl

Hey folks-- this is MORE THAN MOST TIMES a work in progress, and written for an audience of exactly 1-me. Don't see this as a workable depth crawl for The Night Floors, just as the one I'm going to use at my table, for my specific game. That said, feel free to check it out and let me know what you think!

Night Floors Depth Crawl

Adapted by J. Carter from Impossible Landscapes by Dennis Detwiller, using the Depth Crawl procedure (and wording) from The Gardens of Yuun by Emmy Allen

Traversal Procedures

When the players first step into the Night Floors, roll a d20 on the table for locations to see where the doorway leads. In addition, roll a d20 on the table for details for the specifics of the place, and on the table for vents for anything that’s going on there.

You will map out The The Night Floors every time the players visit it.

Take a sheet of paper. In the centre, at the top, write in the location where the players entered. This is layer 0. Here, the players have 3 options. These are:

I. Stay Here

II. Go Deeper

III. Go Back.

When the players Stay Here, they remain in the same location. Every turn after the first, roll for Events.

Whenever the players Go Deeper, draw a line from their current location, leading down and write the location they find at the end.

Roll on the location tables for the location and its details; a d20 plus the layer they are now on. So, the first time they Go Deeper that takes them down to layer 1, so roll 1d20+1. If they go down again from there, that’s layer 2, so d20+2.

Combine the results. The Location rolled will give you the core of the place, and the Details will modify it.

From a given location, the players can Go Deeper multiple times. Each time they do, draw a new line from the current location, branching off.

When the players Go Back, they travel back up the line, to a previously visited location. (This is probably on the previous layer, but the map can get complex as players double back and find paths linking disparate locations.) They can Stay Here there, Go Back Again, or Go Deeper again, either to a location they visited before or to a new location (roll it up).

Going Deeper and Going Back both take a turn as the players search for pathways.

The Night Floors shift and rearrange themselves. Until the PCs actually look, the next location exists in a state of quantum uncertainty. There is, therefore, no need to roll up locations ahead of time.

Every time players visit the Night Floors from the Third Floor of the Macalister Building, they start in the Smoking Room. If they visit from Michelle's library or the Bookshop, they start in the Hotel Library. If they visit from Dorchester House, they start from The Patient Rooms. By taking the Elevator in the Hotel Broadalbin lobby, players can choose to start the crawl at any depth, and begin the crawl at an Elevator location.

Careless Meandering

The normal exploration procedure of going deeper assumes that PCs are moving carefully; drawing maps, taking note of landmarks, following paths and so on, but this is not strictly necessary. If the Agents are careless, or not paying attention, they go 1d4-1 layers deeper, not one layer deeper. They lose track of just how deep they are.

Once you’ve determined how much deeper they go, roll up a new location at the appropriate depth.

Do not link the new location to where they came from (don’t draw a line between them on the map). The PCs do not know the way back to where they came from. Instead, they must press on. Results on the Events chart will likely link their new location back to previously explored areas, but until then, they’re stranded.

Events

While PCs are actively interacting with a location - either exploring it, moving through it or dealing with the things in it, roll a d20 every exploration turn for events. If they are not exploring or paying attention to the location, instead roll a d12. This will produce more encounters with creatures, and won’t find hidden things.

Between Locations

Locations tend to be rooms. Between locations are stretches of hallways. Nothing interesting; if it was interesting, it would be a location. Traveling from one location to the next is quick. It takes about a turn (ten minutes), most of which is spent doing things like wandering through aisles or looking for interesting looking landmarks.

That said, the hallway type can, and should, change as the Agents get deeper. Initially, the hallways belong to that of the Hotel Broadalbin--a turn of the century hotel. However, once the Agents get past the 10th floor, the hallways become that of a hospital (Dorchester house) rather than a hotel.

The Cosmology of the night Floors

Floor 1-10: Hotel Broadalbin (Floors 1-3 inaccessible unless starting from the Broadalbin Lobby. Floor 11-15: Dorchester House Floor 15-20: Backstage Floor 0- -5: The Whisper Labyrinth

Details (roll d20+ Depth)

  1. Eerily silent
  2. Recently used (ashtrays, empty bottles)
  3. Graffiti
  4. Well Maintained
  5. Broken mannequins
  6. Torn pages
  7. Rumbling
  8. Yellow Sign
  9. Clockwork Mechanisms
  10. Glass Tubes
  11. Steel Frames
  12. Flooded
  13. Burned
  14. Frozen
  15. Autumn Leaves
  16. Loudspeaker
  17. Glass-roofed
  18. French
  19. Clockwork Parts
  20. Inverted
  21. Doorway Out
  22. Chasms
  23. Smouldering
  24. Churning
  25. Predatory
  26. Fleshy
  27. Entrancing
  28. Fertile
  29. Luminous
  30. Exit

Locations (roll d20+ Depth)

  1. The Smoking Room
  2. Ballroom
  3. Broken Elevator Shaft
  4. Laundry Room
  5. Boiler Room
  6. Fire Escape
  7. Staffroom
  8. Movie Theature
  9. Swimming Pool
  10. Courtyard
  11. Phone Booth
  12. Emeline Fitzroy's Apartment
  13. The Dreaming Man's Library (Pg 106)
  14. The Lovers' Room (106)
  15. Automat
  16. Projection Booth
  17. Green Room
  18. Invocation Room
  19. Fracture to the Whisper Labyrinth
  20. The Bookshop
  21. Deborah's Apartment
  22. Ice Machine room
  23. Gym
  24. Ice Rink
  25. Speak Easy
  26. Steam-pipes
  27. Mannequin Maintenance
  28. Balcony
  29. Elevator
  30. Salesman's Apartment
  31. The Dog's hiding spot
  32. Manager's Office
  33. ±Dorchester House

Events (roll d20)

  1. A sudden change in the weather wells up. Either howling winds, torrential rain, heavy snow, a thunderstorm or a rapidly-encroaching wall of fog; pick one.
  2. An ominous ticking can be heard from beneath the ground. Nothing has happened yet.
  3. Something turns up; it is hostile. Roll for an encounter.
  4. Something turns up; it’s merely curious. Roll for an encounter.
  5. Something is seen too early. Roll for an encounter, but the Agents find the Mannequins setting it up.
  6. Something is found broken. The mechanisms aren't working right--something is wrong. Roll for an encounter.
  7. A fight spills into the location. Roll two encounters, they’re already fighting each other before the players get involved.
  8. Someone is home. Roll for an encounter, this is where that person can be found most of the time.
  9. Something turns up, badly injured, totally lost or otherwise at a disadvantage. Roll for an encounter.
  10. Something is surprised to find PCs here. Roll for an encounter.
  11. Tracks, litter, or other signs of passage are found. Roll an encounter to see what left them. The next encounter in this location will be with that.
  12. Beneath the earth’s surface, something grinds and churns, and ripples of change flow through the Night Floors. Roll a new Detail for the location and apply it in the most logical way.
  13. Something’s empty home is found. Roll an encounter to see what lives there. The thing’s not home currently. Next time you’d roll an encounter in this location, instead the emtity whose home you found comes back.
  14. Yellow Sign.
  15. The smell of Tobacco--you can find a way back to the Smoking Room from here.
  16. A set of steps are found, leading to a passageway through the Whisper Labrynth. The passage is lined bottles, and is unlit. It leads somewhere else on the map-draw a line leading to a previously explored location, ideally one less deep than the current location.
  17. A dusty library. Following the stacks leads to an area d6+1 layers deeper, or back to Michelle Vanfritz's apartment. From beyond the stacks, you can hear the sound of a raucous party (the Masqarade)
  18. A kid train ride is found, complete with a little trolley. If you ride the train, it takes you to another location you have already explored, preferably one quite deep.
  19. A sewer canal is found, a few feet down, concealed by an iron grille overgrown with plants. The little canal-boats in here will take you somewhere else; a new location 2d6 levels deeper.
  20. The pathway crumbles away, collapsing in on itself. Erase one of the exits leading from this location.

Encounters

(roll d20 + depth)

  1. Tomas Manuel
  2. Agent Barbas
  3. Robert Robert Robert
  4. Michelle Vanfritz
  5. The Dog
  6. The Clown Child (Combat)
  7. Get Em Boys! (Combat)
  8. Masked Men--Mosbey and Didescu
  9. The Man in the Pallid Mask (Combat)
  10. Dorchester House Patients
  11. Solid Gold Godfish
  12. The Yellow SIgn
  13. Asa Darabondi
  14. Butler Offering Gold Bug Oeuvres (pg 346)
  15. Fat Man at the Elevator
  16. The Clown Child
  17. A view of Static Team.
  18. The Man in the Pallid Mask
  19. Agent Vega (Pg 110)
  20. Dr Dalan (Old)
  21. Macalister resident
  22. The Salesman
  23. The Dog
  24. Asa Darabondi
  25. Tom Wright