Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Speed of Light Moths.

I had this idea for a room in a dungeon while I was in the shower, I have no fucking clue what to do with it, but let's flesh it out.

Spooky
So it's a room, plain stone, with a door on the
opposite end. On the door, are some moths. Moths are the menacing cousin of the butterfly. They are formed up in the shape of an 8 or maybe in an infinity loop. Upon going through the room, the moths are disturbed, they flutter around the room in a panic. Exiting through the opposite door only leads to finding yourself back at the original entrance to the door. The moths once again in place, in the same shape, and any other changes to the room seem to have reset. However, before the players react, the moths fly off the door, a little quicker than when they were originally disturbed, the door flies open, all without any action from the party.

Following through the opposite door again leads to the same results, but with even more drastic results.

 What's going on in here?
 Each time the group heads through the other door, they return to the room, but any force that acted on anything in the room is repeated but with compounding multiplication. So the moths get disturbed once, and the force that disturbed them is still there the next time the room is entered (their little wings beating against the door, the door opening, etc.) Eventually, (and it only takes a few more passages through the door) the moths will rocket towards the players like tiny missiles, massive groves will appear in the ground where people walked, the door will likely smash itself off its hinges. God forbid they did something like hit a wall or use a bomb.

How do they escape? I'm not sure. Maybe they can just walk back out the door they came in from, at any point during the loop. Maybe there's a secret trap door that's hidden somewhere in the room. I kind of like it as just an interesting way to use a dead end in my next dungeon, maybe just a thing the players can experiment with, and then use on a monster or to help with a puzzle later on. Maybe chuck some coal in there, and with enough work and care, they can turn it into a diamond or something.

Maybe make the room larger, with multiple doors, and only a correct sequence through them lets you out, any other just compounds the force as above. Stick some mundane things in the room like a little stream, and within a few walks through the room, the river is now a massive canyon, or the water is moving at speed of a pressure washer.