Development Diary: Deep Vault Factions

I've completed outlines for each faction—some raw notes for reference as I develop the dungeon. These may be tweaked over the next couple of weeks if new ideas present themselves, but I feel like these are fairly well baked. One of my goals is to not go too deep into the backgrounds. The players won't know/discover much of it anyway, so all I need are the surface details to flesh the rest out in my mind.

Since my previous overview of the dungeon, I've decided to add a fifth faction to the mix, although they're an edge case. In developing the Leng as villains, I've decided to reduce their numbers and make them physically limited, though technologically strong. The physical limitations will also help explain some of the strange architecture found in the vaults (such as no stairs or steps, only ramps). To supplement their threat, I gave the Leng some minions which they have enslaved: hordes of (easily-killed) gibberlings (Fiend Folio) and a few (sort-of) trolls. 

Both creature types are mindless and totally under the thrall of their Leng masters, but whereas the trolls are only found in the Leng's territory, the gibberlings are likely to be encountered throughout the dungeon without any Leng present. I'm also upgrading the gibberlings from the boring old FF version to make them a little more vicious and creepy, so I want to have a playbook for them to follow.

The following factions are all present within the Deep Vaults (in likely order of appearance). The PCs will be seen as rivals by the Dungeon Raiders; all other factions will simply view the party members as more Dungeon Raiders (in terms of their motives)...

DUNGEON RAIDERS
A (large) company of mercenary adventurers just trying to explore the outer dungeon. 

Their Situation (What is the faction's current state of mind?)

• Up until now, they have only encountered Gibberlings and Trogs (and some asst'd monsters).
• They are completely unaware of the Kuo-toa, the Myconids, or the Leng.
• All other factions are aware of the Dungeon Raiders' presence.
• They found a cache of (unusual) valuables early on, but nothing much since then other than some weird crystals scattered about.
• A recent exploratory party into the dungeon has not returned.
• Morale is low and tempers are high.
• Nevertheless, these mercenaries are pros: Always on high alert for threats; not easily surprised.
  

Group Motives (in order of primary importance)...

• Defend the camp (they are nervous).
• Plunder the dungeon's riches (they are ambitious).
• Prevent others from getting the loot (they are greedy).
• Find their missing comrades (they want to solve the mystery).

Activities (What are they most likely to be doing when encountered?)

• Exploring the outer dungeon.
• Patrolling for signs of Gibberlings or Trogs (or anything else).
• Crating up loot and hauling it to the surface.
• Resisting the PCs' presence and refusing any cooperation, becoming violent when necessary.
  

Reactions (What do they do when encountered/attacked?)

• The Dungeon Raiders will view the PCs as an immediate threat and demand that they leave right away.
• If they have 2:1 numbers on the PCs, they will attack to enforce their demands but retreat if they suffer 1/3 losses.
• If they don't have numbers, they withdraw to the camp to gather a group (3:1) and track down the PCs to expel them by force.
  
• They can quickly refresh their ranks from outside, but won't do so indefinitely.
• If enough members of this camp are killed (~20 or so), the organization will send a more powerful group to take care of matters.
• If that group fails, they abandon the project and quit the dungeon (for now).

__________

GIBBERLINGS
Insane, hairy, cannibalistic halflings who occupied these forgotten subterranean chambers for centuries until the Leng reemerged. They now serve as slave minions of the Leng.

Their Situation (What is the faction's current state of mind?)

• They are expendable cannon fodder, sent by the Leng to harass the Kuo-toa and the Dungeon Raiders.

Group Motives (in order of primary importance)...

• Obey the Leng masters (they are desperate for approval).
• Kill and eat anything that moves* (they have food anxiety). 
  

Activities (What are they most likely to be doing when encountered?)

• Roaming the dungeon levels searching for prey.
• Fighting in "swarms" to overwhelm a target.
• Doing whatever a Leng master commands.

Reactions (What do they do when encountered/attacked?)

• They immediately attack and try to eat any creature they encounter (*other than trolls, Myconids, or the Leng). 
• They don't care about anything else.
• They are fearless and won't stop until all are dead.

__________

TROGLODYTES (TROGS)
These disgusting, albino amphibians have dwelt in the ancient sewers of this city longer than any of the other factions (save for the original Leng who built the place).

Design Note: I'm patterning these troglodytes after the Sleestak from Land of the Lost, cowardly scavengers who use primitive, crossbow-like weapons to shoot sharpened darts tipped with sleep poison. 

Their Situation (What is the faction's current state of mind?)

• They are likely to be encountered as the PCs explore the outer parts of the dungeon.
• Their tunnels connect to all parts of the dungeon, so they are found everywhere.
• They fear the Leng and know that the crystals are dangerous, so they avoid the Leng's territory.
• They hate the Kuo-toa, who steal their eggs.
• The Trogs' "goddess" (a Troghemoth) dwells in a ruined temple to her on the sub-level, where the creature's minions bring her still-living sacrifices to eat.

Group Motives (in order of primary importance)...

• Find food (they are always hungry).
• Protect the queen (they live in terror of her ravenous gaze).
• Protect the egg pools (they must, at all costs).
• Avoid the Leng (they fear them) and Myconids (they rely on them to provide food and attract other food).
• Kill and eat Kuo-toa (they hate the fish-men above all others).
• Kill and eat Gibberlings and Dungeon Raiders (they are hungry enough to risk it).
  

Activities (What are they most likely to be doing when encountered?)

• Searching for food.
• Skulking about.
• Waiting in ambush.

Reactions (What do they do when encountered/attacked?)

• They aggressively attack if they have greater than 1:1 numbers. When the odds are no longer 1:1 or greater, any remaining Trogs split up and flee.
• They prefer to either ambush a party, or stalk them at a distance (due to their stench) in order to pick off an easy target when they become vulnerable or separated.
• Though they are numerous, slain Trogs are not easily replaced; attrition has an effect.
• If half the tribe's numbers are killed, the Trogs will no longer be encountered outside their sub-level caves.
• If more than two-thirds of the tribe is killed, the survivors will depart the area, slinking deeper into the underworld in search of a new home.
• The death of their queen will not force the Trogs to depart if their overall numbers still hold. 
• Trogs go into a berserk rage around any PCs involved in her death, however, for her spoor still clings to them like a curse (they now fight to the death, regardless of odds).

__________

MYCONIDS
These mushroom creatures exist on a different level of consciousness, as they are all part of a central growth.

Their Situation (What is the faction's current state of mind?)

• They tend the Fungal Forest and basically mind their own businesses unless someone disturbs them or begins destroying large sections of the forest.
• They regard death as merely an opportunity for growth...
• Whenever a creature drops to 0 hp within the forest, 1d4 small Myconids appear and squat on the corpse.
• They slowly consume it over several days, and the remains then sprout new Myconids.
• The fungi-folk couldn't care less what others are up to as long as they don't trash the forest.
  

Group Motives (in order of primary importance)...

• Protect the forest from invasive species (they fear losing mass).
• Cultivate the central growth's many children (they want to maintain mass).
• Squat on dead things to make more children (they want to expand mass).

Activities (What are they most likely to be doing?)

• Standing silently, indistinguishable from other nearby fungus.
• Squatting on a corpse (again, minding their own biz).
• Scattering spores and otherwise tending the Fungal Forest.
• Shooing away aggressively hungry insects.

Reactions (What do they do when encountered/attacked?)

• The Myconids are difficult to communicate with and their intentions are often obscure, so their reaction to encountering the PCs depends largely on what the PCs do first.
  
• To neutralize threats to the forest, they use a combination of passive resistance (see below), hallucinogenic spores, and poison miasma.
• When the Myconids are agitated, the entire forest becomes incredibly difficult to pass through, and dangerous encounters become way more frequent.

__________

 

KUO-TOA
Attracted by the recent seismic disturbance that tore open the rift above, these hideous creatures swam up from the underworld depths in search of new feeding grounds.

Their Situation (What is the faction's current state of mind?)

• They serve a queen—a hideous angler-fishoid.
• They built a limestone palace for her where she lays eggs and accepts sacrifices.
  
• They don't understand the crystals but covet them anyway, so they plot war against the Leng.
• They find Trog eggs a particular delicacy.

Group Motives (in order of primary importance)...

• Appease and protect the queen at all costs (they wish to be selected to mate).
• Capture creatures to eat and/or sacrifice to the queen (they are ruthless).
• Avoid or kill the Leng and take their crystals (they hate what they do not understand).
• Figure out how the Leng make the crystals do things (they want to use the devices to enslave others).
• Don't bother the Myconids (they rely on the Fungal Forest to attract other prey...and because doing so always ends badly for the Kuo-toa, whose gills make them vulnerable to the mushroom-men's spores).
• Find Trog eggs (they are addicted to the succulent treats).

Activities (What are they most likely to be doing?)

• Searching for creatures to eat—mostly preying on the giant insects found in the Fungal Forest (an activity the Myconids encourage to moderate the forest's ecology).
• Searching for creatures to sacrifice to the queen (mostly Trogs and Gibberlings, although new fleshy creatures were recently captured in the outer dungeon).
• Raiding into Trog territory to collect eggs for their queen.
  

Reactions (What do they do when encountered/attacked?)

• They are fearless and operate instinctively.
  
• Their first instinct is to viciously murder and eat whatever they encounter.

__________

THE LENG
Dark humanoids of chthonic provenance, they are an ancient and inscrutable race, armed with strange science and consumed with revenge.

Design Notes: The more I thought about the Leng, the more I wanted them to be more unearthly than humanoid. I also wanted there to be physical aspects about them that were different and which informed the architecture. I've made a few rough sketches which I'll touch up and post, but for now...

• A naked Leng stands exactly 3-ft. high, no more and no less.
• It is barrel-shaped, narrowing slightly near the almost-flat crown.
• Its skin is the color of dark leather; thick and pliable, but like sandpaper to the touch.
  
• On one side of the barrel, 6 in. below where the sides of the creature begin to slope to the crown, sit a pair of stumpy eyestalks, spaced 8 in. apart, that move independently of each other.
• The eyestalks are positioned just over its mouth, which appears little more than a slit above a slightly-bulging band of flesh that could be described as a lower jaw.
• Inside its mouth is a set of square, chisel-like teeth made of a material like granite.
• Protruding from the mid-point of the barrel are a pair of stumpy arms that bend freely in any direction, with no apparent skeletal structure or joint.
• At the end of each arm are three sausage-like "fingers" spaced equidistantly around the arm's circumference.
  
• Instead of legs and feet, the Leng scurry about on one hundred fleshy podia, each only 6 in. high with a knob-like foot at the end.
  
• Up close, they have an unnerving, chemical odor, like something toxic and unnatural.
  
• When encountered outside their fortress, they are always dressed in protective masks and robes, adding an outer layer of mystery to their true nature.
  

Their Situation (What is the faction's current state of mind?)

• These ruins were once an ancient Leng city, before the surface-worlders chased them further underground.
• The recent seismic event that torn open the rift brought these Leng back to the surface, to plunder their former abode. They now work tirelessly to strip materials from the vault chambers (power crystals, unknown alloys, wiring, etc.) and harvest the crystal blooms growing throughout the dungeon.
  
• The Leng occupy a fortress in the central cavern, where they use indecipherable engineering to turn their salvaged materials into devices of terrible power.

Group Motives (in order of primary importance)...

• Protect the Crystal Caverns (they need these chambers to grow crystal blooms).
• Harvest activated crystal blooms and turn the raw shards into power crystals (they need the crystals' energy to operate their devices). 
  
• Harvest fungus from the forest to make a foul-tasting, grey food paste (they need to periodically consume organic energy).
• Harvest fungus from the forest to make troll-flesh (they need protection).
• Keep other species at bay, mostly by killing them (they are coldly efficient).
• Protect the Myconids, as they are essential to the Leng colony's survival (they are practical).
• Recover Leng materials and technology from the ruins to make new devices (they are crafty).
• Use these devices to someday wage war on the surface-worlders (they want revenge).

Activities (What are they most likely to be doing?)

• Harvesting crystals.
• Harvesting fungus.
• Stripping advanced materials (crystals, unknown alloys, wiring, etc.) from the vault chambers.
• Building devices.
• Commanding Gibberlings and/or trolls to do something.
• Standing motionless for an hour or more (their form of rest).
  

Reactions (What do they do when encountered/attacked?)

• They consider every other species to be beneath them, and have no interest in communicating with or engaging any of the other factions in the dungeon (other than to kill or drive them off).
  
• The Leng prefer to avoid direct fighting, as replacing lost members is not possible (for now).
• When enemies attack them, the Leng send their minions to slow any advance, and then begin an immediate tactical withdrawal (even if they have superiority of numbers).
• They use their devices to make life miserable for anyone trying to block their escape route or pursuing them.
• This attitude changes whenever the PCs (or any other faction) tries to enter the Crystal Caverns, at which point the Leng will fight to the last Leng.
• If the chief-sorcerer is ever killed, the Leng will ultimately abandon this colony, although any survivors will linger long enough to recover whatever technology or materials they can.