Continuing down into the depths of the Hurricane Dungeon, Level 8's map was drawn on the fifth night without power. Like the previous cavern map for Level 7, there are only 21 encounter areas here, so about half the number as the "finished" levels.
I like underground rivers, so this map has a big one winding right through, with many side caves and tunnels filling out the level. A pair of waterfalls, various ledges, and a series of rapids provide some nice natural obstacles as well. There are no ways off the level other than the river channel, so I needed to add a few; specifically, the three tunnel connections from Level 8.
As for connecting this level down to Level 9, one major thing complicated the situation: Level 9 is not directly below Level 8. Rather, it is down one level but shifted completely to the right. On that map, the river channel enters the level in the top-left corner, directly connecting to the river outlet on this map. This means that the likeliest routes down to Level 9 would be in the upper-right portion of the Level 8 map.
I also rolled one "Stairs" results on the dungeon stocking rolls, so I added a single tunnel down to Level 9. This provides for only two routes off the level (including the river channel) which results in a bit of a bottleneck to further progress. The party will have to either master the river channel somehow, or locate the cave with the statue where the new tunnel leads down. Usually, you don't want bottlenecks like this in your dungeon, but it's not so bad in this case.
That's because the layout of this level makes it clear that the dungeon "rooms" lie along the river's descending path, so it should seem logical to the players to investigate the downstream area where the river leaves the map. If they do, they will find that the river dumps via waterfall into a huge cavernous reservoir overlooked by a ziggurat temple carved into the wall. At the top of the falls, another cave entrance leads into other areas of Level 9. How they reach this area is up to the players and their resources, but it will at least be obvious that more dungeon lies in this direction. Even if they can't manage to get further downstream here, the knowledge of this area should motivate them to search the E side of the level for another route in this direction, in which case they will quickly find the new tunnel in the cave with the statue.
For some reason, I labeled many of the natural features by writing on the original map, which I didn't do on the others. I took the opportunity to remove the extra words and clean up a few things while adding river fords in two obvious spots. One of the "Trick/Traps" I rolled was a collapsing bridge, so I drew a span over the river. I also drew a connecting tunnel between two previously-isolated caves to give the level a little more flow. After adding a key and shading, the map turned out like this:
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My content stocking rolls (for a 21-room dungeon level) came up with the following results:
–Empty: 9 (43% / 35%)
–Monster: 6 (29% / 20%)
–Monster + Treasure: 3 (14% / 25%)
–Stairs: 1 (5% / 5%)
–Trick/Trap: 2 (10% / 5%)
–Treasure: 0 (0% / 5%)
The
first % number is the percentage of the actual content rolls; the
second % number is the typical expected percentage spread (per OSRIC
guidelines). Another high-empty, low-treasure level unfortunately, but I'll have to make due.
