The Underground Arena

Guess who's coming to dinner? 20 random people in the City of Nightport:

1. Endurance trainer for a mid-range gladiatorial house
2. Bright-eyed farm boy, looking to sign on as a competitor and win fame
3. Professional adventurer, here for the dungeons, thinks gladiators are putzes
4. Wizard, specializing in scrying and inter-team espionage
5. Manager of a gladiatorial team, sends crews into the dungeon for intense training
6. Scholar, looking for the lost under-arena
7. Promoter, always ready to pay coin for live rare beasts from the lower caves
8. Pack of rabid fans from an outlying province here for the annual tournament
9. Old, one-eyed retired gladiator, now makes a good living as a "consultant"
10. Halfling cook to a prominent former champion
11. Four-armed desert warrior, works a good "barbarian" act, but quite civilized
12. Scarred paladin, looking to recruit a party to retrieve remains of last party
13. Local merchant stocking exotic and magical weapons for arena and dungeon
14. Angry enchantress preparing her long-awaited revenge on another random NPC
15. Short-tempered duellist, very deadly but down on his luck
16. Maintenance worker responsible for keeping dungeons sealed and arena standing
17. Vampire masquerading as sport medicine specialist
18. Former champion gone to seed, slumming it and drunk, but still dangerous
19. Tourist with a ready sack of gold coins
20. Ghost of a former adventurer, doesn't know he's dead

Danger Peak

Marlo's Skeleton

If Marlo thought there was treasure out there, then there's treasure. Marlo the Thief, well known for his quick dagger and his amulet of greed, could sniff out the loot in a beggar's second-best rag bin. But wherever he went, he hasn't come back. Normally, that would be the end of the story, but armed with a crude map and a potion of find object, you should have no problem figuring out what happened to good 'ol Marlo.

When you try to climb down into the Sacrifice Pit, roll 2d6 plus your DEX modifier to armor class.

On a 10+, you descend safely to the first level
On a 7+, there's a complication. If you're not using a rope, thief skills, or other climbing apparatus, you're now plummeting towards the stalactite-filled lower pool. If you are, you get into trouble. The rope if fraying, or the wall is slippery, or the intense winds in the pit are making it hard to navigate. Deal with the danger, or plummet to the floor.
On a 6-, you're plummeting.

Harper's Canyon

The Hourglass

Like grains of sand in the hourglass, so are the rounds of our lives

Under the Volcano

A horrific legend, about to impose its terrible truth upon a frightened people

Three comrades on a desperate mission to right an injury that calls out for justice

A glowering idol full of dark intent and cruel machinations

A deed of bravery that lives on to inspire in song and story

Bad Neighbors

An old feud between monstrous neighbors creates an opportunity for a band of mercenary adventurers

An ill-tempered Ogre whose violent demeanor masks an insightful intellect

A family of goblins, stubborn and set in their ways

A doubting cleric, uttering platitudes whose veracity he doubts

A young warrior unacquainted with the world eager to make his name and fortune

The Goblin Back Door

There’s always a back door… This little dungeon trick revolves around an ancient stone throne with a secret catch that causes the entire seat to spin, placing the occupant in a natural cave behind the throne room. There’s just one catch–the cave has become the den of a pack of fierce wolves.

There are a lot of ways your players could encounter a room like this. As part of a greater dungeon, it could provide an escape route for a hated nemesis NPC. If the NPC isn’t ready to handle the wolves, however, the escape could easily be one-way. Going the other way, the presence of an ornate throne in an apparently natural cave could be a party’s way into the dungeon proper.

I used a similar room in a megadungeon adventure using the Moldvay Basic rules a couple of years ago. A pack of starving wolves found their way into the dungeon, but couldn’t find their way out, making a surprising encounter for a party of PC (and, given the deadliness of wolves in that edition, the death of more than one adventurer [sorry, Ben]).

Oh yeah! Also, the original encounter was inspired by a room in Stefan Poag's epic Mines of Khunmar megadungeon!

Under Gavin's Woods

The fishing town of Gavin’s woods has been plagued by a determined band of Goblin highwaymen. Now, in a daring raid on the Old Trunk Road, they have captured the Baronesses sapphire torc. The constabulary has tracked the robbers to a hidden dungeon entrance under a boulder in the woods. Dungeon delving being no business of theirs, they’ve hired a likely bunch to recover the torc, with a nice cash reward offered.