Views on the 4th dimension

Seth S wants to know how I would “handle a 4d or even higher dimensional dungeon. If you want to talk about the same concept but for monsters or magic items I’d be interested to hear about that as well.”

God damn you Seth. I have enough trouble dealing with these dimensions right here.

Ok, well, I have already kind of looked at using apolyhedra to make a map that would invisibly curve in dimensions the playerscouldn’t see.  It gets you a cool toy but it’s limited. Plus its nothing you couldn’t do with flat paper and others have done it better I seem to recall.

I should create something at least half useful. So here is a 1 hour dungeon involving TRAVEL IN TIME. And time, as I’m sure you know, is the 4^th dimension. At least if was in 60’s Dr Who.

Here is a dungeon in which you travel in time.

Ghosts in the Basement

An Inn in the centre of a rainy town.  Granddad says it used to be haunted. No-one heard anything strange there for a hundred years. A gang of men broke it. But they disappeared into the basement and haven’t come back.

The dungeon exists in three ages.

Age one is right now.

Age two is 200 years ago.

Age three is 3000 years ago.

Age four is 5000 years ago.

You move back in time by shedding blood. The more hp of blood get spilled by PC’s or bled out of PC’s, the further back you go. You return by solving problems. There are thieves, they are bad.

One of the thieves is an immortal vampire who exists at ever point in the towers history at different points of his life.

Secret doors in age one are obvious as gaping holes in the walls. In age two they are half hidden. In age three, people wont know about them as they are fully hidden, but PC’s will.  In age four they may not yet have been built.

In ages one and two the rooms are a dungeon underground. In ages three and four they are at the top of the tallest tower in an ancient desert city. In age four the walls and ceiling are not complete and you can fall off the thing. Not sure what happens then.

Theatre

Age One. A dungeon. Thieves are smashing the already broken carvings on the wall and digging through the ash of bones and burnt masks.

Age Two. Haunted boneyard. Actors performing final scene of wagnarian opera, guy playing a ghost is the only one who knows what’s going on. Remains of mouldering seats and stage.

Age Three. Room is in tower, 500 feet up. Burning city visible through windows. Performance of decedent opera featuring ethnically-mocked barbarians disrupted as actual real barbarians surge through door and begin massacring audience and cast.

Temple

Age One. Dungeon. Thieves cracking open tombs and finding only dusty bones. Pulling down the statues of AÖ.

Age Two.  The ghosts of husbands and wives guarding half-empty tombs. The crackling voids where bodies should be are more terrible than the memories. The Vampire is here though you may mistake him for a ghost due to his pale and wizened form.

Age Three. A tower and not a dungeon. Civilian families taking shelter. Barbarian hordes outside the stone doors are offering a deal for one half of each family.

Age Four. Consecration of the Sky palace of AÖ. Roof open to the sky. Priests not happy to see blood splattered magical visitors.

Observatory.

Age One. Melted gold star charts and fine lenses tuned to cosmic radiations, show various magical lights. If you can find a whole one. The telescope is a brass corpse. The Vampire is here, poking around. He has some bad thieves with him.

Age Two. Stellar and nebulaeic shards of unobserved cosmic catastrophes threaten and offer strange knowledge.

Age Three. Primal barbarian animal-shaman does battle with summoned starlight wraiths. Maximum knowledge destruction.

Age Four. Night sky. City lights slowly doused by order of the hierarch, one by one to prevent light pollution. Inferior iron telescope being installed by secret vampire scientist. Could do with some lens advice.

Garden

Age one. Dust and ashen ground. Thieves digging through the muck frantically.

Age Two. Skeleton trees, flowers of ash in the still air. Zombie dryads weeping for the sun. Animated child skeletons break free of the grey ground.

Age Three. Fire everywhere. Children hiding in the bushed from destroying army. Dryads screaming. Water nymph from ornamental stream dying as she evaporates and wails.

Age Four. Gardeners surprised as they plant/wed child-dryads and pray to AÖ for an Angel of smooth waters in this famished land.

DON’T BORE ME WITH CONTINUITY, I DID THIS SHIT IS SIXTY MINUTES.

Also go and check out this thing by Arnold K. He loves the fourth dimension.