Inaugural Post in my effort to produce an HMS APOLLYON location. The Pit has been play-tested by Bumphrey the Mole Man's birthday expedition, and successfully navigated, despite some close calls (closer than the players know). In writing it up (as evident from the Title Page posted concurrently with this Introduction), I intend to partially eschew the traditional keyed locations technique of dungeon design and use a Monster list, and random table system to generate encounters, treasures and interesting rooms (or tableaux) for descent into the pit as a whole, while keying areas such as the Agricultural Station, Bastion and Angler Fish Holes.
THE FETID PIT HISTORY AND AREA MAP
The Fetid Pit is a great air shaft leading from the weather deck of the Apollyon, deep into the vessel's holds. Air shafts are common on the upper decks, but only a few great shafts reach as deep as the Pit. Philosophers and architectural augers suspect that the Fetid Pit is in fact one of only eight such deep shafts, arranged in pairs along the entire length of the worldship. Indeed the Pit is over three hundred feet across and thousands of feet deep, running at least to Deck 14, a region known to be flooded before halting at what is presumed to be a a sealed hatch. The Pit makes a poor access shaft to the upper reaches of the ship, as for the first several hundred feet it is frequently blocked by gigantic ventilation blades that slowly rotate turning what little light reaches right hundred feet into the shaft gray and dappled. Additionally the upper shaft is known to be home to colonies of giant predatory pigeons, Merrow Men, wind elementals, automatons and at least one outsider noble and its entourage.
