Breakdown at Geyser Station

 

For this months post I am making a dungeon based on a photo I took at the Dali Museum in Paris on a recent trip to Europe. It was a great trip, I thought the cities were beautiful and spending so much time in ancient pedestrian based cities really made me realize how I always imagine my big fantasy cities as having wide roads, presumably for wagon traffic or something. 

The Dali Museum contained many of his sculptures in addition to art pieces like this one. The piece this dungeon is taken from is called Space Elephant. It contains interior room drawings inside of one of his iconic elephants with long spindly legs carrying an obelisk on its back. Dali loved elephants, often making them chimerical, for example by giving them pig tails or bats wings for ears, so I will add a chimera. He also loved Alice in Wonderland, and did an illustrated series of scenes from the book, sort of in the ink style of Space Elephant, so I will lean into that too. I also think it would be cool to try and go for a Quantum Alice angle, and do something in the style of Derelict Transdimensional Anomaly by Kirt A. Dankmyre/Xiombarg, from the recent 2024 One Page Derelict game jam.

This mechanical rambling pachyderm is captained by a salty old man and is the only way to reach your destination. However, the creature is broken down and unable to leave Geyser Station. If you want to get on the road, they might need a bit of help. 

1. Station Crewed by a Baboon who operates the pulleys and levers to dock with travelling pachyderms. He hates his job, but receives a reward of nuts, berries and cigarettes which keep him from running away.
2. Stairwell A retractable tower with a stairway that allows entry and exit from the traveling pachyderm. Electric eels in an aquarium sculpture in the ceiling provide illumination in the tower. The stairwell has exits to rooms 3 and 4 on the first landing and to 5 and 7 on the second landing. 
3. Foyer Changes every time you visit.
• 1 A bundled traveler in a waiting room at a long distance train station which connects to a cold and distant country.
• 2 Two angry opossums nested away with some rotten food in an upended cabinet in a Victorian waiting room.
• 3 Three ghosts floating in alcoves of a small crypt. They visited their living families and are now heading back to the gates of the underworld.
• 4 Four acrobats in a changing room, waiting to be called out to begin a performance for a powerful lord. The performance is themed around a fable of forbidden love.
• 5 Five golems with bodies full of drawers sit in a room with walls also full of drawers. They say that every drawer contains a secret.
• 6 Six witches and fey creatures sitting in a waiting room with bronze trim and large potted plants. They are travelling to a great effigy burning.
4. Gallery Steam elementals are forbidden from entry. Artwork of elephants with long spindly legs carrying obelisks on their backs taking part in a great war. In the center of the room are two mirror orbs that show the true intentions of anyone reflected in them. 
5. Captains Bedchamber Captain Kudzu was once a pachyderm cavalry general for a great and powerful wizard named Aleph. When Aleph was killed by adventurers, Kudzu was reduced to making a living in commercial transportation. 
6. Cockpit Here are the main control panels, observation deck, trunk docking controls and many gauges showing temperature and pressure.    
7. Engine Room Boilers powered by steam elementals. This area also serves as a kitchen for Aleph and any guests on the traveling pachyderm. The steam elementals were subdued by the wizard Aleph. When Aleph was killed long ago, Kudzu did not tell them. Steam imps from a nearby geyser have revealed Kudzu's lie to the steam elementals and they are now in open rebellion. 
8. Obelisk A chimera lives here. It is Kudzu's loyal familiar and will act in his best interest. They have been together since the war and it will do his bidding, running errands and communicating messages. A maintenance hatch in the Obelisk leads to the aquarium full of electric eels which illuminates the stairwell below. Roll d66 for animal type and body part until a complete creature emerges.
• Animal
• 1 Bat
• 2 Ox
• 3 Dragon
• 4 Lobster
• 5 Ant
• 6 Human
• Body Part
• 1 Torso
• 2 Legs
• 3 Head
• 4 Tail
• 5 Arm
• 6 Eyes/Ears/Nose/Mouth