Painted Rooms, Part 1

Don't worry, the Slime Review is still progressing - next up is everyone's favourite (?), the ochre jelly, but I'd like to intermittently insert another series of posts.

These ones aren't related to any particular setting idea, but rather was a thought I had after reading that Maze of the Blue Medusa had its origins in a painting which one of the authors made which the other then based room descriptions on. I decided to try doing something like that, but on a smaller scale, i.e. not in the context of an entire dungeon: just single room descriptions, based on some of my favourite paintings.

Rather than try to incorporate every element of the painting into the room description, which in many cases might end up making the room too busy, I've honed in on a few central elements: the idea is to try and capture the theme or mood of the piece as it might manifest itself as a dungeon room, not to transliterate the painting wholesale into a room description.

For the first installment, we have a trio of rooms based on a trio of paintings from a trio of surrealists, including, yes, that surrealist.

Yves Tanguy - Large Painting Representing a Landscape

 

Dog Room: A few stalks of pale yellow wheat thrust up from cracks in the floor. If disturbed, they crumble into yellow dust which permanently stains anything it touches; not even Remove Curse will get rid of this.

Anyone not looking at the centre of the room will have the impression from the corner of their eye of a medium-sized gray dog standing motionless there. This dog only exists for each individual insofar as it is not looked at directly; it can be interacted with, but only if the individual doing the interacting is not looking at the centre of the room, in which case the dog is for all intents and purposes non-existent. The dog does not respond to any interaction and feels cold to the touch, its fur damp and matted. If attacked, it will erupt into a cloud of poison gas which lingers for 1d6 turns. So long as the gas is present, all room occupants must save vs. poison every other round or die, unless they are looking directly at the centre of the room where the dog was, in which case the gas does not exist for them (they don't see it, smell it, etc.). 

Salvador Dali - Sleep

 

Mumbling Face: Amidst maps of nearby cities and towns (as they will look about one hundred years into the future) and various rusted torture equipment is the skin of a human face, stretched across a number of pegs pounded into the floor. The face's mouth constantly mumbles, too quietly for the words to be discerned unless one places one's ear directly next to the mouth. Any individual who does this will hear one of the following (roll 1d6):

1) The location of the nearest undiscovered secret door
2) The location of the nearest undiscovered trap, presented as the location of the nearest undiscovered secret door
3) The darkest secret of one of the individual's companions (true)
4) The darkest secret of one of the individual's companions (false)
5) The solution to some mystery the individual is aware of, or a rumour about a place they intend to visit (true)
6) The solution to some mystery the individual is aware of, or a rumour about a place they intend to visit (false)

For each time an individual listens after the first, the words will be incoherent rambling, which may or may not contain clues, hints or other information, at the DM's discretion.

René Magritte - Not to be Reproduced (Portrait of Edward James)

 

Mirror Room: One entire wall of this room is a glass mirror. It reflects objects normally, provided they are not being held or worn by anyone, but it depicts living beings and everything they are wearing or holding as if seen from behind. The exception is beings who are under the effect of one or more spells, curses, or other magical effects (including those under the effects of enchanted or cursed items, but not including natural magical effects like auras); these are reflected normally. If any attempt is made to remove the mirror from the wall, in whole or in part, the glass loses all its extraordinary properties.