Hi! I'm currently creating a dungeon that my players will be going to soon but I'm feeling a bit stumped. 

Quick background. There is a cult seeking a powerful item locked away in this ruin. The main baddie is able to go ethereal and walk through walls but I wanted them to get trapped in the final room. Powerful runes make any kind of transportation magic impossible if you enter without the door open, and sets off an alarm. So they stuck until the party opens the door. The ruins are part of an ancient city that was ruled by the Goddess Erathis(justice, honor, lawful good) when she walked the earth. In my world this is the civilization that originally created warforged.

So I was thinking an armory of some kind, and the rest of the ruins could be a military compound. A large portion of the ruins are buried so it doesn't have to be a single building. But I'm having trouble coming up with advanced and dangerous rooms that would be near an armory. I thought maybe it's a training ground of some kind so a sparing pit that randomly has different hazards to fight in. But I'm stumped on other ideas. 

Any and all suggestions welcome and thank you to anyone who read this! ^^

Maybe the trainees in the military had to go through a hazardous obstacle course to get to the armory? Since intense physical training was only way to get through, almost no outsiders would be able to steal their weapons.

Building on TTB’s idea, since it’s the place where they built the Warforged, maybe you could have malfunctioning Golems and other Constructs wandering around? Kind of like the Guardians in Breath of the Wild, some of them might be immobile, but really powerful, so you have to get past really fast? Just spitballing

With Erathis, it could also be a courthouse. the ghosts of ancient lawyers could tie them up in magical red tape. And there could be a prison nearby or involved in the complex with old criminals trapped in a sort of stasis field. They've more then served their time, but does the party let them go -- more importantly, does Erathis want them to be released?

These are really good ideas! 

Quote from Thauraeln_The_Bold >>

Maybe the trainees in the military had to go through a hazardous obstacle course to get to the armory? Since intense physical training was only way to get through, almost no outsiders would be able to steal their weapons.

I was thinking on a obstacle course of some kind to help train soldiers, and maybe it could be malfunctioning somehow so it is more dangerous?

Quote from MandosMindos_KoR >>

Building on TTB’s idea, since it’s the place where they built the Warforged, maybe you could have malfunctioning Golems and other Constructs wandering around? Kind of like the Guardians in Breath of the Wild, some of them might be immobile, but really powerful, so you have to get past really fast? Just spitballing

I was planning on having some ancient corrupted warforged. There is an evil Demi-god that is corrupting the area. But I love the idea of some of them being immobile traps or hazards instead of creatures to fight! 

Quote from Xalthu >>

With Erathis, it could also be a courthouse. the ghosts of ancient lawyers could tie them up in magical red tape. And there could be a prison nearby or involved in the complex with old criminals trapped in a sort of stasis field. They've more then served their time, but does the party let them go -- more importantly, does Erathis want them to be released?

Lol the courthouse idea made me laugh! I like it. And the prison thing is certainly a moral dilemma they could have to face, but I worry about giving them someone from over 1000 years ago.

Thanks so much for the replies so far! This is all really helpful and has given me more to think about.

The normal defenses you have around an armory are intended for keeping people from stealing the contents of the armory. These could be quite dangerous, but usually fairly boring; a system that's partially malfunctioning is probably more interesting. Also, the armory at a place that manufactures things like warforged may contain weapons that can function on their own, in which case the big threat comes after the PCs have successfully broken in.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

The normal defenses you have around an armory are intended for keeping people from stealing the contents of the armory. These could be quite dangerous, but usually fairly boring; a system that's partially malfunctioning is probably more interesting. Also, the armory at a place that manufactures things like warforged may contain weapons that can function on their own, in which case the big threat comes after the PCs have successfully broken in.

I can definitely see a busted defense system being active, with the baddie having set off the old alarm. I already have some pretty evil plans for the encounter inside the armory though lol.

Spells that you can use: alarm, snare, arcane lock, glyph of warding, private sanctum,  druid grove, forbiddance, guards and wards, symbol, 

Quote from WallineDungeonMaster >>

Spells that you can use: alarm, snare, arcane lock, glyph of warding, private sanctum,  druid grove, forbiddance, guards and wards, symbol, 

 

Those are awesome! I didn't even know some of those existed, that will really help. ^^