So I tried a couple different designs but they all felt like crap. In the end, I just went back the pruned a few of the loose corridors. I'll be happy to hit it agian, but I don't want to hold up the design for much longer.
I like the design of a small, magical keep. Much larger and it is hard to come up with excuses for the lack of rooms. But keeping it small harkens back to the first round of Temple of Elemental Evil, and the Bargle castle in the Mentzer's red book.
Here's a run down of the paths and rooms. Note that the very first "area" of each path is intended to be a player intro room with no actual encounters. This, with the other changes, should insure that most folks get to the final encounter.
Balancing encounters on first round should be fairly easy with 0-lvl characters. The tough part will be writing cool encounters that don't kill off our PCs right away.
Traps: I went light on the traps, since only dwarven experts will have a shot, and then only at stonework traps. I'd like, if possible, for the "traps" to be apparent, so that players can think their way through them if needed.
http://www.poisonclanpress.com/rough2.jpg
Path A: In through the front door.
Area - A1: Player beginning. Coming through the old moat house.
Area - A2: Covered hall. Remnants of Sezrekan's magical defenders? Combat encounter.
Area - A3: Covered balcony. Some sort of magical trap + puzzle involved with mosaics/statuary/bas reliefs. Ala Tomb of Horror handouts.
Path B: In through the ruins.
Area - B1: Player beginning. Slope up to broken wall.
Area - B2: West Tower. Combat encounter.
Area - B3: Warlock's Great Hall. Some sort of magical trap +puzzle.
Path C: In through the sewers.
Area - C1: Currently off map. Cave in the hillside, funneling out of keep.
Area - C2: Well/Drain. Raistlin's (sp?) Tower of High Sorcery has a pit where dark mages toss all their failed experiments. Something similar here.
Area - C3: Warlock's Laboratory. Ruined, heavy on description (cool things to investigate). Again, a puzzle + trap room.
Area - 4: Hall of 3 Gates. At last our paths converge. I drew in liquid for some sort of dynamic room feature, but the specifics should be left up to the room designer. Flaming oil? Wafting demonic ethers? Something that plays a role in round 3 would be cool.
Gates 4a and 4b are active. Step through them and be faced with a puzzle or combat. Solve the puzzle and you return with a key. Return with both keys and you are able to activate gate 4c.
Go through 4c and confront the freed cambion.
I left the encounters behind 4a, b & c, undrawn so that they the designers can tailor them to the encounter. Encore encounters will be built off the of the cambion's chamber.
A party can start at any entrance and get to the end encounter in 7 steps, 6 if you don't count the entrance.
PCs might very well get off course and investigate the rest of the keep once they make it to Area 4, but that's their fault. They've been sent on a mission with a time restraint --- getting off course once you see the 2 glowing portals is your choice.
