So I know that I am super behind, but things have been so busy. I have a baby and I am pursuing my Masters education. So after a point, you will see that I am not giving full stat blocks for monsters. This is to save me precious time so I can pump this dungeon out faster. If I have already statted up a monster previously, I'll underline it but not give stats again.
Previous Posts:
Introduction
Rooms 1-8
Rooms 9-14
15: Vermen Camp
The forward base of Vermen: a bone littered room with obviously stolen and ruined finery: half of a grand table, a doodled-on portrait of Ylra Danask, the famous concubine and lover of Sultan Daliim the Empire Builder, and a collection of rotting silk Ottomans, chaise lounges, and a single high backed chair. Sitting upon it is a bloated fly Vermen, the Countess Effluvia, a huge lumpy body, ridiculously shoved into a ripped violet gown with a towering Akavasian crown atop her insectoid head passed bulging paneled eyes, and carrying a scepter in an absurd, tiny bug appendage.
"Who dares enter my immaculate presence? Who comes to gaze upon my pristine visage? Who comes to inhale my glorious musk?"
The smell of this room is devastating. Atop the table before her is a massive pile of rotting flesh and waste. Any sign betraying your disgust will enrage the Princess It takes either a Mnd or Mgt Save not to wretch if you approach unprepared.
The Princess is accompanied by 2 Hulking Racoon Vermen bodyguards and a Rat Vermen Jester.
The Princess has no desire to harm the party at least initially but she demands the respect of a monarch. Any sign of disgust enrages her. She considers herself and her fellow Vermen to be on a royal expedition, to take further trophies and claim territory. Her fellow nobles, as all Vermen call each other by nearly random noble titles, have been clashing with the Gutter Kings and Star Seekers. She will grant favor and perhaps a knighthood to the party in exchange for help against these other factions or for new treasures. If she is killed or driven out and the camp destroyed, the Vermen will retreat from this level.
Princess Effluvia: +3 Decomposing Spit (1d6/2d6 against Unarmored targets), 25HP, 11AC, Saves: +2 Mgt, +1 Mnd, +1 Agl. SP: Monstrous Odor: As combat begins, the Princess begins to double her horrific odor. Every non-Vermen within 50ft must Save at the beginning of their turns or be sickened, making attacks at Disadvantage and being unable to cast or concentrate on spells.
Tiny Wings: Against all logic the Princess can hover in the air, moving 10ft per round.
Royal Decree: Each round the Princess may issue a command apparently magically bolstered by her crown. This command is a single word that a target must Save or obey or it can allow a ally to make a free additional attack.
2 Hulking Racoon Vermen: +2 Huge Claw (1d12+1), 15HP, 10AC, Saves: +5 Mgt, +0 Agl, -2 Mnd.
Rat Vermen Jester: +3 Knife Toss (1d6), 5HP, 13AC, Saves: +0 Mgt, +5 Agl, +1 Mnd. SP: Juggling Knives: Anyone that enters within 5ft of the Jester must Save or take 1d4 damage from his constantly juggling knives.
Things of Value:
- The Crown of Saint Empress Tatania: this late Akavasian relic dates back to the time of the political ascendancy of the Living Temple in the empire. It allows the wearer to make 3 Royal Decrees each day. This can be a one word command that they must Save or obey or allow an ally to make an additional free attack. It is worth 2,000gp.
- The Scepter of King Baloram the Cowardly: a fine scepter with a less than stellar history. Supposedly it was found in a toilet after Baloram's rapid retreat. Worth 100gp or 250gp to a history buff.
- The Defaced Portrait of Ylra Danask: Worth little now but if it is restored, it would be worth 200gp.
- Games from Blaw and Gor: weird dice and strange tiny packets of roughly hand-drawn art. Not valuable in the traditional sense but this small pile of games marks the peace they have brokered with the Ogres.
16: The Idol
High up in the air of this cavernous obsidian chamber is an obsidian idol of an ape deity. It is holding a bowling ball sized red glowing gem. Streams of light emit from it through the idol's fingers, reflecting off of the shining obsidian walls, creating a web of red beams of light.
Anything that touches a beam that is flammable, takes 1d6. Reflective surfaces bounce off the beams but metal objects begin to heat rapidly.
3 hapless Moth Vermen are trying to get the gem and having little luck. One of their fellows is already a crispy husk on the ground. They are wary of strangers, but not immediately hostile. They want the gem desperately and will probably all die trying.
The gem is an incredibly valuable artifact of a long forgotten age but it is profoundly dangerous. If it can be freed from the idol's fingers, its full radiance will shine out, dealing 1d6 to all flammable things in the room each round. If you can somehow get this gem to a wealthy wizard, they will pay 1,000gp.
17: Busts
Akavasian busts of emperors from before the rise of the Living Temple. Many of them are in various states of disrepair. Noses have been broken off, heads have been cracked, eyes smashed in, but a few are pristine. It seems this is a place where some emperor hid busts that would otherwise have been destroyed in the iconoclasm.
The spirit of Emperor Baelix the Last Pagan invisibly guards the busts here, but he will only attack if a bust is touched. He remains corporeal, albeit invisible, so his form might be revealed in the same way as you might reveal any corporeal creature.
Emperor Baelix the Last Pagan: +4 Wraith Claw (2 Attacks, 1d8+1, Save or your max HP is reduced by 1), 25HP (Immune to Nonmagical Weapons), 15AC, Saves: +3. SP: Perpetual Invisibility: This Spirit is corporeal but perpetually invisible.
Things of Value:
- 6 Imperial Busts worth 250gp each to a historian as these are rare remnants of otherwise lost history.
If you haven’t encountered them already, the party of Gutter Kings are here, attempting to steal the busts. One has already been killed by something in the room, after they touched the bust. They are trying to figure out what happened. The body of the Gutter King has not only perished but shriveled up and blackened, as if drained of life. Patchface is trying to figure out the room and would eagerly accept help especially if it means risking your lives instead of his.
A crew of 1d4 Gutter King Smackers and 1d4 Shooters with their leader, Patchface Gubbins
Gutter King Smacker: +2 Begging Cudgel (1d6), 4HP, 12AC. Saves: +1.
Gutter King Shooter: +1 Crossbow (1d6), 2HP, 10AC. Saves: -1.
Patchface Gubbins: +3 Spiked Cudgel (1d6+1), 6HP, 13AC. Saves: +2.
18: Tomb of Grand Student Gamaliel
The obsidian walls are adorned with gold circles surrounded by alchemical symbols. The floor is white marble with golden veins, the same material that makes up the enormous sculpted sarcophagus in the middle of the room. The large effigy on the sarcophagus depicts a beardless young man in a toga wearing a crown, not lying down but rising up from a reclined position, raising his hand up as if in a moment of insight or revelation.
A ring of magical runes line the bottom. Any alchemist can read them. A magic user of a different kind may make a Mnd check to read them. They read “Rebuke the spirit of ignorance! Disturb this tomb not, lest ye invite in he who consumes the mind.” The runes also represent a ward against some kind of spirit. No spiritual being may touch the sarcophagus while it remains closed.
In the room also is a frail old man, wearing spectacles, loaded down with scrolls, stroking a long white beard as he examines the runes. “Oh greetings! I am Arturian, an alchemist. I have come in search of Grand Student Gamaliel’s lost works. Are you capable of moving the monument? It is far too heavy for me.”
Arturian can tell you what the runes say and ward against but treats it as a trifling thing of no importance. In the true spirit of an alchemist, he is intent upon uncovering lost knowledge even if that means robbing the grave of a Grand Student.
Arturian is truly a Knowledge Eater, a spiritual being in disguise. He will never directly touch the sarcophagus, but urges the party to enter the tomb. Another demon like Count Vikaris would be able to sense something amiss in the room. A powerful veiling magic lies around the Knowledge Eater that deadens magical senses, but this, in and of itself, is a strange thing. It is difficult to determine whether this is specifically coming from the old man or something in the room, but the room cannot be Scryed and Detect Magic and similar effects are scrambled
Knowledge Eater: 8HD, Chance of Spells to Get Eaten, Brain Suck, Disguise Self, Aura of Detection Negation
If the party removes the sarcophagus lid, they do not find a body but rather a passage into a larger room below, leading to Room 18 on Level 2. The Knowledge Eater will remain disguised, allowing the party to face the dangers below before revealing himself to consume all Gamaliel’s precious notes.
19: Empty Room
Four different Byzantine mosaics of Baloram the great over each arched doorway.
20: Icon of the Orphans
Surrounded by a melted clump of wax that used to be numerous candles is an icon of the Orphans. The religiously knowledgeable might know that the red faces of these orphans stand for the 13 orphans who miraculously bore 13 of the Living One’s wounds for 13 days during the siege of Itarra during the reign of Emperor Tantius before they and all the other orphans of the orphanage fused together, their holy flesh intermingling into a holy avatar of the living one who broke the siege and drove away the invading Gurronic raiders. This horrific act of divine intervention led the Emperor Tantius to conversion so that the Living One would not show such wondrous mercy again.
The 13 Orphans are patrons saints of orphans, servants, and the often forgotten and trampled over foot, reminding that even the lowest among us share in the blessing of flesh. A prayer, a candle, and an offering in the little wooden box in front of the icon will gain their blessing: a Charm of the Unnoticed, granting +3 to Stealth checks for the rest of the day.
If you steal from their offering box, you will find about 50gp worth of coppers and meager denominations. You will find yourself cursed, as your flesh shapes into childlike faces that scream whenever you try to go unnoticed until you restore their offering of have the curse removed.
21: Jars of Lamp Oil
A bunch of clay jars of lamp oil stacked on a shelf. Most remain full. A spectral servant, named Timothy, counts them with painful slowness, marking on a tablet. The servant will not attack but if the PCs have angered the Custodian or show themselves to be thieves, the ghost will run off to tell the Custodian who will arrive with his usual complement of Interred Builders in 1d4 rounds.
The lamp oil is flammable and a large amount of it will prove to be quite explosive.
22: Dressing Room
The doorways of this room are covered by a scarlet curtain. Strange sounds halfway between insectoid chittering and human giggling.
Within is a dressing room full of costume jewelry for the dancers that Baloram the Great would sometimes call to this hall. There are four Moth Vermen here who are covered in the costume jewelry and having the time of their lives seeing themselves sparkle in the lamplight. They are so distracted they will not notice your approach.
Detect magic indicates that none of the jewelry is of any value, but there is a perfume bottle with a vaporizer that is a Perfume of Dancing, that makes the target really good at belly dancing for a day, and in a plant pot there is a hidden perfume bottle that is a Perfume of Clumsiness that makes the sprayed target utterly clumsy for a day, gaining Disadvantage on all Agl rolls.
I like the moths!
ReplyDeleteYou mean "enrages" not "engages."
Fixed! And thank you!
Delete