Risk: ??? - Effort: ??? - Yield: ???

Notes

A ven­ture for fresh­ly-made cut­ters.

Context

A sink­hole recent­ly appeared in Farmer Ost­cot­t’s sun­flower field.

“A’ve heard sounds from the hole. Some ani­mal. Moan­ing n’ bang­ing stones. S’got­ta be dealt with.”

gear

Lim­it the Gang’s gear to what they start with plus the goods buyable from Iso­bel and Spaller.

Weapons or armor found in the hole are rust­ed (unless spec­i­fied.) They start with 2 wear.

rewards

Two sce­nar­ios. Either:

• Free­boot the place. £60 pounds from Farmer Ost­cott and they can keep any­thing inside, or:
• Ven­ture for the bank. £30 each but valu­ables must be left inside. 5% share earned of said valu­ables.

ABANDONING THE RAID

If the Gang leave the hole for more than a day, a crew of com­pet­ing cut­ters raids it their absence. This is a risk the Gang are aware of: An unclaimed tomb or ruin is a valu­able thing indeed.

THE KELP

Mys­te­ri­ous brown-green kelp appears through­out this adven­ture. Smells of bar­ley and sea­weed. If it or its products—alcohol or dried kelp—are con­sumed, the meal heals +1 stitch, but a sin­is­ter effect befalls the eater: For a week, they can­not lev­el Intel­lect and their hair grows snowy at the roots; the affect is rapid, notice­able with­in a night’s sleep.

Time + Ambushes

The gang will even­tu­al­ly emerge to lunch, rest, and, shop. In this time, account for the white apes’ move­ments in their absence. They may escape from the hole or change posi­tions with­in, intend­ing fresh ambus­cades. It is rec­om­mend­ed that 1d4+2 apes escape and attack the cut­ters’ sun­flower field camp­ground every night. Only foes pre­vi­ous­ly encoun­tered should escape; the oth­ers should main­tain their start­ing posi­tions as described.

Merchants

Two mer­chants are avail­able near­by the hole: Iso­bel the but­ton­mouse is there at the out­set; Spaller the Leather­er appears in the mid­dle of the first day.

the but­ton­mouse

A grey mouse in a wide sun­hat and ging­ham jumper. Long whiskers and ner­vous pink hands. She is Iso­bel Val­limus, of Rud­yard. She is present from the start with her mule and cart. Timid, but proud. Well-moti­vat­ed by com­merce and unlike­ly to acqui­esce to bar­ter­ing. If insult­ed twice, she will prompt­ly leave.

“There are starv­ing cut­ters in Wealik who would­n’t blink twice at my prices. Har­rumph!”

the leather­er

A rag­man swathed in yel­low leather bands. He is Spaller, of Bad­den. He car­ries a bale of leather goods. He appears in the mid­dle of day 1.

“My fel­lows have a lurk, near­by. Said some­one may be need­ing of cut­ters’ styles.”

At the end of day one, Spaller invites cut­ters whomev­er bought from him to lurk with his com­pan­ions. They are hol­ing up in an old shed in the mid­dle of the same field a mile away. Though they are civ­il rag­men, they are, nonethe­less, rag­men: They expect cut­ters lurk­ing with them to share in cards, smokes, aqua­vit, and strings of pork sausage with raw toma­to and cheese. They also expect sto­ries as pay­ment. There are four rag crea­tures. Their names are Sodor, Splint, Dick­er, and Spool. Their char­ac­ter­is­tics and per­son­al­i­ties are yours to deter­mine. If giv­en any white ape meat, they refuse to eat it.

At the end of day two, Spaller departs for Sil­ton, say­ing his gang have acquired the hee­bie-jee­bies. He invites the cut­ters meet him there, say­ing that he can be found at the Coughlen Glen jasm club.

Map

link to map files

START

Sun­flow­ers wave in the autumn sun. The smell of earth. A tinge of sour.

There is a hole in the field. An even cir­cle where the ground sim­ply dropped away. Sun­flow­ers droop into it, over­look­ing a pile of earth and rub­ble 4 m below. A sick­ly waft of vine­gar and dung wafts with­out.

Near­by the lip rests a dun mule. Astride it rests a grey mouse in a sun­hat wider than she is tall. She is Iso­bel Val­limus. She’s an oppor­tunist, here with a cart of goods.

“It seemed to be a place requir­ing of cut­ter’s wares, so I came.”

LEVEL 1

1.0 | descent

Vine­gar fumes. A fecal under­tone.

The “sink­hole” is a well or silo, its ceil­ing col­lapsed. Rub­ble is piled up one side, 3 m down. The flag­stone floor is lit­tered in debris and small heaps of ochre filth, like cow­pies.

The wall above the rub­ble pile sports blunt claw marks, as if crea­tures scrab­bled and jumped vain­ly towards free­dom.

• A round spent exam­in­ing the rub­ble sug­gests that veg­e­tal pat­terns exist­ed in the now-col­lapsed ceil­ing, but no hatch nor door.

Oppo­site the pile, in a curve in the wall, a stair­way descends to 1.1 | dis­tillery.

1.1 | distillery

Dark. Pow­er­ful odor of vine­gar. A sewage tinge.

A mas­sive pot still com­mands the room, sur­round­ed by carved buck­ets. Block tables stand near­by, cov­ered in sticks. Shelves are cut into the wall behind.

The room’s lime­stone sur­faces are deeply worn; filthy, uneven, and scratched. In high-traf­fic areas, inch­es of floor are miss­ing, smooth­ly sub­tract­ed by the pas­sage of feet.

Heavy brass dou­ble doors stand half open, south.

• When the doors are approached, a crea­ture leaps out, whoop­ing and hoot­ing, cov­ered in dirty ivory dread­locks, bar­ing its teeth like a furi­ous ape. Its ges­tic­u­lates with hands stained ochre, mock-charges the intrud­ers, then leaves towards 1.3.

If the gang respond to the crea­ture’s threat dis­play with real vio­lence, it hur­ried­ly leaves (towards 1.3 | cor­ner.)

The still: Sol­id cop­per, impres­sive­ly thick. Hot. Sup­port­ed on stout legs over a black­ened firepit of smok­ing ash­es. Halfway up, a hatch is caked in dried gunk and shut tight by its own weight. The boil­er is full of heady green-dark wash. The swan-neck lyne arm sprout­ing from the top feeds a con­dens­ing pil­lar. The pil­lar sports a spile with a stone buck­et under it.

• In the con­denser and buck­et: Harsh, clean spir­its, like vod­ka. Flam­ma­ble. Body areas soaked in spir­its burn at 1d6 inten­si­ty if ignit­ed.

Stone buck­ets with crock lids sit by the boil­er. Caked with wash, redo­lent of yeast. One con­tains spir­its. Oth­ers con­tain a mealy mash smelling of bar­ley, sea­weed, and yeast. Oth­ers, fresh water.

The tables hold dense bun­dles of flat, dry brown-green stalks. 12 bur­den-weight bun­dles tied with pale-hair twine. They smell faint­ly of bar­ley and and sea­weed. The table sur­faces are dirty, stained with plant mat­ter and blood.

The shelves, mere stone slots in the wall, are packed with bun­dles of the sea­weed-stuff, white hairy twine, dried humanoid bones, and dried strips of flesh (cured ape­man.) Under it all, con­cealed, is a small iron box for­got­ten in a dune of dust.

• The box is locked, but frag­ile. Inside: Dust, flakes of paper, and 9 fat pale gold­en coins, like slices of radish (XS size, stack to 12.) They glug, filed with flu­id. If spun, they spin for a long time. The reverse side fea­tures a cru­el­ly rec­tan­gu­lar wom­an’s face flanked by dec­o­ra­tive reeds; the obverse: a grid of inde­ci­pher­able sym­bols. To Iso­bel, they are worth £2 each (40p)

1.2 | brass doors

Danc­ing light and shad­ow. Greasy, thin smoke.

Rec­tan­gu­lar, unadorned doors hang on vast met­al hinges. One side is per­ma­nent­ly open, immo­bi­lized by time.

Through them: A land­ing and stair­way descend east­ward. Along­side the stairs hangs a filthy hide, its hem lev­el with the top step.

• Behind the hide wait 2 white apes in the con­cealed loft, eager to throw spir­it pots at passers­by. They roll Sub­tle­ty to stay qui­et at +2. Their breath­ing is noticed if they fail. After throw­ing their pots or being spot­ted, they join their fel­lows in 1.3.

1.3 | corner

Flick­er­ing lights. Can­dlesmoke. Mouth-breath­ing and grunt­ing.

Around the cor­ner stand 3 white apes pre­pared to fight. They bran­dish frag­ile rust­ed glad­ii and burn­ing greasy ear­wax tapers on bone rods. They whoop and scream, spray­ing spit­tle.

• They fight with sim­ple tac­tics, dous­ing and light­ing up cut­ters with spir­its and tapers and flank­ing behind through 1.3.5.
• If near defeat, they flee south for the secret door in 1.3.5 | loft.

The hall­way’s bul­bous end sports a short stair to 1.3.5, a bronze door south (1.5,) and a stat­ue alcove east (1.4.) The floor is worn: Feet have worn a groove down the cen­ter of the hall. Trail­ing claws have scraped waist-high chan­nels along the wall.

1.3.5 | loft

Dark.

The walls are cov­ered in rude cloth daubed in rude rep­re­sen­ta­tions of fig­ures. Art­less and pro­fane.

• A hid­den alcove lies behind a cloth, hid­ing 6 crude clay pots of spir­its (1#/ea.,) 4 bun­dles of kelp (1#/ea), 3 spools of hair twine (s) and any ape­men who fled the fight­ing. If not found, they exit the dun­geon and lurk in the sun­flower field, where they strike in night.

Three squalid nests are arranged on the floor.

1.4 | alcove

A stat­ue stands here. A half-scale woman of chipped lime­stone. Her face is bronze and cru­el­ly geo­met­ric. Her hand is gra­cious­ly out­stretched and like­wise bronze.

The hand is stained in orange dung. If touched, the stat­ue slides back and away into the wall, reveal­ing a nar­row walk­way and a tow­er cham­ber (6.)

• Reset­ting the door requires a Might suc­cess at -4 to slide the stat­ue back into place up the coun­ter­weight­ed slot she slides on.

1.5 | flautist

Dark, but fire­light flick­ers under the door. A faint pip­ing music.

A thin bronze door, dent­ed and abused. Unlocked. Light qua­vers in the jamb. Beyond, some­one plays sweet­ly on a leaky flute.

Beyond: A drum­like cham­ber. A stair­well spi­rals down to the east. A large bronze lamp burns near the south­ern wall. A gloomy hall­way extends to the west.

An ape­man hunch­es at the hall­way’s mouth, play­ing on a bone flute. Though he shirks and looks on with fear, he will not stop. His crouch­ing-place is worn deep into the floor.

• He plays to sedate the cal­ca­trix sleep­ing in 1.5.5 | cal­ca­trix.

1.5.5 | calcatrix

Dark. A reg­u­lar hiss of metal­lic breath.

A clean hall­way lard­ed in undis­turbed dust.

At the end sleeps a curled-up mon­ster: A rub­bery scale­less bird-lizard large as a hound, its four bony limbs tipped in strong, long blad­ed fin­gers like a bat’s wings sans web­bing. It sleeps atop 12 gold­en dew­drops. A tiny but­ter­fly key glit­ters on a thin sil­ver chain round its neck.

• 6 dew­drops are ful­ly under the chimera’s weight, but the rest may be stolen with a suc­cess­ful Sub­tle­ty roll -2. Fail­ure wakes the chimera.
• The key can­not be removed with­out wak­ing it unless the chain is sub­tly cut.

If the pip­ing stops for more than a minute, the cal­ca­trix wakes.

• The pip­ing ape­man suc­cumbs to exhaus­tion in 12 hours. If this occurs while the cut­ters are asleep, the chimera strikes up an ambus­cade in 1.3.5 | loft, hid­den by the cur­tains.

1.6 | ossuary

Dark. Chill. Faint putrescine and the dry odor of rawhide.

Down a nar­row cor­ri­dor lies a tall tow­er cham­ber, unadorned. There are four crys­tal win­dows set in the floor. An ape-crea­ture lies between them, face up. At the east­ern end, a stat­ue over­looks the room .

The pros­trate ape-crea­ture is a car­cass with cuts of flesh tak­en from its limbs. If a human nears, it springs to scut­tling life as a grue. It is a par­tic­u­lar­ly weak, degen­er­ate grue.

Each crys­tal win­dow is set in bronze fit­tings. They are real­ly hatch­es, each with a wide han­dle that must be rotat­ed then pulled to open.

• Through the glass, deep down, lie innu­mer­able grues in a crys­tal well, bunched like spi­ders in a test tube. It is an awful sight (+1 dis­tress.)
• If opened, a hatch swings upward on hid­den hinges. The mis­shapen mass of black bones below clam­bers towards the top.
• The hatch­es are coun­ter­weight­ed, requir­ing a Might roll at -2 to shut.

The stat­ue across the room is like that in 1.4 | alcove but life-scale. Its bronze hands are extend­ed gra­cious­ly. It’s face is twist­ed: each side bears a dif­fer­ent expres­sion.

• The left hand is tar­nished but clean. The cor­re­spond­ing face is an expres­sion of incred­i­ble hate. If the hand is touched: the grue-well hatch­es open simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.
• The right hand is filthy. The right face is somber, eye shut. If the hand is touched: a steel bar­ri­er slides into place a foot beneath each hatch, cre­at­ing a safe air­lock.

If one or more grue wells are opened:

Grues reach the top in 1d4 rounds, after which 1–2 grues appear from each open hatch at the start of each round.

There are hun­dreds of grues in the tanks. If more than a few make it beyond 1.4, the dun­geon and those inside are lost to the scut­tling dead. Cut­ters trapped in 1.6 | ossuary with the grues are sim­i­lar­ly lost.

1.7 | stairs to level 2

Dark. Mut­ter­ing. Sounds of drag­ging. An odor of bar­ley or sea­weed.

These steps are sway­backed and lumpen with use.

The first cut­ter down the stairs hears scuf­fling, scrap­ing, and mut­ter­ing in some half-lan­guage reced­ing to the right, as of crea­tures hur­ried­ly drag­ging some­thing away.

LEVEL 2

2.0 | drying room

Dark. A hideous latrine odor. Rush­ing water.

A cir­cu­lar tow­er cham­ber. North, a slimy arch­way frames hang­ing kelp beyond. West: a heavy brass door. East: An arch­way; falling water beyond. (2.0.1.)

Racks tied from long bones and sinew line the walls, hung with brown, ropey kelp. Dry, flakey, bar­ley-scent­ed. Some still slimy and wet.

• Amidst the kelp are cur­ing strips of meat backed with yel­low fat.
• Beneath one rack, half-cov­ered in gunk, is a bronze sheet. Lines of holes are punched into it. They are nota­tions for a six-hole whis­tle, meant to soothe the cal­ca­trix.

To the west: A mas­sive brass door under an arch, mat­te black with tar­nish. Sports a key­hole. Flush; no hold for a pry­bar. If forced: -6 to the Might roll.

An arch slick with gelati­nous slime yawns to the north. Beyond it, stink­ing ten­drils of brown-green kelp hang, sway­ing in some incon­gru­ous breeze.

2.0.1 | font

Wet, dark. The rush of water. Ani­mal wim­per­ing.

A low cylin­dri­cal room. A foot-wide pil­lar of water crash­es from a hole in the ceil­ing into a low well sur­round­ed by dirty stone buck­ets. Its cease­less descent pulls air down with it, cre­at­ing the breeze felt in 2.0.

• The font is pow­er­ful; attempts to draw from it require a Might roll -2. Fail­ure caus­es 1d4+1 blud­geon­ing dam­age to the head or hands as the draw­er is dashed down against the well. Water drawn from it is clean, potable.

Behind the font shiv­ers an ape­man with arms over­head, press­ing some­thing into the ceil­ing. He shakes, near exhaus­tion, drenched with spray from the crash­ing water. His yel­low eyes flit in fear. He stands in a worn bowl in the floor.

• He will not drop his arms or leave his post unless forced.
• He depress­es a large mar­ble but­ton into the ceil­ing. If released, it sinks slow­ly down, stop­ping abrupt­ly after 1 minute, at which point a grind­ing sounds in the near­by stone. The water flows coral and sick­ly, sul­furous. Drink­ing it caus­es 2 Poi­son stress.

On the well itself, marred and dinged, is a lead plaque bear­ing a phrase in Ancient Nôr:

2.1 | kelp maze

Dark. Wet veg­e­tal slime and a sul­phure­ous stench of dung.

Through the slimy arch twists a maze of nar­row, wet pas­sages thick­ly cur­tained with bang­ing kelp root­ed in the ceil­ing and floor. Black algae coats the walls, falling in slop­py sheets as an entran­t’s hands search the bends in the walls. The floor is inch­es thick in ochre waste, squelch­ing.

It is a slick, wet, ran­dom squeeze to either the 2.2 | ARMORY, 2.3 | BALCONY, 2.4| dunghill, or the door to 2.5.1. A cut­ter can mem­o­rize the path to a giv­en room by refol­low­ing the maze and suc­ceed­ing an Intel­lect roll to nav­i­gate.

A cool breeze pass­es incon­gru­ous­ly through the maze, not orig­i­nat­ing in 2.0 | dry­ing room. A Per­cep­tion roll at +2 per­mits a cut­ter fol­low it to 11 Bal­cony.

2.2 | armory

Warmer. Dung and sour flesh waft from below.

A large tow­er cham­ber of rot­ten lime­stone, floor par­tial­ly col­lapsed by fall­en ceil­ing chunks. Below: Huge ivory-furred mass­es hur­tle and grunt. Up flit their yel­low, rheumy eyes, angry.

Across the col­lapse, 4 white apes pro­tect a large brass chest, spin­ning loaded slings.

• If a cut­ter jumps across, the ape­men shove them over the ledge into 3.3 | Moth­er pit.

On the north-east­ern curve of the armory, a weapon rack is affixed to the wall, the floor fall­en away beneath. The rack holds two ancient polearms; like glad­ii affixed to two-meter poles (as spears.) They are rust­ed. If dis­lodged, they tum­ble into 3.3 | Moth­er pit.

The brass chest is locked. Mot­tled green-black with tar­nish, but sol­id. It requires the bee­tle key in 2.4 | dunghill. It con­tains a heavy bronze key and 19 gold­en dew­drops. A false bot­tom lies under a 2 mm brass sheet, con­tain­ing a ball.

• Ball: Clear crys­tal with sil­ver clock­work inside bathed in gold­en oil. It requires the but­ter­fly key to wind. Wound, it pro­duces a war­bling tune in an ancient time sig­na­ture, like a flute played through water. It is the tune the cal­ca­trix requires to be sedat­ed.

Over the chest: A marred lead plaque in Ancient Nôr:

2.3 | balcony

Wet cave­like air. A breeze, fresh enough.

The maze lets onto a small bal­cony with crum­bling lime­stone para­pets. By the light of a lantern, to the left, a tow­er stands in the black­ness, giv­ing the impres­sion step­ping out of a cas­tle. Its top is buried in nat­ur­al stone above. Arrow slits show in its side. To the right yawns open space and breeze scent­ed with min­er­als.

6 m below is 3.5 | Court­yard. To the right can be seen the out­line of a wrought bronze fence and gate block­ing the way to 3.6 | pier. To the north, at the light’s edge, a faint glint shines on the seat­ed knees of what must be a stat­ue, gloomy, indis­tinct.

• Attempts to climb down into the court­yard with rope may be stymied by the rot­ted para­pet, which col­laps­es under per­sons larg­er than a mouse,

2.4 | dunghills

An immense efflu­vi­um of sewage, dizzy­ing.

This tow­er room is clear­ly a latrine. Massed, orange-slimy waste over­flows through grates in the floor, mound­ed a meter high in places. In these, the dung is com­pact and full of bur­row holes.

• The floor is slip­pery. In per­il, the cut­ters must suc­ceed Agili­ty to avoid being stag­gered when mov­ing. The dung mounds require the same, but cause knock­down.

Through the dunghills, the plague-tubes extend through the room. Grues writhe hor­ri­fy­ing­ly with­in the stained crys­tal.

Atop the largest pile of poo squats a white ape. He is hur­ried­ly hid­ing a bee­tle key in the waste.

• If approached, out from the mound burst 2 large brown bee­tles. 2 more appear next turn from ran­dom dunghills.

The bee­tles are the size of cats, and apt to leap. They are long-bod­ied, brown, with queer knife-like noses flanked with blades.

On the dunghills grow 2d10 fat, green fun­gi. Fist-sized orbs redo­lent of black wal­nuts. Not unpleas­ant once washed, but poi­so­nous unsalt­ed (suc­ceed Immu­ni­ty or suf­fer 2 poi­son stress.)

2.5 | statue stairs A

Dark.

High bronze dou­ble doors block the way, tar­nished black. They require the heavy bronze key in 2.2 | Armory.

Past them, a stat­ue looms before the cen­tral pil­lar of some spi­ral stairs lead­ing down.

• Stat­ue: A hood­ed woman, life-scale. Her expres­sion cru­el. Her bronze hands fold­ed over her breast. Hinges show at the wrists. The hands may be pulled open, caus­ing the face to rotate back and away into the hood, reveal­ing a bronze skull. Behind the hands: A cir­cu­lar cav­i­ty. Inside rests a sculp­tur­al human heart of sol­id lead.
• Open­ing the hands also caus­es the secret door to 2.5.1 to grate open.

The spi­ral stair leads down 8 meters into 3.0 | block­ade. They are caked in orange foot­steps.

2.5.1 | secret arbor

Dark.

This vault­ed room was once florid with paint. The ghosts of vined trel­lis­es in a sun­lit for­est adorn the stone. The floor is dusty, lev­el. Not often tread.

At chest height, a rec­tan­gu­lar slot in the wall is sur­round­ed with frag­ments of sil­ver leaf. Sprays of sil­ver berries on a curl­ing vine. Beneath the slot is a hole amongst bygone images of fruits, large enough for a plump grape. A carved word under it reads relief in Ancient Nôr. Rud­dy stains sur­round the hole and speck­le the floor.

• The slot accepts gold­en dew­drops. If one is fed into it, a spike of cru­el iron shrieks out from the hole. d4+3 pierc­ing dam­age. Dodge at -4.

A brass door in the north wall opens into the slime of 2.1 | Kelp maze. If the arbor is entered via 2.1, the secret door to 2.5 is shut. Breach­ing it requires explo­sives roll or a sledge­ham­mer and a Might roll at -4.

LEVEL 3

3.0 | statue stairs B

Flick­er­ing, smoky flame around the curve. Ani­mal grunt­ing near­by.

Down a short hall, 4 white apes have struck up a defense.

Near­by the base of the stairs, a sec­tion of curved wall is crazed with dry cracks. Breach­ing it requires a Might roll at -4 (-2 with a sledge­ham­mer.)

3.0.1 | mural stairs

Dark.

A dec­o­rat­ed cylin­dri­cal room. A steep spi­ral stair crawls upwards. Up the walls, pig­ments depict won­drous cities. Mar­ble, bright met­al, and crys­tal. Spires, fly­ing but­tress­es, and arch­es to rival the nov­el sky­scrap­ers of Empereaux and Forten­shire. Enclos­ing these man­made glo­ries roil lumi­nous skies of red, magen­ta, and green fire—a bore­alis of Armaged­don. Tiny daubed peo­ple despair and beat their heads in hope­less­ness under the glow, and some burn like can­dles, exposed to the killing light. These images exist for mere sec­onds: After their expo­sure to air, the walls run with falling flakes. These antique scenes of an even-elder apoc­a­lypse dis­ap­pear for­ev­er, borne to dust.

Up the stairs is anoth­er cracked wall lead­ing into 3.2 | great hall. It requires the same effort as the first to smash open.

3.1 | blockade

Fire­light. Gib­ber­ing, grunt­ing. Sour breath and dirty limbs.

Lit from behind by large bronze lamp in antique style, pos­tur­ing and pre­pared to defend, stand 4 white apes.

• 2 in front a wield a bronze door togeth­er as a shield
• 2 behind wield rust­ed antique polearms longer than those in the armory (reach 3.)

They fight des­per­ate­ly, read­ing stabs with their pikes at approach­ers. They retreat under the arch­way into room 16.

Behind, a great bronze lamp smokes and dances, set on a low plinth. It is filled with spir­its.

In the wall behind it stare deep holes in the wall, head-sized. Iden­ti­fi­able as the holes of stone-bur­row­ing ani­mals, for they pen­e­trate both floor and walls at organ­ic, crawl­ing vec­tors. If a mouse enters fol­lows the holes beyond, they enter 3.1 | worm­holes.

3.1.1 | wormholes

Dark, close, earth­en.

An explor­ing mouse in the worm­holes finds that they bend in many direc­tions, name­ly:

North, high into 15 | great hall.

East, low into 18 | bell­tow­er.

South, into an unkeyed kid­ney-shaped cham­ber con­tain­ing the husk of a stoneworm triply wide as an arm. Near­by: A splin­tery green­ish mass of flint. The worm died fac­ing it. Its teeth, hard in the dried leath­ery head, are clamped about frag­ments of the stuff.

The oth­er worm­holes are dead ends.

3.2 | great hall

Shift­ing shad­ows of blade and limb in can­dle­light. Anx­ious grunt­ing.

A large two-lev­el cham­ber sup­port­ed by pil­lars. It is musty and grey, inside. The floors are stained by orange poo and worn down near­ly a half-meter, bowl-like.

A stair climbs up to the north, to the sec­ond lev­el and the pil­lars. Atop it, 2 on either side, 4 white apes taunt and spin slings. They bear rust­ed glad­ii. One bears a bun­dle of fire­bombs. They wear bat­tered panoplies of bronze plates. They fight anx­ious­ly, but some retreat to guard the mouth of 3.3 | Moth­er pit.

A bend to the north-west leads into a unlit tow­er room (3.3.) Around the cor­ner, huge shad­ows shift ner­vous­ly. Sounds of cry­ing young.

North: Broad arch­ing bronze doors. No lock nor han­dle. Sealed from the out­side. If applied with incred­i­ble force (suc­cess at Might -8,) they open.

To the east is inset a nar­row door. Bronze, mere­ly tar­nished, strange­ly clean, with a key­hole.

3.3 | mother pit

Dark. Stink of waste, milk, and sali­va. High, word­less bawl­ing.

A large tow­er room like those before with three arrow loops look­ing out onto black to the east.

The floor is a mass of hair a foot deep. Some fresh, pulled from hairy breasts, laid over a dank mat­ted humus of hoary pelt.

Atop this next stand 3 great moth­ers. Triply larg­er than the ape-men, their great hairy forms are armored by thick fat over mus­cled thews. Their fur is clean, but stiff, licked pure white. Combed by teeth. They hunch on the nest amidst lit­tered of bones, bun­dles of kelp, dis­em­bod­ied stat­ue parts, and squalling pink­ish neonates (2d6.)

Over the cham­ber looms a huge bronze stat­ue from the north wall, reduced to a tor­so and extend­ed stumps of arms.

Upon enter­ing, the moth­ers begin to rum­pus. Two seize bronze hands by their bro­ken fore­arms. The third wields the stat­ue’s head, rais­ing it over­head, roar­ing. They fight with no regard for the neonates, squash­ing them care­less­ly.

In the foul nest is hid­den a small red met­al bell key.

3.4 | belltower

Dark. Clean metal­lic smells.

Sep­a­rat­ed from the great hall by a bronze door, requir­ing the red bell key, is a vast bell­tow­er.

Over­head hangs a great black bell. Under it stands a stat­ue: The same fig­ure who looks so cru­el­ly out from her alcoves in oth­er rooms. Beau­ti­ful and impe­ri­ous, clad in deep, rich robes and sash­es. Craft­ed from pure sil­ver. She extends a gra­cious hand, fin­gers open and slight­ly cupped. Tar­nished, nev­er before touched.

• Touch­ing the hand does noth­ing, but if the lead heart from 2.5 is placed in the palm it quick­ly shim­mers with heat. The fin­gers run with liq­uid met­al. In the open palm, hot, remains a steel sphere diminu­tive­ly etched with cir­cum­fer­en­tial lines in Ancient Nôr. The hand cools. For what the sphere reads, see here.

In the the bell hangs a tongue deeply inscribed in Ancient Nôr.

Above and around the bell descend the bot­tom hatch­es of the plague tanks locat­ed on the upper floors. If the bell is rung, the hatch­es come slow­ly open, fill­ing the room with scut­tling plague in 1 minute, spelling doom for every­one with­in.

On the curved north­ern wall are 3 arrow loops. They observe a gigan­tic cav­ern filled with a black, calm sub­ter­ranean riv­er over­hung by toothy sta­lac­tites, its extent lost in black­ness. A cool breeze pass­es through the loops, min­er­al and clean.

3.5 | courtyard

Min­er­al, cav­ern air. Wet stone and old met­al.

Sep­a­rat­ed from the great hall by great bronze doors. They are sealed from the out­side by a lead plaque sol­dered to their seam. If forced open, the plaque remains attached to one door.

The plaque bears an inscrip­tion in Ancient Nôr:

Across the court­yard, paved in smooth, black bedrock cov­ered in slick creep­ing fun­gus, sits a great eidolon on the plinth of anoth­er stat­ue depict­ing the same dis­pas­sion­ate woman as the rest.

• The fun­gal lawn is mid­night blue and sprout­ed with ten­drils capped in mucous-y orange bulbs like hard boiled yolks. Lubri­cous and dif­fi­cult to pick. Har­vest­ing requires Sub­tle­ty -4, or -2 if a suit­able spoon is used. 2d6 can be picked per per­son in an hour.

The eidolon is a bronze titan thrice the size of a man. His domed hel­met is split by a cru­ci­form occu­lar­i­um. He sleeps, bowed over his blade: A great sil­very span of steel with no point, just a flat cleaver-end. On one side, the it bears an inscrip­tion in Ancient Nor: silen­tium. The oth­er: pur­ga­to­ri­um.

He is peace­ful unless chal­lenged. His pur­pose is to keep his pris­on­ers with­in. Their ances­tors were com­mit­ted to an eter­ni­ty of wretched­ness and impris­on­ment. He is sworn to guard them until they final­ly suc­cumb. He won’t pre­vent their slaugh­ter, but he won’t aid in it. He can­not speak; he only turns the engraved faces of his sword to indi­cate the words engraved there­on, point to the plaque on the door, or shake his head. Oth­er­wise, he ignores those who speak.

If the ape­men are slain entire­ly: The eidolon ris­es with a great creak­ing of met­al and tired bone, emit­ting a weari­some sigh. He
removes a gift of his mis­eri­corde from the sheathe at his back and grants it to those who freed him from his task. He opens the gate to 3.6 | pier and wades the still water, nev­er to be seen again.

• The mis­eri­corde serves as a short (reach 1) mas­ter­work estoc to a human. Its blade is shiny and grey, the forte tex­tured like a file.

3.6 | dock

The lap of water. A thin smell of silt and stones.

A great bedrock ramp descends into the black water. A hol­low, cold wind blows. No boat is tied here, though one could
cer­tain­ly be launched. Its crew would be met with no des­ti­na­tion, save the per­ilous black of the under­world.

If a mince toad is thrown beyond the end of the dock-ramp, it dis­ap­pears some meters out. A magi­cian’s com­pass set cor­rect­ly detects the same.

The sphere

The text is advanced: Only a read­er with lev­el 6 Lan­guage: Ancient Nôr can deci­pher it. It is writ­ten in an unusu­al gram­mar with a super­flu­ous tone sur­pass­ing in its emo­tive depth. It is aston­ish­ing in its hate, its cru­el­ty, its regret, and its remorse, all felt com­plex­ly, in sequence, struc­tured formally—like an incan­ta­tion.

The upper hemi­sphere is a carcer­al sen­tence passed upon the Ancient Nôr for their destruc­tion of Nôren. It declaims their evil and their hubris labo­ri­ous­ly and regrets that the pun­ish­ment devised here could not be more elab­o­rate or more tor­tu­ous. Fur­ther, it regrets that they could not be pun­ished soon­er.

The low­er hemi­sphere is a entreaty to the world, to Nôren itself, ask­ing it notice this inad­e­quate act of con­tri­tion; beg­ging that human­i­ty be allowed to cher­ish what beau­ty remains in their uni­verse after hav­ing destroyed an infin­i­ty of its splen­dor.

Monster Stats

Note Mon­sters take wounds and die just like play­ers. Option­al­ly, make them suf­fer wound stress equal to dam­age dealt (faster deaths.) Remem­ber to describe when foes are stag­gered or suf­fer­ing malus to con­vey their health state.

⁂