Water Roads, Week 3

Back yet again for the week's rooms. This time things have taken a disturbing turn. I've actually been holding back on the fleshy, chthonic body horror of this region, leaving it mostly implied, but I'll be glad to move on to a different sublevel tomorrow.

15: Cave entrance

• Easy to miss, a small natural cave of rusty grey stone. About 4’ high.

• From outside, the air feels cool, damp and musty.

• From inside, there is a drought of dry desert air.

16: Nursery

• A dozen molerat pups tucked into alcoves in the waxy walls; they lean their heads out and mewl for food as creatures pass them.

17: Guard Room

• (!) A pair of hulking, bipedal, unsettlingly human-like molerat Hunters. Their arms are tipped with dagger-like claws.

• The hunters are impassive, but will move to block intruders.

18: Queen’s Room

• (!) The molerat god, an ogre-like creature, still, with a head covered in glassy black eyes. Bodies of molerats and humans dangle from Her back and sides – their heads fused to Her flesh.

• (!) A pair of impassive Hunters flank the chamber.

• (!) The god’s emissary, an eyeless former human chewing a deep lotus flower, sits by her feet. Offers interesting intruders the option of joining with the god and abandoning their cares, instead of being eaten.

• (?) The God’s pheremones are what allow the hive to function in its current state. Her death would throw them into strife.

19: Lotus Garden

• A lush thicket of bioluminescent flowers. Smells like death.

• (?) Deep lotus is a well-known narcotic and entheogen that only grows underground.

20: Scriptorium

• An uneven domed vault, its entire waxy surface carved with bizarre sigils. A lumpy statue made from wax and broken jewellery sits in the centre. Something crouches in the corner, busy with its work.

• (!) The eyeless Molehuman Magus scratches runes with a knife. He can be persuaded to part with occult knowledge, in exchange for the murder of the god, so that his lover can ascend in Her place.

21: The Princess Usurper

• An eyeless Molehuman with a pair of Hunters. She lovingly sharpens their claws with a file while humming tunelessly.
  

• (?) The princess responds to all conversation with 'mmm hmm' and 'ahh'.
  

Water Roads, Week 2

Second Section: Qanat

8: Qanat

• A long, broad tunnel with a very slight incline down to the East. The stone floor is a little damp.

• (?) Smell of must and guano from the direction of the qanat station.

9: Qanat Station

• Carved stone handholds descend 20’ from the covered wellhouse to the qanat below. Smell of musk and guano from inside the tunnel.

• (!) Lair of land bats. By night they pace the desert in search of game.
  

• (?) Dead stone shells of old farmhouses cluster around the wellhouse. We are in the desert outside the city, now.

Third section: Molerat Hive.

Air is damp and musky. Oxygen is low; mild hypoxia will eventually set in. Molerats are generally placid, but will take easily subdued intruders to the larder. Tunnels are low enough that humans must crawl or duck, but the rooms are quite large.

10: Replete Hall

• A broad hall, lined with something waxy and organic in shades of olive, pink and brown. A row of bulbous, pale, hairless mammalian creatures sleeps against the wall.

• (?) Tapping a repletes face causes it to vomit a little sweet liquid – this serves as both food and water.

• (?) Occasionally, a worker will trot by to deliver food or take nectar.

11: Foraging Tunnels

• Winding, nearly identical tunnels.

• (!) Navigation checks to avoid getting lost. Don’t forget the oxygen track.

12: Midden

• Filled with various gnawed bones, including human ones.

13: Larder

• A captive man sleeps here, apparently insensate. Various vegetable roots are piled around him.
  

• (?) The man, Skiff,  is drugged and suffering from hypoxia. He was captured on the surface after getting lost in the desert and brought down here, along with a friend, who was eaten.

14: Ventilator

• A molerat with enormous webbed hands fans the air listlessly.

Water Roads, Week 1

We're now under the Necropolis, with sunken shrine and some other weird stuff that connects to that. This is actually the bottom level of this dungeon -- the main dungeon goes up, in the various ziggurat-like terraces of the central fortress -- but it will provide a useful shortcut to the overworld (or a secret entry to the necropolis, I guess).

The Drowned Fane

1: Shrine

    A chamber with a high vaulted ceiling, 20’ up. Pitch black. Submerged, except the top 10’ of the vault. Completely submerged passage to the East; short submerged passage to the west. Dirt-blackened reliefs of waves and playful dolphins.
    (?) Floor is littered with offerings that glitter in lamp or magelight, including a golden bracelet and 3d6 gold coins.
    (!?) There is a hole in the centre of the floor, leading to the abyssal lair of the infant god.
    (!) Oxygen in the air pocket in the ceiling is real but limited.
    (!) Stealing the offering coins raises the alarm level.


2: Sunken Passages

    Completely submerged passages with no air pockets. A faint current pulls toward the South.


3: Spiral Stair

    Hewn from the stone and rising out of the water. Water trickles down, echoing down the long spiral.



4: Lair of the New God

    60’ down, a rounded cavern formed naturally of gleaming jade, lit by the bioluminescence of the slumbering, many-legged child of the deep.
    (!) The god sleeps, unless alerted. Victims are subdued, encased in a gooey membrane containing air, and glued to the lair’s wall.


5: Leaky Valve

    Big brass wheel in a broad vertical pipe controls the valve that releases water from the aquifer. The valve leaks: water pools on the floor and runs down the spiral star #3.
    (?) The wheel is stuck.
    (!) Opening the valve will flood the stair and the areas beneath even more, eliminating any air pockets.
    (?) It may be possible to seal the valve, leading to the eventual draining of the submerged areas.


6: Dam

    Corridor is jammed with all manner of junk – flotsam, stones, clay.
    (!) This leaky dam connects to the qanat system under the desert. Breaking it releases all of the water from the flooded areas (except #4). Anyone caught in the flood will be carried along into the (now water-logged with very cranky inhabitants) land bat nest.
    (?) The seal is not perfect -- you can feel the faintest of currents leaking out.


7: Trough

    A section of the walls and ceiling of this old chamber has caved in, and a crude tunnel winds off above water level. The water is only 10’ deep – beyond this, the muddy ground is tramped with many strange footprints…
    (!) The molerat hive draws its water from here.