Midden, Week 3

An homage to Morrowind by artist 'apathie'. I wasn't thinking of this when I wrote 'ash ghoul', but it fits.

 

15: Hall of the Right

An ossuary made entirely of right arms and legs.

16: Incinerator

A room-sized furnace with a heavy stone door on great iron hinges.. Every surface has a thin layer of ashe.

A narrow passage with a smaller but similar door leads down to the city of ashes.

17: Hall of Hooks

A cold room, hatched with dense layers of black and brown stains. It smells like rust. The walls are covered in long nails pointing inward and up at 45 degree angles.

(?) A heavy metal grate leads down to the blood pit.

18: Blood Pit

Dark, low ceiling, hideous smell, sticky floor. White, sweet-smelling flowers burst from the walls.

(!) The stick floor is a carnivorous blood ooze.

19: Hall of Skulls

A vast ossuary made from skulls of every kind, arranged into a spectacular set of swirling patterns.

(?) A narrow stair leads down to the necropolis.

20: Jewel Midden

A glittering pile of gold and jewels beneath a heavy grate.

(??) True jewels, pretty rocks, gold, bronze, and glass baubles are mixed together; sorting them takes a long time. Raw baubles (to be sorted later) are worth 10 coins a bag.

Low passages lead to the blood pit and city of ashes.

Region: City of Ashes

Restless and vengeful dead lie under piles of dirt and ashes, discarded and forgotten.

21: The Unwanted

Something like a mine works, filled with the ruin of crude houses made from heavy stones, potshards, and mine tailings. Ash covers all and heaps in every corner.

(!) Many, many mindless ghouls slumber under ash piles and the ruins of their homes.

Midden, Week 2

The cleaning demon is a Beksinski painting, but worse. Heavily inspired by the recycling monster in The Stars Are Legion.

 

 8: Fisher’s Grotto

• A little room in the rock, connected to the boardwalk.
• A hoarder’s room, filled with weird detritus & crude fishing rods. If you need something, it might be here.
• (!) Lair of the Fisher, an antisocial mutant. Likes to trick intruders into upsetting the Judge. Might be persuaded to trade.

Region: Ordered Halls

The cleaning demon makes its home here, ordering the filth of the midden.

9: Hall of Leavings

• Ascends from the wound in the earth.
• A rough tunnel, like a mineshaft. The floor is covered with crunching layers of worthless human possessions – dice,  wretched clothing, clay amulets, fractured lamps, knucklebones, soiled ragdolls.
• (!) DIfficult terrain due to the detritus. Movement makes noise.

10: Hall of Swords

• A vaulted gallery, its sides piled with weapons and armour of all kinds, broken, corroded, chipped, and ruined.
• (??) Whichever weapon or piece of armour you want, a successful search will reveal a crappy but usable version.

11: Cleaning Demon’s Lair

• (!) Lair of the shaggy, many-jointed nightmare beast that tends the midden. Intruders are to be placed in the Hall of Hooks until it can sort them out.
• An immaculate stone room that smells like death. The reek is overpowering.

14: Hall of the Left

• An ossuary made entirely of left arms and legs.

Midden, Week 1

1: Wound in the Earth

• An indescribable smell. Air thick with gloom, flies and rot.
• The ground is sticky black earth heaped with bones, paving stones, broken statues, roof tiles, broken weapons, tufts of hair or fur, and potshards. A widening chasm reaches 90’ up to the open sky. Gnarled bushes with purple leaves clutch the walls.
• This is the base of the midden on L1.
• Two rough, shallow sets of stairs are bored from stone and earth:
• one descends slightly, to somewhere damp. One ascends, littered with broken trinkets.

Region: Toxic Sump

(!) Radiation sickness (start a clock), centred on the Headless Judge.

2: Radiating Mire

• Descends from the wound in the earth.
• A narrow earth tunnel. Ankle-high water glows phosphorescent blue the dark. Clusters of strange plants and fungi burst from the floor and walls.
• (!) The far exit is blocked by a cluster of explosive bluefruit.
• (!) Do not, under any circumstances, drink the water.

3: Hall of Gods

• A vast stone room with phosphorescent puddles. Rows of statues of every size are stacked at every angle.
• (?) If you worship a god, you can probably find it here.

4: Drowned Ghoul Lair

• (!) Bloated husks of men, curled foetal against the walls, filthy water at their ankles. They rise hungry if disturbed.

5: Colossus Boardwalk

• A maze of rickety wooden scaffolding, chained to headless stone colossi.
• (?) The colossus sump is 100’ below. The water glows faintly.

6: Colossus Sump

• Phosphorescent blue water, opaque and 30’ deep (up to the knees of the giants?).

7: Headless Judge

• This colossus has a break in its chest. Inhuman viscera throb within. One hand holds a colossal executioner’s sword.
• (!) The colossus sleeps, but intruders will be punished if it is woken.

Water Roads, Week 4

 New Area: The lost path

The Air in this section is much better, aside from the Mole Midden. Only real danger is the Bone Eater. Molerats avoid this place unless lured here for some reason.

22: Mole Midden

• A reeking pit, 30’ down, filled with detritus. The walls are sheer and slippery. Fungi cluster in the bottom walls like pale blue balloons. Smells like death.
• (!) Fungi are bluefruit. Explode on collision, making a loud sound and releasing toxic spores.

23: Singing Cavern

• Wind whistles through this craggy cave tunnel.
• (?) humans can squeeze through. Too narrow for the Bone Eater.

24: Lair of the Bone Eater

• Smells like wet dog. Floor is littered with tiny fragments of bone.
• (!) The great shaggy shambler nests here. Only eats dead bones, but not averse to speeding up the process.

25: The Secret Garden

• Dimly lit – natural light shines from sinkhole high above.
• A large cavern filled with pale, purple-leafed foliage. A little spring trickles into a small pond. Alarmingly large frogs luxuriate in the cool air.
• (?) The frogs are peaceable.
• (?) The water is cold, clean, refreshing, and completely safe.
• (?) The pond is deep – a sinkhole that leads to the Sunken Passage.

27: Sunken Passage

• Completely submerged, dark natural cavern. 20’ ascent to the Secret Garden on one end, and Lotus Garden on the other.
• (?) The faintest of lights from the direction of the Secret Garden.
• (??) A skeleton is huddled on the floor, clutching something that glimmers – Headtaker, a demon-possessed two-handed sword of bronze.

28: Secret Garden Skylight

• Forty-five degree climb through a narrow, craggy passage leads to the base of the cliffs in the city’s side, beneath the storm water drain.

29: Narrow Caves

• Winding passages of craggy stone. Crawlspace only.

Surprise Twist: Back to the Sunken Passages

30: Temple Treasury

• A bare cellar of smoothly fitted stones. There is a hole in one wall where the masonry has collapsed, large enough to crawl through (leads to narrow caves). A stone chest sits against the opposite wall, with a cat-sized gargoyle carved from the same stone as its flat lid.
• (!) The gargoyle will animate and bite the hands of anyone who tries to move the lid, naturally.
• (?) Inside the chest: 4d6 silver ingots.

31: Secret  Sanctuary

• A circular room with a circle of nine cracked clay vessels within.
• (?) Each vessel holds a fistful of lapis lazuli beads worth 10 coins.
• (!) The beads are cursed – the  New God of the deep will know the thieves.
• (??) A secret door connects to the Leaky Valve room – just push on the wall.