Ziggurat Plaza, Week 1

Veli Nyström

 

Was: central locus for the city. Forum, luxury markets, townhouses, stores, courtyards, guard towers, shrine, freight elevator, crucifixion mast, homes, slave barracks, temple entrances. Guarded by mechanical Invigilators of various types, and death beams from the towers. A demonstration of wealth and power to the world below.

Intruder: wyvern lives in the broken guard tower

Synthesis & Fallout: silent city of traps and lost treasures. The wyvern soars across the countryside, plucking victims and leaving them on the crucifixion mast. The invigilators have gone berserk, trying and failing to destroy the wyvern.

By design, this is not an emotionally strong level (a break from the spa), but there is resonance in the juxtaposition of brutal imperial order and the chaotic violence of the current denizens.

[this approach to dungeon conceptualisation owes a lot to Jesse Burneko]


1: Plaza Door

• The great basalt lion doors are slightly ajar.
• (?) Joins to the stair in the Forest Garden.
• (!) The Peacock Knight stands just outside, with his back to the gate.

2: Courtyard of Ashes

• Ringed by a peristyle with half its tiles missing. Flagstones raked with burn marks and ashes. Old guard tower looms over marble statues, trickling fountain, scraggly trees bursting from the stone.
• (!) The tower has a death ray and will target anyone who leaves the peristyle without the correct insignia. It only looks down, not up.
• (??) The tower has a crystal eye, much like the one in the outer walls of the city below.

3: East Guard Tower (lower)

• (!) An invigilator robot with grimy lenses sleeps in its alcove. If it senses intruders, it wakes up and attempts to apprehend them. The robot is mostly blind.
• (?) A tight spiral stair leads to the top.

4: East Guard Tower (upper)

• (!) The death ray lens, like the beam of a lighthouse. The lens can’t actually focus on anything in the room, but will attempt to track and destroy targets outside.
• A hardwood bureau and chair. Drawer is filled with moths.

5: Temple Stair

• The next section of the ziggurat stair climbs to colossal brass doors shaped like upheld human hands.
• (?) The doors are unlocked, but heavy, and groan when shifted. It smells like incense inside. The path leads to the Temple of All Gods (level 9).

6: Fountain

• White marble spout in the shape of a satyr’s mouth. The flow is a trickle, dribbling down its chin.
• (?) The water is clean and good.

7: Courtyard of Bones

• (!) The wyvern lairs in the broken guard tower that overlooks this courtyard.
• Flagstones scattered with bones of all kinds, under scraggly lemon trees that just from gaps in the stones.
• (?) The lemons are small and tough, but good.