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| Marcus Luotero |
I'm back! A few days late due to life getting in the way, but I made it. Hard to believe there are only three months left in the year.
This
level turned into less of a funhouse and more of a weird amalgam of
paths and themes -- a sublevel made of sublevels. I'm OK with that,
though I feel it needs more monsters and traps. Next month will be much
more thematically coherent, with a nice little gimmick, as well.
22: Forgotten Colossi
Dusty stone colossi holding lanterns and reliquaries, under a hazy red sky, ankle-deep in sand .
(?) Beyond the portico: sandy desert, as far as you can see.
23: Shrine of Rain: Frozen Courtyard
Portico pillars piled with snow. The wind howls; an alien sun leaks bleakly through.
(??) flickering fire within the sanctuary.
24: Shrine of Rain: Tomb of Tears
A frozen waterfall against the wall. Shaggy demons with icy antlers huddle around flickering braziers.
(!?) Lair of the Congregation of Tears, silently mourning their dead god.
Mien: rumbling, depressed
Wants: some kind of hope or purpose
Needs: fuel to keep their braziers lit
Fears: the dark
Knows: a little about the other temples
(?) A dwindling pile of charcoal in the storeroom.
25: Shaft of Portals
A cylindrical room with portals at many different levels, each about 30’ up or down from the next. The floor and ceiling are shrouded in darkness.
(?) There is no floor – it leads 120’ down into into the Shrine of the Dark: Pit.
(?) There is no ceiling – it leads 60’ up into the midden chute on level 10: the Palace.
26: Maze
(!??) The halls here are superimposed on the map, passing ‘through’ one another as they move in impossible directions.
(!) Shadow demons stalk these halls, waiting for easy prey they can snatch away.
27: Temple of the New: Facade
An ancient and monumental facade of white marble and columns. Completely free of any ornamentation.
28: Temple of the New: Renegade Magician
A dusty room with books and personal effects piled about.
(!) Lair of the Emperor’s renegade high priest, now a cantankerous lich, Qargan.
Mien: Hmm? I’m busy. Oh, wait, visitors!
Wants: to kill the emperor & his cult, and claim the secrets of the archive for his new god.
Needs: followers for the New God, so that it will begin to manifest. He isn’t very good at recruitment, and something happened to his old congregation.
Fears: the Avatar of Empire.
Knows: all about the palace (as it was), and the existence of the archive at the city’s highest level.
(?) A veritable library of books on magic, history, religion, and all manner of arcane subjects, including Qargan’s spellbook. He may not appreciate people digging through them.
(?) Qagan is happy to expound on the wickedness of the emperor’s murderous regime and the need to birth a new god to take its place in the cosmology. He has no idea the empire is dead.
29: Temple of the New: Cella
A vast but mostly blank marble statue, suggesting a person, but without detail.
30: Shrine of the Forest
Musty courtyard overhung with canopy of massive trees. At its heart: a fungal menhir the size of a house, hard, grey, and pocked with holes of varying size.
(??) The largest hole – 2’ across – is filled with glittering offerings: weapons, golden goblets, jewels, and a golden war mask, but you have to climb inside to reach them.
(?) Treasure is worth 300 coins, including a magic axe, Red Torrent.
(!) The menhir will of course release its spores if interfered with – save vs. infection. Psychic contact with the vengeful forest god will be established shorty thereafter.
(??) A passage within the menhir leads to a tree bough in the forest garden.
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