Level 12, Imperial Archive, Week 3

 

15: Face of Assignment

• Stern marble face with jewels for eyes watches the hall. Scorch marks on the marble.

• (!) The face fires disintegration rays at anyone whose face it doesn’t recognise.

• Fist-sized jewels worth 500 coins each. 

16: Living Collage

• Human forms piled together and frozen in place behind some grey, waxy, plastic substance. You could have sworn you saw a limb twitch.

• (?) Barrier is impervious to most weapons.

17: Spout

• A funnel of jutting stone slabs, rising 100’.

18: Army

• (!) 100 undead soldiers, silent and still, in silver armour.

• An echoing hall supported by pillars in the shape of nude titans.

19: Death Masks

• Hundreds of painted clay death masks line the hall.

• (??) 2d6 are actually gold, worth 100 coins each.

20: Ceiling Pool

• Fish swim in a pool on the ceiling, fed by water from the reverse hall (a 60’ drop).

21: Rotating Room

• A single entrance/exit. A golden globe held by cherubs in the centre.

• (?) Twist the globe to rotate the room in 90 degree increments.

Level 12, Imperial Archive, Week 2

From NaissanceE.

 

8: Librarian’s Bureau

• Lair of the Librarian, many-limbed, eldritch, levitating mummy within flowing robes.

  • Mien: whispering, severe

  • Wants: new books & specimens; return of stolen materials

  • Needs: order, silence

  • Fears: the Emperor

  • Knows: the location of any object within the archive (index is in the holographer on its desk)

Sublevel: Xerocrux

• The xerocrux is a cylindrical chamber within an outer room wrapped around it; four hallways lead into the outer room.

• (!) Gravity within the xerocux flows perpendicularly, in the direction of the crux (i.e. each hall does ‘down’). The chamber itself has no gravity.

9: Xerocrux: South Hall

• (!) ‘Bottom’ of the hall is a pool of clear liquid (acid).

• Lined with shelves of archival papers.

10: Xerocrux: West Hall

• (!?) ‘Bottom’ of the hall is a forest of long pyramidal obelisks of obsidian, inscribed with commemorative inscriptions. These are razor-sharp and function exactly like deadly blades.

• Lined with shelves of oddities; locks of hair, pinned insects, seeds, tissue samples in glass.

11: Xerocrux: North Hall

• (!) Midway down the hall is webbed with golden filaments of cutting light.

• Bottom of the hall is the adamant doors of the crux chamber.

• Lined with shelves of records on clay tablets.

12: Xerocrux: East Hall

• (!?) ‘Bottom’ of the hall is a forest of long pyramidal obelisks of obsidian, inscribed with commemorative inscriptions. These are razor-sharp and function exactly like deadly blades.

• Lined with shelves of records on holographic lead glyph tablets.

13: Xerocrux: Chamber

• A cylindrical bookcase.

• (??) The rarest books and treasures are here. Imperial seal; genealogical records; the dynastic sword, Sunburst, adamant blade in golden scabbard; the Librarian’s spellbook.

14: Secret Staircase

• Marble nymph proffering a golden apple.

• (??) Twist the apple to open the secret door to the spiral stair down to the Emperor’s solar on level 10.

Level 12: Imperial Archive, Week 1

M. C. Escher, naturally.

The universal store of knowledge. The emperor is vanished somewhere within.

There are no wandering monsters; just cold, altitude sickness, and guardians in their lairs.

1: Ziggurat Stair

• Ascends from the Temple of Industry to the silver star doors of the archive. Turns at right angles, ascending hundreds of feet in a kinked spiral.

2: Knights of the Chain

• (!) Twin knights, undead within golden armour and lion masks, armed with great flails. None shall pass.

• A vastly high, echoing hall of white marble.

3: Balcony

• The sun is black; the world is on fire.

4: Courtyard

• A marble god pours water; the fountain runs over, and trickles into the neighbouring halls.

5: Reverse Hall

• (!) Gravity is reversed in his 60’ room.

• Water from the courtyard trickles upward to the ceiling.

6: Gravity Cube Stacks

• Rows of bookshelves. The walls and ceiling have their own rows of shelves, anchored to each plane. Stairs ascend from the ceiling to the reverse stair corridor. 

• (?) Each surface of this room has its own gravity. The very centre has none.

• (!) Lair of the ink demons, hiding with books.

• (??) If you need a book, it might be here.

7: Reverse Stair Corridor

• (!?) Reverse gravity; stair connects to the ceiling of the Gravity Cube Stacks and the Reverse Hall.

Level 11: Temple of Industry, Weeks 3 & 4

15: Thermopanoplia

• 1d6 armoured, insulated heat suits.

• (?) Suits are very uncomfortable to wear for prolonged periods.

16: Pistons

• (!) 2 moving piston arms gyrate across the room, threatening to rush anyone who tries to cross (unless the turbine was stopped somehow).

17: Clockwork

• (!) Whirling gears to crush and mangle.

• (?) …Unless the turbine was stopped.

18: Transformers

• Static hum, smell of ozone.

• (!) Poorly insulated electrical components.

19: Vigilator Assembly

• Robot cranes; grinding machinery; automaton limbs; sparking cables.

20: Timepiece: Vigilator’s Door

• Heavy metal door engraved with arcane patterns.

• (?) Unlocked.

21: Timepiece: Heart Antechamber Door

• Heavy metal door engraved with arcane patterns.

• (?) Unlocked.

22: Timepiece: Main Door

• Heavy metal door engraved with arcane patterns.

• (?) Locked and electrified.

23: Timepiece: Clockwork Shrine

• The great timekeeper, a bronze titan with a clock face with lifelike hands. Offerings of jewels, hair and teeth about his feet.

• (?) 3d6 jewels with 100 coins each.

• (?) The clock face not only keeps the time, but determines the time, so long as the machinery keeps running. Each attempt to force the hands has a chance of irreparably breaking the mechanism, however.

24: Fungus Farm

• Bizarre wood fungus growing from a pile of roots and branches from desert shrubs.

• (?) Fungus is inedible without cooking, and is tainted by the poisoned water.

25: Bee Wizard

• Giant bee with an opalescent, crimson carapace etched with bizarre runes.

  • Mien: clicks and clacks and frustrated gestures. Communicates via a brass box speech translator.

  • Wants: a cure for their people’s illness.

  • Needs: a safe home for their band. They came here as refugees.

  • Fears: the disease and the robots.

  • Knows: their people are infected by some disease that makes them erratic and sometimes dangerous. Something dangerous lives within the blocked-off area.

26: Mud Well

• Overflow from the waste pipes is captured here. Bees use it as their source of water.

• (??!) Water appears clean, but eventually causes ego death and direct experience of the dragon’s dead mind.

27: Bee Lair

• Peaceful giant bees with carapaces in various brilliant colours.

• (?) Some seem catatonic. All ignore attempts to communicate.

28: Bee Bully Lair

• (!) The most far-gone bees, erratic and violent.

29: Hive Tunnels

• Winding like a termite mound.

30: Ventilation Shafts

• Tall pits like waterless wells, raised to the sky.

Level 11: Temple of Industry, Week 2

From Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei

 

8: Canal, Waste Channels

• Metal pipes that project over the back side of the ziggurat to expel waste. A long way down.

• Strange fungi grow in the pipes.

9: Canal, Coolant Channels

• Filled with crimson, phosphorescent water.

• (!) Immersion sickens over time. Drinking sickens rapidly.

• (?) Water is heated by the Heart, which drives the turbine blades that drive the machinery in the Automat and charge the alcoves. Hot water expands into the blades, flowing in a circular motion.

10: Canal, Turbine Blades

• (!) Being thrown into the spinning blades is unlikely to end well.

• (?) Venting the canals stops the flow.

11: Canal, Heart Exchange

• (!) Here, where the canal wraps around the heart chamber, the water/air is dangerously hot.

• (?) Before the spiral: a metal door to the heart antechamber, which can be opened if the canal has been drained.

12: Canal, Water Spout

• (?) Brass wheel above the canal opens the spout, flooding the canal. It takes several hours to fill.

13: Heart Antechamber

• (!) The round heart chamber radiates waves of intense heat.

• Visible through the adamant wall of the heart chamber: the blazing heart of a dragon.

• (!?) The metal door to the chamber is too hot to touch.

14: Heart Chamber

• (!) To enter without protection is fiery death.