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.

Level 11: Temple of Industry, Week 1

Craig Mullins. I always did like Marathon.

 

1: Ziggurat Stair

• Golden lion doors bar the way down to the palace.

2:  Freight Elevator

• Sliding brass doors hide a dingy lift.

• (?) No power – doors can be pried open, manual crank on the wall slowly lowers or raises the perforated metal platform. Goes down to the freight elevator in the Ziggurat Plaza (level 8) and the green room in the Fortress of Doors (level 5).

3: Vigilator Ultimus

• (!) Vigilator Ultimus, an armoured war machine with death ray and energy sword.

  • Mien: imperious, inflexible

  • Wants: extermination of the intruder bees

  • Needs: new catalysts (human sacrifices) for the machine heart

  • Fears: intruders entering the machine heart (will not allow passage)

  • Knows: the layout of the level; the bees’ sickness.

4: Blockage

• Passage is blocked by a waxy, dried mud-like substance.

• (??) Like an insect’s nest.

• (?) Soft enough to be dug through, with some effort.

5: Construct Alcoves

• (!) Lair of 2d6 vigilators, villeins, and velocipedes.

6: Canal, Ladder

• Ladder descends 5’.

7: Canal, Lock

• Huge metal door with a wheel in the middle.

• (?) Opening the door without purging the canal results in a flood of toxic effluvia pouring out. Even cranking the wheel a bit will result in a rapid leak.

Level 10: Palace of the Blood Queen, Week 4

Bastien Lecouffe Deharme

 

22: Ziggurat Stair

(past)

• (!) Two Iron Maidens at the top of the stair. Passphrase: onyx.
• (?) Golden lion doors to level 11.

23: Chamberlain’s Roost

(past)

• Lair of the chamberlain. Opulent rooms and vast black hardwood desk.
• (!) The Chamberlain, stuffed layers of silk and fur, gold chains, rings over white gloves, brass keyring on his belt, luxuriant ringlets and beard framing a mask of comedy. Hovers above the ground.
  • Mien: the cat that got the cream. Followed by a gaggle of interjecting sycophants.
  • Wants: amusement
  • Needs: to gather the keys. Do you have a stray key?
  • Fears: the Empress, and no other.
  • Knows: everything, including the passphrases.
  • treasure: jewellery worth 200 coins, keys to the palace rooms & vault.

(present)

• Still the chamberlain’s lair, but ruined. The chamberlain is alone, undead.

24: Throneroom

(past)

• The Empress holds court, surrounded by masked courtiers and trestles laden with food and wine. The emperor’s throne lies empty. The Eldest Princess, Mira, is chained to one wall, dead, her blood pooled in a trough at her feet.
• (!) The Empress Aurelienne, blood queen of the ziggurat.
  • Mien: a cat playing with its food
  • Wants: flattery, and to humiliate
  • Needs: blood
  • Fears: treason, her daughters
  • Knows: surprisingly little. Passphrase to her rooms. Doesn’t know (yet) that Mira wasn’t the one who stole her giant black diamond, the Storm Adamant.

(present)

• Stone and ashes. The dais is empty.

25: Her Rooms: Foyer

(past/present)

• (!) An Iron Maiden, encased in steel plates pinned to her body with rivets. Blocks all unauthorised guests. Passphrase ‘chrysanthemum’.

26: Her Rooms: Closet

(past/present)

• (!) Locked, with needle poison trap.
• A truly vast collection of expensive clothes.
• (??) d100 coins worth item each time you dig through.

28: Her Rooms: Bedroom

(past/present)

• Pristine four-poster with furs and silks. Heavy desk with writing paraphernalia.
• (?) Portrait of a family: Emperor Titus, Empress Aurelienne, Princesses Mira and Erhua, and sickly little Prince Ambrose.

27: Her Rooms: Bath

(past)

• 6 young women hang from meathooks, bleeding into Her gilt marble bath.

(present)

• (!) Lair of the blood queen, undead and insane. She sleeps in the bath and wears the Storm Adamant (unless someone stole it in the past?).

28: His Rooms: Foyer

(past/present)

• (!) An Iron Maiden. Passphrase: amethyst.
• On display: two exquisite suits of armour, gilt and shining, one formal and one for the field, plus His gun and sword.

29: His Rooms: Solar

(past/present)

• Vast hardwood bureau. Shelves lined with books of every kind. Luxurious carpet.
• (?) Inside the desk: papers, seals, His lion signet ring.
• (??) A thin, door-shaped seam on the one section of wall without book-cases.
• (??) Secret switch under the desk opens the door to the secret room.
• (??) If you want a particular book, there’s a good chance it’s here.

30: His Rooms: Bedroom

(past/present)

• Opulent and immaculate.
• (??) Under the mattress: The Storm Adamant, a thumb-sized black diamond set in a gold pendant. The wearer can turn into smoke at will.

31: His Rooms: Secret Room

• Bare stone room with a spiral stair ascending to Level 12: Archive.
• (?) Brass switch on the wall to open/close the secret door.

Level 10: Palace of the Blood Queen, Week 3

'Enothar'

 

15: Guard Room

(past)

• (!) 12 guards in crimson livery and shining cuirasses and helmets, armed with rifles and swords.

(present)

• (!) The guards remain, undead in rotten livery.

16: Larder

(past)

• Peons in smooth masks and loincloths sit shackled in rows.

(present)

• Empty brick room with iron rings for shackles.

17: Chamber of Her Beauty

(past/present)

• Portraits, in all shapes and sizes, of one person: the Empress.

18: Rooms of the Eldest Princess

(past/present)

• Hardwood four-poster, silk covers, the works.
• Signs of a struggle.
• (??) Under the mattress: wooden case with scissors, needle, thread, and potions of enlarge and reduce.

19: Balcony

(past)

• Intense, drunken conversations beneath the blood moon.

(present)

• A view of the city. Ziggurat plaza lies a good 100’ down.

20: Servant’s Rooms

(past/present)

• Mostly deserted hall lined with garrets & cubicles of the help.

21: Dollhouse

(past)

• A grand dollhouse in the form of a palace, roughly similar to this one.
• (?) The roof can be lifted.
• (??) The dolls are alive; 6 miniature lords and ladies.
  • Want: to escape and be returned to normal size.
  • Fear: torment at the hands of visitors, especially the Eldest.
  • Know: the Eldest has the potions.

(present)

• Six tiny skeletons in dolls’ clothing inside the house.