TOMB OF GLASS AND SILVER (Dungeon for Sundered's Pb Hack)

TOMB OF GLASS AND SILVER
A dungeon by FifthDragon, in Sundered's Pb system
Inspired heavily by Phlox’s Gygaxian Dungeon Generator, and by extension Gygax himself
#GLOGtober Day 1 Prompt 3

    The inquisitors of the Church of Her Red Word have captured you for your crimes against the Iodine Empire and your various and assorted heresies. In their infinite mercy, rather than putting you to the blade in the way of the Red Justice, they have instead granted you an opportunity to earn clemency and, potentially, redemption in service to the Church. Bound and chained, their inquisitorial skiff have brought you to a rough and wind-worn sky island, its great and ancient chain descending from its stony base into the churning depths of the Aether. The skiff has pulled up to a rough granite pier. At your side is a great lead sarcophagus, bound in golden chains and strips of prayer paper and engraved with chemical formulas of warding and atomical diagrams of protection. The inquisitors tell you that inside lies the chained and defeated form of an ancient goddess, and that to open it is to face obliteration, by her if not by the Saints themselves and certainly by the Inquisition. In front of you stands two ancient statues, their swords raised in defiance, guarding the true feature of the island- a great tower of tarnished metal and glacial blue glass that rises proud from the barren rock. At its peak, a great octahedral shape floats weightless in the air- two pyramids of silver and glass, base to base, and the bottom tip anchored to the tower’s peak, rotating softly, its apex directly above the tower’s center. This is the Tomb of Glass and Silver, where the goddess within the sarcophagus must be re-interred, for the safety of the Empire. Failure will result in death. If the sarcophagus is successfully returned to the temple-prism’s apex, the inquisitors will not shoot down the provided escape skiff loaded with a week’s food and water, 100 silver coins per prisoner, and regional maps as soon as it leaves its moorings. They wish you luck and the blessings of the Saints, and remind you with a suggestive tone that if any of you die that’s simply more money for the survivors to split. 

 

 

The Pier (DC8)
A: The stone pier. Prisoners arrive on the left; on the right, the escape skiff is anchored. The Inquisition waits on the horizon and will fire upon it if it breaks moorings before the temple is visibly activated. The SARCOPHAGUS begins on the pier.

B1 and B2: Ancient, weathered statues of unknown figures, garbed in inquisitorial robes and armor and wielding upturned swords. A Lore check reveals them as Saint Silver, the Patron Archmagus. Their stance suggests the warding off of evil and an eternal vigil.

Central Stele: An old and pitted stone tablet, erected during the founding of the Empire but after the age of antiquity that the island’s other structures were constructed in, warning of the dangers of the Tomb-Temple. It cautions that contained within is the goddess Nexrix, lady of lightning, craft, ingenuity, ruthlessness, and betrayal. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. A Lore check recalls ancient tales of Saint Silver’s many battles with Nexrix, testing cleverness, trickery, and arcane might until Silver defeated and bound Nexrix.

SARCOPHAGUS: Initially deposited on the stone pier, the players are instructed to bring this to the tomb-temple’s highest point. It is 7 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet deep, crafted of lead and sealed with gold chains. It is covered in protective spells, warding formulas, prayers to the Saints (especially Silver), and warnings that it contains the ancient and evil goddess Nexrix. A Lore check indicates the character is familiar with the ancient Nexrix, a dead god (or so they believed) of lightning, ingenuity, and betrayal. It also recalls ancient tales of Saint Silver’s many battles with Nexrix, testing cleverness, trickery, and arcane might until Silver defeated and bound her. Attempts to magically divine the contents of the sarcophagus deal 1 point of lightning damage and 1 point of psychic damage to the caster. With ten minutes of effort and a crow-bar like object, the sarcophagus may be opened, releasing Nexrix, Fulminating Goddess (45HP, d12, +5, can summon and control silver, can throw lightning in either 15ft burst around herself or at any one target within 300ft, perfect flight, 50% spell absorption and immunity, may recast any spell absorbed this way once with 5MD. Kill all witnesses to her imprisonment, reclaim her temple, then carve a boody path to the heart of the Empire. Can be persuaded to allow characters who know her true name to live as her newest acolytes, if given obedience and offerings.) 

Stairs: At the tip of this flattened stone plane, raised from the craggy and rough surface of the rest of the island, is the entrance to the grand, 400 foot tower. An open doorway into the twisting column of deep blue glass and tarnished, black silver reveals stone stairs, protected from the rough winds and pitting rain. The tower is empty except for the staircase.



The Temple: DC10, when the temple is powered DC12, when the goddess is free DC14
C: The offerings chamber. The staircase from the tower culminates in a trapdoor, sealed with a golden Inquisitorial warding stamp across its door and gold foil across its edges. Its runes warn of the evil sealed within, though there is no true resistance to opening. The trapdoor opens into a spherical room with a flattened floor. The floor is covered with offerings of all types from pilgrims to Nexrix. Piles of silver coins (200) scatter everywhere, mixed into melted wax from candles and within offerings of silver helmets, armor, weapons, urns, and other grave goods. Amongst the valuable offerings are also four or five skeletons, old to the point of crumbling. A Wits test reveals that the placement of ritual daggers suggest most of them were stabbed in the kidneys from behind. Along the widest portion of the wall, at about eye height, there is a two foot tall stripe of tarnished silver. This stripe of silver rotates freely from the rest of the wall, as the temple it is attached to floats in the wind. There is a doorway into the hallway that attaches the offerings chamber (C) to the lowest tip of the temple-prism. Stone and silver melt and flow as the hallway moves so the path into the temple is never blocked. Along the wall and close to the floor, below the silver stripe, are five equidistant cerulean-glass bulbs, the size and shape of human bodies, horizontal and inset into the stone of the wall. Four of the five are smashed, dry, leathery mummies within collapsed outwards and mostly dust. One remains intact, with a Volt Priest (10HP, d6, +3, spark-soul cannot be destroyed, can possess any corpse in the temple with 30 seconds cast time) contained within. Touching the glass reveals the corpse within is statically charged, with bright blue sparks jumping like magnet filings to iron to press against the glass when living flesh is close. Looting or disturbing the sanctity of the offerings chamber will awaken the Volt Priest. A defeated volt-priest will retreat its spark-soul out of its ruined body and take over any killed PCs, or if none have died, to the apex chamber, to one of the dozens of ancient bodies found there.

Temple-Prism Base: Lowest tip of the tomb-temple. A tunnel of glass and silver, angled up at about a 35 degree angle with stone slab steps, leads from the offerings chamber (C) to this crossroads. Four hallways ( hallway F and hallways leading to rooms D, G, and H) branch off from this antechamber and slope upwards at about 35 degree angles, with very similar tunnels. Three of the hallways are visually identical- each terminates in a solid pane of blue glass with a handprint pressed into it, veins and threads of silver twisting through the glass and collecting in the palm of the impression. These doors are carefully weighted and slide open when the hand is pushed. Hallway F is shattered approximately two-thirds of the way down its length- the careful silver and glass is floating weightless as if in space. They drift and sway but do not disperse in the wind, kept anchored by some magic. Across the glass-shard filled gap, about ten feet away, is the broken end of the hallway, Room E. The blue glass door is there too, though it is closed and has no foothold convenient to help leverage it open, as its careful weight mechanisms are shattered.

Room D: The offering storage room. Volt-priests once collected offerings from the tower’s chamber and brought them here to store. The small room has three walls covered in shelves of thin stone and metal. One wall holds a collection of skulls, the heads of sacrificed victims. The rest of the bones are ground in a simple stone hand mill and stored in two barrels against the wall. The second wall holds the silver offerings- a Wits test reveals a Warding Broach, a small token in the shape of a circular, petal-like cloud that stands out from the rest of the silver by having not tarnished even a little bit. When affixed to clothing, it absorbs the first hostile spell targeted against the bearer and negates its effects and damage, then becomes non-magical. The third wall contains many small wooden boxes containing carefully counted and piled silver coins (400 silver pieces in total). There are also guardians in this room- a Wits test reveals four silver bug-like robots, one in each corner of the ceiling, blending into the silver of the walls. Any looting or disturbing the temple’s sanctity activates the dormant bugs and begins a surprise round if not already noticed. The Silver Ticks (2HP, 1d4, +2, eat the first hostile spell that targets them and gain +2HP from its energy) attempt to kill the offending person, and will ignore those that do not either interfere with the fight or touch the treasure. The hallway that leads to this room forms most of the fourth wall- on either side of the hallway are thin steps leading to a second hallway directly above it that lead further up towards the apex chamber (I).

Room H: This room is where the living volt-priests had their quarters. It is an austere room with four simple beds, as well as a stone shrine, a small pool of sacred liquid silver (worth 50 silver coins if bottled), a number of padded wooden dummies, the corroded remains of silver blades in the dust that was their hafts, four or so stone bookshelves filled with dry dirt, a stone chest long weathered shut but cold to the touch, and a shallow pit near the cold chest with a burned and rusted pan. There isn’t much here to loot or investigate, but feel free to add more detail to the daily lives of the ancient inhabitants of this place. This room also has a hallway leading upwards to the apex room.


Room G: The workshop. This spacious room is filled with the tools and products of artifice. Workstations and drawing boards and half-finished experiments litter the walls and floor, all done in glass, silver, steel, and leather. Most creations are tarnished or broken, and the workshop is in disarray. The impact or event that shattered the corner of the prism rocked this delicate machinery hard as well. Amongst the assorted and unfinished works, there are two functioning devices - one is a suit of silver armor with no joints molded to a wooden armor stand. Removal by normal means would require sawing through the metal or burning the dummy from within and emptying the ashes. There is also a glass sphere in a silver armillary that when investigated further can be arranged in such a way as to align four lenses in a direction. Ambient static within the sphere builds when the lenses are aligned then fires a lightning bolt out of them. If striking a player, Finesse roll to dodge or Wits roll to grab a metal grounding object, failure means 4 damage and success reduces it to 1. If striking the suit or armor, it melts off the dummy into a puddle, then springs back into shape over the next few seconds on the ground. This is a Quicksilver Armor Array- the armor can be electrocuted into liquid form and stored in a hip flask, and re-equipped within seconds by pouring it over oneself and allowing it to spring back into a shape molded around the user. Gives medium armor protection, whatever that looks like. The lightning armillary is connected to wiring in the walls, but could be removed. It is nonfunctional while unconnected but worth 100 silver coins to whoever could convince a buyer it could be repaired. This room also has a hallway leading up to the apex room.

Hallway F: Shattered approximately two-thirds of the way down its length- the careful silver and glass is floating weightless as if in space. They drift and sway but do not disperse in the wind, kept anchored by some magic. Across the glass-shard filled gap, about ten feet away, is the broken end of the hallway, Room E. The blue glass door is there too, though it is closed and has no foothold convenient to help leverage it open, as its careful weight mechanisms are shattered.

Room E: This room is broken off from both the upper and lower hallways that once connected it to the basal and apex rooms of the temple-prism. It drifts lazily in the wind, twisting slightly and bobbing amongst the many shattered and broken shards of glass  that surround it like a cloud. A Wits check reveals that it has not drifted away from the temple-prism in the wind because it is attached by many hair-thin silver filaments that twist from it to the center of the prism, and that each of the rooms has these fine filaments on their outside forming a complicated net of silver at the core of the prism. The door is closed and its sliding mechanism is broken, so players must break through it to access the room, and must cross a 10 or 15 foot gap of open air, 400 feet above a boulder-strewn rocky plain and filled with floating broken glass. Once inside, the room is clearly an altar of worship and a chronicle of history. The three walls that do not have hallway doors and the ceiling are covered in intricate inscribed murals and curling bands of prayer. A Lore check reveals that these are battles between the Church of Her Red Word and Nexrix, the casting of great spells, and the eventual defeat and binding of the goddess. Other murals depict her power, crafting great war golems, shaping new islands and taming vast storms, and receiving live sacrifice both willing and unwilling. A more difficult Lore check reveals that Saint Silver is not present in these murals, and that her powers and feats echo a dark and twisted reflection of Saint Silver’s purported miracles. In one central mural, there is a secret word hidden within its shapes and curves- Argentum- that if spoken aloud twists and re-shapes the mural into a new scene- that of the source of Nexrix’s power- a ring, a Catalyst, of purest silver, the source of her arcane might, first as her triumphant and resplendent then as her defeated and bound and her Catalyst stripped by the Church. Saint Silver existed, and she was named Nexrix before the Church bound and reshaped her in the Frankenstein construction of the Periodic Table. But before either of those, her secret name was Argentum. In the center of the room, there is a dais that bears thick silver circuitry running from the walls towards its center, and a seemingly empty thin slot, like for a blade or a key. It is in fact full- physical interaction reveals an invisible dagger. If the goddess is awakened or the sarcophagus re-installed into the gold armillary sphere at the temple’s apex, these bands of silver re-awaken and line the invisible dagger in sparks, also awakening it into its true form, FULGURITE’S DARK REMIT. This is a three-word sword- its unpowered form is an invisible dagger, but when fueled with arcane magic or lightning it extends an electric blade to become a full sword. When in a storm, lightning always strikes the blade, and the bearer is immune to lightning.

The Apex Chamber: This grand chamber has a wide stone floor shot through with thick veins of silver that wind and twist across the floor to a central dais. A great blue glass dome rises high above it, wind and clouds brushing against its weathered exterior and daylight illuminating the room. Along the floor are rings of bodies, all dried and ancient, some in priestly robes and some in the garb of ancient Inquisitors. All four lower rooms have hallways that lead into this one, though E’s is shattered. The hallways are equidistant from each other around its walls. At the central dais stands an imposing cage of many golden rings, pried open on one side by some force. Thick golden chains dangle from hooks implanted into the ceiling, cracks spider webbing out from their insertion. The chains enter the cage’s rings but then dangle limply, no longer suspending the sarcophagus you hold. At the foot of the dais is another body, this one mostly vaporized but some scorched bones still visible, and a forearm-length blade of obsidian rests in its dust. The blade is UNBIND GROTESQUE GODS, a three-word sword. Its obsidian blade looks ancient and knapped, but is still razor sharp, and its hilt is wrapped and cracked leather with its name scorched by hot metal into the grip in a language known only to scholars. This blade cuts through divine magic with the power of disbelief and cannot be affected by it, though this protection does not afford itself to its bearer. If the blade stabs a god or other figure who dispenses magic to followers, the wielder is granted any one wish within that god's power, and it is fundamentally impelled to grant it. When the sarcophagus is placed within the gold chains and rings and the warding magic reactivated, the sphere begins to spin and the latent charge of the goddess’s magic is siphoned off safely to keep her too drained and weak to break free. This bleeding of magic begins to form a storm around the temple, as well as reactivating the silver circuits that twist through the temple. Now the temple-prism rotates around the tower under its own power rather than by the wind, and the center of the prism with its silver threads begins to build a charge of lightning. The inquisitors waiting on the horizon will leave as soon as they see both this temple beginning to spin again and the players board their escape skiff. If the goddess is released, she will likewise reactivate the temple’s power, however with much more, causing it to spin at great speeds. The interior does not experience this momentum, and the center of the prism rips open a portal leading somewhere (choose someplace interesting but dangerous).