This is for my mainstay campaign setting, which still doesn't really have a proper name. It's the same setting as my Eastwylde campaign, and the world in which I plonked down The Maze of the Blue Medusa. It's background stuff for the Stonehold dungeon I'm writing.
*
Don't call them a cult; much less a faith. The ladies and gentlemen of the Canticle would be insulted at the term. What they do is no act of faith, but the ultimate act of reason.
To wit: the ultimate act of reason is accept its own impossibility.
The universe is chaos: growth and decay and the random movement of particles. Throughout the many worlds truth is change, and the idea of Eternity--with its golden rays and choirs of insipid angels--is the lie. Creation and destruction, transmutation: paint on the canvas, form growing from clay under the sculptor's fingertips. This is truth and beauty, invention and imagination. That is what the Canticle holds to. It is perhaps best thought of as a collective of artists.
The Canticle is a coterie of wizards from the western lands. Specifically a group of wizards born to land and wealth, specializing in the Transmutation school. There are perhaps only a dozen. Most of them are more than a century old, perhaps few would be easily recognized as human any longer. But though they have altered themselves, the members of the Canticle save their boldest and most striking work for others.
That work may not be devotional in the sense usually imparted to cultic activity, but there is a metaphysical resonance in it as surely as in the transcendent work of all serious artists. A somebody, at least, an other, grants inspiration and power to fuel his devoted as surely as the architect of the finest Temple can claim his inspiration to be heavensent. That other is The Formless Many, the Great Warper, an immense Toad of Limbo squatting above the fraying nerves of the cosmos. Perhaps not a god but certainly no fiend as the grossly limited manichean cosmos holds. And more than powerful enough to influence the Prime Material through his blessing of manifold mutation.
In his name the masters of the Canticle sculpt flesh and transform matter, juxtaposing and lampooning the dull taxonomy of creation. When they gather---only a few such salons occurring each century--it's a chance for each to show off in craft and imagination. Competition such as true artists live for. At their last gathering for example, exhibits included a woman meticulously half-transformed into a giant centipede; a living man with flesh of crystal glass; a mosaic in precious stones and dragonscale that eats, shits and sings; a girl who grew old in a day, gave birth to herself, and died. Such gatherings are inevitably ostentatious affairs. The privilege of birth combined with arcane power and flagrant defiance of the Arcane Order's strictures means each member of the Canticle lives like a prince, if only in their sealed and hidden Seclusiums.
They are aesthetic hedonists. Corruption of the body is no problem---any decent wizard should be able to restart his liver or banish a venereal blemish, let alone sustain himself over decades of sumptuous living. To live below a certain level of luxury would be a disgrace to any of them, and certainly mean exclusion from the Canticle. [In my setting, most wizards are from upper middle class families at least, and almost all of the very powerful ones, heroes or villains, were born into wealth and power]. Most of these wizards were born in a time period roughly corresponding to the Late Middle Ages, and their outlook is that of any baron standing defiant of a distant throne: my demesne, my land, my people, my house, my money, and I'll do what I like with it all.
The mightiest of the Canticle is the arch-rogue, Cyrelle the Chaotic. Her infamous Seclusium--towers of pink marble on a grand manor--still lies unconquered at the heart of the trackless forest of Broceliande, in defiance for centuries of the justice of the Arcane Order and the Kingdoms of the West. Prior to her recent disappearance Cyrelle was perhaps the most hated rogue wizard alive. Not a few Archmagi and other would-be champions were felled or twisted into mockeries of themselves by her over the centuries. It is said she is over 400 years old and has the appearance of a great lizard in kaleidoscoping colors; it is said she created her own tiny world to tend as goddess; it is said she gave birth to a demon so powerful it ate her; it is said a host of angels abducted her for judgement in the night; some say she has simply tired of the West and is living large in the Yellow City of Yoon-Suin, tasting the debaucheries of the Slug-Men.
More Prosaically,
So the Canticle of the Formless Many is sort of my version of a secret evil chaos cult. Except it's more like The Legion of Doom than a traditional army of nameless hooded acolytes. You have to be 1. at least a level 13 Wizard (that is, Archmage candidate material---a serious badass) and 2. enormously wealthy/landed aristocracy to even join (and ofc., Transmutation as a specialty school is a must. Most of them bar Abjuration and Evocation or Illusion). There are at most maybe a little over a dozen active living members, and each one would (or should) be a suitable Boss Badguy for a long term campaign in their own right.
They aren't trying to do anything esoteric like change the world, end the world, summon a god or enact some prophecy or whatever. I always struggle on an engagement level with "high concept" villains. These guys are basically a club of libertine aristocrats with Arcane PhDs who like to fuck with and torture people for fun; they're generally not as deep as they think they are. You know that old horror story about English aristocrats who pay to have homeless people kidnapped, brought to the woods on their estate, and then hunt them with hounds? Yeah like a wizard version of that.
However, the Great Warper/Formless Many/Great Grotesque Toad is a very real thing, and the Canticle's activities really do extend its randomizing and liquefying influence on the Prime Material. You could call it a Demigod I guess; Divine Rank 0. Not as powerful as the Archangels or the Demon Princes but much more fun. If the Formless and by extension the Canticle have an agenda, it's "make everybody roll on that d1000 mutations table from Realms of Chaos over and over because LOL."
Cyrelle is the first (and so far only) Wizard/Seclusium Dungeon I created using Vince Baker's Seclusium of Orphone dungeon generator thing. She's a 17th level wizardess which makes her probably one of the 10 most powerful humans on the European subcontinent and somewhere in the top 24 for Eurasia. I did a massive amount of writing for her Seclusium/the Forest of Broceliande; it was way too ambitious for a first go however so I'm starting with the Stonehold as a more modest dungeon of ~50 rooms or so.
Showing posts with label Stonehold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stonehold. Show all posts
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Dungeon Entrance
Given time, this loose collection of ideas will hopefully congeal into a good-sized dungeon module. For now working title is Stonehold of the Shaper. It's a classic "explore the wizard's lair" scenario: there was a powerful wizard, he was a very bad man, he has died in a spectacular and public fashion (or has he...) and his sanctum with all its treasures and strangeness lies open to plunder.
~~
The stonehold lies inside of a massive plateau of limestone, carved out of living rock over decades by a clan of contracted dwarf masons. These are probably the guys who gave your PCs the lair's coordinates: they were sworn to silence, but only so long as the Wizard lived. Getting inside the plateau is a matter of walking across the tableland, a landscape of scrub grass and stunted windblown oaks. Then the plateau's west cliff face must be scaled downwards some 40'. In the cliffside is a sunken, smooth hole six feet in diameter like a knothole in the sheer stone, virtually undetectable from above or below.
Obviously rappelling down the cliff in heavy armor would be nigh-impossible, unless you run one of those campaigns that skips over such annoying details. Carrying out something as large as a chest of treasure is likewise going to present serious difficulties. The cliff towers a little more than 100' high over the grassland below. If your players want to hire some laborers to build scaffolding or a crane at the top of the cliff I would have it take little more than a month for the necessary materials to be moved out to this remote location, via riverboat partway then mule train to the plateau. It would then require a few weeks for building; during that time other treasure hunters might attack the worksite, but there won't be any activity coming in or out of the entrance.
There is at least one secret entrance into the Stonehold directly from the tableland, although I haven't figured out where to place it yet. Another interesting feature of the plateau is a collection of stacks of massive granite blocks, stacked into short pyramids. The light-colored granite cubes are 5x5x5 feet and each weighs approximately one ton (it should probably be more but we'll assume a fairly low density granite...) There are dozens in all, and although the PCs can't know this yet they cluster directly above the area in the Stonehold called the Arena. The granite blocks themselves might be valuable to somebody but appraising and moving them would obviously be a serious undertaking.
Once the PCs reach the hole in the cliff, they'll find that it leads into a smooth funnel of scraped limestone which slopes six feet down into a short drop at one end of a roughly cubical hollow in the plateau. This chamber is 40x40x40 feet. Against the wall opposite the entrance is a fourteen foot high band of polished flecked black granite, set into the limestone. In the center of this wall is what at first appears to be a giant, projecting sculpture of wetly shining gold.
The smooth gold surface looks like a man's head, half-sunk into the granite, eyes shut and expressionless. It measures 10' high from bald crown to chin. The first time someone comes 30' or nearer its eyes open to show smooth gold orbs and the golden mouth moves as fluidly as flesh, or as if the gold were still hot from the smelter. It will ask the PCs a series of riddles, up to four, opening for one person at a time after each answer (right or wrong) and then admitting as many people as want in after the fourth. Rather than provide you with a series of riddles I would suggest a DM should think about his players and tailor the questions to them. For example for my players, I would ask something like:
(The answers "Def Leppard" or "a deaf leopard" would be correct)
The head doesn't introduce itself or anything, it just asks questions. It's not intelligent. Of course, the PCs could just attack the head---but although its made of soft gold it's heavy enough to blunt and damage any weapons continuously beating on it. If the PCs attack it with tools, given a few hours' work they might crumple and finally dislodge the giant head (its total weight is probably close to two tons). Of course they'll have made enough racket by then to be heard throughout the Stonehold.
After a question is answered (right or wrong) the face stretches its mouth impossibly wide apart like The Wall album cover [EDIT: Actually I seem to be thinking of the film poster], the silky wet gold of its lips pulling away from teeth above and below to create a large entryway, through which can be seen the first chamber of the Stonehold proper. Once a person (it doesn't have to be the one who answered) steps into the mouth, it snaps shut like lightning, leaving the hapless entrant trapped against a giant tongue. The aperture to the Stonehold squeezes shut as the construct's gold mouth-juices wash over the entrant.
If the answer to the riddle was correct, the person is shunted out through the sphincter in the back of the head, and lands on the floor of the Stonehold coated in gold saliva but otherwise unmolested. Their voice will be audible if they call back to people in the entry chamber, and vice versa.
If two or more people try to step into the mouth simultaneously any time before the fourth riddle, all but one (pick randomly) will be spat out.
If the answer was incorrect, the mouth also closes over the entrant. They are trapped and washed in sticky gold saliva as before, but the fluid isn't inert. They must make a Fortitude save (DC 15). A failure causes a complete physical transformation as the former PCs' mind is destroyed and body remade into a golden aberration, head replaced by a whipping tendril, limbs or more tentacles randomly erupting from a twisted humanoid form that looks made of beaten, slickly shining gold. In game terms it will either have HD as the PC's level or at minimum 3, plus a tentacle and two claw attacks (multi-attack assumed), and DR 5/bludgeoning from their metallic hide. Armor and other worn gear is destroyed; nonmetallic gear (bedroll, scroll-case, probably rations) is ruined from soaking, but metallic or preserved objects (a sealed jar of oil, a sextant etc.) may be recovered.
The aberration is then spat back out of the giant mouth and immediately attacks the party. It will fight until slain. Following its demise, the giant head simply asks another riddle and awaits an answer.
If the Fortitude save is made, the entrant is ejected out the sphincter in the back of the head. They are however partially transformed into a new creature called a Golden One. Unlike a full mutation, this does not explode any worn equipment though some gear may be lost due to being soaked in vinegar-y gold saliva.
As a Golden One the mutated person is changed into a hairless, shining gold version of themselves with jet black eyes. Any prior imperfections in their physique are erased, their new flesh of gold beautiful in contour and proportion. Their type changes to Living Construct (see the rules on 3.5's Warforged), and they will no longer suffer physical drawbacks from aging. If their Charisma was 12 or lower, they gain plus-two charisma; they also gain plus-two natural armor and a natural slam attack (d4 Med creature, d3 small).
Transformation into a Golden One incurs a DC 17 Will save. On a failure, the transformed person's alignment changes to Chaotic or Neutral Evil, and they become a willing servant of The Formless Many. They will seek to spread chaos---wild magic, hedonism, social decay--by whatever means necessary. The mentally transformed Golden One gains the following supernatural abilities: Detect Law at will, Charm Person 3x/day, True Strike 1x/day. If the Golden One is at least third level they also gain Glitterdust 1x/day, and at eighth level they gain Chaos Hammer 1x/day. Relevant casting stat is INT or CHA, whichever is higher. On a successful save, the new Golden One retains their ego/personality but does not gain any (Su)s.
If a PC gets transformed into a Golden One who serves the Formless Many, take that player out of the room or pass them a note. Explain their new personality/allegiance to them. Ideally they should pretend to have been only physically transformed and remain with the party, biding their time to spread disorder or advance the cause of the Formless Many and its earthly cult. However some players may not like the idea of playing a "traitor," and if that's the case I suggest allowing them to treat their transformed PC as a casualty and roll up a new character, while the newborn Golden One retreats deeper into the Stonehold as a now openly-hostile NPC.
The face will impassively and implacably ask its riddles three times, each time admitting only one person to step through and discover their fate following an answer. The fourth time, it will ask a final riddle and then admit as many people as want to step into the mouth. On a correct answer, they all get squished together and then shunted out through the sphincter, nothing hurt but their dignity.
On an incorrect answer, multiple entrants must all make fortitude saves. Those who pass are shunted out the back as individual Golden Ones and make their Will Save as normal. Those who fail are transformed into a single combined Aberration and spat out the mouth. Begin with an Aberration of 3 HD minimum, then add at least 2 HD per person fused (or HD equal to level whichever is higher). At 5 HD the Aberration is Large, at 8 HD Huge and so on. For each person in the fusion it gains an additional tentacle or claw attack and +2 natural armor. This final monster's appearance is of multiple bodies, stretched and welded topsy-turvy together into a trunk of gold flesh crowned with branching tendrils and staggering on two human legs barely adequate to its weight.
What if on the fourth riddle, people give separate answers and then enter together?The Golden Head is only programmed to accept one answer at a time, so in this situation randomly determine which answer it accepts either by rolling d3+ or via eenie-meanie-meiny-moe.
~~
The stonehold lies inside of a massive plateau of limestone, carved out of living rock over decades by a clan of contracted dwarf masons. These are probably the guys who gave your PCs the lair's coordinates: they were sworn to silence, but only so long as the Wizard lived. Getting inside the plateau is a matter of walking across the tableland, a landscape of scrub grass and stunted windblown oaks. Then the plateau's west cliff face must be scaled downwards some 40'. In the cliffside is a sunken, smooth hole six feet in diameter like a knothole in the sheer stone, virtually undetectable from above or below.
 |
| kind of like this but more barren up top |
Obviously rappelling down the cliff in heavy armor would be nigh-impossible, unless you run one of those campaigns that skips over such annoying details. Carrying out something as large as a chest of treasure is likewise going to present serious difficulties. The cliff towers a little more than 100' high over the grassland below. If your players want to hire some laborers to build scaffolding or a crane at the top of the cliff I would have it take little more than a month for the necessary materials to be moved out to this remote location, via riverboat partway then mule train to the plateau. It would then require a few weeks for building; during that time other treasure hunters might attack the worksite, but there won't be any activity coming in or out of the entrance.
There is at least one secret entrance into the Stonehold directly from the tableland, although I haven't figured out where to place it yet. Another interesting feature of the plateau is a collection of stacks of massive granite blocks, stacked into short pyramids. The light-colored granite cubes are 5x5x5 feet and each weighs approximately one ton (it should probably be more but we'll assume a fairly low density granite...) There are dozens in all, and although the PCs can't know this yet they cluster directly above the area in the Stonehold called the Arena. The granite blocks themselves might be valuable to somebody but appraising and moving them would obviously be a serious undertaking.
Once the PCs reach the hole in the cliff, they'll find that it leads into a smooth funnel of scraped limestone which slopes six feet down into a short drop at one end of a roughly cubical hollow in the plateau. This chamber is 40x40x40 feet. Against the wall opposite the entrance is a fourteen foot high band of polished flecked black granite, set into the limestone. In the center of this wall is what at first appears to be a giant, projecting sculpture of wetly shining gold.
The smooth gold surface looks like a man's head, half-sunk into the granite, eyes shut and expressionless. It measures 10' high from bald crown to chin. The first time someone comes 30' or nearer its eyes open to show smooth gold orbs and the golden mouth moves as fluidly as flesh, or as if the gold were still hot from the smelter. It will ask the PCs a series of riddles, up to four, opening for one person at a time after each answer (right or wrong) and then admitting as many people as want in after the fourth. Rather than provide you with a series of riddles I would suggest a DM should think about his players and tailor the questions to them. For example for my players, I would ask something like:
"I'm hot and sweet, known to be hysterical
They never hear me coming, though my spots are inimical
I'm a master of stealth and silent off the branch I fall
Which is just as well, because I can't hear at all
What am I?
They never hear me coming, though my spots are inimical
I'm a master of stealth and silent off the branch I fall
Which is just as well, because I can't hear at all
What am I?
(The answers "Def Leppard" or "a deaf leopard" would be correct)
The head doesn't introduce itself or anything, it just asks questions. It's not intelligent. Of course, the PCs could just attack the head---but although its made of soft gold it's heavy enough to blunt and damage any weapons continuously beating on it. If the PCs attack it with tools, given a few hours' work they might crumple and finally dislodge the giant head (its total weight is probably close to two tons). Of course they'll have made enough racket by then to be heard throughout the Stonehold.
After a question is answered (right or wrong) the face stretches its mouth impossibly wide apart like The Wall album cover [EDIT: Actually I seem to be thinking of the film poster], the silky wet gold of its lips pulling away from teeth above and below to create a large entryway, through which can be seen the first chamber of the Stonehold proper. Once a person (it doesn't have to be the one who answered) steps into the mouth, it snaps shut like lightning, leaving the hapless entrant trapped against a giant tongue. The aperture to the Stonehold squeezes shut as the construct's gold mouth-juices wash over the entrant.
If the answer to the riddle was correct, the person is shunted out through the sphincter in the back of the head, and lands on the floor of the Stonehold coated in gold saliva but otherwise unmolested. Their voice will be audible if they call back to people in the entry chamber, and vice versa.
If two or more people try to step into the mouth simultaneously any time before the fourth riddle, all but one (pick randomly) will be spat out.
If the answer was incorrect, the mouth also closes over the entrant. They are trapped and washed in sticky gold saliva as before, but the fluid isn't inert. They must make a Fortitude save (DC 15). A failure causes a complete physical transformation as the former PCs' mind is destroyed and body remade into a golden aberration, head replaced by a whipping tendril, limbs or more tentacles randomly erupting from a twisted humanoid form that looks made of beaten, slickly shining gold. In game terms it will either have HD as the PC's level or at minimum 3, plus a tentacle and two claw attacks (multi-attack assumed), and DR 5/bludgeoning from their metallic hide. Armor and other worn gear is destroyed; nonmetallic gear (bedroll, scroll-case, probably rations) is ruined from soaking, but metallic or preserved objects (a sealed jar of oil, a sextant etc.) may be recovered.
 |
| So this, but like a 24-karat sculpture |
The aberration is then spat back out of the giant mouth and immediately attacks the party. It will fight until slain. Following its demise, the giant head simply asks another riddle and awaits an answer.
As a Golden One the mutated person is changed into a hairless, shining gold version of themselves with jet black eyes. Any prior imperfections in their physique are erased, their new flesh of gold beautiful in contour and proportion. Their type changes to Living Construct (see the rules on 3.5's Warforged), and they will no longer suffer physical drawbacks from aging. If their Charisma was 12 or lower, they gain plus-two charisma; they also gain plus-two natural armor and a natural slam attack (d4 Med creature, d3 small).
 |
| Like this, but naked-er and more uncomfortably sexy |
Transformation into a Golden One incurs a DC 17 Will save. On a failure, the transformed person's alignment changes to Chaotic or Neutral Evil, and they become a willing servant of The Formless Many. They will seek to spread chaos---wild magic, hedonism, social decay--by whatever means necessary. The mentally transformed Golden One gains the following supernatural abilities: Detect Law at will, Charm Person 3x/day, True Strike 1x/day. If the Golden One is at least third level they also gain Glitterdust 1x/day, and at eighth level they gain Chaos Hammer 1x/day. Relevant casting stat is INT or CHA, whichever is higher. On a successful save, the new Golden One retains their ego/personality but does not gain any (Su)s.
If a PC gets transformed into a Golden One who serves the Formless Many, take that player out of the room or pass them a note. Explain their new personality/allegiance to them. Ideally they should pretend to have been only physically transformed and remain with the party, biding their time to spread disorder or advance the cause of the Formless Many and its earthly cult. However some players may not like the idea of playing a "traitor," and if that's the case I suggest allowing them to treat their transformed PC as a casualty and roll up a new character, while the newborn Golden One retreats deeper into the Stonehold as a now openly-hostile NPC.
The face will impassively and implacably ask its riddles three times, each time admitting only one person to step through and discover their fate following an answer. The fourth time, it will ask a final riddle and then admit as many people as want to step into the mouth. On a correct answer, they all get squished together and then shunted out through the sphincter, nothing hurt but their dignity.
On an incorrect answer, multiple entrants must all make fortitude saves. Those who pass are shunted out the back as individual Golden Ones and make their Will Save as normal. Those who fail are transformed into a single combined Aberration and spat out the mouth. Begin with an Aberration of 3 HD minimum, then add at least 2 HD per person fused (or HD equal to level whichever is higher). At 5 HD the Aberration is Large, at 8 HD Huge and so on. For each person in the fusion it gains an additional tentacle or claw attack and +2 natural armor. This final monster's appearance is of multiple bodies, stretched and welded topsy-turvy together into a trunk of gold flesh crowned with branching tendrils and staggering on two human legs barely adequate to its weight.
What if on the fourth riddle, people give separate answers and then enter together?The Golden Head is only programmed to accept one answer at a time, so in this situation randomly determine which answer it accepts either by rolling d3+ or via eenie-meanie-meiny-moe.
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