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The Apocalypse Archive 37-42

1-42

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Soundtrack for areas 37-42

Combat Music

Overview

Previous: Areas 1-6Areas 7-12Areas 13-18Areas 19-24Areas 25-30, Areas 31-36

37. Looted Arsenal

The chalcedony keystone is still inside the lock of this arsenal.

The floor of this triangular chamber is inscribed with clearly visible glyphs. Anyone who lacks the Clef Glyph activates the ward, producing an extremely intense blast of horrible, droning noise throughout the chamber. Those without the Glyph must make a Constitution save or be deafened for 1 hour and take 1d6 sonic damage per turn while the sound continues; those with fey or fiendish blood or other interplanar heritage suffer double damage. Spellcasters who fail lose 1 spell slot per round as the noise purges their brain of puissance. The only way to stop the sound is for the intruder to step outside of the ward.

Inside the arsenal, the walls are mostly bare, looted by some previous thief. A handful of crystalline orbs of softly glowing liquid – six in all – remain in their place in the carved niches along the wall. There is also a set of small, glyph-graven chimes made of iridescent metal on a dais in the middle of the room.

  • The liquid is holy water.
  • The anathemantine Countersong Chimes temporarily nullify the Song of the Carnophon, causing entities from Excessus damage when struck. Using an action, a creature can strike the chimes, requiring a Constitution save from all denizens of Excessus, or flesh-puppets produced by such denizens; on a failure, such creatures take 1d6 damage.

38. Broken Seal

A series of magical circles are inscribed on the floor of this chamber. A huge crack has broken them, gaping blackly in the middle of the room. The eerie music faintly audible near the entrance grows stronger.

  • Close examination of the wards and an Intelligence check indicate that they must once have produced some form of antimagic zone. This would have functioned similarly to the one in area 27. However, the crack in the floor has made the seal non-functioning.
  • Should someone fall into the rift, the full drop is 60 feet, leading down into area 100.
  • A successful Wisdom check suggests that the music sounds mechanical in nature – like that of a clockwork music box.
  • Listening to the music – the Song of the Carnophon – for longer than 10 minutes requires a Charisma saving throw. On a failure, the listener has been afflicted by the Yearning, a desire to find the source of the music. Should they move out of earshot of the music (i.e. retreating from this area to elsewhere in the archive), they are haunted by memory of the music for one hour, during which time they have disadvantage on all ability checks and saves. On a success, the character’s soul has rejected the music and the darkness it represents; they need not save in future.

39. Dreamflesh Scroll Archive

Though most of the volumes in this lirbary have been removed, a handful linger on the shelves. Close inspection reveals that the texts are mostly scrolls and codices bound with Dreamflesh, the incorruptible hides of oneiroi from the Dreamlands. They shimmer softly and seem to murmur just beyond the range of hearing.

  • Each text is worth 1d100 gp for its historical significance alone. There are only 20 texts remaining. Roll on the table below to determine their contents.
  • A tiny Cult of the Frolic can be found in Hex among a handful of its richest citizens and a few renegade summoners in Fiend’s College. Should texts pertaining to Excessus be sold in the city, the Cult stops at nothing to seek out their origin and will pay handsomely for additional texts – triple the value of other collectors. Should they discover that a portal to Excessus exists in the Old City (see area 42) they will eagerly seek it out to gain entrance to its dark delights.
Roll (1d12)Text
1Aklo musical notation for the Song of Silence. If played on the Eldritch Organ (area 41), the song produces a Muffle effect, exuding a supernatural, impenetrable silence. Spellcasting and verbal communication become impossible, and the Song of the Carnophon is temporarily negated, unable to penetrate the magical barrier of anti-sound. Anyone suffering from the Yearning gets an immediate new save with advantage against it if they spend at least one round in the meditative soundlessness produced by the Organ.  
2Aklo musical notation for the Eldritch Organ for a Countersong. The song requires a Constitution save from all denizens of Excessus, or flesh-puppets produced by such denizens; on a failure, such creatures who can hear the song take 1d6 damage.  
3Aklo musical notation for the Eldritch Organ for a Dispelling Dirge. The song dispels all magical effects regardless of level.  
4A scroll of Sicken which produces the pestilence known as Cannibal Fever.  
5An alchemical recipe for a mysterious psychoactive substance which could be synthesized with aid of a laboratory, 100 gp of reagents, and a successful Intelligence check. If consumed, the drug produces euphoria and torpor, leading to a deep sleep wherein the dreamer psychically travels to Excessus, projecting their consciousness into the pocket-dimension while they slumber. If their body is not restrained, it begins to sleepwalk, committing heinous and disturbing crimes. The substance is extremely habit-forming. If allowed to circulate in Hex it will become known as “Dreamdust,” spreading quickly as a drug for the decadent rich. Should a sufficient number become addicts, while sleepwalking they will engage in a series of lurid ritualistic murders in an attempt to create a portal to Excessus.  
6A scroll of Wound (6th level).  
7A memory crystal containing the consciousness of a victim of the Celebrants. If placed into a body using a Consciousness Transcriber, the being will rave and gibber, describing through tears and panting howls the depravities of Excessus, the profane mixtures of pleasure and pain, the maddening torments possible only through magic, the murderous debaucheries they were forced to commit, the terror and thrill of the Hunting Grounds, the barbed nightmare of the Maze of Chains, the bizarre pageantry of the Flesh War between the Frolic and the Cupiovore Continuum.  
8  A manual of torture, the Methods of Pain, translated into Aklo from Phobish. It describes a series of exquisite and abominable torture methods, many of them quite outlandish and involving elaborate magic.  
9A scroll of Conjure Celebrant.  
10A series of poems in Phobish, called The Unclean Verses. The poems are disturbing, sometimes erotic, sometimes nightmarish. They appear to be love letters or confessions of a figure somewhere between a lover and a priest dedicated to an unseen listener, a god or goddess or paramour, decidedly inhuman and horrendously cruel. The speaker strives to please the listener, who they meet in their minds, with an escalating series of transgressions ranging from desecrating corpses to poisoning entire cities. Should the entire book be read, the reader is met that night in their dreams be the Celebrant known as Manque, who offers supernatural power in exchange for various deeds, asking that the dreamer pledge themselves to their service through the first of many ceremonial crimes.  
11A codex in the fell tongue of Phobish, Sacraments of Sublime Obscenity. It contains descriptions for a variety of disturbing rites involving cannibalism, blood-drinking, and the sacrifice of sapient creatures. Merely reading the text requires a Charisma save to avoid losing a night’s sleep to intrusive thoughts brought on from the horrific images within. It contains the following spells: Anthropophage, Blaspheme, Conjure Celebrant, Dancing Plague, Desecrate, Headbirth, Horrify, Maniacal Laughter, Puppeteer, Sicken (Cannibal Fever), Wound.
12An Aklo tome, The Dimension of Agony and Ecstasy. It describes the plane of Excessus, a kind of liminal dimension in the hinterlands between Hell and the Dreamlands. Excessus is a hypnagogic quasi-space where the boundaries between waking, sleeping, living, dying, fantasy, and reality become blurred. It contains numerous beings, some of them tremendously power – the author speculates they may rival the Kings of Hell or certain of the Unspeakable Ones in potency. Most, however, are passive entities content to live out endless nightmare-fantasies of their own devising, made flesh in their anarchic realm.   An exception is found in the Frolic. Their exact origins are the subject of debate, with several theories being proposed in the text – that the first of Frolic were originally rogue succubi and incubi exiled from the Netherworld for crimes too heinous even for Hellkind, Unseelie fey sorcerers seeking the limits of sapient experience, manifestations of some deep subconscious sadism given form in Excessus, or the creations of a capricious god of depravity. The Frolic seek to convert those they encounter into “Celebrants” like themselves, participants in a series of bloody, decadent ceremonies combining aspects of religious ritual and torture. They typically begin by seducing a handful of elites within a society to serve them, promising power and pleasure far beyond their wildest imaginings. Eventually, the grotesqueries of the Frolic spread to every corner of society, resulting into civil wars, mass murder, and social breakdown. Most swept up in this orgy of violence perish, but those handful who survive the ministrations of the Celebrants are elevated to become members of the Frolic, returning to Excessus after a world is consumed.   The coming of the Frolic is presaged by the creation of a Carnophon, a device which has been assembled on many worlds, coming to its creators in the form of a dream. This object – a music box – plays an otherworldly song laced with arcane power, which tears open time and space allowing the Frolic to leave Excessus. The Librarians appear to have constructed or confiscated such a device for purposes of study, confining it to the Apocalypse Archive.
  • Conjure Celebrant

    Cultist 3/Witch 3
    Duration: 7 days
    Range: 30 feet

    You inscribe a circle of glyphs drawn in the blood of someone who has taken at least three other sapient lives and light candles made from the tallow of those they killed. You then consume a teaspoon of Dreamhoney (worth 50 gp) and pronounce the name of the specific Celebrant you wish to summon, along with the requisite incantations. The Celebrant appears within the circle you drew; you must immediately make a spellcasting ability check opposed by their Charisma save. If you win, the Celebrant is contained within the circle until you dismiss it back to Excessus or release the ward and allow it freedom; any bargain you strike with it for its services must be honoured, though the Celebrant may attempt to subvert your conditions. If you lose, the ward fails, and the Celebrant is free to act as they please. Consequently, preparing entertainments or sacrifices to endear the conjuror to an unbound Celebrant is recommended.

40. Flesh-Puppets

The hall here is spattered with blood and dismembered body parts, the eviscerated remains of several goblins placed in a complex, abstract design, like some kind of monstrous artistic tableau. Their blood has been used to paint hideous sigils on the walls in a strange, sensuously curving tongue. Similar sigils are carved into the skin of the corpses.

  • The language of the sigils is Phobish. An Intelligence check confirms that these are some sort of eldritch ward of reanimation.
  • Anyone who disturbs the wards in any way automatically activates them; only by levitating over the crime scene or very, very carefully stepping past them with a successful Dexterity check with disadvantage can they be bypassed.
  • If triggered, the wards cause the body parts to animate, floating in space and whirling around to recombine into patchwork amalgams of necrotic meat that bear no resemblance to their original forms, heads dangling obscenely between legs which are actually arms, limbs sprouting seemingly at random from sideways torsos.
  • These cadaverous abominations try to prevent intruders from accessing the Eldritch Organ (area 41). There are 4 flesh-puppets in all.

    Flesh-Puppet: 2 HD (10 Hit Points), Bite (Str, 1d6) and Knife (Str, 1d4), Speed 20 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Undead (immune to poison, disease, mind-influencing effects), Str 10, Dex 8, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 8, Cha 4.
    • Mutilate: The flesh-puppets wield serrated knives. If they kill an enemy, they begin carving sigils into their flesh in Phobish, and then dismembering their fallen foes. This process takes 1 minute (10 rounds). If completed, they transform the corpse of their victim into a flesh-puppet, which reassembles itself into a grotesque new form.
    • Reassemble: If killed but not burned or otherwise destroyed, flesh-puppets can make a Constitution save each turn to reassemble themselves, returning to full Hit Points, over the course of one round. If the wards animating the puppets are dispelled, they cannot reassemble.

41. Eldritch Organ

A peculiar biomechanoid structure like a giant, living pipe organ stands in the middle of this chamber, several orifices at its top dilating. A control panel is evident in front of this mechanism.

  • The Aklo control panel requires a simultaneous Intelligence and Dexterity check to operate successfully, as well as musical notation (see the Dreamflesh Scroll Archive, area 39, for examples of songs). Each song produces a unique effect.
  • The volume of the Organ can be modified and extended chamber by chamber, from areas 37-42.
  • The organ cannot be removed from this chamber and still function. Though it might be valuable as a curiosity, ripping it from its foundations would kill the living components.

42. The Carnophon (Containment Chamber)

Something bizarre has happened here.

An empty plinth stands at the centre of the chamber, whatever object it might once have displayed gone. A series of glyphs inscribed on the floor have been defaced, scrawled over with cruel sigils drawn in blood. This defacement, however, is not the strangest thing about the room.

The far wall of the chamber has disappeared. In its place are a series of curtains, like those which might conceal a stage at a theatre. A narrow gap can be perceived between them. The curtains are plush and red and seem to move eerily out of the corner of your eye, though when observed directly they are quite still. The eerie music emanates strongly from the gap between the curtains.

Slumped against one wall is the corpse of a cambion woman with lavender skin. She seems to be stuck in some kind of hideous time loop, wounds on her body flickering in and out of existence, opening and closing like mouths, her entrails unspooling and then winding themselves back into her abdomen, blood gushing from her mouth only to be sucked up once more into her lips. She lives and dies a dozen times every minute. Glyphs have been carved into her skin.

  • The curtains, on close inspection, have a texture more like flesh than silk. They are warm to the touch. The gap between them is a portal to the pocket dimension of Excessus. Those afflicted with the Yearning will feel a palpable desire to pass between the curtains.
  • If the Eldritch Organ’s Countersong reaches this room, or if the Countersong Chime is struck here, the opening to Excessus momentarily closes and the fleshy curtains writhe and quiver as if in pain, though they cannot be expunged.
  • The cambion is Constantia Scrawlwell, one of the Gehenna Girls. She ran afoul of the Celebrant named Concatenatus and has been partially unfettered from time. Even if healed, her wounds reopen unless the effect is dispelled (it counts as a 3rd level spell). She carries a copy of the Ruby Keystone, which activates the Biomechanoid Sentinel in area 18. Born into poverty, she became a thief and later a courtesan, eventually becoming the paramour of Luxuria (area 21). She doesn’t particularly care about Vivian (area 30B) or Elizabeth (30C) but will search for Luxuria, who, among other things, is her ticket to wealth and polite society. She bears a Thief’s Mark, visible to others with the ancient hieroglyph, and speaks the Crowscant dialect of Thieves’ Cant.

    Constantia Scrawlwell, Cambion (Tartarean) Thief 1/Witch 1: HD 2 (1d8+1d6, Hit Points 11), Armour 1d3 (Spidersilk), Hand Crossbow (Dex, 1d8 piercing) or Rapier (Dex, 1d8 piercing) or Dagger (1d4, piercing), Speed 30 ft., Cambion (Infravision 60 feet, reduces fire damage by half, advantage on saves vs. fire), Str 6 Dex 12 Con 9 Int 8 Wis 9 Cha 18.
    • Backstab: When attacking an oblivious or surprised enemy or whenever a defender has disadvantage on defense rolls, Constantia adds 1d6 damage.
    • Darken: As a Tartarean cambion, Constantia can cast Darken once per day.
    • Spells: Glamer, Guise,* Jinx,* Maniacal Laughter, Reanimate Hand, Slumber.
    • Equipment: Bolt case (16 bolts remaining), 3 daggers, 2 hand crossbows, 2 vials of holy water, grimoire with above spells, purse with 23 gp and 76 sp, rapier, ruby keystone, spidersilk armour, thieves’ tools.

The Apocalypse Archive 31-36

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Soundtrack for areas 31-36

Combat Music

Overview

Previous: Areas 1-6Areas 7-12Areas 13-18, Areas 19-24, Areas 25-30

31. The Canopic Maze

This confusing series of chambers is linked together in ways that defy the conventional laws of physics. Each contains one or more of the canopic jars of Zothotep, gigantic urns sloshing with ancient alchemical reagents and the organs of the Hyperlich. The walls are adorned with hieroglyphs in an unknown tongue.

  • The Fodder Clan use the Canopic Maze as a pantry; there is a 10% chance in each chamber of encountering 2d4 goblins with a bone ladder and spears fishing organs out of the canopic jars.
  • Each chamber has six exits. If one departs from one “wall” of the maze, one ends up at the other side: so, for example, if one exits the southwest door in 31B, one would emerge at the northeast door in 31F. The exceptions are certain doors in chambers A, H, and F.
  • The hieroglyphs on the wall are in Cinis, language of the Abject Imperium. If translated, they reveal themselves to be a series of a titles – Pharoah of the Lightless Sun, King of the Orchidaceous Realm, Archon of the Medusoid Throne, Grand Vizier of the Lunar Caliphate, Patriarch of Yawgmar, Witch-Pope of the Seventh World, and countless more. These are the many titles held by Zothotep during his long unlife.
  • An Intelligence check confirms the identity of the various esoteric Unspeakable Ones whose images are borne by the canopic jars.
  • Each jar is also labelled in Cinis, identifying the organ held within.
  • The organs within endlessly regenerate themselves so long as the phylactery in area 34 is intact. If the contents are consumed, the jar will “refill” over the course of 24 hours.
  • If the jars are broken, a consumed or destroyed organ regrows inside the Hyperlich instead.
  • Samples of the Hyperlich’s organs (and his flesh from chamber 36) might be very valuable to the Académie Macabre or to Fiend’s College. Each decently sized unique sample (2 encumbrance) yields 200 guineas, another 50 gp for duplicate samples.
  • If the Fodder Clan become aware of intruders, a hunting party of 8 goblins begins stalking the party through the Canopic Maze, performing hit-and-run attacks, laying ambushes, and generally making the lives of those in the Maze miserable.
  • Consuming any of the organs requires a Constitution save to avoid gaining Corruption equal to the amount by which you failed (20 on a critical failure). Corruption has effects as tracked below. Fodder Clan Goblins have advantage on this save. Corruption reduces at a rate of 1 per day, reducing at double the rate for Fodder Clan Goblins. Detoxify reduces it by 1d12 and Heal Disease by 1d20. Eating a proper meal (and keeping it down) reduces it by 1d10 and drinking Holy Water reduces it by 1d4. As with Radiation (see area 4), these effects are cumulative.
Corruption LevelSymptoms
1-5  Your stomach roils as abreal matter is incorporated into your body. You have trouble digesting regular food and must pass a Constitution save to do so; on a failure, you vomit up the meal. Strange, vermiform things squirm in your sick, flickering in and out of reality.  
6-10  Your queasiness intensifies as your body tries to reject foreign contaminants. At this stage, your Constitution is lowered by 2. You regain this Constitution if your Corruption drops below 6 or rises above 50.  
11-15  You are ravenous, your body crying out for calories and protein as your cells quicken with unwholesome energies, something squirming beneath the surface of your skin, struggling to transform you, to remake your flesh in its vile image. You must eat double the normal amount to keep from starving. This does not make eating non-corrupt food any easier.  
16-20  Eldritch fluids flow through your veins, replacing your blood. Terrestrial poisons no longer afflict your body in the same way. You have advantage on saves against poison, though this does not extend to Corruption effects.                                
  21-25  Your flesh creeps and shudders with strange growths. You develop a mutation – roll on the mutation table (see area 27). This mutation atrophies if your Corruption drops below 21, either absorbed by your body or desiccating and falling off.  
26-30  Your body craves this alien uncleanliness now, addicted to the uncanny substances your glands are secreting. If you lose Corruption, you suffer from violent withdrawal, losing 1 Hit Point for every point your Corruption drops below 26. Only if your Corruption drops to 0 does this effect dissipate.
31-35  Your skin is constantly itching, flaking. It is being replaced. Your mutation has become permanent. Even if your Corruption lowers below 21, the mutation lingers unless removed through magic or extensive surgery.  
36-40  Your bones ache. They are growing, rearranging according to some grotesque design beyond your fathoming. Your Hit Point maximum is reduced by 1 per HD until your Corruption passes 50. You develop a second mutation. Re-roll duplicates. Your body loses this mutation if your Corruption falls below 36.  
41-45  You can feel your organs shifting, rearranging themselves. They burble and groan, as if speaking in alien voices. The threshold for your Corruption withdrawal rises to 41. Saves made to keep down normal food now have disadvantage.  
46-50  You are coughing up blood an unsettling amount. Your Constitution lowers another 2 points and can only be regained if your Corruption drops below 6 or rises above 50.  Your second mutation is now permanent. Even if your Corruption lowers below 36, the mutation lingers unless removed through magic or extensive surgery.
51-55  Most of your body is now an alien thing. You no longer recognize yourself in the mirror; the face that gazes is something other – something monstrous and unclean. You regain your lost Constitution and indeed gain an additional 2 points of Constitution. You lose 2 points of Charisma. 
56-60  The changes are becoming more extreme. Whatever you were before, you are something very different now. You gain 1 Hit Point per Hit Die. You develop a third mutation. Re-roll duplicates. Your body loses this mutation if your Corruption falls below 56.
61-65  You are becoming something wondrous and beautiful. Something was latent in your ever-changing tissues, something that yearns to be reborn. The threshold for your Corruption withdrawal rises to 61. You have resistance to mind-influencing effects, gaining advantage on saves against them.
66-70  Your muscles and bones flow like molten wax. Your third mutation is now permanent. Even if your Corruption lowers below 56, the mutation lingers unless removed through magic or extensive surgery. Regular food no longer reduces your Corruption.  
71-75  The thing growing inside you is very voracious, insatiable. You develop a fourth mutation. Re-roll duplicates. Your body loses this mutation if your Corruption falls below 71. You must eat triple the normal amount of food to avoid starvation.  
76-80  You are being eaten from the inside out. You must feed the creature you are becoming. The threshold for your Corruption withdrawal rises to 71. You no longer lose Corruption naturally over time.  
81-85  You will never be the same; you have been altered, irreparably, fundamentally. Some might look on you and flinch, look away, but when you peer at your warped form, your remade eyes see something enthralling. Your fourth mutation is now permanent. Even if your Corruption lowers below 71, the mutation lingers unless removed through magic or extensive surgery. Detoxify no longer lowers your Corruption.  
86-90  The changes are happening much faster now. You develop 1d4 additional mutations. Re-roll duplicates. These mutations do not disappear even if your Corruption falls. Holy water no longer lowers your Corruption.  
91-95  Nothing can stop this. There is no turning back. The threshold for your Corruption withdrawal rises to 91. Every 24 hours, roll an additional 1d4 mutations until you possess all available mutations.  
96-100  You have succumbed to Fleshflux, your body becoming a twisted, ever-shifting protoplasm of semi-liquid biomatter (see area 31D). Your mind is filled with seething appetite, reorganizing into a furious swirl of animal urges and the insatiable desire to consume more flesh. Unless your Corruption is lowered over the next hour, this effect becomes permanent. Only divine intervention or powerful magic can restore your previous form.

31A. Cirrus

The lid of a huge jar is topped with a sculpture of a lamprey maw surrounding by squirming tendrils.

  • The deity depicted is the Thousand-Suckered-One, god of change and adaptation, whose enormous temple looms large amongst Hex’s various basilica and cathedrals far above.
  • Inside the jar, the curious, tentacular tongue of the Hyperlich twitches as if remembering the taste of ancient spells. Anyone who consumes the Cirrus gains 2 Charisma and gains facility with Aklo, Deadspeech, Diabolic, Deadspeech, and Lacunal for 24 hours.

31B. Metagigarium

The huge jar in this room is topped with a figure resembling a mass of folded, membranous wings.

  • The jar containing the Metagigarium bears the image of the Star-Eater, a predatory Unspeakable One said to consumes whole galaxies, a deity of consumption and appetite.
  • The metagigarium is an endlessly twisting knot of tissue, a gizzard like an optical puzzle made flesh. Anyone who consumes it gains the ability to eat any other substance, organic or otherwise, and find nourishment in it, for 24 hours. They become immune to ingested poisons for this time. This grants advantage on Constitution saves to keep a meal down.

31C. Apeiroviscera

Two large canopic jars have been placed in this chamber instead of one. One bears the semblance of a twisting worm, the other a bizarre tangle of jagged polyhedral shapes.

  • The jar containing the apeiroviscera is topped with the semblance of the Pallid Worm, known also in Hex as Mordiggia, the Charnel Goddess, a deity of entropy, decay, and death.
  • The entrails of the Hyperlich loop back on themselves endlessly and can be infinitely unspooled. Eating a meal’s worth of the apeiroviscera feeds the eater for three days.
  • The jar containing mazelungs – moved from area 31D – bears a representation of the Cachinnation, an esoteric god of madness and impossibility, which some theologians hold is an avatar of the Antinomian.
  • The ludicrously intricate mazelungs of the Hyperlich flutter and gasp if removed from their suffocating jar. They respirate not merely oxygen but a range of other energies and substances. If consumed, the mazelungs allow the eater to breathe in a vacuum, converting nebulous dark energies into fuel in a fashion analogous to oxygen. This ability persists for 24 hours.

31D. Mazelungs

The doors to this chamber are closed and sealed with sigils drawn in blood. These wards constitute a Wizard Lock inscribed by one of Greybreath’s predecessors. The shaman knows the passcode – a High Goblin phrase meaning “Bless the Unfortunate Ones.” She comes by and feeds the creature within once a week.

There is a sound of wrenching bones, of tearing flesh, of gashing teeth. The stench of skin gone bad, a cancerous reek. Shapes flutter. Something lurches towards you, scuttling on many legs, some hoofed, some clawed. A mass of appendages clutches the air, melts into bubbling flesh, reforms as a mass of tentacles. Mouths open and close like bubbles in liquid. The thing that mewls and cries and groans and lashes the air with its manifold appendages should not be, could not be. It cries out with an insatiable hunger.

  • This is the result of a goblin who has succumbed to Fleshflux. When other goblins become too physically unstable due to rampant mutation, they are brought to this room, to be eaten by the creature – though, rarely, such a sacrifice has triumphed, killing and eating the horror within and so becoming the chamber’s new occupant.
  • This chamber once held the mazelungs, now kept in 31C.
  • If released, the Unfortunate One attacks the nearest creature, fleeing only if badly outnumbered and injured. It will rampage through the Canopic Maze and the rest of the Apocalypse Archive devouring all it comes across.

    Unfortunate One, 6 HD (30 Hit Points), Armour 1d4, 2d4 Grasping Appendages (Str, 1d8 + 1d8 Corruption), Speed 30 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Str 16, Dex 8, Con 18, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 8.
    • Big: The Unfortunate One has a 10-foot reach.
    • Devour: If the Unfortunate One consumes a corpse, it gains Hit Dice and Hit Points equivalent to those of its victim. For every 3 Hit Dice it adds to its own, it gains another 1d4 attacks per round.
    • Ever-Changing: The Unfortunate One is immune to any magic that seeks to change its shape.
    • Regenerating: The Unfortunate One heals 1d6 Hit Points every round unless damaged by holy water.

31E. Pseudohearts

The jar here is topped with sculptures of strange, tumorous, protoplasmic forms. There is an occasional rhythmic thud from within.

  • The deity depicted is the Progenitrix, sometimes nicknamed the Polypous Princess or Allmother in Hex, a deity of primal fecundity who, according to the myths of the Elder Species, produced all life throughout the multiverse, an act of tremendous beneficence and ultimate cruelty.
  • Zothotep did not have a true heart, but rather thirteen pseudohearts, similar to a worm’s, distributed through his torso. These gnarled organs still beat in their canopic jar every few seconds. Each is about three times the size of a human heart. Anyone who eats one of the pseudohearts heals all current Hit Points and replenishes all spent Hit Dice. If they have a serious injury, that injury is healed.

31F. Ichor Nodes

The canopic jar in this chamber is topped by a sculpture of a monstrous, vaguely leech-like creature.

  • The figure represented is the Unslakable Thirst, also known as the White Leech, said to be twin to the Star-Eater, one of the spawn of the Thousand-Suckered-One. It is rumoured to be the mate of the Titan Nyx, and to be the Father of All Vampires (though the brood of proto-vampiric specimens on Level Five of the Apocalypse Archive might contradict this myth). The Unslakable Thirst is a god of desire, instinct, and parasitism.
  • Six pulsating orb-like structures convey eldritch fluid throughout Zothotep’s body, with one at this neck, four at his armpits, one at his groin. Eating an ichor node increases the Strength of the eater by 1 for 1 hour.

31G. Acroamatic Gland

A bizarre, spiralling design adorns the top of this jar.

  • The deity depicted is the Endless Spiral, a deity of obsession and infinity.
  • The bizarre spiralling organ in the jar belongs at the base of Zothotep’s skull. Consuming the acroamatic gland imparts a rush of esoteric knowledge. The Intelligence of the eater increases by 2 for 24 hours and grants advantage on Intelligence checks to keep spells from fading from memory. All spent spell slots expended are immediately replenished, spells returning to the mind of the caster. However, if the Constitution save against Corruption was failed, the eater suffers from a severe headache and disorientation, temporarily losing 2 points of Wisdom for 24 hours.

31H. Astral Eye

The jar in this room is topped with an inhuman, eyeless visage.

  • The deity represented is the Eyeless Watcher, a supposedly omniscient being whose knowledge of the multiverse, past and present is absolute and total, allowing it to perceive all actions past and present. Its followers are typically profound fatalists.
  • The astral eye is a curious blob of grey matter that occasionally flickers in and out of phase with this reality. It belongs in the deepest part of Zothotep’s brain. Consuming the astral eye increases the Wisdom of the eater by 2 for 24 hours and function as per the spell Ghostsight, allowing them to peer into layers of reality beyond those normally perceived. The next time they dream, the eater finds themselves in a disembodied state as per the spell Subtle Body, tethered to their body by a silver cord and capable of traveling to the Astral Void between planes, or to other planes of existence, shifting planes using a Wisdom check.

31I. Noculi

The jar in this room is topped with a faceless visage swathed in a fleshy cowl.

  • The god depicted on the lid is the First Darkness (see area 10 for details on this Unspeakable One).
  • The nine noculi are huge, jet-black eyeballs, each the size of an ogre’s head. They roll to and fro in the canopic jar. Eating one of the noculi grants a creature Infravision for 60 feet or extends existing Infravision for 60 feet. Then creature gains sunlight sensitivity, however, rolling with disadvantage on attack and defense rolls and on Wisdom checks in direct sunlight. If it already had sunlight sensitivity, it becomes more acute, direct sunlight leaving a creature completely blinded.

31J. Triencephelon Lobes

A tentacled, brain-like entity is depicted on the lid of this jar.

  • This Unspeakable One is the Eldest Mind, a being of pure thought, perhaps the totality of thought itself, said to have come into being as the universe became conscious of itself.
  • The gigantic organ equivalent to Zothotep’s brain is contained here. It brims with spells, synapses crackling with eldritch energy. Anyone who eats any of the triencephelon lobes has disadvantage on the usual save against Corruption and accrues double the Corruption they normally would on a failure. They temporarily gain one the spells Zothotep has memorized (see area 36 – roll 1d10 to determine). Spellcasters can attempt to copy this spell into a codex, grimoire, or spellbook with an ability check using their spellcasting ability, rolling with disadvantage since they do not have a written copy. In addition, they absorb a small amount of Zothotep’s consciousness.
  • Anyone who absorbs a fragment of the Hyperlich’s mind will find that Zothotep begins speaking to them, urging them to revive him and promising lavish rewards. The Hyperlich proposes to make the character one of his disciples, an archwizard of incomparable power and eventually a lich in their own right. They will be given governorship over this world, dominion over all those within it, provided they swear fealty to the Hyperlich. Their wildest imaginings will be made a reality.

32. Throne Room

A gigantic throne fills most of this chamber, fashioned of glass or stone blacker than the emptiness between the stars.

  • Strange, abstract shapes dance inside the reflections within the Throne of Zothotep, as if something were trapped inside.
  • Climbing to the Throne requires a Strength check with disadvantage. The throne cannot be penetrated by pitons, and indeed is virtually indestructible save through powerful magic.
  • If a solitary creature is seated on the Throne, they are capable of issuing commands as per the spell Edict. Those resisting the effects save with disadvantage.
  • Moving the Throne of Zothotep would require magic to shrink it and transport it; it is currently Gigantic. However, it would be worth in the region of 10,000 guineas to buyers like Master Melchior’s School of Thaumaturgy & Enchantment, the Temple of the Thousand-Suckered-One, the Order of St. Monstrum, and a handful of others.

33. Treasury

This chamber is filled with an eclectic assemblage of objects – the grave goods of Zothotep. These include:

  • Shabti Golems: These six carven figures are each the size of an ogre, hewn from what looks like black bone. They evince a variety of grotesque forms, each a monstrous amalgam of appendages, tendrils, mouths, and eyes. They shift in shape when no one is looking at them. Should any of the grave goods be touched, the Shabti Golems animate to attack the thief. The Shabti Golems always know the location of the grave goods and will pursue thieves unerringly, returning all stolen treasures to the Treasury – though if treasure passes the Sacred Seal (area 27) the Golems will be unable to follow unless physically transported across themselves. Those who bear a piece of the consciousness of Zothotep from eating his triencephelon lobes or those who have a Corruption of at least 50 (the Shabti Golems “read” such individuals as Zothotep himself) are ignored by the Golems.  If a Shabti Golem is destroyed, it re-forms in 1 minute unless its individual pieces are permanently destroyed or somewhat kept from recombining – for example, by being thrown into an extradimensional space.

    Shabti Golem, 3 HD (20 Hit Points), Armour 1d4, 1d3 Claws (Str, 1d8), 1d4 Bites (Str, 1d6), and 1d2 Tentacles (Str, 1d10), Speed 30 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Construct (immune to mind-influencing effects, disease, poison), Str 14, Dex 8, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 8.
    • Attacks: A Shabti Golem has between 3 and 9 attacks per round: roll as indicated to determine how many of each attack it gets every round.
    • Big: Shabti Golems have a 10-foot reach.
    • Regenerating: Shabti Golems regenerate 1d10 Hit Points per round unless damaged by holy water.
  • Box of Stasis: This gilded reliquary contains a pocket of frozen time. When the lid is closed, no time passes inside the box; when it is opened, time resumes. The box currently contains the mummified head of Xerxophon (see below).
  • Exhumation Disc: This black disc, some 3 feet across (the size of a coin relative to Zothotep), is adorned with unwholesome hieroglyphic marks and carvings which depict an army of the dead climbing from their graves. If buried, the disc causes all bodies within a 500-foot radius sphere to reanimate as skeletons or zombies, clawing their way to the surface. These undead creatures attack mindlessly; those killed within range of the disc rise themselves. Command Undead and similar spells can exert control over those reanimated by the disc.
  • Figurines representing the sovereigns deposed by Zothotep. There 700 of them. Each would be worth about 5 guineas to the right buyer.
  • Mirror of Time Reversal: Anyone who gazes into this large mirror – big enough to serve Zothotep as a hand-mirror – will experience a kind of localized time-reversal as they look at their reflection. Wounds are healed, Corruption or Radiation removed, damaged equipment repairs itself, and the like, disappearing as the character peers into the mirror an amount of time equal to when a given injury or other effect occurred – so, for example, if a wound was inflicted ten minutes ago, looking into the mirror for ten minutes would heal the wound. However, a Charisma save with disadvantage is required each hour to also avoid losing memories of past time. If an entire session is “rewound” in this way, another Charisma save is required to avoid losing experience. If the mirror is shattered, those who looked into it must pass a Constitution save to retain its effects.
  • The Mummified Head of Xerxophon, once a wizard-king in his own right, preserved in the Box of Stasis. His world, Gnossus, was conquered by Zothotep in the dim mists of time. The alien head can be revived using Speak with Dead and similar spells and contains a vast wealth of knowledge, with an Intelligence of 20 and advantage on any checks to recall arcane lore or identify spells. It also has versions of the following spells memorized: Pocket Dimension, Scry, Shadow Army, Volcanic Eruption. Xerxophon is cantankerous and deeply bitter. He longs for vengeance against Zothotep, and will trade his arcane knowledge for assistance in obtaining a body – if he is sewn to any roughly humanoid, decapitated corpse, he can use his power to attach to the corpse and reanimate it. He will stop at nothing to destroy Zothotep’s phylactery.
  • Night Urn: This huge, jet-black urn is about five feet in height and seems to absorb all light. If opened, it slowly plunges the area around it into night, similar to a very powerful version of the spell Crepusculate, night spreading at a rate of 10 feet per round in all directions for every round that the urn remains open. It remains night so long as the urn is open and intact, night eventually spreading to blanket an entire planet. If shattered and the pieces left unattended, the urn repairs itself in 1 minute, though the spell is disrupted if the urn is destroyed.
  • The Peridot Keystone, which is not originally part of the treasury but has been kept here. It can be removed from the treasury without activating the Shabti Golems.
  • The Sanguineous Stone: This reddish-black stone the size of a human head permanently transmutes any liquid it touches to blood. This includes poisons and potions, although magical liquids have a 50% chance of resisting transmutation. Transmutation occurs rapidly, beginning with 5 cubic feet of liquid but expanding quickly. If immersed in an ocean or river an entire waterway can be contaminated over a period of times – days or weeks for a river, months for an ocean. If the Sanguineous Stone is removed the transformation halts but does not revert.
  • Six ornate treasure chests containing coins and jewels plundered from throughout Zothotep’s dominion. These alien objects have no value as currency, but would be worth 1000 guineas per chest to the Museum of Magical Arts and Antiquities, independent collectors, or the Metamorphic Scholarium. Each chest is very heavy, with 4 Encumbrance worth of contents per chest.

34. Phylacterium

Hovering within a rectangle of glyphs is a massive polyhedral object whose exact contours defy humanoid perception. Its facets seem to shift and flicker in and out of reality. Looking at the object is painful, but one gains the impression of a jagged mass of intersecting angles and planes formed from glimmering crystal.

  • Attempting to cross the circle without the Black Spiral Glyph activates a spell which reverses time and returns the consciousness of the trespasser to the moment they entered the chamber.
  • Merely looking at the Phylactery is dangerous, requiring a Wisdom save to avoid 1 psychic damage per round and bleeding from the eyes, ears, and nostrils. Anyone with over 50 Corruption is immune to this effect.
  • Touching the Phylactery is similarly ill-advised, requiring an immediate Constitution save to avoid 2d6 damage as the intruder is twisted and contorted by the reality-shifting field the Phylactery exudes. They gain Corruption equal to the damage sustained.
  • Entering the Phylactery on the Ethereal Plane is even worse: Zothotep’s soul swirls within, a hideous, pulsating consciousness which will attempt to devour the spirit or anyone who touches it. Contact with Zothotep’s soul requires a Charisma save opposed by Zothotep’s (see area 36 below) to avoid 1d6 Charisma drain. A creature totally drained of Charisma is absorbed by the Hyperlich.
  • No known magic has been devised capable of actually destroying the Phylactery. Any spell cast at the Phylactery requires a spellcasting check with disadvantage; on a failure, the spell rebounds and hits the caster instead. Although spells such as Annihilate appear to destroy it, the Phylactery is unstuck from time and so simply winds time backwards to avoid being destroyed. Theoretically, the Phylactery could be destroyed if it could first be anchored in time. If the Phylactery is taken into an Antimagic Zone, it rewinds time to avoid being placed there.

35. Antechamber

There is an intense cinnamon reek, barely disguising a fouler mustiness. A huge, desiccated, alchemically embalmed sphinx-like creature with a tentacled, skull-like visage and membranous bat-wings watches over this chamber – or it would if it weren’t slumbering, purring eerily, its tendrils twitching in its sleep.

  • The mummified horror, the Cephalosphinx, wakes and attacks if it detects intruders unless the intruder recites the many titles of Zothotep without pause. It allows those who bear a piece of the consciousness of Zothotep from eating his triencephelon lobes (such as Greybreath and her disciples) or have a Corruption of at least 50 to pass unmolested. Most goblins will not venture into this chamber.

    Cephalosphinx, 5 HD (30 Hit Points), Armour 1d2, 2 Claws (Str, 1d8) plus Tentacles (Str, 1d10), Speed 40 ft., fly 40 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Undead (immune to mind-influencing effects, disease, poison), Str 15, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 16, Cha 10.
    • Big: The Cephalophinx has a 10-foot reach.
    • Mummy Mould: Anyone hit by the Cephalosphinx’s attacks must pass a Constitution save or become infected with Mummy Mould. Their wounds fester with musty spores, stiffening and slowly becoming undead. Natural healing ceases to function and magical healing is only half as effective unless the disease is removed, either by amputating infected limbs or through Heal Disease or similar magic. A fresh Constitution save with disadvantage is required each day. On a failure, the disease lowers the Hit Point maximum of the afflicted by 1. Three consecutive successes fight off the disease. A creature killed by Mummy Mould rises as a mummy in 24 hours, a puppet of the fungal infection.
    • Terrifying Gaze: The empty eye sockets of the Cephalosphinx bore into the mind of whoever the sphinx looks at. The target must describe their greatest fear and make a Charisma. On a failure, visions of this fear fill their mind and they are paralyzed with terror for a number of rounds equal to the amount by which they failed. The sphinx can only target one foe at once with this attack; if it breaks its gaze, the effect ends.

36. Tomb of the Hyperlich (Containment Chamber)

There is a 25% chance of finding Greybreath the shaman, a 25% chance of finding 2d4 of her disciples, and a 10% chance of finding both, offering thanks to the Hyperlich for allowing the Fodder Clan to feed on his ancient form and cutting flesh from his body to return to the village (area 30) as a kind of communion.

The translucent, crystalline structure that fills this chamber is not immediately recognizable as a sarcophagus – it’s simply too large. But then your eyes adjust, take in the massive, inhuman limbs, the snaking facial tendrils, the mummified alien flesh, the empty sockets gaping sightlessly from the fractured lid. A bone ladder is set against the side of the structure.

  • Greybreath and her disciples consider this a holy place and conduct elaborate ceremonies here involving wild, ululating chants.

    Disciple, HD 2 (Hit Points 9), Armour 1 (Leather), Dagger (Dex, 1d4), Speed 30 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Fey (advantage on saves versus charm or magical sleep), Str 8 Dex 12 Con 10 Int 11 Wis 11 Cha 13.
    • Mutant Resilience: Disciples have advantage on saves against poison.
    • Nimble: Disciples may Run and Hide as a single action.
    • Sunlight Sensitivity: Disciples have disadvantage on attack and defense rolls and Wisdom checks relying on sight when in direct sunlight or its equivalent.
    • Small: Disciples have advantage on attack and defense rolls against Big creatures.
    • Spells (casts with Charisma): Apotropaic Circle,* Heal Wounds, Jinx,*Omen, Slime, Slumber,* Wound.*  *Currently prepared.
  • If Zothotep’s ichor nodes, mazelungs, pseudohearts, and trincephalon lobes are returned to his body, the Hyperlich partially revives. He has disadvantage on all checks and saves unless his other organs have been similarly returned, he cannot cast spells without his cirrus, his astral eye, and his acroamatic gland, and without his noculi he is blind. If he lacks his metagigarium and his apeiroviscera he has disadvantage on Constitution saves. If all organs are restored, however, he will be returned to his full and former power.
  • Should he be revived, Zothotep selects a creature to interrogate, demanding to know what world he is on and how long he has been dormant. He magically reduces his size to navigate the Canopic Maze and discover the boundaries of his cell. Should he discover that the goblins have destroyed his library, he will destroy the entire Fodder Clan out of vengeance. Although he cannot physically pass the protections the Librarians placed on his tomb, he will either take advantage of the Stonephasing doors to find an exit or use Possess to gain control of another’s body. If not stopped, he will eventually reach the surface, at which point he disguises himself as a mortal wizard to learn more of Hex and the planet he is on as he schemes to restore his empire to its lost glory.

    Zothotep the Hyperlich, HD 20 (120 Hit Points), Armour 2d6, 2 Tentacles (Str, 2d6 + 2d6 Corruption) and Slam (Str, 2d6), Speed 40 ft.,Infravision 120 ft., Undead (immune to poison, diseasemind-influencing effects), Str 18, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 20, Wis 14, Cha 18.
    • Gigantic: Zothotep is Gigantic. Attacks against him by smaller creatures hit automatically. He has a 30-foot reach.
    • Undying: Zothotep’s body reforms after 1d6 days even if it is totally destroyed so long as his phylactery remains intact.
    • Maddening: The horrific form of Zothotep destroys the minds of those who behold it. Merely observing the Hyperlich once he is revived requires a Wisdom save. On a failure, creatures lose 1d6 Wisdom. They recover Wisdom at a rate of 1 per day if they successfully rest. If reduced to 0 Wisdom they become catatonic, shutting down completely to avoid the primal horror of the Hyperlich. This save must be repeated every round.
    • Spells (casts with Intelligence): Though his library has been destroyed by goblins, Zothotep has the following spells memorized – Annihilate, Conjure Many-Angled Obscenity, Freeze Time, Malediction, Possess, Puissant Projectile (3rd level), Reanimate Cadaver (6th level), Shadow Army, Shrink, Time Spasm (3rd level)
    • Telepathic: Zothotep can communicate telepathically with any creature within 100 feet.
    • Tesseract: Zothotep exists slightly outside of linear time. He takes an additional action at the start and end of each turn, before and after all other creatures act.

The Apocalypse Archive 25-30

Map Close-Up

Soundtrack for areas 25-30

Combat Music

Overview

Previous: Areas 1-6Areas 7-12Areas 13-18, Areas 19-24

25. Bone Charms

A series of gruesome bone charms have been suspended from the ceiling of this chamber with spikes. Numerous skulls – human, goblin, gnome, elf, cambion, trollblood, and otherwise – are strung together like beads on some grotesque, osseous necklace. Each has been marked with a sinister sigil.

  • The markings ensure that if the charms are disturbed, the skulls will all start simultaneously screaming, summoning the goblins in area 27 will investigate. Additionally, the shaman of the Fodder Clan (typically found in 30D, 31, or 36) will be alerted, hearing the screams in his mind. An Intelligence check on examining the glyphs can suggest this may be the effect.
  • Bypassing the charms without disturbing them requires a Dexterity check. Small creatures have advantage and Big creatures have disadvantage on this check.

26. Fleshscribe

A sinister looking machine that reminds you of a scorpion crossbred with some huge, long-necked bird occupies most of this chamber. It has a long, biomechanoid appendage tipped with a series of glittering needles. This is perched over a slab with a series of spidery limbs crooked to either side. A small slot is evident at the base of the slab, something gleaming inside it.

  • A program card for the Blood Glyph is currently in the slot. This can be removed, and a different card inserted.
  • If someone climbs onto the slab, the spidery limbs spring forth to restrain them and the Fleshscribe begins its work, tattooing whatever glyph is inserted into the slab onto the creature. It takes a successful Dexterity save or Strength save with disadvantage to break free before this process is complete. The process is harmless, but excruciatingly painful, requiring a successful Charisma check to avoid crying out and alerting nearby creatures – likely the goblins in area 27.

27. Sacred Seal

The floor of this room has been inscribed with glyphs in an intricate concentric circles. However, it has been converted into a haphazard guardroom with the addition of crudely fashioned chairs and table cobbled together from pale wood, bone, and other odds and ends.

8 Fodder Clan goblins keep watch here at all times, though if they hear the bone charms screaming in area 25 or someone using the Fleshscribe, they will investigate such noises.

  • These circles create an antimagic zone which reanimated creatures cannot pass without reverting to lifeless flesh. Conjured beings who enter the circles are banished with no save. Spells cannot be cast inside the circles. Magical beings such as Fair Folk, cambions, and the like must pass a Constitution saving throw or sustain 1d6 damage per round. The seal helps to keep Celebrants of the Frolic and Vessels of the Illumined at bay.
  • Creatures marked by the Black Spiral Glyph (whose program card is in area 30D), which can be inscribed with the Fleshscribe (area 26), are immune to this effect.

    Goblin: 1 HD (3 Hit Points), Armour 1, Javelin (Dex, 1d6) or Dagger (Dex, 1d4) or Shortbow (Dex, 1d8), Speed 30 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Fey (advantage on saves versus charm or magical sleep), Str 8, Dex 13, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8.
    • Mutant Resilience: These goblins have advantage on saves against poison.
    • Nimble: Goblins may Run and Hide as a single action.
    • Sunlight Sensitivity: Goblins have disadvantage on attack and defense rolls and Wisdom checks relying on sight when in direct sunlight or its equivalent.
    • Small: Goblins have advantage on attack and defense rolls against Big creatures.
  • The Fodder Clan are highly suspicious of all creatures, be they adventurers or other denizens of the Archive. They have a tentative alliance with the Baggage Clan of the lower levels and are currently in a feud with the Digger Clan.
  • If they outnumber their enemies by 2 to 1 or more, they attack on sight, preferably taking enemies by surprise. If they outnumber foes by less or have equal numbers, they will fall back to this chamber and blow their horn for allies. If outnumbered, they flee to the Library (area 30).
  • Descended from the servants of Emperor Soulswell, these goblins have been forced to adopt an ethos of extreme pragmatism to survive in the Apocalypse Archive. They honour those lost to the Archive’s many perils with great ceremony and consider self-sacrifice the highest honour. Abandoning a companion is considered not just prudent but respectful, allowing them the glory of a noble death. They revere and hate the Archive, which they see as an alternatively loving and sadistic god in whose entrails they dwell; to die within it is to become part of this deity. As described in Area 30, some want to return to the surface, while others would consider such flight a sacrilegious abandonment.
  • The Fodder Clan exhibit a wide range of mutations, varying wildly from goblin to goblin, as a result of their diet. Use the table below to determine which they possess as needed. If keeping track of individual mutations becomes onerous, only give occasional goblins mutations with mechanical attributes. Some goblins may also have multiple mutations.
Roll (1d20)Mutation
1A massive, swollen tongue, possibly split into multiple tendrils. This goblin can take a bonus Disarm action using Dexterity.  
2A second head – smaller, blind, but with sharp little teeth and a taste for blood. This goblin has a bonus Bite attack (Str, 1d3).  
3A mass of extra legs, as if the goblin’s lower body were that of a fleshy centipede. It has 40-foot walking speed.  
4A cluster of bulbous eyes. The goblin has advantage on Wisdom checks to spot hidden foes.  
5A clutch of arms bursting at random from this goblin’s torso. It has a bonus attack with one of its weapons.  
6Grasping tentacles that writhe out from the creature’s hunched back. This goblin can take a bonus Disarm action using Strength.  
7A pulsating, seemingly blind third eye. This goblin can see Invisible creatures and detects magic as per Magesight.  
8Thick tufts of hair sprout from matted growths of flesh like huge scales. This goblin has +1d3 Armour.  
9Sacs of greasy black acid, swelling at the joints like buboes. If the goblin is damaged, there is a 1 in 4 chance of one bursting, dealing 1d4 acid damage to those within 5 feet unless they pass an immediate Dexterity save.  
10A mass of bloodsucking tendrils, each tipped with a tiny, fanged maw, extending from the scalp. This goblin has a bonus Tendril attack (Dex, 1d3, reach) which heals damage equal to that inflicted as the tendrils attach to a target, continuing to deal damage automatically each turn once attached unless a creature takes an action to break free with a Strength save.  
11Bogeyman-long arms, many-jointed. All of this goblin’s attacks have reach.  
12Spiralling spines like some nightmarish corkscrew porcupine. Melee attacks against this goblin deal 1d3 piercing damage to the attacker if the goblin also passes its defense roll but is still hit.  
13A razor-sharp beak. This goblin has a Bite attack (Str, 1d6) in addition its other weapons.  
14Additional ears in odd places. This goblin has advantage on Wisdom checks to hear noises.  
15Profusions of tiny arms with clawed fingers. If a melee attack against this goblin passes but its defense roll is a success, the goblin gets an immediate bonus Disarm attempt using Strength.  
16Thousands of teeth growing in crazed whorls, some quite long, out of the skin. The goblin has +1 Armour; melee attacks against them deal 1d2 damage to the attacker if the goblin also passes its defense roll but is still hit.  
17Multiple rows of shark-like teeth. This goblin has a Bite attack (Str, 1d8) in addition to its other weapons.  
18No head – eyes in place of nipples, a mouth across the belly. This goblin does not wear armour, but is immune to critical hits.  
19Fluttering bat-like wings. This goblin has a fly speed of 25 feet.  
20A crown of horns. This goblin has a gore attack (Str, 1d8), gaining advantage on the damage roll when using the Charge action.

28. Hall of Murals

Intricate carvings cover the walls of this hall, which seem to be in a style distinct from the Librarians’, less organic and more angular. One wall depicts a menacing alien figure commanding armies of the dead and conjuring up awful entities from the void, conquering various spheres of the luminiferous aether – planets and stars and other celestial objects. The other represents an uprising of the living against the dead, storming the gates of the necromancer’s otherworldly palace after a battle in the heavens. The gigantic being is bound and then butchered, individual organs extracted from its body and placed in receptacles before the rest of the corpse is interred. The eyes of the being are always represented with glittering black stones.

  • All of these carvings have been obscenely defaced with chisel, ash, blood, and gods know what other substances. Creatures which should be menacing and awful are defiled, with grotesque protuberances drawn on, comical moustaches, outrageous expressions, pieces chipped off, and the like.
  • Inscriptions have been carved in High Goblin – a series of swear-words, pornographic utterances, lewd and scatological jokes, names, personal mottos, and the like.
  • An Intelligence check with disadvantage identifies this as a figure of obscure legend: Zothotep the Hyperlich, Omniarch of the Black Spiral, Emperor of a Thousand Worlds. He is known principally through footnotes and references in Librarian texts, but those learned in Elder lore may know something of his reign, the so-called Aeon of Abjection. He is said to have ruled over many planets in an empire of the dead. His subjects were born into lives of darkness and toil, cut short at their prime to be transformed into zombie servants, or occasionally members of a necrotic nobility. Reputedly, a grand revolt of the living against the dead – some say aided by gods, or certain of the Elder Species – deposed the Hyperlich. His former slaves found they could not destroy his phylactery, and so to keep Zothotep from returning, they removed his brain and other organs, keeping them in canopic jars which they buried alongside the Hyperlich.
  • The Eyes of Zothotep are gloomstones, a rare gem not native to this plane of reality. Each is worth 200 gp to gnomish gemcutters, diviners, and various wealthy collectors; they are prized as eldritch foci. There are 12 of these stones in all, which can be pried loose in an exploration turn.

29. Continuous Holy Waterfall

There is a 25% chance of finding 1d4 goblins of the Fodder Clan here with buckets to collect fresh water.

An endless waterfall cycles impossibly throughout this room through some trick of otherworldly architecture that makes the mind ache to observe. The water is crystalline, pure, and softly glowing. A narrow bridge passes through this waterfall. Both the floor and the ceiling of this room appear to be a black void.

  • All water here is holy water and damages undead creatures and fiends for 4d6 per round. Cambions and others with fiendish blood can make a Constitution save for half damage, or may pass using some form of umbrella.
  • Vampires and other creatures who cannot pass through running water are deterred by this system – including the Hyperlich, should he be awakened.
  • The water endlessly regenerates itself and cannot be exhausted through mundane means; the impossible circuit seems to involve time as well as space. This allows the Fodder Clan a source of clean drinking water. However, if a portal or sufficiently capacious extradimensional receptacle was placed to interrupt the water flow, the water would eventually drain.
  • If someone throws themselves from the bridge, they fall through the floor and reappear at the ceiling in an endless loop. For each instance of the loop, they take a potential 5d6 falling damage if the cycle is interrupted, to a maximum of 20d6. Similarly, if someone attempts to “ride” the waterfall, they are caught in an endless circuit of holy water.

30. Library of the Hyperlich

Countless pages from what must once have been an enormous library have been plucked from their tomes and sewn together into a series of patchwork huts, their frames fashioned from twisted bones and branches of white wood, roofs from paper, pale leather, and dried crimson leaves. These tatterdemalion structures sprawl throughout the cavernous chamber, some suspended above and connected with crude bridges, everything strung together with ropes of hair. Scurrying about this strange village are countless goblins, all of them dungeon-pale and wildly mutated. There is a smell of smoke and cooking meat and the chatter of numerous goblin voices, echoing endlessly.

Some of the key locations in the goblin village are detailed below.

  • This the primarily settlement of the Fodder Clan, some 200 goblins, including children and other non-combatants.
  • There are fifty huts which serve as simple dwellings, each for a goblin family.
  • Patrols of 2d4 goblin hunters regularly make a circuit of the village. Intruders without a goblin guide to vouch for them will be attacked.
  • The huts are made from the once-priceless library of Zothotep. Though the grimoires and folios of the lich once contained spells, they are now largely destroyed, recycled as building materials by the Fodder Clan. If a given hut is disassembled, the pages sewn together with gut and hair can sometimes be salvaged with an Intelligence check with disadvantage, each containing 1d4 spells; roll 1d6 for their level and 1d2 to determine if they come from the Wizard or Cultist spell list. A critical success salvages 2d4 spells. Of course, any attempt to damage the goblin village will be met with protest.

30A. Fortifications

A pair of rickety watchtowers with sharpened stakes at their base stand near the entrance of the chamber.

  • In each tower, 4 goblin archers keep an eye on the entrance; due to their position, they have advantage on Wisdom checks to detect trespassers. Unless they recognize those who approach, they typically attack on sight with shortbows.
  • Anyone charging or running through the area must make a Dexterity save or take 1d8 damage from the sharpened stakes.

30B. The Feast Hall

The largest hall in the settlement always bustles with goblins cooking at the central hearth, smoke seeping through a chimney to stain the distant roof before being drawn into the ancient vents of the Old City. Within, long tables fashioned from pale wood and bones are arrayed. Dried mushrooms and pieces of meat are strung up in the rafters.

  • 3d6 goblins can be found here at any given time, eating various creatures hunted throughout the Archive, heartfruit foraged from the Bloodwood, and of course the flesh of Zothotep the Hyperlich, gathered from the Canopic Maze (area 31).
  • The Fodder Clan recently captured an adventurer, Vivian Dogmoon, one of the Gehenna Girls, an adventuring party who became separated inside the Archive. A powerfully built cambion woman with massive horns, she is bound over an open flame and being slowly roasted. Because of her cambion heritage, this process is proving very slow, to the goblins’ considerable impatience. She is somewhat less conniving than her companion Luxuria (see area 21) and will accept rescue with good grace, but will insist on searching for the rest of her party.

    Vivian Dogmoon, Cambion (Stygian) Guardian 1/Cultist 1: HD 2 (1d12+1d6, Hit Points 15), Armour 1d4 (Cuirass), Glaive (Str, 1d12 slashing, reach, two-handed) or Crossbow (1d12 piercing, reloading 1, two-handed), Speed 30 ft., Cambion (Infravision 60 feet, reduces fire damage by half, advantage on saves vs. fire), Str 11 Dex 11 Con 15 Int 8 Wis 14 Cha 10.
    • Murk: As a Stygian cambion, Vivian can cast Murk once per day.
    • Spells: Blood Boil,Create Unholy Water, Edict, Execrate*, Heal Wounds*, Ward Self. *Currently prepared.
    • Second Wind: Once per combat as an action, Vivian can regain 1d12 lost Hit Points.
    • Equipment: Bolt case (18 bolts remaining), crossbow, cuirass, codex with above spells, glaive, purse with 13 gp and 66 sp.

30C. Tannery Hut

The reek of urine hangs heavy in the air around the goblin tannery, where hides – largely from goblins themselves, but also from a variety of other creatures – are transformed into clothing and armour.

  • 12 suits of leather armour sized for Small creatures can be found here, along with 4 goblin tanners.
  • One of the Gehenna Girls, Elizabeth Lowchapel, had her skin flayed before the goblins ate her, and is in the process of being transformed into a suit of leather armour. If Vivian is rescued, she will try to get hold of Elizabeth’s remains so that she can be resurrected topside.

30D. Shaman’s Hut

The large hut of the Clan’s shaman is suspended on bony stilts. Within, various oddments of flesh curl and desiccate on hooks in a musty chamber that smells of a spice rack. A cauldron bubbles on a fire of pale wood.

  • The hut contains 6 potions of Heal Wounds and 3 of Heal Disease.
  • The Clan’s shaman is Greybreath, who tends to the goblins’ spiritual needs while providing medicines and other apothecarial assistance. She is old but spry, with a prominent third eye, the traditional mutation marking a shaman.
  • As the shaman, Greybreath alone is entitled to eat of the canopic jar containing Zothotep’s Encephelon Lobes, the closest analogue the Hyperlich possesses to a brain. She has absorbed large amounts of Zothotep’s knowledge, and unbeknownst to the other goblins, a portion of the entity’s consciousness itself now resides in her mind, as it has for all previous shamans, an ever-present voice urging her to revive the Hyperlich by returning his organs to his body. At present, she holds such whispers tenuously at bay.
  • Greybreath reveres the Apocalypse Archive and believes that it is the true home of the Fodder Clan, providing the goblins with all that they need. Should the Chieftain try to organize a return to the surface, she will bitterly oppose him, by force if necessary. She has three apprentices in training who will support her without question, and a sizeable number of Clan members hold her in sufficient respect that they might side with her in a struggle for power against Chieftain Batgobbler.
  • The Black Spiral Glyph Program Card can also be found in Greybreath’s hut, in a place of honour like an idol.

    Greybreath, HD 4 (Hit Points 15), Armour 1 (Leather), Dagger (Dex, 1d4), Speed 30 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Fey (advantage on saves versus charm or magical sleep), Str 8 Dex 13 Con 10 Int 11 Wis 12 Cha 15.
    • Mutant Resilience: Greybreath has advantage on saves against poison.
    • Nimble: Greybreath may Run and Hide as a single action.
    • Sunlight Sensitivity: Greybreath has disadvantage on attack and defense rolls and Wisdom checks relying on sight when in direct sunlight or its equivalent.
    • Small: Greybreath has advantage on attack and defense rolls against Big creatures.
    • Spells (casts with Charisma): Apotropaic Circle,* Cobweb,* Darken, Detect Sickness and Poison, Heal Disease, Heal Wounds,* Jinx,* Omen, Slime,* Slumber,* Thunderclap, Wound. *Currently prepared.

30E. Hunting Lodge

2 goblin guards are stationed at the entrance of this tent.

Spears, daggers, javelins, and bows are stored here in significant numbers, crafted from bones, gut, and occasionally iridescent anathemantine. The hall is adorned with the skulls and bones of slain enemies from throughout the Archive and beyond, including the malformed skull of some ancient, nameless horror escaped from the Bestiarium on the second level, mounted above the entrance.

  • There are about 50 spare weapons of each type listed above and 1000 arrows here. 1 in 10 of each of these weapons is anathemantine, traded with the Diggers below.

30F. Cesspit

An electrum-plated chest encrusted with glittering moon-jewels and black gloomstones stands to one side of the settlement, spattered with filth, its lid open. Several crude chamber pots fashioned from bisected skulls are piled nearby.

  • Looted from the Treasury (area 33), this Extradimensional Reliquary weighs 50 lbs (consider this equivalent to 3 Encumbrance slots if someone tried to hoist this onto their back) but opens into an extradimensional space that can hold up to 1,000 lbs. The goblins use it as a kind of cesspit, periodically emptying its contents for use as fertilizer for the mushroom-farm.

30G. Mushroom Farm

A great heap of soil and dung sprouts thousands of mushrooms in one corner of the chamber.

  • The mushrooms are hearty, but mildly poisonous if prepared improperly. If eaten raw, they require a Constitution save to avoid 1d4 poison damage and disadvantage on all Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution checks and saves for 1 hour.

30H. Clan Chieftain’s Hut

This large hut is positioned high above the others. It is adorned with the skulls of various creatures inside the Archive – phrenomorphs, oneiroi, even a Celebrant’s malformed head – as well as weapons and armour.

  • The Fodder Clan’s current leader is Chieftain Batgobbler. Injured during a battle with the Digger Clan, the Chieftain lost both his legs, though he has four spindly arms which he uses to swing about the settlement quite capably. A ruthlessly pragmatic leader, he believes the future of the Fodder Clan must lie above, not below. He is a crack shot with an ornate, antique arquebus taken from the corpse of a dead adventurer, its barrel sculpted into a wyrm’s maw.
  • The Chieftain keeps the Amber Keystone around his neck, which opens the door to the Stairs (area 13).
  • Though the Fodder tribe typically try to capture and kill adventurers for their meat, hide, and equipment, under the right circumstances the Chieftain will forge alliances with the party, particularly if they bring back captives from the Bloodwood.
  • Should the party be captured or enter into peaceable relations with the goblins, he will interrogate them as thoroughly as possible in limited Hexian to try and find out as much as he can about the world above. He can explain that the Archive periodically seals itself off from the surface entirely, the trapdoor (area 1) leading to blank stone; this is the first time in some decades that the Archive has been accessible for any length of time.
  • The Chieftain would like the Frolic once more banished back to Excessus and the Illumined destroyed. However, he is loathe to see the Bloodwood harmed, as it provides a source of wood, food, and other materials to the Clan. Although they occasionally lose goblins to the Hemadryads, their sacrifice is considered not just acceptable but the manifestation of a sacred duty for those of the Fodder Clan. The only way to convince him to destroy the Bloodwood would be as part of a move against Greybreath’s faction, as a last resort to force the goblins to leave the Archive.
  • So far, scouting expeditions to the surface have been highly limited, and Batgobbler is proceeding with extreme caution, but he believes the Clan has no future in the Archive, noting that the mutations afflicting his people are becoming more severe, with more and more succumbing to Fleshflux every year (see area 31D).

    Chieftain Batgobbler, HD 4 (Hit Points 20), Armour 1 (Leather), Shortbow (Dex, 1d8) or Arquebus (Dex, 2d12, reloading 2), Speed 30 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Fey (advantage on saves versus charm or magical sleep), Str 10 Dex 14 Con 10 Int 12 Wis 11 Cha 13.
    • Marksmanship: When the Chieftain uses the Aim action and then hits with a subsequent ranged attack, he adds 1d8. He does not have disadvantage when shooting at long range.
    • Mutant Resilience: The Chieftain has advantage on saves against poison.
    • Nimble: Greybreath may Run and Hide as a single action.
      Sunlight Sensitivity: The Chieftain has disadvantage on attack and defense rolls and Wisdom checks relying on sight when in direct sunlight or its equivalent.
    • Small: The Chieftain has advantage on attack and defense rolls against Big creatures.

The Apocalypse Archive 19-24

Map Close-up

Soundtrack for areas 19-24

Combat Music

Overview

Previous: Areas 1-6Areas 7-12, Areas 13-18

19. Herbicidal Arsenal

The door to this arsenal is sealed. The Peridot Keystone (currently in area 33) is required to open it, an octagonal stone placed into a depression to one side of the door. Picking the lock requires a Dexterity check with disadvantage; on a failure, the arcane mechanism deals 2d6 damage to the would-be intruder, potentially leaving their fingers blackened bones.

The floor of the arsenal is clearly inscribed with a series of protective sigils. Those without the Blood Glyph, which can be acquired through the Fleshscribe (area 26), activate the sigils, causing the blood of intruders to rebel against them, animating to become a Hemagolem, a dripping sanguineous horror that tries to break free of their flesh. Outside of the arsenal, a Hemagolem transforms back into regular blood.

Inside the arsenal are a series of carven niches, each containing an orb swirling with orange vapour. A dozen curious mask-like devices hang on hooks near to these orbs. There is also a strange, biomechanoid collar in the middle of the chamber on a low plinth, plugged into a series of intravenous feeding tubes. A pulsing organ contained in a crystalline bulb on the collar’s side glows and flickers as if with firelight.

  • Each orb can be thrown with a range of 30 feet, producing a 10-foot-radius cloud of concentrated herbicidal gas that deals 2d6 damage per round to plant creatures, with a Constitution saving throw for half damage. Non-plant creatures have advantage on the save and take only 1d6 damage. There are 20 in all.
  • The masks are Librarian-made respirators. Wearing one makes the wearer immune to inhaled toxins such as herbicidal gas, but makes verbal spellcasting impossible.
  • The Wyrmgland Collar is a biomechanoid symbiont. If placed around the neck of a Big or smaller creature (it adapts to fit), it fuses with their body; a Strength save resists this. Once attached, it can only be removed by cutting it free, requiring delicate tools and a Wisdom check with disadvantage to surgically excise it without injuring the wearer. The collar reduces the wearer’s Constitution by 1, draining them of blood and energy and introducing alien compounds into their bloodstream. Once attached, however, it allows the wearer to breathe a gout of dragon’s breath, a Dexterity-based attack targeting up to three creatures within 5 feet of each other at once within a 15 foot cone. The gizzard contains 6d6 fire damage; dice can be expended over the course of a day, replenishing with a rest.

    Hemagolem: 1 HD (5 Hit Points), Scab Club (Str, 1d6) or Clot (Con, 1d6, ignores armour), Speed 10 feet., Infravision 120 ft., Ooze (immune to mind-influencing effects, immune to non-magical slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning damage, double damage from cold), Str 12, Dex 11, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 2, Cha 2.
    • Puppeteer: While a Hemagolem is inside its host, it cannot attack normally, but can make opposed Strength rolls to try and control the body of its host, typically attempting to free itself by wounding said host, or to free its brethren trapped in other bodies. It can also attempt to clot itself to kill its host. If its host bleeds, the Hemagolem begins to form outside of their body until it reaches 5 Hit Points.

20. Rift

Tectonic activity, the wrenching roots of this carnivorous wood, or some other force has torn a rift in the floor of this passage. Thick vines and creepers trail down the broken lip of the rift; distantly, some other part of the Archive can be glimpsed below.

  • The rift is 12 feet wide, and so may be beyond the jumping distance for some party members.
  • Should someone fall, the full drop is 60 feet.
  • The vines can be climbed with a successful Strength check, leaving a 30 ft. drop to the floor below (area 86).
  • Hemadyrads can simply treestride from one side of the rift to the other, or they can command the vines to form a rough bridge, knitting together to allow goblin captives or the like to pass.

21. Feeding Grounds

There is a 25% chance of encountering a patrol of 1d4 Hemadryads here.

Low slabs fill this long room, along with a series of shelves, now emptied and overgrown by the verdant blood-red creepers and white trees that rustle and whisper without wind. Twisting trails wind through the hall, like paths through a forest. Here and there, scattered amongst the underbrush, curious tools gleam cruelly. A chorus of moans from deeper within the wood mingles with the susurrus of the trees.

  • The tools are anathemantine dissection tools. They can be wielded as daggers (1d4), but no one – not even Fighters or Guardians – are proficient with them, unless granted facility via Dreams of a Dead Empire.
  • Numerous victims of the Bloodwood can be found throughout this hall. Some are detailed below, but additional characters can easily be placed here, including replacement PCs.

21A. Captured Phrenomorph Drone

A feeble insectile chittering is evident up ahead. A spindly-limbed creature with a narrow, squid-like head is being digested by the trees, its body trapped by the gnarled boughs of the wood. It has a clutch of tentacles around its beaked mouth which feebly trash and writhe, a chitinous exoskeleton, six clawed limbs, and a long, sinuous tail tipped with a barbed stinger, all ensnared by the tree’s snaking tendrils.

  • This creature can be freed (see area 15), though this is strongly inadvisable.

    Phrenomorph Drone: 3 HD (15 Hit Points), Armour 1d4, four Claws (Str, 1d6) plus Sting (Str, 1d8 plus Venom), Speed 40 feet, climb 40 feet, Infravision 120 ft., Anathemite (resistant to mind-influencing effects), St 14, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 6, Wis 14, Cha 6.
    • Extract: If it manages to paralyze a creature, the phrenomorph drone can attempt to extract the brain of its victim, dealing 4d4 damage per round; should it reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points, it consumes their brain, killing them instantly.
    • Hive Mind: Phrenomorph drones are connected to a telepathic hive-mind ruled by a phrenarch, which can see through the eyes of its subjects and direct others of the colony.
    • Venom: A creature damaged by the drone’s sting must make a Constitution save or be wracked with pain and paralyzed for 1 minute, repeating the save every round to shake off the paralysis.
  • If it escapes, the drone will attempt to rejoin the Colony on level 2 using the rift in area 20.

21B. Captured Adventurer

A blonde cambion woman wearing ornate leather armour and armed with a rapier and pistol is being digested by the trees, roots and branches slowly sucking her blood. She slips in and out of consciousness, murmuring in Diabolic. She carries a leather satchel.

  • The adventurer is Luxuria Houghing, a cambion (half-demon) fighter and wizardess and member of the Gehenna Girls, an adventuring company who previously discovered the Apocalypse Archive entrance. She is the sixth daughter of the Houghing family, a precariously prosperous cambion dynasty with lands in the Hexwold and in the Outer Circles of Hell. Unlikely to inherit and lacking the necessary reverence for a career in the Diabolic Church, Luxuria signed up with the Sisterhood in hopes of securing her fortune and restoring the prospects of her family. She is highly suspicious of other adventurers, perceiving them as rivals, and will likely betray them at the first chance.

    Luxuria Houghing,
    Cambion (Pandemoniac) Fighter 1/Wizard 1: HD 2 (1d10+1d6, Hit Points 13), Armour 1d2 (Studded Leather), Pistol (Dex, 2d6 piercing) or Rapier (Dex, 1d8 piercing), Cambion (Infravision 60 feet, reduces fire damage by half, advantage on saves vs. fire), Str 8 Dex 13 Con 12 Int 16 Wis 6 Cha 12.
    • Charm: As a Pandemoniac cambion, Luxuria can cast Charm once per day.
    • Spells: Conjure Cacodemon*, Hovering Head, Magic Shield,* Omen, Puissant Projectile, Time Spasm. *Currently prepared.
    • Weapon Specialization (Pistols): Luxuria rolls all attack and damage rolls with pistols twice and takes the higher result.
    • Equipment: Bandolier (22 shots + powder remaining), pistol, rapier, spellbook with above spells, studded leather armour, purse with 42 gp, The Rites of the First Darkness.
  • The Rites of the First Darkness is written in Aklo and has pages of voidskin bound in nightflesh, the skin of an elder atramental; it appears as a menacing slab of leather so black it seems to absorb light brought near it. It describes a series of rituals pertaining to the enigmatic First Darkness, or Shrouded Lord. These include instructions for sacrifices to the First Darkness upon the altar in area 10 and others like it, as well as the spells Annihilate, Blind, Conjure Tenebral, Crepusculate, Darken, Shadow Jump, and Voidmouth. Reading the text itself is hazardous, dealing 1d4 cold damage (ignoring armour) and producing an intense feeling of primordial humiliation before the ineffable immensity of the supreme darkness that preceded all creation. This cures any Radiation equal to the amount of cold damage sustained. Reading the book also delivers dreams of an endless black void, purging all Dreams of a Dead Empire or other intrusive nightmares for 24 hours.

21C. Captured Celebrant

A disturbing series of cooing, groaning sounds issues from this grove. Trapped by two of the pallid trees and being slowly torn apart by competing tendrils of the bloodsucking plants is a voluptuous humanoid with skin covered in ritualistic scars. The creature’s body is a disturbing patchwork – what look at first to be clothes are revealed on closer inspection to be garments of skin sewn into the being’s flesh. It glistens and spurts, bleeding black blood. The trees draining it look somewhat unhealthy.

  • This Celebrant is called Destruda. They are enjoying their captivity enormously, experiencing the sensation of being torn apart with all the rapturous aesthetic bliss one would expect from a member of the Frolic.

    Destruda, HD 4 (Hit Points 18), Armour 1d2, Spiked Chains (Dex, 2d6, reach), Speed 30 ft., Celebrant (Infravision 120 ft., advantage on saves versus poisons and disease), Str 10 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 11 Wis 13 Cha 16.
    • Regenerating: Destruda heals 1d4 Hit Points every round unless damaged by holy water or a Cultist’s Smite or Exorcism. Although native to the pocket dimension of Excessus, they are distant kindred of demons and can be considered fiends for the purposes of spells and magic items.
    • Spells: Destruda can cast the following spells using Charisma, rolling to remember them as a Witch and eschewing reagents: Blood Boil, Execrate, Horrify, Time Spasm, Wound.
  • If freed from captivity, Destruda will admonish their rescuers before inviting them to join them in the Frolic in area 37. Should they outright refuse the invitation, Destruda will grow peevish and may punish those who refuse them, spiked chains whipping forth from the intricate depths of their body like barbed entrails.

22. Thorn Pen

There is a 25% chance of encountering 1d4 Hemadryads here selecting a prisoner to be digested in the Feeding Grounds.

The jagged remnants of a crystalline specimen container big enough to hold an elephant or an ogre gleam beneath the crimson foliage of the Bloodwood. Within the broken container, an elaborate growth of thorns pens in a group of creatures whose movements can dimly be glimpsed.

  • There are eight goblins in the thorn pens, five of the Fodder Clan and three of the Digger Clan. They have temporarily put aside their differences, but their hatred for one another is palpable, and they occupy different sides of the pen. The Diggers are notable for their clawed hands, vestigial eyes, and tentacular noses, like star-nosed moles. All have been thoroughly stripped of equipment.
  • The Hemadryads can cause the thorns to retract at will and may place captives here if they are not immediately fed to the Bloodwood.
  • The thorns have 2 Armour and 30 Hit Points. Attacking them with a melee weapon without reach requires a Dexterity save to avoid being pricked by them, which deals 1d4 damage and provokes a Constitution save or be plunged into a deep stupor for 1 hour. Nothing can wake a creature lulled into this state of sleep.

23. The Book of the Bloodwood

This chamber is protected with sigils deactivated by the Blood Glyph (see area 19).

The walls of this room are adorned with intricate bas-relief murals depicting the spread of the Bloodwood through an unfamiliar city, trees digesting citizens subdued by Hemadryads, Broodtrees towering over broken temples, roots and vines wrenching apart towers and walls. In the middle of the room stands an empty lectern. In the floor, a rough hole has been bored, leading down into a narrow passage.

  • The book itself has been stolen by the goblins of the Digger Clan and is currently in area 82.
  • The hole can be climbed down by a Small creature or by a Medium creature with a Dexterity check; on a failure of 5 or more, the creature is stuck. Big creatures have disadvantage. It leads to area 80.

24. Heart of the Bloodwood (Containment Chamber)

A gigantic tree strains against the ceiling of this chamber, whose walls are lined with largely overgrown shelves. A few crystalline cannisters still gleam on the shelves. The tree – illuminated by half a dozen crimson bulbs suspended near the ceiling – is a huge, heaving, rustling thing with numerous greedy knothole-mouths gasping about its trunk. Suspended from its branches are a series of translucent-shelled acorns in which embryonic Hemadryads slowly mature. Several fully-grown Hemadryads tend to the tree, vomiting blood into its knothole mouths. There is a rhythmic thumping in this chamber emanating from the tree – unmistakably, a heartbeat.

  • This room was previously the Bloodwood Seed Bank. The cannisters contain small, pale acorns which, if planted and watered with blood, develop into Broodtrees. There are 12 acorn cannisters still-intact, each containing 10 acorns. Xenobotanists, alchemists, biomancers, and the like would likely pay handsomely for such treasures, to the tune of at least 1000 gp per cannister (100 gp per acorn). Of course, anyone who has read The Book of the Bloodwood in whole or in part will realize how risky letting it loose could be.
  • A retinue of 6 Hemadryads is present here at all times. If the Heart of the Bloodwood is threatened, 1d4 Hemadryads arrive every round to defend her. There are 100 Hemadryads in total in the Bloodwood.
  • The Heart of the Bloodwood is the Mother Tree of the forest, the oldest Broodtree in the grove. Her roots and veins are connected to all others in the forest. Although it can survive without her, destroying the Heart will seriously damage all other trees connected to her, reducing their Constitution by 6 and their Hit Points by half. The Heart has another 24 Hemadryads maturing in acorns in its boughs.

    Heart of the Bloodwood: 9 HD (54 Hit Points), Armour 1d6+2, four Lashing Boughs (Str, 1d6) or Feed (Str, 1d8), Speed 0 ft., Plant (immune to mind-influencing effects, double damage from fire, slashing), Str 17, Dex 4, Int 2, Wis 16, Cha 12.
    • Blood Drain: When the Heart deals damage with its Feed attack, it heals an equivalent number of hit points. It can only Feed on creatures it or a Hemadryad have entangled.
    • Engulf: When the Heart hits with its Lashing Boughs attack, in addition to dealing damage it automatically entangles its foes. An entangled creature cannot move and has disadvantage on defense rolls. They can attempt escape with a successful Strength check.
    • Gigantic: The Heart of the Bloodwood is Gigantic. Attacks against her by smaller creatures hit automatically. She has a 30-foot reach.

The Apocalypse Archive 13-18

Map Close-up

Soundtrack for areas 13-18

Combat Music

Overview

Previous: Areas 1-6, Areas 7-12

13. Stairs

The door to this area can be unsealed using the Amber Keystone, currently in area 30. A successful Dexterity check with disadvantage can unseal the door, but a failure results in exposure to raw puissance, a jolt of which is enough to liquefy a would-be intruder instantly, flesh running like tallow, dealing 4d6 damage or producing one of the wild magic effects on the table below.

Beyond the door, a yawning emptiness opens, far too big for any torch or light spell to illuminate fully. Ancient stone bridges lead to a winding central stair here at the hub of the Apocalypse Archive. Six doors around the edges of the room open onto the six levels of the Archive.

  • The doors to levels 2 and 5 are sealed. Depressions beside them take the Carnelian Keystone (found in area 90) and Chrysoprase Keystone (found in area 70).
  • The bridge to level 5 is badly cracked; this is obvious to anyone looking at it closely. If more than one medium-sized creature attempts to cross it, it will collapse, requiring a Dexterity save to avoid 3d6 falling damage.
  • Any loud sound in this area produces tremendous echoes, alerting creatures near to the Stairs on their respective levels of nearby intruders.
Roll (1d4)Wild Magic Effect
1Your hand and then forearm begins to writhe and flicker into a myriad of forms. Make a Constitution saving throw to return it to its previous shape; otherwise it becomes (roll 1d4): (1) a pincer dealing 1 damage but incapable of holding objects, (2) a tentacle, (3) hungry, developing a mouth in the palm that mewls and cries if it is not regularly fed meat, (4) a hideous lamprey-like worm with a fanged maw dealing 1d4 damage (Strength 12) which attacks the nearest creature, attacking you if there are not other targets. It has 1 HD and 4 Hit Points.  
2Your hand detaches painlessly and scuttles away deep into the Apocalypse Archive. It has 1 HD, 1 Hit Point, and Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores equal to half of our own. If you can track it down and bring it to a sufficiently skilled chirurgeon you might get it reattached.  
3Your entire arm begins to phase in and out of the Ethereal Plane rapidly. You cannot hold objects in this plane effectively with it, though if you manage to grasp an Ethereal object you can move it into the Material.  
4Your arm develops 18 Strength, swelling and bunching. It purples and darkens, the veins swelling. It develops a mind of its own and will regularly lash out at friends and foes alike if given a weapon. The arm slowly drains your Constitution at a rate of 1 per day. If it kills you, it still lives, hauling your corpse around behind it. This can be cured with Heal Disease or by removing the arm.  

14. Collapse

This corridor has partially collapsed, a huge piece of rubble blocking almost all of the passage. A tiny space is evident near the floor, just big enough that someone small and slippery might be able to squeeze through. A curious smell redolent of loam and iron seeps through the crack, along with a few creeping crimson vines and the snaking tendrils of what might be roots.

  • A Medium creature can squeeze through with a successful Dexterity check. On a failure, they make no progress; on a failure of 5 or more, they are stuck.
  • A Small creature can get through without great difficulty.
  • A Big creature has disadvantage on this Dexterity roll. Bloodwood Trees cannot follow through this aperture.
  • Any pursuing hemadryads will typically stop at the collapse unless truly enraged.

15. Maw of the Bloodwood

The ancient stones of the Old City have been utterly obscured by a thick blanket of pulsing crimson moss. The entire passage has been clotted with trees, vines, and foliage, a twisted bone-white wood with vivid, blood-red leaves. A dim, reddish light suffuses the passage, shed by some bulbous growth near the ceiling.

  • The light streams thinly through the membranous leaves of a curious bulb-like structure, one that twitches and rustles as if something within were trying to escape. Indeed, the bulb contains a Plasma Cherub, one of the Illumined of the Final Star (see area 11), which has been captured by the Bloodwood to serve as an energy source. The bulb blocks the harmful effects of the light and thus does not increase Radiation. However, if the bulb (5 Hit Points, Armour 1) were destroyed, the Cherub would be released, flooding the passage with the infectious glow of the Last Light. Further references to bulbs through the Bloodwood all indicate a similar imprisoned Cherub.
  • If any part of the wood is harmed, 1d4 Hemadryads will emerge from the trees within one minute to investigate: eerie white figures with skin of bone-coloured bark who move with an eerie grace. They have long hair like trailing vines or creepers, thickly veined.

    Hemadryad: 2 HD (8 Hit Points), Armour 1, Lacerate (Dex, 1d6), Speed 30 ft., Plant (immune to mind-influencing effects, double damage from fire, slashing), Str 8, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 14.
    • Entangle: As an action, Hemadryads can use their long, vine-like hair to try and entangle foes so that trees or other Hamadryades may feed. This functions as an attack roll, but if it hits, the target is entangled and cannot move, and has disadvantage on defense rolls. They can attempt escape with a successful Strength check.
    • Feed: When a Hemadryad deals damage, she heals an equivalent number of hit points.
    • Treestride: As an action, Hemadryads can meld into a tree and reappear at any other anywhere within the Bloodwood.
  • The trees of the Bloodwood are extremely dangerous. They can move, cutting off avenues of escape and attempting to split the party. They can also scent blood. Mostly the trees lie dormant, but one or more will attack given any of the following conditions: (1) the party is resting, (2) a party member is isolated, (3) more than three party members are below half of their Hit Points, (4) they are attacked, (5) or a nearby combat breaks out (1 in 6 chance of joining). Every round of combat in the Bloodwood, another tree has a 1 in 6 chance of joining the fray. There is a virtually inexhaustible number of trees in the Bloodwood. This makes prolonged combat in the Bloodwood effectively suicidal.

    Bloodwood Tree: 3 HD (12 Hit Points), Armour 2, Lashing Boughs (Str, 1d8) or Feed (Str, 1d6), Speed 10 ft., Plant (immune to mind-influencing effects, double damage from fire, slashing), Str 14, Dex 4, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 4.
    • Big: Bloodwood Trees have a 10-foot reach.
    • Blood Drain: When a Bloodwood Tree deals damage with its Feed attack, it heals an equivalent number of hit points. It can only Feed on creatures it or a Hemadryad have entangled.
    • Engulf: When a Bloodwood Tree hits with its Lashing Boughs attack, in addition to dealing damage it automatically entangles its foes. An entangled creature cannot move and has disadvantage on defense rolls. They can attempt escape with a successful Strength check.

16. Overgrown Library

There is a 25% chance of encountering apatrol of 1d4 Hemadryads here.

Though this hall is filled with shelves, they have been utterly overwhelmed by the riotous growth of the albino forest with its blood-red leaves. A few scattered pages of Librarian texts are strewn about the sanguineous undergrowth. Mewling sounds fill the air – multiple creatures, clearly in pain.

  • Following the whimpers leads to a kind of grotesque glade, lit by two more red bulbs. Here, three twisted goblins are being slowly devoured, ensnaring by strangling vines and branches. The trees are literally growing into their bodies, tendrils snaking into their mouths, ears, and noses, or plunging into their veins and arteries, spreading subcutaneously. The forest clutches the goblins close, lichen spreading across the limbs of their victims. The trees blush as they feed.
  • One of the goblins, Shroomnose, is strong enough to cry out for aid in the High Goblin tongue, an archaic Goblin dialect. She knows enough Hexian Common to have a broken conversation, though she speaks in a style and manner reminiscent of the Dank Ages. She and her companions can be cut free, though doing so brings 2d4 Hemadryads within one minute to the glade, who will defend the feeding trees.
  • Shroomnose can explain (in High Goblin) that she belongs to the Fodder Clan of goblins, as distinct from the Digger Clan and the Baggage Clan, three goblin clans descended from the servants of Xavier Soulswell, who undertook a great expedition into the Apocalypse Archive centuries ago, abandoned inside the Old City after the trapdoor entrance shifted. Each served a unique purpose. Those who now call themselves the Fodder Clan were intended as trap-finders and distractions for the Archive’s guardians; the Digger Clan were employed when mining or demolition was necessary; the Baggage Clan carried loot from the Archive back to the surface. The Fodder Clan frequently go foraging for heartfruit in the Bloodwood. Shroomnose and her companions were part of one such party before being captured by Hemadryads.
  • Shroomnose possesses the Onyx Keystone, which opens the Night-Bomb Arsenal (area 9).
  • Apart from this, the goblins have little beyond their leather armour, javelins, and bone daggers, save for a small sack containing 6 harvested heartfruit (see area 18).
  • Should the goblins be rescued, they can provide introductions to the Fodder Clan, potentially converting the otherwise-hostile inhabitants of areas 25-36 to allies.

    Goblin: 1 HD (3 Hit Points), Armour 1, Javelin (Dex, 1d8) or Dagger (Dex, 1d4), Speed 30 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Fey (advantage on saves versus charm or magical sleep), Str 8, Dex 13, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8.
    • Mutant Resilience: These goblins have advantage on saves against poison.
    • Nimble: Goblins may Run and Hide as a single action.
    • Small: Goblins have advantage on attack and defense rolls against Big creatures.
    • Sunlight Sensitivity: Goblins have disadvantage on attack and defense rolls and Wisdom checks relying on sight when in direct sunlight or its equivalent (including the light of the Final Star).
  • Although the shelves are mostly overgrown, a handful of texts and other fragments can be scavenged, each worth 1d100 gp. There are about 100 of these texts and fragments in total, but each takes 1d10 minutes to find.
Roll (1d6)Text
1An alchemical formula for an extremely potent herbicide similar to the one in the orbs in the Herbicidal Arsenal (area 19).  An Intelligence check by a trained alchemist with sufficient equipment and 50 gp worth of reagents produces a phial of herbicide that deals 2d6 damage per minute to plant creatures, spread over a 10-foot-radius sphere, unless they succeed on a Constitution save, 1d6 damage to non-plant creatures.
2A copy of Whispers of the Woods, an Elfin text transcribed by the Librarians, which seems to be a book of poetry detailing the secret conversations of trees. If a spellcaster reads this text they must pass a Charisma saving throw or the spell Entangling Vines plants itself in their memory, replacing one of their other prepared spells. The spellcaster has advantage to keep this spell from fading from their memory. If the spell is not forgotten by the time the spellcaster rests, it spreads, prompting another Charisma save; on a failure, another spell is “devoured” by the vines, while on a success, the infection is stable. Only by casting and successfully forgetting all instances of the spell can it be removed from the spellcaster’s brain.  
3A spellbook containing formulae for Treeform and Heartberry.  
4A scroll of Oakflesh.  
5A book of prehistoric flora, each page containing meticulously pressed petals and stems, delicately and perfectly preserved through alchemical lamination.  
6A silver page of beaten anathemantine bearing Aklo glyphs, clearly part of a longer text (the Book of the Bloodwood). The page seems in the midst of describing the spread of the Bloodwood across an island continent as some form of weapons test. Within a month, the forest had spread to cover a third of the island, consuming all biomatter, replacing the local flora, and assimilating the fauna into its own hematophagic ecosystem.

17. Broodtree

There is a 50% chance of encountering agroup of 1d4 Hemadryads here, feeding the Broodtree blood by kissing its knothole mouth, vomiting the blood into it like vampire bats.

At the centre of this chamber, illumined by no fewer than three crimson bulbs, a huge white oak is swollen with what appear to be something between acorns and embryos, their enormous, translucent shells veined with red. A large, vertical knothole, like a sideways mouth, gapes along the trunk of the tree. A console covered in Aklo glyphs sputters fitfully to one side, the conduits leading to the mechanism frayed and degraded.

  • Inside the acorns, lithe forms are vaguely visible, coiled, slumbering, twitching occasionally and making the tree rustle. There are a dozen in total.
  • Each acorn holds an immature Hemadryad with half the Hit Points of an adult. If one of the acorns is disturbed, the Hemadryad may emerge early, typically attacking out of ravenous hunger.
  • If attacked, or if the acorns growing from it are harmed, the Broodtree will attack as per an Bloodwood Tree with double the normal Hit Points and attacks. Any such assault will immediately bring 2d4 Hemadryads to defend the tree within 30 seconds.
  • Another page of The Book of the Bloodwood (see area 16) can be spotted with a thorough search. The page describes the same island continent consumed utterly by the Bloodwood. The wood produces gruesome pens of thorns from which it periodically releases captives so that the Hemadryads can hunt them down. The captives are nourished with heartfruit, which grows from trees that recently fed. A successful Intelligence check suggests that this is a kind of perversion of the natural ecological order: plants, which should be producers, have become consumers, whereas those who would normally fill this niche have effectively become something more like producers, blood-bags for the predatory plants.
  • The console requires an Intelligence check with disadvantage to operate successfully, and power to it is fitful; on a failure, the console shocks the operator for 2d6 damage and may cause unpredictable magical transformations as raw arcane energy is channelled into their body. If Mend or equivalent were applied, power would be restored, removing this risk. If, however, the correct Activation Code is input, the console releases herbicidal gas throughout this chamber and areas 15-24, requiring all creatures to make a Constitution save or take 1d6 poison damage per minute, double to plant creatures.

18. Overgrown Machine

There is a 25% chance of encountering a patrol of 1d4 Hemadryads here.

A grove of white trees, illumined by another crimson bulb, emerges from the shattered bulk of some enormous, overgrown machine, its purpose now inscrutable beneath layers of lichen, dark loam, and spreading roots. The trees’ branches dangle heavy with strange, pulsating fruit. The vegetation has grown so thick here that it’s almost as if you have left the Old City entirely and passed into some otherworldly forest.

  • On closer inspection, these fruit resemble humanoid hearts, and seem connected to the trees by structures as comparable to veins as much as stems. Plucking one leads to a small spurt of blood from the tree. The fruit taste sweetly of meat. Each nourishes the eater for a full day, restores 1d8 Hit Points, and functions as per Heal Disease.
  • There are twenty of these heartfruit currently “ripe” on the trees (1 Encumbrance slot each), and another 30 that are less ripe (1/2 a slot each), healing only 1 Hit Point and lacking the other attributes of the fruit.
  • Picking unripe heartfruit summons 1d4 Hemadryads within 30 seconds.
  • The machine is a gigantic security biomechanoid designed to destroy the Bloodwood in the event of containment failure. It is currently deactivated, but a close inspection of the machine reveals a septagonal depression into which something might be inserted – namely the Ruby Keystone (currently in area 42).

    Biomechanoid Sentinel: 20 HD (100 Hit Points), Armour 2d10, two Buzzsaws (Str, 2d6) and two Flamejets (Dex, 1d8 fire, range 60 feet), Speed 40 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Partial Construct (immune to mind-influencing effects, advantage on Constitution saving throws and half damage from poison and disease), Str 18, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 8.
    • Gigantic: The Biomechanoid is Gigantic. Attacks against it by smaller creatures hit automatically. It has a 20 foot reach.
    • Herbicidal Breath: As an action, the Biomechanoid can exhale a plume of virulent orange poison in a 60-ft. cone that deals 2d6 damage, and double to plant creatures, on a failed Constitution save to all those in the cone, opposed by its Constitution attack roll.
    • Regenerating: The Biomechanoidheals 1d20 Hit Points per round.
  • If awakened, the machine will proceed to poison and incinerate the entire Bloodwood unless the Hemadryads and every tree in the forest manage to stop it; every Hemadryad in the wood (roughly 100 of them) will rally to try and bring it down. It ignores other organisms unless they attack it or attempt to enter the Heart of the Bloodwood (area 24).

The Apocalypse Archive 7-12

Map Close-Up

Soundtrack for areas 7-12

Combat Music

Overview

Previous: Areas 1-6

7. Scripture of the Final Star

If anyone enters this room who does not bear the Shadow Glyph, magical sigils on the threshold – clearly visible – activate, and the shadow of everyone in the chamber not bearing the Glyph awakens to horrific unlife and attacks its owner. To receive the Glyph, one needs to input the correct program card (currently found in area 4) into the Fleshscribe (area 26).

Though far smaller than the adjoining hall, this chamber possesses a sense of sombre gravitas. Murals on the walls writhe with foreboding abstract shapes. At the very centre of the chamber upon a twisted lectern is a gigantic book with a golden cover, some four feet in height.

  • Shadow: 2HD (11 Hit Points), Drain (Cha, 1d4 Strength), Speed 30 ft., Infravision 120 ft., Undead (immune to poison, disease, mind-influencing effects), Incorporeal (half damage from non-magical, non-anathemantine attacks), Str 6, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 12.
    • Strength Drain: Rather than dealing damage, Shadows drain the Strength of their victims. A creature reduced to 0 Strength is paralyzed. Strength replenishes with a successful rest.
    • Light Weakness: While in bright light, shadows have disadvantage on all ability checks and saves.
  • Close inspection of the murals reveals that they depict a conflict of unfathomable scale involving what appear to be entire star systems, fleets of Librarian Voidcraft, interplanar portals, and inscrutable rituals.
  • Those with a copy of the history of the Membrane Wars from the Voidskin Scroll Archive (area 6) will recognize the murals as a powerful artistic interpretation of that centuries-long struggle. Universes are filled with nothing but seething hyperintelligent plasma. The Librarians ruthlessly quarantine whole sectors of the galaxy and doom entire planets to endless night, bombing them with weaponized darkness to snuff out all trace of the Last Light, leaving them cold and lifeless husks that can be recolonized later. Light-devouring vortices cut off unthinkably large swathes of spacetime, prophylactic event horizons.
  • The tome is the Scripture of the Final Star, a text which appears blank. To those with Radiation of at least 6, words in the Sidereal Speech are visible. The book takes the form of revelations given to various prophets on many worlds, delivered by the fiery Seraphim of the Final Star. Each revelation speaks of the glory of the Last Light – how, within its radiant bosom, all become one, souls mingling into the fiery infinitude of the deific sun in a blissful immolation. The Star charges its followers to spread its light – physical and spiritual – to every corner of their universe, promising eternal rewards and universal joy. Other gods, the Star maintains, are false idols, “Demiurges” of their respective universes who would seek to steal the souls of their adherents, depriving them of eternity in the atomic Heart Divine. To become one with the Final Star is to literally become God, to share in the dreams and raptures of every other soul that has been Illumined. The Scripture also contains a ritual for summoning a spark of the Final Star in the form of a tainted Sunlight spell. The Scripture is worth at least 500 gp to an academic library or private collector, but weighs 150 lbs.

8. Captured Beacon

A massive structure of grotesque glass like an immense lighthouse lens glistens in the middle of this room, set upon a low dais. It is the size of a small house. Its base is scorched and marred – it has obviously been transported from elsewhere. Close to its base, the blackened remains of two mutant goblins lie crumpled and empty. They appear to have burned from the inside out, with scorch-marks especially evident around their eye sockets.

  • The star-spoor trail terminates at the goblin corpses.
  • One goblin carries an anathemantine spear (1d8+1 damage, affects incorporeal creatures).
  • An Intelligence check confirms that the Beacon is not of Librarian manufacture.
  • Should a Cherub or Seraph enter the Beacon, the tainted light of the Final Star will completely flood the room as well as the Empty Darkness Bath (area 11).
  • If this massive object could somehow be transported to the surface – it would have to be teleported or magically shrunk – it would be worth around 2,000 guineas to buyers like the Institute of Omens, the Museum of Magical Arts and Antiquities, or the Metamorphic Scholarium.

9. Night-Bomb Arsenal

The door to this arsenal is sealed. The Onyx Keystone (currently in area 16) is required, an octagonal stone placed into a depression to one side of the door. Picking the elaborate lock requires a Dexterity check with disadvantage; on a failure, the arcane mechanism deals 2d6 damage to the would-be intruder, jolting them with raw energy that can leave a thief’s hand a molten lump.

Like area 7, the arsenal is protected with wards requiring a Shadow Glyph to bypass without spawning shadows.

Within the chamber, numerous black orbs swirl with volatile eldritch energy in a series of carven niches.

  • Should one be hurled with a range of up to 30 feet, it produces a 10-foot radius vortex of magical darkness. The area becomes difficult terrain, and any creature within must pass a Strength check simply to leave. The vortex deals 1d6 damage per round; Illumined also sustain an additional 2d6 damage. The vortex lasts for one minute.
  • There are 30 night-bombs in total.

10. Shrine of the First Darkness

A gigantic idol of otherworldly stone looms at one end of this dim hall. Its exact anatomy is impossible to discern; its limbs are swathed in the folds of a vast stone cloak, including its head. There is something more to it than that – some perceptual slipperiness. The eye glances off the strange contours of the idol; it is impossible to take the whole thing in at once. Set at its base is a hexagonal altar stone with a smaller hexagonal depression at its centre.

  • Upon entering this room, all light sources are extinguished. The Illumined cannot enter this space, and if forced here, they sustain 2d6 damage per round. Only those with Infravision can observe the contents of the chamber.
  • A successful Intelligence check reveals that this idol represents the First Darkness, colloquially known in Hex as the “Shrouded Lord,” one of the Unspeakable Ones: primordial entities with whom the Librarians formed elaborate, quasi-religious pacts. The First Darkness rules over secrets and obscurity, a kind of elemental principle of anti-knowledge, absence, and lack. It reigned supreme before the universe existed in the primeval void, an eternity of limitless night and perfect nothingness which preceded time itself. As natives of Hex may know, the Shrouded Lord is worshipped in Hex above by certain hidden cults, and more generally by thieves, spies, and assassins.
  • If someone offers a body part from someone they killed with their own hand in the hexagonal receptacle, they receive a blessing from the Shrouded Lord. Markings on the altar suggest the various body parts the First Darkness accepts. An Intelligence check with disadvantage reveals the details of one of the sacrifices. These are:
Body PartRitual Effect
BrainThe ritualist can ask the referee to reveal some secret of the setting. This could be the identity of a criminal, the location of a magical object, some element of setting history – whatever the player asks. The answer resounds inside the skull of the ritualist.  
Looped EntrailsThe Shrouded Lord reverses time to the point at which the ritualist entered the Archive. Memories are left intact but otherwise the characters are physically identical to the state they were in when they came in. This effectively gives them a chance to do everything over with all of the foreknowledge they possess. The players can agree to “fast forward” to some point at which they want to depart from the previous timeline.  
TongueThe ritualist learns a dead language, such as Aklo, the Sidereal Speech, Phobish, High Goblin, Old Draconic, Ur-Giant, and similar tongues.  
HeartAny object desired by the ritualist within the Old City that is not inside a Containment Chamber materializes in place of the heart.  
EyesThe ritualist can magically observe any creature on this plane of existence for up to 10 minutes.  
HandEveryone in the chamber is teleported to a location within the Old City or Hex above demanded by the ritualist.
  • Each character may perform precisely one sacrifice of each body part up to once a year. Attempting further sacrifices displeases the First Darkness, who confiscates a precious childhood memory, a name, a language, or a skill for one year as punishment for such avarice.
  • A lectern stands empty here. It once held a copy of the The Rites of the First Darkness, but this has been plundered by the adventurer currently being digested by Bloodwood trees in area 21.

11. Empty Darkness Bath

An empty hexagonal depression is evident at the centre of this chamber. A hole lies at its centre, leading downwards. An enormous spout-like mechanism poised over the pit has been twisted and smashed. The entire chamber is bathed in the impossible colours of a shimmering, iridescent light emanating from two radiant whorls of unearthly plasma, crackling with electricity.

  • Plasma Cherub: 3HD (12 Hit Points), Irradiate (Dex, 1d6 + 1d6 Radiation), Speed fly 30 ft., Incorporeal (half damage from non-magical, non-anathemantine attacks), Str 4, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 14.
    • Infected Light: A Plasma Cherub sheds light in a 60-foot radius sphere; anyone who can see who is exposed to the light must pass a Constitution save or gain Radiation equal to the amount by which they failed (see Radiation effects in area 4).
    • Snuff: All light sources brought within 10 feet of a Plasma Cherub are sucked into it eyes, fuelling the light within. Magical darkness damages the Cherub for 1d6 per round with no save.
  • The Darkness Bath is emptied, but its passage can be followed down to area 60.
  • The spout is non-functional, having been deliberately sabotaged by the Illumined – the Bath cannot be refilled unless the spout is repaired.
  • Those with a Radiation of at least 16 can perceive the true form of the Plasma Cherubim: they appear as monstrous foetal things with wings of abwhite fire and the grotesque faces of those whose corpses nourished them. They speak the Sidereal Speech and will welcome those with Radiation of 26 or more as Brethren of the Illumined, urging them to bathe in their divine light, the better to nourish the spark of the Final Star nascent inside them, “to become as we are, discarding your fleshly bodies to experience the holy ecstasy of the Last Light.”
  • The goals of the Cherubim are as follows:
  1. Spread the light of the Final Star to other Vessels.
  2. Feed on the light and life-force of those they encounter.
  3. Free the captive Cherubim being kept throughout those parts of the Archive infested by the Bloodwood.
  4. Merge with ten other Cherubim to form a Plasma Seraph. The Vessels currently incubating Cherubim of their own are nearly sufficient for this number. The process of forming a Seraph takes 24 hours, during which time the Cherubim combine together in a frenzied fusion of plasma and otherworldly light, shedding bright, tainted starlight for 120 feet. While in this form, they are otherwise vulnerable to attack, so ideally they will have further Vessels on hand to defend them. Those with Radiation of at least 16 can perceive a Seraph’s true form: a twisted amalgam of intertwined forms melting and fused together into a charnel mockery, writhing shapes twisted into the semblance of a grotesque, many-limbed angel with dozens of shimmering wings.

    Plasma Seraph: 8HD (32 Hit Points), Irradiate (Dex, 2d6 + 2d6 Radiation), Speed fly 60 ft., Incorporeal (half damage from non-magical, non-anathemantine attacks), Str 10, Dex 16, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 16.

    Blinding: Anyone looking directly at a Plasma Seraph without eye protection must pass a Constitution save or become blinded for one round (blinded creatures fail all checks and saves involving sight, and their defense rolls have disadvantage). Attacking a Plasma Seraph without looking directly at it imposes disadvantage.

    Infected Light: A Plasma Seraph sheds light in a 120-foot radius sphere; anyone who can see who is exposed to the light must pass a Constitution save or gain Radiation equal to the amount by which they failed (see Radiation effects in area 4).

    Snuff: All light sources brought within 30 feet of a Plasma Seraph are sucked into it eyes, fuelling the light within. Magical darkness damages the Seraph for 1d6 per round with no save.
  1. Disable the miniature black hole containing the Ember of the Final Star.
  2. Breach the surface; spread the Word of the Final Star far and wide and extend the holy mission of the Last Light to every corner of this world, using Vessels to construct Beacons to spread the Last Light.
  3. Consume this world utterly.
  4. Spread to other worlds in this universe, converting all matter and energy in this reality into a version of the Final Star, an eternal conflagration of sentient alien luminescence.
  5. Breach the boundaries between dimensions so that the original Final Star itself may be joined with the one in this universe and the membranes between worlds can be burned away.
  6. Repeat this process in new realities to keep the Final Star from burning out.

12. Ember of the Final Star (Containment Chamber)

Bizarre machines that seem to be equal parts ancient organism sputter and wheeze throughout a chamber the size of the Cathedral of Saint Monstrum far above. At the very centre of the room, contained within a transparent dome as big as a church dome, swirls a ferocious black vortex, a terrible void of darkness. The biomechanoid apparatus seems to be sustaining this vortex; a console covered in glyphic letters operates the machine. Four shambolic revenants – two mutant goblins, two human, in the rotting remnants of expeditionary garb – are chewing on the fleshly components of the machine. Light blazes from their eyes.

  • Every 1d10 minutes, the vortex partially loses power as the machine overheats. For one round, the miniature black hole being generated inside of the dome collapses, and the entire room is bathed in the iridescent horror of the Ember of the Final Star within. This is the result of the four Illumined Vessels slowly destroying the machine.
  • Apart from destroying the containment mechanism, the only way to disarm it is to feed in the correct Deactivation Code into the console of Aklo glyphs. Should the Ember be released, it can be treated as a Plasma Seraph (see area 11) with twice the Hit Points which regenerates 12 Hit Points per round.
  • Those with Radiation of at least 31 find that the Ember can speak to them, even while contained. Its voice is magisterial and soothing, at once sublime in its dreadful power and curiously comforting, reminiscent of the voice of a parent or trusted friend or mentor, a voice which crackles and flares as if the words were being formed from livid flames. When it speaks, the mind glows and warms; after a moment of excruciating agony, all pain is, for a moment, banished. It speaks in what will be apprehended as an archaic fashion and refers to itself in the majestic first person: “Warmest welcome, child of flesh and bone, Illumined by Our most divine and holy light. What has brought ye to this oubliette wherein We are most unjustly imprisoned?”
  • The Final Star makes its case to one of the Illumined, pleading that they assist in its release. It claims only to want to spread its beneficence in the wider world, and that those touched by its light become one with each other, united in love for one another and the world. It promises an end to all war, strife, conflict, poverty, and pain, to all want and deprivation. It will overturn all hierarchy, end all oppression, and bring everything and everyone together, to embrace the Godhead within them and join in a universal Hypostasis, a mystic union of souls.
  • One of the goblins has an anathemantine dagger.
  • The human Vessels are former adventurers. Between them they carry 42 guineas, 86 silver pennies, a wheellock pistol, 20 bullets and shot, a Bag of Holding stuffed with 20 scrolls from the Voidskin Archive (area 6), 2 Potions of Healing, a set of thieves’ tools, an incomplete map of this level of the Archive sketching out areas 1-36, and a copy of the Lamentation Glyph Program Card.

The Apocalypse Archive 1-6

Map Close-up

Soundtrack for areas 4-6

Combat Music

Overview

Next: Areas 7-12

Level 1

Stonephasing Doors

The first level of the Apocalypse Archive contains a series of doors which exhibit the phenomenon known as “Stonephase,” moving from location to location frequently. It is unclear precisely what purpose these doors served. They might be shortcuts, but some feel more like traps. Scholars believe they are the result of spatiotemporal decay, the gradual unraveling of the laws of physics within the First Library.

Phasing doors should appear (and disappear) whenever the Referee feels like throwing one in, according to the whims of the Archive. However, if you would like to randomize their occurrence, roll 1d20 every time the party enters an area; on a 20, one of the doors is present. Choose or roll on the following table to discover which door appears. Doors typically open upon being touched, unless otherwise noted, and typically only phase when unobserved.

Roll (1d6)Door
1Circular. Anyone who enters this door sees what appears to be themselves exiting a long corridor. Should they enter the corridor, the door closes behind them. If they attempt to leave, they find the door they came through simply leads to the other end of the corridor. There is no way out of this infinite trap save through magic – or if someone else opens the door and does not enter the corridor.  
2Oval. This door leads to an intricate maze. Quickly hand-draw or generate a maze, which takes a different shape every time. The maze includes various other Stonephasing doors (roll again on this table to determine which). It may be that this is where the doors “rest” when they’re not in other parts of the complex. Various other creatures may be encountered in the maze. Roll 1d6 for every ten minutes spent inside to determine what is encountered: (1) Illumined Vessel, (2) Hemadryad, (3) goblin of the Fodder Clan, (4) Celebrant, (5) encephalomorph drone, (6) biomechanoid servitor.  
3Triangular. This door leads into a triangular chamber with two other, identical doors. These doors lead to other parts of the first level. Roll 4d12 and add the results together to determine where they are currently located (i.e. areas 4-48).
4Rectangular. This door has a counterpart in another room on the first level. Roll 4d12 and add the results together to determine where it is currently located. Each time the door is closed, its unobserved side shifts rooms.  
5Pentagonal. This door leads to a five-sided chamber with no other exits. Once the door is closed, time begins to pass at a different rate inside the chamber, such that an hour within equals only a second outside. The door has a 50% chance of being in the same place when opened again – otherwise roll 4d12 and add the results together for its new location.  
6Hexagonal. This door leads into a six-sided chamber containing six interconnected pod-like structures at its centre, like the petals of some bizarre biomechanoid flower. Anyone who climbs inside one of these pods will find all of their wounds healed and ailments removed, as per Heal Disease. If a dead body (or fragment thereof) is placed into one of the pods, it revivifies as per Resurrect. Every time a pod is used, the character inside must pass a Constitution save or suffer from a side-effect.

Roll 1d6: (1) hair and nail growth rapidly accelerates, producing exhaustion (disadvantage on attacks and ability checks until you rest), (2) they are violently ill for the next hour, retching up all food and drink consumed in the last 24 hours, (3) they experience physical deterioration, finding their teeth loose, hair falling out, or similar effects, permanently losing 1 Constitution, (4) they age 1d10 years, (5) tumours erupt throughout their body, draining 1 Constitution per day until death unless they are excised with Heal Disease or expert surgery, (6) moments after leaving the pod they begin quivering violently, every cell in their body vibrating, liquefying into a gooey pink slime; a Constitution save is required to reassert physical coherence, but if the character scores 20 or higher, they produce two identical versions of themselves.

Walls

Although the metropolis possesses a range of architectural styles and features, most of the walls of the Old City are formed from archaeolith, the so-called “First Stone.” They typically have a curiously organic appearance, as if the entire city were a gigantic fossil. Some believe that this is evidence that the Old City was “grown” rather than constructed by traditional means, and that the city may once have been a living organism. As evidence for this view, many xenoarchaeologists point to the still-extant biomechanoid structures throughout the First Library, which evince a similar design as the walls. The colour and hue of archaeolith varies, typically ranging from obsidian-black to sickly green. Damaging archaeolith is near-impossible with ordinary weapons, but sustained excavation is possible with the right tools.

1. Trapdoor Entrance

This six-sided trapdoor is caked with dust, a layer of grime concealing a series of impossibly intricate bas-relief carvings. Though abstract in design, the carvings seem to portray some nebulous disaster, presenting a stylized cityscape disintegrating before multifarious catastrophes. Earthquakes rend sinuously curving streets; massive tendrils extend from the sky to wrench spires from their foundations; twisting flames flicker across alien palaces.

  • The edges of the trapdoor are strangely scorched and melted, and the carvings are gouged from the prybars of previous explorers. Sections of the carvings seem to once have been moveable but are now locked in place.
  • The trapdoor requires a successful Strength check to open.
  • Looking upon the carvings for too long inevitably produces a stinging headache and lingering nosebleed.
  • If one listens carefully, the distant, muffled echo of what might be a scream resounds briefly against the inside of the door.
  • Like many structures of the First Library and some of the doors within the Archive, the entrance to the Apocalypse Archive is afflicted with Stonephase. Unstuck from conventional spacetime, the trapdoor entrance to the Archive “roams” the city unpredictably, lingering for as little as a few minutes to as long as days. The door seems to be shy – possibly photophobic – and shows a preference for narrow alleyways, dank storage rooms, and other shadowy spaces, with a particular predilection for the labyrinthine rookeries of Corvid Commons, the wheezing side-streets of Catch-All, the dimmer corners of Gloomway, and the catacombs below the Gilded Graveyard. It is sometimes mistaken for a manhole cover or cellar-entrance.
  • Should it be desired, the trapdoor’s Stonephase can be randomized. It has a 1% chance of shifting per day, including while the party is inside the Archive. They might emerge not where they started but in the cellar of a Fanghill mansion, a leprous alleyway in quarantined Catch-All, a thieves’ rookery in the Commons, a haunted crypt in the depths of Grey Hook, some other section of the Old City, and many other such locations.

2. Staircase

The carvings evident on the trapdoor entrance continue along the walls of the spiralling staircase, which extends deep into the earth, depicting ever stranger and more horrific catastrophes. The oozing monstrosity known as the Plasmic Woe, now contained in the Warded Ward, can be glimpsed flooding a continent with its amorphous bulk, expanding as it dissolves everything within its gelatinous, ever-growing body; a terrifying blankness pocks reality with bizarre lacunae; vortices open, pouring out otherworldly oceans that flood whole planets; carnivorous forests reclaim cities and devour all they find. The primeval steps are intermittently spattered with old bloodstains.

  • Gazing too long at these carvings is hazardous and begins to corrode the mind. For every round the carvings are studied, a Wisdom save is required to avoid 1 damage and extensive bleeding from the eyes, nose, and ears. A success yields some hint as to the contents of the Archive – skim to one of the chambers marked as a Containment Chamber and briefly describe what its contents would do to the world were it unleashed.
  • The exact length of the staircase varies with each expedition; traversing it requires 1d100 minutes, no matter the speed of those descending or ascending. Make a new roll each time the staircase is entered.

3. Dead Guardian

The thing that once guarded this vast, six-sided chamber of primeval stone is long dead, the mechanical components of its body still dangling from the ceiling like empty hooks in a colossal slaughterhouse, ancient metal malformed by fire and spellcraft. What might have been a skull swivels slowly to and fro, its many sockets now empty. It is difficult to picture what manner of alien flesh was once grafted to this anathemantine skeleton, but what little is visible of the floor beneath mysterious drifts of ash is stained from the slain guardian’s decomposition. Occasionally a spasm runs through the broken machinery, and the spindly appendages twitch like the legs of a dying spider. The whole thing brings to mind a monstrous chandelier, or a mobile for some gigantic child.

  • Six doors are arrayed on the various walls of the chamber, five open, one firmly shut; simply discovering their number and location may take some time, given the sheer size of the anteroom.
  • Adjacent to each of the doors are glyphs in the High Goblin language, daubed in blood. These read: “Evil Light,” “Woods,” “Nasty Music,” “Home,” “Up,” and “Down.” “Up” is adjacent to the staircase entrance, and “Down” is sealed. A nonagonal depression is evident beside “Down,” which fits the Amber Keystone (currently in area 30).
  • A glimmer of sickly light can be glimpsed through the door labelled “Evil Light,” while eerie, discordant music can distantly be heard from the door labelled “Nasty Music.”
  • Investigation reveals that mixed in amongst the ash are a number of fused, blackened bones. A successful Intelligence check suggests that these belonged to goblins.

4. Empty Shelves

The enormous shelves in this immense hall have been stripped bare, divested of every book, tablet, scroll-tube, and memory-crystal. Cobwebs and dust are all that remain. Something glimmers in the darkness deeper into the chamber. There is a faint smell of burnt hair and meat.

  • Following the source of this light reveals that it radiates from the eye sockets of a twisted, pale corpse, that of a small, hunched creature with five eyes and too many digits on its hands. It looks like a goblin, but a horrendously mutated one; it wears leather garments and still clasps a bone spear. The creature’s skin is sizzling slightly, its veins scorched and black; a thin trickle of smoke seeps from its mouth, ears, and nostrils. The light that bleeds from the eyes of the goblin corpse is indescribable – a sickly, eldritch effulgence that should not be. As one approaches, the eyes twitch with a life of their own and begin to roam towards whoever nears.
  • Apart from its armour and spear, the goblin carries a copy of the Shadow Glyph Program Card, which can be used with the Fleshscribe (area 26). This looks like a thin disc of iridescent metal inscribed with a peculiar sigil in Aklo, meaning “Shadow.”
  • Cutting the goblin open reveals that its internal organs have all been hideously burned. If left untouched, the goblin rises as an Illumined Vessel within 1 hour.

    Illumined Vessel: 2 HD (8 Hit Points), Armour 1, Bite (Str, 1d6), Speed 20 ft., Undead (immune to poison, disease, mind-influencing effects), Str 12, Dex 6, Con 14, Int 2, Wis 6, Cha 4.
    • Infected Light: A Vessel sheds light in a 60-foot cone; anyone who can see who is exposed to the light must pass a Constitution save or gain Radiation equal to the amount by which they failed (see Radiation effects below).
    • Iridescent Blood: A Vessel hit with a melee attack sheds gouts of glowing blood. Its attacker must pass a Constitution save or gain Radiation equal to the amount by which they failed.
    • Snuff: All light sources brought within 10 feet of a Vessel are sucked into its eyes, fuelling the light within. Magical darkness damages the Vessel for 1d6 per round with no save.
  • Anyone with eyes caught in the beams of the light must pass a Constitution save or become contaminated by it, gaining Radiation equal to the amount by which they failed (20 on a critical failure). A successful rest reduces a character’s Radiation by 1d10. Heal Disease reduces it by 1d100. Spells like Heal Wounds may provide brief respite from individual symptoms but do not lower Radiation. Anyone who dies while irradiated rises as a Vessel similar to the goblin after 1d6 hours, possessed by the light inside them.
  • Those with Radiation of 6 or more can perceive trails of star-spoor leading from this chamber to area 6 and area 8, like a kind of glowing immaterial mucus imperceptible to those who have not been Illumined.
Radiation LevelSymptom
  1-5A mild headache gathers behind your eyes. You can no longer rest without a successful Constitution save first. When you close your eyes, strange, kaleidoscopic visions dance briefly on the inside of your eyelids before fading, afterimages from some layer of reality you are not yet fully perceiving.
  6-10Your vision is becoming more acute. You gain Infravision up to 60 feet or extend it for 60 feet if you already possess it. Your irises have changed to a swirling infragreen-undigo-hyperred whorl and emit a faint but definite lustre.
  11-15Your vision continues to sharpen, painfully. You can perceive the individual hairs on your companions’ skin. When you look at a grain of sand you are momentarily captivated by the scintillating facets of its irregular surface, more gorgeous than any diamond. The sensation is exquisite and unbearable. You gain advantage on Wisdom checks involving perception but become exhausted after passing one (disadvantage on all saves, checks, and attack rolls).
  16-20Even the brightest lights leave you unbothered. You have advantage on saving throws against being blinded.
  21-25You have a high-grade fever and begin sweating profusely. You are resistant to disease and poison, gaining advantage on all saving throws against them; such contaminants cannot bear the bright heat suffusing your body.  This does not apply to the saving throw you must make to rest.
26-30Your blood glows. You can see it shining softly through your skin. If it spills, it shimmers and iridesces. If you are injured in melee combat, your attacker must pass a Constitution save or gain Radiation equal to the amount by which they failed.  
31-35You can stare directly straight into the sun without pain or any other ill effect. You are immune to the radiant attacks of other Illumined and can no longer be blinded. Letters of unclean light form and unform inside your mind, teaching you the Sidereal Speech, the secret language of the Final Star by which it speaks to itself and the Illumined.  
36-40Your head pounds with the ceaseless thrum of the alien fire now blazing deep in your mind. When you close your eyes, the incandescent Demon Midwives of the Final Star beckon you lasciviously. You can feel your eyeballs swell, your pupils dilating, drawing in more light. All lights within 5 feet of you are snuffed out, drawn into your eyes.  
41-45Something is wrong with your shadow. It bucks and writhes as if trying to get away from you. The dark, secret parts of you are being burned away, leaving only a perfect shell, a vessel for the light. Lose 1 Charisma.  
46-50Your eyes begin to glow distinctly. You have advantage on ranged attack rolls made while your eyes are open. The world is too exquisitely beautiful and complex to look upon without a kind of luxurious pain, a panting aesthetic bliss.  
51-55The light in your eyes is now so bright that you create an area of dim light in a 10-foot cone. Any attack roll against you has advantage if the attacker can see you. This light is infectious: anyone inside of its glow must pass a Constitution save or gain Radiation equal to the amount by which they failed.  
56-60You absorb light as a leech drinks blood. You no longer require food or drink. All other light sources within 10 feet of you are snuffed, drawn into your eyes.  
61-65The light in your eyes increases in intensity. You now shed dim, contaminated light in a 30-foot cone. You can feel the light spreading into every crevice of your body. The insides of your lungs, the valves of your heart, the depths of your bowls – all are limned with this eerie light. Were you to be cut open, you would spew a great gout of uncanny colour alongside your entrails.  
66-70An atomic blossom unfurls in your mind. You dream only of the light. You dream of an unclean flame licking across your limbs. You dream of crushing gravity, of impossible heat, of a great and terrible voice speaking in your mind. You can no longer rest at all. Your dreams eclipse the Dreams of a Dead Empire.  
71-75The light in your eyes is now bright rather than dim, extending in a 20-foot cone with dim light for another 20 feet. Stealth becomes virtually impossible while your eyes are open.  
76-80Your shadow breaks free with a hideous flickering. Lose 2 more Charisma. If you drop below 76 Radiation, your shadow returns like an abused but loyal dog, limping back to your side.  
81-85All is revealed to you. Nothing can hide before the light – not even thoughts. You can detect the thoughts of those around you constantly so long as they are illumined by the light. The strain is unbearable; being around other thinking beings brings a pain that only the light can dull. They, too, must become Illumined.  
86-90The light in your eyes is now kin to a powerful lantern, shedding bright, contaminated light in a 60-foot cone and dim light for an additional 60 feet. All matter is star-waste. You are an avatar of solar abjection. Your mind blazes with the furious, sacred glory of the Final Star.  
91-95The light fills your mind. When you close your eyes, all you can see is abwhite fire and hyperred vortices, and the eerie shapes that writhe within them, nascent stirrings of the foetal solar god whose luminous seed has been planted inside your brain. You gain +2 Wisdom and Intelligence.  
96-100When you close your eyes you see the future, and the future belongs to the light. It will consume this world as it has consumed you. All will be bathed in the perfection of its glow. All will burn away. All will be consumed. This planet and the others in orbit of this pale and feeble sun will be absorbed, as will the sun itself, and the Final Star will be reborn in this universe. All will fuel its cancerous conflagration. All will be united in that incandescent intelligence, a god-mind of blazing nuclear synapses, a deific, eternal explosion destined to spread across this reality and all others. Over the next hour, your fragile organs incinerate. Your blood turns to ash. Unless your Radiation drops within an hour, your body dies and you become an undead Vessel to the Star, rising within 1d6 hours.  

5. Darkness Bath

At the centre of this chamber, a hexagonal pool brims with darkness. No light can pass beneath the surface of this absolute blackness. Although the darkness looks liquid, it is immaterial, though deathly cold. A curious mechanism like a gigantic spout is evident to one side.

  • Infravision cannot penetrate the magical Darkness.
  • Anyone who enters the Darkness Bath sustains 1d6 damage each turn. For every point of damage sustained, they lose 1 point of Radiation. Any light source immersed in the darkness is snuffed.
  • The bath is quite shallow, with sloping sides, but deep enough that quite a large creature could become fully immersed – 20 feet deep at its lowest point.
  • At the very centre of the Bath is a plug which some groping hand might find. If pulled, the Darkness Bath drains, and a passage to Level 2 leads to the Atramental Tank (area 60). The spout mechanism refills the Bath.

6. Voidskin Scroll Archive

Spiralling shelves twist around themselves throughout this domed chamber. They contain a series of carefully rolled scrolls of black vellum, the substance scholars call Voidskin, thought to be tanned from the hides of the astral leviathans which drift in the gaps between planes. Something glows amidst the shelves.

  • Wandering the whorl of the Scroll Archive are two more Vessels: sparks of the Final Star that have inhabited the corpses of mutant goblins similar to the one found amongst the Empty Shelves (area 4).
  • The trail of star-spoor leads inside the stacks.
  • Each scroll is worth 1d100 gp to collectors; though most have been looted, some 250 remain, often in hard-to-reach corners. Roll on the following table to determine the contents:
Roll (1d12)Text
1A star chart, totally unfamiliar, clearly drawn from the perspective of some other planet.  
2An astronomical catalogue written in the Sidereal Speech, listing thousands of planets, stars, constellations, nebulae, and other celestial objects. Many of these are unfamiliar to astronomers of this world: there are entries for Secret Stars, Anti-Stars, Ghost Stars, Mindspheres, Astral Webs, Time Wounds, Hollow Worlds, False Planets, and many other unknown phenomena.  
3Blueprints for a machine. Its purpose is opaque, but it might be some fashion of weapon, gate, or power generator.  
4A spellbook containing formulae for the Illuminate and Darken spells. Light cast by these spells is tainted by the Final Star. Darkness produced by these spells deals 1d6 damage per round to the Illumined.  
5A map of part of the Apocalypse Archive – roll 1d6 for the level.  
6An illuminated history of the Membrane Wars written in Aklo, principal language of the Librarians. The details of this enormous transplanar conflict are difficult to understand, as the text is littered with references to eldritch mathematics and military technology for which Hexians have no point of reference – “Antitemporal Filaments” “Astral Conjunctions,” “Celestial Nodes,” “Nihil Points.” This scroll is one volume of countless thousands. Those housed here refer specifically to that part of the war waged against the Final Star and its Illumined armies. The Final Star seems to be some kind of solar deity that slowly consumes entire universes, assimilating all of their matter and energy into a single, vast intelligence, a monstrous thinking sun, ever-hungry, sprawling across time and space and dimensions. It has spread itself across multiple realities, and the Librarians were desperately trying to keep it from devouring this one.
7Psalms of the Final Star – a series of litanies in the Sidereal Speech praising the glory of the Last Light, the sense of numinous contentment it brings, the ecstasy of its immolating caress, the majesty of its all-consuming glory. They are exceedingly poetic, but rather repetitious.  
8Fire at the End of Time, an Aklo text detailing various theories as to the nature of the Final Star, including the following: (1) the Star was created artificially as an energy source for an advanced civilization, but something went cataclysmically wrong and it achieved consciousness, (2) the Star was born during the collapse of a universe when all matter and energy converged, resulting in such impossibly dense concentrations of radiation it became spontaneously self aware, (3) the Star is the by-product of waste eldritch energy shunted from some long-extinct transplanar empire into a sort of heatsink pocket dimension, (4) the Star was originally a weapon created by the Unspeakable Ones, the Librarian gods, in one of their conflicts, activities somewhere between wars, games, and rituals, (5) the Star is an elemental demiplane of fire which achieved self-consciousness, (6) the Star is the ghost of a stillborn reality, a universe which never achieved expansion, a kind of cosmic foetal spirit. The text concludes by casting doubt on all such interpretations; the Final Star is fundamentally unknowable.  
9Angelology of the Final Star, an Aklo description of the different types of Illumined. These include Vessels or “Lightbringers,” bodies that the Star has occupied; Cherubim, which burst forth from the fleshly cocoons of Vessels after incubation; and Seraphim, formed when multiple Cherubim swollen with the life-essence of their prey combine together into a single organism. There is speculation that the Illumined are psychovores, that is, soul-eaters, devouring the essence of those they kill and absorbing all consciousness into the Last Light. Their only weakness is to certain forms of elemental darkness.  
10A spell scroll of Conjure Flame. The light of this spell is infected with that of the Final Star and all damage dealt by it also increases a creature’s Radiation.  
11Census of the Illumined: a list of names in the Sidereal Speech, endlessly long.  
12A memory crystal containing the consciousness of one those whose world was consumed by the Final Star. If placed into a body using a Consciousness Transcriber, the being will speak of the spread of the Cult of the Last Light and their message of holy union with a being of eternal love, of the contaminated Light and the Illumined who carried it, of the horror of the infectious Beacons, of the way eventually the light spread to everything and everyone, filling the sky with its evil glow.

Hex Session XXIII – Actual Play – “Château de la Marche, Pt. 2”

The characters in this session were:

  • Alabastor Quan, a gnome rogue-turned-illusionist and failed circus ringmaster; wielder of a cursed dagger and member of the Ravenswing Thieves’ Guild.
  • Armand Percival Reginald Francois Eustace de la Marche III, a suspiciously pale, apparently human noble and sorcerer, and certainly not a ghoul (how dare such a thing be suggested).
  • Caulis, a homunculus warlock liberated from its master; has made a pact with certain Faerie Powers.
  • Viridian “Grove” Greengrove, changeling druid, exile from his former druidic circle for unknown transgressions.
  • Yam, an eccentric gnome illusionist and local graduate student at Umbral University. Yam cares little for money. Yam is curious. Yam is Yam.

XP Awarded: 1000 XP

The party stood in the chambers of Helena de la Marche, mother of Armand de la Marche III, in his familial estate, infested by the minions of Jasper Van Lurken, priest of the Charnel Goddess. Sister, the Lengian cleric, drew a portal using the Portal Chalk, one leading back to its twin in Hex.

“I’m going to go find Yam and Alabastor,” she said. “We might need more firepower.”

“Fine,” Armand said. “But don’t be long.”

The Lengian returned swiftly with the two gnomes to find Armand pacing the room. As she slipped through the portal, it quavered and closed, the marks on the wall fading.

“That hasn’t happened before…” she said, concerned. “Hmm. Jasper worships the Charnel Goddess, right?”

“Correct,” Armand said, fist clenched.

“It would be that he’s somehow consecrated this place in her name. If the Portal Chalk is the creation of the Antinomian, it’s possible it won’t function properly in the temple of another deity.”

“My house is no temple,” Armand growled. “But let’s return to the stables. You can establish a portal there. Set up camp and wait with the horses; if we do find her mother, I’d like to get her to safety as swiftly as possible.”

Chateau de la Marche-min

The party beat a hasty retreat back through the mansion and outside, where Sister drew a new portal in the stables, hoping that this one wouldn’t disappear. While the old Lengian guarded their retreat the rest of the party prepared to return to the house, while Viridian and Caulis filled Alabastor and Yam in on what had occured.

“So… we’re going to find your dad?” Yam asked.

“Perhaps,” Armand said. “But my duty is first to the living, not the dead. If mama is alive, we must rescue her. But we must also destroy the poisonous idol the Van Lurken filth has polluted my estate with. We will find it in the Glass Menagerie in the northwest wing.”

“Um, Armand?” Alabastor said. “There’s a light on up there.” He pointed to a high tower attached to the corps de logis.

“I’ll send Eleyin to see what it is,” Caulis said, the fey pseudodragon alighting from its shoulder. Eleyin flitted to the window, and saw within a pale, handsome man – the very image Armand II, recognizable from the portrait seen earlier – looking through a telescope. The dragon blinked, and the figure disappeared.

“It sounds like we found your father,” Caulis said, as Eleyin conveyed this information. “At least, in a sense, anyway.”

“Indeed,” Armand replied. “But let us make haste. Come, I know the way.”

Hurring, Armand led the party back into the mansion, first returning to his mother’s chambers. All was as it was – save the armoire, where Jerome and Blaise seemed to have escaped, breaking the door.

“Oh great, those two got out,” Viridian said. “Hmm. Let me see if I can get your mother’s scent. With an incantation to certain elder powers, the changeling druid transformed himself into a kind of monstrous bloodhound-like creature, though somewhat more squamous and unnerving than a normal dog. He sniffed around the room carefully, then at the lock of hair left by the stairs by Jasper, and the note Armand’s mother left, in order to get her scent. Once he had picked it up, he set off deeper into the house.

The party now made their way through a series of halls and chambers, slowly making their way north and west. Presently, they came to a low-ceilinged hall containing several long tables. A thick, old rug lay on the floor, looking mouldy. The walls were lined with cabinets containing various items of silverware and fine china. A series of bells ere also affixed to the walls, labelled with various rooms in the house – servant’s bells. They hurried through into an old guard room, still  containing some arms and armour – all of them more for display than true use. Several suits of armour stood sentinel. Yam, perhaps made paranoid by the gloom of the house, knocked one over with a loud clatter, alarming everyone else in the group and drawing a hissed series of remonstrations from their companions. Something elsewhere in the house groaned distantly, clearly hearing the cacaphony.

Yam’s hijinx. Illustration by Caulis’ player, Bronwyn McIvor.

Yam in Helmet“I’ll see if I can disguise our scent,” Caulis said, using a spell to try and make the room smell like rats. Yam, meanwhile, ignoring their companions, placed a helmet upon their head, far too large for the gnome. Armand assiduously ignored the illusionist’s antics.

The party continued on, now coming to the house’s music room. The door was ajar; looking in, they could see various instruments, including a flute, oboe, barrel drums, lute, hurdy-gurdy, and viola. The centerpiece of the music room was an incredibly ornate harpsicord and a beautiful, elaborately decorated organ. There was something decidedly sinister about both instruments however; the painting on the lid of the harpsicord seemed to be a depiction of a mass grave, some huge, coiled shape emerging from within the charnel pit, strewing bodies in its wake, and the wood of the organ was all in black and ghastly green with blood-red symbols recently applied. A shape flickered within, pallid and slithering. Armand called a halt.

“It hasn’t seen us yet, whatever it is,” he said. “Let’s see if we can’t go around.”

The party headed down a level, avoiding the music room, and into a drawing room with large windows facing out onto a balcony with a view of the grounds, where once beautiful gardens would have greeted the eye with flowers and fountains. Now the grounds were withered and dead, the fountains dry and overgrown. Like most rooms in the house intended for entertaining guests, this one was sumptuous and ornate, with elaborate carvings of flowers and trees, and a painting of a tranquil woodland scene where a knight and his lady gaze romantically into one another’s eyes by a secluded pool. The idyllic picture was somewhat marred by a disturbing blotch of darkness beneath the water; it looked like some mould has got into the canvas, but it had the effect of appearing like some monster dwells in the pool, preparing to creep onto land.

Armand examined the mould closely, and deduced that it was Gravemould, a fungus usually found in crypts and used as a reagent in certain alchemical concotions. He took a sample.

Viridian led them on, still following the scent, and the party entered the ballroom of Château de la Marche. A great pit had been dug in the floor, as if something erupted forth from the ground – a black, gaping pit. A mezzanine encircled the ballroom, stairs rising along the walls of the tower. They could hear something wet and heavy thumping slowly up a flight somewhere above. The party stood, waiting carefully, until the sound diminished, then climbed the stairs back up a level, towards the Glass Menagerie.

Before the doors of the collection, the group was confronted by a ragged, thin figure, covered in blood and clad in the tattered remnants of a dress. Matted hair framed a gaunt, feral face caked in blood, large, almost luminous eyes roving in their sockets. A large, blood-stained knife was clutched in one white-knuckled hand.

“My poppet!” the woman cried, dropping the knife and leaping towards Armand. “I knew you’d come eventually.”

“Mama!” the sorcerer said, relief washing over him as he clasped his mother, Helena, close. “Thank goodness we found you.”

“What happened here?” Yam asked, curious as ever.

Helena broke the embrace with her son.

“These are my, ah, associates, mama,” Armand explained. “Trustworthy enough, I suppose.”

“How generous,” Alabastor muttered under his breath.

“Oh poppet, it’s a proper mess,” Helena said, laying her head on Armand’s shoulder. “It all happened after that little glass worm was added to the collection. It started whispering to me, telling me things I must do, and I found I couldn’t ignore it. Sometimes I’d black out for hours on end, wake up in strange parts of the house, sometimes with dirt or blood on my hands. Father was quite upset by the whole thing. The worm… it had me do some sort of ritual, in the burned wing. I killed a goat… drew symbols with its blood. Said words I don’t understand. And then he came here, the wicked boy, and started… doing things to the servants. I managed to get away, but only just. But I can’t seem to leave the grounds. Every time I try, something pulls me back.”

“I see,” Armand said, gritting his teeth. “An grandfather? Where is he?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been searching for him for some time. They must have him tied up somewhere – perhaps in the cellars.”

“We need to destroy that glass worm,” Alabastor whispered to Yam. “But it’s got some sort of spell on her. I don’t think she’s going to let us just break it.”

“Got it,” Yam said, as if they had formulated a full plan. Once again the gnome put on the ridiculous helmet, and began staggering around like a fool. Helena guffawed with laughter at the spectacle; meanwhile, Alabastor slipped inside the Glass Menagerie.

Within, the gnome found a vast collection of glass figures of every colour and size, arrayed in display cabinets and on plinths throughout a museum-like space. Whereas much of the rest of the house had been sullied or destroyed, this room was wholly undisturbed. Frogs, birds, gods, demons, knights, ladies, satyrs, fairies, dragons, dogs, cats, mice, owlbears, and a thousand other creatures watched him with glassy eyes, amidst a glittering collection of towers, castles, churches, pagodas, ziggurats, planets, trees, flowers, and similar objects.

Alabstor searched carefully for a glass figure resembling a worm. It didn’t take him long to discover, for Helena had given it a place of honour. Its body was a nightmarish mass of segmented coils, writhing tentacles, and chitin plates.  Its many-fanged maw gaped with horrific hunger; there were no visible eyes at all.  While the worm was nothing more than glass, there was still something deeply disturbing, something shuddersome and nauseating, about its undulating form.

The Idol The Idol of Mordiggia. Illustration by Caulis’ player, Bronwyn McIvor.

Reluctant to touch the glass figure, Alabastor used mage hand to procure it. The moment his spell touched the figure, however, it immediately made a guttural, whining growl, and vomited forth a seething mass of insects and worms, which swarmed towards Alabastor and began crawling up his body, biting at his exposed flesh.

Alabastor attacked by a swarm. Illustration by Caulis’ player, Bronwyn McIvor.

Alabastor and the Swarm

The rest of the party rushed within, Helena suddenly frantic. Thinking quickly, Caulis smashed a lantern at Alabastor’s feet, the burning oil killing many of the insects, and only slightly scorching the agitated gnome. Frantically, Alabastor grabbed the worm-idol and stuffed it into the sackg of the Snatcher, a kind of carceral Bag of Holding acquired in the Egregor Vaults. Once the idol was in the bag, Helena seemed to calm, falling into a kind of swoon. Armand tended to her.

“How do we destroy it?” Yam asked quietly.

“I have an idea,” Caulis said. Flexing its twig-like fingers, it cast shatter into the depths of the Snatcher’s sack. There was a sound of breaking glass, following by a monstrous wailing, ghastly and inhuman and agonized.

“Shit, shit, it’s not dead yet!” Alabastor swore.

Meanwhile, Armand rushed over, an explosive crystal gleaned from the tunnels beneath Mainspring in hand. This he dropped into the bag. There was a second sound of breaking glass; smoke poured forth from the sack, but the idol’s wails were no more.

“That takes care of that,” the sorcerer said. “Now, let us get mama to safety at once.

The party hurried back the way they had come. When they once again reached the guard room, two suits of armour stood before them, filled with swarms of creeping vermin. The party attacked, firing a barrage of spells at the two sentinels; the armoured warriors fell and the worms within were variously melted and incinerated, but the arcane assault left a hole smouldering in the floor. Aware that the noise would attract attention, the group hastened back outside to the stables. Sister greeted them at the portal, stitching shut their wounds with magical spidersilk.

“I’ll get your mother to safety,” she promised Armand. “We’ll go to your townhouse in the Dreamer’s Quarter.”

“Thank you” Armand said. “She’s quite exhausted – make sure she gets some rest.” He turned, looking back to the house. “I’m going to find Van Lurken, and end this.”

After a brief rest, the party returned to the mansion, prepared for battle. They made their way towards the chapel, but discovered a barricaded door. Yam, shrugging, knocked.

“Who’s there?” a voice said from within.

“Uh, Yam,” Yam responded.

“Who?”

“It’s Master Eustace,” Armand answered. “Is that Claude?”

“Master Eustace! Yes, it’s me… one moment.” There were sounds of furniture being moved, and the door opened. A thin, frightened-looking man let them into a dusty back hall.

“Claude, I am aware of some of the circumstances plaguing the house, but the more you can tell us, the better,” Armand said. It took Claude a moment to respond.

“Sir… I am loathe to speak ill of Lady Helena, but… well, it was her who let this evil into our midst. She started obsessing over this one statuette in her glass menagerie, in the northwest wing – and when she wasn’t locked up in there brooding over it and touching it, she wandered the house, continually slipping from room to room, vandalizing the walls and windows, scrawling strange symbols.”

“We’ve taken care of that. What else?”

“She did some sort of ritual in the southeast wing, among the cinders and the ashes, that brought it here – that thing in the chapel, and its servants. We found her covered in blood – she’d lured a goat into the house, slaughtered it to cast some sort of summoning spell. It brought that creature here. It spoke with the voice of a man, but it’s not human! It said terrible words, words of pain, and the guards and servants all fell screaming, writhing, and it laughed and raised those thin arms, and rats and worms and all manner of vermin started pouring in from every direction.

“Some of us ran, managed to stay together for a time, but that creature and its servants started picking us off one by one. Walking corpses and goat-headed things and a thing made of worms and all manner of horrors… I managed to barricade myself in here. I think they’ve forgot about me, don’t realize I’m here, otherwise I’d be dead.”

“I see. Thank you, Claude. If you head outside, find your way to the stables. There’s a magical door there that will take you to safety.”

Bewildered but grateful, Claude did as his master bid.

The group passed through the back hall and into the chapel’s library, filled with shelves stuffed with books. The texts look totally untouched, coated with dust, and all seemed to be religiously themed – works of theology and metaphysics.

“If I recall correctly…” Armand said, and pulled a book – in fact, a lever, activating a secret door somewhere above. They ascended a flight of stairs into an ornate gallery containing numerous portraits and other paintings, most of them religious scenes of some variety. These included several paintings of scenes from the life of Saint Monstrum, one of Hex’s foremost patrons, as well as numerous paintings of the Lady of the Mists.

Three paintings, however, seemed rather wildly out of place.

One painting was a rural scene, almost idyllically pastoral, in which goatherds watch over their charges… while something else watches over them. A grim, black-clad figure with the face of a skeletal and masses of white hair fondles a scythe while regarding the goatherds, huge black wings like those of a monstrous raven spreading behind it.

A second painting depicted the estate – Château de la Marche itself. However, the painting seemed to be of the house and grounds as they currently existed – dilapidated and rotting, one wing burnt, windows broken, gardens withering. It was as if someone painted it only recently.

The third strange painting depicted Mount Shudder, the huge mountain not far from the city of Hex. Oozing from a cavern halfway along the slope was a hideous white worm of colossal size. It seemed poised to devour the city, which was depicted near the base of the mountain. This third painting had swiveled open on a hinge, revealing a passage beyond. Here they found a small shrine to the Lady of Mists, including one of her holy symbols and a book detailing her rites.

They continued on their way to the chapel, eventually entering a small antechamber. Dangling from dusty chandelier was a severed human head, badly rotted, its cheeks carved with sigils. The head’s eyes rolled in its sockets as it slowly twisted and untwisted itself on its ropy hair. Spotting the party, the head let out a hideous wail. Slithering sounds indicated that some of Jasper’s minions were on their way. Hastening, the party made their way into the basement of the house, beneath the chapel.

“I remember playing down here once, as a child…” Armand mused. “I frightened myself, in one of the old chambers… a shadow seemed to move of its own accord, to speak to me from out of the dark and cobwebs.”

They pressed on, entering a small secondary shrine dedicated not to the Lady of the Mists but to a more inscrutable figure – some angel of death, raven-winged and long-haired, with a skull for a face, a scythe clutched in its hands. The semblance of this being was carved in bas-relief on one wall of this chamber, which looked truly primeval – the stone-work considerably older than any of the surrounding tunnels. An altar stone was set before the carving.

Ankou. Illustration by Caulis’ player, Bronwyn McIvor.

Ankou

“The Ankou,” Caulis said. “It’s supposed to send souls to their rightful resting place. I can’t imagine it’d be fond of undead.”

“Indeed.” Viridian had returned to his normal shape. “I wonder…” he leafed through the pages of the book they’d found. “Yes, here it is… a prayer to the spirit.” He handed the book to Armand.

Armand cocked an eyebrow, but accepted the tome and recited the words. “Shepherd of souls, hear my prayer. Graveyard-watcher, King of the Dead, bearer of the Sacred Wheelbarrow, First of the Slain, we beseech you to appear.”

A shape stepped from the darkness, skull-faced and raven-haired, vast wings filling the chamber. It spoke with a voice like sand running through an hourglass and the wind moaning through a graveyard at dusk.

“I am the Ankou of this land. It is my duty to shepherd the dead to their destination. It is a duty I have carried out for many thousands of years. What need have you of my services?”

“There is a necromancer here, one who perverts the laws of life and death,” Armand replied. “We ask your aid in destroying him.”

“Indeed, this house is an abomination,” the Ankou intoned. “I cannot allow this to continue. Previously, this house was protected by some more powerful being… but I sense that those wards have been lifted.”

“The idol,” Alabastor reasoned. “When we destroyed it, it must have lifted the wards.”

“I will aid you,” the spirit assented. “Come. We must cleanse this place of the vileness that pollutes it.”

“This way,” Armand indicated, noting a spiral staircase. “This will take us to a vantage point above the chapel.” Dodging through a vestry infested with rats, the group ascended the stair and entered the chapel.

The chapel of Château de la Marche was dedicated to the Lady of th Mists – or, rather, it used to be. The ornate stone statue in the image of the Protectress of Varoigne had been magically defaced, the usually benevolent expression of the goddess twisted into a demonic leer, her hair – usually long and luxurious – transformed into a gorgon-like mass of writhing worms, her mouth warped into a fanged pout. Scrawled in blood upon the walls and stained glass windows of the chapel were unnerving symbols, many featuring a coiled worm. The whole chapel was lit with crimson candles which fill the room with a hellish glow. An awful carrion stink to this place perfumed the air like rotten incense.

Sitting in the pews, mouthing a constant prayer in a diabolic tongue, were thirteen reanimated corpses. Some were clearly long-dead, exhumed from recent graves. Others seemed recently killed – local villagers or goatherds, to judge by their garb. Several, however, were clothed in the livery of de la Marche servants. Armand clenched his fists in fury.

A corpse-pale shape presided over the cadaverous congregation. Black, empty sockets stared sightlessly from a head that had lost hair, ears, and nose. Only the mouth remained, cruel and twisted. The figure’s body was strangely elongated, and moved with a twisted boneless fluidity. Thin, withered arms – almost vestigial – hung from the thing’s crooked torso, which was covered in strange scars. Though unclothed, the creature was smooth and sexless.

“Ah, Armand!” the horror cooed, the voice issuing forth from the ruinous face genteel and smooth, mismatched quite horridly with its monstrous form. “So glad you made it home! You must forgive me the familiarity; I know we have not formally met yet. I am, as you might have guessed, Jasper Van Lurken. And may I say, your family’s house is quite as lovely as I imagined!”

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done, Van Lurken filth,” Armand spat. “How did you survive the fire?”

“Stone burns less easily than wood, and the tunnels below my family’s house were quite extensive by the time you so rudely burnt it down, along with my relations. It was easy enough to escape. I have been gathering followers ever since, plotting my little revenge.”

“Enough!” Armand snarled, hurling a lightning bolt at the creature. It struck Jasper, scorching his flesh, and the cleric squealed, returning the incantation with an agonizing blast that made every nerve in Armand’s body scream.

Yam, meanwhile, had their own ideas. Taking out the Hands of the Marionettist – bewitched, glyph-engraved crosses – Yam concentrated on the undead worshippers. With a twitch of the puppeteer’s control bars, Yam seized control of three shambolic undead. A grin widened on the gnome’s face as they directed the walking corpses to attack Jasper. Viridian ensnared the cultist with summoned vines while Alabastor sent a bolt of crackling black puissance at the warlock. Even as Jasper was set upon by his own zombic servitors, he spat a terrible curse, one that seared Caulis’s bark-like skin with blight. The homunculus, weakened and faded, branches suddenly wintry and dying, summoned forth a cloud of daggers, shredding Jasper’s worm like body in a frenzy of magical steel.

Meanwhile, the Ankou emerged from the darkness. Its scythe swept wide, cutting into the bodies of the chanting zombies, slaying them left and right.

Jasper’s withing form collapsed, eviscerated by spells and his own servants. Yam directed the zombies to rip him open, to tear his flesh from his bones. But as they did so, something wet and dark burst forth from his ruinous chest and, with a squeal, burrowed down into the floor.

“Don’t let it escape!” Armand shouted, and the party descended, following the worm-thing to a lower level. They rushed into an ancient-looking crypt of old stone, substantially predating the house above it. The bodies buried here were not in coffins but in three stone sarcophagi, and bore the semblances of ancient knights. One had a hole within it, bored in its surface; the lid stirred, and a mouldering skeleton emerged, the worm-thing pulsing in its ribcage, twisted round its bones. A sword gleamed, hacking madly.

“You won’t kill my that easily!” Jasper snarled, his voice utterly inhuman now. He sliced at Viridian, wounding the druid. Armand conjured a web to ensnare the revenant, while Yam spoke an invocation, sending an acid arrow hurtling at the monster and knocking it back into the magical snare. The thing thrashed as Alabastor and Viridian assailed it with hexes and a whip of thorns. Jasper spat another spell but Armand dodged aside and spoke a word of power, manifesting a blaze of eldritch flame that spread through the webs and over the undead horror’s body. It thrashed, its bones blackening, the worm-thing within its chest shriveling. At last, it lay still.

The Ankou descended, passing through the ceiling to float before them. “The house has been cleansed,” the spirit said, its scythe dripping with blood and ectoplasm. “But I must tell you – I found your forebear, slain by the abominations that defiled your halls.”

An inscrutable expression flickered across Armand’s face. The Ankou spoke on.

“Dawn comes. I must return to beyond the veil.”

“My thanks, Ankou,” Armand said. Though encrusted with blood, his usually immaculate clothes torn and filthy, the ghost of a smile flitted across the sorcerer’s lips. Once more, he was lord and master of Château de la Marche.

 

Hex Session XXII – Actual Play – “Château de la Marche, Pt. 1”

The characters in this session were:

  • Armand Percival Reginald Francois Eustace de la Marche III, a suspiciously pale, apparently human noble and sorcerer, and certainly not a ghoul (how dare such a thing be suggested).
  • Caulis, a homunculus warlock liberated from its master; has made a pact with Queen Titania of the Faerie.
  • Viridian “Grove” Greengrove, changeling druid, exile from his former druidic circle for unknown transgressions.
  • An ancient and enigmatic Lengian cleric of the Mother of Spiders, name unknown. She wears bulky ecclesiastical garments covering an uncertain number of limbs and goes by “Sister.”

XP Awarded: 400 XP

The long winter gave way to a quick spring and a quicker summer. The season seemed to burn itself out in furious intensity, as if compensating for the long chill. Now the Month of Owls waned, leaves falling from the trees. Rain and heavy fog had replaced the oppressive sunshine with their own damp claustrophobia, a blanket of heavy grey covering Hex and its hinterlands.

Armand Percival Reginald Francois Eustace de la Marche III sat in his study, perusing The Book of the Void, when one of his servants knocked on the door and approached with a letter, freshly delivered by waspkin courier. The letter was marked with the seal of his family on your mother’s side – the de l’Abespine coat of arms. Usually this marked a letter from his mother. The sorcerer opened the letter and read carefully.

Grandson,

I hope I do not trouble your studies in Hex unduly, but I am sad to inform you that your presence is required here at Château de la Marche. Your mother’s condition seems to be worsening. Since your father’s passing, as you know, she has been delicate of constitution, both physical and mental, and recently she has taken a turn for the worse. She spends long hours shut up in her menagerie of glass figures, refusing meals, even locking the doors; I am afraid we have been forced to confiscate her keys, and, at times, treat her almost as a prisoner in her own home.

It pains me greatly to see my daughter so diminished. Despite our attempts to keep her pacified and restricted to her rooms, she has taken to wandering parts of the house which are no longer safe – including the burned southeast wing, and even the disused northeast wing where, we suspect, the air has gone terribly bad. She continually foils all attempts to keep her from such midnight ramblings, at one point even overpowering a servant come to change her linens, and there has been a string of other, similar incidents. She has spoken of seeing your father’s shade, of horned figures, of beasts prowling “the endless dark” – and of other things which I will not commit to writing. She has taken to scrawling strange signs on the walls, abusing her belongings, and vandalizing the estate. The staff, I am afraid, are quite alarmed.

To be blunt – I fear she may hurt herself, or lose what reason she still possesses.

I can’t say whether your presence will do her any good – perhaps the sight of her son will restore her, or relieve her condition. At the very least I am sure you would be a comfort to her.

I would strongly advise that you travel accompanied, as the roads have become terribly perilous of late; unseasonable cold weather has left many washed-out and nigh-unusable, and driven men to banditry. They resent us at the estate, of course, and more than once the servants have driven them off with shots from the old arquebuses. There are wolves as well, in greater numbers than normal, and other wild creatures roaming the countryside; the memory of the terrible incident that befell your parents shortly before your birth still haunts me. Best, then, to bring with you companions suitably skilled in arms, in case you encounter anything dangerous on the journey.

Your grandfather,

Percival de l’Aubespine, Baron de Beresford

Fuming with rage at the ill-treatment of his mother, Armand leapt from his chair and, without ado, began preparations to leave the city. Gathering several companions along with horses and a small band of mercenaries, he set out for his ancestral estate as soon as possible.

To the south and west of Hex, the land became progressively hillier, dotted with pastures and thick oak forests, some remnants of the Tangle, cut off from that sprawling mother-wood. Towards the further south the hills eventually climbed into mountains known as the Dames Blanches, the White Ladies, for their snowy caps. The thick smog of Hex dissipated into an autumnal mist in this region, a subtle, silvery haze from which the reddening trees emerged like russet spectres.

Though the Old City of Hex was built millions of years ago during ancient prehistory, the city built atop it felt almost new compared to the venerable towns and ruins of this region. Though Hex exerted a degree of control over these lands, the folk here maintained a sense of rugged independence, more loyal to the noble bloodlines who have ruled the realm for centuries than to the distant city with its strange technologies and sinister wizards.

Away from the libertine confines of Hex, worship of the city’s strange gods declines rapidly. There were still a handful of roadside shrines to the Magistra for the first few miles from Hex, but these were soon supplanted by fanes and churches dedicated to the Lady of the Mists, a local goddess.

The population also noticeably shifted. At first gnomes, dagonians, and others could be seen in fair numbers, but these quickly dwindled, replaced by humans.

The party stopped for the evening at the White Wyvern inn, a three-storey inn at the edge of a small oak forest. Within, a fire flickered in the hearth, warming a common room crowded with travelers – the Wyvern was the only inn for some distance. Most of these wee merchants and farmers, folk heading north to Hex to peddle their wares. The innkeepers were identical twins, two men with the same thin, clever face and the same close-cut greying curls, distinguished only by the ugly scar that marked the face of one of them.

brothers

Charles and Bertrand. Illustration by Caulis’ player, Bronwyn McIvor.

Caulis and Armand spoke with the brothers, Caulis now in illusory human guise, and learned that wolf attacks had been on the increase of recent.

“Mark me words, the Beast of Vaorigne has returned,” Bertrand, the scarred brother, declared. “I should know. I’ll remember that thing’s howls till my dying day.”

“The Beast of Varogine?” Caulis asked, curious. Viridian likewise perked up at the mention of an exotic creature.

“Aye, the Beast that gave me this scar,” Bertrand said, gesturing to his face. “A monstrous werewolf, that roamed these parts with its pack some twenty years past. But young Master Eustace de la Marche here can tell you all about that.”

The other looked to Armand, surprised.

“The Beast wounded my father, left him lame and weakened,” Armand said, gazing into his glass of wine. “And left mama… changed. It attacked them, late one night, on the road not far from here.”

“Could this Beast be related to revent events at your home?” Viridian asked.

“I see not how,” Armand said. “But I find this topic displeasing. I think I shall retire for the evening.”

The sorcerer drained his glass and departed for his chambers.

That night, Armand’s sleep was troubled. He awoke in the early hours of the morning, sweat soaking through his nightclothes, the memory of a disturbing dream still fresh in his mind. It was a vision of his father, Armand II, trapped in some tenebrous chamber, some twisted parody of his family home. Something was restraining him – long, writhing forms, lashing tendrils or serpents – binding his limbs. As Armand watched, powerless, wounds blossomed across his father’s body, long claw-marks blooming crimson. Some invisible force devoured his right leg, the limb he had amputated in life, and a festering, gangrenous rot began to spread up his body, consuming him, creeping across his skin until he was a grotesque shell of his former self, a diseased husk. His eyes glowed with some vile effulgence as he struggled against the gruesome organic bonds that held him, and his gaze fixed upon Armand, his eyes piercing into your mind.

“Son! Help me, please!” the elder Armand pleaded – before Armand III awoke.

Descending from breakfast on the morrow, Armand did not speak of his vision, but insisted the horses be readied immediately. Once again the party set out, riding hard for Armand’s ancestral home. Soon mist clouded the path, and mid-morningv loping shapes emerged from the fog – a pack of a dozen hungry wolves, thin and ferocious. They howled and leapt towards the horses, but Sister conjured a phantom scent, deterring them from the chase.

Shortly later, another shape materialized from the mist. The broken remnants of a carriage lay by the roadside, a dead horse rotting slowly in the mist, savaged by some wild beast. The ornate carriage appeared to have been thoroughly looted; there were no signs of any occupants, though bloodstains and vicious claw-marks on the wood suggested a violent abduction.

Viridian inspected the claw marks and footprints carefully, and deduced that the assailants had been bipedal.

As the day drew to a close, the party entered Lutin, a small village of Lutin along the road to the de la Marche estate. An old stone wall, crumbling and moss-eaten, served as meagre protection for the tiny hamlet. There was an alehouse – the Goat’s Head – along with a handful of homes and craftsman’s workshops, as well as an old church dedicated to the Lady of the Mists, her sorrowful stone visage looking out across the town.

Working Title/Artist: Pirna: The Obertor from the South Department: European Paintings Culture/Period/Location: HB/TOA Date Code: Working Date: 1721-1780 photographed by mma in 1991, transparency 2 scanned by film & media 6/16/03 (phc)

The group rested here briefly, though Armand was determined to press on to his estate. He paid a brief visit to the town’s magistrate, informing him of the broken carriage, before ducking into the Goat’s Head – rather quiet, with only a few locals drinking the black brew of this region, or cups of the greyish wines made in the hills. The tavern-owner and barkeep was Rosy Maude – a stout, handsome woman with long red hair now streaked heavily with white. She greeted Armand warmly, but when he pressed her for word of his home, her expression grew dark.

“We haven’t seen anyone from Château de la Marche for a fortnight, which is strange,” she said. “Normally at least some of the servants, Old Hugh and Thibault, usually, come down to Lutin once a week at least, for food, drink, and other sundries. There’s been… well, I hate to speak ill of your family, sir, but there’s been some queer rumours of late.”

“No offense is taken, Maude,” Armand assured her. “What have you heard?”

“Well, there’s been tell of some sort of sickness among the staff. When Thibault was last down here, he was coughing terribly, and poor Hugh couldn’t make it out of bed. Said something about mould and bad air. There’s been word your mother ain’t full herself.

“And there’ve been… queer sounds in the night. Distant, mind you, but… strange. Voices heard in the hills, echoing. Whispers in the mist, which ain’t cleared for days and days. Once, a high squealing sound the like of which I’ve never heard made by man nor beast – woke the whole village. And sometimes a rumbling through the earth, like a tremor.”

“And then there’s Ankou,” an old man by the bar declared.

“Quiet, Reynard,” Maud chides.

“Ankou?” Caulis asked, curious.

“I seen him, up in the hills. Ankou, the soul-collector. Death’s henchman. A thin man, all in black, with a broad-brimmed hat. His voice is the scream of the damned. That’s what’s been wailing in the night. I saw him when I was driving my cart. He was up on a little hill, his back to me, but then his head turned round on his neck till he faced backwards. Gave me quite a fright he did!”

“Superstitious nonsense,” Maude declared.

Meanwhile, Sister and Viridian visited the local church. Though the Lengian was regarded with alarm and even terror by some of the locals, her careful questions soon put the local priestess at ease. They learned that the Lady of the Mists was a goddess protecting the region of Varoigne from harm from the outside world – though the region had more than its fair share of troubles, and the faith seemed to be dwindling, the church ill-attended. They also noted that some of the graves in the cemetary behind the church had been disturbed. Viridian examined them carefully, concluding that the same creatures that had attacked the carriage were likely responsible for the body-snatchings.

Troubled by these signs of dark doings, the party set out once more, hastening for the de la Marche estate. The sun sank low as they followed the path upwards into a series of misty hills. They glimpsed horned figures amongst the crags – alpine goats. They watched the party’s ascent with their horizontal-pupiled hircine gaze, unperturbed by their presence, but they made for an eerie welcoming party to this mist-shrouded place.

Then, briefly, another figure could be seen among the goats. At first they thought it was a goatherd, but then they saw its billowing black cloak, its masses of white, stringy hair, its eerie, broad hat shadowing a face that looks skeletal. White eyes roved in the bony visage’s sockets. The being carried a rusted scythe. No sooner had they glimpsed this macabre being than a bank of fog rolled in, obscuring it from sight.

“The Ankou…” Caulis muttered, as, at last, Château de la Marche came into view.

Chateau de la Marche-min

The estate looked decrepit – far worse than Armand remembered. The roof was missing tiles, and some of the windows were broken and boarded up. Attempts to repair the burned southeast wing were clearly abandoned, as it remained a charred shell. The lawn needed a cut and the gardens looked sickly, some of the bushes dead, others succumbing to blight.

In short, the house looked… dead. There weren’t any lights visible, nor any smoke from the chimneys… except, that is, for a ghastly red light in the chapel in the southwest wing.

“Something is very wrong,” Armand growled. “There should be servants here, to take our horses. Come, let’s stable them.”

Nothing awaited them in the stables – a conspicuous nothing. There were no horses here; all of the pens lay open.

Further investigation did reveal a number of hoof-marks and claw-marks on the wooden walls and doors, as well as some bloodstained hay. Something had snatched the horses.

“More troubling still,” Viridian said, touching the marks carefully. “The same creatures that disturbed the graves, and attacked the carriage, I’d say.”

Armand, now furious and intent, marched up to the door of his familial home.

On the steps leading up to the front doors, he saw a rock, weighing down what looked like a piece of parchment.

On the parchment was written:

Dearest Armand Percival Reginald Francois Eustace de la Marche III,

Since you paid my home a visit, I thought it only proper that I paid a visit to yours.

I shan’t do anything so gauche as to break your beautiful possessions, as only an uncouth brute might.

Nor would I ever be so ungallant as to roast your mother alive, as only a murderous wretch would.

Nor even would I exhibit such atrocious manners as to burn your estate to the ground, as only a mad and cretinous arsonist would dare!

I am, after all, still a gentleman of good breeding. Unlike some I could name.

No, no – I have a different fate in mind for the de la Marche estate and its denizens.

I may have plucked my own eyes from my sockets to please She Who Writhes in the Outer Darkness, but I have been watching you and your little friends all the same, and learning much of your doings, and of what you have done to my home and my family.. The Charnel Goddess has many servants – worms and rats and creeping insects– and those of us in Her favour know their secret speech, can see even see through their eyes when it pleases us. I know much about you, dear Armand. More, perhaps, than you know about yourself.

I was so charmed by the little gifts you have been sending to your mother – your dear, sweet mother.  It was a simple enough matter to provide her with one of my own, disguised as one of yours.

I do hope this little visit meets with your approval. I’m quite sure we’re going to have the most delicious fun!

Yours most sincerely,

Jasper Van Lurken

The letter was accompanied by a lock of hair that Armand recognized as his mother.

Armand carefully put the hair into a handkerchief and placed it in his pocket, then crumpled the note in his fist. He turned to the party, seething with a cold fury.

“He got away,” Armand snarled. “Jasper Van Lurken.”

“Who?” Viridian asked.

“A nobleman, although unworthy of that distinction. He corrupted his family, transformed them into vampiric monsters, servants of the Charnel Goddess. I thought I had burnt his filth from the city, but it seems he escaped.”

“The front door will be guarded,” Caulis reasoned. “Where should we enter?”

“We need to find my mother. Her safety is our priority. Come.” Armand led the way west, towards the Rose Garden. As a child, this was where he had spent most of his hours – the east wings of the house had mouldered, abandoned, after his father’s death and the family’s slow decline.

The party approached a servant’s door, leading into the block of rooms surrounding the Graden. A demonic visage had been scrawled on the door, crude but menacing – some sort of ward.

“Hmm, let me try something,” Sister said, and with a whispered prayer to the Mother of Spiders, she blinked to the other side of the door.

This antechamber beyond was filled with pictures of the de la Marche family, including a very prominent painting of Armand II fencing with an ornate duelling sabre. Crouching in one corner with its back to the door, hunched over the decaying remnants of what might once have been a person, was what remained of a woman in a maid’s uniform, her body weirdly elongated, her neck stretching with horrific flexion. She twisted round, staring with bulging eyes, sensing Sister’s presence, but the cleric had concealed herself in the shadows, her goddess weaving darkness like a web about her.

worm-thing

The Maid. Illustration by Caulis’ player, Bronwyn McIvor.

Sister carefully opened the door to the outside. The worm-thing twisted round and fled through an open door as the party stormed in. Armand led them through, fingers twitching, a spell hovering on his lips.

Beyond, a simple chamber once served as the servant’s common room. Its current use was far more macabre. Bodies were laid out on the long tables where servants once sat. They were clearly being prepared for some sort of necromantic ritual, as they had been stripped naked and mutilated, with sigils carved into their flesh.

“This way,” Armand said, pointing to a stairway leading upwards.

In this room, two paintings looked down upon them. One was a family portrait of Armand II, Helena, and the infant Armand III, all dressed in historical finery as a chivalric knight, a virtuous lady, and their child. The young Armand had a face which seems wiser than his chubby cheeks and infant curls might suggest. The second painting, however, looked newly hung – a picture of the Van Lurkens.

Annette Van Lurken was shown as a beautiful dark-haired girl of sixteen or seventeen, pale of complexion and dark-eyed, wearing a green dress and holding a small, three-headed pug dog, one of the cerberi bred by the alchemists of Caulchurch, next to her brother Jasper – a sallow, handsome but rather gaunt man of about nineteen, clad in a black doublet, a sly look in his eyes. He posed with a memento mori. Their parents, Leopold and Nicolet, sat to one side; Leopold a well-fed man with a cunning look, perhaps because of his neat, pointed beard and clever eyes, wearing colourful garments of purple and green and has short, greying curls; Nicolet, a stern-looking grey-haired woman whose once-great beauty had only been somewhat diminished by a lifetime of disapproving frowns and exasperated grimaces, wearing a luxurious burgundy dress.

From this portrait gallery, windows faced out upon the Rose Garden below, which filled the courtyard in the heart of the western half of the house. Beautiful in spring and summer, the roses were now dying, their decline facilitated by some sort of blight which had taken hold of the blooms. However, some new breed of roses appeared to be supplanting the old, still seeming healthy despite dropping temperatures. Grotesque black roses veined with red, their stems not green but vivid crimson, teemed amidst their etiolated cousins. At the innermost whorl of each flower, a tiny mouth cou;d be glimpsed, dilating hungrily.

Tending to these horrible vampiric blooms was a man Armand dimly recognized as the former gardener of the estate, Maynard – or, rather, what Maynard had become. A vast, swollen shape, inflated like an obscene balloon, Maynard was bloated with blood, his body transformed into a sac-like, vermiform shape. In place of his fingers were slender proboscises, mosquito-like, from which he periodically squirted blood, feeding the vampiric blooms. As they were fed the hematophagic flowers sighed contentedly; others, sensing an imminent feeding, moaned and muttered in ravenous anticipation. Maynard also carried a heavy sack, bloodstained and filled with human and animal body parts – limbs, organs, and other gore. He periodically removed some morsel from this bag and tossed it into the flower-patch, at which point the blood-drinking roses all converged, swivelling on eerily muscular stems to gorge themselves on the feast.

the gardener

The Gardener. Illustration by Caulis’ player, Bronwyn McIvor.

“Mother of Spiders, was that a person?” Sister said, horrified.

“We will deal with such abominations later,” Armand said. “Come, this way.” He led them deeper into the house, through another anteroom and a series of galleries, all luxurious but decayed, until they reached his mother’s apartments.

Helena’s sumptuous room had a massive four-posted bed and a side-table; it was in terrible disarray, as something had thoroughly ransacked the chamber.

A large armoire stood against one wall, adorned with images of armoured knights. The armoire had been locked and seemed to have been barricaded crudely, a halberd pushed through its handles. Something bumped loudly from within the armoire, as if straining to get out.

“Help me,” a strange, double-voice said from within the armoire. “I’m locked in here, help!” Armand raised an eyebrow.

“Who are you?”

“Jerome,” one voice said.

“Blaise,” said another.

“Damn,” the two voices said together.

“Aha…” Armand said, stepping back. “I think we’ll be leaving them be…”

A note lay on the floor, carefully folded, the precision of its placement belied by the panicked words scrawled upon it: “FIND YOUR FATHER.”

Hex Session XVI – Actual Play – “The Book of Dreams”

XP Awarded: 700 XP

We have already seen the strange travel of Garvin & Armand, to a bizarree, vampire-haunted version of Hex, darkened by an eternal cloud, but a member of the party remains unaccounted for – Caulis, the homunculus. As the mandrake-creature emerged from the portal into the sewer-grate, it found that something unusual seemed to have occurred. Firstly, Caulis was alone – there was no trace of its companions.  Sunlight streamed in from a hole in the ceiling, where a gigantic root had thrust its way through into the room, coiling on the floor. The walls were covered in lichen and fungus, what looked like years worth of overgrowth. The door to the room hung rotten off its hinges.

Caulis clambered up the root cautiously, emerging blinking into the sunlight. It looked about. It appeared to be in Hex – or, rather, into what used to be Hex. There were buildings here, and streets, barely visible beneath decades’ worth of overgrowth, lush ferns poking up from the mossy street-sides. Creeping vines had strangled the city’s broken spires and cracked domes, and many buildings had been utterly overwhelmed by masses of kudzu or ivy. Huge trees burst through the roofs of houses and rose like towers above the shattered remnants of Hex.

Caulis cast about, seeking for someone, anyone to speak with, but only heard a strange giggling from a nearby structure. Making its way there it was surprised as a group of insect-winged sprites burst from a window and flitted away. It caught a snatch of Sylvan as one, pointing at it, yelped “outsider!” and another declared that “Queen Mab must be alerted!”

Perturbed, Caulis was seized by a similar impulse as Garvin and Armand on their own jaunt sideways through time: it sought out Master Melchior’s School of Thaumaturgy & Enchantment. The school itself was covered in vines and huge, bristling masses of thorns – huge masses of briars drooling from the windows and spilling from doors. The griffin guards were absent, but a lazy-looking footman stood sentinel. Pointed ears and greenish skin marked him as one of the Fair Folk.

Melchior Statue

Melchior’s Statue, as illustrated by Bronwyn McIvor (Caulis’ player).

“Halt! What is your business here?” the guard demanded.

“I’ve, ah… I’ve been asleep for awhile,” Caulis lied. “Who lives here now?”

“How long were you asleep?” the guard asked, bewildered. “This is the home of Lord Brambleheart, of Queen Mab’s Court, ruler of the Unfortunate Isles.”

“A Fairy Lord you say?”

“Yes. Now, if you do not have business here…”

“Ah but I do!” Caulis quickly improvised, hoping to learn more of this strange world. “I, ah – I’m looking for employment. Yes. I would like to serve Lord – Brambleheart, was it?”

The guard looked quizzical. “I see. And do you have any skills of note?”

“I am an accomplished spellcaster,” Caulis said, boldly. “Grant me an interview with his Lordship and I will gladly demonstrate my arcane abilities.”

“Hmm. Well, I suppose there’s no harm in a little audition.” The elf-guard shrugged. “Come this way, then.”

The footman escorted Caulis to a small chamber in the servant’s building, where more elves scurried to and fro – obviously servants. Caulis waited patiently while its psuedodragon familiar, Eleyin, explored, flitting into the remains of the library. Most of the books were gone or rotten, but some were preserved, and new tomes were also added – books of fairy history, and of enchantment. Instructing its familiar to snatch one such volume of spells, Caulis continued to wait, till a lumbering ogre-like thing lurched into the anteroom.

“His Lordship will see you now,” the hulking thing grunted. Caulis was led up Master Melchior’s tower; here the portraits of the archwizard were replaced with landscapes from Elfhame and pictures of fey royalty.

It was ushered into the remains of Melchior’s study, where the wizard’s empty brain-tank stood rusting. Sprawled in a leather chair, his feet on Melchior’s now vine-encrusted desk, was a slender fairy in flamboyant, aristocratic garb, long-haired and exquisitely handsome, with cruel amber eyes and a lazy, appraising smile.

“Ah, now aren’t you a find?” Lord Brambleheart said, inspecting Caulis up and down. “A homunculus from the time before… somehow survived till now. Or grown? Curious. I was told you were asleep?”

“That’s right,” Caulis said. “I only recently awoke.”

“You must be confused,” Lord Brambleheart said. “This is not the city you left, I am sure. Much has changed since the Tangle swallowed Hex into Faerie and the good Queen declared it her own. I understand you’re here looking for employment?”

“Indeed,” Caulis said. “I have some magical talents.” It demonstrated with a few cantrips.

“Marvelous!” Lord Brambleheart said with a little clap. “Well, you’re quite the curiosity… I’m sure I can find some place for you in my household.” He flicked his hands and a contract appeared, reading to be signed, specifying a period of ten years. “Sign here, if you please.”

Caulis reeled. This was going rather more quickly than it had anticipated.

“Oh, dear, well… you see, I already have something of a contract.”

“What?!” Lord Brambleheart snarled, handsome features contorting into an expression of fury. “Why did you not mention this? Who are you working for?”

Panicked, Caulis cast glitterdust and, with a flourish, used misty step to teleport back to the stairs. Lord Brambleheart’s fury turned back to delight.

“Ah! All part of the demonstration, eh? Great fun, great fun!” He clapped again, distracted, as Caulis flung itself down the stairs, using its powers to disguise itself as a goblin servant. It hurried across the courtyard towards the gates – only to find a regiment of purple-garbed, halberd-wielding fairy soldiers awaiting it.

“By order of Queen Mab, we are here for the outlander,” the leader declared to the footman.

Caulis shook its head and, hurrying, used misty step again to flicker past the squad.

“Oi! Whose that?” one of the guards snarled, pointing.

Realizing it needed to move quickly, Caulis fled, Eleyin following, as Mab’s soldiers gave chase. The homunculus ducked into a nearby thorn-patch and waited for them to pass before skulking out, again shifting its appearance to resemble a fairy. It hastened back to the sewer grate room and leapt back through the portal into Hex. It would have quite a story to tell.

Meanwhile, back in the Hex we all know, the party had regrouped. Yam had once again returned to Gloomway and Garvin was showing his younger self about the city, but Sister, Armand, and Alabastor had recruited Cephalus, and when Caulis returned, it rejoined the expedition. Refreshed, the party stepped back through the portal and into the Nightmare Tunnels.

Back in the primordial darkness of the Egregor Vaults, the party resumed their search for the Book of Dreams. They were once more in the strange labyrinth they’d accessed via the children’s bedroom in the dollhouse within the toy-room on the first level. Alabastor once more took out the magical dowsing rod he’d liberated from the automaton back on the Seven Hundred Steps of Slumber and used the device to guide the party towards the nearest source of magic.

After a short period of wandering through the maze, the party found themselves in a room lined with massive bookshelves rising up seemingly infinitely into darkness above. The books within them are thick and weighty, overlarge, with unintelligible scribbles on the spines.

Alabastor’s childhood drawing.

Shelves

Alabastor cringed before the massive shelves, but, curious, Sister removed a volume from the bookshelf. Instantly the shelves began to tremble, and books began tumbling from above, several striking the Lengian cleric, more cascading down in a flood of pages and covers. In that moment, Cephalus’ keen dagonian eyes glanced across a book whose spine bore an actual title: The Secret Door. As books fell around the party Cephalus pulled the volume, causing part of one shelf to hinge inwards. The group rushed inside to flee the books, racing down a short corridor as books filled up the room behind them. They reached a blank wall with a lever, and after checking for any traps, pulled it, opening a door into another part of the maze. Blood trickled from Sister’s brow, staining her clerical robes.

Pressing on, Alabsator continued using his dowsing-rod, leading the group still further into the labyrinth. Cephalus, at this time, detected a faint smell of burning hair – sharp and unpleasant. He shuddered and pressed on. Passing many corridors, the group eventually found themselves at a wooden door. Bracing themselves for what lay beyond, they stepped through…

Map 001

Yam & Cephalus’ players’ collaborative map of the Maze.

…only to find themselves inside of an outhouse, a crude latrine before them, the entrance ahead. Sunlight streamed through gaps in the walls, and a breeze was audible, rustling through vegetation. Opening the door, the group entered what seemed to be a field, beneath a darkening blue sky. Rows of corn extended in all directions, and a barn and small farmhouse where evident nearby, along with five scarecrows presiding over the fields. Cautiously, the party began venturing forwards, ears of corn brushing against them as they began their exploration of the fields.

“I don’t like these scarecrows,” Alabastor said.

“Let’s go have a look,” Sister suggested.

They approached one of the tatterdemalion things. Armand, using detect magic, discerned a strong aura of abjuration, but the scarecrow seemed otherwise normal – simply cloth and straw. On slightly closer inspection, however, Armand realized with a start that the scarecrow was garbed almost identically to himself – in patchwork clothes that resembled his own. Even the pale sack of the thing’s head seemed to have something of his sardonic expression.

“Didn’t the captions in the dollhouse mention nightfall?” Alabastor said.

“It’s getting on,” Cephalus urged. “Let’s investigate the farmhouse.”

Agreeing, the group cut through the corn rows to the farmhouse, a small wooden structure that looked disused. Alabastor picked the locked front door and they entered. Inside, the farmhouse was musty and disused. There was a bedroom, a front room, and a small kitchen. Blood spatters marred the walls, and much of the furniture has been broken – there was obviously violence done here.

In the bedroom, this violence was given horribly vivid form. A man was nailed to the wall, spread-eagled, and split from neck to navel, as if by a scythe. Vines and vegetation sprang from his body, from his eyes and mouth, nostrils, ears, groin, and lush creepers spill from his stomach like entrails. The vines bore fat, glistening pumpkins.

Most of the party nearly retched in horror, but Armand – undisturbed by such vegetal abomination – took a sample pumpkin, carefully removing it from its stem. “Hmm. Anything else here?” he asked, looking round. He seemed slightly put off by the bucolic setting. Alabastor was also perturbed, glancing frequently out the windows and keeping an eye on the sun.

“There’s a back door here…” Sister said. “Locked. But there’s no light coming from beneath it.”

Alabastor tried to pick the lock, to no avail.

“Stand back,” Cephalus said, and aimed a kick at the door. With a single strike and a tremendous sound of splintering wood the dagonian broke the door from its hinges. While the door should have opened into the fields, instead it led into a dark stone corridor.

Moments later, the party could hear the barn door opening, and something moving outside in the fields.

“Fuck. Something’s coming!” Alabastor swore. He hurriedly closed and locked the front door.

“Let’s move,” Cephalus said, heading towards the corridor.

“You get through, and I’ll mend the door!” Sister said. She began casting a spell to repair the broken door as her companions hurried through.

“I’ll give you cover!” Alabastor said, conjuring an illusion of the intact door.

“I’ll see what’s out there,” Caulis said, sending Eleyin to spy. The creature telepathically projected images of scythes, sickles, and pichforks glinting as a group of figures, mostly hidden by the corn, began making their way towards the farmhouse, muttering some strange prayer.

“I’ll hide our tracks,” Cephalus said, drawing on his powers to cast pass without trace. There was a loud thud at the door as whoever was outside tried to force their way within. Sister mended and shut the back door as the front door gave, a shadow darkening its threshold. The party rushed down the corridor, putting space between themselves and their pursuers.

Map 002

Cephalus’ player’s map of the second level.

Alabstor tried his dowsing rod, but it jerked in several directions, not settling on any given corridor. Wandering south, the party began to slowly explore the crystalline corridors of the Vaults on this level, swirling dream-stuff imprisoned in the Plateau of Frozen Thoughts visible behind the glassy surface of the walls.

Eventually, the group found their way to a door, fashioned in the style of the Old City, with a glyph-graven console behind it. Armand, practiced in the runic arts, used his powers to manipulate the glyph-lock and unseal the door. The floor of the huge room beyond was completely covered in a slick, liquid sheet of crimson – blood. It was impossible to tell how deep the blood extended; Sister cast light on a stone and cast it into the blood, but it quickly disappeared, swallowed by the crimson pool. More blood poureds slowly down the walls from small drains scattered about, sometimes in thin rivulets, other times in sheets of red.

At the fair end of the long, bloody hall was what looked like an elevator door, complete with a grate and a button to summon it – not a Librarian elevator, but a rickety mechanical lift.

“Hmm,” Alabastor said. “I don’t want swim in this. What if we tried to make a bridge, like we did over the Lethe?”

“Good idea,” Sister said. “Let’s try it.”

“I see some kind of orb,” Caulis noted, pointing to an object floating in the water. “A jewel or something.”

“Ugh,” Alabastor said, shivering. “Knowing this place it’s probably the bulb of some horrible angler-fish monster or something.”

“Hmm,” Cephalus said. “I have a thought… Obedai? You there?” He rubbed some ghostdust into his gills. Instantly, a ghostly form appeared before him – the spectre of a dagonian elder he’d met a number of times, Obedai, and who had now been “haunting” Cephalus for some time.. Only Cephalus, using the drug, could perceive this spirit.

“What kind of crazy place is this?” the ghostly dagonian said.

“Egregor Vaults,” Cephalus said – apparently to himself. “Can you help us out? You don’t need to breathe, so maybe could you dive down deep and see how far this blood goes?”

The ghost looked disgusted, then shrugged. “I’m dead already. I suppose it can’t hurt me,” the ghost said, and immediately dove below the surface.

Meanwhile, Alabastor and Sister began to concentrate, and after a few tries, a stone bridge materialized over the blood, brought into being by the power of thought-made-real, as a lucid dreamer reshapes a dream. However, try as they might, they could only extend the bridge halfway across the blood.

“Uh… guys,” Cephalus said, looking back the way they’d come. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but…”

The others twisted round, looking into the darkness.

“What is it?” Armand said warily.

“You can’t see that?”

“No,” Sister said. “It’s one of those things isn’t it? Your nightmare.”

“Move fast!” Cephalus said. “It’s coming!”

He stared into the darkness – a darkness for him illuminated.

A horrible moaning. Whimpers, sobs, screams. Sounds of anguish. And above all, a reek of incinerated flesh and greasy smoke. These heralded the arrival of the Burning Ones, born of Cephalus’ nightmares. They were trapped together, fused in a column of blackened tissue, like some obscene totem pole: burn victims from every species, a vast heap of them, dragging themselves on charred limbs, an amalgam of animals and humanoids, the mangled remains of workers caught in some unfathomable, infernal factory. Within their bodies still smouldered a livid red fire. It glowed and flared, making their flesh crack, producing fresh choruses of groans and shrieks. Flame spilled from eyes and mouths, scorching the air.

Burning Ones

The Burning Ones, as illustrated by Bronwyn McIvor (Caulis’ player).

“Move!” Cephalus repeated, taking up the rear as the others began scrambling across the bridge.

Armand swore, racing to the end of the bridge and, with a quick spell, blinking across the remaining distance to the elevator. He hit the button to summon the lift.

Meanwhile, as Alabastor and Sister made their way across, red hands burst from the surface of the blood, grasping and clawing, one raking Sister’s leg, another clasping at Alabastor. They pulled themselves up: horrible, blood-slathered forms, bloated and thrashing, their eyes white and dead and staring, their mouths gaping, their arms extended in a grotesque embrace.

“Gah!” Sister exclaimed, conjuring a sacred flame and scorching one badly, the holy fire searing its undead flesh.

“Not more fire!” Cephalus said, backing up as the Burning Ones advanced down the corridor, seething towards him. They grasped at him with flaming hands and he dodged aside, then aimed a series of kicks and blows at their charred bulk, breaking off blackened limbs and sending a spray of sparks into the air.

Alabastor cast shatter, but it missed and hit the wall of the corridor behind the Burning Ones, sending shards of crystal cascading everywhere. Raw oneiric energy began spurting from the wall, coagulated thoughts bursting forth in a slurry of dream-slime.

While Armand awaited the lift he cast firebolt, scorching one of the bloody, bloated things, while the rest of the party hurried to the middle of the bridge.

“We’ve got to refocus!” Sister said. “Extend the bridge to the other side.”

“Right,” Alabastor said, while Caulis used sleep, and one of the swimmers slipped back beneath the blood. Meanwhile Eleyin snatched the orb from the blood.

Cephalus prepared to retreat, but the Burning Ones lashed out again, grasping the dagonian in a fiery embrace. Flame licked at his limbs as the creatures began pulling him into their charred mass. Eleyin flitted to Caulis; the homunculus tossed its familiar a healing potion. It fluttered over to Cephalus’ unconscious form and hastily uncorked the potion, pouring it down the dagonian’s mouth. Cephalus revived, his burns rapidly healing, and tore himself free of the Burning Ones’ grasp, but not before the column of flaming flesh tore Eleyin from out of the air and ripped the pseudodragon apart. It vanished in a puff of arcane energy, the pearl dropping to the ground. Cephalus snatched it up and bolted as the bridge began to collapse; the rest of the party flung spells at the pursuing swimmers. The Burning Ones, enraged, seethed forwards, plunging into the blood, which extinguished their smoulder. They hissed in pain or relief and swam forwards sluggishly.

The elevator had arrived. Armand pulled the grate open. “Hurry!” he snarled, leaping within. The party-members piled in hastily and pulled the grate shut as the undead swimmers lurched from the blood and charged, hands outstretched.

“Obedai?!” Cephalus asked, peering into the blood. Moments later, the ghost appeared, bubbling up through the surface, and, seeing the oncoming attackers, flitted into the elevator.

They scanned the buttons in the elevator. Levels 1-3 of the Egregor Vaults were marked, along with “Things to Come,” “Home,” and “Regrets.” Acting intuitively, Armand hit “Things to Come.” The elevator lurched into motion.

The elevator began moving up – and up, and up, and up. It continued moving at a fantastic rate until opening… on Hex itself. Or, rather: a version of Hex. Was this another alternate reality, kin to thosevisited by Caulis, Armand, and Garvin? Or was this something else? Whatever the case, it was horrific. Masses of greyish-purple lichen covered every visible surface, utterly carpeting the streets and creeping up the walls of buildings. Shambolic figures lurched into view – former citizens, perhaps, infested with the same all-consuming lichen.

“This place doesn’t look especially safe,” Alabastor said.

“What about ‘Regrets’?” Cephalus said. Exhausted and unsure, the group assented, and the dagonian hit the button.

The elevator lurched again – not up, or down, but to the side. Walls whizzed past, and the elevator ground to a halt. Water rushed in to the group’s knees (or Alabastor’s chest). The group looked out at the Radula River.

“Oh,” Cephalus said, gills fluttering with emotion. “I… I know what’s happening.” Sombrely, he pointed to a dagonian dock-worker, swimming out in the river amidst the tangle of the Swelter, Hex’s crazed dockland. “This is why I became a lawyer.”

“Who is that?” Sister asked.

“Jurdisss Sludgesucker,” Cephalus answered. “Friend of mine. Co-worker.” He shook his head. “He’s… he’s doomed. A jellyfish. It’s about to sting him.”

“But can’t we… can’t we stop him?” Alabastor said.

“I don’t know what that would do to time,” Cephalus said. “I don’t know if this is even real.” He crossed his arms. “This made me what I am. Led me to help people. I won’t cancel that out.”

As they watched, Judrisss flailed, screaming, and sank below the surface. Moments later, dagonians dove into the water to try and rescue him – to no avail.

“I’ve seen enough,” Cephalus said.

“I’ll say a prayer for your friend,” Sister said quietly, as the water churned and the dagonian sank beneath the surface.

“Thank you,” Cephalus said, grim but resolved.

“Let’s try ‘Home’,” Alabastor suggested, and hit the button. Again the elevator whirred sideways, opening this time into a tiny room within a covered wagon, crates stacked up to the canvas ceiling, a bedroll spread on the floor.

“I lived here,” Alabastor said, shaking his head. “When I was with the circus.”

Armand poked his head outside the wagon. An endless black void stretched in all directions. Vague moaning sounds, like wind, echoed through the darkness.

“Seems to create the home of whoever hit the button,” Armand said.

“Maybe we could rest?” Caulis said.

“Not in this place.” Armand sniffed. “Everyone back in the lift.”

They complied, and Armand now hit “Home.” Instantly the party was conveyed to a simulacrum of Armand’s townhouse. While most of the party were hesitant to sleep outside the elevator, Armand retired to his own bed. The group rested, those on watch listening for any sign of hostility. Nothing assailed them, however, and the party woke rested and refreshed.

“I don’t know about you, but I want to get this book and get out of here,” Alabastor said to his companions.

“Agreed,” Armand said, scrutinizing his nails. “Level 3 it is.” He hit the button.

Map 003

Cephalus’ player’s map of the lowest level.

The elevator hurtled downwards for many levels before opening into a gloomy chamber which appeared to be some sort of shrine. It was dominated by an idol of obviously Librarian construction, one of the Unspeakable Ones: a massive, sphinx-like thing, though with the body of a giant crustacean-like entity rather than a lion. In place of a face the idol had a gaping black void which seems to extend infinitely into darkness.

“The Thing Without a Face,” Sister said. “The Librarian god of oblivion, slumber, and the void.”

“Interesting!” Alabastor said, approaching the idol. “Do you think there’s something inside?” He clambered up the idol and poked his head into the gaping emptiness where the thing’s face should have been.

Instantly, Alabastor felt an invisible force pulling him into the darkness, a kind of horrid lure, tugging him forwards. He wrenched his head back as he realized the hole was closing in around him. It dilated back open.

“It wants a sacrifice.” Caulis said.

“Hmm. I have an idea.” Alabastor took out the Snatcher’s sack – the extradimensional bag containing the phantasm’s many victims, including Cagehead. Edging close to the idol, he gingerly opened the sack and, trying to keep his hands clear, emptied the contents into the idol’s faceless void.

A tremendous screaming, screeching, snarling, tearing sound was audible as dozens of forms were sucked from the bag and drawn into the void, snatching and clawing at one another – a huge mass of ghouls, ghasts, gugs, and other creatures. Cagehead tumbled out last, a mass of bloodied flesh and lashing chains. The sack’s prisoners tumbled into oblivion. The idol’s hole closed, and the room rumbled.

A feeling of immense peace filled all within the shrine. Wounds closed, and even old scars and injuries faded. The hole where the idol’s face should have been opened again – but this time, instead of a black, endless void, the party could see light, and what looked like a room beyond.

“This looks promising,” Cephalus said, breathing easier than he had in some time as old wounds healed.

Cautiously, the party ventured up to the idol. Even more cautiously they climbed through the portal and into a truly massive room beyond. Everything  here was sized at least ten times larger than normal. A massive table set with the remains of a gargantuan meal was set in the middle. A hearth the size of a palace flickered with a vast conflagration. Candles big as trees glowed on the table.

Sitting in a cyclopean chair in one corner, slumbering thickly, was a giant – a hulking, brutish, warty thing close to a hundred feet tall. The monstrosity reeked. It had fallen asleep by the fire. Also dozing by the fire was a massive cat.

There was a door nearby, so huge they could crawl beneath it.

“Shhh,” Sister said, and invoking a blessing of stealthiness from the Mother of Spiders she made their footsteps silent. They crept through the room soundlessly and squeezed under the door, leaving both the cat and its owner undisturbed.

Map 004

Cephalus’ player’s map of the Giant’s Chambers.

The party crept beneath the door. The room beyond proved to be the giant’s library, a huge room lined with massive, musty books, written in a bewildering array of languages.  Unlike the books in the dollhouse these books were not records of individuals’ dreams, at least not based on the titles on their spines. In the middle of the room was a huge pedestal on which sat a huge tome. Sister, able to read the Aklo letters, excitedly identified it as the Oneironomicon.

Sister quickly produced a silk rope, and together several of the party members clambered up to retrieve the Book of Dreams. As they excitedly prepared to leave, however, a group of angrily chittering rats the size of large dogs scuttled from the shadows. Alabastor, as a gnome, possessed the ability to speak with small beasts and understand their animal language.

“Thieves! Burglars!” they proclaimed.” That’s ours! You’d best leave it be or we’ll strip yer flesh from yer bones!”

Alabastor hastily translated.

“Aren’t these the giant’s?” Caulis said.

“We’re the only ones that read them!” one rat proclaimed. A pair of human-sized reading glasses hung round its neck – perhaps looted from some other would-be adventurer.

“I’ll tell you what,” Alabastor said. “I’ll make you a deal.”

The rats squeaked. “Hmmm?”

“You must have read all these books many times,” Alabastor said. “But I have a new book for you.” He took out the book on the nature of doubt and reality that Melchior had given him. “I’ll trade this book for that one.” He pointed to the Book of Dreams.

“For the Oneironomicon?!” the learned rat-leader squeaked. “That book is of immense value!”

“Ah… so is this one! This book possesses tremendous power!” Alabastor held it up, with a glance at his companions. Sister used her thaumaturgy to lend the tome a supernatural glow, while Armand and Caulis added sparks and other effects to make the grimoire seem as if it were literally radiating magical power. The rats squeaked in enthrallment. “This book will reveal the secrets of the nature of reality itself!” Alabastor half-lied.

The bespectacled rat-leader nodded his head. “Yes! We must have it! Give it to us!”

“Uh… here!” Alabastor said, as he heard paws at the door – the cat trying to get in! “Take it!” He practically threw the book at the rats. The party grabbed the massive book while Sister scrawled a portal. They shoved the text through, and as it passed back into the sewer grate room, it shrank to a more manageable size. The group hastened through and closed the portal behind them just as the door opened and an angry feline mewl filled the library.

“Whew!” Sister said. “That was close.”

“But we’ve got the book,” Caulis said. “Now… what are we going to do with it?”

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