The Apocalypse Archive 25-30

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Overview

Previous: Areas 1-6, Areas 7-12, Areas 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
1	A massive, swollen tongue, possibly split into multiple tendrils. This goblin can take a bonus Disarm action using Dexterity.
2	A second head – smaller, blind, but with sharp little teeth and a taste for blood. This goblin has a bonus Bite attack (Str, 1d3).
3	A mass of extra legs, as if the goblin’s lower body were that of a fleshy centipede. It has 40-foot walking speed.
4	A cluster of bulbous eyes. The goblin has advantage on Wisdom checks to spot hidden foes.
5	A clutch of arms bursting at random from this goblin’s torso. It has a bonus attack with one of its weapons.
6	Grasping tentacles that writhe out from the creature’s hunched back. This goblin can take a bonus Disarm action using Strength.
7	A pulsating, seemingly blind third eye. This goblin can see Invisible creatures and detects magic as per Magesight.
8	Thick tufts of hair sprout from matted growths of flesh like huge scales. This goblin has +1d3 Armour.
9	Sacs 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.
10	A 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.
11	Bogeyman-long arms, many-jointed. All of this goblin’s attacks have reach.
12	Spiralling 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.
13	A razor-sharp beak. This goblin has a Bite attack (Str, 1d6) in addition its other weapons.
14	Additional ears in odd places. This goblin has advantage on Wisdom checks to hear noises.
15	Profusions 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.
16	Thousands 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.
17	Multiple rows of shark-like teeth. This goblin has a Bite attack (Str, 1d8) in addition to its other weapons.
18	No head – eyes in place of nipples, a mouth across the belly. This goblin does not wear armour, but is immune to critical hits.
19	Fluttering bat-like wings. This goblin has a fly speed of 25 feet.
20	A 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.