Previous: Areas 1-6, Areas 7-12, Areas 13-18, Areas 19-24, Areas 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 |
| 1 | Aklo 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. |
| 2 | Aklo 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. |
| 3 | Aklo musical notation for the Eldritch Organ for a Dispelling Dirge. The song dispels all magical effects regardless of level. |
| 4 | A scroll of Sicken which produces the pestilence known as Cannibal Fever. |
| 5 | An 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. |
| 6 | A scroll of Wound (6th level). |
| 7 | A 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. |
| 9 | A scroll of Conjure Celebrant. |
| 10 | A 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. |
| 11 | A 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. |
| 12 | An 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.