Friday, January 27, 2023

#Dungeon23: Level 1, Room 1



Death's Head Keep has been abandoned for one-hundred and ninety-six years. The locals celebrate it’s fall on the summer equinox each year. It is known as Magusburn and it is filled with song, dance, food, drink, and lasciviousness.


Everod Teeg can't help but hate Magusburn. His family are merchants based out of the City-State of Jarlsburg and the holiday disrupts his very tight schedule each year. Worse, his sales are always lighter on that first trip after the holiday.


At the age of twenty he is the youngest member of his family to win the coveted Salt Road route heading South to Freeport. He prides himself on his poise and diplomacy and yet here he sits, in the Sherif’s small office in Greenway, babbling like a child as he explains that the Keep’s bridge was down and it’s portcullis was up; something no human in this region has ever seen.


For her part, Sheriff Fillis Darryn, who has known Everod since he was a boy, can’t help but stare at Teeg's hair, once a fiery and now as white as snow.


Death’s Head Keep looms before you. An inky blackness swarms those brave or foolish enough to enter its maw while the wind mocks you for being foolish enough to trod enter it's maw.


Looming large along the room's Northern wall are double doors that go from floor to ceiling and reflect any light with a violet hue, indicating they are made of the antediluvian metal known as orichalcum.  The doors are barred with a plank of the metal that is at least four inches thick which bears the phrase, "Something wicked your way comes" in High Enoy, the language of long dead Thoeda..


The sight of the barred doors requires a Spirit roll and anyone who fails has a -1 to all Spirit checks until they get a full rest while a small voice whispers in their ear, “It was never about keeping you out”.


Lifting the bar requires a Strength roll at -2 unless at least three people work together to remove it.


Once the bar is removed both of the doors will open with the left groaning loudly.

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The ceiling is 15' high.


The East and West walls feature murals that have deteriorated to such a degree that only abstract colors and shapes remain.


The South wall has a lever on each side of the front gate and both are in the up position. The lever on the left can be moved to the down position with nothing appearing to happen. The lever on the right is permanently frozen in place and will break before being moved.

In the Northeast corner is a single platinum coin that bears the Sigil of the Witch Queen and if claimed they gain 1 Benny. 


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