Runequest #113 - A Clanking Ruin Locale - "Beyond Death's Door!": The Breshlev Tunnels, Part 2!
If you recall Runequest #111, I detailed part of the Breshlev Tunnels - specifically the part that the sisters of Koratek had fled to after being attacked by a horde of undead. Today, I present the other side of the complex - the portion abandoned by the Sisters.
You know - the portion the heroes get to explore, clear out undead, and retake for the Sisterhood of Gentle Repose.
The idea in part one, is that the PCs will be willing to aide the gentle sisters in the reclamation of their abode. But you don't necessarily have to use the sisterhood as a hook - if you have suitably rapacious adventurers, they may jump at the chance to loot an ancient tomb despite the likelihood of undead. Heck, if you have any Humakti in your group, that is a drawing point too.
Number key references are to the map which I provide. Created again by the incredible Dyson Logos. Modified slightly by me with the addition of numbers and a couple of notes.
I haven' worked out undead monstrosities for this adventure. You can choose creatures that suit your level of play. Zombies are good for normal undead, Wights, or advanced Zombies in armor for Corpse-Knights, and a sorcerer of sufficient power to challenge your group for Zosag Kahl himself.
The Breshlev Tunnels
Once these Tunnels constituted the crypts and burial vaults of the Breshlev Family, a wealthy family of Necromechanics of the Machine City. Hundreds of years ago, before the destruction of the Machine city by the combined might of the heroes of the Second Age, the Breshlevs constructed this complex and endowed a permanent temple to Koratek, the local iteration of Ty-Kora-Tek, the Gloranthan goddess of rightful death and funerary practice, to care for the bodies interred there.
For hundreds of years the Sisterhood of Gentle repose maintained the complex, tended the dead, and gently directed others away when the need arose. But recently something has happened to change the status quo. By some means unknown to the Sisterhood, a potent Rune of Undeath spontaneously manifested in the tomb complex, causing many of the interred bodies to rise as corporeal undead as well as aggravating the sleeping spirits of those who had not yet slipped free from their mortal husks.
The Sister Superior of the temple, Donanda, was overwhelmed in the first attack, along with a number of her fellows. The surviving Sisters are too few to do anything but hold the redoubt they have made, blocking the entrance to the tomb complex with a manifestation of Koratek’s Death rune to prevent the undead from escaping.
Zosag Kahl, a potent undead sorcerer, wandered for long years as a specter, haunting ruins, seeking power, extinguishing life. Driven from his physical form and his home in a ruin on the mainland, he followed a mysterious manifestation of the Undeath rune to this place, and was overjoyed with what he found. He is in the process of transforming all of the Breshlev dead into his servitors. Meticulous in his craft, Kahl has only to wipe out the last of the Sister of Koratek before he can take the necessary time to raise his undead horde properly. So he has been frugal in spending his resources – raising only what he needs to overrun the troublesome priestesses. If he finds out that they have recruited help, he may raise more potent undead to deal with the new threat.
1 – A stone-lined square tunnel 15 feet across, a foyer clogged with a pile of many bodies of those long dead. Beyond, the tunnel branches into two narrower side passages to 2 (no Lock) and 7 (a mechanical lock, openable with a key from Donanda, or from the desk in 11, or a Mechanisms success). The main route forward from 1 narrows as it progresses deeper into the complex. Strewn about this main way are numerous bodies, all intact, but lying as though they fell in mid stride. Part way along, either side opens to look down upon a skull-brazier lit cross passage (12) some 30 feet below. Among the bodies at that midway point between 1 and 6 are four animate undead that rise to fight when they notice an intruder (Sense Life 40%). Another walker is trapped by the press on top of it, but will try to worm its way free if fighting begins (20% each turn after first). One of the dead is Sister Indrata, distinguishable by her black shawl and gown, as well as by her appearance as much more recently dead – She will never animate. Near her corpse is her ritual sickle knife.
2 – Note: Because of the nature of these ritual chambers devoted to the preparation and passage of the dead to the afterlife, corporeal undead cannot enter areas 2-5 without being subjected to a POW 20 attack that will cause them to cease to be undead. A short passage from 1 leads to this larger square room, which is dominated by a complex mosaic mural and a stone plinth bracketed by lit skull-braziers against the outer wall. The doors to 1 and 3 are closed but not locked. This room, and the next several (2-5) have murals depicting the funerary rites of the Breshlev family. In this one the murals are all in faded red, blue purple, green and black mosaic, and depict a deceased woman being born into a tomb, laid out on a stone plinth, and treated with numerous substances from jars. The final frieze shows a woman with a skull mask standing before the body, arms raised, casting some sort of spell.
The stone slab is unoccupied except for a gauzy black shroud.
3 – This room, similar to 2, contains the same plinth and braziers, and a similar mural, this one showing the body being adorned in funereal garb, a long black tunic, and a heavy necklace, then carried away by bearers followed by a throng of mourners. The colours are more muted that the room before, with black, grey and white more predominant.
The slab of stone here is unoccupied, but lying near one end is a black necklace, with a skull carved from a single piece of gleaming obsidian.
A door leads to 20, and to 4, both are unlocked.
4 – This smaller room contains another stone slab, this time in the middle of the room, but no braziers. The wall in this room are done entirely in black and white mosaic, depicting the numberless dead looking out at the slab in the rooms center.
The slab has a litter with a corpse, long dead, lying atop it. The body is that of a woman, long-haired, in the black gauzy robe. She may animate in a limited way, as a voice for the Bone Troll – Zosag Kahl, who may taunt the heroes, or warn them to leave or join her in death and service.
5 – Across a narrow hall littered with the bodies of the dead, is a square room. This area has the plinth, no braziers, and plain stone walls. The ceiling is a single massive black stone, dotted with glimmering gems suggestive of stars. Each gem (there are 144 is finely cut crystal worth about 10 L a piece will require a minute or two to pry out.
On the plinth, there is a sickle knife like the one carried by the Sisters of Gentle Repose. It has dried red blood on the blade.
The hallway contains 20 or more corpses. Some are still carefully stacked against the walls, others lie where they fell, disturbed by the flight of the sisters, and the pursuit of the undead.
6 – A long narrowing hall leads from 1 to 6. Part way along it, either side opens to look down upon a skull-brazier lit cross passage (12) some 30 feet below. A successful Spot will detect 1d8 undead wandering there. A Special Success will detect the glimmer of a spectral undead of some sort. At the end of this long narrowing hall is a doorway to a squarish room narrower at its further end. There are finely carved stone benches around a central empty plinth, arrayed as if to view something on the plinth.
There are 1d6 animated dead in the room. They are sitting in the benches, attending to the empty top of the plinth, but will rise to attack as soon as they detect intruders (Sense Life 40%).
7 – This strangely shaped room contains a number of mechanical attendants. Each of the five angles contains a small stand and a skeletal servant leaning, inert, in the corner. These are skeletal in shape, but made of brass and bone, with wires and inlays of silver running all over them. The silver gleams in an odd way when they more.
Against the outer wall, there is a secret panel (Search or Spot at -20% to find it). Within, are five red crystals carved into the shapes of hearts. If placed into the breast of any mechamagical construct, it functions as 10 Stored POW, which may be used to animate the construct, or for routine use, etc. Each one will power one mechamagical construct for 1 Hour per POW. If the Crystal Hearts are replaced in the cabinet, they will recharge with power from the Earth over the same amount of time. The Power stored in the Crystal Hearts can also be used by spellcasters, but only to power spells associated with the Death rune.
8 – This room is accessible from corridor 12, through a passage under the corridor between 7 ands 15. It contains bolts of funeral cloth, spare litters, two extra skull braziers, and numerous magically significant unguents and materials. Players can harvest 1d6 of these for each Successful Luck check. Each ingredient may be used (in appropriate fashion) once to add 1d6% to a Ceremony roll, a magical ritual, or to an extended casting of a spell.
9 – This room contains a small manuforge repair facility. Shelves are cut into the walls and a pit occupies much of the floor with several strangely shaped metal devices and hinged limbs projecting from the walls and bottom of the depression.
Currently the manuforge is shut down, but it could be made operational with effort and expertise. If it can be started, it could maintain the crypts, the skelebots, and the Donanda-bot (see below), as they aid the Sisters in maintaining the crypt of the Breshlevs. Also here: A store of raw materials: 3 rolls copper, 7 iron ingots, 1 silver ingot, 1 spool Silver wire. A manufacturing scroll for a Levitator.*
10 – This room contains a desk, and bed, once belonging to the body servant of the architect of the Crypts. On the desk is a small silver bell (it detects as magic, and is linked to another in 11). If tapped, it moves, but oddly, makes no sound. A search check will turn up a secret cache in the back of his desk (30 silver gear-shaped coins, and an Attunement Hammer, a ritual device that adds +20% to attunements checks for mechamagical items).
11 – This room contains a frail old bed, three chairs and a chaise, some glass fronted cabinets, and the ruin of a magnificent desk, along with other mundane items, all of which are of unusual design and shorter than one would expect for a human being. They once belonged to the architect of the Crypt, Minder Geld, a gold dwarf, who lived here for the duration of its construction. After years of working here, the architect died, and had his spirit infused in the room. He can manifest in any of the conduits that run through the place. So lights will go on or off according to his whim, shelves will roll forward, glass doors on cabinets open of their own accord. He can be spoken to by anyone who can speak to spirits, or communicated with in basic terms by anyone making a Magical Skill success (He gets the gist of what is intended). He can also manipulate gold at 60%. His spirit could be bound into a working skelemech or other construct, which it would inhabit until the crystal heart was removed or the skelemech lost power.
In the cabinets are several things: 1 a crystal on a chain that acts as a key to the mechanical lock to access room 7 from either direction (identical to the one that Donanda has around her skelebot neck. Three working models of other places or items Geld has designed: A tall brass tower with circular doors and windows that iris open and shut, a quadrupedal mechamagical construct about 1 foot tall and 2 long, that seems to be a metallic version of a cross between a bull and a lion, and a tiny mechamagical dragon about 1 foot long. A search of the desk will reveal 1d6 tiny Crystal Hearts sized to these items, They will power one of these for 1 hour, or a normal construct for 12 turns, and can be directed in simple tasks by the one who installed the crystal heart (each order counts as an attack action).
12 - This hall is featureless except for the walking corpses than wander its length as well as up the stairs toward 13.– see 20. The do not enter 13 normally, but will follow the living there.
13 – This was once a place of commune between visitors to the Crypt and those who lay there. Four columns reach to a lovely arching ceiling, upon which there is a faded and peeling tromploi of an evening sky, complete with glorious sunset. Once it was spectacular, now it is faded and somber. At the narrow end of the room, there is a smooth and easy ramp down toward 22. The door to 22 is locked.
14 – The workspace of Zosag Kahl, the Bone-Walker. Here Zosag has animated a number of the bodies interred in the Crypt, with an eye toward animating them all. In this room he is secure from attack from Donanda, who is too fearful to do much anyway. And here he plots her capture and subjugation, as well as the subjugation of any others he may encounter. Zosag is in 22 unless he has reason to move. But he has left 5 of his creatures to ward his headquarters from attack. These lie in wait in the Northeast room, amid detritus and broken furnishings that Kahl had piled up in there, along with the drained remains of Sister Rodatha.
Other features: There is a plinth in the middle of the columned space, with a number of ritual elements laid out upon it: An onyx gem, engraved bone needle to sew shut the mouth after the gem has bee affixed in the throat of the unfortunate corpse, a bowl of witchhazel ash and bone dust, as well as an amphorae of fresh blood (collected from the body of Sister Rodatha). Zosag Kahl and his coterie are in the process of collecting the body to be animated from room 22.
A Ward has been set around the plinth, which affects anyone but Kahl itself. The ward does 2d6 damage to HP of anyone who attempts to cross it, and protects the area of the plinth with the equivalent of Countermagic 2.
15 – The large room is reachable via a long hallway from 7. A skelebot is stationed here to ward against attack from undead, but the way from 7 is secure for now.
16 – Donanda’s stronghold: Here Donanda awaits aid, inspiration, or the end of her existence at the talons of Zosag Kahl.
Donanda inhabits a skelemech of brass and bone identical to those in room 7, her potent spirit animating the device. She has four skelemech that are still functional, but several others that are not (1d6), She knows nothing of the workings of the manuforge in 9, nor of the hidden crystal hearts in the secret panel in room 7.
The area is full of bodies, hastily collected from other parts of the complex to preserve them from the attentions of the Bone Troll. Donanda was sending skelemech to collect from 15, but they were attacked.
Donanda has four skelemech left to her. She has not yet ventured out of the Brshlev Complex to 23, but is prepared to do so, if she can survive to fight another day. Donanda is outpowered, but wants to try to keep the undead master from claiming all of her charges. Thus she remains, trying to rescue the bodies that have not been animated, and destroying those that have.
Will the PCs fight Zosag Kahl? Donanda is neither a warrior nor a tactician, and does not know how it can be done. But she is willing to work with the PCs if they will aid the Sisterhood.
17 – This battle-scarred room has 1 skelemech on watch for assault by Zosag Kahl, and is the nomansland between Zosag Kahl and Donanda (Who controls 16, 15, 11, 10, 9, and 7). There are three dismembered skelemech, several fallen undead and a dozen bodies.
18 – This vault is stacked floor to ceiling with the mortal remains of generations of Breshlevites. Donanda was working to remove them to 16, using her skelemech retainers. But has pulled back after a recent right with Zosag Kahl’s forces in 17.
19 – This room has 1 zombie guard, and 1d6 zombies, with orders to destroy anything that enters the room. They do not have orders to flee or warn Zosag Kahl.
20 – Amid stacks of corpses and coffins, there are 6+1d6 corporeal undead here, either in 20 or meandering the hall to 12. If any meet intruders the rest will converge. Roll 1d6 for numbers first encountered, but each round roll party luck (highest POW x3%) on a success no more show up. On a fail 1d3 more appear, until the total roll for 1d6+6 is accounted for. Lying unceremoniously where she fell, is the body of Sister Ketherina, her head too flat where it smashed into the stone floor. She cannot be animated.
21 – There is 1 zombie guard and 1d4 Zombies here on guard. They have obviously seen combat and are now stationed here as a guard against incursion from 5, which none of the undead (not even Zosag Kahl) can enter.
22 – This vault contains the greatest of the Breshlev dead. A vast split cavern filled with individual plinths and mausolea in neat orderly rows, each with a resident body, in funereal grey and black shrouds, surcoats, armor, cloaks and more, each according to his chosen vocation in life.
Even Zosag Kahl has left it largely untouched. Only a few plinths of lesser plinths are empty, the first attempts Kahl has made a raising more potent undead.
Currently, Zosag Kahl and a single attendant knight oversee a pair of animate corpses as they lift the remains of a warrior in armor from its resting place. His intent is to take it to 14, where he will animate it as a corpse-knight.
There is considerable wealth in evidence on the bodies or their biers. If the PCs loot the place, roll once for each of them on the Loot Table.
23 – Demon Heights: The great double doors from 16 are barred from within, but readily opened, admitting one to the windy Demon Heights that overlook the ruins of the Bay from the north. A crumbling staircase leads down to a ravine-like gap, that widens into a broad and rising plateau and a huge set of several concentric stone circles.
Whatever happens on Demon Heights is beyond the current circumstance. Be inventive. And Cruel.
*Levitator – When infused with a successful Ceremony roll and at least one Point of Permanent POWer, this device – a large, streamlined-looking, shield-shaped apparatus with a number of ports and vented teardrop-shaped bulges – enables an object to which it is attached to somehow levitate. The Infusor can control the height of the device. With a means of propulsion, such as the wind or someone pushing, the levitating object could move directionally. The Infusion can levitate 15 SIZ for every POW Infused, for up to 1 Hour per POW infused. The Levitator is limited to its Infusion level of 3, could could lift no more than 45 SIZ for 3 hours.
Loot Table: roll 1d10:
- A studded warclub of malachite, with blackened silver grip. The pommel is marked with a Death rune.
- A sickle knife of bone (blade and all) simple in appearance, but possessing a potent magic when attuned. The weapon functions as a normal knife, but can be used one as a matrix for the Hand of Death spell at level 4, at which time it crumbles away to bonedust.
- A construct of brass and bone, very finely made, in the form of an archaic looking skull-helmeted knight on horseback, lance on high.
- A small Crystal Heart (see room 7 for details).
- A wind chime of fingerbones and silver bells. Though there is no wind, occasionally the chime rings and clatters hollowly.
- A half-mask made from a human skull, with black silk ribbons to tie it in place, and a large faceted onyx in the brow like a third eye.
- A Piece of Armor is good shape, Roll Hit location randomly. The armor is of black enameled bronze plate and is elaborately fluted, increasing protective value while reducing weight, and also enhancing appeal.
- A gold death mask. There is a 2 in 6 chance it is a representation of a skull. Otherwise it depicts the face of the person for whom it was crafted.
- A Fine thrusting sword of witchbronze, a magical composite material that will light like a lantern on command, and which acts as a Spell Reinforcing Matrix for any spell cast upon it (Increasing the rank of spells such as Bladesharp, Block, or Peirce by 1).
- A thin facet of onyx, transparent but dark. Looking through it allows the viewer to see the shades of the dead, ghosts, specters and wraiths.
If you wish to generate coinage, Roll 1d6 several times below to create caches of coins (“x” signifies that if you roll the maximum on a die, roll again and add to it, rinse, repeat until you roll something other than the maximium):
- 6d6x large gold pieces, in the shape of a gear, with a mechanical skull on one side and indecipherable script on the other.
- 100x2d6x Silver pieces of various sorts, all several hundred years old.
- 3d6x pounds copper, brass and silver cogs, wedges of metal clipped from larger coins.
- Bar Weight – 1d8x bars of metal, each worth 100 coins in the same metal. Roll 1d4: 1: Copper; 2: Silver: 3: Gold: 4: Unknown metal.
- 3d10x heavy coin blanks of an unknown metal – with no script on either face.
- Roll twice, add together.
If you want to add more variety to your treasures, feel free to add some of these.
You may, if you wish, also generate the Container (roll 1d6):
- Amphora
- Plain cloth sack
- Cracking leather bag
- Decorated precious metal bowl
- Rotten wooden trunk
- Heavy strong-box
