Holidaying in Port Sunlight - a place which itself would make interesting inspirational material for a D&D module - I came across a mysterious architectural feature. It struck me as something that one might find in a dungeon, wizard's garden, courtyard of a school of magic, etc., and so I post it here so as to elicit suggestions as to what it might be. The best wins a prize: the choice of any one PDF from the noisms games storefront.
Each entry must consist of a short description as though written for a dungeon key for the edition of your choice, with stats as necessary. The scope of each entry should include the design on the floor and the feature on the wall behind it, but the location could be anywhere: underground, on a boat, on an airship; anywhere you like. The numerals '2008' can be ignored or incorporated as desired.
This circular partial mosaic of a compass rose is actually a broken magic portal. The missing fragments are elsewhere in the dungeon, guarded by traps and denizens, and need to be found and placed correctly to complete the mosaic. Once the mosaic has been pieced together it begins to glow a strange blueish green and anyone stepping into it will be teleported without error to the treasure vault which has a similar compass rose mosaic which is also damaged and incomplete. Note that this treasure vault is actually over 200 miles away from the original dungeon. If the DM is benevolent the pieces needed to complete the returning portal mosaic can be found within the treasure vault. If the DM is feeling more mischievous, the missing pieces of the return portal mosaic are in the original dungeon. Did the PCs bring these pieces with them through the portal? If not they could be in for a long journey back. If the DM is absolutely fiendish, then the treasure vault has no exit except via the mosaic portal.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a contest entry, but I'm reminded of the compass rose representing the Celtic nations and the giants of Tarshish (!) that I've seen in La Coruna, Galicia, Spain. There's no really accurate description with a good picture online, but this comes closest: https://www.letsteacheurope-erasmus.site/rosa-dos-ventos-the-famous-compass-near-the-hercules-tower/
ReplyDeleteBrittany's designs, by the way, are heraldic marks from its patterned coat of arms, representing the black noses and tail tips of an ermine pelt.
Courtyard with irregular flagstones and stone walls. In the centre of the courtyard is a broken mosaic, 2 meters in diameter, depicting a stylised sun, with a sailing ship in the centre with rays pointing to the direction of the compass around the circles edge. 7 of the rays are broken off and missing.
ReplyDeleteOn the wall north of the mosaic is a stone lion head looking at the mosaic. It has a mouth hole too small for anything other than a tiny creature to fit inside.
In the south side of the courtyard is one of the missing rays. If a ray is returned to mosaic the eyes of the lion emit a golden glow and ray fuses back into the mosaic.
This courtyard was used for rituals honouring the sacred lion of the sun before the city was overrun and the mosaic broken. If all the rays are restored the courtyard will be suffused with a golden glow, healing all living creatures for 4d6 and dealing the same damage to undead. The lion’s mouth will then open fully, revealing a large golden key that opens the treasure vault in loc. 4D.
The remaining rays can be found at the following locations:
• 2 are being used as clubs by the ogres in loc. 2B
• 1 is in pile of stolen goods in loc. 2E
• 2 have been incorporated into the face of the golem makers clock in loc. 3F
• 1 is in the Oytugh refuse heap in loc. 3J
Restoring the mosaic will also increase the PCs reputation with Lion Priests by one level, see factions in Chapter 4 for more details.
I might be fouling out the competition because one page and a quarter is not exactly “short”, but just for fun. Deplorably in two parts to annoy everyone. Sorry:
ReplyDelete-Part I-
This section of the Gardens at the Perfect City of Amber houses the Caliper Portolanum, conceived by the demented Dworkin as a way of teaching the royal dauphins the risks and wonders of meddling with other realities even before their innate dimension hopping talents fully awaken.
To the PCs, the Caliper Portolanum consits of a rather low balaustrade, similar to a stocky, compact aqueduct in neoclassical style, terracing the far end of the Garden. A arched niche indented on the wall houses a fountain lion head, incongrousy hanging not over a water basin but directly before the flagstone floor, wich is dominated by a complicated, well crafted mosaic of a nautical wind rose - if water sprang from the lion's head, it would hit the floor in a messy manner.
The nautical rose decipts a ship in its center, surrounded by a windrose, surrounded by portions of maps and deciptions o the sea . Trimming the rose is a angular caliper, but its numbers are strange gibberish: any being gazing it will see numbers as compreheended in his own language, but completely inaplicable for the 360 degrees of a circle: impossible readings such as "2008 degrees" or "6.62607015×E-34 degrees" can be found displayed. The caliper itself is movable: if the pcs put a little pressure on the outer ring it slightly recedes into the floor and becomes capable of being turned. The ring seems "infinite" as new (na absurd) numbers will appear and disappear continously the more it is turned.
Turning the ring also changes the maps displayed, the style of the ship and even the color of the ocean. That is Dworkin's magic: the bizarre numbers are unified planar coordinates, and the Caliper is reading the maps and oceans of distant worlds, althrough never with any more precision that could be got from orbit.
If the PC touch the ship desgin, they will immediately hear the tremendous roar of the sea. Then the lion's head will start spurting salt water, waterlogging the floor much too fast a small trickle. The roar will increase steadly, until the PCs are able to see, to their incredulity, a tidal wave coming fom the horizon of the garden, as if a seaquake had swallowed the entire palace.
No such thing is actually happening. To an observing party all that would have occured is that the PCs fainted into catatony after touching the center of the rosette: the tidal wave that engulfs them is a projection from the magical mechanism directly into heir dreaming minds.
The PCs are now voyaging witouth moving: their minds will be dislocated to a random sea-going vessel on the destination world. This happens through a storm, casting a number of the vessels crew equal to the number of the PCs into the ocean. When they are fished out (hopefuly) by the remaining crew, they will not be themselves anymore: the PC's mind override the alien mariners brain, controlling their bodies. The adventure proceeds now with this drastic change of setting until either the host bodies die, the vessel sinks or port is achieved. If any of these conditions are met, the mind transfer is reversed, and the PCs awake on their bodies, with mighty sore backs from laying comatose on the Garden, but otherwise fine.
Repeated users have their return conditions jinxed by the interference of your campaign setting's irate divinity of Destiny, angry at the sequestering of other sentient beings actions: exiting from the dream Voyage will now require completing a task or favour within the original objectives of the travellers sequestered bodies, but always with dificulty greater than before (arriving at port and selling cargo at a profit; sacking the enemy city; conducting vendeta against a rival trade family, etc) – and dying during the voyage might now be fatal back in the Garden.
-Part II of my interminable entry-
ReplyDeleteRumors circulate among the Amberite Royal Princes that somewhere on the Palace Dworkin concealed a magical model ship, build to scale, that changes itself to the last sea-going vessel breached by travelling minds cast by the Caliper. After the return trip, its tiny cargo hold will contain exact replicas of wathever was amassed in the expedition, fully functional but perfectly in-scale. In this way, the legend goes, any treasure in the multiverse can be duplicated...At a size useful to an adventurer no bigger than an ant. The truth about such rumors - and what could be the result of locking a living being on the hold of a returning ship when the model changes, are left to the GM.
Possible travel destinies reachable by the Caliper Portolanum might include:
-A war barge crewed by the winged people of the infinite oceans of planet Diomedes, where incessant wars and feuds are held to control the few metal sources and cities are completely unknown, clan households being composed instead of barges tethered together to form floating "towns" of forge-ships, nursery-hulls and castle-arks.
-Any number of trade ports on the islands on the Bahr-al-Ajami, "The Sea of Foreigners" on the Southern coast of the rulling Caliphate of the Land of Fate, a lesser catallogued part of the much trod orb of Faerûn. Among such isles still remain the elaborate and inhuman mausoleums of the Juna, a race of starfaring beings of peculiar trigonal simmetry and incomprehensible logic, whose telepathic achievements might employ basic working principles similar to the Caliper.
-The prisioner hold of a elfin pirate ship on Old Earth, sacking the coast of fallen Roman colonies and capturing slaves to toil as sheepherds fared to the strange and brutal fey capital of the "Island of Emerald Mist". Among the prisioners is an annoying brat named Pádraig proposing an elaborate and much too risky escape plan to the PCs.
BRONZEPORT SHIPMONGER'S GUILD ROOM THREE
ReplyDeleteFar-compass of the Ship 'Tenfold Increase': Half-smashed mosaic depicting a square-rigged three master surrounded by the points of a compass. The artwork is mounted on a rotating dial set into the floor. This oscillates gently every minute or two, but always settles such that the point labelled 'SW' faces a lion's head sculpture mounted on the room's northern wall.
Lion's Head Sculpture: cast bronze icon of the god Rumagash, He Who Roars The Winds. Within its tube-like mouth is a rolled-up scroll which reads "Sailing Ship 'Tenfold Increase' of the Cornucopian Republic. Destination: New Stannaric. Export cargo: 14 culverins projected value 28,500 gp, 32 demi-culverins projected value 39,500 gp. Import cargo: tin. Observe how Rumagash's breath speeds her home, and praise him!" Below this is a map depicting prevailing wind zones in the surrounding oceans. Astute PCs will be able to estimate that a ship from New Stannaric passing through the belt of south-westerlies is about 5-7 days distant from Bronzeport. When it arrives, the bottom is likely to temporarily fall out of the tin market, whereas copper will surge in value. If the scroll is removed from the statue's mouth for more than 5 minutes, the lion will start to emit peevish metallic roars, which on a d6 roll of 4+ attract the Plutoclast Zealots from Room 6. It is they who vandalised the mosaic, and they will react angrily to anyone seeking to profit from it.
OK, here's the contest entry.
ReplyDeleteQuite simply, this peculiar rosette is the centre of a transdimensional network in which only the straight ray-points are active - the wavy ones are decorative. It is also the end of a particular way to walk this network, with its rosettes spread along the length and breadth of this perilous, half-deserted magical land. Walk backwards along a point towards its tip, and you will end up at the tip of the opposite point of the next rosette, which surely will have fewer points, though at least two.
The lion's head is inactive; though, like the rosette, detectably magical. You must start, eventually, from the rosette marked with pictures of lions, and spell out the phrase "LIONS-BREAK-BONES-PEOPLE-BREAK-BREAD-TO/STAR/TA-BEAUTIFUL-FRIEND-SHIP." Like the ship, most pictures are self-explanatory; BREAK is a broken chain, rod, and egg while TO/STAR/TA is a star in between the letters TO and TA; BEAUTIFUL shows a man and woman who meet the description and are entranced with each other; PEOPLE is a mob; FRIEND is a grinning man extending his arms wide.
If you come back here with the correct understanding of the phrase - which perhaps something or someone along the way will give you further clues toward - then! You will know you need to break a fresh animal bone and thrust it into the maw of the stone lion. On that, he will emerge fully formed, delighting in the taste of the marrow, a loyal celestial animal companion.
What an inspiring image! I went ahead and ended up making an entire blog post for my entry: https://tales-of-the-lunar-lands.blogspot.com/2024/08/friday-encounter-hall-of-winds.html
ReplyDeleteCastle Gardens: Courtyard
ReplyDeleteThe ground here is covered in a partially completed and then abandoned mural, depicting, at its center, a ship sailing the solar seas. In the trellises above, grape vines wrap around the bones of the workmen who once pieced together the tiles below.