Through the small portal in the wall a great lake opens before you. At first, you think you’ve come outside at night, the vast underground cavern’s phosphorescent fungi giving the impressions of stars. Where the walls end and the water begins is indiscernible. The reflections in the darkness create the illusion of an abyss, extending forever. Only one things guides your eyes and grounds you in this place; A glowing circle, bright as the moon, up the wall across the lake.
As you approach the glowing circle in the wall, another opening slowly becomes visible, a small passageway out of the cavern, accessible from the small bank of sand leading up to it, into who knows what.
As the players approach the waters edge, two creatures emerge from the dark depth below. One bursts forth, sitting atop a wet, slimy creature that was once maybe a horse, brandishing a staff resembling a stalactite. The other lurks in shallows, remaining hiding, biding it’s time and awaiting opportunity.
Any metal that comes in contact with the water has a chance of breaking (1 on a d6)
Seaweed Knight Flying; HD 2D6 (8); Cool Staff Energy Ray+2 D6 dmg; AC 11
Selkie HD 2D6 (8); Bite +1 D4 dmg; AC 13 ;Phase out: recharge 2 - creature becomes invisible for 1 round; Loot: Robe of stars, grant Phase out as above.
The entranceway leads to a small hall, it’s walls and pillars littered with seaweed and grime, as if it has often been submerged. Bound to a spike in the center of the room is the remnants of 2 men. Around their necks are thick collars, rimmed with spikes, like that of a beast, joined in the center by a chain. The first creatures flesh hangs off his body in strips, the open wounds dripping dark ichor. He rips open a fresh wound as you enter, coating his blade in his own viscera as he does. An older wound knits itself back his skin as you watch. He screams and mutters with little coherence and struggles vehemently at the end of his lead. The other beast sits, almost unmoving, near the center of the room, the same slick ichor coating his skin. He takes slow, full breaths, seeming to grow every so slightly with each one.
The main hall has three exits. To the left is the Bedchamber. To the right, a spiral staircase leading to a dead end (and the Mooncell). At the back of the room is a small set of stairs down to the Treasury.
Basilisk; HD D6 (4); Poisoned blade +2 D6 dmg. 1 hp bleed dmg for D6 rounds on successful hit; AC 12; Regen: heal 1 hp each round
Viral; 2D4 (6); Fist +2 D6 dmg; AC 11; Growth: gains +1/+1 each round (+3 d8m, +4 d10, +5 d12)
A massive lion stalks around this small room, fur dark enough to appear a shadow. It paces back and forth, stopping occasionally to inhale deeply, recalibrating against the miasma of odour within the damp space. In the center of the room sits an eroded pedestal, with a shapeless hunk of metal atop it. A sword lies, as if cast aside, against the front of the pedestal, a faint glow emanating from it’s hilt.
Abyss Lion; HD D6 (4); Claw +3 D8; AC 13; Become Monstrous: Recharge 5, add +1/+1, spell and damage resistance for 1 round
Replicator Magical steel forms to shape of object in view. Takes time to change shape.
Glow Sword +1 Wielder heals 1 hp on hit.
The stairs end abruptly, the black rock of the walls converging together to block the passageway forward.
Up the stairs off the main hall is a small hidden cell. Perceptive players with a good sense of direction will be able to place this as the space in the wall visible from the lake. The pathway ends in a dead end, seemingly. The dead end is an illusion that can only be passed when in complete darkness. There are no lights on the stair side of the cell, and the barrier will keep light (and sound) from filtering past. When no light is present, the barrier can be traversed freely. The cell is an open cut out from the cavern wall, set approximately 60 feet above the sandy entrance below. Hanging from the center of the cell, is a small very bright chandelier.
Trapped within the cell proper is a short, but thick, dwarf, Sram. Sram is the inventor of the the replicator in the main hall, and was imprisoned by the Queens of this Abyssal Hovel until they can figure out how to make the strange steel items themselves.
If Sram is saved he will gift the players two legendary weapons.
Bleeding Longbow - read as bow withBleed: residual 1hp damage after successful hit
Giant Hammer - read as two handed hammer with Smack: Recharge 6, +d10 damage
Sram; HD 2D4; Attack + 4 D10; AC 12; On death buffs other character + 2 to attack; When freed buffs character +1/+1
Through the left exit of the main hall is the Queens bedchamber. Massive stairs, warn almost smooth by time and water, lead up to a large plateau set like as a once lavish living chamber. The walls. Strewn across the room are chunks of steel and other metals at varying stage of rust. Resting atop the plateau are two women, crowns fashioned of weeds and hunks of rusted metals, their eyes cloudy with madness.
They consider themselves queens the the Abyss, and stumbled upon this place when the ground crumbled beneath them in the woods above. Driven mad by years of staring into the endless lake, they caught Sram as he was exploring and have held him in the Mooncell since.
Behind the bed is set of stairs leading down and out of the Hovel.
Carmina Shadow; HD 2D4; Holy Sword +3/+3 D8 dmg; AC 13; Regen: heal 1 hp each round
Viktoria Void; HD D6; Bow +4 D10 dmg; AC 14; Buffed: On attack +1/+1; Hurl: Remove all buffs from Catti and add as dmg to attack (+1 buff for +1 damage); Lifelink: Heal damage inflicted; Cleave: damage extends to next closest character on overage.