The Sinister Secret of Zenopus' Tower – Part 1: The Manor House

I started running a 5e campaign for my girlfriend and three of our friends who were interested in trying out D&D. I was already pretty disenchanted with 5e and planned to run Basic D&D for them, but then two of them purchased the 5e Players Handbook before I could establish my intention. Since I was already running a 5e campaign online and knew the ruleset well, I just started up a 5e tabletop campaign for them.

By the time they got to 5th-6th level, however, they were becoming overwhelmed by the number of options and character-build decisions they had to contend with. So I began explaining the gameplay of  earlier versions of D&D, similar concepts without the constant decision trees and build mechanics. They wanted to try it out, so I brought their 5e campaign to a conclusion and began setting up a new campaign.

I waffled between using OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord for the ruleset, but ultimately chose Advanced Labyrinth Lord with a few house rules (such as Ascending AC) thrown in, just to make the transition from 5e a little easier for the players. I've already wrapped up my other, online 5e campaign as well, and told those guys if I run anything for them in the future, it's going to be OSRIC...period.

For this new campaign, I decided to mash together a few low-level Basic/AD&D adventures: U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the Sample Dungeon from the Holmes Basic rulebook—commonly referred to as The Tower (or Dungeon) of Zenopus, Zach Howard's expansion of the Sample Dungeon (entitled The Forgotten Smugglers' Caves), and the dungeon lair in N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile-God. I also planned to expand some of the dungeon levels to provide bridging material for the individual adventures. My goal was to turn the various pieces into a multi-level, interconnected adventure site (a "kilodungeon") that had many different things going on within it.

The first few sessions of the campaign had a high death count as they adjusted to the new play style. I told them it was deadlier and urged them to take care, and I didn't show a lot of mercy so as to hammer home the difference in play. They learned some new gaming skills, adapted quickly, and all have now survived to 2nd level and are advancing on 3rd. We've played about 10 sessions over the last few months and, so far, it's proven to be a popular change from 5e. As we move forward, I'm beginning to incorporate bits and pieces of AD&D/OSRIC, and I hope at some point in the near future I can make the full transition to OSRIC. 

To prepare for the new campaign, I had quite a bit of structural work to do to integrate the different adventures. The first step was to chop up the maps in Photoshop, starting with the centerpiece location, the "haunted" alchemist's manor from U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, a great little adventure site with high verisimilitude and featuring many dangers for low level characters. It also has a great "twist" in that the characters expect a haunted house but wind up encountering a criminal gang.

There are lots of venomous monsters, though none have insta-death poison (I prefer damaging or debilitating poisons in most cases, with save vs. Death poison being reserved for the nastiest creatures). The giant centipede encounter in the kitchen nearly wiped out the party during play, who were only saved by DM retcon after realizing I'd badly misread the poison details in the original manuscript (which is markedly different from the Monster Manual description). There is also some yellow mold that did kill one player-character. Treasure is pretty skimpy until you reach the end and can capture the smugglers' ship, but that problem is easily remedied.

Connecting everything together was going to be the main challenge, so the manor house would serve as the anchor point to which all the other dungeon pieces would be oriented. This is the original map from U1:

 

Original Manor Map (scale = 5')

I chose a location for the site in my campaign world, but to fit properly I needed the manor to reverse its position on both the horizontal and vertical axes; that is, the front door needed to face north and the east wing to face west. I also took the opportunity to increase the map scale from the original's 5' squares to 10' (to open up the cramped manor spaces a bit), fix little architectural incongruities (such as the improper placement of fireplaces), and clean up the weird grid alignments. Finally, I added some DM notes to the map.

Other than the adjustments I detail below, the only major changes to the original module's writeup involve revising the manor's background (including Ned Shakeshaft's "mission" and situation in the house), swapping out a monster, altering certain treasure items, and adding more gp-value treasure to boost the adventure's XP haul (especially since I don't intend to use the Sea Ghost section of the adventure, nor the tie-ins to U2 and U3). I'll dive more into the background/plot changes in a future post because I incorporate elements of all four adventure scenarios into a unified whole.

After flopping the maps and making some subtle changes, my manor maps ended up looking like this, starting with the ground floor:

Ground Floor (scale = 10')

Changes

• Manor locations are keyed with the letter 'M'.

• I widened the Entrance Hall (area M1, orig. 1) to match the rear wing of the house and be more structurally accurate. Doing so slightly shortens rooms M2 and M3 (orig. 2 and 3), including the hall between, but with the increase in map scale, the rooms still end up larger than the originals.

• I added columns in M1 to support the balcony above (indicated by the shaded areas), and redesigned the accessway to the rear wing, replacing the open hallway on the south wall with two sets of double doors, one leading to M7 (orig. 7), the other to M8 (orig. 8).

• The dotted line indicates the smugglers' path through the house (I changed the bad guys from smugglers to flat-out pirates, but I'll discuss that change later).

• I aligned the hallway to M4 (orig. 4) with the grid, shrinking the width of the Study (M3) but increasing the width of the Library (M2).

• I removed the fireplaces from M2 and M3. Fireplaces and chimneys have specific engineering principles, with rooms on multiple floors being designed around a chimney which, by necessity, must extend straight up from the foundation to the roof. The chimneys in the original map would pass right through the floor of room 11 above it (a case might be made that they're "close enough" to the fireplace on the upper floor, but that's not really how chimneys work from a structural load perspective).

• I rearranged the fireplaces in M5 and M6 (orig. 5 and 6) and the door between them to make more architectural sense as well.

• The rear wing is largely the same, but with a more sensible layout. A normal manor would not have the accessways to the dining room and drawing room be within direct sight or sound of where servants are working.

• The fireplaces in M7 and M8 are more appropriately arranged, and a new fireplace has been added to the Kitchen (M9, orig. 9). The fireplaces in the original rooms 7 and 8 are sort-of beneath the fireplace on the 2nd floor above, but that seems implausibly engineered. There was a small fireplace already in the original room 9, but adding a second one made sense.
  

• I replaced the large spider in the Drawing Room (M8) with a giant ferret. There are already large spiders elsewhere in the adventure, so I wanted something different here.

• I replaced the door between the Kitchen (M9) and the Scullery (M10, orig. 10) with a wide accessway, which you would want in a working kitchen.

First Floor (scale = 10')

Changes

• I pretty much redesigned the entire floorplan of this level.

• I merged orig. rooms 13 and 14 into M13, and kept the 2 large spiders in the merged M13 bedroom.

• I repositioned the fireplaces in M13 and M14 to connect with the fireplaces in M5/M6 directly below. 

• I moved the signal lantern details from the now-deleted orig. room 14 to M14 (orig. 15); I also moved Ned Shakeshaft from M14 to M12 (orig. 12). In my version, Ned isn't working for a merchant in town, he's a freelancer looking to join the pirate gang. When the pirates caught him sneaking around the house, he tried to explain his presence but they knocked him out instead, tying him up and leaving him in this room for interrogation later. 

  When the party meets him, he claims to have been checking out the rumors about riches to be had here when someone got the drop on him and knocked him out; when he awoke, he was tied up in this room (all of which is true enough). So far, the party's thief has taken a shine to Ned and brought him along on the adventure. She's going to be very disappointed when Ned eventually betrays the party to the pirates (probably by assassinating one of the party members during a fight).
  

• I repositioned the Guest Bedroom (M15, orig. 16) and its fireplace, as well as the Servants' Quarters (M16, orig. 17) where I added a fireplace.

• The Boxing Room (M17, orig. 18) was reduced and I added the Head Servant's Quarters (M18).

• The fireplaces in M16 and M18 connect with the fireplaces in M7/M9 below.

• I added a couple of jewelry pieces to M18, as well as a journal containing references to a secret door in the cellar and a "...mysterious tunnel in the garden." The garden tunnel is the main entrance to the Sample Dungeon from Holmes Basic, which I'll get into when I detail the Manor Estate in another blog post.

• In the original manuscript, keyed area 19 indicates the busted stairs to the Attic and describes what was up there. I merged the stair details into M17 and created an actual Attic level.

Attic (scale = 10')

Changes

• The original didn't include a map of the attic level, so I drew one out. I placed the chimney locations to connect with the fireplaces below, and separated the attic into four sections with timber partitions.

• I changed the stirge's treasure from a +1 Ring of Protection to a Ring of Invisibility. There's already another Ring of Protection downstairs in M8 (and a third one on the magic-user serving aboard the Sea Ghost, although I'm not using that section).

• I also added a chest hidden under some old tools and a tarp, containing coins and gems to help boost the manor's overall treasure haul (and reward thorough exploration).

Below the manor are the Cellar and the Sea Caves. This is the original map of those areas:

Original Cellar/Sea Caves Map (scale = 5')

I chopped areas 25–30 from this map, as the bluff between the manor level and the ocean level now contains several dungeon levels between them. These excised caves will reappear when I get to the Sea Caves level in a future post. My cellar map now looks like this:

Cellars (scale = 10')

Changes

• I redesigned the whole floorplan of this level as well, shrinking the smugglers/pirates' quarters slightly while expanding the off-limits/secret areas and adding a new location (M25). I also added support pillars in all areas, as any proper foundation would have.

• I changed the layout of the Wine Cellar (M20, orig. 20) to make it more of a "maze-like" area than an open room. While examining the body, one character got infected by the rot grubs. Describing the worms burrowing through the flesh of her arms freaked everyone out, and her first instinct was to cut them out with her dagger (which I let her do even though fire is the proscribed solution...same result). The incident caused them to leave the body—and the obviously-magic suit of plate armor—alone.

• The main Cellar room (M21, orig. 21) remains the pirate-gang's quarters. I skipped the original writeup's "staged" locations for the various smugglers, and opted instead for creating a rough schedule of activities in which the total number of pirates stationed in the lair varies over time. I also randomized the number of personnel in the original locations (including the caverns far below). When the party enters the Cellar (depending on day/night), there are a random # of pirates here, and some percentage of them sleeps/eats/recreates. 

  There is a recurring chance, while the PCs are here, that more pirates return to this room via the secret door from the cavern level (revealing it in the process). Finally, there is a chance that the illusionist, Sanbalet, is in his quarters (M22, orig. 22); otherwise, he is overseeing operations below. Sanbalet's goals are much more complex and wide-ranging than in U1. He also vies for control of this site with the thaumaturgist from the Sample Dungeon. I'll review all this in a future post.

• The secret staircase still leads to the Sea Caves, but it is now a much longer route. Another secret door partway down (and unknown to the pirates) leads into the Dungeon level, which is made up of the Sample Dungeon plus my own expansion sections.

• I reoriented room M22 and created room M23 (orig. a spur of 21) as a sort-of cellar vault. This puts the "warning sign" behind a second door and creates just that little extra requirement to explore further in order to become aware of a point of interest. The cold, empty room behind the outer door, with an inner door, barred from this side and scrawled with "DANGER!" just makes for a creepier transition.
  

• I separated the six obvious skeletons in M24 (orig. 23) by moving four of them into a newly-added Crypt (M25). Only two are now visible laying on the floor in M24, while the other four rise in M25 to join the fight. The back of the fireplace is also visible on the east wall—a clue to the secret room on the other side.

• In M25, I added a pair of trapped chests, one of which is empty; the other contains gp-value loot (coins and gems) to boost the overall treasure haul.

• I added a fireplace to the Laboratory (M26, orig. 24) because it made sense for there to be one here. It connects with the fireplaces/chimneys in M5/M6 on the first floor above.

 

With the new manor layout in place to serve as the anchor for the entire rest of the "kilo-dungeon," I moved on to the next task, which was to configure the Sample Dungeon so that it aligns properly with the updated manor. I'll detail that process in the next post.

Hurricane Dungeons

Helene hit my neck of the woods pretty hard. I was without power for 9 days and just got internet back a few hours ago. My yard is a disaster, but I feel fortunate that there was no major property damage or injury to my family and friends. It was much worse to the north of us...cataclysmic even. Living a week without lights and technology was a major inconvenience, but nothing compared to what others are suffering from the storm.

I'm a night-owl by nature and can't really get to sleep before midnight/1 AM, so I spent a lot of that time reading by candlelight, mainly the AD&D DMG—a copy of which I just recently reacquired after selling my D&D collection back in the 90s. It's a sometimes-difficult read, but something in Gary's language is magical and really inspires me.

I typically hand-draw a sketch of any adventure I'm working on, but then create the finished maps in Photoshop. Map-making (and world-building by extension) was the juice that got me into D&D in the first place. I pored over maps in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Belgeriad, and many of my other favorite fantasy novels. I even decided to become an architect! (I didn't.)

Rather than pay attention in class, I drew elaborate interiors of complexes and spaceships, like this...

So, D&D was a natural lure, and I have tons of hand-drawn maps from my youth. I still love to create maps, and since I was just sitting in the dark, I thought I would try drawing a finished map by hand on actual graph paper. I was happy with the results—nothing elaborate; just a bog-standard labyrinth with little forethought to design. I just let the pencil flow.

Pleased with the results, I did another one the following night, and then ended up doing one each night of the power outage. I tried keying the first map with the random tables in the DMG, but the results there were pretty empty and boring. I might try to key these someday for fun, or use them for a rando dungeon level here or there. In any case, these maps are a memento of the storm.

Adventure Sites Contest II

Starting October 1, Ben Gibson at Coldlight Press is taking submissions for his second annual Adventure Sites Contest, with a January 1 deadline for entries. You can read all about the contest guidelines here.

Last year's contest was a lot of fun and my submission, Etta Capp's Cottage, found a spot among the winning entries. These were published in a handy compilation available to all for FREE! It was even reviewed by the esteemed Prince of Nothing over at the Age of Dusk blog.

I've been asked to be a judge for this year's contest, so I'll be posting my reviews of the submissions as they come in. My own submission for the second contest is already in the preliminary stages, and I plan to post some of the developmental work here as well. I also have about a dozen unfinished drafts in my posting queue that I need to finish up. Looking forward to all of that, as I have let this blog languish due to other projects/real-life demands.

Ben's contest is part of an effort to foster a return to the "Classic Adventure Gaming" mode of play that is distinct from the OSR community, which has become fragmented and beset by opportunistic content creators shilling for a fast buck. The creators in this contest are old-school veterans and dedicated students of the original versions of the game (OD&D/BX/AD&D), who actually understand good design and know what they're doing. 

These adventures can actually be played at the table right out of the can, without having to parse through AI-generated walls of text, artsy-fartsy nonsense, and a designer's incomplete knowledge of what the game is about.

Image by the incomparable Erol Otus.

The goal is to keep this style of play alive by providing a much-needed infusion of good creative energy into the D&D hobby, which has devolved into a weird and cliquish form of social interaction that has little to do with slinging dice. 

It's been a thrill finding like-minded fans of the early game, and after converting my own tabletop campaign from 5e to an LL/OSRIC hybrid, I even began playing in an honest-to-goodness AD&D campaign recently, my first since (roughly) 1988-ish.

Rotting Effects in D&D

As I re-acquaint myself with the rules of Basic/Advanced D&D, I'm remembering some of the odd bits and pieces of the game that we had to figure out for ourselves back in the day. One of these bits is the effect of "rotting" as a result of a select few monsters found in the game, most notably the mummy and the violet fungus.

5e uses a system of damage types to reconcile many of these incongruities from earlier editions, so for these monsters (and others like them), the game applies a set amount of damage and classifies it as "necrotic." In the case of mummies, the victim continues losing hit points from necrotic damage over time and can't heal until a Remove Curse spell is applied, whereas violet fungi get 1d4 attacks that do straight necrotic damage (up to 4d8 in a single round, which is nasty but not that dangerous to mid-level and higher characters), with no other lingering effect. It's a simple system that makes clear exactly what happens to the victim (one of the things 5e tends to do pretty well), but doesn't carry the same degree of threat as their AD&D counterparts.

For the AD&D versions, both creatures' rotting effects are extremely deadly at any level, but the actual physical results are not entirely clear. I started running a campaign for my tabletop group using a hybrid of the "Advanced" versions of Old School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord rulesets, but I lean heavily on AD&D to help with some of the behind-the-scenes granularity, and to adapt some of the monsters and magic items that aren't in OSE or LL.

"Why not just run AD&D?" you may ask. Ease of entry, mostly. The girls have only ever played 5e and were getting overwhelmed by the increasing complexity of the game as they leveled up, so I wanted to give them an easier set of rules to manage that still provides a fair range of flavor to play with. I also need to re-acclimate myself to the "old ways" of running the game, so it seemed like a good way to go. My plan is to ease them into AD&D as they get more familiar with how the older system works.

In any case, I dropped a single violet fungus into the dungeon I'm running, but as I read the Monster Manual entry, I found it to be fairly vague on what happens when the fungus touches someone. They get 4 attacks as a 3HD monster, and if one of their branches makes contact with a target: 

The excretion from these branches rots flesh in but one melee round unless a saving throw versus poison is made or a cure disease is used.

This immediately brings up several questions in my mind:

1. No damage is listed, so what effect does "...rots flesh..." have?

2. Does it matter where you are hit? AD&D doesn't have a hit location rule, so do we make one up or does the rot simply kill you outright?

3. Obviously, if you fail the saving throw vs. Poison (also categorized as a save vs. Death), you have one round to apply a Cure Disease or the rot takes effect, but why is it not Neutralize Poison instead to match the save category (as far as I know, avoiding disease does not involve a saving throw)?

4. It's not an issue in OSE/LL, but in AD&D, Cure Disease has a casting time of 1 turn (10 rounds). Does this mean you need to start applying it within one round (minute), but you then need 9 more rounds of uninterrupted casting to avoid the rotting effect? Neutralize Poison has a casting time of 7 segments, which seems more usable under these circumstances, but you would still need to cast it within 3 segments of the victim being touched or, presumably, the rot would kill the victim before the spell was complete (unless, again, you simply need to start casting it within 1 round to prevent the effect).
   

The online consensus seems to be that if a violet fungus hits you, then you will die in one round if you fail the save and have no Cure Disease spell available. That's pretty rough, especially since the text does not say explicitly that the victim dies. In a Q&A on enWorld, a participant asked Gary Gygax about this and offered their house rule that had the rot effect reduce a victim's CON instead of killing them. Gary weighed in thusly:

[A]s far as I can recall, no PC ever got zapped by a violet fungi (sic) in my campaign either. Anyway, as nearly as I recall the procedure I envisioned in regards its touch:

1. Subject victim makes a roll to save vs. poison:
2. Success means contact avoided and no damage occurs.
3. Failure means contact with the fungi and subject rots away at the end of the round.
4. A cure disease or neutralize poison spell cast immediately--within 6 segments of contact, will stop the effect.

Your ruling regarding loss of points of Constitution is an interesting interpretation, but some damage would have to be included with each point of Con loss, or no flesh would be rotting.

So, Gary confirms that the rotting effect causes death in one round, but then suggests that a Neutralize Poison spell would also prevent this. He then also, inexplicably, reduces the amount of time you have to (start to?) cast a curative spell from one round (60 seconds) to 6 segments (36 seconds), neither of which permits the casting times of either solution to complete within the allotted round to prevent death. I won't even get into the fact that he has the saving throw completely negate the violet fungus' successful attack roll, which should have some effect, right?

How does the mummy's rotting effect stack up? According to the Monster Manual:

Their unholy hatred of life and their weird un-life state gives them tremendous power, so that a blow from their arm smashes opponents for 1-12 hit points of damage.

It seems fairly clear from the description that the mummy's damage comes from the force of the blow and not from any rotting effect. It follows this sentence with:

The scabrous touch of a mummy inflicts a rotting disease on any hit. The disease will be fatal in 1-6 months, and each month it progresses the diseased creature loses 2 points of charisma, permanently. It can be cured only by a magic spell, cure disease. The disease negates all cure wound spells. Infected creatures heal wounds at 10% of the normal rate.

So, here we have a definitive disease that is not only fatal, but also reduces an ability score, cannot be recovered from naturally, and inhibits regular healing. There is no saving throw to prevent the disease, but a victim has at least 30 days to find a cleric and get rid of the rotting effect. There is also this final detail:

Any creature killed by a mummy rots and cannot be raised from death unless a cure disease and raise dead spell are used within 6 turns.

Thus, if the mummy drops you by damage, you're probably out of luck unless a 9th-level cleric happens to be nearby. This version of the rotting effect is radically different from the violet fungus, save for the fact that Cure Disease is the solution. It's curious that Gygax didn't make the mummy rot a curse, in line with the mythology of this particular monster, though 5e and OSRIC do, requiring Remove Curse instead of Cure Disease (which I like better, thematically).

I dug further and found a few other instances of "rotting effects" in AD&D. Demogorgon in the Monster Manual has a special attack:

[H]is tentacles also are deadly weapons, each causing 1-6 hit points of damage to any opponent, but those opponents which are of lesser stature (particularly those hailing from the material plane such as humans, dwarves, elves, etc.) will be subject to rot – a limb becomes useless in 6 melee rounds and drops off in another six; the body sustains damage which permanently removes 25% of the person's hit points in 6 melee rounds, cumulative per hit. A cure disease made within the 6 melee round limit will save the member so that it will heal in 1 to 4 weeks, and body hits will be restored entirely with the cure if made within the 6 melee rounds after the hit.

The description differentiates between limb and body hits (but no head shot), indicating a requirement for some sort of "hit location" roll. Frustratingly, it only gives 6 rounds to apply a Cure Disease to prevent the rot, which is still less than the 1 turn casting time for the spell. It also suggests that after 6 rounds, a Cure Disease will not prevent a limb from rotting off.

The loss of a limb doesn't affect a character's hit points, and it's unclear if the 25% loss from a body shot represents the character's maximum hit points or current hit points, although common sense dictates it's a quarter of the maximum, meaning four body shots and a victim is done. Also, interestingly, a victim can recover use of a rotting limb naturally if it doesn't progress too far.

Two creatures in the Monster Manual II have a rotting effect. The boalisk has a gaze attack:

[A]ny creature meeting its gaze (indicated by failing a saving throw vs. petrification) becomes inflicted with a rotting disease identical to that of the touch of a mummy.

I have a mild logic issue with a disease-gaze, but okay. Surprisingly, the save is to avoid the boalisk's gaze, which is not how other gaze weapons work (e.g., a medusa), and if surprised, you get no save at all. In either case, the infection is automatic if the save fails. You can avert your eyes to avoid its gaze, however.

The tri-flower frond has an attack similar to a violet fungus. It puts a victim into a coma-like sleep, then leans over them and:

...looses a shower of sticky enzyme which causes 2-8 points of damage per round until the victim is completely rotted away. Each flask of water dumped upon a victim in the same round as the damage is done will reduce damage by 1 point; total immersion in water removes the sap entirely.

In this case, the poisonous (?) enzyme rots via straight damage which can be healed normally, apparently, if the victim survives (which is more in line with 5e's necrotic damage type). Unlike all other rotting effects in the game, Cure Disease spells have no effect on this affliction, but does (should) Neutralize Poison? Nope...just regular water.

From the Fiend Folio, the death dog has a rotting effect with its bite attack:

Each bite delivers 1-10 hit points of damage and the victim of a bite must save against poison or die as a result of a slow, rotting disease in 4-24 days. Cure disease will be an effective remedy.

So, similar to a mummy attack (physical damage plus infected with a disease), but with a violet fungus' save vs. Poison to resist the rotting effect. Again, the bodily effects of rotting aren't described or given any details other than death after a specific amount of time. Also, 4–24 days isn't "slow" in comparison to the mummy's 1–6 month mortality period.

Deities and Demigods has two gods with rotting effects. Lu Yueh, the God of Epidemics in the Chinese mythos, can:

...cast a rotting sickness as a spell that will kill his enemies who fail to make their saving throw versus poison in 2 melee rounds.

Kiputytto, the Goddess of Sickness in the Finnish mythos, can:

...cast a sickness (saving throw applicable) that will take away 5 hit points from its victim per turn until dead or cured. Anything that touches her will rot away, including swords, armor, claw, or fang.

What about Basic D&D, which is sort of what I'm running now? Holmes' Basic has the mummy's touch cause healing rates to take 10 times longer, but it carries no lingering effects to Charisma, nor is the disease fatal in and of itself. Cook's and Mentzer's Expert rules' version of the mummy rot prevents magical healing and increases natural healing time tenfold. Cure Disease removes the affliction in all Basic versions. 

The Rules Cyclopedia contains a jade dragon that has a disease-causing breath weapon:

A victim who fails his saving throw takes full damage [from the breath weapon], and he and all items carried become infected with a rotting disease. This disease causes all nonmetal items to rot away in 1d6 turns unless a cure disease spell is cast on them during that time. A victim cannot be affected by any healing spells, nor healing item, save a cure disease effect. The disease also inflicts 1 point of damage per turn (but not cumulative in the case of multiple failed saving throws). If the saving throw [vs. Breath] is successful, the victim takes only half damage and avoids the disease.

I have another logic problem with a disease rotting away non-living items, but okay. And does one need to cast Cure Disease on their items to prevent them from rotting as well, or will one spell cover the  person and all their gear? This form of rotting disease has no other effect except death and the infliction of 1 point of "necrotic" damage every 10 minutes. Its terminal duration is 10–60 minutes, though, so I don't get the point of the persistent damage, which will only amount to 1–6 points. Goofy.

Since the common thread of most Basic and AD&D rotting effects is that they are diseases—which makes biological sense—I consulted the Dungeon Master's Guide section on Disease. Rather than try to catalogue all known diseases, Gygax wisely chose to focus instead on the effects of disease on bodily systems, which makes it easy to extrapolate and even create unique diseases for one's own campaign world.

There are three disease categories that somewhat fit the bill for the rotting effects we see in AD&D monsters—connective tissue, muscle, and skin diseases. For each disease category, you're supposed to roll d8s to determine its Occurrence (either Acute or Chronic, which doesn't really apply here as they are all Chronic), and Severity (Mild, Severe, or Terminal, with the last one being the only viable outcome for all creature effects):

Connective tissue diseases (such as leprosy) permanently remove 1 point each of strength, dexterity, constitution, and charisma for each month of affliction - thus only an acute, mild attack will not cause such loss. Terminal cases will last until constitution is at 0, i.e. treat them as chronic, severe cases. (d8: 1 = Mild; 2-3 = Severe; 5-8 = Terminal)

Muscle disorders of chronic nature cause the loss of 1 point each of strength and dexterity, severe attacks having a 25% chance of causing such loss permanently. Terminal cases take 1-12 months. (d8: 1-5 = Mild; 6-7 = Severe; 8 = Terminal)

Skin afflictions of severe nature are 10% likely to cause permanent loss of 1 point of charisma. Chronic, mild attacks are also 10% likely to cause such loss, while chronic, severe attacks will be 25% likely to cause such loss. Terminal cases will take 1-12 weeks for fatality. (d8: 1-5 = Mild; 6-7 = Severe; 8 = Terminal)

Obviously, connective tissue diseases are the best match, given the permanent loss of bodily function and high rate of mortality.

Finally, we can compare the effects of several magic items in the DMG. A Periapt of Foul Rotting confers an effect that closely resembles the description of a connective tissue disease:

[The bearer] will contract a terrible rotting disease, a form of leprosy which can be removed only by application of a remove curse spell followed by a cure disease and then a heal or limited wish or wish spell. [T]he afflicted loses 1 point each of dexterity and constitution and charisma per week beginning 1 week after claiming the item, and when any score reaches 0, the character is dead. Each point lost due to the disease will be permanent regardless of subsequent removal of the affliction.

The Remove Curse spell ostensibly removes the cursed items' connection to the bearer, while the Cure Disease+Heal/Wish combo restores the bearer's bodily integrity. Limited Wish is a curious solution because the spell states that its effect has a "limited duration;" perhaps it merely pauses the disease's progress for a time.

The Staff of Withering can be used to strike an enemy and cause:

...one of the opponent creature’s limbs...to shrivel and become useless unless it saves versus magic (check by random number generation for which member is struck).

While this isn't exactly a "rotting" effect (rather, it is an aging effect), it explicitly brings hit location generation into play as part of the effect.

Lastly, AD&D magic artifacts have a potential Major Malevolent Effect with a rotting effect:

Body rot is 10% cumulative likely whenever a primary power is used, and part of the body is lost permanently.

Body rot affects extremities - toes, fingers, ears, nose, lips, eyelids, hands, feet, arms, legs, head in that order - 1 member per operation. Nothing can prevent the loss or restore the member.

Presumably, this effect would also require determination of a random location, with a high degree of detail to cover extremities (hands/feet), digits (fingers/toes), facial structures, and genitals.

I'm not a big fan of "save-or-die" effects, so I want to tweak the violet fungus' rotting touch, but I still want it to carry the same level of threat for players as poison and energy drain. If we take all these various details into account, the ideal rotting effect should incorporate most or all of the following:

• A saving throw vs. poison (more precisely, death; i.e., necrosis).
• The progressive onset of a chronic, terminal connective tissue disease.
• A specific body location for the necrotic effect.
  
• Loss of one or more of the victim's ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and/or Charisma (which can be tied to bodily location).
  
• Loss of hit points as physical integrity deteriorates (per Gary's guidance).
• Diminished healing rates (magical and natural).
  
• Cure Disease as a counter to the rotting effect's onset/progress, plus Heal or Wish (or Regenerate) to restore lost ability score points.

This is what I ultimately worked up to redesign/define the violet fungus' rotting effect: 

If a branch hits, it's excretion does 1d4 damage and infects the victim with a rotting disease unless a saving throw vs. Poison is made. If successful, the victim takes half the damage and avoids the rotting disease. If failed, determine where the branch touched the victim's body by rolling 2d6: (2–3) head, (4–7) arm*, (8–10) leg*, (11–12) torso. *Roll 1d6 to determine (1–3) right or (4–6) left.

The victim immediately loses one point of Constitution and an additional point of another ability score, based on the location touched by the branch: Strength (arm), Dexterity (leg), Constitution (torso), or Charisma (head). On each subsequent round, the victim takes an additional 1d4 damage and loses another point in the location ability score. If a victim loses 50% of their original ability score in any location, then their limb rots off (arm or leg), they fall comatose (torso), or they go blind (head). A victim whose Constitution or Charisma score is reduced to 0 dies. These effects are cumulative per area struck.

The casting of a Cure Disease or Neutralize Poison spell during the course of the infection prevents the further onset of the disease. If applied during the first round of infection, these spells prevent the loss of any ability scores, but not the initial damage. A Cure Disease spell also restores any lost ability scores that have not fallen below 50%. Only a Heal, Regeneration, or Wish spell can restore lost ability score points that have fallen below 50%, revive a comatose victim, or restore sight to a blinded victim, and only a Regeneration or Wish spell can restore a limb that has rotted off. A victim who dies as a result of rotting must first be Raised, and then receive a Heal or Regeneration spell to recover lost ability score points.

I welcome any feedback or alternative ideas.
 

The Temple of Oblivion – Part 3: The Temple Ruins

<< Part 1

<< Part 2

The campaign began in 2016 as an ad hoc test of Roll20 and an introduction to 5th edition D&D for one of my long-time gaming friends. I never intended it to be a full-on campaign, but more people joined the "playtest" and before I knew it, we were gaming online every week. The party ballooned at one point to 7 players plus 3 NPCs, but by the end, after a series of interpersonal conflicts/meltdowns between some of the players (and, in one instance, between myself and one of the players), the group had shrunk to 3 PCs plus 3 NPC followers. 

Most of the first half of the campaign was fairly free-wheeling, with several different, mostly unrelated adventures. By the second half, however, the party had discovered an evil idol with a curse, and became the quarry of a trio of mind flayers who were after the idol. The curse prevented the party from simply throwing the idol away (it reappeared among their belongings the next day), and also served as a psychic "homing beacon" for the mind flayers as they pursued the party.

The mind flayers already possessed one of the idols after the players missed an opportunity to retrieve it, and were actively using it to summon other aberrations from their alien realm. Working through their human proxies—the Cult of Khoss—the mind flayers harried the party across my campaign world, with the PCs barely staying one step ahead of their pursuers. 

The party discovered the hidden location of a third idol (of three needed to open a dimensional portal), but a moment of carelessness caused one player's NPC follower to fall into the clutches of the cultists, who sussed out the idol's location and secretly implanted the NPC with an intellect devourer (a fact the party never discovered until it was too late). The compromised NPC was allowed to be "rescued," and he rejoined the party as an unwitting and unaware mole.

The party raced the cultists to find the third idol, but failed. As part of that failure—to the players' utter horror—the intellect devourer burst from the NPC's skull, killing him instantly. (Regrettably, this was one of my finest DM moments as the NPC was popular with the players and his grisly death really caught everyone off guard). The loss was even more painful because one of the players had innocently put the NPC in a position to be captured in the first place.

Having gained sufficient levels to take on the enemy, imbued with a burning desire for revenge, and gifted with some inside knowledge from rebel cultists seeking release from their thralldom to the mind flayers, the party decided to end their constant harassment by attacking the source.

Thusly, they came to these ruins and made their way through the secret entrance to the temple complex. Originally, these ruins were intended to be the setting for several low-to-mid-level dungeons, including parts of the Caverns of Thracia, but the party didn't glom on to the site early in the campaign, so I repurposed it for the high-level conclusion instead. The climactic battle would take place within the Temple of Oblivion, where the party would confront the mind flayers who needed all three idols to open the dimensional portal and bring through their elder brain master.

By this point, we were all feeling a bit fatigued. We were more than 110 sessions in when the party made it through the secret entrance shrines, and I was definitely ready to wrap up the campaign and move on to something new. So, I presented the players with a choice of entrances into the pyramidal complex via one of the two smaller pyramids. I then roughed out two gantlet-style point-crawls, rather than developing full-on dungeon levels that might have taken the players another 15–20 sessions (or more) to get through. 

One pyramid was already opened by the mind flayers and full of their thralls. This was a route that was "cleared," but difficult to sneak through without getting noticed. The other pyramid was still sealed and could be opened with the idol the party possessed, but it would require them to overcome the monsters and perils present in the point-crawl dungeon.

They chose to navigate the unopened pyramid (the Temple of Death), so I designed a dozen or so encounters and a path with several detours so as to not make it a completely linear experience. Success in certain areas made it possible to avoid other encounters, whereas failure took them down side-paths that ate up valuable time and resources. The players were aware that the mind flayers' plans were underway, and that the longer the party took to resolve this situation, the more difficult the path forward would become.

I'm not going to post the full point-crawl write-up like I did with the secret entrance shrines, as I'm not terribly proud of using this method, but bits of it were good and I am fairly happy with the encounter design work. I will, however, post a summary of the point-crawl below the cut for those interested in what occurred.

The following is the map and general key for the temple ruins. I'm also including links to a full-sized "clean" version of the map, as well as a version with an isometric grid. I'm extremely proud of this map and regret that I was only able to use it for a short period at the end of the campaign. I hope to repurpose it for a future site, but hopefully it will inspire others to make something of it as well. 

I built it as an homage to one of my fave AD&D modules: I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, as well as the superlative Caverns of Thracia by Jaquays (which I renamed as The Caverns of Eternal Night). In the beginning, I wasn't certain what would go in the Halls of the Ancient Ones, but when I retooled the map for the high-level group, I determined that it would be the extended lair for a nasty beholder, another holdover aberrant god of the ancestors of the hillmen who once lived here. It also fit the eye motif well, which was kind of a happy accident.

The Temple Ruins

>> Full-size "clean" version (no grid)

>> Isometric grid version (scale = 20x20-ft. squares)

General Features
The interior of the temple mound is a squarish ravine, approximately 1,200 ft. across (E–W) by 1,400 ft. long (N–S). The ravine is quarried out into three distinct layers, the lowest of which is about 400 ft. below the ridge line.

• The eastern and western sections of the ruined Temple City are on this level, as is the Moat surrounding the Pyramid Platform.

• The tunnels which pass beneath the causeway and connect the two halves of the ruined city are also on this layer.

The second layer is the terrace level, which partially rings the walls of the ravine, approximately 80 ft. above the ravine floor.

• The Temple Gates, the eastern and western Terrace Ruins, the Causeway, and the Pyramid Platform are all at this level.

The third layer is a steep, terraced slope rising to the ridgeline above.

• The sheer cliffs are draped with thick vines and scrub.

• Numerous caves and dark clefts dot the cliff wall, most leading into empty or abandoned chambers, though some may be occupied by various creatures.

Notable Locations

Temple Gates
The entrance to the ravine is bottlenecked by two 60-ft. high cliff escarpments with a narrow pass between them.

• The mind flayers' hillman thralls have built a 40-ft. high timber palisade to close off the avenue, with two 20-ft. high doors providing ingress.

• A dozen bowmen watch the entrance from atop the escarpments, which can be reached via stairs carved into the interior cliff.

Hillman Camp
Beyond the gates is a camp of four dozen hide tents and crude lean-tos occupied by up to 100 hillmen, all of whom are psychically-enthralled by the mind flayers and awaiting their ultimate fate as chattel to be devoured.

• Many fires burn within the camp, covering the area in a pall of hazy smoke.

• Groups of zombie-like hillmen can be seen standing near the fires, milling listlessly about, or half-heartedly fighting for sport.

Terrace Ruins (East and West)
A wide shelf of natural rock is carved into the south wall of the ravine and continues along the base of the eastern and western walls. Both terraces are built up with clusters of multi-level structures, with courtyards and narrow avenues between.

• Vines shroud the cliffside ruins, forming a thick canopy above the avenues (which are dimly lit during the day, dark at night).

• Various dark doorways and openings are cut into the cliff walls along both terraces. At the farthest point of each terrace is an enormous portal.

• The portal to the west is carved like a demonic face with a gaping maw; before it is a sacrificial platform. This is the entrance to a mystical underworld known as The Caverns of Eternal Night.

• The portal on the eastern terrace is carved with a temple-like façade, with tall stone doors and an open eye in the lintel above—the entrance to a tomb complex called The Halls of the Ancient Ones.

• Carved into the terrace wall near each of the portals are stone stairs leading from the top of the terrace down to the ruined city below.

Causeway
The ravine floor is bisected by a 120-ft. wide stone avenue stretching from the temple gates to the pyramid platform. Rows of tall obelisks line a central path from the Temple Gates to the Pyramid Platform.

• The surface of the causeway is 80-ft. above the ravine floor.

• Four wide stone stairways descend from each side of the causeway into the foliage-shrouded ruined city.

• Five wide tunnels pass under the causeway, joining the east and west sections of the ruined city. The pyramid moat passes through the northernmost tunnel.

• The causeway is crumbling, and the surface has collapsed into a large hole at the midpoint which spans nearly the entire causeway. Broken passages and chambers can be seen in the collapsed levels below—mostly storehouses and slave quarters, but quite extensive.

Ruined City
To either side of the causeway are the ruins of the greater temple complex—religious buildings, dormitories, and shrines once used by the ancient denizens. These structures are now crumbling and overgrown with thick foliage.

• Remnants of the ruined city poke through the vegetation, but the true scope of the area remains mostly hidden by the heavy growth.

• From the heights, the glimmer of water can be glimpsed in places, suggesting that areas of the ruins are partially-flooded.

• A constant din of croaking frogs, squawking birds, and other unidentifiable bestial sounds is heard from within the ruins.

• Down in the ruins, at street level, the ravine floor is paved with cracked and weed-choked flagstones. Tumbled pillars and broken statuary lie everywhere.

• The interconnected buildings, platforms, and gangways form a labyrinth of interior and exterior locations. Vines cover the exterior walls, forming thick canopies overhead and choking the narrow avenues.

• The northern sections of ruins on either side, near the moat, are flooded and marshy from periods of heavy rain when the moat occasionally overflows.

• A tribe of predatory lizardmen claims the western side of the ruins as its territory.

• A catoblepas roams the marshy areas of the eastern ruins.

Pyramid Platform
Three massive ziggurats—a large central pyramid flanked by two smaller pyramids—stand on a raised platform, 80 ft. above the ravine floor. The platform is surrounded by a wide moat of brackish, algae-covered water, 20 ft. deep.

• Each pyramid has three tiers, with a steep stair that climbs the exterior to a pavilion-like shrine at the summit (see The Pyramids below for details).

• The central pyramid is 300 ft. high, with a square base, 320 ft. to a side.

• The smaller flanking pyramids are 190 ft. high, with square bases, 160 ft. to a side.

• Wisps of smoke waft from the pavilion at the top of the western ziggurat, but nothing can be seen within.

• At the base of the western pyramid, near the stair, a modest but well-set camp has been established. The enthralled cultists dwell here (see below).
  

Cultist Camp
This closely-arranged collection of fabric tents is sufficient to house 50 or so cultists. In the center is a larger, pavilion-style tent.

• The camp is well-defended by zealots. Iron braziers burn at night to keep the main areas illuminated.

The Pyramids
These massive ziggurats were central to the ritual practices of the ancient people who inhabited this region. The pavilions at the top of the east and west pyramids conceal entrances into each ziggurat.

• Each flanking pyramid contains many passages and chambers across multiple levels, leading down into the platform, where there are even more levels and chambers.

The western ziggurat is the Temple of Sleep; below it are the Halls of Slumber. The ziggurat can be entered via the pavilion at the top.

• The mind flayers used one of the evil idols they possess to enter the Temple of Sleep, then moved into the Halls of Slumber. The dungeon was full of traps and guardian constructs, but the mind flayers sacrificed many hillmen and cultists to clear the way down.

• The Halls of Slumber connect with the Halls of Entropy beneath the central pyramid, which leads to the summoning chamber inside the Temple of Oblivion.

The eastern ziggurat is called the Temple of Death; below it are the Halls of Silence. The ziggurat can be entered via the pavilion at the top, but it is currently sealed.

• The pyramid's pavilion can be opened with one of the idols. Within the Temple of Death are many crypts and tomb complexes.

• The Halls of Silence also connect to the Halls of Entropy below the Temple of Oblivion.

The ancients called the central ziggurat the Temple of Oblivion; the dungeons below it are the Halls of Entropy.

• The pavilion at the top is sealed and there is no way inside the pyramid via that route. The pyramid's interior can only be accessed from below.
  

• There is a temple deep in the heart of the pyramid which can be entered from below, via the Halls of Entropy. Within this enormous vault is a dimensional portal to an alien realm, which now stands partially open, allowing the mind flayers to bring forth various aberrant minions to aid their cause.

• The three idols control the portal, and can be used to open or close it. Without all three idols present, however, the portal is unstable. The mind flayers are using their two idols to try to stabilize the portal, so that they may summon forth a great aberration (an elder brain) into this world. Their ceremony continues apace; the mind flayers' leader is also using the idols to amplify its power and transform itself into an ulitharid. The dimensional portal can only be fully opened (or closed) when all three idols are emplaced in the summoning chamber.

• Worse, the mind flayers have captured a legendary magical creature (a gynosphinx) that dwelled within the temple pavilion, which they intend to infect with their larvae once they can completely subjugate her, and then sacrifice her to the elder brain.
  

The Dungeons
Below the cut is a summary of the point-crawl dungeon I designed to bring this campaign to a conclusion. 

Adventure Sites I Is Now Available!

I had the pleasure of being a finalist in Ben Gibson's Adventure Site Contest over on his Coldlight Press blog. The contest guidelines were to present a short lair or dungeon setting on 2 pages (plus map) that could be played straightaway, and completed in a session or three.

My submission, Etta Capp's Cottage, is part of a compilation now available on DriveThru RPG for the low, low price of free!

Adventure Sites I

I'm proud to have been selected for inclusion and am thrilled to find myself in the esteemed company of some of the OSR's luminary creators.

I look forward to next year's (?) contest and am already looking through my catalog of previous adventures for a worthy submission.

The Temple of Oblivion – Part 2: The Secret Entrance

<< PART 1: The Temple Valley

The party learned of the existence of a secret entrance into the temple ravine from the cultists, but I left it up to the players to decide how they wanted to proceed. There were a number of obvious ways into the area, and by this point the players ranged in level from 7th to 9th, so they had the resources to try any number of approaches. The party had some additional info about the site they acquired during their previous adventures which, combined with the visual details they could see from the vantage hill, gave them a fairly good overview of what they would need to do.

They opted to try to find the secret entrance and avoid a frontal approach using either force or bluff. From the vantage hill, they headed north, winding through the gullies between the hills. They encountered swamp trolls in some flooded ruins, and then entered one of the main valleys to the northeast of the temple mound, passing into the zone of corruption.

They crossed the valley and began moving south toward the eastern face of the temple mound in search of the concealed stair. During this part of their exploration, they encountered a band of hillmen patrolling the valley. With the band was one of their shamans, who was already infected by a juvenile mind flayer. The levitating creature was being led along by ropes, and appeared to be psychically scanning the valley for intruders. Fortunately, the encounter distance was outside its detection and the party avoided the hillmen.

The party found the secret cliffside stair and ascended it, where they learned that they needed to "unlock" the secret entrance by performing a series of rituals in each of six separate shrines. They were ultimately successful, though they struggled in a few places. They also managed to avoid fighting the harpies in the aerie.

I created the image to the right as a vertical map for Roll20, which worked really well to convey the creepiness of the site and give a sense of scale for what was to come (1 square = 5 ft., both horizontally and vertically). The imagery of the façade depicts the ancient civilization's aberrant "gods": a mind flayer, a "frog-demon" (slaad), and an "evil eye" (a beholder, which wasn't immediately obvious to the party). 

Each of the shrines can be entered from the façade map, and contains a small puzzle complex that, when solved, releases one of six switches to open the main seal to the secret entrance. The individual shrines are described after the cut below.

As with Part 1, I've stripped out the 5e-specific monster stats and details (including specific saving throws and ability checks) from this write-up for a more generic presentation and easier adaptation if anyone wants to use this in your own campaign.

The Concealed Stair
Hidden among the foliage at the base of the eastern face of the temple mound is a winding switchback stair that rises precipitously up the steep, vine-shrouded hillside. Carved into the cliff at the top of the stair is a shrine complex which protects a secret, ritualistic entrance into the valley. Using this route to enter the temple ravine is not a simple matter, however.

–Shrine Façade
The switchback stairs emerge onto a flagstone plaza built into a natural cleft in the crumbling hillside, 100 ft. above the valley floor. Flocks of giant black vultures perch among the rocks.

• The back wall of the cleft is a garishly-carved façade, 175 ft. high. A 15-ft. diameter, carved stone seal is set into the façade’s base.

• Thick leafy vines drape across the rocks, but the grotesque faces carved into the façade still leer out from beneath the foliage.

• Narrow stairs climb to a series of ledges at varying heights across the façade. Darkened portals on these ledges are carved in the images of a mind flayer and a crowned frog-demon, and lead into the hillside.

• Near the top, a treacherous stair rises to the highest ledge, where four unadorned portals also enter the hillside.

• Carved above the topmost portals, at the façade’s apex, is an enormous stone eye (which is closed currently).

–Crossing the Plaza
The plaza is 120-ft. wide by 50-ft. deep and made of cracked mossy flagstones littered with the bones of various animals and humans.

• As the party crosses the plaza, the vultures become agitated and begin squawking noisily.

• Three rounds later, a beautiful chorus of women's' voices (harpies) begins to rise above the vultures' din. The sound emanates from the portals on the topmost ledge (see below). Any PC in the plaza who can hear the singing must make a save or become charmed and begin ascending the narrow stairs to the top.

Each round thereafter, while the PCs remain in this area:

• The singing continues (as above).

• Vultures descend on the party: Each non-charmed PC is attacked by 0–3 giant vultures. There are hundreds of vultures in the area, so trying to methodically kill them all will be fruitless.
  

When the PCs enter one of the façade’s shrines (see below), the vultures disperse and the singing stops.

• Whenever the PCs reemerge into the plaza, or as they climb the façade using the stairs and ledges, the singing and vulture attacks resume.

• Each time the singing resumes, it counts as a new encounter for purposes of saving against the charm effects. 

• The charm effect can be ameliorated by stuffing wax or cotton in one's ears, but vulture attacks against intentionally-deafened characters are +2 to hit.
  

–Façade Seal
A massive, 15-ft. diameter stone disc is set into the cliff wall. Its face is carved with the images of a mind flayer and a frog-demon wearing a crown. 

• Each figure is oriented toward its respective shrine on the lowest level.

• The figures flank a columned doorway with a peaked lintel carved with an open eye. The doors in the image are closed.

• This seal can only be opened by activating the switches found in each shrine (see below).

–Navigating the Façade
The stone steps that climb the façade are only 1-ft. wide. Each horizontal ledge on the façade is 4 ft. wide.

• PCs on a stair should climb at half their normal movement rate. Moving any faster risks falling if they fail a Dexterity check. Likewise, being struck in combat while on a stair requires a Dexterity check to avoid being knocked off.

• Failure indicates a fall from their current height to the nearest ledge below (1d6 damage per 10 ft. fallen).

• Movement and combat is normal on a ledge (no Dexterity check required).

• Climbing the façade itself is not difficult as there are plenty of handholds and vines, but the going is slow (quarter-speed) due to loose stonework and entangling foliage, and the relentless vulture attacks ramp up the risk factor.

–The Broken Ledge
The ledge across the middle of the façade is divided by a 20-ft. wide gap. A mass of vines between the two ledges seems to provide a way across.

• Using the vines to climb cross the gap is easy, but a Deadly Mancatcher plant lurks hidden among the vines. It attacks anyone disturbing its foliage.

• DM NOTE: This was a custom 5e monster, but it essentially combines the Mantrap (from the 1e MMII) with an Assassin Vine (3e through 5e MM).

• The central “heart” of the mancatcher is a 6-ft. bulb suspended 10 ft. above the gap between platforms. The bulb is totally obscured by vines and other normal plants, so direct attacks against it suffer a major penalty for cover, and only area-effect spells can target the creature.

• When this encounter occurs, the vultures cease attacking to avoid getting close to the vines. The singing continues unabated, however.

• Shrines 5 and 6 above are attained from within shrines 3 and 4.

–Darkened Portals
The six carved portals on the façade's ledges lead into shrines containing the lock-switches that open the secret entrance (see separate shrine descriptions after the cut below).

–Foul Aerie
The stairs from shrines 5 and 6 descend to a central ledge which is the landing for an incredibly steep stair up to the topmost ledge. There, four arched portals enter the hillside, leading into the lair of a flock of (4) harpies and a harpy matron (a larger and more powerful harpy who, in this case, is also a vampire). 

• Neither the harpies nor their lair can be seen or targeted from below, and the harpies do not emerge from their lair to attack the PCs directly.

The steep stair is essentially a 40-ft. ladder; each “step” is only 6-in. deep, little more than finger- and toe-holds. Worse, the entire stair is covered in slick bird dung.

• Climbing it reduces a PC's movement by half. They must make a Dexterity check for each round of movement they make on the stair, or fall back to the ledge below, taking 1d6 damage for each 10 ft. fallen).

• Charmed PCs climb with enchanted purpose and do not need to make a Dexterity check (although their movement is still halved).

• If another PC is on the stair beneath a falling PC, they also suffer 1d6 bludgeoning per 10 ft. the falling PC drops, and the struck PC must make a Dexterity check (–1 per dice of damage they took) or also fall the rest of the way down the stair.

–Ill-seeming Eye
When the first seal is opened (regardless of which shrine the party tries first), the lidded eye begins to open slowly. It opens fully in one hour, at which point it animates and begins frenetically scanning the plaza.

• Each round, there is a 1–2:6 chance the eye emits a death ray of cold purple light that strikes one random target in the open (save or die instantly). The eye does not target the vultures.

• The eye will remain active for 8 hours, after which it closes again.