Part 3 of the Sorcerer-Kingmaker adventure path conversion, this chapter explores the tower at the heart of Nyrissa's prison in the First World, called the High Folly. This tower was part of the original sub-dimension built by Rajaat to exile Nyrissa, and keeps elements of the original Pyreen architecture. Here, Nyrissa's strongest allies and servants guard her from attacks. The ceilings are 40 feet high per level and vaulted, the angles oddly geometric and organic at the same time, with classical stylings. While there seem from the outside to be no windows, the interior is well-lit by elemental enchantments. (You can add incidental levels if you want mundane areas like sleeping rooms, kitchens, etc.- I've only detailed levels likely to hold enemies or places of special interest)
The original adventure features an outspread manor house, but in converting this adventure path, a single tower feel more thematically appropriate, and is easier to write. Level 1: Grand Atrium This floor's wide and ornate atrium has a height of 100 feet, ringed by torus-shaped balconies at forty and eighty feet above the floor, and encircling spiral staircases, which also lead further upwards. In the centre of the room is a vast mosaic forty feet wide, depicting an incredibly detailed Nyrissa emerging from a pearlescent shell (in the style of Botticelli's Venus). Within this level, a dozen elven Raaigs guard the entrance, kept from death by their supernatural enslavement by Nyrissa. These ancient and incorporeal elves use trained tactics an superior weaponry to defend the entrance to their mistress' tower. One appears at the door, formally denying entrance in a long-dead dialect of the elven language. They retreat instantly if attacked, or if intruders continue inside past the central mosaic. The Raaigs use life-shaped weapons which hurl venomous spines at great distance, attacking from the high balconies with the advantage of cover and their supernatural mobility. Level 2: Statue Display The floor has a large central feature of an ornate black sculpture formed of innumberable sharp curving angles intertwining. The sculpture separates into a pair of Obsidian Retrievers (from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes) forged by Nyrissa and asigned to ward the area against intruders. They are merciless hunters with enslaved elemental spirits, made to slay her enemies. Level 3: Colonnade This floor is ringed with ornate pillars, and a series of psionically animated mosaics on the wall laboriously detail the history of Nyrissa's opposition to Rajaat's plan, his betrayal and imprisonment of her, and then the PCs' defeat of her plans, ending with the figures denoting the PCs reading a circular series of mosaics and then looking backwards over their shoulders towards themselves. The mosaics set up off a psionic trap causing observers to make a Charisma save (DC 18), taking 28 (8d6) psychic damage on a failed save, or half damage on a successful saving throw. Level 4: Shadow Grove This floor is decorated with wall-mosaics of gorgeous white trees against a blue sky. If investigated closely, there are shadowy figures peering from behind the trees and observing any intruders. These figures are former apprentices of Rajaat, and have been spying on Nyrissa's activities for centuries, hidden within the mosaic from her perception. These three Kaisharga have defiling and psionic powers, and have observed Nyrissa's distress. Although they do not wish her plans to succeed, they feel more threatened by the PCs' success against her, and while one attracts their attention, the other two launch a surprise attack from other sides of the room. Level 5: Dancing Trophies This floor features dozens of tall glass domes enclosing Athasian animals which Nyrissa brought back from her periodic visits, slaying them and then animating them with her powers. They have a wide range of bizarre and strange creatures, from gold scorpions, kanks, and even a small Silt Horror. Each moves and scuttles, permanently animated. At the centre of the room is her prize, a perfectly-preserved Gaj which hovers in place, its eyes refocusing and its feathery antennae waving. It moves to attack if anyone gets too close, as a large-sized Animated Object. If destroyed, it causes a colossal explosion of force which shatters the glass domes in the rest of the room in a cascading wave. Anyone in the room is required to make a Dexterity saving throw (DC 22), taking 63 (18d6) slashing damage on a failed saving throw, or half damage on a successful save. Level 6: Gallery of Champions On this level of the tower, Nyrissa has made sculptures of living wood, representing many of her past mortal champions on Athas. The PCs may recognize Eirikk and Castor Irovetus among their number, but they go back for thousands of years, representing many different cultures and beings. Level 7: Well of Blinding Purity This level contains a capped well which descends below the surface of the floor to a depth of 10 feet. It contains a portal leading to the Elemental Plane of Water. However, Nyrissa's enchantments have poisoned the water with blinding sickness, affecting any of the mortal races who drink from it (Constitution save DC 18). Level 8: Salon of Confusing Sounds This level of the tower is sumptuously decorated with vivid frescoes of primeval forests filled with incredible blooms and humanoids of incredible beauty. The sounds of distant celebration can be heard, echoing from place to place. Mortal creatures within the tower level are supernaturally distracted (Wisdom save DC 15). On a successful saving throw, creatures are unaffected and can carry out activities as desired. On a failed saving throw, a creature becomes completely obsessed with finding the source of the sound, and takes 3d6 psychic damage if someone interrupts them. Level 9: Level of Weeping Daemons An empty pool dominates the centre of this level of the tower, made of twisted and chaotically-shaped monsters, each sobbing in terror. Inspecting the faces in great detail (Investigation or Perception DC 25) finds one face which is smiling, and pressing in this face causes each of the other faces to weep tears of blood-red sap for one minute. These can be gathered and ingested, with a total of 10 d8s of healing for the entire minute. The device resets after 24 hours. Level 10: Sights of the Blue Age This level appears to have three vast windows, twenty feet high and fifty feet wide, looking out on vistas of the Blue Age. The 'windows' are psionic enchantments which depict idealized pastoral scenes, even more fantastically alien than the First World outside. Joyful halflings skip and work among life-shaped buildings; trackless seas crash and roll; water falls bountifully from the sky onto lush green vegetation. Each window is accompanied by a soundscape and psionically-stimulated sensations that mimic the surrounds: fat raindrops trickling through hair; vegetation coiling gently around limbs; soft silt giving way underfoot; children laughing and whispering. This will likely be terrifying and instantly put any Athasian on edge. Nyrissa walks this room to relax, and the sensations are entirely harmless. Level 11: Nyrissa's Throne Room This level is rarely used, and is now hung with opaque curtains. Nyrissa's throne room is walled with living wood, gone slightly to rot. Behind the tall and elegant wooden structure slinks one of Nyrissa's lieutenants, the Wriggly Man - another of Nyrissa's Pyreen allies and the one responsible for her life-shaped creations. The Wriggly Man has life-shaped himself beyond the point of his own mortal being, and now consists only of various life-shaped creatures which stick together in a hideous approximation of mortality (a Star Spawn Larva Mage). He slithers towards the party hands wide, and offers his aid- he believes that Nyrissa's intent has grown too grand, and wishes to stop her. All he asks is to be allowed to rule the First World when Nyrissa's threat is ended. He is, however, lying - he predictably attacks at the first opportunity. Level 12: Great Hall This hall is Nyrissa's favoured gathering-place for her servants. Its wooden panels are inlaid with mother-of-pearl panels sheets over five feet wide, and incredibly valuable. Living vines adorned with sweet-smelling flowers twine around each of the columns and the staircases. The hall is guarded by another dozen of Nyrissa' elven Raiigs. They hold defensive positions and defend their mistress determinedly against assault. Level 13: Nyrissa's Redoubt This rooftop is ringed with a colonnade looking out over the First World, over a thousand feet from the ground. Here, under the bizarre blue sun of the First World, the desperate Pyreen princess holds her final ground against those who would see her dead. ...Coming next week, of course! Also poste on Game Masters Stash on 19 March 2021. Comments are closed.
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