Area 14. Chapel of Evil
Just getting to Area 14 is a challenge. The PC's must pass through the illusory black sphere in Area 10 and crawl along a narrow tunnel for about 200 feet. The end of the tunnel is solid stone. There is, of course, a secret passage here. There's a 1 in 6 chance that the PC's find the door, elves get no special bonus to this roll, "and no form of magic will detect it, save the
gem of seeing." Why won't regular old
True Seeing work? Because Acererak is a bastard, that's why.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ToH_Gallery/ToHGraphic14.jpg
Area 14 itself is a large temple 70 feet square. The walls are painted with scenes of normal life, except that the people depicted are rotting, worm-eaten corpses. Creepy. Also depicted are religious symbols of good alignment, and a faint aura of good can be detected. Maybe Acererak isn't such a bad guy after all!
A wooden railing running from east to west divides the room in two parts. The north part, which is 50 feet long, is for common worshipers. Four rows of heavy pews occupy this area. A mosaic path runs down the aisle between the pews toward the altar.
The pews have hinged seats. The first three rows of pews contain treasure: 4,000 silver pieces, 6,000 electrum pieces, and 4,000 gold pieces. There must be something great in the pews on the first first row! No. They're trapped and they spew poison gas into the room. Everybody lose 2d4 points of strength -- no save -- for 48 hours.
The altar area is behind the wooden railing. The altar itself is a block of opalescent blue stone that glows with an inner light. Behind the altar is a padded, nicely carved wooden chair. Two brass candelabra flank the chair, each holds five white candles. In each of the back corners is a white pottery urn, stoppered with a brass and wooden plug.
There's another misty archway in the southwest corner of the room. A skeleton dressed in rusty black chain mail is stretched out on the ground pointing to it.
The altar has a faint aura of evil. If any living matter touches it, a lighting bolt shoots up the aisle doing 40 hits points of damage, save vs. magic for half. After that, the altar turns a "fiery blue-red." If you touch it after that, it blows up, doing 60 hit points of damage to everything within 30 feet (save vs. spells for half).
The arch looks a lot like Area 5. Take another look at the picture.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ToH_Gallery/ToHGraphic5.jpg
None of the stones in the archway glow when the PC's approach. However, the "entranceway" is filled with luminous orange vapors of an exciting hue. It's a trap. Anybody that passes through has their sex and alignment reversed. So many lawful evil women. Re-entering the arch restores alignment but does 1d6 points of damage. Going through the arch a third time reverses the PC's sex again and teleports the PC naked back to Area 3 just like the arch in Area 10. Otherwise,
Wish or
Altar Reality will fix everything. Other-otherwise, a PC who has fixed their alignment can fix their sex with
Remove Curse.
Finally, there's a tiny slot in the southeast corner of the chapel with the letter O faintly traced above it. This is the way out.
IMO: There's a lot going on in the Chapel, but I'm not impressed by much of it. This doesn't look to me like a room full of clues and puzzles. It's just some traps and the only way to find the way out is to look real hard. Also, as far as I can tell, Acererak's riddle just skips this area.
The pew trap is obnoxious, but since the PC's can stop and rest anytime it won't really hurt them. Of course, they don't know that.
The Archway is mean (so many lawful evil women) but not lethal. What happens to a typical PC when their alignment is magically reversed anyway? The module specifically says that Paladins and Rangers will be OK if they can get their old alignments back. I don't see a whole lot of clues to the nature of the archway, either. There's a skeleton pointing to it, and the module explicitly says, "The skeleton of course, misleads the party."
There's another mosaic path here, but no clue. Bummer.
Finally, the text for this room is particularly disorganized. The secret door leading here, the creepy walls, the pews, the mosaic path, the treasure, and the altar area are all described in one long paragraph. The pew trap is described in a parenthetical in the middle of this paragraph. The paragraph detailing the Arch is a little hard to follow as well. If I missed anything, let me know.
