die_kluge's story hour - The Lost Continent

Nice story hour. Your thread in general about whether its wrong for a dm to take pleasure in inflicting pain convinced me to read this. Very nice story hour indeed.

Thanks, Liolel. Your comment about my post in general prompted me to write some more in here. So here goes.

Journeying back into the accursed tomb, the party uses their knowledge of the existing layout to navigate back to where they left from. Nytor casts Hide From Undead, and the party moves through skeleton room. Down a flight past all the empty sarcophagi from the mummy chamber. Then through the chapel room, and up two flights of stairs. With spell still active, the party moves through the second skeleton room, and near the stairs that are submerged in ocean water. Nytor casts a Water Breathing spell and the party moves into the murky depths below.

This time, the party takes a moment to search through the sarcophagi of this chamber. Using his inate magical detection abilities, Ivo discovers a strange amulet that glows to his keen eyes. The amulet is a small onyx stone inset into a silver circle. In the onyx is a pair of silver hands together in a prayer position. Ivo holds onto the trinket, thinking it best to have it identified before wearing it.

The party then moves through the library below this room, and several of the players glance periodically at the titles of the books as they swim past them. The books are all of various shapes and sizes, and what spines are legible are written in Draconic. A set of stairs leading upwards are found on the far side of the room, and the party moves upwards, up two flights, finally emerging from the water.

"Whew!", Rath states, "I'm glad that this entire dungeon isn't flooded."
Ivo pauses, and uses his dwarven instincts to his advantage. "This seems right. This feels like sea level to me. These stairs come up to about sea level. It must be that just that section is flooded."

Moving into the room, the party is quickly dumbounded to see numerous odd trinkets on shelve that line the walls. Tables and tables fill this entire room, and each is covered in what appears to be junk, for lack of a better word. Artisans tools, woodworker tools, spices, bowls, pottery, musical instruments, toys, all of crude manufacturer, many of them bronze. Like a giant garage sale, shelf after shelf, and table after table all displaying - stuff. In the center, a large "C"-shaped black onyx structure sits before an empty obsidian table. "Curious", Bax admits, casting a Detect Magic spell into the room. "Interesting. I'm getting huge Illusion and some divination magic coming from this structure. Nothing else in the room is magical."

Going on a hunch, Nytor takes a crude tool off a table, and places it on the empty table in from of the C-shaped structure. Instantly, the inner-surface of the structure comes to life as a crystal clear vision of a lizardman working with the tool is displayed. The voice of a narrator can be heard, in Draconic, speaking about the tool. "It's saying how to use the tool; what it does; how it works. It's like an encyclopedia entry for that item.", Rath translates, as the lizardman moves in the image. "Try another one", Dzintra urges.
"A toy, this time", Nytor says, finding a small little boat, and placing it on the table after removing the tool. Again, an image comes to life of a boy playing with the boat. The scene is short. "Fascinating", Rath says, "Valgo would love this place. It's like a huge museum to their culture." Bax ponders out loud, "this is a truly fascinating culture. I guess they knew they were going to die, so they recorded all of their knowledge with this device." "It would seem that way, but we can always come back to it.", Mournax insists. "Agreed", replies Bax.

Moving down the stairs once more, the party emerges in a room that feels like a sauna. The walls and floor glisten with moisture, and a huge pool with a slight trickle of steam dominates their field of vision. Steps lead up to the pool in front of them, and several ornate fountains, in oceanographic decorum constantly stream a small line of water into the pool. "It's warm!", Mournax exclaims, placing his hand in the water. "And it's fresh water", Nytor says, taking a small sip, "and tasty". "This would be that source of fresh water that the divination said that we would find", Rath says. "We can use this water to clean the salt water from our armor and weapons", Ivo says. Mournax climbs into the pool of water. "It's very refreshing", he says, lounging against the side.

With nothing of further, obvious interest, the party continues onwards, down another flight of steps.

BTW, I'll try to post this dungeon if I get a chance. The map itself is wicked cool, but I'll have to try to scan it in. It's a great CR 9/10 map that anyone can use, though parts of it are better than others. Some of it becomes a tad tedious (the mummy rooms), but all in all it's pretty good. My players had fun with it. I especially like the flooded out section, and the skeleton rooms, since they're particularly challenging.

Incidentally, this dungeon has absolutely no bearing on the overall campaign. I had to have a discussion with my party about "metagame thinking" to get them to understand that they should not feel obligated to complete the dungeon under some misguided belief that I was stearing them in that direction. I told them point blank "You do what you think your character would do, and I'll handle the rest. Don't try to do what you think I want you to do." The players understood, but ultimately opted to complete the dungeon anyway, since Rath is essentially a paladin and deemed it worthy to remove the evil from the place. Good enough for me.

Tomb 1st floor

The first floor of the tomb, and a geometric representation of the entire complex. Not pictured are the stairs that lead down into the tomb itself from the outside. I never drew that.

Second floor. I'll try to provide an outline of which room is which.

WARNING: Spoilers below for those that don't want to know what's coming up in the dungeon.


1st floor -
The room on the right is the skeleton room. The rows of "shelves" are piles of skeleton bones. They're barely legible, but there are little "t"s to signify arrow trap locations.

Room on the top is the same kind of room, but in the second wing. Note that the stairs leading down here are submerged underwater.

Room on the left is the third wing - the museum room I just described above.

Room on the bottom is the Priest's chamber. PCs haven't gotten here yet in the Story hour.


Second floor -

Room on top - second wing (submerged wing) submerged mummy chamber

room on the right - first wing, mummy chamber

room on the bottom - fourth wing, hatchery

room on the left - third wing - heated pool room


third floor -

room on the top - second wing, submerged library. Note the broken out section.

room on the right - first wing, chapel, statue of Siluth, the lizardman king denoted by the star. Pool of undead summoning ooze in the center.

room on the left - third wing, another mummy chamber

room on the bottom - the final resting place of Siluth and his queen.

Third floor -

Moving down the stairs once more, the party is immediately greated by yet another room full of mummy-infested sarcophagi (3rd floor, left wing). Through much trevail, and hacking and slashing, the party manages to defeat all the mummies without incident.*

* the amount of time it took you to read that is about as long as it took for us to complete that combat. (Mental note: CR 3 mummies are no match for a party of 9th level characters, I don't care how many of them there are). I just skipped past the entire combat, and said that they emptied the room without incident.


Having cleared the mummy room, the party found some stairs leading upwards. The party climbed the stairs up, and up again another flight, into a room with some shelves. Examining the shelves, the party discovers numerous jars with unknown salves and mixtures in them, also rolls and rolls of unused, unrolled bandage wrap. Moving past the shelves, the party encounters two large stone slabs agains the wall. The slabs are stained with blood. In the center, a furnace - still glowing bright with fire; it fills the room with warmth. On the opposite side of the room quietly rest a few sarcophagi. In the center, a raised dais with an unadorned alter sits, surrounded by 4 columns. "This clearly must be the Priests' chambers", Rath states, matter-of-factly. "It's where they do all their embalming", Bax replies. "Yes, but what of this furnace, it still burns hot with raging fire. That's curious.", Nytor comments.

Moving nearer to the alter, Dzintra hears the all-too-familiar sound of the stone slabs moving off. Looking at the sarcophagi, she can see mummies emerging from their slumber. These mummies are different - they bear a priestly medallion around their necks, obviously signifying them as once-important beings.

The party moves quickly to respond, with Ivo and Mournax charging ahead while the rest hold back. Nytor readies his undead-disrupting mace and moves in behind Ivo and Mournax. Shortly thereafter, a ray of hellish fire bursts from the hands of one of the mummies and seers Nytor. "By the Great Provider, that burns!", he shouts, Mournax and Ivo countering with cleaves of their axe. Another priest begins a divine incantation and brings down some divine might into his being. Soon, another burst is unleashed, this time into Mournax. Bax and Rath counter with spells of their own, blasting the mummies with spells from safety, nearly obliterating the mummies with their magic. Ivo and Mournax are soon able to dispatch the weakened mummies with their tremendous strength, and all is quiet once more. "Well, so much for the priests", Mournax says, laughing, "shall we continue on?"

"Yes", agrees Rath, "there is nothing more here to see."

Moving down the stairs once more, the party is greeted by an unusual room. Along the wall to their left, about a half a dozen open-faced sarcophagi. In each, female lizardfolk lay, quietly resting. In from of them, a large bronze-colored statue. To their right, the entire room houses twenty or more small tables, like nightstands, with raised edges. In each sits a football-sized egg. "I'm going to investigate these sleeping lizard people", Rath says, moving cautiously down the stairs.

Once his feet hit the ground floor, something catches his eye in front of him. The statue, a large, featureless, humanoid-shaped structure carrying a large rod animates - his eye piercing through the darkness. Now clearly visible, an open hole in the floor next to the statue invites thoughts about what might lie below. The statue turns slowly to the party, pauses ever so slightly, and then moves with some haste - to the hole in the floor! Dropping out of sight quickly, a loud crash is heard as the creature lands on the level below. "That can't be good", Bax says.

Meanwhile, Rath pokes at the sleeping female lizardfolk. "I can't affect them - I believe they are in a temporal stasis." The party looks at each other curiously, trying to gauge what their next action should be. Soon, it is decided for them, the moment they hear a savage roar from the floor below.

Moving to the stairs on the opposite side of the room, Bax casts Spider Climb, and climbs down the hole the golem dropped through. Mournax and Ivo lead the charge down the stairs, and make their way into the dark room below.

Here, they can just make out the golem standing atop a dais making a motion with the rod, who then turns to face the party. Shortly, within their field of vision, they can see a lizardman. It is the king Siluth himself, as represented in the statue, and talked about on the dungeon walls! Except this incarnation appears very angry, and wields two bronze short swords. He lets out a roar again, and lunges for the party.

Nice cliffhanger. I take it this is the climax of the dungeon. I'm looking foward to the battle. Good work by both you and your players.