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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Adrienne" data-source="post: 1562211" data-attributes="member: 12556">Room 19 - The Hall of Celebrants (Adrienne Traxler "Adrienne")Door:  Echoing the style of the smaller portal across the hall, these double doors are made of copper and covered with ancient bas reliefs.  The decorations show women and children strewing flowers over a path that leads to an empty throne.  By the throne crouch men holding up pitchers of wine and baskets of bread and fruit.  The unlocked doors (break DC 25, hardness 8, HP 50) are bowed outward slightly towards the bottom, and faint but detectable noise issues from them (see Features, below).Features:  Before the group opens the doors, they may hear the occupant of the hall muttering to itself.  The Listen DC is 25 (base 15, +5 for the door and +5 for distance).  A successful listener hears a confused mass of whispering voices, some urgent and some soothing.  If the result is sufficiently high to make out the words of whispered conversation, the listener hears only snatches, for example:  "When is he coming?"  "Soon."  "Hail Toth Nekamek!"  "Murderer."  "Ssshh."  The sounds cease when the door is opened.A DC 15 Spot check reveals that the disturbed statues stand over cavities roughly three feet by four feet in size, with a depth of about three feet.  With a Spot result of 22 or better (DC 18, -4 to check because of distance), the spotter notices that several overturned statues at the far end of the room have some sort of oily sheen at their bases.Encounter:  The shine around the statues at the end of the room is actually a gibbering mouther, currently lying in the shadows of those tumbled stone figures.  It will make no move or sound until it sees someone pass more than half of the length of the room towards it, at which point it will commence gibbering and surge forward to feed.  Regardless of what happens, the mouther will not voluntarily leave the room.  It formed from the influence of Chaos on the bodies buried in this chamber, and some dim recollection of its once-human parts keeps it anchored here.  Once it is stirred, it will attack intruders until they leave the hall or it is killed--being tied here, it has no avenue of retreat.Gibbering Mouther:  CR 5; Medium aberration; HD 4d8+24; hp 42; Init +1; Spd 10 ft., swim 20 ft.; AC 19, touch 11, flat-footed 18; Base Atk +3; Grp +3; Atk +4 melee (1, bite) or +4 ranged touch (1d4 acid plus blindness, spittle); Full Atk +4/+4/+4/+4/+4/+4 melee (1, bite) and +4 ranged touch (1d4 acid plus blindness, spittle); Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft.; SA gibbering, spittle, improved grab, blood drain, engulf, ground manipulation; SQ amorphous, damage reduction 5/bludgeoning, darkvision 60 ft.; AL CE; SV Fort +7, Ref +4, Will +5; Str 10, Dex 13, Con 22, Int 4, Wis 13, Cha 13.Skills and Feats:  Listen +4, Spot +9 Swim +8; Lightning Reflexes, Weapon Finesse.Gibbering (Su): As soon as the mouther spots anyone who has more than halfway down the length of the room, it begins a constant gibbering as a free action. All creatures (other than mouthers) within a 60-foot spread must succeed on a DC 13 Will save or be affected as though by a confusion spell for 1d2 rounds. This is a sonic mind-affecting compulsion effect. A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected by the same gibbering mouther's gibbering for 24 hours. Spittle (Ex):  As a free action every round, a gibbering mouther fires a stream of spittle at one opponent within 30 feet. The mouther makes a ranged touch attack; if it hits, it deals 1d4 points of acid damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 18 Fortitude save or be blinded for 1d4 rounds. Eyeless creatures are immune to the blinding effect, but are still subject to the acid damage. Improved Grab (Ex):To use this ability, a gibbering mouther must hit with a bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. Blood Drain (Ex): On a successful grapple check after grabbing, that mouth attaches to the opponent. It automatically deals bite damage and drains blood, dealing 1 point of Constitution damage each round. A mouth can be ripped off (dealing 1 point of damage) with a DC 12 Strength check or severed by a successful sunder attempt (the mouth has 2 hit points). A severed mouth continues to bite and drain blood for 1d4 rounds after such an attack. A creature whose Constitution is reduced to 0 is killed. Engulf (Ex): A gibbering mouther can try to engulf a Medium or smaller opponent grabbed by three or more mouths. The opponent must succeed on a DC 14 Reflex save or fall and be engulfed. In the next round, the mouther makes twelve bite attacks instead of six (each with a +4 attack bonus). An engulfed creature cannot attack the mouther from within. The previously attached mouths are now free to attack others. Ground Manipulation (Su): At will, as a standard action, a gibbering mouther can cause stone and earth in all adjacent squares to become a morass akin to quicksand. Softening earth, sand, or the like takes 1 round, while stone takes 2 rounds. Anyone other than the mouther in that area must take a move-equivalent action to avoid becoming mired (treat as being pinned).Amorphous (Ex): A gibbering mouther is not subject to critical hits. It cannot be flanked.Other Features:  The cavities below the disturbed statues are not merely empty, but scoured clean by some rough abrasion that resembles tooth marks.  Moving any other statues requires a DC 20 Strength check for each.  All of the statues stand over identical holes, and release a dusty scent of decay if disturbed by the party.  Inside the freshly-uncovered holes are mummified bodies, each corresponding in size to the statue that stood above.  Behind the row of statues, murals once decorated the walls, but now only occasional smudges remain.Notes:  The people buried in this room were meant to welcome the king to the afterlife with gifts and praise.  Many of them did not die willingly, and the unholy energies that gathered around Toth Nekamek have fused several of the corpses into a hungry new life.  The stone bowls held by the kneeling statues at the far end of the room once held gems and adornments for the risen king, but those have long since been stolen.</blockquote>

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