Gilladian
Adventurer
I'm working up a (really neat, I hope) new location in my campaign world. In ancient times, a now-vanished culture moved a huge solid slab (lentil shaped disk) of stone from somewhere unimportant to a location deep in a swamp. They built tunnels and passages through the disk, essentially forming a city below the swamp's surface. The disk is about 1/4 mile thick at center, and about 5 miles across.
Much later, another civilization built a city on TOP of the disk, probably never realizing that the first location was there. Eventually that civilization also decayed and vanished. Since then at least one more empire has risen and fallen, and possibly 2,000 years have gone by.
Now someone has managed to penetrate the swamps and begun to explore the ruins. He has found a way from the top city to the undercity, and is exploring it as well. He has both allies (I'm not sure who) and enemies (Yuan-ti, maybe?) as well as general swamp residents to deal with (gnolls and trolls and a variant lizardman race, among others).
I've decided that in the very deepest reaches of the city there lies a gate, kinda like a stargate. It is guarded by a nearly immortal being, trapped by his guardianship; that creature is ancient, weary, nearly insane with boredom, and desperate to pass the guardianship on to a new, responsible and trustworthy gatekeeper. Of course the explorer is anything but responsible or trustworthy.
I'd appreciate some advice on what my villainous explorer should be , who his allies might be, and things I could do with the top layer of city to make it interesting to the PCs.
At this point, I expect the PCs will stumble on the outskirts of the ruined city at about 4-5th level, and spend much of the rest of the campaign exploring, possibly reaching the gate guardian by 12-15th level, if their interest holds that long!
Gilladian
Much later, another civilization built a city on TOP of the disk, probably never realizing that the first location was there. Eventually that civilization also decayed and vanished. Since then at least one more empire has risen and fallen, and possibly 2,000 years have gone by.
Now someone has managed to penetrate the swamps and begun to explore the ruins. He has found a way from the top city to the undercity, and is exploring it as well. He has both allies (I'm not sure who) and enemies (Yuan-ti, maybe?) as well as general swamp residents to deal with (gnolls and trolls and a variant lizardman race, among others).
I've decided that in the very deepest reaches of the city there lies a gate, kinda like a stargate. It is guarded by a nearly immortal being, trapped by his guardianship; that creature is ancient, weary, nearly insane with boredom, and desperate to pass the guardianship on to a new, responsible and trustworthy gatekeeper. Of course the explorer is anything but responsible or trustworthy.
I'd appreciate some advice on what my villainous explorer should be , who his allies might be, and things I could do with the top layer of city to make it interesting to the PCs.
At this point, I expect the PCs will stumble on the outskirts of the ruined city at about 4-5th level, and spend much of the rest of the campaign exploring, possibly reaching the gate guardian by 12-15th level, if their interest holds that long!
Gilladian