ZEITGEIST Layout of Genius Loci in adventure 1

[GermanDM]

I am confused by the description of the sea cave and the mine in the Genius Loci encounter. Does anyone have an illustration of the place?

• I am mostly unclear about the gray pillar and the white marble splinter: What shape is the splinter that extrudes from the gray pillar? The gray pillar goes to the ceiling, so the white splinter must extrude from one of its sides. But what form does it have? It has tip with the coin, but the top was missing, so something must have been above the tip and the coin? I cannot imagine how that is supposed to look? Was the splinter part of a different pillar parallel to the gray one? Is the gray or the white material part of the petrified tree?
• At which walls are the 6-inch spikes and how do they help against planar fluctuations? The ones of the sea cave where the stairs are?
• Where is the bottom of the mine where Nicloas' lair is? The bottom of the sea cave is filled with water, so I guess that is not the place.
• Does the scaffolding and ladders mentioned in the Tactics section go all the way down to the water line?
• Is the crane above the white splinter?

It would be great if someone could clear that up. I am obviously misunderstanding a lot of this.

 

[RangerWickett]

Honestly, the art didn't match what I wanted, but we'd commissioned a bunch of illos from that artist, and I didn't want to overload him with revisions.

https://zeitgeistadventurepath.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/image19.jpg?w=406&h=&zoom=2

Yes, the splinter is part of a different pillar, but it wasn't parallel but rather inside the other pillar. There's a big shaft of native stone in the cave, which has partially broken away to reveal that there is a strange column of white stone cutting through it. There is a nook in that white stone with a gold coin. At some point that white stone cracked and part of it fell away too. (This whole section of stone is right in the middle of the water, next to the platform that has a '+10' elevation marker.)

Imagine you took a shaft of white marble, carved a nook in it, and put a coin in that nook. Then you slid that shaft into a bunch of clay and baked the clay. Then over a long period of time you chipped out bits of that clay. Then one day you took a hammer and smashed a section of the clay. This broke a big part of the clay and cracked the shaft of marble. The clay fell away, revealing a little spur of white stone and the coin.

The iron spikes don't really matter to the encounter. They're just all over the place as a bit of flavor. They're a weird thing that should pique interest.

I believe on the Axis Island map, the mine exits at the 'Mine C' icon, so there is nearly a mile of tunnels from the sea cave to the exit on the surface. The sea cave is the lowest point in the mine, but Nicolas would have a hidey spot nearby.

The water level is five feet below the lowest wooden planking on the right, but is basically level with the planks on the left.

The crane isn't anywhere near the column or the stone. The crane is there for moving rocks, because the miners had to clear out stuff to get to the column.

I hope that clarifies.

 

[GermanDM]

Thanks a lot for clearing that up. I think I get the idea now.