Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="tarchon" data-source="post: 1280414" data-attributes="member: 5990">26.  Game CourtA large chamber opens up before you.  Its vaulted ceiling reaches to the height of over four men standing on each other's shoulders.  The ceiling is scarred and pitted, as are the grimy stone walls - many of the gouges appear to be clawed out of the stone.   Towards the center of the room, you can make out a giant grotesquely purplish mushroom with tentacles that gently undulate around a large ring of shiny yellow metal that hangs from the ceiling directly over the strange fungus.  It resembles a nightmarish tire-swing.  The floor is littered with small scraps of refuse, though through them and numerous splatters of dried liquid, most likely blood, you can discern long chalked and painted lines that seem to trace out geometrical shapes.  Many of these lines continue even up the walls and wrap around the ceiling.Two wooden doors face you from the opposite side of the room and a stack of wooden benches rests against the middle of the left wall.This large high-vaulted room, whatever its original intent, is now used primarily for demonic team sports competitions.  The walls are splattered with numerous varieties of old gore and are chipped and scratched from countless rough encounters with demon horn and claw.  Ragged bits of humanoid and occasionally demon lie about the floor.  A giant rat nests in a burrow that emerges from the W wall in the NW corner of the room, and it lives mainly off of what it scrounges here.  The rat is however unlikely to nibble anyone who doesn't remain motionless for at least a few minutes.The floor, ceiling (25 ft high), and walls are painted with long lines, following patterns that defy comprehension by any mind but the Abyssal, and these serve as boundary markings for a variety of unearthly sports played by the demons.  To the uninitiated, these could easily be mistaken for goetic boundaries, like pentagrams and thaumaturgical circles, however a successful DC 15 Knowledge (Arcana) check will be sufficient to recognize that the construction of the lines is not consistent with any known form of summoning magic.Several sturdy wooden benches are stacked along the E wall, and are used for spectator seating.  These are also rather beaten up, as spectating at such events is almost as hazardous as participating. In the middle of the room, a large (4 ft. inner diameter, 6 ft. outer diameter, 3 in. thick - wt. approx 1 ton) brass ring is suspended above a large tentacled mushroom (a violet fungus) with thick iron chains.  This ring is used as a goal in several games, and an elaborate frieze is cast into its faces, depicting scenes of a multiarmed demoness conquering and defeating a wide variety of humanoids and demons in sport and battle (value approx. 10000 GP).  If any part of a humanoid-shaped object passes through the ring, a magic mouth on the N wall appears and bellows, in the Abyssal speech, the word "goal."  Any creatures in room 7 or west thereof will notice this on a DC 15 Listen check, DC 10 in adjacent rooms 25, 27, and particularly for the vrocks in 28.The fungus is staked down to the floor to prevent it from wandering away from the goal - its purpose is merely to add an additional challenge to games as it will try to intercept creatures and objects thrust at the ring.The doors to 25, and 27 are locked (DC 15, skeleton key); the door to 28 is as well, though a skeleton key is in the lock.  The vrocks in 28 are engaged in boisterous trash-talking and may be heard through the door with a DC 10 Listen check.27. Visitor Team RoomThis room is used as the "locker" room for visiting teams on the rare occasion when another demon nabob fields one.  Otherwise and currently, it serves as storage for game equipment.  Prominently, one will find 11 large paddles, resembling lacrosse sticks but constructed from humanoid ribcages reinforced with a noxious-smelling green laquer that retains a certain sliminess even when dry.  Also to be found are numerous sticks, bats, whips, and balls constructed from (presumably) animal bladders. Hanging on one wall, in a place of obvious importance, is a rough leather straitjacket (M sized), with numerous obvious repairs.  This item radiates magic (moderate strength, Transmutation type) and has several important magical properties.  First, a living creature bound in the jacket levitates (per the spell) automatically to a height halfway between the floor and ceiling, such that the subject is balanced in the middle of the space.   A subject released into open air above ground levitates without stopping, until it ceases to qualify as "living."  Second, every d4+2 rounds, the subject is randomly teleported (effectively by dimension door) horizontally 1d20 ft from its current position (roll d8 for direction), though this effect only works within line of sight and never teleports the subject into a wall.   The demons use this device as a "ball cover" in several demented amusements.Both doors are normally locked.  The door to 26 uses the same simple skeleton key as all the doors to 26 (DC 15).  This functions primarily to remind any non-Tanar'ri servants that they aren't supposed to be here.The doors from here and room 28 to the corridor to 29 are opened by a pair of keys held by Blasphemy.  One key goes in each door to the corridor and they must be turned simultaneously in order for the door to open.  Both locks (DC 30) must be successfully opened to make the two doors open.  A Find Traps check (DC 25) will reveal how this dual mechanism works.28. Home Team RoomThis room contains a large bench and numerous pieces of practice equipment, similar that in 27 but of lower quality.  If they have not been alerted by activity nearby, two vrocks will be found in this room preparing for a game of one-on-one indoor q'tcherbi'jin.The door to 26 is locked (DC 15 skeleton key).  For the door to the corridor to 29, see the room 27 description.</blockquote>

Verification