AREA 1-27 – ORGANIC STORAGE
The walls of this room are covered with glass cylinders — between four and six feet long and perhaps six inches around —filled with a light blue liquid. Floating in the liquid are dozens, if not hundreds, of clawed animal legs.
A few of cylinders have shattered, allowing the liquid to run out. In these, only skeletal remains are left.
KNOWLEDGE (NATURE) (DC 12): All of these legs belong to dog-like or wolf-like creatures.
HEAL (DC 15): They don’t appear to have been amputated. They don’t have any serrations or the like.
SEARCH (DC 18): Twisting one of the glass tubes causes several dozen neighboring tubes to move out from the wall and slide to one side, revealing — in a burst of stale air — a doorway leading to Area 1-27A.
AREA 1-27A – KAOSTECH STORAGE
The walls of this room are covered with wooden cabinets and drawers; a truly chaotic cacophony of such things, seemingly organized with no rhyme or reason.
- SEARCH (DC 16): All of the cabinets and drawers are trapped (see below).
- SEARCH (DC 25): There is a master deactivation switch located in one of the cabinets near the door.
TRAP (CR 5): mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset (5 times); gas; multiple targets (all in the room); never miss; poison (weakened burnt othur fumes, DC 18 Fort resists, 1 Con/2d6 Con); Search DC 16, Disable Device DC 18
- CRAFT (ALCHEMY) (DC 15): The poison gas is burnt othur fumes, but they have been significantly weakened by age.
INTERESTING ITEMS: If the master deactivation switch is hit (or if the trap is depleted), it is trivial to search through all of the drawers and cabinets. Otherwise there is a 1 in 20 chance upon opening any of the cabinets or drawers that one of the following kaostech items will be found inside:
- LIFE SENSOR: Two vaguely cube-like hunks of metal attached to each other by a 2-inch long cylinder. A rubbery tube runs from one of the cubes and ends in a plug-like device. (Playing with it may cause the other cube to split open after being twisted, revealing a multitude of very tiny switches arranged in a random jumble.)
- DEMONFLESH: A small glass sphere filled with thick, black liquid.
- A small wooden box filled with metallic discs with holes drilled through the middle of them. (A closer inspection reveals that the metal has been folded back on itself countless times, like a samurai’s sword. And the edge of several of these folds have been intricately feathered. — These were once kaostech headclamps, but the organic components have rotted away.)
Life Sensor: The user of this device can set the sensor to detect a given type of creature. He must specify the creature type (humanoids, dragons, giants, etc.) before activating the sensor; this takes 10 rounds. Once he has chosen, he cannot change the creature type without resetting the device. The sensor cannot detect a specific creature — the use can select “humanoids”, but not “Aragorn the Ranger.” Once activated, the sensor gives a short whine whenever a creature of the specified type comes within 80 feet. The whine occurs only once, but it occurs again for each new creature that enters its range. There is no saving throw to resist the keen sensing power of this device.
Headclamp activation, Craft DC 32, Price 5,000 gp, weight 5 lbs.
Demonflesh: This substance usually comes in a sealed pot. It can be applied to a creature or object, granting either +2 natural armor (for creatures) or +5 hardness (for objects). The coating gives the object or creature a demonic, horrible appearance. The coating lasts for one hour + 6d10 minutes. A creature suffers a -4 circumstance penalty to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Gather Information checks while coated with demonflesh.
Use activation, Craft DC 40, Price 600 gp, weight 1 lb.
AREA 1-28 – FORMER ARMORY
OUTSIDE THE DOOR: A broken, rusty sword lies on the floor in front of this door.
This room is lined with empty stone shelves. Several large, fist-sized stones lie on the floor. They’re smooth and rounded, like the stones from a riverbed.
SPOT (DC 15): The stones of the floor glint in the light as if they were metallic.
STUNSTONES: On closer inspection, all the stones of the floor would appear to be made of both stone and metal. There are 16 stunstones in total.
SEARCH:
- DC 12: A broken paralysis ray emitter (a kaostech item) lies in the back corner of one of the top shelves.
- DC 20: In the corner where two shelves meet, a quiver of 10 ghost arrows and 10 insane arrows (randomly mixed together) has fallen down out of sight. Shifting the shelves reveals the quiver.
Stunstones: This small stone-and-metal device is meant to be hurled at a foe. Doing so successfully inflicts 1d4 points of damage. Unless the foe succeeds at a Fortitude saving throw (DC 14), it also stuns him for 1d2 rounds with a jolt of released energy. Stunned characters drop everything held, can’t take actions, suffer a -2 penalty to AC, and lose their Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). Each stunstone can be used only once.
Taint: Stun stones are faintly tainted, but only provoke a taint check upon use.
Use activation; Craft DC 25; Price 350 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Ghost Arrows: This arrow carries a ghost imbedded within it. The ghost can help control the arrow’s path in flight, adding a +5 circumstance bonus to the attack roll. Further, the ghost arrow can move around cover, negating cover bonuses to AC. It can even send the arrow around corners, if the archer knows the target’s exact location. The ghost has both darkvision and tremorsense, so darkness and invisibility provide a target with no protection.
Use activation; Craft DC 44; Price 1,000 gp; Weight –
Insane Arrows: A variation on the ghost arrow, this type of ammunition not only houses a self-aware ghost, but a horribly homicidal one. This arrow offers no bonus to attack rolls, but it can go around corners and cover like a ghost arrow, and possesses both darkvision and tremsorsense. If an insane arrow misses its target, it immediately flies at and attacks the nearest target (whether it be friend, foe, or the archer who shot it), unless there are no other targets within 100 feet. If it misses that target, it attacks the next nearest target (but not it’s original target). And so on. This process continues until it hits a target or runs out of targets within 100 feet of its last attempted target. An arrow cannot attack the same target more than once, even in nonconsecutive attacks. The archer can even loose the arrow with no target in mind, if he thinks there might be a foe hiding around a corner or behind an embankment. In such a case, the arrow simply attempts to hit the nearest target after it reaches the intended mark.
Use activation; Craft DC 44; Price 500 gp; Weight –
AREA 1-29 – EMPTY CENTURION CHAMBERS
Thick, black cables dangle from the walls here.
- GM Background: These chambers once held black centurions charged with guarding the complex, but the equipment was ripped out centuries ago (possibly when the complex was originally abandoned).
CENTURION’S HAND (B): A black metallic hand lies on the floor here. If it’s removed from this area, it sublimates into a caustic black vapor. Everyone within 10 feet suffers 2d6 points of acid damage (Reflex save, DC 15, half damage).
AREA 1-30 – WORKING LABORATORY
A half-dozen high stone tables are stretched out across the far end of this exceptionally wide chamber. The surfaces of the table are covered in heaps of rusted metal and broken glass. A large stone shelf reaches from floor to ceiling alone one of the side walls.
SPOT (DC 12): It’s clear from looking around the lab that whoever worked here was slightly bigger than human — the tables are just slightly too high and the equipment just slightly too big.
SEARCH:
- DC 12: On the shelf, an artificial lower jaw made out of steel and sporting razor-sharp fangs.
- SPOT (DC 14): The tips of the fangs are coated in some sort of black substance.
- CRAFT (ALCHEMY) (DC 12): The substance may have once been poison, but great age has rendered it useless.
- DC 20: In a hermetically sealed compartment in one of the desks, a few scraps of paper remain. The writing is a mixture of Ancient Common and a remarkably sophisticated and archaic Orcish. (See Handout – Bone Lacing. Identical comparments in other work desks contain nothing.)
PRIVACY ILLUSION: One of the workbenches has been screened with a “privacy illusion” (making it look empty). If anyone interacts with it, the illusion drops away revealing a shocking sight:
- A wolf lies on the table. Its back has been carefully cut open and the flaps of flesh pinioned to the table’s surface.
- Surgical equipment lays nearby.
- More horrifically, the wolf’s spinal column appears to be laying halfway out of the creature. But, upon closer inspection, you see that it is, in fact, a second spinal column — the wolf’s original spinal column is still in place. It looks as if someone were grafting the second spinal column into place alongside the original spinal column.
- The wolf does not move, but it’s eyes are open. It seems frozen in time.
- STASIS FIELD: The entire top of the bench is encased in a stasis field. However, a switch located on top of a jumbled mess of machinery will turn this stasis field off… which will cause the wolf to begin bucking around the room, spraying blood.
HANDOUT – BONE-LACING
This scrap of paper appears to be a segment of highly detailed medical research notes, specifically dealing with a practice the author refers to as “bone-lacing.” The document refers to “numerous successes with metallic substances, particularly adamantine,” but the details of the process are not detailed.
However, you do note that the author explicitly refers to this technique of “bone-lacing” as one of the “arts of the betrayal of the flesh.”
AREA 1-31 – BLUESTEEL DOOR
This is another bluesteel door. No password has been inscribed nearby.
AREA 1-32 – IRON RUNES
The far end of this chamber is completely collapsed in a solid wall of rubble and rock.
RODS: Six-inch thick metal rods run between the floor and ceiling. They have been arranged in two rows leading down the passage in parallel. The rods are completely covered in strange runes.
- DECIPHER SCRIPT (DC 20): They appear to be archaic alchemical symbols. Their purpose is unclear.
AREA 1-33 – ANTECHAMBER TO THE COLLAPSE
From here you can see that the next chamber has suffered from the same collapse.
AREA 1-34 – PRISON OF THE GHULWORG
An admantine skeleton created from a ghulworg roams these corridors. It viciously attacks anyone entering this area.
TIGHT QUARTERS: The ghulworg cannot use its Quick Tail ability when confined to a 5-foot-wide space. It suffers no penalties for being in a 10-foot-wide space (because it has become so used to these corridors during the millennia of its stay).
GHULWORG LORE – KNOWLEDGE (ARCANA/NATURE)
- DC 20: This skeleton would appear to belong to a ghulworg — a creature long thought to be extinct or legendary. They were reportedly created by Ghul the Skull-King.
- DC 23: Ghulworgs were magical beasts that were either related to worgs, created from worgs, or were the ancestors of modern worgs (the lineage is confused). If they still existed they would be among the largest wolf-like monsters in existence. Their fangs are oversized even for their huge mouths.
- DC 28: A ghulworg’s tail ends in a lump of thick bone, which it can whip back and forth at preternatural speeds.
ADAMANTINE SKELETON – GHULWORG (CR 6) – NE Huge Undead
DETECTION – darkvision 120 ft., Listen +0, Spot +0; Init +9 (+5 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
DEFENSES – AC 15 (-2 size, +5 Dex, +2 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 15; hp 91 (14d12); DR 5/–; Immune cold, undead immunities (mind-affecting, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, energy drain, ability score damage, fatigue, exhaustion, any effect requiring Fort save); Resist fire 15
ACTIONS – Spd 60 ft.; Melee bite +16 (2d6+9/19-20/x4 plus trip) and 2 claws +16 (1d8+9) and tail +14 (4d8+13); Ranged +9; Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with tail); Base Atk +7; Grapple +24; Atk Options quick tail, trip
SQ darkvision 120 ft., fire resistance 15
STR 28, DEX 18, CON –, INT –, WIS 10, CHA 1
FORT +4, REF +9, WILL +9
FEATS: Improved Initiative
SKILLS: —Quick Tail (Ex): A ghulworg needs only a standard action to make a bite attack and a tail attack. The tail deals the indicated damage plus 1-1/2 times the ghulworg’s Strength bonus despite it being a secondary attack.
Trip (Ex): A ghulworg that hits with a bite can attempt to trip the opponent as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking attacks of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the ghulworg.
AREA 1-34A – ORC CORPSES
The skeletal remains of seven orcs lie on the floor.
SKELETONS: If their corpses are disturbed or 1d6 rounds after the door is opened, the orcs shamble to their feet as skeletons.
- GM Background: These orcs got pinned down by the ghulworg. They shut the door against it and the ghulworg was unable to force an entrance, but they were unable to leave and slowly starved to death. Their aeon-long proximity to the necromantic pool in Area 1-34B, however, caused them to rise from the dead as skeletons.
AREA 1-34B – POOL OF NECROMANTIC FLUID
A thick, brackish liquid fills the shallow pool in this room. One wall of the room has a pane of smoky glass inset into it.
CRAFT (ALCHEMY) / SPELLCRAFT (DC 28): +5 to check if detect magic active.
- The liquid appears to be necromantic fluid, although diluted to the point where its function is unlikely.
- A creature dipped in necromantic fluid will rise from the dead as per an animate dead
NECROMANTIC FLUID: It still registers as faintly necromantic magic. There is a 5% chance that it will operate properly and create a skeleton.
AREA 1-34C – OBSERVATION ROOM
This room has a smoky, one-way mirror overlooking the pool of necromantic fluid in Area 1-34B.
AREA 1-34D – SECRET DOOR
SEARCH (DC 30): This check detects the presence of the secret door, but there is no mechanism for opening it. (It can only be opened from the other side, as it was designed to function as an escape route from area 17.)
- Break DC 40, hardness 8, hp 180
