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The cinematic technique of the montage is vaguely defined and multifaceted. In the French tradition “montage” refers to all editing. In Soviet montage theory, it is specifically the juxtaposition of non-sequential imagery in order to create specific meaning. The basic definition provided by Wikipedia, however, is, “A film editing technique in which a series of short shots are sequenced to condense space, time, and information.” It is in this sense that one has the “montage sequence” which is specifically designed to show the passage of time, and is what is most often referred to by the shorthand of “montage” in English.

FRAMING THE MONTAGE

The basics of a montage, therefore, can be understood as very hard cuts from one sequence of action to the next.

In The Art of Pacing, I discussed at length how we frame, fill, and close scenes. Creating a montage basically consists of framing very hard and very deep into a scene, spending the least amount of time necessary to address the agenda of that scene, and then aggressively cutting to the next scene (which is similarly framed very hard). This effectively creates a sequence of micro-scenes.

The trouble with doing this kind of hard scene framing as a GM is that it becomes increasingly difficult for the players to meaningfully contribute to what’s happening. (This is why, as I noted in The Art of Pacing, the harder the scene framing becomes, the more likely it is that a game or GM will introduce narrative control mechanics in order to return control back to the players.) For example, consider the famous baptismal montage from the end of The Godfather:

To get cuts that tight and that focused, it would seem as if the GM would basically just be saying, “Okay, cut from the church. We’re in your kitchen. You’re cleaning and assembling your gun. We cut back to the church.” There’s no breathing room for a back-and-forth conversation; no space for the players to propose an action.

When you get this tight, though, something interesting happens: The GM can actually invert the players’ part in the conversation of meaningful choices. Instead of framing the scene, the GM can instead prompt the players to frame each micro-scene.

This is the first secret of the RPG montage.

In this example the players have proposed simultaneously assassinating the other New York dons. Michael Corleone’s player, though, says, “I’ll need an alibi. What if we do it while I’m baptizing my kids?”

(“That’s fucking dark,” says Kay’s player. “I love it.”)

So the GM describes the baptism. And then, rather than framing to the next scene, the GM prompts one of the players:

GM: Rocco, how do you prepare for your murder?

Rocco: I’m in my kitchen, disassembling and reassembling my gun.

GM: Outside the window we can see your family relaxing on the beach. Your fingers shove pieces of metal together with the casual precision of familiarity. We cut to—Clemenza, what are you doing?

Clemenza: I’ve got my shotgun packed in a cardboard box. Looks like I’m delivering a package. I pause to polish a bit of dirt off my immaculately detailed car.

GM: Great. We cut back to the church, where the priest does the sign of the cross, gesturing with his hand as if using a cloth to wipe clean Michael’s sin. He grabs a few grains of salt and presses them to Anthony’s mouth. Anthony’s little hands reach up and touch his own chin. What about you Willie?

Willie: I’m getting a shave.

We finish that cycle of declarations and then the GM presents a second prompt by telling each of the players where their assassination is taking place:

GM: Don Barzini is working in his office building. What’s your plan, Al Neri?

Al Neri: Well, I’m dressed as a cop. Does Barzini leave his office at the same time every day?

GM: Sure. He comes out the front door and gets into his limo. Like clockwork.

Al Neri: Okay, then about five minutes before he’s due to leave, I’ll stroll up and tell the limo to move along.

GM: The driver refuses.

Al Neri: I’ll start writing him a ticket just as Barzini comes out of the building. That should distract him and his bodyguards.

And the GM, once again, goes around the table with this prompt and we get the second phase of the montage, with everyone setting up their attacks. The GM continues cutting back to the baptism. Maybe he’s pulled up the Catholic rite on his phone and is reading it out loud through the entire sequence. He reaches the point where the priest says, “Michael, do you renounce Satan?”

Then we hit the final phase of the montage: The GM calls for whatever action checks are necessary to resolve each murder (which in some cases might be attack rolls; in other cases it might be a Stealth or Deception test). It’s a montage, so the GM will probably want to keep these resolutions mechanically tight (rather than, for example, going into full-fledged combat rounds).

The GM’s on his game, so at the end of each murder he continues plugging in the renunciation of sin, pressuring Michael with the hypocrisy of his answers: “And all his works?” “And all his empty promises?” Maybe he calls for Kay to make an Insight check to see if she notices that something is wrong with Michael.

And that’s your basic structure of a mass assassination montage:

• Prompt micro-scenes by requesting preparations for the murders
• Declare the locations of the murder and prompt declaration of the murder
• Resolve the murders

If any of the PCs aren’t directly contributing to the murders, see if you can frame them into a scene that contrasts or thematically comments on the murders and then cut back and forth between that scene and the rest of the montage. (But this isn’t strictly necessary. It’s okay if only some of the PCs are participating in a particular montage.)

This structure points us towards the second secret of the RPG montage: In order to be an effective montage, the micro-scenes which make up the montage must have an overarching agenda — a question that the montage as a whole is seeking to answer. (In this case, the question would be, “Is the Corleone family successful in taking out all of the other dons?”) Without that unifying agenda, the montage will lack focus and purpose. It will just be a bunch of random stuff thrown in a blender (and you’d probably be better off resolving the elements of the montage separately).

This specific structure probably has limited usefulness, though, because how often are your players going to propose simultaneous mass murder in multiple locations?

(Don’t answer that.)

RUNNING THE INVESTIGATIVE MONTAGE

One response to this could be a GM-led montage. Here the GM basically uses the same technique, but instead of waiting for the players to say something like, “We’re going to try to murder all the dons simultaneously,” the GM initiates the montage by saying, “Okay, at this point you’re going to murder all the dons simultaneously.”

Of course, a GM-led montage doesn’t sound like the right decision in this case. The decision to murder a lot of people is obviously a really meaningful choice and skipping past that choice (effectively taking that choice away from the players and making it for them) is almost certainly problematic and very disruptive to the conversation of meaningful choices which is the fundamental principle of the RPG medium.

(In a storytelling game, your mileage might vary depending on how the narrative control mechanics are set up.)

This doesn’t, however, mean that GM-led montages are never a good idea in RPGs. A common counterexample is the investigative montage, the point in a detective story where there’s a bunch of different leads and legwork to pursue, so we get a montage of the heroes splitting up, investigating the shit out of it, and then coming back together with the insights and conclusions that drive us forward into the next chunk of plot. A GM-led montage (“Okay! It’s time to split up and do the legwork! Farida, how are you working the case?”) can work here because the context has already established that the PCs want to solve the mystery being investigated. The GM is pushing a structure for resolving that desire (and framing hard to do it), but he’s not taking the meaningful choice (“let’s investigate this mystery”) away from the players.

I actually spent a non-trivial amount of time trying to find the perfect cinematic or literary exemplar of an investigative montage for us to work from here, but I have been unsuccessful. (Even as I write this, the back of my brain is trying to sidetrack me by saying, “Wait! What about Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I bet we can track down a scene like this with the Scooby Gang! Let’s go spend the next twelve hours trolling through the DVDs!”)

It’s possible that this is a, “Beam me up, Scotty!” moment, where I’m convinced that scenes like this exist in film or television, but they really don’t. I suspect, though, that the reason I can’t find the exact scene haunting the corner of my mind’s eye is because most detective stories in other mediums feature a sole protagonist, so the typical investigative montage just features one guy doing a bunch of stuff in quick succession. But by the time I started looking for an example of this to reconstruct, the concept had already transmogrified itself in my mind into the group context of an RPG scenario.

Long story short: I’m not going to worry about it. I’m guessing you probably already know the type of scene I’m talking about, and if you don’t, then you’ll still find investigative montages useful.

The first thing you’ll want for an investigative montage is a list of montage revelations. This basically works exactly like the revelation list you create when using the Three Clue Rule, except that you’re not going to prep specific clues for each revelation. You’re just listing the things the PCs need to learn. These revelations should generally be leads (pointing towards more fully developed scenes) and there should be several of them (one for every two PCs seems to be a good amount). For example:

• One of the victims of the White Lotus assassins survived the attack. Her name is Lisa Cardo and she’s recuperating in a room at Elkhart General Hospital.
• The albino with the Solomonic tattoos the PCs spotted earlier is Vincent Estadio, a personal assistant to the Spanish ambassador.
• There’s an arms dealer named Dogmull who’s rumored to supply the White Lotus with their poisoned darts.

The investigative montage is then resolved in three steps:

• Each player chooses a line of investigation
• Each line of investigation is resolved (probably with a single action check)
• The GM uses the context of the PCs’ investigations to provide the montage revelations

The actual methods of investigation chosen by the players don’t specifically matter, as long as they’re logically things that a cop or private detective would do to turn up fresh leads. (This is basically a version of permissive clue-finding on methamphetamines, right?) Examples might include:

• Checking the casefile.
• Trying to track down that albino they saw earlier.
• Roughing up local crooks to make them spill information
• Analyzing samples of the White Lotus poison in the crime lab
• Putting surveillance on known associates of the White Lotus
• Talking to an old friend or other local contact

For each successful line of investigation, choose one of the montage revelations and then present a fast-paced, hard-hitting sequence that provides it. For example, the lab technician analyzes the White Lotus poison, recognizes a combination of rare chemicals and checks shipping records that indicate a suspected arms dealer named Dogmull has been importing the chemicals.

(You can either just cut away from failed lines of investigation, or maybe inflict some kind of consequence or complication from them. These can be mixed freely into the montage of the other results.)

If you have more successful lines of investigation then there are montage revelations, find ways to either split the revelation into separate parts which can be split up across multiple PCs and/or sequenced so that one PC’s investigation enables another’s. (If you just repeat the same revelation for multiple players, it’s disappointing and anti-climactic for the second player who gets the result.)

For example, the PC checking the casefile might see that there’s a victim named Lisa Cardo who survived the attack but has since vanished. Meanwhile, one of the local thugs being roughed up by another PC tells them that he heard a rumor the Lotus were going to axe a witness who’s being cared for over at Elkhart. (This is one revelation being split into separate parts that are discovered independently.)

Or: The lab technician analyzes the White Lotus poison and recognizes the rare chemicals. She sends out a text to the team, which another PC receives in the middle of questioning their local contact. They ask their contact about the chemicals, and he identifies Dogmull. (The lab technician’s discovery of the first part of the revelation enables the other PC’s investigation to complete the revelation.)

I recommend resolving all of the lines of investigation and THEN contextualizing the results. Among other things, this will make it easier to figure how to pace/structure the revelations.

SCALE OF THE MONTAGE

You can use this same basic technique at different scales. For example, you could use an investigative montage to either hunt Carmen Sandiego across an entire globe or run a CSI crew investigating a single crime scene.

At the smallest scales, you may discover that this becomes virtually indistinguishable from how you were previously resolving such scenes (asking each player what their character is doing, resolving those actions, synthesizing the narrative result, etc.). This can be a valuable insight for how you can set up and frame montages at larger scales.

You can also flip this around yet again for those situations where all the players want to jump in and have their character participate in a Search check. Rather than just letting them all roll their dice and taking the best result, slip into a montage technique and ask them to specify what distinct thing each of them is doing to contribute to the search. (Or, if they just roll reflexively, you can simply assume they’ve divided the task in your descriptions of the search’s outcome.) Rulings in Practice: Perception-Type Tests has a broader discussion of related techniques you might find useful here.

These, of course, are just two types of montages out of many. But I suspect the basic techniques of the RPG montage to remain fairly consistent to the principles we’ve established here. We’ll probably come back later and explore a few more varieties as part of the scenario structure challenge, too.

Go to Challenge #6

These rules are adapted from a published D20 sourcebook. My primary design goal here was to both streamline the system and increase its versatility by introducing the concept of faint taint (which allows the GM to use taint more frequently due to its lower stakes). I unified these rules with those for kaostech (which I’ll be presenting separately), and both of these are used in the Laboratory of the Beast Scenario.

BECOMING TAINTED

If a character remains exposed to a tainted place or object for more than 10 rounds, they must make a Fortitude check (DC 15) or immediately suffer 1 point of taint. In addition, if a character uses or wields a tainted object, they must make a Fortitude check (DC 15) or immediately suffer 1d3 points of taint.

For every 24 hours spent in a tainted place, or spent carrying a tainted object, a character must make a Fortitude saving throw. The base DC is 15 + 1 for every consecutive 24 hours of exposure. Multiple, simultaneous exposures (such as carrying a tainted weapon in a tainted place) increases the DC by +2 per additional source of exposure every 24 hours. If the character fails this saving throw, their taint increases by 1.

FAINT TAINT

Some objects and places are only faintly tainted. Characters exposed to such objects and places still risk becoming tainted themselves, but the risk is not as great.

A character who is exposed to a faintly tainted place or carries a faintly tainted object for more than 1 day must make a Fortitude save (DC 15) or immediately suffer 1 point of taint. In addition, the first time a character uses or wields a faintly tainted object, they must make a Fortitude save (DC 15) or immediately suffer 1 point of taint.

For every week spent in a faintly tainted place or carrying a faintly tinted object, a character must make a Fortitude save (DC 15) or suffer 1 point of taint. Unlike fully tainted objects and places, multiple or simultaneous exposure to faintly tainted objects or places do not increase the DCs of these checks.

TAINTED PLACES

When a character casts an evil spell in a tainted area, the caster is considered at +1 caster level for spell effects that depend on level. When a character casts a good spell in a tainted area, the caster is considered at -1 caster level for spell effects that depend on level. (This has no effect on spells known, spells per day, or highest level of spell available.)

Faintly tainted places have no effect on the casting of such spells.

DETECTING TAINT

The use of a detect evil spell can detect taint. It reveals itself as an oozing, purple pulsation within the blackish aura which normally detects the presence of evil. The strength of the aura depends on the amount of taint present:

• 1 taint point = Faint aura
• 2-4 taint points = Moderate aura
• 5-10 taint points = Strong aura
• 11+ taint points = Overwhelming aura

EFFECTS OF TAINT

A character’s taint score applies as a penalty to his Constitution and Wisdom scores. Thus, a character with a 16 Constitution and a 14 Wisdom who acquires a taint score of 4 has an effective Constitution of 12 and an effective Wisdom of 10. These penalties reflect the taint’s impact on the character’s physical and mental health. Characters who embrace taint (see below) and make use of it can ignore some of these penalties. These penalties are not treated as ability damage, ability drain, or any other penalty to an ability score that can be removed by magic.

The effects of the tainted character’s Constitution and Wisdom penalties can be experienced in many ways, depending on the level of taint. A character who has lost 25% of their Constitution to taint is mildly tainted. A character who has lost 50% of their Constitution is moderately tainted. A character who has lost 75% of their Constitution is severely tainted.

MILD TAINT EFFECTS:

• Occasional nausea or vomiting
• Pain in joints
• Hair goes white
• Mild paranoia
• Disorientation
• Increased aggressiveness
• Mild hallucinations
• Phlegmy, wracking cough
• Eyelid swells, obscuring vision
• Pale, grayish dead complexion
• Sunken eyes, cracked lips
• Skip seeps greasy, yellowish “sweat”
• Skin thickens, turns leathery

MODERATE TAINT EFFECTS:

• Bones begin to warp, thicken
• Black, lichen-like skin growth
• Reddened, burn-like sores
• Eye clouds or blood vessels break
• Lips shrink back from gums
• Gums swell, bleed, rot
• Bleeding from orifices
• Hair falls out
• Uncontrollable seizures
• Eruption of painful sores
• Sores ooze blood, pus, ooze
• Sores ooze spiders, insects, maggots
• Hear the voices of evil spirits
• Severe paranoia
• Fits of disturbing laughter
• Disregard of hygiene

SEVERE TAINT EFFECTS:

• Flesh of nose rots away
• Mutated, deformed extremities
• Spine twists, back hunches
• Severe warping of skeleton
• Skull enlarges and deforms
• Great, swollen growths on the body
• Lungs eaten away from the inside
• Eye falls out, leaving gaping socket
• Skin peels off in papery sloughs
• Fingers or toes begin to web and fuse
• Irresistable murderous rages
• Reduced to primitive beahvior
• Eats inedible or still-living things

IGNORING TAINT

Only undead and creatures with the evil subtype are unaffected by taint.

DEATH FROM TAINT

If a character’s Constitution score reaches 0 from the effects of taint, they die. 1d6 hours later, they rise as a hideous, evil creature under the control of the DM.

CLEANING TAINT

Taint can be removed in a number of ways, particularly through the use of spells.

• Remove curse and remove disease each reduce a taint score by 1 point, although they cannot reduce a taint score below 1.
• Heal reduces a character’s taint score by 1 point per three caster levels, but it cannot reduce a taint score below 1.
• Restoration reduces a character’s taint score by 1 point per four caster levels, but cannot reduce a taints score below 1.
• Greater restoration reduces taint by a number of points equal to the caster level of the cleric casting the greater restoration, it can also reduce a taint score to 0.
• Miracle or wish spells cannot remove taint except by duplicating the effects of other spells described here.

CLEANSING PLACES AND OBJECTS: Clerics may use hallow to remove the taint from an area, but it takes time. The spell must remain intact for a year and a day to remove the taint from an area. If, during that time, an opposing character casts unhallow on some or all of the area, the effort is lost and must be begun again.

Unintelligent items left in a hallowed area for a year and a day lose their taint. Items that have an intelligence score are cleansed as if they were characters.

TAINT-ABSORBING ITEMS: Some items can naturally absorb taint, either cleansing those affected by it (rare) or protecting those who carry them from taint (more common).

TAINTED FEATS

Tainted feats require that a character have at least 1 point of taint (as specified in the feat’s prerequisites).

CORRUPTED BODY [TAINT]

Prerequisites: 1 taint point

Benefit: You do not suffer any penalty to your Wisdom score as a result of the taint. However, you suffer twice the normal number of mutations.

Special: If you are ever completely cleansed of the taint, you may immediately choose another feat to replace Corrupted Body. A character with both the Corrupted Body and Twisted Mind feats suffers no penalties, mutations, or insanities from the taint.

MASTERY OF THE TAINT [TAINT]

Prerequisites: 5 taint points

Benefit: You have learned to use the taint within you to channel powerful magical energies. You cannot cast spells of the good and lawful types, but you cast chaos and evil spells at a +1 caster level. In a tainted area this bonus is doubled to a +2 caster level.

Special: This feat can be selected as one of the wizard’s bonus feats.

MASTERY OF THE TAINT, GREATER [TAINT]

Prerequisites: Mastery of the Taint, 10 taint points

Benefit: Your mastery of the taint has grown, allowing you to cast chaos and evil spells at +2 caster level and all other spells at +1 caster level. In a tainted area these bonuses are increased by one (+3 caster level for chaos and evil spells, +2 caster level for all other spells).

Special: This feat can be selected as one of the wizard’s bonus feats.

TAINTED EMBRACE [TAINT]

Prerequisites: 5 taint points

Benefit: You gain protection from good and protection from law as supernatural abilities.

TAINTED STRENGTH [TAINT]

Prerequisites: 4 taint points

Benefit: Your muscles and sinews have been infused with the taint, lending them unnatural strength even as your body rots from within. You gain a +2 bonus to Strength.

Special: Because your tainted strength requires the taint to corrupt your body, you cannot benefit from the Twisted Mind feat if you possess this feat.

TAINTED STRENGTH, GREATER [TAINT]

Prerequisites: Tainted Strength, 6 taint points

Benefit: You gain an additional +2 bonus to Strength (for a total bonus of +4).

TWISTED MIND [TAINT]

Prerequisites: 1 taint point

Benefit: You do not suffer any penalty to your Constitution score as a result of the taint. However, you suffer twice the normal number of insanities.

Special: If you are ever completely cleansed of the taint, you may immediately choose another feat to replace Twisted Mind.

A character with both the Corrupted Body and Twisted Mind feats suffers no penalties, mutations, or insanities from the taint.

This material is covered by the Open Gaming License.

When you’re drawing lines on a map, it can be very easy to see them as very neat divisions: You’ve got the elves over here and then the nagas over there. The sun-worshiping samurai are in this bit, with the Daejongist Empire tucked away on this peninsula. And the Goryō Kingdoms take up this big chunk to the north. If you’re in the kingdom of Taiyō, then you’re going to see a bunch of melanin castes. But if you’re over in the Daejongist Empire, you’ll have a bunch of shaman lords running around.

And nary the streams shall cross.

In the real world, of course, cultures blend at the borders and draw together into the melting pots. So the first thing you can do, if you’re near the border in your campaign world, is to reach across it and selectively draw in elements from over there. For example, in In the Shadow of the Spire, the city-state where the campaign takes place is located in Arathia (whose architecture is primarily Greco-Roman in influence), but it’s very near the border with the Vennoc Protectorates. Which is why you’ll see the faintly gothic architecture of the Vennocan style creeping into my descriptions of the city.

You can take this technique to the next level by thinking about how both cultures are shifted as a result of this cultural exchange: It’s not just that there are death shamans near the border of the Goryō Kingdoms, it’s that many of the ghosts in this region have learned to murder the animistic spirits and take their place like spiritual doppelgangers.

But the cultural penumbra of a people or nation is often more significant than that. Consider, for example, the region of Brittany in northern France. It’s called Brittany because in the 4th century people from Britain crossed the channel and created a colony. In the 5th and 6th century, this immigration by the British exploded as a result of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain.

Or look at Franconia, a region of Germany so-named because it was conquered by the Franks (the same Franks from whom France takes its name). Although the Frankish dominion of the region has been swept away by countless invasions and regime changes, that historical legacy nevertheless endures.

These vestigial or tributary realms not infrequently outlast their motherland, leaving them as a living tribute to a lost history.

There are a couple of ways that you can build this kind of dynamic cultural legacy into your campaign world.

First, you can meticulously plot out the entire history of your world, tracking invasions and cultural migrations and regime changes in the detail necessary to know that, for example, the Bakunawan serpent clans swept down the seven valleys of the Nauteka river delta, drove the Bathalan people to the west (where they warred with the proto-Daejongist civilization), and claimed the so-called lunar cities for themselves, only for those cities to become isolated when the Shwe Nabayan empresses seized the Celestial Throne and began a purge of the Bakunawans. Six of the seven lunar cities were destroyed during the Shadow Wars, and then all these lands were claimed by the kingdom of Taiyō as the wars came to an end. The province of Bakunawa remains, with the old city of Maiphai as its capital, its rocks riddled with the infamous wyrm-caverns, and its samurai favoring serpent-hilted swords.

But working out your fictional history to that level of detail, while fun, also takes a lot of work and time.

Once you know that this sort of pattern exists in history, though, you can skip the laborious steps and jump straight to the effect.

For example, if you’ve got a big old kingdom full of elves (or maybe a region where there’s lots of ruins from the Old Elven Empire), then you can look across a channel or a river or maybe even just a couple hundred miles away in a semi-arbitrary direction and… Yup, there’s Alvland. Probably filled with an anomalously large population of half-elves. (Most people have at least a hint of a point on the tips of their ears.)

Once you’ve placed one of these vestigial realms, of course, you’ll probably want to fill in some of the details about why it exists. In the case of Alvland, for example, it turns out that about six hundred years ago one of the crystal citadel-cities of the elves abruptly vanished from the sky, reappeared a couple hundred miles away, and crashed. After the initial catastrophe, during which the local populace swarmed to their aid, many of the elves chose to remain in the area and settle down.

(Hmm… I didn’t even know the elves used to have flying cities made out of crystal. I wonder what happened to the rest of them?)

Go to Part 1 – Maps

AREA 2-11 – OFFICE

A large desk on the far side of the room has been smashed to pieces. The once-luxurious carpet is stained and soiled. Surprisingly, nothing here looks particularly rotten or aged — merely damaged.

SEARCH (DC 18): A concealed trapdoor in the floor hides a safe.

• OPEN LOCK (DC 30): The safe is empty except for a scroll – Ghul’s Commission.

GM Background: This area is protected by a preservation spell, but the ichorclaw has inflicted damage in random bouts of rage over the years.

GHUL’S COMMISSION
(ORCISH – UNTRANSLATED)

This heavy roll of parchment unrolls to reveal a text of thick, reddish-black Orcish characters. Despite being written in Orcish, the entire document appears to be elegantly scribed. Near the bottom of the page an immense black seal has been set — impressed in the wax is a skull-shaped sigil, and the wax also attaches a piece of black-and-gold ribbon to the parchment.

GHUL’S COMMISSION
(ORCISH – TRANSLATED)

This heavy roll of parchment unrolls to reveal a text of thick, reddish-black Orcish characters. Despite being written in Orcish, the entire document appears to be elegantly scribed. Near the bottom of the page an immense black seal has been set — impressed in the wax is a skull-shaped sigil, and the wax also attaches a piece of black-and-gold ribbon to the parchment.

The parchment reads:

By the divine hand of Ghul – Skull King, Banelord’s Heir, Sorcerer’s Get, and Blue Lord of the Arathian Stock – Ulthorek tal Yattaren is thus set down as the Chieftain of the Laboratory of the Beast. Within such domain, he shall rule by the Hand of Ghul.

                                                                GHUL THE SKULL KING

AREA 2-12 – GREAT HALL

A massive table of stone stands in the middle of this room. Massive, yet elegant, high-backed chairs stand around it. A large ambry of oak stands against the north wall.

AMBRY:

• 18 silver goblets (worth 25 gp each)
• 3 bottles of ancient orcish bloodwine (worth 250 gp each)

GM Background: The room is protected by a preservation spell.

AREA 2-13 – TORTURE CHAMBER

This room is filled with implements of torture, including a bloodstained rack, iron maiden, and manacled chair. (The room is protected by a preservation spell, so the blood is still fresh.)

AREA 2-14 – PRISON CELLS

The bars of each cell are activated by a switch on the wall opposite the doors.

SHATTERED CELL (A): This cell is empty and the bars have been broken and bent outward. (This is where the ichorclaw came from.)

SKELETON (B): An orc’s skeleton lies in this chamber.

SKELETON (C): An elf’s skeleton lies in this chamber.

AREA 2-15 – BATTERED BLUESTEEL

This bluesteel door has been battered from the outside, bending it hideously inward. However, it has lost none of its strength and remains equally impassable. No password is written nearby.

AREA 2-16  – SMASHED CENTURION CHAMBERS

The centurions are absent from these chambers, but the smashed remnants of their machinery is still present. (See Area 2-10.)

AREA 2-17 – EMPTY CHAMBER

This chamber appears empty.

SEARCH (DC 18): There is a keyhole in the center of the southern wall. Cleverly hidden.

KEY: The key for this secret door is located in Area 2-8.

AREA 2-18 – VAULT SECURITY

Four iron rods, each topped by a ball of brass, stand in the corners of this room. The iron door in the far wall has no handle. Instead, a large impression in the shape of an orc’s hand is in the center of the door.

IRON DOOR (3 in. thick): hardness 10, hp 90, break DC 30. The door will open if anyone holding Ghul’s Commission (from Area 2-11) places their opposite hand in the depression.

• It can also be fooled with a Use Magic Device check (DC 30).
• Any other attempt to open the door will trigger the trap.

TRAP (CR 4): magic device, proximity trigger (alarm), automatic reset, spell effect (lightning bolt, 5^th-level wizard, 5d6 electricity, DC 14 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 28, Disable Device DC 28. (Cost: 7,500 gp, 600 XP)

• A lightning bolt bursts from each of the four iron rods.

AREA 2-19 – THE RESEARCH VAULT

The walls of this iron-shod chamber are lined with numerous shelves both little and small. The shelves are covered with small, carefully crafted niches, each of which was clearly designed to hold some unique item. All of the niches are now empty.

GM Background: The vault was emptied when the complex was abandoned. It once held a variety of odd artifacts and the like, waiting to be analyzed by Ghul’s researchers, but now nothing of value remains.

AREA 2-20 – BEAST KENNELS

These were once beast kennels. The wooden doors leading to them are almost entirely rotten away through sheer age.

The kennel rooms contain feeding troughs and watering troughs.

Large channels from each room lead out to a 6-inch-wide gap in the middle of the hall’s floor. Beneath this gap is a 50-foot-deep pit down which charnel waste was washed. (There’s nothing on interest down there.)

AREA 2-21 – THE ARENA

This bloodstained arena was once used to test the creations of the laboratory and instill a blood-thirst in the hounds. It is an open pit, with the upper level described in Area 1-19.

AREA 2-22 – WEAPONS STORAGE

Hanging from the walls and iron racks down the middle of this room are a great variety of weapons, all designed for beasts: Tines, serrated harnesses, and the like. All of them have been crafted to appear as vicious and merciless as possible.

There are also a selection of short iron spears, designed to enrage creatures.

The vast array is impressive, but a closer inspection reveals that most of them are unusable — either custom-crafted for unusual creatures; with important bits rotted away; or their metal rusting and fatigued from age.

AREA 2-23 – COLLAPSE

The ceiling of this room has been weakened by the fissure (which was created by an earthquake many years ago).

OPENING THE DOOR: Opening the door to requires a Strength check (DC 18), but also causes the ceiling to collapse.

• TRAP (CR 6): mechanical, location trigger, repair reset, ceiling falls down (8d6, crush), multiple targets (all targets in room), never miss; Search DC 20, Disable Device DC 16

FISSURE: The fissure leads down to Area 1 of Goblin Caverns of the Ooze Lord.

Go to Part 1 – Maps

AREA 2-1 – THE COLD THRONE

GLOWGEMS: The vast chamber is filled with an eery, silver, sepulchral light emanated from countless small glowgems in the ceiling.

• The glowgems magic is failing with age, but each would still be worth 5 gp. (There are a total of 600 such gems, although prying them out would be a major undertaking.)

POOL: Most of the room is filled with a large, but shallow pool of dark, silvery-grey liquid.

• UNHOLY WATER: The pool is unholy water. (Elestra and Dominic will suffer damage as if exposed to acid.)

AROUND THE POOL: A ten-foot-wide walkway circles the pool, with various hallways and doors leading out of it. A bluesteel door can be seen along a wall near a recessed edge of the pool.

PLATFORM: In the center of the pool there is a raised platform surrounding a large pit of some sort. Several large rods of iron with large brass balls at the end of them are positioned around this platform. An arch of stone rises over the pit and, at the apex of the arch, there is a huge throne wrought from intricately detailed and gothic steel.

• BOTTOMLESS PIT: The pit seems to be bottomless. Lights dropped down it seem to go on forever before finally passing beyond sight. (It’s actually 10,000 feet deep, ending in an immense pit of Pits of chaos are described in The Complex of Zombies.)
• PITONS IN THE PIT: The goblins have driven pitons to climb up more than a hundred feet from a fissure below. This leads down to Area 2 of the Goblin Caverns of the Ooze Lord.

THRONE OF THE OVERSEER: The throne is kaostech. The metal is cold to the touch, but not harmfully so. A hidden panel (Search DC 25) can be recessed, revealing a long, spongy cable with a plug at one end of it (which could be plugged into a headclamp).

• If activated, 12 separate spheres emerge from the throne of the overseer. The operator of the throne can control these spheres to fly anywhere within this complex. The operator can see and hear through them and even manipulate objects through them with an effect similar to telekinesis.
• The throne is a fully tainted (not faintly tainted) object.

AREA 2-2 – LARDER OF GREEN SLIME

Various pieces of ancient and scarred wood lie scattered here and there, suggesting that this might have been a storeroom of some sort.

SPOT (DC 18): The green slime on the ceiling.

GREEN SLIME: Currently quiescent, but 1d4 rounds after someone enters the room, the presence of life rouses it and it drops from the ceiling.

• 5-foot square deals 1d6 Con per round or 2d6 damage vs. wood/metal (ignoring hardness). It does not harm stone.
• First round of contact, it can be scraped off. After that it requires cold damage, fire damage, sunlight, or remove disease. Can also be hacked off, but this causes at least 1d6 points of damage to the victim and requires 1d3 rounds.

GM Background: The preservation magicks on this larder wore out and the green slime got in. It devoured everything edible and then entered its quiescence.

AREA 2-3 – JEWEL SCARABS

The walls and floor of this chamber glitter. It takes a moment to realize that they are completely covered in the gleaming carapaces of large scarab beetles. Each carapace appears to be studded with large gemstones.

JEWEL SCARABS: There are 10 surviving jewel scarabs in this area — 3 ruby scarabs, 5 emerald scarabs, 2 opal scarabs.

• +15 racial bonus to their Hide checks from being able to scuttle through the “dead” shells covering the floor.
• GM Note: Jewel scarabs were a personal pet project of one of the researchers here. He used this area to display them, but the shelves they once occupied have long since rotten away.

TREASURE: There are 54 scarabs here. Each is a beautiful work of art. Although some of their gems have been destroyed or lost, they have an average value of 350 gp each. They weigh 10 pounds each. (Total Value: 18,900 gp. Total Weight: 540 lbs.)

CONSTRUCT LORE: Three successful Knowledge (arcana) checks (DC 25), each requiring eight hours of work, could reverse engineer the workings of a jewel scarab. An additional eight hour session for each of the other two jewel scarabs would discover their gem-type properties. Such techniques could probably fetch another 5,000 gp for each type of jewel scarab if explicated.

JEWEL SCARAB (CR 2) – N Small Construct
DETECTION – tremorsense 30 ft., Listen +6, Spot +4
DEFENSES – AC 16 (+1 size, +1 Dex, +4 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 15; hp 17 (2d10)
ACTIONS – Spd 30 ft., fly 40 ft. (average), burrow 15 ft., climb 10 ft.; Melee bite +1 (1d4-1); Ranged +2; Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.; Base Atk +1; Grapple -4; SA spell-like abilities
SQ –

STR 9, DEX 12, CON –, INT 1, WIS 15, CHA 10
FORT +6, REF +4, WILL +2
FEATS: Alertness
SKILLS: Climb +9, Hide +7 (+15 in sand), Listen +6, Spot +4

Spell-Like Abiltiies

Ruby scarab: 6/day—flare (DC 14)

Emerald scarab: 6/day—acid splash (+3 ranged touch, 1d3 acid)

Sapphire scarab: 6/day—ray of frost (+3 ranged touch, 1d3 cold)

AREA 2-4 – LAB OF CONSTRUCTS

A large forge is built into one corner. Strange metal frames are built up here and there throughout the room. The middle of the room is dominated by a large stone worktable.

GM Background: This room was once used as a lab for building constructs.

TOOLS: The material here is badly damaged, but could still be of some use (2,000 gp). The transportable goods weigh 5,000 pounds.

AREA 2-5 – PARTS STORAGE

The walls of this room have been carved out with numerous cubbyholes, cabinets, shelves, and other storage areas. They are covered in a great, eclectic variety of materials.

KNOWLEDGE (ARCANA) (DC 15): Identifies the material as golem construction parts worth 5,000 gp. (Total Weight: 1,000 lbs.)

AREA 2-6 – RUINED CONSTRUCTS

Several large, rack-like structures run down the length of either side of the room. Most of them are empty, but two of them contain mechanical constructs.

CONSTRUCTS: These contructs have been opened up and have either been disassembled or were never complete to begin with.

• The lazuline razor that patrols this level was also built in this lab. The two constructs here clearly come from a similar school of design, but are quite distinct in form and (presumably) function.

AREA 2-7 – THE ADAMANTINE DRILL

A large drill (literally ten feet long and half as thick) is suspended from a scaffolding in the center of this room. It’s flanked by two workbenches.

DRILL: The drill is clearly unfinished, but enough of its mechanisms are intact to show that it would be some sort of self-propelled drilling construct.

• APPRAISE (DC 15): The drill’s cutting surfaces are edged with 9,000 gp worth of adamantine.

SEARCH (DC 15): Turns up a stasis box of cedar inlaid with Ghul’s skull sigil in blackoak on its lid. Within the stasis box:

• Half of the schematics for the drill (worth 500 gp). (The other half were left out have rotted away centuries ago.)
• The schematics are titled, in Orcish: DRILL OF THE BANEWARRENS.
• There are also several arcane notes, also in Orcish, that can be understood with a Knowledge (arcana) check (DC 18). These describe, in general terms, the properties of walls sealed with incredibly powerful spells and exotic materials far beyond mortal ken. Whoever was writing them seemed unsure of the exact characteristics, but the tensile strength of the drill seemed calculated to overcome them.
• GM Background: This drill was designed to penetrate the walls of the Banewarrens (a mega-adventure by Monte Cook).

AREA 2-8 – RESEARCH QUARTERS

These are similar to Area 1-10, but are under the effects of a preservation spell. The furniture is pristine, as is the floor of white tile with Ghul’s skull sigil worked into it as a mosaic.

SEARCH (DC 12): In one of the bedside tables there is a key (which goes Area 2-17).

AREA 2-9 – GHUL’S TELEPORTAL

The walls of this chamber are carved from pitch-black stone. A strange spiral pattern has been carved into the floor. Orcish letters have been carved into the far wall (reading “LABORATORY OF THE BEAST”).

TELEPORTAL: These teleportals appear throughout Ghul’s Labyrinth. The teleportal network was powered through the Tourbillion (Ptolus, p. 453). After the Signet of Shallamoth Kindred was removed from the Tourbillion, the teleportal network was left unpowered and useless. (If the teleportal network were active, one could stand on this teleportal, say the name of any other teleportal, and appear there.)

AREA 2-10 – BLACK CENTURIONS

All eight of these areas hold a black centurion. They are suspended from metal machinery bolted to the wall.

MACHINES: These kaostech machines are powered by the pit of chaos beneath the complex (thus avoiding the dangers of chaotic failure). The black centurions are connected to the machines by headplugs.

ACTIVATION: When activated, the centurions simply drop to the floor and begin moving sinuously.

• If anyone disturbs the throne in Area 2-1 they will activate in waves: 2, then 2, then 4.
• If anyone passes through this area, one will automatically activate. If it meets with difficulties, the rest in the local area will activate. If two of them are destroyed, the four in the other area will activate.

Go to Part 10