Go to Part 1 – Maps

AREA 1-8 – MODIFICATION COMPLEX (MAIN HALL)

DOOR FROM HALLWAY: This is a door of glass-and-bronze. It has not been broken, but stands ajar. However, if any of the doors in Areas 1-8 thru 1-12 are opened, the door will swing shut and seal itself. It can only be opened with the correct password (which is not available). Breaking the door creates a feeblemind effect (Will save, DC 24).

SEARCH (DC 12): Age-old scratches cover the floor, creating a trail from the bluesteel door to Area 1-12.

• GM Note: These are the marks of hundreds of cages having been dragged in and out of the complex.

DOOR TO AREA 1-11: Open Lock (DC 25). All other doors are unlocked.

AREA 1-9 – THE CHAOS BEAST

An acrid stench assaults the senses.

RUBBLE: The floor here is covered two or three feet deep in rubble — most of it seems to be large chunks of stone, but mixed into the debris is broken glass. Here and there you can see that pools of some sort of thick, black liquid has coalesced.

DORMANT CHAOS BEAST: Mixed into the rubble is a dormant chaos beast. 1d4+2 rounds after the door is opened, the chaos beast spasms into action.

CLEARING RUBBLE: Reveals a floor of badly damaged white tile with Ghul’s skull sigil worked into it as a mosaic. There are also footings for two stone tables (which would appear to be where all the rubble came from).

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CHAOS BEAST (CR 7) – Medium Outsider (Chaotic, Extraplanar)
DETECTION — darkvision 60 ft., Listen +11, Spot +11; Init +5
DEFENSES — AC 16 (+1 Dex, +5 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 15; hp 44 (8d8+8), Immune critical hits, transformation; Resist spell 15
ACTIONS – Spd 20 ft.; Melee 2 claws +10 (1d3+2 plus corporeal instability); Ranged +9; Base Atk +8; Grapple +10; SA corporeal instability; Combat Feats Dodge, Mobility
SQ darkvision 60 ft., spell resistance 15

STR 14, DEX 13, CON 13, INT 10, WIS 10, CHA 10
FORT +7, REF +7, WILL +6
FEATS: Dodge, Improved Initiative, Mobility

Corporeal Instability (Su): Fort DC 15, or become spongy, amorphous mass; shape melts, flows, writhes, and boils. Cannot hold any item. Worn items become useless. Large worn items afflict -4 Dex penalty. Speed -10 feet. Cannot case spells or use magic items. Attack blindly at random target (-4 penalty, 50% miss chance).

1 Wisdom drain per round. If Wisdom reduced to 0, victim becomes chaos beast.

Can attempt Charisma check (DC 15) as standard action to regain normal shape for 1 minute. Permanent cure requires restoration, heal, or greater restoration.

Immunity to Transformation: Can be affected by polymorph or petrification effects, but can resume mutable form as free action.

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AREA 1-10 – PRIVATE CHAMBERS

These rooms are filled with furniture ruined and rotting from age. Each room has a floor of white tile with Ghul’s skull-sigil worked into it as a mosaic.

• GM Note: These were all private chambers for the researchers and laborers who lived here.

AREA 1-10A – LABORERS QUARTERS

As per Area 1-10. Several large bunkbeds have been crammed in here.

• GM Note: These were the laborers quarters.

SEARCH (DC 20): Wedged under one of the mattresses are some research notes written in orcish. The paper has been badly damaged by age, but even a casual perusal will see that it deals with alchemy.

• KNOWLEDGE (ARCANA) / CRAFT (ALCHEMY) (DC 15): The alchemical calculations seem to be related to the effects of alchemical concoctions on living flesh and bone.

AREA 1-11 – CHAMBER OF SKULLS

The walls of this dome-shaped chamber are covered with skulls. All the skulls would appear to belong to wolf-like creatures, but they don’t seem to have any relationship to any living creatures you’re familiar with. Some seem almost normal, but even these seem curiously (or horrifically) warped.

HOUND HOWL: If any of the skulls are disturbed, it causes all of the skulls to begin howling. The effect passes through the room in a cacophonous wave and then the skulls fall silent.

• The skulls never howl again.
• The entire collection of skulls would be worth 500 gp to a collector.

GM Note: This was something of a “trophy room” for the researchers here. Many of these represented their successes; others merely their most impressive failures.

AREA 1-12 – LABORATORY

The first thing one notices about this room is the smell: A metallic odor fills your nostrils, and the air feels moist and greasy.

WORK TABLES: Tables line the walls, littered with alchemical equipment. Broken beakers, flasks, tubes, and syringes lie haphazardly.

GREASY FILM: The walls and floor seem to be coated with some sort of greasy film.

• BALANCE (DC 12): If moving faster than normal in this room.
• GREASY RESIDUE: After spending 5 minutes here, PCs wearing metal armor may notice an oily film beginning to form on the surface of it (Spot DC 15, decrease DC by 2 every 5 minutes). This isn’t harmful, just hard to get off.

SPOT (DC 12): It’s clear from looking around the lab that whoever worked here were slightly larger than humans — the tables are just slightly too high and the equipment just slightly too big.

SEARCH:

• DC 10: a set of keys (to the cages in Area 1-13) hangs from a nail on the wall
• DC 12: potion of spider climb (that causes one to actually grow arm-sized spider legs, two on each side; Fortitude DC 25 to resist, but if resisted the potion is useless)
• DC 15: five unbroken syringes; two filled with potion of bull’s strength, 1 filled with potion of bear’s endurance, 2 empty

SCRATCHES: The scratch marks from Area 1-8 continue through this room and into Area 1-13.

AREA 1-13 – CAGES

Maverick Monarch – Monster Manual V

The room is filled with large cages of wrought iron. Each of the cages has a large ring attached to the top of them.

• CAGE A: Contains the bones of a dire wolf.
• CAGE B: Contains the bones of a bear.
• CAGE C: Contains the bones of a ghulworg, but the skull has been smashed, making identification impossible. (Comparison with the ghulworg skeleton in Area 1-34 is quite possible, however.) It is clear that the bones are laced with metal, and an Appraise (DC 15) check will identify it as 1,000 gp worth of adamantine.
• CAGE D: The remains of an ankheg, its armored plates lying haphazardly.
• CAGE E: This unusually large cage contains the remains of a mockery monarch (Monster Manual V, p. 126). In life it would have stood twice as high as a man. It was bred here from ankhegs as part of the experimentation. Its large armored plates are silver in color and might be worth 250 gp to a collector.

Mockery Monarch – Monster Manual V, p. 126

SCRATCHES: The floor is covered with scratches from where the cages were dragged from Area 1-12 and through to Area 1-14.

Go to Part 5

Go to Part 1 – Maps

AREA 1-1 – BLUESTEEL DOOR

• Entrance from The Complex of Zombies.
• Someone has crudely carved the words “Athvor Krassek” into the lintel above the bluesteel door. (This is the password for the door.)

AREA 1-2 – STATUES OF THE SKULL-KING

Ceiling vaults up to 40 feet.

STATUES: Four identical depictions of a cloaked man with a skull-faced mask, standing 20 feet high. Carved from a black stone, standing in stark contrast to the cream-colored walls.

• GM Background: These depict Ghul the Skull-King.

AREA 1-3 – TEMPLE OF JESSUK

The room is paved in glistening ebony, rising in three tiers.

STATUES: Two horrific statues stand in the corners of the second tier.

• To the left is the pillar of Kihomenethoth (see Ptolus, p. 274)
• To the right is the statue of Shallamoth Kindred (see Chaositech, p. 91).
• The names “Kihomenethoth” and “Shallamoth” are inscribed in Issyl on the base of the pillars.

ALTAR: The altar on the upper level is a black slab of ebony.

• Any investigation of the altar reveals the sigil of Jessuk minutely carved in the rear corner of the altar.

TAINT: This area is tainted and under the effects of an unhallow spell.

AREA 1-4 – HALL OF ORCISH WARRIORS

These two halls are filled with varied statues of orcish warriors.

AREA 1-5 – SKULL SIGIL OF GHUL

BAS RELIEF: A dark-grey granite rises about three inches from the floor, forming an immense, skull-shaped sigil. The granite is laced with thick, black cords that twist like gleaming ebony across its surface, sucking the eye down into a void beyond emptiness.

• The stone is shadow-veined rock (see below).

CHILL AIR: The entire room is chilled — breath steams in the air.

• GM Note: This is the remnant of an ancient ward that is now failing.

DAMAGING THE SIGIL: Causes the rock to begin to bleed. The blood which pours from the wound is a dark, venal crimson.

• Those touching the blood must make a Fortitude save (DC 15) or suffer 1 point of taint.

KNOWLEDGE (ARCANA):

• DC 15: First part of the Shadow-Veined Rock
• DC 20: First & second part of the handout.
• DC 25: Full handout (including shadow tokens).

SHADOW-VEINED ROCK

Deep beneath the roots of the mountains, where stygian blackness has never known the sun’s warm touch, the shroud of eternal night has forged a primeval connection between this world and the Plane of Shadows. In such a place even the rock itself is changed by the touch of eternal night, its very substance becoming one with the shadows in which it has lain for untold aeons.

Shadowveined rock is literally laced with primal shadow. Thick black cords twist like gleaming ebony across its surface, sucking the eye down into a void beyond emptiness. To the touch it seems both substantial and insubstantial, particularly along its veins of shadow-stuff, as if it were both solid granite and illusionary figment all at once.

The result is not only a captivating beauty, but an intrinsic and mystical bond within the rock itself to the Plane of Shadows.  Although this bond does not allow the passage of physical creatures from one plane to another, certain magical and supernatural effects can use the shadow veins to pierce the veil between worlds. And effects which actually involve the Plane of Shadows or its base material are generally more powerful and effective in the presence of shadowveined rock (as described in the sidebar on this page).

SHADOW-VEINED PROPERTIES

Shadowveined rock has the following effects on spellcasting and other magical or supernatural effects:

Arcane sensors and similar effects can pass through shadowveined rock into the Plane of Shadows. For example, an arcane eye or prying eye can move through a block of shadowveined rock and emerge upon the Plane of Shadows. Similarly, if a spellcaster touching or holding a piece of shadowveined rock uses a scrying spell to observe a creature currently on the Plane of Shadows, his target does not receive the normal +5 bonus to their Will save as a result of being on another plane.

When casting shadow walk a spellcaster can take advantage of nearby shadowveined rock to cut a more direct path through the Plane of Shadows. Upon casting the spell, the spellcaster, and anyone else affected by the spell, simply steps through a solid wall of shadowveined rock. Upon doing so, they are transported deep into the Plane of Shadows, allowing them to move at a rate of 100 miles per hour (instead of the normal 50 miles per hour). In addition, if their destination is a known wall of shadowveined rock they can increase this speed again to 150 miles per hour, emerging from the rockface at the other end.

A shadowdancer can use their hide in plain sight ability within 10 feet of shadowveined rock, even if they are otherwise in a completely illuminated area, as long as they are not carrying the rock in question. In addition, a shadowdancer can use their shadow jump ability with shadowveined rock as either their point of origin or destination (by stepping into or out of the shadowveined rock). When doing so the maximum distance of their shadow jump is doubled (or tripled if both the origin and destination is shadowveined rock).

SHADOW TOKENS

By carefully altering a piece of shadowveined rock, a spellcaster can enhance its connection to the Plane of Shadows. The result is a shadow token – a powerful aid in the casting of any shadow magic.

To create a shadow token the shadowveined rock must first be carefully fashioned into the token. This requires a Craft check (DC 20). Then a permanent shadow planar binding must be cast upon the token (using the greater shadow conjuration and permanency spells) in order to strengthen and, paradoxically, solidify its ties to the Plane of Shadows. Once the connection has been strengthened it must be magically tempered. This process requires the Craft Wondrous Item feat, uses 26,000 gp in raw materials, and drains 1000 xp from the caster.

Once the shadow token has been successfully created, it functions as a use-activated item. A spellcaster holding a shadow token may cast spells as if they were on the Plane of Shadows. Such spells may be cast as though they were prepared with either the Maximize Spell feat or the Quicken Spell feat, though they don’t require the higher slots. Furthermore, specific spells become more powerful: Shadow conjuration and shadow evocation spells are 30% as powerful as the conjurations and evocations they mimic (as opposed to 20%). Greater shadow conjuration and greater shadow evocation are 70% as powerful (not 60%), and a shades spell conjures at 90% of the power of the original (not 80%).

AREA 1-6 – EMPTY CENTURION CHAMBERS

Thick, black cables dangle from the walls here.

• GM Note: These chambers one held black centurions (see Area 2-10) charged with guarding the staircase in Area 1-7, but the equipment was ripped out centuries ago (possibly when the complex was originally abandoned).

AREA 1-7 – STAIRS DOWN

The floor is littered with shattered shards of pottery.

• If a mend spell is used, the shards can be crudely reshaped into four busts: These are largely unremarkable, although on depicts an orc and another appears to have some sort of goggles surgically attached to her face.
• GM Note: These were the head researchers in this complex during Ghul’s reign (although there’s no clear way for the PCs to discern that).

Go to Part 4

Go to Part 1

MAPS

CARTOGRAPHY BY ABIGAIL LALONDE

Scale = 5’ x 5’

LEVEL 1

LEVEL 2

(click maps for larger images)

Go to Part 3

With the 5^th Edition and Cypher System versions of Monte Cook’s Ptolus being announced this past week, I thought it might be fun to visit The Laboratory of the Beast. This scenario was originally designed as part of my ongoing Ptolus campaign, and I’ve discussed it quite a bit in the “Running the Campaign” columns that accompany the campaign’s journal entries. For those who haven’t read those journal entries, here’s the short version of the scenario’s origins:

Beneath the city-state of Ptolus there are a number of overlapping dungeon complexes. One of these is Ghul’s Labyrinth, the remnants of a vast and ancient underground citadel created by the dark lord Ghul. In the main Ptolus sourcebook there’s a scenario called “Trouble with Goblins” in which a number of goblins emerge from Ghul’s Labyrinth into the basement of an abandoned house and do various terrible things.

When I ran this scenario early in my campaign, the PCs backtracked the goblins and followed their trail down into the Labyrinth. In the published scenario, the trail goes cold and the PCs don’t find anything of interest in the dungeon. I decided it made more sense for the trail to lead somewhere, and so I designed a little mini-scenario.

I later published that scenario as The Complex of Zombies. As I described here, the published version of the scenario had been adapted to make it a generic scenario, notably changing the research complex so that it now belonged to the enigmatic Sons of Jade.

A key feature of this mini-scenario is that, ultimately, the goblins’ trail leads back through a bluesteel door: These doors, which are a common feature in Ghul’s Labyrinth, are essentially impassable for low-level characters unless they know the password. (As I discuss in “The Blue Doors of Ptolus”, this is a great way to control and define transitions in a megadungeon complex.)

The basic design goal here was to give the PCs a reward for successfully pursue the trail, but then definitively end the scenario so that they could move on to other things.

But it didn’t work out that way.

As described in “Tales from the Table: Unexpected Successes” (which is probably worth a read, if I do say so myself), the PCs managed to pull a rabbit out of their hat and successfully guessed the password, causing the bluesteel door to open.

The Laboratory of the Beast is what lies on the other side of the door. (The goblin trail ultimately leads through the laboratory to another scenario called The Goblin Caverns of the Ooze Lord. If response is positive to The Laboratory of the Beast, perhaps I’ll be able to share that latter adventure in the near future.)

With all this in mind, there are a few ways that you could use The Laboratory of the Beast in your own campaign:

• You could use it as designed, attaching it to the door at one end of The Complex of Zombies.
• You could make it a stand-alone dungeon. You could put the door leading to the laboratories almost anywhere: In the basement of a ruined keep. Or found in the aftermath of a tragic collapse during sewer construction. Or carved into the side of a mountain. Or it’s actually a portal that you leap into from a lich’s sanctum.
• You could incorporate it into some other megadungeon complex, with or without The Complex of Zombies.

I’m presenting the scenario here basically in its original form (with a minimal amount of clean-up to hopefully make my intentions clear to people who don’t live inside my skull), so if you use it in combination with The Complex of Zombies you’ll probably want to make a decision about whether you’re using the Skull-King Ghul or the Sons of Jade.

If you’re planning to use this scenario in your own Ptolus campaign, you should also note that it was written for the version of Ptolus as it exists in my personal campaign world and may, therefore, have any number of metaphysical inconsistencies with Ptolus Prime.

GENERAL FEATURES

During the time of Ghul the Skull-King, this complex was being used to breed the hounds of Ghul — powerful war hounds who, through the machinations of this laboratory, became ever more dire and horrific.

Walls: Cream-colored stone (hardness 8, 15 hp/inch).

Unkeyed Rooms: These are empty, dusty rooms. Some might contain vague discolorations on the floors and walls, suggesting that they might have once contained equipment which has been removed. Or strange alchemical stains.

Bluesteel Doors: Indicated by a shaded door on the map. Made from steel with a distinct bluish tint. One cannot open them by normal magical means and they have no lock to pick. Instead, each door will open in response to a specific word. (3 inches thick, hardness 12, 120 hp, Break DC 31)

Glass & Bronze Doors: Indicated in room keys. Made of glass bound in bronze. These doors are very fragile, but have been laced with dark magic which curses whose who break them. (The effect will be described in the key entry when appropriate.) Resisting the curse requires a Will save (DC 24) and can be removed only by a cleric of at least 13^th level casting remove curse on sanctified ground.

Taint: Various items and locations are tainted. See Advanced D20 Rules: Taint for rules on this dark perversion of reality.

Kaostech: Kaostech items can be found throughout the laboratories. See Kaostech for more information on this technomantic art.

Go to Part 2: Maps

In “On the Use of GM Screens” a few years back I shared my personal best practices when it comes to using GM screens. Probably the biggest reason I like them is the vertical reference space: One of my secret weapons as a GM is simply arranging my reference material so that I can lay out multiple elements (stat blocks, room descriptions, campaign status document, maps, NPC roleplaying templates, etc.) simultaneously. I can thus cross-reference material by just flicking my eyes back and forth, and can often easily compare information directly instead of having to flip back-and-forth.

The vertical reference space of the GM screen, therefore, is basically free space. I’ve already covered every inch of table space in front of me (and often have a TV tray to one side for additional reference material), so basically creating more space in the third dimension is a huge advantage.

Now, the most common thing I put in that vertical space is my system cheat sheet. It’s virtually always useful when running a game, and putting that information into the vertical plane means that my horizontal surfaces can be focused on scenario-related material. These cheat sheets can also be prepped ahead of time

But this is not the only way you can utilize that vertical space! This is a trick that I didn’t think to include in “On the Use of GM Screens” because I don’t use it very often, but it can be very effective upon occasion and you may find it even more useful than I do.

Basically, 3M makes these removable restickable glue sticks:

They can be used to essentially turn any piece of paper into a Post-It note. And that, in turn, means that you can turn any piece of paper into a swap note that you can quickly paste up or remove from your GM screen.

For example, you can print out the stat blocks for your current scenario. Here I’ve grabbed an Orc War Chief accompanied by a warband of Orcs, and also a second encounter featuring a Werebear and his pet Owlbear:

And then, while running the game, you can quickly use the restickable glue stick to attach them to the GM screen for easy reference during an encounter:

Other stuff that you might find useful as a swap note:

• A list of upcoming, timed events for the current session that you don’t want to forget
• The map of the dungeon
• NPCs in the current scene
• The standard features (door types, ceiling height, light sources, environmental effects) of the current dungeon
• The daily weather forecast for the next several days of a sandbox campaign (so that you don’t forget to make it rain)

As I’ve talked about before, what reference material a GM finds useful will often be very specific to that GM, and will often change over time. So experiment with different options, and pay attention to the type of information that you had to stop and scramble for (or just really wish you’d had handy) during your last session.

You can also just keep a straight-up stack of Post-Its that you can scribble out transient-yet-important information onto.

This is also works on the other side of the screen, too! If you have visual references for the players (like, say, all those photo handouts that are part of the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies), you could similarly turn them into Post-Its and slap them onto the front of the screen. If you’re going to do this a lot, it might argue for using a simple pattern for the player’s side of your screen. You could even go for a collage approach, where instead of removing the references you just keep layering them on top of each other, creating an ever-evolving visual motif of the campaign that continues to grow as the campaign goes on.

PROVISOS

In my experience, this technique only works passingly well with the old, thin cardboard-style screens. But it works great with the modern, glossy, board-stock screens that have become de rigeur. It works even better with modular screens like those from Pinnacle, Strategem, and Hammerdog.

You don’t want to leave the notes attached for an extended period of time. I first used this technique with my Eclipse Phase screen and I ended up leaving a few swap notes attached when we moved on to other games. When I opened the screen up a couple of years later, I found that the glue had chemically deteriorated and left a chalky residue that was difficult to clean up.