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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