Ternketh - Magician's Rooms

Magician’s Rooms

13. Magician’s Study. This seems to be a room dedicated to the study of astrology and celestial mechanics. There are bookshelves, a table with instruments (and instruments strewn over the floor, most of it broken), a table and bench (with a book open on the table to no particular page), a once valuable carpet, now worthless, and a large etched symbol taking up a third of the study floor, as it is about 13 feet in diameter.

This room is also completely crammed with 24 zombies, all of which have 3 HD. These bump into each other endlessly, making shuffling, bumping sounds. These will have to be fought through before any further progress can be made. Only then will the party find that the door on the east side of the room gives way to the stair that leads into the Keep’s Basement.

The exact purpose of the symbol and books should be left in doubt. The sum total betrays a pseudo-science/religion that died with the inhabitants of the Keep, particularly the line of magicians that once understood the mechanics here. The DM should see this as the potential for another adventure, one that could lead to the discovery of a new kind of magic or simply an artifact of some kind, depending on what might work for the campaign. Sometimes not all questions are answered.

Long before the yellow musk zombies took over this room, it was cleared out and desecrated by the harpies – so everything is polluted just as elsewhere in the Keep.

Regardless of this, however, if the room is searched the party will find three books of interest. At present, these things are somewhat cursed and in poor shape, but they can be cleaned and the curse removed by the proper means. Two of these books will be of great value to obscure astronomers but probably not to an ordinary trader – they are notes and observances of celestial movements in the far northern hemisphere dating back two thousand years, making them extraordinary and rare.

The third book is entitled Detailed Mechanics of Terrestrial & Lunar Transitions (admittedly describing the reader’s fantasy world as ‘earth’ or ‘terra’ – feel free to adjust the title). This is a magic tome that requires an illusionist of 9th level or a mage of 11th level to comprehend. It describes in details a process of being able to physically travel from the earth to the moon, using symbols such as those found etched into the floor – thus, a potential adventure, if the players choose to pursue it.

The door to the 14 has been barred from the inside and must be physically or magically forced open. If the party makes a great deal of noise taking this door down, the harpies in the assembly hall (see 21, below) will become aware of the sound. This will change the circumstances of in the lord’s passageway (see 15, below).

14. Magician’s Quarters. It will become apparent from the odor of the room that, though the air is stale, the harpies never did pollute this room. The magician that once dwelt here (11th level) is he that was responsible for creating the glyphs that will be found in the Lord’s room (see Yard – 10, above). In the corner between the door and the curving wall of the stair are the bodies of four charred harpies, burned and then piled here. The magician is dead too, his skeleton lying in the bed. It has dessicated and dried and has no odor or maggots – as near as can be told, it is not undead as the magician was a good man. If spoken with by spell or resurrected, he will give a long description of how the Keep was surprised and taken by the harpies. He will also be happy to help the party find whatever they need to find. Presumably, any party of sufficient level to resurrect skeletons is probably too powerful for this scenario, so an 11th level mage couldn’t further unbalance an already unbalanced situation.

There are stores of grain and water in the room, in sacks and sealed barrels, so he did not starve to death (died of a broken heart, actually). There is a trunk that contain about 3,000 g.p. worth of coins, gems and jewelry. A second trunk will contain a collection of unusual and rare minerals that are of little economic value except to a collector. There are similar collections on two cabinets with drawers of carefully pinned butterflies and beetles, submarine fossils and plant forms that are pressed between glass. There are some 250 objects in the room (the insects are contained in glass boxes) that would be very valuable to a very specific expert somewhere, perhaps 20-80 g.p. per object. No ordinary trader would buy them, however.

There are also books in the room that will suggest three possible adventures that might interest the party. The first is an open book, written in the magician’s hand, describing where the harpies originated (in a deep cave in a high range of mountains, left to the reader to place as needed), where a harpy Queen holds court and makes policy.

There are several books that tell of an atoll of distant islands where the fossils and plants came from, where an elixir is brewed that will increase the strength of the user as long as this elixir is taken on a regular basis. The people there are all very strong and friendly, but the exact location of the atoll is lost and would require a ship and perhaps a year of exploration.

Finally, books about coleopterology (a branch of the study of beetles) and lepidoptera (study of butterflies) suggests a method for creating giant, intelligent insects of both forms, further suggesting that there is a land where this was done, causing the destruction of a culture now overgrown in a jungle, leaving its wealth behind. A map suggesting the course to this jungle land is included.

The DM may wish to include potions or scrolls in the magician’s things, but I personally wouldn’t do this. The less power I give to the party as they fight their way through the Keep, the better – though I might concede to including a potion allowing healing if the party really does need a boost at this time. I’m not heartless.

15. Lord’s Passage. This was originally included in the Keep as a means for the Lord to travel from his room to the assembly hall (see 21, below), so as to make a grand entrance next to the throne. If noise is made breaking down the door to the magician’s room (see 14, above), then three harpies will emerge from 21 into the passageway. If the passage is empty when they do this, the harpies will immediately defecate near the doors (harpies are able to do this at will every few hours) then retreat back into the assembly hall.

If someone from the party is watching the passage, however, all three harpies will sing. One will fly forward to challenge the intruder, but will immediately give ground if encountering real opposition. All three harpies will remain in the passage until the one that has gone on the attack is dead or is able to retreat with the others.

If the players enter the passage after the defecation, the odor will be so rank that characters will suffer a -1 to their strength and constitution abilities (with a corresponding reduction in hit points, if applicable). If the harpies were not made aware of the party’s approach through the passage, the passage will be empty and will give no such penalties.