So, here we are folks, the final pieces for the Tower dungeon. I have neglected to include a few pieces to save some secrets. We aren't sure if we will be giving this whole deal away for free, or sell for a cheap price. Discussions need to be had with owners of systems. If we do end up selling this, we may just sell it with one or two systems attached, and give the others away for free.
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| Whatever is in here, I wouldn't drink it. |
6
– In these Colors of Questionable Hue
Steel grating
comprises the floor of this cube of a room, one hundred feet on a
side. A line of three twenty foot wide vats line the left and right
side of the cube and its center, all of which are evenly spaced. Made
of stainless steel, their finish polished to a mirror shine, their
tops nearly touching the ceiling. Along the back of the room is a
basin, a stainless steel basin that takes up the entire back wall,
its rim nearly touching the side walls. Bright white light cast down
from wide fixtures on the ceiling is strangled by the prismatic
radiance cast from the vats and the basin. Rainbow light climbs every
surface of the place, bands of every hue and shade mark the room.
Sounds of splashing and slopping come from the basin, while the dome
topped vats shift perceptively as if filled with the restless
movement of swimming beasts. A tall wave rises from the basin, never
cresting, only growing until it presses against the top ceiling of
the room. It is the truest rainbow given liquid form, every
imaginable color crawling over it in lunatic patterns only imagined
before by the mad. Suspended within this wave of color is an office
desk, floating nearby are a rolling chair and a half dissolved corpse
dressed in business formal.
[Insert battle with
big rainbow blob, a larger form of the monster from room #2. Inside
the blob is the body of Edsel Q. Forsythia, head of the whole crazy
project as well as papers explaining the aftermath of the accident
that brought the tower to its current state. The papers end with
Edsel saying that he is being hunted by something and that its
coming through the hall to get him.]
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| Warped words in warped containers. |
8
– Files of Questionable Merit
Opposite the
star-lit dome and the mechanical eye is metal room draped in dim
light. A bulbous and rolling room that is more akin to a well lined
with file drawers. A narrow room whose floor drops away from its
entrance by 30 feet or more. Drawers of every size, all metal, all
painted in the unimaginative shades found in offices of bureaucrats.
While four sided, their proportions are uneven, the dimensions of the
draws slanting at angles far too imaginative for their original
purpose. A climb down to the floor is easy, the half extended drawers
and their handles providing easy footholds. Within the walls, handles
and extending rails on smooth bearings providing access, are
innumerable papers and items. Thorough searching might reveal papers
of note or items of use. Lighting the room, dimly, is a single bulb
of light, dangling by a thin wire.
[I want to make two
tables, one for interesting bits of info about the black candle, and
one for useful items. Perhaps have limit the number of times a person
may roll? Or create a setup where the longer they take, the greater
likelihood of encountering a random monster?]
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| A long, perhaps endless, staircase. |
9a
– Down and In
Warm to the touch,
the handle twists easily, allowing the stained glass window to be
pulled open on well greased hinges. Made of descending rows of pipes,
each step of the staircase is comprised of three pipes creating the
normal dimensions found on most stairs. Drifting to the left and
right, the descent never keeps to a completely straight path, but it
also avoids any true turns. After a short time into the downward
journey, items begin to appear on the steps: shoes, clothing,
crumpled bits of paper, coins, and bones that might belong to a
human. Time drags, legs tire, and the journey never ends.
[Require some kind
of save to break out of the infinitude of the stairs. Create
negatives for failed saves, such as extra time required (perhaps a
day between each save) as well as some kind of exhaustion penalty?]
[After a successful
save.]
A glow, first hardly
beyond a possibility or notion, that soon increases in intensity
until the final few steps allow sight at the stairs' destination. A
space, filled with machinery that could be found in a foundry, the
light of the room orange and bright from a substance within the large
vats dotting the room.
 |
| Heat and light in liquid form. |
9b – In
Hell's Own Heart
A space, easily 25
yards wide and twice that in length, its ceiling, barely visible in
the room's orange glow, just as tall as the room's width. Four evenly
spaced vats sit to either side of a large engine, or perhaps furnace,
at the room's center, wide pipes connecting the bulbous mechanism to
the base of each vat. Each tub is twenty feet tall and nearly twice
as wide, their sides caked with the ash from the heat of innumerable
years. Illuminating the room, and driving its temperature beyond
comfort, is the slowly churning liquid within the tanks. At the
room's heart, is a heart of iron and steel set upon four struts and
attached to each heat churning tub with wide pipes. Heat pulses from
the furnace as well, along with a similar orange light that bursts
from the grates set into its sides. It rises easily fifty feet into
the air, with ten or more pipes emerging from its top to move down to
the eight vats with the others rising to meet the ceiling. Spilling
from a long, thin square opening in the heart's side are thick worm
like creatures cast from what appears to be iron or steel, their
sides matte black and segmented. Eight of these mechanical things
writhe through the grated spaces between the vats and heart, tending
to dials and valves on the blackened tubs. Watched long enough, it
appears that after some period of time or completion of some task, a
worm will slide its way back to the heart, then enter back into it
through a small round hole at the heart's bottom. Once a worm enters
a heart, a new one separates itself from the tangle emerging from the
side of the furnace, and wiggles its way back to the previous worm's
station. They appear to pay no attention to those standing on the
stairs and observing, but they may take umbrage to those who decide
to walk in the space of their work.
There appears to be
two exits from the room of vats and furnaces. To the right, of those
who enter the room, is a metal door nearly a foot thick. It is ajar,
letting out a band of white light into the orange dimness of the
room. To the left is a wide ladder, its rungs climbing to a ledge
where a light that is both black and blue, spills out in a burst of
anti-radiance, a true example of Stygian color.
[So, the idea is
that there are a functionally infinite number of worms, which can be
both a good and a bad thing for the party. Bad, because there will
always be replacements for the one's that are killed. Good, because
if they are using a per-monster-killed xp system, they could grind
away at them to level up. The worms will attack anything that is in
the vat area, but will no follow them once they begin climbing the
ladder to area 10 or through the door to area 9]
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| A complete set of controls, but what do they control? |
9
– And, Through These Doors, Answers to Unasked Questions
Ajar and spilling a
bar of bright white light, the door swings open with little need of
force, its hinges traveling without complaint from dry pins or rust.
Its width is the same, though the room is half the length as the one
adjoined. From floor to ceiling it is covered in square white tiles
the width and breadth of a man's hand, a glossy glaze upon all of
them. Bright light pours from something at the room's center, set
upon a tall pedestal of a mechanical, or perhaps electrical, nature.
It climbs up to nearly touch the ceiling, the angle making it
impossible to see the source of the radiance. Constructed of layered
pipes polished to a mirror finish, the pipes festooned with lights,
dials, and valves, the pedestal is as much a mechanism as a work of
art. Facing each of the four cardinal directions are the upper bodies
of four golden men, made in the proportions of Greek perfection,
emerging from the pedestal like the figureheads of some fantastic
ship. Arms outstretched, hands cupped, the figureheads hold spinning
rubies larger than a mans fist, teardrop shapes with curved fins at
their top to give the illusion of being formed like fire. Arrayed
around the pillar of pipes, figureheads, and light are curved banks
of control panels. Two rows each, the double rows are each set to
face one of the figureheads emerging from the pipe work of the
pillar. Each control panel is comprised of three stations, all with
similar controls and dials, a wheeled swivel chair is set before each
station, the wooden seat well polished from numerous occupants. At
the back of the room is a tiled platform, with a set of metal stairs
attached to each side. Set atop the platform is a similar control
panel attached to the back wall, three chairs marking its stations.
Facing the machine at the center is a wide desk, made dark and well
polished wood. Scattered and stacked on its top are papers, some in
folders others scattered outside of them.
[So, in the papers
will be at very least a partial history and explanation of the tower
as well as instructions on its operation. The instructions can be
used to shut down the machine, as well as what is shedding light at
its top.]
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| The black and burning heart of the entire tower. |
10
– Heart of the Abyss
Each rung of the
ladder seems to stretch up farther than the next, each reach for the
proceeding rung appears to stretch further without discomfort, the
distance between rungs never changes. Time, measured through the
journey, lengthens and compresses, but the body never weakens from
the exertions during the varying period of work. Light becomes dark,
yet just as accommodating to sight, tinging the environment blue as
the end of the ladder draws closer. The top of the ledge spans miles
in every direction. The top of the ledge is but a few yards across
and deep. Black grass waves in a gentle heated wind, stars, colored
the same dark-light as the illumination of the ledge, dot the black
sky. Black tiles cover the floor, walls, and ceiling of the alcove
atop the ledge, a light-bulb hangs by a wire from the low ceiling,
the illumination it casts the same as that which pervades the space.
At the center of the Stygian plain a black pyramid rises miles away
from the ladder's top. At the center of the tiled ledge is a black
pyramid, a quarter of the height of a man. Floating above the
pyramid, an eye the its color a marriage of purple and moonless
night, both a width of a hand and hundreds of yards wide, their
irises a single black candle. In the center of the pyramid a handle
is set, sized for the hand of a titan, sized for the hand of a child.
Aligned vertically, the direction of the handle points up towards the
word ON, placed perpendicular to the
handles direction, the word OFF. Vision,
and perhaps the body, is pushed towards the plain, to a miles long
journey and to a handle impossible to grasp. Concentration and will
keeps the journey but a few agonizing paces. Concentration and will
keeps the handle small enough to grasp, and loose enough to turn.
[So, a number of
will saves or stat checks are needed to approach the pyramid, and
keep the traveler in the world where the pyramid is small enough to
work with. Another set of checks is finally needed to turn the handle
and grasp the candle. The effects of this and other situations will
be described fully in the final product.]
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