Lost Galmagia Week 4: Under the Ancestor’s Ward

One thing I’m loving about the B/X treasure tables is the inclusion of maps as a scroll. They immediately feed the PCs more information about things they might want to pursue, but unlike a grand quest they’re still a choice. This week’s set of rooms is built around that – the 1^st room provides a treasure map, and the 3^rd-7^th rooms are the treasure location, but due to the dungeon geography the PCs have to exit the dungeon, search the smashed cemetery of the Ancestors Ward for the entrance, and then overcome the obstacles for… even more scrolls! OK, a spellbook. But that’s gonna be a huge draw for any Magic-User PCs.

1.23: Invisible Statues and Water Stash
This hemisphere is a shrine to the Galmagian Noble ancestors. Since the Ancestors Ward was overrun with shantytowns, the noble houses re-interred their dead in the undercity, with a shrine here to propitiate unmoved remains. Central is a perpetually flowing/purified fountain that local monsters use as a water source (double random encounter chance), and a plaque with an accurate map of the Ancestor’s Ward. That plaque hangs loosely, as if someone tried to remove it (PCs can finish the job in 1 turn). In between the plaque and the fountain is an invisible statue of a woman in wizards robes, kneeling and pointing towards the fountain. Any search of the room has someone comedically bump into her, but she’s well braced and will only fall over with concerted effort. The PCs can sell it as an oddity for 100 GP or find someone to cast the Dispel Magic needed to breach a 3^rd level Invisibility and a 10^th level Petrification.

Stashed behind the waterfall is an oilcloth backpack with dungeoneering equipment and notebooks that have suffered some damage. One is a travelling spellbook; Read Magic spell reveals Hold Portal, Invisibility & Locate Object intact. The other? Journal of Jewel Neilsdottor, who learned how this plaque could reveal the resting place of T’tam the Bird, buried in the Ancestors Quarter… WITH HIS SPELLBOOKS… in his bird-carved coffin. Jewel planned to claim these alone (Wis 5) with her Invisibility & Locate Object; the guardians of T’Tam’s tomb relied on sight. What could go wrong…?

1.24: Branches to the Manor Houses
This space is notable for the three branches to the individual manor house basements.

1.25: Entrance to the Crypt of T’tam
The circular stairs down can be uncovered with 2d6 person-hours work (if the PCs can find it!). At the base of the stairs is a carved Paralysis rune that has a 4 in 6 chance of striking anyone who doesn’t leap from the bottom step into the room. The rune is permanent and doesn’t have recharge time. Once the rune triggers a Crystal Living Statue will activate in each of 1.26 and 1.27, but both of them are shattered and instead crystal limbs without hands and one head missing a nose and jaw crawl into the room to be completely ineffectual in combat.

1.26, 1.27: Mirrored chambers of the crypt:
Each of these rooms is partially collapsed but navigable. Each has the remains of three human-shaped living crystal statues in them, buried and shattered. Room 1.27 is the less stable of the pair, and part of its ceiling can be brought down with an Open Doors check, forcing everything in it to make a Petrification save or be buried under rubble.

1.28: The Central Dias
The bridge between the mirrored rooms is a two-step raised dais with a sarcophagus on it, surrounded by crystal statues of four giant lizards, the guardians of the underworld in human myth. Each is damaged by rockfall but functioning (1/2 HP and damage), and activate when they see anyone step on the dais. The secret door entrance is on the north stairs of the dais, which can be unlocked at the sarcophagus and folded down to meet lower stairs – the stairs need to be re-folded up to crawl over the lower stairs to reach the path to the true tomb. The sarcophagus holds a ‘cursed scroll’ spellbook that when opened turns the reader into the bird their personality most resembles (Save vs. Polymorph). There’s also a Potion of Gaseous Form (makes you a flock of hummingbirds), a Potion of Diminution (you take on a birdlike aspect), 10 Arrows +1 fletched with golden hawk feathers, and 2500 SP in gold and silver bird statuary.

1.29: The True Tomb of T’tam

The otherwise empty room holds the elaborately aviary-carved sarcophagus of T’tam, inside of which is his spellbook, the equivalent of 4 scrolls each holding 2-3 spells (determine if the players ever find them).