The Drow War Book Two. The Dying Of - RoseRed

Games Master should have the Player Characters make
Spot checks (DC 25) to notice this group among all
the rest. A group of three drow (the three from the
ambassador’s chambers inside the citadel, for which see
below) stands around a half-buried crystal in the earth.
This crystal is a mass of raw tenebrium.
If the Player Characters spend too much time
investigating these phantoms, the Guardian of the Outer
Gate sees them and stomps out to confront them.
2. The Guardian of the Outer Gate
The entrance to Bastirak’s citadel is a great doorway
sculpted from ice, including two female caryatids
holding the lintel aloft. Their blank eyes watch you
approach. Between them stands a giant made from
black craggy rock, perhaps another one of the ghostly
images you saw out on the plains. The citadel blinks
momentarily out of existence, but the giant stays where
it is.
There is no door between the caryatids; nothing but a
swirling white mist blocks access to the inner dome.
The giant is a lodestone golem (see page 163) in service
to Bastirak. Player Characters who approach within
120 feet feel a gentle tugging on all the metal gear they
wear, as if a magnet was pulling them. This should give
them some idea of what sort of rock the golem is made
from. A Knowledge (dungeoneering) or Knowledge
(geology) check (DC 20) identifies the golem as a
creature made from lodestone.
The golem is under instructions to accept visitors but
to disarm them first. If it sees intruders, it comes out
to meet them and speak to them in Bastirak’s voice (a
hoarse whisper), demanding to know their business
in the domain of the ice mage. Depending on their
answers, the golem attacks them outright, disarms
them and brings them in or ignores them altogether and
stomps back to its post.
The Citadel Walls: All of the walls, ceilings and
floors within the citadel are made from solid ice unless
otherwise specified. The outer walls are 40 feet thick
and opaque. Between these walls and the inner section
is a special five-foot-thick layer of vapour before the
inner wall, in case creatures try to break in. This vapour
is acid fog (see below) and is continually pumped around
the hollow section. If the outer walls are breached, the
acid fog slowly seeps out of the breach to a distance of
15 feet. Player Characters can avoid this easily if they
are not immobilised.
Beyond the acid fog layer is a five-foot-thick inner wall
of glasslike, transparent ice. Creatures on the inside
can clearly see other creatures floundering about in the
fog layer, so long as they are adjacent to the wall. This
allows the guards to mobilise quickly if a creature is
trying to break into the citadel through the walls.
Any guard on the inside of the citadel has a chance to
overhear creatures breaking in, even if he is not watching
the clear ice. Assuming the creatures smash through the
outer ice, a Listen check (DC 20) is needed to hear them
through the clear ice walls. If they melt their way in, a
more difficult Listen check (DC 30) is required.
The White Mist: This mist continually swirls from four
black iron cauldrons set into the floor, embedded deep
in the ice; these are marked on the map. This is acid fog,
as per the spell (caster level 18 th ). All creatures entering
the acid fog are dealt 2d6 points of acid damage per
round (as is all their gear), as well as having their sight
obscured and their movement slowed.
Note: While the Player Characters’ magic items may
have a good chance of making it through the fog intact,
their warm clothing is almost certainly destroyed if
they enter the fog, leaving them unprotected against the
cold.
Each cauldron has a hinged lid which, when closed,
prevents the cauldron from emitting any more fog.
When the lodestone golem needs to admit guests, it
simply concentrates and pulls the lids shut, thus clearing
the passageway of mist. The Player Characters can
attempt to free the cauldrons from the ice if they wish.
To do this, they must somehow melt or smash away the
ice around the cauldrons, then lift the cauldrons out of
their holes. Each one is three feet high and weighs 70
pounds. The cauldrons must be kept fed with ice in
order to function. Each one consumes five pounds of
ice per hour.
3. The Dome of Bastirak
The inside of this stronghold is one vast hollow space,
dimly lit by the cold light of day filtering through the ice
mass. Rising through the centre is a frozen column like
a mutated tree or fountain of ice, with pylons arching
out from the trunk and connecting to walkways on the
sides of the dome. Around the column’s base stands a
group of hideous bipedal insectoid creatures 12 feet in
height, with skin like white leather, mantis-like heads
and wicked-looking spears.
Ibon Presno Gonzalez (order #73006) 8
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