The Drow War Book Two. The Dying Of - RoseRed

one hour per Hit Die of the planespider. Creatures can
reopen the gateway by slicing through the webs; these
have 21 hit points, hardness 3 and damage reduction
10/chaos.
8. Zamelak’s Chambers
As the Player Characters approach these rooms, they
hear the following:
A shrill scream comes from up ahead, followed by a
torrent of insane laughter. Then there is the sound of a
little girl’s voice speaking in a babyish singsong tone as
if telling a story. There is silence for a moment, then a
low keening moan.
The room is curtained off with a fringe of silver wires
on which quartz crystals have been strung (an array
worth 120 gold pieces). Inside the room, the Player
Characters find the following:
An attempt has been made to cover the ice walls of
this chamber with brightly coloured hangings, but they
are soaked through and dark with damp. A brass bed,
similarly sodden, stands against the wall, with a doll
the size of a small child propped up on it.
A wild-haired woman, barefoot in a tattered white dress,
sits cross-legged next to the doll. On the woman’s lap is
an open book and she is reading from it in a murmuring
voice. You catch the words ‘…and then the Sun King
of Elfland came and melted the snowmen all away, all
away into puddles and steam.’ She looks up from the
book. You see that her fingers end in talons and her face
is not quite human. Her nostrils are reptilian slits and
her eyes have hourglass pupils.
These are the chambers of Zamelak the insane
wind-witch, Bastirak’s unfortunate sister-spouse.
Occasionally she goes raving up and down the
battlements instead of lingering in her room, so the
Games Master can have the Player Characters see her
sooner than this if desired.
The Games Master should portray Zamelak as
completely mad and changeable as the winds. One
moment she will welcome the Player Characters as if
they were childhood playmates; the next, she will use
her breath weapon on them, then burst into tears and
beg their forgiveness. She is more evil than good,
but her behaviour is so erratic that she can easily be
mistaken for either depending on what mood she is in.
Her dominant personality is one of a curious, playful
and inventively cruel child.
If the Player Characters treat her kindly and patiently,
they can gain useful information from her. The Games
Master should not, however, let the Player Characters
gain this information without effort or without putting
themselves in a vulnerable position. Zamelak should be
an irritation at best and a major threat at worst, despite
her potential usefulness. The information she can give
the Player Characters includes the following:
• The great black dragon who has risen with the
drow, spreading his wings over Jehannum, is called
Scallandriax. He is one and the same as the dragon
who ravaged Kandang after the last war against the
drow.
• Her mother’s sister, the silver dragon Aristeele, is
not dead. She is imprisoned in the mountains in the
northeast of Svarth.
• She, Bastirak and Azarak are all half-siblings
descended from a king.
• Bastirak has visitors right here in the citadel, right
now. ‘Dark they are and silver-haired’.
• Titans used to live in this place. Now the titans are
all gone, back to their own world.
• Bastirak often ventures into the places
below the citadel, where the planes crack
against one another like plates piled too high
in a sink. He goes to strange places and brings
back strange things – statues, creatures, stones
that shed darkness instead of light.
Ibon Presno Gonzalez (order #73006) 8
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