Oaths of the Sidhe

This is worldbuilding for my Beyond the Wall game, but since it was most of the way to compatible with D&D 5e anyway, I went ahead and made the tweaks. My players have gotten really into hanging out with the fae at the regular seasonal markets, and are drifting pretty close to just signing up. This was a way to systematize that process.

Also, check out Brandes’ recent post about fae contracts for some largely compatible ideas.

The Bane of Iron

Most fae are weak to iron, the punishment of the Sun for interlopers from the shadow planes. This is not an inherent weakness of Sidhe, except insofar as most are fae. It is said that sometimes mortals that become full Sidhe essentially become adopted by a shadow plane, effectively becoming fae.

Oaths of the Sidhe

Each rank of the court allows another oath to be taken, and each oath taken cements that rank in the court. Most serious Sidhe courtiers have taken all of the oaths: it is the requirement to be considered full Sidhe and to truly engage in Sidhe politics. However, those who have taken any oaths are part of the hierarchy, and have enforced respect over those that bow to Sidhe sovereignty, particularly in Sidhe lands.

Oaths broken tend to result in grievous wounds, commensurate with the wrong committed.

Oathkeeping (Wisdom)

The most common oath is for the keeping of oaths themselves. This is the oath responsible for the famous Sidhe inability to lie.

My words will be my oath. What I say is true. What I commit to, I will perform.

Drawback: You cannot tell an outright falsehood (but can mislead through technically true statements). Your promises always count as an Oath.

Benefit: Gain Advantage on Wisdom checks to determine if someone is deceiving you. Make a Charisma (Intimidation) check when calling a promise due to force even a non-Sidhe to keep an oath to you (or accept commensurate consequences), DC equal to the target’s own Charisma score.

Hospitality (Constitution)

Another common oath, this is the one that protects others from the Sidhe as a guest. It is the only reason Sidhe politics can continue at the most cutthroat times.

While I share bread and drink with my hosts, I am their guest and they are mine. I shall respect their homes, and expect the same. Should they withhold their threat from me, so I shall withhold mine from them, until the guesting is through.

Drawback: You may not directly harm or even work strongly against guests and hosts after accepting/granting hospitality (but can politic towards eventual harm after guesting is over).

Benefit: Gain resistance to all damage dealt by someone who is part of a pact of hospitality to you (and this waives your need to avoid harming the aggressor). Gain Advantage on Constitution saves and checks made when you have guest right (e.g., against toxins or other poor conditions). Roll Charisma (Intimidation) against the target’s Charisma score when you are a host to force violators or those who will not swear from your home.

Demesne (Strength)

This is the oath that allows the Sidhe to build nations and employ diplomats. It is usually sworn after Hospitality, for it is that oath writ to a grander scale. It is the reason Sidhe can be driven off of even mortal lands, due to the respect of authority.

I shall respect territory, as I expect my own to be respected. Should I remain in land where I am unwanted, then this shall be war.

Drawback: You must leave an area when ordered by a rightful authority unless on a mission of declared hostility (and, unfortunately, church bells usually count unless you are expressly welcome, due to the general hostility of the church and their authority over mortal lands).

Benefit: Gain Advantage on Strength checks or similar rolls to erect fortifications or bar portals in your own lands. You, your mount, and your immediate retinue move 50% faster when moving in your lands to intercept invaders. You may automatically sense the strength and potential flaws of fortifications and other defensive measures nearby.

Gifts (Intelligence)

All fae have picked up the gift-giving system from the Sidhe, mostly because an upper class with very specific views on exchange of property quickly creates a culture of it. This oath ultimately serves to formalize ownership and prevent corruption through bribes.

I shall accept nothing that I am not owed. I shall give nothing without an expectation of a return in kind. My value comes from my deeds, not from the whims of others.

Drawback: You cannot accept a gift of item or service without providing something of similar value (owing a favor if you cannot immediately reciprocate); if you have provided services without a formalized gifting/quest structure, you can accept a gift as a way to settle this debt.

Benefit: You gain Advantage on Intelligence checks to appraise the value of items or services, and automatically succeed when they are offered to you as gift or for trade, allowing you to flawlessly detect counterfeits or other items with inflated values. Gain double XP for conspicuous consumption*. Spend Inspiration to have fate help track items that were stolen from you or to see that fortune returns them to your hands.

* In my campaign, the PCs earn XP based on spending cash on goods and services that make their characters happy but have no significant rules effect.

Craft (Dexterity)

Sidhe also have a propensity for games, riddles, and art competitions, as a way to establish dominance without bloodshed. This oath speaks to the cleverness required for true nobility, and is often one of the last oaths sworn by those fae that do not trust in their own intelligence.

I am wit, poise, and guile given form. Should one seek to test me in the domains I have claimed talent, and be it no true hardship, I shall prove my skills or acknowledge my superior.

Drawback: You cannot refuse a challenge to a competition over one of your proficient Skills or Tools unless it is obviously, actively dangerous to you (e.g., a distraction from a fight) or you admit that the challenger is better (you cede the advantage for winning to them).

Benefit: If you win a competition where you were challenged, you are owed by the loser similar to them promising you a favor (with the strength of the favor based on how much effort was required for the competition; a quick riddle game is not the same as a challenge to see who can topple an empire). You owe this in turn if you cede a competition to the challenger without competing, but not if you simply lose after giving it your try (in this case, the favor is minor because the stakes were small). You may learn to work dross and other ephemeral qualities into your crafts (essentially, crafting magic items).

Identity (Charisma)

Not all fae are vulnerable to use of their true names, but this is the oath that ensures it. It is often the final oath, as it is the ultimate claim of identity that allows full nobility.

My name is my own, though I may keep it safe. By my sigil, my will. By my name, my pledge. By my existence, my guarantee. There is none other like me.

Drawback: Statement of your True Name by an antagonist weakens* any of your mystical protections, as well as your mystical attacks against the target (and “statement” may be broad enough to include working your name into bindings or other magics). It also unmasks you of any magical or physical disguise.

* GM’s discretion, usually advantage/disadvantage or the equivalent for effects that don’t involve a roll.

Benefit: Attempts to impersonate you, even with strong magic, automatically fail against anyone that has met you. You automatically succeed on saves to resist being transformed without your consent, unless the aggressor has some kind of authority or broken oath to hold against you. Similarly, you stand strong athwart time and reality, and can ignore changes to the flow of time, causality, and local reality if you so desire (e.g., immune to magic like Slow, Time Stop, and other plot-related weirdness).

Beyond the Wall, Converted Elemental Spells

Back in my Separch’s Tower series, I included elemental-themed spellbooks, and found out that the existing spells and rituals in Beyond the Wall didn’t have enough appropriate magic to cover an equivalent range of options for each of the four elemental schools, so I grabbed some placeholders from the 5e spell list. Last night, my players actually started learning those spells, so I had to finally convert them to Beyond the Wall‘s style. It’s interesting to convert the standard D&D magic mindset (everything is leveled and usually pretty instantaneous to cast) to the BtW mindset (quick-cast magics aren’t leveled, while leveled magics take hours to cast so need to make sense in that context).

Spells

Acid Arrow

Range: Near
Duration: 1 round/level
Save: Yes

The caster produces a bolt of glowing green acid and flings it at a target, who must attempt a saving throw to dodge the caustic missile. If the save is failed, the target takes 2d4 acid damage, plus an additional 2d4 damage at the end of each of its turns while the duration lasts.

Misty Step

Range: Near
Duration: Instant
Save: No

With but a word, the mage teleports to a location she can see within range, leaving behind a burst of silvery mist in the location she vacated. This spell may be cast on a turn in which the mage has takes another action (except casting another spell).

Scorching Ray

Range: Near
Duration: Instant
Save: No

The mage creates a ray of flames that streaks between her outstretched hand and a target within range, against whom the caster must make a ranged attack (which ignores physical armor). If the attack hits, the ray deals 2d6 fire damage to the target. The caster produces one additional ray per 3 levels, and may direct these additional rays at the same or different targets (each ray is its own attack roll).

Shatter

Range: Near
Duration: Instant
Save: Yes

The caster causes an intense and painful ringing noise to erupt from a point she designates, causing damage to targets within 10 feet of the point (and making noise that can be heard for quite some distance further). All creatures and inflexible objects close enough to take damage must make a saving throw to steel themselves against the sound, and creatures and items made from brittle materials automatically fail the save. The spell deals 2d4 sonic damage, increasing by a die size for each additional level of the caster up to 2d12 for level 5 casters, and then adding +2 damage for each additional level of the caster past 5th. Targets that successfully save take half damage.

Rituals

Level 1

Produce Flame (Wisdom)

Range: Self
Duration: 1 hour/level
Save: No

This ritual allows the caster to summon a palm full of elemental flame. It casts light as a torch, and can ignite touched objects like a torch when the caster desires (but does not otherwise harm touched or held items). While the ritual persists, the caster may make unarmed attacks that do an additional 1d4 fire damage, or make a ranged attack up to Near range that does 1d4 fire damage (and does not add or subtract damage from Strength). The flame is not consumed by making such a ranged attack.

A mage wanting to cast this ritual must begin with a handful of ashes made from exotic wood that was burned by a fire elemental (which may be found for an average of 10 silver pieces from a merchant).

Level 2

Hellish Rebuke (Intelligence)

Range: Self
Duration: 1 day/level (Instant after trigger)
Save: Yes

Inscribing her flesh with runes of retribution and fire, a mage uses this ritual to prepare punishment for any that assault her. Upon taking damage from an attack made by a target within Near range that the mage can see, she may instantly speak a command to end the ritual and rebuke the attacker, the runes upon her skin immediately burning away. The attacker must make a saving throw to dodge the burst of flames at his location, or suffer 2d10 fire damage.

The runes scribed during this ritual require the blood (or equivalent essence) of a creature that is immune to fire (which may be found for an average of 50 silver pieces from a merchant). The caster may only have one instance of this ritual active at any given time.

Level 3

Purify Food and Drink

(So, of course BtW HAS this and just totally renamed it so I wouldn’t notice it. Replace this in the Water book with the Feast’s Blessing level 2 ritual and the Nepenthean Drink level 3 ritual.)

Wind Wall (Intelligence)

Range: Near
Duration: 1 day/level (Concentration after trigger)
Save: Yes

The mage walks a straight line, chanting and casting ritual materials upon the ground, preparing the site for defense. Once the ritual is complete, the caster has prepared a line (both ends of which must be within Near range of one another) to rise up upon her command. Upon uttering this command from within Near range of the line, a furious torrent of wind spews vertically from the ground along the length of the line and up to sixty feet in the air, for as long as the caster maintains concentration.

Anyone caught in the line or attempting to cross it must make a saving throw to fling themselves through without being caught in the wind. Those that fail are flung high into the air, likely taking damage from falling back on the side from which they started (medium-sized creatures are flung around 30 feet into the air, and comparatively lighter or heavier creatures may be flung more or less distance).

Flying creatures of smaller than medium-sized and projectiles lighter than from a siege engine are automatically deflected harmlessly when attempting to pass through the wall, and gasses or gaseous creatures cannot pass through. Boulders and similar siege projectiles may pass through, but are likely to have reduced accuracy.

The ritual materials include various easily-found objects ground into powder, but they must be mixed with the physical remains of creatures or items strongly tied to elemental air (which may be found for an average of 100 sp from a merchant).

Level 4

Enhance Ability

(I forgot that BtW still had the individual ability-boosters as rituals, which 5e had combined into Enhance Ability. Replace this in the Earth book with the Heart of the Ox level 4 ritual.)

Flaming Sphere (Wisdom)

Range: Near
Duration: 1 hour/level
Save: Yes

Through long casting and chants, the mage uses this ritual to create a small but stable hole deep into a realm of elemental fire, resulting in a self-renewing bonfire as heat and flame erupt forth in all directions. As part of her own movement, the caster may mentally direct this hole (and thus the flaming sphere) to move at up to walking pace, but the ritual ends if the mage exceeds Near range to the effect, and it must remain within five feet of the ground (and ends instantly if directed to try to cross water that it cannot boil away).

The sphere easily ignites touched or nearby flammable objects as if a five-foot diameter bonfire had rolled over them, and is otherwise treated as a hot bonfire (e.g., for cooking). If the fire is directed onto a target, that individual may make a saving throw to dodge out of the way and takes 2d6 fire damage on a failure. Any creature that ends a turn touching the flame similarly takes 2d6 fire damage.

This ritual is surprisingly easy to cast, requiring only a ritual space and a very hot bonfire made of normal materials to “prime” the connection to the plane of fire.

Water Breathing (Wisdom)

Range: Touch
Duration: 1 hour/level
Save: No

Blessing each of her companions in turn, the mage imbues them with the ability to breathe water as easily as air. The caster may affect all of her companions, including herself, that she can touch upon completing the ritual (up to a dozen individuals). Each affected character may breathe water for the duration of the ritual.

In the casting of the ritual, the mage must sacrifice a healthy wild animal for each target to be affected by drowning it in the body of water that is to be breathed.

Level 5

Heat Metal (Intelligence)

Range: Touch
Duration: Instant
Save: No

Upon completing this ritual, the mage touches an object made of metal. This object and any attached metal objects (up to a ton of contiguous metal) instantly heats to the temperature needed to forge steel (over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit). Most metals bend easily at this temperature, though it may not be safe to get close to a sufficiently large volume of metal (such as a gate or door).

Any creature in contact or extremely close proximity with the metal takes fire damage at the end of each of its turns based on the degree of exposure (1d6 for a single hand, arm, or leg, up to 4d6 if encased in heated plate armor). There is no saving throw to avoid the damage, though it may require an attack roll to touch a mobile target (in addition to the target waiting for the casting of the ritual), and depending on the type of exposure the target may be allowed an ability check to escape the metal quickly. Constructs made of metal may not take damage from the effect, depending on their normal reaction to fire, but will certainly lose all armor class gained from rigid skin until they cool off.

This ritual requires the caster to undergo an ordeal of burning for the duration of the casting, taking 1d6 fire damage per hour of the casting.

The Septarch’s Tower, Part 5

Floor B4

Entry

A fantastic battle ranged throughout this level. Charred and smashed bodies lie in the main hallway and throughout the rooms. Most of them show some strange accumulation of earth: crystal growths, stone nodules, and the like. All the beds and tables have been smashed throughout. Pictograph carvings lined with crystal in the walls give instructions for bonding to earth at one of the summoning circles.

The door to the southeast bedroom has been magically sealed. Only an order key will open it. Within is Hieronymus’ library collection from the rest of the tower.

Earth Dorms Note

Well f*** me with a Hedge thorn! They just kept coming but I think I got them all. I think the earth mages never fled, but somehow bonded themselves to the earth to stay behind as guardians. They… weren’t rational about it. I’m not sure they could even still speak. This is insane. I’m moving on.

Salome

You didn’t get all of them. I got the rest. They were like zombies that used earth magic. I found and destroyed the ritual that did this to them. It was supposed to grant them agelessness and imperviousness to harm, perhaps as one last risky attempt to win the war. It worked, to a point, but I suspect they didn’t expect it to destroy their intellect. I can’t abide the idea of anyone else doing this to themselves or someone else. I’ve put the rest of the secrets of this tower in the southeast. Use your key.

Hieronymus

Earth Bonding Cantrip (Wis)

Earth supports and nourishes. This cantrip allows the caster to fortify loose earth, hardening it or increasing its nourishing capabilities to life.

The hardening application causes a cube of earth up to five feet on a side to calcify, gaining the strength of sandstone. This can be used to slowly mold loose earth or sand into a freestanding sculpture, make mud easy to walk upon, hold back floodwater, or shore up a tunnel or sapping. The caster may take a -3 penalty for each additional cube to be affected per round. The effect lasts until the affected earth takes a meaningful impact, change in pressure, or change in humidity (i.e., it can last indefinitely if nothing would upset the chemicals bonds created in the soil).

The nourishing application draws lifegiving nutrients to the top of soil. This application is maintained, and can be sustained even while sleeping (but precludes other magic that requires concentration). A single living individual heals at double the normal rate while sleeping partially buried in this soil (and this can also repair damage to plants). The caster may take a -3 penalty for each additional target to affect.

Library Room

This contains the compiled higher level spells that Hieronymus took from Salome’s folios. The lower-level spells may still be available in the upper levels.

Air Spells and Rituals Feather Fall, Whispering Wind; Misty Step* Unseen Servant Call Storm, Summoning Wind Wall* Invisibility Storm’s Wrath Wizard’s Flight	Fire Spells and Rituals Burning Hands, Flame Charm; Scorching Ray* Produce Flame* Hellish Rebuke*, Summoning Continual Light Flaming Sphere* Heat Metal* Fireball
Earth Spells and Rituals Pass without Trace, Petrifying Gaze; Shatter* Goodberry Endure the Elements, Summoning Skin of the Treant Enhance Ability* Ritual of Healing Shape of Stone	Water Spells and Rituals Abjuration, Obscurement; Acid Arrow* Gather Mists Cleansing Ritual, Summoning Purify Food and Drink* Water Breathing* Dispel Magic Full Restoration

* Not a normal part of Beyond the Wall (converted from 5e version)

Floor B5

Entry

The deepest floor of the tower is heavily warded and organically carved from earth and stone. Unless otherwise noted, all walls, ceilings, and floors are smooth granite traced with endless glyphs of quartz that glimmer enough to produce low light throughout each room of the complex. The ceiling of each room is at least 20 feet high, leaving room to maneuver for even the tallest of prisoners.

The sphinx, Taheret, is responsible for guarding this floor. However, based upon her contract, she’s pretty sure that simply destroying most or all of the inhabitants is enough for her to get out of her contract. While she’s not allowed to attack them herself unless they try to escape, she is simply tasked with keeping them from escaping and doesn’t have to prevent invaders from killing them or stealing. She knows what’s in every room, and might help by giving answers and bargaining for additional assistance. However, she can’t help but talk in riddles, because she’s very, very bored.

Rooms

1. Entryway: Taheret the Sphinx
2. Brass Golem
3. Hellhound x5
4. Salome’s body and possessions
5. Room is covered in polished mirrors to disorient the Aatheriexa
6. Aatheriexa
7. Room is heavily warded against abominations
8. Room is covered in strange glyphs that make this a dead magic area
9. Hellhound x6
10. Belker x3
11. Mihstu
12. The room has powerful winds set up to blow into the northwest corner. Non-flying creatures must succeed at a Strength (Athletics) check each round at +5 to avoid being moved into the corner; flying creatures must make the check at -5. At the end of the round, any creature within 10 feet of the northwest corner takes 1d6 cold damage.
13. Animated Armor x8
14. Magically-powered Forge (Lair Treasure 1)
15. Troll anteroom: Proto-Troll outcast (who will nonetheless fall back quickly upon being hurt)
16. Troll bathroom (very gross)
17. Troll Living Room: Proto-Troll x4
18. Troll Sleeping Room: Proto-Troll x3 (will reinforce 17 after 2d4 rounds)
19. Troll Kitchen: Troll Cow
20. Room is heavily warded against abominations
21. Dead beholder (killed by Salome years ago)
22. Byakhee
23. Ancient storage room (everything here is long-ruined or taken by Salome)
24. Locked door (Succeed on 2 out of 3 lockpicking at -10): Lair Treasure 2
25. Sand Golem
26. Magically Shaking Room: Reflex save each round in room or take 1d4 bludgeoning damage by slamming into pillars in the room
27. Crysmal x10
28. Efreeti (trapped in heavily-glyphed room with one wish left to grant before being freed)

Treasure

Salome’s Body (4)

Mummified in the dry air, Salome was clearly a dark-haired woman of early middle age, slight, agile build, and nondescript appearance. She carries:

• Another teleport key
• 66 cp
• 120 sp
• 6 gp
• 150 sp of ritual components
• Infiltrator’s Athame: Functional (easily hidden in knife form, useful as a ritual tool), Life-Drinking; Contingent Situational (Deals damage): Increases to Longsword until Life-Drinking triggers; Contingent Code (Sworn to Service of the Order): Magic, Spell Storing
• Bracelet of Biting (3 charges)
• Gloves of Thievery (2 charges)
• Amulet of Deception (3 charges)
• Spellbook (Order):
  • Spells: Burning Hands, False Friend, Flame Charm, Feather Fall, Healing Touch, Magic Missile, Masked Image, Misty Step*, Mystical Shield, Obscurement, Pass without Trace, Spider Climb, Whispering Wind
  • Rituals: (1) Arcane Experiment, Circle of Protection, Mage Armor, Steed of the Sorcerer, Wizard’s Mark; (2) Endure the Elements, Summoning; (3) Continual Light, Friends; (4) Alter Self, Invisibility; (5) Arcane Sight, Dispel Magic, Heat Metal*, True Identification; (6) Fireball; (7) Wall of Flame; (8) Storm of Ice

Forge: Lair Treasure 1 (14)

This forge produces a never-ending flame whose heat can be adjusted by dials on the wall. A complete set of anvils, quenching pots, and forging tools are neatly arranged. The valuable ingots are hidden deep in a cabinet where they were missed by mages clearing the tower (or too heavy to fly away with)

• 2 ingots of Adamantine
• 4 ingots of Mithril
• 10 ingots of silver (50 sp value each)
• 40 ingots of steel (8 sp value each)
• Masterwork Longsword x5
• Masterwork Spear x10
• Reinforced Shield with Volkov heraldry x20
• 3,000 sp of miscellaneous plates that could be assembled into a suit of plate armor (or used to repair other armor)

Lair Treasure 2 (24)

This room was used to hide any treasures that couldn’t be taken away. It contains miscellaneous ancient art furnishings (too bulky to move easily) worth 2,000 sp for pure material value, and potentially worth up to three times that to collectors of ancient Imperial art.

Troll Cow (19)

A cow bound to an earth spirit in the same way as the proto-trolls, this poor beast has suffered for over a thousand years as the trolls used it as their primary source of food: ripping off hunks of beef and letting the cow regenerate. The cow wears a Nosering of Sustenance (4 charges) which is sufficient for the cow to be fed and continue serving as a food source for others, and seems to have been designed for this purpose. It’s unclear what kind of effect eating the cow’s meat would have on humans. The cow is long-adjusted to its lot in life, and quite docile. It suffers the same difficulties moving through dead magic and sunlight as the trolls (it has 20 HP).

Monsters

(Additional stats for Beyond the Wall. Most of these are based on creatures from Pathfinder.)

Aatheriexa

Summoned from a foreign star, this immortal tangle of thin, tentacle-like eyestalks travels by floating in the air, but must remain within a few feet of a solid surface or water. It is slightly larger than a man, and it can reform its mass to attack or manipulate items. Though indefinitely cruel, its intelligence is inscrutable to humans; it cannot be commanded nor does it try to communicate.

Hit Dice:    10d4 (25 HP)                            AC:    12    XP:    2,350

Attack:        +10 to hit, 3d4 damage (tentacle)

Notes:        Grab (a target hit by an aatheriexa’s tentacle attack must make a Reflex save or be grabbed and pinned; if pinned, the target must use its action to make a Strength check to escape on its next turn; on the aatheriexa’s next turn, it can engulf the target, dealing damage automatically while still being able to attack another target), Withering Aura (any living creatures within 15 feet of an aatheriexa must make a Fortitude save each round; failure deals 1d4 damage), Gaze of Many Eyes (any creature that looks at an aatheriexa must succeed at a Will save to be able to attack it; critical failure on this save results in the attack instead being directed at an ally)

Animated Armor

Formed of cast-off plates of armor in various ancient styles, these creatures are created from fallen warriors. Not exactly a ghost, the spirit that animates it is much closer to an elemental of the astral plane: the idea of armored combat itself. They proved difficult to command on the battlefield in the best of times, and especially hard to keep idle while waiting for battle. When used, they were typically stored apart from others and deployed as close to the enemy line as possible.

Hit Dice:    3d10 (16 HP)                            AC:    18    XP:    150

Attack:        +5 to hit, 1d10+2 damage (greatsword)

Notes:        Armor (animated armor can absorb armor from fallen other animated armors by passing over them, healing 1d10 hp; defeated animated armors count as suits of double-broken plate armor)

Belker

Hybrid elementals of air and fire, the process that created these creatures accidentally tapped the demonic realms: in addition to looking very demonic, the creatures proved malicious and impossible to trust to not attack their own allies. They appear as man-sized demonic figures made of smoke and shadow. Defeated belkers congeal into fist-sized smoky gems useful in rituals related to air and fire, and worth 50 sp each.

Hit Dice:    5d8 (22 HP)                            AC:    14    XP:    150

Attack:        +5 to hit, 1d8 damage (claws)

Notes:        Smoke Form (belkers can enter smoke form at will at the beginning of their turns; they become incorporeal so they can only be affected by magic and iron weapons, but cannot make physical attacks), Smoke Claws (while in physical form, a belker can make two claw attacks and a bite attack; while in smoke form, it can attack by engulfing a character and that character must succeed at a Fortitude save or take 2d8 damage from internal attacks)

Brass Golem

Forged of brass and nearly twenty feet tall, this warrior sculpture has been bound with a fire elemental and ancient arts of golem making to be a powerful protector. Due to the fire of their construction, the scroll that animates a brass golem will often become singed through use, causing the creature’s behavior to become erratic an no longer useful in war. When defeated, much of the brass can be salvaged, producing at least 1000 pounds of scrap brass (easily worth 3 sp per pound).

Hit Dice:    8d6 (30 HP)                            AC:    15    XP:    1,300

Attack:        +11 to hit, 2d6 damage (falchion)

Notes:        Regeneration (golems regenerate 3 hp per round, even after being reduced to 0 or fewer HP, unless their animating scroll is removed; for brass golems, this regeneration is paused for a round after taking cold damage), Cinder Breath (brass golems fill the area around them with smoke and cinders from their breath, causing everyone within 15 feet or an entire enclosed room, to make a Fortitude save each round on their turn or take 1d6 fire damage), Brass Body (brass golems are healed by fire damage and immune to electricity)

Byakhee

Evil spacefaring creatures from a distant star, these man-shaped insectoid creatures are so wrong that most thinking people have trouble looking at one directly or comprehending what they are seeing (making them very difficult to hit). While seldom summoned directly, they may simply appear, inscrutibly, on worlds that have contacted foreign stars. Immortal and ineffable, they are content to wait for the stars to be right.

Hit Dice:    5d4 (12 HP)                            AC:    17    XP:    550

Attack:        +5 to hit, 1d8 damage (claw)

Notes:        Shriek (As its action, a byakhee can shriek to take 1d4 damage and then summon 2d4 additional byakhee that each have only 1 HP; these duplicates cannot themselves summon others unless they are healed enough to survive the self-damage)

Crysmal

Small, scorpion-shaped arrangements of crystal, these earth elementals aggressively seek out gems to form into new crysmals. Annoyingly aggressive, the ancients kept them essentially as truffle pigs for valuable stones. They can normally burrow easily through earth and stone, but cannot easily penetrate metal. Immortal, they do not need to eat, and will wait endlessly for an opportunity to continue their burrowing.

Hit Dice:    2d8 (16 HP)                            AC:    15    XP:    95

Attack:        +2 to hit, 1d8 damage (tail spike)

Notes:        Brittle (crysmals take double damage from bludgeoning and sonic attacks), Tail Spike (crysmals can launch their tails as a ranged attack that does 2d8 damage if it hits, but they subsequently only do 1d6 damage on regular attacks)

Efreeti

Complete jerks from the plane of Fire, Efreeti can grant wishes, delight in perverting the wish as much as possible. If thwarted, they are quick to attack, but also willing to accept surrender and continue negotiations. There is no greater threat than a twelve-foot tall genie on its last wish.

Hit Dice:    10d8 (45 HP)                            AC:    16    XP:    625

Attack:        +10 to hit, 3d8 damage

Notes:        Creature of Fire (efreeti are immune to fire, can create fire at will as an action (dealing 1d8 damage to everyone in the area), and can create illusions at will), Spellcaster (efreeti may cast spells (up to 10 per day) and ritual magic)

Hellhound

Perhaps the most tameable of demons, these big fiery dogs are sometimes kept for their uses in detecting spirits. Immortal and cruel like their progenitors, they can be an unfortunate surprise in ancient buildings in which they were previously penned.

Hit Dice:    2d8 (9 HP)                            AC:    14    XP:    70

Attack:        +2 to hit, 1d8 damage (bite)

Notes:        Demonic Sight (hellhounds may see spirits and invisible things), Immune to Fire (hellhounds may not be harmed by fire of any kind), Demonic Skin (hellhounds ignore the first five points of damage from sources that are not magic or cold iron)

Mihstu

Bizarre air elementals, mihstu appear as clouds of mist that, upon closer inspection, is made up of razor-sharp shards of glass. Not filling much more space than a human, they can contort into many different shapes, easily escaping non-warded confinement. When they can be commanded, they make excellent strikers, as they can fly to wherever they want in a battlefield, with little worry about ranged attacks. Their targets are only fortunate that they do not have ranged attacks of their own. When killed, the dust wrapped up in a mihstu falls into a powder useful in rituals and worth 100 sp.

Hit Dice:    6d8 (27 HP)                            AC:    14    XP:    425

Attack:        +6 to hit, 1d8 damage (tentacles)

Notes:        Swift (a mihstu can make four tentacle attacks, but cannot attack the same opponent with more than two), Draining Pin (if a mihstu hits the same opponent with two tentacle attacks, that target is pinned; the mihstu can automatically hit that target with one or both attacks on subsequent rounds; the target may use her action to try a Strength check to escape), Wind Defense (a mihstu is immune to physical ranged attacks), Incorporeal (a mihstu has no physical form and is only affected by magic and iron weapons), Susceptible to Cold (a mihstu loses its next turn upon taking magical cold damage)

Proto-Troll

Formed by binding an earth elemental to a volunteering warrior, the hybrid creature so created was not what anyone expected. Mutated and distended by the process, they proved to be ageless and immortal as long as they remained fed. However, they also proved irrational, vicious, and no longer capable of voluntarily following the orders of their previous commanders. Even more of a problem, the binding left them strangely vulnerable to disruption: fire, acid, lack of magic, and even sunlight could upset their regenerative abilities and cause them to calcify. The most docile of them were bred, eventually losing some of their greater weaknesses and making the modern troll, but pockets of the proto-trolls still live as long as they have access to food.

Hit Dice:    5d10 (27 HP)                            AC:    15    XP:    300

Attack:        +6 to hit, 1d10 damage (bite), 1d6 (claws)

Notes:        Regeneration (trolls regenerate 3 hit points per round unless they have been wounded with fire, and may even come back from death in this manner), Swift (trolls may attack once with their bite and twice with their claws), Unstable Magic (proto-trolls have their regeneration reversed while exposed to sunlight or non-magical areas, taking 3 damage per round and turning to stone upon reaching 0 HP)

Sand Golem

Originally a stone or clay golem that was repaired too many times, this golem has reached a failure state where it is simply a vaguely man-shaped, ten-foot-tall pile of sand held together only by magic. This has some interesting effects on its fighting ability, as it is already shattered and can simply grab onto melee weapons. Unfortunately, it also loses a lot of its programming, and most of these eventually become as much a danger to their creators as to their intended targets. When defeated, the golem collapses into around 2,000 pounds of magically-infused sand, which might go for as much as 1 sp per pound to the right mage.

Hit Dice:    7d6 (30 HP)                            AC:    11    XP:    300

Attack:        +9 to hit, 2d6 damage (slam)

Notes:        Regeneration (golems regenerate 3 hp per round, even after being reduced to 0 or fewer HP, unless their animating scroll is removed; for sand golems, this regeneration is paused for a round after taking electric damage), Clutching Sands (hits against a sand golem with a melee weapon require the attacker to make a Reflex save or be disarmed, or pinned until succeeding at a Strength check for unarmed attackers), Sand Body (sand golems take double damage from water-based attacks, and are slowed to a crawl for one round by electricity or fire attacks)

Sphinx

Denizens of a distant faerie dimension, sphinxes are often summoned to the earth for use as immortal guardians. While they enjoy eating, they do not need to do so to maintain their lives as long as they continue to fulfill their contracted role. Their intellect is capacious, they can easily learn any language, and they often entertain themselves through the long interludes in their guardianships by planning riddles for the next people they meet. While their catlike natures make them seem somewhat cruel, they are able to be negotiated with, particularly by adventurers that might be able to end their contract and free them.

Hit Dice:    8d8 (36 HP)                            AC:    15    XP:    1100

Attack:        +8 to hit, 1d8 damage (claws)

Notes:        Swift (a sphinx may make two claw attacks, and follows up with a rake for an additional automatic 1d8 damage if it hits the same target with both), Spellcaster (a sphinx may cast spells (up to 8 per day) and ritual magic)

The Septarch’s Tower, Part 4

Floor B2

(This and subsequent floors are getting wider, as they spread to fill the hill. All external walls are slightly sloped so they narrow inwards toward the ceiling.)

Entry

This floor is even more humid, and has a damp chill as the party descends deeper into the earth. The mage lights are simple, regular affairs set at head height along the walls every few feet. Each of the doors on the floor is held open with a stone or metal spike wedged into the bottom of the door, and the ones further back into the area are blasted open, with scars of the magical blasts still upon them. (Salome got impatient with solving whatever water puzzle was on these doors, particularly since each and every room is empty.)

Each wall is almost as smooth as glass, and the floors not much more textured such that walking is slightly dangerous (it’s unclear whether this was from a thousand years of erosion, or an intentional polish). Any art on the walls has long since eroded to nothing. Explorers do not get the sense that there was much furniture here to begin with, and any there was has long melted into a faint organic film in the corners of the rooms. Perhaps the only other thing of interest is the room with two doors immediately east of the stairs: some ancient mechanism still causes cold water to shower from several holes in the ceiling (and into drains in the floor). It’s easy to come to the conclusion that these were a spartan people, concerned with cleanliness and purification. Various toiletries, some monogrammed with an S are piled up in the southwest corner and suffering over a decade of water damage (Salome set up here for her own hygiene).

An odd sense of being watched dogs the party as they inspect the floor for several minutes, and anyone staying near the stairs notices a haze of water slowly accumulating into what seems like a cloud, and then like a humanoid form. By the time they’re done looking around and probably forming up in case of a threat, the still foggy being speaks in a wet voice, asking in Ancient Imperial:

“Are you students of water, or interlopers like the last invader? Please, demonstrate the magics of water so that I know you are friend, not foe.”

(The bound mist elemental is looking for a demonstration of what they’d consider water magic: either explicit manipulation of water or cold, or magic that purifies and cleans. Without any surviving materials, he is the primary way of accessing the wisdom of the water mages, specifically how to attune to water. Salome blasted him as a threat before having a conversation. He’s not very intelligent, more of a simple artificial intelligence than a thinking being, and upon convincing him that at least one of the PCs is a disciple of water:)

It has been some time since a new class of students entered these halls, and I’m afraid the accommodations are more sparse than usual. You may take your pick of the smaller, central rooms, as they are all unclaimed at present. You should check on the other floors to see if there is any bedding in the stores. Once you are settled in, I can guide you through the rites of binding to water.

With that, he steps back, taking up a position immediately east of the stairs up, out of the way of traffic. He seems perfectly relaxed to stand like a statue forever.

The elemental servant can walk them through water bonding. Any other information he can provide is up to the GM’s discretion.

Water Bonding Cantrip (Wis)

Water dissolves and cleanses. This cantrip allows the caster to cleanse a surface as if by clean water.

The normal application causes a touched surface of up to approximately a square five feet on a side (or the skin of a grown human) to be cleansed as if run under swiftly flowing clean water. The cantrip can be sustained (doing so makes it impossible to cast new cantrips, spells, or rituals, or maintain any existing effects that require major concentration), and every round the apparent time submerged is equal to a minute. This process quickly cleans wounds and grime away from a surface, and eventually begins to break down a surface that’s vulnerable to exposure.

By taking a penalty to the casting roll, the caster may increase the effective “speed” of the flow. With a -3 penalty, even round is an hour, with -6, each is a day, and with -9, each is a year: at the maximum power, iron can be ruined in minutes and hard stone scoured away in hours. The caster may intuitively shape the affected area to deliberately sculpt it through erosion.

Floor B3

Well, this is certainly the source of all the humidity. (In the Fallcrest map, the tower sits upon a high hill, the base of which is next to a river passing north of the hill. This level is, thus, intended to be basically level with the water table. Adjust as needed if yours isn’t set on a big hill.)

The third basement is far down enough that it’s probably level with the lower city that surrounds the hill, and thus the small lake inside is probably an offshoot of the nearby river. Rivulets of water stream down the back wall, glistening in the mage lights arranged around the walls in flowing geometric patterns, and likely running from the drains in the showers above. The lake itself has mage lights along the bottom, and is crystal clear (and about ten feet deep). Some fish swim in the water, but there are also other strange ripples and those with supernatural senses detect a presence in the water (it’s a water elemental, if they’ve encountered similar before). Something is keeping the lake clean and preventing bugs from entering the tower from here. They can see a tunnel set into the northern wall, with a gridded gate set into it, that might be another way to access the tower if they wanted to swim underwater for a decent distance (and brave the possible elemental guardian).

A large summoning circle is set in an island. It’s unlikely that the mages jumped a dozen feet to get there and unclear what the elemental would do if someone jumped over there. (The elemental will attempt to defend the large summoning platform from interlopers unattuned to water, but will not deliberately molest travelers that don’t touch or cross the water. If someone is attuned to water, the elemental braces their feet to allow them to walk across the pool to the summoning circle, and won’t interfere with attempts to use the escape grate.)

The walls to the south are set with mosaics that haven’t deteriorated significantly, showing individuals in various poses that look like they’re dancing?

The one door out of the room to the south opens easily, and mostly seems to be designed to cut some of the moisture. Inside, the walls are made of silver-backed glass, and may be the best mirror any of the PCs have seen (depending on campaign technology level), creating a seemingly infinite space (lit by magelights on the ceiling). Various blue gems are mounted at seemingly random places around the room (in the mirrors) at anywhere from waist to shoulder height. The door to the southwest is locked with no obvious method to open it.

Any monks or other martial artists in the party can recognize the dance on the wall and the position of the gems as a martial kata. They are capable of learning and performing it, different parts of the kata taking hands and feet past specific gems in the room, triggered in sequence as a combination lock for the inner door. Less martial but more intellectual characters can probably eventually figure it out, and open it like a traditional combination lock without actually doing a kata.

The Trials

The rooms of this level are an ongoing purification ritual, becoming progressively harder and netting greater rewards. After steps 4 and 6 there are water orbs to touch to end the ritual and take the bonuses already accumulated. The rites must be started again to proceed further after using one of these orbs (the orb returns the user to the main room). The final room is an orb that triggers completion of the ritual.

Touching a water orb after doing some basic rites is also key to attuning to water, so anyone that wants this attunement must make it through at least the first four rooms of this challenge.

Room 1: Clementia et Humanitas

This room contains several of the greatest enemies of those in the room, bound, gagged, and kneeling. The targets are helpless, and damage dealt to them is taken by the attacker after a two round delay. You can simply proceed through the next door at any time.

Passing this challenge purifies any mental effects upon triggering a water orb.

Room 2: Comitas et Gravitas

This room contains a mask of comedy and a mask of tragedy at the end of the room. Those in the room experience a series of emotions (sadness, joy, anger, hilarity, shame, pride) and one mask lights up (the emotion is always wrong for the mask). The challenge is to put on the proper face for the lit mask, rather than what is being felt. Characters with an acting or deception skill can make a Charisma check with that skill to demonstrate the correct face, and any character can make a Will save to resist the false emotion and put on the correct face. Every failure deals the character’s level/hit dice in damage. Once all six emotions have been passed, the supplicant can move through the next door.

Passing this challenge purifies any ability damage or level drain upon triggering a water orb.

Room 3: Salubritas et Veritas

A stern matronly face at the end of this room asks a series of questions about the speaker’s healthy practices, and everyone is compelled to answer truthfully (Will save at -10 to resist the compulsion):

• Do you wake with the dawn each day?
• Do you cleanse yourself in cold water each week?
• Do you keep your hands free of your private parts except when bathing?
• Have you lain with anyone but your current bonded lover?
• Have you ever failed to wear veil and gloves when touching the dead?
• Do you consume organ meats whenever they are offered?

Every answer of No causes the face to wail and blast a line of ice at the speaker that deals the target’s level/hit dice in damage (Reflex save to avoid). The door opens once all questions have been answered either way.

Passing this challenge purifies any disease or poison upon triggering a water orb.

Room 4: Dignitas et Honestas

A statue in this room stands in a classic orator’s pose, straight-backed, feet planted, and hands raised. Upon mimicking the pose, the character is subjected to a barrage of uncomfortable effects designed to make it impossible to maintain the pose. The character must make six Fortitude saves. Each failed save either restarts the challenge or forces the character to take a point of damage to a random ability score (to power through the pain). Once all challenges have been passed, the door opens.

Passing this challenge heals all hit point damage (including permanent damage) upon triggering a water orb.

Room 5: Virtus et Firmitas

The door to the water orb starts open. Characters may use it without taking this challenge.

A statue appears in this room for each individual, bent in a wrestling pose, which moves to intercept if they try to move past. Each character must succeed in two out of three Strength tests at -5 to wrestle the statue to the other end of the room and exit through the door.

Passing this challenge purifies the character of fear and doubt upon triggering a water orb: for an entire turning of the moon, the character gains +5 on Will saves.

Room 6: Constantia et Disciplina

A constant, cutting icy wind blows across this room, making crossing it an endurance challenge. (If the character is protected against cold, the wind adapts to a temperature or even energy type that no one is protected against.) Each character must succeed in two out of three Constitution tests at -5 to cross the room (and either touch the water orb or move on to the next room).

Passing this challenge purifies the character of physical weakness upon triggering a water orb: for an entire turning of the moon, the character gains +5 on Fortitude saves.

Room 7: Frugalitas et Industria

This room is full of simple puzzles games, which award tokens upon successful completion. Some cost tokens to play, risking the tokens. A sandglass begins counting down upon entering the room, providing about 20 minutes, and the door to the next room has a clear number of slots for tokens. If the glass runs out, all tokens evaporate and the glass begins the count again. Each character must succeed in two out of three Intelligence tests at -5 to work out a way to earn enough tokens to proceed. Succeeding at all three provides enough tokens to erase an ally’s failure. Upon putting tokens in the door, the character is teleported to the next room (i.e., not all have to win to proceed); the character can still go back through the door once to return to the previous water orb.

Passing this challenge purifies the character of flaws in the reflexes upon triggering a water orb: for an entire turning of the moon, the character gains +5 on Reflex saves.

Room 8: Iustitia et Prudentia

Each character in this room receives a private vision of a mystery play, each of four individuals recounting their own version of a murder that occurred as if the character is the judge. There are a surprising variety of different stories, though repeated viewings sometimes repeat actors in different roles and situations. Each character must make three Wisdom tests at -5 to eliminate a suspect: passing all three leaves only one suspect, while each failure leaves another possible murderer. The character may then pass declare a murderer to be put to death (choosing randomly if more than one suspect hasn’t been eliminated). Choosing incorrectly results in the character taking 1d10 damage per level and restarting the challenge. Passing allows the character to move though the next door (it becomes immaterial only for the character).

Passing this challenge purifies the character of ignorance upon triggering a water orb: the character can learn an additional language within a few days if study begins within the next turning of the moon.

Room 9: Pietas et Severitas

This is just a crazy room full of magical traps (choosing energy types that the targets are vulnerable to) that strike either across the midsection or in two vertical lines to narrowly miss only someone standing ramrod straight. Light-up faces on opposing walls give a clue as to whether the solution is to genuflect or stand at attention. Each character must make six Dexterity checks at -5. Each failed check results in the character taking 1d4 damage per level.

Passing this challenge purifies the character of hesitation upon triggering a water orb: the character grants a permanent +1 to initiative (that stacks with previous bonuses).

Room 10: Auctoritas

Each character in this room faces a gauntlet of elemental figures (the number of figures is equal to the character’s level/hit dice). The character must command them to move aside, making a Charisma check at -5 for each. On a success the figure stands aside. On a failure, it deals 2d6 damage and disappears. Bypassing each figure through success or failure without being defeated passes the challenge.

Passing this challenge purifies the character of self doubt upon triggering a water orb: the character gains experience as if defeating a creature with hit dice equal to the character’s level/hit dice:

1. 15
2. 40
3. 75
4. 125
5. 200
6. 325
7. 475
8. 700
9. 1100
10. 1300

Conversion Notes

This is intended to be both an insight into the strange values of the ancient empire, as well as a repeatable resource for the players to remove status effects. If I had the map to do over again, I’d probably arrange it in such a way that the PCs have a little more control over which challenges they do in which order, to focus on traits they’re good at.

The difficulties and damage numbers are designed for Beyond the Wall. For other systems, the idea is basically that getting past the first four rooms should be tough but reasonable for anyone, and the subsequent rooms should be almost impossible for low-level characters but still very difficult for high-level characters. Thus, most things scale based on level (and the ability checks are based on Beyond the Wall not really increasing ability scores drastically: in other systems you may need to scale these in a different way).

I had one PC make it through to the last room with only one HP remaining, after a series of extremely lucky rolls (and using up all her rerolls). She grudgingly left rather than risking getting killed in the Charisma room and cashed out her prizes, but plans to go back later. None of the other PCs even made it past the fifth room.

The Septarch’s Tower, Part 3

Floor U4 (Air Dorms)

Entry

The fourth floor is another visibility risk. Thick panes of glass or crystal seem to be worked haphazardly into windows on the tower. The panes are very thick and cloudy, making it hard to see anything outside. At night, light inside is visible from outside. The mage lights start to come up in arbitrarily arranged points, in all seven colors such that the total lighting of the room is even and white, but objects cast strange rainbow shadows. It’s not incredibly bright, but probably visible outside.

The floor wraps clockwise around some kind of central area. The shapes are seemingly random, tables that once were piled with scrolls are pushed into the corners with no obvious reason for their orientation, and even a quick glance around the corner is enough to spot a couple of small beds in a bigger nook. There are stains on the tables as if scrolls sat there for ages and then were removed; nothing obviously useful is apparent to a quick glance. It is hardly damp at all up here, so the scrolls might have survived… if they can find where the order mages carted them off to. The walls are painted in flowing, abstract rainbow colors, mostly in curls and more-or-less horizontal lines that look like currents of air.

When people do the rainbow dance from below, climbing the stairs, the tones of their passing are louder up here, though not blastingly loud. Likely, the denizens would get pretty good warning of people approaching this floor from the lower one.

Ducking back down the stairs cuts the lights, and spellcasters wielding a key can try different words for “darkness” in Magespeech, using a sufficiently commanding tone, to get them to turn off.

Inside

The floor continues in a clockwise spiral with furniture in a largely unfathomable arrangement. Though the feather stuffing of the mattresses has long decayed into dust with the periodic preserved stems, the fabrics still retain some shape and color (though one probably wouldn’t want to sleep in them) and the frames are in remarkably good shape. Similarly, all the tables are mostly intact. A good blow could probably shatter the ancient wood, but at least it’s not already rotted into powder. There might be treasure to be found by digging through the furniture (which would probably take about half an hour of careful searching or 15 minutes if the party doesn’t care about destroying these artifacts of an ancient time), but nothing is immediately obvious.

By the inner ring, it’s safe to light candles without fear of the light being visible. The murals of wind continue on the wall’s side that faces outward, but the wall’s side that faces the center of the tower are more pictographic. Done in an archaic style (think Egyptian tomb paintings or Bayeux Tapestry; no perspective), it seems to be pictures of mages performing some kind of ritual, possibly in the light of the oddly shaped windows on the outer wall of this floor.

In the center, a large ritual circle is carved into the floor, with two smaller circles to the north and east. To magic detection, they are inactive, but still potent permanent summoning circles. The easternmost table on the inner ring contains a few hastily hand-bound folios seemingly comprised of pieces of salvaged scrolls, and a note on top in Salome’s handwriting (this one not water damaged to any meaningful extent).

One folio contains a primer that explains the murals on the wall (how to attune to Air), while one contains what seems to be treatises that could be used to learn some air-related spells and rituals (up to 3rd level). Both will take some time to decipher, since they’re in a combination of Ancient Imperial and Magespeech, and would be somewhat alien to modern understanding of magic.

Air Dorms Note

The scrolls here were much better-preserved, but more obviously simply missing. It is likely they were the easiest to flee with. I believe the top floor was what was referred to as the Sky Road. They would use the massive circle to call up air elementals and bind them to service. With the help of the elemental and crude gliding apparati detailed in some of the scrolls, they could safely leap from the bays in the tower and travel great distances by air. I do not believe this was true flight, particularly for the more portly of magi, but they could likely travel miles for every foot they fell, and do so at great speed. A very effective way to get around indeed. This is likely how most of the remaining magi fled.

As with the fire dorms, there were ample primers to assemble a completed copy of instructions of the introductory binding technique to air. Their operative understanding of air was its elasticity, and the cantrip seems to impart a way to draw in the nearby air (possibly depriving those that need it for their breath) and then release it in an explosion of wind. Not as exciting as summoning up fire, but possibly more versatile for everyday uses.

Unlike the fire mages, there seem to be no hidden or locked areas, beyond the annoying puzzle to get to this level. I believe I’ll check below next.

Salome

Of all the cantrips, this one sounds the most useful. I believe I will learn it, and ideally pass it on to others in the Order. It could be incredibly useful for certain problems of mechanical optimization.

As with the previous floor, I will store the more advanced texts in the library room I have cleared below. I don’t know what Salome was thinking, simply leaving such things lying around.

Hieronymus

Air Bonding Cantrip (Int)

Air is elastic and compressible. This cantrip allows the caster to attract nearby air and compress it into a small orb, then release it slowly or explosively. This can starve air from a sealed room, save air for a trip underwater, knock back a target, or propel a projectile.

The caster can only maintain a single orb of air at a time, and doing so makes it impossible to cast new cantrips, spells, or rituals, or maintain any existing effects that require major concentration. The normal application saves enough air to empty a cube five feet on a side, provide eight hours of breathing, force a target to save or be knocked down or back, or provide standard damage to a projectile. The cantrip can be cast and thrown at a target as a single action, but all other actions require the cantrip to be cast on one round and then used for other purposes on the next (e.g., one round to cast and load a firearm, then the next to fire it).

By taking a penalty to the casting roll, the caster may compress more air. For each -3 penalty, the caster empties an additional five-foot cube, which provides an extra eight hours of breath, or +1d6 damage (either from a projectile or if the target of a knockback impacts a wall).

(This cantrip is my answer to not wanting to allow gunpowder in my game, but to allow those that want guns to have a magic-powered equivalent.)

Search

A thorough search of the beds and tables turns up:

• 39 cp, 173 sp, and 2 gp all of ancient minting, heavily tarnished, mostly crammed into corners under mattresses, but some fallen behind tables
• A few objects of art carved of stone, mostly white stone and in shapes like birds and butterflies (possibly up to 200 sp for the lot if one could convince a collector of the provenance)
• A thin, rune-carved stick of approximately a forearm-length in a delicate and slightly spiraling white wood that senses of magic (hidden deep in a mattress that had been cut open to hide it)
• A castable scroll that had fallen behind a table where the order mages missed it, which seems to be a scroll of the Summoning ritual

Floor U5 (Air Summoning)

Entry

The top floor is completely open, with just corner pillars to hold up the roof. At nighttime, the party might have to shout down the mage lights again, because there aren’t really even walls: there’s a faint distortion in the air that seems to be the tower’s defensive field (and which had let neither bugs nor climbers in for a thousand years), but air flows freely and one can easily see city below.

A massive summoning circle is set into the middle of the floor, and ancient empty tables are haphazardly spread out and empty, save for scraps of leather, softwood, and fabric that might have once been gliders. The mage lights, if not shut off, are on the ceiling, mimicking stars.

This ritual circle makes it very easy to call up air elementals. The walls are permeable walls of force, which permit air to flow both ways and allow people to leave and attack from inside, but block travel from outside.

There is no roof access, though an enterprising climber or flyer could leave and climb to its flat top. There is nothing of note up there (save perhaps some nesting birds), and leaving makes it impossible to get back in without going back down to the bottom of the tower (hopefully there are still friends inside who can lower a rope).

Floor B1 (Cafeteria)

Entry

The first basement is even more humid than the entry floor. It appears to be the dining hall and kitchens. Everything organic and steel has turned to damp dust, and the party can make out the shadows of once-giant tables in the detritus on the floor. It may not have been large enough for everyone from the tower to eat here at once, but certainly in shifts. Side rooms were likely staff dining or meeting rooms, or maybe they had preferred seating for top students? The southeast room has some plumbing and holes in the floor, so may have been a large bathroom (which is convenient to meals but maybe not the most convenient for students on other floors).

Of the large kitchen, all that remains is a stone hearth and island with inset basins for cleaning, as well as shattered shards of pottery plates, mugs, and bowls in the dust off what must have once been cabinets. Searching through the remains, the party can find 75 sp worth of miscellaneous silverware, bent and tarnished. They don’t add up to sets and there’s not a lot of them, so likely someone looted the silver already (either during the flight, or one of the order mages) and this is all that went undiscovered.

In the Northeast dining room, someone managed to assemble a table from scraps and close the doors against the damp. A few decade+ old bags contain food that has long deteriorated and camping supplies that aren’t particular upgrades to the party’s own (and are also beginning to succumb to the damp). This seems to be where one of the order mages set up a command center. A couple of letters in a pack look to have been unsealed, read, and then refolded sufficiently to survive without significant water damage.

(Zacharias is the name of the former court mage of the PCs’ local Baron, who trained one of the wizard PCs and went missing recently. Lazarus and Judith were not previously known to the party, and are a quest hook. These letters likely need to be heavily edited to fit the context/hooks of any given campaign.)

Letters

Salome,

I appreciate the research you sent along regarding the water magics you’ve uncovered in the tower. It does sound like their conception of the uses of water are much closer to what we’d consider the more active uses of abjuration magic. It’s interesting that they saw it as a cleansing, scouring force rather than a source of sustenance. Perhaps they assigned the source of healing and life to the earth, which would track given their rather nonchalant use of necromancy: if you’re used to covering people with earth to heal them, it’s probably less inherently offputting to summon the dead forth from their graves.

Unfortunately, even though I’m now safely ensconced in nearby Heimbach, I do not believe that I can spare the time to help you research physically at the tower. I see a lot of potential in the baron’s second son, and hope to confirm that he has the gift and ease him into training early. As you well know, the children of the nobility can be difficult students if taken after they have a sense of their own importance. In fact, the town itself seems to be a confluence almost as interesting as the tower. We have fae foundlings taken in by the locals, motherless babes delivered to town by close-lipped warriors from the north, a golden-haired child that seems destined for greatness, twin scamps fostered from a storied line of nobles, and whatever secretive plans the old witch in the town has cooked up. I suspect in a decade or two, you may start hearing interesting things from this town.

Feel free to continue to send me correspondence as needed, and you’re, of course, welcome to stop by Heimbach if you’d like in-person counsel. If you have a current address for Lazarus, he could likely assist with the earth magics. I believe Judith retains her long practice of wintering in Grebenau, and her divinations would likely be of great use to you. The next time Magdalena passes through for a… visit… I’ll see if she has any insights. You would also do well to correspond with Hieronymus. He can receive mail via the Zedlitz, from whom he rents a tower. His research into transmutation may be relevant to correspondences between elements, and he’s a shrewd organizer of research.

Yours,

Zacharias

Salome,

Regardless of the fact that you have not yet encountered anything more than passive security in the tower, I must caution you in the strongest of terms not to enter the earth mages’ basement without significant assistance. From what you sent me, their conception of earth is not just a healing, nourishing force, but one of containment. I suspect it’s very likely that if there are any active threats remaining in that building, they will be locked away beneath the earth.

Not once in our association have you ever listened to my advice, but please listen now. I have set up a place in Overath, and am even now assembling a party to investigate the cursed city to the north. Come. Lend your evocations to our mission, and I will then lend you my own expertise and the might of my allies to investigate the tower.

With hopes,

Lazarus

The Septarch’s Tower, Part 2

Floor U2 (Fire Dorms)

Entry

The second floor is pitch black, with no mage lights turning on on entry save for very dim crystals around the walls, enough to see where to walk. This may be a safety precaution to prevent giving away one’s position from outside, as each wall section has four arrow loops to the outside, likely for defense of the tower. The loops seem to admit air but they haven’t been an entry for bugs. Those that detect magic can see the protective magic surrounding the tower also shielding the windows, which may account for that.

The rooms appear to be contained within a C walkway around the shell of the tower. There are six doors, three of which feature a keyhole (The door to the blue summoning circle and the doors to the eastmost room).

If there was any adornment of the walls accessible from here, it was all in paint rather than relief, and has long since faded to nothing. It is noticeably less humid here.

A party can split up to body-block the four loops closest to whatever they’re looking at and still use a candlelight, but they will need improvised curtains for all 28 loops. If the loops are not blocked, any light sources on this level at night will be visible lighting up the tower to those outside.

Each of the door plates is engraved with a five-by-five grid of the letters of Magespeech (i.e., whatever language your game uses for magic; mine uses a Greek alphabet but Latin-sounding words). The three doors without keyholes look like they once had some of the letters indicated in chalk, but Salome or Hieronymus’ writing has worn away in the damp over the years. Likewise, there’s some mild discoloration in the indicated letters such that they might have been frequently touched by the original inhabitants. There’s enough overlap in the remnants that a quick search can make the party pretty sure the same letters were marked on each door, but it’s possible some of the markings have faded completely (and it’s not certain what the circles were meant to indicate).

Door Plates

This puzzle is to press the letters of the password all at one time. Pressing single letters (once or trying to spell out a password) does nothing. Pressing the wrong combination heats up the plate enough to deal 1 fire damage to the person touching.

A        B        C        D        E

F        G        H         I        K

L        M       N        O        P

Q        R       S         T        U

X        Y        Z         |         –

The commonly-used password for the dorms is IGNIS (which Salome worked out and tried to mark). The other passwords on this and the next floor may have to be brute-forced by the players, unless you want to include clues in the students’ notes. Suggested passwords for other doors are:

• incendium
• incensio
• incensor
• ardor
• flamma
• flammula
• flagrantia
• inflammatio
• lux
• lumen
• iubar

IGNIS

The door leads to a carefully regimented dorm room, that all three of the unkeyed doors seemed to enter from different directions. If the party pulls the door closed behind them, the mage lights come on inside (staying dark outside). The lights are in a regular grid about head height around the walls of the room.

This room looks very regimented, with the remains of the student beds each lofted above a chair and table for study beneath (and high enough up that they’re shaded from the mage lights for easier sleeping). Only a few of them have crashed down from their lofts over time: the closed exterior doors seem to have cut down on the humidity significantly, so the beds and furniture are in reasonable condition for furniture that’s been in a dry environment for centuries. These beds seem to have been stuffed with a fairly course padding that’s decayed mostly to powder.

Emptied scrollshelves line the walls, and above them the murals in here demonstrate students doing rituals around glowing orange-yellow orbs (the flame orbs upstairs). Two additional closed and key-locked doors (with uncircled rune panels) are across from each other to the north of the room (making a total of five doors in this floor that are locked in a different style than the one opened). Owing to the density of furniture in this room, it likely takes a full party up to an hour to ransack this room for treasure.

Flame Dorms Note

On the bookshelf next to the west door, a stack of folios and a note from Salome sit (they are pages Salome assembled into some semblance of order from what hadn’t decayed on the level). The folios include a primer on how to attune to fire, and some lower-level fire-based spells and rituals (see the suggested spell list, later, using the level 1-3 ones). They must be deciphered from the Ancient Imperial and Magespeech.

This tower was sadly not archived properly. It’s hard for me to tell which scrolls were taken as the wolf mages abandoned the tower, and which simply decayed into nothing. I have not yet found any logs of the final days here, and I am merely assuming that the tower was abandoned with some haste but never actually conquered. Perhaps the mages were given an ultimatum to leave quickly, or perhaps they simply evacuated as the city was falling rather than trying to weather a siege. From what I have seen of the kitchens, they likely relied on the city for supply, so could not have been trapped long, even with their power. It is likely there were few of them left here, anyway: while there are many beds, I cannot imagine that dozens of magi would have been left in school as the war was going against the Northern Empire.

What I have found on this level, I have collected here for the Order’s later use. It is not much, and much of what remained was too ruined to read. I have tried to bind what was meaningful into codexes, and am beginning to draw some interesting conclusions.

While the Order’s classification places the arts of evocation and conjuration as neighbors, the magi of old seem to have seen no practical difference between them. Particularly as the wolves of this tower seem focused on the summoning of elementals rather than beings of the fae realms, they saw the arts as merely steps in the manipulation of greater and greater energy. In particular, the first codex I’ve assembled was made from surviving text from several identical books for the apprentices. It is likely close to a complete copy of the introductory text of the fire mages, used to explain the art on the walls. It details a method to attune oneself to fire, which they conceived of as the mechanism of causing objects to release their energy to the world.

I believe following these steps would instill one with a cantrip of Fire, which could be used as a bridge to understanding of the more complex texts in these books. However, the writings imply that elemental specialization was very important to their understanding of the praxis. Likely, attempting to attune to a second element would fail, or might even make it harder to use all attuned elements. I intend to look into the arts of the other floors before choosing a focus.

I have not yet been able to open the other doors. The others on this floor have keys, and may have different code phrases than the dorm doors, as must the doors in the floor above. It took me some burnings to puzzle out that IGNIS must be the code for this door. Mentions in what scraps I’ve found lead me to believe that the others are likely commands in Magespeech, but I do not have the fortitude to try too many at this time.

I believe that the other rooms on this floor are practice summoning chambers and possibly the Magister’s room. Those above likely lead to the fabled Flumes: legend says that this tower could blast attackers with torrents of flame from above.

Even such magics could not save them against the greater physical and mystical might of the Southern Empire, it seems.

Salome

I have taken some of the more advanced texts Salome left and stored them below for the time being. I would take them with me when I leave, but I must travel light and may find other treasures to walk away with. Besides… I am not sure Leberecht, my apprentice, is ready for the temptation they might provide him.

Hieronymus

Fire Bonding Cantrip (Int)

Fire releases Energy. This cantrip allows the caster to cause a flammable object to burst into flame.

The normal application causes heat to burst from an object that the caster touches, sufficient to instantly ignite cloth, paper, kindling, extremely dry wood, or the like. An unwilling, animate target may make a saving throw to dodge out of the way or otherwise spoil the casting. Against such a target, the effect immediately deals 1d4 fire damage, and burns for an additional 1d4 on your action every round until the target takes an action to douse the flame (or all clothing is burned away). A target can only suffer from one casting of this cantrip at a time.

By taking a penalty to the casting roll, the caster may increase the intensity and/or range of the flame. For each -1 penalty, the caster may affect a subject five feet further away, simply gesturing at the intended target. For each -2 penalty, the effect can ignite more difficult materials, and the damage increases by a dice size (to a maximum penalty of -8, which deals 1d12 and can ignite green wood).

This effect cannot be maintained to generate heat or melt a target over subsequent rounds: it simply sets a fire or does not, based on the flammability of the target, and subsequent burning is based on the available fuel.

Search

Performing a thorough tossing of the dorm, the party can find:

• 65 cp, 28 sp, and 3 gp in ancient vintage
• Seven small ceramic pots that are full of dust but still have a faint whiff of aloe vera
• Three non-magical white pearls of sufficient size to use for spell components
• A small, non-magical decorative dragon made of red gold, probably worth 50 sp just from metal value alone; it’s designed to hug onto a rod or staff
• A steel key with a red gem embedded in the head that detects faintly of magic and looks like it would fit the locks on this floor (deeply buried in someone’s mattress)

(The other doors need the key and a different password to open.)

Teacher’s Room

This larger private room contains a bed and shelves. In addition to 400 sp worth of miscellaneous art furnishings too heavy to move (worth up to three times that to a collector of ancient Imperial art), a two-gallon covered steel pot contains a flame-retardant dust that can be applied as a body-covering to provide the wearer Fire Resistance 2 for eight hours, or used to extinguish a fire it’s thrown at (up to a 5 foot square; deals 2d6 damage to a creature made of fire). Each such use requires approximately a double-handful of dust, so there are approximately 30 uses within the pot.

Summoning Rooms

These ornate summoning circles are embedded in the floor, and provide a bonus to attempting to summon beings from the plane of Fire.

Floor U3 (Fire Orbs)

Entry

The third floor is dryer than the lower floors, and has no immediate exterior windows. The mage lights are almost blindingly bright after leaving the dimness of the previous floor. Some of the paint on the walls has survived, and they seem to be abstract murals of warm colors in shapes reminiscent of flames.

The floor at the landing of the stairs has a couple large burlap sacks of years-old straw laid out in front of them. The straw has rotted down to almost nothing, but there’s faint evidence of a human-shaped imprint in the bags, as if someone used them to sleep, feet pointing towards the upstairs. (Salome filled them with straw and was using them as cushions to land on while trying to figure out the puzzle stairs. The straw is now over a decade old and largely rotted.)

The immediate door has an identical brass plate with no obvious markings as to which letters to touch, but it has been spiked open by an iron nail that shows only faint signs of rust. The entry room and hallway both feature sagging scroll shelves that appear to have been emptied rather than just deteriorating. The wear pattern indicates that some were vacant for centuries, while others might have been emptied relatively recently.

The two doors at the end of the hall feature brass letter plates with no obvious clues, and no spikes. Perhaps the previous order mages never got them open.

The next flight of stairs has the first seven steps divided into three sections each of alternating colored stone, with the eighth step a whiter stone than the normal steps, all in one piece. (See Trick Stairs, below.)

Flame Orb Rooms

Each wall of the tower has a small room that is large enough to contain an enormous orange glass orb before an open archway. The archway is protected by a plane of force, but this does not protect against fire- or heat-based attacks. Anyone that knows the Fire Bonding Cantrip can use it to activate an orb and use it to blast a line of fire up to 300 yards away from the tower (or far enough outside the city walls to give a very bad day to a besieging army). This ray can be tuned to do 3d6 fire damage per round to a single target (Reflex save to dodge out of the way) or 1d6 fire damage per round to a 20-foot radius (Reflex half). This takes some experimentation to get right and is very visible from the ground. The orbs can also be tuned to just produce a focused beam of light that can be used to communicate visually with targets far in the distance, particularly at night.

North Rooms

These rooms were used for communication with the rest of the Empire, and contain shelves of observations and communications that have mostly faded to illegibility. Weeks of study by someone who speaks Ancient Imperial and has a good sense of geography could uncover some details about troop movements and strongholds in the ancient Northern Empire that might give clues as to ruins and battlefields to the north.

Statue Room

This statue appears to be a very tall wicker man, and the room is full of strange thorny growths. The statue is very dry and easily ignited by magical fire damage of at least 1d4, at which point it begins roaring from within with flame that deals 2 fire damage per round to everyone in the room. If not on fire, at the end of each round everyone within the room is attacked by the thorny growths: +5 to hit, 1d6 damage, and the attacks are Magical and Puncturing.

Those meant to be in here would light the statue rather than suffer the thorns.

East Rooms

These rooms seem little used, as there weren’t many threats from or allies to the east. The table contains a few old faded texts describing interesting celestial phenomena and cool sunrises.

South Passage

These rooms seem to be the focus of the defense of the kingdom, and include a mostly-preserved war room and many shelves for documentation. As with the north rooms, weeks of study with Ancient Imperial and a good map or knowledge of geography could turn up some interesting information about the final days of the war with the old Southern Empire and potential locations of battlefields and ruins.

Trick Stairs

Detecting traps reveals no explicit traps. The stairs are the same stone as the tower, but painted with some kind of pigment that’s proven much more durable than whatever was on the walls.

There is a faint musical note when someone steps on any stair segment. It sounds trumpety, and comes from above. (If any of the PCs have musical training, they can identify that colors closer to red are deeper notes and those closer to violet are higher, essentially playing a musical scale from red to violet.) The sound doesn’t appear loud enough to be heard outside the tower, even in the dead of night.

If anyone steps on the white stair (or tries to jump over it) without hitting the notes in the correct order, a discordant note sounds accompanied by a strong (but not especially loud) rush of air, shoving them back (i.e., why Salome had the cushions; with them decayed, the falling character takes 10 feet of falling damage without some kind of check to land softly or allies checking to catch the falling PC).

To get up the stairs successfully, a climber must step on, in order, Red -> Orange -> Yellow -> Green -> Blue -> Indigo -> Violet -> White (this requires some backtracking). The rest of the stairs up don’t play notes.

The Septarch’s Tower, Part 1

For my Beyond the Wall game, I may have gone a little overboard in designing an encounter location. Because I produced well over 10k words, I figured I might as well serialize it here so others might find use of my over-writing. I’m including conversion suggestions for people running standard D&D or Pathfinder (as well as how to hack the story to better fit as a standalone).

Context

This started out because I grabbed and E/W flipped the map for Fallcrest because I needed a city on a river that the players would investigate for what I thought would be a session or two and I didn’t want to put much work into the map. Turned out there was a lot gameable there, and it became 5+ sessions of content (as well as a lengthy play-by-email in the upper tower). One of the things on the map that didn’t make a lot of sense was the Septarch’s Tower. The city was standing in for a town in my campaign’s northern empire, which isn’t too fond of any magic beyond their own pseudo-clerical type. However, the location could easily be built on the ruins of the former empire that fell over 1,000 years ago, and they definitely had mages. So it made sense to set up the place as an ancient holdover that the locals didn’t like but couldn’t get rid of.

Meanwhile, I had previously repurposed Baltron’s Beacon for an adventure in a swamp. Since that adventure features a teleportation artifact, and I was looking for a way to give my player characters an equivalent of a hearthstone ability (so they could swap out PCs between sessions without going home), I’d elaborated on the backstory. The mage that previously held the tower (renamed to Balduin to fit my campaign’s naming practices) had invented a teleportation device that worked off of large, enspelled keys. He then sent these keys to his closest wizard-type mage friends in the Order, before blowing himself up trying to finish the teleporter. At the time, this was a way to give the PCs quests to find some additional bind points: they started with two keys, which allowed them to leave one at their home base and take one with them on adventures. Having more keys would allow them to set up additional bases they could teleport to.

I decided the Septarch’s Tower would be an old, Hogwarts-style mage academy for training elemental war mages for the ancient empire (it was located near their border with their rival empire). It was heavily warded, so nobody had been able to make it in for 1,000 years, including the old enemies that sacked the town. Since Balduin had been studying the magic of that empire to get his teleporter working, the keys would also work to bypass the wards on the building. And, over a decade past, a couple of his wizard friends had taken advantage of that to slip in and try to loot this ancient stronghold of knowledge.

The two NPCs that made it into the tower are:

• Salome was an evoker-style mage with a specialty in subterfuge and guile. She’d happened upon the tower as part of infiltrating the northern empire, and took advantage of her key letting her in. She was a bit too headstrong, and… well… her body is still in the tower from when she didn’t acknowledge she needed backup.
• Hieronymus was a transmuter-style mage who happened upon the location after getting Salome’s letters and checking on her some time after her correspondence stopped. He started piecing together more of what happened in the tower, hid some of the better spells lower in the dungeon, and left to go get some help clearing it out (not making Salome’s mistake). Unfortunately, his apprentice, Leberecht, was a big jerk, who murdered Hieronymus before he could make it back. (The apprentice wound up as the evil mage who’s the main antagonist in the first part of Baltron’s Beacon: he was way more into the idea of a teleporter, and had taken the key there to try to get it working.)

I initially ran this as a between-sessions play-by-email game for the upper parts of the tower, so I kept most of the challenges fairly simple (even simple puzzles can take forever in PbEM) and didn’t have any combat to try to get as much as possible accomplished in the month before the next live session. The lower levels were then run live, so could have more involved rolling and combat. Also note that this means that most of the text below is in a more descriptive style, as it’s only lightly edited from what I sent to my players as they entered various areas.

Conversion Suggestions

If you’re running this live, I would add more creatures to the upper rooms (which are currently entirely safe except for some puzzles that deliver shocks for getting the wrong answers). Particularly as a standalone, it would be very easy to have Leberecht (Hieronymus’ apprentice) and his running crew here instead, spread out researching various parts of the tower and eager to attack anyone else after their prize. In that case, most obvious treasure has probably been consolidated in wherever they’ve set up shop (likely an upper level), and some of the dorm rooms have probably been slightly repaired to serve as camps for various research teams. Obviously, replace the verbiage and history to something that makes sense for an ancient sealed elementalist’s tower in your campaign.

Beyond the Wall uses a silver piece standard, rather than a gold piece. You may want to update the treasure to match (and, honestly, to fit whatever the recommended treasure is for your game and party level).

Outside

The entire tower is in the same meticulous stonework as other ruins of the old Northern Empire. This has held up much better than many of the other Northern ruins the party is likely to have encountered, and particularly well for the town. Those with the ability to detect magic sense that this is because of protective magics worked into the stone that are still holding strong. It’s around 100 feet tall, and the walls are a regular septagon with perhaps only a slight taper going up.

Around 25 feet up, each wall face has a set of four evenly-spaced arrow loops. At about 50 feet up, each face has a large, ornate arch (the titular seven arches) that seem to lead into a small room and shimmer as if glassed in. Near the top of the tower, one level has irregularly-placed glass windows, and the level above that seems to be completely open to the air, the roof of the tower supported on pillars in the corners (though, again, a shimmer indicates that perhaps it is covered with windows larger than seems possible).

Floor U1 (Entry Level)

Entry

Once you enter, mage lights begin to appear from crystals embedded in the walls, casting the area into a faint blue glow (dim lighting). It’s likely that whatever powers them is beginning to weaken.

The crystals are embedded in carvings along the walls, which seem to have once been colored with paint that has long-since decayed into the occasional spot of color and strange, brown rivulets down the walls. Even without the paint, you can make out a common wolf motif, similar to that of the eastern side of the ravine dungeon. (The ancient summoners used a wolf theme in other dungeons.)

Though the stones appear to have been protected by magics, little else has. The air is damp, and that moisture seems to have ruined most organic and ferrous things within the tower. Even from the entryway, it looks like there might have been shelves and cloakracks that are now little more than piles of detritus where they once stood.

The ceiling is high (and will continue to be high on other floors, unless otherwise noted): perhaps as tall as 20 feet. Which makes the narrow spiral stairway to your left upon entry an imposing climb. It curves up clockwise and down counterclockwise. It, fortunately, seems to be part of the stonework and still in good repair.

The hallway ahead of you seems to dead end, but it does not take long to realize that several of the vertical reliefs within the murals are poor concealment for arrow (magic?) loops that widen on the other side (perhaps, when painted, they were better hidden). The rooms beyond are not lit, but anyone with low-light vision or who lights a torch or lamp can get close and scan through, seeing two small guardrooms where defenders could likely hold out against invaders. Each has a door to the north.

From the hallway, other than the stairs there is a door north and a door south. These doors (and, indeed, most doors in the complex) appear to be steel-banded thick wood, that no doubt is spelled along with the tower (or it would have long rotted away). They have no handles, but do feature brass touch plates where a handle would otherwise be.

Stairs Note

A parchment letter sits upon the stairs up, weighted down by a rock. It appears old, and has suffered extensive water damage. There are two sets of handwriting, the the lower set appears slightly less damaged.

Balduin, I don’t know if your key will ever work to teleport, but you indeed managed to attune it correctly to the old imperial magics. Which I suppose you know if you’re reading this. I’m investigating the tower, and have left notes as I go in case I’m out when you arrive. Be careful in town: the new empire is only getting more bold, and the city is already unsafe for mages of the Order.

Salome

I believe Balduin is dead, and I fear Salome might be as well. I’ve heard from neither in years. Anyone else that follows, be careful. I’m investigating the tower as well.

Hieronymus

Rooms

The doors in the level don’t appear to be mystically sealed. They’re on a vertical pivot opposite the push plate, and seem to be designed to swing in either direction. This is a style that isn’t much used, possibly because of the difficulty of preventing a draft, which may explain why there’s so much moisture damage in the tower. Perhaps long ago some magic actually sealed the airflow through doors. The doors are only slightly swollen, so it takes a little work to shove the doors open. It’s likely Salome and/or Hieronymus did some work to unseal them whenever they were here, and they’ve swollen less in decades than in centuries.

To the north, the door has triple brackets to bar the door from within, which gives credence to perhaps these never being mystically sealed, or at least the mystical seals weren’t strong enough to rely upon. The room appears to have been, indeed, a guardroom. Corroded ruins of weapon racks slump against the walls, and the lights in here cluster around the door, perhaps to give defenders some advantage of being in shadow. A couple of what might have once been spears seem to have had silvered heads (might be able to salvage 20 sp worth of value from the tarnished material).

East of the guardroom appears to have been the guards’ office. There are stains on the floor that indicate chairs, desks, or perhaps even cots were once in the room for guards on duty, but there’s only a few bits of organic goo left. Likely, Salome or Hieronymus cleaned it up out of disgust. The doors in here lead to the chambers with the arrow loops. Within those rooms, which are extremely dark, the party can eventually find 10 sp worth of silver arrowheads that have outlived their steel and cold iron brethren. On a more careful search, they also find two arrowheads of a strange, dark steel (Adamantine) that have held up very well, even still holding an edge. They were placed somewhere that was likely easy to reach in the easternmost room.

The room to the south was likely once a conference room, and the thick oaken table and bookshelves were sufficiently treated and varnished that they’re very rotted but still obvious in their use. The table has pitched over to the east and the side touching the floor is decaying into a wet, soft earth while the western end stays relatively free of the damp. Strangely, the “bookshelves” appear to have been designed more like honeycombs, with fist-sized tubes alternating up the length. In a few, a metal post* lies amidst decayed pulp, but if the rest of them held scrolls, their organic components have long since deteriorated beyond recognition. If there was anything else of value in this room, the previous visitors have claimed it.

* The posts are just brass dowels, likely someone making a fancy scroll core instead of using a wooden dowel.

Fae Empowerment

The following is a short rules set I worked up for an offer from a sidhe noble in my Beyond the Wall game: when the fae really want to tempt you to do something for them, they can offer up some of their own ability scores to give yours a permanent boost. The gift tends to come with quite a bit of the resonance of the sidhe, making it a bit of a mixed blessing and pulling you closer to becoming fae yourself. Permanent ability score boosts are obviously a pretty big reward for most D&D iterations; in my game, this was the gambit for the fae asking for ownership of the ancient crown mentioned last week (which the players, some with more regret than others, passed on taking).

Basic System

The fae can offer up to +4 to a particular quality, such as might or beauty (noted in parenthesis and mapping to an ability score). You may choose to give the player full control over how much is taken, the faerie may only offer a point or two, or you might offer it on a sliding scale (e.g., characters starting with a low score can get a bigger boost than those with a high score already).

Taking +1 has no ill effect. Characters that accept +2 gain the cosmetic side effect for the trait. Those that accept +3 gain the cosmetic and the minor side effects. Those that accept +4 gain all three side effects.

If you take one less increase, you also gain the boon. Thus, if you want the boon, you could take it, no ability score increase, and no side effects all the way up to the boon, +3 to the score, and all three side effects.

Qualities of Nature Fae (Spring/Summer/Seelie)

Strength (Might)

• Boon: Weapons you wield made entirely of plants (e.g., clubs, staves, etc.) increase damage by a die size. Double your progress rate when using force to move or alter plants (e.g., blazing trails, hauling wood, etc.).
• Cosmetic: Your muscles creak like tree branches when exerting themselves.
• Minor: Treat iron as adamantine for the purposes of bending/breaking it (i.e., basically impervious to brute force).
• Major: Iron or steel weapons you wield are at -1 attack penalty and iron or steel armor you wear is at -1 AC (due to feeling heavier than they are).

Dexterity (Grace)

• Boon: You always Pass without Trace through forest environments (includes immunity to the Hedge).
• Cosmetic: You exhibit unearthly thinness and a great degree of androgyny.
• Minor: You are helplessly immobilized when bound in iron.
• Major: You must save vs Spell or dance when exposed to certain music (as if Tasha’s Hideous Laughter in 5e).

Constitution (Health)

• Boon: Double all healing (natural or magical) when outside in a natural environment, and gain +2 to saves vs. Poison from natural sources.
• Cosmetic: Your skin takes on the appearance of bark.
• Minor: You automatically hibernate when sleeping in Winter (each day you must be woken forcefully or you will sleep until Spring).
• Major: You suffer vulnerability to Iron.

Intelligence (Wit)

• Boon: You gain your choice of either the Glamour Weaving or Second Sight cantrips (Minor Illusion cantrip or Detect Magic as ritual in 5e).
• Cosmetic: Flowers and vines twine through your hair while sleeping and are difficult to remove.
• Minor: You must save vs. Spell to refuse a riddle game (Cha save in 5e).
• Major: You are incapable of telling an outright falsehood (this may impose situational penalties to Deception if not well-roleplayed).

Wisdom (Intuition)

• Boon: You gain your choice of either the Druid’s Touch or Beast Ken cantrips (Druidcraft cantrip or Speak with Animals as ritual in 5e).
• Cosmetic: Your eyes and ears transform to strongly resemble those of the fae.
• Minor: You can be commanded by someone who knows your True Name (you may be able to save to resist commands).
• Major: You must save vs Magic Item or be paralyzed by sound of bells (Str save in 5e).

Charisma (Beauty)

• Boon: You learn the spells Commanding Word, False Friend, Inspiration, and Word of Courage and may cast +1 spell per day (Cast your choice of Bless, Command, Charm Person, or Heroism at 1st level 1/day in 5e).
• Cosmetic: You take on a fae cast to your features and assume the skin and hair coloring of the donating faerie.
• Minor: You become a physical duplicate of the donating faerie (less any fae traits not assigned from other side effects).
• Major: You become unnaturally aged during the Winter, taking -1 penalties to most physical actions.

Qualities of Ice Fae (Autumn/Winter/Unseelie)

Strength (Might)

• Boon: Weapons you wield made entirely of ice and spell attacks you make that deal cold damage increase damage by a die size. Double your progress rate when using force to move or alter ice or snow (e.g., sculpt ice, break through ice walls, blaze snow trails, etc.).
• Cosmetic: Your muscles creak like stressed ice sheets when exerting themselves.
• Minor: Treat iron as adamantine for the purposes of bending/breaking it (i.e., basically impervious to brute force).
• Major: Iron or steel weapons you wield are at -1 attack penalty and iron or steel armor you wear is at -1 AC (due to feeling heavier than they are).

Dexterity (Grace)

• Boon: You treat snow and slick ice as solid ground when you desire to do so.
• Cosmetic: You exhibit unearthly thinness and a great degree of androgyny.
• Minor: You are helplessly immobilized when bound in iron.
• Major: You must save vs Spell or dance when exposed to certain music (as if Tasha’s Hideous Laughter in 5e).

Constitution (Health)

• Boon: You take half damage from cold/ice attacks and treat temperatures down to freezing as comfortable (adjusting sub-freezing temperatures as if freezing was room temperature)(Cold Resistance in 5e).
• Cosmetic: Your skin takes on a bluish pallor.
• Minor: You automatically hibernate when sleeping in Summer (each day you must be woken forcefully or you will sleep until Autumn).
• Major: You suffer vulnerability to Iron.

Intelligence (Wit)

• Boon: You gain your choice of either the Glamour Weaving or Second Sight cantrips (Minor Illusion cantrip or Detect Magic as ritual in 5e).
• Cosmetic: Frost patterns form on your skin whenever you are exposed to cold.
• Minor: You must save vs. Spell to refuse a riddle game (Cha save in 5e).
• Major: You are incapable of telling an outright falsehood (this may impose situational penalties to Deception if not well-roleplayed).

Wisdom (Intuition)

• Boon: You gain your choice of either the Blessing or Hexing cantrips (Guidance cantrip or Bane at 1st level 2/day in 5e).
• Cosmetic: Your eyes and ears transform to strongly resemble those of the fae.
• Minor: You can be commanded by someone who knows your True Name (you may be able to save to resist commands).
• Major: You must save vs Magic Item or be paralyzed by sound of bells (Str save in 5e).

Charisma (Beauty)

• Boon: You learn the spells Obscurement, Petrifying Gaze, Terrifying Presence, and Whispering Wind and may cast +1 spell per day (Cast your choice of Dissonant Whispers, Fog Cloud, Hex, or Tasha’s Hideous Laughter at 1st level 1/day in 5e).
• Cosmetic: You take on a fae cast to your features and assume the skin and hair coloring of the donating faerie.
• Minor: You become a physical duplicate of the donating faerie (less any fae traits not assigned from other side effects).
• Major: You become sluggish and uncomfortable during the Summer, taking -1 penalties to most physical actions.

Items of the Hedge

We’re 15 sessions into my Beyond the Wall game at this point, and I’ve given out enough treasure that it’s time to reflect on my itemization rules as well as include some significant treasure that my players seemed to really like.

Minor Items

At this point, I’ve given out most of the example weapons on the minor weapons post:

• They found a Blood Drinker axe buried in an ancient battlefield. They’re so creeped out by it that they might opt to not use it even if someone was a primary axe user.
• I think they now have five or six Coffin Nails in various states of discharge (and one is currently pinning down a revenant at a crossroads, so it’s not really available). The primary user is the party rogue, who seems to enjoy managing the monthly discharge/recharge cycle now that he has enough of them that a budget of uses is a realistic thing to consider.
• They found a Commoner’s Holdout knife at some point, and I’m not sure they remember they have it when it’s useful. Honestly, they don’t get seriously injured enough to make the trigger condition frequently available. Maybe I should try to change that…
• The Landless Noble’s Family Weapon was a big help earlier in the campaign, when they stumbled on a demon that could only be hurt by magic. Overall, the infrequency of magic weapons seems to have helped keep magic-vulnerable monsters special for longer: because most enhanced weapons aren’t technically “magic” it makes the ones that genuinely are more special.
• They recently got a Hedgecutter under less-than-ideal circumstances (off of the corpse of one of their higher level NPC allies who they’d had to kill because he’d been vamped). They haven’t gotten to use it to actually travel through the Hedge, but will soon, and probably would have loved to have it a few sessions ago when they had to run and hide from a Shambling Mound.
• No Sidhe Swords have come into play yet, though they’re on the hex map to be discovered. The Fae Foundling in the party would probably love to get her hands on one, though she is normally a ranged combatant.
• They recovered a Siegebreaker fairly early on (well, stole it from goblin storage and are hoping the owners don’t notice it). It’s being used by the Gifted Dilettante (rogue/mage), who shouldn’t really be in melee at all but, if he’s going to be, he might as well swing a really big weapon. He doesn’t actually connect with it all that often, but does seem to enjoy the option of smashing through doors and walls like the Kool-Aid man.

I believe I’ve also given out a couple of other weapons using the same minor weapon rules: a bow that is extra harmful against beasts, some arrows with one ability each, and Siegekeeper: a longbow that’s Magic and extra effective (Penetrating and Warning) against soldiers of their rival empire.

Overall, I’ve been pretty pleased with the minor weapon rules: keeping the players from chasing pluses allows them to use weapons that fit their styles.

I’ve also given out quite a few of the items from the minor items post:

• I believe that most of the main PCs have, at this point, at least one reroll item. I seem to remember putting in play items of Cantrips, Hunting, Perception, and Rituals. Most of them are one charge per day, and I don’t see them get used that often (mostly because those checks are so good for the bearers that failure is unlikely).
• An item of Warmth and one of Sustenance have come into play and are interesting curiosities, but haven’t been used to great effect yet. In particular, the Chalice of Sustenance (turns liquid put into it into a satisfying meal) has picked up a bad connotation of “Dysentery Chowder” after the bearer experimented with “I wonder if it can turn this awful sewer water into a meal?”
• The single-charge Belt of Stoneskin has already saved the Gifted Dilettante’s life twice (though I think I need to pay more attention to making sure he declares activating it up front rather than as soon as he takes a big hit). It’s probably the MVP of items so far.
• The rogue seems to really enjoy the Gem of Seeing in principle, but hasn’t gotten much actual use out of it.
• They just got an item of Protection this past session which may also find a lot of use. The item of Regeneration is currently in the hands of a character that doesn’t get injured much, but she seems glad to have it in the event that she does get injured.

Ultimately, the minor items aren’t getting used nearly as much as I expected, but the players seem to enjoy receiving them and figuring out how to distribute them to take advantage of party roles and number of fortune slots for each character. I’ve begun handing out items with more than one charge per day, which may increase their overall utility.

Significant Items

The following items are named treasure, mostly with strong links to the game backstory. Like the other items, they don’t carry pluses, just modular effects. They ought to port over fairly easily as items for D&D; feel free to add the enhancement bonus of your choice in that case.

The Ancient Crown

This crown is suspiciously non-magical, particularly coming from the long-dead ruler of a magically potent ancient empire. For certain, it’s valuable enough: it would be an extremely good find for a low level party just taking it apart for its platinum and gems. As an art object, it’s worth even more.

But the real potency of the crown is in its political weight. The inheritor state of the ancient empire craves trappings of legitimacy. A long-lost crown could be enough to elevate a minor claimant to the national stage, by brokering a deal to give it to the current rulers or treating it as proof of a previously significant bloodline. Simply handing it over to a friendly noble NPC to deal with should be a major quest reward, and trying to figure out how to use it for themselves could be a campaign-spanning PC goal.

Beyond the purely mortal parties that would love to get their hands on such a valuable item, there is also the question of immortal interest. Faeries, demons, and other such beings have a great use for items that are important even if they aren’t technically magical. What rituals could they wreak upon the fabric of the empire with such a token of rulership? They’d probably go to great lengths to find out…

The Anydress

In some ways little more than a toy, this dress is woven of glamour by a skilled faerie tailor. For most fae, it’s a long-term savings on fashion. For shapeshifters and other infiltrators, however, it can be a vital tool of the trade…

When unworn, this looks like a simple shift of nice but unremarkable fabric. When donned, however, it adapts to properly fit anyone of roughly humanoid size and shape, and transfigures seamlessly into a dress appropriate for the wearer and the environment. On the streets of the merchant district, it’s fashionable but not ostentatious. In the bad part of town, it seems respectably plain. And at a royal ball, it’s festooned with gems and needlework.

Obviously, none of this lasts if separated from the item, and it can sometimes have its own whimsical interpretation of what’s appropriate rather than strictly appearing as the wearer desires. But, unlike many such faerie crafts, it’s remarkably durable and can last indefinitely without deteriorating or losing its powers.

A little known component of the dress’ whimsy is also the ability to tune into times of significance. For example, if curious adventurers were to try on an ancient crown while wearing the Anydress, it might give them a hint as to what might happen if they claimed the crown by adapting to reflect what kind of ruler they could become.

Wælcyrie’s Raiment

This suit of leathers is fitted for a woman and extremely well made. It features dozens of long, dagged strips hanging from the mantle and skirt. It is strongly magic (for any effects that interact with magic on armor), ghost touch (spectral entities cannot bypass its AC bonus), and grants +2 to saving throws the wearer makes against the attacks of any kind of undead or spirit. The strips writhe in the presence of ghosts, even unmanifested/invisible ones.

If a ghost can be convinced to voluntarily grasp one of the strips, it becomes infused into the armor. It is always considered to be in Protective stance: the ghost will interrupt and take the next hit against the wearer. Most ghosts can only take one such hit before being discorporated; more powerful ones may be able to take multiple hits, and may grant additional abilities to the wearer while infused. Discorporated ghosts seemingly pass on for good. The armor can support multiple ghosts at once; generally the one that has been infused the longest will be the one that takes hits.

Græfenrót Banner

This silken banner was seemingly wielded by the outriders of the Wælcyrie. The horses of any allies under the banner suppress their natural fear response to undead, and even mundane horses can keep up with supernatural horses within the cavalry.

When grasped by someone with authority over mindless undead, those undead will never attack allies of the bearer within sight of the banner, even in the bloodlust of battle. The bearer and all allies within sight of the banner gain +4 to saving throws against any mental (fear, charm, etc.) effects generated by undead/ghosts.

Allies slain within sight of the banner always leave a weak and somewhat confused ghost (which will usually pass on at sunrise unless infused into the Wælcyrie’s Raiment), which is generally still friendly and will continue to fight beside its original allies if it can be effectively directed. This effect may intensify other necromantic auras, causing the fallen to rise as physical undead instead of ghosts.

Beyond the Wall: The Monk

In the course of making what was initially one of several simple options for hirelings, I realized it would be very easy to hack in a workable monk variant for Beyond the Wall. The overview and playbook are below.

The Monk (Warrior/Mage Variant)

Basics

Monks follow all progression for Fighters (hit dice, attack, saves, XP, skills, and abilities) except as noted below:

• Unarmed Combat must be your first level trait choice.
• You must spend your initial Weapon Specialization on Unarmed Combat.
• You may use your Dexterity bonus to determine attack and damage for Unarmed Combat (if your Dexterity is better than your Strength).
• You cannot wear any armor.
• You can learn special variants of rituals (see below). You automatically learn one ritual of your level or less upon obtaining each new level (including one first level ritual at character creation).

Monk Rituals

Monk ritual variants are almost always self-only (even if the normal version of the ritual could affect someone else or the whole group). They do not have material costs, but otherwise follow the normal casting time requirements (performed in meditation, martial arts exercise practice, or other genre-appropriate ritual action). They always use Wisdom as their casting ability.

Suggested rituals include:

1. Bind Familiar, Circle of Protection, Goodberry, Mage Armor, Naming Ceremony, Staff of Might, Wanderer’s Fortune
2. Cleansing Ritual, Endure the Elements, Magic Stones, Traveler’s Blessing
3. Bear’s Endurance, Friends, Nepenthean Drink, Skin of the Treant, Strengthen the Bond
4. Augury, Heart of the Ox, Wizard’s War
5. Arcane Sight, Dispel Magic, Greater Bond, Ritual of Healing
6. Full Restoration, Shape of Stone
7. Determine True Name, Master’s Bond, Word of Truth

The Martial Artist Playbook

While the other warriors of your village practice with arms and armor, counting on steel to save them from the dangers of the world, you rely only upon your own body. While your neighbors often don’t understand your decision to turn yourself into a weapon through discipline, practice, and meditation, they cannot help but admit the results.

You are agile and introspective. Your Dexterity and Wisdom begin at 10, and all of your other ability scores begin at 8.

What was your childhood like?

(Use the standard villager playbook charts for What did your parents do in the village?, How did you distinguish yourself as a child?, and Who else in the village befriended you while you were growing up?)

Somehow, you learned of the possibility to perfect your fighting ability without arms and armor, and began to practice. You become a level 1 Warrior/Mage. You gain the class abilities Weapon Specialization, Knacks, and Monk Rituals, and the skill Athletics. You gain the trait Unarmed Combat (this is your first level trait selection) and your initial Weapon Specialization is in Unarmed Combat. The tables below will further define your class abilities.

How did you begin your journey?

How did you learn martial arts?

1. A fae trickster calling himself the “Monkey King” chose you as a special subject for torment. After months, you realized these trials were teachings. +3 Str, Monk Ritual: Staff of Might
2. A strange traveler from far away wandered into your village one day and chose you as an apprentice after seeing your promise. +3 Dex, Monk Ritual: Mage Armor
3. You were trapped in a deadfall and were not found for several days. A hallucinatory vision taught you secrets of how to survive and fight. +3 Con, Monk Ritual: Goodberry
4. You uncovered an old book of martial techniques unlike any fighting manual you’d seen before, and diligently practiced its forms. +3 Int, Monk Ritual: Mage Armor
5. You left home and wandered the world for several years with only the clothes on your back, learning to fight and survive without armaments. +3 Wis, Monk Ritual: Wanderer’s Fortune
6. You felt at home in the wilderness around town, befriended a strangely intelligent beast, and learned to fight as it did. +3 Cha, Monk Ritual: Bind Familiar

How did you integrate your new skills into village life?

1. You spar with the other young warriors, and they can rarely lay a blow upon you. +2 Dex, Knack: Defensive Fighter
2. You man the town’s defensive perimeter, because you can respond to approaching danger faster than anyone else. +2 Dex, Knack: Fleet
3. You tend to find yourself getting into brawls frequently, as the other youths of the town try to test themselves against you. +2 Str, Knack: Great Strike
4. As part of your discipline, you take on the most grueling physical tasks without complaint. +2 Con, Knack: Resilience
5. Your awareness of the world is uncanny, and you can almost shoot a bow blindfolded, making you an excellent archer. +2 Wis, Knack: Weapon Specialist (Longbow)
6. You spend much of your time in introspection and meditation, knowing that you must only act when necessary, but then with great certainty. +2 Wis, Knack: Fleet

What inspired you to finally end your trials and meditations and go forth into the world?

1. You have exceeded the challenges the village has to offer, and need to test yourself against harder problems to continue improving. The friend to your right has long been your friendly sporting rival and sparring partner, and gains +1 Str. +2 Str, Skill: Athletics
2. You travel light and thus can easily move quietly and unseen, so the village has great need of you as a scout. The friend to your right helped you learn to travel without being detected, pointing out when you could be seen, and gains +1 Dex. +2 Dex, Skill: Stealth
3. Your exercise and contemplation frequently takes you far into the wilderness around town, and you’ve begun to see things that could be threats if not dealt with. The friend to your right has been with you on some of these camping trips, and gains +1 Con. +2 Con, Skill: Survival
4. You learned that, throughout the ages, there have been others that also practiced martial arts, and that you might find ways to improve yourself by visiting ancient and far-flung sites. The friend to your right found the first history book that set you on your path, and gains +1 Int. +2 Int, Skill: Ancient History
5. Assassins with strange features tried to slip into town undetected, with deadly intentions for your village elders, and you saw them and rallied the town before they could strike. The friend to your right found a symbol they left behind that hints at the threat to the village, and gains +1 Wis. +2 Wis, Skill: Alertness
6. The town’s leadership has long been intrigued by your ability to fight when arms and armor are not permitted, and have been encouraging you to do whatever you need to become a more effective envoy or bodyguard to diplomats. The friend to your right helped you practice your social graces, and gains +1 Cha. +2 Cha, Skill: Etiquette

Long ago, you found an item with hidden mysteries, that has long been your focus for meditation and a symbol of your quest. What is this token?

1. A staff taken from the heart of a a lightning-struck tree, covered in subtle natural patterns. +2 Str, a fine quarterstaff
2. A bow covered in intricate, interlocking carvings, hinting at the unity of the cosmos. +2 Dex, a fine longbow
3. A platinum-and-gold ring, delicately knotted in strange runes in a language no one can read. +2 Dex, an ornate ring
4. A belt of several strands of colorful leather, braided through silver and iron charms. +2 Con, a braided charm belt
5. A strand of large beads of a variety of materials and colors. +2 Wis, a necklace of beads
6. A tunic of a fine, silken weave, patterned with designs too complex for local weavers, obviously made in a far-away land. +2 Wis, a fine woven shirt