Category: Sample Dungeon

The stairs leading up to the raised structure of the Mausoleum proper is at its widest a rectangle of 120 feet (24 squares) by 90 feet (18 squares). 24 steps lead upwards and inwards towards what could be called the first floor, where the platform upon which the upper chamber, guarded by its grand wooden doors, stands ringed by aforementioned Tyrian pillars. Between each pillar is the image of a god, cast in bronze and dressed in garments of silk in a rainbow of colors. Unlike most depictions of the gods, which have them solemnly standing with symbols of their power, these gods are visibly frightened, bowing in reverence toward the building or recoiling away from it. Practitioners of the Cultus Deorum will recognize the Greek variants of Iuppiter, Neptunus, Dispater, and so on demonstrating obeisance on their knees, faces contorted in the fear one might only see in children before a snarling wolf. Only one goddess does not seem to be cowed, one who looks similar to Hecate (for those familiar) but not depicted as she ever was. She wears the radiate diadem of kings, and her finger is pointed toward the door in the clear sign of spellcasting.

“The doors have no handle, and do not respond to pushing. Though they appear to be made of wood, they feel as if made of stone.”

This begins the first puzzle the party will have to solve; getting into the tomb itself. The quick-minded adventurer will recognize that there is something special about the Hecate statue. If they search the statue, they won’t find any sign of levers, buttons, or anything that would mechanically control the doors. However, the Detect Magic spell heightened to 4th level will reveal that the statue is radiating with powerful magic. The creative adventurer will attempt to smash the statue, which is the answer to the puzzle. The statue will crumble away without too much forceful bashing, and the doors will crack in a web pattern, eventually shattering into splinters. Thus is the way open into the first room.

“The walls are etched in epic poetry in three languages; the ancient ancestor of Greek, the ancient ancestor of Persian, and a third language not similar to any common tongue spoken today.”

Any PC who knows both Greek and Persian may attempt to decipher the poetry. They will only be able to a small portion, where it is continuously Greek and Persian without any Carian between them (the former language of Caria, of which Halicarnassus was the capital of. Carian and other Luwic languages have not been spoken in hundreds of years.) The passage available to them reads as follows:

“I am the one who tasted ambrosia. I wear the crown of Ethyra upon my head. I stand alone in the ranks of kings. Those before me and after me prostrate before my form. Those before me have died so that I may achieve. Those after me will die in the study of what I have achieved. Know this, you shall not mimic me. I am Mausolus, never claimed by Thanatos.”

A PC speaking the poem aloud will cause it to shift, bowing inwards like a portal and revealing the room behind it. It is featureless, grey, and without any furniture, adornments, or designs. Any magic user who crosses the threshold will be Sickened 1, as they will be suddenly struck with a powerful headache and nausea. The observant player may note that there is no space behind the previous chamber for this one to exist in. If the players climb through, the portal will close behind them, trapping them in the room. Speaking the poem again verbatim will open the portal again, allowing them to return to the first room, but for a moment as the portal is opening a flash will appear on the walls in Doric Greek, saying the following: “Morning succeeds midday succeeds evening succeeds night.” The secret, here, is to repeat the poem word for word backwards in the previous more adorned room. Should they do so, the plain stone floor beneath them will reveal itself to be a large tapestry rug with a clever visual illusion. They will feel as if they were standing on solid ground, but looking down, their eyes may convince them that they are hovering over where a stairway leads down into a dark chamber below. In fact, it appears as if there are a great many stairways downward, of various sizes and tiled together like marble blocks. This is the work of dyes and artistry; thus, players will not be allowed to disbelieve it. The largest stair-like rug is in the middle, around which the others almost seem to spiral. This is a mimic. The moment a PC attempts to step onto one of its steps, it will wrap itself around the leg of said PC and initiate combat. The correct one is a smaller stairway tucked in the far northeast, which is an actual stairway and not a rug, and will lead down into the lower rooms.

“That rubble in the distance was once Halicarnassus, the jewel of the Anatolian coast. Those crumbled walls were once temples, towers, fortifications, and homes. They look so solemn there, like something out of a demigod’s legend. The remains of the city, you have heard from many travelers over many years, is full of the wealth of its once-lord. How it has not yet been plundered speaks volumes as to the true nature of the tale.”

The party approaches the once-great city of Halicarnassus, which has not seen preeminence since the days of Alexander well over half a millennium ago. Any player with Lore: Architecture will be generally familiar with the great Mausoleum, the shining tomb of the sorcerer-king Mausolus who was buried with all of the riches of his dying state. If said player (and nobody else) succeeds a DC 15 Arcana check, they may also be aware that the stone used in the construction of the Mausoleum is no mortal stone, and there will be no warping it or drilling through by either mundane or magical means, nor will it be possible to teleport within or out. Critically succeeding that check will let them know that the stones themselves were created of an ancient and costly rite, draining the power of whatever resides in the mausoleum, and by their best estimates even the strongest living being that stays within those walls for three days will die an atrophied mindless husk, probably more like two days for the party.

Their first and last stop will be the pandokeion of Diomedes, a friendly and surprisingly young man, who with his wife Artemisia consist of perhaps the last permanent residents of Halicarnassus. Merchants were known to come and go, stopping at the inn on their way to yet-living cities to the north and east, but Diomedes will admit that nobody stays here a minute longer than they need to. If you let him, he will tell the party some lesser-known myths he heard from his parents, as well as some humorous stories he picked up from other adventurers who have not returned. Artemisia will cynically warn the party of the mad shamblers that sift through the ruins of the city, noting that they are often magical but rarely intelligent, and that their minds have been stolen by an obsession with Mausolus and his power. She recommends scouring the city at night, when it will be easier to slip past them.

When the party is fed, rested, and ready to leave, they may venture into the city proper, ringed with stone foundations long deprived of the buildings they held up.

“Just behind every corner you can hear the sound of whispering and muttering, occasionally punctuated by dark chuckling, less of a malevolent and arrogant nature than of a natural philosopher uncovering the secrets of the world. Fragments of spells, of medical formulae, jammed together incoherently such that even the untrained magus could be certain they would never work, at least to the mind of the sane.”

Non-Greek speaking PCs will be unaffected by the whispering, but every Greek speaking PC of Intelligence +1 or above will see their Wisdom reduced by that value until they either reach the Mausoleum or quit the city entirely. As GM, roll a d10. If the party enters the city during the day, then a result of 1 or 2 means they are being watched by a maddened scholar. If they enter at night, then only a roll of 1 will count (but at night the whispers will be noticeably louder and sound worryingly reasonable). Any humanoid creature in the Bestiaries within CR 6 and 8 may substitute for this encounter, so long as they are capable of magic. If the party decides to rest within the city’s ruins, they will certainly be ambushed again. This encounter shouldn’t be too difficult, but excessive caution on the part of the players will inevitably wear them down (start ramping up the difficulty of these encounters until they are forced to either abandon the quest or advance.)

“The great tomb of Mausolus is the one building undamaged by time. It could have been constructed yesterday, or even today. Its pillars defy entropy itself, not even losing the luster on its Tyrian paint. The gold required to leaf every inch of the vast roof could buy a city’s worth of slaves and the land to house them.”

At the foot of the steps patrol the elite guard of what was once the Carian Satrapy of the long-gone Achaemenid Empire. They are nothing but bones and armor now, some even having half of their feet worn away by the constant march. Use the “Skeleton Infantry” from Bestiary 3 statblock. When the party approaches, they will stop marching and form up into a phalanx. They will brandish their spears at the party, but will not advance or attack unless either the party attacks them or approaches within spear range (presumably to get into the Mausoleum). When the mass of undead soldiers is defeated, have one survive just long enough to speak. With an otherworldly voice and in the long-dead Doric dialect of Greek, they will say the following: “You have undone us; you have undone our city.” Then they will crumble. With the gates unprotected, the way is clear to enter.