Temple of Zűrzavar, the Ancient One
Throughout the known world of Äerd exist numerous standing stones. These have been worn down by the natural elements, but cannot be harmed or destroyed by anything other than nature. The people of Äerd pay little attention to the standing stones, as they have no obvious power, yet people avoid them because of a vague feeling of discomfort. Only a handful of High Druids and High Mages have studied the standing stones in depth. These learned few now know that the standing stones were created by the Ancient Ones as portals to other planes. The primordial gods Káosz (Chaos) and Lét (Being) brought forth their five children, the Ancient Ones: Ször (Time), Fény (Light), Komor (Darkness), Tudás (Knowledge), and Zűrzavar (Disorder). These Ancient Ones shaped the world of Äerd as it stands today. The Lakik, Äerd's first humans, built five great temples for the Ancient Ones and performed rituals and sacrifices that would seem bizarre and profane by current standards.
As time passed, Zűrzavar demanded more foul sacrifices and began damaging the order of the world. Concerned that Zűrzavar was descending into complete madness, the other four Ancient Ones locked him away in a demi-plane that serves as a prison. They sealed this prison with a particular set of standing stones so that Zűrzavar could not escape. No longer worshiped by the people, the remaining four Ancient Ones retreated to the Isle of Bliss (a plane of existence); they became, in essence, demi-gods who rarely turn their attention to Äerd.
But Zűrzavar remained locked away in his demi-plane. In his madness, Zűrzavar created a shadow version of his temple. When he senses that passing adventurers possess magical items or artifacts that may help him escape, Zűrzavar lures them to this temple in the hopes of acquiring sufficient magic to break free of his prison. Zűrzavar's shadow temple is full of great dangers, the greatest of all being its inherent instability. The temple may collapse at any time, only to be rebuilt by Zűrzavar. But each time it collapses, any adventurer inside the temple will be killed…or worse.
To escape the shadow temple, adventurers must find the hidden portal room. The locking apparatus is hidden behind a false stone in the wall. To open the door, adventurers must fight the five statues of the Ancient Ones that surround the Great Chamber and retrieve the amulets worn by the statues. The amulets must be inserted, in the proper order, into the lock; this triggers the door to move out and slide aside. Inside the room is a shimmering blue door, standing alone in the middle of the room. This door allows adventurers to escape back to their own dimension in Äerd. They will reappear just outside the standing stones.
Note: I've used this as an "escape room" style dungeon. It's great if you want to play a quick game or need to introduce new players to the game. You can populate the various rooms with monsters and loot. You can also require an additional "key" to the secret room and move its location to fit your needs (a great way to control timing - you can speed up or slow down the game). The Buttery and Pantry contain traps in the floor. Stepping in the wrong spot causes the floor to disintegrate, spilling PCs into the dungeons below. The Vault in the cellar level contains a circular image etched on the floor (full disclosure, I grabbed the image from Google; everything else was done by hand and scanned in). This image rotates in three pieces - the outer ring rotates clockwise, the middle rotates counter-clockwise, and the center rotates clockwise. PCs will be thrown off balance if they fail a dexterity check.
If you're a DM/GM and your PCs have acquired too many powerful magical items or artifacts, this is a good way to get rid of those pesky items. Loot and magical items found inside the temple can be removed...but magical items brought into the temple remain trapped there.
If you want to hand out a map for your players, below is a version without the secret rooms. When I've used the temple, I had the floor plan (minus the secret rooms) carved into the wall of the Robing Room.
I like the arcane diagrams and symbols -- very cool.
The secret room on the upper floor isn't terribly secret, is it? I mean, it's clearly visible from outside the structure, so anybody going inside can pretty easily notice that there are four rooms visible from outside but only 3 accessible from inside. Unless that side of the building is obscured? Maybe it's built against a cliff or something?
Ha! Yeah, I thought it would be pretty obvious and had a variety of explanations ready to go as to why there wasn't a room on the inside where clearly there was a second level on the outside. But I decided to just play it out and not say anything because I wanted them to know there was a secret door (I thought the challenge would be trying to figure out how to unlock it). But my players didn't notice the missing room at all. I actually had to prompt my thief ("something about the wall looks a bit off to you") in order to get her to check for secret doors. SMH.Originally Posted by wdmartin
Yeah, sometimes players don't notice the big sign that says "Look Here".
My Battlemaps Gallery http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...p?albumid=3407
I've been a bit intimidated to try my hand at more digitally rendered maps but decided to give it a try. Many thanks to Bogie for your fantastic statues and mapping elements thread! The statues actually inspired me to create this version of the map for use in-game.
Other stuff: The divots on the outer wall represent windows. There wouldn't be glass in this temple so the divots are what came to mind. I made the statues a bit smaller and moved them in for the upper level floor plan to give a feeling of being higher up. On the lower level, I did a dark overlay because there are no windows; only the glowing arcane symbol on the floor provides light. (The symbol is not mine but I don't know who to credit for it).
I'd like to say this is final but probably need to stare at it tomorrow with fresh eyes.
It's a nice temple layout.
I don't know what software you are using but one thing I recommend when doing the walls is to start off with them all on the same layer in one solid colour. Then you can use that as a base for applying outlines/patterns/textures and you get a completely uniform look to them.
My new Deviant-thing. I finally caved.
Totally forgot to subscribe to my own thread so Larb, I'm just now seeing your comment. Thanks for the input! The main walls are all the same layer and used the same texture (a photo of marble). I think the problem is that I wasn't adept at using layer masks and I also drew the outlines, which makes some of the wall pieces look inconsistent. But this was my first digital attempt with Photoshop and a Wacom. I thought about re-doing it now that I have more digital experience but I'm currently cranking out a bunch of other maps for my game.
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