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Details (this will be updated with links to a beastiary at some point).

Well, guess I ought to backtrack.

The caravan from the dark lands was really something.  The guards rode very large spider geckos.  Everyone else walked or was pulled in carts that were drawn by giant beetles.  They tended to wear either black or a lightish red color, fuchsia is what my Mom calls it.

In the group was a full ambassador.  Now that the city had a real ruler, the fuchsia people were ready to get serious about relations again.  The ambassador had a brightly and frilly dressed little child -- about five or six years old -- and we thought the child was a girl.

Anyway, there we were, in a mess, with a child who had run off in what appeared to be (and was) a spoiled snit.

The Maze (technical notes)

The Maze is a four level environment created when the Ktthjj in the city attempted to merge with the City's hidden heart to avoid destruction.  The action pulled all the secret places in the city into a magical spider's web of hidden shadows.

  • Spider/web
  • Fire
  • Poison
  • Final

Those are the four levels, with each level having a variety of locations as one spirals into the central nexus and transition to the next level of the maze's web.

The Spider level's master is a web creating demon.

The Fire level's master is a fire demon.

The Poison level's master is a poison demon.

And the final stage, well, we'll get to that in a later box <g>.

Encounters include:

Wraiths

  • Glass wraiths
  • Fire Wraiths
  • Blood Wraiths
  • "Normal Wraiths" (bound to locations)

Snakes/Naga

  • Human headed snakes (poison spitters of various types:  corrosive acid poison and degrading poisons [-2d6 to a requisit])
  • Human headed and torso snakes (net and trident armed)
  • Human headed and torso, with large, crab-like claws and arms (eight arms)

Undead Animations

  • Zombies (2-3 types, various creatures as the base form)
  • Skeletons (2-3 types)

Ghouls

  • Dog ghouls.  These have the runes beast+undead and were once men who chose to become ghouls.  As ghouls, STR +2d6, INT of 2d6+3
  • Undead animation ghouls.  These are the bodies of men infected by undead and chaos, risen again to seek the flesh of the living.  There are various types, from shamblers to the vyrkari.
  • Sentient undead ghouls.  These are those who have embraced failed kar manta shrines and who have been cursed with an inability to continue on the kar manta path, a hunger for human flesh and chaos taints.  Ghouls, 1d2 chaos taints, 1d3 kar manta powers (1d3 force for each power), INT of 2d6+5.

Undead

  • Lesser Vampires
  • Wights (partial kar mantas, but not failed, just not fully progressed, 1-6 stations filled -- so 1d6 kar manta powers at 1d6 force for each power, 2d3 chaos taints, regenerate 1d3 per melee round)
  • Burning Wights (wights who were caught in the destruction of the city.  They burn, but their magic keeps pace with the burning (regenerate 1 point per 2d6 melee rounds).  -2d3 to free INT (from the pain).  Most of the wights are burning wights of one type or another.

Golems (semi-elementals)

  • Clay (the original)
  • Glass (the native form to the city of glass now)
  • Blood (the food reserve and servitor of the vampires)
  • Fire (the alternative native form to the city of glass now)

Automatons (magical robots)

  • Copper
  • Brass
  • Iron

Others

Traps

Bosses

  • Web Spider
  • Undead Fire Elemental
  • Poison Naga King
  • Vampire Demon (inhabiting a real terrestrial base form creature)(more below)

Anyway, there we were with this frilly kid, when Ariel went to grab it and it slipped right out of her hands.  That is when we learned a few things.

First, the kid was a boy, not a girl.

Second, he had a bad attitude.

Third, he had been enchanted so that no one could grabe or take him.  Guess it makes sense as an anti-kidnapping spell, but sheesh, have you ever tried to get an unruly and misbehaved child safely through danger if you can't hold on to them to make them stay put or behave?  It was going to be a long and dangerous trip, if we survived.

We were in a dark warrenlike alleyway.

Level One, in four acts, the secret places of the city
Level One consists of the hidden alleyways, gardens and outside places in the city.

Level Two, in four acts, the secret places of the city
Level Two consists of the hidden passages, rooms, and interior places in the city

Level Three, in four acts, the secret places of the city
Level Three consists of the hidden cellars, crypts and catacombs beneath the city

Level Four, in three and a half acts, the secret places of the city
Level Four consists of hidden places of power in the hidden channels/maze/web that now makes up the city, leading to the remains of the city's hidden heart.  It consists of tunnels and almost living tunnels and metareal (magic crossed with dream) places of glass, blood and heartstone (quartz types) in a web of six layers/rings.  Progressing counter-clockwise takes you into the heart of the city, clockwise takes you away, the radial strands are filled with noxious twisted power and transform things into part of the web.


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