The central dungeon of Those Fragile Bridges, my funnel hexcrawl for Locheil's Aclas.
The Panopticon is shaped like its namesake - a 3-floor tower of 30 foot high rooms, each open to a central pillar and its arcflash-white spotlight.
There are no random encounters; the Mystic would not permit loose variables in his home. Instead, each exploration turn the spotlight clicks one segment clockwise - starting at 2/5/8, then 3/6/9, and so on.
If the spotlight sees the PCs (which is different than "passing through the room they are in" - there is a chance to hide), it flashes red. Puyinthel notices you. He reaches out with telekinetic hands to drag a PC into room 10 for interrogation. The rest take 1d8 damage per round as the light burns them away into nothing.
This spotlight is a real, physical object, and can be destroyed. If it is, Puyinthel leaves 10 to hunt the saboteurs. The spotlight does not notice those under the influence of the killing-chalice from hex C1.
Each room connects to each other on its floor, with the exceptions of 8 and 10. The staircase between the first two floors is from 3-6, then the next from 5-8. There is an unlocked door into room 1, and a barred window into room 6.
1. Tribute Room
The only place in the Panopticon open to others - an altar for the people of the island to leave food, water, and gifts for Puyinthel.
2. Ankle Cutter
Seams run across the bottom of this room's outer wall, and a holographic two-dimensional eye floats in the center of it. If the eye sees you (it cannot be destroyed, but can be blinded with sand and so on) pass through this room, curved blades snap out from the seams, aiming for hamstrings (1d8 damage, immobilizing you on a 6+), and the eye laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs as the Gargoyle comes.
3. Gargoyle - Stairs
A statue of a bearded man dredged up from the depths, its cracks filled with gold. Its head ends above the lower jaw, a flat ruby shaped like <0> hovering where it would have been. 4 HD, 14 AC, takes only one damage from things not meant to break stones, slow, knocks you prone with a slap for +2 1d8 or stomps on the prone for +4 2d10.
The Gargoyle sees only through the ruby, which can be plucked from its head (worth 200gp - the gold in the statue is worth another 100). If Puyinthel dies, it shuts down (the intact Gargoyle, sold as an art piece, is worth 1000).
It sits on the floor like a reprimanded child, still except for the ruby spinning like a radar dish. Next to it, stairs lead up to room 6.
4. Serpent's Egg
This room has no doors in or out, only thin plaster walls. Behind them is an empty, dusty room, with a soft golden egg laid haphazardly on the floor.
If brought to the sea serpent in hex A2, it will do anything for you in return, even if it spells its own death. If heated in a forge, it will hatch into a newborn sea serpent.
5. Lockbox - Stairs
A heavy safe with jewelry (750 gp) stolen from Puyinthel's guests or manifested from nothing. It has no key - Puyinthel locks and unlocks it with his Crown when he needs to pay his Pursuers. As such, the keyhole has been filled with lead.
6. Window
The outer wall here is barred, instead of solid. Small and agile PCs could sidle in through it. On the inside, it is covered in a sheet of paper with the barest beginnings of some convoluted design painted in ink on its bottom-left corner.
7. The Error
Kept where Puyinthel can see it. A haunting spirit, something like a tree, something like a worm, colored perfectly flat grey like a missing texture. The Mystic has stuck it to the wall with nail after nail after nail. It bleeds a sheenless black.
He made a mistake, when he was younger and more foolish. He let it in. It has a parasite-Crown drawn from Puyinthel, under the inverse focus Loneliness. This Crown overrides Puyinthel's - it is immune to all of his effects, but he is not immune to its.
Anyone touching it disappears as long as they are doing so - and cannot see anyone else as long as they are under this effect.
The Error exists only to kill Puyinthel, but is also mindlessly, obviously hostile to all other humans. It has an effective 2 HD and 10 AC (and grinds for 1d8 damage at +2 to-hit with its radula), but as long as the Mystic lives it will return from death, crawling out of the earth miles away.
8. Collage
The inner wall of this room is covered in hanging paintings - amateurish portraits and landscapes and delirious abstracts, many half-finished. They are layered - take a canvas down and find another beneath it. Take it too and reveal another image, painted directly onto the wall.
9. Prisoner
This room has no doors in or out, only thick stone walls.
A room empty apart from painting supplies and a jug of water, home to the weaver Jarde. He has spent weeks here, Puyinthel coming daily to ask questions. How did you feel when you were born? Please, draw an image of yourself. What day do you think it is? What is your favorite color?
Jarde is unharmed. Not even shackled - where would he go, except down a 60 foot drop? When Puyinthel bores of his answers, he will be hurled from the Panopticon to break on the stones of the Graveyard (hex B1).
10. The Pupil
There is no path to the center of the eye. 3 doorways stare out in each direction, but there are no bridges. Jump.
When you do, you reach a massive domed room, dominated by a raised-relief map of the island. If you look closely, you can see tiny figures walk across it - and tiny figures standing in the Panopticon, looking closely at a raised-relief map of the island. The map updates automatically to show the nearest seven hexes.
If you have escaped Puyinthel's notice, he is here, absentmindedly painting a figure for the castaway Siwatu Amaechi.
Puyinthel has 10 HP, and is unarmored, though he carries a finely cane-sword (+1, 1d6, worth 350 gp) to protect himself from the Error. His Crown is a 10 meter (30 foot) radius marked out around him in staring holographic eyes. Within this radius he has complete control of reality. He could do whatever he wishes - his favorite options are
a) to annihilate you, layer by minuscule layer like an MRI scan, so every particle of you can be viewed and known.
b) to replace you, first disintegrating your brain and then constructing a new one with a set of forged experiences that make you fully loyal to Puyinthel.
On his turn, he can do either of these to one person inside his Crown. Neither provides a save.
For G L Å U G U S T 2 0 2 5 - prompt 3:1 "wizard tower dungeon (must have a gimmick) OR train dungeon (NOT too linear)"
No comments:
Post a Comment