The Sky-Blind Spire

Introduction

Tintardinal’s spire was to be his greatest work: A stone tower crafted as a giant arcanum, granting a great reward to those who unlock its secrets. Nobody knows the secrets, though, because Tintardinal fell to his death before he could use it.

The spire stands five stories tall, the only structure on a small island in a large lake. Now that you’ve had a chance to tether your rowboat and get a close up look, you can see a great door ahead at the end of the path leading from the dock, and windows up the sides of the tower, pointing in each of the directions of the compass. The upper floor windows each seem to have a chain bolted to their sills, dangling down to the window down below (but nothing dangling from the second floor all the way to the ground). The lake is all around you, and beyond that, the scrublands you crossed to get here, mountains in the distance, and the sun just rising over the horizon to the east. The weather’s clear – it’ll be a sunny day with a clear, blue sky.

Close inspection of the shore surrounding the tower reveals small barefoot tracks in the mud going in and out, possibly from many weeks. Even closer inspection may reveal holes dug and refilled around the perimeter, with a tool buried in each.

1. Unwelcoming Hall

The room is filled with iron gibbets hanging on chains from a high ceiling, each with a body inside, long-decayed. Tintardinal likely put them here to frighten off visitors.

As you walk through the room, you see a tile on the floor ahead of you begin to glow. It’s slightly depressed, like a shallow bowl, with a bit of water in it and a large number “one” etched into the bottom. A moment later, a spark of light emerges from the glowing tile, and floats over to you, slowly orbiting your head – one for each of you in the room.

  • Relic or Spellbook on one body.
  • A door off its hinges leads into a hallway, straight ahead.
  • Another arched doorway leads to a hallway to the left.
  • Examination of the ceiling reveals it is higher than it should be, with a hole in the center, like the bottom of a refuse chute.
  • From here on out, narrate the bit about the spark if they go into the correct room.
  • If they go into the wrong room, note that the spark is abruptly snuffed out.
  • At the one hour mark, they are no longer able to see anything blue. That means the sky too.
  • Whenever they change rooms, waste time, or backtrack to regain a spark, roll a d6. On a 1, roll on the random encounter table.

2. Antechamber, then hallway

Through the door is an antechamber before another hall ahead. This one has a similar bowl-like tile in the middle, this time with a number “two” etched into it. It pulses with a soft glow when you enter, and another spark emerges, merging with the one above you into a slightly larger spark.

Outside the antechamber, you find yourself in a hall stretching to the left and right. Rooms line each side of the hallway, 3 on each side, and off to the right, the hallway continues into some larger room. Even from here, you can see more numbers on the floors of the smaller rooms, but it’s unclear what’s in the larger room down the hall. You can see daylight streaming in from there, and it looks like something might be moving. You hear echoes of birdlike squawking coming from that direction.

3. Chamber

A window on the left looks out from high above the ground. A chain bolted into the sill leads down along the outside of the spire. (4W)

4. Chamber

A window on the left looks out from high above the ground. A chain bolted into the sill leads down along the outside of the spire. (3W)

5. Chamber

There’s nothing in here but the number “five” on the floor.

6. Antechamber

In addition to the number “six” on the floor, there’s a staircase leading up, bending to the right.

7. The Fountain Room

  • A large fountain with a statue stands at the center of this room.
  • If they have any sparks, d6 Undines appear and attempt to reclaim them.
  • If they do not have sparks, the Undines may ask them to destroy the altar.
  • A Spellbook or Relic is found in the fountain, along with Plate Armor. Undines will protect them unless the group agrees to destroy the altar.
  • Blue tapestry on left covers a doorway, the hallway behind it receding into darkness,
  • Door on right leads to what seems like another room.
  • Window on far side of the fountain has a chain.

Undines

13hp 13 STR, 18 DEX, 15 WIL, pressure jet (d8)

  • Critical damage: overwhelmed by the wave and pushed far away.
  • Impair any damage against them unless it would freeze/boil water.

8. Room

  • Doorway leads straight out into room with staircase.
  • Doorway leads right down stairway, into room with daylight and sounds of bird squawking.
  • Hallway leads left, ending in a closed door.

9. Dire Pelicans’ Roost

This room stinks like a wharf and the floor is covered in mud, sticks, and bird shit. Giant dire pelicans fly in and out through the four windows lining the wall. The lighting through the windows seems odd.

  • The number in the floor (9) is hidden beneath refuse.
  • The windows are all on the 2nd floor, facing different directions.
  • Exits lead to the hallway of small chambers, up a flight of stairs to Room 8, and out to another room with a door visible.

Dire Pelican

15 HP, 1 Armor, 15 STR, 15 DEX, 3 WIL, beak (d10)

  • Swallow Whole on critical damage to be kept alive in stomach for later feeding to young.
  • Stomach has d4-1 live people inside already.

10. Room

  • Door in doorway leads back to (8).
  • Doorway leads down a long hall.
  • Pit trap in the hall will be obvious unless they’ve been in here for at least an hour, in which case it will be invisible due to blue rug, dropping down through the chute in the ceiling of (1).

11. Room

  • Short hallway leads to (12)

12. Room

  • Window with chain in sill looks down from high (4S)

13. Bleak Hall

This hall has two stairways with a landing in between. Four large statues are arrayed at the corners of the staircase, with offerings at their feet, as if used as idols for prayer. And a person in rusty armor appears to be standing at the top of the staircase, staring blankly off away from you, swaying uneasily.

  • Dead bodies reanimate here. Save STR vs. possession if sleeping here or suffering critical damage.
  • Tintardinal’s spectral mentor will come if they pray. He will urge them to complete Tintardinal’s work, to complete the path in order and leave the altar intact.
  • Exits in all directions.

Skeleton

6 HP, 2 Armor, 10 STR, 13 DEX, 12 WIL, sword (d6).

  • Shatters at 0 STR, but reforms next turn unless pieces are kept apart.
  • Falls into a pile of bones if idols are destroyed, but this will summon an angry spectral mentor.

Hungry Spirits (room 13)

6 HP, 5 STR, 12 DEX, 15 WIL

  • Invisible. Save WIL vs. possession when asleep here or suffer critical damage.

Mentor

15 HP, 18 WIL, Lightning blast (d6, ignores armor)

  • Immune to physical attacks.

14. Room

  • Stairs leading down to a place with a bad smell wafting up.
  • Stairs leading up to a room with daylight.

15. Garbage Heap

  • A heap of garbage swarming with muck flies lies at the bottom of a high wall.
  • It looks like the wall leads up a conical shaft, smaller at the top. There are handholds on the wall.
  • There may be giant muck flies here.
  • Climbing up will shrink you. Going down will make you grow.
  • Exit back up the stairs to (14).

Muck Flies

6 HP, 6 STR, 12 DEX, 3 WIL, bite (d6), groups of d6 (detachment)

  • Enzymes do d6 DEX damage when pinned until STR save.

16-17. Hall of the Giants

A messy hall with bones littered about, a large cooking pot over a fire pit in the floor, rough sleeping mats made from hay, and also multiple giants.

  • Exits leading to (20), hallway to (18), window high above ground (5W),blue tapestry covering doorway
  • Giants are hungry and desperate, unable to leave the tower and distressed that their silver horde has shrunk. Still, they may be calmed with a WIL save by the group.
  • 6 sacks of silver treasure, including a Circlet of True-seeing (allows the wearer to see through the sky-blindness and spot invisible hungry spirits).

Giants

10 HP, 1 Armor, 17 STR, 6 DEX, 12 WIL

  • Faroch is the armored leader. 2 Armor, club (d10).
  • Sossa drinks molten lead. Molten lead spit (d10, ignores armor)
  • Affa & Isso feud with each other. Club (d10).

18. Room

  • Exits on either side to (17) and hallway above (13)
  • Blue tapestry covering way back to (1)

19. Windowed Chamber

  • Windows (3S)
  • Exit back to hallway

20. Windowed Chamber

  • Windows (4N) with chains bolted to sills
  • Exits to (16) and (18)

21. Windowed Chamber

  • Window with a chain bolted to the sill (5E)
  • Must climb out window and down to 4E to proceed to (22)

22. Study

A table covered in scrolls and blueprints, and bookshelves with dozens of tomes in weird languages, notes scribbled in the same handwriting over everything.

  • Window with chain in sill (4E).
  • Stairs back down to (14).
  • Studying papers reveals many different layouts for a complicated tower design. Notes indicate there is a 24th “altar room” somewhere. It’s not clear how the rooms should be numbered, but you notice at at least one layout seems more consistently repeated across multiple maps, even circled a couple times in places. You could probably take a page with this layout and label it as you go, if you wanted.

23. Two-window Chamber

This chamber has two windows in the walls, each with a chain bolted onto its sill. Through the window straight ahead, you can see your rowboat tethered a few floors below. Through the one on the left, you see the lake a good five floors below, and something seems weird about the shadows on the ground compared to the other window.

24. Rooftop Altar

Bearing a full-sized spark to the altar completes Tintardinal’s master spell. Lightning arcs from the lake and strikes the spark-bearer for d10 damage, ignoring armor. If they survive, they are granted a wish. After d3 wishes, the lake spirit and the Undines die, and the lake becomes gray and barren.

Random Encounters

Giant

10 HP, 1 Armor, 17 STR, 6 DEX, 12 WIL, Club (d10)

Skeletal Dire Pelican (possessed)

15 HP, 2 Armor, 15 STR, 15 DEX, 3 WIL, Beak (d10)

  • Swallow Whole on critical damage to end up in rotting entrails barely held in by ribs.
  • Stomach has d4-1 more skeletons inside already. Reforms if bones are not separated.

Ricalu Thieves

12 HP, 8 STR, 12 DEX, 8 WIL, knife or sling (d6)

  • Blue cloaks (1 on thief, 2 at camp) mundane, but invisible.
  • Shaman at camp can also force group to save DEX vs. annoyance or impairment (bug swarm, dust gust, flash-boom).