Background
Over a century ago, the fortress of Wabarilnast-Dorar "Bastion of the Iron Mine" was founded by a group of dwarven settlers, sent in the traditional Northdwarf fashion, with 7 dwarves tasked to establish the settlement and await reinforcements upon success. The settlement was thriving, with the dwarves quickly getting a foothold in the area. They started some thriving farms, managed to find iron in only a couple sub levels, and were beginning to export weapons and goods to their parent civilization, "the Jewels of Triumph" Okkare Abakkon.
After about 5 years of prosperity, their first tragedy struck. A migrant caravan brought with them a secret Vampire, Wekkurr Arrigirekke, who fed on numerous dwarves before he was caught. The vampire was too strong to be killed, but was driven off gravely wounded by the fight, having lost a hand to a dwarven guard's axe. Unfortunately, in the process of fighting the beast, one of the original seven founding dwarves, Urist Arrigrekke, the leader of their militia, was infected. Though he initially asked for death, the remaining council of six found they couldn't do it and instead built a tomb of honour of a sort for the afflicted Axedwarf Captain. The plan was to keep the dwarf locked up, and in case of emergency, release him remotely to destroy any enemies as his vampiric powers greatly amplified his already substantial martial skill. Urist agreed, seeing it as a sort of penance for his failure to kill the vampire in the first place, and accepted his purgatorial imprisonment.
After several more years of relative peace after this, only having to fight off the odd goblin skirmish, the second tragedy occurred. A trader from one of the local human barbarian tribes brought with them a book. The trader had no idea what he had with him, being illiterate himself, but knew it had to be important as they had looted it from the top of a dark tower they had found. The book was added to their growing library, and when their chief scholar, Canelyra Wenimste began to transcribe the book she was cursed and changed into a lich-like Necromancer. Twisted by the book, she was driven to start abducting fellow dwarves, mostly apprentices, and spread her undeath. Her aura of undeath began reanimating bits of fallen enemies slowly around her library, which is what finally drew attention to her. The remaining dwarves mounted an attack on her, but as they noticed any body parts which were cut off of them rose back up to attack, they realized that they were outmatched and fell back to the main fortress, sealing off the library from the outside. They then set to work tunneling underneath the library from the lava forges, planning to drop the whole room down into a pool of lava to destroy them.
This was going as well as could be expected when a band of goblins attacked the fortress. Usually this would be no problem for the dwarven defenders, but the goblins ran into a patch of old saw blade traps, and the attack devolved into an overwhelming wave of goblin zombies and body parts. One of these body parts, a severed arm, made it's way to the lever which released their last line of defense, Urist Arrigrekke, who, weakened by extended blood thirst, lost the fight against Canelyra's undead control. The Necromancer incited Urist to slay all of the fortress's defenders, which he did until he finally fed on the last remaining council member and regained his senses. Seeing what he had done Urist snapped and ran back to his tomb where he locked himself away before he could be compelled by Canelyra to release her. Over the years several goblins and barbarians have stumbled upon the lair, and only served to add to the growing ranks of the undead within, animated by the growing latent aura of undeath that surrounded it.
Now, the airship crashed nearby and when it's scouting parties were sent out they were waylaid by surprise undead creatures who dragged them back to the lair, alive. Canelyra can't get out of her library prison without a key to open the massive iron doors and adamantine chains holding her in place. Unfortunately for her, she has no idea where the key is located, seeing as how the demolition charge workshop was built after her entombment, and she can't have mindless undead search for it, so she needed live subjects to turn into obedient sentient undead. She has been slowly creating more robust undead creatures, capable of following and executing more complex commands, until now. She captured four members of the scouting party, and using her undead servants to perform the ritual within her eyesight she managed to turn two of them into Black Skeletons. One of the members is still alive, and the other was lost in the process when the ghost of Pikchuck Gorviel interrupted the ritual. Canelyra is attempting the conversion of the third survivor when the party arrives, surprising her. If they don't immediately kill the Skeletons, they break contact with them, lock the party behind the main hallway doors and proceed to go find the key as soon as they can.
Unfortunately, in order to drop the library into the pit, they need to set the last charge on the far side of the room, risking falling in lava or being attacked by ghosts the whole way. The lava is the only way to destroy the book which acts as her phylactery however, so the library must be dropped in, and the book must be destroyed, otherwise she will regenerate in a few days within the fortress, free of restraints and ready to murder.
"Derrebarbirrul" - The Suicide Furnace, the command lever for releasing the lava is labelled as Nabalbrokkarekke "Evil Incinerator"
The Layout
Outside
A dilapidated cobblestone road, wide enough to easily fit two wagons abreast, leads up to the massive stone front doors of this stronghold.
A warning below the stronghold name is on the door, it reads "Orist Narakkir-Nubikke" which is "Tomb of Immortal Terror" in Northdwarf. A linguistics check DC15 will reveal it has similarities to dwarven, which will return the phrase "Grave of Long Scares".
The doors have been pried open wide, scattered broken tools out front indicating it was broken into from outside. A well worn path through old dirt indicates a lot of recent passage back and forth.
Room 1 Entrance
A well built square room greets you at the bottom of the stairs, carved out of solid rock and hewn to near perfect right angles at every corner. It's impressive just in its sheer exacting measurements. Two life size statues of dwarven workers flank the stair well, looking inward with grim expressions. One is armed with a pick, the other a hammer and tongs. Carvings in the wall surround the room, and upon closer inspection they appear to be a historical account of the settlement of the stronghold. The histories wrap around the room to a pair of heavy stone doors, emblazoned with the carved name "Wabarilnast-Dorar". The doors are propped ajar however, by what appears to be a corpse's lower arm, and upon the party taking notice of it the arm flips up, and runs towards the nearest person like an enlarged giant spider.
A Decipher Script DC 15 will reveal a brief summary of the fortress history, namely the vampire incursion, goblin waves, and the book finding it's way to Canelyra. The hand is left over from one of the barbarians who raided this place early on, and bears no secret markings or jewelry.
Crawling Hand
Main Hallway
This long hallway branches out into several different rooms and corridors at right angles to each other. The first 15 feet is littered with sprung saw blade traps and half-activated pressure plates. They appear to automatically reset normally, but their mechanisms have been jammed up by the sheer amount of pulped bodies within. It will take a rogue a few minutes with a Disable Device DC 15 to disable all the traps at this end of the corridor, or a DC22 to reset them for future use. 20 feet up from the doors a human skeleton lays crushed beneath a huge square of stone that has dropped out of an overhead trap. It twitches and dances below the stone as it attempts to spring free and attack passerbys. The skeleton can be put to rest with a light application of positive energy.
Room 2 - Mushroom Farm
Opening up from the main hallway through a wooden door, this appears to have been some kind of cultivated mushroom farm before, with tilled dirt composing the whole of the floor's surface, but any sense of order is long gone and mushrooms and other fungi grow all over the chamber, giving the room the look of a decomposing corpse left in a bed of moss in the forest. In the far southwestern corner of the room is a stack of broken crates and torn apart burlap sacks stuffed with unknowable rotten foodstuffs. The dirt rumbles underfoot and a fungally infested skeleton bursts up from the dirt to attack anyone who enters.
The skeleton is a simple medium human skeleton, but if hit by bludgeoning weapons, or upon it's destruction, it emits a 5ft cloud of spores that can infect anyone who breathes them in. If a creature is infected, treat it as if they are afflicted with filth fever.
A knowledge nature, Survival, or Profession Farmer DC 15, will find some useful seed spawns in a bag in the corner which could be cultivated into a future mushroom farm; among the seeds are those for mundane edible Violet Webcaps, edible White Cave Helmets, and luminous Purple Russolas.
Freshwater Pearl (8 gp)
Hematite (9 gp)
Hematite (12 gp)
Moonstone (60 gp)
Obsidian (13 gp)
Rock Quartz (9 gp)
Rose Quartz (60 gp)
Smoky Quartz (50 gp)
Tigereye (10 gp)
Potion of Resistance
Masterwork Heavy Wooden Shield (170 gp)
Bag of Dried Mushrooms (1 gp, 1 lb)
Room 3 - Stables
This room mirrors the one to the left, with a large wooden door opening into a dirt floor. Pecking in the dirt to the south are 3 skeletal chickens, and tied up next to them is a large skeletal bovine, slowly shifting aimlessly on it's tether. 3 skeletal dogs are tied up on the north west corner. Building supplies are stacked against the southern wall in heaps.
When the door opens the undead chickens ineffectually attack, and are dispatched with the easiest of backhands, exploding into frail bone chips and dust.
Bag of Iron Nails (5 sp, 1 lb)
13 x Bottle of Common Wine (1 sp, 4 lb)
2 x Bottle of Good Wine (1 gp, 4 lb)
Bottle of Honey (4 sp, 4 lb)
Bottle of Spiced Wine (2 gp, 4 lb)
13 x Box of 20 Candles (2 sp, 1 lb)
11 x Iron Bar (1 sp, 5 lb)
12 x Ladder (10') (2 sp, 20 lb)
Pitchfork (2 gp, 5 lb)
2 x Pole (10') (5 cp, 8 lb)
Rake (2 gp, 10 lb)
Rope Net (10' x 10') (4 gp, 40 lb)
Sedan Chair (100 gp, 60 lb)
Wooden Holy Symbol (1 gp)
Room 4 - The Butcher's Shop
Room 5 - The Lavatory
Room 6 - The Dormitory
4 zombie children
11 x Bedroll (1 sp, 5 lb), Bucket (5 sp, 2 lb), Desk (30 gp), 7x Game Board, Large Carpet (50 gp), 8x Set of Dice, 1x Signet Ring (Northdwarf Civ), 16x Small Cask of Sausages (1 gp, 5 lb), Oil of Arcane Mark (cr, 25 gp), 14 uses of pipe tobacco, Scroll of See Invisibility (cr, 150 gp), Wand of Daze (cr, 375 gp)
Bag of Chalk (1 sp, 1/2 lb), Lamp with Oil for 4 hrs, Small Hunting Trap (4 gp, 5 lb), Masterwork Chainmail (300 gp)
60pp, 48gp, 21sp, 12cp
Room 7 - The Kitchen
Box of mwk silverware, , 12 x Clay Tankard (2 cp, 2 lb), Amphora of Common Wine, 11x Bag of Chestnuts (1 gp, 1 lb), 10lb Bag of Salt (2 sp, 10 lb), Bag of Wheat (1 cp, 1 lb), 9 x Bottle of Honey (4 sp, 4 lb), Bottle of Olive Oil (3 gp, 4 lb), Small Cask of Common Spice (5 gp, 5 lb), Small Cask of Dried Figs (3 gp, 8 lb), 16 x Small Cask of Molasses (4 gp, 8 lb), Snowshoes (8 gp, 8 lb), Wood Axe (5 gp, 8 lb), 3x Oil of Gentle Repose, Wand of Dancing Lights (Mechanical Device), Ivory Figurine of Dwarf Wizard (400 gp)
Oven has a Zombie Head inside it, when killed it has a black onyx below it's tongue.
Room 8 - The Dining Room
Room 9 - The Cemetary
Room 10 - The Vampire's Tomb
Room 11 - The Stairway Down
Room 12 - The Ritual Room
581 pp, 63 gp, 15 sp, 13 cp
10x large black Onyx
+1 Morning Star
2 x Masterwork Breastplate (350 gp)
Masterwork Club (300 gp)
Masterwork Longsword (315 gp)
Masterwork Nunchaku (302 gp)
Oil of Flame Arrow (cr, 750 gp)
Oil of Mage Armor (cr, 50 gp)
Potion of Cure Light Wounds (cr, 50 gp)
Potion of Guidance (cr, 25 gp)
Potion of Invigorate (apg, 50 gp)
Potion of Magic Fang (cr, 50 gp)
Potion of Remove Sickness (um, 50 gp)
Potion of Resistance (cr, 25 gp)
Scroll of Dispel Magic (cr, 375 gp)
Scroll of Shadow Anchor (arg, 150 gp)
Wand of Bless (cr, 750 gp)
Wand of Hold Portal (cr, 750 gp)
Wand of Magic Aura (cr, 750 gp)
Wand of Message (cr, 375 gp)
Room 13 - The Library
Room 14 - The Forge
30 Goods worth of Capital (Nails and Wood)
25 Iron Ingots, 10 Steel Ingots, 4 Silver Ingots, 2 Gold Ingots, 1 Adamantine Ingot
Half-plate (+1 armor) (1750 gp)
Light Crossbow (+1 weapon) (sheds light) (2335 gp)
Ring of Protection +1 (2000 gp)
Ring of Spell Knowledge I (1500 gp)
2d4 × 100 gp, two grade 4 gemstones (Table 7–50, page 388), grade 5 gemstone (Table 7–50, page 388)
Mwk Bastard Sword
MORLOCK HIDE PRICE, 8,910 GP
AURA moderate illusion and transmutation CL 10th WEIGHT 15 lbs.
This +1 shadow leather armor causes the wearer’s skin to warp and distort into a welter of horrid scarification. The armor itself disappears from view under this coat of scars and the wearer’s face appears as a loathsome, eyeless veil of flesh. This change is illusory, similar to glamered armor; however, morlock hide does cause the wearer’s arms and legs to extend and her posture to become hunched. She gains a +2 circumstance bonus on Acrobatics, Climb, and Escape Artist checks, and she can move through narrow spaces while squeezing at normal speed and with no penalty to AC or on attack rolls.
Room 15 - Craftdwarf's Room
Box of gemstones; Smoky Quartzx50 (25 each) , Diamondsx6 (500gp each)
Elven Holy Text of Edhrodriel, written by one of the first saints, Elror.
Unicorn horn with Mithral Inlay
Special: Until the dungeon has been cleared, anything that dies within 1km of it's entrance has a 25% chance of coming back to life within 1d6 rounds; this includes body parts that are cut off, which manifest as either
a Crawling Hand (If a hand or foot), Zombie Head if a head, or a swarm of parts (Use a Rat Swarm as a template) for an indeterminate mass of gross parts.
Monsters in the Tomb
Crawling Hand
Zombie Head
Crawling Body Part Swarm
Zombie Template
Vampire Spawn
Vampire Template - Make the big bad guy soon
Additional Info
Wekkurr Herrikken - One of the original dwarven Master Vampires in Uppholm, was cursed with vampirism after he defiled a temple to Wanane, the Elven Spirit of trees in retaliation for an elven raid that killed his clan.
Council of Seven
Urist Arrigrekke (Leader, Militia Captain) - The turned Vampire, leader of the expedition and head of the militia.
Canelyra Wenimste (Head Scholar, Surgeon) - The necromancer dwelling within the suspended library.
Morlyn (Farmer and Carpenter) - A fungal spores infested Zombie
Burdock "Burntchin" Gorthdize (Head Smith) - Ran the forges, currently exists as a burning skeleton with 5 levels of fighter.
Pikchuck Gorviel (Head Miner) - Body lost below in a rock collapse when the lava inflow charge was blown. Exists as a ghost that haunts Canylera, attempting to keep her from completing any rituals.
Gus Gwonild (Cook/Butcher) - Body is in the dining room, having been stabbed hundreds of times by forks, surrounded by swarms of children's limbs. He has a set of Adamantine cooking utensils on him, including 2 meat cleavers that would be treated like an adamantine hand axe.
Buckra Girunze (Craftsman/Trapsmith) - Made all the traps in the settlement, set the demo charges to blast the library into the lava, was also the last to see the key before he was killed in the Vampiric Rampage, which is down in his workshop.
Hand of Wekkurr - The troublemaking hand of the Master Vampire. Is meant to be worn as a necklace, attached to a silver weighted chain. When used as a focus, increases the save DC of Necromantic spells, or any spell effect dealing negative energy damage, by +2. Holds a number of charges which can be expended similar to a staff until they run out. Charges are not renewed until the Hand has been fed with the blood of a sentient creature, and can not be renewed more than 1/week. Feeding the hand deals 4d6 negative energy damage to an eligible creature, twice that if it's of an elven race/subrace. Feeding the hand is a decisively evil action if the creature has been imprisoned or coerced against it's will.
The hand exudes a strong necromantic aura, as well as an aura of overwhelming evil. The hand holds 10 charges and abilities are as follows:
At Will (Cost no Charges) - Touch of Fatigue (Fort Save DC 18 Negates); Command Word "Gezear" (Tire)
1 Charge - Chill Touch (1d6 Negative Energy, 1 pt Strength damage unless save with Fort DC 19; Is channeled through the users melee attacks, including weapons, and lasts for 5 attacks with each charge expended); Command word "Geazad" (Freeze)
2 Charges - Command Undead (Range 65 ft, Will Save DC 20 Negates; 1 Undead creature obeys commands for up to 8 days); Command Word "Gizath" (Voice)
3 Charges - Vampiric Touch (Deals 4d6 points of damage on a melee touch attack, wielder gaining temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt, if damage kills target, gain fast healing 5 for a number of rounds equal to the Hit Dice of the Target) ; Command Word "Stonid" (Drink)
The hand is psychically tied to the Vampire who lost it, and upon using it he is alerted to it's presence, making the users targets for it's wrath. As the party gains strength the artifact does as well, as the Master Vampire slowly gets closer to their location, as such the current artifact is based on an 8th level wizard, and each level the DCs and damages will increase accordingly.
Points of Interest
Crafting Stations
Lavatory
Barracks
Dormitory
Dining Room
Noble Bedrooms
Library
Trap Room/Demolition Charge Storage
