C16. Under the Castle

What's in the room?
  • A wooden ladder clings to the west wall, held in place with iron brackets
  • The hall is made of mortared stone
  • It's stone lit and heated by four sputtering torches
  • Extending from the east end of the hall is a water-filled cistern
  • A small rowboat is tied off near the water's edge
What's happening in the room?
  • The rowboat can hold 4 people, and can be used to traverse the waters of the cistern
Monsters and NPC's
  • Guards do not patrol these areas
Nearby Locations

C17: Cold Storage

What's in the room?
  • Four bodies lay along the outer walls of the room, each wrapped in a sheet
  • Piled unceremoniously around the room are bits of broken furniture and dented cookware
What's happening in the room?
  • The bodies are the remains of four cultists (three humans and a halfling)
    • They were killed by the speaker's guards during the hostile takeover of the castle
    • The ground is too frozen to bury them, so they're being kept here in cold storage.
Monsters and NPC's
  • Guards do not patrol these areas
Nearby Locations
  • C16: Under the castle

C18: West Cistern

What's in the room?
  • Stone steps descend into the icy water that partially floods this twenty-foot-wide, arched tunnel, which continues eastward into darkness. The roof arches twelve feet above the water, which is eight feet deep. The rowboat tethered at the water's edge looks safe to use
What's happening in the room?
  • Any player that spends more than 1 round in the water must make a DC 13 Constitution Saving Throw or take 1 point of exhaustion
  • Any character who gives the frigid water more than a passing glance can see swollen, half-frozen bodies near the bottom
  • The bodies are weighed down by their chain shirts
    • There are six human corpses and six dwarf corpses
    • All remains of castle guards killed in the assault
  • 5-foot-wide, 8-foot-high passages are cut into the north and south wall 20 feet beyond the water's edge
  • Rowboat. This boat comes with two oars and can hold four medium creatures
  • Eastern Door. At the eastern end of the cistern is a 10-foot-square, 2-foot-thick, half-submerged slab of blue marble that blocks the passage to the Eastern Cistern
    • This slab is far enough away that characters won't see it with torches or Darkvision unless they are next to it
    • The lever that lowers and raises this gate is in area C22
    • The gate can also be opened with a knock spell or similar magic
Monsters and NPC's
  • Guards do not patrol these areas
Nearby Locations
  • C19: Storage
  • C20: Shrine to Levistus
  • C23: East Cistern

C19: Storage

What's in the room?
  • A harmless rat chews through the corner of a sack of grain lying on the floor. The room is otherwise empty.
What's happening in the room?
  • There are several bags of flour, grains and rice stored down here, nothing of real value
Monsters and NPC's
  • Guards do not patrol these areas
Nearby Locations
  • C18: West Cistern

C20: Shrine to Levistus

What's in the room?
  • Frost covers the floor of this dark, fifteen-foot-square room
  • To the left and right are narrow tunnels
  • Across from the entrance stands an eight-foot-tall pillar of ice with a horned, pale-skinned, humanoid figure trapped inside it
  • The pillar is wrapped in black chains, and the wall behind it is covered with brown fungus
What's happening in the room?
  • The figure in the pillar is a wooden mannequin painted and dressed to resemble the archdevil Levistus
    • The mannequin is encased in ice, which was chiseled into a pillar shape and wrapped in chains
    • Any character who succeeds on a DC 10 Intelligence (Religion) check can guess, correctly, that the cultists use this frozen, chain-wrapped effigy as an altar.
  • The ice is kept frozen at all times by the 10-foot-square patch of brown mold growing on the wall behind it
Monsters and NPC's
  • Brown mold feeds on warmth, drawing heat from anything around it. A patch of brown mold typically covers a 10-foot square, and the temperature within 30 feet of it is always frigid.
    • When a creature moves to within 5 feet of the mold for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it must make a DC 12 Constitution saving throw, taking 22 (4d10) cold damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
    • Brown mold is immune to fire, and any source of fire brought within 5 feet of a patch causes it to instantly expand outward in the direction of the fire, covering a 10-foot-square area (with the source of the fire at the center of that area). A patch of brown mold exposed to an effect that deals cold damage is instantly destroyed.
Nearby Locations
  • C21: Avarice's Quarters
  • C22: Iron Lever

C21: Avarice's Quarters

What's in the room?
  • An albino Tiefling sits at a small desk in the dark, writing in a book with white leather covers. Without taking her eyes off the page, she says to you, "Get out."
What's happening in the room?
  • Other furnishings in this former storeroom include a red rug, a narrow bed, and a freestanding mirror in a wooden frame, none of which are remarkable
Monsters and NPC's
  • Avarice is a member of the Arcane Brotherhood who is using the castles library to study up on the Lost City of Ythrin
Nearby Locations
  • C20: Shrine to Levistus

C22: Iron Lever

What's in the room?
  • This unlit room is empty except for an iron lever that protrudes from an iron plate embedded in the north wall
What's happening in the room?
  • This lever raises and lowers the blue marble slab that seals off area C23
Monsters and NPC's
  • Guards do not patrol these areas
Nearby Locations
  • C20: Shrine to Levistus

C23: East Cistern

What's in the room?
  • The dark cistern continues for another 40 feet beyond the blue marble slab
  • The water in this part of the cistern is thankfully free of half-frozen corpses
What's happening in the room?
  • A narrow tunnel carved into the north wall leads to area where the prisoners are being kept
Monsters and NPC's
  • Guards do not patrol these areas
Nearby Locations
  • C18: West Cistern
  • C24: Prisoners

C24: Prisoners

What's in the room?
  • A five-foot-wide, eight-foot-high tunnel leads to a dark, cold room that reeks of filth
What's happening in the room?
  • After the cultists took over the castle, they trapped most of the servants in this area
  • Five of the speaker's servants (unarmed human commoners) have been trapped here by the cult for the past two weeks
    • All of them are malnourished, since the cultists feed them only once every few days
Monsters and NPC's
  • Lanthis Alderdusk is Speaker Crannoc's 64-year-old assistant, notary, and scribe. He's feisty and spry for his age.
  • Albright Norbravsky is the effete, tall, skeletally thin, 55-year-old butler.
  • Mylbara Norbravsky is Albright's stout, 45-year-old wife and the speaker's Dwarvish translator.
  • Tam Sharif, a mute, 30-year-old petty thief wanted for a murder in Luskan, is the speaker's housemaid.
  • Dassir Ravescar is the speaker's shy, 25-year-old dog keeper
Nearby Locations
  • C23: East Cistern