Thursday, 28 February 2013

The First and Last Die

Chris pushed back the deadline for the stronghold contest so here's a last-minute entry.

The architect in the intro is the one I created for the example in the last post, and the theme ties in to the fractal gaming idea. The site is also a path between worlds so I'll add it to the list for the Ends. It doesn't need a map and is more or less system-neutral.

The First and Last Die

My memories began the day the adventurers first found me, the day I sensed that unearthly movement, as of great rocks crashing together. They knew of my ability, my work to date, and as they asked questions the knowledge flooded in. I draughted for them, oversaw the creation of the stronghold, and my past life grew. A pity they found out about the masterplan... Still. I took up with them for some time, triggering traps, searching out secret doors, building mausoleums. I studied the works of the ancient architects from within. Then the last adventurers died, a total party kill, and life began to grow faint. I'd lived through them, for their otherworldy needs. Compelled from beyond.

Time at last for my one great work.

The First and Last Die is entered by a sedimentary stone portal alive with creepers and moss. The inner wall is an igneous rock door, the motion stiff and grating with the crust of ages. In one pillar of the portal is a ledge, upon which lies a small basalt cube.

The cube is worn and each face is cut with inked pips, from one to six. If the door is closed the cube may be moved, but while it is off the ledge the door is locked. The cube warps the space around it and sparks fly as it rolls. When it settles, the door unlocks.

Beyond the door is a set of rooms, each 36' in diameter, corresponding to the pattern of pips currently face up on the cube, all linked with narrow passages. The floors, walls and ceilings are made of rock, etched and buffed, their former magics now only residual.

There are no whole items of furniture or fitting, but the floors are strewn and walls heaped with splinters of wood and bone, powdered glass and ground metal, around 2d6 x 100 lbs per layout. Materials of clear value are long gone, but there is a 1 in 6 chance that a given 100 lbs contains 1 lb of former magic items or other advanced technologies.

For each layout, there is a 1 in 36 chance (double 6 on 2d6) of 1d3 surviving interlopers of any species - bloody, bruised, with multiple broken bones, living in fear of the spinning earth, the dark and each other - and a 1 in 216 chance (triple 6 on 3d6) of a wholly new form of life, born in the dark from matter forming the dry primordial soup.

The cube can be carried inwards, but not outwards into the wider world: it stops as if striking a barrier. Generations of local people have made the trek to roll it and be rolled, and tales of horrific injury and disappearance owing to poor luck are still passed down.

If excavations are made into the rock beneath a layout, the five other layouts may be found, matching the orientations of the cube as it lies on the ledge. There is no clear seam in the bedrock. If the cube enters an excavation, the warping will grow as it nears the centre, as realities converge. At the very centre, the bearer will be somewho else.

It could be a very rewarding destination for a party of Hereticwerks' fine Dust Collectors.

As mentioned above, if you're running a campaign, it offers a way out of one world into another, maybe in the ouroboral or Conan le Barbare style. If you're a beginner using the core ruleset I posted a couple of weeks back, it could just be added to the master map.

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