The Whispering Cairn : Part 1 of the Age of Worms

See the Age of Worms Adventure Path Overview of all 12 Modules

Since the beginning of history, humanity has measured time in Ages. Ages of Glory, of Dreams, and even of Great Sorrows mark the human tally of years, giving a sense of order to the events of past centuries. But one age has yet to occur—an age of darkness, of decay, and of writhing doom. Witty bards and wrathful preachers know it as the Age of Worms, weaving it into the peripheries of their passion plays as a mythic era of destruction that could begin at any time. Astrologers, diviners, and the servants of Fate know more. The canniest among them fear that the Age of Worms has already begun.

“The Whispering Cairn” is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure designed for four 1st-level characters. Characters will advance to 3rd level by the end of the adventure. This is the first installment in the Age of Worms Adventure Path, a complete campaign consisting of 12 adventures, several “Backdrop” articles to help Dungeon Masters run the series, and a handful of poster maps of key locations, all published over the course of the next year in Dungeon magazine.

The campaign will take characters from the humble beginnings of 1st level to the mighty responsibilities of 20th. The format of the campaign is episodic, with individual chapters able to stand alone despite a “plot” that runs through the entire series. The full scope of this plot will become clear as each installment appears, but we’ll periodically provide updates and sneak previews of upcoming installments to help you plan ahead and get the creative ball rolling. The first such update, “The Road Ahead,” appears in Dungeon #125.

By Erik Mona
By Joachim Barrum, Steve Prescott, and Eva Widermann
By Robert Lazzaretti
Age of Worms Calligraphy by Darlene
Adventure Path, Low-Level (1st–5th), Dungeon Crawl

July 2005 Dungeon

Campaign Setting

The Age of Worms Adventure Path has been designed with maximum flexibility in mind. The “world” behind the adventures is consistent with that implied by the core rules of Dungeons & Dragons. The towns and cities of the Adventure Path host churches to St. Cuthbert and Heironeous, but these and other faiths important to the series can be easily substituted with religions from Eberron or the Forgotten Realms, as well as with deities of the DM’s own design. The “setting” of the Adventure Path is designed as a framework, not as a muzzle on the DM’s creativity. The series will remain tightly focused on the “milestone” locations necessary to run the ongoing campaign. If you want to run the campaign in Eberron or the Forgotten Realms, there’s nothing stopping you. In fact, we’ll even help out with substantial adaptation appendices for each adventure by Keith Baker (Eberron‘s creator) and Eric L. Boyd (Faiths & Pantheons, Serpent Kingdoms, City of Splendors: Waterdeep). Greyhawk fans will find much to like in the Adventure Path’s use of the core D&D setting. You can find these appendices in the Dungeon #124 Online Supplement, currently available at paizo.com/dungeon.

Preparation

To play the Age of Worms Adventure Path, you will need a copy of the Dungeons & Dragons core rulebooks (the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual). Most of the monsters encountered in this and the adventures to come will be drawn from the Monster Manual, but we’ll occasionally use creatures from other sources. When we do, we’ll be sure to include all of the important information here in the magazine, but you’ll probably find it helpful to have copies of the Monster Manual 2, Monster Manual 3, and Fiend Folio to fill in the details and to populate “off map” areas.

The action in the first few adventures takes place near the town of Diamond Lake, a corrupt mining community three days’ ride from the fabulous Free City, metropolis of wizards and thieves. Before you begin this adventure, take a moment to unfold the map we’ve provided in this issue and take in the major set piece for the first arc of the campaign. Think about how to make the town of Diamond Lake your own. What creatures dwell in the hills surrounding Diamond Lake? What treasures lie at the bottom of the lake itself?

Then turn to the “Backdrop: Diamond Lake” article on page 48 and discover Diamond Lake’s history and dangers. Pay particular attention to the Adventure Hooks section, which offers tips on how to get each player character involved in the story. The Backdrop article helps with the most important elements you’ll need to make Diamond Lake come alive, but filling in the blanks yourself is the real fun of D&D.

Throughout the campaign, Campaign Seed sidebars will preview future Age of Worms installments. These sidebars offer glimpses into the future, and keep you updated on the most important NPCs and events of the campaign as they are introduced. During the course of the campaign, you’ll need to keep plenty of secrets from your players, but we don’t intend to keep any secrets from you.

ACT ONE: THE WHISPERING CAIRN

This adventure assumes that the PCs begin their adventuring careers in the lively mining town of Diamond Lake, a muddy smudge on the map of the hills east of the fabulous Free City. Diamond Lake’s inhabitants are predominantly miners and laborers, serious folk who spend most of their lives toiling below ground. When not working, the miners celebrate along the Vein, a seedy road lined with alehouses and brothels. Overall, the village is a sooty, sullen place prone to unpleasant bursts of violence and passion. But Diamond Lake holds plenty of opportunities for adventure, for the uplands surrounding the town are rife with ancient tombs and burial cairns of long-dead cultures.

Idle chatter around the village speaks of a trio of richly dressed adventurers who frequent the taproom of the Feral Dog, Diamond Lake’s most notorious tavern. The confident heroes of the Free City spoke of hard-won battles on their journey to Diamond Lake, and of their intention to explore the long-abandoned Stirgenest Cairn on the lake’s distant southeastern shore. The PCs, being natives of Diamond Lake, know that cairn is oft explored by the community’s youth, who always find it completely empty of marvels and perfectly harmless.

Not so another cairn within a day’s ride of the village. This cairn lies near an iron mine that went dry about 50 years ago. The mine’s charter lapsed when its manager died a few years later. Situated in a sort of no-man’s land, the cairn was all but forgotten, its yawning entrance overgrown with weeds and choked with debris. Rediscovered by a curious teenager a decade ago, the cairn has since been a sort of community secret held by Diamond Lake’s youth who dare each other to disappear into its cyclopean entrance to prove their bravery. Occasionally, when the wind is just right, haunting, almost magical tones emerge from the depths of the forlorn tomb. Those who know of its location call it the Whispering Cairn.

If adventurers from the Free City expect to discover hidden passages and riches within the Stirgenest Cairn, it stands to reason that the Whispering Cairn might also hold a genuine opportunity for profit. In the rough-and-tumble mining village of Diamond Lake, where desperate folk slave in dank tunnels to profit wealthy masters, an opportunity for profit is an opportunity to escape.

History of the Whispering Cairn

Many thousands of years ago, long before the rise of human civilization, the ancient powers struggled to determine the fate of the still-forming multiverse. On one side was a primbal being called the Queen of Chaos, a tentacled horror from an age before ages. Against her stood the rigid legions of the Wind Dukes of

Aaqa, the most cultured of the elemental lords who ruled before the birth of the living races, and who yet controlled an empire that spanned worlds. Centuries of stalemate collapsed when the Queen of Chaos recruited her most potent ally, a ruthless Prince of Demons named Miska the Wolf-Spider.

Miska and his demonic legions laid siege to the Wind Dukes’ territory, routing the elemental armies and snuffing out the culture of Aaqa one world at a time. When all seemed lost, a consortium of seven great Wind Duke warriors withdrew from the conflict and developed a plan to destroy Miska the Wolf-Spider and break the back of the Chaos army. An epic quest ensued, in which these “Wandering Dukes” scoured the Great Wheel for a weapon or secret that would undo their hated foe. Drawing upon the lore of a hundred cultures, they constructed one of the most potent artifacts in history—the fabled Rod of Law.

They returned to the war at a pivotal battle on the volcanic fields of Pesh. There, the greatest of the Wandering Dukes plunged the Rod into Miska the Wolf-Spider. When the absolute law of the Rod mixed with the chaos of Miska’s blood, a great planar rift erupted, shattering the Rod into seven pieces. The Prince of Demons and the Wandering Duke vanished into that rift, while the seven parts of the Rod were scattered across the land.

Hundreds of Wind Dukes remained at Pesh, many dead or dying from wounds sustained in the tumultuous final battle. By ancient tradition, these soldiers would be buried on the world where they died, their elaborate tombs forever recalling the brave sacrifice of the heroes of Aaqa and serving as testament to the reach of their moribund empire. The Wind Dukes ranged south from Pesh, across an immense lake to a craggy region perfect for the task. Thus were the first tombs built in the hills surrounding Diamond Lake.

The greatest of these tombs honored Icosiol, a Wandering Duke slain by Miska the Wolf-Spider in the climactic cosmological conflict between Law and Chaos. Others contained Icosiol’s fallen servants and sub-chiefs, each with its own treasures and stories to tell. One of these smaller tombs held the corpse of Zosiel, a warrior prince who fell to a demon’s blow shortly before the Wandering Dukes employed the Rod of Law to banish Miska from the world. This is the Whispering Cairn.

In the millennia since its construction, the Whispering Cairn hosted countless visitors. They first made off with the most attainable of the tomb’s treasures, statuettes of peerless sculpt, platinum canisters of priceless incense, and a hundred harder to describe baubles of unquestionable value. No few explorers fell victim to the ingenious traps of the tomb’s chief architect, a noble Wind Duke named Nadroc. Only a few explorers discovered that most of the cairn was but a ruse meant to distract from a still greater tomb filled with even deadlier menaces. Even thousands of years after its construction, the Whispering Cairn yet holds unplundered mysteries from the days of its creation.

The last notable expedition to the Whispering Cairn occurred nearly 60 years ago, led by an unscrupulous archeologist called Ulavant. The reprobate scholar had the backing of the Seekers, an order of like-minded academics and adventurers. The affair ended in tragedy, with all hands lost to Nadroc’s insidious traps. These days, only footnotes in musty tomes in the Seeker Lodge of the Free City record the fate of Ulavant’s band.

About 30 years ago, a young runaway named Alastor Land came to the Whispering Cairn, desperate to escape his uncaring family. Light enough to crane over pressure plates and lucky enough to avoid the tomb’s sentient guardians, Alastor penetrated farther into the cairn than most skilled explorers. But even the luck of youth was no match for Nadroc’s keen intellect and cunning protections. Consumed by hate at the time of his death, Alastor lives on as a ghost, and still haunts the most secret chambers of the Whispering Cairn.

These days, the youth of Diamond Lake hold the location of the Whispering Cairn like a shibboleth. They dare each other to spend a night within its depths, using the place as a test of mettle. These visits tapered off about six years ago, when a local girl vanished while sleeping in the cairn, devoured by a snake that has since left for more fertile hunting grounds. But still the children come, to marvel at the tomb’s uncanny sounds and to carve their names upon the entry walls, their shaking hands etching proof of their courage upon the ancient stone.

Now others come to the Whispering Cairn for reasons of their own, brave strangers who will risk death in search of ancient wealth. But the greatest treasure they will take from this place is each other.

Adventure Synopsis

The bulk of the adventure involves the exploration of the Whispering Cairn, a sizable dungeon complex loaded with ancient traps and a collection of interesting (and territorial) inhabitants. Deep within the complex, the PCs come across the ghost of Alastor Land, the runaway who fell victim to one of the cairn’s traps 30 years ago. The undead horror blocks the PCs’ progress, promising to

Campaign Seed: The Rod of Seven Parts

Given the history of the Whispering Cairn, it would be easy to assume that the Age of Worms Adventure Path is a sequel of sorts to the Rod of Seven Parts. In fact, while a few final events of the Whispering Cairn are designed to make ideal lead-in adventures to a Rod of Seven Parts campaign, the Rod itself is incidental to the affairs that are about to change your PC’s lives forever.

Portentous dreams are in store for your player characters and the world they inhabit. At the turning points of history, great and terrible powers have a way of ensuring that the right heroes are in the right place to change the world.

The Rod of Seven Parts plays no role in the unfolding story to come. The major roles will be played by your player characters.

abandon the cairn if the characters return his bones to the small family cemetery on a farmstead just outside town.

This farmstead is now an overgrown ruin inhabited by a nasty owlbear. The party’s plans to return Alastor’s bones are upset when they discover that the other graves in the family plot have been emptied. To appease the ghost, the party must track down Alastor’s relatives, now used as guardian skeletons by an unusual necromancer who has recently arrived in town. Correspondence discovered at the necromancer’s home reveals that the villains are preparing for a coming event known as the Age of Worms. The letter also refers to a secret cult hidden in a nearby mine, and implicates one of Diamond Lake’s mine managers in cult-related activity.

The PCs return to the Whispering Cairn, where they explore the ruins beyond the blocked door to discover an unplundered tomb protected by hostile creatures of elemental air. At last, the PCs reach the tomb of the Wind Duke Zosiel and discover a treasure that may prove decisive in thwarting the advent of the Age of Worms. The secrets behind this strange cache are revealed in the next installment of the Age of Worms Adventure Path.

PRELUDE

The “Backdrop: Diamond Lake” article following this adventure provides several suggestions to help you get the player characters involved in the action, but there’s still one critical element that has yet to be discussed: the campaign’s opening scene.

The rise of Free City adventurers in town have spoken openly of their intent to raid the empty Stirgenest Cairn for at least a week, giving plenty of opportunity for word of their exploits to spread to all corners of Diamond Lake. Consider making one or two PCs the instigators for the plot. If you choose the PCs with the strongest need to get out of Diamond Lake, you’ll find that the players help you move things along quite nicely. Characters who work for Diamond Lake’s notorious Emporium make the best instigators, as they’re the most likely to hear gossip and the most likely to want to leave the town as soon as possible, thanks to the squalid conditions of their workplace.

Before play begins, consider how each character comes across information about the Whispering Cairn. At the request of the plot’s instigator, PCs whose backgrounds tie them to the Diamond Lake garrison might raid the office of the garrison’s chief cartographer, making off with a 70-year-old map of the now-abandoned mine plot that clearly marks the cairn’s entrance, complete with the words “Whispering Cairn” written nearby. More recent maps lack this crucial point of interest.

Since the trip from the village to the cairn requires some overland travel through the hills, a smart character might recruit a ranger, druid, or barbarian from the Bronzewood Lodge, just outside of town. Few indeed are the wizards and sorcerers who wouldn’t salivate at the thought of discovering lost arcane lore, so working in arcane spellcasters shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The plot instigators each invite one PC, that brings the group to the standard size of four adventurers. In the likely event that you must account for more than four players, consider having the plot instigators each invite one character, who might himself invite another character unknown to the instigators. This infuses a current of unease into the opening encounter, giving the players a hook upon which to begin roleplaying and introducing themselves to one another.

Before you begin the campaign, work with your players to get a sense of who their characters will be. Ask them what they’re doing in Diamond Lake, and why their characters might be interested in getting out of town. It shouldn’t be difficult to come up with such a reason—as the Diamond Lake backdrop and future installments of the Age of Worms Adventure Path will make clear, Diamond Lake isn’t exactly some sweet home.

Once you’ve gotten this information from your players, provide each of them with a printed background that weaves their ideas into your vision of Diamond Lake. End the notes with a suggestion that a friend or acquaintance has set up a meeting in an abandoned mine overseer’s office about an hour outside town. Then, when play begins, introduce the players one by one to the office, and let the PCs get to know each other before they set off for a life of adventure.

This office provides an excellent “home base” for the PCs to use during their exploration of the cairn. Anything valuable has been removed decades ago, but the crumbling, abandoned place still provides a stable roof

(despite a collapsed second floor) that can protect the PCs from the ravages of nature.

An article on this office appears in Dragon #333, available at fine hobby shops or online at paizo.com. The article is geared toward players, and gives them a map of the place and some suggestions for making it their hideout. While it’s not necessary to run this adventure, you may find it helpful to hunt down a copy.

PART ONE: A FACE IN DARKNESS

The yawning entrance to the Whispering Cairn lies about 10 minutes east of the abandoned mine office, a wide monolith-lined portal partially obscured by underbrush and boulders. Assuming the PCs have a general idea of where to look, discovering the entrance requires a DC 10 Search check. Unless the PCs spend 10 minutes working to clear the brush and assorted debris from around the entrance, treat the squares leading from the hillside to area 1 as difficult terrain.

Unless otherwise noted, interior passages are 20 feet wide and 20 feet tall, with ceilings of smooth stone.

1. Coward’s Rest

Natural light dimly illuminates a long hallway extending north into darkness. A faint breeze brings with it sibilant whispers that sound almost like sighing breath. It must be a trick of the wind, but the effect is almost lifelike.

The walls bear horizontal bands of deceptively simple geometric patterns at waist level. In places the bands reveal startling detail, but in others the walls look as though they have been hacked apart with weapons or eroded by the ravages of time. Flakes of ancient paint, brilliant purple and a dull mustard hue, still cling to the walls in places, hinting at what must once have been a riot of color. A thin coat of dust coats the floor.

Just inside the darkened tomb, the hallway branches into shallow alcoves to the east and west. Here the walls bear the most significant damage. Dozens of clumsy etchings mar the beautiful ancient masonry like graffiti on a city wall. A clump of soiled cloth about the size of a halfling rests in the rounded terminus of the western alcove.

Outside, the wind picks up, and a chorus of almost human sounds rises from the darkened hall.

In ancient days, these alcoves held great incense braziers mounted upon marble columns. Looters plundered these priceless artifacts centuries ago, leaving only four small anchor-holes along the periphery of a circular depression an inch deep and 2 feet wide.

A fine layer of dust coats the hall’s first 60 feet. A character with Track can make a DC 14 Survival check to notice that several wolves have crossed the dusty hallway numerous times in the recent past.

The western alcove contains a moldy old bedroll used by a local teenager daring to spend an evening in the cairn. Any PC native of Diamond Lake under the age of 20 can make a DC 15 Knowledge

(local) check to remember childhood stories about a teenage girl who went missing 6 years ago. Add a +1 bonus to the check for every year that the character is younger than 20.

The bedroll has hardened and become brittle with age, and cracks if examined too roughly. It contains nothing of value. A DC 15 Search check turns up whittling shavings around the bedroll.

A DC 10 Search check by any character examining the patterned bands upon the walls reveals thin hollow tubes hidden within the patternwork. The strange whispers filling the hall seem to emit from these holes. The tubes extend to the surface of the mound above the cairn, where hundreds of tiny holes catch the wind and project it into the tomb. The outdoor holes are well hidden (and many of them have been covered over and filled with debris), requiring a DC 20 Search check to discover them.

The patterned bands bisect the walls all the way to area 4, where more intricate frescoes replace them.

Every three rounds, allow the PCs a DC 10 Spot check to notice a faint flickering green light coming from the north. This DC decreases by 5 halfway down the passage, and the light becomes obvious by the time the PCs reach area 4. The light comes from a flickering everburning torch in area 7.

2. Transport Alcove

The western hall extends perhaps forty feet, ending at a small marble platform raised about six inches off the floor. A strange, shattered arcane apparatus rests upon this platform, its curved oval frame giving the appearance of a noble’s dressing mirror. Only a third of this frame remains. An unusual arcane glyph about the size of a man’s head has been delicately carved into the baseplate of the support platform.

A DC 5 Search check turns up a few shards of an unidentifiable shiny black substance that feels like stone. It is slightly cold to the touch. Anyone inspecting the frame can make a DC 10 Search check to discover numerous runes and glyphs carved into the slot on the inside of the frame, where the “mirror” glass would have been held. These can be identified as arcane symbols signifying transportation with a successful DC 10 Knowledge (arcana) check.

In ancient days, a grand ring of portals connected several Wind Duke burial cairns, but now only two such portals still function, the one in area 3 and its partner in the undisturbed cairn of Icosiol, the slain Wandering Duke whose grand tomb served as the main stop along the circle of black glass gates. The base of the apparatus bears Icosiol’s personal sigil, which has been all but forgotten by history. See the Glyphs of the Wind Dukes sidebar on page 21 for more information.

Campaign Seed: Wind Duke Glyphs

As they explore the Whispering Cairn, the PCs encounter glyphs inscribed thousands ago by the Wind Dukes of Aaqa. These are the personal symbols of the general Icosiol (found on the base of the apparatus in area 2 and the frescoes in area 24), the hero Zosiel (on the sarcophagi in areas 7 and 25), and the architect Nadroc (found throughout the Architect’s Lair). While the legend of the Rod of Seven Parts is common currency among bards and dreamers, few specific details regarding Wind Duke culture, art, and writing remain. Their personal glyphs are thought to be the original written form of Auran, before the language of elemental air came to be represented by Draconic letterforms thousands of years ago.

Comprehend languages and Decipher Script checks reveal that the symbols are personal seals, and produce the name associated with each glyph (but not the significance of that name). Use the following chart to adjudicate any bardic knowledge, Knowledge (history), or Knowledge (arcana) checks regarding the glyphs.

Knowledge DC	Information Known
10	The glyphs don’t seem to be formed from a common alphabet, although they are reminiscent of arcane symbols representing elemental air.
15	The glyphs represent names, with each referring to a single individual. The glyph on the arcane apparatus at area 2 probably represents the seal of the most important or highest-ranking of the three found in the Whispering Cairn. The glyph on the sarcophagi is the lowest-ranking seal.
20	The letterforms look similar to an ancient glyph-language called Vaati, which some unorthodox scholars consider the original written form of Auran.
25	Vaati is an Auran word meaning “Wind Duke,” and refers to the legendary Wind Dukes of Aaqa who forged the Rod of Seven Parts. A book called the Chronicle of Chan, falsely attributed to a princess of elemental air, records a full roster of the Wind Dukes present at the Battle of Pesh and a general record of what took place there. (Allustan can requisition the book from the Free City’s Great Library in a week’s time.)

3. Collapsed Passage

Fifteen feet down the east passage, a huge pile of collapsed rubble blocks the alcove from top to bottom. It looks like it would take weeks to tunnel through the densely packed debris.

There’s a functioning portal beyond this collapsed passage, but there is no way for the PCs to reach it now. This portal comes into play in a future Age of Worms Adventure Path installment.

Development: If the PCs make too much noise in this area, there is a chance the wolves in area 4 hear them. Each of the three wolves has a –2 modifier on its Listen check due to distance. The DC for this check varies depending upon the PCs’ volume, ranging from 0 to 10.

Every three rounds, allow the PCs a DC 10 Spot check to notice a faint flickering green light coming from the north (area 7G).

To the west, three short stairs lead to a wide marble dais, but the far end of the wing is obscured by darkness.

Huge slabs of cracked masonry and irregular piles of scattered debris choke the eastern wing, giving the appearance of complete collapse.

The sibilant, almost human whispers present in the passage become a chorus in this massive chamber, eerily echoing off the walls.

Anyone able to speak Auran gets the distinct impression that the whispers in this chamber are more than just a trick of wind and pipes. Occasionally, such folk can make out what must be words in the language of elemental air—words like “hopeless, sacrilege, enemies,” and so on. The words come from specially prepared air tubes leading to the surface, and are little more than a subtle way to discourage tomb robbery in a language few modern tomb robbers are likely to understand.

Thick cobwebs completely cover the arch leading to area 7, blocking any view of that chamber beyond a flickering green light that seems to be a good distance to the north. Characters standing within 5 feet of the cobwebs can see through the mess enough to notice that a short flight of stairs descends from the arch, but more detail than that is impossible to make out. Dozens of tiny spiders dwell within these webs, but they are completely harmless. Slashing through the webs is a full-round action. A character can barrel his way through the mess, but in so doing he becomes completely covered by spider webs to the point at which he can no longer see. Clearing webs from the eyes of such a character requires a standard action.

Even a casual inspection (Search DC 0) reveals that the east wing is not as collapsed as it first appears. A 10-ft.-wide opening in the middle of the debris leads to the wolves’ den, area 5.

Creatures:

The east wing of this large chamber houses a small pack of three hungry wolves that eagerly attack anyone who enters the room. Two of the mangy curs look as if they haven’t eaten in days. A third wolf is a little larger than the others and does not look hungry in the least. A straight line of scar tissue bisects its face from forehead to muzzle, a nasty battleaxe wound from years ago.

Wolf (3): hp 9, 9, 20; Monster Manual 283.

Tactics: The wolves prefer to gang up on the nearest opponent, using their trip ability to put an enemy on the ground as soon as possible. They then savage the prone opponent until it stops moving, at which point they move on to the next target. If presented with multiple targets, they tend to choose the smallest or weakest-looking foe.

5. Wolf Den

The wolves dwell in the nearly blocked-off terminus of the east wing. Medium or larger characters must get down on their hands and knees to negotiate the rubble passage.

The far side is rank with the smell of wild animals. Irregular piles of rubble litter the den, as do hundreds of bones and bone fragments from the creatures’ past meals. Most of these belong to animals, but a few are unmistakably human.

Treasure: A DC 5 Search check in the northern half of the den turns up an old leather backpack half-buried under a pile of humanoid bones. The bag contains an elaborate lantern of indigo metal inset with indigo glass panes. The lantern is worth 90 gp. A DC 15 Search check on the opposite side of the room turns up an intricately carved armband of unmistakable elven craftsmanship, bearing a repeating leaf motif. The armband is worth 75 gold to a nonelf, and 100 gold to an elf NPC (such as the Diamond Lake mine manager Ellival Moonmeadow or one of his servitors).

A DC 20 Search of the rubble mostly blocking off the passage turns up what appears to be a marble index finger cracked off a statue. The finger exactly matches the right hand of the bas-relief sarcophagus lid figure in area 7.

6. Gallery of Seven Lanterns

A wide dais spanning the back half of the western wing calls attention to a faded fresco upon the south, west, and north walls. From a vantage point at the center of the dais, the wall painting makes it look like you stand within a massive room with seven short hallways radiating outward from a central point. A chain dangles from the ceiling at the end of each hallway, and each chain bears a gleaming colored lantern. Clockwise, the colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Though a bit faded, the fresco is in remarkably good shape given its advanced age. Canny players will notice that the seven colored lanterns correspond to the seven colors of the rainbow, and that they are all lit. This is a clue regarding how to bypass the face door in area 8.

7. False Tomb (EL Variable)

A wide stairway descends into an immense domed chamber. Seven short tunnels branch from the room in all directions, extending some thirty feet before ending in rounded walls. At the terminus of each passage, a thick chain dangles from an unseen high ceiling. Five of the chains bear colorful lanterns, but two hold nothing at all. Opposite the entry stairs, a bright green lantern containing what looks like a torch casts a weird, murky light about the room. Countless chips of glass and shiny metal inset into the chamber’s domed ceiling reflect this light, giving the impression of starlight and falling snow. The dome starts about ten feet off the ground and reaches an apex about thirty feet over the center of the room.

Below the dome’s peak, a long dais holds what appears to be a marble sarcophagus. A milky white bas-relief figure, perhaps of a human, rests passively upon the sarcophagus lid. Unlike the rest of the tomb, this room is completely silent.

The sarcophagus in the center of the chamber might suggest that this is the final chamber in Zosiel’s burial cairn. It is in fact a false tomb meant to discourage grave robbers, and contains a number of opportunities for such interlopers to meet an untimely end. Arcane elevators hidden in the ends of two branch passages lead to the quarters of the architect Nadroc and his team of servitors, who dwelled below for months while completing Zosiel’s tomb. Because the chamber is quite complex, individual elements of the room are covered under their own headings below.

The Sarcophagus

At the center of the chamber is a raised platform, upon which sits a sealed sarcophagus. The lid bears a white stone relief of a tall figure cloaked in a simple garment of flowing cloth. It’s difficult to say why, exactly, but the outfit conjures thoughts of ancient times. The figure at first looks human, but a cursory examination reveals that it is about 7 feet tall, is completely hairless, and is of indeterminate sex. Its arms and hands rest at its side. The left hand curls upon itself in a fist, but the right is placed palm up, with the thumb turned in and all but the index finger held parallel to the arm. The index finger, originally curled under the thumb (see illustration), was broken off by tomb raiders centuries ago and now rests amid the rubble in area 5. The extended fingers represent a clue to the location of the true tomb.

The figure wears a scarab-like amulet around its neck, inscribed with the personal symbol of Zosiel. Like Zosiel’s personal glyph in area 2, this symbol has been all but forgotten in the modern age. A DC 20 Knowledge (arcana) check reveals only that it is a personal glyph of some powerful elemental entity. See the Glyphs of the Wind Dukes sidebar on page 21 for more information on how the PCs can learn more about the strange symbol.

The sarcophagus rests upon a small raised platform carved in the shape of a stylistic arrow, with the tip aligned with the head of the relief figure upon the lid and a short “shaft” extending from the foot of the sarcophagus. A DC 15 Strength check is sufficient to shift the sarcophagus platform one “click” clockwise, until it comes to rest pointed at the next short tunnel extending from the central

The Whispering Cairn

By Erik Mona

chamber. See the tunnel descriptions below for details on what happens when the arrow points at each tunnel. The sarcophagus platform cannot be moved counter-clockwise. When the PCs arrive, the arrow’s tip points to the orange lantern (area 7C). The sarcophagus bears a fiery arcane trap set to trigger when the lid is lifted off the stone coffin, and is completely empty.

Sarcophagus Trap: CR 2; magic device; touch trigger (opening the sarcophagus lid); automatic reset; spell effect (burning hands, 1st-level wizard, 1d4 fire, DC 11 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 26; Disable Device DC 26.

The Tunnels

The ceiling of these tunnels is 10 feet off the ground, but the alcove ceilings at the ends of the tunnels extend 40 feet, just within the shadowy radiance of a torch. Unusually colored lanterns hang from long chains attached to the alcove ceilings, dangling about 5 feet from the floor. The indigo and red lanterns are missing. Each lantern is worth 50 gp.

The lanterns are an elaborate key mechanism. When torches have been placed inside all of the lanterns, the mouth of the howling face bas-relief in area 8 opens, revealing passage to Zosiel’s true tomb. When all seven lanterns have been lit, the glass and metal chips imbedded in the dome ceiling cast eerie reflections about the room, making it difficult to concentrate within the chamber. All attack rolls made by anyone within the room when all lanterns have been lit suffer a -2 penalty due to the distracting effect.

As noted above, two lanterns are nowhere to be seen. The indigo lantern rests in a backpack in area 5, while the red lantern is submerged in area 2 of the laborers’ quarters.

A DC 10 Search check at the end of each tunnel is sufficient to turn up a 5-foot-diameter circle carved into the floor, directly below the hanging lantern (or where a hanging lantern would be in the case of the red and indigo tunnels). The circles form the tops of arcane elevators in the case of the yellow, green, and indigo tunnels, and are merely decorative in the case of the other tunnels.

Red: The lantern that once hung from the chain at the end of this tunnel is nowhere to be seen. In fact it was taken by a member of Ulavant’s Seeker investigation 60 years ago and still rests with the thief’s corpse in area 20.

Orange: An orange lantern hangs at the end of this passage. The arrow platform at the center of the room points to this tunnel when the PCs arrive.

Yellow: A yellow lantern hangs from the chain at the end of this tunnel. When the arrow platform at the center of the chamber points at this tunnel, a great rumbling from below the chamber can be heard as the circular stone at the end of the tunnel rises eight feet into the air, pushed up by a 5-foot-diameter metal cylinder that seems to arise from the ground itself. Seconds after it comes to a rest, two thin doors slide into the sides of the cylinder, revealing a small empty chamber.

The cylinder is an arcane elevator that leads to the personal quarters of Nadroc, the Wind Duke architect who constructed Zosiel’s tomb. The cylinder fits only one Medium creature at a time (two Small creatures, four Tiny creatures, and so on). A Large creature can cram itself into the cylinder, but can take no standard or full-round actions while stuffed within the cramped space.

When a PC enters the cylinder, the doors immediately slam closed, and the entire contraption lowers itself into the floor. The stone “cap” locks into place once it goes flush with the floor, but the rest of the apparatus continues downward for one round, finally coming to rest in area 9. The doors slide open quietly when the elevator comes to a stop. One round after the passenger exits the cylinder, the doors close and the contraption rises on a column of air to return to area 7. If the arrow platform above is moved to point to another tunnel while the cylinder is at rest in area 9, the elevator remains at the bottom of the shaft until the arrow once more points at the yellow tunnel. A button inset into the wall near the bottom of the shaft calls the elevator down at any time.

Green: Several years ago, an explorer placed an everburning torch in the green lantern that hangs at the end of this tunnel, and it has remained here ever since. Like the yellow passage, this tunnel boasts an arcane elevator that descends to another subdungeon, in this case the lair of the eight Wind Duke laborers who helped Nadroc build Zosiel’s tomb. Unlike the previous elevator, however, this one is jammed and is not likely to survive much experimentation.

When the arrow platform points at this tunnel, a cacophonous creaking of stone against stone emerges from the ground below the green lantern. Anyone standing within the tunnel feels the ground rumble slightly, as if something is about to give way.

The elevator can handle only three more rounds of this stress. On the third round of rumbling, the stone circle and the elevator apparatus beneath it completely give way, clattering to the ground of area 15 60 feet below. The collapse occurs on the third round in which the arrow points at the tunnel. The three rounds need not be consecutive. Characters standing on this area when it collapses can make a DC 12 Reflex save to scramble onto solid ground.

One round after the elevator falls, the PCs may make a Listen check to hear the skittering of thousands of insects making their way up the shaft toward them. The DC for this check is 5 for PCs in the green lantern tunnel, and 10 for PCs in the main chamber of area 7.

Two rounds later, a living geyser of beetles bursts from the shaft. They make for the nearest PC, eagerly attempting to devour the character and move on to the next. The undulating blanket of beetles trails a thin coat of bright yellow acid in its wake.

Along with the beetles emerges a skittering mad slasher, a horrible aberration with

six sharp legs sprouting from a central body that is little more than a disgusting eye. It attempts to avoid the beetle swarm (since sharing a space with the swarm at the end of its turn means taking damage) and maneuvers to position itself to make best use of its Whirlwind Attack feat.

The 60-foot shaft leading to area 15 is lined and scarred, which makes climbing down relatively easy (DC 5).

Mad Slasher CR 2

CE Medium aberration (Miniatures Handbook 64)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Spot +0, Listen +0

AC 15, touch 13, flat-footed 12
hp 26 (4 HD)
Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +4
Spd 40 ft.
Melee 2 claws +6 (1d8+1)
Base Atk +3; Grp +4
Abilities Str 13, Dex 17, Con 15, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 6
Feats Combat Reflexes, Weapon Finesse, Whirlwind Attack¹
Skills Survival +7

Acid Beetle Swarm CR 1

N Diminutive vermin (swarm)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; tremorsense 30 ft., Spot +4, Listen +4

AC 17, touch 17, flat-footed 14
hp 9 (2 HD)
Immune weapon damage; swarm traits, vermin traits

Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +0
Spd 20 ft., climb 20 ft.
Melee swarm (1d6 plus 1d4 acid)
Attack Options acid
Special Attack distraction
Base Atk +1; Grp —

Abilities Str 1, Dex 17, Con 10, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 2
SQ swarm traits, vermin traits
Skills Climb +11, Listen +4, Spot +4
Acid (Ex): A creature hit by an acid beetle’s swarm attack takes 1d4 points of acid damage (DC 11 Fortitude save half). The save DC is Constitution-based.

Distraction (Ex): Any living creature that begins its turn with an acid beetle swarm in its space must succeed on a DC 11 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Blue: The ceiling over the blue lantern is 50 feet high, unlike the other lantern shafts, which top out at 40 feet. Anyone standing at the bottom of the shaft can make a DC 15 Spot check to notice that the shaft ceiling is not visible in the radius of normal torchlight, unlike the ceilings of the other lantern alcoves.

To the north of the shaft, another passage leads to the northeast (area 8). To reach this passage, the PCs must devise a way to climb 40 feet. The easiest way up is to climb the thick chain (DC 15 Climb check).

A skeleton lies in a heap on the floor here. A DC 15 Heal or Knowledge (nature) check reveals several crushed bones, as if the unlucky fellow died from a great fall.

Indigo: The chain at the end of this passage ends in a simple hook, as the indigo lantern was stolen years ago and eventually ended up in a backpack in area 5. If the arrow platform points at this tunnel, a metal arcane elevator identical in appearance to that described in the yellow passage above rises from the floor under the dangling chain. Characters inspecting the apparatus can make a DC 0 Spot check to notice numerous crushed bones and muddy clothes upon the floor of the cylinder, a obvious clue that all is not as it should be with this arcane elevator. A careful Search (DC 10) turns up a pouch containing 35 gp, 15 sp, and a small red ruby worth 50 gp. Two rounds after a character stands within the cylinder the doors close and the contraption tilts everything within it, sinking back into the ground until the arrow structure once more points at the indigo corridor.

False Elevator Trap: CR 2; mechanical device; location trigger (inside the elevator); automatic reset; ceiling moves down (2d6, crush); never miss; onset delay (2 rounds); Search DC 15; Disable Device 20.

Violet: A violet lantern hangs at the end of this passage.

Ghosts in the Machine

Once each week, the minor wind spirits inhabiting the Whispering Cairn follow Nadroc’s ancient instructions to reset certain elements of the tomb’s design. At this time, the sarcophagus in area 7 rotates counter-clockwise to once again point at the orange passage. The elevators in areas 7Y and 7J rise and open, testing their lifting mechanism and doors in a routine that lasts a full minute. The elevator in area 7G heaves and shudders at this time, but does not rise. The stress is enough to collapse the elevator, as outlined above. Theoretically, if the party has not yet explored the Lair of the Laborers before the passage of three weeks, this collapse might open a new part of the dungeon for the PCs.

The spirits also reset the burning hands trap on the sarcophagus. Once every year a powerful ancient sorcery replaces any of the colored lanterns that have been taken from the cairn, creating exact duplicates that hang from the correct chains. Unfortunately, the poorly worded original incantation ensures replacements only for lanterns that have been taken from the cairn, meaning those lanterns that were taken from area 7 but remain elsewhere in the cairn are not replaced.

If the party is completely flummoxed by this room, a fortuitously timed “refresh” of area 7 offers a blunt way to get the action moving.

8. Passage of the Face (EL 4)

A thin passage extends into shadows to the northeast. Perhaps seventy feet away, the passage ends in what looks like an enormous stone human face, its mouth open in an angry scream.

The physiology of the face is identical to that of the near-human sexless figure depicted in bas-relief upon the sarcophagus in the room below. The screaming face is carved into the entire 20-ft. by 20-ft. wall at the end of the corridor. Anyone walking down the hall may make a DC 15 Spot check to notice several long scratch marks in the floor, as if something had been dragged toward the lip leading 40 feet down to area 7. These marks were left by victims blown away by the blasting winds of the Trap, leftovers of futile attempts to slow their trajectory by jamming a dagger into the floor. Anyone closely examining the floor notices the marks with a DC 5 Search check.

Trap: A pressure plate 60 ft. down the passage triggers if more than 60 lbs. are placed upon it. When this happens, the face animates, and a terrible wind erupts from its wailing mouth. At the same time, the face’s eyes spin with hypnotic illusory patterns in all of the colors of the rainbow that correspond with unlit lanterns in the chamber below. Anyone within the face’s gaze must make a DC 13 Will save or become paralyzed, frozen in place and unable to move. Each round on its turn, the subject can attempt another saving throw to snap out of it.

The terrible wind is another major concern of anyone unlucky enough to be in the passage when the trap is sprung. On the first round, the mouth blasts a strong wind, with the intensity ratcheting up one category every round, going from strong to severe to windstorm to hurricane. See page 95 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide for rules regarding wind strength. Each round, creatures within the wind must make a DC 18 Fortitude save or be subject to the wind’s effects. Small characters are potentially blown away as early as round 2, whereas Medium creatures face that risk on round 3.

Blown away characters are knocked prone and tumble 1d4x10 feet, taking 1d4 points of nonlethal damage per 10 feet. Flying characters are blown back 2d6x10 feet and take 2d6 points of nonlethal damage due to battering and buffeting. Nonflying characters pushed over the edge of the shaft plummet to the floor below, suffering 4d6 points of damage upon impact. Such characters may attempt to snatch the indigo lantern’s chain with a successful DC 10 Reflex save, with success preventing the fall and damage.

The wind continues at hurricane force for 10 minutes before it stops and the trap resets itself. The only way through the face is to ignite torches in area 7. Once a torch has been lit, that color fails to appear in the face’s hypnotic eyes. When all torches have been lit, the trap is effectively disarmed. The stone comprising the mouth’s interior vanishes, allowing passage to the chamber beyond.

The Face in Darkness: CR 4*; magical device; location trigger (pressure plate); automatic reset; multiple traps (one hold person trap and one control winds trap); spell effect (hypnotic eyes; hold person, 3rd-level cleric, DC 13 Will save); spell effect (wind blast; control winds, 12th-level caster, DC 18 Fortitude save); multiple targets (all characters within gaze of face); Search DC 25; Disable Device 30.

“Strictly speaking, the CR for this trap should be higher. Due to the numerous clues nearby (the dagger gouges, the skeleton at the bottom of the shaft) and the long delay before the wind can really harm the PCs, the trap’s CR has been lowered on an ad hoc basis. Be aware that this trap could be extremely deadly.

LAIR OF THE ARCHITECT

It took the Wind Duke architect Nadroc nearly a year of solid work to design and construct the Whispering Cairn. During this period he dwelt within his work-in-progress, in a special series of chambers called the Lair of the Architect. Due to the complexity of the elevator mechanism, this part of the cairn is not quite as looted as areas 1–7, and contains a number of treasures from Nadroc’s time. Ceilings in the Lair of the Architect reach a uniform height of 20 feet. Walls are made of solid stone.

9. Architect’s Foyer (EL 2)

The walls here are covered in bas-relief images similar to the slender figure upon the sarcophagus lid in the chamber above. Nearly a dozen androgynous, hairless humanoids stand in poses of deference, almost as if they are paying homage to the viewer. Many extend their hands in adoration, their faces awash in adulation. Several of the statues lack hands, arms, heads, or anything else easily hacked off by long-absent tomb robbers.

About fifteen feet to the south, a dark passage extends from an elaborately carved arch. Only a little of this hallway is visible, however, as a large stone block obscures most of the passage.

The stone block is roughly 10 feet wide by 2 feet deep by 8 feet tall, and nearly seals off the passage to the south. A large niche about the same size as the block opens in the ceiling 10 feet above. A fine layer of dust covers everything in the room. A character crawling upon the top of the block gains a decent view of the darkened hallway beyond, and is able to make out a handful of alcoves marking the walls of the tunnel at regular intervals. Squeezing between the tip of the arch and the top of the stone slab requires a DC 25 Escape Artist check.

A button inset into the wall near the elevator shaft serves as a call button for the elevator. Pressing it recalls the elevator to this area.

Trap: The stone slab is far too heavy to lift, but up to four characters working together can topple it to the north with a successful DC 25 Strength check. The slab rests upon a pressure plate set to trigger when the weight of the slab is removed.

A noxious green gas fills the room from valves hidden within the mouths of the adoring bas-reliefs lining the room’s walls.

Slab Trap: CR 2; mechanical; touch trigger (removing weight from pressure plate); manual reset; gas; multiple targets (all targets in area 9); never miss; onset delay (3 rounds); poison (essence of oil of taggit, DC 13 Fortitude save resists, 1 Str/d6 Str); Search DC 15; Disable Device 20.

10. Passage of Honor (EL 2)

Curious carvings that seem to represent a stirring tempest cover the walls of this ten-foot-wide passage. At ten-foot intervals, small alcoves flank the passage, and each alcove contains an androgynous humanoid figure with cupped hands. The figures stand roughly seven feet tall. A faint wind seems to play within the passage, but it’s difficult to tell where it’s coming from.

Each statue bears the likeness of one of Nadroc’s noble Wind Duke patrons. Their cupped hands once cradled miniature statuettes of magnificent vaati buildings constructed by the architect in their names. These figurines rested upon a soft current of air immediately above the statues’ cupped hands. These currents still exist, and will hold any Tiny or smaller object aloft indefinitely. They are the source of the strange breeze in the hallway. The statuettes now rest in the pouch of an ancient tomb robber who lies dead in area 11.

The passage grows unnaturally cold at the point of the third and final set of alcoves, a result of a patch of brown mold in area 11.

Creature: A gruesome aberration known as a lurking strangler skulks within the shadows of one of the display alcoves. The strangler entered the Whispering Cairn a week ago at the behest of its master, a Vecna-worshiping wizard called the Faceless One who infiltrated Diamond Lake about a month ago. This enigmatic figure ordered the creature to explore the ancient tombs around the town, and it soon thereafter became trapped in the Architect’s Lair after riding the elevator there during a routine test (see the “Ghosts in the Machine” sidebar). The Faceless One is a major enemy in “The Three Faces of Evil,” the next Age of Worms Adventure Path installment.

The lurking strangler is a 3-foot-long strand of stringy muscle connected to two floating eyeballs. It shudders and twists as it floats through the air, but it does not speak (though it understands Beholder and Common). It attempts to hide in the darkness until it can attack a character with a surprise sleep eye ray.

Lurking Strangler

CR 2

LE Tiny aberration (Monster Manual II 100)

Init +4; Senses all-around vision, darkvision 60 ft.; Spot +8, Listen +0

Languages understands Common and Beholder but does not speak

AC 16, touch 16, flat-footed 12

hp 11 (2 HD)

Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +4

Spd 5 ft., fly 20 ft. (good)

Melee lash +7 (1d4–3)

Ranged eye ray +7 ranged touch

Special Attack suffocate

Base Atk +1; Grp –10

Abilities Str 5, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 4, Wis 10, Cha 10

SQ flight

Feats Alertness¹, Stealthy, Weapon Finesse¹

Skills Hide +14, Listen +5, Move Silently +6, Search +1, Spot +8

All-around vision (Ex): Lurking stranglers receive a +4 racial bonus on Spot and Search checks, and they can’t be flanked.

Eye rays (Su): Each of the lurking strangler’s eyes can shoot a different ray. One duplicates a cause fear spell; the other duplicates a sleep spell. Each ray only affects one target at a time. These effects operate at caster level 3, and are negated by a DC 11 Will save. The save DC is Charisma based.

Flight (Su): A lurking strangler possesses a natural buoyancy that allows it to fly at a speed of 20 feet (good maneuverability). This buoyancy also grants it a permanent feather fall effect (as the spell) with range personal.

Suffocate (Ex): If a lurking strangler hits a helpless foe with its lash attack, it wraps itself around the victim’s throat and begins to choke it. In the first round the victim falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to –1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates and dies.

11. Gallery (EL 2)

A dull gray stone pillar reaches from floor to ceiling in this large chamber. Halls extend to the east and west.

The west wall of the room’s gray central pillar holds a deep recession that ends at what looks like a fountain basin about a foot off the ground. This is the nutrient

still, a magical apparatus capable of churning forth a nutritive orange sludge that looks a bit like vomit and tastes a bit like gravy. One serving is sufficient to sustain a character for a full day. Fifteen servings can be harvested from the basin when it is full (as it is now). Servings are replaced at a rate of one per day.

The area around the nutrient still is infested with brown mold (Dungeon Master’s Guide 76). Living creatures within 5 feet of the brown mold take 3d6 points of nonlethal cold damage. Fire brought within 5 feet of brown mold causes it to instantly double in size. Cold damage, such as from a ray of frost, instantly destroys it. The extent of the mold infestation is displayed on the map.

The central pillar’s east face bears a similar niche that extends from floor to ceiling. In ancient times, Nadroc hung his architect’s tools on pegs in this alcove. An unfortunate tomb robber later attempted to steal these tools, bringing a massive stone column down on his head. A DC 15 Search check along the passage north of the column reveals a hidden catch. Triggering the catch hoists the column back into the ceiling, revealing a crushed human skeleton wearing shiny silver chainmail. Several of Nadroc’s tools were destroyed when the stone column fell, but others remain unharmed on their pegs where the architect left them thousands of years ago. Once the column has returned to the ceiling the trap is forever useless, as the trigger was destroyed when the column fell.

A dry fountain along the south face of the central pillar features a low basin and a wall spigot about 8 feet high, looking something like a shower. The enslaved water elemental that once powered this apparatus died centuries ago.

Treasure: The corpse in the tool closet wears a suit of +1 chainmail, but almost all of his other possessions were crushed along with his bones. In a leather sack so old that it crumbles to the touch can be found the remains of three broken statuettes of Nadroc’s precious commissions (looted from area 10) and three that remain in excellent condition—a grand palace, a slim spire with eight connected smaller towers of different heights, and what looks like a grand stadium. Each intact statuette is worth 200 gp. The intact tools are a wand of unseen servant (16 charges), a wand of shatter (7 charges), and goggles of minute seeing.

12. Living Quarters

This wide chamber must once have been the living quarters of an important figure. A large stone slab that suggests the shape of a bed rests against the east wall, under a huge bas-relief of a robust, long-nosed bald humanoid figure with outstretched hands. The figure wears a lovingly sculpted wind-tossed robe that gives him the appearance of a triumphant god. A glyph that looks like a stylized arrow marks an amulet worn around the figure’s neck. Wardrobes and dressers seemingly carved from the stone walls look to have been ransacked a long time ago.

This room was emptied of valuables centuries ago. A thin bed of whirling air rests atop the stone slab against the east wall. The wind is strong enough to suspend a Medium character above the stone comfortably, making it an excellent bed. Anyone sharing a space with the bed must make a DC 20 Will save to avoid becoming fatigued. This effect ends when the PC is no longer in the bed’s space. The glyph on the amulet is Nadroc’s personal symbol, and is reproduced as the compass rose of the map of this dungeon level. See the “Glyphs of the Wind Dukes” sidebar for more information regarding this symbol.

The statue is meant to represent the great Wind Duke who used the Rod of Law to defeat Miska the Wolf-Spider. The “rod” in the statue’s hand is a petrified wood staff that Nadroc planned to replace later with a more ornate decoration. Anyone examining the staff (Search DC 5) notices that six grooves have been cut along its shaft, suggesting seven segments.

The workshop has been competently looted, and all that remains are bits of furniture and parts of more elaborate sculpting tools. The daylight coming from the ceiling is a permanent magical effect.

A successful DC 15 Knowledge (the planes) check identifies the gold symbol upon the egg as the personal device of Ogrémoch, a legendary elemental prince of evil. A DC 20 result notes that Ogrémoch and a legion of lesser earth elementals were said to have served on the side of the Queen of Chaos at the great final battle at Pesh that ended a primordial war between Law and Chaos.

Creature: The egg is the dormant form of a hibernating Small earth elemental who served at Ogrémoch’s side at the battle of Pesh and who was later captured by the vicious Wind Dukes of Aaqa and forced into a life of magical servitude. The elemental, an evil lout called Artophanx, is forever bound to this chamber, compelled by ancient incantations to assist the Wind Duke Nadroc, who constantly drilled him about the properties of indigenous rock or the likely efficacy of this or that masonic flourish. The Lair of the Architect has been empty for thousands of years, so Artophanx went into hibernation centuries ago, and snaps out of his torpor only if touched. If this happens, the elemental immediately

13. Workshop (EL 1)

The ceiling of this large chamber glows with what looks like natural sunlight, illuminating a series of worktables, vises, spinning wheels, and blocks of unfinished marble that identify the room as a sculptor’s workshop. A huge unfinished statue of an imposing bare-chested warrior wielding a staff-like rod in its left hand dominates the north wall. The hair-

takes on an anthropomorphic form and barks a challenge in Terran, the grating, gravelly language of elemental earth. If the PCs do not respond, Artophanx attacks.

Artophanx wants more than anything else to escape, and might be fooled into cooperating with the party if successfully bluffed by a Terran-speaking character. If convinced that the PCs might be able to help him escape the room (something actually well beyond their power) he can relate some useful facts about the Whispering Cairn’s construction, including the fact that it was built by a Wind Duke named Nadroc to honor a warrior named Zosiel who died on the fields of Pesh and the fact that Zosiel’s true tomb lies beyond the face in area 8.

Small Earth Elemental: hp 11; AL N; neutral evil; Monster Manual 97.

Treasure: The red metal pedestal is of a material totally unknown elsewhere on this world, and is worth 300 gp. It weighs 200 lbs. The wooden pole held by the statue doubles as a masterwork quarterstaff.

14. Toilet

This austere toilet has not been used in centuries.

15. Laborer’s Foyer

Dozens of bas-relief figures similar to the one on the sarcophagus lid in the room above stare disapprovingly from the walls here. Many sport evil grins and stern expressions. A few of the statues’ heads are missing, and some have huge chunks torn out of them. Others have a weird melted appearance, as if they’d been sprayed by something terrible. A large glyph that looks like a stylized arrow points down a short corridor to the north that leads to a four-way intersection.

The damage to this room comes from the acid beetles inhabiting area 16. The alcove in the south wall conforms to the shaft leading to area 7 above. The shaft starts 20 feet above the floor of area 15, and is pitted with acid-burned handholds (Climb DC 10). The glyph—Nadroc’s personal sign—is identical to the one found on the amulet in area 12.

16. Food Room/ The Hive (EL 3)

The north and south walls of this large chamber taper in somewhat, and in the nook of the far eastern wall rests a wide stone basin backed by a five-foot-tall shelf. A hardened orange paste spills out over the two-foot basin lip and covers much of the shelf. Thousands of tiny beetles with bright blue carapaces skitter and tumble through the chalky substance. A keening insect chorus fills the room. A huge organic mass completely fills the room’s southwest corner. Judging by the beetles spilling from within, it appears to be an enormous nest.

In ancient times, Nadroc’s laborers sustained themselves on the nutritious substance generated by this fountain. The orange substance is still edible, but those who eat it must make a DC 14 Fortitude save to resist becoming sickened for 1 hour due to the ubiquitous beetle waste.

The nest in the southwest corner has the consistency of papier-mâché, and can be cut through easily. If burned, it produces an acrid black smoke that grants concealment to every creature in the room for 6 rounds or until the smoke is blown away.

Creatures:

This room serves as the central breeding ground of a colony of aggressive beetles who feed upon the edible orange sludge that fills the basin. When the PCs enter the room, the vermin skittering about the sludge coalesces into the form of an acid beetle swarm, and a Medium giant bombardier beetle, the cow of the colony, moves to attack, opening with a deadly spray of acid. The insects fight to the death.

Giant Bombardier Beetle: hp 13; Monster Manual 284.

Acid Beetle Swarm: hp 9; see page 26.

Treasure: A DC 10 Spot check reveals the presence of three oblong lumps completely covered with orange sludge in the room’s southeast corner. These are the skeletonized remains of three long-dead human figures in soiled red leather armor. An eight-pointed star symbol marks the left breast of each moldy suit of armor, a symbol that marks the dead as members of Ulavant’s Seeker band, which met a grim end in the Lair of the Laborers some 60 years ago. A DC 15 bardic knowledge or Knowledge (geography, history, or nobility) check identifies the symbol as belonging to the Seekers, a group of unscrupulous archeologists and pseudohistorians. One of the Seeker guards has three potions of cure light wounds, and another bears a pearl of power (1st level).

A DC 15 Search check in the ruined remains of the nest turns up a mummified human hand still wearing a ring of feather falling.

17. Sleeping Quarters (EL 2)

Eight man-sized stone slabs, about four feet off the ground, are arranged in two rows in this large room. A long-dead corpse, possibly a human, lays sprawled out upon one of these slabs, his red leather armor the only hint of color in the otherwise drab room. The north and south walls taper in somewhat, and the short west wall abuts a small stone stage. The red clay statue of a powerfully built warrior wielding a cylinder-headed greatclub stands tall upon the stage, its eyes surveying the room.

Each round characters within this room must make a DC 15 Will save to resist becoming fatigued. The fatigue ends when the PC leaves the room. The stone slabs once served as beds for Nadroc’s Wind Duke laborers. The skull of the human male corpse on the southwest slab has been utterly crushed by the stone greatclub of the statue upon the western stage, a marble representation of the Guardian of the Veil, a mythical Wind Duke figure who stands sentry between the lands of sleep and wakefulness. The statue itself is not attached to the floor, and may be tipped over with a DC 20 Strength check. It weighs 800 lbs.

Creature:

When the PCs first arrive, a giant bombardier beetle stag stumbles about between the sleeping slabs. The fatigued beetle does not respond to the sounds of conflict in area 16, preferring instead to enjoy a rare moment of rest. It attacks any non-beetle creature it sees, leading off with a spray of acid.

If any non-Wind Duke falls asleep on one of the stone slabs, the terracotta statue on the stage in the western alcove animates and attempts to smash the sleeper with its club (treat as a slam attack, as the club is merely a part of the Guardian statue).

Giant Bombardier Beetle: hp 20; fatigued (–2 to Strength and Dexterity); Monster Manual 284.

The Guardian of the Veil, Medium animated object: hp 31; SQ hardness 2; Monster Manual 13.

Treasure: The corpse on the southwest slab wears masterwork leather armor emblazoned with the eight-pointed symbol of the Seekers and a silver ring worth 75 gp.

18. Tool Alcoves

Numerous pegs extending from the walls of these alcoves once held the excavation gear of the Wind Duke laborers, but anything of worth was looted long ago.

19. Submerged Showers

In ancient days, the laborers cleaned themselves and disposed of their waste in the lower level of their lair (areas 19–22). An enslaved water elemental commanded an elaborate set of showers and saw to the sanitary needs of the workers. Centuries of isolation have driven this creature insane, and now the lower chambers are completely submerged in water. Numerous drains near the shower pillars are wholly clogged with debris deposited by the elemental, leaving no way for the PCs to drain the area. The PCs first encounter the water about halfway down the stairs leading to area 19.

Refer to page 92 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide to re-familiarize yourself with D&D‘s underwater rules. To summarize the most important element, a character can hold his breath for a number of rounds equal to twice his Constitution score, as long as he takes only move actions or free actions. Taking a standard action or a full-round action reduces this period of time by one round. After that period of time, he must make a DC 10 Constitution check to continue holding his breath. Each round, the DC increases by 1. If he fails the Constitution check, he begins to drown. In the first round, he falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, he drops to –1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, he’s dead.

All of the submerged rooms are completely dark, which should add an eerie element to their exploration. PCs with darkvision must rely on some artificial means of light, such as the light spell,

The four pillars and central structure of this room are composed of tan stone and contain non-functional shower spigots about 8 feet off the ground.

Creature: The insane Small water elemental still dwells here, spending much of its time spinning in a tight vortex in area 20. It notices the PCs the second one of them touches the water, and swiftly moves to intercept them.

Insane Small water elemental: hp 11; Monster Manual 100.

Tactics: The elemental gets +1 to attacks due to its water mastery special quality, but suffers a -4 penalty against the PCs if they stand upon the ground (a safe assumption during combat). This gives the elemental a total attack bonus of +1 for its slam attack. It tries to ambush a torchbearing character first. It has darkvision to 60 feet, and would prefer to fight without a light. It waits until the torchbearer is in the middle of area 19 before attempting to quench the torch (requiring a touch attack and a successful caster level check). Once the elemental has achieved darkness (or if no characters hold an everburning torch), the creature leads off with its vortex before moving in with slam attacks.

20. Locker Room with Benches

This small room contains four long benches and several niches along the walls.

Treasure: A dead human body here bears the red lantern from area 7. It wears red masterwork leather armor with the Seeker insignia over the left breast, and a +1 short sword hangs in a molding scabbard on its belt. The corpse’s bones are very badly gnawed, and its armor has been torn apart and ruined as if by sharp claws. A DC 20 Heal check reveals that the bones have been cracked open as if something was trying to get at the marrow within. The body has been dead for 50 years or more.

21. Other Locker Room with Benches (EL 2)

This small room contains four long benches and several niches along the walls.

Creature: This chamber is home to the scholar Ulavant, who became a ghoul after his death at the hands of the water elemental prevented him from accomplishing his goal of cataloguing the Whispering Cairn’s secrets for the archive of the Free City’s Seeker lodge. Ulavant wears a gold ring with the eight-pointed star Seeker insignia on the third finger of his left hand.

Ulavant, ghoul: hp 13; Monster Manual 119.

Tactics: Ulavant attempts to paralyze his enemies, starting with what he assumes to be bards, wizards, and sorcerers. Though his mind is now utterly consumed with the need to consume, Ulavant maintains some measure of his brilliance. He also retains a good measure of his original depravity. Should he paralyze all of his victims, he moves the frozen bodies so that they can look into each others eyes before gorging on one of the victims, starting with the throat. This theatrical flourish might just give one of the paralyzed PCs the chance he needs to shake free from the paralysis.

Treasure: A pile of tattered clothes stuffed into one of the lockers hides a pouch containing 38 gold, 2 platinum, and 55 silver pieces. Ulavant’s Seeker ring is worth 200 gp. It instantly identifies its wearer as a member of the Seekers, which may have implications with Khellek, the wizard in the trio of rival adventurers introduced in the “Backdrop: Diamond Lake” article elsewhere in this issue.

Note: The bump in EL accounts for the fact that the party is underwater, making the ghoul’s paralysis effect much more powerful. It is not, however, as powerful as it might seem. Ulavant’s paralysis attack freezes its victims in place, but paralyzed characters can continue to hold their breath for the duration of the paralysis. They do not begin to drown the moment the paralysis begins. They could, however, drown if they run out of breath before the paralysis ends.

22. Toilet

This submerged toilet has not been used in centuries.

PART TWO: THE TRUE TOMB

Areas 23-25 represent Zosiel’s true tomb. Very few explorers have penetrated as far as area 23 in the last several thousand years, and no living interloper has managed to negotiate the metal door at the end of that passage to gain the fabulous Chamber of Sighs. When the tomb was constructed, the door was meant to be opened only by the elemental thralls in area 24 at the behest of a Wind Duke who spoke the correct long-forgotten phrase into the door. An elemental would then press a catch on the opposite area 23, and the metal door would slide open gingerly. Now, the only way through is to make a deal with the ghost of Alastor Land, a runaway who died exploring the Whispering Cairn nearly 30 years ago and who haunts the place still.

23. Alastor’s Haunt (EL 4)

Through the gaping mouth at the end of the hallway is a long, dark room with no floor. A three-foot-wide beam of petrified wood spans the chasm, leading straight ahead into darkness. About ten feet below the beam, countless iron spheres the size of large oranges form an irregular floor, but it’s impossible to tell if they represent a wholly solid surface. The northwest and southeast walls are covered in a honeycomb of geometric patterns. The featureless ceiling extends about twenty feet from the beam.

This room represents Nadroc’s last attempt to dispense with unwanted tomb robbers, so the beam and walls combine to make a devious Trap. Note the view of this room provided in the map of the True Tomb.

Creatures: A curious grick lives in the iron spheres at the bottom of this room, having tunneled here through some subterranean fissure opened during an ancient earthquake. Each round, PCs standing upon the spheres may make a DC 15 Listen check to hear the grick moving under iron spheres. If it hears the PCs, it rushes up to attack from surprise.

The grick is far from the most potent potential enemy in this room, however, for the place is also the lair of Alastor Land, a young teen runaway who managed to slip through all of the Whispering Cairn’s defenses 30 years ago only to die here. Now he lingers on as a ghost, cursed to forever remain in this chamber, wracked with guilt for having abandoned his mother and siblings. As the PCs explore the room, Alastor observes from the Ethereal Plane. His childish giggles follow every PC mistake, while cries of “wow!” or “I thought you were dead that time!” seem to come from the walls as the PCs fight the grick. Once they have defeated the aberration, Alastor decides that they are his best chance to escape the chamber and finally rest with his family.

Immediately after the fight ends, Alastor manifests, appearing as a translucent 13-year-old farm boy with a broken neck, long black fingernails, and a demonic glare in his eyes. He attempts to shield most of the PCs from his horrific appearance, but the youth has a flair for the dramatic and wants to make a powerful first impression, so he wants at least one of them to see him in his true form. Thereafter, he attempts to move onto the same square as a PC and take over that character with his malevolence special attack. Once he has controlled a PC (or if he cannot manage to do so), he speaks directly to the PCs.

“I have been here countless decades, punished for abandoning my family in a time of need. Over these years, I have seen explorers like you come and go. The trap in the walls kills most of them, but those who have left in humiliation, unable to pass the far metal door. I am unable to leave the way you came because of my curse, but I am able to push through the far wall. Beyond is a glorious chamber of strange carvings and a pillar of air. And there’s a catch on the other side of the door that opens it without a problem. I’ll open it for you if you take my bones from here and bury them with my family on a farmstead just beyond Diamond Lake. Do this for me, and I will be free. I assure you there is no other way through that door.”

Alastor left home 30 years ago, in the 595th Common Year (the current Common Year is 595, assuming you don’t use some other dating convention). It’s been at least a decade since the last adventurers came to this chamber. They fell victim to the iron sphere trap, and their corpses are buried beneath the upper layer of iron balls forming the room’s floor. He can direct the PCs to his own skeleton, which lies about three feet below the surface just before the metal door.

If the PCs insist on fighting Alastor, he attempts to kill one of them to prove that he is a worthy opponent, thereafter pleading with them to take his bones back to his family plot. His directions suggest a farmstead 10 minutes east of Diamond Lake, and are detailed by Chapter Three: Tomb Stories, below.

The Whispering Cairn

By Erik Mona

Alastor Land CR 3

Male human ghost commoner 2 (Monster Manual 117)

CN Small undead (incorporeal)
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Spot +6, Listen +6

Languages

Common

AC 16, touch 16, flat-footed 14
hp 13 (2 HD)
Immune incorporeal traits, undead traits
Fort +0, Ref +2, Will –1
Spd fly 30 ft. (perfect)
Base Atk +1; Grp +1
Special Attacks horrific appearance (DC 14), malevolence (DC 18), manifestation, telekinesis (DC 18)

Abilities

Str —, Dex 14, Con —, Int 11, Wis 9, Cha 17

SQ

incorporeal traits, rejuvenation, turn resistance +4, undead traits

Feats

Alertness, Improved Initiative

Skills

Listen +6, Spot +6

Grick: hp 9; Monster Manual 139.
Trap: The geometric patterns on the northwest and southwest walls disguise numerous holes that shoot softball-sized iron spheres across the room when anyone crosses the 15-foot span at the center of the beam. The safest way to cross the room is probably to lower oneself to the uneven surface of spheres below the balance beam, but this risks upsetting the grick that dwells below the spheres. The spheres are difficult terrain, with most Medium creatures sinking about a foot deep. Anyone taking strenuous action (such as attacking) while standing upon the unstable balls must make a DC 10 Balance check or fall prone.

Hail of Iron Spheres: CR 2; mechanical; proximity trigger; automatic reset; Atk +6 ranged (1d4, iron sphere); multiple targets (all targets upon the balance beam); Reflex save DC 16 or fall (1d3); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20.

Treasure: The following goods may be harvested from decomposed bodies buried within the iron spheres: 47 gp, 7 sp, 1 pp, a rusty longsword, and a suit of masterwork banded mail.

Development: When Alastor Land’s bones have been interred next to those of his family, the ghost immediately knows he is free from his curse and begins to fade from reality. Before he does so, however, he passes through the northeast wall into area 24 and triggers the catch there. The metal door slides open.

Ad-Hoc Experience Award: When the PCs return Alastor Land’s bones to his family plot at the Land farmstead, award them experience as if they defeated a CR 3 encounter.

24. The Chamber of Sighs (EL 6)

This cavernous chamber consists of a large stone walkway around a deep chasm that leads into darkness. Four platforms lead from the walkway to a central ring, but two of these platforms are broken. Bright light reminiscent of a summer’s day filters down from the ceiling about forty feet above. Four wide galleries extend from the outer walkway, their far walls covered with enormous bas-relief vistas. A sighing wind emits from a huge pillar of rushing air at the center of the chamber. The column extends from the floor to the ceiling, cutting through the room’s central ring.

The central pit is 60 feet deep, ending in a featureless basin. Each perimeter gallery bas-relief portrays a significant life of the Wind Duke Zosiel. The sculpture on the walls appears very crude from a distance. Figures are blurred and distorted, and it’s impossible to tell what the images are meant to represent. When a character approaches within 10 feet of one of the bas-reliefs, however, waves breathe forth a smoky sheet of steam that covers the entire wall. As the steam eddies and plays about the rough carvings, distinct impressions of the images become apparent on the walls. These images shift and move, making the entire alcove alive with action.

24A: This image depicts a peaceful scene featuring several vaati relaxing in an idyllic country scene. Dozens of dark circles fill the sky above the frolicking figures. As the steam runs over the image, dark, twisted shapes emerge from the sculpture’s edges. The shapes coalesce to form monstrous creatures that look like a cross between spiders and wolves. As the creatures approach the Wind Dukes the circles in the sky begin to burst one by one.

This event represents the empire of Aaqa prior to the great war against the armies of Chaos. The circles in the sky represent the worlds claimed by the ancient Wind Dukes. Their destruction symbolizes the magnitude of the chaotic threat.

24B: This image depicts a towering vaati figure wearing the glyph of Icosiol standing over a legion of lesser Wind Duke warriors. The central warrior bears the glyph of Zosiel, but each figure bears a glyph of a

distinct Wind Duke warrior named in the Chronicle of Chan (see the “Glyphs of the Wind Dukes” sidebar on page 21). As the steam plays about the image, the warriors raise longswords in salute to Icosiol.

24C A group of seven proud noble Wind Dukes present a staff-like rod to a council of superior vaati in this gallery image. As the steam fills the bas-relief’s contours the central figure raises the staff above his head, where it splits into seven irregular parts.

Each of the seven Wind Duke present- ers bears a carven glyph that identifies him as a member of the “Wandering Dukes” who abandoned the war against Chaos to discover the secrets of the Rod of Law. The Chronicle of Chan identifies these beings as Amophar, Darbos, Emoniel, Icosiol, Penader, Qadeej, and Uriel.

24D The bas-relief in this gallery depicts the final battle between Law and Chaos. As the steam moves about the image, the Wandering Duke Qadeej impales Miska the Wolf-Spider, a demonic entity that looks like a spider with four arms and a human head flanked by two wolf heads. As the Wolf- Spider dies, Qadeej and his companion, Icosiol, is struck by a beam from Miska’s eyes and slumps dead to the ground.

24E The pillar of air stretches from floor to ceiling. Any character who steps into the wind is propelled safely to area 25. Doing so means getting past the room’s powerful defenders, however.

Creatures: As soon as a PC reaches the walkway or central ring, two tall humanoid figures arise from within the column of air and step out onto the central ring. Both of these creatures—wind warriors who served in the armies of Aqaa at the Battle of Pesh and who honor Zosiel still—wield twin swords and wear ancient ceremonial armor festooned with red pennons that twist and bob as if always blown by a fierce wind. The silent warriors attack intruders, knowing that they are the tomb’s last defense.

Wind Warrior (2): hp 39; Appendix 1.

25. The True Tomb

A whooshing pillar of air dominates the northeast half of this rectangular room. Opposite the pillar up a set of three short stairs rests a white marble sarcoph- agus identical to the one in the room with the colored lanterns far below, complete with a sculpted humanoid figure carved into the lid. A beautifully carved bas-relief on the wall near the sarcophagus depicts the same figure as a bald, androgynous warrior wear- ing a simple ancient garment and wielding a mighty longsword. To the warrior’s left stands a cloaked demonic figure with two long curved horns tipped in darkest red. The horned figure holds a device composed of a handle and small loop, seemingly using it to control a globe of absolute blackness about two feet in diameter. This globe touches the bald warrior, who raises his arms in surprise. The warrior is depicted as if fading from sight. A slim diadem upon his brow bears an elaborate ovalar glyph identical to one carved upon an amulet worn by the figure on the sarcophagus lid.

This area is the true tomb of Zosiel, a minor Wind Duke war- rior killed at the Battle of Pesh. A DC 15 Knowledge (arcana) check made by anyone studying the fresco identifies the black globe as a sphere of annihilation controlled by the talisman of the sphere wielded by the horned figure. Many legends suggest that the deadly spheres were created during the great war between Law and Chaos. Now they are the stuff of legends. The image is an accurate representation of Zosiel’s death, just moments before the Wind Dukes employed the Rod of Law to defeat Miska the Wolf-Spider.

The sarcophagus is completely sealed, exhibiting not even a seam under the lid. It is impossible to damage physically. For all appearances, it is a solid block of marble. When someone steps upon the top stair of the southwestern dais, the bas-relief sculpture animates and the warrior looks directly into the eyes of the character. “Speak my name,” it says to the character in his native language. Thereafter, the image fades back into the wall and the chamber grows still.

If the addressed character utters the word “Zosiel,” bright blue light shines around the sarcophagus lid. It fades a few seconds later, revealing a seam between the lid and the rest of the sarcophagus. A DC 10 Strength check is sufficient to lift the lid, revealing the Treasure within.

Treasure:

Within the sarcophagus are all that remains of Zosiel: a slight silver diadem inscribed with his personal glyph. This is a circlet of Wisdom +2, but additional properties of this item will become clear as the Age of Worms Adventure Path continues.

The sarcophagus also includes two long slightly curved black horns with red tips (worth 50 gp each) and a pewter box inscribed with alien, writhing letterforms. A DC 15 Knowledge (the planes) check identifies the glyphs as those of the Queen of Chaos. Melted metal keeps the box sealed, but a decent application of force is sufficient to snap off the top. Inside is a long handle attached to an adamantine loop. This inactive minor artifact radiates strong transmutation magic, but is currently dormant and does nothing. It can be fully activated as a talisman of the sphere in “A Gathering of Winds,” the sixth installment of the Age of Worms Adventure Path campaign. Allustan can identify the item by name at a glance, noting that the spheres of annihilation were holes in the continuity of the multiverse, and that anything they touched was destroyed utterly. After the Battle of Pesh, legend holds that the Wind Dukes scattered them to the corners of the Great Wheel. Far more numerous are the talismans that were said to grant their owners some measure of control over the spheres. Allustan urges the PCs to keep the valuable minor artifact. “One must always be prepared,” he says with a wink and a smile.

PART THREE: TOMB STORIES

In this brief interlude, the PCs take Alastor Land’s bones from area 23 of the Whispering Cairn to his family’s private graveyard, on a farmstead about 10 minutes east of Diamond Lake. Before you go, Alastor’s ghost allows the PCs to proceed through the Whispering Cairn he wants them to bury his remains with those of his family, so that his curse can be lifted and he can move on to the afterworld.

The seemingly easy mission takes a challenging turn when the PCs visit the family graveyard and discover that the bodies of Alastor’s father, mother, brother, and sister have been removed recently and taken off to places unknown. Investigation of the Land farmhouse leads to an exciting battle with a wounded owlbear and turns up clues implicating a gang of toughs in service to the mine manager Balabar Smenk, leading directly to Part Four: The Gang.

The Land Family Graveyard

A copse of immense deklo trees shades a small, quiet clearing just where Alastor said it would be, about 10 minutes east of Diamond Lake. Crumbling walls and a seemingly abandoned farmhouse stand vigil atop a small bluff overlooking the clearing, the sad ruins of what must once have been Alastor’s home. Five grave markers stand in the clearing, each with a different name: Anders, Bemissa, Coldaran, Gertia, and Alastor. Open pits yawn from before all five headstones, piles of fresh dirt and a pair of abandoned shovels suggest that the excavation took place recently, certainly within the week.

Alastor’s father Anders died a year before the boy ran away from home. His mother, Bemissa, his older brother Coldaran, and his younger sister Gertia all succumbed to the Red Death plague that swept through the area 10 years ago. A DC 10 Heal or Knowledge (history) check identifies the four-petaled flower motif on their graves as a symbol commonly associated with victims of that wretched disease. The grave markers read as follows: Anders Land: 531–564 cy; Bemissa Land: 534–576 cy; Coldaran Land: 550–576 cy; Gertia Land: 563–576 cy.

The Land Farmstead (EL 3)

The dilapidated Land farmstead consists of a crumbled wall and a sagging, unsafe house with broken windows and a sagging roof. Thick, sludgy puddles of dried blood and unidentifiable fleshy chunks litter the wooden floor immediately inside the front door.

Creatures:

Between the wall and the stairs leading to the collapsed second floor lurks an enraged female owlbear, still wounded from the battle with Balabar Smenk’s agents that left her mate and three of her cubs dead. A single baby owlbear survived, and the mother protects it with her life.

Wounded Owlbear: hp 52 (currently 22); Monster Manual 206.

Treasure:

A baby owlbear, still less than a year old, lurks in a corner of the north wall. It bonds to any character that touches it after following that character obediently. A DC 10 Knowledge (nature) check reveals that baby owlbears can fetch as much as 3,000 gp from collectors who train them to become effective guardian beasts. Although its large eyes and soft pelt make it an endearing pet or mascot, the creature is at heart a feral

monster, and isn’t above attempting to bite off fingers or gnaw into a companion’s leg. Owlbears are impossible to domesticate, so PCs hoping to keep this creature will soon find it far more trouble than it is worth.

Development: A DC 10 Search check of the Land farmhouse turns up a complete human arm with a unique tattoo identical to the one shown on the illustration of the half-orc Kullen on page 54. A DC 10 Knowledge (local) check identifies the symbol as that of Garavin Vesst, a greedy mine manager who branded his employees with it as a badge of status. Vesst was bankrupted by Balabar Smenk years ago, and died early last year. The branded workers were little more than slaves to Garavin Vesst, and view their current service to Smenk as a privilege. A DC 15 Gather Information check suggests that the gang commonly frequents the Feral Dog, a despicable tavern in the most dangerous part of Diamond Lake. The arm formerly belonged to a rogue named Skutch. The rest of him is in the wounded owlbear’s stomach.

Ad-Hoc Experience Award: Due to its wounds, the owlbear counts as a CR 3 creature for the purposes of awarding experience points.

PART FOUR: THE FERAL DOG

Once they discover the tattooed arm at the Land farmstead, the PCs are on the trail of Balabar Smenk’s gang of reprobates. About a week ago, the five-man gang helped one of Smenk’s associates from the Free City, a debased necromancer named Filge, move into an old observatory on the bluff overlooking Diamond Lake. Balabar gave the gang strict instructions to help Filge acquire whatever he needed to feel at home at the observatory, but the wizard’s first request set the criminals on edge and infuriated their leader, an albino half-orc barbarian named Kullen. Filge needed one thing more than any other—skeletons to serve as guardians and assistants.

Knowing that the Diamond Lake Boneyard was under the protection of cultists sworn to Wee Jas, Kullen grudgingly led his followers on a tour of abandoned farmsteads on the outskirts of town, hoping to find a few private graves that the gang could dig up without attracting undue attention. All five of the criminals resented the work, considering grave robbing beneath them.

Things grew considerably worse when, after digging up all five Land graves (and finding Alastor’s empty of remains) two nights ago, an inquisitive rogue named Skutch convinced the rest of the gang to explore the Land farmhouse.

Inside, they found a pair of maimed owlbears. Four of the criminals—Kullen, Rastophan, Todrik, and Merovinn Bask—managed to escape with their lives. All that remains of poor Skutch is his severed, tattooed arm.

All four of the remaining cultists bear a tattoo identical to the one depicted on Kullen’s forehead in the illustration on page 54. Only Kullen’s is on his forehead. Other tattoos mark hands, shoulders, and other areas generally covered by clothing and armor.

A DC 15 Gather Information check suggests that the best place to contact the gang is at the Feral Dog, a seedy tavern detailed in the “Backdrop: Diamond Lake” article elsewhere in this issue. A map of the Feral Dog and a rough outline of important locations within is included in this chapter. Kullen’s gang arrives at the Feral Dog each night around 8:00 pm, and leaves in a drunken stupor about three hours past Midnight (treat drunk characters as sickened for the purposes of this encounter).

The PCs might discover the location of the Land remains a number of different ways. The criminals have a startling attitude

of unfriendly toward the PCs, and certainly don’t shy away from conflict if attacked.

Bribery: All of the criminals were wounded badly in the fight against the owlbear, and all of them deeply resent having been sent on the mission in the first place. They strongly dislike Filge, who treated them like servants, and they’re starting to suspect (correctly) that Balabar Smenk might not have their best interests in mind. If even one of the criminal’s attitudes can be changed to friendly, the gang accepts a bribe of not less than 200 gp to reveal that they delivered the bones to a “crazy old goat named Filge” who’s living in the old observatory (area 35 on the Diamond Lake poster map). They do not reveal Smenk’s involvement, and warn the PCs against digging too deep. “Just get your bones and get out of there,” they helpfully suggest. If a gang member can be approached individually, his attitude need only be changed to indifferent to pave the way for a bribe. In this case, the criminal keeps the full bribe for himself.

Flattery: If all of the criminal’s attitudes can be changed to friendly by a PC using Diplomacy to reinforce their belief that they have been used by uncaring employers, Kullen himself tells the PCs about the grave robbery and the delivery of the bones to the necromancer Filge. “Do me a personal favor,” he says with a broken-toothed smile. “Bring me back that thin bastard’s eyes.” If the PCs fail to follow-through on this request, Kullen eventually becomes hostile toward them, perhaps turning into a long-term enemy in the campaign who advances in level as the PCs do.

Fight! Of course, the PCs could just attack the gang and attempt to get the information from them by force. See below for details on each gang member and tips on how to use the gang in combat.

Balabar Smenk’s Gang (EL 6)

The statistics below cover everything you need to run a combat against Smenk’s indentured criminals. As an EL 6 encounter, this fight should prove to be very challenging unless the PCs manage to battle on their own terms, setting up an ambush or isolating members of the gang from each other and taking them out one at a time.

Kullen: This towering albino half-orc commands the respect of everyone at the Feral Dog, where his rages are legendary. He is still upset about what happened at the farmstead, and is eager for an unfair fight to work off some pent-up aggression.

Rastophan: A wiry goon from the southern swamps, Rastophan’s long, clumpy black hair hangs down over his large eyes, giving him a sullen look. He rarely speaks and gets most of his guidance from Kullen.

The Feral Dog

Ground Floor

Basement

One square = 5 feet

Todrik: This corrupt fighter was born into servitude to Garavin Vesst, and views Balabar Smenk as his savior from a life in the mines. He has short brown hair cut into a flat-top. An angry red scar marks the left side of his sneering face from the forehead to the tip of the chin.

Merovinn Bask: This bald, ill-tempered wizard simply can’t believe that his debts forced him into servitude in the first place, and views each day as an absolute disgrace. Bask is by far the rudest of Kullen’s men. The only friend he ever had was the unfortunate Skutch.

Kullen CR 3

Half-orc barbarian 3
NE Medium humanoid (orc)
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Spot –1, Listen +5

Languages Common, Orc

AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 10; uncanny dodge
hp 31 (3 HD)
Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +0
Spd 40 ft.
Melee +1 greataxe +7 (1d12+5/x3)
Base Atk +3; Grp +6
Attack Options Cleave, Power Attack
Special Attack Rage 1/day
Combat Gear potion of cure light wounds, potion of jump, potion of mage armor

Abilities Str 17, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 10

SQ fast movement, illiteracy, trap sense +1, uncanny dodge
Feats Cleave, Power Attack
Skills Intimidate +6, Jump +13, Listen +5
Possessions combat gear, +1 greataxe, 3 gp
Rage (Ex) When he rages, Kullen has the following changed statistics:
AC 9, touch 9, flat-footed 8
hp 37 (3 HD)
Fort +7, Will +2
Melee +1 greataxe +9 (1d12+8/x3)
Grp +9
Abilities Str 19, Con 18
Skills Jump +15

Rastophan CR 2

Human ranger 2
N Medium humanoid
Init +1; Senses Spot +6, Listen +6

Languages Common

AC 16, touch 11, flat-footed 15
hp 16 (2 HD)
Fort +5, Ref +4, Will +1
Spd 30 ft.
Melee mwk longsword +6 (1d8+2/19–20) or mwk longbow +4 (d8+2/19–20) and short sword +3 (d6+1/19–20)
Base Atk +2; Grp +4
Attack Options favored enemy humanoid (human) +2
Combat Gear potion of bull’s strength, potion of cure moderate wounds

Abilities Str 15, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10

Todrik CR 2

Human fighter 2
NE Medium Humanoid
Init +1; Senses Spot +2, Listen +2

Languages Common, Orc

AC 17, touch 11, flat-footed 16
hp 19 (2 HD)
Fort +6, Ref +2, Will +1
Spd 20 ft.
Melee mwk guisarme +6 (2d4+3/x3)
Base Atk +2; Grp +4
Attack Options Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
Combat Gear potion of bull’s strength, potion of cure light wounds, potion of shield of faith +2

Abilities Str 15, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 8
Feats Combat Expertise*, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip*, Weapon Focus (guisarme)
Skills Craft (pottery) +4, Craft (woodworking) +4, Listen +2, Intimidate +3, Spot +2
Possessions combat gear, banded mail, masterwork guisarme, cloak of resistance +1, 41 gp

The Whispering Cairn

By Erik Mona

Merovinn Bask CR 2

Male human enchanter 2
NE Medium humanoid
Init +6; Senses Spot +2, Listen +2
Languages Common, Draconic, Orc
AC 12, touch 12, flat-footed 10
hp 7 (2 HD)
Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +3
Spd 30 ft.
Melee dagger +0 (1d4–1/19–20)
Ranged masterwork light crossbow +4 (1d8/19–20)
Base Atk +1; Grp +0
Combat Gear wand of ray of enfeeblement (17 charges), scroll of shield, potion of cure light wounds
Spells Prepared (CL 2nd, +3 ranged touch)
—charm person (DC 14), color spray (DC 13), mage armor, sleep (DC 14)
0—daze (DC 13), detect magic (2), resistance, acid splash
Barred Schools evocation and transmutation
Abilities Str 8, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 15, Wis 10, Cha 13
SQ summon familiar
Feats Alertness (when Rascal is within arm’s reach), Improved Initiative, Spell Focus (enchantment)
Skills Concentration +6, Knowledge (arcana) +7, Knowledge (local) +7, Knowledge (nobility and royalty) +7, Spellcraft +9
Possessions combat gear, masterwork crossbow with 20 bolts, brooch of shielding (35 charges), 2gp
Spellbook as above plus 0—all except evocation and transmutation, 1st—shield, obscuring mist, identify, hypnotism, disguise self

Rascal, weasel familiar: hp 3; Monster Manual 282.

Development: If the PCs don’t manage to cajole or bribe the location of the Land remains out of Balabar Smenk’s henchmen, you can still move the action along by staging follow-up encounters with Kullen and his brutes. They don’t appreciate the questions the PCs have been asking around town, and decide to rough them up. Give the PCs a good chance to win one of these battles, which will place them in the position of getting whatever information they want from the defeated albino half-orc and his gang of reprobates.

Ad-Hoc Experience Award: If the PCs manage to learn of Filge from Kullen’s without resorting to combat, award them XP as if they had defeated a CR 4 creature.

Part Five: The Old Observatory

About a century ago, Diamond Lake’s crumbling observatory hosted a scientific cult devoted to studying the heavens and celestial bodies. The sect died out decades ago, and the place has since been inhabited by a series of questionable tenants who never seem to last very long. The latest is Filge, a deranged necromancer from the Free City summoned to Diamond Lake by his old associate Balabar Smenk, a local paragon of corruption described in the Backdrop: Diamond Lake article elsewhere in this issue. Two weeks ago, Filge received a package from Smenk filled with a thousand pieces of gold and hints of “unkillable” undead in the hills around Diamond Lake.

When at last Filge arrived, Smenk laid out a series of confusing events that hinted at a bizarre conspiracy hatched in secret chambers below Diamond Lake. One of Smenk’s rival mine managers, a taciturn business-minded dwarf named Ragnolin Dourstone, came to Smenk with a covert offer of alliance. Dourstone explained that one of his crews had discovered an unusual chamber below his copper mine, and that a cadre of students and mystics had set up shop there at his invitation. Dourstone asked Smenk to run secret food shipments to this subterranean force, keeping the whole affair from the attention of Diamond Lake’s militia garrison or the office of Governor-Mayor Lanod Neff (and hence the perceptive directors of the Free City). In exchange, the dwarf offered Smenk a fair contract and three beautiful obsidian rings, said to have been unearthed within this secret chamber—the so-called “Black Cathedral.” Smenk agreed, but only if Dourstone would consent to let him visit the Cathedral himself.

What Smenk saw there terrified him, an emotion he’d thought purged since the strangled his first city watchman. An oppressive aura of despair surged from a large pool of black slime in the Cathedral’s central chamber. Three circles of robed figures ringed the pool, their faces touching the cold mosaic floor. Through robes and hoods Smenk spied inhuman appendages—twitching tails and hints of oily black feathers. Their chants echoed off basalt walls like a chorus of croaking frogs and screaming children.

Worst of all, Ragnolin Dourstone acted as if nothing was amiss, politely leading Smenk on a tour through a bizarre labyrinth while outlining what sort of provisions he required and when he would expect Smenk’s agents to make delivery so as to arouse the least suspicion. “All must be prepared,” Dourstone said without a hint of emotion, “for the Age of Worms is upon us.”

Smenk had never heard of the Age of Worms, but knew a clue when he saw one. While touring what appeared to be an arcanist’s laboratory, Smenk noticed a jar containing a segmented green worm suspended in nutritive fluid. He gingerly absorbed the jar into his glove of storing and continued following his rival, taking in his surroundings and planning a hasty escape should things grow any stranger.

In a chamber beyond the labyrinth Smenk met the master of the Black Cathedral, a masked wizard called the Faceless One. Unintimidated by Smenk’s political clout, the lisping, crooked man dictated new terms of their provisioning arrangement. “Now that you see what we are capable of,” he wheezed, “you understand why secrecy must be maintained. Secrecy allows us to continue our studies and liturgies in the name of the Ebon Triad. Without secrecy we are lost. We will kill to preserve it.”

Smenk understood the subtext, and agreed to the provisioning deal without mentioning that the arrangement would drive him into penury. He escaped the mine with his life but had shackled himself to a disastrous agreement with a dangerous inhuman cult. Armed with his bottled worm and tales of undead in the hills, he sent for Filge and put up his old friend in Diamond Lake’s moribund observatory.

“The Three Faces of Evil,” next month’s Age of Worms Adventure Path installment, focuses on the exploration of the Dourstone Mine and exposure of Balabar Smenk’s illegal dealings. The events in this chapter act as a bridge to the next adventure, and should be handled with care.

Because Filge has no idea that the PCs are coming, they have him at a considerable disadvantage. When staging this encounter…

draw out an exterior floorplan and carefully explain the surroundings to your players. This will encourage them to come up with a plan of attack rather than charging in through the front door, which in this case could have disastrous consequences.

Once the PCs reach the old observatory, continue with the following:

Five minutes north of Diamond Lake, on a bluff overlooking an abandoned mine, a crumbling old observatory casts its gaze to the heavens. A wide slit bisects its domed tower, where surely a great telescope once peered into eternity. Now the place bears a dark character, like a sagging tenement broken under the weight of decades of inhabitants. A slim stairway cut into the steep hillside leads to the structure’s only door, on the side of the tower’s attached one-story outbuilding. Flickering light filters through the observatory’s only windows, along the tower’s second and third floors.

1. Landing (EL 2)

The stairway rises to a wide landing and two huge wooden doors. Shot through with dark blue mold, the doors form an enormous round moon carved with a lunatic’s jabbering face. Beneath the landing, an unremarkable wooden door appears to lead to a tool closet under the stairs.

The massive moon-face doors are held shut with a simple lock (Open Lock DC 20). If this check fails by 5 or more, the skeletons in area 2 hear the commotion and automatically gain surprise against the PCs.

The small door below the landing leads to a grubby tool closet. It too is locked with a simple lock (Open Lock DC 20). The closet is home to a tomb mote, a Tiny undead creature composed of bone shards, matted hair, bits of shattered tombstone, dirt, and rotting, mismatched grave clothes. Tomb motes are messengers when needed. One of these creatures is currently delivering a message to Balabar Smenk, and might be encountered in the next adventure. The other remains in the closet, and immediately attacks anyone but Filge who opens the door.

Tomb Mote

CR 2

CE Tiny undead (Libris Mortis 128)

Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Listen +1, Spot +1

Languages understands Common and Abyssal but does not speak

AC 18, touch 15, flat-footed 15

HP 13 (3 HD); DR 2/cold iron or magic

Immune undead traits

Fort +1, Ref +5, Will +4

Spd 20 ft. (4 squares), swim 20 ft.

Melee bite +6 (1d4–1 plus disease)

Space 2-1/2 ft. Reach 0 ft.

Base Atk +1; Grp –8

Special Atk disease

Abilities Str 8, Dex 17, Con —, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 14

SQ quickness, undead traits

Feats Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse

Skills Hide +12, Move Silently +4

Disease (Ex) A creature struck by a tomb mote’s bite attack must make a DC 13 Fortitude save or be infected with a disease known as corpse bloat (incubation period 1d3 days, damage 1d6 Str). The skin of diseased victims turns a hue of green, bloats, and is warm to the touch. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Quickness (Su): A tomb mote is supernaturally quick. It can take an extra standard action or move action during its turn each round.

Campaign Seed: The Ebon Triad

From the fanatical peripheries of three vile churches comes a blasphemous doctrine known as the Way of the Ebon Triad, an anonymously penned collection of essays and scrolls soaked in phantasmagoric allegory and apocalyptic ecstasy. The Way outlines in vague terms a series of rituals and portentous events that culminate in the spiritual and physical adhesion of Hextor, Erythnul, and Vecna into a single supremely powerful overgod. Outlaws even within their own blasphemous religions, adherents to the Way of the Ebon Triad travel the world in search of fellow wanderers, often banding together to influence important events and edge the world closer to catastrophe.

Last year, agents of the Ebon Triad conspired with another dangerous cult to trigger a volcanic eruption that nearly consumed the city of Cauldron, in the distant southern jungles. This event was a critical moment in the Shackled City Adventure Path (published last year in Dungeon and this summer as a hardcover from Paizo Publishing), but the Ebon Triad it was merely one of a handful of prepared schemes presaging the advent of the Age of Worms, an era of darkness and writhing doom that would provide the required backdrop for the ascension of their overgod.

What the Ebon Triad cultists below Diamond Lake and throughout the world do not understand is that the entire religious movement is a fraud launched at the direction of Kyuss, an ancient being who has plotted to bring about the Age of Worms for millennia. The scope of this fraud and the true goals of Kyuss will be revealed in future Age of Worms Adventure Path installments.

Use the following chart to adjudicate the results of Knowledge (religion) checks made to learn more about the Ebon Triad.

Knowledge (religion) DC	Information known
15	The Ebon Triad is an evil cult dedicated to merging the gods Hextor, Vecna, and Erythnul into a mighty overgod.
20	Adherents to the doctrine of the Ebon Triad clutch close their secrets even from worshipers of Hextor, Erythnul, and Vecna, who consider them heretics. In fact, word of these heresy has not spread far from these three churches, who keep accounts of Ebon Triad activities brutally suppressed lest the cult gain more converts.
25	Despite the internecine struggle between the Ebon Triad and the orthodox churches, clerics of Hextor, Erythnul, and Vecna in thrall to the cult continue to receive spells from their godly patrons. This fact especially galls the orthodox, whose rigid faith cannot square the contradiction.
30	The idea that a human cult could bind gods as powerful as Hextor, Vecna, and Erythnul is extremely doubtful, even preposterous.
35	The Ebon Triad hopes to bring about the Age of Worms as a precursor to the creation of its terrible overgod, and has its hands in apocalyptically conspiracies across the land. Perhaps the gods support these rebel clerics because they too wish to see the world cast in darkness?

2. Watchers in the Dark (EL 1)

Furniture fragments, smashed planks, broken glass, and other detritus cram this large antechamber. At the west end of the room, several upended tables form a crude barricade. Closed doors mark the north and west walls.

Creatures: Three of Alastor Land’s relatives, now animated skeletons in thrall to the odious necromancer Filge, guard this chamber and the observatory’s only exit. The skeletons hide behind a wooden table barricade in the last rank of squares along the western wall. Each wields a heavy crossbow armed with a greasy, poison-tipped bolt and kneels beside an identical loaded crossbow and a scimitar. If the PCs make a lot of noise getting through the front door, the skeletons gain a surprise round against them the moment the door is opened. They use this round to fire their in-hand crossbows at any visible PC. The upturned tables grant the skeletons cover (+4 to AC). Due to the junk littering the floor, all of the squares in the room are considered difficult terrain.

Skeletons (3): hp 6; heavy crossbow +1 ranged; 1d10/19–20 and poison (Medium centipede poison; injury DC 15; 1d4 Str/1d4 Str); Monster Manual 225.

Development: The skeletons are two adults and a young adult—Alastor’s father Anders, his mother Bemissa, and his brother Coldaran. Bemissa and Coldaran’s skeletons show slight deformities that a DC 15 Heal check identifies as signs of the Red Death, a plague that swept through Diamond Lake 19 years ago (matching the date on their gravestones).

3. Abandoned Office

Pushing open the warped wooden door to this chamber requires a DC 10 Strength check. The room beyond appears to have once been an office, but it does not look like it has been used in years.

4. Cenobitic Chambers

This simple chamber hosts a plain bed, a small open footlocker, and an unremarkable wooden dresser.

These tiny rooms once housed the monks who lived in the observatory. Each is slightly different from the next, as if the interior has been customized by a succession of tenants. They have not been used for more than a decade.

Treasure: A DC 20 Search check in the easternmost room reveals a cleverly hidden pouch dangling behind a dresser drawer. The pouch contains 6 pp and 5 gp.

5. Feasting Hall

The revolting stench of rotting flesh rolls from the open door. In the room beyond, ten chairs surround an oblong dining table situated parallel to the door. Along the north wall, a wide staircase leads to an upper floor. A wooden door below the stairs presumably leads to a slim chamber. Two doors line the south wall. A sagging antique wooden shelf dominates the west wall, looking like it might collapse at any moment.

Three tall candles on the dining table illuminate a sight of terror. With the exception of the place at the western end, each of the chairs surrounding the table holds

an awkwardly seated humanoid figure. The nine bodies are in various stages of decomposition. Some sit with splendid posture, paused as if midway through a sumptuous feast. Others slump treacherously close to the floor.

Heaping plates of apparently fresh food sit before each of the diners, but the empty place setting features a clean plate and set of utensils. Several bottles of red wine rest upon the table, and each of the corpses sits before a half-finished glass. As players nearby, its there-not-there buzz breaking the eerie silence.

Creatures:

Characters who make a successful DC 10 Spot check notice slight movements in some of the corpses at the table, suggesting they may be animated. All nine of the guests are zombies, but the creatures make no attempt to waylay the party. In fact, they do not interact with the PCs in any way unless a PC sits in the empty chair at the head of the table. When this happens, all of the zombies spring to life and begin acting out a formal dinner party. The undead diners lack the precision necessary to slice their food, and merely go through the motions of eating. The whole thing has the atmosphere of a grotesque pantomime.

Seconds after the feast begins, a zombie turns to look directly at the seated PC, and comments (via a magic mouth): “Once again, milord has provided a delicious meal,” it says in an accent tinged with the airs of nobility. “It is an honor to dine in your august presence.”

Thereafter, other diners chime in with sycophantic comments of their own. “The Guild of Wizardry was wrong to turn you out,” a male elf corpse remarks. “You ought to show them like you showed me.” The tattered remains of what must once have been a young woman speak up next. “I shouldn’t have ever doubted you, Filge,” it says earnestly. “I always loved you when we were together. Now I will love you forever.” Conversation continues along these lines until the seated PC stands up, at which point the production comes to a close and the zombies “reset” to their beginning positions. Each time a character sits at the head of the table, the script begins again.

Zombies (9): hp 6.
Treasure: The rotting shelves along the west wall hold a set of silver dining utensils worth 200 gp.
Ad-Hoc Experience Award: Since these zombies do not fight back, award no experience points for their defeat.

6. Kitchen

The kitchen contains an enormous wheel of cheese, a moldy loaf of bread, and several strips of stringy cured meat—salted swine hearts imported from the neighboring town of Steaming Springs. Filge’s shoddy cutlery might fetch 10 gp in town.

7. Pantry

A small closet off the kitchen’s west wall holds a handful of spices and dry food favored by Filge. His diet portrays a lack of depth or creativity, and most of the shelves here are empty.

8. Storage Closet

This simple storage closet holds four extra chairs and eight copper candle stands worth 5 gp each.

9. Bedchamber

The stairs lead to a massive bedchamber that fills an entire floor of the observatory tower. Light filtering in from the tall windows ringing the chamber catches motes of dust in the calm air. A fine bed with plump red linen sheets squats upon a dais along the southeast cradle of the tower’s arc. A nightstand next to the bed holds a wax-checked candlestick and a black book bound with brown and red leather.

At the midpoint of the eastern wall a strange form stands rigid atop a short wooden stool, as tall as a halfling and clothed in a fine black suit and tophat. Clean cloth bandages wrap every inch of the sentry’s skin. A pair of ash-tinted spectacles rests upon a long skinny nose. The diminutive candy holds a silver platter as if presenting a meal, and upon the tray rests the freshly preserved severed head of a middle-aged human woman. A platinum piece sits upon her outstretched, purple tongue.

A messy desk rests against the opposite wall; piled high with loose papers. An apparatus holding four long tubes filled with colored liquid peeks out from the clutter. Doors on the north and west walls appear to lead to small closets.

Wide stairs lead above and below. A massive white stone statue of a thin human man with outstretched angelic wings and a wicked look upon his idealized face looms large in the northwest arc of the tower wall. The angel holds a sword in one hand and cradles a harp with the other. The presentation conjures thoughts of mausoleum peaks or the graves of important men. Tall letters etched upon the statue’s base spell out a single word: “Filge.”

The ceiling in this chamber is 15 feet high rather than the standard 10 feet common in the rest of the observatory.

On the rare occasions when he is not experimenting in his upstairs laboratory, Filge can be found brooding here upon some half-finished project or laboring over notes and calculations at his desk. He tends to work upstairs until about midnight, at which point he winds down with another two hours of reading and meditation here in his bedroom.

The roof of the observatory’s attached outbuilding provides walk-up access to the windows looking in on this room. Medium and smaller characters can slide through the windows with ease. Larger characters or creatures wearing bulky armor must take a full minute to squeeze through. Note that it’s possible to catch Filge sleeping. In these cases, the wizard’s owl familiar keeps watch from a perch on the candlestick on the nightstand next to the bed. The bird makes Spot checks at a +14 bonus, and screeches wildly if it sees an intruder. See area 9 for suggestions regarding Filge’s tactics and statistics. He keeps his syringes on the nightstand while sleeping, so he’s never far from a weapon.

The halfling “statue” is really a mummified goblin dressed in a fine suit and hat that doubles as a noble’s outfit for Small characters. The corpse is long dead, but has been chemically preserved to prevent decomposition. This process also

preserves the female human head on the silver platter. Touching the head in any way triggers a magic mouth that screams “INTRUDER! INTRUDER! INTRUDER!” This instantly alerts Filge to the presence of interlopers in his bedchamber.

The angelic figure is an idealized representation of Filge himself.

Treasure: Filge’s spellbook rests upon the nightstand next to the bed. It contains the following spells: 0—detect magic, disguise self, disrupt undead, ray of frost, read magic, touch of fatigue; 1st—cause fear, chill touch, identify, mage armor, magic missile, ray of enfeeblement; 2nd—command undead, magic mouth, scare, spectral hand, touch of idiocy.

The silver tray held by the mummified sentry is worth 50 gp. The blackened glass spectacles upon the goblin’s nose effectively block glare from bright lights (including the sun) and grant a +2 circumstance bonus on Will saves to resist daze or similar effects. The right customer might pay 75 gp for the pair. A large rug of golden brown fur is worth 200 gp, but must be carried carefully to ensure that its coat does not become soiled. A DC 15 Knowledge (arcana) check identifies the pelt as that of an adult lammasu.

Most of the papers on Filge’s desk concern surgical procedures meant to enhance the potency of undead, while others contain only the meandering scribbles of a mind descending into madness. Buried in with the junk is a scroll of animate dead and a beaker holder containing four 6-inch-long tubes filled with different-colored liquids. Two of the six slots are empty. The glass tubes are sealed at the top with a rubber sheath, and look like they are meant to be slotted into some other device. Each contains a soupy liquid substance consisting of reanimated cells. Filge has been experimenting with injecting these liquids into himself. They are effectively a potion of gentle repose (milky blue), potion of false life (deep red), potion of ghoul touch (sallow yellow), and potion of chill touch (white with black streaks). Every so often, something within the beakers seems to move slightly, but that might just be a trick of the eye. A handwritten label on the beaker holder says “Necroturgons.”

Also on the desk is the original summons Balabar Smenk sent Filge to encourage him to come to Diamond Lake (see handout).

10. Closet

These closets contain Filge’s wardrobe, which consists of six sets of nearly identical sleeveless long coats worn over a shirt and breeches. If the PCs take several minutes to completely ransack the closets, they rummage 32 gp worth of coins from various pockets and pouches.

11. Operating Theater (EL 5)

A single chamber dominates the observatory’s entire upper floor. Light filters through the wide slit in the roof, bathing the center of the room in illumination. Four large mirrors set along the outside wall reflect bright beams into the darkest center of the room, a recessed operating theater accessible via two short sets of stairs. The beams specifically target a blue-skinned humanoid figure splayed out upon an operating table, its chest completely opened and pinned back against the table with long metal needles. Two long shelves cluttered with piles of papers, rotting organs, and instruments comprise the east and west extent of the operating theater, and are only a few inches lower than the chamber’s outer floor.

Four metal-and-glass tanks, each easily large enough to hold a human, flank the short stairs leading to the operating theater. Each tank is full of yellow liquid streaked with rust. Indistinct, vaguely human silhouettes bob silently in the soupy fluid.

The gigantic telescope that gave the observatory its purpose was looted from the structure decades ago, leaving only a 5-ft. recessed floor at the center of the chamber where the great device once rested. Filge has repurposed this area as his operating theater, packing it with the tools of his macabre trade as well as some of his favorite success stories. The corpse currently laid out on the operating table is an experiment that Filge hopes one day soon to animate as a powerful zombie. Right now it’s just a dead human whose skin has been dyed blue with an artificial additive of Filge’s own design.

Creatures: Assuming the PCs employ stealth, they may access this room without Filge’s knowledge, catching him unawares as he conducts magical-medical experiments on the corpse upon his operating table. As he sits there, the sallow-skinned necromancer sings a dreadful melody in the hoarse, hacking voice of an addict. He moves to attack at the first sight of intruders, pulling up short only if con-

Filge,

I need you in Diamond Lake, my boy. The cult situation has grown worse. Deep within Dourstone Mine they’re studying things brought in from the southern hills. Green worms and unkillable zombies. I need one of the worms for you to study.

I’ll put you up in the old observatory. Show this letter to the big white half-orc at the Feral Dog. He’ll help you get settled. I trust you’ll find these coins sufficient to cover your travel from the Free City.

S

fronted by a truly impressive display (such as the head of Kullen or all of the zombies from area 9 in thrall to a PC). Even then, Filge negotiates only if a PC makes a successful Intimidate check.

A 5-foot-tall human skeleton follows Filge everywhere he goes, acting as a mobile bookstand and dogsbody. This is poor Gertia Land, youngest of Alastor Land’s siblings. A DC 15 Heal check identifies subtle deformities to her skull that are the hallmarks of the Red Death plague that swept Diamond Lake 19 years ago. The skeleton wears a rusty old scimitar in a belt scabbard and will use it at Filge’s command.

The four tanks surrounding the recessed floor contain Filge’s proudest accomplishments, hulking undead monstrosities created with animate dead scrolls and preserved for later use in a soupy yellow liquid streaked with ribbons of rust. Three of the tanks contain troglodyte zombies, while the southeast tank contains a brutish bad bugbear zombie. At Filge’s command, these creatures burst forth from their tanks, wielding pipes wrenched from their glass and metal prisons as greatclubs.

Filge, Deranged Necromancer CR 3

Male human wizard (necromancer) 3
NE medium humanoid
Init +2; Senses Listen +1, Spot +1; +3 on Spot checks made in shadows

Languages Common, Elven, Infernal
AC 13, touch 12, flat-footed 11
hp 15 (3 HD)
Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +4
Spd 30 ft. (6 squares)
Atk dagger +0 melee (1d4)
Base Atk +1; Grp +0

Combat Gear syringe of potion of false life, syringe of potion of moderate wounds, syringe of cure light wounds

Wizard Spells Prepared (CL 3rd; +3 ranged touch)
2nd—ghoul touch (DC 14), scare (DC 14), spectral hand
1st—chill touch (DC 13) (2), mage armor, ray of enfeeblement
0—daze (DC 12), touch of fatigue (DC 12) (2), ray of frost

Barred Schools Abjuration and transmutation
Abilities Str 8, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 15, Wis 12, Cha 10

SQ summon familiar (Merrowahn)
Feats Brew Potion, Combat Casting, Scribe Scroll¹, Toughness

Skills Concentration +7, Decipher Script +4, Knowledge (arcana) +8, Knowledge (religion) +8, Profession (mortician) +5, Spellcraft +10

Possessions combat gear, dagger, amulet of natural armor +1 (bird skull on a leather thong), master key that opens all the locks in the observatory

Syringe: As a standard action, Filge can inject himself with a soupy magical solution similar to a potion. Each of his two syringes holds a single charge of this special liquid in a removable glass tube. Once emptied, the glass tubes (and the remaining four tubes on the desk in area 9) can be filled with any potion. While Filge uses the syringes to inject himself, they also make excellent delivery vehicles for poisons or potions administered to an unwilling recipient.

Merrowahn, owl familiar: hp 6; Monster Manual 277.

Troglodyte zombie (3): hp 29; Monster Manual 266.

Bugbear zombie: hp 42; Monster Manual 267.

Skeleton (Gertia Land): hp 6; Monster Manual 226.

Tactics: Use the suggested tactics below as a guideline on how to proceed with combat.

Round 1: As a free action, Filge gestures to the undead brutes in the fluid tanks surrounding his laboratory. “Arise, my beautiful monstrosities!” he calls out. As he does this, he double moves to gain cover from the most tactically advantageous tank. Gertia Land’s skeleton positions itself between the PCs and the necromancer, scimitar drawn. She never moves more than 15 feet from the necromancer.

Round 2: Filge casts mage armor upon himself, raising his AC to 17. If he had any reason to suspect foul play prior to the arrival of the PCs, he has already cast this spell. He instead injects a potion of false life into himself to gain 1d10+3 temporary hit points.

The four zombies crash out of their tanks and move to form a wall between the PCs and Filge. If possible, they attack. The skeleton attacks if possible or stands its ground and readies an attack against the next available foe.

The Whispering Cairn

By Erik Mona

Round 3: If it seems safe and he has not already done so, Filge injects himself with the potion of false life. Otherwise, he casts spectral hand (losing 1d4 hit points in the process) and taunts the PCs, declaring that they have made an enemy for life by violating his sanctuary. The undead attack available foes.

Round 4: Filge casts ghoul touch and uses his spectral hand to deliver a touch attack charged with the spell. Filge has a +2 melee attack bonus with the spectral hand, and can attack anyone within 130 feet. He first targets what he assumes to be wizards or sorcerers, moving on to bards or rogues if necessary. Otherwise, he targets characters in bulky armor, figuring that they will be easier to hit with a touch attack. If he misses the attack, he holds the charge and tries again the next round.

The monstrosities continue to attack. The skeleton continues to defend, attacking if presented with an adjacent foe.

Following Rounds: The undead continue to engage in melee with the PCs. Filge casts chill touch twice, delivered via the spectral hand. If an enemy gets too close, he casts scare. He reserves his use of enfeeblement for any melee-oriented PC who seems to be doing well against the monstrosities.

Filge surrenders only when all of his undead creations have been destroyed or turned against him. He remains a pragmatist even in defeat; when he knows there is no way out, he blithely offers to “sell out Smenk completely” in exchange for his freedom. He lets the PCs keep whatever they want, so long as they let him go. If his attitude can be adjusted either friendly or better, he tells the PCs everything he knows about Balabar Smenk’s operation in Diamond Lake, the Dourstone Mine, and the Ebon Triad. See Development below.

Treasure: Filge’s fine silver operating instruments are worth 600 gp as a set. A 20 gp emerald is lodged in the throat of the corpse on the operating table. On one of the shelves flanking the operating table rests a glass tube about a foot long and half as wide. A slim green worm bobs in the murky chemical solution within the jar. A DC 15 Knowledge (religion) check identifies the segmented worm as part of an undead creature called a spawn of Kyuss. The sample is worth 10 gp to a sage or taxidermist. Flashing it around in Diamond Lake is a good way to attract the attention of the Ebon Triad.

The most important treasure in the room may be the bones of Gertie Land, which the PCs must return to the grave at the Land farmstead to appease the ghost of Alastor Land in area 23 of the Whispering Cairn.

Development: Presuming the PCs defeat Filge without killing him, they can learn a lot from the humiliated wizard. He doesn’t volunteer information, but once cowed he responds thoroughly to direct questions, hoping that his honesty encourages the PCs to spare his miserable life. The following topic breakdown will help you relate Filge’s information to the PCs during a roleplaying encounter.

Why Are You Here? “Me mate Balabar called me up from the Free City for a bit of study about some weirdness in town. He got himself brought down to the dark part of the Dourstone Mine a month ago, to set up some provisions to deal with the dwarf what runs the place. But the mine was crawling with awful beasts in hooded robes. He said their wild cries made his stomach heave. The cultists—they called themselves the Ebon Triad—said something about the Age of Worms, about strange undead in the southern hills and the swamp. Smenk knew he had to prepare a defense, so he called in his undead expert. Me.”

Why Did You Steal the Land Skeletons? “The who? I needed helpers, so I got Smenk’s white-half-orc to fetch the raw materials. I have no idea where he got them. Are you telling me you came here because of the skeletons? Curse that pink-eyed fiend!”

The Age of Worms: “The Age of Worms is the Waiting Age, an era of catastrophe that lurks in the shadows of every tomorrow. Scholars obsessed with apocalyptic visions claim that its advent signals an interminable period of suffering in which the cosmic scales shift disastrously toward evil and light fades from the land.”

Balabar Smenk: “He and I were mates 20 years ago, in the Free City. I laugh now to think of how far he’s come in so little time. How respectful people around here are toward him. Ha! If they only knew!”

The Dourstone Mine: “I think it’s along the road east of here, but this hell-hole is your town, not mine. You tell me where it is. If you’re going, best be careful. Smenk said the place scared him, which I wouldn’t have thought possible before I heard him say it myself.”

The Ebon Triad: “Smenk says the cult follows Hextor, Erythnul, and Vecna, the Lich-Lord of old. If true, the place must be crawling with delicious secrets. I’d love to accompany you if you intend to go.”

The Green Worm: “Balabar nicked that jar from a laboratory in the Dourstone Mine. It’s very rare. Dead now, of course, but once it and hundreds of worms like it must have wriggled within the abcesses and orifices of a powerful undead creature called a spawn of Kyuss. These are probably the ‘unkillable’ zombies the cultists mentioned to Smenk. If true, it could be a real problem. The worms can get inside you and turn you undead in about a day.”

Kyuss: “No one knows much. He appeared more than a thousand years ago in the Rift Canyon to the north. In a short time, he created dozens of new undead breeds and amassed a legion of creatures loyal to his will. They say an undead dragon stood at his side as the general of this force. Now, only the green worms remain of his legacy. And that title: Harbinger of the Age of Worms.”

If the PCs release Filge he flees to the Free City, and may return to harry the PCs when they visit that metropolis later in the campaign. He’s serious about his offer to help the PCs raid the Dourstone Mines. If they foolishly agree they learn to regret the mistake when the necromancer betrays them at a key moment. Consult next issue’s “The Three Faces of Evil” for more details on the mine and the Ebon Triad.

With the Land family skeletons carefully interred in their graves, the PCs can finally return to the ghost of Alastor Land in area 23 of the Whispering Cairn.

Concluding the Adventure

The Whispering Cairn may be defeated, but the PCs still have plenty of unanswered questions. If things have gone according to plan, the party has reason to investigate the Dourstone Mine, which puts them directly on the trail of the next adventure in the Age of Worms Adventure Path. But don’t rush your players to the next installment. They’ve just bested their first dungeon, and deserve an opportunity to spend their hard-earned cash and enjoy a celebration with their boon companions.

There’s More: Download full-size handouts, maps, Eberron and Forgotten Realms conversion appendices, and tips for scaling this adventure to higher levels at paizo.com/dungeon.

Appendix 1: New Monster

Wind Warrior

Medium Elemental (Air, Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 6d8+12 (39 hp)
Initiative: +5
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), fly 80 ft. (good)
AC: 19 (+5 Dex, +4 natural), touch 15, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+7
Attack: Longsword +8 melee (1d8+3/19–20)
Full Attack: 2 longswords +8 melee (1d8+3/19–20)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Sonic blast
Special Qualities: Body suffusion, darkvision 60 ft., elemental traits, superior two-weapon fighting
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +12, Will +2
Abilities: Str 16, Dex 20, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 11
Skills: Balance +7, Jump +4, Tumble +14
Feats: Dodge, Lightning Reflexes, Weapon Focus (longsword)
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or troupe (2–5)
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 7–18 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: —

An ancient suit of ceramic armor stands gracefully at attention, twin longswords gripped in its hands. Closer inspection reveals that the armor is empty, held together by hundreds of tiny uplifting gusts of vapor and wind.

Wind warriors served the Wind Dukes of Aaqa as shocktroopers in the ancient war against the Queen of Chaos. Suits of ceramic ceremonial plate armor and swords were infused with minor air spirits to create these graceful soldiers. The few who survive today are guardians for Wind Duke holdings and tombs such as the Whispering Cairn. When slain, a wind warrior’s armor and weapons age thousands of years in an instant, and crumble to dust.

Wind warriors understand Auran, but cannot speak.

Combat

A wind warrior begins combat with a sonic blast before engaging in melee.

Sonic Blast (Su): As a standard action, a wind warrior can clang its longswords together to produce a discordant sonic blast in a 20-foot line. This effect deals 2d6 sonic damage to all within the area (Reflex DC is half). The save DC is Constitution-based.

Body Suffusion (Ex): A wind warrior’s spirit keeps its body together. If disarmed, its weapon crumbles to dust. At any time thereafter, the wind warrior may generate a replacement weapon as a standard action.

Superior Two-Weapon Fighting (Ex): A wind warrior’s essence suffuses its entire body, granting it supreme control over its movements. Wind warriors do not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking with two weapons.

Erik Mona is the Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon. He thanks Skip Williams, Douglas Niles, Carl Sargent, and Steve Miller, whose work in one way or another inspired this adventure.

“The Whispering Cairn” and the Age of Worms Adventure Path is dedicated to E. Gary Gygax and Robert J. Kuntz. May the world never forget the adventures of Lord Robilar and the vexing danger of Castle Greyhawk.