The Great Walls

The Great Walls

Type	Dungeon
Status	Explored January 919 TA
Location	Old Kingdom
Hex	2829
Campaign	The Old Kingdom Campaign
Adventure #	158

The Great Walls

The tapestry depicts the Great Walls, built in the early First Age to keep marauding elves from Elothian from raiding the countryside of the Kingdom. The Walls appear in many works of art, although no physical traces of them have been found. Some scholars believe them to be metaphorical.

NOTE: The tapestry is signed. The artist's initials, HiH, are drawn in the shape of a chess rook. Placing the black chess piece on the tapestry fires off the Great Walls dungeon.

The Great Walls - needlepoint tapestry on cloth, c. 5th century First Age

Encounter 1: The Black Rook

Once stolen (see the Masquerade), the party can use the black rook to move into the tapestry.

Depending on the activity of the Masquerade, there might be a physical guard here. In all cases, the Overlord watches access to the tapestry very carefully. So, any passage in will trigger a "welcoming" committee when the party leaves.

Encounter 2: The Village of Kinfold

The Village of Kinfold and the Tower

You appear in center of a small village, a ring of twenty or so low buildings - made of mud bricks but whitewashed to present a clean, inviting vista. At eastern end of town, stands an ancient chapel - also modest and made of the same whitewashed cob (mud brick). The streets are deserted.

To the north, towering peaks of a mountain range can be seen. The west is forested hills, and plains stretch off to the south and east. A road approaching from the east is the main thoroughfare. The road is dirt but appears to be in good repair, although it is also deserted.

The sky overhead is monotone - a grey blanket of featureless clouds. The air is neither warm, nor cold. No wind blows, and there is a feeling of colors being muted.

Upon examination, the homes here are empty and the furnishings antique - although sturdy and in good repair. Furniture and textiles are also of an ancient design, although they look as if they have been used recently.

In addition to the chapel, the town has basic buildings: a blacksmith, carpenter, leatherworker, baker, weaver, tinkerer, mercantile, and pub with an inn and stables. The only shop with a sign is the pub, "The Kinfold Inn".

NOTE: There are signs of movement of horses and soldiers recently heading northwest down a narrow path towards the forest.

The Dragon's Chapel

As you approach the chapel, you realize that it is not a simple whitewashed building, but it is silver in color - made of thousands of silver coins pressed into the mud brick. The chapel's exterior, from a distance looks to be silver, scale hide. As you approach, you notice that the bell tower has been stoned-in around the bell chamber. Additionally, the doors and windows have likewise been sealed. These have been done without the gilding of the silver coins.

The sides and back of the chapel are surrounded by a simple graveyard - with headstones made of the same mud-bricks. These are without adornment. Each marker has a single silver coin pressed into cob. There is a small cow pen just behind the chapel.

The path to the church is well-worn and in good repair.

The church can be entered by cutting out the mud-bricks from around a door or window.

The inside of the small chapel is a single room. The main nave consists of a couple dozen wooden benches. The eight stained glass windows are crude by modern standards. Each has a representation of a dragon: green, red, blue, and black on one side; silver, gold, bronze and brass on the other. The altar is a simple marble block uncarved with a rudimentary silver dragon painted on the front. In place of a cross, a simple silver rod sits on the altar. A man dressed in brown robes with a silver belt stands to the side of the altar.

In the pews, sit over a hundred human men, women, and children. They are dressed in work clothes - the blacksmith still wears his apron and several children are dressed for bed. There is a certain air of frenzy in the tableau. Against the back wall (near the front door) are piled belongings, food and odd items: a blacksmith hammer, a load of freshly-laundered clothes, and the like. The people sit facing forward, but there is fear in their eyes.

At the front of the chapel, the apse is filled with a large silver dragon - certainly not to scale, but intricately carved. He is curled against the wall rising his head almost to the ceiling.

The people are the villagers of Kinfold. The dragon is their protector, Arianwyn (welsh for silver-white). His wife is Hopea (latin for silver).

Solving the dragon's riddle will bring him back to life .

This puzzle is filled with rocks (fists), scissors (two fingers) and papers (palms). Start on a rock and visit each hex exactly once by jumping to a hex in the same row or sloping diagonal as the current hex. Each jump must follow the pattern rock → scissors → paper → rock, until you end on a rock. The jumps must never reverse direction, though you may jump over a hex multiple times.

The rod is a piece of the Staff of Io. Which can be unscrewed from the altar if the puzzle is solved.

The dragon behind the altar begins to move, stretch as if it has been dormant for a thousand years. Bone creak as the creature's chest begins to rise and fall. As the dragon opens its eyes, he morphs into a middle-aged man with silver hair and dull silver skin. He wears silver armor and has two glowing longswords.

The dragon will assume the party attacked his patrons.

Arianwyn will explain that he and his wife live in a small cabin nestled in the forest just west of town. When they settled here, they found the local people gentle and reverent of the two silver dragons. They built a small chapel with a cow pen out back in which they would put offerings. Being the frontier of the Kingdom, the dragons provided protection - mostly from bears and wild beasts - although an occasional elf raid would be thwarted. Overall, it was an idyllic life.

One day, Hopea did not come home from a patrol of the forest's edge. Searching, Arianwyn found her injured from crashing into a large invisible wall - shielded even from a dragon eyes. Following her lead, Arianwyn soon determined that a wall some 20 feet in height stretched along the forest's edge for many miles to the east.

Shortly thereafter, a company of heavily armed knights and a cadre of a half-dozen wizards appeared. Hopea was still at the cabin resting. Arianwyn was in town at the chapel when Father Whitefold came in shepherding the entire town. Arianwyn was just about to give orders to board up the chapel when everything went grey. Until today.

Arianwyn will show the party the invisible wall, but he will insist on finding Hopea.

Kayden Wallace - blacksmith

Encounter 3: The Dragon's Cabin

Heading north across the grassy fields leading up to the foothills of the mountains beyond, you come over a hill to find a gentle slope down to a small cabin neatly tucked into a small copse of willows. A creek runs behind the cabin.

In front of the cabin, there is the body of a large silver dragon. From a distance, it lies oddly in the grass.

As you move closer, the dragon appears to have been cut into slices about one foot in thickness. The slices are neatly stacked somewhat like a sliced turkey. This is Hopea. Her eye is magical - Hopea's Eye.

Suddenly, out of the ground comes a whirring arc of a steel-bladed hoop which rotates in less than the blink of an eye. It surrounds Arianwyn who momentarily looks confused. As the device picks up speed, it appears almost like a circular whisk being twirled - just a gray blur. Suddenly, it moves and Arianwyn slumps into a freshly sliced pile of meat, his body transforming to that of a silver dragon.

The Swords and Armor of Arianwyn may be ruined.

As quickly as it arrived, the blur of blades drops into the ground. With surprising speed, you see a mound of freshly-sodden earth begin moving towards you. These devices are known as Gnot Blades.

Encounter 4: Approaching the Tower

IMPORTANT: Only the bearer of the black castle can actually see the tower. Whenever the party approaches the tower and gets into the red zone of the map, they will be subject to explosives fired from the tower.

You hear a screaming like a whistling moon traveler coming towards you.

Suddenly there is a blast nearby in a sixty foot globe. (Falstaff - green; Fuzzwort - orange; Vince - deep red; Ernie - brown; Hylax - blue; U-Gene - gray). The sky erupts with (fire, ice, electricity, force, dispel magic, time stop, etc.) - saving throw to half. Will be aimed at one character - for whom the blasts are specially designed. Can be fired once each round.

Encounter 5: The Tower

A dirt path leads up the meadow to a high point nestled into the rugged hills, a starting point for the mountains beyond. At the top of the hill stands a short squat tower made of a dull red-brown brick. The tower appears to be four stories tall with a crenulated battlement on top. A single door off-set slightly to one side appears to be the only entrance into the building.

From the building, a wall snakes down the hill like the spines of some enormous eel - laid upon the land The wall runs along the edge of the forest for as far as the eye can see to the south..

Behind you, the road leads down into valley meadow - grasslands dotted with small, rustic farms and partially-settled wilderness. It is eerily quiet here - without the sounds of wildlife or wind.

From around the tower (or out of nowhere if the tower is invisible), come a phalanx of one hundred knights on horseback. Each is carrying a strangely tipped lance as they spread out in a single file in front of the tower. The tips glow and cycle through a series of colors (green, orange, red, brown, blue, gray).

Alternating groups of five charge - each group with a similarly colored tip. The other five have light sabers coming from their lances which they use to cut paths to the party.

NOTE: These men are from the Third Age. They know the party by name. They have recently traveled here on the Overlord's command to protect the tower from invasion. They are on the watch.

• The leader of these knights is Hendale, Knight-Commander of the Knights of Whitecliff.
• None of these guards (Norburn, Woolhurst, Ashcaster, etc.) have ever been in the tower - protection against Speak with Dead.

The door into the tower appears to be ancient. A picture of a black rook is painted on the outside of the door. There is no handle nor lock on the door.

Encounter 6: The Chess Room

The ceiling and all the walls (except that with the door) of this 20' x 20' room appear to be of a highly polished grey metal. There are no features to the room except the edges (where the floor meets the walls, where the ceiling meets the walls, and where the walls meet each other) are made of a brown stone flecked with bits of green, red and blue stone. The floor and back wall of this room are made of the brown stone. The back wall has the form of a chess rook carved into it.

A grey stone - about the size of a marble - hovers in the air.

NOTE: Taking the marble and throwing it against a grey surface will cause the surface to become transparent for a moment - showing the occupant of the room beyond. This will deactivate the stone and destroy it 1 out of 6 (then 2 out of 6, then 3 out of 6). Touching a wall will teleport the party into the room.

NOTE: The surviving marbles will reactivate after each turn.

GOAL: Looking for the surface with the other rook carved into it (ceiling, top level). This will allow the party to move to the Control Room.

RULES

1. Party enters a room with a monster - FIGHT!
   • The room will become 80' x 80' with a 60' ceiling - they will be on the corresponding square within the puzzle.
   • Some squares will be trapped with pits, filled with whirling blades. Monsters will avoid traps. Monsters include - Reflective Horror, Elemental Shambler (taste, sound, light, smell, and touch), and a Random Warder (acid, etc.). These are cumulative with a new monster appearing with all of the previous monsters.
   • Win - get a stone
2. Party enters a room without a number or a monster - PUZZLE!
   • Puzzle rooms will be trapped - rising water, crushing walls, fire spigots - these will be timed.
3. Party enters a room with a number - NOTHING!
   • Will just see a grey stone floating in the air.
   • Get a stone
4. On "my turn" I can move a monster to any un-numbered square.

Puzzles

Place any 3 white chess pieces on each board so that each square is attacked a number of times equal to the number in that square.