This choice: Dungeon Masters only (spoiler alert) • Go Back...Chapter #2Dungeon Masters only (spoiler alert) by: Slaad11   The Illithid city consists of a huge cavern deep underground with a network of 9’ - 12’ deep grooves carved into the base to form tunnels and chambers. Each tunnel and chamber is topped with an iron grate. The iron grates provide ventilation and security, as well as an eerie effect of hearing muffled sounds from all over. There are several access hatches in the grate that can only be opened from above, giving the illithid quick access to different parts of the city.
The exact layout of the city is not as important as where you want to lead the characters in the story.
Here are the areas of interest:
1. Mills – There are manually turned mills below the workshop, generator, lab, and kitchen. The mills are hand-turned in 4 separate sub-level rooms by slaves (one is turned by Torune, the others are tuned by ogres).
2. Workshop – Contains a lathe (powered by Torune’s mill), an electric forge, an anvil, workbenches, raw materials, a scrap heap, and various smithing and crafting tools. Argos is currently the only slave working in it. The healer’s staff, broken in 2 pieces and missing the opal headpiece, lies in the scrap heap.
3. Generator – Provides dim lighting (for the slaves that don’t have dark vision) and power to the workshop, lab, and portal chamber via large suspended cables. The generator is primarily powered by a small permanent portal to the elemental plane of air which blows a wind mill. The wind is not 100% steady or reliable, so a manually turned mill provides some back and stability.
4. Lab – Contains workbenches, precision tools, power tools, and a lathe. Whitebeard is currently the only slave working in it. Among the raw materials for the illithid projects is the opal from the healer’s staff.
5. Kitchen – A chute leads from the ceiling grate of this room into a large meat grinder, where corpses from the “Dining Room” are chopped into pieces on their way down. An orc slave separates flesh from bone and cooks the flesh for consumption by the slaves and thralls. The orc “chef” also adds chopped mushrooms, bats, beetles, rats, and lizards to complete the “meals”.
6. Dining Room – large round upper-story room made up of iron gratings for the floor, wall, and ceiling, lined with cages. In the center of the room are a bloody pedestal and a trapdoor (over a chute leading to the kitchen grinder. The passage leading to this room is lined with levers that open the cages. There are 15 cages (and 15 corresponding levers).
7. Infirmary – Contains beds and medical supplies. “Healer” is the only physician. Currently, there are no patients.
8. Servant Quarters – Four large rooms down a large hall form a barracks for slaves and thralls. Only slaves that have proven their loyalty over a long period of time are allowed to stay in the quarters (instead of simply being locked into their current work area). The slaves and thralls act as laborers, servants, and guards.
9. Master Quarters – Several rooms down 2 long parallel hallways comfortably house each illithid. The halls lead from the Servant Quarters to the Brain Pool and are always well guarded.
10. Storage – Contains a large junk heap. Semi-useful items and crude weapons can be found in it.
11. Hatchery – This chamber is where the illithid produce their larvae. It is also a sort of bioengineering laboratory where the illithid experiment with symbiotic organisms. If the solitary illithid in this room is dealt with and the room is searched, a searcher will be attacked by one of the experimental symbiants. The symbiant will attach itself to the back of the victim’s head and burrow tendrils into the brain. Fortunately, the symbiant’s will is not that strong and can be resisted. Every hour or two that the host is awake and in the illithid city, there is a chance that the host will be temporarily under the control of the Elder Brain. Torune and Arial are the most suseptable to this, while the Healer and Whitebeard are the least. The host gains psionic abilities (telekinesis, mind blast, and resist psionics).
12. Vault – Contains treasure consisting of coins, precious stones, and valuable possessions taken from captives (like the players’ gear and weapons). The door is locked psionically and can only be opened by a player with the symbiant.
13. Watcher’s Chamber – A few illithid stay here in shifts to oversee slave work throughout the city. There is an elaborate system of mirrors that allows them to visually monitor every area in the city. The dim, somewhat sporadic lighting and the lack of their full attention provides a chance that any short activity will go unnoticed. There is a psionically imbued floating disk that allows one of them to float to different parts of the city or up to the rafters. The disk is controlled psionically, so if captured, it will only hover or drift unless the rider can find a way to push/pull it in the direction they want to go (unless they have the illithid symbiant).
14. Brain Pool – Huge iron-domed central chamber contains the massive pool of goo where the Elder Brain and the new larvae live. This area is heavily guarded, though Elder Brain is capable of defending itself with powerful psionic abilities.
15. Entrance Shaft – The main tunnel leading out of the illithid city consists of huge closed iron doors and two heavily guarded gatehouses. Outside of the iron doors is a drawbridge over an underground chasm. One gatehouse controls the doors and the other controls the bridge.
16. Mushroom Farm – Slaves harvest mushrooms from the walls of a natural cavern at the edge of the city.
17. Drider Cave – This cave at the outer edge of the city is full of webs and dried carcasses. There is a chance of meeting the drider here. The drider’s spellbook can also be found.
18. Mine Entrance – A system of tunnels leads out from the edge of the city. Slaves dig for stone and metal. It is lightly guarded, but leads only to dead ends.
19. Mineral Spring – This warm bubbling pool is the water supply for the city. It leads to a network of underwater tunnels and can eventually lead out for someone capable of breathing underwater.
20. Rafters – gear boxes and suspended power cables are connected via a network of iron rails. With the gears and cables being prone to wear and tear (like slipping, jamming, or corrosion), this area needs regular maintenance. The gear boxes are tapered and lined with razor sharp ridges down the upper potions of each shaft, making them impossible to climb down. The cables and connectors are powered with a fatal electrical current 90% of the time, occasionally going “dark” for 1 to 10 seconds, when no power is coming from the generator. Sometimes there is a broken connection or a short power outage, but the drider guards this area vigilantly whenever that occurs. Arial is the current slave tasked with maintenance in the rafters.
21. Sewer – All rooms contain small disposal chutes (about a foot in diameter) that lead to the sewer. The sewer itself is a large sub-chamber, populated by one hungry otyugh. The chute from the kitchen is 4 foot in diameter. If anyone unfortunate enough to enter the sewer through the kitchen chute manages to get past the otyugh, they can climb up to an exposed natural system of caves that will eventually lead to an exit.
And finally... | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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