Louis and
Locheil had a
monster generating table and a challenge:
1d2 monsters in
1d4+1 rooms. I got
- Form: avian
- Danger: watercutter
- Mien: cthonic
- Habitat: deep places
- Drive: friendship
- Weakness: moon
Obviously some kind of tidal thing, which makes me think of that scene in the seventh book of
Deltora Quest. The generator indicated one monster and four rooms. The rest of this is so bloody obvious that it barely holds up to a blogpost, but I guess I'll write it all out anyway, for the future generations...
THE WELL ON THE WAY
Somewhere along the coast is a spring, which was once used by passing ships to refill their stores of fresh water. When the site gained military significance, the empire of old built a small military fort and installed a pair of living stone statues in the shape of their own eagles. Centuries passed. The war is long over — mostly forgotten. Supply lines broke down. There isn't an empire any more, not really, at least not around here. One of the eagles returned to its roost and never woke again. Now the other simple automaton patrols the fortified wellhouse by day, attacking all visitors (mostly unfortunate sailors, who believe the Well is haunted). The eagle knows it is one of a pair, and does not know why it is alone.
The well is up a narrow path from the nearby pebbly beach. If you were approaching by land, you'd need to let yourself down a series of cliffsides by ropes, and you'd still be outside the walls.
The exterior walls are 10' high, made of local stone blocks held together by lead (as was the imperial way). Once it had a ditch, but that filled in ages ago. The tower in the middle is clearly visible from the outside. The SOUTH wall gate connects to the path; it can be barred from the inside, but it isn't. The EAST wall has an opening with rusted bars — a halfling or elf could slip through, but not a man or dwarf.
A - COURTYARD
80m by 80m. Contains all the other rooms in a large stone structure in the middle, about three stories high. Overgrown with beach grass and crab apple. Strange gouges in the earth here and there. A corpse just inside the gate was a sailor (judging by the clothes). It and its sword have been cut in half by what must have been a weapon with an
impossibly keen edge.
Digging around in the sand and beach grass in the southeast corner will reveal rags and dry-rot from two imperial tents; anyone who knows their military history could tell you there were at least six soldiers stationed here, about a hundred years back. 10 minutes of digging turns up
3gp in vintage small change and an icon of
St. Lionel (
+1 to
saves against falling trees) worth
5sp.
The building has three entrances, one on its SOUTH side and two on its NORTH. They'll be locked (with simple locks covered in marks of previous pickings) by night, but the
Golden Eagle unlocks the doors into and out of the wellhouse during the day. Additionally, a covered balcony overlooks the courtyard on the SOUTH wall. It's 20' up, but not difficult to hook a grapnel on. This gives access to the gun balcony and to rooms
B - WELLHOUSE and
D - CONTROL by way of the staircases in those rooms.
B - WELLHOUSE
This room is 30m square, with a 30' ceiling with a large central skylight covered in bars. Beneath the skylight is a hole 15 meters across and cut 20' into the earth. Slick stairs spiral down the sides to the bottom. This is the Well, which fills with hot, fresh-ish, sparkling water as the tide comes in, and slowly cools and drains as it recedes. A pump as big as a dogwood on the EAST wall is broken but repairable by an engineer. The soldiers stationed here once enjoyed hot baths piped in on geothermal power every day, a rarity in the current dark age.
On the SOUTH wall, stairs lead up to the gun balcony. They're unusually encrusted with filth — mineral-rich water has leaked from the gun and dripped down over the years. The filth conceals approximately 350 caltrops lovingly placed by retreating soldiers. Anyone who takes the stairs without checking the grime will step on caltrops halfway up, taking
1 damage. They must then check
CON, yelping jumping slipping falling and whacking their heads on the stairs for
1 damage on a failure. They must then check
DEX, rolling off the guard-rail-less stairs 10' up for the usual
1d6 falling damage on a failure.
On the EAST wall, one half-rotten wooden door leads to
D - CONTROL, and a metal hatch leads to
C - ROOST. Both doors are locked with conventional warded locks.
C - ROOST
This chamber is 7m square, with a 10' ceiling with a large central skylight covered in bars. A metal hatch on the WEST wall leads into the wellhouse, and one to the NORTH leads to the courtyard directly. Beneath the skylight is a mechanical pump as big as a dogwood, with two nozzles like feeding tubes. The pump powers a charging station for imperial weapons. The charging station holds a long-abandoned
Thunder Projector (as musket, but silent to everyone not in the line of fire), which like all imperial weapons requires no ammo except a battery that runs dry on an attack roll of a
natural 1.
One of the nozzles is held in the steel beak of an aquiline automaton, deathly still, covered with dripping stalactites and black silver leaf. Party members with knowledge of automata (or decorative fountains) who examine the
Silver Eagle will see immediately that its internals are badly clogged with lime deposits and chips of silver tarnish (party members with knowledge of basic chemistry can tell you that one should never mix sterling silver and sulfur-rich mineral water). Repairing the machine would be a difficult task, and probably fatally unwise to anyone without a way to prove imperial bonafides, but it could be done. Studying the lifeless automaton for an hour reveals the statblock for
Eagle Automata. Anyone with even the slightest understanding of plumbing (fairly rare in the modern age, but the wizard could have read a book) would have no trouble finding the valve on the raw line to the pump; turn this ninety degrees and the pump will power nothing.
During the day the other nozzle on the pump is empty. During the night. it repressurizes the
Golden Eagle. This automaton was not programmed to attack intruders while recharging (that's what its partner was for), and so can be conversed with. It's like talking to a depressed, evil dog.
Example Conversation:
- "What are you?"
- "STATEMENT GUARDIAN AUTOMATA RESUPPLY POINT OMICRON ELEVEN GOLDEN EAGLE"
- "What is this place?"
- "STATEMENT IMPERIAL RESUPPLY POINT OMICRON ELEVEN. OBSERVATION YOU COULD HAVE GUESSED THAT ONE, IDIOT"
- "Why are you attacking sailors?"
- "STATEMENT I HAVE BEEN DIRECTED TO DEFEND IMPERIAL RESUPPLY POINT OMICRON ELEVEN FROM UNAUTHORIZED INTRUDERS. STATEMENT I HAVE BEEN AUTHORIZED TO USE DEADLY FORCE. OBSERVATION I HAVE BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL."
- "Please stop killing people"
- "WARNING YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO DIRECT THIS UNIT. WARNING THIS INCIDENT WILL BE REPORTED."
- "Sudo stop killing people"
- "PASSWORD"
- "[hasty whispering]... three cheers for the empire?"
- "WARNING USERNAME OR PASSWORD IS INCORRECT. WARNING THIS INCIDENT WILL BE REPORTED. OBSERVATION I WILL CUT YOU IN HALF."
Eagle Automaton
6HD (30HP), AC as chain, morale 13
Inert eagles are relatively common sights in imperial points of interest. The guardians of the Well were modified to run on hydraulic power, and for this reason the one that also happened to be plated in a noble metal is still functioning a hundred years after the fall. Its engineers would be very proud of themselves.
Movement: strutting walk, capable of galloping on stone wingtips
Morality: shrilly judgemental but lacking true agency (Lawful Neutral)
Intelligence: surprisingly stupid, like if a landmine had opinions
Attacks: +4 to-hit, two strikes with its wings (1d6+4), or balancing on its wings to make two strikes with its stainless steel talons (1d6) and one with its beak (1d12+4).
Water Cutter Breath — 2/day the eagle can brace itself and go without movement this round to vomit a beam of super pressurized water (strikes all uncovered targets within a 50' cone for 4d6, save for half, destroying nonmagical armor and shields).
D - CONTROL
A chamber 15m by 15m, with no windows. A series of large pipes on the NORTH wall have gauges and valves so that one may monitor the pressure and temperature of the well, the roost and the gun on the balcony above. A desk on the EAST wall has a few abandoned scraps of paper with records of hundred-year-old water pressures and tables of calculations for artillery strikes, a silver dagger letter opener, two dueling swords (
medium) in an ivory case, and a pair of officer's boots enchanted to remain constantly warm and dry (
10gp). On the wall is a rack of empty hooks; on the floor below the rack and behind the corner of the desk is a ring of keys for all the doors in the Wellhouse.
On the SOUTH wall is a staircase leading up to the gun balcony. Beneath the stairs are valves for setting pressure, adjusting angle and windage of the cannon, and all the other things needed to operate the gun. Modern artillerists could figure all this out without too much issue. The stairs are trapped, as
B - WELLHOUSE.
The gun itself is a mortar-shaped mechanism 15' long with an 18" bore. The balcony has a block and pulley to lower it from its purpose-cut hole in the awning to be reloaded with explosive shells. Two shells remain on a rack against the wall; they weigh about a hundred pounds, and if dropped they explode for
8d6 damage within 40',
save for half. The mortar is currently retracted and overpressurized (scalding hot to the touch,
1 damage to non-gloved fiddlers). Raising it to position reveals a crushed
Scattergun with a broken stock (one-handed, deals
1d12 in a 15' cone, jumps out of your hand if the attack roll exceeds your
strength).
The gun ("P I N G U I S P A T E" say the stenciled letters on the side) can, with some luck, strike a target the size of a medium boat within ten miles (that is to say, in this or any neighboring hex). The gun is powered by the Well; if moved, it's just a large piece of nearly-priceless, nearly-unworkable metal (call it
200gp of scrap). There are no more shells coming.
 |
"We came behind him by the wall,
My brethren drew their brands,
And they had strength to strike him down —
And I to bind his hands."
Saint Lionel, ora pro nobis! |
