Marmoris Carcerem - Chapel Tower

 So couple of weeks ago I got infatuated with the idea of taking Kindap the Archpriest and using it instead as a downwards going spire of a prison complex rather than a high tower of an archpriest's palace.

Around the same time, if not a bit before, a friend of mine was showing interest in dipping their toes to a more OSR styled game so I was also looking for something to run as a little introduction to the style.

Ideas ruminate and I ended up realising I was already building up the "Inverted Kidnap the Archpriest" inside my head not long after.
And if I was already taking the maps from KtA, I might as well staple on some bits and pieces from other modules as well. One suggestion I really liked was taking some choice lairs from Caves of Chaos and stapling them on to the sides of the downwards spire as additional prison wings.
And of course if I was already inverting KtA, the premise could also be swapped onto it's head. Instead of kidnapping an archpriest, what if the PCs are there to rescue some specific person from this prison complex.

It's just Fear & Hunger, isn't it? Especially with the style I tend to run my games, leaning towards more horror-y aesthetics and presentation of locales.

I needed some illustration or the post looks barren, haven't used this one yet iirc

As such, I've been slowly working on keying out rooms and modifying the stitched together maps to better fit my needs for roughly two weeks. Last saturday I got to run the first session of this mess too!
Always a lot of fun to run stuff that I've built together myself as opposed to just bridging gaps between numerous published modules in an open sandbox.

Now that the rambling is out of the way, here's the section of the dungeon the players mostly cleared in that first session so I can even say it's playtested for the most part!

Marble Cage - Chapel

Two storey tower adorning one of the four corners of the hefty walls surrounding the Marble Cage.

Random Encounters: Check every 2 turns

Area Boss: Self-Mummified priest

Where is the Priest headed:

1. Pyre outside chapel, burning more books

2. Common cell (8), collect more bodies for her flies

3. Underground Shrine, to commune with God (yet unkeyed location)

4. Relic Hall, to inspect the sacred text (53)

5. Headed to party's location

6. Lair (44)

Random Encounters: The way this works is it keeps the boss monsters roaming around the place, potentially creating opporturnities for encounters with them. Fighting might not be advised.

1 - 3. Area Boss (roll to see where they going next)

4 - 5. Random Monster (appears from somewhere)

6. Random Boss from different area (roll to see where they going next)

42 | Entrance

Timeworn wooden double doors, barrable from the inside. Faint smell of incense & something going bad.  Heavy marble pillars. Large censer-like metal orbs hanging by chains from ceiling, chains attached to an overlook (47) above.

43 | Altarside

Stench of death and near-deafening buzzing of flies. Stained silver candle stands. Marble steps lead up to altar covered in candles. The back wall behind altar is covered in numerous tumour-like hives oozing red-black liquid (honey). Six robed figures prostrating in front of the stairs (each with a polished metal spike cracking the back of their head open, in severe state of rot).

- Silver holy symbol clutched in the arms of each priest

44 | Crypt & Wall Fountain

Smell sweet enough to feel at the back of your throat. Heavy marble pillars. Lit torch scones.  Modest sized wall-fountain & pool full of blackened-red honey. Entire back wall covered in slowly dripping blackened-red honey.

- Black Honey heals for 1hp per handful

- Start receiving the total amount healed during single day as ramping up damage on following days (day 1 - 1dmg / day 2 - 2dmg / day 3 - 3dmg etc etc.)

45 | Chapel Cells

Row of confessionals, painted wooden doors defaced with carved symbols.

From left to right:

1. 3d6 cut open and composing corpses covered in ashen dirt, white bell-flowers growing from them like on flowerbeds.

2. Barrable from outside. Walls scribbled full of incomprehensible passages and symbols, In the middle of the back wall a palm-sized symbol sticks out amids the scribbles.

- Looking upon the symbol causes nausea -> Save vs Magic or vomit out the contents of your stomach, taking 1 damage and an entire dungeon turn doing so.
- Studying the symbols and scribbles for a dungeon turn reveals this to be notes about some sort of ritual.

- Spending an hour studying the ritual reveals the spell Summon.

3. Single bible, pages from other books glued onto it's pages with black-red honey.

4. Barrable from outside.

5. Empty.

6. Barred from outside, peephole hacked into the door covered in dark red sticky residue. Three prisoners, mouths peeled of skin and crawling with flies.

- Tell that their insides feel like they're burning, says they have been fed strange stuff that tastes like ash and honey.

46 | Library

Scattered books, piles of tomes, fallen bookshelves, torn pages & loose papers with strange symbols. Tome glued together with red-black honey laying open on a lectern. Several books have been glued shut with black-red honey. Others have their contents altered by gluing pages from yet other books inside them.

- Tome on lectern is full of rambling gibberish and symbols, open on a page reading: "Anointed with life, a body submerges in nectar. Spirit trapped in viscous balm does not ascend. What returns is no longer just sum of it's parts. This is but one of the paths a man may walk to leave mortality behind."

- 3 cleric prayer scrolls mixed in with the papers: Sacrifice, Sanctuary, Insect Plague

47 | Overlook

Body with it's back flayed open, dozens of flies crawling on it.

48 | Balcony

Ornate wooden door with stained window panelling, locked but easily forced.

Self-Mummified Priest
HD: 5✝ / AC: 18 / Honeyed Touch @ +5 -> 1d6+2 dmg. | Damage from touch does not heal

- Sloppy, sticky footprints. Accompanied by buzzing of flies.

- Long priestly robes with ashen sash. Sticky black-red handprints.

- Sunken features, translucent skin clinging onto cheeckbones and hollow eyesockets. Once a woman, now a walking festering wound.

Priest's Key - Around her neck.

Supernatural: Only tracks hits dealing 6+ damage, after receiving equal to or more such hits than HD it crumbles into honeyd jerky.

Spells:

Drown in Ashes (F&M p. 114)

Duration: Permanent | Range: 0 | Area of Effect: 50ft radius | Save: Vs Breath

A wave of ash, 1m (3ft) high, fills the area of effect. 

Any living being with it's head below the surface must save Vs Breath or be buried, taking d4 choking damage per round untill they do save.

Solo game journal - Session 3

Sessions 1 & 2 here.

Continuing up from where the last journal entry ended with me having spent my Grit in order to make it down the elevator shaft safely.

Again, this is simply me copying my journal entries for all of you to read so it lacks notes about what is going on mechanics-wise such as the use of the loot dice to determine if any of the sword in a room I find are usable as replacement weapons.
The "Doom Dice" is just me keeping a track of dungeon turns as they pass and doing an automatic encounter of some kind every hour within the current adventuring location.

Session 3 - The Thing Wrapped in Cloth

I decide to check the door to my left. I hope this amount of ash is limited to only this corridor and not beyond the door.
No luck, the doors are large and heavy and refuse to budge. Thinking about it, it looks like they would open towards the corridor in which case the high tide of ash must be blocking them.
I have nothing to attempt to break through with either.

Thwarted, I can only turn around and climb past the bits of collapsed ceiling instead. The amount of ash covering the ground feels less here, although I am still unable to see the floor.
As I pass through the fallen stonework I enter into a small chamber. The ceiling is still absurdly high here, nearing seven metres by my best guess. Now however when looking up I am seeing something truly bizarre.
Sword after sword hanging from frayed ropes and what looks like long curtain strips have turned this chamber into an enormous wind chime. And in the middle of the room, extending much further down towards the floor than any single sword hangs a cocoon of faded red curtains. It is tied together into a roughly man-sized bundle and held hanging from the ceiling by several fraying ropes.

Before investigating further, I take a further scan around the room. No other exits. Not even windows. Looks like I'll have to figure out a way through that door if I want to get anywhere from here.

The lowest hanging swords can't be higher than a metre off the level of the ash. I untie one from the curtain strip that it's hanging by. It might lack a scabbard, but at least I'll have something to defend myself with this way after the unfortunate loss of my maul.
I give the blade couple of test swings to gauge out it's balance. The craftsmanship is fine, although I fear it might not be able to take much abuse should I end up relying on it extensively in a fight due the it's apparent age. Not that any of the other swords left hanging here seem better either. Well, at least I know where I can find more should it come down to that.

Then the cascading sound of numerous blades clinging against each other chimes through the chamber.
Alert, I quickly take a look around.

The red cocoon, a man-sized bundle of faded red cloth hanging from the middle of the room almost touching the ash below it is squirming and wiggling, causing the blades around it to sway and impact with each other.
Cautiously I bring my newly acquired sword in front of me and start to approach without a sound. My footsteps, as I have noticed from my wandering thus far, procure no sound for some reason.
I weave through the hanging swords chiming against each other and upon reaching the cocoon firmly press the tip of my sword against it. As I do so it starts to squirm and shake even more vigorously, causing my blade to sink in deeper untill the faded cloth starts to slowly dye a more deeper red around the entry point of the tip of my sword.
I hear a muffled cry or a scream from within the cocoon.

Quickly, I pull back my sword. The muffled noises continue. Whatever it is, it sounds hurt.
I cut the ropes holding the cloth cocoon in the air and it thuds down onto the ashen dunes covering the floor. As I watch, it slowly starts it's wriggling again.
Hoping that wrapped in the cloth is a person, I try raising my voice and asking out who is it but all that comes out is a dry, rasping "Who..?"
It feels like even my throat is full of ash.

No answer. The wriggling grows more violent, but the "cocoon" is tied together with rope so try as it might I should be safe from whatever is inside.

I clear my throat. Another attempt:
"Is there someone inside?"
A bit better, still feels like gurgling with sand though.

A single wriggle, accompanied by a muffled sound.

"You are bound and tied with cloth. I will now cut you free, so do not move."
I carefully start to cut the ropes that tie this bundle together. After a bit the wriggling of whatever was bound up inside is enough to loosen the rest of the cloth and from one end of the "cocoon" emerges an ashen gray, bald, head. It is completely devoid of hair, but also lacks any protruding features such as ears or a nose. There is no lower jaw either, instead a single large eye fills it's place.
It strains backwards it's neck, covered in what I assume to be some sort of viscous fluid from it's eye, revealing a pathethic small mouth that is more akin to a long wet slit along the length of it's throat.

By reflex alone I step back, shuddering, while bringing up my blade to keep it from approaching me somehow.
It's single eye turns towards me, a wet gurgle from what should be a throat forms what sounds like a question: "Who..?"

It is enough to send shivers down my sides realising that I understand it's attempt to communicate.
I stop for a breath's time to consider my options.
Do I kill it?
If it can communicate, I still have no idea where I am or what has happened here.
I could simple turn back and leave it here, but I am at a dead end untill I figure out a way through those doors.

I decide to swallow my disgust and attempt to communicate with the thing. Unlike the spectres it has yet to attack me, so perhaps it can be reasoned with.
"My name is Dyrkyr. I cannot say much more than that, as I know not how I ended up here."
Hopefully I am not laying out my cards too bare here.

Still mostly wrapped in the curtain sheets, the thing continues it's attempts at wriggling free. I can now see loose gray skin with gaunt bone structure poking through it, like a foot inside a sock several sizes too large. Where there should be shoulders are just two tiny stumps, as if arms had never developed despite the human-like anatomy suggesting they should be present.
As it squirms free, emerging from this cocoon of red cloth, it's long mouth more closely resembling a long wet wound gurgles a response.
"Dyrkyr, thank you. Ghrlhhglr."

(End of session 3 @ doom dice 5/6. Loot Dice has been used and is now stepped down to a d10. What is the strange creature and will it prove to be of any help?)