This is part of my “Pyre” world.
The Unmentionables’ District
Common Enemies: Zombies
The Unmentionables’ District
These poor wretches worked to keep the gleaming city functioning. Born full-grown in vats beneath the Depths, they toiled to keep the more mundane machinery of Pyre working smoothly.
This section of the city is utter chaos. There are no central buildings. The district is a warren of collapsed buildings (they were never very stable to begin with). There are two tram stations in this district; they were the two beating hearts that daily disgorged floods of Unmentionables towards their filthy dwellings, and sucked them back in for more work. Nearly as many trudged the wide avenues that led to the various sections of the city where the unmentionables toiled.
The only standing structures are the ruins of a handful of tenements, and the few temples that the miserable wretches who ate and slept here managed to build.
The Unmentionables’ District is now a confusing mess of wailing spectres and shambling undead…but there is a mystery here.
When the party first enters this District, they should stumble upon a few loose pieces of paper, each only a few centuries old. They are pages from the diary of Darin Trelawney, a young wizard who managed to track down Pyre two hundred years ago. See page 26 for samples from Trelawney’s diary.
Also scattered around the district are several black orbs, much smaller than the Entrapment Orbs. Each orb is always surrounded by a few undead, and the orb pulses faintly with necrotic power. Anyone with sufficient sensitivity who touches it will feel something drawing them towards a collapsed tenement.
Trelawney’s Tenement Tower
This tenement is the best-preserved of the innumerable apartment buildings in this district, and even this four-story building is no longer structurally sound. It is surrounded by undead.
The tenements are long, rectangular buildings. Inside, they consist of simple apartments along one long corridor, with an entrance at one end and stairs on either side of the entrance connecting all four stories.
Entering via the front door (the only entrance), the party can investigate the first floor, and will find quite a few trinkets and minor treasures left behind by the Unmentionables who looted Pyre as it died.
On the second floor, the party will discover their way further up blocked. They must venture down the hallway, where they are vulnerable to attacks from various undead. The ceiling in one apartment has collapsed, and a ladder lays beneath it.
Once on the third floor, the party will encounter several entrapment orbs and a Dom.
The party must then continue to the stairs, and make their way to the top floor. There, they will find a cleared space, with a shallow groove running from the entrance to a raised altar at the other end. On the altar Trelawney, now a lich, lies with his arms folded. Floating on either side of him are two Doms (four total), and running along each side of the room are six skeletons (12 total).
As soon as the party enters, the skeletons attack and a sickly green flame begins to run along the shallow groove in the floor. In four combat rounds, it reaches the altar, and Trelawney awakes and attacks the players. The Doms attack only if a member of the party gets near Trelawney.
The Unmentionables’ Temples
Who can say what strange gods the exhausted workers of Pyre worshipped after their interminable daily toils?
Of the few remaining temples, one has suffered only the indignity of a collapsed roof. The temple is a roughly rectangular stone chamber, with braziers along each wall and a raised dais on the far end. Wooden steps lead up on either side of the dais, at the front of which is a marble altar, about six feet long by three feet wide. It is stained many strange colors.
The undead tend to avoid this temple (and all others), so a number of spirits have gathered here, and will attack any who enter in a less than reverent way.
Following are two pages which can be combined to create a map of the ruined temple.