This is part of my “Pyre” world.

The Depths

One reaches The Depths through long, steep stairways (once escalators) called Descenders. These reveal a city-within-a-city of elegant, tall buildings, full of swooping arches and high buttresses.

At the center of the Depths lies two towers, as though competing for attention. The largest and slightly smaller held the Council of thirteen hand-picked nobles, while the tall, slender tower held the God-King. He had the body of a beautiful teenage boy, never changing, the most powerful runes glowing on his chest, stomach, and forehead. It was said he gave the people the power of the shamans centuries before Twilight.

The God-King still lives. The wizards who attacked Pyre were not merely getting revenge for past slights; they wanted the God-King’s power. They could not kill him, but they could lock him away. He now floats in the center of a glowing amber chamber beneath the Depths, unmoving, until someone comes and breaks the seal.

The Corridor of Warning

To enter the largest tower, one must pass through a long corridor. Along each wall stands three large statues, holding lariats. In the center of the corridor is a long pit of lava. Directly above the pit hang a dozen iron cages with open tops, suspended from the ceiling, twenty feet from the lava below. An appropriate perception check will reveal a slight magical aura in the corridor directly in front of each statue.

Anyone walking directly in front of a statue will cause the statue to come to life. The lariats will become leather. The statue will attack anyone directly in front of them or further into the corridor, using lariats to whip their enemies, and flip them up into the cages. Once a person is in the cage, the cage drops slowly into the lava.

The Outer Court

Once past the Corridor of Warning, the players find themselves in a huge circular room, with a large cylinder in the center. The huge inner wall is covered with a huge mural depicting battle and the subjugation of many people. However, this mural has been defaced with scorches and claw marks. The cylinder is covered with arcane symbols, though upon close inspection one can see that they cover a mural similar to the one on the surrounding wall.

The room contains three triangular altars spaced evenly around the chamber, and spaced between each altar is a large golden bowl on a pedestal. Each bowl is about four feet off the ground, and each has a different symbol carved on it:

• A ring
• A boot
• A helmet

Oh, and the place is littered with skeletons, many of them still attired in battle gear.

If anyone tries to put anything into a bowl, green fire leaps out and deals significant damage. Unless they put the correct sacrifice in each bowl, in which case the bowl is filled with scarlet flame (though it does consume the sacrifice, the flame will remain for about 1 hour). The bowl with the ring symbol requires a hand, the bowl with the boot symbol requires a foot, and the bowl with the helmet symbol requires a head or skull. All can be scavenged from the skeletons.

When all three bowls have been filled, the room is filled with almost blinding red light, and the players can hear a boom. The cylinder at the center will rotate, revealing an entrance to the chamber within.

The Sanctum Sanctorum

The God-King floats, unconscious and his limbs outstretched in an “X” shape, in the center of this chamber. He wears torn pants, and the tatters of a cape. There is a hole in his chest, and runes cover his body, particularly a large triangle on his stomach.

This room is actually a large hollow column, the walls covered with various sized rods that still glow a strong but fading auburn. One spot on the walls are not covered with rods; a horizontal ring level with the floating God-King’s waist. Studded in this ring are three red orbs, though there are spaces for three more.

As soon as the players enter, he begins to awaken and drifts down to the floor. He is essentially free of his prison, though he’s still disoriented. The last he remembers is being sealed by the wizards during Twilight.

If the players do anything to anger him, he will unleash lightning attacks, which appear from all over the place; very tough foe. If he’s just too tough for the players, note that the players can attack the orbs, which are vulnerable to certain kinds of magical attacks.

Though, of course, the God-King can’t really die. If he’s defeated, he’ll simply crumple to the ground and the Depths will collapse around him, but he won’t actually die.

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.

This is part of my “Pyre” world.

The Priest-Mechanics’ District

Common Enemies: Oriforged Constructs, Entrapment Orbs, and Doms

The Priest-Mechanic’s District

While the shamans conjured all manner of wonders, it was more difficult to keep these wonders running. Enter the Priest-Mechanics.

The Priest-Mechanics were themselves actually a separate order of shaman. Instead of relying on carved runes, they surgically altered themselves, embedding mechanical devices into their bodies to increase their ability to synchronize with the devices they had to repair.

Anyone wanting to resurrect Pyre’s ancient technology would love this district. Unfortunately, it’s full of damaged constructs from the height of Twilight, some still functioning (or ready to activate when a stranger draws near). It’s a nightmare world of insane clockwork and ever-vigilant mechanical eyes.

The district is covered in workshops, junkyards, and the occasional pub. The arches and clocks of the Guild Hall rise like a baroque music box near the center of the district.

Pell’s Workshop

The outer edges of the city are composed mostly of smaller workshops, for those who needed a quick repair. The first workshop the players encounter is a cozy stone building, surrounded by a fence, within which is a small scrapyard. It has no physical defenses, though some kind of barrier keeps any and all foreign constructs out of it. The players can easily work their way through the fence and into the building.

In the scrapyard, a green sphere rolls towards the players. Two tiny eyes light up, and it announces its name, Ora. It immediately expresses surprise at the sorry state of the Priest-Mechanics’ District.

Ora was built as a companion and customer liason by a Priest-Mechanic named Pell, a young man of some talent in building constructs, who owned and lived in this workshop. Ora was switched off in the middle of Twilight, and was confined to the Priest-Mechanics’ District, so its knowledge is relatively constrained, but Ora will gladly chat about Pyre during its zenith.

Ora can explain that the Priest-Mechanics were a loosely organized group of highly focused engineers. During Twilight, one of the most respected Priest-Mechanics, a man named Tallin, announced his plans to safeguard Pyre’s technology, and was enlisting the help of the few Priest-Mechanics who paid attention. Ora was switched off before Tallin’s plans came to fruition.

Ora can also explain the overall layout of the district, as shown on the map.

Ora will not venture outside of the fence surrounding Pell’s workshop, and has no offensive or defensive capabilities.

Tallin’s Workshop

This is a large complex containing half a dozen large warehouses, surrounding a small hut. The warehouses are empty, except for a few piles of precious metals and constructs (functional or not, depending on your whim and the party’s desire to fight).

With one exception: one warehouse is filled with hundreds of wooden racks, twenty feet high with ladders on grooves. They used to contain vials of some sort, but they were clearly well-looted. The floor is covered with several inches of crushed glass. If the party searches enough, though, they’ll find several thin vials containing a strange, viscous, semi-transparent white liquid that is very explosive.

The hut in the center of the complex is simply a canvas roof for a large metal hatch in the ground. The hatch is very heavy and very solidly locked. You may allow the players to force it open with a suitably high check, or use the explosive vials to blast it open.

A vertical shaft carved out of solid rock leads straight down. If you feel so inclined, you can find or create an intricate complex as Tallin’s underground home, or let it be one room. Either way, Tallin’s bed chamber is almost perfectly preserved. It contains a very nice wooden bed with sheets as soft as a girl’s cheek, a chair, and a desk that runs an entire wall. The wall is covered with technical drawings and charts. On the desk lay a number of precious gems, and several crystals (three green and one red).

In a corner of the room lies a milky-white orb six inches wide. This is Trelawney’s phylactery (see page 22); it has 40 hit points and resist 10 to all damage, and can be easily detected as such by anyone with appropriate magical ability.

The green crystals contain a set of video diaries by Tallin, where he describes a project assigned to him by the Council, to build the Defenders. He never explains exactly what Defenders are, only that he knows their purpose is to slaughter the wizards and shifters, and that he’s uneasy about this. He’s building them, and is excited about the technical challenge, but hints that he’s unsure about handing these over to the Council.

The red crystals do nothing here.

The Guild Hall

This is a fantastic mishmash of towers, arches, and walkways, designed and “improved” by hundreds of Priest-Mechanics over the years.

It is very well-guarded by intelligent constructs that work in concert and have been unrepaired over the centuries. In the center of the Hall lies a locked vault, within which lie a (completely inactive) sleek, elite Oriforged Construct and six humanoid metal machines, each about eight feet tall. These machines are the Defenders. They are essentially clockwork suits of armor; a humanoid can climb into one and use it like a vehicle. However, in the center of each Defender is a small slot, where a red crystal must go, and only one red crystal remains.

Once the Defender is activated, the Construct awakens, and is entirely friendly to the party. It calls itself D.A.S.C., the Defender Assistance System and Construct, and explains how to work the Defender. It accompanies the Defender wherever it goes, and will gladly assist the party in battle.

D.A.S.C. knows about as much about Pyre as Ora does, but can also fill in more details about Twilight and Tallin. Tallin didn’t trust the Council, so as Twilight fell, he slipped the Defenders into the Guild Hall—with the help of a number of sympathetic Priest-Mechanics—to protect their technology. In fact, there’s a sealed chamber beneath the Defender’s vault, which contains detailed specifications on Pyre’s technology. Unfortunately, Tallin did not appear to leave any information on how to get into that sealed chamber, and D.A.S.C. doesn’t even know where the door is (the floor appears completely solid).

This is part of my “Pyre” world.

The Warriors’ District

Common Enemies: Ghosts and Zombies

Pyre needed its defenders. These warriors trained in many fighting styles, favoring hand-to-hand combat (since shamans could handle ranged fighting). Their halls contain many holograms endlessly re-enacting their stances and strikes.

Children who were not chosen as shamans were also considered for warriors. Because of the shamans’ criteria, the warriors tended to get more stubborn meatheads than the shamans. As a result, the warriors evolved a very strict and rigid culture of rigorous physical exercise and discipline.

Warriors prized inner strength, physical ability, and shrewdness in battle. Because Pyre was de facto ruler of the world for as long as it stood, warriors rarely concerned themselves with large-scale war strategies. They preferred to analyze specific battle tactics. They were most impressed by clever maneuvers on the battlefield.

Warriors also tended to look down on the shamans for relying on external rituals instead of inner strength.

Warriors all wore uniforms of various cool blues with white trim. The classic warrior uniform was a loose sleeveless shirt and loose pants, tied with a sash.

This district is crisscrossed with dozens of simple trenches and fortifications, besides its many (now ruined) training halls and barracks. The warriors depended on themselves, not traps, to hold back the invaders.

This had an interesting side effect. Humanoid constructs were rare in the warriors’ district, and offensive constructs were absolutely forbidden. So, roving constructs have never visited the warriors’ district. As a result, the many undead who arose here from the corpses of the warriors, wizards, and shifters have remained unmolested for centuries.

The Demonstration Halls

Most halls were built along the same lines: A long hallway, lined with statues and holograms, leads to a central training room that takes up most of the hall’s space. There are a number of small rooms off the main chamber, storing weapons, equipment, and training dummies. Huge windows, high on the walls, combine with skylights to bathe the rooms in light.

The Training Halls

These long, low buildings were used—surprisingly enough—as training grounds for the warriors. Different halls were used for different ages and types of warriors.

They consisted of two primary designs: a circular arena surrounded by high seats, and a long hallway, sometimes in a shape that wrapped around on itself.

In the arena design, warriors were pitted against each other, or simple but incredibly deadly constructs. Teenagers, for example, often fought spinning cylinders studded with long blades.

The hallways were designed as extended gauntlets. Spears shot from cubbyholes, blades of all kinds would appear out of tiny slots, and in general, dangers could attack from anywhere. Some of them even simulated urban combat, leading trainees into faux cellars and sewers.

The Gauntlet of Chains

This is a simple, room-by-room training hall. Upon entering, the door slams behind you, and the door on the opposite site does not open until you have defeated the room’s challenge.

Room One: Frenzy

Gauntlet of Chains Room 1

The first room is a simple square affair of stone block. In each corner floats a stone cylinder with a spherical red eye. In the center of the room is a three-meter-square raised stone platform, about two feet from the ground. Over the platform hang half a dozen chains that disappear into tiny holes in the ceiling. The exit door is adorned with carvings of three criss-crossed chains.

As soon as the entrance door closes, the cylinders come to life and fire bolts of force at the intruders. The cylinders cannot float onto the platform in the center of the room. The cylinders will avoid attacking any intruder that is already being attacked by another cylinder.

If three adventurers all pull on the chains during the same combat round, the cylinders cease fire and retreat to their corners, and the exit door opens.

Room Two: The Pit

Gauntlet of Chains Room 2

In the center of this room is a pit three meters deep. On either side of the entrance door is a stone statue of a gargoyle-like humanoid holding long chains.

There are four silver keys scattered around the room, and each side wall holds two keyholes.

When the entrance door closes, the statues come alive and attack the intruders. The chains wrap around an individual (damaging them) and whip them into the pit (whereupon the intruder takes falling damage).

The adventurers must place all four keys into the keyholes. Once that’s done, the statues retreat to their original positions and the exit door opens.

For an optional extra challenge, each key is made of a different metal, and each lock is made of a corresponding metal, so the keys must be matched to their appropriate locks.

Room Three: Lightning Strikes

Gauntlet of Chains Room 3

There are cubbyholes in each corner of this room. Each contains a metal ring floating parallel to the floor, within which runs a set of chains that disappear into the ceiling and floor. The chains are studded with small gems.

In the center of the room floats a large metal cylinder, through which further chains descend from the ceiling through holes in the floor. A thin silver ring runs around the center of the cylinder, about two meters off the floor, and on the silver ring is a cold blue orb.

When the entrance door closes, all the chains in the room begin moving up and down. Every other turn, the gems on the chains in the four cubbyholes align, and lightning bursts out, covering the appropriate quarter of the room.

Meanwhile, the blue orb aims at the nearest intruder and strikes him or her with lightning. The blue orb can only attack one creature per turn.

Destroying the metal rings in a cubbyhole will disable the lightning attacks from it, and the cylinder in the center can be disabled or attacked until it is destroyed.

This is part of my “Pyre” world.

The Merchants’ District

Common Enemies: Oriforged Constructs, Chewers, and Shockers

Pyre was a relatively industrial civilization, so it needed a lot of trade with nearby countries for raw resources. Thus the need for merchants, who were some of the best in the world at the time.

This district was the primary target for looting during Twilight. It’s now a burned-out shell, thoroughly picked over and haunted by the spirits of many of the innocent merchant families who died here.

Geyser Courtyard

A common trap area in the Merchant’s District is the acid geyser courtyard.

The Treasury

In the center of the merchants’ district sits the treasury. While this had the largest concentration of money in Pyre, there was actually more money in total secreted away in various vaults in the Depths. Nevertheless, the treasury is an impressive, almost impregnable fortress, and has the convenience of a large, straight underground passageway to the Depths.

Entering the treasury requires a long walk down a hallway. One wrong step and jets of fire leap out to attack you. Those traveling down the hallway must learn to avoid the lightest-colored squares.

Treasury Entry Hallway (Merchant’s District)

In one street in the Merchant’s District, an airship has crashed, and is filled with undead.

Crashed Ship Street

This is part of my “Pyre” world.

The Shamans’ District

Common Enemies: Ghosts, Doms, Oriforged Constructs, and Chewers

Of course, the shaman were the holiest of people in Pyre. Older shamans lived in opulent apartments, but most lived relatively ascetic lives.

They could mount the best defenses, of course, so their district is now a complex series of bunkers, defensive trenches, temporary fortifications, and buried scrolls. Adventurers must face co-ordinated attacks from well-designed automated defenses, and for little reward except that found in the Crystal Academy.

The Crystal Academy

Crystal Academy Tower Level (Shaman’s District)

This is where all young shamans train, and receive their first marks. It is made of five crystalline towers in a “Y” shape, the center taller than the others.

Children were usually brought in to the academy at the age of six, after several senior shamans applied a large set of rules and standards. The program mostly looked for very healthy and obedient children. Children entering the academy went through a ritual that turns them into acolytes; this created a triangular tattoo on the back of their right hands.

Acolytes actually did comparatively little magic; they mostly studied and worked as servants for the rest of the shamans in the Academy. Once a child reached adolescence (at about 13 years of age), he or she went through a ritual to become an Attendant, who could perform minor rituals and generally assist with full shamanic duties. The Attendant ritual added a secondary triangular tattoo around the Acolyte triangle. At the age of about 17, Attendants went through a rigorous ritual to become full shamans; this added a third triangle.
Shaman magic worked differently for men than for women, so boys were trained by male shamans and girls by women.

Entering the Crystal Academy, one must pass through a hallway. Human statues spit streams of acid above one’s head, into basins opposite. If unexpected people enter, the statues will turn and spit acid at them. Levers at the other end of the hallway switch off the statues.

The Academy’s towers are made up of many circular levels.

The Grand Auditorium

Near the Academy lies the Grand Auditorium, where shamans would demonstrate their skills in construction. Many constructs were first demonstrated here. Its large, half-dome shape is now cracked and partly fallen.

Beneath the auditorium is a warren of dressing rooms and cages for animals and constructs that would be lifted onto the stage through trap doors. These trap doors are now weak, of course, so any travel across the auditorium stage is dangerous. Worse, giant centipedes have built a nest beneath the stage.

Behind the Auditorium (across from the Academy) are many dead formal gardens. The spirits of the garden may be found here, unhappy at the death of their beautiful patron trees.

Shadow Town

Before a construct could be presented at the Grand Auditorium, it had to be tested, as were many rituals created by the highest orders of shamans over the centuries. So, the Unmentionables toiled for years to build Shadown Town, an empty neighborhood of streets and buildings. It was a perfect place to unleash a newly built ritual.

Many younger shamans fled here during the last desperate days of Twilight, so the streets are full of unsprung traps and skeletons.

The Stone Pits

The rituals of the shamans required huge supplies of raw materials; they transmuted tons of stone and metal every day. These pits and mounds were created to house these raw materials. Despite the popular name of this place—the Stone Pits—the pits contain mounds of various precious and common metals as well as several kinds of stone.

They are now best avoided; mountains of ore and unstable rocks make for terrible footing. Moreover, a colony of rust beetles has taken up residence in the huge pile of iron.

The Journeymen’s Halls

Many shamans were assigned to roam the world, performing rituals for the public good. These journeymen (despite the name, many were female) often returned to Pyre for short periods, and they were housed in large halls built just for them.

The main floor was a public gathering place, full of tables and chairs (and, sometimes, a stage), where a plate of food and a sympathetic ear could always be found. Upstairs, the journeymen stayed in comfortable apartments, never opulent but always tasteful and relaxing.

Of course, these are all ruins now. However, many journeymen left personal belongings here in the rush to defend Pyre, so a curious person could find crystals and other personal effects that could go a long way towards explaining the mysteries of Pyre.

A few of the larger apartments were meant for visiting delegations, and these each held a yard-square block Projector.

The Animal Pens

The Academy required a lot of food. Animals were kept in pens in the southwest of the district, the smelliest ones near the Merchants’ District.