Hell Preview 4 - Iron, Salt and Fire!

A few more glimpses into Nifol - the Darkness - the Ante-Hell.

12.30 Iron Maze: This hex holds a maze of iron. The maze has walls 50 feet tall and many twists and turns. To navigate the maze, you can use the following process:

The Referee rolls 6d6. Each dice represents one turn (10 minutes) of travel time. If players guess the number on the dice, they advance through the maze to the next dice. If they fail to guess the number, they must deal with an random event determined by the number on that dice:

Random Event
1. After an hour of wandering, you return back to where you started. Roll for a random encounter from the main Nifol Wandering Monster chart for this hour.

2. After 1d3 turns of wandering you come to a dead end. The walls here are cast in a bas-relief of Amazons slaying men, women and children. The Amazons are iron dergenue, who animate and attack unless a handsome man sings them a song (roll 3d6 under Charisma score to succeed).

3. After 1d3 turns of wandering you come to a Ploutonic shrine. The shrine has been bored into one of the iron walls, and contains an idol of a random Demon Lord holding a large gemstone. Touching the gemstone causes it to shatter, the pieces sprouting into xxx. A small pool of unholy water is left in the cupped hands of the idol.

4. Walls of iron spring up around you, trapping you unless you can climb over them. The tops of the maze’s walls come to a razor-sharp point, making escape tricky.

5. After 1d3 turns of wandering, you are discovered by the fiendish minotaur of the maze, a creature called Baalgor.

6. After 1d3 turns of wandering you discover a large, black hole in an iron wall. This hole transports you to a hex in Nifol of the Referee’s choice.

BAALGOR: HD 8+4; AC 6 [13]; Atk Head butt (2d4), bite (1d3) and flail (1d8); Move 12; Save 11; CL/XP 8/800; Special: Never gets lost in mazes.

IRON DERGENUE: HD 4; AC 2 [17]; Atk 1 strike (1d6); Move 12; Save 16; CL/XP 5/240; Special: Drag into iron, immunities.

16.19. Salt Mummies: A cavern that branches away from the main Salt Tunnel has been carved into a mausoleum. Sixteen goblin bodies wrapped in spider silk in the fashion of mummies are interred here. The touch of these mummies does not spread mummy rot, but rather drains the moisture from people (saving throw or lose 1d3 points of constitution; one point of constitution can be regained by drinking one gallon of water). Sewn into each mummy is a gold statuette worth 600 gp.

GOBLIN SALT MUMMY: HD 6+4; AC 3 [16]; Atk 1 fist (1d12); Move 6; Save 11; CL/XP 7/600; Special: Desiccate, hit only by magic weapons.

25.17. Tomb of Fire: The tomb of Sinmara, a queen among fire giants, has been placed here about seven miles from the Acheron. The tomb is a pyramidal tower of basalt with a locked bronze door. The door is trapped so that a layer of bronze melts over the thief’s hand (4d6 damage) and then hardens, trapping them there until a denizen of the under-world can finish the job. Once the thief’s hand is trapped the lock cannot be opened without removing the hardened bronze. The tower is surmounted by a everburning fire.

Within the tomb there is but a single chamber clad in red marble and lit with twenty everburning torches, each sized for a fire giant and set about 7 feet above the floor. In the center of the room there is a bronze idol of Sinmara that holds the queen’s bones. The idol can only be opened by the application of a cone of cold. If so opened, the bones suddenly light with hellfire and attack.

A secret chamber beneath the idol holds a burial treasure of 500 over-sized gold coins (five times normal size) stamped with Sinmara’s image in life.

SINMARA: HD 11+3; AC 1 [18]; Atk 2 claws (1d6 + 1d6 fire), bite (1d8 + 1d6 fire); Move 12; Save 4; CL/XP 13/2300; Special: Hurl boulders, immune to cold and fire, half damage from edged weapons, flaming aura (1d6 damage to all within 10 feet).