The Great Dolmenwood Treasure Hunt, part 3: the Lost Wing

This is part of a series of blogposts:

• Campaign framing, timeline, and general details
• Minor tweaks to hex descriptions
• The Lost Wing (this post)
• The Dawnward Path, and coda.

An occulted section of Castle Brackenwold, visible from the outside but not clearly accessible from within. Hidden by the sorcerous talents of a Brackenwold witch centuries ago, it is an oddly still and silent place.

Because of the perversions of space that have folded the Lost Wing in on itself, it mostly can't be tracked down by looking for "negative space" in the castle. The exceptions include: a courtyard that's visible from the highest tower (area 1), a chimney whose smoke matches no fireplace known (area 9), a balcony that no one can see into (area 13), and a row of stained-glass windows that haven't been seen from the inside in living memory (area 19, folded). Adventurers will have to clamber up walls or scurry along roofs, which will draw the attention of the duke's retainers if not given permission.

D6 encounter table

1. 3d6 red sprites

2. 2d6 Shriveled Intruders (stats as bog corpses)

3. Gargoyle

4. 1d3 manikins

5-6. Spatial anomaly (reality folds or unfolds, or gravity shifts 90 degrees, or a room grows much smaller or larger) Lasts until next spatial anomaly

Reality Folding

The Lost Wing alternates between two states, folded and unfolded. When it's folded, use the first, smaller map for PCs that are in an area represented by that map. PCs in other sections are not harmed by a fold, but cannot bypass the fold— they see the hallway or room literally folded up into impassability. If you happen to be standing exactly in the plane of a fold as it shifts, save vs doom to dodge out of the way or else be neatly bisected.

Breaking through a wall or otherwise making a hole in the Lost Wing presents a character with an occult interstice— a field of fiery colors unbound by object. Looking at such a space deals 1d6 damage per round, save vs breath to halve. Running into an interstice causes an immediate save vs doom or become lost forever. On a success, the character eventually finds their way to a random fairy road. Increase the amount of time that passes in the real world after emerging from the fairy road by ten times.

The Lost Wing, folded

Areas, part 1

1. Courtyard. Once a fine garden, now overgrown. Guarded by the Henbane Horror (stats as giant snail, rapacious), a living shrub-monster that feign stillness until prey closes in. 

• Fountain: full of silver coins (1,800) and a silver Arcane Sword with the witch-glyph in its hilt.. The fountain seems to be only a couple feet deep, but is actually 20 feet.
• The surrounding greenery: includes overgrown elms and maples, 3 doses of Blushing Mandrake (spindly humanoid roots), 3 of horridwort (musty purple lichen), and 1 of snogglebeard (cyan beards of moss) (DWC pg. 430)

2. Forgotten Balcony. Several potted plants and simple benches. The balcony opens to a black void and is faced from 100 feet below by itself— anyone who peers over the balcony while holding a light will see the back of their own head, peering over the same balcony below them, and so on and so on. 

3. Gardening supplies

• Overgrown with life: 3 rations of drounberries (black mushrooms), 2 rations of windcaps (round, mauve-splotched tan, burnt hair smell) (DWC pg 118), and two doses of shaggy sage (clumpy ochre fungus, DWC pg 428)

4. Wrinkleward Knot. Ornate wooden frame with one taut, knotted thread of woven black hair. If the knot is untied, the dungeon unfolds. If the dungeon folds, the hair ties itself into a knot. If the hair is cut, the walls scream and the seam of the dungeon fold becomes an interstice until new hair replaces it.

5. Hallway. Distorted-- despite its short length, takes a full turn to traverse. If the room is unfolded, the hallway comes to an abrupt end at a bare wall. This conceals a secret panel that can be pushed open like a door into area 26.

• Bisected Ring: In the hall there are two neatly sliced pieces of a single, leaden ring with a frowning, green-eyed skull design. When the dungeon is folded, the pieces are right next to each other. When unfolded, they lay quite far apart. Someone used the dungeon's fold to slice off a cursed object— if the ring is somehow repaired, it gives the wearer -2 to all saves, cannot be removed, and gives them obnoxious opinions about music.

6. Butler's Neglected Quarters. Thick layer of dust, uncomfy bed, small selection of outdated clothes.

7. Maid's Old Chambers. Mostly bare, as though picked clean in a hurry.

8. Staging kitchen and plate cupboard. The door opens heavily, for opening it more than a crack swings a board with knives stuck through at your face for 4d4 damage! 

• The table: adeceased valet, lost decades ago, lies in a makeshift camp under the table clutching a soup ladle and a cameo of Duke Brackenwold's great-grand-aunt, who succumbed to the family curse and died young.
• The plate cupboard: locked (key in area 20) and stands against the wall with a faded mat in front of it. Stepping on the mat triggers a tripwire that swings two wine bottles full of a henbane concoction into your head— 2d6 damage and save or become sleepy and numb (-2 to all d20 rolls until you have a full rest).

9. Cozy Dining Hall, fit for 20 people (folded) or 40 (unfolded). A smouldering fireplace in the corner (folded) or center of the room (unfolded) is attended by Mouse-Tails-Counted, an elf knight (DWM p. 38) trapped in attitude and time. Every time the party leaves this room, he is "reset" to his initial state— alive, muddled, disaffected, villainously thirsty. Mouse-Tails will ask any visitors "Have you any sprite to drink?" He eventually turns on anyone who cannot properly feed him to suck out their blood, trying to brain them with the hilt of his fairy sword, which sports vestigial gossamer wings

• Unfolded room: pile of desanguinated old bodies covered by a couple table clothes in a corner that doesn't exist in the folded version. In the center of the wall opposite the fireplace, a grimacing picture of King Hadryg 850 years ago sits. The large picture can be slid aside to reveal a hidden passage into area 18.
• If Mouse-Tails-Counted can drink a red sprite: it awakens some fiery daring in him and he may finally resolve to step out of the room and unstick himself from time.

10. Portrait Hallway lined with ten portraits of severe Brackenwold women, ancestors through time whose stares seem to follow you as you walk. At the end of the hall (at the fold), half a skeleton can be found, neatly cut at a surprising angle (hot dog, not hamburger)

• The second time you pass through the hallway: all the portraits are missing their subjects. When you turn the corner or retreat, they're all standing right there ready to shriek and claw you apart. (Stats as manikin).
• In the portrait:s can be spotted several valuable objects which can be retrieved simply by reaching into them. It feels like sinking your hand into hot sand. Objects: a massive pearl (500 GP), a shell comb (700 GP), a velvet sack holding 1000 silver coins, an opalescent Talisman of Gaze Reflection (DWC pg 399) , and an ornate scrollcase (40 GP) containing a treasure map indicating a barrow in Monarch's Hill (hex 1508); leads to a cache of 400 gold coins and a Pipe of Sending (DWC pg 409)

11. Study. Cramped shelves almost leaning away from the walls.

• When the dungeon is folded: shelves on the far wall can be accessed and contain ten gold ingots worth 100 GP each, a magic book ("The Maiden Refused", including somewhat self-pitying aristocratic poetry, enthusiastic sketches of women from 400 years ago, and the spells Crystal Resonance, Dispel Magic, Woodland Veil), and a plain silver Ring of Wolf Affinity (DWC pg 410)
• When the dungeon is unfolded: the room is actually separated from itself, either side open to an occult interstice until the dungeon folds again.

12. Austere Chamber. Contains the Box of Seasons, an intricately carved and painted box depicting from behind a rider on a white horse passing through autumn-red foliage and looking out at a wintry, many-turreted palace on the edge of a dismal lake. The lock is inscribed with minute words: "She Who COMMANDETH the WINDS and This Box OPES, Maketh of Herself MISTRESS to the CHANGES," If the box is opened, it unleashes an entire season of winter (replacing the rest of the month, starting with an exultant blizzard that carpets the Lost Wing, half of Castle Brackenwold, and then all of Dolmenwood, then slams shut and locks. If the box is recharged by some kind of magic wind (like the glamour breath of wind), the box is unlocked and upon being opened, swallows up the current season, skipping to the next one.

13. Bedroom and Balcony. Rotting once-fine furniture, but covered up by an illusion of warmth and good repair. Those who enter are greeted by (the illusion of a) gothy, robed lady with raven feathers for ears. She offers them a magic shield (actually a burning coal, ouch), a holy avenger (mouse trap, ouch), and a Helmet of Justice (cursed, reduces visibility to 5' and cannot be removed).

• Searching the furniture: In addition to spoiled toiletries, a book of Gretchenine (like Sapphic but Dolmenwood) poetry can be found in a drawer. (As a Wand of Ingratiate (8 charges) against witches, drunemaids, and anyone capable of casting a magical charm.

The Lost Wing, unfolded

Areas, part 2

14. Quiet hallway. On a side table, little sprite furniture makes for a tiny restaurant, usually empty. Random encounters here have a 1-in-6 chance of being 3d6 red sprites.

15. Art Studio. 30 animated brushes, paintpots, canvases, quills, exc. (stats as stirge), extremely territorial. As the objects inflict damage, images start to appear on canvases. If they manage to slay someone, the resulting portrait is worth 100 gp to someone who cares about the dead character.

16. Work Room. A small scullery set up in the corner, with washpots and a fireplace to heat water (chimney leads to an interstice). A trio of creepy looms that seem to move on their own out of the corner of your eye. Nearby is a Golden Seam Ripper, with a crane design embossed on it. The seam ripper can catch and tear the seam of the dungeon when it's folded, creating a space that's unfolded when the rest of the dungeon is folded, and that's an interstice when the dungeon is unfolded.

17. Storage Room. Some chests, mostly empty. One curtained wall opens to a balcony.

• Balcony: covered in Autumn leaves. Opens to an occulted void, with slanted roofs that lean over nothingness. A 10 foot leap away, a slanted roof facing the balcony leads to another balcony (area 23).
• Searching the chests: wood shavings, dust, dead leaves, mothballs, four skulls with silver caps on the bottom, and a headless, inoperative manikin with a silver cap in the neck. Sticking a skull on the manikin's neck cap animates it with their spirit, and they possess full control of it. Dead characters could even be given a second chance as PCs, though they start with manikin stats. The skulls:
• 1. Furt the Woodgrue, a page and renowned whistler among her people
• 2. Sister SIgna, an advisor to King Brackenwolde 700 years ago
• 3. Baldwin the Furrier, a merchant
• 4. Obadiah Stubbord, a false oracle

18. Lodge Cache. Unfinished stone, and a ceiling suggestive of the chamber being squeezed under a staircase, getting lower and lower as you approach the far end. Graffiti— a couple lodge signs, a credible picture of an origami frog, . The chamber contains, scattered around, a sleeping bag, one of the d12 Clues (above), 200 feet of coiled rope, two dried doses of Spirithame (DWP p. 131), and a folded piece of paper with some frustrated scribblings attempting to relate areas 1, 4, 5, 9, and 10.

19. Carpeted Hallway. A torn up scrap of carpet covers only about half the floo.r Walls bare except for a crude cat-face painting and a severe portrait at one end of the hall. At the fold, a skeleton lies in halves.

• Cat-Face Painting: Amateurish depiction of a serious-looking cat face with a hella fly cap. Careful inspection reveals that the canvas rests over slats rather than a frame, and the slats can be pushed up like a garage door, revealing a hole into area 20.
• Severe Portrait: matches the other nine pictures in area 10. Empty when they're empty, and so on.
• The skeleton: is the result of someone accidentally getting cut in half when the dungeon unfolded. The remains of some durable objects— a dagger, buckles and shoe-nails, a couple gold rings (10 gp each) remain.

20. Grimalkin Hideout. The makeshift lair of food-mad grimalkin Gnom Knudlans (grimalkin thief 4). Territorial, and mostly just says his own name or hisses when confronted with intruders. The chamber is about four feet high and full of chewed-up carpet, loose stones, and shattered manikins.

• Gnom: accompanied by giant sand lice (stats as insect swarm), and wears the shell of their mother (AC 16) as well as every shiny thing he owns: golden necklace worth 800 gp, five rings worth 1d6 x 10 gp each, and a silver badge shaped like two elves kissing (250 gp)
• Fighting in the chamber: -2 to hit and AC if you're taller than 4'.

21. Palantry. Disused, lovingly made chairs set up around a round stone table. In the center, in a small depression, is a crystal orb full of hazy technicolor threads.

• Touching the orb: sends the wielder's mind into a dream plane that snuggles against our own. If you were more than three hexes away from the entity in the Castle Brackenwold's oubliette, or the Nag-Lord's Palace, this would function like a Crystal Ball (DWC p. 405). Because of the malign influence of the thing in the Oubliette (DWC p. 130), it's sort of like connecting your brain to a bonfire. When touching the orb within three hexes of greater evils like the entity, instead save vs doom. On a success, roll twice on the following d8 table and pick your favorite of the results. On a failure, roll once.
• 1. Alignment becomes chaotic and grow curling, brimstony horns
• 2. -1d6 wisdom
• 3. Randomly determine two first-level and one second-level arcane spell that your "hate-nature" may cast out of your body at prickish and evil times
• 4. Eyes glow scarlet in the dark; when without light, see 30' but get -1 reaction and others can see your eyes from a distance.
• 5. Must have fresh blood in a meal to gain any nourishment of it. When kept in an airtight vial, blood is considered "fresh" for up to a week in mild temperatures.
• 6. When reduced to 2 or fewer hit points, erupt in foul-smelling green flames. They do not hurt you but cause a morale roll for your followers and may stymie attempts at first aid.
• 7. Those you wound but do not kill are afflicted by an infectious disease
• 8. Music you make becomes discordant and frightening. You cannot benefit from the magical music of others.

22. Ballroom. Empty, with faded charms and chandeliers in disrepair. Brickwork of the walls closely resembles the dining hall.

23. Hall of Seasons. Each balcony shows a nighttime scene of the roofs of Brackenwold in a different season— winter, spring, and summer. If you are brave, you can can scurry across the slanted roofs and leap to a balcony visible from the spring balcony to area 17.

24. Choir Room. In a goo-slicked space in the center of the room lingers a whisper of a memory of a woman, the witch Mactilda. Summoning her strength to form an image, she will beg any who enter not to leave her, but is in such a fugue that she can't properly answer any questions or give any warnings. It's sad!

25. Sprite-Infested Hall. The ornate decorations that once lined this hall have been smashed and repurposed to make six fat pixie nests, and it is here that twenty-five red pixies make their homes, playing like unsupervised children, hunting rats, and sleeping in sprawls. They are led by a chief, Storm-Smash-The-Dinghy, because his fierce beard and arbitrary decrees match their ideas of what a leader must be. Each hive has a treasury of smooth stones, colored glass, scraps of prose, and coinage worth 1d6x100 GP, but one also has a quartet of anti-magic petards. Silver baubles with a stubby candle on one end, they explode a round after being lit, affecting everything within 10' as though with an anti-magic shell for ten minutes. During this time, if the area is in a folded section of the dungeon, it creates an interstice.

26. Shrine of Hasturiel. The long hallway terminates in a leering skeleton statue of polished ash wood, larger than life, with glimmering banners arranged behind it-- the thinnest of vivid red, the middle of bright green, the outermost of electric blue. Those who look behind the fabric find an obvious panel in the wall that opens to area 5.

• Communing with Hasturiel: use the following as her d6 Means: 1. Fire, 2. Curse, 3. Domestic woman, 4. Light, 5. Secrets. 6. Wood

27. Study of the Obliviscurge. The cluttered workroom of someone desperate to save her older sister, covered in a layer of dust. For every person taking an hour to study the logs, stories, histories collected here, they come to correlate one piece of the following information:

• 1. King Caliburn was the first king of Dolmenwood in more than name. He built the structure that is now Castle Brackenwold, and his eyes changed color from green to blue halfway through his life.
• 2. Separate accounts pasted together painstakingly show that King Caliburn wore a fine torc with three fittings. It once had three sapphires, but had two after his final conquests, one after his castle was finished in record time, and none after a weeklong journey into the woods.  
• 3. A secret history of the witchly-inclined Brackenwold women asserts that a male ancestor came before Hasturiel and received a blessing, a magical thickening that granted him deep sorcery, changed his eyes to deep blue, and caused his bloodline to produce many witches. He showed no fear of what he saw in the bacchanal of the women. 
• 4. Myths and fables about ill-considered pacts with fairies and demons. A recurring theme is that to get out of the deal, the mortal always has to return the gift made to seal the bargain.
• 5. The obliviscurge's journal is full of attempts to urge the reader to destroy the torc, but it is thwarted by the curse restricting her from saying it outright. For example, on successive pages it says "DESTROY/THE/DO NOT DESTROY THE TORC"; a warning that folding space and unfolding it could indirectly sever limbs, objects, torc, or belongings; poetry about missing her sister and wishing she could say how to help her: exc.
• 6. King Caliburn was buried in the "Elden Cairn" on the "Crowninge Hill,", along with his empty-fitted torc and other baubles of sentimental value.

This is all supposed to hint at the form of the deal between the Brackenwolds and the entity in their oubliette. King Caliburn found the entity by yet-undiscovered means, and was granted three wishes in exchange for his line's firstborn daughters in perpetuity— securing his political power, building him a grand manse, and giving him great magical power. The terms of the deal also prevents his line from attempting to destroy, or even proposing the destruction of, the torc which carried the three wishes and serves as token of the contract. It was eventually buried in the Brackenwold tomb, along with Caliburn's remains, which have since begun to cradle it. The shade known as the Grey King is in fact Caliburn. Those who come to it today will find the torc's empty setting have been replaced with three rubies, and as soon as they touch it, the Grey King will arrive to attack them. Someone wearing the torc can expend these wishes to grant wishes, but the wishes are cursed by the entity of the oubliette, who does not want the force removed from its hiding place, and will bend wishes towards its own exaltation and the wearer's woe. The torc can only be destroyed after a Remove Curse spell is cast on it, or by indubitable forces, like being caught in the dungeon's unfolding. If it is destroyed, the entity is banished from the world, houses Ramius and Malbleat will declare that they no longer recognize Brackenwold's authority, House Harrowmoor will make a bid for the duchy title, the castle will shrivel up over the course of a month, and the bloodline will no longer produce witches in such profusion. Twenty-eight young women will climb out of the oubliette, with memories of horrors out of time but unharmed. The most prolific among them, Senésa (magician 4), will want to see their deliverers, and promise a favor from the witches of Dolmenwood.

28. Summoning Circle. Glyphs and sigils of varied provenance. On the wall, an inscription in Old Woldish beckons those "rightwise onward asterated". If the inscription is read aloud, it summons an immediate random encounter from the X encounter table, at -1 reaction due to the unpleasant surprise of being teleported into a magic circle.

29. A Well. An old stone well sits in the center of this circular chamber, surrounded by four gates engraved with details and a word of ancient provenance:

• Tened: carved with images of torment and conquest
• Sko: carved with images of festival and argument
• Alasay: carved with images of planting and writing
• Derphan: carved with images of choir and community. If a fire is brought within one foot of the gate, a heavy double door is conjured within it, with an impressive lock the size of your forearm. Casting the divine spell Beseech, found on the shrine of Saint Grace, opens the gate and reveals the Summer Lodge.

The Summer Lodge. A small realm of Fairy, about an acre square. In the center is a large wooden house, and in the center of the house is a fist-sized, heart-shaped ruby. This fits into a setting in the Heavenseeker Key, and though it is not required for the key to work, it contains some rudiment of its magic— the key cannot be destroyed unless the ruby is, and magical attempts to find the key lead to the ruby (if they can even detect it, in the realm of Fairy as it now lies). Throughout the house are signs that it was well-loved at one time, that children were raised here and great kindesses planned, that hearts were broken and rifts formed. Notes of argument between various people, establish the following:

• That the elf Grace-Before-The-Unjust-Decree was loved by many in the lodge, and that despite her fairy nature she might finally succeed in reaching the heaven of the One True God.
• That in ministry to the crookhorns of the Nag-Wood, she was slain and skinned.
• That she carried with her the Heavenseeker Key, now lost.
• That all attempts to recover the key and her remains had failed.
• That the lodge, torn between covering up this grievous failure of their duty and attempting to champion her legacy, voted to disband and pursue their own projects by their own means.