The Dungeon - CHAOS ITSELF

 

The very great John Blanche, probably the single most potent visual influence on my teenage imagination

Chaos

The Maze of Iron

The descent into Chaos leads eventually (it takes about a day of descending the well from the White Ape Monastery) to a thick layer of rusted and faintly warm iron ore, honeycombed and bored through with natural pockets and tunnels of various sizes. Tunnels that start tall enough to walk through narrow without warning into crawlspaces and vice-versa. There are dead ends everywhere. A rat-run iron labyrinth of worm holes and tubular air pockets. The smells are overpowering; rust, metal, ozone, petrol. Some sections are diseased, some are superheated (and glow red hot), and both of these hazards become more prevalent and more intense the further down you go. 

For each full day that the PCs spend in this place, they must save CON or suffer -1 max HP permanently (White Apes excepted) - their bodies eventually blacken and start to lose feeling. This is not an environment where humans can live. 

Living in the tunnels are mites, tardigrades, polyps, and other strange extremophiles. Many of these are hostile and hungry, and all of them are extremely difficult to damage. The tracks of the Law Eaters are visible as brightly scored scratches in the oxidised surfaces. 

Also in the tunnels: sections that are crusted over with calcium and other mineral deposits. Sections of visibly different metal with different properties. Surfaces that crush to powder under human weight, that are powerfully electrified, that are freezing cold, that pulse in colours unseen on the surface, that are infested with tiny parasites. 

The following elements are randomised each time the PCs re-enter chaos, or if they fall asleep there:

• The location, extent, and properties of the variant sections of the maze. 
• The location of diseased sections - these get more common the further down you go. 
• The connective routes that run through the iron superstructure, 

The tunnels eventually lead downwards far enough that the floor opens onto a vast expanse of empty air above an ocean of blistering heat and white light. It is hot enough that exposure without protection will burn you, and bright enough that looking directly into it can make you blind. The closer to the edge you get, the more heated the metal superstructure is. If you are close enough to be looking into the sea of High Energy Material, the iron around you will be white hot and impossible to move across without specialist protective gear.

There are structures built into the iron honeycomb lattice. 

John Blanche

The Sanctum of the Law Eaters

A strange temple or barracks inhabited by the Law Eaters. It is carved out from the solid iron ore, and is close enough to the edge of the superstructure that the entire structure glows red hot at all times. It is not be traversable without protective gear.

The ways of the Law Eaters are very strange. There are 48 in total, 4 of them captains. They never take off their armour and ornamentation, and mostly spend their time standing perfectly still at different points in the Sanctum. Occasionally one of them will make a series of specific adjustments to what look like a series of gigantic iron prayer wheels. If the PCs can find some way of entering and traversing the Sanctum without dying the will be treated courteously by the Law Eaters. There is not much of value here - it is simply a series of red-hot iron rooms, full of motionless insectoid guardians. 

The walls have been carved in the same way that the Ape Monastery was, but at a far larger scale, and into broad tableaux and bas reliefs instead of individual figures in alcoves. The ceilings of the sanctum are all about 100ft tall, and the thousands of that crowd these scenes each 14 or 15ft tall. The reliefs depict the genocidal wars against the dragons, and the terrible plagues that God sent down in the aftermath to ravage the core.

The Elevator

Another structure built into the iron superstructure, further 'up' from the the edge of the superstructure, and so traversable without protective gear. The elevator consists of a single large antechamber carved from out of the iron, connected to wide, circular shaft of white metal that plunges straight down into the HEM sea itself. The white metal does not conduct heat and is cool to the touch.

The room is inhabited by three huge, blind White Ape mystics, who ventured down into this place decades ago to be closer to their gods. Their fur is singed, matted, and blackened. They have excellent hearing, and can tell a human's footsteps - if they do so they will attack with the intent to kill. This is a holy place, and trespassers are not tolerated. They delight in throwing enemies (and the corpses of their victims) down the elevator shaft. Anything that makes contact with the HEM sea is annihilated utterly. 

The Reverse Needle

The Reverse Needle is a thin spike of metal that juts down from the underside of the iron superstructure. It is constantly doused in sheets of water from above - a large underground river empties itself here, and the tower has been built in this location to take advantage of the flow of liquid coolant.

The wet-iron structure is dark black, very slippery, and constantly emitting sheets of hissing steam. It is built on five levels, and all feature large central drains, and raised walkways that make up each floor. Each of its four sides feature wide open windows. The water is constantly flowing over the entire structure.

This was King Magda's residence during his studies into Chaos. There are four cloth mannikins hidden lying in a tangled heap beneath the flowing water of the first level - they will play dead until any trespassers have ventured further in, and then rise and shadow them. They move absolutely silently, and will try to ambush single or wounded enemies and strangle them with ropes of of silk. 

In addition to the mannikins, on the third floor, there is an empty Imperial War Body. War Bodies look like giant, naked humans with beautiful, androgynous features and no genitalia. They have an open cavity in their chest, which a person can crawl inside of, and various ganglia and other nervous tissue inside that will attach themselves to the back of the wearer's neck. They are essentially a biological suit of armour that massively increases strength and durability. This one is mercifully unarmed. The technology to make War Bodies is lost, and an intact one will be worth a castle and a title to the Baroness (or a staggering amount of money to other powers that be). If you have not killed the mannikins, one of them will try to get inside the War Body and fight you with it. 

At the bottom of the Needle you will find an opening in the floor that looks down into the HEM sea. The water flows down through this opening where it vaporises after a couple of metres. Slumped in this room is the Sainted Captain, dressed in their immaculate plate and clutching their Sword of Law. They have been blinded by looking into directly into the sea for many days, and are almost dead with thirst and fatigue. If you speak with them they will ask you for water, then food, and they will ask after their companions. They speak with two voices. 

The truth is that the Sainted Captain, after the massacre of the Starlings in the dungeon, was possessed by their companion angel, Adoration. Adoration, seeking absolution for the shame and horror that it felt watching its companions die horribly, went mad, and in its mania heedlessly plunged the Sainted Captain's body deeper and deeper into the earth, convinced that battle with Chaos would absolve it in God's eyes. The Sainted Captain will ask to be taken to the surface, but if the PCs look like they might try to do so Adoration will possess their body and attack them with the Sword of Law. Neither the Sainted Captain nor Adoration are in very good shape, and this will not be difficult fight. 

The Sword of Law is an artefact of extreme value and significance (and also a powerful weapon in its own right). If you can carry it back to the surface you will be fabulously rewarded by the church. In addition, if the PCs have retrieved both the Starling's Banner and the Sword, then all surviving Starlings will pledge fealty to you until death. If you are seen carrying the Sword of Law, any Law Eaters or White Apes will attack you on sight.

Sword of Law

+1 Longsword, +3 against creatures of Chaos. With each hit, you are granted +1 to hit and to damage on your next attack. This effect stacks until you miss. The blade of the sword shines as brightly as a torch at all times, and the one who wields it is immune to the normal damaging effects of exposure to Chaos. 

Imperial War Body

Donning the Body is easy and intuitive. You take d6 damage as it feeds on your blood to revive itself. While you wear it, your STR and CON are 22, your speed is as a horse, you gain 30 hp, and your armour counts as chain. You can see and hear, but you cannot speak. For every hour you wear it, you lose one max HP as it digests you. You must also save CHAR to try to remove it - if you fail, then the ganglia have penetrated too deeply into your spine, and you cannot be removed without it killing you. Wearing the War Body allows you to navigate the Sanctum of the Law Eaters safely. 

The Bloom Pools

The river that runs down over the Needle must seep down through the twisting passageways of the Iron Maze before it can do so. Many of the tunnels are flooded with, and other wider areas of the maze have into formed deep pools. These pockets of heated water are home to a dizzying profusion of savage alchemical life. 

This is where the vast majority of fauna in the Iron Maze will be concentrated. Any wandering encounters will be creatures from the Pools, of driven out by something more vicious than themselves. The ecosystem is absolutely predatory, seething, boiling, constantly iterating on itself. The forms are utterly mad by the standards of the surface; a profusion of brightly coloured acidic jellies, brittle, lacerating crustaceans, hunter worms, ravenous insects, invertebrates, parasites, and forms that defy any attempt at classification.

The bloom pools are extremely dangerous to navigate but there are many poisons, acids, and other biological reagents that can be gathered there that are completely unknown on the surface. They would be extremely valuable to those on the surface who knew their worth. 

COMING SOON: 

• Bestiary for the Bloom Pools
• Rules for randomising the Iron Maze
• Asbestos protective armour somewhere in the underground level - maybe this is loot in the Serpentman Tombs?
• Maps?!

John Blanche