The temple sits on the northern shore of the island of Paravel. It is carved out of local sand-coloured stone, which glows red in the sunrise and sunset. None can remember why it bears its name. The locals leave fish, grains, and fresh water at the doors, to appease the spirits that are said to dwell within.
The Temple
The temple has been carved out of the rock, and is obviously very old. The architecture suggests a pre-Old Capital culture, but is not consistent with the style of the islanders who inhabited the region at that time. An adventurer who has travelled in the underworld, or who knows their architectural history, might spot some parallels with the great subterranean cities of the White Apes.
The surfaces are ornamented with stone carvings that appear to show figures frozen in various iconic positions, but the weathering on the exterior is intense, and nothing is now clear. The path from the Paravel township to the temple is a simple dirt track, overgrown and untended. Two bronze basins by the temple entrance are filled with fruit and fish, and with fresh water. The entrance has no door.
Just off the path, to the left of the entrance, is what remains of a dusty stone gazebo structure, small, and open to the elements. The roof collapsed long ago, and the building is of unclear purpose.
Most of the openings inside the temple are without doors. All doors marked are bespoke, and detailed in the room descriptions. All walls are built of the same, pale, ornamented stone - the temple appears to have been dug out from living rock, not built with masonry. The carvings on the walls on the inside are less weathered than those on the exterior, but not much less, and what they depict remains unclear.
There are no wandering encounters in the temple. If you make a loud noise that would usually trigger a check, you alert the inhabitants in 5. Light Eater, and they all move towards your location together.
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| The Temple of Lights. Click to make it bigger. |
Room Key
- Offerings. A cramped, bare stone room that smells strongly of incense. Lit only by the sunlight that enters through the opening at the end of the passage in the western wall - the room is very dim, and the passages to the north and south are absolutely black. Four pillars hold up a low, vaulted ceiling. Alcoves in the eastern wall hold bronze dishes like those outside, where the braver villagers of Paravel sometimes leave more substantial offerings. Incense sticks smoke in one of these, and another holds sweet-smelling island jasmine, a ration's worth of honeycomb, and two pieces of honey-soaked lead and stained-glass jewellery, each worth 35s.
- Pinhole. Pitch blackness. Unlike the rest of the structure, the walls in this room are utterly unembellished and worn very smooth. A search of the room will reveal a strange stone wheel, mounted a bout halfway up the western wall, and built into a rolling groove. If you roll it away, and it is sunny outside, a small pinhole drilled into the rock is revealed. If you press your eye to it, you will see the strange gazebo structure perfectly framed. An inverted image of this structure is projected onto the eastern wall, which is exactly the right size to receive it.
- Vault. Pitch black. This room is filled with objects:
Propped against the eastern wall are many large timber boards, ancient, almost like stone. They seem to the decorated with blurry images of the gazebo, although they show a slightly larger structure with an intact roof. In these images a large wooden throne has been installed, and in each of them a smudgy, black, humanoid figure is seated on the throne. Something is off about the proportions of these figures - they are almost human, but looking at them triggers the uncanny valley response.
Propped against the western walls are two identical large timber boards with no decoration. Each is very heavy - moving one would take a combined STR of 40.
Scattered on the floor, and housed in carved shelving on the southern and northern wall are hundreds of bronze and earthenware pots, glass sundries, ancient woven goods, carved dark wooden idols of sea monsters and demons, and ceramic and bronze coinage. The junk is worth almost nothing, but the coinage (3 INV worth) is worth 240s to a collector of antiquities if you gather it all together. A thorough search will also reveal a grinning ceramic monkey-demon mask (300s) and a matched pair of medium wave-bladed swords.
If you think to look behind the large panels propped against the eastern wall, you will see a small tunnel, low enough that you must crawl through it in single file. The tunnel reeks of something like acid or vinegar. - Chemicals. The passageway remains low and tight enough to force the PCs to crawl in single file, but this room opens out and can be stood in normally. Everything in here is stained blood red, through a narrow stone opening bored through the ceiling, open to the sky and fitted with sheets of transparent red crystal. These have been fixed into the stone, and are very difficult to break. The 'doors' are hanging sheets heavy black fabric, designed to keep the light from spilling out into the corridor, not to bar entry.
Against the northern wall is a large stone trough full of transparent liquid. It reeks strongly of acid and vinegar. It you paint this substance onto a surface, it will react with light until it dries - it takes about 10 minutes to dry if liberally applied. If you use this is sunlight it simply changes colour, but if you use it in tandem with the pinhole setup in 2. Pinhole, you can effectively 'print' images onto surfaces. The liquid is toxic if ingested, but won't damage you if it comes into contact with bare skin. Once it dries, the images are permanent. - Light Eater. Pitch black, with the same low ceiling and close vaulting of the rest of the complex. The walls are covered in strange shadow paintings of humans frozen in attitudes of surprise or torment. A very large crystal sphere rest on an iron stand in the centre of the room - the Light Eater. Its abilities and mechanics are described below. Sleeping on filthy bedding pushed against the walls are 8 Blue Apes and 1 Blue Ape Elder.
The Light Eater
A strange object of great power.
If you bring light of any kind into the room with it, the light will begin to be 'eaten', and the Light Eater will begin to glow and whine softly. A single turn of dim light in the room = 1, and a turn of bright light = 2 for this purpose. When the amount of light eaten this way is 10, the sphere lets out an incredible FLASH of white light, silent but intensely bright.
Those caught in the Light Eater's flash have their shadows burned into the walls around them. This is permanent, and means that you no longer have a shadow at all - you lose 2 CHAR. Human shadows burned onto the walls this way are horrible twisting things; for each human affected, spawn one Shade of Humanity against the wall, where the shadow would logically be projected. A White Ape whose shadow is burned away instead spawns a friendly Blue Ape - this could be a replacement PC (use the class at the bottom of this dungeon), or a DM controlled companion. Apes are better than humans with their shadows.
The Light Eater has 10 HP and an AC of 20, should you wish to attempt to smash it - if it is smashed while it has light inside but before reaching 10, it will give of a weaker flash, identical to that of the Blue Ape Elder's Extinction Burst ability.
Bestiary
Blue Ape
Looks like a photographic negative of a White Ape. Jitters strangely when it moves, and sometimes look strangely two-dimensional - an optical trick.
HD1, black claws (as medium slashing), unarmoured, speed: as human, climbs as ape, disposition: curious, not necessarily aggressive, but will scream at you and get very distressed if you bring light into the room that houses the Light Eater. If you don't get the hint they will attempt to tear the torches and lanterns from your hands to douse them. These Blue Apes cannot speak.
Blue Apes inhabit a strange, distributed possibility space as long as they remain unobserved. While unobserved, they can count their position as wherever they want to be as long as that position is in pitch blackness and also unobserved. Once they have decided on a position, they must remain there (and are targetable) until the beginning of their next turn.
If you are holding a photographic print that depicts yourself or someone in your group, they will treat your with reverence and give you whatever you want, while doing their best to warn you about the Light Eater using ape charades.
Blue Ape Elder
Older and much larger than her brood. She has lived for centuries, and these days spends most of her time in serene, timeless meditation. Only someone disturbing the Light Eater will rouse her.
HD4, wave-bladed sword (as medium slashing x2), armour: as leather, speed as human, climbs as ape, disposition: same as the Blue Apes but crankier, and not afraid of you.
Has the same abilities as the other Blue Apes. In addition:
Extinction Burst: if she dies, the Blue Ape Elder gives off a flash of her own. This blinds anyone looking at her for five minutes (save DEX to make this a single round instead), and immediately adds 2 to the Light Eater's score.
Shade of Humanity
Twisting, frightened, hateful things, birthed into a world that they do not understand, and desperate to return to their host bodies. Shades of Humanity cannot move (they are burned into the wall), but if the human that they used to belong to moves or is moved within 10ft of them, they will reach out with long, black, lacerating fingers and try to hold them close. They are keenly aware of their incompleteness.
If your shadow does this to you, you take d10 fear damage and 1 lose one CHAR, with a CHAR save to instead take d4 fear damage with no CHAR loss.
Shades of Humanity cease to exist in darkness.
Blue Ape - Class
Skills: none.
A: +2STR, +2 CON, Ape, Optical Tricks, Obscura
B: Feed
Ape: you can climb anything, use your feet as hands, eat corpses as rations.
Optical Tricks: you can produce an absolutely accurate mental visual anything you have seen, ever. This will let you remember pages of books etc automatically, and might have other uses if you can find a way to get these images outside your own mind.
Obscura: in the room that you are in, bright light can count as dim light if you wish it, and dim light can count as darkness.
Feed: while in skin-to-skin contact with someone you can see through their eyes, or let them see through yours. You can also show them the pictures in your mind in perfect clarity.
Definition: when in total darkness and unseen by anyone, you are potentially anywhere and actually nowhere. You cannot be targeted. To influence the world in any way you have to be somewhere - you appear in that location and are physically present as normal until the next time you start your turn in darkness and unobserved.
Extinction Burst: if reduced to 0hp (you don't have to be dead or even wounded), you produce a powerful flash of white light, blinding anyone looking at you for five minutes, with a DEX save to reduce this to a single round. Any White Ape caught in this flash of light must save CHAR - on a failure, their shadow leaves them forever, and becomes a new A template Blue Ape under the DM's control. It might be helpful or spiteful, depending on the ape's relationship with its shadow.
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