Under The Crow
Here are the room descriptions and any handouts I missed during your exploration of The Crow. The following is presented in the order encountered.
Catacomb
Ant Mounds
“This wide catacomb chamber has rows of burial niches cut into the stone walls. These have all been stripped bare of any former occupants. Half a dozen ten-foot-high mounds of dirt and debris dominate the floor of the chamber, reaching nearly to the ceiling fifteen feet above.”
Expansion Project
“This irregularly-shaped room seems to have been chiseled recently out of the surrounding rock.”
Spider Ambush
“The ceiling of this roughly octagonal room is shrouded by thick sheets of tangled webbing. The secret doors to the east and west represent the height of mite engineering—a successful DC 12 Perception check is needed to notice either one.”
Secret Door
“As with the secret doors in Spider Ambush, only a DC 12 Perception check is required to notice the secret door in the wall here.”
Mite Den
“Thick sheets of spider webs hang from the walls and ceiling of this filthy rubble and trash-strewn room. In places, the rubble and garbage have been heaped up into mounds and shapes that almost look like undersized furniture—beds and tables and chairs sized for small humanoids.”
Stairs Down
“These wide circular stairs descend 30 feet to the floor below.”
Dungeon
Dungeon Entrance
“This dank stone hallway is increasingly choked with spiderwebs to the south, while to the west they thin quickly.”
Assembly Hall
“This wide hall is lined with pillars, between which hang thick sheets of webbing. These do not seem to be the older, dusty cobwebs of the corridors, but rather fresh webs. The brittle carcasses of several albino crickets the size of small dogs hang among the tangle.”
Kitchen
“The chamber opens out in a wide half-circle. Giant brick ovens have been built into the curved wall, and fire pits outfitted with multiple spits for roasting are set near by.”
Main Storeroom
“Ancient shelves hold only the dust of whatever foodstuffs were once stored here. In the alcoves to the south, iron hooks for hanging meats dangle from the ceiling. The secret door to the west can be found with a successful DC 20 Perception check.”
Meeting Hall
“A damp natural grotto opens up in the earth here, its stone ceiling rising forty feet above. Fat columns of brick support the northern end of the room, and the floor of the southern end has been carved into a low dais upon which stands the moldslick statue of a beautiful woman wielding a ranseur.”
Empty Barracks
“This room seems to have once served as guard barracks, but the beds and other furniture here have long since crumbled into almost unrecognizable ruins. The southern corridor leads to a series of stairs that descend to a lower level.”
Thassilonian Laboratories
Ancient Welcome
“A red statue of a beautiful woman armed with a large ranseur stands in the center of this chamber. Slime cakes the floor. A PC who succeeds at a DC 25 Knowledge (history) check recognizes the statue as being of Runelord Alaznist.”
Mindless Guardians
“The bare stone floor of this room overlooks a stair that descends to the south.”
First and Second Thassilonians
“A pillar stands at either end of this wide room. The northern pillar is carved with the image of a beautiful woman wielding a ranseur. The southern pillar depicts seven robed men and women, their features eroded with the years. Each of them holds one segment of the seven-pointed star. Strange runes are carved into the floor.”
“The runes are in Thassilonian and ask, "Does true power lie within the one or the many?" A DC 25 Knowledge (history) reveals that the northern pillar depicts Alaznist, the Runelord of Wrath, while the south pillar shows the seven original runelords after they sundered the Shattered Star.”
Anyone touching the north pillar receives a +1 insight bonus on attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks for 24 hours. A person who touches the southern pillar instead receives a -1 penalty on the same checks and rolls for 24 hours. A person who touches both pillars cancels the effects of each out. Both effects can affect a person only once.
Occupied Guardroom
“The smell of the sea is strong in this room, and salt encrusts the floor in a trail leading from the south door. The door to the east has been barricaded from within, and forcing it open requires a successful DC 22 Strength check. Up to two people can work together to open the door.”
Stink's Redoubt
“The walls of this chamber have been coated in dried black ichor. Rudimentary lines and smears within the layers of gunk have been added to create crude examples of simplistic art.&requo;
The Sea Stair
“The salty tang of the sea fills the air of this chilly room. Wall carvings showing soldiers marching to war are encrusted with salt, and a descending stair in the center of the room is filled to nearly floor level with sea water. A thin layer of blue energy shimmers across the surface of the water in the stairwell.”
These stairs lead outside The Crow under 60 feet of water. This is where the wreck of the Liza Jane lies.
Underwater Observation
“A spiral stair rises from the center of this otherwise empty chamber leading up to a domed chamber some twenty feet above. Three permanent walls of force (CL 15th) serve as windows that look out to the west across what is now Outcast Cove. The view is somewhat murky, and seaweed growing up from the sides of the tower serves as billowing curtains that sometimes block the view, but during the day the wreck of the Liza Jane is visible with a successful DC 15 Perception check. From outside, noticing the windows beyond the seaweed curtains requires a successful DC 20 Perception check.”
Defective Trap
“This chamber is bare save for a statue depicting a regal looking woman wielding a ranseur—she stands in a battle ready pose, with the tip of the ranseur aimed at the northern entrance to the room.”
This was a fireball trap until Taarn smashed the hand and ranseur rendering it deactivated.
Hall of Fleshwarping
“A line of pillars runs down the center of this hall, between which lie the ruined remains of what was once an immense magical laboratory. Crumbled tables, broken stone urns, rusted cauldrons, and ancient fragments of broken glass lie scattered throughout. The northern wall depicts a vast mural of armies of deformed monsters and demons gathering on the shores of a mountainous island. Above, a woman's face has been carved into the mountaintop, and an immense bridge arches out from just below this woman's face. Below the mountain, at the end of a side view of a tangled network of caverns, lies a vast underground vault in which an immense monstrosity of tentacles surrounds a central fanged mouth; within the mouth glares an angry red eye.”
The tangle of broken and ruined equipment on the ground functions as difficult terrain. The mural on the northern wall depicts the armies of Bakrakhan on the shores of what is known today as Hollow Mountain—Knowledge (geography) DC 20 to recognize, while the monster that dwells in the caves deep below is a representation of one of Runelord Alaznist's most powerful allies, the nascent demon lord Yamasoth—who can be identified with a successful DC 30 Knowledge (planes) check.
Rift Siphon Labyrinth
“The walls, floor, and ceiling of this curving 15 foot high corridor are sheathed in rusty plates of iron that have been bolted in place. Scorch marks mar this armor plating at periodic intervals, and the gnawed fragments of blackened bones are scattered here and there. Row after row of tiny runes have been etched into each iron plate.”
This entire room is a complex magical item, and radiates strong conjuration magic. A PC who can read Thassilonian and succeeds at a DC 20 Knowledge (arcana) check can deduce that the entire chamber is built to be some sort of device to focus planar energies, with the layout of the walls and their rune-infused iron plates designed to create a thin spot between the planes at the center of the maze. A PC who succeeds at a DC 20 Knowledge (planes) check confirms that the rift siphon is currently focused on Avernus, the first layer of Hell.
The rift siphon can be closed relatively simply, as a successful DC 25 Spellcraft check (after careful study for at least half an hour) confirms. By prying no fewer than 10 iron plates from the walls (no two of which can be closer than 10 feet apart), the entire device can be ruined. Prying an iron plate from a wall requires a successful DC 24 Strength check (up to two people can work together on this)—destroying an iron plate (hardness 10, hp 10) also works. Each time a plate is destroyed, there's a 10% chance that the surge of energies causes some kind of event.
Southern Guardpost
“Two flights of steps descend into a wide pool of murky water in this room. Pillars carved to look like coiling tentacles support the vaulted roof, rising from the pool to the north and south.”
The pool of water in the room is 10 feet deep.
Ancient Sewers
Sewer Entrance
“A short flight of stairs leads down to a thirty-foot-square chamber with a cistern filled with dark water taking up most of the floor. Troughs of this dark water run east, west, and south through hallways alongside five-foot-wide walkways. Soggy timbers have been draped over the gaps to provide unstable looking bridges over the troughs. An ornamental torch made of onyx burns in a sconce next to a hallway heading east, from which the distant sound of someone singing with a raspy throat wafts down the hall.”
The Lost Captain
“A stone bridge supported by stone pillars curves through this cylindrical reservoir. A few feet below the bridge, dark water fills the room. The walls within a few feet of the water's surface have been painted into a remarkable mural that depicts the skyline of Magnimar, complete with numerous ships seeming to float on the waters of the room.”
If the PCs manage to reach this room without being noticed, they'll catch the chamber's occupant floating in the water and singing a song about worms and corpses as he works on adding a new ship painting to his constantly evolving mural. This room is the den of a lacedon who, in life, was a fisherman named Lockerbie Brast, captain of the Liza Jane. He was already suffering from ghoul fever (due to a prior attack at sea from a group of lacedons), and in his fever-induced delirium, he wrecked his ship against the Crow. After returning to life as a lacedon himself, Lockerbie has lived a lonely life split between periodic hunts of the depths of Outcast Cove for meals of the drowned dead and working on his painting of Magnimar here in his lair. He spends most of his time here, using the Sea Stair two levels above to come and go and relying on stealth to sneak by devils and sinspawn along the way.
Although evil, Lockerbie is no fool—he's not eager to fight a group of adventurers, and knows that they'll likely attack him on sight. Instead, when the PCs enter, he tries to speak to them from the shadows under the bridge if he can. Lockerbie is willing to talk, and even warns the PCs of the dangers up ahead in an attempt to earn their favor before he asks a favor of his own—he reveals that he lost a valuable broach when he sunk his ship, the Liza Jane, just to the east of The Crow. If the PCs can recover his broach and then show it to him, he promises to tell them something important about what they'll encounter to the south. And if the PCs will go one step further and promise to deliver the broach to his wife (the eponymous Liza Jane) with an explanation that they found the broach in the shipwreck but found no sign of Lockerbie, he'll even agree to aid them against those dangers to the south.
Lockerbie knows about the derros further on—he's seen them dragging numerous victims through Sewer Falls. While he has no particular hatred of the derros, he figures the PCs are here to kill them. If the PCs secure his aid, Lockerbie tells them there are four derros in all, led by a witch of some sort, but that the derros seem to have some sort of growing feud. If the PCs want a better chance against the derros, they'll need to approach the southern room slowly—he suggests via the balcony accessed by the southern tunnel from Sewer Falls. This should give them a chance to observe the derros and plan an ambush.
Convincing Lockerbie that the PCs honestly intend to deliver the broach to Liza Jane Brast requires a successful DC 20 Bluff or Diplomacy check—or alternatively, some sort of proof from Liza Jane that the delivery has been made. If the PCs manage to do this for the lacedon, he'll accompany them and aid them in fighting the derros.
Utility Room
“Two picked clean skeletons wearing the rags of laborer's garb lie sprawled on the floor of this otherwise empty room.”
One skeleton still has 16 gp and a pearl worth 100 gp in the tatters of its sock, while the other clutches an ever-burning torch in one hand.
Sewer Falls
“A flight of stairs leads up to a wide stone crossing ten feet above the dark waters below in this octagonal large room. Large rusted pipes at the level of the crossing but on open sections spew dark water into the cistern below making a resounding crescendo.”
From Lockerbie, the tunnel to the east extends for about 2,400 feet, twisting and turning under Outcast Cove as it goes. The tunnel quickly gives way to a more natural cavern, often featuring 2- to 3-foot-deep pools of cold water, but otherwise leads safely all the way to Magnimar. The southern tunnel leads to spiral slope climbing up 10 feet before heading west to a balcony overlooking the Derro Vault.
Derro Vault
“Blue, glowing fungus grows in numerous patches across the walls of this large chamber. To the east, a shadowy balcony overlooks the room at a height of ten feet, while in the center of the room a wide spiral stairwell descends into the darkness. A second flight of stairs descends along the western wall.”
The blue fungus gives of bright light in a 20 foot radius.
The character who carries the Shard of Pride feels a sudden urge to search a portion of the wall as soon as he gets near the south-south-west wall, gaining a +10 insight bonus on a DC 30 Perception check as the urging to proceed toward the Shard of Greed compels him forward to a secret door.
Caedimus's Laboratoy
“This twenty-foot diameter domed chamber contains a jury-rigged pair of low operating tables, complete with leather straps at both ends to hold the patients down. Doors lead off to the north-east and the south-west.”
The north-east door leads to an office (containing a great number of journals written in Undercommon) and a bedroom. The south-west door leads to all forms of specimens in jars stacked on rows of shelving.
The Carrion Golem is a hideous patchwork made of equal parts troglodyte, duergar, giant spider, and giant rat, but with the lolling head of a half-shaved dwarf bearing a gaping trepanation to the side of its skull.
Alarm Raised
“Soon after the fight in Caedimus's Laboratory, the other Derro arrive. From the door on the south-west wall came Portioque and his pet Darkmantle, Atlatia and her charmed servant Fenster the Blight came from the door on the north-west wall while Magister Khrysm and her mirror image twin homonculi came from down the western stairs”
