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Beneath the Finger
🕑 Added 2025-03-14 00:30:08 +0000 UTCThe structure above these dungeons (The Finger, see Monday’s post) is believed by its residents to be a remnant of “Somnolent One,” some vast, dreamlike entity between the folds of reality. These lower chambers still thrum with half-remembered consciousness – and while the glowing stonework of the upper chambers is much rarer down here, the colours of those areas seem stronger, and the light brighter (still not as bright as a freshly cracked glowstick). These lower chambers are restricted to the rocky outcropping that forms the “finger” above, and beyond the stone is naught but desert sands until one digs deeper still.
The upper half of the map is the first level below the surface structure, and the lower half is the level below that.
The chambers down here remain as weird and nonsensical as those above – as if built from the strange fever dreams of a hallucinating god. The two western chambers on the upper level contain four statues of “guests” frozen mid-waltz in a swirling pale blue mist that conceals everything below three feet, and occasionally swirls up to conceal those who would walk through it and the statues. At the south end, a dais raises one more statue almost entirely out of the mist. A strange, off-key “melody” drifts through the mist, sourceless and inhuman. Sometimes, the mist coalesces into shadowy figures that mimic the statues’ poses and attempt to pull intruders into their strange waltz. Those who are caught by the misty forms dream of an opulent ball with strange foods, and then awaken somewhere else in the dungeons.
The circular stairwell on the east side that connects the upper and lower levels seems to almost ‘drip’ down like liquid as one descends them. Object dropped in these stairs don’t always fall as they should… The bottom-most step appears to be a shining silver liquid, and stepping into it purposefully causes the intruder to “fall through” it like falling into water. Within they are subjected to a Phantasmal Killer spell. If they survive, they emerge from the stair, gasping for air and spitting out a mercury-like fluid that rejoins the stair – but they also gain the benefits of Bless and Aid spells for the next 24 hours.
Other strange chambers on these levels include The Waking Echoes and the Gallery of Forgotten Faces
The Waking Echoes is an eerily silent chamber until someone speaks. Every word spoken here is repeated moments later by ghostly, distorted voices that grow louder and more numerous with each repetition. Occasionally, the echoes start to say things the intruders haven’t said.
The Gallery of Forgotten Faces has fifteen asymmetrical masks hanging along the walls – handmade from unfamiliar materials. The masks are offputting, faintly warm, and seem to change appearance when not being observed. Touching a mask floods the mind with fleeting images of lives they cannot recall, leaving behind strange fragmented memories (use this to provide clues for secret doors and puzzles and so on in later adventures). If the room is completely silent but occupied, the masks begin to whisper very faintly, offering cryptic clues to lure people deeper into the understructures.
The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 8,400 x 10,200 pixels (28 x 34 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10‘ squares) – so resizing the image to 1,960 x 2,380 pixels or 3,920 x 4,760 pixels, respectively.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2025/03/13/beneath-the-finger/
Comments
Arsenico13
Love this!
Mark CMG Clover
Excellent, as always!
