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"The Finger"
🕑 Added 2025-03-10 15:45:46 +0000 UTCIn the upper right corner of the latest hexmap (The Autumn Lands, Map H) is a strange stone outcropping (requested by a patron) that looks like a finger pointing to the sky. This freakish natural rock formation has been chiseled away at over the years, hollowed out and turned into a structure by weird cultists using magics that slowly shifted the rock to look more and more like a finger, while shifting the interior to a design they could use.
According to locals in the region, “The Finger” isn’t a natural formation—it’s a remnant of the “Somnolent One,” some vast, dreamlike entity between the folds of reality. Ages ago, this being emerged briefly into the waking world, drawn by the collective dreams of a long-forgotten civilization. But the strain of existing in solid form fractured the Somnolent One, leaving behind pieces of itself scattered across time and space. The Finger is one such fragment: a crystallized sliver of an entity that cannot be fully comprehended, its shape frozen in a gesture of beckoning or warning.
Now, the Finger vibrates with a half-remembered consciousness. Its interior a strange and nonsensical arrangement of rooms and chambers. In the dark, the walls pulse gently with veins of prismatic color (about as bright as a glowstick the morning after a good party), and faint whispers slip into the minds of those who enter—a mix of lullabies and maddening dissonance. Those who stay too long risk succumbing to “Dreamer’s Fever,” a state where their bodies fall into a deep, feverish sleep, leaving their minds to wander forever in the Somnolent One’s fractured memories. (Or it could just be some weird illness attached to the site, and the dreams nothing more than vivid fever dreams).
The main level has been cut into a nonsensical array of chambers and corridors, with a large circular chamber at the base of the main “finger” itself. The chamber contains stairs leading up into the finger, and down into the spaces below (which will be detailed in upcoming maps & posts). The finger contains two more chambers, one circular directly above the one on the main level, and a smaller rectangular chamber about mid-way up. A secret stairwell extends up from that chamber to the outlook – a ledge near the top of the outcropping.
The Reverie Collective has taken up residence here. They embrace the chaos of dreams, believing the Somnolent One holds the key to unravelling the boundaries between sleeping and waking worlds. They conduct rituals to piece together fragments of its broken consciousness, hoping to call it fully into this reality – or to merge with it and transcend mortality. Their efforts have begun to warp the environment further, drawing dreamlike predators into the chambers and blending reality with nightmares.
A Sibling’s Plea
A villager’s sibling has fallen victim to Dreamer’s Fever after wandering too close to the Finger, their body now comatose while their mind is trapped in the Somnolent One’s memories. The villager begs the party to enter the dungeon, find a way to sever their sibling’s connection to the Finger, and bring them back. (Or honestly, maybe a cure disease spell might handle the whole problem?)
The Lucid Key
An eccentric scholar hires the party to retrieve an artifact known as the Lucid Key, said to be hidden within the Finger’s depths. This key is rumoured to grant the holder control over dreams and allow them to navigate a different weirdly-shifting dungeon without losing their sanity (like… the Lost Ossuary, perhaps).
The Sunken Caravan
A merchant’s caravan vanished after camping too close to the Finger. The locals report seeing strange, ghostly shapes wandering the area, and the merchant’s wares now appear in the dreams of everyone in the nearby town. The party is tasked with retrieving the goods and uncovering the merchant’s fate.
The Sleeper’s Challenge
One of the party members begins experiencing vivid dreams of a disembodied voice urging them to “ascend to the ledge.” These visions grow more intense and impossible to ignore, whispering promises of great power—or dire consequences if ignored. The visions hint that the ledge at the top contains a fragment of the Somnolent One’s deepest secret.
The Dream Harbinger
The cult’s rituals have begun to leak dreamscapes into the surrounding countryside. Desert caravans awaken to find dunes turned to glass, oases filled with honey, and impossible creatures prowling the hills and dunes. Someone must infiltrate the Finger and confront the Reverie Collective before their experiments destabilize reality entirely.
The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 10,800 x 10,800 pixels (36 x 36 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 2,520 x 2,520 pixels or 5,040 x 5,040 pixels, respectively.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2025/03/10/the-finger/
Comments
DuneArchitect
I love the profile view of the dungeon here as well!
DuneArchitect
These are so sick, thank you
Mark CMG Clover
Thanks for the pointer! :D
Peter Tierney
This map and the hooks are very inspiring! Great job!
