Small town, no lights
On a small island chain in the Darklake, a small village of deep gnomes was founded to mine some small strangely flawless quarts growths inside some huge fallen boulders.
The village was known as Fallenspine
Intro Song: Lowlands
A huge fallen stalactite, with some broken shards connected via rope bridge. Water surrounding is still and clear, and there is no sign of the lake it lies in having a boundary that you can see. Stalactite is pock-marked and blackened in places, perhaps how it fell. The gnomes have mined efficiently and carefully, wasting no stone and carving landing beaches into the sides of the rock, with steps for to offset the slipperiness. There is nothing on the island that the gnomes didn't bring with them, bringing even the soil and nutrients for their farms. All life that has made its way there now must have come either swum or flown their way there.
General features: The stalactite is naturally smooth, and sow is the carving of the deep gnomes, leaving a dangerous and inhospitable surface. Climbing the sides of the stalactite unaided are a dc 15 athletics check, with the character falling into the water on a failure. The only patches of roughness are from the strange craters and blast marks in the surface of the stalactite, a few or which are stained black. The blast marks can be enormous, with entire village inside of a larger one. What caused them is difficult to determine, but it is probably magical. A DC 17 Investigation check reveals the burn marks are similar to a lightning strike.
There was a battle here, but the remains aren't obvious. Most of the blood and any corpses have been dragged away a long time ago.
- Sunken boats: two small boats are sunken just off the shore of the island, easily visible through the crystal clear water. A perception check, (DC 15) detects scorch mark on the hull of one of the boats, perhaps hinting as to how it sunk. Diving reveals that each boat has a few crossbow bolts in it, riddling it with holes.
- The landing beach. Carved out of the stalactite evenly and smoothly, and bowed slightly inwards. small stairs have been cut into the ground, maybe 5cm a step, to make it easier to gain purchase on the smooth stone. In the sheer wall of the stalactite, a tunnel is carved, flanked by empty oil lanterns on either side, that meets a cross intersection maybe 80 feet in. There are some scratches on the stone, and a few small fragments of splinters on the ground. DC 12 Survival check suggests that boats were dragged up and inside the tunnel.
- A grove of mushrooms, Zhurkwoods going healthily and tall in a shallow crater. They can be harvested for their spores or for timber, and there is nothing lurking amongst the stalks.
- Secure Storage: The building holding the gemstones, purposefully made to look like a shed containing nothing but mining supplies. A diligent search will uncover a safe, with both a key hole and a combination. Inside the safe are 16 Flawless Quartz Crystals, neatly cut. The brige to this island is stable.
- The fishing post, with metal poles hammered in and the tatters of a net still attached. The rope bridge connecting this too the Secure Storage island has snapped. An investigation (DC 10) reveals that it wasn't broken, but cut. Looking down into the and sharp rock below, the investigator can make some bones, picked clean by crabs.
- A small nest of stirges is roosting in this little crater (1d6 Stirges). They attack if disturbed.
- Underground storage: Two small boats, a few coils of rope, some smashed apart crates is all that remains in this room. However, there is a small hole in the wall, perhaps as large as a human head, out of which flows a small amount of water. Navigating the hole requires two DC 15 acrobatics checks as the character must twist and turn their bodies to squeeze through (medium characters have disadvantage, and the gm should simply say it is impossible for certain characters to fit). Failing the check by 8 or more will cause the character to become stuck. At the end of the tunnel is a plus one studded leather armour, sized for a small humanoid.
- A second "beach" cut into the the wall of the stalactite. A breakwater constructed by rubble begins at one edge, and goes out a small way. This breakwater, and a net stretching from the shore create a safe farm for waterorbs, and there are a half dozen of them in the pool. They are guarded however, by a giant crab that's crouched on the breakwater (stealth 16). The crab will threaten the players if they go to take the water orbs, but will only attack if they refuse to back away.
- Smithy and Workshop: This building has been thoroughly ransacked, and there is defintely the signs of violence here, with blood on the ground and walls, and a few warpicks scattered on the ground. The forge itself is small, there isn't a lot too burn here, but there is a foot cranked grindstone that is still intact and shows signs of heavy use. A DC 15 survival check discovers that there were a few different sources of blood, and that something dragged the corpses away after the blood had mostly dried.
- Quartz Mines: The quartz mines are low ceilinged and clearly made by a small race. Veins of what looks like glass run through the walls, most cut back to hairlines. Occasionally there are patches of cloudy pink. A lot of fighting when down here, and there quite a few hollowed out husks of dead wolf spiders and a few weapons and tools. In one of the tunnels a Chuul quietly slumbers in a state of meditation or hibernation, guarding but unable to get too the magical items hidden in the tunnels. A section of the tunnels has been closed down by a sheet of metal, with a bar at the bottom designed to pry it up. A DC 12 Athletics check will allow the party too continue into main hall coming up a flight of stairs into the building. The chuul wakes up if anyone touches it, attacks it, or shouts in the mines.
- Main hall. The largest building on the island, part hall, part kitchen and part temple. A table runs down the middle, and just opposite next to the entrance to the mine shaft, there is a small kitchen. the building is lit by eternal flames on points on the wall, in a pale white light, giving the building a sombre, cold feel. At the opposite end are a few small altars, although what offerings of trinkets they may have had on them are either stolen or scattered on the floor. Its roof is accessible by a small ladder, and it's North Eastern wall is built directly into the side of the crater. Has some gem cutting equipment but most of it is rusted or broken on the benches.
The altar has three shrines carved from the same piece of stone on top of it. A ring, with a six pointed star on it. A bracer and arm, inlaid with a gold filigree. And a rock carved to be rough hewn. The rough hewn rock has a flat spot on the top of it, with the number 1 and 2 on it. When items weighing about 12 pounds are placed on that spot, the hidden door in the altar opens, revealing a slim volume, a few finely worked flat bottom flasks of holy water and two scrolls.
- The pen from which róthe cows escaped. There is the skull of one of the dead cows still in the pen. DC 14 medicine check says it was decapitated, but more torn off, as though something strong tried to pick it up by its face.
- Town square, with a small garden or field of glowgrass, a small luminous fungus indigestible to most humanoids. The entire town is set inside a large crater, with only the town hall and the roof of a few of the huts peaking over the edge of it. Small huts surround the area, and a set of stairs at the north and south are cut into the wall, allowing for easy access out of the crater for those of smaller stature. Though not obvious any more, there was heavy fighting here, evidenced by a broken quarrel or two, or by some small weapon lying rusting on the ground. Anywhere and anything that has had blood on, the glow grass has spread too (DC 15 nature).
- South hut: Contains a bunk beds to sleep four, and a small table covered in broken glass and alchemical agents. A large barrel is on its side, smelling of lime and sand.
- North Hut: Contains mostly farming equipment and a copy of fungi of the underdark. There's quite a bit of glow grass in here, in a trail leading under one of the two small beds, underneath which there is the mummified and severed hand of a deep gnome, wearing a wedding ring of silver.
- North West Hut: contains an empty weapons rack and a bunk bed. The lower bunk is covered in the glowgrass.
- Watchtower: A small watchtower made out of small, precisely cut and set stone. Only about 5 feet tall, but the bottom half has a small bunk and a partially shattered flarebow, as well as a half dozen flarebolts. The island that it stands on connects to the main land by a dodgy rope bridge.
- Waste disposal: Dug into one of the larger islands is a whole that leads to piles of stinking garbage, and an otyugh.
Plot points/Scenes
Arrival
With a rush gentle slosh of water, the boat exits the narrow channel and into a large lake. The walls quickly fall away leaving you again alone, with only the boat and the silt-and-stone bed of the lake beneath you. "We're close now," says Shuushar, keeping his unblinking fish eyes on the water. The lake-bed is still close below, only 6 or 7 feet deep, and nearly lifeless. "A hour or so of nothing and stillness."
Pause here for the players to make arrangements for a short rest. If they don't well too bad.
An island pulls into view, the first land mark you've seen for an hour. Shuushar pulls the boat around just as it comes into view, sailing parallel. "One circle, for safety," he explains. The island looks like an enormous fallen stalactite, broken apart in a few places, creating small, precarious islands just off the edge of the main piece. There are old looking scorch marks dotting its surface, some blackened, some washed clear. You see that a oval of stone has been carved out to form a harbour on the longest side with a cave carved into its wall. Above it, on the surface of the island, a small grove of zhurkwood is growing, maybe a dozen trunks packed tightly together. Circling further too the narrowest end of the stalactite a small stone hut on an crumbling pillar of stone connected to the main land a rope bridge, and a broken bridge connecting it too a smaller one. Further around, another carved beach, this one smaller, and with a break water built up at one end, but with a tunnel in the same central spot. The roofs of a few buildings are visible, most seem situated in divits in the rock, keeping them mostly out of sight. At the largest end of the stalactite, two broken pieces are connected again by rope bridge.
With the circle complete, Shuushar will land anywhere the party suggests but prefers the larger beach. From there, the party can explore and encounter as they wish, use the numbers to determine what happens.
What happened? Coming across empty buildings, no bodies and scattered belongings it might seem like there has been a destructive murder. But the belongings and gear are virtually untouched, and the scattered crossbow bolts point to a cause: A slavers raid.
What does Jimjar know? Jimjar knows that the village was called fallenspine, and was made up of settlers that left Blingdenstone about 4 years ago. Contact was lost about a year ago, shortly before Jimjar left.
What does Sarith know? House Agrach Dyrr has control over most of the raiding carried out over the darklake, so he personally doesn't know anything. But its possible it was Duergar slavers from Gracklstugh. If confronted with the crossbows or spiders, he'll angrily agree and wander off. If it does come to, he'll admit he's used to depersoning "(or perhaps you'd say dehumanising)" the other races, but won't talk more on the matter.
Grell attacks: As the party is settling for rest, if they do not choose to rest in the cave or within the largest building, or if anyone is keeping watch outside of it, a grell will attempt to ambush them. If multiple members of the wait outside, perhaps a pair of them bill descend.
As the party leaves: Sailing away from the island in the morning, lightning will flash somewhere high above them, and small rocks and stalactites will fall around them, a few blackened ones on the boat. A as they travel further, more lightning will ark across the roof.Components
Goals
Rest safely
Uncover what happened
Find adventure and loot
Relations
Protagonists
Alpinia
Andraste
Ephrael
Mavis
Vistra
Plot type
Dungeon, Side quest
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